I'm a writer of erotic fiction, mostly of a paranormal/fantasy bent. Welcome to my Blog! I aim to post at least every 2 days, with a weekly Eyecandy Monday. Adults only please ... you know the drill. All commenters welcome. All text copyright Janine Ashbless unless otherwise stated.
Many many years ago I watched The Prophecy and fell for angel Simon. He wears a trenchcoat and comes to a Bad End.
The Prophecy is a fabulous, underrated little superantural thriller, btw - you really should watch it if you haven't already. The angels are all totally badass. It's got Christopher Walken in as the grumpy monkey-hating Archangel Gabriel - and Viggo Mortensen as a thoroughly unpleasant Satan!
Seriously, what more could you ask?
Writing Cover Him With Darkness, I have to consciously avoid Prophecy memes.
Actually, Gabriel gets a rotten press as far as angel movies go. He/She turns up as the Big Bad in Constantine too ... which is not such a great movie but Tilda Swinton is eerily convincing:
John Constantine took the trenchcoat - Gabriel was left with just a vest and longjohns
And he's the genocidal enemy of all mankind in Legion.
Plate armour? That's so 15th Century, Gabriel.
So anyway, I'm now planning to watch the whole Supernatural series, and happily anticipate falling head over heels for this grungy chap:
A little grace-gift from the universe: I was looking up the spelling of chariachairiochiaroscuro, for the novel, when I came across this on Wikipedia, of all places.
:-)
Yes, oh yes! Blood, slo-mo gymnastics and rippling abs alert!
There is a new "300" film scheduled for July next year - set before, during and after the events depicted in the first movie. Lots of seaborne battle action apparently, with the Persian commander Queen Artemisia getting a villainous role.
Gerard Butler is not involved, sadly, but nevertheless I am sooo looking forward to this!
Rogelio de Egusquiza: The Death of Tristan and Isolde (1910)
Last week I was lucky enough to listen to a friend (along with full orchestra) sing the aria Liebestod (Love-Death) from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. I don't normally like opera, but I can't deny that that was beautiful! It sounded a bit like this:
The story itself is a sort of spin-off from the Arthurian legends. It varies wildly in details (Wagner's version is rather different to any normal telling), but basically Sir Tristan (or Tristram) is taking Isolde (or Iseult, or Isoud, or Yseult) to her arranged marriage to King Mark(e) of Cornwall, they ingest a love potion and fall for each other, conduct an adulterous dooooomed affair which is eventually uncovered, and when they die are buried together and the trees over their graves entwine. Aww. All a bit like Game of Thrones then, but without the incest.
Arthur Rackham: How Tristram and Isoud Drank the Love Drink (1917)
It's been a pretty popular subject with artists over the years, being full of angst, sexual compulsion, fighting and moral drama (though few artists have had the guts to depict the actual shagging). Most of all, it gave Victorian and Edwardian artists an excuse to legitimately depict adultery, which would have been considered an impossibly low and offensive subject if not dressed up in romantic Arthurian guise.
John William Waterhouse: Tristan and Isolde (1916)
Waterhouse's is probably the most famous depiction.
John Duncan (1912)
But Duncan gets reproduced a lot too.
Aubrey Beardsley (1893)
This is Beardsley - the juxtaposition of her head and his crotch is so NOT a coincidence.
Herbert Draper (1901)
Blog favourite Herbert Draper was bound to get a look-in!
Edmund Leighton (1902)
I think King Mark has spotted something going on...
August Speiss: Reunion in Death (1892)
Many of the painting focus on the deathbed scene. This comfortably (for the viewer) combines the romance and thrill of illicit sexual love with its socially-sanctioned consequence/punishment: death. All in glorious weepy detail.
Well, we can't have people getting ideas, can we?
Many more pictures here
There was even a 2006 movie, which I remember as competent but sadly lacking in sexual charisma or interest.
"Janine" isn't actually my given name. But it still made me feel a bit weird (but in a totally good, flattered way) to find out that the protag Janine Archer, in Shanna Germain's new release from Mischief Books, Leather Bound, is named after me. Yes, this is official - Shanna has said she likes naming characters after writer friends!
Leather Bound is a post-50SoG BDSM romance, so right on the zeitgeist:
Janine Archer has everything she wants: a private house in the
coolest part of town. A hot man to share her bed when she’s in the mood.
And best of all, her dream job at Leather Bound, the bookstore that she
co-owns with her best friend.
But when a beautiful man named
Davian arrives at Leather Bound, looking for a book that doesn’t exist,
Janine finds herself oddly compelled to track down the mysterious
volume.
Perhaps it’s the book itself, with its compelling promise
of sexuality. Or maybe it’s Davian himself, with his dark sensuality
that pulls on Janine’s lust and heart with unexpected fierceness.
As Janine searches for the elusive book, other parts of her perfect life begin to change. She
discovers a sexual world she never knew existed, and follows its erotic
lure into a secret underworld of submission and pleasure.
Janine in the book isn't herself based on me, of course. She's not a tattooed cherry-redhead (that's her lesbian friend/business colleague Lily) - she's brunette. She works in a bookshop (I used to work in a library). But she does wake up on page one next to a TOTALLY HOT guy with long hair and a GOATEE, so I am still pretty damn proud of my namesake - she hasn't done too badly for herself! (And that's before the mysterious Davian turns up, of course.)
:-)))
And naturally, I'm going to repay the compliment. The next short story I've got lined up to be written is definitely going to feature a heroine called Shanna.
Just some photos from the Nerd East mini-convention we went to last weekend.
There were stalls:
There was a comedy spot by Katie Logan of I Read Terrible Things, in which she righteously (with a little help from some friends) ripped the piss out of Fifty Shades of Grey.
"I can't read this sentence out loud - all the commas are in the wrong place."
It was extremely funny - although it was a bit of a pity it descended at one point into "Ewww: BDSM! - how disgusting! It's so oppressive!" Still, they are young. They will learn.
I did ask permission before taking photos. They may not have thought this through...
Mr Ashbless won the LARP fighting competition!! And I came home armed to the teeth:
Going shopping with your husband - what's all the fuss about?
Revelation 4:7 "And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast was like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle." The Four Beasts in this vision of heaven are used by tradition in Christian iconography to represent the Four Gospel Writers, but since there is NO logical or scriptural authority for this, I've used them for something else altogether...
Writing-wise, I'm chasing down the last chapters of Cover Him With Darkness, and deep in some seriously violent conflict. There's blood everywhere, I tell you! And my secondary hero, having started out as the obvious Nice Guy, has turned into someone that I'm finding quite frightening.
Cleis, having asked me to write the novel on the strength of the short story, are taking a relatively hands-on approach to the writing process, which is fair enough. In April I sent them the first 20K, and my editor got back to me via a Skype conference with some feedback.
If you have ever written anything for public consumption, you will appreciate that I was nearly vomiting with anxiety at this point. My editor's suggestions in fact went as follows:
"Can we have a prologue showcasing incident X, so that readers know what they are getting themselves into?" (Answer (after some thought) - Yes, I've figured out how to fit that into the book. Good call. Hellooooo, Four Beasts.)
"Can you change the plot a bit to delay the two main characters having sex for the first time, and up the tension?" (Answer - Yes, yes, thank you. An erotic short story does not have the same structure as a novel. Crank up the frustration, boys!)
"It's very fast-paced. Are you sure you can keep this up for three books?" (Answer - Well, I've kept it up all the way for one book. I'm pretty confident...)
See? No vomiting required.
I do like an editor who knows how to bring out the best in my work!
Let's see what she thinks of the next 20,000 words. Eeek! :-)
She's back in my ... er ... arms!
Pinterest censored this pic from my account back in March because of the bare bum, much to my distress. I had no other copy! But now Nym Nix has refound it for me months later, just from my text description! Praise the Interweb!
And praise and thanks to the mighty, the wonderful Nym Nix!
There's nothing like some Celtic poetry on a Sunday afternoon...
Jo sent me this link, for which I am very grateful :-)
(Although I am now slightly alarmed by the number of references I'm hearing these days to ballsacks stretching with old age. Just when I got used to the idea of greying pubic hair...)
I got lucky last week - a friend managed to get hold of some free guest tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show, and I was invited along :-) Chelsea is the biggest, most prestigious annual flower show in Britain, held in a very upmarket bit of London, so I thought I'd give you an idea of what it's like.
Treebeard says, "Hrooom, don't be hasty... especially in the queue for coffee."
First of all, it's CROWDED. Really, really crowded - you pretty much have to punch some pensioner cold to get a seat when you want to eat your insanely overpriced sandwich - and everyone's trying to see the show gardens featured on the TV coverage. Some of those are really nice and you want to take them home and have a barbeque in them...
There's a WALL of people around each of the gold-medal winning gardens, and you have to shuffle in slowly, take a pic and run. To be honest, you are better off watching the telly. You will certainly see more.
I prefer the plant displays inside the giant marquee, actually. Easier to see, and just as impressive:
This temple display from the Thai government, I believe
Elite-level flower-arranging
I think this is part of the Jamaican tourist board display
But the most photogenic stuff is the mad-ass garden sculptures on sale. From the sublime to the ridiculous, via all points in between:
Slate art. Love it.
Okay, the neighbours might start to look at you a bit askance...
£20,000 for something that'll be compost in a couple of years?
Nicely understated, I feel!
Because what every garden needs is a Dementor.
And finally, conclusive proof that shitloads of money cannot buy you good taste:
This is about 10ft across and comes on a 20ft plinth. Your neighbours will hate you forever.
I bought something at Chelsea! I did!
Here it is:
But I really wanted a Fat Naked Woman on a Dinosaur
There are many fun things to do in Scarborough. You can flash your legs on the beach:
or explore the medieval castle:
or make yourself violently sick with candy-floss while on the funfair rides:
[PHOTO NOT FOUND]
But on the 22nd June you can also come along all day and listen to erotica authors reading smut at you for FREE!
Victoria Blisse, irrepressible editor of the Smut by the Seaanthologies, is hosting an adults-only event at Scarborough Library. (Do the local council know this? My mind is boggling...)
I'm not in the books, but I am taking part in the June event and will be trying to find something to read that won't get me banned from the donkey-rides forever.
