Disappointed by the Prince

by Annabeth Leong

At first I thought I was the only one unsatisfied by the ending of Beauty and the Beast. On paper, the story ought to work. Beauty learns to see through the Beast's monstrous veneer and falls in love with the man underneath. At the right moment, that man—a prince—emerges. I suppose it's meant to play as if the prince is the person she has learned to see, so that his appearance is confirmation and validation of the feelings she develops over the course of the story. There's a moral to that story, the idea that true beauty and goodness are inside, not on the surface.

Except that to me the prince always seemed like an imposter who showed up and usurped the place of the dear beast. I knew my heart was supposed to leap with romantic joy when the thin blond man joins Beauty at the end of the story. But I couldn't make myself feel that. I missed the monster, with his awkward sweetness, his turbulent moods, and, yes, his sexiness. Before I was old enough to put that into words, I sensed that Beauty had a lot more chemistry with the Beast than with that perfect-looking prince.

I know plenty of people hate to see the Beast replaced. In the foreword to Kristina Wright's Fairy Tale Lust, Angela Knight discusses this at length. "Personally," she writes, "I liked him better with fur, claws, and a bad attitude." Indeed, the opening story of that book, Delilah Devlin's "The Obedient Wife," is a riff on Beauty and the Beast and allows the beast to remain a beast.

You could talk about kinky sex and bad boys, but believe it or not, that's not where I'm going with this.

My favorite case of this realization (that the beast should stay) is in the body of work produced by fantasy author Robin McKinley. Her first retelling of Beauty and the Beast, called Beauty, was an early work. I remember liking the book, and recognizing that it had been a heavy source of inspiration for the Disney movie (bookish Belle seems to have been cribbed from McKinley's story). This book follows the traditional script and changes beast to prince at the end.

However, in 1998, twenty years after writing Beauty, McKinley produced Rose Daughter, another retelling of Beauty and the Beast (and one that I consider to be better, deeper, and much more original). I've lost track of my copy and there doesn't seem to be an electronic edition, so I'm afraid I can't pull out exact quotes, but I recall a fascinating introduction in which McKinley discussed why she felt the need to revisit the story. Then, at the climactic moment, the Beauty character sees the Beast beginning to change into the prince and feels loss, because that's not who she's fallen in love with. The Beast's body reasserts itself, however, and she is glad of it. I remember being so pleased by that moment, that revision of the story.

I think it's because it's actually truer to the moral of Beauty and the Beast than the more common ending. "Rewarding" Beauty for falling in love with a monster by replacing him with a non-monster is actually a slap. It disrespects the nature of the sort of love she's experiencing. Learning to love a person as is, flaws and ugliness included, is a beautiful thing, and I think the true romantic vision of it is not just about acceptance, it's about embrace. Taking away the flaws and ugliness, once they are included in the love, diminishes the love.

Not only that, who's saying those things are flaws? To me, the Beast generally looks better as beast than as prince. Correcting his supposed flaws becomes doubly misguided.

The point is that the Beast of this story actually isn't a monster—not in the sense of evil. As people have written on this topic over the past couple weeks, I've realized that this is an important distinction. Garce and Lisabet, for example, both gave examples of true monsters—beings who by nature aren't capable of loving back. A story about loving a monster, as in loving a being of implacable evil or utterly alien disposition, is disturbing to say the least. Stories about loving a bad person and believing that person will become good make me cringe because to me they ring with the rationalizations of victims of domestic violence.

On the other hand, there is Beauty and the Beast, which I think is about loving someone who is considered by society to be a monster—a very different thing altogether. In my vision of this story, Beauty falls in love with someone who doesn't look "right" and has moments of monstrosity, but is deep down a fundamentally good person fully capable of returning love. This could simply be a comment on how everyone is human and all of us have unlovely parts. I think it's more, though, because of the important role that prejudice and societal judgment often play in the story.

Whenever a monster appears, the question is always whether this is a real monster (implacable evil) or something that seems to be a monster because of prejudice (the Beast, beneficial and nonvenomous snakes, and so on). I look at Beauty and the Beast and see a representation of people who don't live lifestyles approved by the mainstream, or who don't look attractive in a traditional way. I really don't want the message of this story to be to transform and conform (to turn into that bland and supposedly handsome prince). I want to see the Beast stay the Beast, because he's awesome that way.

Going the Distance

by Kristina Wright

I'm not a quitter. I'm not someone who says, "No, I can't do that." I'm someone who believes if I put enough time and effort into something, I can accomplish anything. Or almost anything. Which is why I'm talking about running my first (and probably only) 5k sometime this year to celebrate my 46th birthday. I've never run in my life and am nowhere near being able to run a 5k right now (I just had my gallbladder out 5 days ago, so even walking is a bit too strenuous...), but I truly believe if I put my mind to it, I'll be able to accomplish it. If I want it badly enough and work hard enough.

The thing I can't factor into my desire to do something is time. Time is my enemy these days, as my to do list never seems to shorten (and I'm not a fan of busy work, so my to do list is a legitimate must-do list) and my days never seem to have enough time to let me accomplish everything I really, really want to do. This is not a call for pity-- I'm in awe of the life I have that is full to brimming with so many wonderful things that I actually have to say no to some of the good stuff. Everyone should be so lucky.

When I signed on to be a writer at Oh Get a Grip! I was a few months from having my second baby and my first baby was about eighteen months old. I was knee-deep (make that belly-deep) in deadlines and commitments and yet, when Lisabet asked if I'd like to join the incredible crew at the Grip, I didn't even hesitate. I said yes, of course, I was honored. And I was-- and still am-- honored to have been part of this group for about the past 22 months. As I told Lisabet when I signed on, I wasn't sure how it would go, whether I'd be able to keep up with weekly posts. But Lisabet was gracious in her acceptance of my possible limitations and so I became a Grip regular. It's been a fun ride, and I've written some stuff I'm truly proud of, but now it's time to say goodbye. For now, at least.

Basically, I've run out of time in my life to do all the things I want to do and so some things have suffered. The Grip has been one of them. Despite my best intentions, I started missing my deadlines, posting late or not at all, or finding I didn't have much to say on a particular topic (even ones I had chosen). I hate that I have to say that I failed, but I kind of did. Real life smacked me in the face and told me I had to back off of some commitments. Other things have been easy to cut from my to do list-- but it's hard to say goodbye to some things, and the Grip is one of them.

The writers here... I've been in awe. They blow me away with their insights and experiences, their memories and fantasies. There have been many times I've gone to tackle the topic of the week and read the previous posts and been floored, feeling as if I have nothing to contribute. They're good, this ragtag bunch of literary magicians. Really good. And it's been a pleasure to get to know them, to feel as if I've connected with them and made some new friends, to be challenged to push past my own limits and write more honestly. Whatever I've brought to the Grip (and I'll be honest, it doesn't seem like much), I'm walking away with so much more.

I'll return to the other side of things now-- reader instead of writer-- and be happy to do so. There are some new (to me) names being added to the roster at the Grip and I look forward to reading their words. Meanwhile, I'll be over here in my little corner of the world, working on my deadlines, returning to my own long-neglected blog (kristinawright.com) and, who knows, maybe even running a 5k. And if I'm ever invited to stop by and guest post at the Grip, I'll say yes, of course, I'd be honored.

Grounded in the Here and Now

by Kristina Wright

I haven't read a lot of historical fiction and what I've written of it probably amounts to less than 1% of my total lifetime word count. I've certainly gone through stages of reading Regency romances, medieval "bodice-rippers," the Austen and Bronte classics, etc., but it's a stage that always fades and I return to contemporary fiction. 

While I can appreciate the research that goes into historical fiction, I have no desire to write it. I have written my share of college research papers and there is something particularly rewarding about research, the quest for information to satisfy a particular thesis. And yet, the feeling of success doesn't translate when I contemplate writing historically based fiction.

I suppose it has something to do with limits. Writing from a historical perspective requires an author to respect the conventions of the era-- and so often that meant women were limited in what they could do, say and be. Yes, yes, historical fiction doesn't have to be historically accurate-- I've read enough of it to know that-- but I find it annoying when an author plays fast and loose with the rules of sex, relationships and social conventions while towing the line with regard to everything from the vernacular to the underwear. 

To ignore the expectations of a woman's role in a particular era is to rewrite history and while I enjoy alternate history, I find myself rebelling against a fictional historical account that could never happen. (I should probably point out that I'm not a big science fiction, either. I don't think that's a coincidence.) I like my fiction grounded in reality and the "good old days" of history were rarely good for the women. And so, while I will lose myself in a book or film set in an era where I would've been considered little more than property, I don't find myself drawn to writing it.

There are some historical time frames, however, that don't appeal to me at all-- to read or to write. The Oscar nominated Lincoln was filmed practically in my backyard, yet I have no particular desire to see it. I know the story, I know the history, I know that many, many people died in the fight to overturn the status quo. I respect the history behind the film, but as far as finding it entertaining? No. Of course, I know I'm in the minority.

I think writing contemporary fiction appeals to me because it allows me to have a voice. I don't have to assume the voice of a woman with fewer choices and limited roles, I don't have to struggle against the constraints of an era to craft a story, I don't have to break the rules and create what amounts to an historical fantasy in order to tell the story I want to tell. I can still spend as much time researching a contemporary setting as an historical one-- I certainly don't know everything there is to know about living in the world I live now and often find myself writing something and wondering, "How does that work?" So, the research is still there, regardless of setting. But I feel less encumbered by the weight of the truth when I'm writing about the here and now.

Something I haven't yet written, but find incredibly appealing, is time travel. To take my modern sensibilities and drop them into a past era? Ah-- now that's historical fiction I might enjoy! Of course, it is still historical fantasy, right? But then, at least, I could break the rules without muddying the historical genre. 

To Myself, at 63

from Kristina Wright

Hey there. I bet you hardly remember me, huh? The you of eighteen years ago, when your kids were still little. Sure, I'm middle-aged now-- and I feel it some days more than others-- but I'm guessing I probably seem young to you. Younger, certainly. Do you miss me? Don't. Your body has done some pretty amazing things so far and it's a good one. Not perfect, not even beautiful, but strong and resilient. Even at 63, I'm guessing.

Why am I writing this when you're 63? Oh, it seemed like a good age. At 21 and 19, the boys are mostly grown and they should be enjoying their college lives-- lives of their own that likely have little to do with you. Does that make you sad? Or do you feel liberated? I feel mixed emotions as I write it, but of course right now they're only 3 and 1-- such sweet little boys who need me. They won't always need me, will they? (It's okay, you can lie to me and say they will.)

Sixty-three is the age I imagine where I'll feel like I did pre-children, more free, more... me. I hope that's true. Is that true? Are your days built around your own needs and interests the way they were until you were 42? I'm planning trips now for you when you're at an age where you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want and not worry (too much) about the boys. I hope you'll go on some of those trips. Sure, the boys can come if they want. I'm planning some trips like that between now and then, of course. I want to show them the world. But I want to see more of it myself, too.

Forty years of marriage this year, right? Wow. Forty. Of course, sitting on this side of the screen, it's already been 22 years and some days that seems like forever and some days it seems like a few years that flew by in a blink. Forty years sounds like forever, but I know it won't seem that way when I'm sitting where you are. It was meant to be, it was the best decision you ever made. You two have always been so perfect together. Right. Forever is really all that makes sense for you.

I envision a writing career that is still consuming your time in the best possible way. I hear of writers who quit-- who wake up one day and don't ever write another word. That won't be me-- us, I mean. It's what I was born to do, and I know you know it, too. Maybe more than ever, now that the boys are grown and you've been married for nearly two-thirds of your life. Marriage, motherhood, a sense of family and belonging... they're wonderful, aren't they? But the writing... that's what sustains me. That's what will always be there.

I wish you could write me back and tell me what you're doing. What direction your life has taken, what you're passionate about in this current moment eighteen years from now. But half the fun in this life is the anticipation of finding out what's around the bend in the road. How the children will turn out, how your relationships will ebb and flow, where life will take you emotionally and spiritually (and certainly physically, as I haven't been unscathed by health issues)-- it's all a part of the mystery of this life. It's wonderful, isn't it?

I hope you're happy. I feel that you are, in this weird in-between place where past, present and future connect. I feel that you will always be happy, some days (and years) more than others, but consistently so. Stay happy. For me.

The Books of 2012 and the Books to Come

by Kristina Wright

I'm writing this almost a week before it will be posted because I'm scheduled to blog at Oh Get A Grip! on December 26-- and I imagine I'll still be wiped out from the Christmas merriment (and deaf from a dozen different noise-making toys) to blog. And so, I'm afraid this is going to be a short piece from me. Because, at this very moment, I'm not reading anything.

I know. It boggles the mind.

I'll spare you the woeful lament of the writer/editor/mother who has no time to read. Honestly, when I'm engrossed in a new book, I just find the time. Usually, when I should be sleeping. But lately I've been reading books for review (or playing too many games of Words With Friends) and haven't picked up a book to read for pleasure in the past month or so. That will change-- probably by the time this post goes live. 'Tis the season, after all, and the people who love me know I love books.

Despite my lack of reading so far this holiday season, I have read more for pleasure this year than I have in the past several years. I now own both a Nook (the original, non-backlit version, which I love for that almost-real-book feel) and a Nexus 7 (on which I can read across platforms, a wonderful thing when I get giftcards for Kindle and Nook) and both have gotten their share of use. I also read "real" books, and have read both paperbacks and hardcovers this year. I'm an equal opportunity reader.

Two books on my Christmas wishlist that I'm likely to be reading this week are Stephen King's 11/22/63 and Bruce, the new biography of Bruce Springsteen by Peter Ames Carlin. I'm a huge fan of King and Springsteen, so both seem like good end-of-the-year reads. (Though I imagine I'll be reading 11/22/63 well into the new year...)

I am excited about all of the books I will read in 2013-- including the books I'm already anticipating (two of the young adult trilogies I'm reading will have their third book released in the coming year) and the books that aren't even on my radar yet. I love literary surprises, don't you? I look to my reading friends to recommend their favorite reads and my writing friends to write books that I know I'm going to love. But I still enjoy discovering new authors, as I did this year with Gillian Flynn and Melanie Gideon.

Whatever you're reading this holiday season, wherever you may live, I wish you joy and peace in the coming year. Please share the books you love, both the reader and the writer will thank you.

**Addendum 12/26: I did get the Bruce Springsteen biography for Christmas, but  a couple of days ago I downloaded Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild and I was hooked from the prologue. I've read several essays by Cheryl and excerpts of Wild and her honesty and storytelling ability blows me away. This seems like the perfect year to close out 2012.

My Creation

by Kristina Wright

I write a lot about my children. They are three and one and my life has been pretty much consumed by them the past few years. That's the way it is, when you have little kids. But yeah, I write a lot about these babies of mine. I think there are people who are sick to death of reading about my babies and seeing pictures of them on Facebook. I have this year-long project, you see, to take a picture every day of the two of them together. It started as a lark, to counter the repeated comment that you never take as many pictures of the second baby as you do of the first. This year, I can say I took just as many pictures of both of them. Maybe a few more of the second baby, actually.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I write a lot about my children. For one, I didn't get around to having them until I was in my forties and that's kind of an anomaly (or so I've been told-- it seems to be more common in big cities). Not only did I have one baby, I had two. That also seems to be unusual-- most women in their forties have just the one kid. Unless they're taking fertility drugs, and then sometimes they end up with twins. Over forty = one pregnancy, regardless of number of offspring. So I've been told.

So what's my obsession with writing about my kids? Well, first off, I wasn't aware it was an obsession until a total (anonymous) stranger commented a couple of weeks ago about how I seemed to be dragging my feet on an anthology and while I had the excuse of toddlers, deadlines and health issues, I really need to get my act together and meet my professional obligations. (Okay, I'm paraphrasing, but that's how it read to me.) And my first thought was, "What the hell do you know about my day-to-day life?" And, of course, my own response was, "Quite a lot, actually. You write about your personal life, after all."

And so I do. I write a lot about my kids, in part, because I truly never expected to have any. To be honest, I didn't want kids from a very young age until maybe around age thirty. Even then, I was always rather ambivalent about it. Another thing I've written about, maybe not as much as my kids, is the fact that I've been married practically forever. Twenty-two years in October. I don't write quite as much about my husband and our marriage as I do about my children, maybe because he's been a part of my life for, well, literally half my life, while the kids are kind of the new, shiny toys in my life. But I have written quite a bit about my naval officer husband, our crazy whirlwind courtship, his numerous deployments, our military moves and our life in general-- it's a good life, there's a lot of good stuff to write about.

So there's my family. My two little boys, my amazing husband and... yeah, that's it. You see, I've written, here at least, about my childhood. It was, in a word, dysfunctional. I've written about my difficult relationship with my mother and the decade long estrangement before her death. I've written a little about mybfather (who is actually my stepfather, though he did legally adopt me), with whom I have no relationship, and I've written some about my birth father, whom I've never met and whose name I didn't know until five years ago. I can't remember if I've written much about my only sibling (only sibling I know of, at least), my brother, with whom I have had no relationship in over two decades-- and I'm fine with that. I have no grandparents to write about. My maternal grandfather died before I was born, my maternal grandmother died when I was two. I was never close to my father's (stepfather's) parents, his father died when I was around twelve, his mother never much took to me since I wasn't really her biological granddaughter and she and my mother hated each other. I don't even know if she's still alive.

All of my mother's family lives/lived in Missouri. It was a large family-- twelve children-- but with the exception of a couple of cousins I used to write to when I was a kid and maybe still exchange Christmas cards with if I have time, I have no relationship with them. My father's (stepfather's) family lived close to us in Florida and I did see my three cousins several times a year, but we were never particularly close either. Two of them, the boys, have died in the past few years and I found out long after the fact. There is only my one girl cousin and her family left-- and we rarely keep in touch, either. If not for Facebook, I'd probably know nothing at all about them.

That's my family. All of it. I spent my childhood immersed in books and dreaming about being sent away to boarding school and I have spent most of my adult life trying to make a family out of my friends. You know what I mean. "Friends are the family you choose" and all of that. And I do have a few very close, very precious friends. Are they family? In all the ways that matter, yes. To me, they are more my family than the brother I was raised with. But to them-- well, I think to most of my close friends, I'm a bit of a sorry case. Not quite an orphan, but certainly lacking the one thing that most of them seem to have: a big, happy, supportive, close family. (And if not all of them have all of those qualities, they certainly have three out of four.) So when the holidays role around, they are with their families, where they belong. And I am always a bit wistful and melancholy that I didn't grow up with the kind of family so many of my friends have. 

My husband was deployed for our first baby's first Christmas-- and I was alone with a newborn for nearly five months. I did it all, and I did it alone for the first eight weeks. Then I hired a friend I had known for several years to be my part-time babysitter and I had a little help. But baby and me, we spent Christmas 2009 alone, just the two of us. He was exactly three weeks old, so he wasn't much company. It was okay-- I wasn't much company either. But we were together, me and the only family I had in the state. And that was okay. It was good. I had family. Yes, I could've gone somewhere, accepted an invitation to some friend's house to join their family celebration. But I was three weeks postpartum in winter and not keen on taking my tbaby out of the house. Okay, that's not the real reason. I didn't want to feel more alone than I already did. So I stayed home with my newborn and Christmas came and went.

The holidays have never been a particularly happy time in my life. Even with a terrific husband, this is a time of memories and melancholy for me. There are childhood Christmases I sort of remember that weren't horrible-- but none of them were truly happy. In a family like mine, well, there was always something to be sad about. I have had more than two dozen happier Christmases since then, but I have always felt like something was missing. I have always been grateful for this wonderful life I have made for myself, mostly because I know it could've gone in a completely different direction if I had been more a product of nurture than nature. Then again, perhaps I am a product of how I was raised-- I am determined that I will be happier than I was as a child. And I am determined my children will not have sad, melancholy memories trailing after them through life.

And so, yes, I write a lot about my kids. I had no real family to speak of, no magical, special home-and-hearth place where I felt safe and loved and supported. I didn't have a mother who tucked me into bed when I was sick and fed me chicken soup. My mother was of the, "If you're really sick, you won't be hungry and if you're hungry, you're well enough to come to the table" mindset. I was never a Daddy's girl and I'm not even sure my father (stepfather) remembers my birthday and he often misspelled my name (he married my mother when I was nine months old-- you'd think he'd remember that, at least). My brother and I were not best friends from birth, we were each other's nemesis in a hostile household, with him hating me for getting good grades and being the good child and me hating him because he got away with everything and was the "real" child. He turned out as you would expect the child of these parents who raised us to turn out. I am, as I have been told many times, an anomaly. Like everything else about me.

I write about my kids, my husband, this family of mine because I made it. I am a writer and I create characters and families every day, but here in my real life, I created the family I never had. I chose the man who would give me the love and nurturing I never got as a child, and he has given me all of that and more than I ever dreamed possible for going on twenty-three years. And, when I finally realized it was now or never and I needed to decide whether I wanted to have kids before Mother Nature decided it for me, I grew two children inside of me. I created my family. It's small, just the four of us, but it's double the size it was three years ago. And before that, when it was just two of us, I still had more of a sense of belonging in any house I lived with my husband than I ever did in the house where I grew up with people I didn't know or understand. I made my family. I love my friends, I am grateful to share holidays with people who are good and kind and funny and loving, happy that my kids have "aunts" and "uncles" and "cousins" and I will always call them part of my family. But now, like some miracle, I have this family of four that I feel as if I conjured from my dreams. We are happy, this family of mine. I spent a lot of years thinking such a thing wasn't even possible for me.

So yeah, that's why I write so much about my children.

How It Began

by Kristina Wright

A year ago in the very early morning hours of Thanksgiving here in the US, I sat in a dark room pounding out a few thousand words of a proposal for my first single title anthology. I had promised the proposal before the end of the week, despite the very busy holiday weekend, despite the fact that I had a not-quite-three-month-old baby sleeping upstairs (sleeping more than I was that week, to be sure) and a not-quite-two-year-old sleeping across the hall. So, before I had even put the turkey in the oven, before dawn had streaked the morning sky and running on an average of four hours of sleep a night for three months, I finished the proposal.

The proposal was approved, the book was contracted and I proceeded to write an eighty thousand word book in less than three months. The book hit the virtual shelves on October 25-- almost eleven months to the date of that dark Thanksgiving morning when I finished and sent the proposal. And because I wrote the book in such a compressed span of time-- and because there are roughly twenty short stories-- I have forgotten much of what I've written.

It's a strange thing, rereading my own writing and knowing I wrote the words because the story feels familiar, but not really remembering writing them. It has happened a lot in the past few years, as my production has risen while my sleep has decreased. Being pregnant, having babies, caring for children, being continually sleep deprived, having an endless stream of deadlines to meet-- it all makes for a sometimes faulty memory. And so I often lay in bed at night staring into the darkness and wondering how I'm doing it all, why I'm doing it all, whether I can do it all. Sometimes those questions-- and the lack of answers-- keeps me awake at night. It's a vicious cycle.

But this book I wrote in a frenzy at the beginning of the year, that is now available in all the usual online stores, is a point of pride for me. It is my first entire book in over a decade. I am proud of my anthologies-- six published to date, a seventh on the way in a month, four more contracted and in various stages-- but to have an entire book that is me, all me, has been a goal for several years. There is the inner critic that grumbles that it's "just" a collection of short stories and not a real novel, as I still dream-- scratch that-- plan to write, but even I can see how ridiculous my inner critic is being. I wrote a proposal, sold a book, wrote a book and saw it published in the span of a year. A very, very busy year, with a new baby in the house, a toddler going through all sorts of adjustments (along with my body, my marriage and my mind) and several other contracts and commitments to meet. I wrote a book in what everyone told me would be the hardest year of my life-- the year I had two babies under two. I wrote a book.

That thought, that single thought, is why I keep writing. Why I will always write, no matter what path my life takes. Writing sustains me. It keeps me awake in the dark, yes, but since I was a very young child, I have soothed myself to sleep by telling myself stories. The darkness is where dreams become words for me.

My book, Seduce Me Tonight (HarperCollins Mischief, October 2012), contains a collection of loosely linked short stories about couples in various stages of their lives and relationships. From people just meeting and falling in love (or lust), to long-married couples rekindling the passion between them, it's a book about people connecting in different ways, about the need to be held, comforted, loved, desired, wanted and understood. Many of the stories overlap, with recurring characters and settings. It was a fun book to write-- yes, even as I was killing myself to make deadline-- and I'm hoping it finds a wide readership who also believe in the power of love and lust.

Many of the stories include night scenes and darkness-- perhaps because that's where secrets are to be discovered. Here is a snippet from my story "Coming Home":

I knew I shouldn’t be there. I mean, hell, it wasn’t like I had even been invited. I’d broke in for god’s sake. I’d broken the law—and for what? To sit in the dark and wait for Quentin to come home so he could throw my ass out. Not for the first time, I wondered if he even would come home. It was 3 AM and I’d been sitting at his kitchen table for two hours already, running my fingers over the scarred kitchen table and planning what I was going to say to him. Two hours in—make that two months—and I still wasn’t sure what words were going to come out of my mouth when I saw him. For the hundredth time, I reflexively pressed the keypad on my phone and watched it light up with the time. 3:17.

Quentin and I were a lot alike. Both of us slung drinks for a living—alcohol for him and coffee for me—and we were both quiet and introspective, which made us good listeners for other people’s issues but not too good at sharing our own problems with each other. Quentin was stoic in dealing with life’s curveballs, whether it was his father’s unexpected death or a tree falling on his truck, and he could get focused on work or helping his brother rebuild that old Mustang of their dad’s, or repairing the fence on that piece of property out in the country, until the crisis passed.

Me, I was more inclined to run away from anything I couldn’t face head on—and sometimes that meant skipping town for a few days. Or a few weeks, in this case. I’d told my boss I had a personal crisis and needed to take as much of my vacation time as he could give me. He said my job would be waiting when I got back. All I could do was hope he was telling the truth. I was going to need a steady paycheck. Especially if Quentin bailed on me.

I knew he was still bartending at Kayla’s—but this wasn’t the city where bars stayed open until dawn. One or two, maybe, but it was getting on to the time where I either needed to pack it in and go or plan to make a night of it and hope he didn’t call the police when he found me on his couch in the morning.

I was still debating my limited options when I heard the distinct snick of a key in the front door lock. I threw a quick prayer up to the patron saint of stupid, lovelorn women that he hadn’t brought some chick home from the bar, and waited.

I hadn’t wanted him to call the police as soon as he pulled up, so I’d left the place dark when I’d helped myself to the spare key I knew he always kept tucked under the mat. He didn’t turn on any lights either, so he was just a shadowy figure standing in the doorway. Could’ve been anyone, I guess, except I knew it was Quentin. Five years with a man will make you remember tilt of his frame and the cant of his walk. And a whole lot of other things I didn’t want to be thinking about just yet. It was Quentin all right, and by the tight way he carried himself he had either jacked up his back again or he knew I was here.

“Little late for a visit, ain’t it, Rebecca?”
He knew it was me. “Hey, Quentin.”

Two months of trying to sort through the mess that was my life, two hours of sitting at his kitchen table, and that was the best I could come up with.

***

I like Rebecca and Quentin. I feel like I'm revisiting them after a long time away. So, I'm going to tuck myself into bed now (it's nearly 11 PM here on the east coast of the US) and finish reading their story. 
Good night.
(Seduce Me Tonight by Kristina Wright-- that's me!-- is available from all the usual ebook retailers.)

A Very Good Day in a Very Good Life

by Kristina Wright

Now that I have a toddler and a baby, my day starts earlier than I would like. I 'm not a morning person, so the boys have learned to fend for themselves and get their own breakfast.

I try to get the kids outside to play after breakfast. The fresh air is good for all of us. Well, maybe it's just good for me. It seems to bring out some aggression in the little ones.

 After we've played outside for awhile (and I've recovered from the wrestling match), 'll load up the boys and Big Monkey (center) and go for a "Jeep truck" ride, as my oldest calls it. They have fun pointing out the school buses, big trucks and police cars with lights and sirens blaring behind us.

We get home from our ride shortly before the babysitter arrives for a few hours. The kids and I spend some time doing things like looking for lost toys in the grass and collecting the mail from the very enthusiastic mail carrier. Some days are very good mail days, indeed.

 When Katherine the babysitter arrives, I make a break for the door kiss my beautiful children and drive to my neighborhood Starbucks, where I spend the next five hours (give or take an hour) checking email, posting exciting Facebook updates and chatting with the baristas writing.

There are some days when the words just won't come (or people just won't leave me alone) and I feel stressed and frustrated. Ever had one of those days? Maybe I should monitor my caffeine intake more closely.

Sometimes I just need to take a break and remind myself why I write. Seeing one of my books on the shelf with THE BOOK is motivational.  Encouraged and hopeful that some day MY book will be THE BOOK, I will do a little more work and pick up a treat for myself.

In the afternoon, it's home for playtime with my three guys and our new dog. My life is filled with handsome boys! (Thankfully, the dog is a girl. I need someone on my team. We're going to get matching pedicures.)

While the boys are playing, I might be a good mother and bake some cookies. You know, to make up for that breakfast fiasco.

If I can manage to wrangle the kids to sit still, we might have a video chat with my best friend in Chicago. She gives the best fashion tips. My fashion tips amount to a) make sure it's clean before I put it on, b) double check my hair for stray Cheerios, c) avoid solid colors, they show stains.

If it's Friday, our date night babysitter Ashleigh will be over after the boys have dinner (which may or may not be those cookies I baked). Then we're off for our own dinner-- preferably at a restaurant that allows us to have a peaceful conversation. Sometimes we talk about having another child. (Usually after I've had too much wine.)

Many nights are spent writing, editing and blogging after the boys go to bed. Some nights, though, all I want is a drink as big as my head. Nod if you understand what I'm talking about.


I thought so.

Most nights, I make it to bed sometime after midnight. Sometimes a little later. Depends on the obstacles.

Once in bed, I indulge myself in various ways... 

I always fall asleep with a smile on my face.

I love my life. I really do.

Reading All Over the Place

by Kristina Wright

Recently I posted a question on Facebook, asking writers if they read for pleasure in the genres they write. Twenty or so writers replied, pretty much equally split between those who read what they also write and those who stick to genres other than what they write. For the past couple of years, I have stayed mostly in the latter camp-- reading very little erotic and erotic romance for pleasure. 

I always advise new writers to read, read, read what it is they want to write. But after more than a decade of writing erotica and three and a half years of editing erotica anthologies, I've found I just can't read the genre for fun anymore. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing-- I still read erotica for review and often find myself so captivated by the story that I forget it's actually work I'm doing. 

Currently, I'm reading Vina Jackson's Eighty Days Yellow for review. I have only just started it, but I'm intrigued by the musical backdrop and the hint of mystery surrounding the protagonist. While the cover says "If you like Fifty Shades of Grey..." I can't make that comparison, as I haven't read E.L. James's trilogy yet. Oh, but I will be. I've been asked to moderate a Fifty Shades of Grey book discussion at the public library in February. Let us pause for a moment and ponder the wonder of my public library (in southeast Virginia) holding a book discussion on Fifty Shades of Grey. As of today, they have yet to order a single one of my erotica anthologies. I'm not bitter--I'm very much looking forward to this discussion and discovering what it is about these books that has so captivated readers. I'm also curious to read the books for myself and form my own opinion. I'll keep you posted.

I have been reading a fair amount of YA (young adult) literature lately. I devoured the Hunger Games trilogy before the movie came out, then moved on to Veronica Roth's Divergent (and it's sequel, Insurgent) along with several other dystopian YA novels. Recently, I received a review copy of a fascinating book called Every Day by David Levithan. I didn't realize it was a YA title until I was close to finishing it-- I would recommend it to anyone, it's quite well-written. (And I'm hoping it has a sequel-- the ending left me with questions.)

It's the time of year when things go bump in the night, so I find myself wanting to read mysteries, I devoured all three of Gillan Flynn's books, reading her last one (Gone Girl) first. She is so, so good. I've also been rereading Edgar Allen Poe's poetry and short stories-- it's an October tradition for me. 

At the moment, I'm reading my own work-- editing a book that was a very long and complicated project for me. I'm not sure what I'm going to read next for pleasure. But I'm always looking for recommendations! 

Telling the Truth?

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie."

Stephen King

There is a heart of truth inside every piece of fiction I write. A living, breathing truth that beats and provides the literary life support to the story. It starts with an idea, an image, a moment of mental clarity and it evolves and mutates into... something else. An old silk scarf that is pulled through my hands before it's tossed in the donation bag becomes the method by which a character is bound to a chair. An angry, bitter conversation becomes a confrontation between characters, neither of whom resemble the real people who argued. And so it goes. 

That little nugget of truth thuds along-- cocooned in lies and spackled with other bits of truth-- and it becomes something that doesn't resemble anything from my life. Most of the time. There are things I have written and had published that hit close to home, but I think I'm the only one who flinches as I read something that is too true, too exposed-- because I am the only person I am willing to sacrifice on the altar of my craft. And even then, my exposed truths are rarely enough to incriminate me. I hope.

I have written things that were autobiographical, yes. How could I not? Of course, the temptation here is to joke about my sex life because, after all, much of what I write is erotic. But the most true parts of what I write are rarely sexual (I said rarely-- not never). They are the conversations that I have, the memories that linger, the experiences that most profoundly affect me. They are there, in my writing. But, but... they are often rendered in soft focus, much like a photograph taken with a smudge on the lens. You can make out the image, but perhaps not all of the people in the picture are clear-- or their expressions are blurred.

I don't use real names in my fiction, of course. Real people are there, though I doubt most of them would even recognize themselves. What I consider noteworthy-- the traits or situations that end up in my fiction-- are often insignificant to other people. Writers are cultural anthropologists and behavioral psychologists without the fancy degrees-- human behavior intrigues us and we use our people watching (and listening) habit to enrich our fiction. We borrow and steal from others, like crows stealing the shiny bits of your soul. 

When it comes to writing fiction, I don't have a hard and fast rule about writing about real experiences or real people. I take it on a case by case basis. I have intentions to write a memoir some day and I know I will have to expose more of myself (and others) than I have in my fiction. There will be no "Fiction/Erotica" label on the spine to deflect readers from thinking certain things about me and that leaves others vulnerable as well. How to approach it? Do I ask permission first or write my story and ask forgiveness later? I don't know. I will have to figure it out as I go. 

Change is Good

by Kristina Wright

"And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~ Anaïs Nin

I'm not a big fan of change, especially change that is beyond my control. When I was 21, I disliked change so much that I was, in fact, labeled "resistant to change" on an employee evaluation. I liked consistency, predictability, routine. That sounds boring, and I suppose it is, but that was my comfort zone. Still is, really. And yet, my life has over the past few years has been a runaway train picking up speed and heading for inevitable change. Some of those changes have been beyond my control-- physical changes of age, changes in relationships I once held dear to me-- lives change and evolve and sometimes all we can do is mourn what is lost and embrace the change. That isn't always easy.

I found myself in the emergency room over the weekend, helpless and in pain, and then happily drugged out on morphine. I hadn't been in a hospital in eleven months, when I delivered by second baby, and the change was profound. Being 44 years old and giving birth to an almost eleven pound baby made me (and my big baby) something of a maternity ward celebrity. It was a joyous occasion, one full of light and love (and a steady morphine drip, too). This time, I was just another middle aged woman having a gallbladder attack, warehoused in a hospital room (ironically, on the same floor as the maternity ward) awaiting a too-busy doctor. Instead of feeling empowered by my body's abilities as I had last year, I felt sick and helpless and scared.

My way of thinking has changed over the years. I used to believe in letting nature, time and circumstance take its course and bring about change-- or not. I was willing to sit back and let life happen to me rather than make deliberate changes. Good things happened as a result and I called it luck. Bad things also happened and I cursed the universe and my own stupid resistance to change. I no longer believe in letting things happen-- not in most cases. I can now see my own mortality on the horizon and I know that if I hope to accomplish everything I want to in this life, I'm going to have to make those changes happen.

Change is scary for me no matter what the circumstances, but it is especially frightening making deliberate changes in a happy life. It seems to be tempting fate-- saying that what I have isn't enough. Life was good before I had kids. Then the big Four-Oh came and went and I realized that I might want to get serious about deciding whether I wanted to be a mother before time decided that for me. There have been so many changes with the addition of first one kid (a deliberate and planned change) and then the second (a "let's see what happens" happy surprise change), you'd think that would be enough change to last me for the next decade or so, right? But no, I find myself contemplating other life changes (and, sometimes, contemplating another baby) and getting excited about what the future might hold.

Watching babies turn into toddlers is its own lesson in accepting change. Children grow so quickly-- going from helpless bundles to whirlwinds of energy-- that I am constantly in mourning for a certain stage (the first smile! that first tooth! the first step!) while I'm rejoicing in a new stage. Some changes, like children growing up, you just can't fight. Change flows through my house like a river-- and it's better to go with the flow than fight the current and exhaust myself. My way of coping with the changes is to take hundreds of pictures of my babies growing up before my eyes. Pictures to remind myself-- and them-- of all the changes that make them who they are. I am not changing at the same rate as these little people who have invaded my life, but I am changing. And learning. Sometimes the hard way.

My weekend visit to the ER was a slap in the face (or a punch in the gallbladder)-- a reminder that though my amazing super-fertile body can produce babies via Cesarean section and bounce back quickly, my body is still very much middle aged and has not been well-cared for except during pregnancy. And so it's time for some new changes. I know I need to eat better and exercise more, not for the vanity of physical appearance (one of the best changes of the past two decades has been to accept and love my body just the way it is), but for my long term health. Perhaps making changes that will be good for my body will avoid the change that I have no control over-- agonizing pain that ends with me in the hospital, being told I need surgery.

I have another change coming up soon: I'll be short an organ. The gallbladder is coming out. It's not a change I planned for and I'm not looking forward to surgery, but despite my own belief in not sitting back and letting life happen to me, I've done just that with regard to my overall health this past year (and in the year between my first and second pregnancies, truth be told). So now I'll suck it up and deal with this unwanted change while making changes that will-- hopefully-- improve my health. Who knows where those changes will lead me? But in this case, it's an easy enough change to embrace.

Along with my personal changes, Oh Get A Grip! is undergoing some new changes as well. Unfortunately, my unpredictable health scare made me blow my first run at this new Grip schedule and for that I apologize. I'm already seeing how making simple changes in how I treat my body will have ripple effects over other areas of my life. Just like that... change happens. And it's going to be good. I can feel it.

A Sex of Humor

by Kristina Wright

I don't write a lot of comedy into my erotica. I don't know why-- I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky chick-- but for whatever reason, I'm drawn to other emotions when it comes to penning sex scenes. Real life sex can be funny and lighthearted, but I tend to write more about obsession, jealousy and darker things.

I'll have to leave the laugh-out-loud humor to authors like Jeremy Edwards and Allison Wonderland (both of whom do it so, so well), but I combed through my archives and found an old, old story that was comic and erotic and just plain fun to write.

"A Girl's Best Friend" was one of my first pieces of erotica, written back in 2001 and originally appearing in Good Vibrations Magazine. It was later picked up for print publication by Anne Semans for her legendary Many Joys of Sex Toys (2004). In rereading it, I find myself mostly liking the voice I wrote it in and wanting to revisit this character. Maybe one day.

Here's an excerpt of one of my rare attempts at combining sex and humor:

A Girl's Best Friend (excerpt)

            Finding a decent apartment in Manhattan is like trying to find an outfit to match a pair of shoes you bought on sale.  In other words, next to impossible. 

            I was fresh out of college at UT-Austin and had my sights set on the publishing world in New York City.  My friend Kim, who graduated the semester before me, clued me in about an apartment in her building.  It was tiny and old, but in a pretty decent neighborhood with a long, but manageable, walk to my cubicle on 42^nd Street.  I choked back my shock at the cost of rent and plopped down first, last and security out of the nest egg I’d been saving from four years waiting tables.  My parents had offered to help with the rent for the first year or two, but I was determined to do it on my own for as long as I could.  And so, on a hot day in July I moved my books, my clothes and my cat into the cramped third floor apartment henceforth known as Home Sweet Home.

            Living in a big city was nothing like I’d imagined it.  The noise was louder, the bugs were bigger and the people were ruder and freakier.  I loved it.  I was free to be me, or at least the me I’d always imagined.  I was far from small-town life in my hometown of Vicksburg, Texas.  I was also far from my college friends who teased that I would be the only girl in all of New York City who had two names and was still a virgin.

            First things first, Rebecca-Jane is not really two names because it’s hyphenated.  My parents were very forward thinking for Vicksburg.  Secondly, I was a virgin only in the most technical sense.  I’d become well acquainted with my mama’s silver-handled hairbrush at the tender age of... well, let’s just say I finally understood why Barbie was smiling all the time.  And I had my share of groping, drooling, hormone-driven boyfriends.  I had just never felt an overwhelming urge to let some guy between my legs.  When the time was right, I knew the right guy would come along.

            I was hardly home at all my first week in the city.  I’d landed a job at a publishing house, sifting through manuscripts and answering correspondence for not much more money than I’d made waiting tables.  A far cry from my dreams of buying the next Stephen King, but still very exciting for a girl from Vicksburg whose most exciting moment to date was being nominated homecoming princess.  When Kim invited me out to go clubbing on Friday night I begged off because I wanted to stay in and watch a week’s worth of soaps.  I know what you’re thinking, but dang, it was only my first week in the city.  A girl needs a chance to catch her breath!

            I went all out for my first meal in my new place, preparing a feast for one.  It was only a cheap steak and baked potato broiled in on my tiny oven, but it was the best meal I’d ever had because I was in my own apartment.  I was heady with freedom as I sat cross-legged on the sofa with my dinner propped on a pillow.  The sofa had been left by the former tenant.  It was a ratty old thing, worn in several spots and faded in others.  But I covered it with one of the quilts Mama made me bring and it looked, well, if not new at least homey.

            I finished my dinner, put Wednesday’s episode of All My Children on pause, and carried my plate to the little alcove that was my kitchen.  I considered it quite a coup that I actually had a dishwasher.  It was a cumbersome thing that had to be wheeled over to the sink, hoses and cords poking out every which way, but it beat the hell out of washing dishes myself. 

            I opened the dishwasher door and slid out the rack and nearly choked on my tongue.  Apparently, the ratty old sofa wasn’t the only thing the former tenant had bequeathed to me.  I was speechless for a moment, then said the first thing that came to my mind.

            “Fuck!”

            What can I say, a week in the city had already taken its toll on my vocabulary.  Pastor Goodwin would be appalled.

            Staring up at me, or at least that’s the way it appeared, was the largest, thickest, ugliest looking dick I’d ever seen.  I suppose you think that’s not saying much, given that I’d only seen two for real (Jason Ritchie’s in eleventh grade and Eric Linsey’s sophomore year of college— Jason’s was bigger, but Eric’s was more aesthetically appealing).  But I’d spent a summer working at a photo lab off-campus in addition to my waitressing job, and let me tell you, it’s shocking what kinds of pictures people will take.  Big dicks, short dicks, long, skinny, pale and dark, I saw an awful lot of dicks that summer and they all imprinted themselves on my brain for future reference.  And this, this thing staring up at me from the cutlery tray on the bottom rack of my dishwasher was a Texas-sized dick— the biggest, thickest dick I’d ever seen.

            Okay, I know it’s called a dildo, I’m not a complete country bumpkin, but at the moment I saw it, all I could think was “dick.”  It was long and thick, a fleshy-pink color complete with veins and a heavily-ridged little helmet.  It was wedged into one of the squares of the cutlery tray and it stared up at me with its one well-defined eye.  I must have stood there ten minutes, staring down at the monster in my dishwasher.

            “What am I going to do?” I whispered to Miss Marple, my orange and white kitty who was making circles around my legs.  “I can’t leave it in there.”

            Miss Marple let out a plaintive wail of agreement before stalking off to the bathroom.  She knew that’s where the biggest, scariest creatures hung out.  After seeing the contents of my dishwasher, I wasn’t so sure. 

            I took my fork and prodded the thing.  It looked like it was made of jelly, little air bubbles puckered beneath it’s pink surface.  It didn’t feel like jelly, though.  It barely quivered when I poked it, the tines of the fork hardly made a dent in its rubbery surface.  I decided I was too tired to deal with the dildo in my kitchen.  I pushed the rack back into the dishwasher and closed the door.  I washed my plate in the sink, throwing the occasional furtive glances toward the dishwasher as if I expected its rubbery inhabitant to burst out and attack me.  When I was finished, I walked quickly past the dishwasher and shut off the light.  Maybe my new tenant would mysteriously vanish by morning.

            My dreams that night were of previous boyfriends who had pressured me to have sex.  Strangely enough, they all looked like large, pink dildos.  Where was Freud when I needed him most?

            I left the apartment early Saturday to meet Kim for brunch and a day of shopping the second-hand stores.  I felt a twinge of guilt for leaving poor little Miss Marple alone with that enormous dildo, but I figured she was safe so long as it was in the dishwasher.  When Kim asked me how I enjoyed my first dinner in my new apartment, I blushed and changed the subject.

            By the time Kim tossed me out of her apartment, it was 2 a.m. and I was wired on espresso.  I was relieved to see the apartment, and Miss Marple, was as I’d left it.  What had I expected?  Invasion of the Sex Toy Snatcher?  Night of the Living Dildo?  Well, let’s just say after a restless night’s sleep and four hits of espresso, anything seemed possible.  There are a million stories in the naked city, and one of them was living in my dishwasher.

FML? Not on your life.

by Kristina Wright


I can wallow with the best of them. Bitch, rant, moan, complain, cry, wail, shake my fist at the sky and proclaim (loudly) that the universe is out to get me and my life sucks. It doesn't last long, though. My wallowing has a self-imposed time limit because to wallow too long is to get depressed and I am already prone to depression. I have a pretty good handle on it (most of the time) and know that the best thing to do when I'm feeling like life sucks is to prove myself wrong. There is definitely something screwy in my brain chemistry that brings on bouts of depression, but they seem to be ebbing as I get older and are not to be confused with the bad-thing-happened-this-sucks kind of misery. But whatever the cause, I eventually find my way out of the darkness and back into the light. Thankfully.


When I saw this week's topic, it immediately brought to mind a bit of internet shorthand that I've seen over the past couple of years. The letters are FML. I had no idea what that meant the first (second, third) time I read it as a Facebook status. FML. For my love? Friend me, lovely? Friends may like? Faith moves legions? I had no idea. Then someone posted FML after a particularly lengthy rant about a bad relationship and I had to Google it. Do you know what FML stands for?


Fuck my life. 


And I thought to myself-- how can anyone truly feel that way about their life and still keep going? I get that it's usually nothing more than drama and frustration that makes someone type those letters, but when you type it out... whoa. Just looking at it up there on that line all by itself is giving me the creeps. I feel the overwhelming urge to delete the words, lest they foreshadow the future. Superstitious? Yeah, probably. But I grew up with a parent who seemed to live in a perpetual depression, the cloud over her hanging so heavy and dark it shadowed my life, as well. I walked away from that-- survived that-- to go on to have what I consider to be an amazingly happy life. So I have no desire to tempt fate or the gods or even my own brain into believing those words above.  


Maybe there's some truth to the adage that words lose their power the more you say them. That doesn't mean I'm ever going to say that phrase and mean it. Fuck my life. It's like bleeding onto paper, wadding it up and throwing it in a dumpster. Fuck my life. Not life in general, not humanity as a whole, but my own existence. Fuck my life. Everything I am, everything I have achieved, everything that makes me me. I can't even imagine typing those letters much less saying those words. Not even in my darkest depression where thoughts as dangerous as poison seeped into me. Fuck my life? Oh no. Never.


Things suck sometimes. As I wrote in my life lessons post last week, Be Fierce, You Special Snowflake, you have to learn to take what life throws at you, adapt, survive and ultimately thrive no matter what. I don't say that smugly-- I know there are situations that could bring me to my knees in a heartbeat and I'm grateful for the guardian angel or lucky charm or whatever karma or deity keeps me healthy, happy and blessed with a good life. But I have been through tough times-- and yes, I've said, "This sucks"-- only to come out the other side feeling stronger.

(In Long Kiss Goodnight, Geena Davis plays Samantha Caine, an amnesiac mom who is really a deadly secret agent named Charly Baltimore. Did she say, "Fuck my life"? Probably. But then she kicked ass, killed the bad guys, saved her daughter and lived happily ever after.)

I know there are people in this world who have a legitimate reason to say FML. I also know that they don't say it. The ones who are truly living in a hellish world, whether due to external circumstances such as war or internal circumstances such as terminal illness, are not the types to say, "Fuck my life." They're survivors. And that's what I always hope to be, regardless of what life throws my way: a survivor. 


(Speaking of survivors, I have a shiny new ebook out this week. Mammoth Book of Erotica Presents Skin Deep: The Best of Kristina Wright is a collection of six of my stories from previous editions of the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica series edited by Maxim Jakubowski. The title story, "Skin Deep," is about a chance encounter between a heart transplant recipient and a breast cancer survivor. It's one of my favorite stories ever.)