I know a lot of my readers are genderqueer. I hope you'll find this story encouraging - and I hope my cisgender readers will find their minds pleasantly blown by the idea of an ancient culture that has accepted a wide variety of genders for centuries.
I don't suppose anyone who watches this video will find themselves into total agreement with the Bugis' system, but it makes me happy to know they're out there - and that today their ethnic group is a powerful political force in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Friday, November 6, 2015
This, that and the other
Here's what I've been up to lately.
As I said last week, I am now taking story commissions. I should have added that I'm also taking commissions for creating ebook covers, proofreading/copy editing other people's stories, and photo restoration/colorization. So far I've had takers on the first three of those four options, and while I can't share the clients' names, I can tell you they've all been very happy with my work. I'm especially surprised that the story commission came off well, since what the client asked for was waaaaay outside my wheelhouse. It's nice to know that I can take someone else's ideas, which are very unlike my own, and turn them into a full-fledged story that the pleases the person who asked for the story. And writing it went very quickly, too. I'm normally a slow writer, but I turned out this commission in less than a week.
I'm more than halfway through the first draft of "Transfixed," and it's coming along very well. I'm in the zone and writing fast. I've also decided to follow it up with a "Choose Your Own Adventure" that will be set after the events of "Transfixed"and will allow you to [spoilers ahead, so highlight the text if you really want to know]save some or all of the characters who've been brainwashed and even stop the alien invasion[/spoilers]. Of course, writing a CYOA takes a lot more time than writing a straightforward story, but I'm going to try to zip through this one pretty quickly. I learned a lot from writing What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything?, and I think I'll be able to turn this one out a lost faster. I might also take suggestions from fans of the "Transfixed" short story as to what I should include in the CYOA. If I go that route, I'll be sure to give credit to anyone whose ideas I use. There will also be opportunities for several beta readers, who'll get cameos in the story as a reward.
I also have an idea for updating and sexing-up a lesbian vampire story called "Christabel." The original version is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whom some of you might remember as the opium addict who got interrupted in the middle of writing his best poem ever ("Kubla Khan"), lost his high, and was unable to recover the dream. Well, "Christabel" is a lot longer and sexier than "Kubla Khan," and I've already figured out how to turn it into the kind of fetish-filled EMC story you've grown to know and love (I hope) from me. I plan on writing "Christabel" and the CYOA at the same time so I can get the former on the market quickly while still working on the latter.
Finally, speaking of markets, here's something I threw together that you might or might not be interested in. I've been keeping track of all my sales over time, and I wanted to see which books were most profitable and why. The chart below includes everything I've written except Slave-Bride of the Sidhe, which hasn't been out long enough to take a proper measurement, and the two anthologies I took part in. For those of you who publish your own ebooks, or who are thinking of getting into publication, here are my biggest takeaways: 1) CYOA's sell like hot cakes, and 2) sexy covers make all the difference in the world (Colonized has only been out since August, and it's already in third place, beating out books that have been on the market since 2013; and Willing Subject is still raking in the money after three years on the market - thanks, as always, to Callidus, who is also taking commissions BTW). I can't help wishing Sleepwalkers was higher up the list since it's my baby, my epic, and the story that got me into self-publishing. But what can I do besides encourage you to buy it if you haven't already? If you like my stuff, Sleepwalkers is quintessential thrall.
I don't know if this info or the pie chart will interest anyone besides me, but I'm throwing it in here just for the hell of it.
As I said last week, I am now taking story commissions. I should have added that I'm also taking commissions for creating ebook covers, proofreading/copy editing other people's stories, and photo restoration/colorization. So far I've had takers on the first three of those four options, and while I can't share the clients' names, I can tell you they've all been very happy with my work. I'm especially surprised that the story commission came off well, since what the client asked for was waaaaay outside my wheelhouse. It's nice to know that I can take someone else's ideas, which are very unlike my own, and turn them into a full-fledged story that the pleases the person who asked for the story. And writing it went very quickly, too. I'm normally a slow writer, but I turned out this commission in less than a week.
I'm more than halfway through the first draft of "Transfixed," and it's coming along very well. I'm in the zone and writing fast. I've also decided to follow it up with a "Choose Your Own Adventure" that will be set after the events of "Transfixed"and will allow you to [spoilers ahead, so highlight the text if you really want to know]save some or all of the characters who've been brainwashed and even stop the alien invasion[/spoilers]. Of course, writing a CYOA takes a lot more time than writing a straightforward story, but I'm going to try to zip through this one pretty quickly. I learned a lot from writing What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything?, and I think I'll be able to turn this one out a lost faster. I might also take suggestions from fans of the "Transfixed" short story as to what I should include in the CYOA. If I go that route, I'll be sure to give credit to anyone whose ideas I use. There will also be opportunities for several beta readers, who'll get cameos in the story as a reward.
I also have an idea for updating and sexing-up a lesbian vampire story called "Christabel." The original version is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whom some of you might remember as the opium addict who got interrupted in the middle of writing his best poem ever ("Kubla Khan"), lost his high, and was unable to recover the dream. Well, "Christabel" is a lot longer and sexier than "Kubla Khan," and I've already figured out how to turn it into the kind of fetish-filled EMC story you've grown to know and love (I hope) from me. I plan on writing "Christabel" and the CYOA at the same time so I can get the former on the market quickly while still working on the latter.
Finally, speaking of markets, here's something I threw together that you might or might not be interested in. I've been keeping track of all my sales over time, and I wanted to see which books were most profitable and why. The chart below includes everything I've written except Slave-Bride of the Sidhe, which hasn't been out long enough to take a proper measurement, and the two anthologies I took part in. For those of you who publish your own ebooks, or who are thinking of getting into publication, here are my biggest takeaways: 1) CYOA's sell like hot cakes, and 2) sexy covers make all the difference in the world (Colonized has only been out since August, and it's already in third place, beating out books that have been on the market since 2013; and Willing Subject is still raking in the money after three years on the market - thanks, as always, to Callidus, who is also taking commissions BTW). I can't help wishing Sleepwalkers was higher up the list since it's my baby, my epic, and the story that got me into self-publishing. But what can I do besides encourage you to buy it if you haven't already? If you like my stuff, Sleepwalkers is quintessential thrall.
I don't know if this info or the pie chart will interest anyone besides me, but I'm throwing it in here just for the hell of it.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Slave-Bride of the Sidhe is now available for purchase!
Here's the synopsis:
There’s something different about Ethna. She’s fond of her
husband but she doesn’t crave his touch, and what she does crave is so strange
and powerful that she can’t explain it even to herself. She seems to find an
answer when she’s kidnaped by a fairy king and plunged into a world of
supernatural submission, but then her husband rescues her, and she realizes
King Finvarra was nothing like her heart’s desire. But she still desires something,
and her experience with Finvarra has somehow brought her closer to the truth. She’ll
just have to patient, and to explore her innermost depths, before she can find her
true calling. Then she’ll know exactly what – and whom – she really wants.
This story is a sexed-up retelling of an ancient Celtic folk
tale with an all-new second act that’s twice as titillating as the first.
Enjoy!
Friday, October 30, 2015
Sunday, October 25, 2015
This and that
My postings might be irregular lately, but don't worry: I've been very busy behind the scenes. I told you recently that I was working on a new story called "Transfixed," which began life in 2009 as a collaboration that fizzled and was recently resurrected by me as a solo effort. I'm still working on it, and I'm having great ideas; but I'm putting it on hold for about a week. I decided that it would be a good move to publish something quick during the layover before "Transfixed" lands. So I've polished up "Ethna Redux," retitled it "Slave-Bride to the Sidhe" (total clickbait, I know), and am preparing to release it on or about November 2. Be on the lookout, as I'll be offering my usual 25% off coupon here.
On a different subject, I was recently pointed toward a collection of Lovecraft audiobooks adapted and narrated by a professional named Julie Hoverson. I've heard her narration, and she's excellent; I've read her writing, and it's also excellent; and I've spoken with her about her take on the Lovecraft stories, which is pretty brilliant. For instance, as much as I love HPL's stories, I can't get past his racism or his ignorance of the fact that women exist; and one of his best stories, "The Rats in the Walls," has a (very) offensively named cat in a critical role. Well, Julie found a very interesting way around both problems. If this piques your interest, and if you want to hear some great free narration of Lovecraft stories and other interesting stuff, click here.
Finally, on a third subject, Callidus has shared a clip from a video game featuring sexy drone women wearing half-Borg/half-bikini outfits. It's cool, but it's also kind of hilarious the way the "camera" zooms in on their tits and asses. Their armor is anything but practical...but since they're lightning fast and seem to be able to teleport or something, I suppose they'd be just as safe if they were naked. Anyway, here's the clip. Enjoy.
On a different subject, I was recently pointed toward a collection of Lovecraft audiobooks adapted and narrated by a professional named Julie Hoverson. I've heard her narration, and she's excellent; I've read her writing, and it's also excellent; and I've spoken with her about her take on the Lovecraft stories, which is pretty brilliant. For instance, as much as I love HPL's stories, I can't get past his racism or his ignorance of the fact that women exist; and one of his best stories, "The Rats in the Walls," has a (very) offensively named cat in a critical role. Well, Julie found a very interesting way around both problems. If this piques your interest, and if you want to hear some great free narration of Lovecraft stories and other interesting stuff, click here.
Finally, on a third subject, Callidus has shared a clip from a video game featuring sexy drone women wearing half-Borg/half-bikini outfits. It's cool, but it's also kind of hilarious the way the "camera" zooms in on their tits and asses. Their armor is anything but practical...but since they're lightning fast and seem to be able to teleport or something, I suppose they'd be just as safe if they were naked. Anyway, here's the clip. Enjoy.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
hot sex
That's not just a click-bait title. I'm about to share with you a magma-hot sex scene, one of the best I've ever read - even though it doesn't involve any MC and the couple are hetero. But don't worry; this scene is in no way vanilla. The man, Boone, is dead. He's been resurrected as a monster and it sickens him; but his girlfriend isn't bothered by something as unimportant as the lack of a pulse, and she wants him off his mopey ass. You see, Boone's in jail, surrounded by a lynch mob, and he has to break out before the humans finish him. Then they have to save the necropolis of Midian that made Boone what he is. It seems like a tall order, but Boone has plenty of power. He just needs someone with power over him - the merely human Lori - to bring him back to pseudo-life.
This is an excerpt from the novella Cabal, by Clive Barker - for my money, the best erotica writer outside of the erotica genre.
"They have to finish me, Lori. Put me out of my misery."
"I don't want you out of your misery," she said.
"But I do!" he replied, looking up at her for the first time. Seeing his face, she remembered how many had doted on him, and understood why. Pain could have no more persuasive apologists than his bones, his eyes.
"I want out," he said. "Out of this body. Out of this life."
"You can't. Midian needs you. It's being destroyed, Boone."
"Let it go! Let it all go. Midian's just a hole in the ground, full of things that should lie down and be dead. They know that, all of 'em. They just haven't got the balls to do what's right."
"Nothing's right," she found herself saying (how far she'd come to this bleak relativity), "except what you feel and know."
His small fury abated. The sadness that replaced it was more profound than ever.
"I feel dead," he said. "I know nothing."
"That's not true," she replied, taking the first steps toward him she'd taken since entering the cell. He flinched as if he expected her to strike him.
"You know me. You feel me."
She took hold of his arm and pulled it up toward her. He didn't have time to make a fist. She laid his palm on her stomach.
"You think you disgust me, Boone? You think you horrify me? You don't."
She drew his hand up toward her breasts.
"I still want you, Boone. Midian wants you too, but I want you more. I want you cold, if that's the way you are. I want you dead, if that's the way you are. And I'll come to you if you won't come to me. I'll let them shoot me down."
"No," he said.
Her grip on his hand was light now. He could have slipped it, but he chose to leave his touch upon her, with only the thin fabric of her blouse intervening. She wished she could dissolve it at will, have his hand stroking the skin between her breasts.
"They're going to come for us sooner or later," she said.
Nor was she bluffing. There were voices from outside. A lynch mob gathering. Maybe the monsters were forever. But so were their persecutors.
"They'll destroy us both, Boone. You for what you are. Me for loving you. And I'll never hold you again. I don't want that, Boone. I don't want us dust in the same wind. I want us flesh."
Her tongue had outstripped her intention. She hadn't meant to say it so plainly. But it was said now, and true. She wasn't ashamed of it.
"I won't let you deny me, Boone," she told him. The words were their own engine. They drove her hand to Boone's cold scalp. She snatched a fist of his thick black hair.
He didn't resist her. Instead the hand on her chest closed on the blouse, and he went down onto his knees in front of her, pressing his face to her crotch, licking at it as if to tongue her clean of clothes and enter her with spit and spirit all in one.
She was wet beneath the fabric. He smelled her heat for him. Knew what she's said was no lie. He kissed her cunt, or the cloth that hid her cunt, over and over and over.
"Forgive yourself, Boone," she said. He nodded.
She took tighter hold on his hair, and pulled him away from the bliss of her scent.
"Say it," she told him. "Say you forgive yourself."
He looked up from his pleasure, and she could see before he spoke the weight of shame had gone from his face. Behind his sudden smile she met the monster's eyes, dark, and darkening still as he delved for it. The look made her ache.
"Please..." she murmured, "love me."
He pulled at her blouse. It tore. His hand went through the gap in one smooth motion, and beneath her bra to her breast. This was madness, of course. The mob would be upon them if they didn't get out quickly. But then madness had drawn her into this circle of dust and flies in the first place; why be surprised her journey had brought her round to this new insanity? Better this than life without him. Better this than practically anything.
He was getting to his feet, teasing her tit from hiding, putting his cold mouth to her hot nipple, flicking it, licking it, tongue and teeth in perfect play. Death had made a lover of him. Given him knowledge of flesh and how to rouse it, made him easy with the body's mysteries. He was everywhere about her, working his hips against hers in slow grinding circles - trailing his tongue from her breasts to the sweet bowl between her clavicles, and up along the ridge of her throat to her chin, thence to her mouth.
Only once in her life had there been such wrenching hunger in her. In New York, years before, she'd met and fucked with a man whose name she'd never known, but whose hands and lips seemed to know her better than herself.
"Have a drink with me?" she'd said, when they'd unglued themselves.
He'd told her no almost pityingly, as though someone so ignorant of the rules was bound for grief. So she'd watched him dress and leave, angry with herself for asking, and with him for such practiced detachment. But she'd dreamt of him a dozen times in the weeks after, revisiting their squalid moments together, hungry for them again.
She had them here. Boone was the lover of that dark corner, perfected. Cool and feverish, urgent and studied. She knew his name this time, but he was still strange to her. And in the fervor of his possession, and in her heat for him, she felt that other lover, and all the lovers who'd come and gone before him, burned up. It was only their ash in her now, where their tongues and necks and cocks had been, and she had power over them completely.
Boone was unzipping himself. She took his length in her hand. Now it was his turn to sigh as she ran her fingers along the underside of his erection, up from his balls to where the ring of his circumcision scar bore a nugget of tender flesh. She stroked him there, tiny movements to match the measure of his tongue back and forth between her lips. Then, on the same sudden impulse, the teasing time was over. He was lifting her skirt, tearing at her underwear, his fingers going where only hers had been for too long. She pushed him back against the wall, pulled his jeans down to midthigh. Then, one arm hooked around his shoulders, the other hand enjoying the silk of his cock before it was out of sight, she took him inside. He resisted her speed, a delicious war of want which had her at screaming pitch in seconds. She was never so open, nor had ever needed to be. He filled her to overflowing.
Then it really began. After the promises, the proof. Bracing his upper back against the wall he angled himself so as to throw his fuck up into her, her weight its own insistence. She licked his face. He grinned. She spat in it. He laughed and spat back.
"Yes," she said. "Yes. Go on. Yes."
All she could manage was affirmatives. Yes to his spittle, yes to his cock, yes to this life in death, and joy in life and death forever and ever.
His answer was honey-hipped, wordless labor, teeth clenched, brow plowed. The expression on his face made her cunt spasm. To see him shut his eyes against her pleasure, to know that the sight of her bliss took him too close to be countenanced. They had such power each over each. She demanded his motion with motion of her own, one hand gripping the brick beside his head so she could raise herself along his length and then impale herself again. There was no finer hurt. She wished it could never stop.
But there was a voice at the door. She could hear it through her whining head.
"Quickly."
It was Narcisse.
"Quickly." Boone heard him too, and the din behind his voice as the lynchers gathered. He matched her new rhythm, up to meet her descent.
"Open your eyes," she said.
He obeyed, grinning at the command. It was too much for him, meeting her eyes. Too much for her, meeting his. The pact struck, they parted till her cunt only sucked at the head of his cock - so slicked it might slip from her - then closed on each other for one final stroke.
The joy of it made her cry out, but he choked her yell with his tongue, sealing their eruption inside their mouths. Not so below. Undammed after months, his come overflowed and ran down her legs, its course colder than his scalp or his kisses.
It was Narcisse who brought them back from their world of two into that of many. The door was now open. He was watching them without embarrassment.
"Finished?" he wanted to know.
Boone wiped his lips back and forth on Lori's, spreading their saliva from cheek to cheek.
"For now," he said, looking only at her.
"So can we get going?" Narcisse said.
"Whenever. Wherever."
"Midian," came the instant reply.
"Midian, then."
This is an excerpt from the novella Cabal, by Clive Barker - for my money, the best erotica writer outside of the erotica genre.
"They have to finish me, Lori. Put me out of my misery."
"I don't want you out of your misery," she said.
"But I do!" he replied, looking up at her for the first time. Seeing his face, she remembered how many had doted on him, and understood why. Pain could have no more persuasive apologists than his bones, his eyes.
"I want out," he said. "Out of this body. Out of this life."
"You can't. Midian needs you. It's being destroyed, Boone."
"Let it go! Let it all go. Midian's just a hole in the ground, full of things that should lie down and be dead. They know that, all of 'em. They just haven't got the balls to do what's right."
"Nothing's right," she found herself saying (how far she'd come to this bleak relativity), "except what you feel and know."
His small fury abated. The sadness that replaced it was more profound than ever.
"I feel dead," he said. "I know nothing."
"That's not true," she replied, taking the first steps toward him she'd taken since entering the cell. He flinched as if he expected her to strike him.
"You know me. You feel me."
She took hold of his arm and pulled it up toward her. He didn't have time to make a fist. She laid his palm on her stomach.
"You think you disgust me, Boone? You think you horrify me? You don't."
She drew his hand up toward her breasts.
"I still want you, Boone. Midian wants you too, but I want you more. I want you cold, if that's the way you are. I want you dead, if that's the way you are. And I'll come to you if you won't come to me. I'll let them shoot me down."
"No," he said.
Her grip on his hand was light now. He could have slipped it, but he chose to leave his touch upon her, with only the thin fabric of her blouse intervening. She wished she could dissolve it at will, have his hand stroking the skin between her breasts.
"They're going to come for us sooner or later," she said.
Nor was she bluffing. There were voices from outside. A lynch mob gathering. Maybe the monsters were forever. But so were their persecutors.
"They'll destroy us both, Boone. You for what you are. Me for loving you. And I'll never hold you again. I don't want that, Boone. I don't want us dust in the same wind. I want us flesh."
Her tongue had outstripped her intention. She hadn't meant to say it so plainly. But it was said now, and true. She wasn't ashamed of it.
"I won't let you deny me, Boone," she told him. The words were their own engine. They drove her hand to Boone's cold scalp. She snatched a fist of his thick black hair.
He didn't resist her. Instead the hand on her chest closed on the blouse, and he went down onto his knees in front of her, pressing his face to her crotch, licking at it as if to tongue her clean of clothes and enter her with spit and spirit all in one.
She was wet beneath the fabric. He smelled her heat for him. Knew what she's said was no lie. He kissed her cunt, or the cloth that hid her cunt, over and over and over.
"Forgive yourself, Boone," she said. He nodded.
She took tighter hold on his hair, and pulled him away from the bliss of her scent.
"Say it," she told him. "Say you forgive yourself."
He looked up from his pleasure, and she could see before he spoke the weight of shame had gone from his face. Behind his sudden smile she met the monster's eyes, dark, and darkening still as he delved for it. The look made her ache.
"Please..." she murmured, "love me."
He pulled at her blouse. It tore. His hand went through the gap in one smooth motion, and beneath her bra to her breast. This was madness, of course. The mob would be upon them if they didn't get out quickly. But then madness had drawn her into this circle of dust and flies in the first place; why be surprised her journey had brought her round to this new insanity? Better this than life without him. Better this than practically anything.
He was getting to his feet, teasing her tit from hiding, putting his cold mouth to her hot nipple, flicking it, licking it, tongue and teeth in perfect play. Death had made a lover of him. Given him knowledge of flesh and how to rouse it, made him easy with the body's mysteries. He was everywhere about her, working his hips against hers in slow grinding circles - trailing his tongue from her breasts to the sweet bowl between her clavicles, and up along the ridge of her throat to her chin, thence to her mouth.
Only once in her life had there been such wrenching hunger in her. In New York, years before, she'd met and fucked with a man whose name she'd never known, but whose hands and lips seemed to know her better than herself.
"Have a drink with me?" she'd said, when they'd unglued themselves.
He'd told her no almost pityingly, as though someone so ignorant of the rules was bound for grief. So she'd watched him dress and leave, angry with herself for asking, and with him for such practiced detachment. But she'd dreamt of him a dozen times in the weeks after, revisiting their squalid moments together, hungry for them again.
She had them here. Boone was the lover of that dark corner, perfected. Cool and feverish, urgent and studied. She knew his name this time, but he was still strange to her. And in the fervor of his possession, and in her heat for him, she felt that other lover, and all the lovers who'd come and gone before him, burned up. It was only their ash in her now, where their tongues and necks and cocks had been, and she had power over them completely.
Boone was unzipping himself. She took his length in her hand. Now it was his turn to sigh as she ran her fingers along the underside of his erection, up from his balls to where the ring of his circumcision scar bore a nugget of tender flesh. She stroked him there, tiny movements to match the measure of his tongue back and forth between her lips. Then, on the same sudden impulse, the teasing time was over. He was lifting her skirt, tearing at her underwear, his fingers going where only hers had been for too long. She pushed him back against the wall, pulled his jeans down to midthigh. Then, one arm hooked around his shoulders, the other hand enjoying the silk of his cock before it was out of sight, she took him inside. He resisted her speed, a delicious war of want which had her at screaming pitch in seconds. She was never so open, nor had ever needed to be. He filled her to overflowing.
Then it really began. After the promises, the proof. Bracing his upper back against the wall he angled himself so as to throw his fuck up into her, her weight its own insistence. She licked his face. He grinned. She spat in it. He laughed and spat back.
"Yes," she said. "Yes. Go on. Yes."
All she could manage was affirmatives. Yes to his spittle, yes to his cock, yes to this life in death, and joy in life and death forever and ever.
His answer was honey-hipped, wordless labor, teeth clenched, brow plowed. The expression on his face made her cunt spasm. To see him shut his eyes against her pleasure, to know that the sight of her bliss took him too close to be countenanced. They had such power each over each. She demanded his motion with motion of her own, one hand gripping the brick beside his head so she could raise herself along his length and then impale herself again. There was no finer hurt. She wished it could never stop.
But there was a voice at the door. She could hear it through her whining head.
"Quickly."
It was Narcisse.
"Quickly." Boone heard him too, and the din behind his voice as the lynchers gathered. He matched her new rhythm, up to meet her descent.
"Open your eyes," she said.
He obeyed, grinning at the command. It was too much for him, meeting her eyes. Too much for her, meeting his. The pact struck, they parted till her cunt only sucked at the head of his cock - so slicked it might slip from her - then closed on each other for one final stroke.
The joy of it made her cry out, but he choked her yell with his tongue, sealing their eruption inside their mouths. Not so below. Undammed after months, his come overflowed and ran down her legs, its course colder than his scalp or his kisses.
It was Narcisse who brought them back from their world of two into that of many. The door was now open. He was watching them without embarrassment.
"Finished?" he wanted to know.
Boone wiped his lips back and forth on Lori's, spreading their saliva from cheek to cheek.
"For now," he said, looking only at her.
"So can we get going?" Narcisse said.
"Whenever. Wherever."
"Midian," came the instant reply.
"Midian, then."
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