Full Frontal Fiction

When I'm writing a book, I also need to be reading a book. I enjoy the inspiration lent to me by other authors; I like the reassurance of someone else's completed manuscript in my hot little hands; the proof, the reminder that: See? It can be done.

So short stories are where it's at when I'm knees-deep into writing; I don't get so attached and involved in the story and if I do, the outcome is quickly revealed and I can get some sleep without being preoccupied with the state of my characters' lives.

And now if you'll let me set-up the post here, you'll need to follow me on a little side-journey. Bear with:

I have taken it upon myself to become the Go-to Gal with my friends in the sexuality and sensuality department. Clearly, I would rather be the go-to-gal for women's empowerment than the go-to gal for brownie-making or...or...floor-mopping. So it is not uncommon to hear me professing "So-and-so needs to get in touch with her sexuality." And then proceed quite unabashedly--and often without being asked-- to give tasks, homework, projects and sex-toy parties to these poor unsuspecting women who have had the great misfortune of telling me about one or another of their hang-ups. Comfort zones, in my opinion, are meant to be broken.

I recently came across a book that I have had for 8 or 9 years, given to me by friends when the tables were turned, 'lo those many years ago...I pulled it out to lend to aforementioned victim-friend, and realized that I had never read past the first story, so traumatized had I been by it. I won't get into the story of the Siamese twins which will forever remain SEARED ON MY BRAIN, but the other stories aren't so bad. So before I pass it on, I have been having it for dinner with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

It is erotica literature at its best, even after all this time. It is dirty, appalling, touching, happy, sad, morbid and festooned with bumping, grinding, licking, panting and moaning in all the right kinds of ways.

And a note from the editor:

"Few writers make the attempt [to write about sex.] Those that do find themselves at the end of language's tether, seeking to find words and phrases to circumvent the pat clichés of erotica and pornography. You are unlikely to think that English is short on adjectives until you start trying to describe what sweat on skin tastes like, or what is seen in the flash of emotions as you enter someone or someone enters you. A million components of sex are taken for granted; when you try to recover them in language, their immediacy becomes distant, their familiarity strange. The pen falters.'

Well, I daresay that they have done a (pardon me) bang-up job at finding a happy medium and it is with great joy and delight that I have rediscovered this book on my bookshelf, waiting, it would seem until I was better positioned (sorry, I just can't help myself) to appreciate and receive it as it was meant to be.