IWSG Rant Style

I had another ISWG post all planned out, but I am mad as hell right now and need to rant.

I am an erotica writer, I am not a porn writer. I don't get all turned on writing my stuff, thinking about sex all the time. I do not create my stories with the hopes of getting someone off, I create my stories for entertainment and the exploration of the human condition. The same as any one else out there. And yes, they are complete stories, not a string of sex scenes. There's plot, character development and all the other things found in any other novel or short story. They just happen to continue through the bedroom door.

I cannot believe the utter disrespect my genre receives. When people find out I write erotica, I get asked the most offensive questions and I get comments like "Say, how do you do your research?" Wink, wink, insert double entendre. Or worst of all, "erotica is written by women who can't get any of their own."

I see commentary from fellow writers along the lines of, "oh I would never write erotica, you just can't be original." and "I could never write that stuff with a straight face." I have never done that, not ever. I have never trashed someone else's genre or poked fun at the people who do write in a particular genre, but I see that a lot as I visit other blogs. I read these narrow-minded statements and think, wow, I thought we were supposed to support one another as authors. Guess that only happens if you write in an acceptable genre like YA, or sci fi or mystery.

Now, I do have a sense of humor. I can and do laugh at the stuff I write because sex is funny. However, when I constantly see comments and posts like this, it makes me feel like I'm somehow offending everyone. It also makes me sad and angry.  I know people are uncomfortable with sex and that's fine. I'm not asking you to read my stories, just don't scoff and tear down my genre and my work. I don't do that to yours.

R Is For Shonda Rhimes

Shh... I'm cheating again. This time posting on Sunday because I had to take yesterday off. It was a busy, busy day and had me helping out my mom, who fell, while going to the wake of her friend's brother. I also took my nephew to take his high school entrance test at my old alma mater. I even signed up to do some volunteering for the place as they have created a really small (compared to when I was there), but very dynamic school community. Oh and don't forget to click on the top of my sidebar to visit all the other amazing challengers. Anyway, let's get this post rolling shall we?

R Is For Shonda Rhimes

Creator, writer and producer of the titular series Grey's Anatomy, Shonda is my girl all the way. She even comes from the south parts here around Chitown, having grown up in University Park, which is about 30  minutes straight south from my house. South Side Pride! Anyway, she also is the triple threat creator, writer and producer of my latest TV addiction, Scandal. Like Walking Dead, when Scandal is on, nobody better call me, come to my house or talk to me or I will cut you. Two ladies I work with are also like this so needless to say, Fridays are Scandal round ups in the office.

I digress...

Shonda worked her way through some crazy jobs before getting her start as the research director on the documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream. She also wrote and directed a short film called Blossoms and Veils starring Jada Pinkett Smith. Her big break was writing the screenplay for the award winning HBO film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge starring Halle Berry.

She formed her own production company, Shondaland and was named Time Magazine's 100 People Who Help Shape the World. Shonda has won 4 NAACP Image Awards, a Producers Guild award and received the prestigious Women In Film Lucy Award for advancing the perception of women in film and television. My girl even won teh Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay for Crossroads, the 2002 Britney Spears flick which wasn't bad except that it starred vacuous Britney, who can't form words until they are given to her in an earpiece. Poor Shonda, it must have killed her to see her work in the hands of a moron.

Yeah I know I'm supposed to be highlighting strong women, but I'm not going hesitate on calling out the stupid ones of my gender. Dumb women should have their female card revoked as far as I'm concerned. We have a hard enough time getting accepted as equals simply because we're women. Dopes like Britney, Rihanna or Snooki, and every single Real Housewives incarnation cast member just add to the stereotypes.

Ok... Rant over.

Hope you all are having a great weekend. Come back tomorrow for my S post. It's killer. ;)

Oh Happy Day And A Bitch Slap

It's Monday and what is usually a pit of a day is looking pretty great. Kansas State got killed by Baylor and Stanford prevailed over Oregon so that means that my Fighting Irish are Number One, Numero Uno, the Kings of the Hill...At least for now. I'm not counting any poultry just yet. There's lots of eggs that could hatch and wipe out my national title fantasies. So I'm sticking with my voo doo and my other rituals. They've been working for the blue and gold crew. My Bears...Oy Vey! I cringe just thinking about our QB situation. Damn those Texans! Ahem...

On to the Bitch Slap

SPOILERS, AHOY!!

I want to start by saying The Walking Dead was pure awesomeness this week. Daryl and Merle...That is going to be one rocking confrontation and I can't wait. Rick is losing it... Big Time. Carl, you're gonna be a big brother/daddy LOL BUT... ANDREA!!! Oh where the hell do I begin? This woman, who showed some spark last season, has been reduced to a silly ho. She needs a freakin' bitch slap along with the writers and I will deliver it gladly. I don't care how it is in the comics.

WTF?! I should have known better, I really should have known this was coming considering the pheromones floating around her these last weeks, but I remained hopeful. To my huge disappointment, apparently. Andrea was finally showing some hint of being a badass, but along comes Governor Hot Khakis and she's giggling and shaking her tail feathers like a salivating Twilight fan. I was so furious. She reinforces the stereotype women like me have been railing against for years. That we're strong until a man comes along, then poof, there go our clothes, our brains and our self respect. And what is it with Andrea and the loons? She got all sweaty with batshit crazy Shane, too. I mean, at least that tango came after a dance with zombies, so I can excuse it. But with the Governor? And not only did she ride the Crazy Train once again, she did it after turning her back on the person who saved her. She should be shot and left for walker hors d'oeuvres. Damn Hollywood producers for once again taking a woman with any hint of backbone and reducing her to sex toy status.

SPOILERS OVER (Bitch Slap, too LOL)

I'll leave you with a laugh. As a blonde, I really love this song because it wickedly skewers all the stereotypes about us yellow-hairs. And it seems appropriate. It's Julie Brown's Cause I'm A Blond from Earth Girls Are Easy.

I'm Miserable

What better way to start off the week than to rant, I ask you? It is so hot here in Chitown, I start to cook in my own sweat after walking out my front door. WTF Mother Nature? The US Fourth of July holiday is tomorrow and as I live in the hood, it's time for me to once again play my annual game, "Firecracker or Gunfire?"Most times I can tell, but there are times where it's pretty difficult because I'm not listening close enough or the noise is too far away. Judging by some of the booms, I'm pretty convinced that the people down the block own a cannon and that they've been re-enacting Gettysburg. Nice to know I live in a state where fireworks possession is illegal.

I've been having my mom stay with me because, are you ready for this Imaginarians? Her central air unit was stolen. Yep, you read that right. Her central air unit was stolen. Those little thieving rats came and pried the whole damn thing right off of its platform. And her homeowners insurance has been ever so helpful. She's a 66 year old asthmatic with heart problems and we get  "a/c is a privilege, not a medical necessity or a vital part of the home itself, therefore we cannot cover  a replacement central air unit." Really? Since when does homeowners insurance get to decide what is medically necessary for someone?

And I must apologize for not being around. My brain has been absolute mush because of this heat. I want to thank you for all the support you showed to author Deatri King-Bey when she was here. You all are the best.

I'll be back tomorrow with a holiday edition of the Insecure Writers Support Group and in the meantime, I'm going to try and stay cool.

It's Monday...

Gawd, I am soooo happy it's Monday. Why, in the name of all that's holy, is this true? Well, my weekend could qualify as a giant crazy disaster. The kind of weekend that leaves you screaming and tearing your hair out as you gas up the chainsaw to destroy everything in your path.

It started on Friday. I got a ride home a very nice lady I just started working with and my left over olive salad leaked onto the backseat of her car. I wanted her to stay so I could clean it, but that seemed weird. She was great, kept telling me don't worry, but yeah well...awkward. Now I have to see her at work this morning. Ugh!

Saturday night, my sister and I went to friend's house on the North Side, which is the polar opposite of where we live in Chicago. We started the drive home at about 11PM. We cruised along for about five minutes when the transmission light blinked, then everything crapped out. Stranded on Sheridan Road. Yay! And being a Saturday night, we could get a hold of no one to come and get us. At least anyone who would have been sober enough at this point. An our later, the tow truck guy arrived, and he offered to give us a ride, but his truck was rather small. Scratch that, it was like Hot Wheels toy truck sized with a single bench seat. With his kid already taking up some space. No way are me AND my sister fitting in there. My sister was the payee insurance holder so she got the remaining life boat seat. You can guess where I'm riding. My conversation with the driver went like this:

Driver to me: "No problem. You can ride in the in the back of the van."
Me: "You mean the van that has to be hooked up with the chains and hook thing and towed?"
Driver: "Exactly. It'll be fine. And since I don't want to lose the van, I'll hook her up good and tight."
Me, heart pounding in my throat as I eye the rust spots on the chains and the big hook thing: "Is that safe?"
Driver with evil smile: "Sure. Just strap in tight and don't move around."
Me, like an idiot: "Umm, okay."

So there I am, white-knuckling the arm rest, praying to Jesus, God, Odin and every other spirit I could think of as we careened down Interstate 90. I fervently hoped that the next bump wouldn't send the van (and me) flying into speeding traffic or off of the very high overpasses. We made it home at about 1:00AM. I kissed the ground as soon as I got out of the van. Of course, I then had to walk the six blocks to my house. But, I stuck to the shadows like any smart hood rat. Because yeah, those lighted areas, only tend to point you out as bait for the bad guys.

My weekend was not finished with those episodes, oh no, siree. Yesterday was a lot of little problems that snow-balled and resulted in me wasting a lot of time doing stupid things. Arrgh!!

On the other hand, I did get to see the season finale of Walking Dead and it was total kick-ass. Those first twenty minutes or so had me sitting at my TV, jaw agape. However, I just have to say that more than ever, I want to beat the crap out of Rick's wife, Laurie, Miss "The men have it handled" and ring the dinner bell for the walkers.

What's Your Number?

What's Your Number? was an all right little rom com that I unexpectedly enjoyed. Anna Faris and Chris Evans had great chemistry and well Chris was wearing nothing more than a towel on several occasions. Rawr!

I was however, more intrigued by the subject matter. How many sex partners does it take before one (that one being a woman) is considered a slut? Sex and the City did a similar themed episode involving Miranda having to track back her partners. In this film, Faris' Ally reads a magazine article which says that the average woman will have at most 4 to 5 sex partners with a very few going as high as 10. She immediately starts writing down all her partners and worries when that number hits 19. Why? Well, her friends, for one, are very sniping and close-minded. One of them admits to eight partners and the other three start calling her a slut and a whore. You see these bitches are all 4 or lower and proud of their lack of experience. Proud, scratch that, make it smug that they've been good girls. So, of course they are appalled that poor Ally has had 19 partners. What a whore!

An ardent feminist, I could not take this lying down. Why do we women look down on our sisters for enjoying themselves? Hell, why do we look down on ourselves for going heels to Jesus whenever the fancy strikes? Seriously, this is 2012. I don't remember an 11th Commandment that reads "Woman, thou shalt have at most four sex partners in thy lifetime and one of them better be your husband."

Women are the nastiest bitches on the planet when it comes to judging our fellow females. We are murderous if our friends or co-workers go over some magical good girl sex number. We are first in line to condemn and throwdown the epithets slut and whore. Hell, if our current man cheats, we blame the other woman.

And the media helps lead the charge. The article in the film may have been fictional, but I have seen at least thirty similar titled features in the last year alone. I've even read a few and they are quite stuffy in their opinions about women and the mythical perfect number of sex partners. For the most part, according to these articles, written by other women, mind you, women do not enjoy sex for sex unless it's with a partner they trust and care about. That women who sleep around with random guys somehow have low self-esteem. Although, the more enlightened allow for "that unexpected encounter." Really?

Then there's the "How Slutty Are You?" quizzes that crop up. Women read these and go crazy. I have good friends, normal, intelligent women who go bonkers when they think about their sex life and worry about how many partners they've had. It's scary to listen to them run on and stress over what their current guy will think if he finds out, my gawd, that they've had more than 5 partners. Or even engaged in a little kink. Remember Chasing Amy when Ben Affleck finds out Amy was with two guys? Talk about epic temper tantrum.

I seriously have had guy friends who have freaked the hell out when they found out the woman they had been dating had lots of partners. I asked one of them, what was wrong with his new lady having had 12 partners. He himself had had well over 20. You know what he said? "It's different for a guy." ROTFLOL!!! I, of course, caved in his skull with the nearest blunt object for that tired, chauvanistic response. I will allow that men and women think about sex in different terms, but come on, if you're going to have a dozen partners, why shouldn't your woman? Do guys really think that every woman they have sex with, they're only like one of four total partners for her in her lifetime? That's nuts.

I am of the mind that how many times someone does the horizontal mambo is no one's business but their own. And there is no slutbag number either. It's ridiculous and unenlightened. Sex is part of the human condition. Whether you prefer it with a caring partner, a random pick up, a friend with benefits...It's a good time, so let's stop worrying.

Zombies and Women's Work...Seriously?

I am a huge Walking Dead fan. Huge. This show makes my Sunday nights. I love, love the walkers, the drama... Heck, just about everything. I've also had my share of things I didn't like as well. Namely Laurie and Shane. I just want to smack them upside their heads. Anyway...

During the lates episode, though, my inner feminist was on the war path. This is the zombie apocalypse and two of the lead female characters, Laurie and Andrea, were having this argument about who does what for the group. Then ol'Laurie breaks out with this idea that the men hunt the walkers and the women do the laundry and provide "normalcy" and "stability," that Andrea should stop trying to defend the group and wash some clothes or cook some dinner.

Excuse me?

Oh hell to the no she didn't. I wanted to clock that Neanderthal-minded bitch. This is the post-Apocalypse future and she's running on about women's work. Good God and jelly crackers, are you serious? And she actually said to Andrea that the men had it "handled" and that she would be better off "taking a turn" in the kitchen. My turn in the kitchen would have included me swinging an iron skillet at her head, then staking her ass to the side of the road as zombie snack cakes.

If I'm trying to survive zombies there is no way in hell I am doing someone else's damned laundry and cooking someone else's freakin' food unless we are all (women and men) taking care of this. Partners in survival is my motto. Fellas if you all are on my zombie crew come 2013, you best believe each one of us responsible for our own clothes. I wash nobody's skid marked drawers unless you are under the age of 12 or incapicitated.

I am not saying that in a group there shouldn't be tasks based on skill sets. I get that. But every one in the group needs to know every task in order to survive. I mean, someone here today, could be zombie potluck tomorrow. Now, if Laurie had come at Andrea with the "yo, you're a bad shot so maybe you should practice more and help out with laundry until you get better aim" I would have gone along. But to tell her that the men can take of the walkers and she should cook or wash clothes was W-R-O-N-G on so many levels.

Okay rant over. LOL What do you think? Equal work all the way around? Or am I just a raving lunatic?

Oh, before I forget, today, you can find my short feature, March's Frightening Flicks over Static Multimedia. Have an aweosme weekend!

Movies I Hate & Wish I'd Never Paid To See Part...Whatever

With all the hype surrounding David Fincher and his Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, as well as all the press he's received for The Social Network, it's time to break my 20 year vow of silence on perhaps the worst movie ever made in my opinion, Fincher's Alien 3. Where do I begin to describe the utter WTFery that is this movie? This film ruined what had been a sensational franchise, detonating it in one huge mushroom cloud of artsy, fartsy misguided nonsense, leaving Ripley dead and we the fans in a smoking wreckage from which we have never recovered. Hello, Alien Resurrection.

Who the hell thought it would be an awesome idea to have Fincher make his big-budget debut with this movie? Because yeah, making 80's music vids so qualified him to succeed James Cameron on a sci fi epic. To be fair, there were more script changes than winning lottery combinations. Why? What the hell was so hard? It's a fucking sci fi horror. You have alien monsters, people getting killed and a kick ass woman who takes them down. A simple, in-your-face formula that worked.

And it was fucked with it seven ways to Katmandu. Morphed into a weird, unrecognizable mess of shaved heads and psychotropic drugs. I went into this on a high reserved heretofore only for the original Star Wars sequels and well, Aliens. From the first frame, I wanted to put the beat down on Fincher and his producers, put their collective manly bits in a spice grinder. This was not my Ripley and not my ass-kicking sci fi movie. It was betrayal at the highest levels. Kill Hicks and Newt? Are you fucking kidding me? Set it on a prison planet? All right, we could go with that. But kill off Ellen Ripley? What exactly were they smoking/shooting up? And to think I paid top dollar on a midnight opening for this. Talk about How To Kill A Multi-million Dollar Franchise In 10 Frames Or Less.

Deep breath...I was spewing as I wrote this and had to do some serious editing. 20 years is a long time to keep rage inside. Maybe I can channel it into a story...Anyway, at least I can look forward to the return of Ridley Scott with his Alien prequel, Prometheus. And maybe a franchise can be reborn.

Monday Blues And Some Damn Good Television

Ugh! It's Monday and I'm already having a bad week just thinking about the shit I have to do this week. I want to turn the clock back to Friday. I hate when the week just starts and already my blood pressure is hopping. Stop the ride, I want to get off...NOW!!

Okay, bitch session is over. It's not all bad, honestly, I'm just whining because that's the way I roll sometimes. And what better day to bitch, than Monday?

Anyway, I watched Walking Dead last night and saw the coolest zombie kill ever. It was gross and hilarious all at once. My favorite kind, really. Picture water-logged zombie and immense dead organ spillage. I have got find the clip and post it. I nearly peed myself laughing. Yep, I'm just that twisted.

I also watched Hell on Wheels. Great is an underwhelming adjective to even begin describing this show. It is savage, visceral television. The production is just mind-blowing. I could almost smell the filth, the animals and the people. Whoever it was that said the Old West was romantic obviously had no clue what they were talking about. Uh can we say "Ewwwww..." That being said, this show absolutely captures that brutal period known as Reconstruction. Carpetbaggers, corrupt politicians, Native Americans, freed slaves, greedy tycoons, gunslingers, families wanting to start fresh, ex-soldiers, prostitutes and preachers all in a roiling, seething mass of expansion and rebuilding. What a savage period to have lived through. The U.S. had blown itself apart in civil war, the social order was in complete upheaval, the president had been murdered and we were building one of the country's greatest infrastructure projects. Not a period for family values that's for sure.

The characters are incredible, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, each with their own agenda. Colm Meaney is wickedly brilliant as Thomas "Doc" Durant, a greedy railroad man who is hellbent on building the transcontinental railroad, but also just as relentless in wringing as much money from the process as possible. Anyone who stands in his way is brutally run down. Anson Mount is intense as Cullen Bohannen, an ex-Confederate bent on revenging his wife's murder. A far, far superior cry from Brit Brit's love interest in that godawful Crossroads. Chitown's own Common is incredibly brilliant as Elam, a former slave working the line and determined that no man will ever own him again. Check the trailer and tune in for sure.