So I’m not going to bore you with more Mad Men adulation (at least until the new season starts). Instead, I’m going to bore you with my adulation of a documentary that, at least in the first half, was awesome to watch as a Mad Men devotee.

The movie is Art & Copy, and here’s the trailer:

I love documentaries as much as I love Mad Men, and when I’m not tweeting my #lessonsdumadmen, I’m tweeting my outrageously excited reactions to things I just learned in a documentary. But I found Art & Copy to be so riveting, I couldn’t even tweet it.

The first half of the film is perfect for anyone who loves Mad Men. They talk about the age of advertising in which Mad Men is set, and they even discuss some of the real ad campaigns that Mad Men references, often as successful campaigns created by Don Draper. It was also interesting to see the “real” Peggys: the women who became powerhouses of their industry at a time when most women were relegated to the secretarial pool.

But the whole move was a fascinating reflection on how advertising works in our society in general, as well as its effect on our culture. For you creative types out there, it was also–especially in the second half–a really fascinating riff on creativity and the creative spirit.

If you’re not interested in anything I’ve mentioned, the second half of the documentary is worth a watch just for the interior design of the headquarters of the top firms. I gotta say, I wish writers could have offices like the big advertising companies. If any of y’all want an Urban Fantasist In Residence, I am THERE. Especially any of you in NYC or Frisco. Just sayin’.

Bottom line: if you like Mad Men, like a good documentary, or are interested in either the nature of creativity or the effects of advertising on our culture, you should love Art & Copy.

And wait till you see the Nest! That’s all I’m saying. Nest.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know I’ve recently become obsessed with the television show, Mad Men. Many people perceive it as a love/hate relationship, because I tweet things like “Mad Men makes me want to stab something while watching EVERY EPISODE.”

These tweets are misleading, however, as I don’t have ambiguous feelings about the show at all. I adore the show. I think it’s brilliant, and at least five times an episode there’s something that happens with the writing, or the cinematography, or the direction, that makes me marvel at the show’s genius.

What pisses me off (and what is supposed to piss me off) is the society Mad Men depicts. But it pisses me off in a good way, and it pisses me off in a way that I think our country needs to be pissed off, especially now.

After all, we’re living in a time of major economic difficulties. I’d love to be all upbeat as usual, but when it comes to the economy, I can’t. I think America has been living in a very luxurious bubble for a really long time (something that Mad Men addresses) and the fact is that bubble has to break. When half of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day, it’s a bit bizarre to assume we should all have our own McMansion, complete with multiple cars, flat screens, etc. The fact is that Americans are going to have to scale it back, and live like the rest of the world. But this is a difficult adjustment, and another sad fact is that major inequalities in our society mean that some still get to live the caviar lifestyle, undented, while others have lost everything. This makes people angry, and it makes people lash out against easy scapegoats. Age-old scapegoats for rough times have traditionally been the Other: other races, other religions, and other genders.

I have a lot of friends who shake their hands, wondering at the recent spate of attacks on women’s rights. Under the auspices of “pro-life” legislation, there are insane attempts to redefine rape and ever-increasing attacks on women’s health care (even Fox News reported on this one). I would argue that these are merely the more extreme symptoms of a more pernicious malaise: the idea that some people wish we could go back in time, to when things were “simpler.”

When confronted with America’s instability (both economic and social), with our countries ever-loosening grip on its role as the world’s sole Super Power, and the struggles with our own identity that these facts engender, is it any wonder that people are looking to the past for answers?

Especially when that past was so lovely, right? We’re involved in a “quagmire” of a war, when the war my grandparent’s generation fought is known simply as “The Good War.” Everyone had employment, and people stayed in those jobs until they retired. Children didn’t engage in inexplicable “flash mobs” (either of the dancing or the looting variety). Wives didn’t work 60 hours a week when their husband’s can’t even find a job, and they certainly didn’t divorce their husbands to “find themselves.”

It all sounds so great, right?

The fantasy does sound awesome. In a world where I confront about 50 decisions a day, where I see myself, my friends, and my students struggle to figure out how to make it in a world in which there are no more rules, even I understand the allure of a black and white world.

And that’s where Mad Men comes in. It is that golden world that we’ve heard discussed in hushed voices. A world in which the Greatest Generation strides the earth like lions, smoking up a storm and napping at work. At work! After having a four martini lunch!

Then there are the outfits, and the hair, and the garters. I swoon at the women’s garters, alone, and I imagine myself with enormous torpedo-shaped breasts, swanning around in about fifteen layers of lingerie, and petticoats, and dresses, while batting my luxurious fake eyelashes up at my gorgeously suited companion.

But let’s look under the proverbial petticoats of that world, something that isn’t hard, since Mad Men‘s genius is that it makes sure we do just that.

The structure of Mad Men is a bit like a call and response song. For every moment of glamour, beauty, luxury, and ease of lifestyle that’s depicted in Mad Men, there is an answering moment of pettiness, ugliness, poverty, and difficulty. Yes, the white women in the beautiful dresses go into powder their gorgeous noses in a luxurious bathroom. But the answering tableau is of the African American bathroom attendants peering out at the ladies as they leave, wondering how they’ll make a living now that the purses in fashion are too small to hold the tip money upon which the attendants live. Yes, Don’s beautiful wife Betty wears the singularly most gorgeous outfits we’ve ever seen, but she does so while sitting for hours and hours, smoking alone, at her kitchen table. Yes, the men all pull out the ladies’ chairs, but they also order for them, and this situation is a metaphor for their whole lives.

In fact, there are a hundred little carefully inserted needles an episode, puncturing the balloon that is the fantasy of Mad Men. For example, in the wonderful scene where Don’s secretary confronts her nemesis, the great beauty of the office, Don’s secretary says something about how she’s the first woman to write copy “since the war,” pointing out that part of the country’s current largess was due to the hard work of women who stepped up while the men were fighting, and who had to then step back into subservient roles when the men returned.

But the greatest triumph of Mad Men is what makes it so difficult to watch. When I first Tweeted that I was watching it, I had about a dozen people reply they couldn’t get past the first episode. And I had the same feeling. I wanted to punch everyone in the show in the face, hard, about fourteen times an episode. The women? They’re vain idiots, who fill me with a deep sense of shame and anger. The men? They’re monsters–silly boys who with no sense or sensibility, horrifyingly granted the powers of Mark Twain’s vicious child on the beach who destroys his sandcastles because he can.

It is here that I locate Mad Men’s singular power: it understands how, as we saw in the Plantation South, great beauty can be built upon grotesque underpinnings. We also see the fallout the various characters endure: the loneliness, spite, and eventual craziness of the women (Betty Draper’s shooting the pigeons with her cigarette dangling from her lips has to be one of my favorite TV moments ever), and the emotional paralysis of the men that has them shuttling between variously inappropriate women while competing with each other with the viciousness of  fighting cocks.

And this is why I think everyone should watch Mad Men: because it does piss you off. Indeed, it wants to piss you off. Its power and its genius is that it makes you so angry about issues that we don’t even want to fight about any more. If I had a dime for every young, awesome, confident female student I’ve had that has blithely said, “I’m not a feminist, ew,” I’d be a millionaire. I think the feminist revolution was so successful that it’s easy to forget how recently we were empowered. Watching Mad Men’s women ask their husbands for money, or ask them whether it’s all right they work or pursue interests, or sit quietly despite desperately wanting to know about their husband’s lives is an amazing lesson in what our own realities could still be like, if we hadn’t had women willing to stand up for themselves, and for us.

So go watch Mad Men. Get really, really pissed off. Become absolutely horrified. Then think about what you’ve learned from those feelings, while you look around our own world.

See anything you don’t like?

*********************************************

And now for our Wieners from last week’s contest! The Contest Can has spoken!

The Wiener’s are Allison W., Holly K., and donnas! Email me at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com with the name of ANY book on Amazon at $7.99 or under, with your address, and I’ll have it shipped to your door!

Thanks for playing, folks! Your comments were awesome and I’ve learned a lot. I’m really glad people are reading the blog, and I’m considering doing a newsletter, probably 2x a year.

Thanks again for all the comments.

Sorry I’ve been MIA. I had our June residency for our MFA, and that’s always a ton of work (albeit very fun work). Our MFA in Writing Popular Fiction is what they call a “low-residency” degree, meaning that most of the coursework is done long-distance, through on-line classes and through an individual relationship with a mentor. But twice a year, every January and every June, all of our students converge, en masse, to Seton Hill, where we have an intensive five day Residency, full of critique groups, workshops, and tons of other things.

I had a great time at this residency. As usual, I taught our “2s” (second term students) in a module on close reading. I led three critique groups, all of which had some absolutely fabulous stories. Finally, I taught a workshop on Trends in Mystery. Half of the workshop was on trends, the idea of trends, and specific trends in mystery. But it was the very last day of the residency when I led the workshop, and my goal was to leave everyone inspired. So the second half of the workshop was loads of group and individual work, scoping out the scene in mystery (or whatever other genre the attendee writes) and coming up with some ideas for other, future projects. I think it went well, and I know I was inspired at the end of it!

We also had great speakers visiting! The lovely Heather Osborn, editorial director of Samhain, and equally lovely Lucienne Diver, author and agent with the Knight Agency, came in to speak. They were fabulous: super enthusiastic, excited about the business, and really knowledgeable. I also got to spend some bonding time with both ladies, which was great as they’re awesome.

The day after Residency, I packed up and headed to Chicago. I solved my laundry issue (there was not time to do it during Res) by taping shut my hamper and sticking the whole thing in the car. So I basically turned up at my parents like a college freshmen, laundry in tow. It was like an episode of the Cosbys! I’d like to say I was playing the part of Denise, but realistically I’ve always been a Vanessa.

But in the meantime, much has been happening with my upcoming release, Eye of the Tempest! Publisher’s Weekly says that the fourth book “brings even more sass, snark, and supernatural action.” Meanwhile, Romantic Times gave the book 4 1/2 stars, saying that I “keep the action brisk and the emotions sharp.” Don’t cut yourself!

I’m betting there’ll be Eye spottings in the wild as soon as the middle of this month, but if you need something to read in the meantime, have no fear! First off, Sophie Littlefield’s Bad Day For Scandal came out a few weeks ago. I love this series, and can’t wait to dig into this book!

If you want something in the Urban Fantasy realm, have no fear. K.A. Stewart’s Shot in the Dark is coming July 5th. It looks great! I love these covers:

And speaking of cover love, my critique partner, Diana Rowland, has her ABSOLUTELY AWESOME book My Life as a White Trash Zombie also coming July 5th, although I just saw it yesterday on the shelves of Barnes and Noble:

This cover by Dan Dos Santos absolutely rocks my world, and the book is great. Even if you don’t like zombies I think you’ll like this one, as Diana’s taken the zombie to a whole ‘nother level of trashy-cool.

Kevin Hearne’s Hammered also has a July 5th release. I blurbed the first book of this series and can’t wait to catch up with the rest. These also have great covers, as I greatly enjoy Atticus and his mighty sword.

Releasing from my own publisher, my friend Philip Palmer’s Hell Ship comes out this month, and it looks awesome. I’ll be hanging with Philip in London, and will definitely be digging into this bad boy before I see him. It’s got a skull! And a pirate ship! And I heart it hard:

Last but certainly not least, my other fellow-Orbiter, Gail Carriger, is releasing Heartless today. Happy Book Birthday, Gail! Can’t wait to read it, as I’m a big fan of the series:

So there’s a roundup of some recent/new releases! As for me, I will also be released into the wilds of London tomorrow. I am stupidly excited to get back, as you can imagine. I’ll be there for a whole month, and it’ll be great to see all of my friends, and to finish my fifth book in the country where I wrote my first. It’s all circular, and shit. I can’t wait to see everyone, and to be back in a real city. I’m at a really good place in my life, and it’ll be nice to be in that great place while also being in an actual great place–London’s a fabulous city and it’ll be nice to give it real twirl rather than just being a regular, week-long tourist.

But don’t worry–I’m sure I’ll be blogging, Facebooking, and Tweeting from London, have no fear! In the meantime, feel free to read some good books. There’s a ton coming out over the summer!

*** HERE BE YER WARNING: There are spoilers following if you’ve been living in some hut somewhere and don’t know what happens in these books, but still plan on reading them.

Keep in mind, first of all, that the entirety of Breaking Dawn was a fabulous hot mess of crazy. I’ve never read a nuttier sex scene that wasn’t actually written than I did here. The depiction of Bella and Edward’s fast-growing, scarily mature child freaked me right the fuck out. And I can’t even begin to assess my joy at the batshittery that was Jacob bonding to a toddler.

But there was one scene that totally blew me away. Here’s the trailer, and the scene I’m waiting for is hinted at right at the end…

Yes, it’s the birthing scene. For those of you who don’t know what happens, and don’t care that I’m gonna spoil this shit like maggots on a piece of tenderloin, the birthing scene is FUCKING CRAZY. Here’s a bullet pointed list of the crazy:

• We get to HEAR an actual placenta displace! Really!
• Bella pees herself.
• Bella vomits a “fountain” (yes, really! A “fountain!”) of blood!
• There’s no need for an epidural as the baby BREAKS BELLA’S SPINE!
• Edward rips into his wife’s uterus like a hungry man confronted with a pot roast, delivering his own baby using his OWN MOTHERFUCKING TEETH.
• After delivering his baby with his OWN MOTHERFUCKING TEETH, Edwards proceeds to stab his wife multiple time with a venom-filled syringe.
• And this is when the whole Jacob-falling-in-love-with-the-baby-that-broke-mom’s-spine epic craziness begins.

Needless to say, I want it ALL. I want to see the piss darkening Bella’s jeans a moment after I hear that placenta rip away from her insides. I want that blood to FOUNTAIN like a goddamned geyser. I want to hear the crunch of the spine, and maybe get a little more pee as Bella loses all control over her lower body.

And for the ripping-the-baby-out-with-teeth part, I want it slow-mo, with much gnashing, and spitting of uterus chunks, and maybe some tears dripping from Edward’s eyes as he attacks Bella’s internal organs like a five-year-old with his first Pop Tart.

Then the stabbing should be done with gusto, as all venom-stabbings should, really. After which we cut to the grown man falling in love with the BABY which is totally okay, apparently, as they’re just going to be “friends” until the soon-to-be-stupidly-named-child is “ready for more.”

I’m tamping down the thrill, and the nausea, just imagining it all.

Seriously, I want that shit to be brutal because it’s what it deserves. Meyers didn’t fuck around when she wrote that scene: she apparently wanted it to be horrifying, and she achieved it. So don’t go pussyfooting around in the movie version, you movie makers!

Ideally, I want there to be YouTube videos going up all over the place with people’s reactions to seeing this birthing scene, just as there are for “Two Girls, One Cup.” Also, for the love of all that’s holy, if you don’t know what I mean when I say “Two Girls, One Cup,” DO NOT GOOGLE AND WATCH IT. YOU CAN’T EVER TAKE IT BACK AND YOU WILL FOREVER BE CHANGED, AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY.

I still can’t eat chocolate ice cream.

Anyway, seriously, I want the film version of Breaking Dawn to do justice to the original, in its blood-fountaining, peeing, uterus-chewing glory.

Do me proud, Hollywood. Do. Me. Proud.

There are NO MERMAIDS! And she’s dark-haired! It’s perfect! Plus I love the translation of the title. So that made me happy!

I never thought I’d be so happy to see a dearth of mermaids.

The other thing I wanted to tell you about is an author that rocks my casbah. Her name is Sarah Waters. She writes literary fiction, but they’re also rousing good stories. I’ve loved all of her books, but I read her latest, The Little Stranger, on the plane and it was gorgeous.

Waters’ prose has been called “neo-Victorian,” and although this is set post-World War II, the tone is very elegiac, and nostalgic of a more formal, pre-Modernist style of writing. It’s very much like the prose of, say, Henry James or Edith Wharton. This uncanny ability to mimic the style of different writing periods is Waters strong suit, but it’s never a cheap imitation. She really understands these styles: their limitations, their strengths, and how to play with each one in such a way that it’s never parody, but a sublime exploration of how various generations have attempted to communicate their life experiences using our limited, human tools of communication.

The Little Stranger is, primarily, an exploration of the British class system. But it really explores very universal ideas about how we glom on to ideas of things, and how those ideas rule our lives, even if we don’t want them to.

As with many of Waters other stories, this is also very much a ghost story. Like Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, however, Waters writes ghost stories in which it’s  never clear  whether the ghosts are genuinely paranormal or actually psychological. Indeed, I think that most of her books argue that this distinction doesn’t matter. A haunting–no matter what the origins–is about ideas. If you think about it, it’s never “random burst of light” that haunts people in stories, it’s a ghost that’s either related to the hauntee, or that has a terrible story of its own. We’re haunted by the ideas ghosts represent: by the cruelty of mortality, or the loss of a loved one, or the violence we beget upon one another. So hauntings are as much about ideas as they are about incorporeal beings that say “boo,” and so, in some ways, The Little Stranger is about the danger of ideas and ideologies. In this case, it’s the ideologies that built, upheld, and still buoy the British class system. But we all have our own dangerous ideologies that haunt our lives or our societies.

So it’s a great book. It’s not fast–it’s written in the style of a generation that would have been horrified by one of our contemporary thrillers. But the writing is beautiful, and the story is intriguing. I highly recommend all of Waters’ work, and this book is no exception.

Finally, I think I owe you guys a WIENER! The wiener of my contest to win one of Kat’s Greywalker books is LOLITAM! Congrats, LolitaM! Email me at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com, giving me your address and which of the books from this list you’d like.

For the rest of the weekend I’ll be cleaning, laundering, writing, and sweating at the gym or the yoga studio. For the wages of booktour sins must be paid in hard labor!

Finally, let me know in comments if there’s something you’d like me to talk about. I’ve been so busy with end of school, the tour, and book five I haven’t given much consideration to the blog. But let me know if there’s anything you’ve been hankering for.

And have a great weekend!

Below you’ll find my review in vlog form, along with some natterings about love, and details for a contest in which you can win a copy of Andrew’s book. Just follow the instructions, and see you in comments. Thanks!

The good news is, I’ve had a blast and I feel myself again. The bad news is, I’m a few days behind in my revisions. I’ve been working pretty steadily, but not quite steadily enough.

So I think I’m going to take one for the team and not do anything super crazy on New Years. While I’d love to take up all mah friend’s offers to get into Chicago and show it how to swing, I think I have to finish book 4.

The thing is, I’m going back to G’Burg the 2nd, and then I have Three Days of Frantic Preparation for our January residency for our MFA program, then I have the residency, and the day after the residency I fly to London.

So, yeah, it’s going to be nutso. And it will be so much LESS nutso if I have my revisions all done and shipped off BEFORE January 2nd, don’t you think?

What’s your opinion on what I should do? Book 4 or par-tay?

As for book 3, it’s all over the wild. As I said, once I get home I’ll do some Contests, Contests, Contests! And at least one vlog for you. With something cheekeh!

But for right now, here’s some Legacy stuff to wet your whistle:

A great review from Book Series Reviews.

An interview with an international giveaway!

Review from Nocturne Romance Reads

Melissa from My World interviews both Anyan  and Ryu with a contest!(these are all separate links.)

And a recent review of Book 1, Tempest Rising, in case you’re wondering what all the fuss is about.

If you’ve reviewed or interviewed me, and I haven’t pimped you out, remember you can always bother me on twitter, facebook, or email me at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com.

This’ll probably be my last post till I get back to G’Burg and start the Release Madness for Tempest’s Legacy. Have a FABULOUS New Years, drink something bubbly for me, remember not to make any stupid resolutions but instead make GOALS that you can achieve, and remember to buy Tempest’s Legacy! I heart you guys, and I can’t wait to see what y’all get up to in the New Year!

I’m releasing a book January First!

That said, I’m already getting confirmed reports of people spotting Legacy in the wild. With the holiday season, everything is shipping early, and people want to empty their store rooms. So what a fabulous gift…you can buy the first three books of the Jane True series for all your loved ones! Children adore it, and you won’t have to have that pesky “birds and bees” conversation… just let Jane do it for you! As for pets, they like to chew it up, and the elderly can use it as a pillow.

Or you can read it to see if Jane and that damned barghest FINALLY get around to doing it…..

But if you’re all, “My eyes are tired from wrapping packages,” or “I have developed carpal tunnel from Extreme Dreideling and can no longer hold a book,” have no fear! For all THREE Jane True’s will be out in audiobook by January Third. And let me tell you, they rock.  You have NO IDEA how nervous I was when I found out they were going to be made into audiobooks. I love audibooks, but have listened to some torturous ones in my day. Kate Reinders, however, does an excellent job as Jane. She never overacts and she gets the character. You can tell she’s having fun saying the lines, and she really delivers them just as Jane would. Sometimes, she gives a line more humor than I think it originally held. In short, she rocks!

But what if you’re unsure of whether even to BUY Legacy? What if you’re all, “And who the hell are you, telling me what to buy with my Christmas gift cards? HUH?” Here’s what some other people had to say about Legacy:

Romantic Times gave it 4 1/2 stars AND made it a Top Pick!

Publisher’s Weekly says, “Jane is sure to endear herself to new readers with her charm, sass, and vulnerability, while longtime fans will be thrilled by her magical and emotional growth.”

And as for the Blogosphere, they have been rather loud about this one!

CC2K

A GREAT Read

Books and Chat

Full Frontal Fantasy

Amberkatze Book Blog

Harriet Klausner (Pakong!)

Book Goggles

Urban Fantasy Investigations

In The Closet With a Bibliophile (love these reviews, and there are links to all 3 books)

My Book Addiction

Thoughts of a Scot

And some other cool lists on which I’ve spotted Jane are Women24′s Top Five Supernatural Series and The Barnes and Noble Book Club’s Top Paranormals of 2010.

In other personally edifying news, I just discovered I have a Wikipedia entry. This makes me stupidly excited, for some reason. Probably because I spend a significant portion of my existence reminding freshmen not to cite from this site.

I also have a blog post and contest running for Wicked Little Pixie’s Thirteen Wicked Days of Christmas, and a contest below (on my site!) that offers an audiobook if you buy Amanda Feral’s “Stocking Full of Coal.”

But speaking of contests, you say, what about YOUR contest for an audiobook of Tempest Rising?Well, the contest can has spoken!

According to the draw, the weiner of either an MP3 CD or a CD of Tempest Rising is Micaella! YAY Micaella!

BUT, because this is my site and I make all the rules, I will ALSO give either an MP3 CD or a CD of TR to Mary Wright. Why? Because she quoted Donne. And because I can. I love Donne!

So if Micaella and Mary will email me at iheartselkies (at) gmail (dot) com, I will send off your prize! Remember to specify whether you want the MP3 CD or the regular CD’s. Realistically, as I’m going home for the holidays today (Sunday the 18th) you will not be getting your prize till after the New Year. But as soon as I come back, I’ll ship it off!

Wish me luck, meanwhile, on the long drive home. I’m so excited to be back in Chicago! I love my new job, but I’m terribly lonely, and it will be so good to have a social life again, if just for a few weeks.

So see you soon and enjoy your holidays! And let me know if you spy Legacy!

As you can see at the bottom, Stocking is part of Ellora’s Cave’s Merry Kinkmas. Meanwhile, that title, and the book itself, has made me think a lot about kink.

I know, it’s a shocker.

Seriously, though, this book is awesome. Amanda Feral is the zombie socialite creation of Mark Henry, and we first saw her snarking, boffing, and eating (and not in the kinky way) her way through Happy Hour of the Damned, Road Trip of the Living Dead, and Battle of the Network Zombies.

Now she has her own book, and it’s a doozy. Amanda has created Justine Crenshaw, a woman who gets off on people poking her in the bruise. And that’s not a euphemism. I mean a real bruise.

So yeah, it’s dark. But–considering it’s about a bruise fetishist and it’s written by a flesh-eating zombie–it’s also bizarrely romantic. For Mark’s books always work on a number of levels, and this short story is no exception. Yes, it’s a smutty tale of a woman who wants to be poked while she’s poked, but it’s also about acknowledging our own lack of control; the painful acquisition of self-knowledge that only comes with exploring all of our aspects, even the dark ones; and the sort of relationship-compromises we make that are ultimately not compromises, but about genuinely opening ourselves up to another person.

In other words, it’s about just what it says on the package…it’s about kink.

Kink is one of those words we use a lot. Well, I use it a lot. I use it as a high five–”Girl, that is kinkeh!” I use it sarcastically– “I’m going to the grocery store.” “Ooo, kinkeh.” Sometimes I use it to indicate that someone has actually managed to shock me– “Oh. Wow. That is kinky.” Kink, in other words, can mean everything and nothing to me, like so many words we use and abuse in our society.

Dictionaries, meanwhile, agree that kink is something sexual which is “deviant,” or “peculiar.” For most of my friends, however, kink is usually stripped of the negative connotation that such definitions imply. Kink’s not merely something to be dismissed as wrong; instead it’s seen as something enlightening–we focus on the act of overcoming, or at least thinking through, the affective response we get from things that we find to be deviant or peculiar. Such challenges slap us in the face with our own expectations and assumptions and make us think differently about what we consider “normal.” And that’s what kink does, and why it can’t, really, be defined. After all, what I consider kinky is totally banal to others; while things another person considers totally beyond the pale are staid to me.

But we see, in Amanda’s short story, how kink is so much more than a measuring stick by which to judge others by such terms as “deviant” or “peculiar.” Instead, kink is about exploring our dark side, accepting our lack of control, and genuinely sharing ourselves with another person.

Justine knows that she’s got “issues,” and that they’re embodied (quite literally) in her bruise fetish. But that doesn’t matter–it is what it is. It’s her “thing,” but it’s also her shame. She hides her fetish. In doing so, however, she hides herself. And she suffers the consequences.

It’s only when she shares–when she opens up both her pain and her pleasure–that she finds redemption. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but like with most romances, this does have a happy ending. And yet, this happy ending isn’t a deus ex machina easy fix to a broken person. Instead, I think it reflects a reality about sex and sexuality that is very honest and true, even if it’s “packaged” in an imaginary fashion. The bruise fetish may be made up, but what Justine goes through seems very real, to me.

For what Justine really shares, when she shares her fetish, is herself. Not the part that we all present to the world–the J. Alfred Prufrock version, with our collars mounted firmly to our chins–but the stripped-naked, vulnerable core of ourselves. Quite literally, she shows her lover where she hurts, and indicates that she can’t get over that hurt–that she needs to feel it, over and over, to feel alive.

And instead of judging, her lover attempts to understand her, both with his mind and his body. He gives her a form of acceptance that challenges him, in turn. Indulging her fetish confronts his own expectations of paternalism and protectiveness, making him think beyond normative versions of masculine kindness and love to see how an act of apparent cruelty is the real kindness in this strange situation.

In other words, he puts aside his own issues and expectations to explore a woman who excites him. They both open themselves up–an ultimate act of bravery in our often cynical, closed-off world.

So for Kinkmas, maybe explore your kinks. Please don’t think you need to run off and boff the mailman, or commit sex acts on any rooftops. Kinks don’t have to be all that kinky–they’re what make you vulnerable, not your neighbor or your best friend. Try sharing yourself, a little, if there’s someone you think you can trust and who you think deserves that trust.

It’s a hell of a lot more exiting than a partidge in a pear tree, I can assure you.

And in the meantime, run out and buy Stocking Full of Coal. It’s so good, people. I’ll never look at the edge of a table the same way again, and I already looked at them funny. Meanwhile, for why I heart Mark Henry, check out his vlog on Wicked Little Pixie’s website. Hilarious!

Finally, how about a contest? If you buy Stocking Full of Coal and send me some sort of proof–a pic of you with it loaded on your ereader, the receipt, whatever–and COMMENT on this post to remind me it’s there (my inbox is a mess )–I’ll enter you to win EITHER an MP3 CD or the CD of Kate Reinders reading Tempest Rising.

Send me your proof to iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com.

I’ll randomly choose a winner on Christmas Eve Day, Friday December 24th. This is a separate contest from the one below, in which you can also win the audiobook of TR.

So go forth, purchase Stocking and enter to win an audiobook! Fun!

The lovely Jaye Wells and I are still going strong over at Border’s Babel Clash. We’ve talked about all sorts of interesting things involving heroines, humor, and urban fantasy. In my last post, I talked about why I added hedonism to the list, or why I chose to write a female character who’s so unapologetically self-indulgent.

In other news, I want to send out HUGE congrats to one of my fave UF authors, Carolyn Crane, whose sequel Double Cross just received a starred review from Romantic Times. I absolutely adored Mind Games and I can’t wait to read Double Cross. Carolyn’s created a world that’s truly unique in UF, and I find her books thrilling to read.

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Check out Carolyn’s books if you haven’t already. The first one was great, and the second looks like it’ll be even better.

All rightie, folks, with that I’m off to write more Jane. I’m at over 25.000 words on Eye of the Tempest and it’s going great.

I’m leaving you with this video about Newport, in Wales, that Dr. Ruth showed me and that I find endlessly entertaining. Ohhhhh how I love a Welsh accent.

See y’all back at the Emporium, soon.