Because I fell and bruised my thigh beyond my ability to comprehend (if you are on your computer, you can see my Instagram photo from yesterday down below, which shows the awesome bruise and just how swelled up it got), I wound up spending a huge portion of yesterday in bed.
Not because I couldn’t walk, but because the pain was excruciating.
But today, even though the bruise is obviously still there and still swollen, the pain is really minimal.
And, while CBD oil did nothing to stop that kind of pain, it did calm me the fuck down and made everything in my world seem manageable. And by “manageable” I guess I mean “just go to bed and stream The Monkees and forget about everything else in the world. ”
Oh, and I should mention here that I wound up liking that documentary, Hey, Hey We’re The Monkees, which I had started watching the other day. It was very informative and emotional.
Anyway. I also slept a lot yesterday, seeing as how I was already in bed. I didn’t get out of bed until after 5am today, which is later than I’ve been doing for quite a few weeks now.
So nothing new has been done to the new short story “Novitiate.” And at this point, if it is getting confusing:
The Guitar Hero Goes Home is now available in print with the corrected cover and the corrected text. (Also eBook — Amazon)
“Half-Moon Bride” will be available as a stand alone eBook in a few weeks (with my new publisher)
1954 Powder Blue Pickup will be coming out in print before the year is over, also with my new publisher
“Novitiate” will be part of what I currently call The Muse Revisited Vol. 4, which will also include my more popular “taboo erotica” short stories and novellas from the scope of my career. That will come out in print with my new publisher, as well, but probably not until early 2021 (especially if I don’t quit falling down on my kitchen porch).
So that’s what’s going on there, in erotica land.
In non-erotica land, the staged reading of my play, Tell My Bones, will premier online on Sunday evening EST, November 22nd. It will be free, but you will need to RSVP at an eventbrite link, which I will give to you when I have it. And if you miss the premier, you will have a window of maybe 3-5 days to watch it anyway.
Okay!
So Cave Things announced yesterday that you can pre-order the following really cute picture discs, each have one song on them from Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace, which is being released as an album and also a film in November. Here are the picture discs, drawn by Nick Cave (I believe they are each £30, except that there are only 500 copies in each title, so you need to pre-order right away).
And with that, I’m also gonna close. So have a really nice Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang!! I love you guys. See ya!!
Yes, tomorrow is allegedly bringing with it a killer frost, and so I will be bidding a fond adieu to all my petunias today.
Even though I don’t usually grow petunias, because of the virus, I wasn’t able to get what I usually like to plant in the flower boxes on the porches. However, the petunias made me really, really happy this summer. Just a constant riot of color — not to mention one of the flower boxes on the front porch served as home base to my lovely toad. (Through his impeccable patience, I eventually learned how to not water his head when watering the petunias…) (Nobody stares at you quite as patiently as a toad with water on his head.)
And in honor of tomorrow bringing the first real frost, today is an amazingly lovely fall day. Cool but not cold, sunny, with gorgeous leaves everywhere — most of them still on the trees for as far as the eye can see.
And I’m doing laundry. This is the time of year where I start to bring out the flannel sheets for my own bed – the bottom sheet, only. I don’t usually need all the flannel sheets until closer to Thanksgiving (late fall).
So everything is changing and I am doing totally okay with it. I’m not morbidly missing the summer. (We’ll see how tomorrow goes — the “new” Tom Petty album drops tomorrow. It might make me really sad and really miss the summer, but we’ll just wait and see.)
Tom Petty Wildflowers & All the Rest
I keep thinking that, one of these days, life will just be fine and I’ll be okay with everything that comes my way. (I’ve been thinking this for 60 years now, but that fact should not cloud our judgment! Today could end up being the very day when suddenly I am forever totally okay with everything…)
Okay!
Well, the publisher needs an excerpt from “Half-Moon Bride” to put on their website, and they suggest that it be, you know — erotic. To get people to want to read more of the story (i.e., to buy it).
So I’m reading it over for the first time since I wrote it, trying to process this whole insane story. It is just, like, pornographic from start to finish, gang, so where do you jump in and create an “excerpt”? You kind of have to read it from start to finish, to get any real grasp on it. Separating out even the smallest segment of it just ends up seeming like utterly insane porn, in my opinion. (Two hermaphrodites on their wedding night; one extremely giant-sized, the other one rather petite (and a truly clueless virgin). And if you don’t know those facts ahead of time, then it really comes off sounding insane.) (i.e., the clueless virgin loses her virginity while trying to come to terms with also suddenly having a P-spot and her first erection…) (aka: the joys of hermaphrodite sex!!)
But the publisher needs me to do this ASAP, because they asked for it last week, so I need to figure out an “excerpt” that will not make me seem like the most insane writer in the annals of recorded history.
Once I do that, I will get back to work on the newest erotic short story around here, “Novitiate.” (If I can come up with excerpts from either story that seem tame enough for the blog, I will post them this evening. We’ll see!)
And over at Cave Things, a new charm is coming soon that I’m sure you’ll want to grab as soon as it’s available:
Isn’t that cute?? I’m guessing it will cost about £300 (plus shipping) and sell out in about ten minutes…
All right, well. I need to go downstairs and check on that laundry and finish making the bed. I hope you have a lovely Thursday wherever you are in the world and in whatever season it is where you are!! I leave you with my driving to town & back music from yesterday. This is such a great song for driving really fast on an almost empty highway, with blue skies and gorgeous fall trees all around you for miles and miles and miles. I hadn’t listened to this song in years. Rod Stewart’s legendary version of “Rhythm of My Heart,” from his 1991 album, Vagabond. Needless to say, to get the full effect of this song, you have to turn the volume up to eleven…
Okay!! Thanks for visiting, gang. I might be back tonight to regale you with brand-new literary “erotica”. We’ll see how it goes. I love you guys. See ya!
“Rhythm Of My Heart”
Across the street the river runs
Down in the gutter life is slipping away
Let me still exist in another place
Running under cover of a helicopter blade
The flames are getting higher in effigy
Burning down the bridges of my memory
Love may still be alive somewhere someway
where they’re downing only deer
a hundred steel towns away
Oh the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words “I love you” rolling off my tongue
No never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I’ll be sailing
Photographs and kerosene light up my darkness
light it up, light it up
I can still feel the touch of your thin blue jeans
Running down the alley I’ve got my eyes all over you baby
Oh baby
Oh the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words “I love you” rolling off my tongue
No never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky I’ll be sailing
I’ll be sailing
Oh I’ve got lightning in my veins
shifting like the handle of a slot machine
Love may still exist in another place
I’m just yanking back the handle
no expression on my face
Oh the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words “I love you” rolling off my tongue
Never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I’ll be sailing
Oh the rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words “I love you” rolling off my tongue
No never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I’ll be sailing
The rhythm of my heart is beating like a drum
with the words “I love you” rolling off my tongue
Never will I roam for I know my place is home
where the ocean meets the sky
I’ll be sailing
I spent the entire day yesterday at my desk, working on “Novitiate” — the new erotic short story — and so nothing new has occurred since I blogged here yesterday morning.
I did not even have time to watch the rest of the Ronnie Wood documentary, Somebody Up There Likes Me (and if I don’t get to it here soon, I will miss my window and won’t be able to watch it without paying for it again).
I was writing clear through last night, right up until it was time to do yoga and then collapse in bed.
I’m only at 6000 words in the new story, but I’m finding that I have to keep going over and over and over these first 7 pages, because after that, it’s going to become extremely complicated. (It goes from 2 primary characters up to 15, and all of them are having sex at one point or another, so that’s gonna get kind of complicated.) So those first 7 pages have to lay some sort of believable groundwork for the remaining insanity.
I’m still really loving the story, though. And I am learning more about it every moment that I work on it — meaning, it reveals itself to me, more and more, as I continue to streamline these first few pages. I’m finding it so interesting. And so different from what I thought it was first trying to be.
I think I mentioned a few days ago that now the editors don’t really want “Half-Moon Bride” in this story collection. They want to offer it as a stand-alone short story (eBook only). I will let them make the final decision. But the more I work on “Novitiate,” the more I think that “Half-Moon Bride” doesn’t really fit with the other stories that will be in this collection. So perhaps it is best sold on its own.
Other than that microscopic world of mine…
The petunias are still blooming. It’s amazing. 5 months now, and no end in sight. I’m guessing they will keep right on blooming up until the first frost. But it is so weird to see the porches of all my neighbors and all that autumnal stuff going on there, for as far as the eye can see. And even though I cleared off my front porch and my back stoop, my kitchen porch is still a riot of blooming colors because I concentrated all the flower boxes there. And I really feel like I’m in some sort of time warp here — or “season” warp. (And, God knows, that in my mind, I’m always thinking it’s still summer, so it doesn’t help when everything in and around my house only encourages my misinterpretation of the entire world.)
I can’t emphasize enough how different my life got when I moved into this house (going on 3 years now). It’s all good, but it’s all strange. I really, really do love living here, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, but my life has gotten more and more dissociated. And even though I’m sort of accustomed to being in a dissociated mental state (for a variety of reasons), when my house starts joining me in that, it gets really difficult to explain.
You know, when I first walked through this house, I felt so much happiness in every room. I really did. And I just knew that people had been really happy here. (The house is now 119 years old — when it was first built, there was no electricity, no central heat, and no running water. Two bathrooms were eventually added on, many decades apart. And the well outside was covered up, and the fireplaces that were in every room were eventually covered up.) I still believe that people were happy here — and I still believe really strongly that at least one spirit connected to building this house is actively around here.
But I was reading recently, in a metaphysical type book, that what we perceive about a place is our own future happiness. We are perceiving the happiness of our future selves. Which I think could be true, too. I’m certainly incredibly happy here. But I do think it’s a bit of both.
Anyway, that said. Come visit!! I need help cleaning out the barn…
All righty. I’m going to get moving here. Maybe watch the rest of the Ronnie Wood documentary. Or maybe work on the new story, or maybe sit and stare and drink my coffee for a while. We shall see. (Smart money is on the latter, I think.)
Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a great Monday unfolding before you, wherever you are in the world. I’m still in a More of the Monkees frame of mind around here, so I leave you with another great song off that album, one that still brought tears to my eyes this morning, even 53 years later… “Sometime in the Morning” (1967). Listen, relax, ponder, and enjoy. I love you guys, See ya!
This morning was about phone calls and yoga. So I am just now getting around to the blog.
I know that for most of my readers, this means that Sunday is just about over where you live, so I hope you had a really nice day, wherever you are in the world.
And I really want to thank everybody for all the likes and nice feedback on that ghost story I posted last night! It was one of those stories I discovered while looking for something else and had forgotten that I had even written (12 years ago!). So it was really nice to get so much feedback on it. Thank you.
It is a really pretty day here, today. And, as usual, I will likely spend it here at my desk, writing.
There is some news, regarding my new (very long) erotic short story, “Half-Moon Bride.” If you have been following the blog for the past week or so, you know that I am re-thinking Volume 4 of The Muse Revisited. And now the re-thinking is being once again re-thought!
So the collection will now be titled something else (that I haven’t thought of yet) and contain “Half-Moon Bride,” along with another brand new story that I am currently writing, and then will also contain 6 other previously published stories — and they will all feature D/s themes (M/f and F/f) that push the boundaries of “questionable consent.” (Including “Asleep in the Dream of Life,” Necessary to Her Good,” “Gianni’s Girl,” and “Ribbon of Darkness,” among others.)
This collection will be a print book, so I’m very, very excited about that. And I will keep you posted, meanwhile, I have to write my wee bonny fingers off to get that newest short story written and turned in with everything else.
All righty.
So! It is World Animal day today, so I hope you are enjoying your many critters, hither & yon. On my Instagram page, I posted a bunch of drawings of cats that Valerie has sent me over the years — most of them drawings of my own cats, but 3 in particular (on Instagram), are famous artists with cats. One of my favorites that she did:
Diego Rivera and Cat by Valerie Wares
I just love this. She does (commissioned) paintings of pets, too, and also a comic strip — Paws for Thought Comics.
So, as I was sorting through all the many drawings she’s done of my cats over the years, I did get a little misty-eyed. She did a wonderful gold-leaf portrait of my first NYC cat — Kitty– who lived to be almost 19 years old.
The painting now hangs in my guest room. Come visit and you can see it in person!!
She was a little black & white stray that followed Valerie home one day, when Valerie was still living out in Queens a million years ago, and since, at that point, Valerie already had 7 cats of her own and I was cat-less, the stray became mine. And I went all -out and gave her the glamorous name of “Kitty,” and then she stayed with me, as I said, for almost 19 years. And she’s actually been gone for 18 years already…
Anyway, I got a little melancholy, thinking about my many beloved creatures who have passed on now. Especially the ones who actually let me cuddle them!!! (Unlike 7 cats that I have now who will remain nameless, but they know who they are!!)
Okay, I guess on that note, I’ll get to work here today. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with a song I was thinking about early this morning. I hadn’t thought of it in many-a-year! A very early monster hit for Rod Stewart (1972, I think!), “You Wear it Well.” So enjoy and I love you guys. See ya!
You Wear It Well
I had nothing to do on this hot afternoon
But to settle down and write you a line
I’ve been meaning to phone you, but from Minnesota
Hell, it’s been a very long time
You wear it well
A little old-fashioned, but that’s all right
Well, I suppose you’re thinking, I bet he’s sinking
Or he wouldn’t get in touch with me
Though I ain’t begging or losing my head
I sure do want you to know
That you wear it well
There ain’t a lady in the land so fine, oh, my
Remember the basement parties, your brothers’ karate
The all-day rock ‘n’ roll shows?
The homesick blues and the radical views
Haven’t left a mark on you
You wear it well
A little outta time, but I don’t mind
But I ain’t forgetting that you were once mine
But I blew it without even trying
Now I’m eating my heart out
Trying to get a letter through
Since you’ve been gone, it’s hard to carry on
I’m gonna write about the birthday gown that I bought in town
And you sat down and cried on the stairs
You knew it didn’t cost the earth, but for what it’s worth
You made me feel a millionaire
And you wear it well
Madame Onassis got nothing on you, no, no
Anyway, my coffee is cold, and I’m getting told
That I gotta get back to work
So when the sun goes low and you’re home all alone
Think of me and try not to laugh
And I’ll wear it well
I don’t object if you call collect
‘Cause I ain’t forgetting that you were once mine
But I blew it without even trying
Now I’m eating my heart out
Trying to get back to you
Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you
Oh, yeah
After all this, oh, it’s the same address
Since you’ve been gone, it’s hard to carry on, oh, no
Even though, for some indecipherable reason, I woke up feeling really sad this morning — even to the point of suddenly crying at the kitchen table during breakfast. I don’t think the tears had anything to do with listening to old hillbilly music, but I guess you never really know for sure. (I turned off the music, just in case.)
I slept a lot — straight through from something strange, like, 9pm last night to 5am this morning (I usually only need 5 or 6 hours of sleep). And, at some point, I even had a dream that I had already gotten up and gotten breakfast and gone back to bed so there was no reason to get up. (Weird.)
Anyway. Apparently, I was not in a big hurry for today to get here.
However, that said. Things really are okay here. So I don’t know why I was so sad. I’ve basically signed the contract for “Half-Moon Bride” with the new publisher! Yay!
And I made really unexpected progress with the new erotic novella, 1954 Powder Blue Pickup, yesterday — and by “strange” I mean that it went off into this whole unexpected storyline. To the point where, as I was writing it, I was also thinking: Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me, seriously?
But I’m still really happy with it, however, the work I need to tackle on it today will require really intense focusing (a good old 1950s-style gangbang, which was not the unexpected part). But it will be intense, nonetheless. (So, you know, you probably shouldn’t drop by unannounced today, wanting to just hang out with me…) (As if you ever do!) (I have had TWO visitors since March… two, in six months.) (Yes, I’m aware that there’s been a pandemic that whole time, but, honestly, how long are you going to keep using that as your fall-back line?? None of us here in Crazeysburg have the virus, okay??)
Anyway!!
Early this morning on Instagram, there was a post sent out by Cave Things. It was a very short video of Nick Cave working at his insanely cluttered desk — but you could only see his hands. And I thought it was amusing that he clearly had on a very nice suit, and he had all his gold rings on, but was working at this ridiculously cluttered desk.
Whereas, I have actually a very tidy desk while I’m working (because everything gets dumped on the floor first thing in the morning, then placed back on the desk in heaps when I’m done working at night.)
Still, I need a very tidy desk, or I can’t think straight. Yet I wear the sloppiest clothes you can imagine. Because I simply cannot feel encumbered by anything while I’m writing — and no jewelry, either. I can’t stand to have rings or even a bracelet on when I’m typing. I am always wearing some sort of really baggy tee shirt, and either baggy cargo shorts in summer, or a pair of baggy men’s lounge pants the rest of the year, and nothing on underneath any of that because I absolutely cannot stand to feel constricted in any way, and I am always barefoot at my desk because I can’t even stand to feel like my feet are constrained while I’m writing. (My flip-flops stay neatly at the side of my desk because I put them back on the absolute minute I stand up from my chair…)
I know! It’s almost like I’m neurotic, or something — right??
And add to that vision of loveliness the unlit, unfiltered cigarette that is always dangling from my mouth now whenever I’m at my desk… and the very real fact that I almost never remember to even comb my hair. Although I do brush my teeth twice a day!! But I usually also forget to wash my hair because I’m always in such a big hurry to get out of the shower and be neurotic about something…
Anyway. I did think that little video of Nick Cave’s hands was really cool!
Okay.
A mini-update regarding the print edition of The Guitar Hero Goes Home. Valerie is still trying to get the cover art to behave. And until that gets fixed, I have not fixed the formatting issue I’m having with the printed text, because I want to upload it all at once. You can still read it just fine, I’m just not 100% happy with the layout (it makes me insane, actually). But the eBook version is completely fine. So there are no problems with that. (There was one typo that I fixed last week.)
Anyway. It’s frustrating. But ever-onward we go.
And then yesterday, I got an email from the director of my play (Tell My Bones), wherein he was giving me the link to share in the dropbox that all the various technical director/ producer type people were already sharing in as they do all the necessary work to get the staged reading of my play ready to go.
Well. I was stunned. Literally. Because I had absolutely no clue that all this WORK was already well underway, involving all these professional theater people. I honestly was totally overwhelmed. WTF, right? How long has this been going on? While I’m here at my desk, thoroughly unconstrained by everything imaginable and spending hours and hours and hours and days and days and days writing incredibly intense erotica…
It was a very weird feeling.
Okay, it looks like a pretty day here today, but it’s heading down into the low 40s Fahrenheit tonight and for the next few nights, so the houseplants are coming indoors for the season and I have to once again create that literary barrier between the palm tree and the cats.
Literary barrier awaiting the houseplants!
Meaning, that I have to stack books as precariously as possible all around the palm tree so that the cats get scared away from trying to eat the palm leaves and thus absolutely ruining the poor tree.
It just feels like it’s too early to be doing all this, but I guess it is what it is this year. And on we go.
Okay. I’m going to get started here today. Have a nice Friday wherever you are in the world!! And enjoy whatever you’re wearing and enjoy whatever you’re doing!! I will endeavor to get my mood on a more even keel and try to have a good day here, as well. Meanwhile, I leave you with this morning’s breakfast-listening sad hillbilly music! Stonewall Jackson’s huge Country hit from 1962, “Leona.” (I just fucking LOVE the piano on this song — if it doesn’t make you want to drink and smoke, I don’t know what will.) So, then. All righty, thanks for visiting, gang!! I love you guys. See ya.
Leona
Leona, Leona,
You tell him you’re through
You tell him, Leona, about me and you
You tell him we’re married with a baby of two
You tell him, Leona,
You tell him you’re through.
You laughed as I pleaded, and walked out the door
To meet him, to kiss him, to shame me once more
I knew where to find you
Just follow the sign:
Dancing and dining, cocktails and wine
The sidewalk was crowded in front of the bar
I heard the sirens of the black police car
Two bodies lay crumpled, a woman, a man
His wife stood there by you,
A gun in her hand
Leona, Leona,
It’s over and through
The baby is crying and calling for you
For me there’s no difference
I knew for so long
That some day you’d leave me
And now you are gone
Yes!! So the very good news is that I did sell “Half-Moon Bride” to the new publishers! I am so excited, gang. As soon as the contract is signed/sealed/delivered, I will give you the details. But I could not be happier.
And then, after really struggling for several hours yesterday over it, it became clear that the new erotic short story, “1954 Powder Blue Pickup,” is indeed going to be a novella.
What I struggled over was the intensity level — having to do with (very) “questionable consent” — and once I realized that it had to happen, that the story was going in that direction almost in spite of me, then it became clear that it would be a novella. (The “short” story is already at 17,000 words. Novellas, technically, run from 17,000 to about 40,000 words.)
Even though most of my stories contain questionable consent scenarios in one way or another because I am almost always writing from a POV of D/s, and even though I have a short story up there in the vault that relies heavily on extremely questionable consent, it’s presented as something that is unfolding in a woman’s mind (which is a paper-thin device, but still…).
And in “1954 Powder Blue Pickup,” it’s not happening in anyone’s mind. Not that it is that terribly intense, I just was not completely sure I was committed to going there. It was the main reason I got bogged down in Pasolini’s Salò and Sade’s book 120 Days of Sodom on Sunday. And even, to a lesser extent, Gaspar Noé’s film Irreversible (meaning just the rape scene and not all the other violence). For me, it is mostly about the minds that created these expressions and what they needed from the creation of them and how people then become part of what was created by joining their minds to it in one way or another.
I’ve always struggled with knowing or not knowing what the responsibilities are when you create something either non-consensual or of questionable consent, and put it into the world.
Anyway, the struggle is over regarding “1954 Powder Blue Pickup,” because I finally wrote the section that was asking to be written, and it took me about 10 hours yesterday to write 3 pages. Literally. But it’s done. And then I collapsed in bed around 11pm and was absolutely out like a light until morning.
And so, the weather has really gotten cool — especially at night. And I am now contemplating bringing the house plants back inside now. Fall seems to be coming really quickly this year. So we’ll see. September usually does that thing where it tricks you into thinking it’s Fall, and then it soars back up to the 90s for 10 straight days in a row. Yet, sometimes, it’s just Fall and it stays Fall.
So here is another really, really interesting thing!
Yesterday, from my upstairs window, I saw the cute blond guy getting into the passenger’s side of a car in his driveway, and a blonde woman was getting into the driver’s side and it sort of looked, from 5 houses away, that maybe she was his mom. She had long straight blonde hair — like his– and she seemed to be a little too old to be a sister.
So I watched as the car came right past my open window and stopped at the stop sign and I noticed several things. Yes, that woman was old enough to be his mom. And the car was a brand-new Honda Civic, like mine, except that mine is molten lava-colored, and this one was electric blue. AND it had dealer plates. And it wasn’t from the Honda dealership here in Muskingum County but from the dealership where I lease my own Honda, in the next county over.
And then I remembered how, every time I go into the show room side of the dealership, there are always tons of sales men but only one sales woman and she has long straight blonde hair!
OMG, right?? Jesus. I have probably sort of “known” that boy’s mom for about 4 years already. So fucking weird. And not just that she is likely his mom, but also that anyone I would ever see anywhere else at all in the world could possibly live on my street in the tiniest village known to man!! How fucking odd.
So that was cool!!
All righty!! I’m finishing up the laundry here. Then I’m gonna get back to “1954 Powder Blue Pickup.” Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning!! Tennessee Ernie Ford’s huge hit from 1955, “Sixteen Tons” — written by Merle Travis in 1947, who was just really an amazing songwriter. (16 tons refers to coal miners and the amount of coal they had to mine, and then, back in the old days, the coal-mining towns had stores run by the coal companies that extended the miners tons & tons of credit, so the miners were usually very in debt to the Company store and saw no way out of their bleak lives.) So, well, I guess enjoy!All righty. I love you guys. See ya!
“Sixteen Tons”
Some people say a man is made out of mud
A poor man’s made out of muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong
You load sixteen tons, whattaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don’cha call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one morning when the sun didn’t shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number-nine coal
And the straw boss said, “Well bless my soul!”
You load sixteen tons, whattaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don’cha call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
I was born one morning, it was drizzlin’ rain
Fightin’ and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in the canebreak by an old mama lion
Can’t no high-toned woman make me walk the line
You load sixteen tons, whattaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don’cha call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
If you see me comin’ better step aside
A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don’t getcha then the left one will
You load sixteen tons, whattaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don’cha call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
Okay, I’m back!! And my new erotic short story, “Half-Moon Bride” is indeed done!!
Yay!!
I’m very, very happy with it. I will keep you posted on when it will become available, and in what way and from where.
I want to post some sort of excerpt here on the blog, but the story is just so intense, and told in such an extreme way, that posting just a section of it would be too out of context and probably seem too extreme. (Most of the story pushes the boundary of “questionable consent,” but reading it from page one, you do sort of get the underlying audacity of it — it is sort of rapturous and even a little humorous.)
Anyway, I have to give it some thought.
Meanwhile, today I am doing a final read-through to check for typos, etc., then I’m sending it off to the potential publisher.
Then, I’m going to get started on another new erotic short story, as well as try to make some headway in editing the upcoming The Muse Revisited Volume 4, Selected Erotic Fiction, 1994-2012. (If you have read any of the other volumes in the series, you have perhaps noted that some of that stuff needs some conscientious editing — I should have realized that before letting those other volumes go to press.)
Anyway. I wouldn’t want Valerie to have to go too long without having another book cover design to tear her hair out over!
So, it is indeed a glorious holiday weekend around here! Just unbelievably perfect weather. You have no idea. And our teenage motorcycle boy has indeed been out and about, zoom-zooming all over the tiny town and seeming happy as the proverbial clam.
Now that I know which house he lives in, I have noticed that an older guy (brother maybe?) seems to fix up old cars. Whether this is for a living or is a hobby, I have no clue. I don’t actually spend all day staring at their house, much as I would like to. (Much as I would like to actually go over there and hang out!!) But it fascinates me. So much life in that boy and he is in the teeny-tiniest place on Earth — practically. And the odds are high that he’ll hook-up with some girl from the high school, start raising babies and stay here in Muskingum County for the rest of his life.
And knowing what I know about most of the rest of the world — it does not seem like a bad idea at all. It takes a long time for the garbage in the world to permeate Muskingum County. It really does.
Okay, well, I guess I’ll get started here. Not much going on but writing and beautiful weather!! Please don’t forget that my newest novel, The Guitar Hero Goes Home, is now on sale! In trade paperback and Kindle eBooks. (For now. It will branch out to other outlets later this fall.) In the meantime, have a wonderful Sunday, wherever you are in the world!!
I leave you once again with Nick Cave’s version of “Cosmic Dancer”, from the (finally) just-released Marc Bolan tribute album, Angel-Headed Hipster. The song was going through my head all night and when I woke-up first thing this morning, so I played it all through breakfast. Enjoy, and thanks for visiting, gang!! I love you guys. See ya.
Well, today did not go anywhere near as planned, so I am posting this tonight, and it will serve as tomorrow morning’s post, gang.
I really want to be able to get started first thing tomorrow morning on “Half-Moon Bride” and see if there’ s any chance whatsoever that I can get it completed tomorrow, or at least very close to completed. Mainly, I just want to be able to get this story off to that new publisher and see if my upcoming erotic stories are going to be a good fit for them or not, so that I can re-direct my publishing focus, if possible.
Today was intense. It started out seeming like a perfect day — everything seemed perfectly suited for just sitting at my desk and writing — including the amazing weather. Loyal readers of this lofty blog are no doubt intensely aware that I’m trying to write the final “anal sex scene extravaganza” and then the (rather long) short story will finally be done.
But now it turns out that my 90-year-old father is having severe prostate problems again and has to go into the hospital next week for more tests and to see if he needs more surgery. And suddenly, this intense anal sex scene between two hermaphrodites that was in front of me on my laptop is blown right out of the water and all I can think about for the remainder of the day is my 90-year-old dad’s prostate.
Try as I did, I could not get that vision out of my darn head. I could not write anything anally erotic at all.
I even tried looking at pornhub and motherless.com, to see if maybe I could you know, get in the mood or something, and everything suddenly looked absolutely disgusting to me. Not a feeling I generally have regarding porn.
So I went outside and took a walk. I tended to my petunias. I vacuumed the house again. I finally watched the end of Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears on Acorn TV. Nothing could re-direct my focus. So I finally gave up.
I’m hoping that by tomorrow, my thoughts will be my own again and I can get back on track here.
But it is indeed a truly lovely evening here tonight. I sat out on my kitchen porch for quite awhile and I thought, well, maybe the blond boy will drive by on his motorcycle, and I can see him sort of up close rather than just from my upstairs window — and the very moment I thought that, he walked right past me! Right past my porch. He wasn’t on his motorcycle.
And I figured that since it’s a Friday night on a holiday weekend and he’s a teenager, he’s probably heading to some sort of party/gathering where everyone is drinking beer and smoking weed around a bonfire — and he doesn’t want to risk fucking up his motorcycle. So I thought that was pretty cool. (And I also thought it was pretty cool that the very moment I thought of him, he was suddenly standing right in front of me…)
So that was my big entertaining event here in Crazeysburg this evening!
Now I’m going to find an old movie to watch (Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief is looming large in my queue, even though I’ve seen it many, many times. I just love it! The French Riviera, the fashions, the sexy rapport between Grant & Kelly…) (If that doesn’t make me stop thinking about my dad’s prostate I’m guessing that nothing will!)
Okay, well, I hope that you have a great Friday night if you’re reading this early — or a terrific Saturday if you’re reading this tomorrow! I was thinking some more about that new Nick Cave tee shirt on Cave Things (see my post from earlier today) and it struck me as really cute that the tee shirt says “don’t touch me” but the spider on the tee shirt is made of felt and sort of calling out to be touched. And apparently, the drawing of the spider is based on an actual tarantula trapped in amber that he owns, and of course the line “don’t touch me” is a lyric from his song “Girl in Amber.” So, well, that’s one of the many things I was thinking about while trying to not think about other things that I was thinking about today!
And that’s a round about way of saying that I’m leaving you with “Girl in Amber” from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ Skeleton Tree album from 2016. I think I’ve posted it here before, but this is the version from the Live in Copenhagen movie, not the official video. It’s a really beautiful song, and even while I don’t completely understand it, I identify with it very intensely, for some reason. Okay, so enjoy! And have a great Saturday. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys! See ya.
“Girl In Amber”
Some go and some stay behind
Some never move at all
Girl in amber trapped forever, spinning down the hall
Let no part of her go unremembered, clothes across the floor
Girl in amber, long to slumber, shuts the bathroom door
The phone, the phone, the phone it rings, it rings, it rings no more
The song, the song, the song it spins since nineteen eighty-four
The phone, the phone, the phone, it rings, the phone, it rings no more
The song, the song it’s been spinning now since nineteen
And if you want to bleed, just bleed
And if you want to bleed, just bleed
And if you want to bleed, don’t breathe a word
Just step away and let the world spin
And now in turn, you turn
You kneel, lace up his shoes, your little blue-eyed boy
Take him by his hand, go move and spin him down the hall
I get lucky, I get lucky cause I tried again
I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you’ve been gone
I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world
In a slumber til your crumble were absorbed into the earth
Well, I don’t think that any more the phone it rings no more
The song, the song it spins now since nineteen eighty-four
The song, the song, the song it spins, it’s been a spinning now
And if you’ll hold me I will tell you that you know that
And if you want to leave, don’t breathe
And if you want to leave, don’t breathe
And if you want to leave, don’t breathe a word
And let the world turn
The song, the song it spins, the song, it spins, it spins no more
The phone, it rings, it rings and you won’t stay
Don’t touch me
Don’t touch me
Don’t touch me
Don’t touch me
I am of course just kidding ! Clearly, those are cats having tea at the club!
These are, in fact, pornographers hard at work:
Anyway!!!!!
Yes, well, I hate to label what I write as “pornography,” try as most people have done, over the decades, to get me to see it that way. I still call it “literary erotica.”
However, that said, “Half-Moon Bride,” my new erotic short story that is inching ever closer to completion, is probably leaning way over to the pornographic side of any “erotica” I’ve ever written.
I just cracks me up, gang. The story is just so intensely intense. And there is just no story arc whatsoever — unless you consider going from “being a virgin to being absolutely in no way whatsoever a virgin” a story “arc”…
However, even if I say so myself, it is very well written!
Yesterday, as I sort of paved the literary way for the grand “anal sex” finale of the story, I spent no less than 8 hours writing and re-writing and re-writing yet again, the 2 pages that lead up to the beginning of the anal sex stuff. It’s just unreal. It’s like this story is never going to end. Everything is so tightly focused. (I’m already at 22 pages, 13,000 words, and except for some plot set-up on the first page, the entire thing is sex. The entire thing. There’s next to no dialogue. No exposition. Very little to explain the setting — of course we know that there’s a full moon. And it’s their wedding night. But the rest is just endless, really tightly focused sex.)
Still, I am really having a blast writing this. I will give up saying that I
“think I am going to finish it today,” because it’s clear that I have absolutely no idea anymore. All I know is that I want to finish as soon as I can because I want to send it off to the new publisher to see if it’s a good fit for them. And then go on to the next story, which is already tumbling around in my head.
On a related note… You might have seen my update last evening regarding The Guitar Hero Goes Home.
It is no longer for sale as an eBook on Smashwords. For now, it is only in Kindle Select, so that means it is part of Kindle Unlimited right now, so you can get it for free as an eBook on Kindle. (Or get it in trade paperback for $9.95.)
Once the 90-day restriction of Kindle Select expires, I will publish it as a global eBook through Lulu.com. The Windows 10 platform is not formatting the ePub file the way Smashwords wants it (they need it based on the 2007 model of Word docs.) And I already tore my hair out trying to learn the Windows 10 platform, and it works just fine on Kindle. So, since I no longer have 2007, which I need in order to format it for Smashwords, I had to simply remove it from there.
All of my other self-published titles are still available as eBooks on Smashwords, but I guess that, until they update their style guide for formatting ePubs with Windows 10, I won’t be publishing any new eBooks on Smashwords .
And you probably also saw by now the photo I took of the boy on his motorcycle zooming past my house yesterday afternoon, on his way home from school.
Well, as luck would have it, after I finally finished working on the short story last evening, I got up from my desk, and was standing in front of the window in my bedroom that faces east, and I saw the boy backing his motorcycle into the garage for the night. So now I know where he lives! His house is across the street from mine, 5 houses down the street. Which means that the train basically runs through his backyard!
His house is one of those modular homes, which means it’s basically a really big mobile home. No basement, no attic, one-story. But it’s a nice one, and really well maintained. (And this morning, when I got out of bed at 5am, I noticed an incredibly bright star over his house. I’m not kidding. I’m guessing it was a planet or something, it was shining so bright. I’m not sure which star would have been in the eastern sky and shining so brightly at that hour. Anyway, I thought that was kind of interesting.)
So here’s this teenage boy, just really good-looking, long straight blond hair, growing up in the tiniest town you can imagine, in a trailer home, with a freight train running through his backyard about 5 times a day , and he drives a motorcycle, and he smokes cigarettes, and he seems like just the happiest boy I have ever seen — he is always smiling. I can only imagine that every girl at that high school is in love with him.
And it makes me think that his parents have probably just been really, really good to him. He just looks to me like somebody who is so loved.
Okay, so, Nick Cave’s Cave Things has a new tee shirt on pre-order. This one seems to be referencing his song “Girl in Amber” (the lyric “don’t touch me”), but with a nice felt spider as a cool accent! You can pre-order it here.
Okay, then!
Well, I guess I’m going to get started here today and see if we can’t move these happy hermaphrodites into some sort of anal sex extravaganza today!! And bring this short story to a close. We shall see. I at least managed to get them out onto the terrace before I quit writing last night. (Yes, they went from the enormous marriage bed, back out to the enormous stone terrace, overlooking the mountainside in the moonlight to have their anal sex — because I’m thinking that’s just how it is, right? We go outside to the terrace to have anal sex on our wedding nights…)
My god. Anyway. So I’m leaving you with a Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds song again today, this one from 1997, “Come into My Sleep,” which is on B-Sides & Rarities (2005). Enjoy it! I hope you have a great Friday, wherever you are in the world — and if you live Stateside, I hope you are gearing up for a great holiday weekend — officially, the last weekend of “summer.” (I’m guessing that a certain boy on his motorcycle will be zooming past my house all weekend long, with it being a holiday and the weather is expected to be absolutely perfect.) Okay. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!
“Come Into My Sleep”
Now that mountains of meaningless words
and oceans divide us
And we each have our own set of stars
to comfort and guide us
Come into my sleep
Come into my sleep, oh yeah
Dry your eyes and do not weep
Come into my sleep
Swim to me through the deep blue sea
upon the scattered stars set sail
Fly to me through this love-lit night
from one thousand miles away
And come into my sleep
Come into my sleep oh yeah
As midnight nears and shadows creep
Come into my sleep
Bind my dreams up in your tangled hair
For I am sick at heart, my dear
Bind my dreams up in your tangled hair
For all the sorrow it will pass, my dear
Take your accusation, your recriminations
and toss them into the ocean blue
Leave your regrets and impossible longings
and scatter them across the sky behind you
And come into my sleep
Come into my sleep
For my soul to comfort and keep
Come into my sleep
First of all, continuing in the happy theme of my post here last night, The Guitar Hero Goes Home is now available everywhere! As an eBook, on Kindle, and as a trade paperback !!!!!
[UPDATE: I have removed the eBook from Smashwords.]
My test proof for the print edition doesn’t arrive until tomorrow, but I already saw an online proof and I know I’m not going to make any changes, so the fact that it is already for sale is fine.
There are only 2 things that really bother me, that I could not change — the page numbering — where Page 1 begins on the Copyright page. And then the pages that set off the different sections — i.e., Part I, Part II, Part III, etc. — I could not give those their own, stand alone pages. Traditionally, they should appear on the right hand side of the book, with nothing printed on the back of the page. But they wouldn’t allow me to have any blank pages. So I find the formatting weird, but it can’t be changed and it won’t keep me from selling the book.
So it’s ready!!!!
In other brief news — I think I may have a publisher for “Half-Moon Bride”, even as a stand alone short story. I don’t know for sure yet, but I will keep you posted! And if it works out, then it could be likely that all my new hardcore D/s erotica that pushes the boundary of “questionable consent” could have a new home.
After yesterday’s seemingly endless nightmare, just trying to get the fucking eBook published for The Guitar Hero Goes Home, I would be happy to focus on writing as much as I can, and less on publishing when at all possible.
I have not formatted an ePub doc for eBook publishing since upgrading to the Windows 10 laptop. And the upgrade made all my old style-guides for creating ePub docs 100% obsolete.
So, what used to be something I could do almost on automatic, became something I had to learn all over again.
I was not at all in the mood for that yesterday, gang. I was having a seriously not happy day. And almost every single thing I needed to do to format that stupid ePub file got fucked up, and I spent hours sitting here at my desk, pretty much saying “Are you fucking kidding me??!!” every 5 minutes… I had to keep starting over, and starting over, and starting over.
Eventually, I took a piece of a piece of a piece of a Tylenol PM, so that I could at least calm down without actually going to sleep. And I started yet again, and finally figured out what the fuck I was supposed to do to get everything to work right. And at long last, it did.
And so it “went to press” as it were! And since it is not an erotic title, but merely “adult”, it means I did not have to go through the outraging insanity of having the Amazon keyword machine reject the entire manuscript based on a keyword it detected as objectionable yet without enlightening me to what taboo words were triggering the rejection.
Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that this happened to me when I published The Muse Revisited, Vol.1 (on both Amazon and Smashwords back in 2012, or whenever it was), but Amazon rejected the manuscript without telling me why.
I eventually discovered, through endless and annoying trials and errors, that the thing that was triggering the rejection was in my short story “Muriel the Magnificent.” When Muriel is 7 years old, she gets a spanking from her dad, with her pants down– and the scene is not erotic at all. In fact, it’s the key scene of the whole story — it sets up Muriel as an adult, who is unable to feel erotic about her own body. And she finally learns how to open up by accidentally seeing porn on the Internet.
This was back when the Internet was still brand new. And the story was written expressly for a British compilation at Hodder- Stoughton, The New English Library Book of Internet Stories (a non-erotic collection — mine was the only erotic story in there, but it was included because the story was good). And the story was indeed a huge hit. It got picked up as one of the best erotic stories of that year. And by the time I was trying to publish the eBook of The Muse Revisited, Vol.1 on Amazon, “Muriel the Magnificent” had already been picked up for publication in a few other collections, in the US and overseas — all of which were on sale on Amazon and had been on sale on Amazon for several years.
But since eBooks at Amazon are judged by keyword machines and not human editors, and since my eBook was labeled as “erotica,” a 7 year-old girl simply can’t get spanked by her dad with her pants down, regardless of the context. So they spit back the entire book. And kept spitting it back, and kept spitting it back, until I finally figured out what the problem was, and as much as I hated to do it, I had to completely censor that key scene in order to get the book published. (So, yes, if you only know that story from The Muse Revisited collection, you’ve read a censored version of the story.)
Anyway, that’s annoying as hell, but it didn’t happen this time. Yay.
So — The Guitar Hero Goes Home is at long last published. I hope you’ll read it. There is sex in there, gang!! But … alas, not a lot (although there is a really cool spanking scene in it!!) Perhaps that will entice you… (Although it’s between 2 adults and… alas, it is not eroticized. It’s in fact one of those spankings that you don’t want to get…)
But anyway. I’m very happy and I can’t wait to get my test proof of it tomorrow. To hold it in my hot little hands.
And I’m glad that at least the next 2 publishing projects are not going to require ePub files!! They are strictly POD. Thank God.
Well!! In case you were really busy doing something on July 23rd and weren’t able to catch Nick Cave’s solo concert on Dice — Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace — the Nick Cave website announced this morning that there will be a theatrical release of the concert, starting November 5th, and that there is also an album coming — vinyl, CD, and streaming — November 20th. All the details are here.
I have to say that every time I see the title of that show, I always think it says Nick Cave Alone at “Berlin Alexanderplatz” — which was this amazing TV miniseries from Germany, back in 1980, adapted from a German novel of the same name about Berlin as it gradually falls under Nazi influence. It was directed by Fassbinder. I think you can probably stream it online — and you should, if you can. It was really, really good. However, Nick Cave is not in it, alone or otherwise. (But that should not deter you from broadening your intellectual horizons.)
Well, all righty!!! I need to get started here today. I haven’t done my yoga yet — I guess I’m still in the mindset of rejecting routines. But I do want to do it since I didn’t do yoga yesterday. And then I need to finally finish “Half-Moon Bride.” Which means we need to have copious amounts of anal sex! Well, the characters do, at any rate. (However, if you’re feeling like your own day needs to move in that direction as well, far be it from me to attempt to dissuade you!!)
To be honest, my life is a little challenging right now, for reasons that I don’t want to post about, so to spend the rest of the day, sitting at my desk, encouraging our 2 love birds to have copious amounts of anal sex, as their wedding night wanes and before the sun comes up and our half-moon bride loses her erection for an entire 30 days… Well, that to me, sounds like a really great way to spend the day.
I hope Thursday is as good to you, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting, gang. My breakfast-listening music today was once again from Tom Petty & the Heartbreaker’s Live Anthology (2009). This time, “Square One,” recorded live in Missouri, June 17th, 2006. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a song that gives me a lot of hope. I know, somehow, I’m going to get to a good place. Okay, I love you guys. See ya.
“Square One”
Had to find some higher ground.
Had some fear to get around.
You can say what you don’t know.
Later on won’t work no more.
Last time through I hid my tracks.
So well I could not get back.
Yeah my way was hard to find.
Can’t sell your soul for peace of mind.
Square one, my slate is clear.
Rest your head on me my dear.
It took a world of trouble, took a world of tears.
It took a long time to get back here.
Tried so hard to stand alone.
Struggled to see past my nose.
Always had more dogs than bones.
I could never wear those clothes.
It’s a dark victory.
You won and you are so lost.
Told us you were satisfied,
but it never came across.
Square one, my slate is clear.
Rest your head on me my dear.
It took a world of trouble, took a world of tears.
It took a long time to get back here.
Marilyn's Room 