Sex scenes and other thoughts

Health issues have been what I am sure I will think of as a minor challenge in years to come. But when you are in the middle of things, it does tend to feel overwhelming, don't it? Fortunately, things seem to be looking up.

In the mean time, instead of telling you what I have been reading, here's a glimpse of the writing side of my life.

I have started again to work on The Inheritor. It's been in fits and spurts (see the first paragraph) but it has been so much on my mind that it occasionally interrupts my sleep. I'm working on chapter 14 now. I passed two of the hardest chapters I ever worked on in my entire life, one because of research and a desire to recreate a life story in 15 pages, and one because...it was just hard. You'll see it when it's done.

Part of the shift in my brain that says "time to write!" is a desire to revisit what I have written before. Some of it I do to make sure I am not contradicting myself. (Where did Chris say he did this? What was that girl's name? What year is this supposed to be anyway?) Part of it is to see what I left out - can I add this piece into the history here, or have I written myself into a corner again? And part of it now, is to see where and how I worked in the sex scenes when I had just so much other STUFF going on.

Yes, I admit it - I write porn and have to remind myself to put in the sex.

It's not that I'm a prude, and it's sure not that I find sex beside the point. But I have found that I no longer structure a book to frame the sex. When you look at my earliest works, it's clear that the entire outline was created to showcase a series of erotic encounters, from little moments to full-blown set pieces. Some of it was obvious - The Catalyst was basically a "sex scene per story" anthology. Some was more organic - training and histories in The Marketplace and The Slave. But since then, I have become much more story driven, rather than inspired by the "if I don't have another sex scene, my publisher will complain and my readers who don't give a shit about story will get bored and they won't buy the books and I'll miss the car payment."

These days, I have to admit, I don't care about readers who don't give a shit about story. There's a ton of free or cheap porn out there which is one sex scene followed by another.

For The Academy, Reunion and now The Inheritor, even though I still call myself a pornographer, I have to admit explicit sex scenes are simply taking the same place in the story as the sex scenes in any modern novel - thrillers, adventure books, and the sort of Jeffrey Archer-esque romances where wealthy people romp. In other words, I write novels in which the major characters do have sex - *and* they are sadomasochists, therefore the sex they have tends to be kinky. But the sex occurs to aid the story, not the other way around.

In a way, this is reminding me of a shift in the whole queer novel world. In the beginning, queer lit was either dark, deep and depressing or it was porn. The deep and depressing stuff occasionally found real publishers - the porn was pulp. Gay people read both, just to see themselves in print.

So, too, did the kinksters. Whether the lead character of the tale died at the end or it was nothing but a series of one encounter after another (each one ramping up the stakes, of course) we read what we could find.

Now, look at the collection of gay books out there and there isn't a single genre not represented. Romances? Check. Paranormal? Oh, yeah. Mysteries? OMG, yes. Tons of them. Action/adventure, political thriller, fantasy and science fiction, even religious tales, the gays have something for everyone.

Now, some of them will still have sex scenes; some of them more explicit than others. But the writers do not feel like they have to include the two standard tropes of the early days - a depressing ending where people get punished for being queer, OR some mechanical sex scenes just for the sake of showing that we have sex too.

I no longer read books about gay characters for personal affirmation. (OK, maybe I never did.) I read them because I like the author, the story, the genre. I enjoy knowing that the gay characters have partners and have sex, even when I don't read explicit descriptions of it. After all, I know a bit about what sex looks (and reads) like. I enjoy a good sex scene when it's written well and especially when it has something to do with the plot. But I like the assumption, in the story, that it's simply THERE, whether I see it or not.

I don't think the SM readership is quite ready for the SM themed book with no sex scenes, at least not yet. Nor am I really interested in writing one quite yet. But it has become much more important for me for my sex scenes to not just be a part of the story, but to show something necessary to the tale. Some of them will show the growth of a relationship; some will show how someone's life has evolved and changed since the last time the reader saw that character. Things like that come out naturally; when I write them I don't feel forced or bored.

My issue today is...how long will my story-driven readers wait for the next such scene? This is a complex book with some heavy issues in it. To interrupt the flow of what is a major story in order to toss in a sex scene, even if it does suit the story overall, seems awkward at best, insulting at most. As the pages stack up, I will continue to write as the story drives me, but this is a nagging thought in the back of my mind.

Someone sent over a muse?

I wrote yesterday. Not the painful, one word at a time torture of - well, far too long - but simply paragraph after paragraph, until pages stacked up. The way I used to write.

Don't know what did it. Don't know why. But I am hoping to do the same today. If you have been out there thinking/praying/committing indescribable acts of sacrifice, saying "jeeze, whatever it takes, make her finish the damn next book!" thank you for the muse. I'll treat her well as long as she stays. I hope she likes Greek yogurt.

Reading by the bucket

When I say I like long sagas, I am not kidding. (That's also why I write them.) It's always disappointing to me when a series seems to peter out under the weight of its own vast universe or the exhaustion of an author who just needs to crank out another formula book to make the payments on...well, whatever.

Rarely, a series seems to just enthrall me so much that I can't bear to read the final book. I put off reading Colleen McCullough's The October Horsebecause I dreaded the murder of Caesar. Finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallowswas painful, although I respected the vision of the author very much.

But as I am in a stage of recovery, I found reading the final two books in the Thomas Covenantseries *excruciating.* Just..wow. I could not take the relentless doom, gloom, confusion, frustration, impotence...the miasma of bad questions and bad answers and "hey, didn't we do this already?" scenes of artificial peril.

Now, a logical person would ask, why did I bother? Well, I first read the series as a teenager, and lemme tell you, the self-absorbed stubborn, rapist, anti-hero *leper* was about as aimed at a teenage audience as any other way to wail about how unfair the world is and how alone you are in a sea of pain. It was, in fact, the antidote to a spate of mild Tolkien rip-offs that filled the fantasy shelves at the time, lots of magic swords and dragons and unlikely teams of wiseass adventurers who were seeking the Golden McGuffin. Not that I minded those - but you know, candy is for snacking. And if you looked at my fantasy collection *now* you'd see very little from that time.

But I held onto the Covenant books, for two reasons. One was that I always felt I was not getting a complete picture of the story, I needed to know more, reason more, to be able to appreciate the full spectrum of the tale. After all, the first one was really good; the second and third not that bad, etc. What could I be missing? And two, his amazingly turgid language.

When I read Steven Donaldson, man, I need my dictionary handy. I like to think I have a pretty good working vocabulary and a better reading one, but whew, this guy wears me out. Reading a few days ago, I was amazed to find three words in ONE SENTENCE that I didn't know. In one sentence! Now sometimes, I look a word up and find it's a really cool word to know. Penumbra was one of those. (Lord Foul has one around his form as he becomes real.) I looked that up and thought, oh, that is a good word, I gotta use that somewhere. Things like that make me happy.

But there is a line between learning a new word, phrase or concept and feeling stupid. There's also a part of me that thinks, "couldn't you have just said the forest was dark and creepy? Just a thought."

So there I was, feeling ill and tired and slogging through this morass of cold, uncomfortable things - and I mean this, his main character is always cold, bathes in cold water, scrubs her wounded body with SAND, sleeps on slabs of rock...in 30,000 years, no one in the Land invented SOAP? Running water? The idea that maybe a bathtub closer to the fireplace might be warmer? I dunno, have they all been sitting around muttering cryptic, dire warnings to each other and forgetting to, maybe...write shit down?? Come up with a warmer outfit than a thin belted tunic? (Which everyone wears, regardless of weather.)

The Despiser doesn't have to ruin this world - it's stuck in a massive dysfunction already. (Hm. New thought. Maybe that's WHY he's so desperate to get out. The place IS a prison, of unimaginative, rigid, short-spoken people who wouldn't know a happy day if it came wrapped in rainbows and unicorns. People who never invent things, never grow, never question, and above all, never get freaking WARM. I'd be ready to destroy the Arch of Time myself after a few hundred thousand years like that.)

So...I couldn't do it. Couldn't finish the final book in the series. It has my place marked and I think I will put it on the shelf for a while, maybe hit it up one last time in the future. I still think there's something I am not getting. Or, maybe I am just not that teenager any more.

Blatant Commercial Message

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(drumroll)

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I know it's been a while

I've been out of commission a bit. But I am on the road to recovery, helped along by copious amounts of chicken soup and the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals.

Here's some quick catch up -

I keynoted and taught at Master Taino's Master/slave conference in DC. The speech is now available on their website! Just scroll to the bottom of my bio.

If you had intended to register for the weekend intensive class that Midori and I are teaching/leading, the time is now. The cut off for registration can be met in two ways very quickly - when we reach capacity, or when we decide there is not enough interest to sustain the class financially.

This really is a unique opportunity. Having just been at the Master/slave event in DC, I can't tell you how many people were frustrated by 90 minute classes in complex topics, 5-minute Q&A sessions, competing schedules, time spent in fun but ultimately non-relationship related activities like shows and auctions and festive meals. 12-16 hour days.

Here there will be no stages no shows, no auctions, no contests. After some general concepts are shared, the rest of the time will be about YOU; what do you want, what are your dreams, what are your limits and strengths? The things Midori and I water down (and occasionally dumb down) the things we gloss over or simplify can instead be sharpened, deepened, made applicable to you and your relationships. You will have the time and space to really talk about your triumphs and challenges with other people who want what you want - the best, most conscious, personal D/s relationship you can have, complete with goals and protocols that come from your desires.

So to remind you:

"Passionate Bonds: Weekend Intensive for Conscious D/s & Protocol"

2 Locations / Dates
November 6 – 8, Washington DC
November 27 – 29, Toronto, Canada

Registration is now open

I am still on Facebook, and have my own little corner on Fetlife. Friend me at either place according to your tastes and free time. Join my mafia.

I am still writing. I hope to pick up the pace soon, ideas are sort of crashing into each other in my brain.

I am aware that The Marketplace, The Academy and The Reunion are all currently very hard to find. I personally have many of the other books though, and you can get them from me via my website and I'll sign 'em. If anyone knows of a store that has stock in the harder to find volumes, please let me know so I can tell people who are looking for them. And yes, of course we are working on a way to get them back into print and distribution.

I am still reading, although I have been re-reading quite a bit, recently the entire Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Including her concordance. Highly recommended, which might seem odd, as they look like a romance series, right? But add in time travel, feisty characters, travel, adventure, surgery, kidnapping, torture, and men in kilts...I like 'em a lot.

And since it was summer, I rounded things out with some Star Trek novels of light distinction and an old (1997) collection of violent porn called A Metropolitan slave Anthology, by jeb. Complete with illustrations by Beau. This is raw stuff; jeb has some strong fetishes and a weak writing styles, but I have to admit, sometimes that sort of "Plot? what plot? torture him some more!" format has its charm. But it reminded me of what fun their magazine was - back when there were porn and SM magazines that didn't look like catalogs for muscle milk products and/or very expensive clothing.

(No kidding, I actually thought a copy of Instigator was a recent protein supplement catalog I'd misplaced. Then I flipped it over.)

So anyway, I'm back and hope to be continuing to regain energy and focus.

A song for these troubled times

For those of you without Facebook...yesterday I left a message reading "Laura Antoniou
would like a moratorium on the words Fascist, Nazi, Communist, Socialist and Marxist unless the person using the term can define what it means. Who's with me??"

In the comments, Tim Brough said, "Why not just make it all one word? SociafashaNazalisticmarxpialidocious!"

And then, Graydancer DID.

Put coffee down before listening, please!

Reading, writing, etc.

It's no secret I've been crippled by an awful writers block for far too long. Part of it has been, no doubt, depression. Part has also been knowing I had to write something I knew was going to be painful. Amazing, sometimes, how involved I can get in my own story, to the point where I emotionally react to something *I planned and plotted* when it actually starts appearing in typed words. I suppose it's just ego, like laughing at my own jokes.

Well, that chapter is saved and I am on to the next. Now I get to see if I was really stalled because I didn't want to write those pages, or because I suck.

****

Meanwhile, my "to be read" shelf has seen some pretty major ups and downs. My recent birthday increased the size of that shelf quite nicely - thanks, Daddy! Plus, I have kept with my habit of re-reading alongside new books. Believe me, when I am without a book nearby, I am very unhappy.

I picked up Arslanfrom Paperbackswap because I read in a review that the military take over of the US is hammered home, so to speak, by the invader/dictator raping two teenagers in their school gym, a girl and a boy. This appealed to me in that "sick fuck" way, sort of a more explicit Red Dawnsort of thing. (We all have our guilty pleasures.) It was also highly reviewed. However, I found it...lackluster and dull. It actually went into the short sample of "books I never bothered to finish." I leafed through it a bit, but it completely lost my interest. One of the things that bothered me the most was how we are given almost no information how a third-world nation could so easily and quickly take over, well, the world, and why on earth their leader would park his ass in a small Midwestern town in order to annoy the locals. If it's because this is a parable about how human beings can suffer...nah, I can't even give it that. Dystopian stories can be so freaking EASY - come on, what's more fun than destroying a civilization? This one was a big yawner. Back to PBS it goes.

Now, on the other hand, Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Swordwas great fun. You might know her from NPR, by the way, she is the one whose soothing voice accompanies the show Sound and Spirit. (I only hear her by accident when I leave the alarm clock set over the weekend and wake up early on Sunday morning.) I didn't know she also wrote swashbucklers on the side - and this is just a grand little example of such a light, romantic tale. Nice culture, amusing characters and a great central heroine I grew to really enjoy. I'll be putting more of her work onto my wish list.

Another fairly new author for me is Mary Gentle, and the book I got, just for the back cover text, is Grunts. Hysterical, especially for those who have read their share of high fantasy. Everyone knows the story as told by the warriors for good, light, etc. But what of their massed foes, the classically huge army of brutal, tusked, ugly cannon fodder known as orcs? This was a laugh out loud and bother-my-loved-ones by reading out loud sort of book. No one comes off looking good in this tale, from the vicious orcs themselves to the cannibal-assassin halflings who get thrown in to handle the more subtle wetwork. And did I mention the dominatrix halfling? Orcball? Kinky, masochist, elven reporters from Warrior of Fortune magazine? (Read for the ads, of course.) This was great summer reading, and another author I will look for again, even though I wasn't that impressed by the last book I read by her, A Secret History: The Book Of Ash. #1

And in the realm of re-reading, I picked up the early Harry Potter books, mostly because I channel surfed past a few of the movies lately. I never realized that three props necessary for the penultimate book, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, appear first in book 2, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. When the Malfoys, père et fils, go to Borgin and Burke's shop of evilness, Malfoy the younger admires the hand of glory, Harry hides in the vanishing cabinet, and Hermione points at the cursed necklace.

I'd love to see her codex.