R.B. O'Brien's Blog, page 12

FIRST LOVE

“The young habitually mistake lust for love, they're infested with idealism of all kinds.” 
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Good morning, friends. Join me for my #ThursdayThoughts.

Last week, I had asked a question that, as many of you know, has now sadly disappeared. So because I lost all of your responses, I hope you will humor me again and answer: At what age did you first fall in love? And was it really love or looking back, do you understand it differently?

I first fell in love (I'm not counting my crush at 8 in the hospital when I got my tonsils out ;)) when I was 13. Sigh. He was a football player; I, a cheerleader. And he was a poet, a brooding poet, who left me morsels in my locker and on my notebooks and kissed me for the first time under my favorite tree as he trailed his hand up the side of my body, giving me goosebumps I won't ever forget. And I know it was real love. We still have a relationship today. He moved. And then I took up with his best friend. But that I shall leave alone.

So how about you? Share with me. And--was it real?
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(For the record, I first asked for a WIP I'm working on.)

#THURSDAY THOUGHTS Entry October 19th

FIRST LOVE “The young habitually mistake lust for love, they're infested with idealism of all kinds.” 
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Good morning, friends. Join me for my #ThursdayThoughts.

Last week, I had asked a question that, as many of you know, has now sadly disappeared. So because I lost all of your responses, I hope you will humor me again and answer: At what age did you first fall in love? And was it really love or looking back, do you understand it differently?

I first fell in love (I'm not counting my crush at 8 in the hospital when I got my tonsils out ;)) when I was 13. Sigh. He was a football player; I, a cheerleader. And he was a poet, a brooding poet, who left me morsels in my locker and on my notebooks and kissed me for the first time under my favorite tree as he trailed his hand up the side of my body, giving me goosebumps I won't ever forget. And I know it was real love. We still have a relationship today. He moved. And then I took up with his best friend. But that I shall leave alone.

So how about you? Share with me. And--was it real?
​
(For the record, I first asked for a WIP I'm working on.)

It's Shakespeare's Birthday! Five Shakepeare Quotes to Live By

I love Shakespeare. That's no secret. So I won't dwell on the whys, except to say that I come back to it over and over only to find a different nuance, a deeper meaning, a place to cry, to laugh, to find the romantic, to see beautiful tragedy and feel it in my bones, and even to find the erotic.

Every Sunday I tip my hat to the Bard in something I call Shakespeare Sunday. I share something on Facebook, and I use the hashtag #ShakespeareSunday on Twitter. I'm pretty sure I didn't invent the idea, but I've embraced it and have been doing for almost two years now.

Please join me in celebrating a few of my favorite, and lesser known, quotes by the esteemed Bard.

1. King John: "And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse."
To me this is a very important quote to remember. We must take responsibility for our actions. We mustn't blame others, and there is nothing worse than someone who doesn't say sorry. I will not be that person. I will make mistakes, but I will own them when I do. Too many people hurt each other and don't accept their part in the mess. I wish more people would think about not only the beauty in admitting faults, but seeing that forgiveness can only be achieved with honesty.

2. Two Gentlemen of Verona: "Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears. Moist it again, and frame some feeling line. That may discover such integrity." There is nothing more powerful for a writer and a reader than feeling the emotion poured into a work. My favorite works, both of my own writing and of others, is filled with wounds. It's what makes us human, it's what connects us, and it's why I got lost in reading and in writing, to feel. If I don't feel it on an emotional level, it has no impact on me. What I love about this line is its irony. Shakespeare writes with brilliant integrity. I'm surprised this quote doesn't get more attention. His words will never be dry as long as we continue to read them, an echo of his famous sonnet's last couplet in "Shall I Compare Thee..." It's every writer's dream to be immortalized.  "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

3. Much Ado About Nothing: "I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes."  This makes it onto the list for its mere romanticism. It shows the very living and breathing of love. Love. What makes us feel alive. That. What is often missed is the subtle sexual allusion to the orgasm, "to die in," and the idea of la petit mort. It is worth every moment, a love that passionate, even if it kills us, the memory of it forever buried in the window of one's eyes. A love that strong and a passion that felt remains in a person's heart. We all live to find that penultimate. It makes me sigh every time I read it.

4.  A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind." This quote says it all, even if possibly out of context. Attraction. Lust. Love. It may begin by some physical attraction, but it won't last if the minds aren't connected. This rings so true in today's world with the internet and social media. It's amazing to me that regardless of the century, the human condition remains the same. We live to love and feel. I can't tell you how many people I have connected to strongly without ever having seen them. Words. The mind. The connection to another human being goes far beyond their looks. And to truly love, I would wager that the minds connect on some "soul" level. And when it does, it makes every heartache endured to get to that point worth it every time.

5. The Merchant of Venice: "With mirth and laughter old wrinkles come."  Though one of the more commonly known quotes, I would be remiss if I didn't share a nod to the Bard's birthday! But more than that, it's true, especially today. So many people worry about their appearance. The media, society, pressure to look a certain way. But without laughter, without letting yourself live, you won't. It's really that simple. Let life knock the crap out of you. And look at every wrinkle as a stroke from the varied palette that painted who you are. For true love looks with the mind, not the eyes. Haven't you heard? Celebrate each mark that has made you uniquely you. Share your favorite, timeless Shakespeare quotes and join me in saying, Happy Birthday, Will. 

What is Found Poetry?

I love the written word. The beauty that can be found in just the right words, put together just the right way to make me feel something. And I cringe when writers of prose tell me they’re not poets. Of course they are. Poetry is prose with line breaks. And Found Poetry is a beautiful example of that.

The Academy of American Poets (poets.org) describe Found Poetry as follows:

“Found poems take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems...
"A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.”

Many people don’t think it’s a legitimate medium or a “real” poem. I disagree. I’ve taken a few of my favorite writers and positioned them in such a way as to turn something already beautiful and romantic into a new work, with a different heartbeat, a different cadence, a different breath, ultimately, a different work of art.

Take Virginia Wolf’s reworking here:
Or Seamus Heaney:
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Or even this from Jean Webber:
I’ve even taken bits and pieces of my own novels and older blogs and found passages that I felt captured an emotion, an image, a moment that was worth putting into the still-life of a poem, which I will share in a slide show below.

I challenge you to join me and The Nu Romantics every Friday for the #FoundPoetryFriday writing prompt. Every human being who breathes life on this Earth is a poet. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. It is what makes us indeed, uniquely human.

Find The Nu Romantics on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheNu...​ Join the revolution. And you can find my books by visiting my main webpage or Amazon www.amazon.com/R.B.-OBrien/e/B00TEF5PT8/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1.

FIND ME OVER ON MEDIUM--THE SEXIEST INDIE ROCK SONGS for EVERY VALENTINE’S DAY PLAYLIST

Just a quick note about a new forum I'm playing with over on Medium. Stop by!

THE SEXIEST INDIE ROCK SONGS for EVERY VALENTINE’S DAY PLAYLIST

​It’s that time of year, and as an erotic romance writer, people always ask me if I listen to music while I write. The answer is an emphatic — “No.” I need to only listen to the characters in my head, my muses as I call them.

I do, however, listen to music that inspires what I write. In fact, I have a novel that I’m working on in the New Adult category that was entirely inspired by Taylor Swift’s 1989 album. What better place to get inspiration for angsty, college-aged people falling in and out of love than Taylor Swift, right?
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But really, when it comes to songs that inspire my writing, it almost always comes from Indie Rock. And with Valentine’s Day here yet again, I’d thought I’d share my TOP FIVE picks for the sexiest Indie Rock songs you should have on your playlist. Finish over on medium. Click link below. Would love to hear from you. CLICK HERE: medium.com/@rbobrien/the-sexiest-indie-rock-songs-for-every-valentines-day-playlist-9271ecc30887#.rayrptbx0

NEW ROMANTICISM: The Difference between Erotica, Pornography, Romance, and Erotic Romance

Talk to me about romance. Talk to me about love. Talk to me about romanticizing those things. What is it that draws us to that tale of the chase and catch repeatedly?

The debate swirls and continues, and as a writer of romance…no, as a lover of romance, I come back to the same question: What is romance? And I’m ready to ditch my answer. I know. I know. A hundred times we’ve discussed this. Romance and romantic are different. Death, itself, can be romantic. Nature and a destructive snowstorm can be romantic. Lovers in love but giving that up can also be romantic. There is something aesthetically romantic in beauty itself. And beauty can even be pain. Therefore, pain is romantic, especially when the sufferer does so for love.

But the genre of Romance has confines. Definitions. The trope of the Happily Ever After or Happy for Now is a MUST-HAVE. You try to publish. You'll see. In big, NEON letters, they state: Must have a happy ending. There are further restrictions as well.

Throw the word “erotic” into it and a myriad of new problems arise. Suddenly the negative connotations abound. It’s pornography. It’s worthless. It’s “sex sans relationship.” Certainly, that kind of erotica is prevalent and alive. And if that is what a reader or watcher wants, that is their right, their prerogative.

But that label, dear friends, is not one for me. None of these definitions or meanings are true necessarily, but it the broad brush-stroked way it has become. I’m beginning to want to distance myself more and more from that connotation of erotic or erotica as the equivalent to sex and titillation only, that equation that erotica is pornography. It isn't. Not always. And I want to be titillated but always within the framework of a story. Whatever word is opposite "sans"-- I want that. In fact, sex for mere titillation just bores me to fucking tears. 

Leon F. Seltzer writes in his article, “What Distinguishes Erotica from Pornography": 

“If the erotic celebrates sexuality, placing it on a plateau above any essentially
masturbatory act of copulation, then it can be seen as diverging markedly from the
pornographic. Pornography proposes a temporary "fix" for our sexual frustrations; eroticism offers us something more elusive--an opportunity to experience sensuous delight of a higher order….

"What in general separates the erotic from the pornographic is an attitude toward sex and human sexuality that can be inferred from looking (dare I use the word, "objectively"?) at the finished product. If the subjects are portrayed in a manner that focuses on their inner and outer radiance, their fleshy vitality, and the work itself seems to manifest a passionate and powerful affirmation of life and the pleasures of this world, then I think we're talking erotic. If, however, the subjects seem reduced to so many body parts, if any beauty appears subordinate to the overriding purpose of arousal, if the sex depicted seems depersonalized, controlling, non-mutual, and devoid of fun or play (but rather seems about "getting down to business" and "getting off")--and if the sex acts pictured contain not a hint of human caring or emotional connectedness to them--that, to me, would definitely secure the work's place in the realm of pornography.”

So I labeled myself an Erotic Romance Writer. But what I write is neither of those things as defined individually or lumped together. Yes. I find beauty in the romantic but not ROMANCE as it’s been labeled. I almost label that trite. And yes. Erotic. But not for the sex it implies that is for mere titillation. To me the erotic is the relationship that organically manifests itself between people finding and exploring love. It is the universality of  accepting the darkness that makes up human nature, the darkness I find so romantic within that dance, the inevitable opening up that lets in the light of sensuality between two human beings becoming one together without the confines of preconceived morality. In short, an exploration of all the facets of both the subconscious and conscious of light and dark. “Emotional connectedness.” Yes, Dr. Seltzer. That.

I’m here to say that it’s time we start a new genre. I’m dead serious. I just don’t know how or where to start or how to make it a reality. I want a new category or genre, a new way to describe what I, and many others, write. All the great waves of writing get dubbed: Romanticism; realism; post-modernism...hey come from revolution. It’s time we start our own revolution, our rebuttal to Romance, to distinguish ourselves, to stand up and say NO. That is what post-modernism did. No answers. No neat bows. No rules.  And I want us to coin it, embrace it, and live and write it through our work. Just because something has romance in it, doesn’t make it a Romance; likewise, just because the erotic presents itself, doesn’t make it Porn. ​How did the great revolutions of writing begin? Let’s talk romanticism. Romanticism in the 18th century was a revolt against the Age of Reason, a rebuttal against scientific rationalization of nature; and Realism was then a rebuttal to that and so it goes. That Romance has come to mean a set trope with a must-have HEA/HFN ending is just absurd. Here’s an earlier post I wrote. This is not a new dilemma for me. http://rbobrien.weebly.com/blog-posts/just-how-the-fk-do-i-categorize-my-writing. Here’s where I'm trying to go with this. The Norton Anthology states:

"The American Scholar A.O. Lovejoy once observed that the word 'romantic' has come to mean so many things that, by itself, it means nothing at all...The variety of its actual and possible meanings and connotations reflect the complexity and multiplicity of European romanticism. In The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal (1948) F.L. Lucas counted 11,396 definitions of 'romanticism'. In Classic, Romantic and Modern (1961) Barzun cites examples of synonymous usage for romantic which show that it is perhaps the most remarkable example of a term which can mean many things according to personal and individual needs."And I agree. So why so narrow? How did writing Romance, in particular, get so marginalized into a neat package of consumerism? Romantic. That’s what I write. I take you back to the beginning of this long article. One can find the romantic everywhere. In nature. In love. Yes. Even in lust and death. Sometimes happy endings are about the most unromantic thing there is. And sometimes, it’s exactly what makes it beautiful and that beauty IS romantic.
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So I ask you. Let’s stop this madness. Let’s stand up and start a revolution. We are the New Romantics (Sorry, Taylor Swift. I thought of it first. Give it back.) Let’s coin it. Own it. And make HERSTORY. I invite you to come read my story. I am a New Romantic.

It's a Wonderful Life

Well, it’s that time of year, where happiness and glee meet sadness and longing. It’s the second year without my mom but I don’t quite remember last year and so this year, I’m cognizant and feeling and breathing in and out every moment. It’s calm. Yup. Without rehashing it all, put simply: It’s calm without my mom.

My mom was the serious one. The boss. The rule maker. My dad was the goofy one. The artist. The rule breaker. He died too young. And I miss him. A lot. Not every day. I’d be lying. Life is too hectic and crazy for that. But he seeps into my spirit often, especially this time of year.

One thing we all did as a family, and my brother and I have tried to continue, is that on Christmas Eve Eve—tonight—we watch It’s a Wonderful Life. I’ve written about this before. Somewhere. Not here. Egg nog, spiked of course when we got older, the night my mom let her hair down. The night we giggled. The night we cried. And the night we just had nowhere to go but be together in the warmth of family. I never didn’t want to do this. Not as a teenager. Not when I went away to college. And not now. It’s still one of my favorite movies.

You see, and of course I couldn’t have known that then, the movie reminds me of my dad. In so many ways. My dad was George Bailey. He was a thriving businessman who lost almost all of it by the end—and that was because he had such a kind heart. Trust me. I’m living proof of that. He started his business with just himself. He had a dream. Soon, he had a few employees. By the end, he had over 70 employees working for him. He truly lived the American dream, even if things fell apart at the end. And they fell apart because of others’ greed. Disloyalty. Dishonesty. And it never stopped him from being kind. I know he hurt. But he didn’t show it. And he certainly didn’t retaliate. And his friends were still aplenty. He truly was the richest man in town.

I went to a private college. And even when we were financially struggling, my dad refused to take one dime he had saved for me to go and come out from an extremely expensive college with a 500-dollar-only debt. He gave me that gift. But the gift he really gave me was love and kindness and the gift of laughter.

​Tonight, as I watch It’s a Wonderful Life, I watch it full-well knowing that, though I am not religious, he long ago got his wings and my mother is now right there beside him. 

Don't Tell Me What I or My Writing Is or Isn't...This Erotic Writer Has Had Enough

​I wrote another blog today about feminism and the submissive and BDSM and the current state of my country with the biggest misogynist alive about to rule the free world. I wrote about how you can be both submissive in the bedroom but not out in the real world, in our careers, for instance. I’m sick and tired of people saying that BDSM is abuse or that it’s misogynistic. It’s not. Not done right. Not done well. Not with consenting adults. Don’t tell me my writing is misogynistic or anti-feminist just because I or my heroines like to be controlled in the bedroom and find great satisfaction and freedom with it. That is the most anti-feminist statement I have ever heard. Feminism is all about letting women be who THEY want to be. Not how YOU want them to be. So just cut that shit right out. I am both a feminist AND a submissive in my sexual fantasies and reality. You are the one who is anti-feminist who tells me I can’t be. Further, let fiction be fucking fiction already. Instead, I woke and discovered there was something else on my mind too. Something less serious. Something that made me laugh. While reading a small excerpt, I came across a passage filled with purple prose. What is purple prose? Well, it’s something I see over and over again in my genre of writing, and it makes me laugh my ass off so hard that it defeats the whole purpose of erotic writing. It’s anti-eroticism. Talk about a mood breaker. In basic terms, purple prose is defined this way in the urban dictionary. I rather liked its example:

"a term used to describe literature where the writing is unnecessarily flowery. It means that the writer described the situation (or wrote the entire book, passage, etc.) using words that are too extravagant for the type of text, or any text at all. Basically, over-describing something. With stupid words.

normal writing: 
she lay on her bed dreaming.

purple prose: 
she lay upon her silken sheets in her ornately embellished robes of satin, her chest ascending and descending easily with every passing second, deep inside the caverns of her subconscious mind."

An article that does a better job, can be found here: http://thewritepractice.com/purple-prose/

We all have different works we are drawn to. Authors’ styles. You may find my writing “boorish” or simplistic. But one thing you can’t say about it is that it’s dotted with absurd purple prose. To me, that is the biggest sin created in modern-day erotic writing. And because I am a feminist too, I don’t need to listen to misogynistic men who don’t know the difference.

One Year Ago: A Reflection

This time of year has gotten tougher over the years for me. November is my dad’s death anniversary and last year was particularly hard, as it was the first year without my mom for Thanksgiving; even if we fought every step of the way, it was still our day, meat stuffing battle having only been finally won one year before her death. I should have let her have her damn meat stuffing.

The last few years before it were hard too. In a wheelchair, struggling to breathe, strapped to an oxygen tank, my mom often felt like a burden in my chaotic and busy life. It doesn’t feel good to say that. But it is the truth. I loved her the best I could. And I miss her.

Right now, right this very minute, I think about how fleeting moments are. Truly fleeting. Something so important in one moment vanishes the next. It is only over time that we realize which moments and people will really matter. I reflect on this very time last year. I hadn’t yet published Thorne, but was fully immersed. I met new friends, new writers and mentors, supporters and confidantes. And I had the opportunity to take a chance. A chance to meet someone. A café. A rendezvous. A little restaurant in Boston. One night. A very different Thanksgiving. A way to get my mind off tradition. Get away, perhaps, from what I always do, to get away, even, from the person I have always been. Why not, I asked myself. Why the hell not? Peccavi.

And the answer is simple. I rarely take chances or risks. I knew it then, and I certainly know it now--he would only break my heart. And here’s the rub. My heart got broken anyway…as I somehow always knew it would. I was playing with fire. I got scorched.

Over the summer, I finally took a chance and took a trip, alone, to a different country. A fear realized and faced. A risk. A chance. But it was a safe risk, one where my heart wouldn’t be broken, one that didn’t require putting my heart on the line. My heart was tucked away safely. So I ask, is it ever worth it to take a risk involving one’s heart, where the cards are completely stacked so strongly against you, even the strongest wind couldn’t remove them?
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I still don’t know. Hearts will be broken. Do I regret that I never took that chance last Thanksgiving? Absolutely not. That is a moment that has proven not to have mattered. And I’m grateful that I am the person I am. Our sixth sense is profound. And I think mine is 6 cubed. Still, I romanticize of what could have been…if even only for one night. I’m a romantic that way. But of course, that’s no secret, now is it?

Where does the rainbow end, in your soul or on the horizon?” ― Pablo Neruda, The Book of Question

I look out my window a lot.

​It’s just one of those things that keeps me grounded in this weird, one-with-nature kind of way. I hate curtains. They only gather dust. And I hate alarms even more. I enjoy the natural light to whisper across my face in the morning with gentle fingers, not some man-made sound that jars me into life with a harsh slap. It is the quiet moments of the morning that I savor most, in bed, looking out my window. It’s when I write my best work.
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Yesterday morning, I awoke to a brilliant rainbow. At first, I marveled at the sky’s pink hues, and I thought how soothing it was. I haven’t had that feeling in a long time, that feeling of being at peace with myself or my life. I got out of bed to stand to pull the obligatory curtain further, the color peeking through the leaves of the oaks outside my window. Where I had been seeing grey for quite some time shone now pink. The color is hard to describe accurately. It was pink; but it bordered on a light red. It told me to come look at it.  And then. There it appeared. A rainbow. I will share it with you here, but my phone didn’t do it justice.

​I don’t believe in god as my early catechism taught me. I think I’ve written that before. But I do believe. In something. Energy? Connection? Karma? What Star Wars describes as the Force? The Transcendental Oversoul? I don’t know. But whatever exists outside my understanding, I think it was trying to speak to me. I tried to listen.
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You see, rainbows were a thing with my dad and me. When he passed, I saw them all the time—yes, I was in Hawaii at the time and they were more prevalent--but whenever I see a rainbow, I can’t help but think, “Hi, Dad,” and that there is something in the universe speaking to me. Is it my dad? I doubt it. Is it his energy? I hope so. But each time I see this rare beauty, I try to ask myself what it might be trying to tell me. I read a book once that argued that there is no such thing as coincidence, only our ignorance of the universe around us and the messages it tries to feed us daily that we refuse to acknowledge. I heard from an old friend the the other day, someone I hadn’t spoken to in quite a while. It’s a terrible memory, and yet, after speaking for just a bit, I somehow got closure. I felt at peace. My heart that had hurt for such a long time, stopped hurting. And I think that rainbow told me that it was okay to finally let go, to move on, and to stop blaming myself.

I guess I owe my dad yet another thank you. Closure comes in many forms. I guess this time it took a rainbow to get me there. The rainbow clearly doesn't end on the horizon for me, but in my soul.  And for right now, my soul has found a little peace.