Janine Ashbless's Blog, page 116

Eyecandy Monday

 
Reader, I did not die of hypothermia LARPing out in the snowy woods ... though by 2 a.m. on Sunday morning it was looking like a close call for all of us. And my back was in more pain than I've known in ... years ...
We actually had a fabulous time, and the snow made it magical. I'm glad we can still push ourselves right to the limits though, even at our age :-)
I think that one of the Vodyanoi's Lovely Daughters still has possession of my bottle of lube, by the way. 

By the time you read this I'm probably dead

I went out LARPing in what the BBC news is describing as "blizzard conditions".
Overnight.

If this is my last testament to the world ... tell them I regret nothing except the green gingham trouser suit.

Super Market

Imagine my surprise this week, when I found that practically all my e-books are now available from ... Sainsbury's supermarket.

Oh Yeah!

(Sainsbury's, for those  who do not live in the UK, is a slightly up-market supermarket that sells fairtrade bananas, and fresh asparagus spears all year round. You don't actually invite class war by shopping there, just mild derision.)

Their old logo was "It's Clean, It's Fresh, It's Sainsbury's" which wouldn't do at all - there's nothing clean about my books!
Luckily they have a new logo these days:


:-D

How to Write Erotic Fiction

Amazon UK : Amazon US

How to Write: Erotic Fiction and Sex Scenes is the name of a new book by the very wonderful Ashley Lister. He's not just an author (fiction and non-fiction); he's a creative writing lecturer and a poet too. 

And this book features an excerpt from

Even better! -
This week on his How to Write Erotic Fiction blog he is featuring a
... and he asked me for my "Five Tips for Writers."

He's actually asked a whole load of publishers, writers and editors for their very practical advice about writing - not just erotica but all sorts of fiction. So if you are even remotely serious about the craft or about getting published, I'd strongly recommend reading down the whole blog - it's a mine of information.

Thank you Ashley!

Eyecandy Monday

And talking of inspiration for Cover Him with Darkness .... meet the Archangel Uriel.
:-)

Broken Crown

I rarely find inspiration for my writing in music, and - unlike many authors - I can't stand to have any playing while I write.

But sometimes I've written something and then I across a song that makes me think "Yeah, when they come to film that story, this'd make a perfect song for the closing credits!"

So here's Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons, which is just perfect for my work-in-progress novel Cover Him With Darkness . As usual, their lyrics are ambiguous and opaque (although they do use a very Christian vocabulary), but in this case the embittered chorus is just perfect for my fallen angel :

 
But oh, my heart was flawed; I knew my weakness,
So hold my hand; consign me not to darkness.

So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down;
I'll never wear your broken crown;
I took the road and I fucked it all away.
Now in this twilight - how dare you speak of grace?

Mslexia

Thanks to Nikki Magennis for the scan!Issue #57 of Mslexia magazine (March/April/May) contains a full-page article by Mitzi Szereto on writing erotic fiction. She makes a number of points that I wholeheartedly agree with - that the runaway success of Fifty Shades of Grey is a fluke, and that most genre erotica written for a female audience is just old-fashioned romance with BDSM trappings.

But she also recommends reading my work - "a British fantasy writer whose sex scenes are erotically charged as well as well crafted" (hee hee! I'm a fantasy writer!) and features Arabian Nights novel Heart of Flame in her "Three of the Best".

Thank you Mitzi!


Available in paperback and e-format:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Samhain

Do bears read in the wood?

Daytrip to Parma

Parma - noted for Parma Ham, Parmesan Cheese, bloody horrible Parma Violet sweets ... and dildos, apparently.

This large billboard was outside the train station. No, I haven't a clue what it's about either. Who or what is the Dildo Society?
Also, it was snowing!

You can't see it, but I've got my feet wrapped in plastic bags to keep the wet out.This is me standing in front of the Palazzo della Pilotta just before the blizzard hit. It's a VERY big building ... seriously, you can only see about half of the frontage in this pic. It also has very few exterior windows.

This is an interior doorway:


The Palazzo was a palace belonging to the Farnese family, who produced a bunch of dukes, cardinals and popes in the 15th thru 17th Century.

This is the private theatre in the palace - just gorgeous:

Built 1618, rebuilt 1962
The Palazzo now contains a rather awesome art gallery full of medieval paintings (no photos allowed, sadly) and an archaeological museum:

Neolithic Goddess

We went to another gallery, the Pinacoteca Stuard, where I found one of the most inappropriate and cringingly embarrassing paintings of biblical heroes ever wrought by the hand of man. How I laughed...

"Samuel educates the young boy David to the sound of the harp" (or "Get your hand off my ass, you pervert") by Giovanni Gaibazzi (1808-1888)
And the Cathedral baptisty:


which is rather lovely...

 

... to look for angels and demons. Here's some funky cherubim:

Can you imagine what they'd look like in real life?!
 And then we went to the Cathedral:


It was full of fresoes, including the usual cheerfully sadistic demon/hellfire stuff. No photography allowed again ... but the GIANT wall painting of Christ spurting his blood all over a grateful world was just so fab I had to sneak an illicit pic:

Catholicism: fifty shades of bugshit-crazy.
Mr Ashbless says he looks like SpiderJesus ("spins a web any size, catches sinners just like flies").

We didn't eat any parma ham. But we did buy some violet-flavoured jelly.

Parma ham
Parma ham
Goes nicely with
Some violet jam

Guess which earworm I've got right now?
*sigh*

Eyecandy Monday: bummed out

I managed to get myself really bummed out this weekend. Largely because I forgot the rules of Janine's Sanity Management.

So here's some therapy:




Janine's Rules of Sanity Management:

If it's the 2nd day after going back onto a low carb diet, you will feel angry and depressed. Remember this and cut yourself some slack. It is not actually the dogs, the state of the house, your disgusting fat body, the Internet, or the human race that are at fault (well, any more than usual). It's just brain chemistry and it will be fine tomorrow.If you do not write fiction for more than 3 or 4 days, you will feel restless and depressed regardless of what other fun you are having. Go bloody write something. Drop everything (except writing) and have sex.

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

A Queen music video aired on family tea-time favourite Top of the Pops in 1979. I remember it! ... Jaw-dropping in its sexuality and uncomfortably titilating (I'd have been twelve at the time), it haunted my imagination for years. For some reason it was the clapping hands that did it for me. A friend of the same age as me recalls how "shocked" his mother was.

We were trying to explain what ground-breaking raunch this was, to a much younger friend who had never seen the video. So we fished it out on Youtube.




"Maybe this is the censored version?" she suggested, puzzled.

No. We were just much more easily pleased in the Olden Days.
8-(
*feeling old*