"First we form habits, then they form us. Conquer your bad habits or they will conquer you" ~ Rob Gilbert
I saw this quote, today, about habits and it made me think. My habit is to sit and wait for inspiration to come to me instead of going out and grabbing it. I was watching JP slog away at his thesis (it seems to involve a lot of caffeine and muttering to oneself as far as I can see) and realised that he just sits down and writes. He's not waiting for some divine stroke of inspiration to hit -- I'm not sure how much inspiration enters in to Physics, but if it does he goes after it like my mum's terrier goes after rabbits.
Perhaps that's more what I should be doing. Forcing myself to sit down and just write something and stop being distracted by housework, cooking, reading, television and masturbating. It's too easy to let it slide, I suppose. Tell myself that it's not that important and let it fall down the list of priorities, but it is important -- it's important to me and my sense of self, my sense of achievement. No wonder I feel shitty about myself when I'm not prioritising the thing that makes me have pride in myself -- that means I don't have to view myself as simply an unemployed loser. I'm a writer, a struggling one. Maybe it's time to up the struggle...
Temptation Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 - 10:09 am
Been craving chocolate all week - blame it on hormones if you will. Now the whole place smells of brownies and there's a packet of Chocolate HobNobs sitting on the counter taunting me - they're laughing, I swear they're laughing at me!
How much can a girl take before she cracks? Seriously? I'm going to go in there, soon, and bury my face in those brownies like a pig rooting for truffles.
People I live With Monday, May 18th, 2009 - 12:56 pm
I don't remember whether I've mentioned any of my housemates before, so, just to fill you in for future updates, here's a bit about them. Bear in mind that names have been changed to protect the ... not-so innocent :-)
JP - short for Jiving Pigeon as far as I know - he's never told me and, no matter how much I peek at his post or eavesdrop on phone conversations with his mother, I still don't know. I don't even know whether he has a hyphenated first name or his first name starts with J and the 'P' is just his surname (it does start with 'P' btw, I know what his surname is). He's a strangely good-looking Physics geek doing a PhD and obsessed with tea. Occasionally he brings people back, but the jury is out as to whether he's doing the nasty with them or just having long discussions on whether E=MC squared (or whatever it is Physics people discuss). if I ask him he looks at me mysteriously and waggles his eyebrows saying 'Wouldn't you like to know?'. Well yes. I would, actually. That's why i asked. Rotter. He knows I write about sex and need material, so he's with-holding just to torture me. Scoundrel.
Lottie - Lottie is a darling and tells me everything I want to know about her sex life, bless her cotton socks. We're very alike in some ways -- bizarre stuff like stress-baking and a Marilyn Monroe obsession and wishing we could find a rich man to take care of us (very de trop thing to admit in these sexually liberated days). When we're bored or procrastinating we do each other's hair and makeup and take photos. She's very pretty and has dramatic colouring - pale porcelain skin and dark hair and eyes. I'm not entirely sure what her job is -- something to do with administration I think. A lot of her work seems to be with other European countries, as she's tri-lingual, and I am fascinated when she answers the phone and switches into a different language and then back again like it was nothing. Two days ago she went on a date with this sexy Swedish guy who was, I swear to god, actually called Sven. He had icy blue eyes and wavy blond hair -- Aryan ideal. Apparently he was very well endowed, although suffering from the usual problem that goes along with a massive schlong: the mistaken assumption that size is everything and no further effort or skill is required. Lottie is now facing the dilemma of whether to go out again with him, she varies depending on whether she views him as the boring Swede who thinks foreplay is for lesser men, or the very rich, handsome Swede with the mega-dick. My advice was to see him a bit more until she gets bored of lying him down and bouncing up and down on it.
Martin - We hardly ever see Martin. The boy's got issues. When he is in all he does is eat cheese sandwiches and drink coca-cola (he has a tin-can pyramid on his window-sill) listening to thrash metal on his headphones. Secretly we all dread him coming back home because it makes us feel uncomfortable to be chatting and friendly with each other. Lottie got off with Martin once. She said it was like being licked by a dog and she wouldn't have done it if she wasn't so drunk. On the plus side she was so drunk she passed out before further action could be taken -- silver lining. It's hard to bond with someone whose only presence in the house is the cheese, coke and rolls of film (film? I thought this was the digital age!) he leaves in the 'fridge and who locks his bedroom door every time he leaves it, even if it's only to go to the bathroom. Weeeeeeeeeeeird.
So now you know them all I can tell stories with abandon. Good thing none of them know about my website...
x
E
Under Pressure Friday, May 15th, 2009 - 8:44 am
I write a blog entry for this blog pretty much every day (well, I do now) and know that, because I have a regular readership and a quick follow-through, it doesn't matter too much what I post about, because everything I discuss adds a little more to the reader's knowledge of me, even if it's a link that I like, or a problem I'm pondering.
However, every fortnight there comes a day which puts me under rather more pressure - my eXcessica blog day. Each of the eXcessica authors is responsible for posting a blog entry once or twice a month so that eXcessica as a whole has a regularly updated blog for readers to follow. I can't blog about what I've been eating for breakfast, or the bad dream I had, or why I love Spring -- not only am I posted up there in close proximity to a whole bundle of other writers (can I stand the comparison?) but readers aren't necessarily going to know me and be familiar with my blogging and my life. They're -- *you're* -- going to pitch up, cast a quick look at my one little post and judge my writing by it. Horrors!
Not only this, but eXcessica is an advertising medium. If you find my blog post funny, or sexy or entertaining generally, then it's going to encourage you to click on my author profile, take a squint at one of my books, maybe even consider buying one. What if I'm a bore? What if my jokes fall flat? What if my bum looks big in this? In this once-a-fortnight blog I have to perform and every fortnight I get performance anxiety. I have it today. Sweaty palms, butterflies, hot flushes... no... that's just the remnants of my Dita Von-Teese dream...
How can a girl prove herself in such a limited scope? Am I allowed to beg? Read other posts by me, check out my website as a whole, scan a couple of excerpts, just please please don't cast me off like a used condom...
x
E
Triple Trouble - times two! Thursday, May 14th, 2009 - 8:13 am
Just saw an article on the TV that made me smile. A couple had twin daughters 15 years ago, followed by a single daughter six years after that. Last year, on holiday, the woman fell pregnant again - with naturally conceived girl triplets!
This couple now has six daughters! Still, at least the older ones are old enough to help out a little...
In other news... The Daily Mail is branded as a retarded homophobe for its views about gay adoption and Twitter struggles against a backlash to their new replies policy.
You have been watching Emelia news. Thank you and Goodbye.
x
E
Whatever rocks your boat Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 - 10:25 am
I read an interesting conversation between some friends of mine on a forum I regularly frequent. They were discussing lesser known fetishes, amongst them the insertion of a metal rod into the urethra and then sending an electric current along it, a fetish for medical instruments (I once saw a documentary on this where a man had 2 litres of saline solution injected into his scrotum for sexual pleasure...eww..) and Brachiarhododermaphilia - the fetish of arm freckles. Yes. Apparently that is a real fetish...
What made me think, though, was the ease with which we labelled things to be fetishes. Once upon a time I understood a fetish to be a sexual obsession with an action or objecy, without which sexual arousal/satisfaction could not be achieved. Nowadays the distinction between fetish and kink seems to have blurred to the point where anything even slightly outside the vanilla boundaries of sex is termed a 'fetish'. I'm not reaslly going anywhere with this, by the way, just musing out loud.
If you want a full on fetish though, this page is worth looking at - who would have guessed you could have so much fun with wool??
x
E
Twitteriffic Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 - 12:11 pm
Lately I've become more than a little obsessed with Twitter. The immediacy of it, the random nature of it, the variety of entries and the anonymity of it is appealing in the same that, say, a bit of roadkill is as you drive past, or a girl with her skirt tucked into her knickers. You feel a bit icky about looking, but you can't help yourself.
I post regular tweets myself, ranging from the 'Free Read available now' to the 'I'm bored and there's no chocolate'. I couldn't possibly say which sort of 'Tweet' gets the most interest... perhaps those fans (I have fans???) who follow me would be pleased to learn of free reads and new books, but perhaps they'd all rather look at my skirt tucked into my knickers, who knows?
For the time being I'm just pleased when I get new followers... it makes me feel validated when I tweet anything. Sad, I know, but there it is. Even when you're talking to yourself it's nice to think there's somebody listening...
x
E
ps- if you want to follow me then search 'EmeliaBell' on twitter or click on the 'follow me' logo on my front page.
pps- there's a new page on my site - had you noticed?
Not Goodbye, But Au Revoir Friday, May 8th, 2009 - 8:01 am
Right - I know it's early, but I'm away -- off to lovely Lincolnshire for a training course. Let's hope the weather holds up, let's hope I've packed the right things, let's hope my Sat Nav doesn't misfunction and send me to Scotland, let's hope I don't make a tit of myself...
I'll be back on Monday, so I'll hopefully be posting again then. Until then, however - Au Revoir
x
E
Glam-up Day Thursday, May 7th, 2009 - 9:01 am
For me there is always one day in the year when I finally accept that summer is coming and I'm going to have to do something about it. That day was last week and today is the day I do something about it. I applied a light coat of fake tan (just to relieve the winter white of my poor little legs), painted my toenails scarlet, have a hair appointment for a cut and highlights and am going lingerie shopping - yes - it's new bra day! Hurrah. Time for some new and pretty undies.
Now let's hope the weather holds up its end of the bargain and stays warm and sunny so I can get my legs out and show off my red toenails...
My words it's a lot of work being female! Expensive, too, but fun ;-)
x
E
Toothless Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 - 11:35 am
So I have this recurring dream, right? I'm somewhere public, people around me when I start to feel that one of my teeth is loose. I probe it with my tongue and get that mushy-gum, sharp-edged-tooth sensation on the tip of my tongue. I can taste blood, my mouth fills with saliva and as I poke at the tooth is loosens even more, wobbling and finally coming out. I open my mouth and, in a cascade of spit and blood, let the tooth fall from my mouth and then, horror of horrors, I feel that another tooth is loose, and another and another, and one by one they all start loosening and falling out.
I couldn't tell you the number of times I've had this dream now, two or three times a year at least and it started a fair few years ago. It's got to the point now where I even check whether or not it's a dream... Like this morning, when I was having the dream I thought, "Hang on a second -- this has happened before but it's always been in dreams, maybe this is a just a dream and I'm only dreaming my teeth are falling out." I can't remember why, now, but I came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, reality and I truly was losing my teeth. I woke up, panicky and sweating, a few minutes later at quarter past six, frantically checking my sturdy, healthy teeth with tongue and fingers.
Who can say why we have recurring dreams, or what they mean, but I truly hate this dream and would be happy to never have it again. I still feel freaked out by it now and it's nearly midday. Weird.
x
E
The Grim Reaper Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 - 8:10 pm
That's me. I am the kiss of death for technology, managing to kill two separate computers in the last four days - and I don't even know how! I wasn't even doing the same thing!!
Thank *God* for my friendly techie men, without whom I would be screwed, and permanently un-cybered due to lack of funds.
Gee Golly whizz and fuck me I am having a bad, blonde week.
x
E
Train of Thought Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 - 10:20 am
It's funny. I can start a day with so much promise -- up early, fabulous nails (I painted them yesterday), the flat is neat and tidy, the laundry is done -- a perfect day for getting writing and proofreading done and yet, here I am, three hours later. Still in my dressing gown, not showered, no make-up and, until about a minute ago, stretched out along the sofa watching daytime TV. OK, that wasn't a complete waste, because one of the shows I watched was an interesting exploration of how TV has changed women over the last sixty years and it was this that got my brain ticking over and prompted me to get up and write this blog post.
Since the end of the second world war, when women were kicked out of the many jobs they had successfully undertaken whilst the men were away fighting, women have been in a constant struggle to be truly equal to men: have the same choices, same rights, same opportunities. Where I get stuck is in examining how we can possibly have the same options when we biologically and physically differ. Due simply to biology a woman is the most likely caregiver, both to children and other family members, but in this day and age that seems to be a negative thing to say.
If I tell someone that my inclination is to work from home so I can do housework and, eventually, care for any children then the chances are I'll be sneered at, patronised or derided. I should imagine that any man stating a similar intention would be similarly treated, if not worse. How can we have any kind of functional, happy society when choosing to stay at home and look after a family is seen as a second choice? Wouldn't society function better if someone sat down and looked at ways to better support women and men who choose to stay at home? I keep seeing incentives for working parents -- wouldn't it make more sense to provide incentives for stay-at-home parents? There are so many issues that children have to deal with and having a parent able to stay at home and be there for them must be the best, easiest and most effective way to help children and curb so many of the problems that today's youth both cause and face.
I seem to have strayed from my original topic somewhat, but I was feeling thoughtful this morning and I suppose that has filtered into my blog. Apologies for those who logged in expecting to read something fluffy and erotic - the literary equivalent, perhaps of Sex And The City, but occasionally I stray into unfamiliar territory and exercise the mental muscles that I still possess, even if they are subjected to daytime TV more often than they're put into use.
Have a lovely Tuesday
x
E
Horrors! Monday, May 4th, 2009 - 11:55 am
I have a dead laptop. It was sitting there, happily playing music to me whilst I put my makeup on, then eek - it starts juddering.
"Alright," I thought, "Shut it down, start it up - it'll be good."
But no. I restarted it and nothing - just a black screen with the instruction to hit ctrl+alt+del, which I did, so the laptop restarted and nothing - just a black screen with the instruction to hit ctrl+alt+del, which I did, so the laptop restarted....
I could have cried. Thank god I back up all my writing and photos and had thought to do it only a day before this happened. Now I'm using a crummy old desktop that doesn't even have a word processing programme (yet - I'm downloading open office) and praying to whatever gods there may be that my laptop is salvageable and that my external hdd won't lose the data!
Not a good day. I need cheering up :-(
x
E
Marching through the streets Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 - 9:38 pm
I went to a parade today, a parade to welcome the local regiment back from Basra. I went out of some sort of strangely morbid curiosity I think, and a sense of moral obligation that I couldn't quite explain.
Here's the thing... I took my camera, kidding myself that I was apart from it all, just there to get some photos and clap politely and take in the atmosphere in a writerly sort of way. Not so. I watched, smiling, as mums herded their kids out of the streets, as dads raised their children onto their shoulders, all of them waving flags. A middle aged woman stood by herself, lips pressed tightly together, not meeting anyones' eyes, her husband standing stiffly by her side, not touching, both of them searching for a face they wouldn't see again. The band could be heard from a distance, the bass drum reverberating through my feet and echoing the thump in my chest and an elderly man in a British Legion blazer and beret started clapping with a dignified ferocity.
The soldiers' faces remained fixed straight ahead, impassive as the crowds either side of them cheered and whooped, but I was sure I could read something in their eyes that indicated they were touched -- that our gratitude meant something.
I was moved almost to tears. If I hadn't been in public I might have succumbed. I was proud of my country, my soldiers, my people. Grateful that people had made the effort to turn out, bring their kids, wave their flags. We might not all agree with the war and the reason we went into it, but our forces were just doing their job and without them we'd be seriously screwed -- they can't pick and choose which wars they fight, they fight them anyway, put their lives at risk to support our government, our country, our freedom. Some of them looked so young, their slender teenage shoulders weighed down by their rifle. I clapped and clapped and sniffed furiously as I blinked my stinging eyes.
MayDay MayDay - We're going down... Friday, May 1st, 2009 - 8:47 am
Happy May Day to you all.
The 1st of May is known as a cross-quarter day, halfway between the spring equinox and midsummer and the first official day of summer.
As with all seasonal festivals the primary form of celebration involves sensual indulgence - food and sex. Here in England the tradition is for morris dancers (men wearing white clothes and bells) to dance, banging their sticks together, for young girls to dance around a maypole (a bigger version of phallic symbolism than the morris dancers' sticks) and for people to give their neighbours small gifts of sweets and flowers. Some villages would elect a May Queen, crown her with flowers, then send her off into the woods to copulate with a young man (or many young men) of the village to ensure fertility for the whole village... Wish I had that job.
So, if you wish to celebrate May Day in the good, old-fashioned, Ye Olde English way, go eat a handful of sweeties, deck yourself out in flowers, then lead a handsome young man or woman out to the woods and have your wicked way with them. If anyone questions you just tell them it's traditional, no-one can argue with that ;-)
x
~E~
