Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 93

Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia, chapter five

In case you’re wondering, no. The science fiction element still has not shown up.

Rory isn’t studying with Benji anymore. For two weeks, he’s been calling her, and she’s almost thinking she wants to make up, but she’s holding onto her anger like Marty McFly on a hoverboard behind a car. When Benji is missing from class, Rory concludes that’s either sick, or he’s committed suicide:

I started feeling curious if he was sick, out of town, or something much worse.

When he doesn’t answer her texts, she goes to Charlie’s to look for him, and finds his room unlocked. A passing rando explains:

He shook his head. “No, but he never locks his door unless he’s home,” he said, turning the knob.

Is this one of those too-science-to-function things, like Rory’s coat?

So, Rory goes to Gigi’s. Let me reiterate a Writing Tip: Rory is going to Charlie’s and then Gigi’s to look for Benji, and only two of those names belong to people. No.

Rory decides to check The Gym, but first, something amazing happens:

It wasn’t as if he had anyone here to take care of him, including me–the jealous bitch, who didn’t even give him the chance to explain, much less apologize.

Is that… was that actually concern for a person who isn’t Rory?

Rory finds Benji at The Gym, where he’s lifting weights:

There he was, red-faced, drenched in sweat, and squatting about three hundred and fifty pounds.

Hmmm. This is an indication that Benji has some pretty awesome strength for a guy who spends most of his time doing sedentary stuff on computers. I would say that it’s probably believable, but outside of the norm, for your average college student who isn’t being coached to squat that kind of weight. I wonder if he’s an alien, too. They go outside to talk about their fight:

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer your text,” he said quietly, looking at the asphalt. “I just couldn’t go to class another day and see the anger in your eyes when you look at me, knowing you were just a few feet away and I couldn’t talk to you.”

“I’m sorry. That was cruel and unusual punishment.”

Benji is worried that Rory hasn’t eaten (couldn’t go a chapter without remembering that Rory doesn’t eat), so he takes her Gigi’s for food, where he explains the Ellie thing:

“Then who is she to you?”

Benji shook his head and spoke with a nervous smile. “I guess she was sort of a coworker, but it was never anything more than that.”

“Coworker?” I asked.

“She was my lab partner spring semester last year. That’s why we have each other’s phone number.”

Hey, you know how we could have avoided the Rory-runs-around-town drama of this chapter? By having a conversation that went:

Rory: Why do you have that bitch’s phone number?

Benji: She was my lab partner last semester and I guess I never took her out of my phone.

Rory: Okay.

Tada! Rory asks him:

“You had a bunch of weights on that bar. Were you lifting that much all morning?”

“Pretty much. I’ve been blowing of stress like that since high school.”

Okay, he’s been squatting 350 all day? He’s an alien. Or a genetically modified super soldier. This is what I’m putting my money on. Not that he couldn’t have just really upped his game training for years, but I’m thinking this is too inconsequential a detail to just drop in there for it to lead to nothing.

“What stress? You seem like someone who had the perfect childhood.”

Yes, Rory. Perfect childhoods exist, and if you had one, you never have any source of stress in your life ever again ever.

“My parents were great,” he said, nodding, “but they worked a lot, and my dad was gone most of the time. We made sacrifices, just like anyone else.”

My muscles tensed. I had to stop myself from informing him that he had no idea about sacrifice, but it was just a knee-jerk reaction. Just because his parents weren’t murdered didn’t mean he didn’t have the right to complain.

Benji asks Rory if she’s been to a lot of concerts, and gestures to her Ramones t-shirt, and she said she did go to a lot of concerts during the summer of her senior year. I hope Rory didn’t go to a Ramones concert three years ago, because they broke up in the 90′s and three of them were already dead in 2010.

Since he doesn’t know that Rory’s parents are dead, Benji imagines that they’re super cool, which is not the impression I would get about a family who raised Rory:

He smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me at all. I’m sure they know that you would have found a way to do what you want. Makes me wonder what they’re like. Raising such a free spirit.”

When I think “free spirit” I definitely think, “Misanthropic college student who listens to The Ramones because her family was murdered.”

Rory agrees:

I’d never felt like a free spirit. More like someone who was weighed down by her horrific past.

Writing Tip: Show, don’t tell, is really important, and I think the author has done a fair amount of showing already that Rory is weighed down by her horrific past. Trust that your readers can take the hint. Show, don’t tell, or show and tell a little, but don’t show, and tell, and tell and tell and tell and tell until the reader is already like, “Enough with the murdered family already, ya crybaby!” in chapter five.

Seriously, that’s how I’m reacting to every mention of her murdered parents now. Just with this eye roll of, “This? Again?”

I should not feel that way about a girl with murdered parents.

But Benji made me see something about myself that I hadn’t seen before–the bright side.

THANK YOU, JESUS!

“No problem, Jenny!”

Rory checks her phone and realizes that not only is she an hour late to her research assistant gig, but Cy and Dr. Zoidberg have already called her. And immediately, Rory jumps to the conclusion that we all knew was coming.

“I just need to get there fast before I lose my position. Shit!”

It has now been weeks since Cy started working with the space rock, and Rory hasn’t been fired yet. And as I have pointed out numerous times, Dr. Zoidberg is basically Rory’s guardian, who has looked out for her and gotten her into college and is one of the only people who knows her entire sad backstory. If we had seen any interaction with Cy at all–besides sitting beside him and glumly spitting on the floor– or with Dr. Zoidberg that indicated that Rory was going to lose her job, then fine. But this is false tension, just like the fight with Benji was false tension.

Benji drops Rory off at the lab and asks if she’ll study with him and sit with him in class again, and she says she will. Then she goes inside:

Both Cy and Dr. Z were rushing me, asking where I was, why I was late whom I was with, and a dozen other questions.

I held up my hands. “I’m sorry! I’ve been working every night for six weeks! I needed a break!”

You’re an hour late for work without calling, and you’re worried that you’re going to get fired, so the way you enter this conversation is by blowing off their concern with, “I needed a break.” That’s an interesting battle strategy in the war to remain employed.

Dr. Z tells Rory that she should have called, then he leaves her alone with Cy:

“Selfish!” Cy growled behind me.

I flipped around, preparing to let him know that I didn’t report to him, but the second I faced him, he crashed into me, wrapping his arms around me, his fingers digging into my skin.

“I thought…” he said, his voice thick with worry.

Wait… what? Why is he doing this? We’ve had absolutely no screen time with this dude, other than when Rory is arriving at or leaving from work. He sat next to her in class and stuck up for her once two weeks ago. She’s watched him draw dots. That’s it. There’s nothing else that has gone on in this book that has made the reader anticipate that Cy would have any concern for her above that of a coworker other than the fact that he has been telegraphed as a love interest by virtue of the genre he is in.

And here’s the thing: even if Rory doesn’t notice and comment on it in the narration, we need to see something going on with Cy, so that this exchange doesn’t look clumsy. Maybe a scene where Cy expressed concern over how hard she was working, or telling her that he’s not competition. Or something. Anything. Literally any interaction at all would have made this at least a little bit more convincing, and less like smashing two Barbies together so they can get married. This also ruins the fun of reading to find out which one of the two guys she’s going to pick. In The Vampire Diaries (the real Vampire Diaries, not the shit the franchise turned out after they booted L.J. Smith to the curb), I honestly wondered whether Elena would end up with Stefan or Damon at the end of the series. It was less of a question in Twilight, but I did have the thought at the back of mind that maybe the author would pull a switcheroo and make Bella fall for Jacob (though I can’t decide if that would be a better or worse ending than turning him into a creepy child molester grooming his future bride).

The point is, we have no idea where this came from, so we have no reason to care about it or believe it. It doesn’t feel real. Especially when it becomes this overwrought:

I just stood there, not knowing what else to do. No one had touched me like that in a long time, yet it felt natural, as if he’d held me a hundred times before. I slowly  hugged him back and rested my chin on his shoulder. The longer he held me, the better it felt.

After a full minute, Cy finally relaxed his grip and took a step back.

I think we’re being asked to believe that this is a hate-covering-deep-affection scenario, but you know what? It’s not working. Because we don’t know Cy at all.

Cy apologizes for giving her the world’s longest hug, and she assures him that she’s not depressed. Okay… so. You’re not depressed, but you’re haunted by the grisly murder of your parents that almost left you dead, as well, you isolate and refuse to care for yourself, but you’re definitely not depressed. Cy tells her that he doesn’t want anything to happen to her.

I grinned, dropping my backpack beside my desk. “Something has already happened to me. You should stop worrying.”

Cy opened his mouth to say something, but he decided against it.

And with that POV skew, the chapter ends.

 

DO NOT DO THIS EVER: “Self-Destructive Special” Edition

The following is a that Bronwyn Green and I co-authored and presented to the Grand Rapids Region Writers Group, and we thought we’d make it available to everyone by posting it simultaneously. So if you’re looking to get some advice about common self-defeating behaviors for authors, read on after the jump.

You don’t have to look very far to find self-defeating behavior. That’s why it’s called SELF defeating behavior. A lot of these habits result in unfinished or obviously rushed final products.

 Denial: We’re starting with denial because at least one person in this room is thinking, “I don’t have any self-defeating behaviors attached to my writing. I love writing. It’s my life.” In order to fix any of the behaviors we’re going to discuss, you have to be willing to recognize them in yourself. The first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Blaming these behaviors on other people or circumstances—“I wouldn’t be such a martyr, if I wasn’t so needed!” “I don’t procrastinate, there’s just never any time!”—will just hold you back and is a self-defeating behavior in and of itself. It’s comorbid with all these other problems that we’re about to shame you for.

Procrastination: The common procrastinator knows they’re procrastinating, but they genuinely believe that they have all the time in the world. In the middle of January, a March deadline seems ages away. But when February 27th rolls around, and they’ve only got fifty thousand words of their one hundred thousand word novel finished, the panic sets in. The Procrastinator knows that this is a problem of their own making, and doesn’t want to accept that responsibility, so they deny it, usually by getting on social media or taking an avid interest in a new show that has seven or eight seasons on Netflix. A lot of procrastinators can actually pull off getting their work done under the wire; however there’s always a price to pay: your house is dirty, your kids are eating crap for dinner, nobody is getting the attention they need, you lose sleep, then you get sick, and then at that point you’re so burned out, you don’t start writing again until the deadline panic sets in once more.

How do you fix this? The easy answer would be to ask for a deadline extension. But that only prolongs the inevitable. When faced with the new deadline, the procrastinator starts the cycle all over again. And if your deadline is self-imposed, you’ll see it pushed back further and further as your manuscript languishes unfinished.

So, how to combat this problem?

 1. If you’re in dire straits and need a fix to finish by a deadline, the first thing you can do is estimate the amount of words you think you need to complete your project. Divide that by the number of days you have until your deadline. That’s the number of words you need to write every day. Add a couple hundred if you feel nervous. If you are fifty thousand words short and your deadline is in ten days, Sorry, you’re up a creek. Exercising this step at the start of a project may help keep you on track in the first place.

 2. Remove yourself from the internet. The biggest distraction a writer faces is twitter, tumblr, facebook, or pinterest. It’s easy to tell yourself that you’re getting on twitter to build your readership, or you need to make some kind of story vision board on pinterest, but if you’re doing this during your writing time, you’re not writing. Have someone change your internet password, and tell them to only give you the new password when you’ve completed your work for the day. Or, enlist a timed program like Freedom to cut off your access for a few hours. There are ways around these solutions, and you could always get up and walk away from the computer—do you need to clean out your closets? Put photos in the albums in chronological order? Knit a sweater?—but the point is stop the mindless surfing of sites like Buzzfeed and Gawker.

 3. Get to the root of why you’re procrastinating. Is it because something else is on your mind? Is it because you’re afraid of failure? Is it because you’re suffering from depression or ADD? Stress can also shut down your writing productivity center, and distraction helps us ignore stress. Unless you seriously examine why you’re not able to focus, you’re going to find yourself backsliding into more procrastination.

4. Some adults go for years with undiagnosed non-neurotypical features like ADD or Aspergers, which affect their ability to focus or manage time effectively. Learning disorders that evaded detection during school years can become unmanageable in adulthood—and often these problems are explained away as laziness, stress, or procrastination.

 Martyrdom, the passive-aggressive sidekick of procrastination, is defined by a deep need to put everyone else’s problems before your writing. Sometimes, this is unconscious: many writers find themselves at the mercy of family and friends who do not respect a request for uninterrupted writing time. Working writers know this all too well; the phone rings constantly, because people know you’re at home. The house doesn’t get cleaned and the dogs don’t get let out if everyone takes your presence in the home for granted, especially when it appears to them that you are doing “nothing” during your writing time. The problem comes when you allow people to take you for granted, or you don’t see that it’s happening.

But good news! The martyr is totally able to get down off the cross. With a healthy dose of selfishness and stand-up-for-yourself-ittude, you can learn to set boundaries to protect your writing time.

 1. Don’t train your friends and family to neglect themselves. If your spouse needs something laundered, there are directions on the inside of the lid of the washing machine—and they’re in at least two languages, with illustrations. If you’re working on a project with a group, and one member isn’t pulling their weight, don’t pick up the slack all by yourself. If you intervene in someone else’s responsibilities, you teach them that you’ll always be there to rescue them—this goes for children, too. If your children have an urgent need—a bathroom accident, a cut or scrape—that is an unavoidable interruption. Boredom, can’t find the remote, homework projects left until the night before they’re due, are all things that can wait, or result in inevitable consequence. When people around you learn that you work from home or have carved out time to work on your writing, they’ll impose on that time if you let them. Defend your writing time as though it were a small and helpless baby surrounded by hungry tigers.

2. Do not set an unreasonable schedule for your writing time. This one applies especially to women writers, and even more specifically, to writers who are mothers. When we started writing, a common piece of advice for writers was to stay up after everyone in the household went to bed in order to get quiet writing time. Or, we could get up an hour or two early, before the kids needed to be on the school bus, so we could get a few words in. The problem with this “wisdom” is that it expects the writer to sacrifice their health for their writing and their family. While the spouse and the kids are slumbering peacefully after a long, hard day of you doing everything for them, you’re hunched over the computer, bleary eyed, so as not to inconvenience them. This is productive for no one. Lack of sleep will make you cranky with your offspring, more likely to catch colds (from your diseased spawn), and it will lesson your productivity during the day.

3. Do not offer. It’s hard to hear about someone else’s problems without wanting to help. Some people are natural fixers. If someone needs something from the store, don’t jump up to get it. When the phone rings and it’s a needy friend desperate to have her love life fixed, don’t answer. Sometimes, an honest conversation is what it takes to set a boundary. However, these conversations need to be repeated. It’s unpleasant, but with practice, it becomes less so. Eventually, someone will try to test the boundary you’ve set, but remain firm. The key to withstanding siege is to fortify your walls. And your food stores.

The Muse: Do not wait for “the muse.” The muse doesn’t exist. As a writer, you need to write, even if you’re not “feeling it” or you’re not “inspired.” Inspiration won’t find you, you need to hunt it down—not on pinterest. The only way to keep your head in your story is to continually write it. Even on days when you’re not into it, or you don’t know where the story is going. The muse won’t write your book, no matter how romantic and poetic it may seem.

Talking about your book too much: This is another simple one. If you are constantly explaining to everyone who will listen—and even those who would rather not—about your characters or your world building or your plot twist, you’re going to get as tired of it as those poor saps in the elevator. And when you’re bored with your book, you’re not going to want to write it. You have talked yourself out of a story. Brainstorming is fine, but constantly reciting your story will sap your excitement and drain your creativity.

Perfectionism takes many insidious forms. And we’re going to talk about them right now.

Research-a-holic: How will anyone know that I did my research on 18th century French insane asylums if I don’t ferret out exactly what type of lock they kept on the doors. I should also find out if the walls were made of limestone or cinderblock, and if limestone, where was it quarried?

Sometimes the reader doesn’t really care all that much about the floor plan of the Terrace Room for your character’s Plaza wedding. Sure, you’ll get the occasional expert who will complain in an Amazon review that you specified the wrong type of collar on your medieval heroine’s dress, or the horsepower on the motorcycle your protagonist rides is different from the model you described, but people will complain about things that actually are correct, too. If your research is preventing you from doing actual writing—see also procrastination—then you’re not helping your book, you’re hindering it. Specific details requiring research can be added in during the editing process. Getting your first draft on paper is more important than limestone quarries.

Comparison: “I will never write that well, so why do I bother?” Your favorite author is your favorite author for a reason, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever become someone else’s favorite author. There are things you can learn from reading another author’s book, but those lessons can’t come through comparison that finds your work lacking. Analyze the things about their work that affect you as a reader, not things that you think are missing from your own writing. Voice is one of the common traps we all fall into—namely, that we can recognize other author’s “voices,” but we never hear our own. Our prose seems amateurish and unstructured when compared to the books we’re reading. But the books we’re reading are finished products, and the books we’re writing are not. Comparison speaks to a writer’s insecurity, and desire to be the best.

Some competition is healthy—when you’re competing with yourself for a new record time on your run, or number of words written in an hour, you’re pushing yourself toward an obtainable goal. But when you’re competing with others, (someone specific) either consciously or unconsciously, you’re only setting yourself up for failure. Either you’re going to miss the mark and feel bad, or you’re going to attain your goal but never feel satisfied. You’re still measuring your success by someone else’s standards—and there will always be someone doing better than you. It becomes a vicious cycle of self-hatred and hollow successes with fleeting satisfaction. In order to break the cycle, you have to first learn to stop comparing yourself with other writers.

1. Retrain your brain. If you read a book you really enjoy, and find yourself distracted from that enjoyment by all the ways it is superior to your own work, pause and force yourself to think, “This a really good book. Good for them. They’re a great writer, and I’m glad I get to enjoy this book.”

 2. Learn to celebrate the successes of others. There’s room in the market for everyone. Hardcore readers buy books by the armload. If they buy one written by someone you view as competition, that doesn’t mean it’s the only book they’re going to read. They might pick yours up later. If a publisher buys your friend’s book, it doesn’t mean you’ll never sell yours. Snoop Dog and Cameron Diaz knew each other from high school, and they both still got famous. Just because something happens for one person, doesn’t mean it won’t happen for the other.

3. Set new markers for success. If your joy of writing comes from the number on your royalty check, or the failure of an “enemy” author, you’re not truly enjoying writing. Yes, royalty checks are super awesome, and it’s always fun to watch someone you hate fail (and we would never take that away from you), if you can’t write without these negative rewards, you need to repeat steps one and two, or reevaluate your choice of writing as a career. If you truly do not enjoy it, why keep torturing yourself? If this is the position you’re in, try taking a week off from writing. Every time you think of a new idea or scene while you’re doing some other activity, make a note of it. At the end of your hiatus, if you don’t have anything listed, then you’ve got your answer. If you spend the entire time fretting over how many people are finishing their books before you, how many people are making money that you aren’t, then congratulations, you actually do enjoy writing, but you’ve got a problem that needs to be fixed through self-reflection.

Confusing mental health issues for creativity: More people have heard of Ernest Hemmingway’s alcoholism and suicide than have read any of the words he wrote. Because he was a great writer, his mental illnesses were romanticized and given full credit for his genius. You’ve probably heard, “Write drunk, edit sober,” as actual writing advice. It’s not uncommon to hear writers in all genres talk about how they bleed for their characters, how they need to “hear voices” or become so emotionally invested in their characters that they can no longer separate their own fiction from reality. Get on Twitter on any given night, and you’ll see author after author joking about their wine, as though alcohol consumption equals writer credibility.

Everyone will have that occasional character that they’re especially in tune with, but if you find yourself buying a Christmas present for your friend the character who does not exist, this isn’t a hallmark of genius, but a red flag for mental health. Occasionally having a glass of wine while you’re writing isn’t a cause for concern, but if you’re unable to write without alcohol, or if you feel the need to broadcast your consumption in an attempt to normalize it, you may have a problem.

Writer culture has coopted features of various mental illnesses—we hear voices, we have imaginary friends, we cling to our rituals like a person with obsessive compulsive disorder, and we thrive on having dark, tortured souls. These tendencies, if they are an affectation, are insulting to people who suffer from mental illness at best, and perpetuating misinformation at worst. However, if these are not adopted behaviors romanticized for street cred, they’re serious symptoms of mental illnesses that need to be addressed.

Some writers who are genuinely mentally ill may reject treatment on the grounds that their creativity will be hampered. The truth is, you’re more likely to produce quality work if you’re not mired down in depression or so riddled with anxiety that you can’t think about anything but your fear that your house will burn down.

1. If you are hearing voices, literally hearing voices, seek help from a medical professional.

 2. Similarly, if you find yourself unable to create without drinking or taking drugs, find an addiction specialist.

 3. Learn the warning signs for depression, ADD, obsessive compulsive disorder, and anxiety. If those warning signs seem to apply to you, talk to a doctor or mental health professional. They can help you with coping strategies and determine the best course of treatment. If you face obstacles in receiving care, don’t give up. Some doctors, like some people, are less informed and sympathetic to mental health issues.

 4. Do not reject medication on the grounds that it will harm your creativity. Don’t let the misplaced romance of the crazy genius stop you from getting the help you need to live a productive life. Alternately, don’t let the stigma of mental health issues dissuade you from seeking treatment.

 5. If you are not experiencing any of these symptoms, but are using them to describe your creative process in a pithy way, consider some alternatives. Mental illness is serious, stigmatized, and the severity is underestimated, and making a joke out of it marginalizes the sufferers. It also makes it difficult for a writer with mental illness to recognize what is the normal writing process and what is a mental health crisis.

 If you recognize yourself in any of these examples—unless you’re that secondary type of martyr, in which case you will not—take heart, for there is hope. Unfortunately, you’re the only person who can fix these problems. Be honest with yourself; so many of these issues are excuse driven. You don’t have time, so you procrastinate. No one can help themselves, so you have to do it for them. You can’t possibly finish the scene if you can’t describe the type of marble in the foyer of the house your characters are renovating. This is all bullshit. You have the power and the ability to control your own destiny as a writer. Sure, we can’t ensure blockbuster novels and lucrative careers, but we can make sure our books get finished, and that we’re doing the best work we can.

Merlin Club S04E04: “Aithusa” or “Where Are My Dragons?”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode four: A guy shows up to Camelot looking for part of a triskellion that will blahdy blah blah nobody cares, there’s a baby dragon.

Also, Merlin pulled Arthur’s pants down and wrassled with him.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: Nothing. Season four is where this show really hits its stride, and this is one the strongest episodes in the season.

The thing I loved most about this episode: For basically the first time ever, Merlin finally takes the dragon’s fucking advice. And you know what? I fully support that. I know everyone during the watching part was saying, “He should have just left it where no one would find it,” or whatever, but he’s a Dragon Lord. Dragons are his responsibility, and if there was a chance to have the very last one in the world be born, then he’s got to do that shiz. He’s the last Dragon Lord. It’s his job.

The thing I hated most about this episode: So, once you’ve hatched the dragon and stuff, why not, you know. Keep an eye on it? Maybe? So it doesn’t just wander off and become the pet of some random evil witch who wants to rule Camelot or whatever? NOT THAT IT WOULD EVER HAPPEN.

Something I never noticed before: 

Favorite Costume: Nothing struck my fancy in this episode.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: In fact, with Uther and Morgause both dead, I have very little head canon left.

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? 

Do you have any idea how unbearable she would be with a baby dragon? She would take it EVERYWHERE and make it little clothes.

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? 

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

That’s it for this week. Join us next week for S04E06, “His Father’s Son,” Monday,  8pm EST on the hashtag #MerlinClub.

 

THE EX, Chapter One (NSFW. NSFW at all.)

We’re a little over a week away from the release of The Ex. I had wanted to set up a pre-order, but as I said before, I’m one of those people who makes changes right down to the wire, trying to make everything perfect. So, while I’m not sure we’ll have much of a pre-order period, I hope this 100% NSFW first chapter will be a fitting apology.

 

Chapter One

There’s a weird thing that happens when your life suddenly clicks into place. You stop worrying about the should-have-beens and start spending more time thinking about the could-bes.

I got a little thrill every time I walked into the Mode office. I still couldn’t believe that I, Sophie Scaife, self-pronounced “eternal fuckup” just a year before, had founded a successful—albeit teensy—magazine that actually seemed to be gaining momentum with readers.

Our office was the top floor of a six-story converted textile factory in Brooklyn. Since I was way out in Sagaponack anyway, my business partner Deja and I had agreed on a location as close as possible to her and her wife—and my forever bestie—Holli’s new loft. It was a two-hour drive for me, but I usually took a chartered helicopter or slept in the backseat of the Maybach to get there. The rent was pricey, but it was worth the cost to look professional. As my fiancé said, looking successful is thirty percent of actually being successful. And he’s a billionaire, so I figured we should listen to him.

“Ready for the weekend, Ms. Scaife?” Penny, my bubbly blond assistant, asked when I stepped out of my office. Penny had come to New York straight from Pennsylvania after graduating from college there. We’d been her first job interview, and Deja and I had felt instantly protective of her. We’d snatched her up under our wings and practically hissed at anyone we perceived as a threat. Being a small-town girl myself, I felt a spiritual obligation to create a real-life New Yorker out of her.

“You have no idea.” I let her get my coat and purse as I squinted at the split ends of my long, dark hair. I was so happy hat-wearing weather was nearly over. The static was killing me.

“Leaving early?” Deja asked, and I met her smiling eyes in the reflection of the gilded mirror on the exposed brick wall behind Penny’s desk.

“Gosh, I hope I’m not fired.” I stuck my tongue out at her. “Yeah. I haven’t been home in like, two days. Are you cool with that? Did the proofs come back for the summer wedding shoot?”

After two big weddings—one of them Holli and Deja’s—had served as bookends for the previous summer, I had seen a definite need for a “what to wear to which wedding” type of story. Maybe it was because I had been thrown into the deep end with my sorta step-daughter’s lavish New York fairy tale dream wedding. Despite my background in fashion journalism, I sometimes struggled to remember anything but the most basic fashion etiquette for special events.

“They did,” Deja confirmed with a little grimace. “I hate them. I’m going to meet with Dan at five, you want in on that meeting? We can Skype you.”

I checked the time on my phone. “I’ll still be in the car at five. But yeah, try and get me in.”

Just as Penny handed me my coat—a blue-gray, mid-thigh pea coat with two rows of military-style buttons down the front—I got a rush of giddy excitement. I had a job again. I had my best friends back. I was living my dream. But most importantly, the week was over and I was going home.

My driver, Tony, waited downstairs with the car. I let him open the back passenger-side door for me and I slid in. In the past, I’d objected to that part of his job, but now I’d come to realize it wasn’t antiquated chivalry as much as means for a driver to make sure his passenger was actually in the vehicle. The partition between the front and back seats was rolled up, so Tony used the intercom to ask, “Straight home, ma’am, or are we making stops?”

I tried to remember if I’d forgotten anything at our Manhattan apartment. I pressed the button and answered, “Straight home. I might be comatose when we get there, but straight home.”

True to my word, I passed right out almost the very moment the car pulled away from the curb. I wasn’t surprised that running a magazine was hard work—I’d been first assistant to the most demanding woman in fashion, at one time—but the toll it took did surprise me. Just two short years ago, I’d been capable of pulling all-nighters and working through the next day. Now, if I didn’t get at least six hours of sleep a night, I couldn’t function. After suggesting it might have something to do with my steady creep towards thirty, Neil had wisely recanted and agreed that it was caused by stress.

I woke when we stopped outside the gate at the end of our driveway, and stared up at the scraggly branches of the jack pines towering over the car in the twilight. I sat up and rummaged through my purse for a piece of gum. I hadn’t seen my fiancé in two days. There was no way I was going inside to kiss him with sleep mouth.

Tony dropped me by the front door, and I fiddled with the alarm to get inside. The house is huge. It’s this sprawling seaside Hamptons mansion, way too big for just two people, but Emma would fill it up with grandkids in no time. I’d just hung up my coat when I heard Neil’s sophisticated English accent.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but do I know you?” He walked toward me from the windowed hall that led to the kitchen. Smiling, he held out his arms when I launched myself at him at a dead run.

Neil was… there was no way other way to put it. He was just Neil. Without the stress of running a company full-time, he was happier and healthier than he’d ever been since we’d gotten together—evidenced by my “oof” of pain as I collided with his chest. When he’d still been recovering from his stem cell transplant the year before, I’d gotten used to a slightly chubby Neil. Post-cancer, he had this new-lease-on-life, constantly working-out thing going on, and he wasn’t as squishy as before.

Not that I was complaining. Yeah, my fiancé was going through a midlife crisis, but I couldn’t blame him. He was only months away from becoming a grandfather, and while he was uncontrollably excited at the prospect—he’d already converted a room in our house into a nursery, “just in case we should ever need it,”—nobody was entirely okay with aging. Heck, even I was beginning to see the specter of old age looming, what with Emma and Michael’s constant “granny” jokes. They found it beyond amusing that I would be a step-grandmother at twenty-six.

I buried my face in his sweater and breathed in the smell of his cologne. “I am so glad to be home.”

His lips moved against the top of my head as he said, his voice full of raw, tender emotion, “I missed you so much.”

And then I realized that the hand on my ass was slowly bunching my skirt up. He was talking to my butt.

I gave him a playful shove. “Perv.”

“Excuse me, but I am a deeply romantic, poetic soul.” He pretended to be wounded, then grinned. “Who also happens to adore your ass.”

“Romantic,” I scoffed. “Pervmantic.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Come on, I’m making dinner.”

“Dinner?” I asked, walking ahead of him with a sexy sway to my hips. “I thought you said that when I got home, you’d be eating—”

My words stuttered short when we stepped through the swinging door and I saw Emma and Michael sitting at the island. I switched tracks to avert disaster and raised an irritated eyebrow at Neil. “Vegetarian. Because Emma is here. Hello, Emma.”

She gave me that look she always gave me when she knew something was up, but she didn’t want any details. “Hi, Sophie.”

“Hey, Sophie,” Michael said, standing to give me a hug. Michael came from a super WASPy family who defied stereotypes by being the huggingest damn people I’d ever met. And I’m from the Midwest.

I gave him a squeeze, then went to Emma, motioning for her stay seated. I hugged her briefly and asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Swollen,” she complained, her hand falling to her round tummy. Of course, Emma would be one of those women who carried her baby perfectly, like a little basketball in front. I was jealous, and I was never even going to have kids. But everything Emma did was adorable. Waifish, with blond hair in a chin-length bob that perfectly suited her and big green eyes that could stare down a hardened assassin, she was the perfect combination of sweet and intimidating.

Neil and I had placed bets on which features the baby would have. Neil had his money on Emma’s blond hair, but Michael’s height, while I was rooting for another brunette short person to join the family so I wouldn’t be alone anymore.

“Oh! Here’s your chance, Dad!” Emma said, flapping her hands excitedly. “She’s moving!”

Neil dropped the spoon he’d been using into the pot of marinara simmering on the stove, and I leapt behind the island to rescue it. He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and hurried over to place them on Emma’s stomach.

Then, at the same time, both he and I raised our heads and said, “She?”

Michael laughed and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, so much for keeping it a secret.”

“A little girl?” Neil exclaimed, looking to Emma for confirmation. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have done the nursery in pink.”

“We don’t know if it’s a little girl yet,” Michael reminded him. “We know it has a vagina.”

“Exactly. They might name the baby Olivia, and then we find out when he’s like three that he’s really Oliver.” I fished the spoon from the pot, keeping myself at arm’s length from the occasionally popping red sauce to protect my Cordovan lace Dolce & Gabbana sheath dress.

“Will the two of you please allow an old man to have his moment?” Neil scolded. We’d been round and round the gender politics carousel of hell with Neil ever since Emma and Michael had announced that they weren’t going to share the baby’s sex. Neil was super progressive in some ways, startlingly antiquated in others.

Dinner with Michael and Emma was a joy, as always. It was weird, having a stepdaughter who was the same age as me, but in a lot of ways, it was fun. We made an excellent team for ganging up on her father. And Michael was finally able to speak without fear of being destroyed by the hate radiation Neil used to emit whenever the poor guy was around. It was disappointing when it was time for them to head back to the city.

Finally getting a moment alone with Neil alleviated some of that disappointment. I’d stayed in the kitchen to load the dishwasher while Neil walked Michael and Emma to the door, and I was just washing up when he came back.

“Have I ever told you how much I enjoy this whole domestic thing?” I asked, drying my hands.

He came over to circle his arms around my waist. “You enjoy it so much, you started a magazine and put in sixty hours a week?”

“Exactly. I am not scrubbing that pot.” I indicated the giant saucepot in the sink, which I hadn’t been able to fit into the already stuffed dishwasher.

“Leave it. Julia is just going to rewash all the clean dishes by hand in the morning, anyway.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s not that picky. Besides, isn’t that a good thing in a housekeeper? Attention to detail?”

He kissed my forehead and went to the refrigerator. Pulling out a bottle of white wine, he said, “I have an idea.”

“Oh?” I liked Neil’s ideas. They were usually absolutely filthy. A little tingle of anticipation made me shiver. Before I’d started Mode, Neil and I’d had all the time in the world for sex. Now, with work keeping me in New York several nights a week and exhausted the rest of the time, we did it when we could.

“Why don’t we start a fire in the den, drink some wine, and I can pretend that I’m more interested in hearing about your day than I am about getting into your knickers.” He grinned at me as he opened a drawer and felt for the corkscrew.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Better idea. How about I take a bath, and then we do your plan?”

“Oh, if you must.” He set the bottle aside and came to me, looping one arm around my waist to pull me against him. His fingers dove into the hair at the nape of my neck as he kissed me, and my toes curled in my shoes. My pussy clenched and I momentarily considered hopping up on the counter and letting him have his way with me right then and there, but we had all night. That was pretty rare.

I stepped back, a little wobbly on my feet. “Okay. I’m off.”

Our house was thirty-five-thousand square feet, equipped with a library, a home theatre, a hot tub and a sauna, and forty-nine acres of grounds that included the previous owner’s custom built, scale reproduction of the Pavilion Français at Versailles.

But my favorite part of the place was my bathtub.

It’s really amazing. It’s a high-backed, claw footed copper tub with a white porcelain basin. It was an antique—part of the apartment I’d shared with my best friend Holli. When I’d moved in with Neil, he’d not only bought the tub from the landlord, but he’d had a reproduction made for our house in London.

I started the water running and poured in some bubbles. The tub had good memories for me. I’d spent a lot of evenings lazing in it, fantasizing about the one-night stand I’d thought I’d never see again. Back then I’d thought Neil was Leif, a hot forty-two-year-old guy who’d swooped in like a sex guardian angel and fucked me silly for sixteen hours. He wasn’t the only one who’d lied about his identity; he’d thought I was twenty-five, not eighteen like I was at the time.

Now, eight years later, we were getting the happily ever after neither of us had even hoped for.

When I sank into the deliciously scalding water, it was like returning to the womb, and I moaned with unabashed pleasure, tilting my head back and closing my eyes.

“Have you started without me?”

I smiled slowly. I heard Neil’s footsteps and the scrape of glass on the granite tile. The cool, slender stem of a wine glass pressed against the back of my fingers, and I turned my hand to accept it.

“I haven’t started anything, Sir.” I opened my eyes to bat my lashes at him above the rim of the glass. “Would you like me to?”

He stood and went to the dimmer switch on the wall, lowering the lights. Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, he pulled out his phone, flicked the screen a few times, and “La Femme d’Argent” by Air softly slunk over the room. Despite the steam, I had goose bumps. My nipples hardened, only half hidden by the bubbles. Every movement of the water primed me for his touch.

He turned back to me and took a long sip from his own glass. “Touch yourself,” he said finally.

I drained the rest of my glass in one long swallow, and held it out for him to take. Then, wetting my lips, I slid my hand below the water.

It had only taken a few deliberate actions, a subtle shift into his role as my Dom, and I was ready for him. He never took his eyes off me as he took another slow drink of his wine. The movement of his throat above the collar of his sweater drew me in, made me acutely aware of his body. I knew every inch of it, had kissed so many parts. He’d learned all of me, too, so I knew he could visualize my fingertips stroking the hood of my clitoris forward and back. I dipped them down and pressed inside, just enough to coat them in the dense slipperiness that felt wetter than the water. I rolled over my clit again and again, my hips rocking in time and starting a little tide in the tub.

His steady gaze spread a fire in me, raging through my body, tightening my skin and tensing my muscles. I didn’t want to close my eyes, but as I drew nearer and nearer to the apex of my pleasure, I had no choice. My breathing changed, and my thighs moved to clamp around my hand as if to prevent me from my orgasm.

“Stop.”

I shuddered and whimpered, but I pulled my fingers away from my aching clit.

He knelt beside the tub, rolling up one sleeve. His hand glided through the water, sending silken ripples along my tingling skin. He parted my thighs and sought out my pussy, sliding two fingers inside, finding my g-spot. When he pressed up, hard, the way he knew I liked it, my eyes rolled back in my head.

“You have to tell me before you come, Sophie. So I can stop.”

I writhed in frustration. I’d been so close, and now, without even moving his hand, he had me on the edge again. He circled his fingers slowly, and my cunt clenched around them. “Please let me come, Sir.”

My pleading fell on pitiless ears, as it usually did. He stood and reached for a towel. While he dried his hands, he instructed, “Finish your bath. Edge two more times, and I want you to watch yourself. Then come to the den.”

He left me in there, listening to the chill sexiness of the music, surrounded by silky, perfumed water, and I wasn’t supposed to come? I could have had an orgasm just remembering his hands on me.

I did as he’d told me. I washed, careful not to get my hair wet or streak my eyeliner. When I was finished, I stepped out of the tub and dried myself. When he’d introduced this new game a few weeks ago, Neil had put a full-length oval looking glass in our bathroom. He’d placed a small, padded stool in front of it, where I dutifully sat and spread my legs wide. Though he’d made me do this several times already, the novelty hadn’t worn off yet. I watched as my fingertips parted my labia, exposing my glistening sex. I kept my eyes there, concentrated on the soft sucking and popping sounds of my dripping, clutching cunt. My nipples stood out as hard peaks, and my back arched as I neared the crest of my release.

I pulled my fingers away with a little “ah!” of frustration. Beads of perspiration stood out on my forehead as I fought my body to stop myself from coming. I held my own gaze as I waited for my nerves to calm, for the danger to pass before I started all over. As I looked into my reflection’s eyes, I concentrated on losing myself in my role.

In our daily lives, Neil and I were equals. In our roles as Dom and sub, I was his property, glad to fulfill his every command. The body under my hands was not mine. The pleasure I felt was his. The sensual torture he inflicted on me was an expression of our love and trust for each other.

I squirmed and gasped toward the next orgasm that wouldn’t happen. Disobeying him was not an option; it wasn’t my decision to make.

The walk to the den was painfully arousing. My clit throbbed, and every step I took threatened to tip me over the edge. I stopped once and braced myself against the wall, desperate to fulfill what seemed like an impossible command from my Sir.

When I entered the den, a fire burned in the natural stone fireplace, and a thick duvet covered the floor in front of the hearth. A few throw pillows were scattered about. Neil stood before the fire, staring down at the flames and toying with the diamond-studded collar in his hands.

“Sir?” I asked, and he pointed to the floor beside him.

I knelt obediently, my eyes cast down, as he closed the platinum circle around my neck. The latch clicked, and the heavy weight settled around my throat.

He pulled his sweater over his head and let it fall to the floor beside me. Then he turned, the fly of his jeans at my eye-level, and reached for his zipper.

Neil is the largest guy I’ve ever been with. The largest I’ve ever seen, really. When he pulled himself free and pushed the broad head of his cock over my lips, I had to open wide to take it in. With a gentle hand, he pressed on the back of my head, until he went so deep he triggered my gag reflex. I breathed through it and opened my throat, swaying obediently as he slowly entered and withdrew. Sucking when I could, I focused on my breathing and the feeling of his pulse fluttering against my tongue.

“Very good, Sophie.” The praise sent a new wave of lust through me. My thighs were coated with cool wetness, and every brush of my breasts against the hair on his thighs sent electric darts through my body.

He pulled free of my mouth and reached down to hook a finger under my chin and tilt my face up. “Would you like me to fuck you?”

I nodded, my breath frozen in my chest. “Yes. Oh, yes, please, Sir.”

“What do you say?”

“Please fuck me, Sir.”

“More.”

“Please fuck me, Sir. Please fill me up with your big cock and fuck me until I come.” I shifted on my knees, pressing my thighs together hard. “Please.”

He nodded. “Go lie down. Spread your legs, and play with your clit. I want you to edge one final time.”

“No!” the cry burst from my lips before I could stop myself.

His crooked smile was one of dark, amused intent. “Did you just refuse a command?”

I froze, my hopes crashing to the ground. I would be punished now. I had been so close to coming, to having him inside me.

“Stay here,” he ordered. “And if I find you’ve moved a single muscle when I return, you won’t come tonight.”

He would do it, too. As our Dom/sub relationship had progressed, our limits had broadened. Neil felt more comfortable inflicting punishments on me, as I had proven I could take it.

Of course, all I had to do was use the safeword, and he wouldn’t be my Sir, but my fiancé. And my fiancé would be more than happy to get me off to ease my discomfort. But more often than not, I found the consequences just tolerable enough that I would accept them to get the treat at the end. Denial was an easy enough torture to withstand, when you knew how great it was going to feel when it was over.

So I didn’t move, and waited while he left the room and returned with our wireless wand-style vibrator. My heart rate skyrocketed.

“Since you wanted to come so badly,” he began, parting my legs to settle between them. “I thought I’d let you come.”

He pulled a length of rope and a small set of bandage scissors from his back pocket. He placed the scissors on the edge of the hearth, within reach, and leaned over me to tie my wrists, my hands clasped together between my breasts.

He turned the vibrator on, and my clit jumped eagerly, despite my knowledge of what he would do. Neil wasn’t going to punish by withholding orgasms. The orgasms were going to be my punishment. Endless, oversensitive, muscle-cramping punishments.

“I won’t gag you this time.” He stroked his fingers down my cheek. The touch was at once tender and a mockery of tenderness. He got a sadistic kick out of tormenting me with pleasure.

When the head of the wand touched my clit, my hips lifted off the duvet. I had gotten so close so many times, my body was eager to complete the journey. He brought me back the way I’d already been, until my hips bucked and I writhed, moaning. Just when I thought that the idea of coming too many times wasn’t so bad, he flicked the switch off.

Damnit! He’d tricked me!

I wailed my frustration, my nails digging into the rope that bound my wrists. “I’m sorry, Sir! I’m sorry!”

“I’m sure you are.” He brought the wand back to my clit, teasing me to the first flutters of release again, then pulling it away.

“You said I could come, Sir!” I babbled through my tears, desperately moving my hips against the vibrator until he could only keep it pressed against me for a heartbeat, I was so close.

“Should you have disobeyed me?” He asked, clicking the switch again, killing the vibration and my orgasm in one fell swoop.

“No, Sir!” I shook my head. My mouth was dry from panting. My thighs ached from constant tension. The fire warmed my skin, but I still shivered, caught up in desperation and agony.

“You’ve been disobedient,” he continued, reaching up to catch a tear at the corner of my eye with his thumb. He brought it to his lips and sucked the salty drop from it. “Disobedient girls get what’s coming to them.

“Do you know why I didn’t gag you?” He pushed the head of the vibrator against me once more, parting my labia around it, reaching above the slick black silicone ball to hold the hood of my clit back. “Because I love the way you scream.”

He clicked the switch again, and the vibrations buzzed over the exposed, raw tip of my clitoris. There was an unpleasant, sharp point to the sensation, and I rose, straining, and broke with a shout. My entire body bucked, and the noises that wrenched from my throat were half scream, half animalistic groan. He circled the head of the vibrator, and I twisted, but his hand clutching at my thigh reminded me that I wasn’t allowed to move away. His command was the only restraint I truly needed. The rope merely intensified my desire.

After that, orgasms came in an endless circle, until one bled into the other. No matter how much I screamed and begged, I never used the safeword. Not when I was sobbing and too limp to move. Not when it seemed like the pleasure would never end, that I would be trapped in this state of need and dread forever. I reached another searing peak and swore through my sobs, and he pulled the vibrator mercifully away.

“If my count is correct,” he said, tossing the wand aside, “That was sixteen. If you disobey me again tonight, it will be twenty.

He reached for the rope that bound my hands and deftly untied the knot. “Do you need anything, before we continue?”

“Drink,” I managed through parched lips and a throat sore from shouting. I motioned toward the wine bottle and glasses on the coffee table. He poured me some, and I sipped it gratefully.

When I was finished and the glass put carefully aside, he slid his jeans and boxer briefs down. “I have been waiting for this all day,” he said, settling between my legs as I lay back.

My heart pounded in my chest. This was the moment that would make me complete. When he was inside me, when I could return some of the pleasure and peace he’d just given me. I spread my legs wider as he found my cunt and thrust forward, stretching my swollen tissue and raking along my painfully sensitive g-spot.

His breath tickled my ear, and he moaned a long “mmm” of satisfaction as he filled me. The sound reverberated right to my core. He stroked in and out of me slowly while I wept and clung to him, whimpering, “I love you, I love you,” over and over.

“Come, Sophie,” he ordered me, and I slipped my hand between our bodies. It wasn’t torture now, but pure pleasure. I strove for my climax, wanting it, wanting him, becoming someone other than myself, someone who existed solely for my Sir. My orgasm wasn’t a pain now. It was like coming home. I cried out, lost in the beauty of it.

His steady, easy pace slowed. He breathed hard above me, and I watched, fascinated, as struggle twisted his face into a rictus of concentration. He lost the battle, pumping into me furiously and came with a groan, his cock buried so deep in me that its twitches and jerks made shocks of pain against my cervix.

Breathing heavily, he pressed his forehead against mine to recover. I smoothed my palms down his back, danced my fingertips over his shoulder blades and down the flexed muscles of his arms. He slipped from me and rolled to his side. “Do you need anything?”

I shook my head with a lazy smile.

“Would you like to take your collar off?”

Another shake of my head. “I want to wear it just a little longer, Sir.”

He drew me into his arms, curving his body protectively around mine. I flattened my palms against his chest and looked up for a kiss.

“So.” He said when he lifted his mouth from mine. “Tell me about your day.”

* * * *

Having a morning off is all well and good, if you don’t have a suddenly fitness obsessed, recently retired fiancé who longs for togetherness at inconvenient hours.

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey,” Neil called cheerfully as he flicked on the lights. I hated, hated that I had ever used that phrase in front of him. Although, it wasn’t as poor a choice as telling him about the “rise and shine and give God your glory, glory!” bible camp song. Having a tone-deaf Englishman sing that at you before dawn is probably what actual hell is like.

“Why?” I let the word draw out in a long, frustrated groan into my pillow. “I was going to sleep in.”

“I thought you might like to run with me. You never run with me anymore.” If the observation had sounded petulant, I would have been miffed, but he was right; at the beginning of our relationship, a brisk Saturday morning run through Central Park had been part of our routine.

But it wasn’t the season for outdoor running, and since Central Park was two hours away, I doubted it was in the cards for today. “I hate the treadmill. And you’re so competitive.”

“I promise, I won’t look at your settings,” he vowed. “It’s going to be a lovely, snowy day. Why not get up, have a jog, then I’ll make us breakfast and we can spend all day by the fire, just the two of us.”

The bed was so warm. And so lovely. But so was Neil. I had been working a lot lately, and he hadn’t complained one bit, even when I’d spent nights in the city. He’d bought me this sprawling, ocean-view mansion because I hadn’t wanted to be trapped in Manhattan, and I kept abandoning him—and it—to run back to our old apartment. If all he demanded in return was the occasional work-out companionship, I supposed I couldn’t begrudge him that.

“Okay.” I stretched and forced myself to sit up. “I’m in. Give me ten to brush my teeth and get dressed.”

I stumbled to the dressing room. I was nearly at the door when the phone rang, and I paused. “Who would be calling us this early?”

“I’ll answer it. You should get changed,” he advised with a smirk as he reached for the cordless handset. “Tight yoga pants, maybe. And that pink sports bra you’re always complaining doesn’t have enough support.”

“Perv,” I laughed, and left him to deal with whoever was calling at—I checked the time on one of Neil’s dinner plate sized watches and groaned—seven in the freaking morning.

When Neil and I had first started dating, my closet situation had involved a pipe my landlord had expressly warned us not to hang stuff on. I’d had a lot less space back then, and a lot less clothing. One of the perks of being engaged to a billionaire—and there were, well, billions of perks—was the ridiculous amount of clothing a fashion-obsessed girl could buy, and the lavish space to hang it in. The dressing room in the master bedroom was bigger than some Manhattan boutiques I’d been in, with similar features. The overhead lighting was bright, but soft, and twin trifold mirrors on either side of the room cut back on our “getting ready” arguments.

I loved my fiancé, but he was vain as hell and a total mirror hog. And there was only room for one of those per closet.

Down the center of the room were two huge, glass-topped consoles to hold his watches and cufflinks and my jewelry, except for my diamond collar, which stayed locked in a safe. Our shoes were lined up neatly on a wall of custom shelves, and I plucked my sneakers from the bottom row. I grabbed the yoga pants Neil had suggested—my ass is pretty fantastic, and giving him a treat wouldn’t hurt—but passed up the weak sports bra for something with a little less jiggle. I don’t have the biggest rack in the world, but unsecured boobs are no fun on a treadmill.

I dressed, tied my shoes, pulled my hair up into a ponytail and headed back out to the bedroom. Since he wasn’t talking anymore, I figured he was off the phone.

“Who was it?” I asked.

Neil was on the edge of the bed, leaning forward with his hands over his face. It wasn’t until he sat up and I saw how red and wet his eyes were that I realized he was crying. He hiccupped back a breath, and his face crumpled as he said, “My mum’s died.”

The Joelist Book of The Dead, pt. 1, “Lullaby (Goodnight, My Angel)”

In regards to belief in an Afterlife, my spiritual path has always been a rocky one. I grew up fearing hell, constantly panicked about the Rapture. As a teen, I toyed with the idea of converting to Judaism, as all young Catholic girls do. Then I turned to Celtic Paganism and Witchcraft for a long ass time, but that eventually fizzled out, too, and I returned to the Catholic church with the same enthusiasm with which I renew my state I.D..

When my grandfather died in 2011, my entire world was ripped from its foundations. He was my father more than my grandfather, and I felt a keen and paralyzing sense of my own mortality. I went to church religiously (har har), but as my depression deepened, all I was doing was praying to feel something other than my grief. I became more and more disillusioned with platitudes about heaven, until one day when my grandmother mentioned seeing my grandfather again in heaven, something in my head snapped. I realized in that moment that it didn’t matter if I would eventually see my dead loved ones again; I wouldn’t see them here, and here was where I wanted them to be. So, I wasn’t going to believe in anything.

Cut to June of this year, and my sudden Joelist revelation. As I meditated on the lyrics of Billy Joel’s songs, I began to feel a deep dissatisfaction with my lack of belief in a life after death. I’d done extensive research into the existence of past lives, and I’d heard far too many anecdotes about dead loved ones communicating from the beyond. I grew up in a haunted house, for god’s sake, and I continue to be fascinated with the concept of thought, how it forms and were it comes from. I could no longer accept that death is the end, but having no answers, and constantly fixating on death and suicide, was driving me literally crazy.

A couple months ago, while listening to River of Dreams, I had another Joelist Revelation. It slowly dawned on me that the last four songs on the album, “Lullaby (Good Night, My Angel),” “The River of Dreams,” “Two Thousand Years,” and “Famous Last Words” were, to my mind, all one song. Or, now that I think about it, a movement in the overall symphony of the album. I’ve begun thinking of this section of the album as the Joelist “Book of The Dead.” When I started researching the actual Book of The Dead, I learned that some versions dated to the late Ptolemaic period break up the text into four parts. To my shock, I found that the last four songs, in order, make up a very similar theme.

I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but it seems like it would be a pretty unusual coincidence. I’d love to know if it was, but I don’t really want to be the person who writes to Billy Joel to tell him that I worship him as a god, for obvious reasons relating to personal protection orders. So for now, I’ll have to be content with my analysis of the songs.

Of course, my analysis of the songs could be completely wrong, but as all religions are founded on the human interpretations of the whims of their gods, so is Joelism formed by my imperfect human meditations on the words of my mortal god.

The first part of the four-part Joelist Book of The Dead, “Lullaby (Goodnight, My Angel)” is, on the surface, a father’s meditation on the nature of his love for his child. And maybe the surface meaning is all that was intended. But on further analysis, the narration goes deeper; the father singing to his child is either dying, or already dead.

Goodnight, my angel

Time to close your eyes

And save these questions for another day

I think I know what you’ve been asking me

I think you know what I’ve been trying to say

No matter how old or young we are, people have the same understanding of death. That is to say, none at all. We have no idea what lies beyond, only anecdotes and beliefs with no proof of what awaits us on the other side. If we imagine ourselves as the child in the song, we know the questions they’re asking. If we take on the father role, we understand that there are no effortless answers. In the next line:

I promised I would never leave you

is a promise all parents want to make to their child, and all children wish dearly to believe. That the father figure goes on to assure the child:

And you should always know

Wherever you may go

No matter where you are

I never will be far away

It is an assurance of an eternal life in which that promise can be kept, even as the father figure passes from this life to the next in the following lines:

Goodnight, my angel

Now it’s time to sleep

And still so many things I want to say

Thought the father can’t impart any further wisdom to the child, he can remind them to cherish memories of the past and continue to learn from them:

Remember all the songs you sang for me

When we went sailing on an emerald bay

And like a boat out on the ocean

I’m rocking you to sleep

The nautical imagery echoes the journey by boat described in various chapters of the Ptolemaic Book of The Dead, as well.

The water’s dark

And deep inside this ancient heart

You’ll always be a part of me

The theme of water as a spirit source in relation to the soul continues in the next part, “The River of Dreams,” and seems to represent the theory of a universal or collective conscious. The child will always be a part of the father, even in death, as he crosses over the river of consciousness and into a realm of spiritual knowledge.

That part will make a lot more sense after my analysis of “The River of Dreams,” but it’s worth noting here.

Goodnight, my angel

Now it’s time to dream

And dream how wonderful your life will be

The child will go on without the parent, to a future that can only be imagined. These lines book-end the passage about memory; while we learn from the past, we shape our futures.

Someday your child may cry

And if you sing this lullabye

Then in your heart

There will always be a part of me

The connection between the father and child will remain after death, in the form of memory. The bond between them lends the father immortality, as the lullaby will create the same bond between the child and their future children.

Someday we’ll all be gone

But lullabyes go on and on…

They never die

That’s how you

And I

Will be

On a broader scale, the song describes an ongoing relationship between the living and the dead, constructed of the memories one makes over their lifetime. This doesn’t have to be a loving bond between a parent and a child. This is just an example of one kind of legacy after death. Even the most forgotten person has an existence in memory, either theirs or a sliver of someone else’s. As a part of the collective consciousness (the “opposite side” of the “River of Dreams” I’ll discuss in the next post), a soul can never be truly forgotten, and will always have ties to the mortal world, no matter how small.

This isn’t the easiest song for me to write about. Our lingering love for the dead is a source of joy, but also pain. And while we all prepare to one day move on to the next phase of consciousness, it’s hard to imagine parting with the people and things we love. The lyrics are a source of comfort for me, in that it reminds me that though my grandfather is gone, he still exists, just as everyone continues to exist after death. But it also inspires grief on a literal level; though my grandfather was my father-figure, a rejected child is always a rejected child, no matter how old they are. I always have a moment of, “Why couldn’t my father love me?” when I’m listening to it. Still, it’s an important part of the spiritual text I am making up for my new religion, so you take the good with the bad, I guess.

The “Plus-Size” Calvin Klein Model and Why Everything Is Objectively Terrible

Perhaps you’ve heard the media praising Calvin Klein for the “plus-size” model in their new advertising campaign:

The company itself has not branded Myla Dalbesio a “plus-size” model. In fact, they simply released their campaign without calling attention to Dalbesio’s size at all. In a statement made to Elle.com, a representative for the brand lauded the “inclusive” nature of the new “Perfectly Fit” line of underwear:

“The Perfectly Fit line was created to celebrate and cater to the needs of different women, and these images are intended to communicate that our new line is more inclusive and available in several silhouettes in an extensive range of sizes.”

Their “inclusive” new line tops out at a size large for panties, and a size 38DDD for bras, according to the company’s size chart.

In fairness to Calvin Klein, the company has always seemed more plus-size friendly than other famous labels. Some of their ready-to-wear collection goes up to a size 24W. Maybe that’s why media outlets have stirred up controversy by proclaiming their new model “plus-sized.”

For her part, Dalbesio is focusing on the positives of the media scrutiny:

“I love that as the conversation on the internet explodes and brings greater awareness, I am receiving emails from 15 year-old girls, telling me that I have given them hope and that sharing my story has made them feel less freakish, less weird, and that they can accept their size 8 or 10 frame.”

Teens feel insecure about their bodies across the board, and a girl feeling good about herself is always a plus. But is holding up Dalbesio’s figure as an example of a “bigger girl” (a term Dalbesio uses to describe herself) really helping insecure women? Though Dalbesio’s shape is being praised as normal and realistic when compared to the preferences of the fashion world, her body is still considered ideal by current standards of everyday beauty. There’s something disconcerting about a woman who looks like Dalbesio making statements like:

“I had been hoping for a long time that someone would start this, that someone would talk about this, that things might change for girls that are shaped like me in the fashion industry and beyond.” (Today.com)

To many it would appear that Dalbesio has a “Perfectly Fit” body to go along with the ad campaign, yet she’s being framed by the media as a barrier-breaking example of a woman who is attractive despite being burdened with an unfortunate body type, much in the way that Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Winslet, and Salma Hayek have all been branded as “larger” than acceptable women.

The fashion industry is notorious for its worship of the skinny female form. Eating disorders and drug use have long been acknowledged as either dangers of or requirements for models, and Dalbesio herself has struggled with the same insecurities as everyone:

“Do you ever go to the beach and see a woman who’s 300 pounds and wearing a lime green thong and a fishnet cover up? Your like, ‘You look fucking awesome.’ But isn’t that fucked? I’m a model and I still need validation…”

But it’s quite a leap from a three-hundred pound woman in a bikini on the beach and a fit, toned size ten in professional photographs, in both aesthetic and response from society. A woman like Dalbesio may walk the beach feeling like a whale, but the three-hundred pound woman will actually be called one by strangers. While body positivity is for everyone, no matter their size, gender, or race, it’s disingenuous for a model in a major label’s ad campaign to compare herself to a hypothetical parody of an unabashedly fat woman. Yet one can’t help but excuse that remark as a product of the culture Dalbesio is employed in; would she feel the same need for comparison if she were a pilot or a firefighter? Perhaps, but the amount of pressure to worry about her appearance would be inarguably less.

It’s not surprising that women on the internet bristled at the media’s touting of Dalbesio as “plus-size,” a label she seems to dodge and claim all at once, telling Elle.com:

“’I feel like for a minute, it was starting to feel like this ‘plus size’ thing really was a trend, and that it was over,’ Dalbesio says. ‘There was that beautiful Italian Vogue story, and the girls that were in that ended up doing really well [in their modeling careers]. But when that happened, we felt really excited; we thought it was going to open so many doors for all of us, you know? And it felt like it hadn’t. It was dying out.’”

and

“’I’m in the middle,’ she says. ‘I’m not skinny enough to be with the skinny girls and I’m not large enough to be with the large girls and I haven’t been able to find my place. This [campaign] was such a great feeling.’”

If Dalbesio was disheartened by the sudden decline in plus-size modeling opportunities, imagine how plus-size models– and even plus-er sized women– felt. From her own words, her interest in the growing plus-size modeling movement was largely focused on what opportunities would open for her, and for women her size. This eerily echoes those in the body positivity movement whose primary concern is to wrestle control of the conversation from extremely thin women and extremely fat women alike, in order to focus on the self-esteem of women already held up as the example of perfection.

Fashion does have a dearth of opportunity where women sizes two to fourteen are concerned, and Dalbesio has broken ground for “larger” models within the industry. Outside of modeling, thought, Dalbesio’s body type is hardly shunned or degraded. So why declare her story a win for women beyond the catwalk? Fashion is an industry that has worked hard for decades to become the antithesis of body positivity; for it to make such slight progress as to showcase yet another type of conventionally perfect body isn’t a cause for celebration, but a call for revolution.

All women deserve representation. But many people on both sides of this issue, and the media in particular, are confusing representation of one ideal body in one industry with representation in all of society. If we continue to conflate acceptance of women’s bodies as beautiful with acceptance of a woman’s innate worth as a human, we’ll only establish new standards for women to strive for in order to prove themselves. And that size eight or ten teenager who feels “freakish” will only have to work that much harder at loving herself despite the messages the media throws at her.

 

State of The Trout: Books out the wazoo

Remember back in July when I was in that New Adult anthology, If Ever I Would Leave You? My story, A Choice Fit For A Queen, is re-releasing as a $0.99 stand-alone novella, Choosing You.

For perpetual overachiever Madison Lane, a summer studying Arthurian mythology in the Welsh countryside with professor Thomas Evans is a dream come true, and the adventure of a lifetime.

Of course, the enormous crush Madison developed on the professor after a semester of his lectures at U of M has absolutely nothing to do with her desire to learn more about the enduring legend of Camelot. At least, that’s what she’s telling her parents.

When Madison meets local hottie Rhys Crewe, sparks fly, throwing her plans for a wild fling with Professor Evans completely out of whack—as do her unexpectedly complicated feelings for Thomas. With tales of Arthur and Lancelot haunting her every waking moment, Madison has to make the most difficult choice of her life.

Amazon

So, if you read A Choice Fit For A Queen, the only new thing here is the cover and the title. If you haven’t read A Choice Fit For A Queen, then yay, new book! And if you’re curious about my writing but you’re not into billionaires, then this is a good $0.99 cent way to sample. You can get it on Amazon today, with Smashwords and Barnes & Noble to follow. And if you’re into anthologies, you can still purchase If Ever I Would Leave You for $2.99. Check out the “Read Jenny’s Books” page for more info and buy links.

Other news: The final touches are still being added to The Ex. While I would have loved to have had a pre-order set up by now, at the moment I’m just trying to get it as perfect as I can get it before uploading. Delivering a quality book to you is always more important to me than first day sales.

Kickstart the book that will show the world what it’s like to be an overweight woman: Photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero takes pictures of herself walking around and just doing normal things in public. The catch? She’s overweight. Her photos show how people look at her when she’s not looking at them–and how people react to “imperfection” when nobody is watching. She’s currently crowdfunding a book of her photos, and you know I’m a sucker for independent projects, so I wanted to share it with all of you so you can have the opportunity to help her out, if you want.

Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia chapter 4

One time, I was hanging out with one of my editor friends, and she was working on an author’s manuscript. She was complaining about how the revisions process with this particular author was driving her crazy, and she said, “At some point will there be sex in your erotic novel?” It made me laugh so hard, because I was thinking, wow, that’s something, an erotic novel with no sex. Stuff like that just tickles me. Anyway, I guess what I’m asking here is, “At some point will there be science fiction in your New Adult Sci-Fi novel?” Because if there is, it’s not in chapter four. It is now two weeks after last we were last with Rory and Benji, and Benji is trying to bribe Rory into going to the gym with him:

“Just once. Come with me once, and I’ll never ask you to go again. I’ll throw in a freebie dinner, one you don’t have to study with me for.” “What am I? A food whore? I said, no.”

(Again, the underline is not present in the text, I’m putting them here because I can’t do italics in quotes for some reason and I don’t want to misrepresent the text.) No, Rory. Of course you’re not a food whore. You don’t enjoy your food. Just like you’re not a sex whore, because you didn’t really enjoy all that sad, wounded sex you had. I bet Ellie loooooooves food. The whore.

I’m sick and tired of Benji pestering Rory until she gives him what he wants. That’s some bullshit, especially since he’s one leg of a rickety-ass love sawhorse. Because after that quote up there, we directly roll into:

Thirty minutes later, we were at The Gym.

First of all, why is that capitalized. Is it the gym? Second, if Rory is such a hard ass who doesn’t need anyone, why doesn’t she just tell Benji off, or at least stop letting him wear her down until she does what he wants?

I was in a loose-fitting Rolling Stones tee,

Ooh, rebellious 1960′s teen!

black leggings, and high-top converse, poking buttons on a treadmill and fantasizing about where I would eat my freebie dinner.

Fantasizing about dinner? You whore.

Rory starts thinking about how she’s out of shape, because she’d been an athlete in high school, and how different things were then:

I even had friends, and they would beg the heavens for my thick, shiny brown hair and perfectly peach skin. Boys had just begun to notice me. Then, I died and came back an angry, shaven and pierced pale hermit who gasped for air after slowly jogging for two minutes.

Yes, reader, this is the real tragedy. Rory’s family was horribly murdered, possibly sacrificed, and it made her ugly.

Why is this the thing she’s focusing on? She talks about how she was so in shape when she played volleyball and she was beautiful and boys noticed her, but she devotes less than half a sentence to the friends and the life she lost. The most important thing, dear reader, is that we know that while Rory is not beautiful right now, she has the potential to be totally hot.

Woe-is-me-out-of-shape Rory goes to get a drink, and wouldn’t you know who’s there?

“You must be lost,” Ellie said behind me.

Oh good. I don’t think we got our fill of ridiculous girl hate in the last chapter. I’m really hoping that whatever rivalry this is, it goes all Legally Blonde at the end and they’re good friends.

Her perky D-cup breasts perfectly filled out a perfect racerback top, as did her ass in the capri yoga pants. It was almost as if the gods had made a point to sculpt the perfect body and then were too tired to provide a decent personality.

Perky D-cups? Now I know McGuire was a fanfic writer.

Benji comes over and Ellie sees him, and learns that he and Rory are there together:

 “Seriously? You’re trying to make me jealous? With…that?” Ellie said, laughing once without humor.

Benji acts like he has no idea what Ellie is talking about. Now, Rory doesn’t go, “Hey, maybe he’s fooling around with Ellie and didn’t tell me,” which, why should he if they’re not going out, but in any case, she doesn’t assume Benji is trying to cover his ass here. She thinks:

From the corner of my eye, I could see the beginnings of a grin on Ellie’s face. Was she really so horrible that she would pretend to have dated Benji to ruin one of the only friendships I had?

Listen. If your friend’s dating past is going to cause you to seriously rethink your friendship? You’re not the good friends you think you are.

Luckily, Rory is a mature individual who definitely does not behave like they’re in an episode of bad a teen drama:

I grabbed Benji’s cheeks and planted my lips on his. Benji’s entire body tensed, and then he relaxed, pulling my body against his. His mouth parted, and what was suppose to be a quick, hard peck turned into a long, deep kiss with a lot of tongue and a lot of pressure from Benji’s fingertips into my skin.

I pulled away and we looked at each other. “I bet she’s jealous now,” I said, stealing a side-glance at Ellie.

“Who cares?” Benji said, unable to look away from me. Although he hadn’t been breathing hard on the treadmill, he was certainly breathing hard now.

Ellie’s mouth fell open, and then she walked away, tossing her hair as she turned.

And then confetti came down from the ceiling and then everyone clapped and then someone wheeled in a cake covered with lit sparklers and the frosting spelled out, “You’re the prettiest, Rory!” and then my dead parents rose from the dead and then they hugged me and said, “We’re so proud of you, Rory, for defeating that slut,” and I smiled and smiled until I got a nosebleed and then I died, the end.

Seriously, what did this scene add to the story? What does Ellie add to the story? There is a space rock! There is a space rock in this New Adult Sci-Fi and it’s sitting in some basement lab doing nothing interesting while we have to watch Rory act out a scene from every single overwrought 90′s Fox drama for teens. If this was on Saved By The Bell, this would be the part where the audience would go, “WooOOOOooooOOOoo.” Writing Tip: You don’t want the Saved By The Bell audience to go “WoooOOOOooooOOOoo” in your manuscript. You also don’t want to use “and then” as much as it’s being used in this chapter. Some people say to never use it. I like it, in small doses, and I try to avoid it when I can. Sometimes, it feels natural, and you just have to go with your gut instinct. Other times, it sounds like a six-year-old trying to tell you about a field trip.

Benji helps Rory work out on a weight machine, and Rory explains that even though she knows he’s all persistent with the “I wanna date you,” signals, kissing him was only about making Ellie jealous, so he shouldn’t make anything of it. But then she says they can go to the gym together every Saturday, and is sad when he looks disappointed. They’re about to leave when this happens:

Just then, I felt a searing pain in my backside accompanied by a loud slapping noise that echoed throughout The Gym.

A guy almost a head taller than Benji passed me, smirking. “It’s about time you brought a piece of ass,” he said.

Benji immediately grabbed him and slammed him to the floor. Benji’s elbow stretched back, high into the air, and his hand was balled into a shaking tight fist. Before he threw the punch, Benji pushed away from the guy and stood up.

Where do these people live? Seriously, I want to know where this magical land of 1980′s teen movie cliches is. Right now, I just imagined James Spader as Steff McKee at The Gym.

They leave The Gym and when Benji drops Rory off, he apologizes to her for snapping and almost pummeling the dude. But Rory is fine with it:

I’d seen a completely different side of him. Before, I was struggling with returning the affections of a semi-annoying nerd. Suddenly, he was a badass. I’d wanted to kiss him again the second we stopped. Now, I was building up the nerve to do it again.

I wasn’t attracted to you before, when you were just an annoying guy, but now that I know you’re a violent annoying guy, I can’t keep my hands off you.

Look, I’m never going to argue in favor of the guy getting the girl just because he’s nice and persistent and should be rewarded for both of those traits. I hate Nice Guys as much as anyone. But how fucked up is it that this guy, who she couldn’t stand, who made her uncomfortable with his relentless pursuit, is suddenly super hot because he lost his temper and almost hit someone? I get it, he was defending her. But his reaction was so extreme, so quickly… why is a short, violent temper something to be attracted to? And this obviously isn’t the first book in recent memory where this happened (50SoG, I’m looking at you here). Why on earth is violence supposed to be an admirable trait in men?

But their romantic kiss of thanks-for-almost-punching-that-guy never happens:

His phone buzzed, and the display lit up. Both of our bodies relaxed, and I looked down. The name above the number made my stomach turn. In bold white letters, it read, Ellie. My eyes snapped back up to Benji’s. His expression immediately turned desperate.

“I can explain–”

“Liar,” I hissed, grabbing my backpack and slamming the door behind me.

Writing Tip: You can’t hiss a word that doesn’t have any sibilant consonants.

So, Rory is all pissed off when she goes into the lab, and Cy notices. He asks her if she’s okay, because something seems off about her. Rory appreciates his concern, and asks him if he’ll sit next to her in class the next day, presumably because she doesn’t want to sit next to Benji. The she starts working on data, and nothing happens with the science or the space rock.

After a section break (which is marked with a biohazard symbol that I assume is warning us about the contents of Rory’s personality), Rory is in class. As promised, Cy is sitting next to her when Benji comes in.

Benji passed Cy and then me before taking the seat on my left side.

Didn’t really think this one through, huh Rory? Curses! Foiled once again by having a right and a left.

Benji tells Rory that he tried to call her, and even came by the dorm. He wants to talk about what happened, but Rory gives him the silent treatment.

Cy leaned forward. “I don’t believe she’s ready to discuss your issue just yet. Maybe another time outside of class.”

Benji sighed and leaned back.

Cy spoke again, “Since there appears to be something upsetting going on between the two of you, it would be polite to find another seat so that Rory can concentrate on her notes.”

Okay, wait a tick. I think I see what the author (hopefully) is doing. Rory is attracted to Benji, but she’ll obviously end up with Cy, so the whole “wow, you’re so hot because you’re violent,” thing isn’t going to pay off for Benji. It’s still troubling that his violence is what made Rory reconsider her feelings for him, but we can give the book the benefit of the doubt here that we’re heading into territory where we’ll see that Benji’s behavior isn’t appropriate. My guess is that at some point, Benji will become violent toward Rory, and that’s when we’ll see this all go down.

It’s still annoying that Rory, for all her alleged toughness, can’t just tell Benji to bug off when he sits next to her, and instead plays the distressed damsel and let’s Cy stick up for her. Why can she hurl “cum-burping gutter slut” at Ellie, but she can’t tell Benji, “I don’t want to talk to you, please move, you’re making me uncomfortable?”

Well, we all know why. It’s easier to be openly hateful to a woman than it is to stick up for yourself to a man, and that’s not unrealistic for a woman Rory’s age. Some of us take a while to figure that out. Still, if this character is supposed to be this bad ass bitch who doesn’t give a shit about anything, maybe she shouldn’t be passed off as a wilting Southern belle when it comes to these guys.

Dr. Z comes in and starts his lecture, and the chapter ends without anything science-fiction-y happening. Again.

Merlin Club S04E03 “The Wicked Day” or “The One Where Uther Dies (But Not The Way I Want Him To)”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episode three: Assassins come to Camelot disguised as circus performers to entertain at Arthur’s birthday feast. Uther isn’t quite as catatonic as before, which is good because the assassins roofie Arthur and try to kill him. Uther gets one last epic, heroic sword fight, AKA he finally does something useful and not shitty for his son. Then he gets stabbed. YAY! Uther is going to die, but Merlin sees this as a chance to save magic users everywhere. He’s going to cure Uther with magic, and then everyone will see how awesome magic is and everyone will be cool with it again.

Except, remember how Uther thought Morgana had been saved with magic, and that didn’t change his mind like, at all?

Whatever. Merlin disguises himself as Dragoon/Emrys, and comes to the castle to heal Uther. But Arthur can’t figure out that his uncle, Agravaine, is evil, so he tells him, hey, we’re going to cure my father with magic. Agravaine tells Morgana, and she gives him a talisman to stick under Uther’s bed that is like something directly out of World of Warcraft. Whatever healing magic is done on Uther will kill him. Merlin manages to cure Uther for like two seconds, then he dies. And he’s really dead, and the people rejoice. Or mourn, whatever, but the important thing is that now Arthur really hates magic, whereas he might have just been lukewarm on the whole hating magic subject before.

But on the bright side, Arthur is king now! YAY!

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: I have always found it really frustrating that Morgana didn’t get to kill Uther in a hands-on way. I would have loved for the episode in season three, when she tries to stab Uther in the night, to have somehow been combined with this. Like, Morgana goes to stab Uther, she kills him, they get to have their little “do you really hate me so much” exchange from the dungeon at the end of season three, then Merlin does the magic to save Uther and Morgana’s spell kills him, the end. The rest of season three could have continued without Uther, and it could have been sibling against sibling from there on out. It could have also speeded up the Gwen/Arthur storyline, so I wouldn’t feel as cheated as I did by the events in season five.

The thing I loved most about this episode: Arthur is king now! YAY! And I really enjoyed the sword fight between Uther and the assassin. I loved that Uther didn’t just jump up from a yearlong vegetative state able to fight like he’d practiced that morning, which a lot of shows would have done. At the same time, it showed that Uther really was a warrior king, and he was still a pretty scrappy fighter, even though he was way out of shape. It was a nice touch.

The thing I hated most about this episode: I hated that some little nobody, not even a recurring character got to kill Uther. If it couldn’t be Morgana, it could have at least been someone interesting.

Something I never noticed before: I haven’t been able to figure out Agravaine’s motivations in the past at all, and this time around I started thinking about it more. He’s Igraine’s brother, and he wants to destroy Camelot because Uther used to magic to kill his sister. But he’s attacking Camelot by aiding Morgana, who uses magic. I’d never really thought of that particular angle before and how little sense it makes, because I’d always been hung up on the part where he’s siding with Morgana against his own nephew. Whatever, this is still one of my favorites, because Arthur gets to be king. YAY!

Favorite Costume: Uther’s poet shirt. Not just because Anthony Head is sword fighting in a poet shirt. I like this because in the past, we’ve always seen Uther fighting in chain mail or studded leather doublets or what have you. Clothes that made him appear powerful and formidable. This is probably the most important fight of his entire life, and without all that stuff, he’s vulnerable–even more so because if he fails, his son will die. The costumers do a bang up job with the details on this show.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: Nothing here.

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? 

That cute little cabinet next to pantsless Arthur. OH, you thought I meant… no, I definitely mean the cabinet.

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? Speaking of pantsless Arthur…

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

That’s it for this week. Join us next week for S04E04, “Aithusa,” Monday,  8pm EST on the hashtag #MerlinClub.

 

2 Americans and a Canadian Blog Tour!

Hey everybody! Three of my favorite co-workers (that’s what I call other authors) in the whole world have three new releases right now! They’re all on a blog tour together, so of course I had to get in on that sweet, sweet international promo.

(Tour Organizer: N K Author Services)

ALBION’S CIRCLE: IN MY VEINS 

by Jessica Jarman

Genre: Paranormal/Fantasy Romance

Anna is his. Merlin has failed. The Circle is broken. After being defeated in every lifetime, Mordred believes he’s finally won.

 Even though Anna has little hope of gaining Merlin’s forgiveness for believing Mordred over him and the rest of the Circle, she isn’t giving up and vows to set things right. When an offer of help comes from an unlikely ally, Anna must trust her instincts—the very thing that got her into this mess in the first place.

 Because more than just her survival hangs in the balance. Mordred took her for a reason. Anna is the key. The key to completing the Circle. The key to preventing unthinkable death and destruction at Mordred’s hand. They key to destroying the heart of a wizard whose love has followed her through the ages.

But Mordred has forgotten exactly what’s he’s up against—Arthur and his Knights. The most powerful Magical to ever walk the Earth. And a love a thousand years in the making.

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Jessica Jarman is an author, blogger, and rather obsessive fangirl.Having grown up in Upper Michigan and currently living in Minnesota, she is a Midwestern girl through and through. And wouldn’t have it any other way.

When she’s not working to get words on the page, Jessica passes the time with her amazing husband and four children, attempting to be crafty (and failing miserably), squeeing uncontrollably over her favorite shows or curling up with a good book.

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Ricochet

by Kris Norris

Genre: Erotic Romance

 A moment he can’t take back…

 An unlucky rebound has left US Marshal Ashton Kane broken. His partner’s dead and, consumed by guilt, he’s walked out on the only woman he’ll ever love.

 A love she can’t forget…

 Cassidy Ryan has tried to move on. Losing the love of her life cut deep, but she vowed she wouldn’t let it break her. And she’s finally taking back her life—until she stumbles upon a deadly encounter that threatens to destroy everything and everyone around her.

 One last chance at redemption…

 Ash has fooled himself into believing Cassidy’s better off without him—until she puts her life on the line, forcing him to face the demons that still whisper in the dark—or risk losing her. Again. Only this time, it’ll be no one’s fault, but his.

Kris Norris Author, single mother, slave to chaos—she’s a jack-of-all-trades who’s constantly looking for her ever elusive clone.

Kris started writing some years back, and it took her a while to realize she wasn’t destined for the padded room, and that the voices chattering away in her head were really other characters trying to take shape—and since they weren’t telling her to conquer the human race, she went with it. Though she supposes if they had…insert evil laugh.

Kris loves writing erotic novels. She loves heroines who kick butt, heroes who are larger than life and sizzling sex scenes that leave you feeling just a bit breathless.

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Mated

by Gwendolyn Cease

Genre: Paranormal Romance

 Laira Marshall had to admit—getting kidnapped wasn’t something she’d expected.

Discovering her kidnappers were aliens who planned on selling her into sexual slavery, definitely tipped the scales into the truly bizarre. But she’s determined to fight her way through this—until their slave ship is attacked, and Laira’s faced with an entirely new problem.

Rakin and Dev were the leaders of the Sandaki—a race genetically engineered to fight. Using their enhanced traits, they’ve freed their people and have devoted their lives to seeking out those who enslaved them. They never considered the concept of love—or that one woman could bring them to their knees.

With unknown enemies working against them, the three lovers must come together not only to save themselves, but the Sandaki race itself.

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 Gwendolyn Cease has been writing ever since she was old enough to pick up a pen. From the very beginning, her stories involved handsome heroes, tough heroines, and happily ever after. Even as she slogged through two undergraduate degrees and a master’s in education, writing remained top priority. Though she now works full-time as a history museum educator, she still makes time for her characters and their never-ending adventures.

Currently, Gwendolyn lives in Kentucky with her incredibly spoiled cats. If you’d like to contact her, she’d love to hear from you. She loves to hear from anyone who enjoys a good book, especially the ones she’s written. You can email her at gwendolyncease@insightbb.com.

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