On Research and Writing

You remember the post I did on BDSM? The client came back for a third time asking for more articles. Now the amount of stuff I know about BDSM not gleaned from fanfiction can be written on the back of a postage stamp. Like, I know not a single soul who is in the lifestyle; at least not that they've informed me. In fact, apart from seeing dominatrix(es?) portrayed in movies, I had no concept of what that kink entails.
Now here I am writing how-to manuals for people interested in getting into the lifestyle. And doing such a good job of it, they keep coming back for more articles. It's like, the very definition of irony innit?

So how am I doing so well you might ask? How am I so convincing? It's easy really; research. Lots of it. The FBI agent who monitors my computer must be very confused about my browsing history. Where I started was personal blogs. The focus of the book and articles I wrote was submissives. So I found some blogs on submissives and read their 'dear diary' posts. What they did, what they liked, how they liked it...
Lucky for me, I have a hard-on for knowledge; I love learning new stuff so that process is very enjoyable for me. If you're an aspiring writer and you don't enjoy research you're in for some very bad times my fren. Very very bad. Don't do it unless you're ready to spend hours READING.
After reading the innermost thoughts of submissives, I went to the guru articles. The ones that start with phrases like 'What You Need to Know About...' which give me a lot of background for the how this all comes about.
Other interesting places to look are shopping sites. Yeah, I know. What?
But BDSM wear is very distinctive and sometimes the shoppers give a very comprehensive description of how certain things can be used. Not just whips and chains but also crotchless leather shorts and such. It's very eye-opening.

I belong to this facebook group called Writers Assembled and some writes post things like, 'What's a good disease to give a character so they die slowly?'
Now I love being asked stuff that people don't know but questions like the one above are just lazy. Especially since Google exists. And WebMd. and Mayo Clinic website. If you want to get more technical there's the NHS site. I mean...seriously if you want to give a character a disease, you're gonna need to know more than just the name of the disease.
So on one such post, being totally and completely fed up I wrote, GIYF.
(If you don't know what that means, Google it.)
Of course, Classic White Woman© enters my comments to tell me how she's sure that the poster must have searched google already and not found what she wanted blah blah blah. Well, six days later when I had time I gave her a short tutorial about how anyone who wants to bear the label 'writer' needs to be able to do research. Of course, I got some White Woman Victimhood© in response, about my attitude being bad and we agree on things and she doesn't know why she's being attacked blah blah blah. I could write the post for them at this point, it's pretty standard, script does not vary. White woman tears not included.

I'm not trying to hate on white women by the way. I have good friends who are white women. But there is a cohort that is Super Tiresome and I'm tired.
Speaking of feelings and emotions, I've decided to use my Tumblr for the more personal not really bloggy thoughts that I have. When I started it, I was writing Chrianna fanfic and then Aubrih fanfic. That was before the discovery of AO3. I still cross-post fics on Tumblr but it can get confusing since updates of different fics don't follow each other. I wrote my first piece last week. It got real personal but I am consoled by the fact that nobody reads my Tumblr anyway.
So why write you ask?
Two reasons.
It's how I do self-care. I take thoughts from my head and throw them on paper (paper is a metaphor here for any writing material) and then they're not in my head anymore. I've seen a lot of post on all forms of media of people talking to strangers about their inability to stand their lives because of one thing or another - anxiety, depression, lack of being seen, self-hatred. And my foremost thought right now is that I'm glad I can't relate.
The reasons I can't relate is the second reason I write. If knowing that You Are Not Alone is something that helps someone else,  without them having to go through the process of getting out, because I already did, and they can learn from me...well. Why not?
So I leave it to Fate, God or the Universe. If you need to find it, you will.
Also, I just want to say that it bothers me that Janet Jackson isn't mentioned when people are talking about All Round Entertainers of All Time. Have you seen her Pleasure Principle video where she keeps us watching with no one on the screen but her and a dance studio?
ICONIC.
Meanwhile, I want you to know that my books are available in more places than just Amazon in case you're boycotting them over the NRA or the fact that they are dodgy as fuck. Click on any of the links at the top of the page to take you to each book's landing page. Remember that before you buy, you can always download a sample. So download them ALL.
And leave reviews people. Reviews are the lifeblood by which we live.

How BDSM isn't as Bad as You Think

This is very likely my last post of 2017.
Very likely but not definitely.
I'm trying to be a better planner but the truth is that I live and write by the seat of my pants and God's will so I can't say for sure. That said, I want to talk about something I recently learned about because I like to share my knowledge and opinions.
But y'all know that right?

Recently, I was tricked into writing a 12,000-word book on being a submissive in BDSM.
Tricked how you ask?
Well, it's simple really. I am registered on this site as a writer, filed under 'fiction'. Which means that on my work page, I can only see work available in the fiction category. But then one of the managers emailed me and said, "I have this piece of work that nobody has chosen and you're not doing anything - on the site - as far as I can see. Can I give it to you?"
Now, this site has filed me under fiction meaning that I can only access the work posted under stories on there. However, most of the work they get is non-fiction, and so they essentially lock me out of the larger portion of work available...until no one else is willing to do a certain job. Then suddenly they all up in my DMs like, "Hey Bighead."
It's cool.
It's alright.
People will use you if you let them.
I learned that lesson long ago.
So I only let them use me if it's to my benefit. And I figured I could do the 12k assignment and I'd get paid right about the middle of my holiday which means...

Yep.
I'd be rolling in it.
So I said yes.
And THAT'S when they told me the topic.
Now I'm not your typical judgemental whatever. But I don't hold with pain. And the fanfic I've read featuring BDSM is equal parts painful and just no. So I was not exactly happy.
However, I took it as an opportunity to learn something new, hopefully, and who knows? I'll probably be asked to write a BDSM romance sooner or later.
Right?
So, learning opportunity...
And boy did I learn!

First of all boys and girls, BDSM is not just about whips and chains. It's an entire lifestyle and personality type. As soon as I began learning more and more about what it takes and what it looks like to be in a dom/sub relationship I started looking at everyone around me differently. I noticed who had a tendency toward dominance, others towards submissiveness...Believe it or not, that was new information to me.

Take these two ladies in the lovely gif above for example. One hundred percent uncut, pure doms. Rob and Chyna's relationship might have worked out if Rob didn't bring a third dom into their relationship; his mama, Kris Jenner.
You notice that Rob and Chyna were fine and happy until he kind of reconciled with his family and was calling his mother every two minutes to ask for permission for this and that...Two cocks cannot exist in the same roost. One dom had to go and in this case, it was Chyna who stepped and got herself another sub.
Nicki also is such a dom, leading her men publicly around by the nose...remember how Safaree used to walk behind her? Dragged on stage at every award show to basically be her entourage? And Meek, so happy to have snagged those boobs and that butt. Just counting his blessings to be in the same room with her. Until they disobeyed. And then it was bye bye miss American pie...
You always know who wore the pants in her relationships. Probably why she and Drake have never quite gotten it together. He doesn't strike me as the submissive type...in spite of his softness.

Another obvious dom/sub couple is Rob's sister Kim and her husband Kanye. He literally tells her what to wear, goes so far as to dress her, basically, he runs her life. From what I've read of the dom/sub life, the first thing you need for success is a lot of trust in each other, because the sub completely hands her life over into the dom's hands.
Without trust, the dynamic can't work. With that in mind, I'd say that the Kimye relationship has the tools to last a lifetime what with her throwing away her sleuthing abilities because 'she doesn't need them with him', and he only having her number in his phone...they clearly need no one else.
Writing this book was not just beneficial in allowing me to see y'all in a new light. It also showed me things that I didn't know, I didn't know about myself.
I love when that happens.
When you discover something about yourself you didn't even think to imagine might be something to wonder about. It's the best. It's increasing self-awareness without angst and effort.
Shall I tell you what I discovered about me?

...
...
Bye Felicia, we not that close.
I will marvel with you at the marvelous possibilities of accessing knowledge and wisdom about absolutely any topic from the pages of a book. You might be reading it for entirely different purposes but then you come across something that makes you go like, "Hmmm...I did not know, I needed to know that."

I'm sure some of you would like to read the finished product on BDSM. Unfortunately, I have no idea where it will be published.
Hello, Annemarie, ghostwriter, pleased to meet you.
I will tell you where you can find a whole bunch of books I wrote...
Here.
Y'all come back and visit in the New Year y'hear?

NC-17

How do you find books? Personally once +Stephen King's Dark Tower Series let me down and +Anne Rice dashed my hopes that she'd write a good book again where Louis and Lestat resolve their issues finally and live happily ever after...well; I just usually read the first three lines and see if the book will snag me and make me want to read more. Three lines. It's not much to go on but it works for me. It's how I found +Maria Doria Russell's Children of God, and then The Sparrow. I read them backwards because the Sparrow is the first book but hey...excellent pieces of work. Made me want to become a jesuit.

And now, in this time of grief when I'm grappling with how God works, it's also a source of great comfort. If Emilio Sandoz could finally find some answers, well maybe so will I. And if I don't, well, there's always someone to blame.
It's the first anniversary of my father's death in two months. I don't know where the time went.I haven't even really started grieving yet. Still very much dealing with anger. The advantage of being angry I find, is that one cannot hold anger and sadness in one's breast. It's one or the other. And it's so much easier to sleep at night with anger as your bed mate. Sadness blows.
This wasn't meant to be a maudlin post.

Promise.
I was actually going to tell you about this girl I met online. She's English, lives in England; and we got to talking because of our mutual +Supernatural obsession. She was very intelligent, articulate and mature and I figured she was some late twenties chick with minimal responsibilities judging by the fact that I could find her online any time my day or night. Well anyway, quite by accident I discovered she was actually sixteen....
Lucky for her I'm not some fat, sleazy paedo looking for sex online.
I'm sure she'd have stopped talking to me if I was.
I hope.

So I tell my (then) fifteen year old son that I'm friends with this sixteen year old and would he like an introduction. He turned me down. Quite unequivocally. I don't know why. Maybe coz she was my friend. Or her blog was a bit too intelligent for him. I don't know.
So anyway, she writes fanfic.
And I'm reading this fanfic and it's tagged NC-17..
So by rights, the writer of the fanfic is not old enough to even read the fanfic.
And it was explicit.
And hot.
And explored aspects of BDSM that seventeen year olds really shouldn't know about.
At least, that's what I tell myself.
Of course this chick is a year older than my son.
So probably he has intricate knowledge of sex acts I haven't even heard about too.
It's very stressful for a mother to think such things about her child.
I'd rather stick this in the 'ain't broke' column and 'don't go looking for trouble' philosophy.
Of course it made me think about all the other fanfic out there.
And the average age of writers.
Yeah I remember making up "love stories" in my head when I was young. They were also loosely based on television shows; but most TV shows I saw at the time tended to show kissing which gently faded to black as the couple slid down away from the camera. It didn't give too much away in terms of What Really Happens.  but now teenagers are writing gay sex and BDSM and alpha/omega/beta dynamics and hooker!fic...and the more explicit and the more humiliating, the better.

I don't know what to think about all this.
When I was writing Child of Destiny, my editor was aghast at the amount of sex I was writing about. But it's soo tame compared to what I've seen on live journal. I feel I should be worried but I don't know about what. Do "young people" have too much knowledge or do I have too little?
Most importantly what the fuck happened to sex being about connection? communion? love?