Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 50

This will be another post about privilege. It’s like a lo...

This will be another post about privilege. It’s like a loose tooth that my tongue keeps prodding, because I can’t make heads or tails of it. This is a lovely little post about how equality feels like oppression when you’ve got privilege, and it hits the nail on the head – but there’s something else on my mind, something vague and uncomfortable that I hardly dare voice:

The plight of privileged people in the wrong context.

A man once said to me, “I feel like I get all the stick for being an oppressor, and none of the privileges that go with it.” He was made to feel bad for being a man in a female context, and other men dismissed him too – for being the wrong kind of man. He wasn’t good enough for either group, and that got me thinking – as things tend to do.

So a member of a socially powerful group can be at the bottom of the pecking order if the context is wrong. In the words of critical discourse expert Hilary Janks, you can be top dog in one situation, and bottom dog in another. Everyone knows this. There are areas where you feel confident, and others where you’re less so.

But when you grow up as bottom dog, while belonging to a layer of top dogs that won’t acknowledge you? What then?

Let me exemplify. I’m middle class, but I was brought up in a working class village, and boy did I feel that lash. On a national level, I was on the side of the oppressors. I was from the south, a child of teachers, with parents who could afford holidays abroad. But how did I experience that ‘privilege’? I had stones thrown at me by working class kids. I was ridiculed for my accent, my clothes and my face (wrong kind of face, what can I say, there’s a geographical aspect to that, too).

And now I’m a grown-up. Now I understand the class society that brought about all that animosity – and rightly so. So with this knowledge, I should rise above it, but I can’t. I still hurt from that ancient rejection, and to make matters worse, I can’t presume to have been oppressed, because I was part of the dominant culture. Even though ten-year-old me had no idea, and certainly didn’t get any favours because of it (except from an educational point of view, which means little enough today when PhD’s equal unemployment and the people who dropped out are raking it in).

So can a privileged person be an oppressed minority in their own life? How do we even talk about that? Am I blowing things out of proportion, or do I have a point? And how do you heal from childhood wounds when your social conscience tells you that you deserved everything you got, just for being born to the wrong parents? That sounds weirdly like condoning oppression, doesn’t it?

Some of these thoughts have made it into the latest instalment of my Pax series, Cutting Edge (release date April 6, 2016), but I feel far from finished with it. I need someone else to chime in now, because my brain has its limits. I wish I could find a conversation about this, because nothing in life is clear cut and easy. If it was, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Inspiration pics

Melancholic viking

Another inspiration pic.

London haunts

I have my hands full with my WIPs, but maybe someone else can find inspiration in this pic?

First ideas and how they turn out

A year ago, I was having a Bad Day, and when I have Bad Days I always re-watch a movie or TV series, because it comforts me to know how things will end. This time, I chose True Detective, a series that had fascinated me the first time I watched it because one of the main characters was so nihilistic.

But now it was something else that caught my attention: the format. It has such a bold beginning, with the nihilist being interviewed by people you can’t see, and as soon as I saw it, I was inspired.

What if I, too, started a story with an interview? What would it be about? How would I show the insurmountable differences between interviewer and interviewee, so that the reader couldn’t imagine the two of them ever getting together?

That’s how All You Can Eat was born. Of course, to begin with, it had nothing to do with either eating disorders or France. I meant for the story to be some kind of mystery, either with a policeman or a journalist in the role of interviewer.

From my notes that evening:

Something about a journalist who interviews someone, and the guy is scared stiff for some reason, maybe even crying, and to begin with they don’t like each other. The interviewer thinks the interviewee is easily needled, weird and weak, and he in turn thinks the interviewer is abrasive. He retells some kind of harrowing story – maybe some kind of sect, like this guy has escaped from the sect and a journalist wants to do a feature on it, and keeps coming back to the guy’s place to find out more. And it gets really late, and he tells the story, and he is really messed up and upset and at the beginning the interviewer thinks he’s pretending, but then he slowly realizes that this really was a horrible experience. Need some research on sects.

Needless to say, in the end I scrapped the sect and the journalist and made it about a dietician and his patient instead. But it’s kind of fun to keep those ‘first idea’ documents, because it shows the spark of inspiration in real time.

I’m happy with how my story turned out, but the original idea isn’t bad either. If anyone wants to nick it, be my guest!

Amazon – All Romance Ebooks – Smashwords.

Amazon – All Romance Ebooks – Smashwords.

All You Can Eat release day video

All You Can Eat at Amazon

Aaaaand finally, All You Can Eat is up on all sites. B&N ...

Aaaaand finally, All You Can Eat is up on all sites. B&N and a few others must be allowed to hesitate for a while, but it’s live on Amazon, All Romance Ebooks and Smashwords.

How do you date someone who doesn’t eat?

Dietician Xavier Deniel is the poster boy for healthy eating. Toned and fit, he practices what he preaches, and his patients keep coming back just for the pleasure of seeing him. His spare time is divided between the gym and the other men who go there, and that’s the way he likes it.

Until Guy turns up. He is Xavier’s opposite in every way: mousy and awkward, sullen and frail. Worst of all, he carries a beast inside him, one that makes all human connection impossible. Lesser men than Xavier would recoil in disgust if they knew, and Guy is not about to reveal his true self to a bloody Frenchman.

But what Guy doesn’t know is that Xavier has stumbled on his half-forgotten blog, the one place where he has confessed all his secrets. When the truth comes out, will Xavier run for the hills – or will he be the one to finally force the beast out in the open?

Excerpt

Against his better judgment, Guy leaned against a tree. It was a seductive move, almost a challenge. Stupid. Stupid and dangerous. He shouldn’t be displaying his disgusting body for this stranger to take. He should be running for his life.

But at the corners of Xavier’s eyes, just next to his too-long lashes, there was something real. Something he didn’t even know about himself.

Guy looked away, and the bark bit into the back of his head. “So why did you become a dietician?”

He could feel Xavier’s surprise. “Because I wanted to… uh, help people.”

Guy snorted. “Uh-huh. Think you can help me, then?”

Xavier bit his lip: an irritated gesture. Guy was getting to him, the only way he knew how. Because if he could be nothing else, at least he could be a fly in people’s ointment. Disrupt their perfect little worlds.

“I’ll try if you let me,” Xavier muttered, no doubt kicking himself for letting his professional mask slip.

“Going to tell me to have breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a few snacks in between? To avoid saturated fat and simple carbohydrates? Don’t waste your breath.”

Xavier stepped closer, suddenly angry. “So why did you even show up? Why didn’t you cancel, let someone else have your slot? Someone who needs it?”

Guy stared up at him lazily. He was right, of course. Guy just couldn’t bring himself to care. “You’ve got it all in those books of yours, haven’t you?” he goaded him. “Right there, at your fingertips. Nutrient tables, diagnoses, threshold values… but how many people have you actually cured?”

Xavier was trying so hard to keep calm. It was all Guy could do to suppress his laughter.

“It’s my job to try. It’s what I do. What Doctor Stenlund referred you for. If you don’t want it, we don’t have to book another session. I’ll just tell him that you weren’t responsive.”

Guy’s answer stuck in his throat. Responsive. Damn. Why did he have to use that particular word? He felt his cheeks fill with blood, and his abdomen clenched a little. Just like that, he’d lost the upper hand and the opportunity for a fling.

But it was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To fuck off home and never see Mister Perfect again. Because however rudely he’d put it, it was true: there wasn’t a damn thing Guy didn’t know about nutrition.

At a loss, he looked away. “Yeah,” he shrugged. “Sounds good.”

Xavier made a movement that looked involuntary. “So I can go back to my office, then? You’ll find your own way to the underground station?”

“Sure.” Guy straightened up, stuck his nose in the air. “Bye, doc.”

He turned to go, but something made him stop. A sound, perhaps? Something deep in Xavier’s throat, like a protest. Guy glanced over his shoulder, and for a moment, Xavier looked completely vulnerable. Wounded pride, no doubt: another failed consultation.

But it got to him. Hell, it hit him in his weakest spot, right there beneath his ribs where the hunger sat. And from one moment to the next, his mind was awash with images of his lips brushing Xavier’s temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth – of his hands sampling the softness of that perfect throat, that hair. Right here in the fucking forest, among the swaying trees.

And before he could stop himself, Guy went back and rose on his toes to reach Xavier’s lips. It wasn’t even a kiss, barely a touch, but as messages went, it was unambiguous. He expected Xavier to recoil, like most of them did, but instead he was frozen to the spot, unbreathing. A moment passed, and another.

And then Guy heard the rustle of clothes as Xavier leaned forward. Before he knew it, Xavier’s mouth was covering his and he was making tiny sounds of surprise and desire – pure, unadulterated desire – desire for the intimate touch of someone he’d just met. A Frenchman, for God’s sake.

But damn, he wanted this. Raising his hand, Guy hooked his fingers around Xavier’s neck and hauled him in for a longer, deeper kiss. Their tongues met, and the strangeness of it all shot through him like lightning. It singed his insides, set fire to everything in its path. His moan was smothered by Xavier’s lips – he was licking up the sound of him like honey – and fuck, it turned him on. Xavier’s hand even slipped down between Guy’s legs and came to rest on his crotch. Warmth radiated through his jeans, made him tingle and swell…

When Xavier suddenly pulled back, Guy’s lips felt too cold. He opened his eyes, and his vision filled with Xavier’s black pupils, with the questions haunting them. “This is a really bad idea,” he murmured in a weird voice.

“No, it’s not,” Guy whispered. He didn’t say don’t stop now, I’ll die if you fucking stop, don’t fucking give me a spoonful of sugar and then put the packet away – and since he didn’t, Xavier would never know.

Stepping away so quickly that Guy almost swayed in the draft, Xavier put a hand to his forehead. He looked positively nauseated. “Jesus Christ… I’m sorry.”

For what? Guy was the one who’d done it. That would be Xavier’s comfort when he got back to his minimalist apartment with its one vase filled with fresh flowers: that he hadn’t done anything. His professional record was unsullied, because it had been a surprise attack. He hadn’t had the time to defend himself.

As Xavier stood there, visibly debating with himself, Guy felt saliva pool under his tongue. He wanted to grab Xavier and push him against the trunk and crush his lips with his mouth. He wanted to shove a hand down those designer trousers and jerk him off roughly and messily. He wanted them to stain.

But Xavier was already out of reach. Shooting Guy a drowning look, he croaked, “I have to go.”

And just like that, he was gone.

People who talk no good

When you show contempt for others’ lack of knowledge, make sure you have all the facts.

I wish I followed this advice. I should print it out and stick it everywhere. Everyone should. But alas, it’s not to be, and I shall resign myself to getting annoyed when people spout nonsense about things that I happen to be knowledgeable about.

Latest example: on a writers’ forum (you know, a place where you assume that people are interested in, you know, LANGUAGE), someone bemoaned the fact that certain people say “ax” instead of “ask”. Now, I’m a secret purist, and I gnash my teeth at some turns of phrase that I don’t like. I understand. We’re writers. Words are important to us, they play on emotions, otherwise we wouldn’t spend so much time wrestling with them. But when I hear or read something that makes me cringe, I try to shut up about it, because whatever I say, I’ll just end up looking like a twat.

Why?

Because inevitably, I don’t have all the facts.

I’ll skirt the issue of why this person had an axe (ha) to grind with “ax”, because whoa, that’s a whole nother can of worms (see what I did there?). Instead I’ll confront the idea that it’s a new phenomenon, a “degradation” of some pure version of English that exists only in Plato’s cave.

“Ax” has been the “correct” form for ages (some sources say the 8th century). It comes from the Old English “acsian”, hence the pronunciation. Chaucer used “ax”, as did the Coverdale bible. The change to “ask” has come about because of a common linguistic feature called metathesis, where sounds change places in a word.

So why do they change places? It often follows the law of least resistance. People are lazy, so they try to find the easiest way to talk. It’s more important to get to the point than to use long and complicated combinations of sounds. When phenomena like buses became more common and people needed to use the word more often, the original word (omnibus) was shortened. This happens all the time.

Also, if a word is physically cumbersome to pronounce because the individual sounds are made at the front and the back of the mouth cavity, one of the sounds tends to drift towards the other one, sometimes to the point of disappearing completely. One example is “knock”, which of course used to be pronounced with a ‘k’. But in the long run, who has the time for that? (Well, we Swedes still do in our “knacka”, but still…)

In short, languages change. Constantly. New words appear and old ones disappear. The new ones are viewed as wrong until enough people with social status have adopted them, and then they suddenly become holy writ. With a teensy bit of imagination, you can just hear those 16th century purists complaining about people who said “ask” instead of “ax”, getting their hose in a twist because it was “wrong”.

Nothing is wrong. It’s just something we made up. What was wrong yesterday is right today, and vice versa. It’s a never-ending flow of changes. “Toilet” doesn’t mean “little cloth” anymore, and there’s no point getting up in arms about it.

But I guess it’s like money: if the crimes behind your wealth are a century old, it doesn’t matter anymore. And if a word’s meaning changed before you were born, then that’s just fine.

But for language to develop in our own lifetime? The nerve!

Book hangover

Just finished re-reading my absolute number 1 favourite book of all time, and now I’m… in that weird mood. Book hangover mood.

I’ve read this book maybe ten times since I was sixteen and first got it from a relative, and I’ve been waiting so long since the last time because when you know a book by heart, you’re not really reading it. So I had to wait until I could feel it again, and now I’ve done it. Squeezed the last drops out of it for a while, and it makes me happy and sad and nostalgic, and now I don’t really know what to do with myself…

But hubby’s making something yummy downstairs, and food solves all problems, so I guess it’s dinner and a glass of wine, and another five year wait until I can read it again. Because I will. Because some books are like friends, and even if you lose touch, you’ll never forget.

I guess I’m saying that books matter. Whoever the writer is, whatever their views and politics and prejudice and whatever, a book is a world unto itself. Books may come through us, but we don’t own them. And for every person who reads, they mean something different.

The artist is flawed. The work is perfect. Just be grateful for those times when the words or the notes or the colours settle in the pattern that’s just for you, because nothing can take that away.