So I ended up in an interesting conversation with Wyeth Bailey earlier this week and thought I would toss this question out to everyone because I’m curious.  How do you write?

Ok, ok, I know, you’re giving me that whole “what the hell are you talking about, Ais” look.  Lemme explain.

Wyeth and I have conversations that ramble about and we were talking about what kind of thinkers we are.  You see, Wyeth is a very visual sort of person(I’ll let her post her own explanation if she wants to).  I, however, think in words.  Like, literally, when I think of someone more often than now I’ll see their name in letters(in their handwriting if it’s someone that I’m that familiar with).  If it’s someone that I see on a regular basis I’ll see their face.  For instance, Wyeth and I were comparing how our minds reacted to Harper Eliot.  Wyeth saw images, I had Harper’s words, her old username and her new, a flicker of her old avi, and some of the tweets that stand out in my head.

That conversation then morphed.  Wyeth asked me, “So do you see the words when you write?”

My answer that day was a bit of a ramble, so I’ll make it somewhat more concise here, but what I’m really interested in is your answer.

For me writing feels like I’ve a store of words and ideas in my head all bottled up.  The act of writing or typing creates the outlet for those.  I prefer to type when I’m creating, mostly because I’m lefthanded and my handwriting is, at best, marginal.  I also type much faster than I could ever write, though at times I have retreated to a notebook and found that for some reason that works better.

Now, you would think that with all those words just waiting to come out it’s just a matter of pulling the plug.  Some days that’s all I have to do.  There are times where I feel like I’m Atlas holding up the words until I can get to my keyboard and write because they’re struggling to come flooding out.  Those are great days, when I write thousands of words all at a crazy pace and things are just there. Writing isn’t work but just riding the rush, what I imagine is like surfing or parachuting or one of those other adrenaline pumping pursuits.

But most days it’s like that sandglass is actually full of water and instead of standing up it’s lying down and I have to figure out how to get the words out.  For me, this is where music comes in.  When the words won’t flow on their own I have to find a way to guide them.

Do you remember capillary action experiments in science class?  That’s what music acts as for my writing.  The words and ideas are the source, the music is my wick, my blank page is the waiting reservoir.  I use different types of music for different stories, raise the tempos if I’m writing action, slow it down if I’m getting introspection or painful.  Usually once the words are going I don’t need the music to continue but it can keep the flow from slowing or stalling.  If I’m writing long works I rarely write to singing; I’ve enough words to deal with without adding more.  Short fiction is another matter, however, and can benefit from being written to a good soundtrack that keeps my toe tapping.

So. Will you share?  How do you write?  How do you get things started?  Do you write to music?  Does it take a run, a shower, some tunes, hot sex? ;)

I seem to have completely forgotten how to sleep in.  Which means I’ve been awake since shortly after 7am both yesterday and today.  My candle’s burning mighty short with the pub having me up until 1 in the morning so that view above…that’s what I see out my balcony door and that’s my incentive program.

I’m editing right now.  I’ve just started so I don’t know what sort of rate to expect, but I’m going to go at it for two hours and then…? Then I’m going to take my tired self outside, get settled in that hammock, and snooze for a bit.

Hope y’all are having a great weekend and that you’re doing a much better job of sleeping in than I am!

Well, I ended up sharing it with my girlfriend who saw more it in than I did….so I thought I would share it after all.  I’ve been calling it an Exorcism…perhaps it’s a renewal as well.

~*~

I don’t always notice when it happens. When the colors wash out, when I blink and time shifts and I’m suddenly thrown backwards into a time I wish I could excise from my mind and forget.

The memory arrived with a smell. An acrid curl that burned through my nose and into my lungs, searing and killing alveoli, seeding poison into my blood.

Becca pushed into me, her hair on my back, hand between my thighs. Her mouth kissed and bit and sucked at the full swell of my hip. I missed it happening. The late afternoon light through the curtains revealed few hues in our bedroom.

One moment I rocked back into my lover, filling the void left deep inside me by her week long business trip. Her words that dripped with lust and desire faded away into moans and breaths and the smell invaded, finding traction in the absence of her from my sight and my hearing.

I blinked.

The thrusts into me intensified. I wanted to cry out but I couldn’t find my voice. The grip on my hip tightened and I clutched at the sheets. The scent filled my mouth, my throat, an invasion that penetrated as thickly as his cock once had. I screamed in my head but all that came from my throat was a hoarse cry.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, burning and hot. My body went stiff and I tried to reach back, to stop the sex, to push him off.

I blinked, clearing my vision. The sheets in my fist came into focus and I noted each gray wrinkle. Not gray, it shouldn’t be gray. We had blue sheets. Brilliant sky blue sheets. A shudder raced down my spine and I tore free of my paralysis. My fingers wrapped around Becca’s wrist and I yanked with all my strength. She tumbled, off balance, to the bed beside me. Her eyes widened at the streaks on my face and I stared at her gray irises.

I couldn’t stop the trembling and I couldn’t get the taste of cigarette smoke out of my lungs. “Your eyes should be green,” I whispered. My eyelids fluttered, trying to force the color back into my world. The skin at the corners of Becca’s eyes wrinkled and her hands touched me as if I might shatter.

Perhaps I would.

“Baby?” I heard her voice. It was her voice, sweet and soft and gentle. A woman’s voice. That was right. But her eyes needed to be green and she needed to smell like cocoa butter and almonds and watermelon lip gloss. I nodded and pressed my hands over hers, felt the differences, made myself catalog them. No scars, longer fingers, smaller palms, and the right pinky didn’t curve out because her mother didn’t break it.

I took a breath and tried not to sob. The smell of him was still in my lung and I couldn’t seem to speak.

Becca moved closer and my throat tightened as I swallowed. What if she smelled the smoke? What if somehow he was here, pressing his foulness into me so he could contaminate this beautiful, sweet woman?

“Talk to me,” she whispered, slowly erasing the distance between us. Her fingers slipped into the sway of my back and stroked, soft and slow. He never did that, I reminded myself as my insides coiled and twisted. I wanted to scream in frustration that years later that man still touched my life. “I’m here, love,” her other hand stroke my forehead and drew little circles on my temple.

The lust we had so recently been chasing felt curdled and wrong in my stomach. Nausea ate at the back of my throat. I blinked, still seeking relief from the hue-less world, and she urged me the last couple inches to her.

Her lips touched mine and I waited for the recoil at the overwhelming presence of the smell. Instead they softened, molding to me instead of invading, inviting me closer. Oh, how well I knew those lips and how sweet and kind they could be. Tears tipped over the fringe of my lashes again and without thinking I leaned into her, giving in to the safety she offered.

The tip of Becca’s tongue teased my lips apart. The first real sound rose from my throat, a soft, low moan, and she slid her tongue over mine. She tasted of peach and honey and vanilla; the dessert we shared before our desire overran our hunger and tumbled us into bed. Her fingers slipped up my nape and cradled the the back of my skull, her other hand still on my lower back drawing gentle shapes.

She made no demands. Did she remember the one night of confessions we shared of ex lovers and the ghosts of them that haunted us? Perhaps. We were still new, still learning, still discovering each other. Pressed against her I couldn’t confuse memory with present. There was no trace of him in her soft skin, tender touch, and sweet, sweet way.

My chest ached when my eyes opened and her green eyes met mine, gone dark and mossy with desire. I wanted to cry with relief, but I was so tired of crying. Instead I kissed her, reviving the passion that had gone so wrong earlier. I asked and she gave, letting me take her mouth, her cunt, all of her. I filled my mouth with her, stroking her clit with my tongue until I drowned in her pleasure, inhaling it into my lungs, overwriting the shadow of the past with the bright, sultry, salty flavor of the present.

Later she cradled me, kissing me, her fingers teasing tiny, tiny circles around my clit. I stared into her eyes, clinging to shades of green, gold, and the hidden ripples of blue as I came, refusing to let the world go black and white again.

~finis~

~*~

The scent of sex hangs in the air, thick and rich.  The ceiling fan stirs the flames of the candles on the bedside table and dries the perspiration on the flesh of the women twisted together in bed.  Spooned together it’s clear they aren’t done, despite the discarded toys at the foot of the bed and on the floor.

~*~

I can’t tear my eyes away from his mouth.  It’s lush and cardinal sin red.  His stubble just makes it more so, the dark shadow of it stark behind the full curve of his lower lip and the bow of his upper.  A man’s mouth shouldn’t look so inviting.

The bar is dim and deserted.  His name is Kevyn and the bartender is watching him suck at his bottle of beer just as hungrily as I am.  His tongue pushes out to catch a drop and my body is react with phantom constrictions to an organ I don’t have.

I’ve never wanted to have a cock so badly.

His eyes slide to mine and away, again.  Aaron starts the familiar motions of closing up as I rise.  It’s time.  A couple bid me goodnight and I shake their hands.  The lock engages behind them with a whisper.

Kevyn’s watching me when I return from the door. His lanky  form isn’t to my taste but that mouth. . .

I catch a fistful of hair before he can stand.  His adam’s apple slides up and down in his throat as I pull his head back and my mind flashes, again, to the vision of his sinful mouth sliding over the taut knob of a cock.  Aaron pauses at the end of the bar, his lips parting and I know his jeans are tightening with a flood with blood.

“Stay or go.”  My lips brush against the curve of his ear, staining it with my lipstick.  Kevyn’s lashes dip then left and he meets my eyes.  His are hazel, I see now, flecks of gold suspended in mossy green and brown with a streak of blue in the left.  The pupils constrict and dilate as I free him and step back.

His cheeks brighten until they almost match his mouth.  My heels click on the beat up floor when he rises.  I cock my head and wait, refusing to crane my neck and acknowledge the foot of height he has on me.  His jeans hang low on his hips and I catch sight, again, of the keyring that caught my eye when he walked in, black with a blue stripe, small but distinct.

My teeth ache when he hooks his thumbs in his pockets and rocks on his heels.  The posture is cocky but his expression is the perfect combination of uncertainty and curiosity.  ”Kneel.”  My voice comes out and I don’t recognize the hungry thing it is.  His eyes dart back to Aaron and he pulls his lower lip between his teeth.  My cunt clenches.

I reach and drag my nails down the curve of his neck.  He twists back around, the tension in him vibrates through my fingers.  ”On your knees,  please,” I whisper.  His eyes are on my mouth and I repeat the words, my fingers sliding around his long neck.

Kevyn’s body is all angles and lines as he folds to his knees before me.  He looks up at me, his lips open, revealing the wet interior.  My body is reacting and I’ve pulled his face to my thighs before I can help it.  I want a cock to shove between his lips.  He pushes his nose against my slacks and the back of his neck is tight under my hand.

Stepping away is the hardest thing I can do.

Behind him Aaron grips a barstool, his body so tight I can see every tendon standing out.  ”Please clean up, Aaron.”  My voice is the cool, collected one it needs to be.  The bartender jumps as if I’ve struck him.  He starts working again and I erase his presence from my mind.

Without looking I reach for a chair.  ”Show me your cock.”  I sit, cross my legs and swallow a moan at the slickness of my thighs.  Kevyn’s fingers fumble at his fly.  ”Leave the button though,” I add and his eyes dart up.  His tongue pushes at his lower lip again and I stamp on the urge to spread my thighs and instruct him to use it.  ”Don’t look away,” I instruct.  His eyelids flutter and the chatter of his teeth is loud in the bar.

My eyes take in the view he presents.  His chest is jerking already with short breaths, pulling at his thin tee.  His nipples are tiny pebbles and the hairy swirls down his abdomen are bared by the ruck created  by his arm.  His palms rest on his thighs, twitching, bracketing the gape in his jeans.

“Isn’t that lovely.”  His cock stands up through his jeans, dark with blood and shiny hard.  I look at it, let my tongue touch my lip and watch as his hips move enough to make the length sway.  Like him it’s lanky and his balls sit heavy and dark against the white of his underwear.

“Touch yourself.”  Behind me a low groan reveals Aaron’s location.  Kevyn’s eyes flicker away and I shake my head.  ”No.  Look at me,” I say, leaning forward, pulling his attention back to me.  His eyes focus on mine.  His cheeks are darker still and his mouth is even more fuckable.  ”Your boyfriend isn’t a part of this,” I whisper.  Later he will be.  Later I will spend hours torturing both of these willing, delicious boys.  But for now. . . “This is you and me.  You’re going to come for me right here, on your knees, fully clothed, wishing someone else would touch you, just a little.”

Kevyn makes a sound that’s something between a whimper and a moan and all deperation.  His mouth has opened further and I reach out.  ”Both hands now, Kevyn.  Give me a show.”  My fingers are a hair away from his lips and I wait.

There’s a moment of stillness before his whole body flexes.  The open surrender in his expression sends a fresh flood of hunger through me.  His shoulders roll and the movement carries down his arms.  His left fist closes around the base of his cock and he palms his balls in his right.  ”Squeeze,” I whisper and he and Aaron both let out a sound that makes me bare my teeth in a terrible, vicious smile.  ”Put your cock back in your pants and finish up, Aaron.”  I don’t look for him but the widening of Kevyn’s eyes is nothing but delicious.

My toy strokes himself and there’s nothing languid about it.  With the sounds of Aaron closing up the bar behind us an odd soundtrack he settles in a rhythm that is full of his lover’s frustration.  ”Slow down.”  He groans but obeys and my eyes lower to watch.  Suddenly, with my gaze on his hands his motions shift.  Kevyn rolls his palm up and over the head, smearing the drop waiting there back down.  His skin, so tight it shines, gleams in the low light of the bar.  His fight tugs and squeezes his balls.

I stand.  ”Don’t stop.”  I lift the chair onto the table behind me and catch sight of Aaron’s tight, frustrated face behind the bar.  I hide my smile and move behind Kevyn.  His entire body is moving, his ass lifting up as he fucks into his own hand.  I crouch behind him and fist my hand in his hair again.

“Your mouth is obscene.”  I pull his head back and his body arcs.  ”If I had a cock I don’t know that I could resist fucking it day and night.”  I speak loud enough for Aaron to hear and hear him groan in response.  Kevyn’s movements loose their deliberate pace.  ”I would push my cock between your lips just to watch them open.”  I reach around and push my fingers against his lush mouth.  He sucks at them, his hands jerking wildly at his cock and I chuckle in his ear.  ”Oh yes.  I’d have to have you as my little cockwhore, on your knees, sucking and licking me.  Now why don’t you come for me, you good little boy…”

Kevyn shouts and lurches against my hand.  A streak of come leaps from between his fingers.  The second one lands on the back of his hand and he keeps stroking until he sags and shudder.  My fingers loosen in his hair and I rise.  ”Aaron, clean up Kevyn’s mess and bring him upstairs.  We aren’t done.”

I leave the two men and climb the stairs to the office above the bar.  I pull the bag out from behind the desk, my stomach tightening at the smell of leather and click of steel.  I settle in the chair to wait, glad I accepted my bartender’s invitation to play.  the night promises to be full and decadent.  The heavy tread of boots on the steps sends a throb of want through my cunt and I take a deep breath.  Anticipation.  What a lovely, unfamiliar cocktail.

You can work around me, right Mom? Cause I’m comfy.

*YAWN*

I’ve been plagued by things that go bump in the night, the morning and any other time I’d like to sleep it seems of late.  Which, of course, means my muse is groggy and in poor form and I’m lucky if I can compose a sentence.  Last night, however, I managed a fair night of sleep and woke feeling much closer to normal!

Hopefully this translates into a very productive day.

I thought I’d post a teaser of the novel I’ve just started.  The working title is ‘The Last Feather‘ and the idea for this came to me in the fall of 2010.  It intimidated me, though, so I just tucked it into the back of my head and worked on other things.  The muse didn’t forget, however, so every so often my mind would work on it, reminding me how interesting it sounded and how much fun it would be.  You see, the scope of the novel is going to span some thousand years of history and require a significant amount of research. Over the last month though I’ve talked to a couple of other writers about it, stoking both my own interest and others’ in it.  I seem to be ready to tackle it, so I started working on it last week and have it up to around four thousand words.  this is going to be a huge book.  I can’t imagine it being anything short of 80K.

Anywho, here you go…a little bit from the first chapter of The Last Feather.

Such a sunchild, I thought, wondering if she allowed herself to feel the heat of my gaze. I dismissed the thoughts when she began to rock, letting a chuckle ripple forth. Oh, but I must admit, this century’s children are so unabashed about loving. Laia reached for me and I met her hand with mine, threading our fingers together. When she tried to touch her clit I curled up and caught her wrist, pinning it into the hollow of her back. “Oh no,” I said, rocking my hips under her, urging her on, “fuck me, come on me.”

The small, dark woman tipped her head back, a wanton moan trickling out from her full, lush lips. I pressed my teeth to the swell of her breast as she ground against my stomach. My hand flattened across her lower back when Laia tugged her hand from my grip to twist it up in my hair. A steady trickle of moisture dripped down into my curls and I growled into her flesh.

“Oh god,” she gasped, twisting her hips down onto me, “please, Brigid, oh, fuck, please.” My teeth closed around her nipple, sharp and hard. I curled my hand down under her full bottom, teasing closer and closer to her cleft as I loosed her other hand. Laia’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, her wrists crossing behind my head, fingers sinking into my hair. I felt her pushing closer to her release, nearer to the oblivion of pleasure, reaching and stretching. A whine crept into her moans as my fingers teased the inside of her thighs and her grip on me tightened in desperation.

I waited. Oh yes, I waited. A thousand years will teach you plenty about how cruel you can be to a lover to get them just that much closer to that perfect release. I waited, grinding my smooth, soft belly against her aching, dripping cunt until one, salty, tangy tear dropped onto my cheek. Her chest hitched, muscles tensed and I flexed.

Laia cried out as I flipped her onto her back. My fingers dug into the beautiful swells of her hips and pushed, spreading her wide. Her hands, still so tangled in my hair, jerked, pulling my mouth to her and I kissed her, penetrating her mouth with soft teasing flicks of my tongue. Laia’s eyes rolled up and I could feel the beginning shudders of her release before my fingers slipped into her.

“Look at me,” I whispered, my voice gone soft and musical. Her eyelids dropped and I pressed deeper, curling my fingers hard into that waiting knot of nerves. Her head jerked up and I caught her gaze with mine, holding it as I stoked the fire deep within her. Over and over I stroked, long and slow, my thumb grazing her clit, a rhythm old and primal. Her lips shaped words but nothing emerged and I watched as for a moment, just a sliver of a second, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, flames kindled in the depths of her eyes.

Then her blood rushed, she arched, her mouth stretched, and Laia came. I held on as she quaked, her cunt clenching and flooding around my fingers, her thighs clamped tight about my hand, her fists gripped so tight in my hair I felt strands tear from my scalp. On and on it went, an avalanche thundering, until she sagged weakly against me, breathless and panting.

Word of warning: This isn’t exactly a pleasant piece….but I’m not sure what I should warn you about specifically…

~*~

“I found a dirty soul today,” came a whisper through the screen.  Father Jacob started and squinted through the stray beam of sunlight made bloody by the red glass high above.  He waited for more, for the customary language.  Nothing came.  ”Do you wish to make your confession, my child?”

The stained light blurred his vision.  He couldn’t tell if a woman, man, child…who knelt opposite him.  ”She was the sweetest bit of summer you ever saw,” the voice continued, ragged and full of broken things.  ”Long hair captured in a neat braid, freckles on her nose, and a mouth that should have been eating strawberries, raspberries, clean, ripe things.”

Jacob leaned towards the screen.  His stomach twisted and he struggled to see through the odd wash of light.  How had he never noticed the depiction of the Passion spilled blood into his confessional before?  How appropriate, a small voice whispered.  Before he could speak the confession went on, rolling over him.

“It was one of those alleys the sun tries not to find.  You know.  Nasty.  Damp.  Smellin’ of piss and shit and things whores leave behind.  A place for rats and cockroaches and rotten, dying things.”  A sound tapped on the priest’s attention from the sanctuary but the words continued and he couldn’t turn away.  ”I like those places, Father.  I do.  They’re real.  And oh that one was so real and with her sittin’ against that wall like a little bit of heaven come to hell.”  Father Jacob went stiff.

That noise grew more insistent.  It had that sort of solid wetness like a soaked sheet hitting a wall.  The priest shifted, uncomfortably aware of -

“But oh, that dirty soul, Father,” the voice dragged his eyes away from the curtain separating him from the bright open space of the church.  His gut coiled and churned and his blood thrummed in his ears.  ”I followed the smell of filth, of greed, of deceit and sublimated lust.  That nasty soul led me to that alley.”

The confessional walls pushed in on the priest.  Lips pushed words at him, lush lips, bright red, so close to the screen he could have pushed his finger through it and touched their plumb curves.  His sin stood stiff and hard in his lap, tenting his robe, and the sound of wet impacts continued out in the sanctuary reminding him of a youth spent watching others fornicate wetly and loudly and without remorse.

“Such a dirty soul I’ve found,” the voice dipped lower, was it more feminine now? and Jacob shuddered in the red, red light of his Christ’s sacrifice.  ”I watched you in that alley, filthy boy,” she whispered, “so eager to help that pretty little girl.”  The priest’s hand clutched at his cock too late.  The wet sounds escalated into splats and slaps of things thick and slippery and his own effluence leapt forth, staining the inside of his cassock.

Jacob slid down onto his knees, curled forward, and wept.  Prayers slipped from his lips.

“Father Jacob?”  A sharp rap on the wall of the confessional jolted the young priest awake.  He looked around, disoriented.

“Yes,” he cleared his throat and shifted on his seat. “Yes I’m here.”

“It’s time for dinner, Father.”

Jacob stood.  His cassock pressed against his legs, cold and clammy and his stomach clenched.  ”A dream,” he whispered softly, crossing himself and pressing a kiss to his crucifix.  ”It was just a dream.”

~finis~

My mind is ripe
with memories of
skin and sunshine.
The bend of her elbow
and knee and neck all
call to my mouth, shadowy places
where sensitive skin hides.

Bright yellow sun paints
my nape, cool fingertips
coil my hair round and round.
The skin on the inside of
Her knee is soft, a tender
spot that loves my mouth.
Higher my tongue pushes into
ribbons of salty sweet,
my just desserts.

On my knees in the sun,
held in, held on,
riding, guiding,
oh that tiny bead so
hard beneath my hungry, thirsting mouth.

My golden goddess spread,
wild-haired, creamy-skinned,
consuming my worship
Lost in my offerings.

Heathen, hedonist,
anointed one at her feet
priestess of the mysteries of
flesh and blood and bone.
Fleshy altar consecrated
let the ritual begin again.

Fridays aren’t the same for me as most, but I’ll celebrate it with ya.  So TGI-Fucking-F! (what? I can say that! I’m not safe for work in anyway shape or form!)

Some of you, if you follow me on twitter may have noticed I’ve been tweeting about a project.

A secret project.

A super secret project.

Well, it’s not a writing one, per se, but I’ve very excited about it!  I can’t wait to tell y’all about it, but I can’t do that yet so just squiggle a little happy dance for me and stay tuned, ok?

So I did a bit of flash fiction last night, then another later on.  The first is a 100 word flasher, the second a 250 word.  It’s been a while since I indulged in some short fiction.  There’s something uniquely elegant about flash fiction.  It’s like the beauty of a line drawing or a winter landscape.  Without the details there can sometimes be even more story.

The following is my bit of twitterotica from last night.  Definitely a departure from my norm, but fun to write nonetheless.  Walk Off The Earth’s cover of Gotye’s Somebody I Used to Know is what kicked this off.  

~*~

#Follow

I betrayed myself looking two seconds too long.

“Do you know him?” She swirled her Cosmo, swiped her finger around the rim and sucked at the tip.

I glanced back across the room. You sat at the bar swirling a tumbler. I couldn’t hear the clink of the ice nor smell the whiskey.

“I used to,” I answered. Her nail polish matched the cosmo, the finger dipped into the drink and swirled again.

“Do you want to fuck him?”

Games within games and this one tiresome. I leaned back, sipped my tequila, and studied you again. Beat-up jeans, boots, twill shirt rolled up to reveal forearms. Perhaps you’d finally discovered the reward of an honest day’s work. I could see flecks of silver in your dark hair and your eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Do you?” It wasn’t in the script, my answer. She went still beside me and I shoved my chair back. I dropped three crisp bills onto the table.

“Have another on me, then go on and have him.”

My cock tightened as I left. I felt her eyes on me but it was yours that did it. All too well I remembered pressing into your ass and the way you looked over your shoulder at me. Your lost expression, your clenching muscles, your desperate sounds when you came. Your mouth still had that obscene fullness that made me twitch. The humid night enveloped me. I wondered. Would you follow me, again?

 ~finis~