Not a lot has changed since I last posted to the Blog. Of course, Donald Trump has continued to bluff his Whatever-ish way through the campaign season, and at this point it appears as though Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will face off. (But anything can happen; a lot of what goes on before the official nominations are over seems --at least to me-- as behind the scenes, and under the counter. When it comes right down to it, the really important decisions are not for the general public to participate in. So, is it a democracy, really?)
Anyway, as I see it, the important thing is not to let the bastards grind us down. If we dwell too much on how powerless we are, we lose the motivation to do even the little that we're permitted to do, and that little can surprise the powers-that-be, and make them resort to desperate measures, as happened in the elections of 2000, where the Supreme Court had to thoroughly discredit themselves, and give the Presidency to George Bush, Jr, who was ultimately made the fall guy for the entire Iraq War Debacle. (And a better fall guy we could never have found.) So I'm focusing on my writing, and re-reading my favorite books, and such things as make me feel better than watching the news would make me feel.
I reported to you that I was re-working the Sleeping Beauty story with a lesbian angle (not a new idea; there is at least one other attempt), in the spirit of an erotic ballet, in literary form. But that has come to a halt; I don't have a sufficiently uninterrupted period of time by myself, for various reasons, and so I just can't get any momentum going.
Several years ago, when I had left the --rather fantastic, at that point-- Helen story aside (because a friend of mine had encouraged me to write a story that had at least a slight chance of being read by people other than just me) I began to write Alexandra over a little more than two years, which meant that I had forgotten where I had left Helen.
After Alexandra was finished, I began to think of myself as a possibly mainstream writer, in the sense that the books had an iota of a chance of being read. So I decided to write a Science Fiction story, based on the character of Helen. In this story, Helen, disappointed in love, decides to join a space expedition, and is put aboard in hibernation on an enormous space ship. After writing close to a thousand pages of that, I went back to Helen (which was still on actual paper) and discovered to my horror that I had made Helen have almost total amnesia, and Helen had been reduced to a simple woman whose memories stopped around the age of about 12. Somehow I had shut this development away in my mind, and had forgotten it. The Helen story was quite interesting, but there was no way that that Helen, who was an amnesiac and had lost all her musical skills, could be this Helen.
Obviously, I was not going to explain all that in a foreword to the Science Fiction story. So I decided that these would be two different Helens, and arranged in the Summer of 2014 that I would publish the completed story in the Summer of 2015. So in July of last year, I was furiously writing the ending of The Music of the Stars, which the science fiction story was called, and finally finished it a few days before it was to be released.
The Music of the Stars is a little different from a typical Science Fiction novel. The story is not driven by dramatic scientific facts and events. The issues are more intimate, and small-scaled. Some of the topics I addressed are:
What is cloning really like? Helen discovers that a certain person on the ship had cloned herself, and then the spaceship leaders persuade Helen to submit to cloning. It isn't a dramatic thing; they create a embryo entirely of Helen's DNA, and place it in her womb, and she delivers it naturally.
What would it be like for a person to relate to his or her clone? There are five clones in the story (one of them a combination of two people), and they are all reasonable, plausible, interesting individuals, in some ways like their "Originals", for lack of a better word, and in other ways, unique.
What is the future of various endocrine diseases? Helen is diabetic, but cloning makes it possible to change the DNA in a minor way, to ensure that the clone does not inherit the disease.
What is it like to attempt to colonize a planet that is essentially an arid wasteland? This has been addressed countless times, for instance in Dune. But in those novels, the universe is so far removed from our own experience that the problems are solved in completely fantastic ways. In contrast, I had approached it more in line with what we saw in The Martian, which, if you remove a lot of the drama, could easily happen this year or the next. To my mind, that kind of low-tech extrapolation of our own experience has its own charm, quite different from the charm of the fantastic futures depicted in Star Trek, for instance. It seems to be clear that most authors are not really interested in arid planets, too different from Earth.
How would kids react to participating in space exploration? Unlike books in which little children are essentially background props, in Music, kids are front and center, mostly because I love kids and I'm a total pushover.
How will the process of hibernation interfere with and affect human relationships? This is a little difficult to explain: to be specific, what if Helen is put into hibernation, and brought out of hibernation in 20 years? Her friends would be 20 years older. How will that affect their relationship? In most science fiction stories, this sort of thing either does not happen, or the hibernation is for so long that it is not an issue, or there is no interest in the phenomenon.
It is not that I set out to address these issues. I just start the novel off, and then I allow the story to take the most natural course. This does make for stories where the plot is not intensely dramatic. But to my mind, everything that happens is far more plausible. Unfortunately, high plausibility is not a hallmark of great fiction, so I have to resign myself to the fact that what I write is not going to be choice reading for the vast majority of people!
The most humiliating thing of all is that when I read fiction, I internalize the idiom, in some cases, so completely, that I suspect my writing will be derivative. There are entire scenes that rolled off my fingers so effortlessly that I have the horrific feeling that I have read the entire episode somewhere. Well, there's nothing to be done, until and unless I recall where it came from, in which case I have to either change it, or confess that I have been heavily influenced by X, whatever X is.
The last few days, I have been reading Music of the Stars, and I was startled by the ending. Confessedly, the ending is weak; the story sort of ends a little abruptly. But what startled me most were the details. I was shocked to find that I did not recognize entire chapters; it was as if the thing had been written by someone else! I'm growing old, I suppose, and it is thoroughly disconcerting to read my own writing and be amazed that I could write so well (if you would forgive me; as someone once said: it is not that the dancing dog dances well, but that it dances at all).
Ultimately, both the strength and the weakness of the story are the lovable characters in it. I love each and every one of them (except a few of the older men, who literally are furniture and props! But even they are --given that they are guys, and so limited in their lovability-- lovable in their own pathetic way) are characters whom I find lovable. From Cass Hutchinson-Holt, the first character who appears, and who lives through most of the story, to Cass's little granddaughter, Summer Levin, the people are attractive to me. And that's why I invented them; these stories provide me with people whom I could care about.
Kay.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Olivia Newton-John
Not only did ONJ have an angelic voice, but she also had an angelic countenance, and when the movie Xanadu came out, in my opinion she was at the height of her beauty. I think she had suffered a few years of emotional setbacks, and a little of that pain was reflected in her eyes. But in the movie, she flirted and laughed with her co-star (let me look it up ...) Michael Beck, as well as with Gene Kelly, and one could easily believe that she was divine, in a sort of 1980s way! And the absolute pinnacle of her divinity was the song Magic, which was a no. 1 hit for her.
Here is the video on YouTube
Just close your eyes --some of the horrible style of 1980 still comes through the photograph-- and listen to her voice! This is a performance of a lifetime. Truly this woman was charmed.
Kay.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Jane in Canada
"Jane" is the book, of all the books I have published, that has been downloaded the most. The biggest reason for its popularity, as far as I can guess, is that it is free. But I greatly enjoyed writing it, and it is a lot of fun, not in the sense of being funny or exciting, but that there are several interesting characters, including a pair of twins, and a cute fourteen-year-old.
In addition, Jane is a sort of superhero. Quite by accident, Jane attended a Metal Fetish convention in Baltimore, and acquired a reputation as a masked personality called Scorpia. It was initially a lot of fun; she always wore a mask, of course, and disguised her voice, and soon she was getting requests for photographs which people wanted to feature in various commercials. Jane established a website, with the help of her brother Artie, and after a while, she was being interviewed on various TV shows and radio shows.
At any rate, the book Jane starts at the point where Jane has tragically lost two girlfriends on 9/11, and shortly afterwards, and she has a lover who has been diagnosed with HIV. We watch as the two of them face the problems of AIDS, and the girl dies, surrounded by Jane's family.
Jane is shattered, but her friends help her to carry on, in particular, two young girls who posed for her; Jane was a photographer. And Jane is introduced to a supermodel, Gillian, who becomes Jane's closest friend. The rest of the book is about how Jane, Gillian, and Gillian's twin sister, Angela, become Jane's sort of family in New York City, and their various little adventures. The book ends with Jane getting involved with a new friend, Lisa Love, a reformed glamour model, who has the hots for Jane. In fact, Lisa Love has the hots for both Jane, and Scorpia, not realizing that they are one and the same.
I just uploaded to Smashwords the further adventures of Jane and Lisa Love. Entitled Jane on Holiday, the story goes as follows. It is the middle of a heat wave across the US, and Jane and Lisa sneak off to a vacation cabin in a resort in the hills of British Columbia. This story is rated at least R, so be warned. On the other hand, if purple prose is all you're interested in, you might be disappointed. I'm a sentimental slob, and my stories get moderately mushy.
In addition, Jane is a sort of superhero. Quite by accident, Jane attended a Metal Fetish convention in Baltimore, and acquired a reputation as a masked personality called Scorpia. It was initially a lot of fun; she always wore a mask, of course, and disguised her voice, and soon she was getting requests for photographs which people wanted to feature in various commercials. Jane established a website, with the help of her brother Artie, and after a while, she was being interviewed on various TV shows and radio shows.
At any rate, the book Jane starts at the point where Jane has tragically lost two girlfriends on 9/11, and shortly afterwards, and she has a lover who has been diagnosed with HIV. We watch as the two of them face the problems of AIDS, and the girl dies, surrounded by Jane's family.
Jane is shattered, but her friends help her to carry on, in particular, two young girls who posed for her; Jane was a photographer. And Jane is introduced to a supermodel, Gillian, who becomes Jane's closest friend. The rest of the book is about how Jane, Gillian, and Gillian's twin sister, Angela, become Jane's sort of family in New York City, and their various little adventures. The book ends with Jane getting involved with a new friend, Lisa Love, a reformed glamour model, who has the hots for Jane. In fact, Lisa Love has the hots for both Jane, and Scorpia, not realizing that they are one and the same.
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Politics from Kay Brown
I know: you have other sources for your political opinions, and this is the last place you look for that sort of thing! Anyway, I offer this to you, and then I will keep quiet.
Our family is sort of at the lower edge of Middle Class, which you can easily gather from reading any of the stories I write. You can also gather that most of the satisfying elements in those stories come from interactions between people of different classes and backgrounds. I have been deeply unhappy with Donald Trump's essay into politics, and for a long time I shied away from watching video of his speeches. Anyway, this post is not an attempt to persuade anyone to frustrate Donald Trump's attempt to be elected President. Whatever will happen will happen; I for one will not vote for him.
But we are seeing a phenomenon we have to take seriously; there is a swath across America of poor white people whom we have always viewed with annoyance and frustration. They have never understood the dynamics of the economic stratification that lies mostly above them. They only know that, of the underdogs of the political process, Blacks and minorities have an unfair share of power. Even women have more power. For more than two centuries these folks have been pushed further and further into the dust, and they are baffled and angry.
They have, intermittently, been subject to Marxist ideas, but they're deeply suspicious of these clever college kids who're throwing all this propaganda at them. They're sure that if they go the route of voting the way they're being encouraged, they will end up being the losers. The only language they understand is the put-down rhetoric of racism. In a recent piece in Stir magazine, a writer traces the origins of the suspicion of these poor whites back to the early colonial days, when wealthy landowners actually fomented the distrust between poor whites and black slaves in order to disrupt the emergence of a dangerously unified underclass.
Having read that article, watching a Trump video, or a quotation from Trump, or a report about Trump makes a whole new kind of sense. You can even watch Trump supporters at a rally explaining why they support him, despite the complete lack of meaningful principles in his essentially one-man campaign.
The inanity of the utterances of Trump supporters, their grammar, their syntax, their lack of logic, their stereotypes, their world view, their social principles, their paranoia, all suddenly makes sense. And to think: these are our fellow-citizens. But few or none of them avail themselves of the various aspects of the social safety-net that is available to urban Blacks. They keep away from any sort of Government "hand-out" because of being unwilling to identify with Blacks, and hating the thought of associating closely with them. I can imagine that they hate even entering an office that might be staffed by a Black or minority, or even worse, a Mexican.
And this is my point: no matter what happens in this election, this sector of our citizenry must be brought into our society. Their faults appear to be the fault of foolishness and lack of intelligence, but an enormous proportion of what holds them back is education. For years I thought that the shortcomings of US education were greatly exaggerated. But we're talking about a different sort of education: the broadening of the mind that has little or nothing to do with formal schooling, and everything to do with awareness of the wider society. Not just video footage of migrant workers, but some opportunity to interact in a positive way with people outside their immediate neighbors. I can't see how it can be done, but as long as their insularity is allowed to continue, they will be a festering wound, and my heart goes out to their kids, who will inevitably absorb the prejudices of the parents for lack of alternatives. It is no wonder that they view practically everything about the modern world with fear. Donald Trump assuages their fears simply by not talking about anything substantive, except to assure these ones that he hates what they hate just as much, and that he has a plan.
If Donald Trump does get into power, and he betrays the best interests of these foolish innocents, he will be truly cursed. I hope he realizes that there are eyes watching him that do not want to see him adding to his power and his wealth by crushing his blind followers.
Kay
Our family is sort of at the lower edge of Middle Class, which you can easily gather from reading any of the stories I write. You can also gather that most of the satisfying elements in those stories come from interactions between people of different classes and backgrounds. I have been deeply unhappy with Donald Trump's essay into politics, and for a long time I shied away from watching video of his speeches. Anyway, this post is not an attempt to persuade anyone to frustrate Donald Trump's attempt to be elected President. Whatever will happen will happen; I for one will not vote for him.
But we are seeing a phenomenon we have to take seriously; there is a swath across America of poor white people whom we have always viewed with annoyance and frustration. They have never understood the dynamics of the economic stratification that lies mostly above them. They only know that, of the underdogs of the political process, Blacks and minorities have an unfair share of power. Even women have more power. For more than two centuries these folks have been pushed further and further into the dust, and they are baffled and angry.
They have, intermittently, been subject to Marxist ideas, but they're deeply suspicious of these clever college kids who're throwing all this propaganda at them. They're sure that if they go the route of voting the way they're being encouraged, they will end up being the losers. The only language they understand is the put-down rhetoric of racism. In a recent piece in Stir magazine, a writer traces the origins of the suspicion of these poor whites back to the early colonial days, when wealthy landowners actually fomented the distrust between poor whites and black slaves in order to disrupt the emergence of a dangerously unified underclass.
Having read that article, watching a Trump video, or a quotation from Trump, or a report about Trump makes a whole new kind of sense. You can even watch Trump supporters at a rally explaining why they support him, despite the complete lack of meaningful principles in his essentially one-man campaign.
The inanity of the utterances of Trump supporters, their grammar, their syntax, their lack of logic, their stereotypes, their world view, their social principles, their paranoia, all suddenly makes sense. And to think: these are our fellow-citizens. But few or none of them avail themselves of the various aspects of the social safety-net that is available to urban Blacks. They keep away from any sort of Government "hand-out" because of being unwilling to identify with Blacks, and hating the thought of associating closely with them. I can imagine that they hate even entering an office that might be staffed by a Black or minority, or even worse, a Mexican.
And this is my point: no matter what happens in this election, this sector of our citizenry must be brought into our society. Their faults appear to be the fault of foolishness and lack of intelligence, but an enormous proportion of what holds them back is education. For years I thought that the shortcomings of US education were greatly exaggerated. But we're talking about a different sort of education: the broadening of the mind that has little or nothing to do with formal schooling, and everything to do with awareness of the wider society. Not just video footage of migrant workers, but some opportunity to interact in a positive way with people outside their immediate neighbors. I can't see how it can be done, but as long as their insularity is allowed to continue, they will be a festering wound, and my heart goes out to their kids, who will inevitably absorb the prejudices of the parents for lack of alternatives. It is no wonder that they view practically everything about the modern world with fear. Donald Trump assuages their fears simply by not talking about anything substantive, except to assure these ones that he hates what they hate just as much, and that he has a plan.
If Donald Trump does get into power, and he betrays the best interests of these foolish innocents, he will be truly cursed. I hope he realizes that there are eyes watching him that do not want to see him adding to his power and his wealth by crushing his blind followers.
Kay
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Does Transgender Phobia move people to Pass Vicious Laws?
State Laws requiring anyone who uses a public restroom to use the restroom designated for those of the "correct" gender (namely that on the restroom-user's birth certificate) have been passed recently in North Carolina. (In fact, I believe that's the only state that has this sort of law.) The media is full of opinions from self-declared Progressives (among whom I counted myself) that these sorts of laws are motivated by hate, fear and suspicion.
Quite honestly, most laws have support from a variety of kinds of people, all supporting it for different reasons. In this case, at least some of those supporting "Correct Restroom" legislation must be doing so for genuine reasons. Half the women I know would love to go into a male restroom. In fact, stories about intrepid female reporters who invade the precincts of the men's locker rooms after a football game are numerous, though I suppose it is easy for a gal to get a voluntary invitation into a testosterone-filled locker room! But it seems to me that some progressives are deliberately turning a blind eye to the possibility that some users of restrooms are unhappy about even the possibility of someone of what they consider the wrong gender using it with them. So far, most of those who are nervous about people whom they consider men to be using the restroom with them seem to be women. But those making the most noise about transphobia and hate also seem to be women. So we have, undoubtedly, a degree of bullying from women who are intolerant of those who prefer not to have "guys" sharing their restrooms with them. And we have some bullying from women who couldn't care less about who is in the women's room with them (supported by the men who love them).
It is becoming very clear that progressives, or those who are progressive on this one point, who pride themselves on "not being prudes," do have a tendency to take up a bullying tone when it comes to legislation that they want to oppose, or push through. It could easily suggest that progressives tend to be bullies on other issues as well, which upsets me.
I believe that anyone who objects to sharing a restroom with anyone else based on a gender issue is justified. I would side--at this point in history--with those who oppose the opposition of restroom sharing based solely on race or national origin, or something that has been settled culturally. Transgender individuals (and their support groups) would dearly love to consider that transsexuals have been completely accepted in society, but unfortunately this is not the case, and these laws are testing to what extent transsexuals are accepted.
I hope that the fact that I, as an author, enthusiastically support transgender roles (if not actual gender modification, at least not yet,) will convince my readers that I am not approaching this issue from a position of hate. (Remember: non-support does not equal hate. Those who take the "if you don't support us then you hate us" line are indulging in cynical rhetoric. Progressives used to chant: If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem." I reluctantly tolerated this foolishness at one time because I believed in what those progressives were fighting for. But now I have to put my foot down: just because this so-called "Transphobic" legislation makes conservatives happy is not a good reason for opposing it.
Having said that, the way in which it has been proposed (or made law) is cynical. The question is not whether anyone should be permitted to use any public restroom, but rather whether anyone should have the right to privacy. Now, if anyone were to demand a restroom to themselves because they did not want to use a restroom together with those of the wrong race, we would be upset. But that battle has been fought, and culturally we have moved on. But, you see, we can now provide totally private restrooms. Planes have them. Restaurants have them. Hospitals have them. We can accommodate any level of privacy. Why must we force anyone to use a communal restroom?
So, rather than force people to produce their birth certificates, which strikes me as wrong-headed in the extreme, we should permit anyone who is suspicious of their fellow-restroom-users to use a unisex single-user restroom. If they balk at that, then we will have to address that problem.
Kay.
Quite honestly, most laws have support from a variety of kinds of people, all supporting it for different reasons. In this case, at least some of those supporting "Correct Restroom" legislation must be doing so for genuine reasons. Half the women I know would love to go into a male restroom. In fact, stories about intrepid female reporters who invade the precincts of the men's locker rooms after a football game are numerous, though I suppose it is easy for a gal to get a voluntary invitation into a testosterone-filled locker room! But it seems to me that some progressives are deliberately turning a blind eye to the possibility that some users of restrooms are unhappy about even the possibility of someone of what they consider the wrong gender using it with them. So far, most of those who are nervous about people whom they consider men to be using the restroom with them seem to be women. But those making the most noise about transphobia and hate also seem to be women. So we have, undoubtedly, a degree of bullying from women who are intolerant of those who prefer not to have "guys" sharing their restrooms with them. And we have some bullying from women who couldn't care less about who is in the women's room with them (supported by the men who love them).
It is becoming very clear that progressives, or those who are progressive on this one point, who pride themselves on "not being prudes," do have a tendency to take up a bullying tone when it comes to legislation that they want to oppose, or push through. It could easily suggest that progressives tend to be bullies on other issues as well, which upsets me.
I believe that anyone who objects to sharing a restroom with anyone else based on a gender issue is justified. I would side--at this point in history--with those who oppose the opposition of restroom sharing based solely on race or national origin, or something that has been settled culturally. Transgender individuals (and their support groups) would dearly love to consider that transsexuals have been completely accepted in society, but unfortunately this is not the case, and these laws are testing to what extent transsexuals are accepted.
I hope that the fact that I, as an author, enthusiastically support transgender roles (if not actual gender modification, at least not yet,) will convince my readers that I am not approaching this issue from a position of hate. (Remember: non-support does not equal hate. Those who take the "if you don't support us then you hate us" line are indulging in cynical rhetoric. Progressives used to chant: If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem." I reluctantly tolerated this foolishness at one time because I believed in what those progressives were fighting for. But now I have to put my foot down: just because this so-called "Transphobic" legislation makes conservatives happy is not a good reason for opposing it.
Having said that, the way in which it has been proposed (or made law) is cynical. The question is not whether anyone should be permitted to use any public restroom, but rather whether anyone should have the right to privacy. Now, if anyone were to demand a restroom to themselves because they did not want to use a restroom together with those of the wrong race, we would be upset. But that battle has been fought, and culturally we have moved on. But, you see, we can now provide totally private restrooms. Planes have them. Restaurants have them. Hospitals have them. We can accommodate any level of privacy. Why must we force anyone to use a communal restroom?
So, rather than force people to produce their birth certificates, which strikes me as wrong-headed in the extreme, we should permit anyone who is suspicious of their fellow-restroom-users to use a unisex single-user restroom. If they balk at that, then we will have to address that problem.
Kay.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Author's Note: Why I begin writing a story, and how it goes its own way
I have just begun writing a new story, for a very specific reason, only to realize that I've tried to do this before, and it never goes the way I want it to go!
Before I talk about this latest story at length, I want to take an overview of the stories I have written, or begun to write. (Most of these are published on Smashwords.)
Helen. This is a story of a woman, from her mid-teens, to her early forties, and is a 2500-page saga, episodes from which are being published as a series. Helen is my Galatea, a woman I created in my image of a girl with perfect imperfections, and so is a rather unusual entry in this list. Helen is a multi-talented artist, but principally a musician, the musician that I wished I were.
Alexandra. This was initially intended to be a paean to athleticism. Alexandra was supposed to be a fighter queen, but it evolved into a tortured love story, with an ending that might not satisfy some readers: the estranged couple is reconciled.
Jane. This started out as my exploration of the world of sleaze. I was very much into porn and erotica when I wrote Jane, but I found that describing photographs was a lot less satisfying than looking at them. But Jane gradually began to become a girl with a very distinctive personality, even if it was low-key. Somehow, several tragedies struck at the same time, and Jane became more about being a human being than about sex and sensuality.
Prisoner! This was the second story set in a Bronze Age in a parallel universe. (The first one was actually finished on paper, but never transcribed, and now I can't find some pages of the manuscript.) The story is essentially a lesbian love triangle.
That takes care of the stories that have been published, even if in an incomplete form. But I've always wanted to write an intensely erotic story involving two young girls in love, with more graphic sex than in any of my stories that have made it to "print". I love to torture myself with the thought of bringing one of these stories to completion, but they remain barely begun.
Heather and Alison. This is set in an alternate universe that looks very much like parts of India, despite the name of the story. It is a love story between two girls, one of whom chooses a monastic life, but who is thrust into political life by various historical forces.
Legs. This was intended to be a college romance between two girls, one of whom is of Thai origin, while the other is an athletic Midwestern American girl from a highly religious family. I had subconsciously wanted to make this into an erotic story, but the philosophical aspects are getting in the way. I think it is going to be a story where everything does not go right, and where the couple is sorely tested, and comes through, even if not with flying colors. Here, too, there is a musical thread: both girls discover that they are string players (violin and viola).
Julie and Karen. The title is tentative. Julie and Karen are twenty-somethings, who have married each other's brothers. But Julie takes under her wing a young woman who is being abused by her boyfriend, but it turns out that the young man is homicidal, and the trio find themselves on the run. I wanted to make it a story about ballet, but it has been stalled for a number of years. Karen has always been attracted to Julie, both physically and simply as a friend. For fear of alienating her, Karen continues to be cool. The plan is that they have to live in hiding (a familiar theme in my stories!), and Karen has to join a ballet company in a small town, and as Julie watches the company rehearse, unfamiliar feelings for Karen are born in Julie's breast.
The Meadow. In the Helen story, which was written over several years, Helen finds herself experimenting with computer-assisted animation. (This is using software to help with creating an animated feature.) Helen is driven by similar impulses as I am, understandably, and she wanted to create an animated Sleeping Beauty ballet, where both Sleeping Beauty, and her "Prince Charming" were girls. Only, she wanted there to be a large amount of nudity in it, even if simply drawn nudity, so that many of the ballet scenes were nude ballet. The Meadow is simply a literary version of this nude ballet. I want it to be highly erotic, but innocent at the same time. So far, the two protagonists have just met, and with great restraint, I'm trying not to let it become one long sex orgy.
Starting a Story
Unlike the majority of authors, I start a story with a rough idea of how it will go. A very rough idea. Most of what goes into it at this point is the setting: the circumstances, the place, the personalities, and a few events to start things off.
By this time, I have in my mind a good idea of what my characters are like, and then the crazy thing happens: new characters enter the story, and gently influence its direction. These stories are so real to me that I find it very difficult indeed to force the story to go in a particular direction. So I helplessly ride along, and somehow the stories end up being quite unique. It may partly be that I have lived an unusually eventful life, by which I mean that I have been a spectator of some pretty crazy things. Many of the stories I begin, intending them to be erotica, become mainline stories, because none of my characters are content to be purely sexual creatures. The one that comes closest is Helen, and she's the most tortured heroine of all.
So, it's not that I'm a prude, but what makes people attractive to me are their minds. As I fall in love with my own characters, I begin to focus more on what they're saying and thinking rather than their surface beauty, and the physical aspect of their relationship with each other tends to take a back seat. If I decide that I'm not going to publish a story, at least the pressure I feel to appear to be a high-minded author will be absent, and I can allow myself to let it all hang loose!
Kay
Before I talk about this latest story at length, I want to take an overview of the stories I have written, or begun to write. (Most of these are published on Smashwords.)
Helen. This is a story of a woman, from her mid-teens, to her early forties, and is a 2500-page saga, episodes from which are being published as a series. Helen is my Galatea, a woman I created in my image of a girl with perfect imperfections, and so is a rather unusual entry in this list. Helen is a multi-talented artist, but principally a musician, the musician that I wished I were.
Alexandra. This was initially intended to be a paean to athleticism. Alexandra was supposed to be a fighter queen, but it evolved into a tortured love story, with an ending that might not satisfy some readers: the estranged couple is reconciled.
Jane. This started out as my exploration of the world of sleaze. I was very much into porn and erotica when I wrote Jane, but I found that describing photographs was a lot less satisfying than looking at them. But Jane gradually began to become a girl with a very distinctive personality, even if it was low-key. Somehow, several tragedies struck at the same time, and Jane became more about being a human being than about sex and sensuality.
Prisoner! This was the second story set in a Bronze Age in a parallel universe. (The first one was actually finished on paper, but never transcribed, and now I can't find some pages of the manuscript.) The story is essentially a lesbian love triangle.
That takes care of the stories that have been published, even if in an incomplete form. But I've always wanted to write an intensely erotic story involving two young girls in love, with more graphic sex than in any of my stories that have made it to "print". I love to torture myself with the thought of bringing one of these stories to completion, but they remain barely begun.
Heather and Alison. This is set in an alternate universe that looks very much like parts of India, despite the name of the story. It is a love story between two girls, one of whom chooses a monastic life, but who is thrust into political life by various historical forces.
Legs. This was intended to be a college romance between two girls, one of whom is of Thai origin, while the other is an athletic Midwestern American girl from a highly religious family. I had subconsciously wanted to make this into an erotic story, but the philosophical aspects are getting in the way. I think it is going to be a story where everything does not go right, and where the couple is sorely tested, and comes through, even if not with flying colors. Here, too, there is a musical thread: both girls discover that they are string players (violin and viola).
Julie and Karen. The title is tentative. Julie and Karen are twenty-somethings, who have married each other's brothers. But Julie takes under her wing a young woman who is being abused by her boyfriend, but it turns out that the young man is homicidal, and the trio find themselves on the run. I wanted to make it a story about ballet, but it has been stalled for a number of years. Karen has always been attracted to Julie, both physically and simply as a friend. For fear of alienating her, Karen continues to be cool. The plan is that they have to live in hiding (a familiar theme in my stories!), and Karen has to join a ballet company in a small town, and as Julie watches the company rehearse, unfamiliar feelings for Karen are born in Julie's breast.
The Meadow. In the Helen story, which was written over several years, Helen finds herself experimenting with computer-assisted animation. (This is using software to help with creating an animated feature.) Helen is driven by similar impulses as I am, understandably, and she wanted to create an animated Sleeping Beauty ballet, where both Sleeping Beauty, and her "Prince Charming" were girls. Only, she wanted there to be a large amount of nudity in it, even if simply drawn nudity, so that many of the ballet scenes were nude ballet. The Meadow is simply a literary version of this nude ballet. I want it to be highly erotic, but innocent at the same time. So far, the two protagonists have just met, and with great restraint, I'm trying not to let it become one long sex orgy.
Starting a Story
Unlike the majority of authors, I start a story with a rough idea of how it will go. A very rough idea. Most of what goes into it at this point is the setting: the circumstances, the place, the personalities, and a few events to start things off.
By this time, I have in my mind a good idea of what my characters are like, and then the crazy thing happens: new characters enter the story, and gently influence its direction. These stories are so real to me that I find it very difficult indeed to force the story to go in a particular direction. So I helplessly ride along, and somehow the stories end up being quite unique. It may partly be that I have lived an unusually eventful life, by which I mean that I have been a spectator of some pretty crazy things. Many of the stories I begin, intending them to be erotica, become mainline stories, because none of my characters are content to be purely sexual creatures. The one that comes closest is Helen, and she's the most tortured heroine of all.
So, it's not that I'm a prude, but what makes people attractive to me are their minds. As I fall in love with my own characters, I begin to focus more on what they're saying and thinking rather than their surface beauty, and the physical aspect of their relationship with each other tends to take a back seat. If I decide that I'm not going to publish a story, at least the pressure I feel to appear to be a high-minded author will be absent, and I can allow myself to let it all hang loose!
Kay
Thursday, March 3, 2016
A Visitation!
It just so happened that I slept over last night, and early this morning, I felt the delicate touch on my leg, and then on my arm, and then on my chest, and when I moved the sheet that was covering my face aside, I was greeted by two enormous eyes peering in at me!
I have read numerous paragraphs of this very experience on the Web, but this is the first time it has happened to me as an adult, and it is exactly as delicious as it is described. The little cat is a standard-sized one, almost pure white, with a very thick winter coat. After peering at me for a while, she came close, and gave my nose a lick! Ohh! Then she began kneading my chest, which was a little alarming, and I talked to her, and she marched up and down my body. I am totally in love.
I asked her whether she had been accidentally locked up upstairs, and when I started moving aside the covers to get out of bed, she scampered to the unoccupied side of the bed, and watched me with what appeared to be a degree of interest. When I had got a robe on and headed towards the door, she ran ahead of me, and down the narrow stairs, and waited at the door at the bottom. She had indeed been locked out of the first floor. (The idea must be to keep her locked out of the upper floor, but she had crept upstairs unobserved, evidently.)
We opened the door and stepped into the dining room, and were greeted with a happy cry of "Now everybody's here!" I could get used to this! They do make the most fantastic coffee; it is just grocery store brand coffee, but it tastes delicious.
Some days I feel so happy I could cry.
K.
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