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#347 - gauntlet thrown
09.10.03 @ 10:12 pm

It finally feels like Fall. If you know me at all, you know my love affair with Autumn. My favorite time of the year.

It felt like Fall this weekend, and Monday and Tuesday. But this morning, the clouds looked ripe. Dark, malevolent, ready to burst. The wind had picked up once again. As I got in my car, there were a few tiny drops on my windshield. I drove without the radio on, imagining Portishead's "Roads" in my head, since I don't have a CD player in the car anymore.

There is something so erotic to me about Fall, about rain. It was heightened this morning, as I had spent 40 minutes of my morning reading "The Basque and Bijou" from Delta of Venus by Anais Nin.

Also reading Susie Bright's How to Write a Dirty Story, last night I was thinking that from now on, I would pull only 1 erotic bit of myself to put into my characters, instead of putting all of my sexuality into them.

So this morning, in the car, I thought to myself:

"The girl chanted to the rain. 'Harder, harder, harder.' The sound affected her in mysterious ways she couldn't explain. Later in life, she had only to listen to the rain to become aroused. What she did not know was that her chanting had also had an effect on her father."

It always comes back to incest when I explore childhood. Anais does not help this. There are some disturbing entries in the beginning of Delta. I thought to myself, how to make this intro more innocent? Maybe, instead of the father becoming enraptured with his daughter, he is merely incensed to take his wife all the more violently. Not entirely innocent, but less creepy.

I arrived at work debating this. I decided to clear my mind and use my 4 minutes before I was due inside to sit and wait to see if it would actually rain. Little drops were falling semi-regularly, and as I had driven on the highway I had seen Downtown, shrouded in the mist of a light rain. But no rain came. Just tiny droplets every half minute or so.

I got out of the car and smelled the raw dirt that means it's the first rain in a long time. Then I smelled a wood-burning stove or fireplace. Yes, Fall. The smells of Fall outdoors don't necessarily grab me. I don't find that dirt smell, or the woodsmoke smell, erotic.

But once inside, I quested for some Apple Cider mix to scent my office. I sufficed with Cinnamon Apple tea. It's beside me, every so often wafting to my nose. I would prefer my pumpkin pie spiced candles at home, but this will do for now.

Strange, how the things associated with home and family can also be erotic.

~ * ~

I'm now listening to some very mellow music, after miraculously finding the mp3 of "Roads" on my computer. I love to listen to that song during the first rains of Fall. Unfortunately, it's still not really raining. Everything's a bit damp, but that's all.

Currently listening to "Breathe" from Depeche Mode's Exciter. It's this rather odd song lyrically, about various Saints telling him that his woman is upset with him and about to end their relationship. Musically, it's very moody and lulling.

Kind of like the mood set by The Dining Rooms, now that I purchased 2 of their CD's this weekend. But the CD that I bought that I've been really impressed with is Delerium's Chimera. All the vocalists are female, which I really love. Because they all have gorgeous voices, and Delerium always provides a gorgeous backdrop.

The odd pick-up was Laura Pausini's cd From The Inside. I bought it because her song "If That's Love" is always on C89, and the vocals and words themselves really move me. Of course, I should have expected this was a dance remix created by C89. What I wasn't expecting was the whole cd to be... oddly... pure mainstream pop. Like a Celine Dion song. With weird country twangs thrown in. She's Italian for fuck's sake! There should be no slack key guitar in any album produced by an Italian! The album was slightly painful to get through, but I forced myself, because her voice just soars.

She needs to can whoever helped her with that album and do something that really works with her voice, not try to sound like Celine Dion. Barf.

So, while I'm on the subject of Italian, I just took the time to look over the September page of my 365 days of Italy calendar. September features Rome. There is an image titled "Eternal Skyline" of the ruins around the Colosseum.

These same ruins were the backdrop of a bicycle ride that began the film "The Order", which we went to see this weekend. It struck me then, and now, how very odd it is that there are all these ruins everywhere, in many of the shots the idea that there's a modern city just lurking around the corner seems so alien. I just can't wait to visit Italy. I think I'll weep to finally be there.

Maybe I'll dream of going to Italy at night for once, instead of Hawaii. More dreams still coming regularly. Usually about being there and buying fucking tourist trinkets and chocolates. How fucking... mundane. However, lately I've dreamed of the beaches and oceans and sharks. Probably left-over influence of shark week, their revelation to me that Great Whites swim in Hawaiian waters, making me remember all the reasons that swimming in the ocean borders on phobia for me. Strong emotion = vivid dreams, afterall. I don't think I've ever had dreams about sharks until this year's shark week though. Although, I do remember being afraid to go to sleep as a small girl, afraid that Jaws would walk down the long hallway to my bedroom and eat me.

New meaning to the gag "Land Shark."

~ * ~

OK, now that I'm home, I think I should tell you what's really been going through my mind the past week or so. I came to a decision. I'm going to get more serious with my writing. And not be freaked out by my own sexual voice in it either. I kind of threw down the gauntlet at my domain. I announced to the world that I was a sexual being, and wanted to quit hiding that fact. Then I went on to reveal that I love to write erotica and I'm going to pursue that further, going on to explain that I was going to participate in National Novel Writing Month in November.

I've completely rearranged my "office". I cleaned off my desk of extraneous items, and found all necessary writing supplies. Got rid of the crappy pens and hoarded the good ones. Put up my framed artworks that I've been meaning to do since we moved in, then dedicated one wall to images that inspire me with their sexuality or beauty. Put all the erotic books I can find on the other desk across the room in neat stack making everything easy to find as references.

Broke out my note-cards that I had created for the last real idea I had for a novel, and pinned them all in order on the wall - it was the most organized I ever got in writing. Everything is there but the story itself. Then I pinned up other little bits and pieces written on scraps of paper.

I opened up the Susie Bright book, and I've been reading a bit of it and a bit of Anais each day.

When I went to the store to get the Susie Bright, I also took a list of other helpful books. The ones I could find to purchase that day were The Joy of Writing Sex by Elizabeth Benedict, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Your Romance Published by Julie Beard, and Stephen King's On Writing. Plus, the weekend before I had purchased 2 used copies of Anais Nin, my first Poppy Z. Brite, a collection of erotica with lesbians writing gay porn and gay men writing lesbian porn, a cheesy romance paperback, and an Erotica how-to of questionable help titled Writing Erotic Fiction: And Getting Published. They didn't have 2 or 3 of the books I had hoped for, but the only one I think I'll really miss is It's a Dirty Job... Writing Porn for Fun and Profit by Katy Terrega.

Susie Bright has been interesting, but so far not so helpful. Anais has gotten me in touch with expanding my vocabulary, and finding fluid rhythms.

Of course, the books aren't what I really need. What I really need is to write. Once I get an idea.

I'm planning on spending the next two months preparing, then searching for ideas. Maybe run through some of Susie's exercises for erotic writing. But I don't want to go wasting anything that could be used for The Novel.

I'm scared shitless. But I'm serious as hell.

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