Beauty & the Beast

by Ashley Lister

Is beauty a necessary requirement in erotica? Of course it is. Who wants to shag a fugly? Does this make me sound glib? Of course it does. But the depressing thing is: I’m speaking the absolute truth.

Beauty, it’s claimed, is in the eye of the beholder. But this is only true to a certain extent.

Part of the problem with beauty is that the media have manipulated our interpretation of beauty to a level where it is now an unattainable goal. Models are photoshopped and airbrushed so that they’re unrecognisable. Photographs of an attractive model are tweaked and touched up until the image of the attractive model becomes the epitome of desirability with large, doe-like eyes, porcelain smooth skin and a perfectly proportioned physique. The photographs are tweaked to such an extent that, when the attractive model is placed next to their enhanced image, the model looks like a fugly. This video illustrates the point neatly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U&feature=related. Given this state of affairs, what hope do the rest of us have in ever being considered beautiful?

Fortunately, in literature, beauty is a subjective concept – invariably delineated by the perspective of the narrator or an opinionated central character. The protagonist believes the antagonist is attractive therefore the reader sees the antagonist as an attractive character. It might be a minor subplot that the protagonist hankers after a partner with a face like a baboon’s arse but the key issue is that the antagonist is beautiful in the protagonist’s eyes, therefore the antagonist is beautiful.

A reader once complained that I always made my characters flawlessly attractive. She said that this detracted from the story. I considered this as serious criticism and re-read the work that had generated this complaint. I then read it again and decided my critic had been talking shit.

In the novel in question I’d been fairly sketchy with each character’s physical descriptions. It had been written whilst I was recalling the advice given by horror author James Herbert. Mr Herbert (in a TV interview) explained that he tried to keep the characters’ physical descriptions to a minimum so that readers could imprint faces from their own imagination on to each character. He was talking in terms of stories that are plot based action narratives, rather than heavily involved character studies. As a device for erotic fiction, I thought it worked well and allowed the reader to experience a more intimate involvement through their own imagination.

But my critic was a woman so fugly her passport photograph was used as promotional material advertising The Horror Channel. Not surprisingly, she was also a person with exceptionally low self-esteem who believed that everyone else in the world was more attractive than herself. Admittedly, she was probably justified in having that opinion, but with her low self-esteem she had imprinted the images of beautiful people on the characters in my story and blamed me for creating a cast who reinforced her negative self-image.

All of which, is my longwinded way of saying: whether we create beautiful characters or bland faceless ones, there will be readers who see these characters the way they want to see them. And, if the reader wants beautiful characters, who am I to not give them what they want?

(NB ‘fugly’ is a derogatory neologistic noun formed from an expletive and the adjectivial ‘ugly’).

El Pimientero

"… My day began with a sign from above this morning when an iguanita lost its grip on the ceiling and dropped on my face in the dark while I was sleeping. This has happened once before.

I was startled awake by the tiny boned feet that skittered like cold ghost kisses across my eyelids and vanished into the sheet next to my slumbering wife. I thought I saw for an instant the fading form of a person in the door, seen sideways just as it vanished. I had awakened with a terrible feeling of sadness and longing to be a boy again. I never remember my dreams or their enigmas at all. But when I wake up this way I know that I have been making love in my dream to Doña Soledad Maria del Torribio y Ibañez, my great lost teacher…"

Opening paragraph of "El Pimientero" a work in progress.


So anyway, that’s how it starts this week. I keep changing it. That’s the story I’m working on right now. I first wrote this story a little over three years ago when I was starting out, not that four years later I’m not still starting out. I’ve gotten a little better, but that’s all. It’s just that it took me this long to understand what that story is really all about. Its sounds dumb, but that’s how I work. "El Pimientero" (Spanish for "the pepper mill". You’d have to read it to make sense.) is a long elaborate love song for my lost teacher DeEtta. I’ve written about her here before. She was the woman who single handedly initiated me into the life of the mind, of books, of complex ideas. I knew her for only a couple of years and we were separated by our different destinies beyond reconciliation. That young man and older woman have since perished and been reincarnated as myself and a certain grandmother now living on the west coast, who are only strangers with common memories and a kind of shared karma from that previous life.

Unlike Chacho and Doña Soledad, we never touched each other. Never saw each other in the nude or sexually aroused. A motherly kiss or a hug when meeting each other at the greyhound station was about it. It is one of the regrets of my life that I never made a run at her when I had a chance. I did secretly desire her. I confess it freely, now that it doesn’t matter anymore. If she had given me the invitation at any time I would have followed her instantly to her lumpy bed trembling like a kitten. I was her hound dog. I don’t know how my short story will turn out except that Chacho will be luckier than I was on this one point. I insist on that. And less lucky also.

She was not a beauty in the usual sense. That was not the source of her great hold over me. In that time when I had the privilege to inhabit the same time and space as my great teacher, she was more than ten years older than me, a single mother coming off of a bad divorce. I think, as is often the case with divorced women, her self esteem was down and she had let herself go. She was chunky, almost fat, but with startling and magnificent breasts. I had not seen those breasts outside my fevered imagination but I was well acquainted with something which had, and that was her brassiere.

I had borrowed it from her during a period when I had taken up the hobby of macramé and decided I would begin by macraméing her a bikini. I swear I am not making this up. The bra of this older woman, capable of accommodating a pair of large seedless Texas pink grapefruits with room left over for cookies (yes, I did) hung over my bedpost while I was still living with my mother and brother. I took it down in the evenings and used it as the pattern for my endless knot tying. I can’t imagine what they must have been thinking of us and I have never asked. Like Penelope in "The Odyssey" (Ahh! DeEtta! My Athena! If only you could see the most excellent autodidact your callow young man has become . . . ) I would knot it and sometimes unknot it all and begin again just for the excuse to keep it with me a bit longer to snuggle with in private moments, inhaling the smell of her most secret skin.

At the time I knew her DeEtta wasn't much to look at in her dowdy brown Shoney’s ("Home of the Big Boy!") waitress uniform, with her apron and order pad and sensible shoes, barking orders into the kitchen and carrying plates and menus. But how I desired her. How I loved to watch her as she worked. As I cleaned the tables I loved to glance over and watch her face as she laughed and chatted with the customers, imagining that face hovering close to me on a pillow in the dark. She had something unique and past physical beauty – she had a sensuous mind.

I had never met a woman with a sensuous mind before. Though I can’t testify to it myself, I know DeEtta was a natural born fucker, the kind of woman men dream about and rarely find. A woman who loved riotous sex the way a man does. A Goddess. A sensuous body without innate sensuality is a tease, a fraud. I think many men of privilege acquire such a woman as a trophy wife when they have made their fortune, only to find themselves inhabiting a dull bed. There is no physical substitute for the sensuous mind and the sensuous imagination. DeEtta and I had these conversations, titillating and wonderfully intimate for a young man of eighteen who didn’t know anything about women, where she would explain in some detail what she liked in a man. Over tea in the kitchen, she detailed what she liked to do to a man in bed. What she liked to have done to her. She loved my shocked face. She adored my innocence, and laid seige to my ignorance. It was, now that I think of it at this moment, my first exposure to erotic story telling. She told me about lovers she had known, her first experience with sex, consoled me over my disastrous first time. She loved big ideas. She loved good stories. She loved writing stories, which she showed to me. She loved rough common people. She hated snobs of any kind. She hated critics. She hated elites. She loved beautiful words. She loved conversation. She loved bawdiness. She loved Italians. She loved masturbation. She loved spirituality. She introduced me to philosophy, to mysticism, to poetry. She loved books about passionate ideas. She loved spicy food. She loved cold beer on a hot day.

When we sat together at the bus stop she enjoyed watching the men as they passed, assessing them as lovers, making up stories about them, which I never knew until then that women do. There are women who love the exchange of ideas. There are women who love the exchange of bodily fluids. There are women who hate stiff minds and love stiff dicks. There are women who wallow equally in the physical caress of a well crafted piece of cheese cake or the pleasure of a well crafted poem. But when you find them all in one woman – that woman is a Goddess. Though I spent my entire young adult life as a lonely celibate searching for God and failed, I may yet say I have at least walked and conversed on equal terms with goddesses. That is a gift.

I read once, I think it was in Plutarch’s "Lives of the Noble Romans" from which Shakespeare took the material for his play "Anthony and Cleopatra", that the real Cleopatra was no beauty at all. She had a rather plain grecian face, nothing you'd want to look at twice. But what she did have was a natural courtesan’s skill for compelling conversation, for the tease, the artful rejection, the intelligence that attracted the attention of intelligent and powerful men. The historical Cleopatra reputedly spoke, read and wrote six languages fluently, was well educated and well read and had a cruel tactician’s instinct for politics. When she met Marc Anthony it was the collision not of bodies but of sensuous minds. Think this through with me. It isn't sex. A powerful and wealthy Roman like Marc Anthony, hell - he can buy better pussy than Cleopatra. Literally buy it like a side of beef, in a market place of Rome where hapless human beings were imported and sold like cattle from all over the Roman Empire and beyond. Anthony could easily relieve his desire by commanding and mounting a household slave of any given age or gender in any act he pleased as often as nature and convenience allowed. It would be as ordinary as riding a horse. Beauty alone doesn’t carry any weight with men like this.

In Plutarch and in Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra ultimately destroyed each other through the raw intensity of their passion. It was a very different love from Romeo and Juliet. The latter was about virginal, other-worldly love, kid’s love, but romaticized in a way most of us never get to experience. Anthony and Cleopatra was an adult love between people of experience, carnal, violently consuming, mutually destructive, and yet when Anthony is dying, betrayed and broken he still sends her his kisses. He has no regrets. And when Cleopatra dies it is willingly and with a kind of eagerness, free from despair. Her only thought is to be with Anthony again at any price.

Some people, well, we’re just never meant to be together for very long, and that’s just how it is. You get to have the Goddess all for yourself for a little while and later you cherish the time you had. Some people are meant to be together forever peacefully like mandarin ducks. And then there’s the really damnned ones who have no business ever being together even on the same planet, like matter and anti-matter; who alternately nourish and poison each other, giving each other wings and then clipping them, horribly cursed and yet deeply enviable, heaven and hell colliding furiously together forever. Because if you're that kind of person when you meet that other you have no choice either way anymore than you have a choice of breathing; burning each other out and being reborn in each other again, rising and falling in an infinite Phoenix cycle from the ashes of lust and love.

Those are the great love stories that give love a bad name. Those are the people you will write stories about someday if and when you're ever good enough to know how.

Beauty is in the eye of the author

(I'm on vacation so this post was pre-written and scheduled in blogger to post. I will respond to any comments you may leave when I return on the 8th of Jan.)

Beauty.

Wow. What a topic to tackle in the new year. And since I am doing my post on Christmas night, and haven't seen anyone else's, and won't until I get back on the 8th, I hope I hit the target with it. LOL I also hope that I am coherent. The sleet/ice storm here kept me up way too late last night.

Do our characters have to be beautiful?

To this, I say, to some degree yes, they should be at the very least attractive to the person we partner them with, even if society would not deem them a beauty. Often in stories there is a reference to the female not being of classic beauty, but passing fair. Or the hero, with his broken nose, is just shy of handsome. That's at one end of things. At the other end is the characters that are attractive because of their actions, that grow on their partner.

They don't need to be drop dead gorgeous, and to me, when a character is described that way, it requires me to suspend disbelief because most people just aren't that way. But they should be attractive to each other, and we decide what makes them attractive to each other.

Is beauty more than looks?

Definitely. One of my fav scenes from a book (the book I am not much on overall however) is where a character is trying to decide which man across the room is married to another character, who is a beauty. The guy winds up being ugly, not fanciful ugly, but downright smacked with a dozen ugly sticks ugly. "Oh bless his little heart" ugly. Yet the backstory to the characters is that they knew each other in childhood, and a bond of trust formed that survived puberty and the mismatch of facial features and body. She (the wife in the story) found him attractive, not beautiful but attractive and sexy.

Especially when we are dealing with main characters, and we are writing erotica and erotic romances, they characters need to have some attractivness to them, for their partner at least.

Does our overall story need to be beautiful?

No. Life is messy and ugly.

Hell, sex is messy and at times a bit much. LOL

One of my fav quotes from a TV show is from House, MD. Dr. Cameron is talking about sex, and she says: "Sex *could* kill you. Do you know what the human body goes through when you have sex? Pupils dilate, arteries constrict, core temperature rises, heart races, blood pressure skyrockets, respiration becomes rapid and shallow, the brain fires bursts of electrical impulses from nowhere to nowhere, and secretions seep out of every gland, and the muscles tense and spasm like you're lifting three times your body weight. It's violent. It's ugly. And it's messy. And if God hadn't made it *unbelievably* fun, the human race would have died out eons ago."

Yep, I think that sums it up pretty well. : )

As for the overall story, yeah, life needs to happen. It can't all be puppy dogs and butterflies and rainbows. Some of the best stories I have ever read, life happened in a big way, and it was messy and awful, and at the of the day when the hero and heroine come together, their story was that much better for it all.

Some reality in stories is nice.

One of my stories that I absolutely love deals with a young woman who was raped coming to terms with her sensuality, with the help of the love of her man. (It's called Diggin' Up Bones in case you wondered LOL). In one scene she collapses in the shower, crying her eyes out, because she can't help but rememeber the feel ingof being held down and voilated. I wanted that there, I wanted the ugliness in the story, because it needed to be there. She couldn't just seduce her man, and come to terms with what happened by positive thinking. She was in a dark place and needed to let it out.

Finally, does an erotica/erotic romance author need to be beautiful?

LOL

I wanted to look at all sides of the equation, and writers are very much part of the equation. : )

So, um, ok, looking at Lisabet's photo I would say hell yeah. LOL Cause she's a sexy lady. Classic features and all, as well as the way she holds herself in the photo she shares with us. Looking at my own face, I know that I am attractive in my own way, but I am not beautiful in the classic sense. I know of other writers who would be described by society as plain, or in some cases, as unattractive. Yet when you talk to them, and look into their eyes when they discuss writing, you can see it.

There is something within us, something that accepts and marvels at and appreciates the beauty of the physical expression of love and lust. Something that find beauty in the human form, even if it is only one of the sexes we find beautiful. That something shines through when we talk about our writings, and it is a heady experience to be in the same room with someone when that flash of beauty occurs. It's love and passion and exstacy for what we do ... and it completely overshadows anything else.

We need that quality, that inner appreciation, because we express that in our writings. And that's what makes them beautiful to read.

I can always tell the difference between a story where the author has that quality, and where they are either phoning it in cause they lost it somehow, or just never had it to begin with.

Really, as a reader, that's all the beauty I care about in a story. The beauty of the writer's passion for their work. All else is secondary to me, as I can imagine a character anyway I want, and I could care less what the author looks like.

A Perfect Ten

I got over thinking I was the most beautiful creature in the world when I was nine.

Before then, I would swish around with a towel over my head, pretending I had long, flowing hair instead of what could only be described as a feathered bowl cut. Every mirror I passed was my best friend.

Then I hit puberty. 

Early.

Suddenly, I had my period, a booty like a blossoming J-Lo, and was forced to get a bra to reign in my nipples (first in my school, I think, for all of the above).

The period I could deal with, even though it was kinda yucky, and made it a bit weird to sit through "The Talk" in fifth grade when I'd already had "it" for a year.

Even the bra was kinda cool, since I was the first kid close to my age to need one. Ironically enough, that was the only time in my life that I had anything to brag about up there, seeing as I'm now classified as a "nearly A" cup.

The booty...was harsh. It's tough when other fifth graders in their pencil thin Jordache jeans taunt you for having a big ass. And that was fifth grade...middle school/junior high was brutal.

Baby had back back then. Really stood out amongst the prepubescent hordes, trust me.

I come by it honestly. The "Huber Ass" we call it, after the branch of the family whose genes contributed to my caboose. No amount of dieting, running, calisthenics, or "spot reducing" ever had any effect. And I'm not heavy for my height (yes, I'll share, 5'4" and in the 130's); I also have a very slim torso and waist, which almost makes it worse by really emphasizing by comparison.

I've grown up since I was nine, and maturity has brought acceptance. But for three decades, I hated myself for that one "glaring" physical trait. No amount of positive feedback could make me feel beautiful. I won't go into the media's and fashion industry's effect on body image in young girls and women, since I'm sure you know all the talking points.

At some point, I finally figured out beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder. But, cliche or not, inner beauty is what truly counts. After all, that's what I see when I look at the people I love. I don't judge them by society's standard, and at last I've realized that they (at least those whose opinion matters to me) aren't judging me that way either.

For the first time just this past year, someone said to me, "You're beautiful."

And I believed them.

"Thank you," I replied, instead of demurring.

And got a beautiful smile in return.

A Thing of Beauty

By Lisabet Sarai



A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

-- John Keats, Endymion


“Slide your hand across my stomach, baby!”

“Oh, fondle my breasts!”

“I'm hot all over when you touch me...”

The taunts pursued me down the halls of junior high school. There were quieter, more insidious whispers, too, suggestions that I join some boy or another in the back parking lot or under the bleachers. I tried to ignore my tormenters, but for weeks I suffered from a permanent blush. I was paying a heavy price for hormones and imagination.

It all began in study hall, when Bobby intercepted the letter I passed to my friend Nona. It was a draft of an epistle I planned to send to my “pen pal” Glen. I'd never met Glen. He was an older guy Nona knew from her summers at “the lake”, where she had carnal adventures that she hinted about but never really explained. She hooked me up with Glen long distance (this was long before email, of course) and somehow, with his encouragement, we started writing steamy fantasy letters back and forth.

How did I get into this? Honestly, I don't remember. I'm astonished now that I could have been so easily manipulated. But then there were all those hormones...and I wanted Nona to think that I was hip, sexually speaking. Writing to Glen, receiving his notes back, sharing them with Nona, it was all incredibly exciting. It was fun. At least it was until Bobby snatched the folded paper I held out under the desk for my friend to grab.

I realize now that Bobby was probably trying to get my attention, that he probably “liked” me. At the age of thirteen, I was shy, nerdy and really quite clueless about the opposite sex or sex in general, although I thought about boys all the time. Bobby was louder and a lot more confident than I, a smart kid but also a joker. He and I had something of an adversarial relationship in our classes, competing for grades, but I doubt that he really wanted to hurt me with his prank.

It did hurt, though. Overnight I went from being the school egghead to a girl with a “bad reputation”. It didn't matter when I protested that the letter was all imagination. Nobody wanted to believe me.

Normally I'm not the vengeful sort. Nevertheless, I was determined to pay Bobby back for the misery he had inflicted. For days I pondered an appropriate revenge. I wanted to embarrass him, show him that I was smarter than he was, and make him sorry for what he had done.

Finally I hit on what seemed like the ideal strategy. I enlisted the help of my friend Nick. He was one of the only guys who didn't tease me about my dirty little scenarios.

In those days, both boys and girls had to wear uniforms for gym class. Each of us had a locker in the changing rooms where we kept our things. Nick agreed to spy on Bobby to find out the combination for my tormentor's padlock.

Once Nick had obtained this information, I purchased a bottle of cheap perfume at the local Woolworth's. I inscribed the above lines from Keats on classy linen stationery using my most elegant calligraphy and signed the note. On gym day, just before that class, Nick sneaked into the locker room and dumped the whole bottle of scent onto Bobby's gym uniform. He left my message behind so that Bobby would understand who was responsible.

Alas, I didn't get to see the immediate consequences of my stratagem but Nick told me that Bobby's face turned bright red when he opened his locker. The gym teacher forced him to wear his reeking gym clothes for the entire period, much to the amusement of the other guys. A day or two later, Bobby actually came up and apologized for spreading the contents of my letter around. We became friends, though he still enjoyed teasing me. Meanwhile, Nick and I remained close, though our relationship was always platonic. I understand now what a risk he took for me.

I hadn't thought about this experience in a long time, but it popped into my head when I was thinking about this week's post. I had intended to write something quite different, but looking back on this episode from my teenage years I realized that it said a lot about me:

• I've always had a dirty mind. I've been writing sexy stories almost forever—-certainly before I had any sexual experience. And you know, it's still exciting.
• I've always used words to get my way.
• Even when I was shy and insecure, I never allowed myself to be a victim.
• Having a bad reputation, ultimately, might not be so bad after all.

I wonder whether Bobby, Nick and Nona recall these events. At the time, the experience was intense and somewhat painful. Now, burnished by memory, I find that it's a thing of beauty.

Writing with Children and Other Fallacies

by Stephanie Kelsey, EIC Mojocastle Press

It is possible to balance a writing career, job and family. It requires a few simple-

"What, baby girl? It's in the cabinet. The one next to the stove. On the left. The other left. Bottom shelf. The BOTTOM shelf. There you go."

--a few simple processes. For instance, I highly recommend a portable device so you can grab every free minute possible to write. A Blackberry, a Netbook, even a Palm Pilot…anything that lets you free the muse whenever-

Baby's crying. Okay, fed and diaper changed, surely he'll sit on my lap for a few minutes.

--whenever you get the `chance. Also great for those light-bulb moments. Even a good old fashioned pen and paper will do.

Cfdfwoirugynbvp

(Removes baby's hands from keyboard.)

What's good about the electronic devices is that they give you internet access, helpful for keeping those facts straight and sending off the finished product. You can also check in with those waiting on your work.

Next, schedule writing time. Even if it's only an hour. You can make great progress if you're consistent. It's not a race. Which is another good piece of -

"What? No, I'm writing. Yes, there are two in the closet. I don't know where the blue one is…check the laundry basket. I'll do it later. LATER. In a bit. When later happens…I don't know the exact time for later."

Fdsvgndsgonbgas

(Removes baby's hands from keyboard again.)

A good piece of advice is don't compare your output to other people's. There are writers who are able to produce novels in a month, and are never afraid to let everyone know. Slow and steady will win the race, and you'll waste writing energy fretting over it.

Dfdwsgnbfrkwespn

"Can you take the baby? I need to finish this. I don't know how long it'll take…a thousand words or so. 303 so far. Thanks."

Okay, portable devic es, schedule time, right….

Another thing not to fret about is being able to write every day. Stuff happens…and sometimes writing doesn't. If you put too much pressure to complete so many words a day, it'll just jam up the works.

"Yes, I'm still working on it. So, change him. Upstairs in the dresser. Top drawer."

You need to develop a thick skin. If you are one of those folks who can only write in total peace and quiet without interruptions, you're going to be in trouble. However, eliminating temptation is a good idea. If you find yourself spending hours online when you could be writing, it might be a good idea to-

Ooh, someone joined my Mafia. Also, I need to check my farm, and my virtual fish tank…Oops. "Yes, I'm still writing. I just checked Facebook to see if I had any new messages. I can't take him back yet."

--a good idea to disconnect the old internet. Other distractions might be impossible to remove, but that one is easily done.

DingdingdingDING…"Hey. Sure, I can talk. I'm writing a piece on how to write with family and stuff. Right. It's due in a couple of days. Right. Sure. He did what with the celery stalk? I am so writing that down…okay, talk to you later."

Probably wouldn't hurt to turn off the cell-phone as well.

Another good idea is to get your family involved. Obviously if you write erotica, that's not a good idea, but maybe try to get your kid exposed to the writing bug by writing her own stories. Then "writing time" might get a bit more-

"He just nursed an hour ago, he can't be hungry. Okay, but you need to take him right back. Baby, stop kicking my keyboard."

--a bit more respect. It is also a good bonding experience. And who knows, you might come up with the next Harry Potter together. A kid's imagination is a wonderful thing.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. Send the kids to Grandma's and take advantage of the serenity. If it's not possible, grab that netbook or Blackberry and take them to Chuck E. Cheese or something. They're happy, you're happy, and it's all-

"No, we're not going to Chuck E. Cheese. It's some advice for a blog post. No, I don't have to take my own advice today, because you have a room with a lock on the outside…remember that. Where's your father? He needs to take the baby back so I can finish this."

Deadlines are a sticking point. Obviously, if you need something in by a certain date, you can't wait for a convenient time. That's when you may need to pull out the stops and hire a babysitter or put them in a day camp or similar device. If you can afford it, get a hotel room for the night…a change of scenery can work wonders. Barring any of that, resort to the original method of snatching writing time every chance you get…a little lost sleep may be needed.

"No,I'm not done yet."

Living on takeout for a couple of days isn't a sin either. Do what you need to do to get done and don't sweat the details. You're not a terrible parent to take a bit of time for yourself.

Oh, crud. Does spit-up wreck a keyboard? That's not good…

Also, learn how to say "No." It's tempting to get involved in everything your kids do at school and otherwise, but overextending your already packed schedule won't be the lovely experience you picture…you'll just create more stress for everyone involved.

"No, I'm not done yet. Never mind, he's asleep. There's pasta on the stove."

In short, don't sweat the small stuff, set time aside to do your craft, and don't be afraid to take some extra steps to make your deadlines. Having a portable writing device is most helpful, and cut the internet strings and turn off the cell if you have to.

"I'm almost done. Put that down! I'm not kidding."

If you live to write, love will find a way. And if it doesn't, there's always Chuck E. Cheese.

*****

Stephanie Kelsey is the COO, Editor-in-Chief and Diva Wrangler for the erotica epublisher Mojocastle Press. Visit Mojocastle, the magic house, for every flavor of erotica and erotic romance you can dream of.

Home for the Holidays. Ugh!

I know what you're all thinking. I should have picked the topic of New Year's Resolutions for this week. And I would have, if I'd had half a working brain cell left when I sat down to think about my topic for this week. However, back in October when I was thinking about such things, we had already begun the annual "Ramping Up of the Children," better known as the holiday season.

The holidays start around the 1st of October in this house, with me asking the perennial question, "So, what do you want to be for Halloween this year?" Thus begins a Sisyphean struggle on my part to play full-time mom -- sewing costumes, decorating the house, roasting turkeys, and making home made presents -- whilst still keeping up with my almost-full-time workload as writer and artist. As much as I love this time of year, from October 1st through December 31st, I have also begun to dread it. There is just no way anyone who is not superhuman can keep up with everything that's going on.

Life was simpler before I was a parent. The holidays were a breeze back then. But I wasn't a writer back then either. Strangely enough, it was the act of becoming a mother that kick-started my desire to write. Once I had that first screaming, pooping, vomiting bundle of joy in my arms, I realized I had to do something creative with my life. Hell, I had to be something other than a mom or I'd go bat-shit crazy. During those first few months of non-stop diaper changing and breast-feeding, I discovered writing was the best way to relieve the mind-numbing tedium associated with new parenthood. And since I did all my writing while sitting in the glider nursing a squalling infant, it also helped me to ignore the pain of having my nipples chewed off.

As my children have grown, so has my writing career, and keeping up with both is a real balancing act even at the best of times. During the holidays, it's almost impossible to deal with it all. As of today, I've spent two weeks in very close proximity with my off-spring. We have been to parties, visited family, handed out gifts, decorated the house, broken several ornaments, made home-made pot holders and sock puppets, and endured lots of fights. I've managed to squeak in some work here and there, but for the most part I cleared my calendar for the days between Christmas Eve and New Years. Otherwise, I would have killed myself trying to work and be with the family.

As I write this, it's New Year's Eve day and we're approaching the second peak of the annual "Ramping Up of the Children" (the first being Christmas, obviously). The kids are about to embark upon a bacchanalian frenzy of drinking soda and gorging on popcorn whilst waiting for Ryan Seacrest (I miss Dick Clark!) to announce the descent of the world's most important disco ball ever. My kids know nothing of the true meaning of New Year's, just as they know nothing of the true meaning of "Not now, honey. Mommy's writing a story. Yes, of course it's about princesses and unicorns. No, you most certainly may not read it. Not until you're eighteen anyway." They don't know that New Year's means that soon, very soon, I will finally be free of the holiday season for another year. No more will I be besieged by party invitations and gift lists and school pageants. No more will I desperately scour cookbooks for holiday dinner recipes that both children can agree are not "icky" or "puke-worthy." I will not be standing on any more chairs, scraping cookie batter off my ceiling during the latest round of "Hey, you know what would be nice? Let's bake cookies for all our neighbors! Even that cranky old guy who lives down the street and threatens to kill any child who walks on his lawn. Because I said so, that's why!" And no more struggling to write steamy hot sex scenes while listening to the kids screech over who's turn it is to play with the new Tickle Me Elmo or Island Princess Barbie.. No, no more of any of that.

Come Monday, I will pack my little ones off to school and get back to my normal routine. There will finally be time for writing and cartooning and audio production and all the other things I've been jonesing to do the last two weeks. Once more will I pull out the spreadsheet with my carefully planned out schedule, and I will happily check off the little boxes as I go about my orderly day. From 8:30 AM until 3:30 PM, my time will be mine and I'll be diving into to my workload with a vengeance.

Until I realize that the house is too quiet because I'm sitting at my desk all alone. Then I'll bang my head against the monitor and wish that some tiny tot would come ask me for a cup of hot cocoa, if only to distract me from the mountains of work I now have to face.

Happy New Year's, folks. Enjoy the madness while you can.

*****

And just because I can, here are a few of my New Year's Resolutions.

I resolve to...

Not eat anything larger than my head. Unless it's a vegetable, because vegetables are good for me.

Write a minimum of 200 words a day. And some of them might actually be real words!

Drink less coffee. I will accomplish this by finally having that caffeine IV implanted into my arm.

Exercise more... freedom of speech that is.

Break any resolutions that I see fit. What, you expect me to be responsible all year long?