Love in Dark Settings

News: Two final Hurricane Gustav updates

2008-09-03T06:57:37Z

Click on the links for the news articles. The articles are located at an adults-only site.

"All of a sudden we realized it was 2 pm, which should have been the start of the Southern Decadence Parade, so we all did a SD toast and celebrated the event with a bar crawl to the Phoenix."

No injuries have been reported from club members after Hurricane Gustav.

News: Levee begins to fail in parishes outlying New Orleans

2008-09-01T22:25:17Z

Click on the link for the news article. The article is located at an adults-only site.

Reports on club and group lists continue to offer reassurance about the safety of members of the leather and BDSM communities.

News: Upper Ninth Ward threatened as BDSM and leather community members remain safe

2008-09-01T15:24:52Z

Click on the link for the news article. The article is located at an adults-only site.

New Orleans media sources are reporting that waves are coming over the east side of the Industrial Canal levee into New Orleans's Upper Ninth Ward.

News: Reports arrive from club members affected by hurricane

2008-09-01T11:56:17Z

Click on the link for the news article. The article is located at an adults-only site.

"As a new day dawned on Monday, leatherfolk and BDSM folk who are currently undergoing Hurricane Gustav have been reporting that all is well so far."

News: Remaining Southern Decadence events cancelled

2008-08-31T20:48:54Z

The following is a press release from Ambush Mag, the GLBT newspaper in New Orleans, concerning the gay New Orleans festival, Southern Decadence, scheduled for this weekend.

The news.

News: Gays leave New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav strengthens

2008-08-31T04:42:30Z

Click on the link for the news article. The article is located at an adults-only site.

"Gustav sounds like black leather, whips and cuffs."

Daily Life: I'm petitioning for a thirty-hour day

2008-08-30T20:03:47Z

"GROUND RULES:

"1. No character-bashing, pairing-bashing or het/slash/whatever-bashing in your comments, period. All characters, pairings and show eras welcome. If you're sick unto death of reading about [insert name here] and [insert name here] doing [insert activity here], well, life's a vale of tears.

"2. Someone writing a story that does horrible and painful things to your favorite character is not considered 'character-bashing.' It is rather considered 'one of the defining purposes of this community.'"

--Community information for solid_leather.

Topics in this post: The light at the end of the tunnel, when gay writing gets really bad, nutrient calculating, the offline roots of my Internet addiction, my advice to writers on how to get readers to visit your site, Internet round-up, monastic science fiction, "Whipster" and an anniversary, fall cleaning and winter reading, closer to the deadline, down to the wire, no no no!

For newcomers: Background to my writing entries | Background to my mentoring entries | Background to my simplicity entries | Background to my home entries.

*** 21 August 2008. Home, Writing, and Simplicity: The light at the end of the tunnel.

"Are you seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?" my stepmother asked.

"More like the tunnel's back wall rushing towards us," I replied.

Nevertheless, I've made some significant progress today. I confirmed the time for the service, and my mother's obituary was published, so I can now send out notices to everyone who has written to us or who needs to be notified. On the writing side, I've gotten everything done before my next Website update except for approximately one hour's worth of proofreading and two or three hours' worth of editing, both for Whipster - plus, of course, the layout for the novel. The cover art for "Whipster" is done, and the booktrailer is well on its way to being done. (Don't get me started on the trauma I went through in locating appropriate, Creative-Commons-licensed music.)

September should be easier, since I've only scheduled myself for three weeks' worth of updates. I've decided not to visit my apprentice next month. It's a disappointment for both of us, but it's just not the right time for me to be going to a leather run (which was part of the scheduled visit).

Because I won't be going out of town, and because I'm not going to Gaylaxicon, I'm letting my Website updates drift a bit over into October, but I'll still start transitioning over to my winter schedule in mid-October, as I'd planned. There will be a period when I'm scanning books to read over the winter and catching up on the past year's business e-mail, and then I'll be officially into my homebound, hermit part of the year, with no blog reading and no Web surfing except for research reasons (and I'm going to try to avoid that as much as possible this year). I'll still check my e-mail, but this year, I plan to put any business e-mail that requires me to go onto the Web into a "hold" folder till the spring (though acknowledging the letters, of course). There's a technical name for this: "Realizing that you can sometimes let the answering machine take the message rather than always answering the phone in the middle of dinner."

*** 22 August 2008. Writing: When gay writing gets really bad.

I don't usually play the "make fun of bad writers" game. (I want to encourage bad writers to become good writers, and ridiculing them doesn't accomplish that.) But my apprentice has sent me a real doozy that I just must pass along. Here's his e-mail. Don't blame my apprentice for the bad punctuation and misspelling in the quoted passage.

o--o--o

Here's the address for the whole series, Sir.

The entire series is all about a secret, perfect gay male world, Sir, but this exchange in part 2 is the best I think. (NB: Y-Ys are boys who have no X chromosome to taint and dilute their manliness.)

* * *

"Shame...if only society realized that they are being protected by Y-Ys, who are all homosexual, perhaps they'd have a different attitude, one of gratitude." Todd suggested.

"No likely, I fear, Todd, not likely. Heterosexuals are raised from infancy, in most cases, to detest homosexuals. They tend, therefore, to be quite closed-minded about it. It's also a technique they employ to suppress their own homosexual desires, as all heterosexuals have, or, at least, perry away any thoughts others might have to consider one homosexual. It's all a load of bullshit, but it's the reality we are surrounded by." I explained.

"Yeah, I see lots of so-called straights checking me out in the showers. They are attracted to other guys and like examining the genitals of other guys. You're right, Barry, it's all bullshit." Jason reported.

"It's women who, more than anyone, impose their anti-gay bigotry upon their sons, while, at the same time, they fondle and even masturbate their infant sons, so that they subliminally recognize that sexual pleasure is to be derived from women." I reported.

"Really?" Todd asked.

"Sure...talk to any psychologist." I replied.

* * *

I'm not sure where the other propaganda bits are, but the writing is atrociously stilted, especially since all the boys use only the medical Latinate to refer to their genitals, even during sex. . . .

Your apprentice, who hopes he never gives you something this bad to beta, Sir.

o--o--o

*** 22 August 2008. Simplicity: Nutrient calculating.

After photoash was kind enough to give her thoughts at LiveJournal on my earlier entry about my diet, I decided to spend a day seeing whether I was getting sufficient nutrients.

Here's what I ate today. You can see that it's somewhat different from what I proposed in my earlier entry; I didn't cut back on nonfat milk, and I allowed myself a bit of peanut butter. I deliberately chose a day when I would be indulging in chocolate. However, I did eliminate juices and high-fat cheeses, and I added in more vegetables and legumes.

o--o--o

2 slices whole grain bread.
1/4 cup bean mixture (green split peas, yellow split peas, lentils, cranberry beans, great northern beans, and pine beans).
1/4 cup "slaw" mixture (grated carrots, red cabbage, and green cabbage).
Half a tomato.
Water.
Half an orange.

2/3 cup whole wheat couscous.
1 cup mixed vegetables, steamed (butternut squash, green cabbage, daikon radish, collard greens, and yellow onion).
2 tablespoons part-skim mozzarella cheese.
1 cup strawberry puree mixed with water.
Odwalla Chocolate Chip Peanut bar.
16 ounces nonfat milk.

2 slices whole grain toast.
1 tablespoon nonfat yogurt cheese.
Half a pear.
1/4 cup clover sprouts.
Water.

Spinach-mushroom soup (1/4 cup spinach and 1/4 cup mushrooms, with a bit of onions).
Water.
Whole wheat cinnamon raisin toast.
1 tablespoon natural peanut butter.
8 ounces nonfat milk.

o--o--o

Here's what it adds up to in terms of food groups (with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid guidelines in parentheses).

o--o--o

Grain: 6 servings. (Food Pyramid: 6-11 servings.)
Vegetables: 4.5 servings. (Food Pyramid: 3-5 servings.)
Fruit: 3 servings. (Food Pyramid: 2-4 servings.)
Dairy: 3+ servings. (Food Pyramid: 2-3 servings.)
Beans, nuts, and seeds: 1 serving. (Food Pyramid: 2-3 servings.)

o--o--o

And here are the nutrients, which, um, took some figuring. Several hours' worth. Obviously, they're approximate, since most of the meals were homemade. I'm expressing them in the percentage of my own required daily allowance. I've listed the nutrients that are on the food labels, as well as nutrients that vegetarians are often short on.

o--o--o

Fat: 130% of minimum, 74% of maximum (i.e. I'm approximately in the middle of the range of acceptable fat content).
Sodium: 93%.
Carbohydrate: 261%.
Fiber: 257%.
Protein: 198%.
Vitamin A: 787%.
Vitamin C: 317%.
Vitamin D: 75%.
Riboflavin (Vitamin B-2): 246%.
Vitamin B-12: 162%.
Calcium: 174%.
Iron: 114%.
Zinc: 54%.

o--o--o

Clearly, I'm in no great danger of vitamin deficiency. :) Unfortunately, what allowed me to reach my allowances in several of the categories was the milk, which had the nasty side effect of driving up my protein and calorie counts, as did the grains. (The couscous weighed in at 440 calories. By contrast, the spinach-mushroom soup was 14 calories.) I'm not sure how to deal with that factor. Leaving aside the milk issue, I need to have grains in my diet.

At any rate, after looking through a bunch of sites, I've decided that one of the single biggest factors in weight loss is - *duh* - exercise. I'm confused, though, as to how much exercise I need. Every site and book I consult tells me that, in order to lose weight, one needs to burn more calories than one eats in a day. But when I checked what that translated into, I found that an hour's worth of moderate exercise burns off something like 300-600 calories.

The U.S. government says that the average daily calorie count is 2000-2500. Excuse me? That translates into three to seven hours' worth of moderate exercise just in order to maintain one's present weight. That can't be right. (And yes, I did the figures for how many additional calories one burns off while sitting at a desk. The numbers still don't add up.)

Anyone want to decipher this mystery for me? I've always been bad at math.

*** 24 August 2008. Simplicity: The offline roots of my Internet addiction.

I was searching through my old journals for a quotation and accidentally ran across evidence that, as I'd suspected, my addiction to browsing pre-dates my addiction to Web browsing.

Here's what I wrote in August 1993, before I had a computer with access to the Internet. (As will become clear, I was a Christian and was considering the possibility of raising children at the time I wrote the entry.)

o--o--o

The last day or so, I've been asking myself, why have I gone from a lifelong pattern of being in a continual slight depression to being in a continual slight manic state. For there is no ignoring the fact that this is what has happened. All the signs are there. I flit from trivial task to trivial task, without tackling the real jobs that need to be done. I spend hours in libraries, checking out books which mainly don't get read. I have almost reached the state - incredible for me - where I am watching television more than I am reading books. My reading is almost entirely nonfiction - little of it substantive, most of it "popcorn" books, tasty but without real content.

In other words, I am living the kind of junk food life of the mind that I thankfully gave up a year ago as far as food was concerned. It is no wonder that I am having to force myself to get real work done - with my mind full of "junk food," it's impossible for me to appreciate real food.

What can be done? Certain steps are obvious: I must cut down on my television viewing and spend less time in libraries. But I am afraid of the real answer to my problems.

As much as possible, I must only read substantive books.

It was some reading I did yesterday which made clear to me the effect which literature is having on me. I spent most of yesterday evening reading an interesting but lightweight book on the history of the Book of Common Prayer. By the end of the evening I was very tense. Just before I went to bed, I read the first chapter of one of Madeleine L'Engle's theological books. Just that one chapter relaxed me a great deal.

But why? The BCP book dealt with controversy, which might be expected to make me edgy, but L'Engle's book dealt with evil, which is not exactly a relaxing subject. The difference, I'm sure, dealt with the substance of the books. And I'm not sure I could define the difference between a lightweight book and a substantive one, but I know the difference. It has to do with how much effort I must make to enjoy the book. The Wind in the Willows is a far more substantive book than, say, an average scholarly book on the history of England. It makes more demands on the reader, reaches further toward their heart.

I know, from bitter experience, that lightweight books aggravate my mania, while substantive books help to heal it. And there lies the rub: if my mania has increased over the past year, I need put the blame no further than the research I'm doing for my books. If you want lightweight writing, try your average academic treatise.

But, I protest to God, how can I give up lightweight reading without giving up my research? Isn't this what you wanted me to do? Wasn't the idea to be a nonfiction writer your gift to me?

But even I can see that, leaving aside the way the rest of my life is deteriorating, this mania is causing my writing grave problems also. I can't produce good writing, or even good research, as long as I am in a continual manic state.

So what is the answer? Is there a way in which I can continue with my nonfiction research? I don't know. . . .

Here, then, are my resolutions:

1) Cut back on my television viewing.

2) Cut back on my library visits, and cut back drastically on my browsing, which is causing the worst problems.

3) Stop thinking about my home schooling schemes [i.e. reading lots and lots of books about home schooling]; this is one of the worst manifestations of my mania.

4) Cut back on all lightweight reading.

5) Stop flitting from task to task.

6) Cut back on all unimportant work (such as the hour I spent today putting together a schedule for psalm reading).

o--o--o

It's rather frightening that, with a word or two altered (for example, "computer surfing" instead of "television viewing"), those are still my unfulfilled resolutions, fifteen years later. And the dilemma I mentioned - how to do research without triggering my mania - remains a live one; indeed, the situation has become worse, because now I have the same dilemma in regards to marketing my stories.

It's also frightening that this entry reveals that I had all the symptoms of someone who was susceptible to becoming an Internet addict. Why didn't I make a connection between my compulsive library browsing and my potential for compulsive Web browsing? I think it's because I didn't yet realize in 1993 that my browsing was compulsive; I still thought of it as something that was entirely under my control, so that a little self-discipline was all I needed to deal with the matter.

It's too bad that people aren't given opportunities to test themselves for signs that they have the potential for addiction in various areas. If I'd been given such a test in my senior year of high school, it would have been far more helpful to me than taking another ditto quiz on historical dates. But I suppose that, pre-Internet Era, nobody realized that there was such a thing as being addicted to text.

A book I read a few years ago said that Internet addiction doesn't really correspond in any exact way with other obsessive behaviors. However, Internet addiction has the same sort of repetitive instant gratification as gambling addiction and shopping addiction; also, as with food addiction, the substance being abused is something that some people can't give up entirely.

I know from experience that, the moment I manage to pull myself off the Internet, I find some other activity to become addicted at, such as organizing my record collection. Activity addictions just seem to be in my blood (though, thank goodness, I've never been addicted to food or alcohol, and I've known better than to test whether I might be susceptible to an addiction to cigarettes or drugs). So the problem lies much deeper than the Internet; I need to reshape my life in such a way that my addictive nature is either changed or fed in a harmless manner.

*** 25 August 2008. Writing: My advice to writers on how to get readers to visit your site.

In one of my wilder moments of Internet addiction, I copied down the following information on which sites are linking to me most this year. I figured it might be of interest to authors who are trying to figure out how to draw readers into their sites. The number after each listing represents the number of unique users (i.e. each individual visiting my site from that link).

o--o--o

--GayDemon Web directory: 474.
--Slash recommendations site: 291.
--My old gay leather blog: 215.
--Wikipedia (from an article I wrote myself): 214.
--Wikipedia (from an article I didn't write): 205.
--An originalfic community blog where I've been posting often this summer: 180.
--WebRing, which I'm linked to from: 174.
--My InsaneJournal blog: 146.
--A LiveJournal originalfic/fanfic community I run: 141.
--An old blog of mine: 125.
--A slasher recommending me: 121.
--A gay porn community blog where I occasionally announce my stories: 121
--Wikipedia (from another article I didn't write): 109.
--A post of mine at a fanfic/originalfic community: 107.
--GayDemon again: 98.
--My old gay leather blog again: 97.
--My e-zine: 93.
--Another slasher's recommendation: 92.
--Another gay porn community where I occasionally post: 82.
--A slasher linking to my recommendation of her series: 80.
--Yet again, GayDemon: 77.
--And yet another slasher recommending me: 76 / 76.
--My LiveJournal profile: 75.

o--o--o

The authorial marketing lessons I take from this:

1) Start a blog. Or go wild and crazy like I did and start lots of blogs.

2) Announce your stories at your blog. And link to your stories in your non-announcement entries; an awful lot of readers visiting my site do so after clicking on links to my stories in my Daily Life entries. (Yes, there's a method to my madness in scattering my Daily Life entries with links. It's how I operate as a reader: if an author says in a blog entry, "I'm working on such-and-such a story," it frustrates me if she doesn't link to information on that story. So I figured I'd spare my blog visitors that frustration.)

3) Announce your stories everywhere you can (at relevant forums, I mean). Don't get all hoity-toity and say, "I'll only announce my stories at Refined Forums." The unrefined forums are just crawling with refined readers. You know that, because you visit those forums yourself, don't you? :)

4) Become well known (and, of course, well read) in your fiction community so that readers will link to you. I can't tell you how to manage that trick; I'm still trying to figure out how I managed it.

5) Become well known in some topic so that Wikipedia will link to you. Easier said than done, I know. I certainly didn't calculate coolly, "How can I get Wikipedia to link to me? I know! I'll start a Web directory on GLBT science fiction and fantasy!" However, in practice, if you start a Web directory in some obscure area of your knowledge, people will link to you, because there won't be any other site for them to link to.

6) Pray that a major Web directory links to you.

Incidentally, my stats reveal that these are currently my most visited stories:

--"First Lesson" (Loren's Lashes).
--"The Slavefic Plot Creator" (Master/Other).
--"O Most Unthankful" (Master/Other).
--"A Sexual Minority Speaks Out" (Master/Other).

The first two stories I announced (or re-announced) this year, and the third one is the first story listed at Master/Other, so the high numbers for them are no surprise. I'm pleasantly surprised, though, to see that "A Sexual Minority Speaks Out" is finding an audience. (Even if that audience is only the people who have done a Web search on one of the terms in the story's long list of fetishes.)

*** 25 August 2008. Writing: Internet round-up.

Six hours of work, six hours of play on the Internet. Well, that's better than I've been averaging recently.

Here are the results of my play.

1) Contemplations of a Sunday morning, a beautiful post about little steps we can take to help others, by boy jesse at FetLife.

2) Maculategiraffe (who has acquired the strange delusion that I'm a model for self-discipline) posted a comment to cherish at my LiveJournal blog:

o--o--o

I've been obsessively rereading "The Breaking" from the "Eternal Dungeon" series since you posted the link, and envying your knack for...

..ascetic sweetness? Monastic tenderness? Restrained catharsis?

Something like that.

o--o--o

3) A person I met at FetLife introduced me (via her userpic) to the work of Norman Lindsay, an early twentieth century artist who created controversy by painting women who were just a tad bit too sexy. A site I looked at described him as one of Australia's foremost artists - which means, of course, that the Encyclopaedia Britannica gives him an entire two paragraphs.

I found that this particular description of his working methods induced due humility in me.

"Lindsay's creative output was vast, his energy enormous. Several eyewitness accounts tell of his working practices in the 1920's. He would wake early and produce a watercolour before breakfast, then by mid-morning he would be in his etching studio where he would work until late afternoon. He would work on a concrete sculpture in the garden during the afternoon and in the evening write a new chapter for whatever novel he was working on at the time. As a break, he would work on a model ship some days."

4) When I first became partially sighted in 2001, my eyes were worse than they are now, so I was desperately trying to track down Internet radio programs to listen to. Among other things, I sought out old-time radio shows. Back in the early 00s, these often appeared at flashy sites that crashed my computer because they were so heavy with graphics and animation. You usually had to navigate through six layers to get to one or two shows.

Well, judging from this site and this site, that's changed.

5) One of the disadvantages of never watching television is that I miss out on all the good commercials.

That wasn't sarcasm. If there were ever a cable channel devoted solely to commercials, I'd be killing my eyes watching it. What I object to isn't commercials, but commercials interrupting the programs I want to watch. If, every time someone tried to watch a war drama on TV, it was interrupted by a music video, how popular do you suppose music videos would be?

So I was delighted when my apprentice directed my attention to the Mac versus PC series of commercials. Apple has them at their site, but they foolishly only show the most recent commercials, so I had go surfing around YouTube to collect them all. I especially like Cancel or Allow.

6) In the "vanilla television is getting far too kinky for its own good" category, an article about a reality television show:

"It's every man's dream - being stranded on an exotic island with eight luscious ladies.

"But there's a twist - the men have to do everything the women tell them."

FOX tries to put a sociological spin on the matter:

"Can women effectively rule society? Will the men learn what life is like for some women in today's world? . . . The unscripted series will reveal how women and men react in a world where women are in charge and men are subservient, and each gender's ability to adapt to a new social order will be put to the test."

FOX claims this is a "social experiment and not a sexual experiment." Uh-huh. FOX is not at all seeking to grab this audience, is it?

Seriously, I'd love to see a genuine social experiment of this sort. But given that the company producing the show has previously produced Temptation Island and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance . . . Well, the names say it all, don't they?

7) Something for us copy editors and beta readers to squirm at: Copyediting Shakespeare, by Thomas Christensen. (It's a bad sign, by the way, that my immediate impulse upon reading the title was to check whether "copyediting" can be spelled as one word.)

I especially liked this classic bit of advice, aimed by the copy editor at William Shakespeare: "You tend to be wordy and indirect and to use obscure vocabulary. Please try to simplify. You might want to look at Strunk and White's Elements of Style."

8) Meanwhile, tonight I read one too many critiques of BDSM vocabulary by wannabe copy editors. When a self-described submissive groused at FetLife that "my Sir" was "grammatically incorrect," I sweetly responded:

"What, you mean like using submissive as a noun?"

9) Yes, all of the above means that I've been spending far too much time online during the past month. I really, really want to be into my winter Internet hibernation.

***25 September 2008. Simplicity and Writing: Monastic science fiction.

The latest issue of Wired has this interesting description of a new novel by Neal Stephenson:

o--o--o

Set on a planet called Arbe (pronounced "arb"), Anathem documents a civilization split between two cultures: an indulgent Saecular general population (hooked on casinos, shopping in megastores, trashing the environment - sound familiar?) and the super-educated cohort known as the avaunt, or "auts," who live a monastic existence defined by intellectual activity and circumscribed rituals. Freed from the pressures of pedestrian life, the avaunt view time differently. Their society - the "mathic" world - is clustered in walled-off areas known as concents built around giant clocks designed to last for centuries. The avaunt are separated into four groups, distinguished by the amount of time they are isolated from the outside world and each other. Unarians stay inside the wall for a year. Decenarians can venture outside only once a decade. Centenarians are locked in for a hundred years, and Millennarians - long-lifespanners who are endowed with Yoda-esque wisdom - emerge only in years ending in triple zeros. . . .

Despite the monastic trappings of the clock-tenders, the avaunt are not driven by faith. What binds them is a commitment to logic and rationality. The robes and rituals, Stephenson says, are not religion but "their way of glorifying and expressing respect for ideas and thinkers that are important to them." Outside the walls ("extramuros," as the term goes - by the time you're a couple of hundred pages in, this language thing begins to fall in place), people zip around in an ADD haze of fast-food joints, persistent gadgets (instead of CrackBerry, they are addicted to handheld "jeejahs"), and evangelical religion. Stephenson sees a parallel to the George W. Bush-era wars between science and religion, made possible because the general population is either indifferent or hostile to extended rational thought. "I could never get that idea, the notion that society in general is becoming aliterate, out of my head," he says. "People who write books, people who work in universities, who work on big projects for a long time, are on a diverging course from the rest of society. Slowly, the two cultures just get further and further apart."

o--o--o

I wonder sometimes about that idea. I keep hearing that the average American reads no books each year. But is the average American instead online, reading fanfic and porn and geeky posts and other non-book writings?

I'm not sure that it's a matter of literate versus non-literate. Rather, I think it's a matter of frenetic versus non-frenetic lifestyles. And I find myself caught between the two.

I've finally concluded that I can't live in both worlds simultaneously. I can't go into the super-fast world of the Web in order to do necessary marketing (and, this month, practical matters related to my mother's death) and at the time try to live in a monastic manner. Yet I won't have any stories to market if I don't allow myself time to withdraw from society.

Eve Baker writes in Paths of Solitude, "A solitary existence is the lot of the creative artist, whether in the field of music, poetry or the visual arts." However, she adds, "the poet returns from his solitude, bearing gifts."

That's exactly it. My attempts this year to find a middle ground, where I'm both in the world and outside of it at the same time, have failed because that middle ground gives too little to each need: the need to have time alone, and the need to announce the fruits of my time alone.

That's why I'm going to make an effort to withdraw in a much greater way from society this fall and winter, devoting myself more fully to my commitment to simplicity. Then, next spring, I'll return and offer the fruits of my withdrawal.

I'll probably end up with a split personality. :) But this represents a real split in me, between my need to be away from society, and my need to be within society. Having that split reflected by my work year makes sense to me, at least at this juncture.

*** 25 August 2008: Writing: "Whipster" and an anniversary.

I finished the proofreading and revised historical note for "Whipster." Thank goodness that's out of the way. Now I just need to finish editing (I've got 14,000 words to go - piece of cake) and work out the blasted chronology problem, and I'll be ready to lay out the novel.

I was talking to my apprentice the other night about how the first booktrailer I created for "Whipster" was too light-hearted, while the second was too dark. I just couldn't seem to capture the dark humor of the novel in a single trailer.

So I've decided to post both trailers. Conveniently for me, the dark trailer focusses on Michael, while the light-hearted trailer focusses on Janus, so I can isssue them under those names. I'll need to do a bit of final fiddling with both trailers, but that shouldn't take long. I still may make my end-of-the-month deadline.

What sort of twisted creature am I, that I would pick the week before my mother's memorial service to launch a novel? I know, though, that it's pure coincidence that the novel is likely to come out on the same week of the tenth anniversary of CBF. (If you've read Twenty Thousand Gold Stars, you know what CBF is.) Happy Birthday, CBF.

*** 25 August 2008: Writing: Fall cleaning and winter reading.

My tentative schedule for September through March (leaving aside my publishing plans in September and October, which I've already written about):

o--o--o

FALL CLEANING (September-October)
--Download needed stories and podcasts.
--Scan books for winter while listening to podcasts.
--Install anti-virus software.
--Order new filters.
--Clean humidifiers.
--Prepare recipe list for the winter.
--Finish business correspondence.
--Organize files.
--Doctors' appointments.
--Visit the Library of Congress.
--Visit the Smithsonian museums.
--Visit McKeldin Library.
--Go on a day trip with Doug.

FALL/WINTER READING

("Light" indicates writings I read when my Muse isn't around or is only visiting in a light manner. "Heavy" indicates writings I read when my Muse takes over; those are writings that provide especially good descriptive passages, an area where I'm weak as a writer.)

Research reading (light):
--Turn-of-the-century memoirs on imprisonment and the Boer War.
--Turn-of-the-century everyday-life novels.
--E. M. Forster: "Maurice."

Fiction reading (light):
--Favorite original slash authors.
--orig_slavefic.
--Tor.com books.
--origslash_news.
--Bernard Cornwell: Sharpe novels.

Research reading (heavy; $ indicates to be scanned):
--World War One novels.
--Erich Maria Remarque: "All Quiet on the Western Front."
$ --Erich Maria Remarque: "The Road Back." (Borrow from the library.)

Fiction reading (heavy; * indicates braille; $ indicates to be scanned):
--Catherine Christian: "The Pendragon."
--Robin Hobb: "Assassin's Quest."
$ --Harold Keith: "Rifles for Watie."
* --Patricia A. McKillip: "Ombria in Shadow."
--Patricia A. McKillip: "Alphabet of Thorn."
$ --Mary Stewart: "The Hollow Hills."
$ --Mary Stewart: "The Last Enchantment."
$ --Rosemary Sutcliff: "Frontier Wolf." (Borrow from the library.)
$ --Rosemary Sutcliff: "The Lantern Bearers."
* --Megan Whalen Turner: "The Thief."

o--o--o

I'm doubtful I'll get through all those writings, especially the original slash and the turn-of-the-century writings, but I'd rather have too many writings on hand than fall short. In particular, I'm concerned about having enough "heavy" writings to see me through till spring, since having to stop and scan a novel while my Muse is around is . . . Well, have I mentioned that my Muse bears a certain resemblance to the Codifier in The Eternal Dungeon? You don't want to mess with him.

*** 27 August 2008. Writing: Closer to the deadline.

I've concluded that I'm not going to be able get "Whipster" out before the memorial events. It's not so much the time needed to finish getting the novel and booktrailers ready; it's that publishing and announcing a novel and booktrailers is a time-intensive project, and I just don't have the time now - I've got tons to do before the memorial events.

So my August domain update will be a bit late. I don't imagine that anyone will notice.

Things to do before the Saturday after next (realistically, before the Thursday after next, when my relatives arrive from out of town):

Finish sending out invitations, and complete service arrangements.

Shop for items I need for the memorial events; plus, visit the University of Maryland libraries for info I need to complete the historical note for "Whipster." (There's a day gone right there.)

Finish tidying up the living room. (Almost done.)

Go through Mother's family-related belongings and photos, selecting items to show at the memorial gathering. (About a quarter done.)

Create labels for the items and find places to put them.

Clean up the dining room.

Help Doug with any of the stuff he's been arranging: food, etc.

Take a break to visit the Labor Day Festival. (That's Greenbelt's big festival of the year. I'm talking specifically here about me visiting - *cough, cough* - the annual PTA booksale.) Plus, maybe a break to meet up with a couple of friends of my apprentice who are visiting D.C. (Vision of me telling Doug: "I'm afraid I need to take a break from my mother's funeral arrangements in order to go to the D.C. Eagle. Have you seen my key-chain?")

*** 28 August 2008. Home: Down to the wire.

Got five hours' sleep last night; my insomnia was from worrying about the approaching deadline. Sent more invitations out today. Nearly finished shelving the books. Wrote long e-mails to my father and stepmother about the memorial arrangements. Edited a chapter of "Whipster." Took a mid-morning break to fight with Doug about the food for the memorial events. Made two phone calls to strangers - I don't know; I must have zombied out at some point, because I don't feel a thing. Usually, a phone call to a stranger would make me feel pummelled.

The only thing I didn't do that I wanted to get done was finalize the service arrangements. I'll do that tomorrow, and finish sending out the invitations, and finish shelving the books, and start sorting through the boxes.

And go to the PTA booksale. That's the most important item on my list.

(Doug just came in and said, "Maybe Hurricane Gustav will come through for us." He's praying that bad weather will cause us to cancel the events.)

(*Makes mental note to ask Doug what Hurricane Gustav is.* Is it something that's headed for the East Coast?)

*** 29 August 2008. Writing: No, no, no!

I don't have time for this!

ACTIVITIES SINCE MY LAST DAILY LIFE ENTRY

Fiction edited:
--"Whipster" (Michael's House) - final editing and proofreading.
--"Whipster: Historical Note" (Michael's House) - major revision.

Fiction laid out and published:
--"Blood Vow" (The Three Lands).

Trailers created:
--"Whipster: Michael" (Michael's House).

Fiction read:
--Susan R. Matthews: "Die Umkehr."

Research reading:
--Steven Maynard: "'Horrible Temptations': Sex, Men, and Working-Class Male Youth in Urban Ontario, 1890-1935."

Simplicity reading:
--"Prevention's 101 Tips to Banish That Potbelly."
--Jonathon Porritt: "Save the Earth."
--Lori Bongiorno: "Green Greener Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-Smart Choices a Part of Your Life."

Leisure reading (nonfiction):
--Stephen Kramer (with photographs by Warren Faidley): "Eye of the Storm: Chasing Storms with Warren Faidley."
--Wired Magazine.
--"Rock & Roll Generation: Teen Life in the 50s."

Leisure reading (cartoons):
--Lynn Johnston: "Seniors' Discount."

Shows watched:
--"The Good Life" (aka "Good Neighbors").
--"Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp."
--"Creature Comforts."

Music listened to:
--DrugMoney: "MTN CTY JNK."
--R.E.M.: "Automatic for the People."
--Samuel Barber: "Adagio for Strings" (four different versions).

News: Southern Decadence cancellations

2008-08-30T19:14:57Z

The following is a press release from Ambush Mag, the GLBT newspaper in New Orleans, concerning the gay New Orleans festival, Southern Decadence, scheduled for this weekend.

The news.

Breaking news: Leather and BDSM folk in Louisiana and Texas prepare to help New Orleans evacuees

2008-08-30T04:58:07Z

Click on the link for the news article. The article is located at an adults-only site

Mr. Louisiana Leather 2005, Alan Bowers, said on Thursday that city plans were proceeding apace, with many New Orleans residents "panicked and gun-shy."

News: Tropical Storm Gustav and New Orleans

2008-08-29T03:26:05Z

As some of you may have heard, Tropical Storm Gustav may soon return to hurricane status. According to the National Hurricane Center, one of its possible goals is New Orleans, a major location for leather and BDSM clubs. A report posted on the Leather Titleholders list from a local leatherman indicates that the city is busy in preparations for a possible landfall by Gustav.

The latest news is that, since Gustav isn't scheduled to reach the U.S. this weekend, the New Orleans gay festival Southern Decadence is still scheduled. If New Orleans is badly affected by the storm, True Tales will do its best to keep readers informed, as it did three years ago through its Hurricane Katrina Report.

Two good sources of New Orleans news: NOLA.com and WWLTV.com.

Recommended Writings, Films, and Websites: 2007-8

2008-08-24T05:27:36Z

I'd better do this according to school year rather than calendar year, since my eyes won't be in shape to do links-chasing in January. These are works that I discovered or rediscovered during the past year that I was especially impressed by.

Writings and Websites marked with an asterisk (*) are by authors or Webmasters who have been, or still are, members of the fan fiction community.

FICTION WRITINGS: Fantasy and Military Fiction

Catherine Jinks: Pagan series. A cynical streetboy pairs up with an idealistic Crusader. (My review - skip down.)

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Other Wind. Haunted by disturbing dreams of the dead, a widower seeks help from Earthsea's former Archmage, now an old man. (My review - skip down.)

* Naomi Novik: Victory of Eagles. When Napoleon threatens Britain's future, a captain and his dragon must choose between the claims of conscience and the bindings of duty to one's country. (My review - skip down.)

Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929). Life in the World War One trenches is only kept bearable by friendship. (My review.)

Megan Whalen Turner: Thief series. There's more to a young thief than his prison-keepers realize. (My review - skip down to "nice find.")

FICTION WRITINGS: Homoerotic Fiction

Diana Gabaldon: Lord John and the Blade of the Brotherhood. Lord John finds himself caught between his duty toward the military and his duty toward a fellow soldier he may or may not love. (My review - skip down.)

* Manna Francis: Quid Pro Quo. The latest volume in the Administration series, about a pathological torturer and his lover, who despises torture but loves SM. (My review - skip down.)

* heartofslash: Army of Two. (Linked to archive.org till it's up at the author's new site.) A former soldier learns that he and his commanding officer share an interest in DS. Green-grrl comments, "The kink will knock your drawers off; the sweet will melt you."

* maculategiraffe: The Slave Breakers. A slave is sent to be broken by the slave breakers, yet finds a path to hope. It's being fanficced like crazy, which is always a good sign.

* Susan R. Matthews, "Die Umkehr," in Gaylaxicon 2006 Sampler, edited by Dan Sakers. A guard pursues his as-yet-unrequited lust for a conscience-torn torturer. Part of her Jurisdiction series, which I reviewed here.

* Nick and Hank: Cutter Falls. A realistic BDSM series about a submissive torn between his family and his top. (My review.)

* Lija O'Brien: Staged Life. A turn-of-the-century girl on the run from her abusive uncle seeks refuge with a company of vaudeville actors. (My review.)

NONFICTION WRITINGS: Authorship and Publishing

Julia Cameron (with illustrations by Elizabeth Cameron): How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy). A witty set of cartoons outlining the various techniques that people in the arts employ to avoid finishing tasks. ("Read all the forwarded emails from your friends instead of writing your novel." Um, yeah.)

Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman: How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid them - a Misstep-by-Misstep Guide. A hilarious guide to typical mistakes that authors make.

NONFICTION WRITINGS: History

Stephanie Coontz: Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage. Delves into the social and economic forces that altered the way in which marriage was practiced over the centuries. (My review - skip down to "interesting anecdotes.")

NONFICTION WRITINGS: Memoirs

Thomas Mott Osborne: Behind Prison Walls (1914). A prison supervisor has himself incarcerated in order to experience life behind bars. (My review.)

Deneys Reitz: Commando (1929). A young Dutch settler in what would become South Africa joins the Boer army, only to face deprivation while fighting the British.

NONFICTION WRITINGS: Simplicity

Frank Bianco: Voices of Silence: Lives of the Trappists Today. Composite portraits of modern Trappist monks, with a special focus on the changes that Vatican II has brought. (Excerpt - skip down.)

David Stiendl-Rast, O.S.B., with Sharon Lebell: The Music of Silence: Entering the Sacred Space of Monastic Experience. Reflections on the lessons that the monastic Liturgy of Hours hold. (Excerpt - skip down.)

MOVIES AND SHOWS: Drama

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972). As I wrote in my journal: "With Dudley Moore! and Peter Sellers! and Ralph Richardson! and Spike Milligan! And music by John Barry!"

Gallipoli. Two young Australians - one a realist, one a dreamer - join the World War One forces. My full review: "I watched the last half hour of Gallipoli again. I cried again."

Rent. A gay couple, a straight couple, and an M/F/F love triangle struggle to survive in Greenwich Village. While singing kickin' songs. (My review.)

The Waltons: "The Literary Man." From Season One. A country boy meets a published author and must face the question of whether he has what it takes to be a writer. Can I just say here that, after all these years, I still have a crush on Richard Thomas?

MOVIES AND SHOWS: Documentaries

The Boer War (BBC). Actor Kenneth Griffith narrates and portrays all of the characters in this part-documentary, part-reconstruction of the South African War . . . even Emily Hobhouse.

Into Great Silence. Follows the daily lives of Carthusian monks, with no commentary and virtually no dialogue. (My review - skip down.)

WEBSITES: Authorship, Publishing, and Technology

* maureenlycaon. "Being the weblog of a middle-aged woman whose chief interests are paleontology, web design and kinky pr0n." In between writing dark BDSM slash stories, she offers helpful tips on keeping your computer alive. There's a connection there, I'm sure.

* POD People. News and reviews on self-publishing. If something new happens in the self-publishing world, moderator Emily Veinglory is usually the first to post on the Web about it.

POD Publishers and Self-Publishing. Two e-mail lists with information on print-on-demand self-publishing, mainly from people who've actually made money at this career, so they're worth listening to.

TeleRead. A blog devoted to the topic of e-books and e-book technology.

Wired. An entertaining technology magazine that is forward-thinking enough to place all its contents online.

WEBSITES: Fiction

* origslash_news. A newsletter for the original slash community, with links to fiction, discussion, art, and anything else origslashy. Revived by originalpuck from a second death, and my, does it look shiny.

* orig_slavefic. A community for original slave fiction, founded by maculategiraffe. Very active, with lots of feedback for authors.

WEBSITES: General Social Networking

FetLife. A MySpace for BDSM folks, including writers. Set up in a much cleaner, community-encouraging fashion than MySpace.

InsaneJournal. Despite a massive influx of fanfolk, there's still not enough people there - but gosh, is its owner responsive to customer concerns.

MySpace. Why, yes, I discovered MySpace this past year. It's highly addictive, and there are tons of authors there. If you visit, you'd better have a fast-running modem and up-to-date anti-virus software.

WEBSITES: Literary Social Networking

* meta_roundup. A worthy companion to metafandom, covering fandom activities at InsaneJournal.

* Erotic Romance Writers Forum. Discussions among writers of erotic romance, mainly m/m. Another of Emily Veinglory's projects.

Romance Divas forums. A very friendly place for conversations on romance authorship, if a tad bit conservative. (BDSM literature is discussed in the forum for "extreme" topics.)

Queer Writers. A MySpace for authors of queer literature. Still not many people there, but it's growing.

WEBSITES: Simplicity

Hermitary. Best site on the Web for information on solitaries; plus, they have forums. (Yes, the conjunction of those two sentences make sense. You have to read the site to see why.)

To anonymous commenters

2008-08-24T03:17:36Z

I've been having a fair amount of problems with spammers recently. (One of my posts received 39 spam comments.) While I plan to keep my blog open to anonymous comments, it would help if non-IJ folks posting here would sign their posts (with a nick or their name) and would make some specific reference to the post they're replying to. That way, I won't accidentally delete your comment.

Thanks for your help.

Daily life: Smack, crash, bushwacked. (That is to say, I'm overworked.)

2008-08-21T17:06:34Z

"Really, she must try and concentrate on [her protagonist's] alibi. . . . And she had not properly worked out the speed of the steam-yacht. One ought to know about these things. Lord Peter would know, of course; he must have sailed in plenty of steam-yachts. It must be nice to be really rich. Anybody who married Lord Peter would be rich, of course. And he was amusing. Nobody could say he would be dull to live with. But the trouble was that you never knew what anybody was like to live with except by living with them. It wasn't worth it. Not even to know all about steam-yachts. A novelist couldn't possibly marry all the people from whom she wanted specialised information."

--Dorothy L. Sayers: Have His Carcase

Topics in this post: Ahead of my publication schedule but behind on everything else, review of Lija O'Brien's Staged Life, winter plans, Internet round-up (not-worksafe pulp covers), online goods and evils, e-book plans and my icky non-publishing schedule, low-fat and low-sugar vegetarianism, review of the 2008 film Brideshead Revisited.

For newcomers: Background to my writing entries | Background to my mentoring entries | Background to my simplicity entries | Background to my home entries.

*** 13 August 2008. Writing and home: Ahead of my publication schedule but behind on everything else.

Well, I've completed Week Two of my August publications, which is gratifying. I want to be ahead of myself, because I know that the end of the month is going to see me busy with memorial event plans.

I'm also progressing well on getting Whipster ready for publication. I only have about one hour's worth of proofreading left, aside from figuring out some icky chronology problems I saddled myself with. Other than that, it's just a matter of doing the final editing, which is proving to be very light indeed, since I caught most of the errors during the proofreading. I'm optimistic I'll have the novel ready to go by the end of the month . . . though I still need to do the cover art, darn it.

I'm afraid I'm behind on my other duties. I only got two hours' worth of work done so far today on Mother Matters, though one of those hours was devoted to icky financial stuff that I'd just as soon have put off. I'm going to do a little more shifting of belongings and then go to bed, so as to be fresh tomorrow.

Later:

Well, instead of sorting boxes, I sorted my computer files. I have nearly two hundred e-mails in my inbox, about half of which are from the seventeen days since my mother died. Fortunately, many of these have already been responded to - the correspondence between my father and me has been particularly vigorous - but I still have a lot of correspondence to do, including responding to the handful of condolences that have arrived by snail mail. I'm going to devote tomorrow to answering letters, to continuing to sort my mother's papers and other belongings, and to pinpointing the time of the memorial service.

On the writing side, I'll work on the cover art for Whipster and continue to proofread and edit the novel.

Later:

I had insomnia and ended up reading the rest of Lija O'Brien's young adult GLBT novel about vaudeville players in 1918, Staged Life.

This is part of Torquere Press's new young adult imprint, Prizm. I don't know why Torquere's blurb writers feel the need to give away the entire plot in the blurb. Fortunately, having learned my lesson in the past, I avoided looking at the blurb beforehand, which left me pleasantly surprised at the appropriate moments in this novel.

The plot supposedly revolves around an orphaned girl's efforts to escape being taken into custody by her malicious uncle, but that part of the storyline is rather thin, I'm sorry to say (though the surprise ending is perfect). Much more interesting is the growing relationship between the protagonist, Nan, and two of her fellow vaudevillians, Beatrice and Pete. The angst level wasn't as high as I usually like in fiction, but the details about vaudeville life were enough to carry me through the more serene parts of the novel.

I dearly wish - though it's unlikely to happen - that we could have a sequel featuring Pete, because this scene is wonderful, coming as it does after nearly one hundred pages of slapstick comedy from Pete.

o--o--o

Nan had to use her entire weight to throw Pete into the corridor wall. She wasn't sure what, exactly, had broken the chains on his temper, but she'd never seen him this angry.

Beatrice said, her voice calm, "Eddie, shvayg. Be quiet." She took two more steps forward. "And stay quiet unless you want Murphy to know what kind of parlor houses you've been visiting. I've heard he's quite devout under all his blue humor."

Pete wasn't struggling any more. Now he'd turned away to rest his forehead against the wall, his arms spread and his palms pressed hard against the green-painted concrete.

o--o--o

Beatrice is more of an elusive character. I liked her a lot, but I couldn't quite get a sense of what lay behind her small, mysterious smiles. And I never did learn what came of her quest to be a scholar.

The scene-stealer in the novel is Mrs. Constantine. You need to read the novel to find out why.

*** 14 August 2008. Writing: Winter plans.

Well, I figured out what I'm going to be reading over the winter, when I'm offline.

o--o--o

1) Original slash. Lots and lots of it. Not only do I have the recent offerings from orig_slavefic and origslash_news to read, but I went through my list of favorite original slash authors and was appalled to see how long the list was of writings I need to catch up with.

I'll also be reading a bit of slash fanfic and real people slash and original yaoi and yaoi fanfic, plus a handful of gayfic stories that my apprentice valiantly scouted out for me (*image of Dusk sending Jo/e into the dark vales of Nifty*), but mainly it's original slash I have waiting to be read.

2) Stories that my Muse likes. My Muse is incredibly picky. When he's fully in business, he demands that I read only authors who are strong in the area where I'm weakest, namely in description.

Unfortunately, the number of authors I like who fit that criterion I can count on two hands. (This isn't because I'm opposed to reading description; it's because the authors who are strongest in description are often weakest in angsty plotlines. I can't figure out why this is so.) Equally unfortunately, I reread most of the descriptive authors I like last year. Hence, I'm short of Good Descriptive Novels to read over the winter. At any rate, I'll certainly be having to scan some print novels I own so that I'll have electronic editions.

3) Turn-of-the-century memoirs about imprisonment and the Boer War. I have lots of those on my hard drive.

4) Mainstream science fiction and fantasy novels. I have twenty-four SF/F novels on my hard drive that were given away for free by Tor.com. Would that I could find a historical fiction publisher who was this generous.

5) Turn-of-the-century everyday-life novels, mainly written for children. More for fun than because I expect to get much useful out of them, researchwise. Ain't it wonderful that one of my favorite genres of literature is in the public domain?

6) World War One novels. Ditto.

6) Those other unread novels on my hard drive. I have far too many of them.

o--o--o

Realistically speaking, I expect to spend most of my time with the first three items on the list, but the others will be there if I need them.

As far as writing and editing are concerned, here's my tentative schedule:

o--o--o

Finish writing and get betaed:
--Law Links (The Three Lands).
--On Guard (fourth volume of The Eternal Dungeon).
--Mercy's Prisoner (first volume of Life Prison).
--Hell's Messenger (second volume of Life Prison).
--Edgeplay in Mayhill (first volume of Loren's Lashes).

Edit and get betaed:
--Ahita (Darkling Plain).
--From Hell to the Stars.
--Law of Vengeance (The Three Lands).
--Water in a Drought (side story in Loren's Lashes).

Edit from beta reports, proofread, and do final editing:
--Right or Right (Darkling Plain).
--Rebirth (first volume of The Eternal Dungeon).

Ready for publication already:
--Noble (first volume of Princeling).
--Whipster (first volume of Michael's House).

o--o--o

We'll see how far I get with that list. :) My wordage is a lot lower these days than in the past, but, if I manage to keep myself off the Internet (please, god), I should get at least a hundred thousand words written, which ought to be enough to let me finish writing at least two or three novels on my list. Other than that, it's just a matter of keeping my nose to the grindstone in terms of editing, researching, and fiction-reading.

*** 15 August 2008: Writing: Internet round-up (not-worksafe pulp covers).

I am far too easily distracted on the Web. I went online to download an image for cover art, and while it was downloading (it was fifty megabytes heavy, so yes, it took a few minutes), I browsed through my Friends pages, and then I started chasing links, and then . . .

BookScans, "graphically illustrating the evolution of Vintage American Paperbacks - 1939 through 1959 (and beyond) . . . Thousands of .jpg images, arranged numerically, by publisher."

The moment I arrived there and saw this on their home page, I was lost.

Alas, they don't have the cover for The Leather Man Murders, a title listed in their index. But they did have sections devoted to "sexy digests" and "sleaze," where I spent, um, far too much time. Two hours, to be precise.

(On a non-sleazy note: Gosh, I actually own this book. I knew there was a reason I kept it after I got the hardback version of the novel.)

Some of the sexy covers don't even try to be subtle. I mean, really. Not. At. All.

There's something for everyone's taste: Femdom. Interracial love. Transvestites. Bisexual women. And, of course, lots and lots and lots and lots of lesbians, many of those covers implying that, really, all the girl needed was a nice man.

Finding gay male covers is harder. As you can see from this, gay male books tended to have women on the cover, since the publishers assumed (probably correctly) that the vice squad was more likely to go after them if they had two men on the cover than if they had two women.

When gay men did appear on the cover, the book usually claimed to be providing "information" about homosexuality. Uh-huh. However, there were times when the cover artist just didn't bother to go the educational route.

At any rate, vintage gay covers are more easily located at this site.

(Oh, and there are lots of non-sex-related covers at BookScans too. One of these days I'll browse through the young adult covers and see how many I recognize.)

*** 17 August 2008. Writing: Online goods and evils.

Well, I've had to ban myself from the Internet again. However, I did so after posting all but one of next week's stories, responding to posts at my mother's memorial blog, downloading some much-wanted videos, downloading music to make a booktrailer for "Whipster," downloading World War One poetry to read over the winter, and entering into conversations with two readers who have similar interests to my own. I've been horribly productive online for the last couple of days; I just haven't getting anything done offline.

This is one reason why I find it so difficult to pull myself off the Internet: it's such a wonderful tool. I can't begin to list all the ways in which it has transformed my life in a positive manner. So I'll list just one: Turn-of-the-Century Toughs. I might have continued slipping occasional gay subplots into my Main Bookshelf novels, and it's remotely possible (though highly unlikely) that I'd have written a gay novel with a contemporary setting, since I'd encountered such novels before. But it simply would not have occurred to me to write down gay fantasy novels - much less gay erotic fantasy novels - if I hadn't encountered the online slash community.

I say "write down gay fantasy novels" because I'd been writing such stories in my head since my teens. I just didn't think there was an audience for gay fantasy novels with dark eroticism. The slash community was what introduced me to gay speculative fiction, as well as to well-written erotic fiction.

So I owe my current professional career to the Web.

I also owe nearly all my friendships over the years to it. Ninety-nine percent of the people I've known in my life I met on the Internet. At the time I first went onto the Internet in any serious way, I was in contact (not regular contact) with a grand total of one person outside of my family. That had been my situation since my graduation from college a decade before. I'd tried every means I could think of to get to know people, but I was handicapped by a severe social shyness, as well as the usual offline problems of locating people with similar interests.

It turned out I'm not shy at all when it comes to communicating with people through writing. Knowing myself better now than I did then, I can see how the very problems that make most spoken conversation stressful for me are alleviated or eliminated in written conversation. And of course it's easy as pie to meet people with similar interests online. All you need to do is to type "small blue hippos with long toenails" into your blog, and sooner or later, someone doing a Web search on "small blue hippos with long toenails" will find your blog and start a conversation.

The thing is, though, that offline life has its own delights. I forget that when I'm online.

*** 17 August 2008. Writing and Home: E-book plans and my icky non-publishing schedule.

Well, in my usual fickle manner, I've decided to publish "Whipster" as an e-book after all.

Basically, it's so that I can get reviews, which will come in helpful when it comes time to promote the paperback edition next year. If the novel is published as an e-book, I can solicit reviews; if it's only published online, I can't. This is the most ridiculous system of review evaluation I can think of, given how easy it is to publish e-books, but there you go; reviewers are still stuck in the pre-Internet age.

I also had a lightbulb go off in my head concerning the booktrailer. I'd created an earlier trailer but wasn't satisfied with it. Then, when I was looking at the Lewis Hine photograph from which I planned to derive my cover art, I realized that, next to the young man whom I planned to feature on my cover, there was a small boy who looked very much like the young man, except that the young man had a hard expression, while the boy had a vulnerable one. I looked at the young man, and then I looked at the boy, and then I looked at the young man again, and bingo, I had the central image for my trailer.

I now have roughly a week to get the trailer done, finish proofing and editing the book, and get everything published - in between, of course publishing three more stories/installments and getting ready for my mother's memorial events and disentagling her financial affairs. Oh, joy. But at least I got the cover done today.

To give a sense of what my schedule is like these days, this is an outline I put together a week ago of my non-publishing duties through the end of September.

o--o--o

MOTHER'S APARTMENT (by Monday afternoon)

Box belongings that my brother is picking up. [Done.]

Box belongings that I'm taking home. [Done.]

Call BM and ask her what she thinks we should do with Mother's taped programs.

Help my brother move belongings on late Monday afternoon. [Done.]

MOTHER'S MEMORIAL SERVICE (by Tuesday evening)

Call Father M at St. Luke's and determine time of the service so that it can be mentioned in the obituary. Ask him about the prayer book he mentioned in our meeting.

MOTHER'S OBITUARY (by Tuesday evening)

Send notice of the death to St. Andrew's Church, in order to meet newsletter deadline. [Done.]

Ask BM for phone numbers of TW, KH, and PS.

Call TW, KH, PS, and RJ and ask them for relevant information for the obituary.

Write to the R--s and ask them about Mother's community service in Michigan.

Go through the News Review archives on Monday afternoon (the only time the newspaper office is open) to find information on Mother's Greenbelt activities.

Write the final draft of the obituary and submit it to the News Review on Tuesday evening, to meet this week's deadline.

MOTHER'S FRIENDS AND FAMILY (this week)

Figure out who of Mother's friends and family still haven't been informed of the death and inform them.

MOTHER'S FINANCES (this week)

[Nine items, none of them done yet.]

MOTHER'S MEMORIAL SERVICE (this week)

Call Father P and make arrangements for the service.

Decide with Doug about music, communion service, liturgical colors, etc.

E-mail Father M and tell him what we have decided.

MOTHER'S MEMORIAL GATHERING (this week)

Call PM of the Friends of the -- Cafe about possible memorial event at the -- Cafe (he'd proposed one).

Discuss with Doug the memorial gathering here - can we actually be *ready* in time? [Probably not, but we're going to try.]

If so, begin tidying public areas of the house and finding places for Mother's furniture and other belongings. [Doug's been doing this.]

Continue going through Mother's boxes of family/friend papers and her photos for items to display at the gathering. Keep a special eye out for relevant financial information.

MOTHER'S FRIENDS AND FAMILY (week of the 17th)

Once the obituary is published, make photocopies of it to send to people.

Begin e-mailing, snail-mailing, and telephoning friends and family members of Mother who (1) should be invited to the memorial events, (2) have written letters and cards of condolence, and (3) have tried to contact Mother without knowing of her death.

Post the obituary and final version of memorial notices at Mother's memorial blog.

Respond to comments at Mother's memorial blog.

Keep Uncle Dean and Aunt Donna posted on the situation.

MOTHER'S OBITUARY (week of the 17th)

Send brief obituaries to Mother's college, and the university she worked for.

Figure out whether anyone else needs to be sent obituaries.

SHOPPING (week of the 17th)

Go to Target to buy shoes and socks for the memorial events.

Go to Staples to buy ink (for creating the memorial gathering labels) and foil stars.

PERSONAL & HOUSEHOLD TASKS (this month)

Install new anti-virus software.

Figure out which of the printers that I have in storage - if any - work, because I'll need a printer to print out labels and programs for the memorial events.

Do laundry.

Clean humidifier.

Buy new humidifier filter online.

Call Katharine to let her know of Mother's death.

Call L and E and discuss the situation with the September trip to visit Jo/e. [Done.]

PROFESSIONAL (this month, because my eyes might not be up to it afterwards)

Go to the Library of Congress in order to peruse books I need to research this summer.

If "Jailhouse Journalism" isn't at the Library of Congress, go to the University of Maryland to peruse it. Also check their latest holdings on prison history.

See whether Doug is willing to check out "Breaker Morant" (a Boer War film) from the Montgomery County Libraries for me.

Decide whether I'm going to Gaylaxicon in October.

PERSONAL & HOUSEHOLD TASKS (through late September)

Continue to monitor Jo/e's situation, particularly his diet and exercise.

Answer personal correspondence.

Finish answering all business correspondence through last September.

MOTHER'S MEMORIAL SERVICE AND GATHERING (first week of September)

Help Doug to prepare food for the memorial events.

Help Mother's family and anyone else coming in from out of town to settle in.

Do final preparations for the memorial service and gathering; then hold the events.

PERSONAL & HOUSEHOLD TASKS (next month)

Once Daddy is back from France, call him. Try to find time to meet with him in September (outside of the memorial events).

Call Katharine and L and E, in order to keep in contact.

Continue answering personal correspondence and business correspondence.

Do laundry.

Clean humidifier.

Go on already-scheduled trip to visit Jo/e in late September?

MOTHER'S BELONGINGS & FINANCES (on-going)

[Four items.]

MOTHER'S BELONGINGS & HOUSEHOLD TASKS (on-going)

Ask the Tugwell Room whether they want Mother's Greenbelt-related documents and News Reviews.

Continue to post items at Mother's memorial blog.

This fall and winter, sort Mother's non-paper belongings, as well as mine.

Next summer, sort Mother's papers, as well as mine.

When I get a spare moment (ha ha), tidy my study.

o--o--o

I haven't gotten much done except for whimpering that I'd need to be Superman to get all this done on time. Which is silly; I'm managing to publish a dozen works of fiction this summer, including three novels and numerous novellas. It's just that I'm good at being Superman where writing is concerned, not at any other task.

*** 20 August 2008. Simplicity: Low-fat and low-sugar vegetarianism.

"That's just plain demented, Sir."

That was my apprentice's amusing contribution to tonight's discussion of our differing food tastes. (My dementedness, in case you're wondering, consisted of me picking raisins out of rice pudding, so that I wouldn't have to eat them. Not that I've eaten rice pudding recently, but I was speculating on whether there might be a non-fat, low-sugar version of the dish.)

I haven't said much so far about my diet in relation to simplicity because, quite frankly, I've been monastic in my diet for the past few years, purely out of laziness.

But let me step back to trace the history of my diet. For the first few years of my life, I was mainly a lacto-ovo-vegetarian - that is, a vegetarian who ate dairy products and eggs - because our family was Seventh-day Adventists. Then we left that denomination, and we switched to being meat-and-potatoes folks. This was leavened partly by the fact that my mother was Italian-American, so she served a fair number of meatless pasta dishes.

This was the era of the Four Food Groups: meat, dairy products, grains, and vegetables/fruits. I don't know how legumes were categorized, and you notice that vegetables and fruits were shoved into one category. I remember being taught in elementary school that pepperoni pizza was an example of a perfectly balanced meal, because it had all four food groups: pepperoni (meat), cheese (dairy products), bread crust (grains), and tomato sauce (vegetables/fruits).

My family rarely ate out, so I didn't get a lot of exposure to junk food. In addition, my mother was fairly strict in keeping my brother and me from eating too much sugar; we rarely had sugared cereals, we never had soda in the house, and candy bars were for special occasions. This was a good thing, because I have a sweet tooth.

A friend of mine said that people are divided between sweet tooths and salty tooths. "If you had to give up chocolate or pizza, which would you choose?" my friend asked.

"Pizza," I said instantly. So much for me being worthy of my Italian-American heritage.

"I'd give up chocolate," replied my friend, who has a salty tooth.

Once I got to college, I went wild and crazy on junk food and sweets. Some young people binge on alcohol once they're released from parental restraint; I binged on chocolate chip ice cream cones. My breakfast throughout sophomore year was a frosted cherry Pop-tart and Coke. (I'd have preferred milk, but I had no refrigerator in my dorm room.) My main reason for this breakfast was simply that I didn't want to have to get up more than ten minutes before my first class. (I'm not exaggerating; I gave myself three minutes for the bathroom, three minutes for breakfast, two minutes to change clothes, and two minutes to walk from my dorm to my classroom.)

Laziness pretty much decided what my diet would be like for the years after college. I subsisted on soups, sandwiches, and lots of sodas and Oreo cookies. It wasn't that I disliked anything healthier; I just didn't want to go to the bother of making it.

After Doug gave me a microwave oven in 1990, I switched to packaged microwaved meals. Also, Doug - who was interested in keeping fit for cycling and was strictly opposed to eating sweets - got me to cut out my sodas and Oreos. For a while there, my diet wasn't substantially different than it had been when I was a teenager living at home, other than me eating processed food rather than home-cooked food. The microwave dinners were probably healthier than the dinners I'd eaten as a teenager, given that this was now the nineties. The Four Food Groups had given way to the Food Pyramid, with an emphasis on grains, vegetables, and fruits. (Legumes were still largely invisible.)

Then the inevitable began happening: I gained weight. This came as no surprise. On my mother's side of the family, folks would stay slender as a beanpole till their late twenties; then they'd grow obese. As for myself, I entered college with so little weight that I didn't qualify to donate blood. Once I started stuffing myself with junk food and sweets, my body weight grew by ten percent during college, with a further fifteen percent of my original body weight added in my late twenties. In other words, I went from one hundred percent ideal body weight to one hundred and twenty five percent.

This wasn't a good trend. Something had to be done. I wasn't prepared to do anything radical like, well, exercise, so instead I began thinking about my diet. On impulse, I bought a book by Neal Barnard, Food for Life: How the New Four Food Groups Can Save Your Life. The four food groups mentioned were grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits; Dr. Barnard was pro-vegan.

He totted forth the scientific studies in favor of a vegetarian diet - all news to me - and then mentioned, almost off-handedly, that a vegetarian diet could help one lose weight . . . and one didn't need to eat any less than one had in the past.

I was skeptical about the last claim, but I figured that the health reasons he was citing were reason enough to give vegetarianism a try again. I attempted to be a vegan first, but had no luck in giving up milk and cheese, so instead I switched from whole milk to 2% milk, then to 1% milk, and finally to skim milk (as nonfat milk was called in those days).

In the space of six months, without lessening the amount of food I ate, I lost all of the weight I'd gained since college. Wow.

So then I went through my wild-and-crazy Cooking Phase. I spent a lot of time perusing vegetarian books and trying out recipes. Doug, after he'd ascertained that I wasn't going to give up cooking meat for him (by this time, I was working at home full-time, while he still had a day job), was supportive. After all, cyclists eat pasta.

Then he got wild and crazy too and went further than me, cutting out all processed food in favor of whole foods. He started off as a vegan but eventually switched to allowing himself to drink a bit of nonfat milk.

This coincided with the period when I finally realized that I find cooking really, really boring. It also coincided with Doug quitting his day job. Now Doug was the one creating all our meals. Being more sensible than me, his way of doing this was to make two or three whole-foods dishes that we would live off of for the next week.

This is what my diet has looked like on a typical day for the past few years. By "typical day," I mean that this is what my diet has been like every day for the past few years, with minor variations. (That's what I meant when I said my diet was monastic.)

The reason that I'm listing five meals is that I eat three to four meals in the summer, and four to six meals in the winter. Partly this is because vegetarian meals tend to be less filling than meat meals, so one naturally eats more often during the day, but partly it's due to my eyes. The colder the weather, the drier my eyes are, and so the more moisture they need from the food. I can't do anything about the factor of how many meals I eat daily, which is why I have to be concerned with the content of what I eat.

o--o--o

* Apple slices and natural peanut butter on whole wheat toast.
* Nonfat milk.

* Pea soup (split peas, broccoli, zucchini, carrots, and tahini) with whole wheat bread.
* Orange juice.

* Cooked vegetables on whole wheat couscous with whole-milk mozzarella cheese. (Doug varies the type of vegetables used each week, but green vegetables are usually in there somewhere.)
* Mixed fruit juice.

* Ground-up carrots and cabbages on whole wheat couscous with spaghetti sauce (with oil) and whole-milk mozzarella cheese.
* Mixed fruit juice.

* Whole-milk cream cheese and jam on whole wheat toast.
* Nonfat milk.

o--o--o

I'm wondering what the eagle eyes of you guys will pick up about this diet. What I pick up is that, while it appears to be the ideal lacto-vegetarian diet in terms of balancing food groups (other than the virtual absence of legumes), it's far from ideal from the point of weight control. Four of the five meals prominently feature high-fat foods (whole dairy products and peanut butter). All five meals feature simple sugars. (Simple sugars are sugar without accompanying fiber. Lactose in milk, and fructose in fruit juices, are simple sugars - they don't have any accompanying fiber. To put a complex dietary matter simply: Sugar + fiber = good. Sugar without fiber = not so good. I'm more likely to gain weight if I'm eating a lot of simple sugars.)

The net result? I've gained back all the weight I lost when I became a vegetarian in 1994-95. I don't think it's because I'm eating worse than I was back then, and I know it's not because of lack of exercise; though there's room for improvement, I've gotten more exercise this summer than at any time since I graduated from college.

Rather, I think that my body is simply changing as I get older, so that it becomes harder for me to maintain my almost-ideal weight. So I need to take stricter measures.

I've decided to adopt a modified form of Dean Ornish's diet. Dr. Ornish and a colleague developed a low-fat vegetarian diet for patients who had heart disease; then he realized that the diet would also be helpful to people trying to lose weight, so he published a book with the catchy title of Eat More, Weigh Less. It's basically a vegan diet with the addition of limited amounts of nonfat dairy products and egg whites. I don't need the egg whites, but I sure want the dairy products.

One alteration I've made to the diet is that Dr. Ornish doesn't have much to say against the drinking of juice. I suppose that he deals with patients who have to be persuaded to drink juice even once a day; judging from his sample diets, he didn't anticipate someone drinking juice three times a day. Given that I'm trying to keep my simple-sugar quota down, I'm better off switching to drinking water, or pureed fruit mixed with water. (Pureeing retains the fiber that juicing eliminates.)

Another alteration I've made is to allow the use of nuts and seeds within larger dishes. You notice that I didn't have anything to say against my use of tahini (a sesame-seed paste) in our pea soup; it's diluted enough that I doubt it adds much fat to each bowlful.

I've also given myself specific quotas for when I can eat high-fat or high-sugar foods, because otherwise, I know from experience, I'll end up eating them all the time.

At any rate, here's the diet I'm trying.

o--o--o

Whenever I want: Whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, and water.

Once or twice a day (per item): Nonfat dairy products, and a small amount of nuts/seeds within larger dishes.

Once a day (one item on this list, in rotation): Fruit juices, whole or part-skim cheese, cream cheese and jam, peanut butter, sweets (chocolate, ice cream, etc.).

On holidays or when eating out with friends or family: Meat, eggs, white bread, and vegetarian foods with added oil (potato chips, etc.).

o--o--o

The main change I'm having to make at the moment is finding new drinks (instead of juice), new sandwich spreads (instead of cream cheese, jam, and peanut butter), and sauces for main dishes (instead of cheese).

Given the premise that I'm going to continue to follow a lacto-vegetarian diet, I'd be interested in comments from anyone here who has an interest in nutrition, about whether there's anything I'm overlooking with this diet.

(Yes, I'm distracting myself from my professional work and my work for my mother's memorial events. Can you blame me?)

*** 21 August 2008: Writing: Review of the 2008 film Brideshead Revisited.

In case you don't know the plot, Brideshead Revisited is a novel by Evelyn Waugh, set in the pre-WWII years, about a young man (Charles) who becomes entangled with an aristocratic Catholic family after he falls in love with the youngest son, Sebastian. Later, he falls in love with Sebastian's sister, Julia. The novel was turned into a miniseries in 1981 starring Jeremy Irons as Charles and Anthony Andrews as Sebastian. The novel has now been made into a film.

I'm just going to repost here what I posted at the blog of a friend, who hadn't seen the new film but had heard reports that the film de-emphasized the Charles/Sebastian relationship. Specifically, she had heard that Julia was inserted into a portion of the story (a trip to Venice) which had been confined to Charles and Sebastian in the novel.

o--o--o

You're correct. The reason for this change, I think, didn't have to do with the scriptwriter's desire to emphasize Charles/Julia at the expense of Charles/Sebastian (though, in practical terms, that's what happens). Rather, I think that it was due to a time-constraint problem. The way that the scriptwriter dealt with the problem of cramming a novel into two hours was by jettisoning most of the events in the middle part of the book - the part that featured Charles and Julia's growing relationship. He compensated for this by inserting Julia more into the earlier part of the story, so that we see Charles's feelings developing for Julia at the same time that he is in a relationship with Sebastian.

The result of this is that it offers a plausible explanation - which the novel never really does - for why Sebastian begins to distrust Charles. It's rather a clever device by the scriptwriter, even though it's not canon.

I thought that, as semi-fan-fiction (which is basically what it was), the film was a good effort. I really did not think ahead of time that the scriptwriter would manage to create a two-hour film that coherently covered the main events in the book, yet marvellously, he managed to. (The only thing I really miss is [Sebastian's younger sister] Cordelia; she got too little screen time, alas.) My problem with the movie lay with its de-emphasis of the religious aspects of the novel. Religion is certainly there, but you don't see Charles praying at the end of the movie, and that makes a big difference in the overall arch of the story.

I think it's a good film, worth seeing for its photography and for some of the acting (the scriptwriter retained the wonderful interplay between Charles and his father), but as one reviewer put it, "Ben Whishaw, as Sebastian, couldn't clean Anthony Andrews' wingtips." The 1981 miniseries is far better.

ACTIVITIES SINCE MY LAST WRITING LIFE ENTRY

Fiction edited:
--"Whipster" (Michael's House) - proofreading and final editing.

Fiction laid out and published:
--"Rebirth 1: The Breaking" (The Eternal Dungeon).
--"Blood Vow 3: The Look of the Chara" (The Three Lands).
--"Leather, Licking, and Lawnmowers 4: Leatherdar" (Leather in Lawnville).
--"Noble 7" (Princeling).
--"Debt Price 1: Fallow" (Master/Other).
--"Blood Vow 4: Land of the Jackal" (The Three Lands).

Cover art created:
--"Whipster" (Michael's House).

Fiction read:
--Lija O'Brien: "Staged Life."
--Sara Pennypacker: "Clementine."
--Parhelion: "The Emperor" (for betaing purposes).

Leisure reading (nonfiction):
--Peter Boxall (editor): "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die."
--Wired Magazine.

Films/shows watched:
--"The Good Life" (aka "Good Neighbors").
--"Brideshead Revisited" (2008).

Music bought:
--DrugMoney: "MTN CTY JNK."

ONLINE SERIALIZATION: Blood Vow 4: Land of the Jackal (The Three Lands)

2008-08-21T16:37:16Z

The fourth part of Blood Vow is now online.

"Here we are in a land with no native law of its own, whose people have always depended on the whims of passion to decide their loyalties . . . or else have followed the commands of enigmatic and irrational gods. I hope that you do not allow this visit to confuse your carefully acquired Emorian sensibilities as to the proper definition of loyalty."

ONLINE FICTION: Debt Price (Master/Other)

2008-08-19T00:27:48Z

No one would pay his debt price to gain him release from prison. So he sought to pay it himself by offering the only thing he could, his body. But one man would require more.

Parental supervision is strongly suggested for this story.

He kept his gaze cast below the belt; in the chill cell, sweat was beginning to form now on his neck, running down his back and between his bound wrists. "Lord," he said softly, "I would be glad to pay to you my debt in any way I can."

ONLINE SERIALIZATION: Leather, Licking, and Lawnmowers 4: Leatherdar (Leather in Lawnville)

2008-08-17T02:45:44Z

The fourth story of the serialization is online. For adults only.

The narrator goes on the hunt at a college ballroom dance.

I don't know what to call the way I can always pick out those guys in a crowd. My friend Martin calls it "gaydar," which leads to us having long arguments over whether being able to tag a guy who doesn't know he's gay counts as gaydar.

Master Trent has another word for it. He calls it "corruption."

ONLINE SERIALIZATION: Blood Vow 3: The Look of the Chara (The Three Lands)

2008-08-15T17:01:54Z

The third part of Blood Vow, "The Look of the Chara," is now online.

"You have not been raped or killed or enslaved, or watched as your city was destroyed on the orders of the Chara."

ONLINE FICTION: The Breaking (Main Stream)

2008-08-14T02:02:13Z

ONLINE FICTION: The Breaking (Main Stream)

[Note: This same story is announced below, as part of the High Bookshelf novel Rebirth. Main Stream is my site for Main Bookshelf readers who may wish to read suitable portions of the content of High Bookshelf novels. "The Breaking" is suitable for both Main Bookshelf audiences and High Bookshelf audiences.]

The prisoner knew that the Eternal Dungeon was a place where suspected criminals were broken by torture, and he was prepared to hold out against any methods used against him – except the method he could not anticipate.

"Do you have any questions?" the Seeker asked. "About the routine of the dungeon? The times you will be fed? The questions you will be asked? The instruments of torture I use?"

ONLINE FICTION: Rebirth (The Eternal Dungeon)

2008-08-14T01:50:21Z

In the queendom of Yclau lies an underground royal prison that embraces the worst of the past and the best of the future. The Eternal Dungeon is old-fashioned in its equipment and ahead of its time in its treatment of prisoners, seeking to put their best welfare above all else. Torture is part of the process of assisting the prisoners.

The High Seeker, Layle Smith, embodies this contradictory institution: a man of deadly impulses, the head torturer binds himself strictly by the dungeon's code of conduct. His efforts to maintain this delicate balance are altered, though, by the introduction into his life of Elsdon Taylor, a vulnerable prisoner who is coming to terms with his own darkness.

This historical fantasy series explores dark aspects of erotic life and includes themes of gay love. But the series goes far beyond that by considering the deeper issues faced by all those who find that their friendships and desires are in conflict with their duties.

Parental supervision is strongly suggested for this story.

"Do you have any questions?" the Seeker asked. "About the routine of the dungeon? The times you will be fed? The questions you will be asked? The instruments of torture I use?"