Cate Ellink's Blog, page 55

Wildlife Wednesday - Lionfish

LionfishLionfish are one of my favourites because you don't see them often, and they're weird. This is a photo of two of them at Lord Howe Island in 2004. They're all frills and spines, looking a bit like a mane. When scared these spines stand up, threatening predators.

The trusty Australian Museum website has a video of lionfish, if you'd like to see them more clearly than my blurry photo. You can go here.

They have venomous fin spines, that are toxic to humans, so don't be going poking at them :)

Neds beachContinuing my Lord Howe Island theme, here are some photos of places that feature in Deep Diving. Neds Beach features quite a bit. This is the grassy stretch along the last part of the road before the beach. Neds Beach is the home to the fish feeding which occurs every afternoon. It's a beautiful spot and the first time I went to LHI (alone) I spent a lot of time snorkelling here. The second time I went with Mr E, he's not so fond of the water, and he made me hike hills - something I'd never considered before!

LHI has lots of sub-tropical rainforest. This photo along the road from town to Neds Beach shows some of it. Gorgeous palms and ferns, with lots of other trees and shrubs.

Road to Neds beachAt night, the roads are dark as there are no streetlights on most of the roads. It's gorgeous to walk along with your torch in hand and feel the rainforest, catch the twinkling of the stars through the treetops. I did this when I went the first time. The best thing was that I never felt unsafe. It's isolated, but most of the people I met were there for the beauty of the environment, not to harm others. It made travelling alone a complete pleasure. I could chat to people and walk away, knowing I was safe. This was over 10 years ago - so I hope it's that wonderful still.

Sunday Story - annual pilgrimage

This weekend is the Romance Writers Conference, so I'm making my annual pilgrimage to have my well filled.

I'll be catching up with my CP who started in RWA with me, attended the first conference with me, and who I only ever see once a year - except she missed the conference last year, so it's 2 years worth of talking to do!


I'll be inspired by other writers - sometimes in sessions, sometimes just in a quiet chat, sometimes at dinner or over a drink, or even breakfast.

I'll network because the industry seems to thrive on networking.

As well as these good things, I'll be struggling with the noise of 300+ women.

I'll be exhausted from information overload, sensory overload, and food overload!

And I'll be nervous as hell as I'm delivering a workshop on Sunday! It shouldn't be nerve-wracking, it's only about my journey, but all the same - talking in front of people!

And I'll be missing Kate, Rhyll, and Lily. All of who read this blog and I know they're not going to be there. So a huge cyber-hug to you guys. One day I hope we'll all be there together. What a ruckus we could have!

And yep - have packed a few merkins ;)

Phallic Friday - porn dreams

This caught my eye this week (read it here). Sydney just had SEXPO (no, I didn't get to go as an 80th birthday took precedence - not mine, mind you!) and attending Sexpo was James Deen, one of the current leading porn stars.

In this article he says he wanted to be a porn star since he was a kid. He remembers being suspended by his third grade teacher for saying so! He lost his virginity at 12.

I'm sad to say, I didn't know what a porn star was until I was...hmmm...certainly well into high school. I had such a sheltered little childhood. High school needlework, years 9 and 10, is where I started to learn about the world. The girls in that class opened my eyes to this whole dimension of life that I'd been missing. God, how I sewed! So much hand sewing, just so I could learn about boys and sex, drugs and night clubs. All those things I knew nothing about.

And virginity - gosh, even as a Catholic I didn't know what that word meant until I was about 12, yet the word 'virgin' was used so often and in so many prayers. And losing it, wow, swap those numbers around and it's closer to when I lost it.

It's kind of amazing to me that with my thirst for knowledge, I missed the whole sex thing as a kid. I knew about animal sex. I knew biology. I just didn't even think of the human mechanics. I was such a nerd of a kid, that I probably knew the mechanics but never thought of it beyond a coupling exercise. I remember turning away during kissing on the TV because it made me feel sick - can you believe that?

How did I get from there to here? I met someone just like James Deen, who'd had a childhood not too dissimilar to his. He made me explore sex in a way I hadn't, well, not beyond my own scribbles. He encouraged me to write, read, explore. What if I'd never had my eyes opened by the girls in needlework or this guy? I wonder if I would have stumbled across the thrill of sex, or if the mechanics of coupling would have been all I was interested in?

What were you goals re sex or career as a kid? Were you a James Deen or a Cate Ellink with your upbringing?

Wildlife Wednesday - Mosaic Moray Eel

The Lagoon and Blackburn IslandDeep Diving is set on the very beautiful Lord How Island. So I thought during August I'd showcase some of the island and the wildlife. Mosaic Moray Eel
The Lagoon runs along about half of the island and is a sheltered spot for swimming, snorkelling, diving, boat mooring, canoeing/kayaking, glass-bottom boat tours.

The Lagoon is protected from the ocean's waves. There's a deep opening (channel) for access to the ocean (for boats, but also fish and sharks) so it's not closed off. Lord Howe Island has the southern most reef in the world, and the Lagoon is a perfect place to see it.

There are some deep holes, which are up to 12 metres deep, so you can snorkel and see most of the same fish and corals as you would see diving (you just don't get to spend as long underwater).

At the southern end of the Lagoon, is a place called Lovers Bay. On the northern side of this is where I saw the Mosaic Eel. It was like a little nursery area, with tiny fish and lots of little corals. I was really enjoying the place, loving being in such a gorgeous spot. But the eel wasn't so thrilled to have me there. After I took this photo, he fairly much chased me away! I've never found eels to be aggressive before, although they do have teeth and strong jaws, so I wasn't going to take my chances. When the eel wasn't happy and started swimming at me, I hightailed it away. I was laughing, though, as I left. I couldn't believe that I was being herded away!

Lord Howe Island is the most beautiful place I've been - and you'll probably be sick of it by the end of August...but I'll be still dying to go back!!

Sunday Story - The Light Between Oceans

I read The Light between Oceans by ML Stedman over the past couple of weeks. It's a beautifully written story about a lighthouse keeper, love, family, surviving war, making choices and living with the consequences. It's also about guilt.
It's set in WA in the 1920s in a small SW town with a lighthouse off shore on Janus Rock. I've been to Augusta and the lighthouse there, and the town and lighthouse in the book was so incredibly depicted, that I had to go searching the internet to find out if it was a true story - only to find it was a fictitious town and lighthouse, modelled on the one I'd visited.
View from LighthouseSo I felt some kind of kinship to this book immediately because when we went to Augusta, I went real estate hunting. I've never done that before but i wanted to live there. It was wild, isolated, and ruggedly beautiful. Mr E tolerated my craziness for a time but then drove me away! I've attached some of my photos from the area. The story is about decisions and repercussions. It's incredibly sad but also uplifting, which I know is a strange thing to be. But some of the decisions are so easily taken, have such disastrous effects, yet there's a beauty in seeing the tale unfold. Where two oceans meet The lighthouse keeping work is fascinating. I'd love to have worked as a lighthouse keeper but I wonder if I could have handled the total isolation and the constant demands of the light - and I know I'd have struggled with those early starts! But the beauty of the job, the rhythm of the ocean, the importance of the light, all appeal to me.
As a debut novel, this is truly awe-inspiring. It shows such a depth of thought, a mastery of the art of story telling, and a skill with language. These are the kind of books that make me wonder what I'm doing writing - they freeze me up, make me doubt, just make my writing look like crap. I think I complained about it last week, without mentioning the book! Lighthouse cottages from windowI borrowed the book from a friend but I think I might need my own copy. It's something I'd like to read again. I struggled finding time to read this story, so I did it in fits and starts. I like to fall totally into the story, and read it in a great glob. I want to do that. I want to be taken back to Augusta and swept into the 1920s job of lighthouse keeping.





The Lighthouse

Phallic Friday - naturists

Naturists or nudists have always interested me because I think it's such a natural way to be. I enjoy the freedom of no clothing, especially when it's warm, but it has such a stigma attached to it.

Nudity is most often associated with sex. It seems you can't have one without the other, so naturists are often termed 'perverts' or worse, because people assume if you like running around with your kit off, then you have to be a rampant sex fiend.

I'm lucky in my life to have lived on farms and in rural areas where I often enjoyed the freedom of wearing little. Sometimes this was rudely interrupted by unexpected visitors, so I learned to always have something to chuck on. At one house, I had a hammock strung up the backyard and on scorching summer days, to lie in that hammock, clothes-free, reading a book, shaded by the trees but warmed by the sunshine and air, was sheer bliss. If it was scorching, I'd even have the sprinkler on low underneath so the dogs could lie in the water and the droplets would cool my back.

I've only been brave enough to go to nudist beaches a couple of times...and I annoy myself by having to be brave to do this. Why do I feel embarrassed to go there? Why do I care what others might think? When I've gone, I've been surprised by a couple of things - one is that there are hardly any people there (although it was never peak tourist time, so maybe that's why), and the average age of naturists is a lot older than you'd find on other beaches.

Maybe you need to get to a certain age to not care about society's comments about nudity or body image. Maybe you have to get to a certain level of self-comfort to be able to bare it all. I don;t know what it is. I now I feel kind of young at the places I've been, and that's not a bad feeling for someone in their 40s!

In Deep Diving, I didn't have any naturist beaches, but I made sure Samantha and Cooper got their kit off in nature a bit. I like the idea of being free to have sex outdoors, so I often incorporate it in my stories - much better than being arrested in real life!! Sam and Coop try out the beach... a couple of times. They swim naked. They have sex on a bushwalk. I wanted them to have the freedom that's not available in reality. And that's one thing I love about writing erotic stories - your characters are free to express themselves (and I can express myself).

I think I'll have to write a naturist story...but I don't want to add fuel to the fire that nudity equates to sex. So I'll have to think about that a bit more. Maybe it'll have to be more of a family story, where sex is very separate to where the kids are. Hmm...ideas, ideas, ideas!

How do you feel about nudity?

Wildlife Wednesday - Black Swan

Today's Wildlife Wednesday is the Black Swan, the bird emblem of Western Australia, which makes me think of Lily Malone :)

We had Black Swans here on our river when we first moved here 6 years ago. Then the river opened up into the ocean (14 months ago) and the swans vanished, or maybe it was before that happened, but it was around then.

But they're back. The river closed up and within a few weeks, the Black Swans were back. So I took some photos for Wildlife Wednesday.

The Australia Museum says that Black Swans pair for life, and that they're the only entirely black coloured swan in the world.

I always think their red beak with a white tip/stripe, always looks painted!

Here's some info from Pizzey (A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by Graham Pizzey):


Right way up (left) and inverted while feeding (right)Swans are the largest waterfowl

Their long necks allow them to reach underwater vegetation

Black swans are highly nomadic

They build a nest from a heap of reeds, grasses or weeds, that is 1m to 1.5 m in diameter! They lay 4-7 eggs that are greenish-white in colour.

After breeding, they moult, and become temporarily flightless.
A raft of Black Swans

Sunday Story - reading hampering writing

I've always been a prolific reader - of any book at all, I'm not fussy, I just want to read. Even when I started writing this was the case. Actually, right up until this last year or so, I don't think I changed much.

And now, something has changed but I'm not entirely sure what it is, or how to cope with it!

I can no longer read books that bore me, that I find lacking (in character, story or writing craft), or those that just don't interest me. I've become quite ruthless with my 'did not finish' and no longer feel guilt. Until some months ago, I could count the number of books I hadn't finished on one hand, now, well, it's not something to count.

And converse to this, when I read a fabulous book, one that captivates me, transports me to a new world, wraps the characters around me like old friends, and makes me breathless with their word choices and descriptions... then I'm frozen. I'm no longer seeking out those books because they freeze my writing. They make me question what I'm doing. They make me feel lacking and incompetent.

A friend of mine reads the middle-of-the-road books while she writes and sticks the fabulous ones in when she's between stories. I didn't understand this - and now I do.

Reading was always my escape from the world. Now it's a torment. I'm judgemental as well as paralysed by greatness. I read to learn craft. I read to compare mine to theirs. I read to master things I don't do well. And it's rare for a book to make me escape these thoughts. I'm going to have to be choosy about what I read, and when I read them.

I could never understand people who read less and wrote more... now of course, I not only understand that decision, but I'm going to have to join them. Life always gives me these lessons - the ones where I have to eat my words (or thoughts)!

Do you have problems with reading and writing?

Phallic Friday - swearing and erotica

So, I've been thinking about submitting an excerpt of my Deep Diving story to this blog but they don't accept profanity. I didn't think that was a problem because I don't have characters who swear a lot - sure they swear sometimes, but not heaps.

And then I started going through some excerpts. They want an erotic scene. Deep Diving has more than a few of those since it covers 11 days and they pretty much have sex every day. Sometimes Cooper says, "Fuck," during or after sex, so that ruled out two scenes. I narrowed it down to three scenes I was tossing up between.

And then I saw "cunt" and "cock". In erotic writing I wouldn't class them as profanity because I'm not using them as swearing but as a word to describe a body part. But, technically, it's profanity.

So I had to search again. And it wasn't good. Not a lot of swearing but a lot of those profane body parts.

And this is always the problem for me, I really don't like euphemistic words so that narrows down the word choices I have for sexual body parts. And saying "penis" and "vagina" are okay once in a while, but then I start to feel like I'm writing a medical text book, not a story.

So... Profanity or descriptive word? What's your take? And does it bother you when reading erotica and people swear? Do you have words you cringe upon reading/using?

My challenge over the next couple of weeks is going to be to write an erotic sex scene without profanity. And that will be a challenge!!

Wildlife Wednesday - centipedes and millipedes

I went on a bug finding trip around my Dad's house with my nephew who is 6. We didn't have a bug catcher but a camera, so it was a lot different to a bug trip of my youth!

Anyway, we found a lot, and it kept him entertained for an hour or so. His little sister came for a bit, but she lasted maybe 15 minutes, but that's kind of good for her!

Anyway, we found this millipede, who'd seen better days. But it was a fun bug to check out.

I wrote about centipede sex at the Naughty Ninjas, you can read it here. And I didn't share that information with my nephew :)

The difference between centipedes and millipedes is that centipedes have one pair of legs per body segment, and millipedes have two pairs of legs per body segment (milli for millions helps you remember that they have more legs - well, that's how I remember!).

If you want more info on these many legged critters, the Australian Museum has some great pages and photos. (I'm late posting this, was doing my very last HT newsletter).