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
© 1947 Merle Travis
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