Jump or Fall?

This is sweet. Very very sweet. I am absolutely delighted to announce that my short story Jump or Fall?  has been chosen for inclusion in the mega-awesome Violet Blue's forthcoming erotica collection Sweet Love, due out in April 2010 from Cleis Press. A follow-up to her Sweet Life collections, this again is themed around loving couples exploring their wilder fantasies. D'you think that sounds soppy and vanilla? - Uh uh: this is Violet Blue, man! And one of my stories. There's nothing vanilla about Jump or Fall? I promise, though yes the couple are in love. Wildly in love. It's just there's this hair-raising issue standing between them and fulfilment...

Here's the official blurb for the book:

Looking to keep the heat? In Sweet Love, sex educator and bestselling author Violet Blue creates a world of lusty and in-love couples who live out their fantasies with fantastic results. She has an eye for talent and only allows the very best erotica in her anthologies: well written, truly sensual, and always with a sexy surprise. These powerful scenarios are recipes for romance that real couples can read and use as inspiration for memorable and no-holds-barred explorations of their own. The addictive, hot little shorts of this collection will have readers begging for spankings, breathtaking role-playing, exhibitionism, unexpected threesomes, and much, much more. Sweet Love's expertly crafted, explicit stories will really take you there. 

And Violet Blue is going to be guesting on the Oprah show sometime before publication. She may well give it a mention on air. How about that for my brush with fame? I feel giddy!

More details forthcoming as we approach publication...

Order at Amazon US : Order at Amazon UK

True Blood

Wednesday  is True Blood night! Yay! (No, I don't have Sky or cable. Yes, I am the last person in the world to see this show: currently on Series 1, Episode 4.)

I have confessed already that I got  hooked on this show against my expectations. It really is enormously entertaining: sexy, witty and bloody. But the credits - Oh, I think the credits are inspired. The Deep South is envisioned as a  landscape on a mythic level, to the perfect soundtrack. I don't remember being this horrified and excited by that part of the world since I first read Swamp Thing twenty + years ago.

Mr Ashbless, btw, has been in America for nearly three weeks now training for his new job. So far he has avoided getting shot, arrested for jaywalking, bitten by a vampire or any of that foreign stuff that goes on Over There. Today my parents are arriving to Keep Me Company instead. Oh ... joy.

No work will be done. But I will cling to my blog.

Eyecandy Monday

No naughty bits today, just a wetman. He's wet and lying down because he's been very busy being my muse for one of my vampires in Red Grow the Roses, and he is all worn out, the poor thing.

Talking of which - I've finished another chapter, huzzah! In fact I've finished the Difficult Chapter 13. That was the one I was writing when the kerfuffle over Black Lace came out into the open. Suddenly all the impetus went out off me, with a sad Ffffft noise. This particular chapter, you see, is told by a woman who gets her jollies by being humiliated by a bunch of horny men - and suddenly I was so NOT in the mood for humiliation. To the extent that I did something I almost never do:  I abandoned the chapter and went off to write No. 14 instead. (Which is only about vampires trying to kill each other, so that's all right then.)

Anyway, all back on track now.  Relieved.

Ginger SPIDERS!

Aren't I mean? Nikki Magennis doesn't like dreads because they remind her of spiders, so here I am posting yet another picture of a ginger lad just for her...

Actually this picture came from a new photo-blog which, thanks to Friskbiskit, I've become a fan of: Sex is Not the Enemy. It's generally a log of pictures rather than text - men, women, gay and straight - but has entertaining sidebars in cartoon strips and quotations. Quite often NSFW, darlings.

And what a great title, eh? I want the T-shirt!

And OMG I can't resist this one:

Hearts and Flowers

Okay, so This Week's Excuse for the fact the wordcount on Red Grow the Roses has barely inched forward is that I've been writing a short story with a Valentine theme. It's getting subbed today.

Unusually for me I chose to write about a couple in an established relationship. I know a lot of writers like to write loving sex between existing couples, but it's not one of my themes ... Maybe because you've got to work harder to establish any drama. (I have to have drama. Descriptions of people just shagging does not do it for me, sorry.) Anyway, this time I tried it and it worked (I think!). But all through the writing process I kept getting these, um, "flashbacks" to how the characters met, and what they thought of each other, and how they got together for the first time. Weird. Can't use any of  that material - there's no room in the wordcount. It's just there, like they are real people with actual histories.

I'm taking it as a good sign.

Oh, that'll be Jung at the door again.

Low-Carb Diet: Week 2 results

It's difficult making tofu look interesting ...

Well, my initial two-week ultra-low carb-cleanse period is up. I've noticed that I've a tendency to get dehydrated (probably because I'm not eating loads of fruit like I used to).  But look:

Total weight loss so far: 7 lbs in 14 days!

DVD review: Last Tango in Paris, uncensored version

Review:

Quite possibly the most boring film ever made. Yes, even including the scene with the butter.

Long, considered review:

Wallows in all the worst aspects of French cinema. The girl is very attractive (despite having a bush approximately the size of Mirkwood) and you see a fair amount of her standing around naked. Yet still, somehow, quite possibly the most the boring film ever made. People must have been truly starved of porn in those days in order to get their knickers in a twist over this.

Maria Schneider the actress is, by the way, on record as still hating the director of this film for the way he exploited and manipulated her.

Eyecandy Monday - and 300th Post!

Wahay - I've made it to 300 posts - all the way from my very first, back in the days when I was really only using this blog as somewhere to upload pictures for the Lust Bites blog. And now look - I'm posting pictures of cocks and talking about my diet. Ah, the infinite potential of the blogosphere ... squandered, lol!

What have I discovered about blogging over the years? To my surprise, that I am considerably less opinionated than I thought I was. I follow a number of blogs with quasi-political themes (feminist, sexual, atheist) and I enjoy reading them and having my mind stimulated and keeping up with news. But I don't want to join in. I don't want to rant about the injustices of the world: it just hurts too much these day. All I want to do is put up pretty pictures and get excited about my writing.  *sigh*  It's probably a sign of old age.  

And thank you to the very wonderful Lucilla Frost, who sent me a number of pictures [REDACTED] of King Leonidas and Queen Gorgo enjoying healthy marital relations. I do love me my Spartans.

Heart of Flame update

Phew ... I've finished all the changes and line-edits to my Arabian Nights novel Heart of Flame and given it its final readthrough, and now it's back in the hands of the CatScratch editor. I hope she likes it!

Personally, I love this book. I loved researching it. I loved writing it. I love it on re-reading. It's not full-on erotica just for once (though there is a fair amount of hot vanilla sex) but an adventure-romance. That means my sort of romance - where people get into fights and meet horrible monsters and explore scary desert ruins where ancient gods lurk in the darkness. And fall crazy-in-love while rescuing each other from horrible dooms.  Yummy yummy yummy. And I adore my heroine and hero.  I want to meet  them. I want to have dinner with them. I want to crawl under a table when they start throwing plates at each other...

So don't hold your breath or anything, but Heart of Flame is on its way.

Low-Carb Diet: Week 1 results

Okay, so I've had a whole week on this Vegetarian Low-Carb Diet, counting the carbs and single-handedly sustaining the entire European cheese industry.

And the results after 7 days?

I weigh 139lb - I've lost 4lbs!

Well. Bugger me.  It does work. And surprisingly fast. Okay, I'm a convert...

I've got another week to go on this very low carb level (20g per day) and after that the idea is that I can start slowly reintroducing carbs until I find the point at which my weight stabilises. Will there be room in my life for a digestive biscuit - Who knows? I think I'll stop blogging daily about it at this point though, because I really haven't that much to report. I was sorta thinking there might be interesting psychotic episodes and hallucinations and stuff, but the nearest I've come to drama is dropping a carton of cream on the kitchen floor last night, which is a bit lame.

I'm losing weight. I love (most of) the food. I'm not hungry. That's all. How great is that?

Low-Carb Diet: Day 7

Today's Menu:

Breakfast:  Peanut smoothie. (Okay. Filling. Doesn't involve frying anything, which is good.)

Lunch: Asparagus, pak-choi and tomato grilled with gruyere cheese.

Dinner: Tofu curry (much better this time - fried not grilled.)

Snack: red fruit jelly (made with fruit teabags, lol!), double cream



Here's a list of the things I've got in my kitchen that I never used before starting this diet:

• Mayonnaise
• Tobasco sauce (I like to combine these two, it turns out)
  
• Nutritional yeast flakes (sounds awful but actually they taste like toasted cheese and not marmite)
• Flax seeds
• Pak-choi
  
• Onion salt
• Mustard powder
• No-sugar sweetner
• Soya protein isolate powder (for making shakes with. Makes me look like I've got a serious coke habit, as it gets everywhere)
  
• An electric blender
• Scales that weigh in individual grammes

Tomorrow - the weigh-in!

GWA: The League of Red-Headed Men

I like ginger hair on men. I like it so much that I gave my hero Ash in Wildwood hair like this:

This is a bit of a maverick attitude, at least in this country where ginger men are very often regarded as lurking somewhere on the scale of Ugly to Deformed Freaks (Women are generally not castigated for having red hair although there's a surprising amount of vitriol aimed at "the ginger one in Girls Aloud"). But I love hair and I love blokes with dramatic appearances. So I thought I'd post some Purty Pictures of men with red hair today.

Actors Eric Stotlz...

... and Seth Green. Call it heresy but I'd choose Oz over Angel or Spike any day.

This is singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner:

Singer/comedian Tim Minchin:

Illusionist Derren Brown:

Dante Vale, magical superhero (Sorry, bit of a nerd-attack there):

And these guys aren't famous for anything I know about but are still cute:

Last word goes to Tim Minchin and his song about the "G Word". (Which btw I am allowed to use because I'm a genuine redhead too. And I could prove it ... But I'm not going to!)

Low-Carb Diet: Day 6

Today's Menu:

Breakfast: 3 eggs, scrambled

Lunch: Special Cauliflower cheese (Okay it was worth making after all - delicious), Half a tomato.

Dinner: Parmesan and macademia nut salad (yes, again: because I wanted it).

Snack: Greek yoghurt with flax seeds. (Damn, I've run out of yoghurt.)

The end of Week 1 is in sight. Having resisted the lemon cupcakes present at last night's boardgaming I feel ready to take on anything ... except maybe more bloody washing up. Sheesh! It spontaneously generates itself, I swear; I never actually get down to a clear deck. Why did nobody warn me about this? When it comes to cooking you lose hours of life just to sorting out the kitchen every day.

Low-Carb Diet: Day 5

Today's Menu:

Breakfast: Chocolate protein shake (dull).

Lunch: Devilled eggs (how 1920s! Nicer than I anticipated too). Celery stick. Pecan nuts. Slice of goats' cheese.

Dinner: Half an avocado. Celery and peanut butter.Yoghurt with flax seeds.

I just couldn't do it: I could not face dinner. It was supposed to be cauliflower cheese but I couldn't stomach the idea of a whole plate of hot greasy cheesiness, so I just snacked on cold stuff. I've stopped getting hungry, and that is a very strange feeling. Played the Lord of the Rings Boardgame instead (3 times, didn't win).