The Crazy Things We Do For Love

I’ve done some crazy things for love.

A few years ago, a boyfriend and I were suffering from a long period of time apart. We hadn’t seen each other in almost six weeks, and we both lamented every lonely moment of it when we slept alone in our respective beds. Then, an unexpected treasure: He somehow found three days free in an otherwise packed schedule. He would meet me at the airport. Could I get there?

Never mind that he was thousands of miles away. I was in Music City, USA. He was in Sydney, Australia. But what does a little distance matter when you’re in love?

Could I get there, he asked? Of course I could get there! When?

Next week?

Ooooookay...and oooooh, boy.

It would mean juggling deadlines, rearranging a solid week of plans, and getting out of a friend’s wedding. I would have to work hard and heavy to finish all my writing obligations early.

No matter.

A flight from Nashville, Tennessee to Sydney, Australia can take – depending on the airlines, layovers and the Gods of Accurate Departure Times – twenty hours or so. That’s almost an entire day and night of airtime, most of it over ocean so impossibly vast that looking down on it boggles the mind. The flight crosses the International Date Line, so that when you arrive you have either lost a day or gained one, depending upon whether you are going or coming. Touching down with a whole day missing – or magically restored – is enough to make one believe in time travel.

Did I do the sane thing and consider all the options? Did I use common sense? Did I slow down long enough to think about the fact that he would be returning to the US in four weeks anyway?

Think? Slow down? Are you kidding?

The next several days found me sacrificing sleep to a point of absurdity. Finishing deadlines to free my schedule. Apologies to friends. Boarding the very annoyed dog. Twenty-four hours on a plane (the Gods of Accurate Departure Times were apparently on vacation). Hellacious turbulence and more than a few prayers.

Finally, touchdown – and there he was, waiting for me at the gate.

The closest we came to leaving the hotel was making love on the balcony. We survived on nothing but wine and a fruit basket. We devoured each other instead, loving with a vigor that left us with sore muscles, bruises and not a single wink of uninterrupted sleep. We made up for every day of those six weeks apart. It was glorious.

We had a grand total of fifty hours together before the plane took me away again.

I left Sydney at a wonderful eighty-five degrees. I returned to Nashville to find four inches of snow and temperatures just slightly above freezing. I came home with a cold from breathing recycled cabin air, a cramp in my leg from sitting for so long, a bank account much diminished thanks to last-minute airfare, and a complete uncertainty of what day it really was.

Why did I do it? I loved him, that’s why!

Love brings out the irrational part of us faster than anything else ever could. We start to see the possible in the impossible. We become willing to fly across the world at a moment’s notice. We play the same songs over and over, just because it was the one that played on our first date. We send love letters like we were back in elementary school, smile like a goofball and drive our friends mad with constant descriptions of that one little tiny thing our beloved did or said. We become obsessed with that soul-searing, heart-lifting, sweetest lightness that only love can bring.

Flying to Australia is not the only crazy thing I’ve done for love. I’ve made shorter trips, crossing a country for the sake of stolen moments with a lover. For sweethearts I have written songs, poems, stories, even whole novels. I’ve spent more money than I could afford on tokens of affection. I once wrote a message of adoration for a man – in ten-foot-tall letters on a public billboard.

It wasn’t the first time, really. When I was in first grade I wrote “I Love Adam” on the class blackboard in the biggest letters I could manage. He responded by kissing me on the school bus. All was beautiful in our young love until our parents were called by the headmaster. Oops!

Maybe I got into a bit of trouble for those stunts – but were they worth it, you ask?

You bet your fluttering heart they were, my friend.

How could doing something crazy for love not be worthwhile? The best moments are spontaneous, from the heart with no-holds-barred. Even if the relationship doesn’t work out in the long run (alas, Mr. Australia didn't), letting yourself turn into a love-stricken fool is always memorable.

Perhaps the most crazy-wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me when it comes to love is the most simple: Giving the gift of himself. Shortly after I met the love of my life, there came a night when he dropped everything, moved his very busy schedule around, hopped in his car and headed my way. He showed up on my doorstep during the wee hours of the morning, unannounced and unexpected. Why? I was lonely. He thought I might want a hug.

I got my hug, and he got me. I’m going to marry him. I figure we’re both crazy enough to keep each other happy for the rest of our lives.

That’s my story...what’s yours? What’s the craziest thing you ever did for love – or the craziest thing your love ever did for you?

I once knew a girl called Maria...

...and she won the Violet Blue competition!

Maria, lover of all things romance, congratulations, and please drop us a line at lustbites blog at yahoo dot com to claim your prize.

Merci!

Male/male Historical Erotic Romance

Here at Lust Bites we are always pleased to hear from people who are doing new and different things with the genre. A lot of erotic romance topics can feel done to death. Fresh new thrills are always top of our list of treats. So we couldn't wait to get Erastes - author of male/male historical erotic romance Standish - on the blog and find out all about her small but perfectly formed genre - where you get not one but two gorgeous men striding out in their breeches and, quite often, striding out out of their breeches too.

Erastes: Well, hello everyone, it's nice to be here. I've been lurking for a while, reading the syndicated posts via LiveJournal and I've been enjoying the posts and the discussions that you generate here.

I'd always wanted to write but although having started a couple of projects which founded after a few chapters, I didn't succeed and I finally gave up, thinking that I had no plotting abilities. This all changed in July 2003, when I discovered fanfiction - entirely by accident. I had no idea that "fandoms" existed up to that point. I read a couple of fan fics, thought "I can do this" and wrote a 66k word Harry Potter novella dealing with what Lucius Malfoy got up to in the book Order of the Phoenix when he wasn't actually on the page. Although it was fun, I finished it and thought. "Mmmm. That was a spectacular waste of effort, I can't sell it!" I decided to convert it into original fiction, the idea being I'd change the names and places, remove or warp some of the magic and wouldn't have to do too much.

However, as other authors will know, things rarely work the way you set out for them to do. The book wouldn't listen, the characters evolved into different beings entirely (to my considerable joy) and it utterly refused to have anything to do with Potterdom or magic. It turned into a homoerotic regency romance and Standish was born.

It is now my aim to attempt to help drag historical homosexual romance into the mainstream and to make the publishers and review sites take it seriously as a genre.

I'm re-writing and editing my second novel Transgressions which is based around the English Civil War and is nearly ready to start getting sent out to publishers, and I'm about half way through Junction X which isn't strictly what the Historical Novel Society would deem "historical" as it's set in 1960's English Suburbia, but has been as much of a challenge, research-wise as any of the others.

Why gay romance?

I actually worried about myself the first time I read a gay story and was turned on by it. Believe me, I've had the least sheltered life you can imagine, but I'd never considered that homoerotica could be hot. But it was. Then I thought …"Hang on, what's most straight men's favourite fantasy? Two women!" So that being the case, it made perfect sense that I found two beautiful men in bed together alluring.

I should of course point out here, that I'm not a man, in spite of the name and the web-bio – I chose the name Erastes because at the beginning I didn't think that men would want to read gay erotica written by a woman and now I'm stuck with "him". I had no idea that most people writing and reading gay erotica (particularly in fandom) are women, and I'm pleased to say that both gay and straight men and gay and straight women enjoy my stuff, so I must be doing something right!

Why historical fiction then?

There are a lot of people writing contemporary but not that many writing historical gay fiction. Granted the word "gay" didn't come into that use until last century but homosexuality wasn't invented last century (or indeed "invented" at all). The interest in writing homosexual historical fiction for me is to attempt to portray it as realistically as possible. I don't want to write (or to read about) men in earlier centuries with modern attitudes. I want them to be aware of the danger of what they are doing, of the attitudes of the government, the church, even their neighbours.

This makes gay fiction difficult to resolve into a HEA – in my opinion. Two men from the 17 th Century in England would find it as difficult and as dangerous to set up house together as lovers as Jack and Ennis (Brokeback Mountain) would have done in 60's America. However there are ways to infer that they will be happy without having an anachronistic gay wedding. Lee Rowan manages it perfectly in her Ransom – set in Nelson's Navy, and Emily Veinglory does it well, too, in The Highwayman.

Personally, in the two novels I have finished, I've allowed the reader to decide what happens after the curtain falls. Can a rake and an innocent be happy and will Rafe ever be faithful? Can a Puritan and a King's man find a common path in Cromwell's England? What happens next? I hope that the reader cares enough to worry about my characters after the last page – that's the nicest compliment of all.

So – any questions? Don't be shy!

(We are also giving away a copy of Standish to one lucky commenter. So even if you don't have a specific question, just pop in and say 'hi' and 'gimme'
MM x)

Coming Attractions

By Mathilde Madden

No 'Coming Attractions' last week as I was wrestling werewolves into an A4 envelope. Sorry about that. I hope the picture makes up for it. It is dedicated to the ever inquisitive Nikki Magennis, who wanted to know if Marcus had his knickers on in this picture. Well, of course, not. He is in the shower. He might be very, very pretty but he is not an idiot.

On Monday fresh from the success of her debut novel Standish is the wonderful Erastes to tell us why on earth a woman would want to write a male/male historical romance? Surely not just to avoid the tiresome So have you done all the things in your books? question.

Meanwhile Gwen Masters will be here on Wednesday with more fascinating questions. What's the craziest thing you've ever done for love? Knowing our viewers this could be, um, interesting. We'll be adding our thoughts, and possibly taking notes.

And talking of craziness, I don't think I can think of anything crazier than trying to write a novel with another human person. Trust me, I don’t play well with others. But Dayle A Dermatis and Teresa Noelle Roberts seem to thrive on it, cracking out novels and short stories together as Sophie Mouette and indulging in dalliances with other writing partners too. Well, how does that work then? All will be revealed on Friday when they show us their hive mind at work by co-writing a blog post for us.

Tilly aka Mathilde Madden
Still your first choice for snark, wordplay and dangerously naked men.

Oiling the Infernal Desire Machines of Madelynne Ellis

by Mr Madelynne Ellis

So, what’s it like being the partner, confidante and (ahem) muse of an erotic writer? It’s all questions, like one long interview, or maybe a pub quiz, and it usually starts like this…

'So does your wife work?'

'She's not my wife. We're living in sin.'

'Oh. So is she just a housewife?'

Ha! If housewives were paid the going rate for what they do, they'd earn more than company directors.

'Actually, she's a writer.'

'Oh, that's great! Has she had anything published?' (As in: what a lovely hobby for the little woman.)

'Why yes. She's got three novels in print and a fourth has just been commissioned.'

'Wow! So what does she write?'

You asked for it...

'Porn. She writes porn.'

Expressions range from Gobsmacked Goldfish to Randy Gargoyle, but at this point it's anyone's guess where the conversation goes next. All right, I've got a sadistic streak that likes baiting people. Sometimes it upsets their little world, sometimes they make vague promises to read her books. Sometimes they've even read some Black Lace already.

I'd better say that I'm immensely proud of what Madelynne does. She's following her dream. It's kinda cool to have an artist in residence, and I think she's a fucking excellent writer. I know, I'm biased. But not very biased. Plus anything that accelerates the decline and fall of western civilisation has got to be good.

But it (she) is sometimes a pain in the arse. Oh, the birth pangs of a new plotline. All the pacing and knuckling of the forehead is exhausting to watch, and so is the agonising self-doubt as editors and publishers prevaricate about accepting a submission. I've offered to form a posse and do some kneecapping, but she won't have it.

Sometimes the Artist In Residence looks up at me as I cut my bloody swathe through Resident Evil (How many guys do you know who get left in peace to play videogames all evening?) to ask a question.

'Can you think of a Japanese/Egyptian/Atlantean name?'

I sometimes feel like I'm being mined for my knowledge of everything from comics to blokey attitudes towards sex. Do you all do that to your partners? Doesn't it wear them out sometimes?

'Do you like my new notebook?' (Madelynne has a notebook fetish. Art deco, paisley, mock Victorian, whatever. Her latest has spiders all over it, and she bought two of them. I just nod and smile.)

Sometimes if she's struggling with the biomechanics of some piece of sexual athleticism, and the limbs don't fit or someone can't reach a nipple or a clit, I have to get up and be an artist's bendy model while she works out what's humanly possible and what only happens in hentai. I keep trying to persuade her to buy me a Real Doll for this kind of thing, but apparently, the job doesn't pay enough.

This all started thanks to my excellent friend Dom, who had the first book dedicated to him. And no, he's nothing like Vaughan (well maybe a teensy bit). Anyway, at that point Madelynne was between crappy imagination-killing jobs, so I agreed that if she's going to do it, she might as well do it properly. For a long time I fended off family from both sides who kept asking why the hell she didn't get a proper job, so I felt hugely vindicated when Kerri Sharp picked up A Gentleman's Wager. Now they keep asking why the hell she doesn't write a proper book. Grr.

We have an arrangement on weekends. Saturday she works, Sundays I work. It's frustrating, I guess, being a writer, suffering for your art, working in isolation, but it must beat the 9 to 5 (or in my case, midnight to midnight). Every now and then, she asks if we can swap. She'll go to work, I get the kids, the laptop, daytime TV and the struggle to find a hundred different ways to say 'penis'.

Sweetheart, sugar, you have no idea what you're saying.

'Can you read this? What do you think of it?'

Being Mr Madelynne Ellis sometimes means being a mean, curmudgeonly bastard, but as the first person to comment on her work, I've always been honest. Brutally honest. You need that, as writers, oh yes you do. You might not like it, but just look at what happens to famous authors when no one is brave enough to say 'This is crap. Go write a different book.' That sucking noise is the sound of someone vanishing up their own proverbial.

By the way, you know that question? I get it too.

'So, have you done all the things in her books?'

Yeah! We make hot monkey love every night! I'm just like those hunky love gods that live in her kinky little head! And, 'cos she's a writer, she has to watch and take notes, so I get to take home all these babes and shag them stupid. Although it's not so much of a perk since she got into yaoi...'

No, I haven't been brave enough yet. I'm saving that answer for someone really annoying.

I've just been instructed to put in a discussion point. Errmm... okay, friends, lovers and relatives of writers, artists and other dreamers. How much do you do for the writer in your life? Do you put their books at the front of the pile in service stations, or link websites? Have you ever given their book as a present to someone? Ever posted a review for a friend? How about requesting a copy for a library? Anyone ever done anything really cheeky? Like this... link.

Mr Madelynne Ellis

PS. Visit Madelynne's website http://www.madelynne-ellis.com/

Wednesday Chat: Writing Erotica vs. Writing Everything Else

by Shanna Germain

Yah! It's time for the Wednesday morning pop quiz here at Lust Bites land.

What? Oh, you need coffee before quizzes? Okay, go get your caffeine. I'll wait.

OK, Ready now? Good. Here goes: Can you guess who said this to me in the last year?

"You're so talented! What are you wasting your time writing that sex stuff for?"

Here, I'll give you some choices to make it easier:

A. My grandmother
B. My neighbor
C. One of my editors
D. One of my best friends
E. Another writer
F. A stranger making a comment on my blog

See how easy that was? Do you have your answer? Great, let's see how you do.

If you guessed all of the above, you'd be right. (Yes, I know that wasn't an option, but that's just the way we do things around here; we're always making you think). Give yourselves a big gold star and a hand (or a hand-job, depending on your mood).

Like many writers, I write about lots of things in lots of genres. In addition to erotica, I’ve written and published poetry, non-erotic fiction, essays, articles, shorts and even a book on interior decorating. And it’s true that people are always commenting on my "literary skills,” which is sweet and flattering—until they follow that up by asking why I continue to waste my time and talent writing smut.

For me, the question is absurd, but the answer is multi-faceted. First off, anything that I love to do—and that others love to read—never feels like a waste of time to me. Second, I’m a writer first, but a business woman second. So even if I didn’t love to write about sex, I’d write about it because I’m good at it and because it makes me a lot more money than iambic pentameter.

There are a million other reasons, of course, but I'm more interested in hearing what you think. Does erotica have as much "talent value" as other types of writing (and reading?). If you write it, are you just doing it until something more literary comes along? Does it deserve a higher place on the literary value scale, or should it continue to be just brain (and body) candy? (This part of the pop quiz doesn't have any wrong answers, so don't be afraid to jump in and say what you think!)

Best,
Shanna

p.s. While we don’t have a prize for you if you answered our earlier pop quiz correctly (other than that warm-n-fuzzy feeling of being right), we are offering a chance to win some luscious prizes from Violet Blue, including her book Fetish Sex: An Erotic Guide for Couples. Just go here and leave a comment to enter!

p.p.s. Lastly, for those of you who are wondering (which is probably no one, but I can pretend right?), why yes, the photo up-top is of me. How nice of you to notice. Erotic? Literary? Both? You decide.

Lust Bites Interviews Violet Blue…

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