I don't usually post a blog entry unless I think I have something brilliant ... or at least entertaining to say. In this case, though, I owe several of you some information. I've told a bunch of people, recently, that I'd probably start posting a new story on the 14th of July. That story is written, and is titled "For Want of a Memory".
While the story is finished, it ended up being 34 chapters long and the editing process is taking a little longer than we thought it would. It looks like there will be a delay of another week.
There are two primary reasons for the delay.
In the first place, this book is based on my editor's fantasy. Her name is Peaches and she's been kind enough to let me lust after her from afar for a long time. The last story I posted, "Read Dirty To Me" was about one of my fantasies about her. I kind of owed it to her to develop her fantasy at least as well as I developed my own. So I wanted to get it right for her, and she's not at all bashful about telling me when I didn't quite reach the mark.
The other reason is that lots of you have suggested that I write something more "mainstream," and I took this opportunity to do that. Her fantasy could have been written in three or four chapters, but she was nice enough to let me expand it into something much bigger than that. It has a pretty complicated plot, and a whole bunch of characters, which leaves a lot of room for continuity errors, and morphing names and all the other things that drive an editor (and reader) slightly wiggy. Peaches takes her job seriously and it's taking us about an hour per chapter to get things to the level we both find acceptable. Since we only get about an hour per day together, that's why it's taking longer to edit than we thought it might.
In other words, (and I was trying to avoid just admitting it,) I made lots of mistakes, which Peaches is catching and fixing.
I also wanted all of you who inquired about me during my sabbatical to know how much I appreciate your interest. It's really nice to know people are thinking about me when I'm not actively posting a story.
And, of course I didn't want you to think I was blowing smoke about the new story. (grin)
I hope to see you all next Monday.
Bob
I got some mail, a while back, from a man who shall remain nameless. Basically, he said that after 30 years of marriage, he had a housemate, rather than a wife, and that my stories helped. What he said is: "Your stories give me a full and satisfying fantasy world where I can experience those things denied me in real life."
I've said it before, but it now bears saying again. That's why I write these stories. As fantasies, they allow the reader to submerge him or herself in them to whatever degree is comfortable, and meet whatever need is there that real life is maybe neglecting a bit.
That reader who wrote to me touched on something that I think is really important. There are a lot of people out there who don't have a full and satisfying actual sex life. For some of them it's a lapsing relationship. For some it's erectile dysfunction. For some it's a yen to do something their partner won't do. And for some it's that they just don't have a partner or the likelihood they'll get one. And I really believe that fantasy has a role in helping people like that cope. It's helped ME cope, and I'm not all that different than any of you.
If you've been married for 30 years (or even 10 years!) you know how a relationship can change. There's nothing wrong with that. People evolve all their lives, so it's impossible for the woman you married ten or twenty or thirty years ago to be the same woman now. And, based on talking to lots of you, I think it's pretty normal for things to slow down after 30 years anyway.
But that doesn't mean you don't get horny any more. And tossing that relationship on the hope that you could find a better one isn't the answer. Think of the work, pain and frustration it would be to submerge yourself in the dating pool again. And the difficulty in finding a partner who meets your specific needs, physically and emotionally is horrifying. Even if you did ... she'd change by next month.
So why this blog entry at this particular point in time?
Well, "Time" - the magazine - as it turns out, has published an article recently, and the story even made national news. You may have heard about it already. Here's an extract from the Time article:
"As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more upset when they weren't pregnant than when they were," Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. "We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy," the principal says, shaking his head."
Now school officials deny that the pact resulted from the two movies mentioned, since the girls got pregnant before those films were released. But guess who just had a baby at age seventeen? Jamie Lynn Spears did. That's who. And who do all those teenaged girls out there want to be like? Well ... OK, it's probably Hanna Montana, more than Jamie Lynn Spears, but you get my point. And Miley Cyrus just recently did a "nude" photo shoot anyway, so maybe she counts after all.
The point is that I'm fully aware that I write fantasies about situations in which very young women have babies, most of them with older men. And I'm aware that, while I write for an adult audience, there are young people out there who probably sneak a peek at my stuff.
In fact, let me just speak to you young people for a minute.
The reason I don't WANT you young people reading my stuff is because the part of your brain that is used in rationalization - figuring out complex issues - isn't fully grown until around age twenty, depending on which egghead you talk to. It's not that you're stupid. It's just that not all the machine is working properly because some parts are missing.
Think of it like a four year old, trying to play catch. You toss him the ball ... it hits him in the face ... and he cries. It's not because he's stupid. It's because his muscles and reflexes haven't matured enough to handle that activity.
The reason you teenagers don't have a full and satisfying sexual life is because YOU AREN'T READY FOR IT YET. Why do you think you break up with your boy/girlfriend so often? It's because you have no idea what you actually want from another person. It feels good in the beginning, so you go with it, only to find out later that the other person has flaws you can't live with. Then you do it all over again. It's just like that four year old with the ball. You get hit in the face, and cry, and then try again. Eventually, you catch the ball. And eventually, you'll find someone to love for a long long time ... while they change into another person.
See how complicated it is?
OK, back to the adults now. You youngsters who aren't supposed to be reading this can tag along, just this once.
One of the reasons these girls gave for deciding to get pregnant was because they think a baby would love them unconditionally.
Let's look at that for just a minute. Never mind that babies don't love anybody when they're first born. I have three kids and, just maybe, somewhere along the way, they decided to love me unconditionally. But I don't remember when it was, and I know FOR SURE that it wasn't in the first five to eight years of their lives. I'm sure those teenaged girls would believe that if the baby was sucking a nipple, and not crying, and 'smiling' (probably from gas) that they'd interpret that as "unconditional love" coming from their baby.
The sad part is that these girls all have parents ... and yet they don't feel like they have any unconditional love in their lives.
That's fucked up, people. You don't have babies to GET unconditional love ... you have them to GIVE THEM unconditional love. And I'm not talking about sexual love here. Your JOB as a parent is to give your children what they need to grow and prosper and be as well adjusted as anyone can be in this society. And I'm willing to stick my neck out here and suggest that, if you've done your job ... your daughter won't go out and get intentionally knocked up by a homeless guy so she can get some unconditional love. And don't give me any horse shit about being too busy to love your children. It's your job. It calls for sacrifices and not just when it's convienient to sacrifice for them.
Now, lest you think I went off on a tangent there, and that that tangent has nothing to do with fantasy, let me sum up by saying that expecting unconditional love from a baby is fantasy. And expecting your daughter to make reasonably intelligent decisions when she doesn't HAVE any unconditional love in her life ... well that's fantasy too, more than likely. Thinking you can have children and , as long as you have lots of money they'll grow up just fine, or that you won't have to sacrifice anything to raise them properly is fantasy too.
So there's a lot of fantasy at play in this situation.
Sometimes, like that 24 year old homeless guy who knocked up one or more teenaged girls in Massachusetts because "they asked him to", you might not have your head screwed on quite right. You might be thinking that it can happen like it does in one of the stories ... that the fantasy can come true and work out well, like it does in the story.
Is that possible?
The answer is Kelly Pickler. If by some crazy chance you don't know who she is, she won American Idol a while back. Out of millions and millions of women who wanted a fantasy to come true, hers did. She's a star. She has a singing career. But she's one out of millions and millions, and the only reason she became a star is because some random bright mind at NBC or wherever said "Hey, I have this idea of how to put on a show that won't cost much, but might get a big audience." And some other TV executive said "Why not? Can't hurt, and if the fucking writers strike on us while it's running ... who cares!?" And then, purely by chance, Kelly Pickler got a shot at her fantasy.
So yes ... it's POSSIBLE for your fantasy to come true. But don't fucking count on it. That 24 year old homeless guy was living a fantasy there for ten minutes at a stretch, while he had wild, unbridled sex with girls who were incapable of rational thought. And, come to think of it, he's not going to be homeless much longer. He's going to have his own room, and three meals a day, courtesy of all of you out there who pay taxes. He might get a whole bunch of free prostate exams too, though I don't know how good "Bubba" is at determining how enlarged a prostate is with the tip of his cock.
And these seventeen girls who made the pact to get knocked up and raise their babies together are trying to live a fantasy that isn't going to work either. Nobody's going to let them form a commune to raise their babies together. They've already proved they can't think rationally or sensibly. And, what might be worse is that they stand a very real chance of ruining a new and precious life. Sooner, rather than later, they're going to realize how shitty it can be to be sixteen and have to sacrifice almost everything you want, to take care of a little ting that pees or shits or cries every twelve to eighteen minutes. And when they lose interest in that precious life, they'll begin to neglect it, when they can. Just like they were probably neglected, seeing as how they don't feel like anybody loves them.
So ... after all that ... here's the point of this blog entry. Please remember, like that reader who started this whole ball of wax rolling around in my head, that fantasy can enhance your life, as long as you firmly separate it from reality.
That's not to say it can't affect your life. What fantasy CAN do for you is put you in a little bet better mood, or get you feeling romantic, or take the edge off after a rough day, while you masturbate like a frenzied monkey, if that's what helps. It might be able to help you cope with a less than fulfilling actual sex life, sometimes. Whatever it does for you, take it from there and transpose some of those good feelings into a real live relationship with another real live human being. Love somebody uncondionally ... even if it's the partner who you married, and who changed into someone who's less exciting.
You worked hard to grow those last few brain cells that gave you the ability to think rationally. Using that rational ability to moderate your responses to fantasy is what will help you cope with the stresses of real life.
As always, thanks for reading.
Unless you're underage, in which case you need to close this window pronto and go outside to get some exercise.
Bob
I posted two short stories recently, which may have gotten pushed off the "new stories" page before you noticed them. And, because they were short, they didn't appear on the "updates" page.
They are: "Read Dirty To Me" and "Nothing Left To Wager". Both can be found by using the SOL search engine, or simply looking at my SOL pages, where the stories are listed alphabetically.
Thanks for your support.
Bob
Several folks, of late, have written asking for information on what is projected to come from my figurative quill in the months to come. Among them was C.L. Evers, an author for whom I have a great deal of respect. Part of what he wrote is as follows: If my memory hasn't yet packed it in, I think that you're about to go away late May or early June, to perform penance through good deeds. Remind us again, please.
What he was referring to is what I call my yearly sabbatical, during which, in early June, I go off to volunteer for something that will actually make the world a better place. I do that every year, and he remembered, bless his heart. So there will be a dearth of new work as I get ready to go on sabbatical, and there is usually a break after I get back, while I recuperate and think about stuff I'm going to write.
One of the reasons I don't do routine blog entries on "what's next", like a lot of other authors do, is because, quite frankly, I don't know what's next. That's not because I don't plan. It's because my muse actually controls access to my keyboard, and sometimes her ideas of what should be at the front of the line are different than my own.
I know that sounds odd, but maybe I can explain it through an example.
When I wrapped up the Gigolo series recently, I got a lot of mail from people who wanted to know what was next. I wrote a lot of them and said something like this:
"There is one about a young woman who gets a job reading books onto tape (which turned out to be "Read Dirty To Me") and then two stories that explore amnesia from different perspectives. After that there are three westerns I've wanted to finish for a long time."
OK, so the first story, Read Dirty To Me, got done and posted. And I was working on the first of the amnesia stories. Then, one day, my muse said "Time out, Bob. I have this idea. Prepare to copy!" She delivers these kinds of orders in a stentorian, drill sergeant kind of voice that cannot be ignored, and then, in this case, welded my fingers to the keyboard until a story called Nothing Left To Wager suddenly appeared. It's a short story, and it's one I never thought about writing at all until I started writing it. It basically shoved and pushed its way to the front of the line.
So, did I lie to all those people about what stories were next? Well ... yes, technically ... but not intentionally. Which is why I don't usually tell people what I'm going to do "next". I don't want to look like a liar. And that's the same reason I tell people who request a story (and which I tell them I think I can actually write) that I have no real idea of when that story will be written and posted. I prefer to tell the truth.
But inquiring minds want to know, and those inquiring minds are ensconced in the craniums of readers who are very important to me.
So, all that said, here's what I'm working on for probably the rest of the summer:
1. A story in which amnesia places a man in a small town, where he discovers himself, with the aid of strangers, and falls in love with the avatar of my editor. It is more pay for what she does for me. The last story I wrote for Peaches was MY fantasy. This one is hers.
2. A story in which a detective becomes enmeshed in a relationship with a victim, whose case he was investigating. Through a situation she develops partial amnesia, and her memories of her relationship with the detective are colored by the fantasies she had before she got amnesia. This is all complicated by events that will become real ethical conflict for the detective.
3. Three westerns, one of which also involves amnesia, in which a young cowboy's "real" personality comes out, after he forgets what kind of lifestyle he was living. The other two I don't want to say much about at this stage.
4. After that, there are a couple of stories that Stormy Weather and I worked on for a while, and which got put on the back burner, but which are really interesting ideas and different from what either of us have done in the past. I hope to convince her to dust them off and finish them together.
So that's what you can expect for the rest of the summer.
Maybe.
Thanks for being interested.
Bob
I get feedback from people all the time. Some is positive and some is negative. I like it all, usually, because it helps teach me something. That's what feedback if for, right? So, since a lot of you send it to me, I thought you might be interested in what I do with it ... how I process it ... my thought patterns when I read it, and all that stuff.
The positive feedback is easy. It tells me I got it right.
The negative feedback, though, is often more interesting, because it tells me how I can do better..
Sometimes.
I got the following anonymous (of course) feedback on the story "Uncle Bob, The Dick Donor."
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Best quote of the entire tale; "Men are so stupid. I took the bait." Can we get an Amen for that?? It never ceases to amaze me how folks can think that these fantsies are somehow worth reading. Please don't misunderstand me here, your writting skills are top notch, grammar, sentence structure and useage are all superb. IT'S THE STORY PREMIS I can't get over!!!! Who the fuck in their RIGHT MIND would even consider doing this crap?? Especially being kicked off by some off the wall phone call from his sister-in-law?? WTF?? "Oh, I'll just go ahead and carry through, after all, my wife asked me to do it! Of course, she has NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE and there's no chance in hell she'll CHANGE HER MIND no Sir, not MY WIFE!! No, my wife won't ever talk to her Sister again in this lifetime! Right!?! ARE YOU NUTS????? THEY ARE WOMEN!! THEY COMMUNICATE!!!! Jesus Christ on a crutch, how fucking dumb can one male possibly be? Which brings me to the point of this note. I quit reading after the fourth paragraph and have NO DESIRE to finish torturing my poor old mind with this level of insanity. It's like watching a trainwreck in SLLLOOOOWWWW
MMOOOOOTTTTIIIOOOONNNNN! AHHH! Best of luck.
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OK. Let's see what this feedback tells me, or does to make me a better writer.
First off, I must assume the anonymous reader is male, based on the sentence "THEY ARE WOMEN!!" Whether the reader is male or female can be important, since the genders often view something from different directions.
Here are the first four paragraphs of the story his feedback referred to:
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I was minding my own business one Wednesday night, reading a good book, when I heard my wife yell "What?!" into the phone. She was talking to her sister Lara, and I wasn't too surprised to hear them yell at each other. They had that kind of relationship. Don't get me wrong, they loved each other, but both women were headstrong and liked having things their own way, and they clashed often.
So I pretty much ignored Shelly while she yelled at Lara. I heard a couple of things, like "Why in the world do you think I'd go along with that?" and "You have to be crazy - Bob would never do that." I, of course, had no idea what it was that I would "never do" and, while I was curious, I tried to concentrate on my book. Experience had taught me not to get involved when those two were going at it. Voluntarily anyway.
Pretty soon they hung up and my wife walked into the room looking shocked. She stared at me for a minute, not saying anything, until I got nervous and finally said "What?"
"You won't believe what Lara just asked me," she said as she sunk into a chair.
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Now, let's set aside, for the moment, the fact that Shelly should have "sank" into a chair, instead of "sunk" into it. That's been fixed, by the way.
The point is that the first four paragraphs of the story don't tell you anything about the plot. They get you ready to find out what the plot is, but you don't know what's going to happen.
So this reader lied. He said he quit reading at that point. Yet, he somehow knew at least some of what happened after that. Maybe the teaser to the story gave that away. Here's the teaser:
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Bob's wife decides he should help out her sister with her "problem", which is fine. But her daughters turn out to be "problem" children, who need a firm hand... er well... firm SOMETHING.
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Well, I suppose if you've read much erotica, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out that his sister-in-law's problem might have something to do with a stiff dick. I guess if you put the title, the teaser, and the first four paragraphs together, you might get some idea that Bob was going to have sex with Lara, or her daughters.
But the fact is that that's not enough information to result in such a vituperative diatribe about how insane the premise of the story was, and how completely worthless it would be to spend another second watching the train wreck.
OK, so what I have learned so far is that the reader read a lot more than he wants to admit, and didn't like it. The next thing I want to know is why he didn't like it. He's already said that the mechanics of my writing are OK, so that's not it.
As best I can tell, his primary objection is that Bob's wife will likely change her mind about loaning him out for sex with her sister. Or that Bob's wife will talk to her sister about what happened WHEN he was loaned out. It's not quite clear.
So, with the information available to me, which I read all the way through, by the way, here is what I have learned from this feedback:
This reader feels that such a scenario could not reasonably take place in real life and, if it did, it wouldn't work out well at all.
* Sigh *
Believe it or not ... I already knew that. That's why we call this fantasy.
But I don't stop there. No sir! When I get feedback, I sometimes get involved in a dialog with the person sending it to me. We discuss things, even argue about things sometimes. We exchange ideas, which can lead to positive outcomes from what was initially a negative experience for both of us.
Of course I can't do that with someone who sends me feedback anonymously.
If this reader would have given me the opportunity to respond to his complaints, I might have been able to help him, or he me.
I would have suggested that he should stop reading erotica at once. His soul might be at risk here. After all, he's obviously a good Christian man. His use of "Amen" and his invocation of Jesus Christ makes that obvious, though I'm not sure Jesus would appreciate the "on a crutch" part of it. I've read the New Testament several times, and nowhere in there does it say Jesus used a crutch. A crutch suggests infirmity, and if there was anybody in all of history who wasn't infirm, it was Jesus.
Second, I would have suggested that he has fantasy and reality all mixed up, and needs to get that taken care of, because that can cause trouble. I would have reassured him that this story was only a fantasy, where things that would never (and probably should never) happen in real life can be looked at ... just for fun.
He might then have reminded me that he knew it was a fantasy, as noted in his comment about "these fantasies" not being worth reading.
I might then have commented that I agree there are fanatasies that I wouldn't think were worth reading. Such as the fantasy of hanging someone upside down over an open fire and cooking them alive, and then cutting out and eating the liver. I wouldn't start a story that I thought was going to contain that. I'd have asked him why he started this story. Was the teaser faulty? Was it coded wrong? Was he taken completely by surprise in those first four paragraphs?
I would have agreed with him that any man who actually tried what Bob does in this story, could most assuredly be labeled "insane" or "dumb" or "nuts".
And I would have argued that the average person, if given the opportunity, would watch a train wreck in slow motion lots of times. I don't know anybody who doesn't rubberneck when passing an accident.
And, if I would have listened to Peaches, my editor, who gets to read a lot of the feedback that is sent to me, I would have agreed with him that he was right about the best line in the story. Men ARE so stupid ... including this reader.
But I wouldn't say something like that. It's not my style. I prefer to concentrate on the positive in life. I prefer to learn something from negative feedback, so I can be a better author.
Like in this case, where I learned ...
Hmmm.
I guess I'll have to think about that some more.