Geek Love goes hard!

Just to show you the hardback versions of Geek Love, which have been delivered from the printer, signed, and are about to be posted out.  I am so proud of this beautiful book, and my small part in making it a reality!

This is the Kickstarter version of the book, btw, for our hundreds of wonderful backers. It includes some fancy extra bits like a centrefold and printed endpapers and the Backers' Pages.
An e-version is on sale via Stone Box Press and coming soon to Amazon.
A general (slightly stripped down) hardback version will be available later in the year (we're looking at May at the moment), but we're letting our Kickstarter backers have all the shiny fun first. Because we love them!

.

Shanna Germain looking chuffed to bits, as well she ought!

 And here's an early not-really-a-review from Lisabet Sarai over at Oh Get a Grip

These tales are everything I personally seek in erotic fiction: original, gorgeously crafted, and seriously sexy. Geek Love is more than just a collection of wonderful stories on a theme that resonates, though. The book is a work of visual as well as literary art.

And she's right, too, about it being a labour of love.

UPDATE: When Shanna tried to upload it to Amazon, they rejected it and suspended her account. So it's only going to be available through Stone Box / Drive Thru from now on.

EightSquaredCon

Tomorrow I'm off to EightSquaredCon (this year's name for Eastercon, which has been running since the 1940s!), the annual British fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction convention - which is happily being held in the Grim North of England this year, yay!

There are tickets at the door if you want to come along!

Here's the timetable and the programme description.
It looks really good! There are loads of panels I'm interested in seeing, from"The Magical British Countryside" to "The Changing Portrayal of Gender and Sexuality in SF and Fantasy" to "E Nesbit v. C S Lewis: a FIGHT TO THE DEATH". Ahem.

Of course we will ALL stop on Saturday night to watch the new Doctor Who!


I have four working stints:

• On Saturday at 10 a.m I'm taking part in the panel on Editing and Being Edited
• And at 12 Noon I will have a little table in the book signing hall, for an hour of people wondering who the hell I am.
• On Sunday at 6pm I'm part of the Head to Head: H P Lovecraft and Robert E Howard panel.
• On Monday at 12 Noon I will be reading from my work, and I'm totally proud to be paired up with Trans activist and founding member of Feminists Against Censorship, Roz Kaveney

I've never been on a convention panel before. I'm never had a formal signing session. Eeeeeeeek! And I'm not sure how they will take to an erotica author. I'm a niche genre within a niche genre ... Hell, I'm niche within erotica - compare to all the 50ShadesofVirginSeducedbyaRichBastardBDSM-alikes out there...

But I'm hugely looking forward to the Lovecraft panel. He's my favourite racist hypochondriac recluse of all time :-)

Anyway, it's a chance to pop my head above the parapet.
And spread the word...

Erzabet's Enchantments

Today I'm being interviewed about food, writing, Named and Shamed and pet peeves over at Erzabet Bishop's blog. And it turns out I really neeed a margarita!

(When you click on the link, scroll down - it's a very broad heading!)

Eyecandy Monday

 

Reader, I did not die of hypothermia LARPing out in the snowy woods ... though by 2 a.m. on Sunday morning it was looking like a close call for all of us. And my back was in more pain than I've known in ... years ...

We actually had a fabulous time, and the snow made it magical. I'm glad we can still push ourselves right to the limits though, even at our age :-)

I think that one of the Vodyanoi's Lovely Daughters still has possession of my bottle of lube, by the way. 

By the time you read this I'm probably dead

I went out LARPing in what the BBC news is describing as "blizzard conditions".
Overnight.

If this is my last testament to the world ... tell them I regret nothing except the green gingham trouser suit.

Super Market

Imagine my surprise this week, when I found that practically all my e-books are now available from ... Sainsbury's supermarket.

Oh Yeah!

(Sainsbury's, for those  who do not live in the UK, is a slightly up-market supermarket that sells fairtrade bananas, and fresh asparagus spears all year round. You don't actually invite class war by shopping there, just mild derision.)

Their old logo was "It's Clean, It's Fresh, It's Sainsbury's" which wouldn't do at all - there's nothing clean about my books!
Luckily they have a new logo these days:

:-D

How to Write Erotic Fiction

Amazon UK : Amazon US

How to Write: Erotic Fiction and Sex Scenes is the name of a new book by the very wonderful Ashley Lister. He's not just an author (fiction and non-fiction); he's a creative writing lecturer and a poet too. 

And this book features an excerpt from Named and Shamed (positively!) while talking about world-building and introducing backstory so I am VERY VERY PROUD.

Even better! -
This week on his How to Write Erotic Fiction blog he is featuring a review of Named and Shamed originally posted on the Erotica Readers and Writers website ...

... and he asked me for my "Five Tips for Writers."

He's actually asked a whole load of publishers, writers and editors for their very practical advice about writing - not just erotica but all sorts of fiction. So if you are even remotely serious about the craft or about getting published, I'd strongly recommend reading down the whole blog - it's a mine of information.

Thank you Ashley!

Eyecandy Monday

And talking of inspiration for Cover Him with Darkness .... meet the Archangel Uriel.
:-)

Broken Crown

I rarely find inspiration for my writing in music, and - unlike many authors - I can't stand to have any playing while I write.

But sometimes I've written something and then I across a song that makes me think "Yeah, when they come to film that story, this'd make a perfect song for the closing credits!"

So here's Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons, which is just perfect for my work-in-progress novel Cover Him With Darkness. As usual, their lyrics are ambiguous and opaque (although they do use a very Christian vocabulary), but in this case the embittered chorus is just perfect for my fallen angel:

 
But oh, my heart was flawed; I knew my weakness,
So hold my hand; consign me not to darkness.

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down;
I'll never wear your broken crown;
I took the road and I fucked it all away.
Now in this twilight - how dare you speak of grace?

Mslexia

Thanks to Nikki Magennis for the scan!

Issue #57 of Mslexia magazine (March/April/May) contains a full-page article by Mitzi Szereto on writing erotic fiction. She makes a number of points that I wholeheartedly agree with - that the runaway success of Fifty Shades of Grey is a fluke, and that most genre erotica written for a female audience is just old-fashioned romance with BDSM trappings.

But she also recommends reading my work - "a British fantasy writer whose sex scenes are erotically charged as well as well crafted" (hee hee! I'm a fantasy writer!) and features Arabian Nights novel Heart of Flame in her "Three of the Best".

Thank you Mitzi!

Available in paperback and e-format:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Samhain

Do bears read in the wood?

Daytrip to Parma

Parma - noted for Parma Ham, Parmesan Cheese, bloody horrible Parma Violet sweets ... and dildos, apparently.

This large billboard was outside the train station. No, I haven't a clue what it's about either. Who or what is the Dildo Society?

Also, it was snowing!

You can't see it, but I've got my feet wrapped in plastic bags to keep the wet out.

This is me standing in front of the Palazzo della Pilotta just before the blizzard hit. It's a VERY big building ... seriously, you can only see about half of the frontage in this pic. It also has very few exterior windows.

This is an interior doorway:

The Palazzo was a palace belonging to the Farnese family, who produced a bunch of dukes, cardinals and popes in the 15th thru 17th Century.

This is the private theatre in the palace - just gorgeous:

Built 1618, rebuilt 1962

The Palazzo now contains a rather awesome art gallery full of medieval paintings (no photos allowed, sadly) and an archaeological museum:

Neolithic Goddess

We went to another gallery, the Pinacoteca Stuard, where I found one of the most inappropriate and cringingly embarrassing paintings of biblical heroes ever wrought by the hand of man. How I laughed...

"Samuel educates the young boy David to the sound of the harp" (or "Get your hand off my ass, you pervert") by Giovanni Gaibazzi (1808-1888)

And the Cathedral baptisty:

which is rather lovely...

 

... to look for angels and demons. Here's some funky cherubim:

Can you imagine what they'd look like in real life?!

 And then we went to the Cathedral:

It was full of frescoes, including the usual cheerfully sadistic demon/hellfire stuff. No photography allowed again ... but the GIANT wall painting of Christ spurting his blood all over a grateful world was just so fab I had to sneak an illicit pic:

Catholicism: fifty shades of bugshit-crazy.

Mr Ashbless says he looks like SpiderJesus ("spins a web any size, catches sinners just like flies").

We didn't eat any parma ham. But we did buy some violet-flavoured jelly.

Parma ham
Parma ham
Goes nicely with
Some violet jam

Guess which earworm I've got right now?
*sigh*

Eyecandy Monday: bummed out

I managed to get myself really bummed out this weekend. Largely because I forgot the rules of Janine's Sanity Management.

So here's some therapy:

---

Janine's Rules of Sanity Management:

1. If it's the 2nd day after going back onto a low carb diet, you will feel angry and depressed. Remember this and cut yourself some slack. It is not actually the dogs, the state of the house, your disgusting fat body, the Internet, or the human race that are at fault (well, any more than usual). It's just brain chemistry and it will be fine tomorrow.
2. If you do not write fiction for more than 3 or 4 days, you will feel restless and depressed regardless of what other fun you are having. Go bloody write something. 
3. Drop everything (except writing) and have sex.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

A Queen music video aired on family tea-time favourite Top of the Pops in 1979. I remember it! ... Jaw-dropping in its sexuality and uncomfortably titilating (I'd have been twelve at the time), it haunted my imagination for years. For some reason it was the clapping hands that did it for me. A friend of the same age as me recalls how "shocked" his mother was.

We were trying to explain what ground-breaking raunch this was, to a much younger friend who had never seen the video. So we fished it out on Youtube.




"Maybe this is the censored version?" she suggested, puzzled.

No. We were just much more easily pleased in the Olden Days.
8-(
*feeling old*

Guest Post: Confessional

Hello and Welcome (do I sound like a TV show host?) to the fabulous Justine Elyot, my stablemate at Black Lace and Mischief. She's here to talk about being a Kinky Wife, a subject that I personally would know nothing about, honest... 

Over to you, Justine!

I'm delighted to be over here in the cool corner of the erotica sandbox with Janine – many thanks for inviting me to talk about my new Mischief novella, Confessions of a Kinky Wife.

Is there a format that lends itself more perfectly to erotica than the confessional? Secret Diary of this, Confessions of that – you'll find them all over the bestseller lists, and with good reason. When you open a volume of secrets or confessions, you can be sure that you're going to get something illicit and thrilling, admissions of guilt, expressions of shame. It says a lot about us that much of the material we find most powerfully erotic is that which deals with the taboo and forbidden.

But, in a world where kink is as widely discussed as recipes for tuna casserole, will this continue to be the case, I wonder? Perhaps one day, perhaps soon, stories like that of Philippa and Dan will be filler in the pages of Take A Break. 'Reader Story: Spanking Saved My Marriage'. Or perhaps not.

For now, it remains the preserve of erotica, and that's how you'll find my book labelled. Here's the blurb:

Is it possible to be a confident twenty-first century woman and submit to your lover?

It's difficult, as a modern woman, to admit that you want your lover to punish you. Not just a fun spanking in the bedroom – real punishment.

Philippa knows what she wants. She wants her police officer husband to take her in hand.

But how do you ask your lover to hurt you? And, if they're willing, how do you make sure that being taken in hand doesn't get out of hand?

Philippa and Dan explore the secret world of Domestic Discipline. Perhaps it will suit them, perhaps it won't. But they mean to find out, one way or the other.

It's available from all the outlets you'd expect, including Amazon UK and Amazon US

To find out more about me and my books, come to my site: http://justineelyot.com/

Do you have a personal favourite confessional or secret diary erotic book? I'd love to hear your recommendations.

Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Janine.

Out of the closet

I've been away from the blog for a little while. First of all I went into my regular writer's closet and got down to some serious work on Cover Him With Darkness.

Here's the view from the window of the closet, btw. Even in Italy*, it snows.

I did get out for a couple of days - once to Parma (pics at a later date) and once to the Anatomy Museum, which was satisfyingly horrid.

When sword-swallowing goes wrong. No, seriously: that's what this is.

But mostly I stayed in the room and wrote - 15Kish in 5 days, which I think satisfactorily proves that I have a comfortable word limit of 3K a day even without Facebook, dogs, and human contact. I was starting to act a bit weird by the end, I admit (dancing! nude!), which probably means I wasn't getting enough exercise or something...

Anyway, when I got back to the UK I went to Eroticon 2013!

Kristina Lloyd, Harper Elliot, Kay Jaybee, KD Grace.

Under the banner of "Write Sex Right" (and this year's "XES - We Can't Go Backwards" campaign from our charity sponsors), sex writers, sex bloggers and sex workers got together to discuss everything from effective tweeting to dirty poetry. It's become the UK event of the year for my genre and you should all go next year. Yes, all of you.

Write-ups from Remittance Girl and Jennifer Denys and Kay Jaybee

I'm not going to go on (much) about the day, except to say that it was fabulous to meet with fellow writers and I attended some great workshops and ate shedloads of free cake. Highlight session for me was Remittance Girl's talk on "Erotica and Romanticism" - basically a call to arms, to write meaningful and courageous erotica that isn't just commercial pap or throwaway stroke-literature.

"Pints and pints of the stuff!"

Which makes it only appropriate that at the evening reading I did an excerpt all about troll-sex, because what could be more highbrow?  :-)

The "Aural Sex" location - it's the pub from the gangster movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

I was wrecked the next day, I tell you. I'm a real wimp ... But here's to next year!

And if you've made it this far, here's a freeby present - Dirty Thoughts From the Back of the Room is a collection of 10 bite-sized flash fiction pieces written by attendees at Eroticon 2012. It's FREE to download (until 8pm GMT / Midday EST MArch 6th) and it includes my micro-short Picture Perfect.

On Amazon UK
On Amazon US

---

 *I get free flights. That's how come Italy.

Eyecandy Monday

Censored by Pinterest

Oh boy am I in a big fat angry sulk with myself.

While I was away, I got a web-mail from Pinterest saying that one of my pictures had been taken down because it was Too Rude (and went on to threaten me with having my account closed if I had any more pics like that up):

"We don't allow nudity—photos that show breasts, buttocks or genitalia—on Pinterest."

The picture (Pinterest kindly included a link to my source, which was somewhere on Tumblr) was of a bare bottom. A spectacularly attactive bare bottom, but nothing ruder than a pair of buttocks.

I was going to post that pic here today ... BUT...

I accidentally erased the e-mail. And didn't realise. So I haven't got the source and, it turned out, I hadn't ripped the picture to my hard drive. Big Mistake.

So - 1
I've posted a picture that Shanna Germain had censored by Pinterest from the Geek Love Pinterest account for the same reason (note that it shows no breasts, buttocks or genitalia, but it got censored anyway).

2 - Can anyone find me that pic again? I've become obsessed with its perfection!

• B&W artsy
• Female bottom.
• She's wearing a narrow but complex chain belt, strongly reminiscent of a belly-dancer costume
• Appeared on Facebook in June last year.

And 3- If you were the person who signed up to follow my Pinterest boards and then was offended by a bottom on a board that I have tried to keep really rather restrained, and decided to report me ... will you PLEASE STOP FOLLOWING MY BOARDS, FUCK OFF AND MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.