Writing the Sex in the Text

Posted on January 25, 2012 by emmacalin

Shall we talk about sex? Oh OK – if you really want me to. I write Romance. Well – love and sex actually. In “Knockout” there is a story but it is a story about a sexy woman going headlong into a passionate sexathon with a beautiful guy. They do it in her bed. She does it all on her own. They do it in his bed, in Paris, several other places and they do it on a boat. They kiss and caress the burning totality of each other’s lips. They adore each other’s skin and musk. She craves the untiring hard knot of his controlling, urgent muscles. He longs for her abandon, surrender and softness They eat highly flavoured food and breathe the garlic of shared ecstasy. They drink champagne and lie naked in the warm open air almost as a sacrifice on the altar of lust. Oooh….if I don’t stop tweaking the knobs I’ll have to jump in a cold bath. And just think – it was me, a middle aged working woman who wrote it.

self portrait

The basic reason why I write this kinda stuff is that I love it in life and I love it in fantasy. I know it may be a brazen to say that, but it’s true and if I’m honest then in my writing about sex I’m not short changing my readers. When I write a sex scene I am there and willing it on. Actually, it’s writing itself.

There are technical problems in writing about sex. The big one (Oooh steady on) is the line between artistic, pornographic, anatomical, purple and naff. Different generations and cultures have different levels of frankness and taste. In the supermarket today I noted that I could present myself for chlamydia venereal disease testing while I was waiting for a new batch of granary wholemeal bread to reach the shelves. All those intimate swabs quite put me off the idea of a nice buttered crust. I was reading some supermarket Romance where the young lady presented her sexual arousal by way of her “dampened swath”. That brought me out in a fit of the giggles. I figured if things didn’t gel with the guy at least she could wipe down the kitchen worktops. In another similar epic, the young lady exposed her “creamy crevice” – so far this is the worst image I have ever encountered. Well, at least there is some classy alliteration. Finding the words, the euphemisms and the poetic passion of human juice is not always easy. Just this morning I encountered a curly triangle of love. Well, I suppose if your car broke down you could prop it up in the road to warn other drivers of an obstruction. It’s all about context is it not?

knobs and shafts

When it comes to the male side of the park, obviously a female can only guess and ask a lot of questions. My lover man is never shy. His only complaint is that males only get to ride one wave while females can stay in surfing all day. – (Hmmm – depends on the quality of the water). Males provide more vocabulary problems. I have a few dislikes – such as swollen manhoods. It always makes me think of those old naval war films where they wear 10 layers of clothing under a duffle coat.. Luckily, my readers are mostly female and factors such as size of hands, width of shoulders and tone of voice can excite more response than shafts, lengths and pulsating needs. For fun I googled “knobs and shafts”. Not quite what I had in mind. With males it’s just so easy to get lost in engineering.

But here is the core of the issue. People like sex. Even people who do not want actual full contact sex are interested in it. Sex is us. We are born what we are and half the world has the opposite set of bits.

And then, of course there is love. Oh Love, oh love, love, love. This purest thing, rejoicing in the pollution of its own sense, losing focus so as to see nothing but the other. It is where the ego both asserts its power to give and shrivels in a humility of powerless longing. Our love finds expression and escape in physical sex. Cold sex is what my friend the poet Oscar Sparrow describes as the “gaping gash of loveless love”. Getting this blend right is the work of the humble hack Romance writer.

“Knockout!” my romance novel on Kindle is FREE on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th January if you want to check out how I deal with these tender literary parts.

Amazon USA
Amazon UK

Emma thinx: Love me – love my love.

Insecure? I’m not sure really.

Posted on January 4, 2012 by emmacalin

Actually I was feeling relatively secure as I sat down to write my blog. Then an 85 mph gust of wind hit a tree just to the right of my office window. Several tons of wood split from the trunk and destroyed my neighbour’s garage and a good portion of the house roof. The rest of the tree now leans towards my very position. Now, I’ve always maintained that any sense of security in this world is misplaced. We are helpless creatures of no account, clinging to our fragile capsule of individual conscious time. As dear old John Keats wrote for his own epitaph “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”. I’m OK with the water, but I wonder if I could have it 50/50 with a decent brandy? Of course, John Keats did not have the benefit of the Insecure Writers’ Support Group. The course of English Literature could have been so very different…

Insecurity as a writer is of course another thing all together. I mean, who is not a writer? Any time I tell someone I’ve written a book I find that they have already written several or believe that they have a host of unwritten brilliant narratives ready to wow the Readerverse. So – who would bother with me? Um – well – there are always the critics.

When I first launched “Knockout” I came across a lady who offered to review books. Her verdict opened “I knew at once that I would hate this book.” All the same she carried on in what I can only assume was an orgy of masochistic self loathing. “The characters were unrealistic since no Police Inspector would just fall in love with some guy.” She followed it it with the suggestion that “The writer is clearly a foreigner with no idea of England. (I am a Londoner) Names of places in London are used as if it were a guide book.” The critic then turned to the matter of a restaurant menu which she felt was a poorly designed combination of dishes. Finally she declared that the character of a Police commander was “unrealistic since such a bombastic character would have been brought up before some kind of employment tribunal”. I thanked her for her kind efforts but some small part of me wanted to say that it was a Romance where rather larger than life characters behaved rather “Romantically” in a world of unsuitable menus and horrid bosses. I could also have said that the Police Commander was based on someone I knew and if anything, underestimated his odiousness. As a final salvo the lady opined that the choice of the name Freddie for the French/American male hero was a ridiculous pun on a sitcom character called “Freddie the Frog” of whom I had never heard.

The choice then was whether to accept all her criticisms and not publish or kinda stick to my self belief that, although not high art, it was not that bad. Perhaps some of you guys will let me know.

I think I’m in my 35th year of more or less continuous rejections. I suppose my confidence wavers as I wait for the letter. By now I feel utterly secure in my prediction of the outcome. I know there is a novel from 20 years ago possibly in a slush pile, still out there somewhere. Some rejections have become treasures. A famous poetry editor wrote back to me to say that my work was ghastly but that he loved my covering letter. I felt validated and secure. It was the only time. I have always taken comfort from the notion that all the GREATS were rejected, cut their ears off and ended up in a pauper’s grave. The only problem is that this is not true.

If I’m being serious I would say that all the years of rejections have never stopped me from trying and have convinced me that I’m unlikely to please any publisher/agent. This realisation is my freedom and I am secure in it. My good friend Oscar Sparrow, the poet, has recorded the supposed world’s worst poem. People get in touch with him just to say they love it. If you wanna hear the sweet sound of heroic failure here is a link. By the way, the “world’s worst” poet Theo Marzials was a huge success in his own life-time!

Emma thinx: The trouble with insecurities is that they tie you down.

Christmas, Kindlemas, Body Mass

Posted on December 15, 2011 by emmacalin

Well, the old boy did it. Oscar’s book of poetry has gone live on Amazon Kindle. It’s called ‘I threw a stone’ and he kindly asked me to write the foreword. Not only is it an e-book, it also includes an audio album with all the poems read by Oscar. I find all this uploads/downloads stuff a bit bemusing but I managed to get the audio onto my Kindle. All this new interconnected media gives writers the chance to produce some unique kinds of work. Oscar’s book has a music intro as well. I believe that the e-book is not a competitor with the tree book. The e-book is actually a wide exciting medium in itself and can provide far more. The book trailer is here if you want to take a peek.

Apparently, this Christmas will in fact be Kindlemas. This is the year when the e-reader will be the must have item in Santa’s sack. I think the old dead tree books will still have a place. I have shelves of them to show folks how learned I am. While books proclaim what you like folk to think you have read, the e-reader hides what you actually like to read. You can sit on the commuter train to a posh job in the City with your Kindle reading “Confessions of a Harem Handyman” and no one knows.

I have parked up the bus for the holidays now. Soon I will be going home to France for a holiday season of ruthless dieting, cold baths and exercise. On the other hand I might get out the foie gras, un bon Bordeaux and catch up on some reading. I wonder if we Brits will be turned away at the border by the Sarko police? His eyebrows really do look like circumflex (little roof top) accents, the presence of which in French denotes that a consonant used to be present in a word. With Britain missing from Europe the look on Sarko’s face takes body language to new heights.

Emma thinx: Europic – a new serious vision problem.

Lies, Damned Lies and Bus Driving

Posted on November 12, 2011 by emmacalin

I suppose there are degrees of shame. I’m always telling people not to beat themselves up. In the absence of the confessional I’m just gonna confess to all you guys out there, most of whom are Russian Mafia spamming me from websites with a .tk suffix. All you computeroids out there probably knew about these creatures years ago but they have only just come onto my radar. If you see postring, glowlan, massprofits on your traffic BEWARE! They constantly change their names so keep alert.

So here is my confession to you sweet readers and also the Russian Spamming Mafia. Last night I parked up my bus and came home. Somehow a large gin and tonic slipped accidentally into my hand. As I lifted it to my parched longing lips the phone rang. It was the bus company. There was a crisis and a mob of kids had not been picked up. Was it possible for me to dash back to the depot, collect a bus and save them? Enraged parents were foaming at the mouth with anger and only I was capable of confronting them. And then I lied. Oh Great Unisex Progenitor of the Busiverse, I told them I was not at home and could not get there within an hour. Even as the lies slithered from my throat, a life giving infusion of gin passed it on the way down to my deeper soul. Did I want to deal with rage filled parents? Um – no to be quite frank, I did not. Kids – I am so sorry. I have felt wretched all day.

Another reason for my deception was that I was going out. I was going to dine with some friends of Gilles and the food would be Romanian. Just the idea of Romania reverberates in the follicles of the romantic novelist. So, I prepared myself with interesting comments about Romanian culture. I had googled the work of Mihai Eminescu (headline photo) and read (in English) his passionate poem “Desire”. I enquired as to what the hostess liked to read. And the answer was “Pride and Prejudice”. That shut me up. I’ve never read it! We had a lovely meal of pork with the finest ever mashed potato which was as light as mousse. There was beetroot with caraway seeds and cheese filled pancakes. Gilles has such wonderful friends who do big stuff in the world. Sometimes I wish I’d gone to school properly instead of wandering about wanting to write the poem that is out there somewhere in the Universe. At least I knew the smell of river water on my hands and knew that I had stolen it from under the nose of Time before it faded into the hour, the lifetime and the deception of personality.

I’ve been hiding from Formula One and football. Oscar Sparrow called me to say that he had to put out his first ever blog in preparation for the launch of his collected poems. As a blogavirgin he needed inspiration. I told him, rather exasperatedly, to write about bloody racing cars going round and round and round. He said he would but was worried about the jargon. I tried a translation myself.

Emma thinx: Drag reduction system: keeping Queens out of Formula One.

Death! Plop.

Posted on November 9, 2011 by emmacalin

OK Literatti – let’s get down on some poetry. Today I have been busy on a whole new project of compiling and editing a book of poetry on behalf of Gallo-Romano Media. Regulars will have heard me rattling on about my mate Oscar Sparrow whom I have known for many years. He’s a bit kinda prickly to be honest and is a tree book hard-liner. On account of that he’s scuffed along in a bedragglement of small press pamphlets, anthologies and Arts Council artsfarts. (An artsfart is a form of poetry only read by South American ant-eaters) Eventually I have persuaded him to put out a small collection of his poems via Rosina’s media outfit. Everyone knows that no one reads poetry except other poets and they don’t like it cos they didn’t write it themselves. I’m officially gonna be credited as editor and a small contributor. He believed that he has sold his soul to the forces of Mammon but he cheered up when we assured him that no one would read it and he wouldn’t get paid. It is at moments like that you know you are in the presence of a true poet. I wish Oscar were my brother so that I could love him.

There was a poet called Theophilus Marzials (1850 – 1920) who is sometimes accused of having written the world’s worst poem. In his day he was a successful writer and it only since his death that the critteratti have spiked into him. Oscar uses this as an argument against having any form of success in this world. Now, I like Theo’s poem and so you know what I’m talking about – here it is.

A Tragedy

Theophilus Marzials

Death! Plop.

The barges down in the river flop.

Flop, plop.

Above, beneath.

From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.

Plop, plop.

And scudding by

The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,

And my head shrieks — “Stop,”

And my heart shrieks — “Die.”

* * * * *
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them — and fled
They all are every one! — and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
And dizzy me dead.
I might reel and drop.
      Plop.
      Dead.And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
      Flop, plop.
* * * * *
A curse on him.
      Ugh! yet I knew — I knew —
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end —

My Devil — My “Friend”

I had trusted the whole of my living to!

Ugh; and I knew!

Ugh!

So what do I care,

And my head is empty as air —

I can do,

I can dare,

(Plop, plop

The barges flop

Drip drop.)

I can dare! I can dare!

And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.

Drop.

Dead.

Plop, flop.

            Plop.

Just read on from “slimy branches” through to “thin tree top.” To me it is a poem teeming with drippy droppiness and flappy ploppy flopshiousness. Of course, its absolute lusciousness of vocab kinda does away with the sentiment of TRAGEDY which he is trying to capture. I like it because a guy wrote it when he had trouble with a woman and whatever was going on this trace of of love remains and I am here reading it and talking about it. Theo – you were a man who wrote poems. Time has made you a poet in my heart. Over to to you guys……

More international MARKET people all day talking about what they want the world to do. Is there any further point in the pretence of having meaningful national democratic governments?

Emma thinx: Economic Feudalism – the noble savage serving the savage noble.