Category: writing

Gin and Kisses

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

I went to leave a comment on a post by the lovely Bree Leto (https://secretthoughtswithin.com) but she has comments turned off, alas.

But I thought I’d say here, what I would have said there.

I used to drink a lot of gin, particularly with one friend. I wrote, in this blog and elsewhere, about gin, about martinis, about sex.

I have a line in my novella, and again, the piece Bree posted made me think of this, and about the taste of non on someone’s lips.

My line was:

When I kissed her, her mouth tasted of gin. She’d tossed one back, was sipping another. She looked fucking good in a towel. I kissed her, realized I’d never seen her naked. Kissed her again. I’m not usually a gin guy, but she tasted amazing.

Bree’s piece is below. It’s beautiful. You should check out her blog, it’s all beautiful.

Gin Kiss

With gin on my tongue
I head off to find you
because my body remembers
it’s better when my skin is on yours
and your hands tangle in my hair as you taste me

Come, join me on the bed
change my breathing
and watch my flushed cheeks fade
as I fall asleep naked beside you
–Bree Leto

Balance, later

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

It’s been a weird year.

(how long has it been since it hasn’t? I don’t know that I remember that far back)

HST once said “It never got weird enough for me.”

I once would have agreed with that sentiment, but honestly these last few years, i’m it being weird. Weird isn’t as much fun as it used to be.

IN the last year i’ve seen such fun things as:

  • being threatened with job termination because of a disability accommodation request (and then all the rigamarole surrounding fighting over that)
  • Winning the battle over termination, only to be punch-fucked with a followup threat of termination for under-performance (ie, no matter how good you are, we want you to be a different kind of good)
  • Finding out my adult daughter had a severe drinking problem, and having to sort THAT out (rehab, in an ongoing process)
  • Opting to leave my employer of 23 years when it became obvious I was at an impasse with my management’s view of what I was supposed to be.
  • Dealing with my diabetes and the side effects of a new medication that tends to make me feel really ill, but which has induced significant weight loss.
  • Beginning a job hunt at 61 years of age, in an industry that favors the young, cheap and over-educated.
  • Asking myself if I really want to be doing this, or iof I want to re-set and figure out how to live a different lifestyle for whatever years are left to me.

Weird, as I said.

 

This ain’t all bad, though certainly there’s bad in there. After leaving my job June 1, i’ve done a few things put off for years while I struggled with family issues, tried desperately to be effective at work, and generally put myself second or third in priority. Pre-pandemic, I had accumulated a long list of tattoos I wanted to get, starting with finally tattooing my neck. That all got kiboshed by pandemic, but since I have time now, i’ve finally started to get that moving, including tattoos on neck, collar bone, and calves. I’m basically filling in spaces at this point, while getting ready to do a couple big pieces.

At 61, after a 40+ lb weight loss, i’m finding my skin is finally showing age, so I feel a ticking clock on how much longer i’ll feel like tattoos will look good. There are already spots that no longer feel tattoo friendly (losing weight at 60 is ALSO weird). So i’m hoping to interconnect a lot of smaller pieces with fill-in things.

This post won’t have pictures, but i’ll follow up with them.

I’ve got two appts on the books now, and as soon as I can schedule travel, several more by tattooists in SO Cal.

I’ve also spent a great deal of time getting organized. This includes hacking through years of accumulated stuff (a family that tends toward hoarding present a physical challenge, but i’m finally winning that); i’ve consolidated two stores spaces into one, and FINALLY have my garage back to the point where I can start to remove big racks used to handle all the crap that over-flowed my kids bedrooms when they lived with me.

I’ve begin to travel, at least a bit, though there’s more of that to come, and i’m finally catching up on my own health care, getting stupid but needful tests out of the way.

What I can NOT stand to do, at this point, is be at a desk and near a computer, which has impedes my feeling that  should be writing. I still have a sense of urgency, though it’s not quite clear what is urgent; I feel a ticking clock which tells me not to start things I can’t finish, though in fact I have time to finish things. Only hard physical effort relieves this feeling, so I’ve become a perpetual motion machine until fatigue poleaxes me. Tasks I can do with muscle are getting done, but the ones that need focus – despite my ADHD meds – are being avoided.

Balance eludes me, but I am pursuing it. There are things I want to do that require sitting still; I have two guitar customization projects, not to mention just playing  more. I have paperwork and phone calls that similarly need focus.

But not yet. I’m mot ready for balance, so long as it’s warm outside, and the doors are off my jeep, and the dogs want to go play. Balance tomorrow, maybe.

But I owe myself posts:

  • My new jeep
  • Inventory of new tattoos
  • My fitness and health progress
  • some erotica, because my head is there, if I could just sit down and do it.

Later.

 

 

 

I write when I write

Karl Elvis1 Comment

So much for writing every day right?

Fuck it though, I write when I write and I feel like I have something to say

Lately, what i’ve felt like I needed to say has more to do with longing and loss than anything else, for reasons that are both incredibly complicated and not strictly my story to tell, though in fact I think I could simply say it all, since the number of people reading is less than fingers I have on one hand.

But today – inspired by the incredible Journey Chase, what I really want to be writing about is raw, brutal sex. Because she does that to me, consistently. She makes me react, physically, mentally, emotionally. She makes me want to write poetry (which one day i’ll figure out), and to write erotica (which I can obviously do, well, when I am able to get the time). She makes me want other things as well, but, well, that’s not what i’m here to talk about.

Alas today, at least, thus far, work remains a huge drain on my creative energy, so erotic writing will have to wait a bit.

For now, know i’m thinking about these things and hope to have more lurid updates in immediate future.

You will have to wait for it, though. No, I don’t like waiting, either.

 

 

 

I miss her like that as I fall through my life

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

There are pieces of writing that make one stop – full stop – and put down a book, because they are so beautiful, or so well said, or so evocative, that the passage needs to be left to ring out, to resonate in the mind.

Sometimes they need to be re-read, sometimes they just need to not be followed with anything, until they have sunk fully in to one’s mind.

I’m lucky enough to have engendered this feeling in others, or so i’ve been told, though I can’t say I know which passages, either because I was never told, or have long forgotten.

I have encountered that feeling a few times as a reader; some I likewise can’t recall, today, but one, I revisit often.

This rings in my head not just because it is beautiful, but also because it is so true and deeply felt. For you, a reader, it may not strike this way, but for me, itt describes a particular ache and longing, for something long ago.

 

The line – from Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Brightness Long Ago, is:

 

The sailors say the rain misses the cloud even as it falls through light or dark into the sea. I miss her like that as I fall through my life, through time, the chaos of our time. I dream she is alive even now, but there is nothing to give weight or value to that, it is only me, and what I want to be true. It is only longing. We can want things so much sometimes. It is the way we are.

Kay is one of our greatest living writers, transcending genre (his work is nominally fantasy, but is such only in that it exists in analog of historic time and place, and in that it exists ‘a quarter turn to the fantastic’, as Kay has described it. His work exists in a exists of quasi-historic settings, akin to renaissance Europe, Byzantium in the time of Justinian, England during the viking era, medeival china, Spain in the time of El Cid, as well as one foray into modern day Aix en Provence,  and one into other-worldly high fantasy.

Each setting exists as a backdrop for variations on our own histories; analogs of historical figures or events server as a stage for his own stories, filled with intrigue, adventure, politics, romance, and in some cases, music and art.

I’m hard put to pick a favorite of Kay’s books; all are brilliant, and while I have my own picks for his best and least great, even my least (The Last Light of the Sun) is some readers favorite.

The book in question, A Brightness Long Ago (which is set in 15th century Italy leading up to The Italian Wars), begins with this passage, below. I can’t stress this strongly enough, though; if you love this, you should read all of Kay’s work, it’s all worthwhile.

 

Read more “I miss her like that as I fall through my life”

what we call stalling

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

I”ve been trying to figure out ho wbest to create a ‘favorite posts’ menu.

I’m relatively sure this will be easy when I focus on it for more than five minutes at a time, but, I thought i’d start with the idea of what favorites are.

Most popular? I don’t even know what that means anymore, since it’s been a decade at least since I last had a lot of readers. Most popular now is whatever I last posted that got likes.

No, it has to be the best of what i’ve written, according to me. But that means I have to dig through 1300 goddamn posts (and try to resist deleting all the ones that seem stupid, now), to try to figure out what i’m actually proud of.

I don’t quite know if I want to do that, but, I guess somebody has to.

But anyway, what i’d rather be writing about is sex.

One of the tricky parts for some of us is, inspiration. What gets us writing.

I used  to write colossal rants, which was easy to get into. I used to write reviews of things, or at least my impressions of them (books, movies, etc), which as often as not took the form of a rant.

I don’t enjoy ranting the way I used to; I can’t quite work up the energy to be that angry about things that don’t matter so much.

But sex will always drive me. I am there pretty much 24×7 (well, I don’t sex dream like I used to, alas, since those kinds of dreams tend to produce great fiction, so let’s say, every waking hour, and some of the sleeping ones).

I’ve made a few attempts at short stories and at novels that were not primarily erotic, all of which got going but stalled for one reason or another (which doesn’t mean they’re done with, it just means I need to find time where work ins’t always in the back of my head, to try to mail down what exactly i’m writing, when passion isn’t my primary driver.)

So for now, as i’m getting back into writing, i’m going to be working with what I know I can do.

Why am I not doing that here, now? That’s really what we call stalling.

I need to focus myself on what I do, which has always begin with characters. Every piece of fiction i’ve ever succeeded with began with a person; sometimes real, sometimes dreamed, sometimes invented, but always a person. Character-driven, is what a writer would call it, rather than plot-driven. So I need to gather my thoughts to try to find who i’m writing about, first, and who i’m writing as, second (because I tend to find first person infinitely easier, and today, easy is the name of the game).

I have a few places to start – it’s easy to begin with a person I actually know, as a model, at least if I can picture them well. Real life helps, because I can model how they move, how they sound. In some cases I have reference for how they smell (which matters a huge mount to me), or even how they come. Knowing these things means I can more easily build my model.

From there crafting erotica is a simple matter of setting, mood, tone. Something like Long Dark Car, it was easy because person and setting came from a dream, so mood and tone was easy from there, once I had a song in my head to define mood and give the story a beat.

So I need to know who, and then where. The who needs to come to me, which i’m hoping will occur in a few minutes when I can close my eyes and imagine.

I have good candidates; some I know well, either in real life or, in some cases, crushes I could pull out of a movie or tv. Others, who I have not yet gotten enough feel for, to write convincingly, but may do yet.

The trick though with real people is, you have to be able to remain authentic and accurate, even if you are fictionalizing them.

I’ll have let someone volunteer, so to speak.

WTF is it with poetry

Karl Elvis3 Comments

what the fuck is it with poetry?

It’s a form I fundamentally don’t feel, as a writer.

Not that I don’t love it – lyrics of songs and bits of poetry are in my head all the time. Things from tolkien, from ogden nash, from james thurber, from andy partridge, steven wilson, lloyd cole, phil lynott. Words that move me and capture me.

But when I write – fiction at least – I hear narrator voice in my head, which is why I write the way I do, in character, with that characters voice ringing in my skull.

This isn’t something I learned in school. It’s something I do by instinct, like a musician playing by ear.

But verse – it escapes me. I can’t hear it, feel it, do it by instinct. It’s like an intuitive jazz player trying to play in a symphony, without being able to read the charts. They may find the notes that make sense, but they won’t grasp where they are supposed to fit with a hundred other instruments.

I look at work by poets I admire, and I see what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and I react. But I don’t understand why they do what they do.

Why the line break here, and not there? Why this may beats on a line? Are they hearing some drumbeat, heartbeat, some rhythm i’m not party to? Is there an invisible template?

I need to talk to poets about poetry, which somehow sounds so beatnik I want to get out my beret and snap my fingers. I need to hear them read out loud, maybe, or to understand how they chose a form (or if the form choses them, perhaps, as a character speaking in my head; I just listen to them, they speak to and through me).

I read things that inspire, and I try to do what they do, and to date, my tries and lyrics and poetry always wind up awkward and unfinished.

I need the why.

 

 

 

Dreams to Stories

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

As I re-explore the blogosphere (in an attempt to rebuild a network of connections and, of course, to re-acquire an audience of readers), i’ve been using WP reader to discover active bloggers.

I’ve been reading a number of blogs with some very good erotic content – mainly poetic but some otherwise. Not classic ‘here’s a sexy story that sounds like penthouse forum’ erotic, but more heartfelt, personal content; at least, that’s what’s reaching me currently.

It’s been quite a lot of years since i’ve written any fiction, erotic or otherwise, but these people – some of whom i’m linking to in my side-bar (or bottom of hime page if you’re on mobile) – are inspiring me to create.

Almost all the writing i’ve done in the last three months has been in the form of life stories for my friend Liz, who only recently discovered that i’m a writer. She was the person who got me to pull Wanton back out and share, then to start working on a revision. I credit her with re-awakening my need to write (as I have re-awakened hers).

But now i’m getting a desire to revisit my erotica skills. I have old (some extremely old) work in an archive I need to revisit, but that will happen later; now, I need to start.

My best writing writing all began as dreams; the vividness of a sexual dream stays with me on waking, and if I can capture the atmosphere of dream, I know the writing will work, because atmosphere is what I do.

I had such a dream last night – a young woman I know vaguely in real life, on a couch next to me, at a large social gathering. She begins to fall asleep, all her masses of long blond hair spilling onto my shoulder as she slumps into me; and I pick her up to carry her to bed, almost the way you’d carry a sleeping child. But as soon as we’re out of sight of the social gathering, she rouses, begins kissing me. I carry her to her bedroom, and – well, as soon as my fingers find my way inside her clothing, I wake. Frustratingly, the scene ends too soon, before I get enough to become a story.

But it may be sculpted into something, later, as I’ve done in the past. I have a character now, and a beginning, but from there I may be able to invent.

Either way, hopefully, i’ll begin something. I’m feeling inspired, but need to find both an image strong enough to move me, but also (and this is the much, much harder part), the time to work.

 

 

Finding like minds in the blogosphere

Karl Elvis8 Comments

As I resume this whole thing after a long hiatus (Really. Fucking. Long), i’m trying to figure out ways to find those individuals (like Bacchus at ErosBlog) who never stopped, or people who are new (ish) and have something to say that I like.

In the old days, the best way to promote one’s blog was to coment on others, which we collectively would all do to builds a circle of cross-links.

Thats’ not working as well now, I rather think, because people tend not to comment that much; they are, however, clicking like buttons, and finding other WP blogs via things like wordpress itself (wordpress reader seems to facilitate this rather well).

So i’ve installed a like button, and ask you to please give that motherfucker a poke if you could be so kind. It’s at the end of each post (but you gotta click post title to get to the comments/link/share buttons).

Meanwhile, the reason i’m posting this is because I just found a blog I really dig: journeychase.com.

There’s no about, no info about the author at all, but what there is, is some erotic poetry i’m finding inspirational (I suck at poetry, but reading journeychase just made write out a thought in a vague verse like form, which is more than i’ve done in probably 15 years; i’m not posting it, because it’s almost certainly crap, but, the person I was thinking about when I wrote it may get a look at it later.

In any case, props to the writer for being inspiring.

Anyone who’s known me more than about 15 minutes knows i’m utterly filthy and love anything erotic; my writing is mostly of the bent. Finding other writers who share that is one of the things i’m after.

An excerpt from Spread me open

I know if you
ran your hands
up my stockings
the world
would stop turning
for just one moment

Click links above to get more. That’s just a taste.

Something needs to explode

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about some complex emotions.

A friend whose marriage may be on the rocks, who thinks her husband is cheating on her.

A friend who’s dealing with an immense array of traumas from childhood, from adulthood, from disabilities and ailments.

A friend who’s commemorating two lost parents in the last five years.

A friend who recently suffered a devastating loss of a pet, who is struggling to deal with a pain unlike any she’s felt.

A couple of men my age who are dealing with mental illnesses, in ways none of us have typically felt able to discuss.

A young adult who’s trying to turn their life around, who’s been (so far) unable to take advantage of all the tools therapeutic practice has to offer.

It’s not news, I think, that mental illness is yet another side effect of pandemic, of trumpian fascist politics, of a world in which hate and ignorance has some our from under it’s pointy hood.

We’re not well, broadly speaking.

Yesterday at a small gathering, two separate (beautiful) friends hugged me with a sweet, desperate affection. Neither they, or I, wanted to let go, holding a platonic hug far, far longer than would have been the norm not long ago.

Ok,  I admit it, it’s never completely platonic with me. I’m aware of every inch of flesh that’s touching, and am damn pleased with it. Wait, i’m distracting myself now.

Maybe it’s the age group; maybe it’s that we’ve all had to confront things we’ve never dealt with in our white, middle aged, middle class, able lifestyles.  I do not recall any time where so many of my close and intimate friends seemed so desperate.

I find myself in a cycle of needing both to comfort, and to be comforted, in ways i’ve never experienced. Not that this is worse; it’s not. But there’s a constant, traumatic sense of need that feels like it’ll never end, as we go into another winter of surge, waiting for something, good or bad, but something.

Wound’t it be easier if we could all drop acid and get in a naked, sweaty pile? God knows we’d all be better for it. Or taking turns with the whip, turns on the wall in cuffs.

I need to feel something stronger than boredom and dread, which describes most of my last three years. And I need to elicit responses.

I think that’s what made me go revisit my novella, because it reprensets both. It represents my own intensity of some 20 years ago. It represents a period in my life where everything I felt was dialed all the way up; when I felt everything, and engendered similarly strong responses in others.

I can’t be back there; it’s been an incredibly long 20 years. But I can visit that place, that time. Re-writing, and then sharing, are about that intensity of feeling in a way I can control. It’s about that sense of directed chaos. It’s the feeling of making someone else feel, in a profound and visceral way.

I’ve had a taste of it again; three or four friends who’ve read my work, in the last month, who’d gotten hard, or wet, who have reacted mentally, emotionally, physically, to my words, my voice.

It’s powerful, but it’s goddamn ephemeral. You can’t have a first time more than once, and so I find myself needing more first time feeling.

I want to extend that intensity to loved ones, friends, to the women I hugged yesterday.

I can make you feel, I want to say, I can touch you everywhere, without touching you, and you, then, can repay in kind just by letting me know how it felt.

Something needs to explode; I wish it could be all of us.