by Ashley Lister
Commitment. Commitment. [Ashley chews thoughtfully on the end of his pen]. Commitment. I have to be honest and admit that this week’s topic has not been an easy one for me to write about because I don’t like the word commitment. I don’t use the word commitment very often, mainly because I can never remember how many letter ‘m’s or letter ‘t’s it contains. If I have to express a thought or opinion about such an abstract concept, I prefer to use the word responsibility. A commitment and a responsibility are vaguely synonymous: always bearing in mind that no two words are truly synonymous because of etymology, connotation and denotation. But, if I had a choice between the two, I would always choose responsibility over commitment.
Responsibility has several advantages over the word commitment.
Primarily, responsibility is easier to spell. There are no stupid double letters hiding in responsibility and every letter sounds exactly like it reads on the page. Re-spon-sib-il-it-y. For this reason alone, responsibility is a superior word to commitment.
Secondly, a responsibility is something I can possess, rather than something I have to construct. If you consider the language involved, I have a responsibility, or I can accept a responsibility, but I have to make a commitment. Being a lazy bastard, this state of affairs works perfectly for me. I prefer things I can have to things I have to make. Why would I waste my time making something when I can take something that already exists?
I lost my mobile phone recently. I went out to the shop and bought a new one. I now have a new mobile phone. Imagine how difficult my life would have become if I had to make a mobile phone! I’d still be fiddling with the silly little wires and trying to work out how to make a keypad.
So, like many people, I prefer things I can possess to things I have to construct. As the above illustrates, this applies to everything from abstract concepts (religions, philosophical outlooks, political tendencies etc) through to material possessions (mobile phones, pizzas, cars etc). No one ever makes a responsibility. Responsibilities are prefabricated and come to us already manufactured. We might take on another responsibility; we might be given some extra responsibilities: but no one ever makes a responsibility.
Third: commitment has connotations of religious overtones, and I regularly get down on my knees and pray that my writing never contains religious overtones. Commitments are (most often) made in church. They invariably appear alongside scary nouns such as pledge, promise and vow, another series of words that need to come with self-assembly instructions because you have to make every one of them. Also, particularly when the religious connotations are involved, there are rumours of hellfire, brimstone and all kinds of terribleness for those who break a commitment.
Responsibilities don’t come with such drawbacks. If you can’t make a responsibility, you sure as hell can’t break one. Admittedly, responsibilities can be overlooked, shirked or forgotten, but no one has ever been threatened with hellfire and brimstone for shirking, forgetting or overlooking.
So, this week, instead of writing about commitment, I’m writing about responsibility.
Responsibility. Responsibility. [Ashley chews thoughtfully on the end of his pen]. Responsibility. I have to be honest and admit that this week’s topic has not been an easy one for me to write about…
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Semper Fidelis
"For the first time in ages, she was there for him, completely present
for him; her legs were wide and she was there for him; and she was
working her hips in rhythm with his and she was there for him as he
struggled to keep sucking her nipples, and together their breathing
soared and became ragged and filled with animal sounds and she was
there for him, and the gasping turned to cries and she continued to be
there for him, even as he felt her legs go rigid, and her pussy
pressing down and she shivered in bliss and she was there for him
falling against him as her knees went weak and she was there and she
was still there for him as he surrendered to the raw carnal energy of
her lost amnesiac pagan Hindu fertility goddess power and let it wash
over him. He felt his seed exploding in her, driving him hard into
Wonder Woman Aimee, and she was there for him, and this was her lover's
gift to him alone for his loyalty, for his nights of faithful celibacy,
and the nights cleaning up after her little accidents, and to thank him
for being there with her through her terror and hallucination, and
occasional deadly violence, when he had to hold her down hard and
whisper to her, and weep with her, and console her, and lie to her and
tell her everything was going to be just fine—sure it would—when they
knew he was all bullshit lies and God had abandoned them on this
fucking runaway train of humiliation and fucking oblivion and the world
was cruel and all they had was each other and everybody could go to
hell including him, he could go fuck himself too goddamn you phony
smiling sonovabitch bastard I'll kill your ass, but no Aimee, I won't
leave you, not never no sir no. For all of that and more, she held him
tight to her, hugging her powerful thighs around him so that he would
never ever leave her even when she had finally left herself."
Ron and Aimee from "An Early Winter Train" c 2007 C. Sanchez-Garcia
http://www.erotica-readers.com/GD/TC-EF/An_Early_Winter_Train.htm
Great lovers are not left at peace. There is an undercurrent of tragedy running through this world that seems to seek out the great lovers and come between them and happiness. It's as if there is something in this world that loves sadness. We as people seem to sense this on some level and this why we are also attracted to stories of doomed lovers clinging to each other to survive, like the ship wrecked to floating coffins. The stories of great loves are being acted out all around us unseen. There are giants out there, the people you meet in the grocery store, quiet people you know at work who fight without complaint to preserve those they love and hobble along beside them as far as they can. Mothers, wives and husbands. Women with hearts of iron. Goddesses.
There is this couple I know. Between them they have about four kids. I think theirs is a great love, something exceptional between exceptional people. The wife is a truly erotic woman and the man is an erotic man. They are the realized Anthony and Cleopatra. There is this story that I want to write but I don’t know how because I'm not that good yet. Someday I will be if I stick with it or if the right person lends me a hand. That is my commitment.
This wife told me a while back that the husband has prostate cancer. He is slated for surgery and they will try to preserve what they can,but most likely when he comes through the other side he will be in Viagra country. This thought grieves me. The unfairness of it grieves me. When we were talking she said "I'm going to make a dildo out of him before the surgery." I said "Yes, do that. Work him hard in bed, use him well, and celebrate each other while you can." "No," she said. "You don’t understand. I'm going to make dildo out of him. A real dildo."
Back in the early 70s there was a team of groupies famous for making plaster casts of the phalluses of famous rock stars.
http://www.cynthiaplastercaster.com/
The casts were made from plaster, not silicon, because they were just for looking at, like some kind of weird hunting trophies. This was different. There are things out there you don’t realize exist until someone points them out and suddenly it seems so obvious. If there was a way to know, I'll bet this practice has been going on between men and women for a thousand years, like making a death mask of a great erotic love when it is about to be shattered.
A little googling and it turns out there are dildo kits out there, where devoted women can make a cast of their lovers erect phallus and mold a life like sex toy before the phallus is taken away from them by whatever dour god rules this world. There are kits for making simulacrum of women's vaginas as well, though it must be more complicated. This isn't something new, only something hidden, like the nature of common tragedy itself, one of those things you don’t hear about unless it finds you. What my friend was saying was so painful and poigna
nt and absolutely wonderful it took my breath away. There are women out there who won’t let go of their man without a fight. Hell, they won’t even let go of his penis.
How do you get to be loved like that?
She told me this has become a popular trend because of war.
Young American men keep shipping out to Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes on their third or fourth tour until they're starting to get crazy and their own kids are growing up without them. The lonely wives want to be faithful, but it’s not easy. That's their personal fucker shipping out and no other will do, so they buy a kit and make themselves a sex toy of their husband so that on those lonely nights under the covers that will be their husband pleasuring them and no other.
I told her, someday I'm going to write a story about that. She didn't say anything. The problem I have is that some stories are too good so that you don’t dare mess them up with your clumsy fondling. They're a privilege to write, as if the Story Fairy were entrusting you with something fragile and wonderful. They are sacred in their way and the apprentice writer is not on the level of some of the ideas that drift by. Some stories are better than the writer. You honor them more truly by waiting until you've grown up a little more.
I want those stories. I desire them. I want to be their demon lover. As a writer I am attracted to the ordinary. It is the story of the ordinary man, the most common and clumsy love making that fires my imagination. My vampire stories are about the most ordinary people walking along a precipice. Even my dear vampire Nixie is not glamorous like the vampires in best sellers. Nixie is a short pale girl with a German accent in second hand clothes with a face that is "old world plain". A lonely street girl who "looks like she would trade a hamburger for a blow job". You could run into her standing under a street light and never realize you are in danger. I am a voyeur of the plain and mundane. The problem with writing that kind of story is that it is not popular, and it is the hardest to write. Because when you write about the ordinary man the reader will always know when you are lying.
Sometimes something will drift my way and I'll have to say to myself "The Story Fairy is being generous to me, but I can’t tell that story yet." I have a folder on my hard drive tucked away with little sketches of story ideas that tear me up and I can’t do them yet. The ideas are better than me. That is my faithfulness, my commitment. My faith is that I can honor the story better if I can wait until I can tell it properly, that my day will come. And if it never comes, somebody else will tell it. Some stories are waiting to be found, searching for their authors like great lovers discovering each other.
for him; her legs were wide and she was there for him; and she was
working her hips in rhythm with his and she was there for him as he
struggled to keep sucking her nipples, and together their breathing
soared and became ragged and filled with animal sounds and she was
there for him, and the gasping turned to cries and she continued to be
there for him, even as he felt her legs go rigid, and her pussy
pressing down and she shivered in bliss and she was there for him
falling against him as her knees went weak and she was there and she
was still there for him as he surrendered to the raw carnal energy of
her lost amnesiac pagan Hindu fertility goddess power and let it wash
over him. He felt his seed exploding in her, driving him hard into
Wonder Woman Aimee, and she was there for him, and this was her lover's
gift to him alone for his loyalty, for his nights of faithful celibacy,
and the nights cleaning up after her little accidents, and to thank him
for being there with her through her terror and hallucination, and
occasional deadly violence, when he had to hold her down hard and
whisper to her, and weep with her, and console her, and lie to her and
tell her everything was going to be just fine—sure it would—when they
knew he was all bullshit lies and God had abandoned them on this
fucking runaway train of humiliation and fucking oblivion and the world
was cruel and all they had was each other and everybody could go to
hell including him, he could go fuck himself too goddamn you phony
smiling sonovabitch bastard I'll kill your ass, but no Aimee, I won't
leave you, not never no sir no. For all of that and more, she held him
tight to her, hugging her powerful thighs around him so that he would
never ever leave her even when she had finally left herself."
Ron and Aimee from "An Early Winter Train" c 2007 C. Sanchez-Garcia
http://www.erotica-readers.com/GD/TC-EF/An_Early_Winter_Train.htm
Great lovers are not left at peace. There is an undercurrent of tragedy running through this world that seems to seek out the great lovers and come between them and happiness. It's as if there is something in this world that loves sadness. We as people seem to sense this on some level and this why we are also attracted to stories of doomed lovers clinging to each other to survive, like the ship wrecked to floating coffins. The stories of great loves are being acted out all around us unseen. There are giants out there, the people you meet in the grocery store, quiet people you know at work who fight without complaint to preserve those they love and hobble along beside them as far as they can. Mothers, wives and husbands. Women with hearts of iron. Goddesses.
There is this couple I know. Between them they have about four kids. I think theirs is a great love, something exceptional between exceptional people. The wife is a truly erotic woman and the man is an erotic man. They are the realized Anthony and Cleopatra. There is this story that I want to write but I don’t know how because I'm not that good yet. Someday I will be if I stick with it or if the right person lends me a hand. That is my commitment.
This wife told me a while back that the husband has prostate cancer. He is slated for surgery and they will try to preserve what they can,but most likely when he comes through the other side he will be in Viagra country. This thought grieves me. The unfairness of it grieves me. When we were talking she said "I'm going to make a dildo out of him before the surgery." I said "Yes, do that. Work him hard in bed, use him well, and celebrate each other while you can." "No," she said. "You don’t understand. I'm going to make dildo out of him. A real dildo."
Back in the early 70s there was a team of groupies famous for making plaster casts of the phalluses of famous rock stars.
http://www.cynthiaplastercaster.com/
The casts were made from plaster, not silicon, because they were just for looking at, like some kind of weird hunting trophies. This was different. There are things out there you don’t realize exist until someone points them out and suddenly it seems so obvious. If there was a way to know, I'll bet this practice has been going on between men and women for a thousand years, like making a death mask of a great erotic love when it is about to be shattered.
A little googling and it turns out there are dildo kits out there, where devoted women can make a cast of their lovers erect phallus and mold a life like sex toy before the phallus is taken away from them by whatever dour god rules this world. There are kits for making simulacrum of women's vaginas as well, though it must be more complicated. This isn't something new, only something hidden, like the nature of common tragedy itself, one of those things you don’t hear about unless it finds you. What my friend was saying was so painful and poigna
nt and absolutely wonderful it took my breath away. There are women out there who won’t let go of their man without a fight. Hell, they won’t even let go of his penis.How do you get to be loved like that?
She told me this has become a popular trend because of war.
Young American men keep shipping out to Iraq and Afghanistan, sometimes on their third or fourth tour until they're starting to get crazy and their own kids are growing up without them. The lonely wives want to be faithful, but it’s not easy. That's their personal fucker shipping out and no other will do, so they buy a kit and make themselves a sex toy of their husband so that on those lonely nights under the covers that will be their husband pleasuring them and no other.
I told her, someday I'm going to write a story about that. She didn't say anything. The problem I have is that some stories are too good so that you don’t dare mess them up with your clumsy fondling. They're a privilege to write, as if the Story Fairy were entrusting you with something fragile and wonderful. They are sacred in their way and the apprentice writer is not on the level of some of the ideas that drift by. Some stories are better than the writer. You honor them more truly by waiting until you've grown up a little more.
I want those stories. I desire them. I want to be their demon lover. As a writer I am attracted to the ordinary. It is the story of the ordinary man, the most common and clumsy love making that fires my imagination. My vampire stories are about the most ordinary people walking along a precipice. Even my dear vampire Nixie is not glamorous like the vampires in best sellers. Nixie is a short pale girl with a German accent in second hand clothes with a face that is "old world plain". A lonely street girl who "looks like she would trade a hamburger for a blow job". You could run into her standing under a street light and never realize you are in danger. I am a voyeur of the plain and mundane. The problem with writing that kind of story is that it is not popular, and it is the hardest to write. Because when you write about the ordinary man the reader will always know when you are lying.
Sometimes something will drift my way and I'll have to say to myself "The Story Fairy is being generous to me, but I can’t tell that story yet." I have a folder on my hard drive tucked away with little sketches of story ideas that tear me up and I can’t do them yet. The ideas are better than me. That is my faithfulness, my commitment. My faith is that I can honor the story better if I can wait until I can tell it properly, that my day will come. And if it never comes, somebody else will tell it. Some stories are waiting to be found, searching for their authors like great lovers discovering each other.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
They're coming to take me away ... ha ha!
When I first read this topic, I didn’t know what approach I wanted to take with it. (Still don’t have it all worked out). So I am doing a thought exercise where I just write what comes to me. (You might not notice any difference between this and my normal posts). Also, keep in mind classes just started back up for me, so my mind has taken a sabbatical for a while. *smiles*
I’ve come to the conclusion that we (writers) have to be out of our ever-loving minds. Not that we mind, but there it is.
“They're coming to take me away Ha ha … To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time.”
Looking at Devon’s list, which overwhelms me just looking at it, and knowing some of the authors that I do, we are all nuts to do this to ourselves. So many writers I know are not lucky enough to have it be their full-time job, so they are working, caring for their families/pets/friends, doing who knows what else, and in what little free time they have, they write.
I am the same way, although I don’t go to the level that some I know do, giving up sleep to stay up and write. Not because I don’t want to, but because I simply can’t – I turn into a completely different person without enough sleep, someone that no one wants to meet in a well lit room, let alone a dark alley. Simply put, I turn into a b*tch. Hello evil twin! So my family has that line that we just don’t cross.
My own insanity lies with the fact that in addition to family and all my other commitments, I am in college. Being a non-traditional student sucks. Trying to be a non-traditional student and write as well? Doesn’t always work out so well. School drains the creativity out of me, except the night before a big exam. Then I am creative as all get out, just brimming with ideas and needing to write.
How does this relate to the topic, you might be wondering at this point? Well … being a writer takes commitment. All too often in interviews we are asked the same questions over, and over, and over, and over (see my drift), and over again (I LOVE the interviews that are different!) and one of the main questions asked – “what advise can you offer to aspiring writers?”
Stick with it …
Don’t give up your dream …
Try, and try, and try again ….
What it all boils down to is commitment. If you want to be a writer, and have at least a modicum of success, you have to understand and be willing to make the commitment.
I truly think outside of marriage, and having children, being a writer is one of the biggest commitments a person could make. And unlike the others, you are making a commitment to more than just one or a few people – you are making it to dozens, potentially hundreds; your editors, readers, cover artists, readers, publisher staff, readers, publicity staff, and hopefully even more readers. All of them are expecting you to be more than a one hit wonder.
It completely boggles the mind just how many people you are saying to “Hey, I’m doing this and I am going to stick with it. You give me a chance and I won’t let you down.”
Yep, we all must be nuts. Especially when you look at characters who “talk to us”, aka we hear voices, and we get lost in our own worlds, or we hallucinate. *smiles* But, the company is good, and really, we get to share the worlds in our minds with anyone who cares to journey to them. Sometimes we even get paid for it!
So the commitment is worth the insanity, which could potentially lead to another form of commitment. *smiles*
Stylish!
And on that note, I leave you with more Dr. Demento:
“They're coming to take me away Hoho hehe haha!
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time,
and I'll be happy to see those nice young men
in their clean white coats
and they're coming to take me away haha!!”
I’ve come to the conclusion that we (writers) have to be out of our ever-loving minds. Not that we mind, but there it is.
“They're coming to take me away Ha ha … To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time.”
Looking at Devon’s list, which overwhelms me just looking at it, and knowing some of the authors that I do, we are all nuts to do this to ourselves. So many writers I know are not lucky enough to have it be their full-time job, so they are working, caring for their families/pets/friends, doing who knows what else, and in what little free time they have, they write.
I am the same way, although I don’t go to the level that some I know do, giving up sleep to stay up and write. Not because I don’t want to, but because I simply can’t – I turn into a completely different person without enough sleep, someone that no one wants to meet in a well lit room, let alone a dark alley. Simply put, I turn into a b*tch. Hello evil twin! So my family has that line that we just don’t cross.
My own insanity lies with the fact that in addition to family and all my other commitments, I am in college. Being a non-traditional student sucks. Trying to be a non-traditional student and write as well? Doesn’t always work out so well. School drains the creativity out of me, except the night before a big exam. Then I am creative as all get out, just brimming with ideas and needing to write.
How does this relate to the topic, you might be wondering at this point? Well … being a writer takes commitment. All too often in interviews we are asked the same questions over, and over, and over, and over (see my drift), and over again (I LOVE the interviews that are different!) and one of the main questions asked – “what advise can you offer to aspiring writers?”
Stick with it …
Don’t give up your dream …
Try, and try, and try again ….
What it all boils down to is commitment. If you want to be a writer, and have at least a modicum of success, you have to understand and be willing to make the commitment.
I truly think outside of marriage, and having children, being a writer is one of the biggest commitments a person could make. And unlike the others, you are making a commitment to more than just one or a few people – you are making it to dozens, potentially hundreds; your editors, readers, cover artists, readers, publisher staff, readers, publicity staff, and hopefully even more readers. All of them are expecting you to be more than a one hit wonder.
It completely boggles the mind just how many people you are saying to “Hey, I’m doing this and I am going to stick with it. You give me a chance and I won’t let you down.”
Yep, we all must be nuts. Especially when you look at characters who “talk to us”, aka we hear voices, and we get lost in our own worlds, or we hallucinate. *smiles* But, the company is good, and really, we get to share the worlds in our minds with anyone who cares to journey to them. Sometimes we even get paid for it!
So the commitment is worth the insanity, which could potentially lead to another form of commitment. *smiles*
Stylish!And on that note, I leave you with more Dr. Demento:
“They're coming to take me away Hoho hehe haha!
To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time,
and I'll be happy to see those nice young men
in their clean white coats
and they're coming to take me away haha!!”
Monday, January 11, 2010
Overcommitted and out of time
For me, commitment is the flip side of the coin of guilt.
I am impossible to live with in my own head when I falter on something I have assured myself or someone else I will do. Drive myself crazy with guilt. Therefore I am one of those perpetually early, hard-working, if-I-say-it-it's-as-good-as-done folks.
Since this is my topic, you should know that I'd had a very lengthy and in-depth treatise on commitment planned for you. Instead, what you will get is my analysis of what happened to my commitments when a nightmare of epic proportions (in my life) bloomed last Wednesday:
My daughter got sick.
In and of itself, it was "only" a stomach virus. You know, one of those gut wrenching, purging, awful nights where one should just camp out in the bathroom since you're in there every 20 minutes anyway. Where the thirst tempts you into sips you know will just come right back up. Where the end of the contents of your system is NOT the end of the extreme effort your body is making to expel...nothing.
Now put that all on a 6 year old.
Bless her, she's finally old enough to not cry about it, and made some effort to contain the mess once she was aware of it. Telling her she shouldn't be drinking anything? Didn't penetrate.
Did I mention her 3 year old sister sleeps in the same room?
Talk about a nightmare for that one. Every half hour, all night, the sounds awoke her into fits of crying and providing a running preschooler commentary on her sick sis:
"Ewww! Yucky! Sissy yucky. Mama make it stop! No!"
Older sis, between vomiting: "It's okay, budda-boo. Sissy be okay."
I was up until it ran its course around 6am, then grabbed a couple hours sleep, hoping against hope it was an isolated thing.
Home from school. she slept most of the day. I did LOTS of laundry and kept the little one from jumping on her.
****
Okay, a side note on commitment. Of course, when you take on any life change, you commit yourself in myriad ways and in all levels of importance. Becoming a parent, and moreover becoming a "good" one, is kind of the coup de grace of commitment. You've basically agreed to put this new little person first and provide for them in an unimaginable number of things.
Uber-commitment. And it can wreck havoc with other commitments in your life. Kind of trumps most anything else. Case in point:
****
One night behind on my "other" job. Okay, I'll still be able to manage. My "writing" to-be-completed-by-Monday list, which on Wednesday afternoon (pre-puking), consisted of:
Wednesday night I lost to sick daughter patrol.
Thursday night, I got sick myself. Same drill (I'll spare you the details). Then the little one began about an hour after me, husband about an hour after her. So all Thursday night, the only one sleeping in our house was the recovering 6 yr old.
She got up for school on Friday. I didn't have the heart to say no (she was already all dressed for the 'pajama party' her class had earned), but did make her eat breakfast before I gave a firm okay. Making any kind of food at this point should have earned me brownie points for life. And I still hadn't been to sleep. Watched her get on the bus and crawled to bed. Got up once around 11 and sucked it up for a trip to the store for a caffeine fix (last thing I needed was a withdrawal headache on top of everything else, wish they had a patch), saltines, soup, gatorade, ginger ale, and whatever else I could remember Mom having around. Knew no one else would do it. Sapped the life outta me.
Got home and found husband still asleep and little one lifting the lid of the toilet upstairs, dazed. Not to go potty or throw up, but looking for water...like a dog. Gave her a bit of ginger ale. She threw it up. Put her in my bed and went back to sleep.
Woke up again. Dark. Quiet. Dark?? Oh shit, Sarah! I'm officially the world's worst mom. She's sitting in the living room playing solitaire. Proudly tells me that after she got home and "everyone was SLEEPing, *humph*!" she fed herself a pb&j, watched Lord Of The Rings, read three books, and got double Yahtzee twice. Pat her on the head, sit upright for a couple hours and put everyone back to bed.
Mommy guilt is currently in overdrive, needless to say, between the toilet incident and the leave-the-door-unlocked method of welcoming Sarah home from school.
Saturday...everyone is listless. I'm lucid enough to start worrying about my work commitments and do some mental prioritizing. Nobody's eating, and the kids have Dad to play with them, so I start laundry and then hop on the computer to try to assuage the guilt starting to gnaw on my insides.
Email the first ed to say it doesn't look like I'll get the story done on her timetable, explain and apologize. Crap. Debate trying to bang it out anyway. It's only Saturday night, right?
Make sure the next load has the favorite pillows and stuffed animals in it.
Muscle my way as thoroughly as possible through two proofs and GA's edits, and get those emailed back. Whew. Okay. Those obligations met.
Try to get everyone to eat some soup. Nobody's eating. Mom in me is fretting, writer is glad I don't have to take time to do dishes.
Try to do some brainstorming on my series. Urgency is tied to the fact that the first story needs to come out in April to make it work. Email that publisher to say I'll have all the synopses in no later than mid-week.
Put everyone back to bed. Now I can get some work done. Yawn. I mean, goodnight.
Oh shit. Sunday already? Feels like it was just Wednesday. Claire's proof has come, and short and "tight" as it is, I whip through it and send it back her way. Very proud of myself.
Fix waffles by request. Two out of four eat. Continue laundry.
Sit down and make the decision to try to finish the story. Send the kids on a low-key outing with Dad, and write for three hours. All I get done is a piddling 2K, and am currently mired in a POV switch that's not working. Okay. That story is NOT going to get done by Monday. Leave it!
Dad has picked up burgers and fries. Three out of four eat (little one is getting littler by the day). No dishes again, maybe I can work on my synopses.
Family movie night, I've seen it twice, so try to brainstorm my series. Get drawn into the movie by kids instead. Still have to work on the OGG post. I'll do that as soon as they're in bed.
As soon as they're in bed, husband snags the computer. Shit. Can't say anything...after all, while I was sick, he took care of the little one while he was hurling too, plus took the kids out for the afternoon. Try not to stew about wasted time, and instead clean up the kitchen. Put shoes away (sigh). Sort the mail.
Oh right, Sunday. Sign off on daughter's homework. Find backpack. Pack lunch. Sneak up and make sure her alarm is set.
Get idea for the short story, which was dead last with the addendum "time permitting" on my list, due date is the next day, not even started. Finally get my hands on the computer and give birth to a 3K scene, synopsize it, format, and submit by 3am.
Guilt kicks in when I realize I must go to bed and still haven't written my OGG post: the only thing I haven't addressed on my list, and one of the few things graven in stone timewise.
Today "normalcy" reigns, albeit in a house that needs cleaning. Which I have put off so I could take care of my commitment to you, dear readers.
And now?? Time to plan my daughter's birthday.
For two days from now.
Talk about a commitment graven in stone. Guilty Mom to the rescuuuuue...
I am impossible to live with in my own head when I falter on something I have assured myself or someone else I will do. Drive myself crazy with guilt. Therefore I am one of those perpetually early, hard-working, if-I-say-it-it's-as-good-as-done folks.
Since this is my topic, you should know that I'd had a very lengthy and in-depth treatise on commitment planned for you. Instead, what you will get is my analysis of what happened to my commitments when a nightmare of epic proportions (in my life) bloomed last Wednesday:
My daughter got sick.
In and of itself, it was "only" a stomach virus. You know, one of those gut wrenching, purging, awful nights where one should just camp out in the bathroom since you're in there every 20 minutes anyway. Where the thirst tempts you into sips you know will just come right back up. Where the end of the contents of your system is NOT the end of the extreme effort your body is making to expel...nothing.
Now put that all on a 6 year old.
Bless her, she's finally old enough to not cry about it, and made some effort to contain the mess once she was aware of it. Telling her she shouldn't be drinking anything? Didn't penetrate.
Did I mention her 3 year old sister sleeps in the same room?
Talk about a nightmare for that one. Every half hour, all night, the sounds awoke her into fits of crying and providing a running preschooler commentary on her sick sis:
"Ewww! Yucky! Sissy yucky. Mama make it stop! No!"
Older sis, between vomiting: "It's okay, budda-boo. Sissy be okay."
I was up until it ran its course around 6am, then grabbed a couple hours sleep, hoping against hope it was an isolated thing.
Home from school. she slept most of the day. I did LOTS of laundry and kept the little one from jumping on her.
****
Okay, a side note on commitment. Of course, when you take on any life change, you commit yourself in myriad ways and in all levels of importance. Becoming a parent, and moreover becoming a "good" one, is kind of the coup de grace of commitment. You've basically agreed to put this new little person first and provide for them in an unimaginable number of things.
Uber-commitment. And it can wreck havoc with other commitments in your life. Kind of trumps most anything else. Case in point:
****
One night behind on my "other" job. Okay, I'll still be able to manage. My "writing" to-be-completed-by-Monday list, which on Wednesday afternoon (pre-puking), consisted of:
- 10K to finish a short story an editor had made a request for just after the new year.
- Final run through edits on GA Hauser's 177 page February release.
- Put together a series blurb, four full synopses, and choose titles for a series of four stories I pitched early last week to one of my pub houses.
- Proof two manuscripts (not mine, other authors for editors) on very tight schedules, sooner the better.
- Write my OGG blog post on commitment.
- Was expecting another proof from Claire Thompson for her imminent next release.
- Was also expecting first edits from my editor on my own February release.
- If I had time, write out and submit a 2-10K short story for an anthology.
Wednesday night I lost to sick daughter patrol.
Thursday night, I got sick myself. Same drill (I'll spare you the details). Then the little one began about an hour after me, husband about an hour after her. So all Thursday night, the only one sleeping in our house was the recovering 6 yr old.
She got up for school on Friday. I didn't have the heart to say no (she was already all dressed for the 'pajama party' her class had earned), but did make her eat breakfast before I gave a firm okay. Making any kind of food at this point should have earned me brownie points for life. And I still hadn't been to sleep. Watched her get on the bus and crawled to bed. Got up once around 11 and sucked it up for a trip to the store for a caffeine fix (last thing I needed was a withdrawal headache on top of everything else, wish they had a patch), saltines, soup, gatorade, ginger ale, and whatever else I could remember Mom having around. Knew no one else would do it. Sapped the life outta me.
Got home and found husband still asleep and little one lifting the lid of the toilet upstairs, dazed. Not to go potty or throw up, but looking for water...like a dog. Gave her a bit of ginger ale. She threw it up. Put her in my bed and went back to sleep.
Woke up again. Dark. Quiet. Dark?? Oh shit, Sarah! I'm officially the world's worst mom. She's sitting in the living room playing solitaire. Proudly tells me that after she got home and "everyone was SLEEPing, *humph*!" she fed herself a pb&j, watched Lord Of The Rings, read three books, and got double Yahtzee twice. Pat her on the head, sit upright for a couple hours and put everyone back to bed.
Mommy guilt is currently in overdrive, needless to say, between the toilet incident and the leave-the-door-unlocked method of welcoming Sarah home from school.
Saturday...everyone is listless. I'm lucid enough to start worrying about my work commitments and do some mental prioritizing. Nobody's eating, and the kids have Dad to play with them, so I start laundry and then hop on the computer to try to assuage the guilt starting to gnaw on my insides.
Email the first ed to say it doesn't look like I'll get the story done on her timetable, explain and apologize. Crap. Debate trying to bang it out anyway. It's only Saturday night, right?
Make sure the next load has the favorite pillows and stuffed animals in it.
Muscle my way as thoroughly as possible through two proofs and GA's edits, and get those emailed back. Whew. Okay. Those obligations met.
Try to get everyone to eat some soup. Nobody's eating. Mom in me is fretting, writer is glad I don't have to take time to do dishes.
Try to do some brainstorming on my series. Urgency is tied to the fact that the first story needs to come out in April to make it work. Email that publisher to say I'll have all the synopses in no later than mid-week.
Put everyone back to bed. Now I can get some work done. Yawn. I mean, goodnight.
Oh shit. Sunday already? Feels like it was just Wednesday. Claire's proof has come, and short and "tight" as it is, I whip through it and send it back her way. Very proud of myself.
Fix waffles by request. Two out of four eat. Continue laundry.
Sit down and make the decision to try to finish the story. Send the kids on a low-key outing with Dad, and write for three hours. All I get done is a piddling 2K, and am currently mired in a POV switch that's not working. Okay. That story is NOT going to get done by Monday. Leave it!
Dad has picked up burgers and fries. Three out of four eat (little one is getting littler by the day). No dishes again, maybe I can work on my synopses.
Family movie night, I've seen it twice, so try to brainstorm my series. Get drawn into the movie by kids instead. Still have to work on the OGG post. I'll do that as soon as they're in bed.
As soon as they're in bed, husband snags the computer. Shit. Can't say anything...after all, while I was sick, he took care of the little one while he was hurling too, plus took the kids out for the afternoon. Try not to stew about wasted time, and instead clean up the kitchen. Put shoes away (sigh). Sort the mail.
Oh right, Sunday. Sign off on daughter's homework. Find backpack. Pack lunch. Sneak up and make sure her alarm is set.
Get idea for the short story, which was dead last with the addendum "time permitting" on my list, due date is the next day, not even started. Finally get my hands on the computer and give birth to a 3K scene, synopsize it, format, and submit by 3am.
Guilt kicks in when I realize I must go to bed and still haven't written my OGG post: the only thing I haven't addressed on my list, and one of the few things graven in stone timewise.
Today "normalcy" reigns, albeit in a house that needs cleaning. Which I have put off so I could take care of my commitment to you, dear readers.
And now?? Time to plan my daughter's birthday.
For two days from now.
Talk about a commitment graven in stone. Guilty Mom to the rescuuuuue...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
One Day at a Time
By Lisabet Sarai
He's a chic lit cliché: the guy who can't commit. He loves the heroine, truly he does, and they're clearly compatible, in bed and out, but somehow he can't quite take that step. He can't make himself pop the question and join his life with hers happily ever after, 'til death do us part.
Actually, it's not a literary myth. My sister's husband was like that. It took five years, two breakups and some therapy before they finally tied the knot. I'm not ridiculing him. It was a painful and difficult process for him to get to that point. Commitment often is.
However, if you don't commit, you go through life skimming the surface, flitting from one person or activity to another, never experiencing the depth and beauty that's available. Commitment brings emotional and spiritual rewards that are well worth the pain.
The general understanding is that “commitment” is a kind of transition, a phase change, a final stepping over some line. Before you make a commitment, you're in one place. After the act, you are someplace else altogether. You commit and then you breathe a sigh of relief. That's over.
That's not the way it works, in my experience.
As I've shared before on this blog, I was anorexic in my late teens. After the acute phase was over and I returned to college, I still had anything but a normal relationship with food. I still weighed myself daily. I binged on calorie-free items like cantaloupe, cabbage and popcorn (without butter). I felt guilty whenever I ate a real meal.
To try and cope with these behaviors and feelings, I joined Overeaters Anonymous. OA is a twelve step program modeled on AA for people who have food-related disorders or addictions. I already knew something about how AA worked, as my mom was a recovered alcoholic. The first of the twelve steps, revised for the OA context, reads: “We admitted that we were powerless over food, that our lives had become unmanageable.” That was me. I wasn't overweight, but food was using up way too much of my mental and emotional energy.
In AA, you make a commitment to stay sober, to abstain from drinking alcohol. No one forces you to do this, by the way. You can come to AA forever and keep drinking; the heart of the program is that you, personally, must decide to become sober. Of course one can't abstain from food. The OA equivalent of sobriety, called “abstinence” is to eat three healthy meals a day with nothing in-between.
I made a commitment to abstinence. I tried to stop my bizarre food behaviors. I tried to release the fear of getting fat. It wasn't as easy as it might sound.
One motto of the twelve step approach is “One day at a time”. The idea is that if you tried to commit to never drinking again, ever, that would seem totally impossible. You would sabotage yourself before you even began. So, wisely, the twelve step approach advises that you simply commit to being sober (or abstinent) today. Today is all you have anyway. You could be dead tomorrow. So don't worry about what you're going to do in the future, or how you're going to survive. Focus on where you are. Focus on now. Make a commitment for today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
Simplistic as it sounds, this approach seems to work.
I've come to believe that this is the essence of all commitment. When I first thought about Devon's topic, I figured I would write about marriage. I've been married more than 27 years now—even though I never expected that I'd marry at all. It's true that my marriage is a bit atypical: we have no children, we are professional colleagues as well as mates, in our younger days we were not sexually exclusive. I suspect my marriage is easier than those of many of my readers. Still, there are times when I get fed up with my DH and really want to walk out, slamming the door behind me. (I'm sure he feels the same about me every now and again.) Or I worry about the future, as we are both getting older (and he is eleven years older than I). How will I manage if I have to be his caretaker instead of his companion and co-conspirator (as we promised in our wedding vows)?
Then I stop myself. I remember that I've made a commitment to love him, share my life with him, take responsibility for him, as he does for me. But I don't need to think about forever. I only need to reassert my commitment now, today.
This is the way that all good marriages are built, in my opinion. One day at a time. Commitment is not a single act, but a process to be repeated each day. That makes it easier—and in truth, making a commitment today is all we can really ever do.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Skin Deep
By Shanna Germain
They say I am the Beauty. Capital, like that. Beauty. In a softly brushed script that makes you feel safe, that gives you images of beauty beyond your imagining. Sometimes with flourishes and fleur-de-lis and a bird tucked into the bower of the B, as though all of those things will make it true. They even named me Belle. Which, in some ancient country, stands for beauty. All those Bs, the way they roll off the tongue. B. Buh. Buh. A stupid sound, for a stupid, pretty girl.
But B can stand for so many other things, can it not? Beast. Bad. Bare. Bones. Bitch. Blood.
I am all of those things inside. Aren’t we all?
The above is the opening to my fairy tale-themed erotica story, "Skin Deep," (which recently appeared in Circlet Press' collection, Like a Thorn). In the story, I twist all kinds of paradigms: Beauty is the dominant one. She's also a serious bitch. The pretty prince is too soft for her tastes. And in many ways, Beast is the true beauty of the story, both inside and out.
I write a lot about beauty. Of course I do: I'm a sex writer. And we all know that sex and beauty go hand-in-hand, right?
Mn. Wrong. At least not in my book.
When I think about the people I've fucked in my own real life (it's a small sample pool, but fairly diverse), I realize that the people that I've enjoyed the most, the ones who brought me the most pleasure were NOT the drop-dead gorgeous ones. The gorgeous ones wouldn't fuck if they felt fat or if they had a zit on their chin. I dated one guy who wouldn't let me touch his hair, lest I mess it up. The sexiest-looking man I ever dated was lousy in bed. And, in return, I always felt like the "beautiful people" were always evaluating me: Had I gained some weight? Was I not pretty enough to fuck today? It began to wear on my usually high level of confidence after a while.
Okay, so I'm reaching a little here: Not everyone who's beautiful is also vain and self-focused. But I have found that typically, the closer someone fits into the "accepted" idea of what's beautiful, the less time I want to spend with them, in bed or out. This is also true of the books that I read -- and write. Don't get me wrong -- a hot bod is never a bad thing, and a pretty face is likely to fill me with lust, but there's a big difference between looking and touching.
What I consider to be beautiful are the things about a person -- or a character -- that are truly theirs, that aren't mainstream or perfect. The flecks of brown in his eyes when he's aroused. That kitty-corner curl of her lips when she's reading a book she likes. The laugh lines that edge a mouth. A confident walk in a skirt. How his hair looks in a ponytail. The fact that the delightful upward turn of his cock fits inside perfectly. I like imperfections too -- Tina Fey's scar alone is enough to send me into throes of lust, forget the rest of her (and we don't have the time or space here to go into "what's really beautiful," in which case my answer has a lot to do with smarts, sense of humor and self-confidence).
I think that perhaps there are two definitions of beauty.
1. The mainstream one, which is really designed to make us feel bad about ourselves and thus, sell products. The beauty this offers -- a look, but don't touch beauty -- seems detrimental to our confidence, our sense of humanity, and our sex lives.
2. The real one, which is about our own visions and desires, about enjoying someone whose beauty suits us and completes us, in any sense of the word. This is the beauty that I try to find when I'm writing, the one that isn't obvious, the one that takes work and that changes perceptions.
It isn't always easy to accomplish this, of course. At first, when writing "Skin Deep," I found myself struggling with how to describe the Beast, how to present him to the reader, so that they would see him for the beauty he is. In the end, I just let Beauty have her way, as she is wont to do, because only she knows what makes him beautiful to her:
My heart hammers to see him. Such a huge creature he is. Such big hands. Long claws, those fine points at the end. I wonder at his teeth, the tapered sheen of their curves. At the wide pink tongue that rests within the cage of his menacing mouth. His eyes golden-brown as ripe pears, soft and tender in contrast to that sharp mouth.
And then he kneels before me, his forehead nearly brushing my covered breasts. His head bowed so that I can see the back of his neck, the tendons and muscles that strain his shoulders and upper back. I want to drag my palms over the jumping swathes of skin, pull at his hair. But I stay standing, only his breath touching me, the low snarls of want that heat the space between my thighs.
Beauty isn't just in the eye of the beholder -- it's in the eye of the reader and the writer too. One of my jobs as a writer is to show readers beauty where they thought there was none. To arouse them, not with the a fairy-tale-perfect princess in a gold lame dress -- that's too easy -- but with the dark side of the beast.
***
Shanna Germain loves to write about things that go bump in the night. Thus, her two favorite genres are horror and erotica. Her work has appeared in places like Absinthe Literary Review, Best American Erotica, Best Gay Romance, Best Lesbian Erotica, Blood Fruit: Queer Horror and many more. Visit her online at http://yearofthebooks.wordpress.com/
Friday, January 8, 2010
Voted Worst Dressed, 1987
To all you lovely people back in high school who told me time and again that my lips were too big, my face was too long, my rear was too wide, and my wardrobe was so god-awful horrible that I deserved to be voted "Worst Dressed" my senior year, I present the following evidence:
Exhibit A: My favorite "ugly" dress.
Exhibit B: Me, wearing my favorite "ugly" dress.
Darlings, over twenty years later, we still look fine.
Case closed.
*****
Helen E. H. Madden is a connoisseur of funky t-shirts, stripy socks, and ugly dresses. She was indeed voted "Worst Dressed" in her senior year of high school by a bunch of Izod-wearing freaks who went around with sticks up their butts. When she's not busy looking fabulous... oh hell, when does this woman ever not look fabulous?!
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