CowBoy Up!

I'm so excited! I've just got official permission from my editor at Black Lace to write a minotaur story for my new anthology!!!

Yes, I had to ask permission in advance. Black Lace are extremely wary about featuring semi-human beasts even in a fantasy context - when I tried to use a minotaurish fairy in Wildwood (out in August this year) I got sent to Perverts Corner in disgrace. Despite my first anthology Cruel Enchantment featuring full-on sex with a dragon, anything too reminiscent of bestiality is now firmly rejected.

But this time I pitched for a minotaur story that will be unsettling, tragic and deeply dirty - but it won't depend for its effect on emphasising the horns 'n' hooves of one of the participants. And I was told "Go for it".

Oh, I'm just so happy!

BTW - if you haven't read The House of Asterion by Jorge Luis Borges there's a link to this (very) short but lovely story here.

Rajko

Rajko Radovic has done his stint as Sidebar Guy for a week over at Lust Bites, so I thought I'd put his photo here for more permanent display. It's just beautiful.

Sadly I haven't got a bigger version of this picture. I could do with one, say, 3ft by 2ft for the back of the bathroom door (currently occupied by a 300 poster). Sigh...

Rajko of course came to public notice as a contestant in the anthropology/martial arts reality show Last Man Standing (broadcast in the US as Last One Standing). He's a warrior, a world record breaker in a strength/endurance category, cute, fit as hell and an all-round nice guy. He's also a singer/songwriter and I only went over to his website 'cos I fancied him, but was surprised to find that actually I really really like the music. I hope he realises his dream one day and we can all buy his CDs.

He's got 4 songs available as free downloads ... Go on, let them grow on you.

Amazon Trouble

Now that was a weird thing. I was on Amazon.co.uk doing a search under my own name (which is not as egotistical as it sounds - it's the usual way we find out future publication dates and what covers we're getting). But instead of the usual 9 results for "Janine Ashbless" I only came up with 7. Divine Torment (in both editions) had vanished. Not "out of print" or "not currently available" - all record of its existence had vanished, as if it had never existed.

Now, people should not do that to authors. We have weak constitutions. We are prone even at the best of times to paranoia, anxiety attacks and fits of crushing despair about our dismal careers/prospects/talents/bank-balances. To lose a whole book is suffer a deadly blow!

In the best traditions of British courage I sent a bleating letter off to Amazon and another one off to my editor, in the hope that he could get the Big Boys and Girls at the Virgin to do battle on my behalf. And a few hours later my book was back online. Handkerchiefs were wiped across fevered brows. Huzzah for us.

(To be fair, Amazon replied amazingly promptly to my query, which was good of them.)

So I'm okay again, for the moment. Sanity slightly reduced, perhaps*. I just wish I wasn't going to react exactly the same way next time technology makes me feel powerless and ignorant and useless. And again. And again. And again...

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* When it gets to zero I become a Shub-Niggurath cultist.

"Magic & Desire" - first glimpse

Woo-hoo! My contributor copies of Magic & Desire have arrived today!

This book is a collection of 3 novellas with magical/paranormal themes by three of the Lust Bites crew - myself, Portia Da Costa and Olivia Knight.

Portia's story is called Ill Met By Moonlight and is a contemporary tale of a Fairy who falls for a human woman - and has only a month to work out what to do about it or lose her forever.

Olivia's is a fantasy tale, The Dragon Lord, about a princess with a serious problem: she breathes fire when confronted with an untruth. And about a dragon rider on a mission to save the human race.

And mine - The House of Dust - is set in ancient Mesopotamia, and is the dark story of a priestess who descends into the Land of the Dead to return her murdered lover to life.

The book is officially available from 1st May, I believe, but can be pre-ordered from Amazon as per usual. There are going to be features/excerpts on Lust Bites during the week starting 5th May, and we'll be giving away free copies so don't miss out!

It looks great, I think. I'm busy trying to read through the whole thing without, you know, getting RSI or going blind...

"Gerard & Jacques"

I love my local library. In the Young Adults section it has a couple of cases of graphic novels, which is good news for me because my own graphic novel bookcase at home is FULL, plus I get to explore the world of Manga comics for free. Manga is good for pretty-boy heroes (and villains) and steamy m/m romance. This week's discovery was Gerard & Jacques by Fumi Yoshinaga, which is set during the French Revolution and is more or less Mills 'n' Boon with blokes ... if Mills & Boon did anal rape that is.

I really have no idea if the librarians realise what's inside the covers of this book. It amuses the hell out of me to think that what we have here is public-funded free porn for teenagers - and porn it is, of the most artistic sort: erect cocks, cum-shots, semen spilt on young men's lips and all. I certainly have no intention of bringing the contents to public notice: I was avidly reading the dirty bits in adult novels from about age 10 myself, and see no reason other generations should be deprived of my education. (And believe me, I was far from the poster-girl for underage promiscuity.)

Huzzah for local government!

... That's Nobody's Business But the Turks

And that's what I call a suggestive landscape! Yes, I'm still wallowing around in Turkey for my current story. The picture above was taken in Cappadocia, which is an extraordinary region where the soft volcanic stone has been weathered into forms politely known as "fairy chimneys". They sort of remind me of something other than chimneys. But maybe I have a dirty mind. ;-)

Google/Images "cappadocia" for more amazingly phallic landforms. Better still, go there on holiday like wot I did. Every erotica writer needs a place they feel at home...

And here's another reason for lusty women to go to Turkey: he's called Ugur Pektas and, having been in a reality show, is now a TV actor. Yummy.

Istanbul, not Constantinople

What's the opposite of homesickness?

The short story I'm currently writing is set in Turkey and primarily in Istanbul. This is a city I've been lucky enough to visit twice: once in 1998 and once in 2003. As a result I've got my holiday diaries to draw upon for notes (Always keep a diary when on holiday!), and rather a lot of photos (I have 65 photo-albums so far, and now I've got a digital camera I'm taking more and better pictures). I've been looking through them all.

I don't actually like big cities as a rule, but Istanbul is something else. Magical.

Now I've got anti-home-sickness. I want to go abroad, desperately. I want to amble round museums and buy postcards. I want to explore Roman ruins and learn the histories of places I've never heard of. I want to wake up at 6am to the sound of the muezzin's call to prayer, and fall asleep again with a big happy smile on my face. I want that curious mix of insecurity and anticipation, and that feeling of connecting to a wider world. I want to experience the unfamiliar.

Holidays are really important to me. Hey: I spend almost no money on new clothes, shoes or make-up throughout the year, so I don't feel bad about what I do spend my earnings upon. We have a few dedicated holiday buddies that we often travel with, who have similar interests and stamina levels. That's really important!

And when I look back, these trips abroad are some of my greatest memories. And the memories go into my stories.

Old Flame

I've just finished a story for my WIP (see right) which is set in, ahem, pre-revolutionary America. I had a lovely time researching it: Wikipedia of course(All Hail Wikipedia!), but I also re-read the early chapters of Bill Bryson's Made in America and Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and read for the first time Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - which believe me is not much like the film. Plus books on costume and tree magic and a set of postcards I bought at Plimoth Plantation * some years ago.

I was much vexed over the question of vocabulary to start with - do I use American words/spellings (which the copyeditor will instantly switch back to the British versions)? How do I cope with the fact that my male narrator is of Dutch stock? Would the local priest be a Reverend, a Pastor or a Preacher? Is the mountain ash known as a rowan over there too? Are there rooks in New England? Oh the perils of writing about an unfamiliar time and place...

(The answer to the last question is No, by the way, but there are flocking crows that can be ominous in the same way.)

All this paled as I was struck by the horrible thought: Will sex-with-the-devil be considered too uncomfortable a subject for US erotica readers? For about an hour I was in the grip of visions of my editor refusing to publish anything so contentious.

Then Mr Asbless said, "Like The Witches of Eastwick, you mean?" And suddenly everything was okay. I never thought I'd say it, but Thank Goodness for Jack Nicholson.

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* NB: "Plymouth" the original English port is pronounced "Plimuth", while "Plimoth" the Amercian historical site is pronounced "PLYmouth". The English Language is a strange beast.

10,000 BC

10,000 BC was a strange movie for me to watch. Because basically it's a Janine Ashbless plot, only with less sex and more mammoths. To be specific, it's almost the same plot as Burning Bright, my 2007 novel: sexy long-haired warrior (Steven Strait, above) has the Lurv of his life kidnapped by slavers. He follows across hostile wilderness full of primitive but decent people and eventually catches up with her at Baddie HQ which is civilised and decadent. In rescuing girl he starts a popular uprising and brings about the downfall of the nasty civilisation. Hooray.


What can I say? If there was an R18 version of this movie I'd have loved it. As it was, it was an enjoyable fantasy romp with plenty of eye-candy and pretty scenery. And mammoths. I have nothing against mammoths. I do wonder what they eat, besides snow and sand.

The main thing to remember is that this should not be viewed as a film with a historical setting, because if you have even the faintest knowledge of geography, ancient history or biology it is utterly ludicrous. It is a fantasy film. Remember that and it's quite fun.

Movie overall: ***

Sweaty dreadlocked bare-chested quotient: *****

Write This

This Mitchell & Webb sketch was pointed out to me by Portia Da Costa. I love Mitchell and Webb but right now that sketch is just too painfully accurate to be funny.

Streakers

This is my favourite streaker photo, and probably the grand-daddy of them all. The guy is called Michael O'Brien and it was taken at the Twickenham rugby ground in 1974 during an England v. France match. There are a whole load of photos of this incident, but this particular frame somehow manages to be absolutely perfect. It's the grim-faced official hurrying up with a coat, the grin on the face of the policeman, and - above all - O'Brien's stance. Just for a microsecond the camera has caught him in the pose of a Renaissance-art Christ, which gives the whole thing a resonance and poignancy it otherwise would not have. Classic.

Smutwriters in their Natural Habitat

This pub, the Via Fossa in Manchester, is fast becoming my regular watering-hole. It's several hundred miles from where I live, mind, but when we Writers of Improving Literature for the Delectation of Gentlewomen get together, it's here.

And the sign on the wall says it all!

In shot: fellow writers Portia Da Costa and Madelynne Ellis (and some bags of goodies from Hotel Chocolat).

Doctors Who?

It's a cliche that all women have the hots for doctors. I don't, generally. But two of my favourite TV characters just happen to be doctors. Dr Cox, above, from Scrubs and Dr Gates from ER. Gates is better-looking. Cox is hotter. What have they got in common? Brains, a serious problem knuckling under to authority, and a good heart. I love Good Guys.

What gives Cox the edge? More brains, withering sarcasm (he is the epitome of Tough Love. In fact it's so tough it looks a lot like Hate at times.), and an all-consuming rage at the injustices and stupidities of this world. He is my hero.

God Told Me to Do It

I should stop listening to gods, you know.