What an incredible thing this Blogstream has turned out to be. Cruising around it I've found every shade of opinion and attitude -- some blogs are inspiring, engendering hope and purpose (even if they don't particularly try to) -- others provoke meditations on how miserable human beings are capable of making themselves -- and how ready they are to lay the blame elsewhere. I've really been astounded.

One blog that particularly fascinated me also was particularly depressing -- the blogger obviously hates his life, in almost every respect -- but what's even more affecting is his long list of "favorites", which all reflect the same experience -- despair and misery, all the way down. Astonishing!

But so many are hopeful, and uplifting -- and the best of these are the ones that are modest, and don't claim to inspire, but only reflect.

In short, I'm impressed with my fellow human beings and their ability to communicate.

(And of course all of this is fodder to the fictive imagination.)

Just posting to keep my hand in.
I'm taking a couple of weeks off school to get a little rest. I've found myself totally unable to concentrate in the last week or so. And tired all the time.
I've also been working on revising my first novel before sending out any more queries to agents. I'm fixing problems of pacing and point of view -- fixing one helps fix the other, actually. It really amazes me how much my writing improved from the beginning of the novel to the end, and from the end of the first to my current work -- and revising is still so important -- little things and big. The hardest thing is seeing the whole picture, and making discrete elements like characters, scenes, ideas right in themselves yet fitting and contributory to the whole.
I bought a very good little book on getting published called 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published & 14 Reasons Why It Just Might, by a real life publisher/editor, Pat Walsh. Very honest and straightforward, with insights on publishing realities that I haven't seen elsewhere. A lot of it I'm quite aware of after 7 years as a book retailer, but it might be news to other aspiring writers.
I hope I get some comments -- even Hi There -- from visitors -- I know I have a few a day, from the counter --

This is from near the end of my first novel, the scene in which Timu and Wythe consummate their love.

Each day her friends had come up often to visit her, but once her fever broke she had not seen Timu at all. She had tried to communicate with him, but found her mind so exhausted that her thoughts could not escape her ordinary consciousness. She felt their bond still open and embracing them both, but no specific thoughts had passed between them. Now she was beginning to feel truly lonely for him, and wondering why he didn’t come to her, and as if in answer to her wishes, the door of the chamber slowly opened and he put his head around into the opening.

“You are awake,” he said unnecessarily, coming in and quietly closing the door behind him.

“Yes -- I hardly feel tired at all now -- only my mind. My body is fine.” Wythe blushed when she saw his cheeks color. He was coming forward so slowly, it made her wonder if something were wrong, and she held her arms out to him, and only then did he drop his strange reserve, and in two steps he was at her side, and in her arms. She felt his now silky beard against her cheek, and his breath brushing her ear, and their hearts opened to one another. It seemed they should never part from this embrace, but at last Timu drew back from her a little, and she leaned against the pillows, and they simply looked at each other for many minutes, as if to impress in their memories everything they saw in one another. Finally Wythe reached out to him again, grasping his hands, and pulling him to her, so that in one quick movement he was on the bed beside her, and his arms were around her and she nestled in the familiar place below his shoulder. So many times he had held her this way, by firesides in the wilderness, in Telmi tents or cabins, and always there had been the task before them that they could not shun nor allow themselves to be distracted from. And now the task was truly done.

Timu stroked Wythe’s hair silently in the stillness of the late snowy afternoon, winding his fingers among the curls and listening to her soft sighs. At last he spoke very quietly and slowly.

“It is over now. And I think I know what we must do. Our bond must be sealed before we part, so that the power of it belongs to you alone. I have a different calling from yours, and the power would only harm me. You need it -- all of it.”

Wythe only nodded, understanding what she had already known in her heart for days. Now necessity and desire could both finally be fulfilled.

“One night of love,” Timu whispered, in a different, breathless voice. His fingers grazed the skin of her neck, stroking it with almost unbearable gentleness, and her sighs turned to quiet moans that repeated with each stroke. When she turned her face up to his he could see himself reflected in her dark eyes, and they brightened and widened as he slowly moved his lips toward hers, and drew her closer. He felt her tremble as she pressed her body against his, and as their lips touched at last she closed her eyes, and he felt her shudder and a soft cry escaped her throat and the tender pressure of their kiss. Then she simply clung to him, and he felt her tears upon his own cheek, and her body trembling, and he gripped her tightly and almost laughed. “Did you want me so much? Wythe --” he took her chin in his hand and turned her face so that he could look into her eyes, and he kissed her tears until she too was almost laughing -- “I will give you even greater joy before this night is over.”

Timu had long ago resolved that should this moment ever come he would treat Wythe with absolute patience and the most tender reserve. When they had discovered the pleasure they could enjoy in their minds that had become his standard, and though he knew now that their bodies too would be satisfied, he concentrated his attentions in their bond. So it was that he hardly knew what was happening to his body or hers or how the secrets of their flesh came to be revealed. But when their caresses had become their most intimate he realized with a slight shock what he should have known all along: that of his lovers, Wythe was the first to offer him her maidenhead. At first the knowledge frightened him, through his sympathy for the fear she might feel. But then his heart filled with joy, as he understood that her sacrifice had the power to purify him -- for both it would be a first time, and through this strange marriage of theirs he would be redeemed and renewed. He pulled back from her a little, to look into her face -- her parted lips and her wide eyes, misted with desire. “Do not be frightened,” he said softly, but she only clutched him closer, pulling his weight down upon her. “I’m not frightened,” she whispered, with her hand on the back of his head, guiding his lips to hers. “I love you.”

In the first moments of pain Timu felt the pressure of Wythe’s teeth against the flesh of his shoulder, but she didn’t cry out, and he bore this little wound with nearly a feeling of humility, even wishing that it might leave a scar. And when her pain was past, and the need of their bodies overtook and drove them, he felt the light of her mind embracing and engulfing him, and knew she felt his, penetrating her and expanding with the fulfillment of the power they had shared through the long days and nights of their restraint. And in this timeless moment, they gave themselves to each other and to the power, completely.

In the remaining hours of the night they made up their minds to be happy lovers, intent on knowing as many of each other’s secrets and desires as they could, to find, in this one night, love sufficient to last them their whole lives.


Night was fading into dawn when Timu arose and dressed and left Wythe sleeping. He placed one tender kiss upon her bare shoulder before he pulled the sheet and coverlets up around it, and left the room, and closed the door behind him, and did not look back.

He was not surprised to find Farin waiting for him in the stable.

“So, you really are leaving her. How can you do it?”

Timu turned to saddle his horse, the one he had ridden from Essin to his family’s harvest, when he had been a different man. “It is her wish. It is a necessity.”

“It is incomprehensible,” Farin replied. He remained silent awhile as he watched Timu prepare his mount. “What will you do?”

Timu tightened the girth of the saddle, then slipped the bit into the horse’s mouth and settled the bridle around its ears, giving its neck a reassuring pat. “Go to sea, I think. It is something I have often thought of.”

Farin shook his head. “Well, the gods go with you.” And he shook his head again, and gripped Timu by the shoulders, before he could lead his horse from its stall.

“May the Creator bless you, my dear madman,” he said, and embraced Timu, giving him a kiss on each cheek. Then he released him, and watched him mount and ride out of the castle gate, into the first light of morning.

Since I've been spending more time cruising the blogstream I've noticed a definite trend -- blogs about sex, or that imply sexual content, definitely have more visitors. Way more.
I'm not surprised, but at the same time I am a little puzzled. While sexual activity itself never gets boring (in my experience) reading and writing about it always does, eventually (also in my experience.)
Am I weird?
Some writing about sex is superior, of course -- not talking about any of the blogs I've read here, but about published stuff. For instance --
I'd rather read de Sade than Anne Rice, even though the essential activity is the same, maybe nastier in de Sade -- but at least he expressed the philosophical implications of his interests -- didn't just endlessly describe perversions. Likewise The Story of O is more satisfying, because it explores plausible emotional conditions and responses. I've been amused and intrigued by Henry Miller too, for his skill of expression and thoughtfulness.
Mere description, even if it's initially stimulating, eventually becomes cloying, then stale, and ultimately tedious. Sometimes it's downright comical, when it doesn't mean to be.
And of course the best writing about sex encompasses the entire human response, not just physical pleasure -- emotional stimulation, anticipation, social interactions, emotional consequences -- in a manner that makes it a vicarious experience for the reader.
I prefer not to be graphic in my own writing -- I think it takes more skill to indicate the experience of my characters through less direct description -- and in a way that kind of expression is truer.

I've been browsing art websites, looking for images to match my conception of my characters -- Wythe's type is hard to find in Renaissance art itself, but abounds in pre-Raphaelite paintings. The picture I identify with Timu grabbed me instantly -- and I've since found out it's a very well-known and much copied portrait, by Raphael, of a young nobleman/banker. The real subject's character even seems to have some correspondence with Timu's -- in later life he became a prominent financier who stood up to the Medici. All I can say is that this portait is just the way I've been imagining my protagonist. The reproduction here isn't perfect as far as color is concerned -- his eyes and his clothing are both actually bluer.