Fire Up Your Follicles

Scales fell from my eyes

Ooh - I've just been throwing out the junk after all the food-fest. First thing that's going in the trash is the bathroom scales. That's the first problem solved. Second problem is that the programme on my righteous virtue training machine has gone wrong. All this bloody software! Computers are like men - you choose them cos you like the look of the  hardware and as soon as you get'em home and try to plug 'em in they develop a software problem. 

Never mind, life is beautiful quand même. I'm missing my home in France to be honest. I've been thinking of the river Charente and writing a love poem. Mainly I'm writing a story. I'm terrible really, constantly distracted by love, desire and chocolate. Well, let's just say chocolate shall we. It's all research you know. 

I had always said that I was never gonna give it away again. For a few months I have been trembling on a cold street corner of literary virginity. Punters have stopped, sighed, squeezed and occasionally had a nibble. But Hell, it's Christmas and a wise woman gives out the goods. "Knockout!" is only sex, love, intrigue and police action drama but it's FREE. There's a new hot book soon out so take this chance to fire up your follicles in preparation. 

I hope you all had a great Christmas. Next year will bring its own problems of course, but we're learning all the time aren't we?  Just think -in 2013 mankind will know more than she has ever known - except what to do with all that knowledge. 

Links to free book:

USA:http://brev.is/VX94    UK:http://brev.is/UX94    

Canada:  http://brev.is/TX94    Germany: http://t.co/fqh7OH8P  France: http://t.co/5MhbVQ9B   Italy: http://t.co/og0DaRkA   Spain: http://t.co/uNiwdvun   Brazil: http://brev.is/SX94   Japan:http://t.co/NYL9r2o6

Emma thinx: Giving it for free is business. Giving it for nothing is love. 

Freeze Frame - Published.

I've been invited to a virtual party. You know, I really should stay in more! Once again I have been helping out in the final thrust of Oscar's Freeze Frame poetry project. To be honest it is a labour of love - just to see something unique out there. I had forgotten about being a poet - you know that kind of earnest endeavour for that one inspired word. I can't believe I used to do that stuff. I can still do LOVE but the old wino, the innocent kid,the walk in the country, the big philosophies of time,the intellectual abstracts, the rainy nights in a northern English town, an old couple crossing the road -all that is far from my grasp now. The signals are tiny and the receptors are dull. Far from being disheartened, I am very happy to do full fat big breakfast lust. There is a great happiness in it. 

At last the Freeze Frame collection is out there. It is a wonderful anthology and I'm proud to have been around it. For this last time I am posting Oscar's blog on here. What do you think of his beard? He's not getting a mistletoe snog from me with all that lot on there!

Freeze Frame Anthology – Published

Santa may-be

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am a reasonably serious old bloke who has scribbled poems for about 50 years. Finding myself posing in a Santa hat holding a Kindle Fire device for a picture to be captioned with punny quips made me wonder if I had lost the plot. If I appear disrespectful to poets and poetry I do apologise. O brave new world that has such peep-shows in it. Such is the circus of the modern book world. Apparently some fiction writers are so busy on the road that all their stuff is done by ghost writers. Seemingly it’s the brand that matters. It is incredible to me. Perhaps I won’t beat myself up over the Santa hat. If it makes poetry more accessible and unstuffy then it has to be a Google plus. I defy anyone to ghost write in the style of any of the six Freeze Frame writers.

Far more importantly, the book is out there and up on Amazon. It was delivered without anaesthetic during the night, about 24 hours premature but at a good weight and with powerful voice. This is not the end of course but at least everything is all together and in one place. The stars are the poets who had enough faith in me to join in and risk all to be part of the Freeze Frame project.

Tomorrow evening 1800 hours UK (GMT)  - 12 noon USA EST – there will be a launch party at which all can meet the poets. There will be readings and comments and hopefully a few silly hats.  This takes place on Facebook with a live link to a Google+ ‘Hangout’ – you can watch us all having our virtual champagne and reading a selection of poems from the collection.  Here’s the link:

Stop the world – FREEZE FRAME – it’s the launch party!

Find the book here:
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Amazon Germany
Amazon France
Amazon Italy
Amazon Spain
Amazon Japan
Amazon Brazil

Ho Ho Ho!

Emma Thinx: Poems live on pages. Poetry lives in hearts.

Guest Blogger Oscar Sparrow

 A glorious blue sky winter Sunday. There is beauty on this Earth and perhaps we are the only entities of the universe to possess the emotional and intellectual pathways to discern it. In the bare trees around me, the merciless crows scrabble for nothing other than survival and dominance. Unlike mankind, they know not cruelty but only indifference. Surely we are both saved and shamed by beauty for what we do is in its presence. Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Gauguin did not know and we are no nearer the answer today. 

The poet Oscar Sparrow loves to quote these lines. He comes to mind because his collection "I Threw A Stone" is free today on Amazon KDP.  I am delighted to use my little blog to display his own take on the matter. Don't forget there is a full audio track for free with the e-book. Any one who witnessed him revealing his "Erectile Dysfunction" at the Bedford Festival of Romance now has the chance to re-live the moment. 

A few years ago I went to a public auction with a friend who was looking for some furniture. Whilst we were waiting for his lot to come up, an enormous quantity of cuddly toys came under the hammer. It seemed that it was the entire contents of a bankrupted shop. The price started somewhere at the edge of the cosmos and came down to something I could afford by raking about amongst the fluff covered boiled sweets in the sofa. Within a few seconds I owned several hundred cuddly giraffes, tortoises and some things that looked like socially disadvantaged wildebeest at the end of a hard day in the stampede.  I applied for a pedlar’s certificate and set out on a career as a door to door salesman. The giraffes and tortoises flew out of my sack. I sold only one wildebeest to a guy spaced out on wacky baccy who thought it was an alien.

Plan B in my retail conquest of the planet was a market stall. That weekend I was at the town tat-fest with my trestle table loaded with cuddly alien cattle. I figured that since the goods were not selling I would offer them at 50 pence each. After lunch I reduced the price to zero but still the poor beasts could find no homes. Then, a fellow trader wandered over and looked at the creatures and declared that they were from a top designer label and that by giving them away, people thought they were junk. Accordingly I increased the price to £5 and added a sign saying “Top Designer Brand”. By dusk, the herd of alien wildebeest had gone. I shared the spoils with a guy who had lent me a truck to transport them and the market stall authorities. There was enough left for a good old fish and chip nosh up and a week’s  caravan holiday. (It rained and the kids were sick). So much for my flirtation with Capitalism.

So it is with some worldly experience that my poetry collection “I Threw A Stone”  is offered for free until the close of play on the 18th December. It is of course a top designer brand. So far I have shifted one copy in the UK and have zoomed up 900,000 places in the charts. Sales are probably not helped by the fact that Amazon UK have removed all but one review apparently on the basis that people liked the book. (One could become quite annoyed about all this but poet karma keeps my thoughts on a higher plane).

Here are the links.

USA: http://amzn.to/QVtsVA

UK: http://amzn.to/TVdUke

Germany: http://amzn.to/U88fVT

France: http://amzn.to/UCmhO3

Italy: http://amzn.to/UCmhO3

Spain: http://amzn.to/Z0jCX3

Japan: http://amzn.to/TV0R2m

Brazil http://bit.ly/U7QshE

There we are then – Roll up! Roll up! There ya go my love, cheap at half the price me old China, perk ya selves up wiv a poem or two. Roll up! Roll up .

Emma thinx: See with your inner eye. Hearing is believing. 

Freeze Frame cover Reveal

I've been working. My dear mate Oscar has been editing and compiling a collection of poetry. I've actually done some work on the audio - but only because I'm so bloody nosy about how people sound. Recently I went back into poetry myself to do a couple of YouTube videos. You know, poetry is still a really cool medium. I would be the first to admit that the commercial bish bosh bash has weakened my ability to go into full poet mode.

Listening to these guys I kinda zoned out of all the clatter. There's Paul Tobin, a real deal poet who gets inside the fence and under the radar. He's  - just so calm and persuasive. Jo Von Bargen - an American poet with a life soaked softness that is - well - beautiful. There's a guy called Jeff Hansen who comes up with abstract stuff in a direct voice that offers ideas without any messing about. There's Claude Nougat who speaks quite hauntingly about Rome in a captivating Scandiamerifrancitaliano  accent that must be unique to her and the world. There's Oscar in his full Thespian/cockney truck driver/British posh. Finally, there's Candy Bright who digs it out from the woman's heart and certainly gets hold of mine. 

Today the cover of the collection Freeze Frame is revealed and I am proud of my very small part in this project. The cover was created by a young designer, Will,  who freelances for Gallo-Romano.  They tell me the e-book will be up on 21st December and the paper edition in January. It has its own Facebook page and if you feel so inclined you could follow the link and like it. 

Emma thinx:  Go undercover - hibernate with a book. 

Une Passion Parisienne

There is  often a conflict in my mind between the artistic and the commercial. Recently I have been working on some poetry and videos to publicise my next book and my last one. Poetry was my first teenage expression of myself as a writer. I remember how I used to look at drab terraced urban houses and watch the red of passion bleeding out into the grey pool of everyday. The folk who queued with me for tube trains and buses had known first kisses, and shared with me the aching expectation of wholeness that LOVE, and only love, would bring. 

Like many women, I have known the desert and the jungle of love.  Somewhere deep down in me has always been the defeatist clerk, telling me to forget the Romance and warm my lips on the cold bottom line. I think this voice is in a lot of us. It is the reason I write  Romance. When I wrote "Knockout" I took my readers to Paris to some moments I had lived myself. A week or so ago, I completed a video in which the text is taken from the book. It's not a sell. It's a truth of my life just a little overdressed.

Emma thinx: Love is letting go, but get a grip on him first. 

Festival Of Romance 2012

I've just been reading Louise Allen's "Seduced by the Scoundrel" (Mills and Boon). A shipwrecked young lady finds herself naked and defenceless on a beach in the midst of a mob. Ooh, I now know just how she must have felt. On Saturday I ended up in a terrified state of emotional nudity in the  Harpur Shopping Centre in Bedford. All I had to do was to read from my book to passing shoppers. Having never been shipwrecked or had to read aloud in a shopping mall, I think I would have gone for the shipwreck if there had been a choice! At least I would have been trembling with cold as opposed to terror. 

The occasion of course was the Festival Of  Romance. This was my first time at such an event. There I was, not even a dairy maid on the Milky Way or a knobbly asteroid in the Romance Universe. Around me were all manner of authors, some of whom I knew only as names on the covers of books I had read. My greatest impression of the whole show was that everyone was so friendly, helpful and willing to share their experiences. 

You know who you are (I hope)

The festival was organised by Kate Allan and it was a triumph of hard work, logistics and enthusiasm. I think everyone involved in the organisation should be really proud of the result.

I'll be coming back to different aspects of the weekend over the next few blogs. One the highlights for me was Mandy Baggot from the "Love a Happy Ending" group picking up the prize for Innovation In Romance at the prize giving ball. The frocks were fabulous too.  I shall never forget Nicky Wells performing an ad lib singing performance of "You Give Love A Bad Name" at the Rock Star party. Oh for that kind of confidence!

I had some lovely table mates at the book fair so thanks to Cara Cooper, Caroline Bell Foster and Gilli Allan. Dear old Oscar was there too because he knew I would never be able to construct my poster display without his help. He is my favourite poet and some of his poems aren't too bad. He is a knight of the cable tie and a Prince of masking tape. 

I had a lovely lovely time meeting all the other writers. I'll be coming back here to digest some of my more technical impressions of the business from my  independent viewpoint. In the meantime....thanks for having me, it was wonderful to be had. 



Emma thinx: Sisters are doing it for their shelves. 

A Romantic Love Poem From My Heart

OK, I went down to the water and jumped in. Well, not quite. I went down to the river and made a bit of a film. I had decided to write a poem after many years abstinence. Then, never content to do something simply, I shot some video, did an audio track, badgered some fabulous young innocents into being actors and musicians and splashed it up on You Tube. The footage is from my beautiful home town at Saint Savinien in France.

Now the reason for all of this is that I am writing a novel in which the heroine re-finds love after a long period of both sexual and emotional uncertainty. She looks back to first love as a way of recapturing a standard by which to measure her current feelings. In order to write this up as well as I can, I needed to get my own mind back to that place. As a young writer, I wrote many poems. I was a short story writer who enjoyed poetry by true poets. All the same, when it comes to love, nothing works like poetry. I believe this is because in times of emotional overload we cannot provide any objective view of our own state. Poetry scores by taking the love victim outside of themselves by talking to them about what is inside them. I think this makes sense. I am always in love at some level. I don't think I could write Romance if this were not so.

Here it is then; my poem from the shoes of my heroine through the eyes of my own life. 


Emma thinx: Love gets better, but seldom stronger.

Horny Popcorny - Geddit?

An Emma cow shot of a local French horny lovely

I arrived back in the UK to rain and gloom. Work tomorrow but before the horror of the pre-dawn stumble to the depot, I wanted to share with you a truly wonderful piece of cinema directed by Emmanuel Gras.

At the "Florida" (the local Saint Savinien cinema) on Thursday night, there was an entertainment which probably could only happen in France. It was a folk concert, followed by a silent film about the life of cows. Entitled "Bovines, ou La Vraie Vie Des Vaches", it is a beautifully photographed one hour and five minutes all about a herd of Charolais cows. French critics have awarded it many accolades but to me it says something about the unseen beauty of these animals. I have always loved cows and often photograph them myself. Of course, there is a sadness in their lives; always the menace of the livestock trailer and the abattoir. After a short period with the herd, the young males  are taken for slaughter. We eat them. Then we take the milk from the mothers for ourselves.

In the wild, the old, lame and young would be dragged down and devoured by predators. I do accept all this and often reflect upon it in a ridiculous hypocritical sirloin loving, leather shoe wearing angst. This film is not any sort of vegetarian propaganda or butcher's promo. It is about acceptance, the cycle of existence and a  reminder of the power wielded by man over his fellow creatures. More than anything it is about the notion of mind and consciousness. Watch the clip and I guess some will be surprised about what cows might think and their power of reasoning. 

The music, (please note my selfless struggle with the devil in the pundergrowth of obvious quips), was fresh, clear and completely out of my normal territory. They are brilliant musicians and I loved it. Following such a wonderful evening I was forced to reflect how lucky I am and how diverse we are. My main luck is to savour life in two distinct cultures and amongst such talented international people ranging across romantic novelists, poets,musicians, world commentators and thinkers with brains that must wear out their neck muscles. You know who you are and I love you. But when will you bloody well save me from the banal tosh of it all?


Emma thinx: Acceptance is both sanctuary and prison. Hide a key.

Autumn In Saint Savinien

Anything I can babble on about today is quite pathetic as I watch the drama along the east coast of the USA. My heart goes out to all those affected. We are so weak and small when Nature bites.

I heard the news today - Oh boy, they're gonna sell New Scotland Yard. Yes, they are going to sell the iconic HQ of the Metropolitan Police, the centre of Detective Inspector Anna Leyton's world. Who would buy it? Perhaps a couple of Mexican drug cartels have the cash? Sometimes I cannot believe what I hear. Earlier this week they sold Admiralty Arch to a hotel chain. We have already sold our energy and water companies, all our public housing, our railways and airports. All our automotive brands have gone and all our ships are built abroad and mainly sail under foreign flags. Maybe there'll always be an England but for sure, we'll have no democratic control over it. You know what will control it don't you....yes MONEY. 

Sold! Perhaps her majesty may pass.

For Sale. No parking issues for owners

Still, why should I care today? I am at my own home in France. As far as I can tell, the French resist all attempts to lure them into the total fluidity of globalised moneydom. In my village, you need the local accent to buy a baguette. They tolerate me because I am a cranky old Doris who knows enough local people to be seen in public kissing clinches. 

sun sets over CharenteMaritime

So, I went out with my camera and took some postcard shots of autumn in rural France. Although I'm fairly much in work ethic melt down, I have been writing. Just between us I'm getting to that lovely state with my current book where I'm kinda in love with the hero. This sent me into a frenzy of poetic remembrance of past amours and you'll soon see the ripe fruit. 

Today was calm and mellow with the river full and reflection rippled. The shots are from the river bank at Taillebourg. This place is truly paradise.

Emma Thinx: Romance is not a love story. It's a fictional truth. 

Good Evening Viewers, Here Is The Latest Past.

I'll do any background  face you want. Give me a job. Please!!!

Here is the Past. I'm sorry we cannot bring you any News because we are saving today's News for 2056. Here is some News from the 1960's, 1970's and a little trailer for some 1984 news. 

Is it just me, but can we have enquiries into everything that has ever happened that go on for ever? This means that today's News will always be about stuff that should have been on the News at the time. I know that live TV has a small delay to edit out obscenities, celebrity flatulence, nose picking and pubic scratching by dentally enhanced household name heart-throbs. It now seems that the delay is about 35 to 40 years. I know we need the truth and closure but if the current News is all about history we will never ever ever catch up. I also think there is a real danger in judging one period with the ethos of another when all the fear and need for quick decision is passed. To me it is as if we are recording the present for later viewing and spending our lives watching all the recorded stuff. Ho ho Comrades, does that mean we are not looking at our current issues? Who could possibly want that?

However, if the rest of time is going to be filled with televised enquiries about stories that half the living population don't know about because they were not born, I want to get on the bandwagon. I want to be an extra. I want to be one of the folk who sit behind the person in the pillory/spotlight. I can look concerned, cynical, bored quizzical, stupid, beautiful, sophisticated, angry or completely neutral. There are now so many televised public enquiries, parliamentary enquiries, judicial enquiries,civil enquiries, tribunals and reconciliation committees that there must be a job for me. Ideally I would like to look at the evidence again on the Anne Boleyn case. I never did like that King Henry VIII. The whole thing stinks of a frame up to me. I can dress up as a concerned Tudor citizen if that would get me the job.

What we need is good fair news at the time of events! Seemingly nothing has happened for months and months. The featured video is the scene today as politicians in white shining armour attack
unarmed BBC chief for not revealing that Jimmy Savile (exitainer- a Calinesque term for dead entertainer) was a vile selfish pervert forty years ago. Since everyone in clique elite knew at the time, I think the News is forty years late. Victims can only come out now because it is all in the News. Well, duh.... if it had all been in the News back then............

Before I move on, I do want to tell the lady sitting behind Mr Entwhistle to the right that she has kind brown eyes and that she is the face for my current novel. I bet she didn't know that was going to happen when she got up this morning. If you know her please tell her. It could change her life and release her from her role as a background person.

In my own very small way I am in the News today. The lovely American author and selfless Janna Shay has featured me in an interview. I have exposed myself. Click the link if you can bear it.

I know I'm a Romantic Novelist and this is all all socio-politico rants in your pants but sometimes you need to say wot ya fink.

Emma thinx. Live grammatically. The past is a noun not a sentence.

Emma's Dilemmas

When I was at school, deep deep down, I wanted a badge. Many other girls had sports teams badges and there were badges for prefects and monitors. My one ascent to power was when I stood in as a deputy lavatory monitor but I was not given a badge. My temporary position gave me the power to eject loitering girls from the toilet area and report any incidences of cigarette possession to the Authorities. I was ready to betray every friendship in pursuit of a badge but no one offended and my chance slipped away. 

But now, at last I have a badge. I have become an editor. Thanks to Loveahappyending.com I have started to edit a regular feature on writerly topics. Smoking and loitering will be permitted. If anyone knows where I can get an official editor's lapel badge, please please please Miss, I want one so much!


Emma thinx: You never grow taller than the shadow of childhood.

Wolves, Predators And Vixens.

When I am not writing about love, need and tendresse in the Venice lagoon or the ecstasy of passion with oysters, wine and hot baguette, I am a right little drab Domestos.

A vixen fix'n her gaze

Beyond my little world of kids, buses and ASDA is the drama of landscape and nature. Regular readers will recall my delight at the recent visit of Mrs Fox. You know those stories where some kind of magical animal appears and changes lives. Well, that is how I felt when Mrs Fox somehow chose to share my mortadella sandwich. I figured we might never meet again, but today she came back. All those times when I wasn't selected for the sports team or voted girl most likely (only because I already had), were swept away. I know this beast loves me. Maybe she has one of my works in her burrow. 

I am not religious in any way but to connect with this animal is a joy that seems beyond this world. Can't say why. Does anyone know.....?

Now let's get a bit serious. Half of today's News is all about the serial sex offending of the deceased  Sir Jimmy Savile (for non UK readers, he was a famous TV entertainer and charity fund raiser). The other half of the News is Lance Armstrong who has been labelled a drug cheat. 

The connection between the two matters is that both were protected by an insidious culture of celebrity worship. The great and the good are now wringing hands and thrashing around with enquiries and public inquests as if no one understands why these things happened and no one spoke out. The issue is not quite as simple as I suggest but the celebrity as god is a major feature.

Great wedges of righteous hypocrisy will be heaped upon these sinners. All the pus of "totally unacceptable" clichés will crowd around the wound. Speeches will be made. But remember this - at present some 200 hundred detectives are working on the phone hacking case against the News Of The World. Most of the hacking "victims" were celebrities. Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been paid to them as "compensation". Millions upon millions of pounds are being spent to persecute the hounded vixen editor Rebekah Brooks. They have even scooped her driver to put frighteners on her. The case has been adjourned for perhaps a year. Lawyers will receive fees for one hour that a bus driver earns in a month. I will not bore you with explaining who will be paying for a lot of this, but you know don't you.

Rebekah with her child. Hundreds of detectives are on her case.

The allegation is that The News Of The World broke rules. Many journalists and private detectives are not selfless kind people. We do not need a show trial to tell us. Celebrities who want the fame and cash were terrified of the "Gutter Press". I know (and believe me, I do know), that the newspapers knew all about Savile. All the glitzy full gloss sports writers knew all about Lance Armstrong. I just say  you may have to accept a few celebrity squeals of intrusion or tolerate the alternative. Because that is what we've got. The inner cliques knew it all. We did not and that is the way they wanted it.


Emma thinx: In a sewer a soiled hand will hold the lamp.

Warning: This Post Has Adult Contentment

The Power of Love

Like so many others, I have been reading Fifty Shades. This book has many aspects but nothing much caught my attention before the scene where Anastasia goes to the ball  wearing silver jiggle balls in an intimate location. Now, that could have given a whole new meaning to the term college drop out. At least no one would need castanets. May I just say at this point that top critics (Oh yes, they really exist) of such devices complain that they are too noisy. In my view this only applies if you are a stick insect and there is little flesh to suppress the percussion. 

Writing my latest novel has led me to research the world of sex toys.(Of course, I had no existing knowledge). There is a reference to the term dildo in Shakepeare's Winters Tale, where the general tone is the jumping and thumping of maids. Now that sounds more like Fifty Shades. Several references to the dildesque can be found in serious literature by the likes of Saul Bellow.  William S Burroughs's novel "The Naked Truth" features a dildo named Steely Dan III. In my life I have met several complete dildos with very ordinary names.

But, here is my point. Seemingly most females have at least one sex toy. Judging from reviews on sales sites such as Ann Summers, much satisfaction is gained thereby. This being the case, should a modern cutting edge writer of Romantica expect to enter such elements into her own text? Recently I saw an advertisement for a vibrating mobile phone that the lady wears within her under garment. This enables her lover to call her to express his love. This would revolutionise the commuter train experience. Just think - no more calls about "Did you remember to get the cat castrated and buy some dishwasher salt?" Instead there would be nothing but orgasmic gaspings. Trouble is, the show-offs would be faking remote controlled cyber-joy like all of those righteous anorexic joggers proclaiming their discipline and sacrifice . Oooh - I'm a scratchy bitch.  

So huge is the toy industry that it would be pointless for me to add anything technical. I was only eight when Barbarella came out but it played on T.V. late slots for many many years. I have always thought that perhaps it encouraged women to break out a little. If you are too young to have caught it, take a peep at the machine of excess pleasure. Since then huge amounts of silicone have travelled many valleys. These days the soft hard and limp ware is there, whatever your needs. 

The issue is their context in modern love. At what point can the meadow of unexplored love be nibbled by the rampant rabbits? (If you are in a private location and unaware of powered rubber rodents click here). If I am being deadly serious, many real life heroines have only come to know themselves by taking a walk on the wilder side of a toy story.  Let us imagine such a person.

It was their first night in Venice. The Spring sun had teased the ripples of the lagoon before departing with a raised eyebrow of promise and return. The night drifted in, slowly weaving its slim cold fingers  around the halos of lamps and the calls of boatman on the Grand Canal. This moment of life  lived itself and was beyond her own desires. Only now  she took his hand  as the darkness seeped into them. Dare she reach out and offer her warmth as contrast to the chill? All day, the city had seemed to blind him. Now it slipped away from sight and she was aware of his restless young body and of her own. A night would be and could not be held back. She was tired but thrilled to the animal possibilities of decadence that she had not the power to resist. She let her hand soften a little to hint at her mood. She breathed more slowly and let her eyes find nothing but his. Although his gaze was on the horizon she knew he sensed her focus and that she was a woman. It had been a risk to bring him here. The dusk had blurred their differences and she was beginning to enter a remembered flow. Her lips needed his and yet she bowed her head and merely let her forehead rest on his hard upper arm. The last false light silhouetted La Chiesa Santa Maria de la Salute as he turned and with his palm raised her chin. His gaze caressed her and drew her out from her body so that their kiss was disconnected from time. She drowned in his strength and had no sense of will.

'This place isn't Venice, it will ever be you,' he said.
'I was wanting it to be us.'
'I've wanted that since you stepped out of that Bentley.'
'Then we've some kisses to catch up,' she said.

He let out a groan and cuddled her to him with a  boyish bear hug clumsiness. He was to be her lover. She reached up to push his hair back and hold his face. She offered her lips and he took them instinctively as a man taking a girl. For now she could define their roles and he would respond. She knew in his kiss that soon enough he would tell her of his love. And she knew she would love him more  but never let him leave with such a trophy. 

Now, I had intended to spoof this with some kind of flat battery, vibrator cheap shot but I just bloody well couldn't because I was enjoying it. The fact is that sex toys are sex. Romance is Romance. The above scene is a glimpse of my next book. I suspect that this lady may well have found herself more fully as a result of experiment and a falling away of shyness. Late in her life she has learned of pleasure. It will be her gift. 

Emma thinx: Keep the private lessons secret. Share the knowledge.  

Post Card From Bournemouth UK

Dark drama at dawn as Phoebus warns of his impending absence 

October just sounds more like winter doesn't it.  I always see it as an island month serving as a migration stop for birds and souls heading for the sun. Wiki tell me that there is an October Revolution Island and it is also the name of a 1952 novel by William March. Why has someone always done everything first? Why has someone always already said something that I wanted to say? Pre-emptive plagiarism is plundering my originality. Please don't tell me someone has already said that! 

Now, I teased you with a sex toy in literature special. It's coming but the research is taking a little longer than I imagined. I want to get it right. In the meantime I decided to use the last week end of summer to bask in the glory of the English sea-side.

Wedding photos on the sand. Just get me those shoes (and the figure)

As you know, I am a francophilly. I would still love to dance the can-can but for sure it would be the can't can't. England is the true land of the eccentric. We have everything from guys collecting the serial numbers on railway locomotives to people in their best clothes posing for wedding photos on the beach. Because I spend so much of my time in France I kinda see we Brits in a different objective way - ruthless creators of Empire queuing quietly for iPad 4s.

The day knew it was the last in the way that both you and I know we are the last that will be of the us-ness of us. 

 Sea birds balanced on the wind.
 People married on the sand.
 Guys in suits swigged beer from cans. 
 Christian surfers surfed, not sinned. 

Onward Christian surfers

Hey - I did a poem. Well let's say the wonderful resort of Bournemouth wrote a poem. There is nothing on Earth like a British coastal resort town. And you know, I love you so so much for all my childhood castles, roundabouts and blue sky days. Thanks for having me back for your last stolen summer day. 

Hey - relax

And to round it off there's a fabulous sculpture on the beach that says it all. And of course it's all been said already. On Bournemouth sands I can connect nothing with everything. OK - you got me. T.S Elliot almost kinda said that.







Emma thinx:  Britannia Waives the Rules.

Hot Chick Gives It Away

Now, that got you interested did it not. OK fellow scribes, I'm trying something new. Once upon time in the land of Amazon KDP Select one could paper the house with free tickets and spread the word. And the word was Sales. My own experience was initially positive but with the change of algorithms and a new Amazon recipe containing 3D humble stumble potion, red sales headed for the sunset.

Now has come the idea of gifting your book to people who really want it. Using The Reader's Guide To E Publishing (RG2E), it is possible to feature your book for the day. This site offers free books. The down side is that the author pays for them! However, much of this money will come back to you via your Amazon sales and the cost is far less than conventional advertising which will only sell you a few books if you are lucky. Of course, you are free to adjust your price in advance of your offer. In the UK such costs are fully tax deductible. 

Another advantage is that you are asking people to choose books they like. With KDP I found that there was a download frenzy like anorexic mackerel swallowing silver paper. A few would then submit reviews within an hour beginning "I hate this kind of book and could only read three pages".  

Today, RG2E are featuring "The Chosen", my short tale of roguish aspiration. The idea is to get a bump up the charts. Let us see what happens. You will be among the first to know and I won't charge a cent.

Emma thinx: Rarely is freedom given. 

Love A Happy Bookshelf

There's no end to books.

There's something new on the block. I am a member of a writers' group under the banner "Love A Happy Ending". My inclusion has been a wonderful element in my writing career and has brought me into contact with some amazing and committed authors. Yesterday, they launched a new bookshelf section that features a selection of writers and their work. And guess what - yes I'm on it!

The world of publishing can still be called a world but none of the old maps really work any more. The Loveahappyending Bookshelf is a unique initiative between Authors and Publishers to promote and discover new writing talent and to share news from around the publishing universe. It features  Indies, the Pindies and the Traditionally published. The Pindies are writers who have published independently and have secured deals from publishers. There are also writers who have had deals in the past but have now gone Indie. 


In all of this raging torrent, I am but a minnow or even something smaller. I feel myself to be very privileged to be among such larger fish and so far no one has looked hungry. 

Loveahappyending Bookshelf Authors:

Linn B Halton Carol E Wyer Mandy Baggot  Janice Horton Richard F Holmes Ali Bacon Sheryl Browne Nicky Wells Kit Domino Stephanie Keyes Melanie Robertson-King

Loveahappyending Bookshelf Publishers:

Sapphire Star Publishing  Safikhet Publishing Thornberry Publishing 4RV Publishing Inkspell Publishing

Standing by for touch down Captain. 

OK - let me descend into the metaphysical depths and share with you a photograph I took yesterday of a  cauliflower I bought in Walmart (ASDA). As I looked at this green alien landscape I found myself piloting my CLM (Cauliflower Landing Module) onto the surface of this wonderful fractalised world. The mother ship held orbit over the draining board galaxy while I swept my eyes through vistas of breathtaking beauty while making a sound of alien wind. It was then I realised that I was being watched by those who wanted to eat. I explained of course that I was merely looking closely for any worms or caterpillars. Normally my fantasies involve far more basic concepts. Oh no - is my libido slipping? When your hormones go, do you turn to Sci-Fi?

And here is a trail for my next post. I want to talk about toys and their place in the modern literary love-place. This may not involve Lego. Brace yourselves. 

Emma thinx:  Ideas only want to play.

Oh Autumn - Love Child of Spring

Oh juice! Oh fullness; Oh grown love-child of Spring !

Season of mists and mellow novelists; Ah yes Autumn it is. Cold arrows of rain drench my heroine's passion as I sit here trying to write about rising sap and hormone inspired springtime lust.  I always find it easier to write during the actual season where my characters are. Trouble is, it would always be Spring or Summer. All that northern writhing on rugs in front of open fires has always seemed hazardous to me and you have to be careful about where you catch sparks and chilblains. 

Torn wings of toil, mortal beauty in the last sun.

England is the most wonderful of countries. Yesterday I cycled to the country town of Stockbridge and sat in the warm sun watching an alien tweed clad upper class world go by. I stopped and watched the last late cygnets in the river Test. Four deer startled and ran through the sun dappled woods where the bluebells will bloom in May. I long for them now and for their prophets - the snowdrops. 

Today is cold and the last swallows fill their tanks before hitting the gas pedal and heading south. Geese begin to gather at the starting line. Soon enough it will be out to work in the dark and home in the dark. Perhaps I should strategically place a furry rug in front of the open log fire and do some research. No fire - no problem: I could paint some flames on a radiator in the lounge I guess.

Willows overhang a sun warmed river Test. 

In these last days of pseudo summer I took some pictures. Once upon a time I could have done a poem but that gift voucher is long ago spent on frippery, anger and hoover bags. 



Emma thinx: If it's going, let it go. Just keep hold of the string.