I was at the grocery store yesterday, buying my twice-weekly supply of raccoon food (bananas, though they also get peanut butter sandwiches) and the bag boy commented on my purchase. At this particular store, at least three cashiers know where my bananas are going and tease me about it, so I try to avoid those lanes. Of course, I guess I could just stop telling people who ask why I’m buying 17 pounds of bananas, but I haven’t figured that out yet. The bag boy warned me against feeding them because they’re “wild.” Too late, I told him, I’ve been forking over the bananas for three years now and they keep coming back. “Well,” he said, wise beyond his sixteen years, “they keep coming back because you keep feeding them.”
So true, young bag boy. So true.
My friend Wendy (aka my wonderful veterinarian), also gently cautioned me about feeding the raccoons. Or, rather, she cautioned me to be extra cautious about washing up after I feed them and when I work in the yard because it seems raccoons can carry a parasite that can cause paralysis. What?? Leave it to a veterinarian to give me the rare-but-extreme risks associated with feeding wildlife.
Then there’s JT (is that what you’re going by these days?), who is convinced all raccoons are rabid. When going through my pictures, I suppose I can see why he might think that. This would certainly give me pause if I didn’t know better:
But, of course, I do know better and recognize that is not the face of a rabid, woman-paralyzing beast, it is only a happy raccoon with peanut butter stuck in his teeth. See?
Raccoons aren’t dangerous. (But if I disappear, check the woods behind my house and follow the sticky peanut butter footprints.)
As Hanna blows out of town, leaving only some wind and rain in her wake (thankfully), I decided to pack up the computer and get out of the house for a little while. I know I haven’t been blogging here much lately and that has a lot to do with stuff going on behind the scenes and the fact that the writing hasn’t been happening lately. I just told Jay I need to remedy that-- and soon-- because the fastest way out of depression (which is where I seem to be at the moment) is to write myself out of it. And not writing only seems to lead me deeper into a funk. So, I’ll be back on writing track next week. Seriously.
It hasn’t been all blue lately-- it just feels that way sometimes-- and even though the writing isn’t happening, other writing news has brightened my in-box. I sold two stories in the past week or so and received an utterly charming mention in Ashley Lister’s review of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s anthology Rubber Sex:
Kristina Wright’s, “The Dress,” is a wickedly exciting tale that epitomises the appeal of rubber sex. Kristina’s heroine doesn’t just wear a latex dress—it possesses her. Kristina is a phenomenal writer and “The Dress” shows that she has the enviable ability to tell a story and simultaneously excite her readers.
That’s enough to bring a smile to my face. I’ve never been called a phenomenal writer before. I think Mr. Lister is being overly generous, but I will gladly and gratefully take the compliment-- I need it right now. “The Dress” was one of my favorite stories to write and it was absolutely lovely to see it end up as the first story in the collection. A nice reminder that, even if I don’t think I’m phenomenal, at least I know I don’t totally suck.
I freed up a lot of my time this semester for writing (in theory) by dropping my two graduate Women’s Studies classes. Long story short, I just can’t deal with academia right now. I attended classes the first week and just wasn’t feeling it. I knew it would be a waste of time to force myself to endure two classes for the next four months, but I actually felt a little guilty withdrawing for the semester. I’m strange like that. I don’t like to give up on things, but I know it was the right thing for me to do right now.
Teaching is another story-- I’m already committed for this semester (actually, I just realized I haven’t signed a contract yet. Hmm.)-- so I’m trying to give my students my all. Or my best. Or at least my attention. I’m not sure if I’ll teach again in the spring-- after three semesters, I’m pretty much over teaching English Composition. We’ll see. I think I said that about this fall, but I had the summer break to forget how tedious it can be.
I see a hint of blue sky and sunshine behind the ridge of grey clouds and that seems to be an appropriate metaphor for my life at the moment. It’s been a hell of a ride so far this year, enough so to make me wonder what’s next. I have muttered the phrase, “Just let go” to myself a few times in the past couple of weeks and it seems appropriate that my horoscope yesterday should be about that very thing:
It’s hard to let go sometimes and you are finding it harder than ever right now. It’s important for you to at least make the effort, though, because you need some kind of closure soon.
Ahh. Letting go. Not something I’m particularly good at. (See above about feeling guilty for dropping classes I don’t really need.) But I’m trying.
Isn’t that a captivating book cover?
I’m delighted to be a stop on the Spanked Virtual Book Tour! Rachel Kramer Bussel’s newest anthology from Cleis Press is packed with twenty delicious spanking stories from some of the naughtiest and most respected minds in erotic fiction.
Rachel has done a smashing job of gathering a tantalizing variety of stories for this themed anthology. Like rich chocolates, each delectable morsel leaves the reader wanting just one more bite. Shanna Germain’s shiveringly good “Perfect Bound,” Alison Tyler’s naughty-but-oh-so-nice “Betty Crocker Gone Bad” and Donna George Storey’s teasing confessional “A Rare Find” are among my favorites in this collection. I was also delighted to discover some new-to-me authors in the lineup, including Rick Roberts’ “Spanking You,” which opens the anthology and sets the tone for a variety of delicious intimacies.
The book tour finishes up tomorrow at DigiRomp. Be sure to check out the other blogs on the tour (below), as well as the Spanked blog, for interviews with the editor and authors. Rachel’s website also features a Spanked book trailer!
Spanked Virtual Book Tour
August
1 – Alison Tyler
2 – The Cherry Red Report
3 – Thomas’s spanking exploits
4 – Zille Defeu’s Fetish Fantasies
5 – The House of Richard Windsor
6 – Funky Brown Chick
7 – Baser Instincts
8 – Life in Motion
9 – All Things Spanking
10 – Viviane’s Sex Carnival
11 – Jamye Waxman
12 - Babeland
13 – NYC Urban Gypsy
14 – Femdom Spanking Blog
15 – Spanking Abby
16 – BadBadGirl
17 - Ellie Lumpesse
18 – Sugarbutch Chronicles
19 – Breathing In and Breathing Out
20 – Essin Em
21 – Pursed Lips
22 – Mixing It Up
23 – Domestic Spanking Blog
24 – Nobilis Erotica
25 – Live Girl Review
26 – All About George
27 – Lolita’s Predictions & Predilections
28 – Sexy Prime
29 – Naughty and Spice
30 – MeiLin Miranda
31 – AlwaysArousedGirl/Jane’sGuideBonus days! September
Yes, I know. Bad blogger. Bad. There is so much going on lately that by the time I think about blogging about it, I’m on to the next thing. Where to start?
--Springsteen rocked. The E-Street Band is as incredible as they say, and more. They put on the best concert I have ever attended and the three hour performance was worth every minute of waiting in lines to get into the pit and almost close enough to touch The Boss himself. I was ready to drive to Hershey, Pennsylvania the next night and do it all again. Seriously. You have to experience this man to know what I’m talking about, but he truly is a living legend. Nick’s concert report covers our road to the pit. I think he was in almost as much awe as I was. Almost.
--My fall semester of teaching is off to a rocky start. I was given a grammar book to use this semester, if you recall. Along with the grammar book were supplemental exercise books that I thought the students also received. So, trying to be a conscientious instructor (and knowing how much I hate it when I pay for a book a professor doesn’t use), I designed my syllabus to include both the grammar book and the exercises in the supplemental texts. Except, the students didn’t get the supplemental texts and now they’re e-mailing me in a panic asking why they can’t find the assignment in the book they do have. Sigh. So now I have to figure out what I’m going to do, which will likely entail more work for me as I try transcribe the exercises from the book so they can still do them.
--Yesterday, I picked up my books for one of the classes I’m taking this semester-- Motherhood: Rhetoric and Representation. It looks like an interesting reading list. I love it when the books are something I might read on my own for pleasure. Hardly seems like work at all. My other class, Violence Against Women, doesn’t have a textbook. That makes me a little nervous in terms of the structure of the class, so we’ll see. Those classes start next week. Summer is over.
--Speaking of reading for pleasure, I’ve moved on from one memoir to another. I’m currently reading Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl: The Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. Her writing style is almost painfully clever. Her anecdotes are entertaining and I’m enjoying this memoir in a way I couldn’t enjoy The Glass Castle.
--Editor Sacchi Green sent the happy news that my two-girls-going-mudding story “Muddy Waters” made the cut (pending publisher approval) for the lesbian anthology Girl Crazy (due out next summer from Cleis Press). I have to laugh because the research for that story-- off-roading in a Jeep-- was probably the least sexy research I’ve ever done, but it was such a fun story to write.
--Jay sent me this fun little game of shoot the sheep (with tranquilizer darts). I’ve been trying to improve my reaction time, but I’m still terribly slow. I do not find their suggestion “how about getting yourself a cup of coffee?” at all amusing, however.
--Sheri sent me this NPR article about how a very clever program using web security words is helping to digitize old books and the archives of the New York Times. Who knew? I always wondered why there were two security words and why one of them is sometimes illegible. Now I know that every time I search for concert tickets, I’m doing my part to digitize books. How about you?
--The writing hasn’t been going well and there’s other stuff going on, including Henry the butt dog’s worsening condition, but I’ll save that for another day.
Yesterday, I got my notification that my screenplay For Ever isn’t a finalist in the Virginia Film Office’s annual competition. It wasn’t really a surprise-- it is, after all, my very first script-- but I still had a moment of disappointment. I really love my story and I know it would make a good film. I received some terrific feedback, which was one reason I was interested in entering this contest. Some of the criticism reinforced what I already knew and there were enough positive and encouraging comments to make me want to jump back into the next draft. All in all, it was a good experience.
I saw Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona with Jae this afternoon and was reminded of my own screenplay because of how he explores non-traditional attitudes toward relationships. Of course, Allen’s film is about the different configurations of romantic relationships and my screenplay is about what defines a family, though there is a non-traditional romantic relationship at the heart of it all. While Allen’s story has an ironic sadness about it as the characters never seem to be happy with what they have in any given moment, my story has three women at odds with each other who learn to lean on each other in order to survive and come out stronger because of their bond. Oh, and there’s the most important difference between Allen and me, of course: Woody Allen gets his screenplays made into films while I’m still trying to figure out this game of screenwriting.
The hardest thing about writing a screenplay is getting the story to fit the time frame. In a novel, if you need two or three extra scenes to clarify the relationship between characters, you simply add another twenty or thirty pages to your manuscript. If that makes your novel run a little too long, you go back through and trim a paragraph from each of the rest of the chapters. It’s difficult to take anything out of a screenplay without sacrificing something, but sometimes it’s necessary in order to add something else that’s more important. I’m still learning how to do that.
As Jae (and my screenwriting professor) pointed out, I could always write For Ever as a novel. Tempting, but I’d really like to get it right as a screenplay. After all, it’s what Woody would do.
Life. Love. Writing. Friendship.
Sex. Books. Movies. Travel. Politics. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Rants. Raves. Chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Some names have been changed, some stories have been embellished. Thanks for stopping by and beware of the dog. Read more...
