Brain currently booting in Safe Mode

Okay. I have a personal bugbear: the use of 'entrance' during sexytimes in the books I read. Since I read a lot of Regency romance, I see it much more than I would like. It throws me out of the story because I find it So. Fucking. JARRING.

When the pairing is two men, I've taken to muttering, "it's anal, not architecture."

I first encountered it reading fanfic, where gay boys are imagined everywhere and hook up with abandon. And you know what, that's glorious, but 'entrance'? Not so much. It's now in romance novels for reasons(?). I don't fucking know why. Is there a dearth of appropriate words? Do we need to go back to pork swords and love grottoes? Inquiring minds something something.

There is no dearth in appropriate words. I write erotica/porn for the D&D games I'm in for funsies and have had a fair amount of practice writing effective, affecting, HOT sex, with no entrance in sight. It's possible, it's good, and I've found, with that practice, that less is more. Letting the reader do the heavy lifting makes it more personal, more impactful. (At least for me. Your mileage, etc.)

And now that I've sung my own praises without providing any examples (something akin to this VERY NSFW one that I wrote a decade ago here), I've decided to fix my 'entrance' problem in a way that I find amusing. It's like this: if I'm going to be forcibly ejected from the narrative by an author's word choice, then I get to do what I will with that word choice.

To that end, I'm going to lean into the architecture with synonyms.

If you're going to use 'entrance' for vaginal penetration, whether that be by fingers, penis, or other phallic object, then I'm going to mentally change 'entrance' to 'foyer' or 'antechamber' or 'vestibule'. Typically, in palatial homes, a foyer consists of marble columns, expensive flooring, that lone table in the middle holding a vase of hothouse flowers, and so on. It's the guest entrance. It's made to impress and decorated as such. Now, when I read "the entrance to her body beckoned him inside", it will now be "the foyer to her body beckoned him inside". There. That's better; much more jarring and much more amusing. Perfect.

Now, for why it's anal and not architecture, I've gone with something else that will work much better than 'entrance': mudroom. It's often at the back of the house, is more function than form, and was designed in days of yore as a pass through from the muddy outside to the clean inside. I have also read a startling amount of anal sex scenes with zero lube and fewer condoms. Mudroom, indeed. "Eric lined himself up with Archie's entrance and pushed in" will now be "Eric lined himself up with Archie's mudroom and pushed in". If I'm going to be ejected from the narrative, then I want to be EJECTED FROM THE NARRATIVE. No more weak attempts to get me to leave the story's flow, oh no, just one great heave into the nothing outside the wordy embrace that I've sunk myself into.

Yes, I know that this is a very silly thing to get my gitch in a twist, and I also know that it's a 'me' problem. And yet maybe this little rant will change someone else's mind about the word, and they'll find something better in their own writing, or even drop it completely. Until that happens (if it happens), I'm going to amuse myself, as it's a damn sight better than being annoyed when all I want to do is enjoy the time I spend reading.

I still need to post pictures and more commentary from my vacation. I'm halfway through a book that I started on that vacation. I've been writing and yesterday, I got 1700+ words down.

When I focus on writing, there's not a lot of mental capacity to consume. It's often easier, for me, to watch something here, something there, and to pour my creativity into making things up and writing them down. I did manage to watch Lightyear, which felt like a movie made in 1995, and I'm looking forward to The Sandman, which dropped today on Netflix.

I am trying to get this next chapter knocked out before my game on Sunday. Although... *ponders* I could cut the chapter earlier, given that there is a natural break in the text and the tone. Maybe I will do that and then that's this chapter done.

So. I've done it. Last night, I finished the first edit of my novel.

In doing so, it went from 52,718 words to 91,864. I had figured, when I started this process, that I would be able to add about 20, maybe 25k words to add some bridging scenes, a few extra bits, that sort of thing. I did not expect to add 39k words. I guess that's what you get when you add in a little more sex, a lot more family dynamic, and a drunken meet-cute that is fucking adorable.

Oh, and a new beginning and a completely reworked climax (ha!) to boot.

I still need to add chapter breaks and the like, something I've not done as of yet. Yes, that does mean my novel is a 173 page document that's damn near a wall o' text. Today's job is getting that done.

It's not ready to be sent off into the world, not by a long shot. It's getting there, and I'm ridiculously pleased by that.

I'm trying to find some inspiration or oomph for NaNoWriMo next month. To do this, I've decided to do some editing on my previous NaNo attempts. I read Shepherds (the bulk was written during NaNo 2015) and I have to say: it's good. Okay, it's totally a first draft and rough around the edges, but damn, if I had picked it up cheap somewhere, I wouldn't be mad at it.

I can see where the gaps are, mostly feelings and thoughts and expressions, but the bones are there. You know, for a book I never intended to do anything beyond write, I'm pretty proud of myself. It doesn't suck, the story flows relatively decently, and the narrator is perfectly unreliable, which is what works here.

Go me. :)

First off, Imma just gonna put this here:



I technically finished my word count on Sunday, but I finished my actual novel yesterday. It's 52k words, needs a lot of polish, but it's done. If I do edit it (and I think I should), I need to set it aside for a while and read/do other things. I've been putting off quite a bit over the month, focused on getting my daily word counts in while moving the story along.

Enemies-to-lovers, mistaken identity, hero/villain, m/m romance set in 2025 Toronto written. I already have another pairing in mind, this time f/f, still hero/villain, but no idea what the conflict will be. It needs a think, but I also need a break, so this is a good one to put on the back burner and let it simmer for a bit.

So that's the goods.

The very very bads? I slept for shit last night. I went to bed about midnight, which is earlier than usual, then woke up at 3am. Between indigestion, hot flashes, and spikes of anxiety, I tossed and turned until about 5:30. Because indigestion that does not resolve itself can also be a symptom of a heart attack in women, and my hot flashes often make themselves known as radiating warmth that starts in the middle of my chest followed by a spike of anxiety, another heart attack symptom, I was fucking miserable.

I monitored my heart beat, which was the best I could do, made sure I was laying down in such a way to deal with the gas/indigestion, it was still too damn long to be dealing with anxiety and exhaustion.

I'm okay, if a little grumpy and a lot tired. It's also a snow day. No, wait, it's a Weather Impacted Distance Learning day. *barf* At least Declan seems super excited by it and isn't fighting me tooth and nail right now. OMFG, you guys, he just said, and I quote, "I've never been so happy to do school." If only it was this easy in April.

Holy crap, you guys, I wrote 1500-ish words yesterday. I know it's not a terribly large amount, but I feel really good about it. I'm hoping that this will be the jump start I need to finally finish my dang novel.

And speaking of jumping, it's that time of year again: http://support.heartandstroke.ca/goto/declanbananapants

Sleep helped some, but not looking for work this morning helped even more. I know I should be looking everyday, but I couldn't face it today. I would like to keep what little self-esteem I have left, if it's all the same to you and not looking for work, while counterproductive in some ways, is the best thing in others.

And yes, those others do include cleaning. The bathroom no longer has that odd aroma to it that no airfreshener could touch (ew!). I even made the effort to throw the shower curtains and window covering (which is just another piece of shower curtain to keep the wooden frame and sill dry and mostly mold free) into the wash machine. Some laundry detergent, vinegar and the throw rugs (hey, they were dirty, too) meant my clear vinyl liner is back to being clear again. Now all I have to do is a quick sweep and I'm done. Yippee.

Oh, and since all the other cool kids are doing it...

I've just gotten around to finally putting entries into the "memories" thing...one about work that sums up how I feel about where I work and the job that I do in less than 25 words, and the two writing ones, mostly so I don't have to go searching through the archive to find them (nor will anybody else if they're interested in reading them).

And maybe, just maybe, I'll get more of my novel written and possibly post another of the sections (that are work safe, at any rate)...

I just realized that even though I haven't really written anything in the last two days, I don't really care and that it would be very easy to just stop. Old habits, like apathy and laziness, die hard, I guess.