Chloe Thurlow's Blog, page 25
October 30, 2013
Review: Lionel Asbo: State of England
Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Knowing how to write and knowing how to write is not the same thing. Martin writes well. Always. But has run out of ideas as to what to write about. The Pregnant Widow took us back to his youth in the seventies and we entered a seen-it-all-through-a-glass-darkly yarn about a young man obsessed with big tits (his words). Yawn. Lionel Asbo reintroduces in all but name Keith from London Fields. It’s in the darts, innit! Here, in this new novel, thankfully not too fat, we find working class people us figures of fun. They are morons to be laughed at and humiliated, sacrificed on the altars of a misspent talent.
Another thing: Martin, on the George Orwell scale, is upper-middle-class. What does he really know about the downtrodden masses, the lumpen proletariat? I mean, it’s easy to look at the tattoos and piercings and imagine you know what’s going on inside people’s heads. The truth is, most of the pierced defaced souls don’t know what’s going on inside their own heads. Bleeding’ government. I blame the politicians. We have pit bulls, too, this time. Lionel feeds them on high alcohol beer which makes them happy. They have hangovers next day and with sore heads and dry throats, that’s when he takes them out to do the business. This is funny. But only the first time.
Writers, it seems, like painters, have a certain amount of ink, of juice, of jism, and it runs out. Picasso repeated himself. Truman Capote plagiarized himself. Paul McCartney remains deeply up himself. As in writing itself, less is more when it comes to publishing books. Martin, spent more time on the next one, please.
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October 29, 2013
The Mermaid From Minnesota
GUEST BLOG by Caesar Voghan
In April 2010, Amanda Hocking needed $300 to travel from Minnesota to Chicago and attend an exhibition about the creator of Muppets. She is a diehard Muppets fan, and so am I. So she decided to sell books on Amazon, a grand and original idea. Her books, that is, and not the collection of rare theological tomes she inherited from her grandfather (did she?). Amanda had already written a ton of novels over the previous nine years—that a ton of publishers had passed on—so she had plenty of options. So she slapped her first novel on Kindle.
By October 2010, six months later, she had sold 150,000 copies. You do the math—she funded her trip to Chicago, and was left with a nice pile of cash for some shopping in the Windy City. Girls like doing those kinds of things, and so do I (does that mean I’m in touch with my feminine side?).
And if you want to get even more jealous on Amanda, here’s the rest of the story: two years later she had sold over 1.5 million books and pocketed $2.5 million. No agent, no publisher touched one penny—fair split between her and Amazon. Wanna hear more? Early 2011 she was averaging 9,000 sales a day. Oh, but it gets better: St. Martin Press saw the light (and the $ signs) and bought her Trylle Trilogy and re-released it in bookstores. More cash, more fans, more glory. Yeah, so finally Hollywood showed up, too (they always smell the blood last…) and optioned the same trilogy; some big shot A-list screenwriter is currently doing his very best to ruin the books and knock out the next blockbuster.
Amanda writes something that’s called Paranormal Romance Young Adult Fiction. I personally totally dig long, convoluted nonsensical genre-bending labels. For example, I write post-apocalyptic-pseudo-medieval bio-punk dystopian satires. Clever, huh…? And I do love Muppets, too, as mentioned above.
But back to Amanda: her books are about hulky vampires and shapely sirens and foam-dripping mermaids who fall in love with underage human beings of both genders and of various sexual orientations, and the mess that ensues out of such fateful unions. For some obscure reasons, teenagers all over God’s good earth love reading about such dangerous liaisons. I mean, who needs Romeo and Juliet anymore, when vampires supposedly are quite… vampiry in bed, blood an’ all? I wouldn’t be able to go into more details, ‘cause that genre it’s not my cup of tea, no offense given, none taken. I love Shakespeare, and I’m perfectly at peace with the fact that that classifies as an endangered species. And I write in a genre that nobody has heard about—I guess that makes me a very original and unique endangered species. Also, as much as I pushed myself, I couldn’t get past the opening passage of Amanda’s first novel. Let’s just say… there are different strokes for different folks, and Amanda’s writing ain’t stroking me a bit.
But I’m happy for her. I truly am. I’m happy for all people who remind us that success, financial or not, is not a matter of following a method, an algorithm, or a blueprint. It’s a matter of timing and luck and sticking to your guns and, last but not least, hard work. I mean, goodness me, the girl kept writing for nine years despite all the assholes who kept passing on her work, and who right now probably bite their fingers and slam their heads into their manuscript-strewn desks, ‘cause having 10% of Amanda’s cash means you can retire on a island and fall in love with a siren of your own choosing, or any other marine marsupial. You go girl! Minnesota mermaids rock!
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October 19, 2013
Burning Books
After flogging 50 million copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic wave has passed and booksellers in its wake are zealously deleting suspect erotic titles from online stores – Amazon, WH Smith, Kobo, Barnes & Noble. The Nazis burned books. So did al-Qaida. Now, in an absurd act of self-immolation, the booksellers are burning their own product.
Or should I say: Our Product? Between the bookshops, publishers and agents, the writer, the lowest figure on the totem pole, is often forgotten. Erasing a title is merely a business contingency to the bookseller. To an author who has spent months or years composing a novel it is a blow with an iron bar across the back of the head.
The race this last week to excise ebook titles with dodgy content began at WH Smith when it was revealed that numerous books by self-published authors told tales of rape, under-age sex and incest. Where the cull lacks justice is that, while the online providers got self-righteous expunging the vulgar and pornographic, the same let’s-burn-the-books button obliterated self-published novels which contained, for example, the word virgin in the title, or featured relationships between older men and younger women. Avoiding the risk of being labelled philistine (or losing the metaphorical chink in the online tills) they did not censor Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides or Nabokov’s classic Lolita.
Before the days of self-publishing, publishers would have weeded out the porn before it went into print. Now the gatekeepers have gone, the smut will continue to slip through the invisible portals and the assault on erotic authors will persist as it has since the Marquis de Sade smuggled out the pages of 120 Days of Sodom from his prison cell. People wanted access to erotica in the 18th century, just as they do today. Which leads us to the age old question: what is erotica? And what is the difference between the erotic, romance and pornography?
In broad terms, pornography is abuse: sex with children, rape, incest; sex with animals, sex with the dead, sex where blood is spilled. Porn is often, though not always, written from the male point of view, and is frequently composed with expletives and euphemisms.
Romance is about love and its consequences: marriage, babies, families, separation, longing, human and geographic complications.
The first rule of erotic literature is that it is literature. It should be well-written. Erotica explores the dark, hidden, secret side of human sexuality. Its key elements are psychology, disparate human emotions often explored through aspects of domination and submission. Is spanking erotic? It can be. It is a human activity and its study requires the rhythmic stroke and elegiac beat of the literary drum. In a FaceBook Forum this same week with United Filmmakers Association, Joshua Looby provided tips on shooting erotica, and writer Caesar Voghan pithily summed up the discussion by pointing out that, in film terms, in simple terms, nudity is erotic, genitalia is pornographic.
I will end with some advice. To the booksellers: remember, writers are like flowers. Don’t trample on them. To the pornographer: put down the pen and get a life. To the erotic writer: keep going, keep writing, keep improving. Look at you work and, if you think to yourself: that’s good enough. It’s not good enough. Cut. Edit. Re-write. The way ahead will be tough. The only weapon you have is you ability, your integrity, your imagination.
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October 16, 2013
Review: The Lotus, Book Two, Cult of Beauty Series
The Lotus, Book Two, Cult of Beauty Series by K.M. Dylan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
When Hemingway wrote about the bullfights in Andalucía, you could taste the grit and dust, feel the heat and chill of the sol y sombra, sense the coppery tang of blood as the matador elegantly performed the coup de grâce. It is called authenticity. Hemingway went. He saw. He 
felt. He knew. He wrote.
A young model slinks up the catwalk under low lights in high heels and little else. How does she feel? She feels sexual, erotic, the embodiment of youth, beauty and sensuality. Her skin glistens. Her pulse races. Her breasts throb with the beat of her heart. The adrenaline zips through her perfectly toned body and she knows she won’t be getting any sleep that night. She doesn’t want to get any sleep that night.
I know this because I have read Cult of Beauty, and what I felt as I slipped hurriedly, compulsively, through the pages was that thing: authenticity. Author K M Dylan was an international model. She has, to borrow the phrase, been there, done it all, seen it all – and survived to tell the tale in prose as elegant as that Andaluz torero.
The Lotus continues Katie Wolfer’s story, a tale of big money, battles with her step-sister, a secret project and sex. A lot of sex deliciously painted as if by Picasso with bold flourishing strokes and every color on the palette. Katie is beautiful – modeled, I’m sure, on K(atie) M Dylan – and beauty, she has come to realize, is as much a burden as a gift. Men are drawn to her and she swats them away like flies, well, not always, all except Victor de Goncourt – aristocrat, filthy rich, a polo player, as bold and sleek as a ’65 Mustang, as wild and endurable as she is.
Now, there’s a business proposal: The Lotus. Something of a secret. Big money – K M Dylan think in billions, it’s her nature, and a new world of even greater temptation. For those who have read Cult of Beauty: The Confessions of a Supermodel, the erotic quotient in The Lotus has stepped up a couple of gears. For those who haven’t, I suggest you fill this gaping lacuna on your bookshelves.
October 15, 2013
My First Spanking
After meeting Richard on the London Underground, Greta wakes up next morning in his big bed. This second excerpt from A Girl’s Adventure continues the Xcite Books MUST READS Promotion. If you missed Ice Cream Girls – do go back into the blog file and take a peep.
Richard placed the tray on the mahogany dresser and in his expression as he opened the top drawer was the look of someone doing mental arithmetic. She watched with eyes growing bigger as he withdrew a blue silk scarf that just kept growing longer and longer, an endless blue river of shiny fabric that he passed through his hands like a fisherman at sea and she thought he was probably a magician in his spare time and could do all sorts of enchanting tricks. As he moved away from the dresser the scarf spiralled behind, skipping and dancing over the wooden floor.
He paused and stood motionless for a moment beside the bed and she had a feeling that he had finished doing his sums. Their eyes met and remained locked as if by magnets as in one swift movement he pulled back the sheet, the linen cracking like a yacht sail as it gusted across the room. Greta had straightened her legs, her arms were at her side in a pose that in role play she had been taught was contrite, obedient. Her mind was a blank sheet of paper waiting to be written on.
He slipped his hands under her back and thighs and gently rolled her over. She felt the soft touch of silk as he tied the scarf around her right wrist.
‘Have you been a naughty girl?’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘And what happens to naughty girls?’
‘They are disciplined.’
‘And how are they disciplined?’
‘They have to be smacked.’
She knew the right lines. It was the sort of thing you do in improv.As they were speaking, Richard had somehow moved the scarf under the bed and was tying her left wrist with a slip knot that grew tighter if she struggled. Not that she had any intention of struggling. She could roll about if she wanted, but only as far as her bonds would allow and it was such a relief to be lying there without having to think about anything at all. It was like being a baby. Or a pet pussy cat and she purred as he bent to kiss her shoulder blades.
A Girl’s Adventure is available at Amazon and, as they say, all good bookshops.
October 12, 2013
Ice Cream Girls
With A Girl’s Adventure chosen as an October MUST READ at Xcite Books – the price slashed mercilessly to 49p (UK), $0.78 (US) – I thought at least it was a good excuse for an excerpt. I opened the book randomly and found Greta and her flat mate Tara (a law student and part-time pole dancer) having just finished eating a carton of ice cream, naked, naturally.
Greta crawled back between the sheets. She slid her tongue the length of Tara’s body, all the way up from her wriggling toes to her shiny nose, into her eye sockets and across her forehead. She licked her ice creamy ears, her long neck and the warm groove of her throat. Their lips met and Greta knew that she would always prefer kissing girls. Their lips are softer, smoother, more inventive.
Tara rolled over. She was dominant, ambitious. She liked to be on top. She lapped the raspberry ripple from Greta’s cheeks and chin, her pointy tongue like a feeler leaping into the hollows below her collar bones before running down between her breasts. One after the other, she took the firm peaks into her mouth, squeezing them softly between her teeth until they swelled and grew so hard Greta thought she was going to burst. Tara continued her journey over Greta’s tummy, her tongue pausing to consider the little well of her belly button, and down into the humid nest of her pubic hair.
Then, in one quick lap-dancer move, Tara spun round and lowered her dripping sex into Greta’s mouth. Greta took Tara’s bottom and did the same, her engorged vulva opening juicy and slicked, so gloriously naked. Greta wanted to submerge herself in Tara’s ocean and changed position, opening her thighs, the tips of her fingers spreading back the outer lips of her vagina in order than she could plunge in, her face buried in the oily warmth. Tara was a fount of silky liquids, a magic potion that made Greta forget everything except that solitary moment. She was one giant erogenous zone, a pulsing G spot, all sensation and thoughts about nothing. Except the next sensation.
A pulsing surge of pleasure coursed through her body and Greta was unsure if she were about to come, or Tara? Were they coming together? Their bodies were a ball of glossy smooth flesh slipping and sliding into new shapes, the tip of Tara’s tongue moving slower now, feather-like across Greta’s swollen clitoris. She did the same for Tara, the same action, the same motion; they were yin and yang, each the opposite of the other, completing the other, pink tongues in wet pussies moving in perfect harmony. The pressure kept building, the air grew still, then Tara tensed as the damn burst and they both climaxed, the circle broken as the ripples became two crashing waves that rocked through them and they collapsed, panting for breath, the eight quivering limbs of a beached octopus, the bed steamy as a swamp.
Tara curled into Greta’s arms and nibbled her ear. ‘I got an A for my essay on copyright law,’ she murmured.
‘You are a clever girl.’
‘I’m going to end up squatting on erections all summer,’ she complained, and then paused. ‘I’m just dying to do something different.’
‘If you really want to you probably will.’
http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Adventure...
October 10, 2013
Bad Girls in Masks
Xcite Books have made my novel A Girl’s Adventure an October MUST READ. The price has been cut – 77p (UK), $1.14 (US) – and downloads are zipping across the ether at the speed of thought. Now that’s a good thing. Writers want readers. But there is a gigantic downside to modern publishing. As e-book sales rival their printed counterparts, book buyers are becoming addicted to low prices, special offers and freebies.
That’s splendid news if it means more people reading. But for those story-tellers with genuine ability, the struggle to make ends meet grows harder as self-publishing becomes a free-for-all, the survival of the fittest rather than the finest.
This has had a more destructive effect on erotic literature than other genres because many writers riding the slipstream of EL James – Our Lady of the Fifty Shades of Grey – imagine that writing erotica is just about lots of rumpy pumpy. Which it isn’t. The first rule of erotica is that it must be well-written. Erotica is a literary genre. It is about feeling. Not fucking.
Romance is about love and its consequences: marriage, babies, families; separation, longing, human complications: Romeo and Juliet. Erotica in its many forms and facets is an exploration of both the animal and philosophical aspects of our humanity. Is there pleasure in being submissive, being ball-gagged and handcuffed to a wall, being spanked? Yes – if that appeals to your particular cravings and needs.
It is easy in contemporary society to watch your own unique personality submerge beneath the surface of the mundane and commonplace, to become a sheep among a million faceless sheep. People sense this and get inked or have a nose ring or wear outlandish clothes to show they are individuals without realizing that the tattoo they choose from the wall of designs is just another sign of being a sheep.
You wear a mask, on the other hand, and you don’t conceal yourself so much as find yourself. Hidden, you become you, the ‘I’ at the centre of your own universe, and you grow more open to explore your sexuality. This is the heart of erotica – the quest for individuality. This is what I explore in my novels.
A Girl’s Adventure is one of the six October MUST READS. Here are my five beautiful companions and their books: Sommer Marsden – Calendar Girl; Justine Elyot – Meeting Her Match, Grace Marshall - An Executive Decision, Kay Jaybee – The Perfect Submissive, and Monica Belle – Three In a Bed.
And by the way, if you haven’t read A Girl’s Adventure grab a copy now while prices are slashed to the bone.
October 7, 2013
Review: Outin
The post Review: Outin appeared first on Chloe Thurlow.
October 6, 2013
Review: Moscow Dreams
The post Review: Moscow Dreams appeared first on Chloe Thurlow.
October 4, 2013
Review: Outview
The post Review: Outview appeared first on Chloe Thurlow.
