I’m beginning to think my cretinous thesaurus is out to get me – I really don’t want to talk about politics, but where else are there idiots? 😉
Whether or not my thesaurus hates me this year, it sure is challenging me. So what can I say that’s idiotic? I’m sure I can come up with something. We all do idiotic things once in a while. I locked myself in my car the other day. Not that it was difficult to get out, but I set the alarm off, causing everyone in the parking lot to turn around to see who was breaking into a car. No one, as it turned out. I was breaking out. It was the second time it’s happened to me. I may have already blogged about the first… That would be a birdbrained thing to do, wouldn’t it?
I’m more likely to do stupid things when I’m tired. Trying to take shortcuts in the kitchen is a classic example of when I’m prone to breaking or spilling things. Walking into rooms and having no idea why – that’s pretty daft.
But being an idiot isn’t all bad. I often act like an idiot with my kids, dancing with them in public and just being generally loony. That they’re embarrassed to be seen with me is their problem…
***
It’s nutty, a bit sappy, it’s definitely funny, and it’s only 99¢! Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
The difference between erotica and pornography is not love. It is word choice.
Yes, my thesaurus stuck me with the word “horny” for the letter H. I cheated on the letter G – I couldn’t cheat twice in a row.
Yet I’ve found something to talk about on the subject, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about writing on for a week or so anyway. I’ve come across the question a few times in the last few months: “What is the difference between erotica and porn?” The answers given on the various platforms have ranged from porn is dirty and erotica isn’t, to erotica is when you have a real relationship and porn is just for one night stands. Neither of these is correct, nor is it true that erotica only includes clean words, though word choice has a lot to do with it.
The short scene I’ve included below is one I wrote about three years ago. It is erotica, it is a bit messy, there are no swear words, and there is no sex. I think I may have linked to it a couple of years ago (it was on another site), so you might be familiar with it if you’ve been following me for a long time.
Enjoy.
“If you want to be a healthy young woman, you need to eat more fruit,” he said as he placed on the kitchen table before me a peach and a bowl of blueberries.
When our relationship was new, he explained that he wanted to wait until at least the third month before we slept together. He enjoyed the anticipation, he told me on our first date. The concept was new to me, but so far I had to agree. Now, as the second month was becoming the third, we both felt the tension of our abstinence.
He told me also that he wished to take care of me. Feeding me seemed a little extreme, but I decided to go along with it for the time being. To see where he was going with it. He hadn’t lead me astray yet, after all.
He turned his chair around and straddled it, sitting at the end of the table, to my right.
“Are you hungry?” He raised an eyebrow and I took in his smile, the roughness of his five o’clock shadow, his lean body all the way down to his belt, below which I could only imagine.
“Famished.” I clasped my hands together in my lap, not wanting to look down but hoping my shirt was unbuttoned enough at the collar to tempt him with a little cleavage.
He picked up a single small blueberry from the bowl and held it to my lips. I opened my mouth but he didn’t let go of the fruit. Instead he twirled it between his thumb and forefinger.
“I want to put it on your tongue,” he said. “Don’t bite it.”
I allowed him to place it in my mouth.
“Press it against your palate with your tongue … move it around … resist the temptation to eat it.”
I moved the little nub of fruit around inside my mouth as I was instructed. It was firm and round and I couldn’t … I shifted it with my tongue to my molars and gently closed them until the blueberry exploded in a tiny burst of bitterness.
I blushed. “Sorry,” I said.
“We’ll try again,” he said, patiently. The one he brought to my lips next was larger. Softer. I knew it would be sweeter and more difficult to resist. The skin of it was wrinkled and on my tongue it felt malleable. This time when I pressed it against the roof of my mouth it gushed, yielding easily to the pressure.
“You really are hungry, aren’t you?” He smiled at me and shifted in his chair to ease his discomfort. “Let’s try the peach then, shall we?”
He held it out to me and I took it. It smelled as ripe and luscious as it looked.
“Bite it,” he commanded, his eyes half-lidded. “Open wide and …”
My teeth penetrated the delicate skin of the fruit, and the juice cascaded past my lips in a great wash of fluid. I tilted my head back to guzzle as much of it as I could, but some of it dribbled down my chin as the flesh of the peach made contact with my tongue. I took as much down my throat as I could handle; the excess dripped from the edge of my lower lip. I felt it drop and then trickle down between my breasts and I moaned.
Licking his own lips in sympathy, or perhaps it was lust, he stared at me, hard.
“Do you want some?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he whispered hoarsely.
***
If you’d like to read some more of my fiction, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob. There’s even a touch of erotica in it.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
Give me a glass of wine, and I’ll show you one light-headed lady.
I admit it – I cheated. I said I was going to write a post on whatever word showed up on the right-hand page, second from the bottom in my thesaurus, no matter what, but the word I found today was “genocide.” I’m not going to apologize for turning the page. So what did I get instead? “Giddiness.” Couldn’t be more opposite.
Anyway, welcome to the Stream of Consciousness version of the A to Z Challenge, where nothing is deleted and nothing is planned. Also, nothing but typos are edited. Yeah, yeah, sometimes I go back and fix the punctuation. But that’s mostly for your sake. If I didn’t, you might not be able to figure out what I’m trying to say. …or maybe you can’t anyway…
It’s been a less-than-giddy-inspiring day today. My darling son is up to his antics, whining over a game he’s been playing all day. Oh, he’s as good as gold for ten minutes if I threaten to take it away. But every time I walk away, he’s at it again. He’s sitting beside me now, leaning on me, “singing” in his own way – he’s Deaf, so it’s more like a one-note elongated scream – knowing there’s nothing I’m going to do about it because I’m typing. If I don’t do it (post this) now, it’s going to be so late that I won’t feel like doing it. All freakin’ day it’s been like this.
So after he goes to bed, I think I may open a bottle of wine and get… let’s look in the thesaurus… (I’ll take all the “-ness”es off the words, since the original has it.) Dizzy, faint, light-headed, nauseous, vertigo, wobbly, or woozy. I see a few there I definitely don’t want to become. Wobbly sounds good. I remember when I was younger someone calling beer “wobbly-pop” on a regular basis. It fits.
Okay, the kid’s getting overwhelming again. Wish me luck. And wine.
I opened my thesaurus to find my random word of the day, and lo and behold, I’ve learned something new! A “fen” is, apparently, a “bog, marsh, morass, muskeg quagmire, slough, swamp.” And I can’t for the life of me figure out why I would want to call any of those things a “fen.” Or at least I couldn’t, until I looked up the definition. According to Google, a fen is not only characterized as marshy land that’s frequently flooded and has an “alkaline, neutral, or only slightly acid peaty soil,” but it’s also a particular area, described as, “flat low-lying areas of eastern England, formerly marshland but largely drained for agriculture since the 17th century,” known as the Fens.
Giggidy, as Quagmire would say.
***
Wanna read a fen-tastic book? Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
It’s Friday today and that means it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. The month of April, as you might have heard, is time for many of us to participate in the A to Z Challenge. With this taken into consideration, I’ll start the prompt with the letter of the day, just to potentially help people along. Here’s your prompt for this week:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “give/given/giving.” Begin your post with one of those words. Bonus points if you end your post with one as well. Enjoy!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use our SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
My thesaurus was bound to give me at least one difficult word to deal with. The definition of “emissary,” according to Google, is “a person sent on a special mission, usually as a diplomatic representative.” This screams of politics of course, and I really don’t want to talk about politics.
Let’s see what I can pull out of the synonyms to talk about instead: “agent,” “messenger,” oooh “spy,” and what’s this? “Plenipotentiary” – what’s one of those? Damn. “A person, especially a diplomat, invested with the full power of independent action on behalf of their government, typically in a foreign country.” Okay, so all those are out.
You know what I want an emissary to be? Me. I want to go on a mission to guide you, as a narrator, through my stories. I want to be the messenger for my characters. I want to be their representative. And in a way, that’s what an author is. The agent who relates the tale. The spy who knows all the players’ deepest, darkest secrets.
So there you have it. I hereby rename authors as emissaries. This is my plenipotentiary decree!
Yeah, I’m full of shit.
***
Allow me to take you on a guided tour through the lives of my characters. It doesn’t cost much – only 99¢! Check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“A short funny tale of two friends” ~ Ritu, 4 stars, Amazon UK review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
The first thing that springs to mind when I see the word “diversion” is magic. Which isn’t surprising, since I’ve been writing and editing a novel (or three) about a magician called “The Great Dagmaru” for the past five and a half years. Making someone look the other way is an art, whether it’s in order to perform a trick behind their back or whether it’s to cause them to pay more attention to you.
Yet some might say it’s easier now to create a diversion: our attention spans are shortening with so much going on around us and in our own living rooms, on our screens where everything is the next biggest or cutest spectacle. For as far as entertainment goes, it seems to me that those of us who still read novels are the last holdouts of the ability to concentrate. And still, so many books, so little time. A novel must capture the reader’s attention in the space of a few sentences or it will be passed over. And authors wonder why the blurb is so much harder to write than the book itself.
Oh look! It’s a chipmunk.
But I digress.
All this talk about diversions and how they entertain has led me to seek the difference between a diversion and a distraction. According to my trusty thesaurus, it seems diversions are happy things and distractions are less-than-desirable things. Somewhat. The synonyms for distraction range from “delirium” to “relief.”
One way or another, diversions and distractions add up to procrastination.
***
Looking for a fun diversion? Look no further. Please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
I’d have to give myself what for, if I didn’t write my A to Z blog post today.
“Chide” is my thesaurus word for this third day of the A to Z Challenge. It’s a word I know but that I don’t think I’ve ever actually used out loud. When I’m reprimanding someone (usually my kids – who else am I going to chew out?), I’m more likely to use the term “telling off.” But according to my trusty old synonym-finder, “chide” has a bunch of different meanings I’d never put in the same category. It can also mean “blame” and “criticize.”
When I blame someone for something I don’t necessarily scold them, and when I criticize someone it doesn’t mean I berate them. So it seems “chide” is a bit of an all-purpose word for anything we don’t like.
“Admit it. It was you who took my bone,” Winston chided.
Okay. I guess that works.
***
If you’re stopping by my blog for the first time or you haven’t picked it up yet, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
Take a deep breath. Time to really get into this whole A to Z business.
When I opened my thesaurus to find my “B” word, I saw “breather” and thought HA! An easy one. But like many words, the more I think about it, the more complex it seems. Of course, it’s “one who breathes.” Then there’s the rather unflattering term, “mouthbreather,” which according to the Urban Dictionary means “a stupid person.” I’ve been a bit of a mouth breather of late, but it’s to do with my cold… You know, stuffed up nose and all that.
But mostly the word “breather” is known as a noun to mean “a break.” Relax. Take a breather. In my thesaurus it says it’s a synonym for “constitutional” and “walk,” as well. In which case it could be thought of as a heavy-breather, depending on the shape one is in.
Speaking of heavy-breathers, do they still do that anymore? I remember it was a big thing in the 70s – you’d pick up the phone and on the other end there’d be someone just breathing heavily. I suppose prank calls pretty much went out the window with caller ID. One day I’ll be able to ask “Is your fridge running? Yes? Better go catch it!” and nobody will know where it came from.
“Breather” is one of those words that, when I think about it too much, stops making sense. Or in this case, I think it makes too much sense. Relax. Take a breath.
Phew! I need a rest. 😉
***
If you’re stopping by my blog for the first time or you haven’t picked it up yet, please check out my A to Z Challenge-inspired novelette “All Good Stories.” It’s a romantic comedy about two best friends who belong together – Xavier knows it, but Jupiter has her eye on another guy: a shady character named Bob.
“Delightful, Light-hearted tale with great twists!” ~ Lori Carleson, 5 stars, Amazon review
“Quirky and charming.” ~ Bobby Underwood, #11 top reviewers on Goodreads – 5 stars
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