If you couldn't make the "Meet the Editors"interactive event last month then no worries: the great folks at Creative Sexuality have just posted an edited version of the event on YouTube. Stay tuned for more events like these!
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Friday, July 19, 2013
Orphans From Love Without Gun Control
(from M.Christian's Technorotica)
A long time and New Mexico. He felt the fever start as he walked down dusty streets, passing stores selling fake Indian art, plastic tomahawks. In a narrow alley, an old man with heavy features slept out the hot afternoon, a bronze-colored bottle by his hand.
He went into a dark bar and sat in the corner, feeling his core temperature rise, his skin shimmy with cold shakes. Taking deep breaths, he sipped a warm beer.
He remembered its pathology, its transmission rates, preferred vectors. He thought he’d have more time, and silently felt a heavy sadness at not being able to see the Pacific. It hadn’t been a real goal, but had begun to be a kind of benchmark, a saccharin epitaph.
He’d met some good people as he’d traveled from Atlanta, and felt sorry for them. But he also remembered those faces on all those files. It wasn’t virulent, but it did spread. Airborne was tough, but it could manage.
Too few to care about. Not enough to bother curing. It had almost been gone, at least to the Center for Disease Control. Exiled to its refrigerator, the vault. A rarity that claimed maybe a hundred, maybe two each year, almost just a memory. So rare that they’d passed judgment on it: extinction. It had been his job to destroy the samples, to consign the virus to a few sad cases scattered around the world.
The faces on those folders. Too few to care about. As the shivers began in earnest, he tried to think about them, to hold each and every one of them in his mind. Coldly told their wasn’t enough of them to bother, to care about, to cure.
Sipping his beer, feeling his strength drain, he hoped that now -- after all those miles he’d managed, those rides, those hands he’d shaken -- they wouldn’t be so alone.
I always liked this story - so I thought I'd share it with you. "Orphans"
first appeared in Talebones Magazine and now, of course, is in my
science fiction/fantasy/horror collection, Love Without Gun Control ...
out in 'e' and paperback from the great Renaissance E Books.
Orphans
Outside
of Atlanta, after standing under the flickering fluorescent lights of a
sprawling truck stop for almost an hour, he was picked up by a heavy faced man
driving a ratting sixteen wheeler. Red hair an angry mop on his head,
brushy beard all wild and unkempt, the driver said “Glad for the company”
before they’d even pulled out onto the dark highway.
#
In a little town somewhere just beyond the Louisiana border, he was picked up by a middle-aged woman in a green station wagon, who seemed to delight in creating herself as the perfect housewife: housecoat, hair in curlers, kid’s seat in the back. She spent the first few miles prattling nervously, obviously just wanting companionship but frightened with herself for choosing the young hitchhiker to try and sate it. He listened, hypnotized by the landscape blurring by. Finally she asked, “Been on the road long?”
“Not long,” he said, wishing again that it had been someone else who’d picked him up, “just getting out. Meeting people.”
“That’s good,” she said, innocently. “Nothin’ worse than being alone.”
To that he just nodded, still staring out the window.
#
He’d never heard of a nut log, and would be damned if he was going to try some. But the salesman, Lou Phillips, was so insistent that -- before he was even aware of it -- he had some on the end of his fork.
“Now me, son,” Lou said, smiling broad and bright, “I ain’t a flincher. You take that shit there on the end of your fork. What’s the worse that could happen? It taste like crap -- but that ain’t gonna kill you, is it? But maybe it’s gonna be the best damned shit you ever tasted. Ain’t gonna know till it’s in your mouth, right?”
He didn’t answer, and instead stared at the tip of his fork, at the brown sticky mass. Before he was aware of it he was categorizing diseases, vectors and transmission rates. Closing his eyes, he breathed in, out, in and again, then put it into his mouth. The sweetness was almost alarming, and without conscious control he opened his eyes -- and stared into Lou’s sparking brown eyes. “See, that ain’t so bad! Fuck it, son -- life’s too short to be scared.”
A cup of coffee later, Lou confessed that he was a widower. His wife of twenty-six years having passed away that spring. “Some kind of virus got her. By the time she went to the damn doc it was she was thin as a rail. Didn’t last more than a month.”
Sipping hot, bitter -- with a touch of slightly turned cream, he hung his head down, mumbling, “Sorry” like it was his fault.
“I mean we all got to go, right? When it’s our turn. But what pisses me off is the shit those damned doctors put ya through. Pretend that they know it all when they don’t know shit. Tell ya what, kid, if I ever get something I’m just gonna drive out to the desert somewhere and just lay out there in the sun. Damn sight better chance then letting them touch ya.”
It seemed such a positive act that he smiled, despite himself -- masking it by sipping the foul coffee again and saying “Sometimes it isn’t that they don’t know -- it’s that it’s just not worth knowing.”
#
Another big truck -- this time cleaner, almost polished. Like a fighter plane, sporting a elegant pin-up on the driver’s side door. Haulin’ Ass, scrolled under a cheesecake girl with golden blond hair. The driver was gaunt, a narrow sketch of a man. Peppered hair and the ghostly scar of a hair lip.
They didn’t speak for many miles, then the driver said, unexpectedly, “What cha’ runnin’ from, man?”
His first reaction was so say, “nothing” but the word didn’t come. Was he running? When he thought about it, watching the double-yellow vanish under the windshield, the direction wasn’t right. “Not from, towards.”
“What cha’ goin’ to, then?”
He didn’t know. He did know, though, that he couldn’t stay in Atlanta. It was such a lonely place ... no, not right. It was where he discovered loneliness. A dusty little room and files -- at first just one or two then more. Some of them had faces, pictures charting their progress -- images to match the declining graphs. Aside from the wasting, he’d seen something else in those faces, the sunken eyes, the fallen features -- loneliness. In their worlds they’d been too few, not enough to matter ... to save.
He’d managed a rough smile, trying to put a comedic face over tragedy. “Just makin’ friends,” he said.
#
Texas was hot, ghostly heat hovering above the roadway. Sky too blue, too pure to be stared at for long. Sitting in a McDonald’s, slowly sipping a shake to avoid going out into the hot, dry, he struck up a brief conversation with a young couple. Too pressed, too clean. A few miles beyond, the air conditioner in their older car cranked up to full, they started to talk about Jesus.
He responded noncommittally, but soon their tone started to irritate him. Looking out at the hot land, he could too easily see the ghostly hopelessness, the abandonment he’d first seen in Atlanta overlaid on every face they passed. Maybe the harried father in the RV -- stricken with something that struck one on ten thousand. Maybe that old woman, all blue hair and cautious hand on the wheel -- catching something that would waste her, slowly, horribly but only affected one in a hundred thousand.
He listened, for a moment, about what they were saying -- instantly realizing that they were following a well-hewn grove. Something like Parkinson’s, a horrible inlaw to the more popular disease: a gradual wasting of the mind -- something affecting one in a million. He could too easily see them, parroting their beliefs till they had no more will, no more strength left to even move their lips.
At the next town he asked to be left off, dismissing their offer of finding him a shelter, a meal, but he did take the money they offered, more than anything to get them to leave.
#
Too many miles. Still in Texas but the weather had changed -- high, turbulent clouds casting deep shadows onto the flat land. Too many miles. Maybe that was it. A pressure. They all saw him the way they wanted to, a young man traveling. A bum, a threat, a homeless person, an object of pity, something to hate and blame. The pick-up truck full of teenagers, throwing a half-empty can of beer as they passed, the too-helpful families that desperately wanted his absolution.
So he told some of it to the bald man, the man in the jeans and stained tee-shirt. He knew he’d been picked up for rough trade, but didn’t care. He avoided his inquiring eyes and, at first, answered with only a few words, but as they drove and the driver’s interest became more and more obvious he found himself talking more, stringing together fact and fiction.
To “-- where are you headed?” he said, “Los Angeles, my mom’s in the hospital. Something wrong with her liver.”
To “-- that sounds pretty serious. What does her doctor say?” he said, “They know what it is, some kind of hepatitis variant. Rare, though, like one in a hundred thousand get it.”
To “-- at least they know what it is. They got all kinds of drugs and shit nowadays” he said, pausing “They know what it is, but not enough people get it. So they don’t make a cure, not cost effective. They call them ‘orphan diseases’ -- too rare to bother curing. She’s going to die.”
They rode in uncomfortable silence till the next town. This time he was asked to leave -- and he did, stepping out into the darkness of a cloud’s shadow. It had been the shortest trip he’d been on, but he felt lighter, less burdened. That it had only been part of the truth didn’t matter; he’d spoken enough of it to get someone to understand, if maybe just a little.
#
#
In a little town somewhere just beyond the Louisiana border, he was picked up by a middle-aged woman in a green station wagon, who seemed to delight in creating herself as the perfect housewife: housecoat, hair in curlers, kid’s seat in the back. She spent the first few miles prattling nervously, obviously just wanting companionship but frightened with herself for choosing the young hitchhiker to try and sate it. He listened, hypnotized by the landscape blurring by. Finally she asked, “Been on the road long?”
“Not long,” he said, wishing again that it had been someone else who’d picked him up, “just getting out. Meeting people.”
“That’s good,” she said, innocently. “Nothin’ worse than being alone.”
To that he just nodded, still staring out the window.
#
He’d never heard of a nut log, and would be damned if he was going to try some. But the salesman, Lou Phillips, was so insistent that -- before he was even aware of it -- he had some on the end of his fork.
“Now me, son,” Lou said, smiling broad and bright, “I ain’t a flincher. You take that shit there on the end of your fork. What’s the worse that could happen? It taste like crap -- but that ain’t gonna kill you, is it? But maybe it’s gonna be the best damned shit you ever tasted. Ain’t gonna know till it’s in your mouth, right?”
He didn’t answer, and instead stared at the tip of his fork, at the brown sticky mass. Before he was aware of it he was categorizing diseases, vectors and transmission rates. Closing his eyes, he breathed in, out, in and again, then put it into his mouth. The sweetness was almost alarming, and without conscious control he opened his eyes -- and stared into Lou’s sparking brown eyes. “See, that ain’t so bad! Fuck it, son -- life’s too short to be scared.”
A cup of coffee later, Lou confessed that he was a widower. His wife of twenty-six years having passed away that spring. “Some kind of virus got her. By the time she went to the damn doc it was she was thin as a rail. Didn’t last more than a month.”
Sipping hot, bitter -- with a touch of slightly turned cream, he hung his head down, mumbling, “Sorry” like it was his fault.
“I mean we all got to go, right? When it’s our turn. But what pisses me off is the shit those damned doctors put ya through. Pretend that they know it all when they don’t know shit. Tell ya what, kid, if I ever get something I’m just gonna drive out to the desert somewhere and just lay out there in the sun. Damn sight better chance then letting them touch ya.”
It seemed such a positive act that he smiled, despite himself -- masking it by sipping the foul coffee again and saying “Sometimes it isn’t that they don’t know -- it’s that it’s just not worth knowing.”
#
Another big truck -- this time cleaner, almost polished. Like a fighter plane, sporting a elegant pin-up on the driver’s side door. Haulin’ Ass, scrolled under a cheesecake girl with golden blond hair. The driver was gaunt, a narrow sketch of a man. Peppered hair and the ghostly scar of a hair lip.
They didn’t speak for many miles, then the driver said, unexpectedly, “What cha’ runnin’ from, man?”
His first reaction was so say, “nothing” but the word didn’t come. Was he running? When he thought about it, watching the double-yellow vanish under the windshield, the direction wasn’t right. “Not from, towards.”
“What cha’ goin’ to, then?”
He didn’t know. He did know, though, that he couldn’t stay in Atlanta. It was such a lonely place ... no, not right. It was where he discovered loneliness. A dusty little room and files -- at first just one or two then more. Some of them had faces, pictures charting their progress -- images to match the declining graphs. Aside from the wasting, he’d seen something else in those faces, the sunken eyes, the fallen features -- loneliness. In their worlds they’d been too few, not enough to matter ... to save.
He’d managed a rough smile, trying to put a comedic face over tragedy. “Just makin’ friends,” he said.
#
Texas was hot, ghostly heat hovering above the roadway. Sky too blue, too pure to be stared at for long. Sitting in a McDonald’s, slowly sipping a shake to avoid going out into the hot, dry, he struck up a brief conversation with a young couple. Too pressed, too clean. A few miles beyond, the air conditioner in their older car cranked up to full, they started to talk about Jesus.
He responded noncommittally, but soon their tone started to irritate him. Looking out at the hot land, he could too easily see the ghostly hopelessness, the abandonment he’d first seen in Atlanta overlaid on every face they passed. Maybe the harried father in the RV -- stricken with something that struck one on ten thousand. Maybe that old woman, all blue hair and cautious hand on the wheel -- catching something that would waste her, slowly, horribly but only affected one in a hundred thousand.
He listened, for a moment, about what they were saying -- instantly realizing that they were following a well-hewn grove. Something like Parkinson’s, a horrible inlaw to the more popular disease: a gradual wasting of the mind -- something affecting one in a million. He could too easily see them, parroting their beliefs till they had no more will, no more strength left to even move their lips.
At the next town he asked to be left off, dismissing their offer of finding him a shelter, a meal, but he did take the money they offered, more than anything to get them to leave.
#
Too many miles. Still in Texas but the weather had changed -- high, turbulent clouds casting deep shadows onto the flat land. Too many miles. Maybe that was it. A pressure. They all saw him the way they wanted to, a young man traveling. A bum, a threat, a homeless person, an object of pity, something to hate and blame. The pick-up truck full of teenagers, throwing a half-empty can of beer as they passed, the too-helpful families that desperately wanted his absolution.
So he told some of it to the bald man, the man in the jeans and stained tee-shirt. He knew he’d been picked up for rough trade, but didn’t care. He avoided his inquiring eyes and, at first, answered with only a few words, but as they drove and the driver’s interest became more and more obvious he found himself talking more, stringing together fact and fiction.
To “-- where are you headed?” he said, “Los Angeles, my mom’s in the hospital. Something wrong with her liver.”
To “-- that sounds pretty serious. What does her doctor say?” he said, “They know what it is, some kind of hepatitis variant. Rare, though, like one in a hundred thousand get it.”
To “-- at least they know what it is. They got all kinds of drugs and shit nowadays” he said, pausing “They know what it is, but not enough people get it. So they don’t make a cure, not cost effective. They call them ‘orphan diseases’ -- too rare to bother curing. She’s going to die.”
They rode in uncomfortable silence till the next town. This time he was asked to leave -- and he did, stepping out into the darkness of a cloud’s shadow. It had been the shortest trip he’d been on, but he felt lighter, less burdened. That it had only been part of the truth didn’t matter; he’d spoken enough of it to get someone to understand, if maybe just a little.
#
A long time and New Mexico. He felt the fever start as he walked down dusty streets, passing stores selling fake Indian art, plastic tomahawks. In a narrow alley, an old man with heavy features slept out the hot afternoon, a bronze-colored bottle by his hand.
He went into a dark bar and sat in the corner, feeling his core temperature rise, his skin shimmy with cold shakes. Taking deep breaths, he sipped a warm beer.
He remembered its pathology, its transmission rates, preferred vectors. He thought he’d have more time, and silently felt a heavy sadness at not being able to see the Pacific. It hadn’t been a real goal, but had begun to be a kind of benchmark, a saccharin epitaph.
He’d met some good people as he’d traveled from Atlanta, and felt sorry for them. But he also remembered those faces on all those files. It wasn’t virulent, but it did spread. Airborne was tough, but it could manage.
Too few to care about. Not enough to bother curing. It had almost been gone, at least to the Center for Disease Control. Exiled to its refrigerator, the vault. A rarity that claimed maybe a hundred, maybe two each year, almost just a memory. So rare that they’d passed judgment on it: extinction. It had been his job to destroy the samples, to consign the virus to a few sad cases scattered around the world.
The faces on those folders. Too few to care about. As the shivers began in earnest, he tried to think about them, to hold each and every one of them in his mind. Coldly told their wasn’t enough of them to bother, to care about, to cure.
Sipping his beer, feeling his strength drain, he hoped that now -- after all those miles he’d managed, those rides, those hands he’d shaken -- they wouldn’t be so alone.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Greener Grasses On GetLusty For Couples!
(from M.Christian's Queer Imaginings)
This is very cool: my queer BDSM story, The Greener Grasses - which is in my newly released collection, Filthy Boys, (and part of the Sizzler M.Christian ManLove imprint) - was just excerpted on the excellent GetLusty for Couples site. Here's a link ... you need to register but there's no charge.
It's not often you hear of submissive males in erotica. We appreciate this perspective and recently had the pleasure of approving this erotica for your viewing pleasure. Because it's nice to hear erotic tales from the male point of view. Curious about the submissive gentlemen below? Erotica writer M. Christain will tantilize you with his erotic prose abilities. Read on, Lusties! Want more? Check out part 2 coming soon.
* * *
Hand on the knob, I took a deep breath. I resisted checking my watch again, not wanting to show, even just to myself, how nervous I was. Rules formed the world, framed it, and defined it. The door would only be unlocked from 1:15 to 1:25 PM. After that, the bolt would be thrown, and I'd have to come back next week – to a frightening punishment for being late.
I turned the knob. Open. I stepped in and closed it carefully. Japanese. I felt Japanese – or at least what I imagined it might be like – a member of a rigid world, where punishment for transgression was certain and terrifying. But I knew one thing for certain: I belonged to Mister Robert.
Down the hall, through the door at the end. The room. The room where I lived, where I existed: black carpeting on the floor and walls – even over the door. Bare wooden ceiling; rough, bare beams flaked with original white paint. Track light with three high intensity pots. One wall had a board bolted to it, on the board a line of cheap coat hooks. On the hooks the dark leather of the toys. Another board on the opposite wall, this one with two big eyebolts. In one corner the sawhorse. The room I wished I never had to leave.
I got undressed, carefully folding my clothes in a corner. I waited. Ten minutes, exactly. Then the door opened.
I didn't turn. To turn would break a rule. I was property; I belonged to Mister Robert. Property wasn't a man, with desires. Nevertheless, I was happy.
[MORE]
This is very cool: my queer BDSM story, The Greener Grasses - which is in my newly released collection, Filthy Boys, (and part of the Sizzler M.Christian ManLove imprint) - was just excerpted on the excellent GetLusty for Couples site. Here's a link ... you need to register but there's no charge.
It's
not often you hear of submissive males in erotica. We appreciate this
perspective and recently had the pleasure of approving this erotica for
your viewing pleasure. Because it's nice to hear erotic tales from the
male point of view. Curious about the submissive gentlemen below?
Erotica writer M. Christain will tantilize you with his erotic prose
abilities. Read on, Lusties! Want more? Check out part 2 coming soon.
* * *
Hand on the knob, I took a deep breath. I resisted checking my watch again, not wanting to show, even just to myself, how nervous I was. Rules formed the world, framed it, and defined it. The door would only be unlocked from 1:15 to 1:25 PM. After that, the bolt would be thrown, and I'd have to come back next week – to a frightening punishment for being late.
I
turned the knob. Open. I stepped in and closed it carefully. Japanese. I
felt Japanese – or at least what I imagined it might be like – a member
of a rigid world, where punishment for transgression was certain and
terrifying. But I knew one thing for certain: I belonged to Mister
Robert.
Down the hall, through the door at the end. The room. The room where I lived, where I existed: black carpeting on the floor and walls – even over the door. Bare wooden ceiling; rough, bare beams flaked with original white paint. Track light with three high intensity pots. One wall had a board bolted to it, on the board a line of cheap coat hooks. On the hooks the dark leather of the toys. Another board on the opposite wall, this one with two big eyebolts. In one corner the sawhorse. The room I wished I never had to leave.
I got undressed, carefully folding my clothes in a corner. I waited. Ten minutes, exactly. Then the door opened.
I didn't turn. To turn would break a rule. I was property; I belonged to Mister Robert. Property wasn't a man, with desires. Nevertheless, I was happy.
- See more at: https://couples.getlusty.com/Article/7609/Erotica!-The-Greener-Grasses-Pt-1#sthash.s0NNAVHD.dpuf
* * *
Hand on the knob, I took a deep breath. I resisted checking my watch again, not wanting to show, even just to myself, how nervous I was. Rules formed the world, framed it, and defined it. The door would only be unlocked from 1:15 to 1:25 PM. After that, the bolt would be thrown, and I'd have to come back next week – to a frightening punishment for being late.
Down the hall, through the door at the end. The room. The room where I lived, where I existed: black carpeting on the floor and walls – even over the door. Bare wooden ceiling; rough, bare beams flaked with original white paint. Track light with three high intensity pots. One wall had a board bolted to it, on the board a line of cheap coat hooks. On the hooks the dark leather of the toys. Another board on the opposite wall, this one with two big eyebolts. In one corner the sawhorse. The room I wished I never had to leave.
I got undressed, carefully folding my clothes in a corner. I waited. Ten minutes, exactly. Then the door opened.
I didn't turn. To turn would break a rule. I was property; I belonged to Mister Robert. Property wasn't a man, with desires. Nevertheless, I was happy.
- See more at: https://couples.getlusty.com/Article/7609/Erotica!-The-Greener-Grasses-Pt-1#sthash.s0NNAVHD.dpuf
It's not often you hear of submissive males in erotica. We appreciate this perspective and recently had the pleasure of approving this erotica for your viewing pleasure. Because it's nice to hear erotic tales from the male point of view. Curious about the submissive gentlemen below? Erotica writer M. Christain will tantilize you with his erotic prose abilities. Read on, Lusties! Want more? Check out part 2 coming soon.
* * *
Hand on the knob, I took a deep breath. I resisted checking my watch again, not wanting to show, even just to myself, how nervous I was. Rules formed the world, framed it, and defined it. The door would only be unlocked from 1:15 to 1:25 PM. After that, the bolt would be thrown, and I'd have to come back next week – to a frightening punishment for being late.
I turned the knob. Open. I stepped in and closed it carefully. Japanese. I felt Japanese – or at least what I imagined it might be like – a member of a rigid world, where punishment for transgression was certain and terrifying. But I knew one thing for certain: I belonged to Mister Robert.
Down the hall, through the door at the end. The room. The room where I lived, where I existed: black carpeting on the floor and walls – even over the door. Bare wooden ceiling; rough, bare beams flaked with original white paint. Track light with three high intensity pots. One wall had a board bolted to it, on the board a line of cheap coat hooks. On the hooks the dark leather of the toys. Another board on the opposite wall, this one with two big eyebolts. In one corner the sawhorse. The room I wished I never had to leave.
I got undressed, carefully folding my clothes in a corner. I waited. Ten minutes, exactly. Then the door opened.
I didn't turn. To turn would break a rule. I was property; I belonged to Mister Robert. Property wasn't a man, with desires. Nevertheless, I was happy.
[MORE]
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
A Better Teacher: Finding That Common Bond
Very, very cool: the very first post of my new, on-going column, "A Better Teacher," just went up on Romance Beat. Here's a tease - for the rest just click here.
“Love is a better teacher than duty.”–Albert Einstein
I’m a writer … well, of course, or I wouldn’t be here, right? And, like a lot of writers, I write a all kinds of things: mysteries, non-fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and quite a lot of erotica. Surprisingly, what I write that gets a lion’s share of attention is my queer stuff … both erotic and otherwise.
More than likely because I’m straight.
Now, I’m very straight about being heterosexual (giggle), and I pride myself in that I always tell my publishers the truth of what I am – which is hardly not a problem as they are the ones who are usually commissioning my books – but there are still a remarkable number of people who are more than a tad shocked that I like girls.
Which, to be honest, I consider a huge compliment. In addition, I’ve also penned quite a bit of romance … which gets me to my point: many people have asked me how I can write gay fiction so convincingly that there’s far too often that shock about who I like to sleep with.
The answer, I’ve come to realize is actually very simple – and can be very informative to writers of pretty much anything … especially romance. To put it simply, I don’t think about writing gay characters, or women, or African American characters, or older characters, or anyone else for that matter: instead I write about people.
[MORE]
A Better Teacher: Finding That Common Bond
“Love is a better teacher than duty.”–Albert Einstein
I’m a writer … well, of course, or I wouldn’t be here, right? And, like a lot of writers, I write a all kinds of things: mysteries, non-fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and quite a lot of erotica. Surprisingly, what I write that gets a lion’s share of attention is my queer stuff … both erotic and otherwise.
More than likely because I’m straight.
Now, I’m very straight about being heterosexual (giggle), and I pride myself in that I always tell my publishers the truth of what I am – which is hardly not a problem as they are the ones who are usually commissioning my books – but there are still a remarkable number of people who are more than a tad shocked that I like girls.
Which, to be honest, I consider a huge compliment. In addition, I’ve also penned quite a bit of romance … which gets me to my point: many people have asked me how I can write gay fiction so convincingly that there’s far too often that shock about who I like to sleep with.
The answer, I’ve come to realize is actually very simple – and can be very informative to writers of pretty much anything … especially romance. To put it simply, I don’t think about writing gay characters, or women, or African American characters, or older characters, or anyone else for that matter: instead I write about people.
[MORE]
Friday, July 12, 2013
Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Howdy!
I'm thrilled to have another one of my Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker pieces up on the excellent Erotica Readers And Writers site - here's a tease ... for the rest just click here.
While it isn't the most important thing to do before sending off a story (that's reserved for writing the story itself), drafting an effective cover letter/email is probably right below it.
So here is a quick sample of what to do and NOT when putting together a cover letter to go with your story. That being said, remember that I'm just one of many (many) editors out there, each with their own quirks and buttons to push. Like writing the story itself, practice and sensitivity is will teach you a lot, but this will give you a start.
So ... Don't Do What Bad Johnny Don't Does:
Dear M. (1),
Here is my story (2) for your collection (3), it's about a guy and a girl who fall in love on the Titanic (4). I haven't written anything like this before (5), but your book looked easy enough to get into (6). My friends say I'm pretty creative (7). Please fill out and send back the enclosed postcard (8). If I have not heard from you in two months (9) I will consider this story rejected and send it somewhere else (10). I am also sending this story to other people. If they want it, I'll write to let you know (11).
I noticed that your guidelines say First North American Serial rights. What's that (12)? If I don't have all rights then I do not want you to use my story (13).
I work at the DMV (14) and have three cats named Mumbles, Blotchy and Kismet (15).
Mistress Divine (16)
Gertrude@christiansciencemonitor.com (17)
(1) Don't be cute. If you don't know the editor's name, or first name, or if the name is real or a pseudonym, just say "Hello" or "Editor" or somesuch.
(2) Answer the basic questions up front: how long is the story, is it original or a reprint, what's the title?
(3) What book are you submitting to? Editors often have more than one open at any time and it can get very confusing. Also, try and know what the hell you're talking about: a 'collection' is a book of short stories by one author, an 'anthology' is a book of short stories by multiple authors. Demonstrate that you know what you're submitting to.
(4) You don't need to spell out the plot, but this raises another issue: don't submit inappropriate stories. If this submission was to a gay or lesbian book, it would result in an instant rejection and a ticked-off editor.
(5) The story might be great, but this already has you pegged as a twit. If you haven't been published before don't say anything, but if you have then DEFINITELY say so, making sure to note what kind of markets you've been in (anthology, novel, website and so forth). Don't assume the editor has heard of where you've been or who you are, either. Too often I get stories from people who list a litany of previous publications that I've never heard of. Not that I need to, but when they make them sound like I should it just makes them sound arrogant. Which is not a good thing.
(6) Gee, thanks so much. Loser.
(7) Friends, lovers, Significant Others and so forth -- who cares?
[MORE]
Howdy
While it isn't the most important thing to do before sending off a story (that's reserved for writing the story itself), drafting an effective cover letter/email is probably right below it.
So here is a quick sample of what to do and NOT when putting together a cover letter to go with your story. That being said, remember that I'm just one of many (many) editors out there, each with their own quirks and buttons to push. Like writing the story itself, practice and sensitivity is will teach you a lot, but this will give you a start.
So ... Don't Do What Bad Johnny Don't Does:
Dear M. (1),
Here is my story (2) for your collection (3), it's about a guy and a girl who fall in love on the Titanic (4). I haven't written anything like this before (5), but your book looked easy enough to get into (6). My friends say I'm pretty creative (7). Please fill out and send back the enclosed postcard (8). If I have not heard from you in two months (9) I will consider this story rejected and send it somewhere else (10). I am also sending this story to other people. If they want it, I'll write to let you know (11).
I noticed that your guidelines say First North American Serial rights. What's that (12)? If I don't have all rights then I do not want you to use my story (13).
I work at the DMV (14) and have three cats named Mumbles, Blotchy and Kismet (15).
Mistress Divine (16)
Gertrude@christiansciencemonitor.com (17)
(1) Don't be cute. If you don't know the editor's name, or first name, or if the name is real or a pseudonym, just say "Hello" or "Editor" or somesuch.
(2) Answer the basic questions up front: how long is the story, is it original or a reprint, what's the title?
(3) What book are you submitting to? Editors often have more than one open at any time and it can get very confusing. Also, try and know what the hell you're talking about: a 'collection' is a book of short stories by one author, an 'anthology' is a book of short stories by multiple authors. Demonstrate that you know what you're submitting to.
(4) You don't need to spell out the plot, but this raises another issue: don't submit inappropriate stories. If this submission was to a gay or lesbian book, it would result in an instant rejection and a ticked-off editor.
(5) The story might be great, but this already has you pegged as a twit. If you haven't been published before don't say anything, but if you have then DEFINITELY say so, making sure to note what kind of markets you've been in (anthology, novel, website and so forth). Don't assume the editor has heard of where you've been or who you are, either. Too often I get stories from people who list a litany of previous publications that I've never heard of. Not that I need to, but when they make them sound like I should it just makes them sound arrogant. Which is not a good thing.
(6) Gee, thanks so much. Loser.
(7) Friends, lovers, Significant Others and so forth -- who cares?
[MORE]
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Coming Up This Month: Tit-Torture For Boobs - A Breast Play Intensive
(From M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)
Check it out, folks: if you've ever wanted to attend my (ahem) rather 'infamous' Tit-Torture For Boobs: A Breast Play Intensive it's coking up this month, on July 18th, at the Citadel in San Francisco.
Here's the info:
M.Christian Presents: Tit-Torture For Boobs - A Breast Play Intensive
Thursday, July 18, 2013 · 8:00 PM –10:00 PM
SF Citadel Community Center
181 Eddy Street, San Francisco
Cost: $20 at door, $15 in advance - click here for advanced ticket purchase
Breast play offers wonderful opportunities for intensely powerful play - but also comes with serious, even dangerous, risks.
In this breasts-on seminar, participants will learn how to treat tits, both male and female, with exactly the right measure of sensuality and intensity to play well but also safely.
Clothespins, nipple clamps, pinching, suction devices, gentle impact, bondage, and more will be demonstrated - as well as how to deliver effective aftercare. Additionally, participants will be given instruction in first aid, the dangers of breast play, and the limits of what boobs can take.
#
M.Christian has been an active participant in the San Francisco BDSM scene since 1988, and has been a featured presenter at the Northwest Leather Celebration, smOdyssey, the Center For Sex and Culture, The National Sexuality Symposium, QSM, San Francisco Sex Information, The Citadel, The Looking Glass, The Society of Janus, The Floating World, Winter Solstice, and lots of other venues. He has taught classes on everything from impact play, tit torture, bondage, how to write and sell erotica, polyamory, cupping, caning, and basic SM safety.
M.Christian is also a recognized master of BDSM erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many other anthologies, magazines, and other sites; editor of 2t anthologies such as the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, and more; the collections Dirty Words, The Bachelor Machine, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and more; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Finger's Breadth, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His site is www.mchristian.com
Check it out, folks: if you've ever wanted to attend my (ahem) rather 'infamous' Tit-Torture For Boobs: A Breast Play Intensive it's coking up this month, on July 18th, at the Citadel in San Francisco.
Here's the info:
M.Christian Presents: Tit-Torture For Boobs - A Breast Play Intensive
Thursday, July 18, 2013 · 8:00 PM –10:00 PM
SF Citadel Community Center
181 Eddy Street, San Francisco
Cost: $20 at door, $15 in advance - click here for advanced ticket purchase
Breast play offers wonderful opportunities for intensely powerful play - but also comes with serious, even dangerous, risks.
In this breasts-on seminar, participants will learn how to treat tits, both male and female, with exactly the right measure of sensuality and intensity to play well but also safely.
Clothespins, nipple clamps, pinching, suction devices, gentle impact, bondage, and more will be demonstrated - as well as how to deliver effective aftercare. Additionally, participants will be given instruction in first aid, the dangers of breast play, and the limits of what boobs can take.
#
M.Christian has been an active participant in the San Francisco BDSM scene since 1988, and has been a featured presenter at the Northwest Leather Celebration, smOdyssey, the Center For Sex and Culture, The National Sexuality Symposium, QSM, San Francisco Sex Information, The Citadel, The Looking Glass, The Society of Janus, The Floating World, Winter Solstice, and lots of other venues. He has taught classes on everything from impact play, tit torture, bondage, how to write and sell erotica, polyamory, cupping, caning, and basic SM safety.
M.Christian is also a recognized master of BDSM erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many other anthologies, magazines, and other sites; editor of 2t anthologies such as the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, and more; the collections Dirty Words, The Bachelor Machine, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and more; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Finger's Breadth, Brushes, and Painted Doll. His site is www.mchristian.com
Sunday, July 07, 2013
Thursday, July 04, 2013
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
THANKS To All Those Who Came Out To "Meet The Editors"
(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)
Thanks to all who came out on Saturday the 29th for the "Meet The Editors" digital event to hear myself, Sascha Illyvich and Jean Marie Stine talk about erotica writing, marketing, publicity and so many other fun topics!
For those who, alas, couldn't make it, the entire event will be soon available through CreativeSexuality.org
Thanks to all who came out on Saturday the 29th for the "Meet The Editors" digital event to hear myself, Sascha Illyvich and Jean Marie Stine talk about erotica writing, marketing, publicity and so many other fun topics!
For those who, alas, couldn't make it, the entire event will be soon available through CreativeSexuality.org
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Welcome To Weirdsville: The Imitation Of Those Who We Cannot Resemble
(from M.Christian's Meine Kleine Fabrik)
This is very, very cool: a brand new Welcome To Weirsville piece I wrote just went up on the excellent The Cud site.
Here's a tease below - and, of course, if you want to read more pieces about fun and odd and strange and (yep) weird history check out my book Welcome To Weirdsville
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble. –Samuel Johnson
"Stop fidgeting, everyone ... Jimmy, that'd better not be gum in your mouth! No, Betty you can't go to the bathroom – you should have thought of that before we started ... now you'll just have to wait for the break. Okay, class, today we're going to be discussing possibly one of – if not the -- most important literary figures of the twentieth century: a woman who pretty much single handedly created what we consider to be modern literature..."
It's quite sad, really, that so many of us have had the juices
systematically squeezed out of history, reducing it to nothing but
powdery, gagging facts and bland, pasty figures – or, even worse, giants
carved in marble, hands on hips, forever steadfastly glaring out at us
in the future, their destinies unquestionable.
But, believe me, do some digging and there's juice a plenty in those dusty heroes – and while many of them certainly deserve to
be
on their lofty pedestals you'll quickly learn that more than a few of
them might be wonderfully, delightfully, fun ... if not totally nuts.
Sarah Bernhardt, for instance, the legendary light of the stage, not only had a wooden leg, liked to sleep in her coffin, but also had quite a few ... involvements, shall we say, with people such as Victor Hugo and Gustavo Doré; Tycho Brahe, one of the brightest stars in astronomy not only had a fake metal nose (having lost his original in a duel) but kept an on-staff dwarf for the entertainment of his guests as well as himself; Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize to his name, was an notorious humorist and prankster -- as well as quite the established cracksman, even claiming to have once easily got into the safe containing the plans for the first atomic bomb; Georges Simenon, the master French mystery author, not wrote over 200 novels but also claimed to have made love to 10,000 women; and let's not even get started on what M.Christian likes to do with balloon animals...
Which takes us to 1910, back when Britain quite literally ruled the waves: the time of what has been called by many to be the date of the greatest prank in all of history ... and the literary light who had a major part in it.
Now pranks were nothing new, especially for students of Cambridge, but this one – orchestrated by the infamously witty Horace de Vere Cole – set the bar. Horace tried afterward to top himself several times afterward, including infamously dumping horse ... leavings in the canals in Venice (to confuse the non-horse city residents), or arranging a group of bald men to sit in strategic places at the theater so that their domes, when viewed from the balcony, would spell out a rather (ahem) rude word, but his crowning achievement involved the pride of the British Navy, a few of his close friends, some costuming skills, the flag of Zanzibar, and a brilliant degree of planning – all of which rocked the world and nearly got one of them a sentence of ten of the best with a cane.
[MORE]
This is very, very cool: a brand new Welcome To Weirsville piece I wrote just went up on the excellent The Cud site.
Here's a tease below - and, of course, if you want to read more pieces about fun and odd and strange and (yep) weird history check out my book Welcome To Weirdsville
The Imitation Of Those Who We Cannot Resemble
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble. –Samuel Johnson
"Stop fidgeting, everyone ... Jimmy, that'd better not be gum in your mouth! No, Betty you can't go to the bathroom – you should have thought of that before we started ... now you'll just have to wait for the break. Okay, class, today we're going to be discussing possibly one of – if not the -- most important literary figures of the twentieth century: a woman who pretty much single handedly created what we consider to be modern literature..."
But, believe me, do some digging and there's juice a plenty in those dusty heroes – and while many of them certainly deserve to
be
on their lofty pedestals you'll quickly learn that more than a few of
them might be wonderfully, delightfully, fun ... if not totally nuts.Sarah Bernhardt, for instance, the legendary light of the stage, not only had a wooden leg, liked to sleep in her coffin, but also had quite a few ... involvements, shall we say, with people such as Victor Hugo and Gustavo Doré; Tycho Brahe, one of the brightest stars in astronomy not only had a fake metal nose (having lost his original in a duel) but kept an on-staff dwarf for the entertainment of his guests as well as himself; Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize to his name, was an notorious humorist and prankster -- as well as quite the established cracksman, even claiming to have once easily got into the safe containing the plans for the first atomic bomb; Georges Simenon, the master French mystery author, not wrote over 200 novels but also claimed to have made love to 10,000 women; and let's not even get started on what M.Christian likes to do with balloon animals...
Which takes us to 1910, back when Britain quite literally ruled the waves: the time of what has been called by many to be the date of the greatest prank in all of history ... and the literary light who had a major part in it.
Now pranks were nothing new, especially for students of Cambridge, but this one – orchestrated by the infamously witty Horace de Vere Cole – set the bar. Horace tried afterward to top himself several times afterward, including infamously dumping horse ... leavings in the canals in Venice (to confuse the non-horse city residents), or arranging a group of bald men to sit in strategic places at the theater so that their domes, when viewed from the balcony, would spell out a rather (ahem) rude word, but his crowning achievement involved the pride of the British Navy, a few of his close friends, some costuming skills, the flag of Zanzibar, and a brilliant degree of planning – all of which rocked the world and nearly got one of them a sentence of ten of the best with a cane.
[MORE]
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