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I’m not really hungover, but I have that exhausted feeling that you get when you’re hungover. Not that I have any real experience with hangovers. Even when I drank too much, I never woke up with the pounding headache that announces a hangover. I would, however, wake up exhausted. Yesterday, while all the TC08 people were making their hungover ways home, I wrote six thousand words. That’s a lot, as any writer can tell you.

On Saturday, amid all the TC08 Flickr photos and Tweets, I was reading the Pink Chair Diaries. I decided I wanted to submit a story. The guidelines say approximately five thousand words a submission. So I spent some time Saturday night figuring out my plot. Sunday morning I made my banner and started on the story. At about 10:30 Sunday night I submitted it, all 5988 words of it. Hopefully, I’ll have a URL for the story soon. I’ll post it here when I do. The majority of those 6K words was all about sex, so I know you’ll all like that.

Today’s Marcus photo is one I saved for just such as day as this. He looks plastered. He either didn’t know or didn’t care that someone was giving him the rabbit ears. I don’t care. This guy’s hot even when he’s drunk and acting stupid. He can have all the tequila shots he wants from my cleavage. I figured that after all the drunken TC08 pics, I should post a drunken Marcus. It just sorta fits the theme of the aftermath of TC08.

Before I list the Marcuses, did you notice the other little pic in the upper right corner? The little giraffe labeled Alaric? My friend Jen, who sent me Marcus, sent me a new giraffe. So I created the Alaric Award. I’m thinking this award must be given for something to do with either kissing or drinking or maybe both. Alaric Kohl, the Bar Story character, is a drunk for the better part of the story. An asshole, but funny at times, a total poker shark, and… a drunk. When he meets Lex, he sobers up. He’s still an asshole sometimes, still cleans up at poker, drinks but doesn’t get drunk… and is always looking for an excuse to kiss his woman. I’ll figure it out eventually and post the criteria for the Alaric.

As for the Marcus, Marty was the man this week with 7. I think that’s only because Mary was busy having a baby. Hmmmn. Fab has 6. Othurme has 4. Mary and Matt got 3 each. I think Matt’s just been busy though, not off having a baby like Mary. Although if he was, we gotta get him on Springer or at the very least the Tyra Banks Show! Karl, Jason X, and Metalmom each have 2. I know MM and Karl were busy at TC08 which is why they haven’t been by much. As for Jason… his mojo was back so he was busy getting some. He was REALLY busy this week. If you don’t believe me, head on over to The User Pool to see for yourself. Next Monday is our next recap. We’re almost to the end of this round.

While I was busy with my six thousand words, the PITA went to Rip-offland. She should have pics and video over on Socially Dead at some point this week. That’s it for Marcus Monday. I’m taking my 6K word self to bed now. Enjoy your week!

Yup. I gots a song for ya today. You might recognize this guy as the lead singer of Tonic, but I think I like his solo stuff better. I really like this song. I even entertained it as a possibility for my duet with Fab. I give you, Emerson Hart:

Before I take off to write more dirty sex posts, I have to brag about something. At about 10 am this morning, I decided that I needed to do a quick post at the Bar. I needed to catch up with a character that I had left hanging awhile back. I knew basically what he needed to say, and what foreshadowing he needed to provide. So, I decided to test myself a little. On my 15 minute break, I cranked out his post. 780 words, no edits needed, 15 minutes. Whew! I did it.

I looked at those 780 words and wondered how authors struggle to come up with 1000 words a day or 1500 words a day. I decided it wasn’t a struggle to come up with them. More likely, it was a struggle to find the time to commit them to “paper”. I know that my problem with writing is that I do a lot of stuff. I don’t have a lot of time to spit out 1500 words a day.

I was sure proud of those 780 words in 15 minutes though. I wrote - created, if you will - 52 words a minute. At that rate, I could churn out 20K words in about 6.5 hours. Real life, of course, dictates that those hours stretch to months, maybe even years. I dunno. This is one of the few times I’ve ever tried to time myself. All the other times involved sex not writing.

Oh, BTW, I’ve decided that I’ve made it to a certain level in the blogging world. Hellohahanarf has volunteered to drunk dial me. *blinks in shock* OMG!! Someone is gonna drunk dial me from Tequila Con! I am soooo stoked. Happy Tuesday!

Ever since I heard about Heath Ledger’s death the Doors song has been playing in my head. I had some other ideas for my next blog post but I kinda don’t feel like being amusing now. When you work in a mortuary you hear a lot of different stories about how people died. We’ve had everything from car accident victims to people shot by the cops to suicides, murders, freak accidents, and many natural deaths. When the contract on my desk is for someone younger than me, especially children or parents of small children, I feel horrible for those families.

My industry is a service industry where the first thing we do when someone walks in the door is offer comfort. We learn to be calm in the face of others’ pain. I have to admit that even working where I do, where you’ve either seen or heard everything, I was totally shocked by Heath’s death. An accident maybe I could understand but his manner of death is shocking. Knowing how this stuff works though, I’m not going to speculate how he died. I’ve heard so many people already talking about how he died of an overdose. I’m sure if he did, it was an accident. But then there was talk of him suffering from pneumonia. Well, I’ve had pneumonia enough times to know that it can kill you when you don’t even look that ill to others. And certainly, we get a lot of people at the mortuary every winter who have died from pneumonia or the flu. Funny to think that in this day and age, with the things they can do medically, that pneumonia can kill. But it does. Every day.

In the Bar Story, I have a character named Macaire whose story is just ramping up. He’s enigmatic and is supposed to be a good guy, an angel. But he’s a rogue, bent on revenge, so he’s not coming across as a good guy. He has secrets that are revealed at the end of this storyline and when all is revealed and resolved, I was going to redeem him and try to find him a mate. Since Macaire’s physical representation is Heath Ledger, I’ve decided that at the end of his storyline, he will make peace with Nyx and with his fellow angels and ask Marius the Archangel, to send him to the Afterlife. I would rather end his story on a bittersweet peaceful note now that this has happened. I just don’t think I can continue to write Macaire when I have to visualize Heath’s face as the character.

It’s also rather odd that I decided recently to ramp Macaire’s story up so that I could complete it soon. Foreshadowing in a way I hadn’t expected I guess. Macaire’s story is one of the more original ones I’ve come up with recently so I was very excited to work on it. My enthusiasm is a little deflated now but the show must go on. I’ll be sad to see Macaire go. I am sad that Heath Ledger has.

Next time I may talk about the email notification I got that Andrei Andrei had posted a new video on his blog. Woot!

Laters peeps!

How I came to be a skank is a strangely circuitous story. See, I have this thing for Marcus Schenkenberg. To me, the man is the most beautiful man in the world. I love his chest, his hands, his dimpled chin… just everything. He is the epitome of male beauty to me. I was obsessed with the man long before the Bar came into existence.

So here I am writing in the Bar and the day comes when Jen offers me Alaric Kohl for Lex Valentine’s mate. (See the post entitled The HEA.) Her inducement to me is to tell me that Alaric is embodied by Marcus Schenkenberg. I have to admit, that was a stroke of genius on her part, enticing me with Marcus. Of course I couldn’t resist.

Not long after that Jen invites me to this message board called Zanctuary or Z as we call it. The women there call each other skanks. They give each other skank names which I think have to be earned in some devious manner. So, very quickly it seemed, I was tagged as the Skankenberg. My response to this was to make skank avatars for everyone! I’ve had various versions of my skank av but this one was the first incarnation.

So now everywhere I go I have to use a Marcus av at some point. At JR Ward’s BDB MB I’m posting pics of Marcus in a kilt… or I’m posting about him at the Dark Muse Society. He’s even on my Yahoo Instant Messenger this week. It’s an av with Marcus and the little giraffe beanie Jen sent me for Christmas. Giraffes being synonymous with Marcus now because of Alaric. (Alaric’s mom makes him take dancing lessons even though at 6′6″ she says he’s a big giraffe.)

So now I’m a skank with an obsession with Marcus Schenkenberg, an attachment to a fictional character named Alaric the Asshole aka the big giraffe, and a collector of giraffe items. All because I think the man has the most beautiful chest and hands and um… everything ever. A skank with a giraffe fetish… not exactly what I thought I’d be at my age but what the hell. I’m enjoying myself drooling so just pass the tissues and laugh at me. It’s all good… and Marcus… he’s just too damn good.

Til next time. Laters peeps!

So I write. If you know me (and if you’re reading this I suppose you do) you know I write. Some days the Bar consumes me. Other days I’m kinda meh about it. When I started at the Bar I created a character named Winter after my online name. I had a whole backstory put together in my head about her. A mate, a daughter, her mate’s best friend and bodyguard, her mate’s two cousins… So I had a cast of characters to draw on and include in the story as I went along.

In the beginning my people were slightly self contained although I did my damnedest to work them into the existing story and have their storyline become part of the whole. They really began to take hold however once I started matching them up with other writers’ characters. I think the first was matching up Winter’s daughter Rhiannon with Jen’s character Tobias. Then I created a rock star vampire named Carlisle. Along with Carlisle came some peripheral characters one of which was her assistant/manager Alexandria. I’m not sure exactly how it happened but Alexandria - Lex - has become my signature character.

Lex’s backstory is horrific and involves abandonment by her father, abuse by her mother, being orphaned, being mated, then a stint in a Nazi concentration camp where she was raped repeatedly in an effort to make her reveal what she is (a vamp), the death of her mate, years of wandering a post WWII Europe, starving and being abused. Then she’s found by Carlisle and her life changes for the better. Eventually, she meets Carlisle’s new brother-in-law Johann and tries to have a relationship with him.

Laurie, who writes Johann, wasn’t feeling Lex for her character so Jen mentioned she had a character, Johann’s cousin Alaric. She said Alaric had an intended mate but they weren’t sparking did I want to put Al and Lex together? What happened when I said sure became an explosion in the Bar story. Al and Lex blazed to the forefront of the story and so did Al’s jilted mate. Somewhere in all of that… Lex became my favorite character. She went from dying to a woman who has everything. She’s easy to like because obviously, she earned her happiness through all her suffering.

Well, Alaric and Alexandria had the first Bar wedding but by no means the last. Their story gave birth to the inclusion of the deities in a much bigger way in the story. They’ve proven that you can have your HEA (Happily Ever After) and still be a front burner in the story. And it doesn’t hurt that the model and actress chosen to physically represent them look so hot. They look so hot together you look at the Photoshop picture and wonder why they aren’t seeing each other in real life!

Yeah, I know. I live this stuff way, way too much. But the truth of the matter is that if you can’t do that, you can’t articulate these characters. I think the ones you “feel” the best are the ones who are written better, who become the characters readers like the most and identify with best. Lex gave in to her desires and made an effort to make things work out for herself. She gave up wallowing in self pity and hopelessness and took a hand in her own destiny. Alaric stopped drinking and made a conscious choice between his intended and a woman he felt in his heart he could love more than anyone else. They risked a lot… the wrath of friends and family… and they caused pain… to Alaric’s intended mate and to his cousin Johann … but in the end everyone and everything came out better for the two of them taking control of their fates. It was a happy ending that hasn’t ended. They have a series of happy endings every time they overcome some other bump on their road of life.

When I look at that Photoshop pic I wish real life were as easy as the writing often is because then I would write a scene where Marcus Schenkenberg falls for me. Heh. The man has the most beautiful chest on the planet and his hands are gorgeous. So I guess writing about Lex with a guy who looks like Marcus comes really easy for me. If I looked like Kelly Monaco, who represents Alexandria, I would be trying to find a way to put myself in Marcus’ path. LOL

The mechanics of writing - the grammar, the vocabulary, the structure - are easy to learn. They teach it to you in school. (Thank you Mrs. Hodgins!) The power and the majesty, as they say, that a writer imbues in the characters is all rather dependent upon how much you want to let these people live inside your head. I must have a lot of room in there because I’ve got a whole cast of characters living in that space!

Since I talked a little bit about Marcus Schenkenberg this time, maybe next time I’ll talk about how I came to be a skank, or rather the Skankenberg.

Laters peeps!

Well, here I am. I think. Wait… if I think then … I am. Ah, fuck it. This is an experiment. A writing/research kind of experiment. You see, I’m a writer. I write fiction. Mostly these days I write in a story called The Bar. It’s a paranormal cyber serial which means it’s an online soap opera story with vampires, werewolves, and just about any kind of creature you could imagine including *cough* humans. The story is told on a message board in posts. Sometimes in first person and sometimes in third.

I’m not the only writer at The Bar. Currently, there are seven of us and one is a man. We’re a diverse group. I’m the oldest and I live in Southern California. I think Alysse is the youngest. She lives in Hawaii. Then there’s Darrien. He lives in Scotland. Laurie in Wisconsin. Avalon in Spain. Mary in Arkansas and Jen in Indiana. Alysse, Dee and Laurie are all in their 20’s. Mary and Jen in their 30’s. I am the old woman in her 40’s which leads me to the reason for this blog.

See, I was looking for hot men to be the physical representation of characters in The Bar Story. I came across this hot Romanian model named Andrei Andrei. He’s got a blog.  I started reading his blog for shits and grins one day. His English is pretty good. I was surprised. I started watching the videos he posted and really liked the last one which was from a music video shoot in Lebanon. The music sucked ass but the video… which was all him and some girl, possibly the singer… was HOT! Damn he is fine! So I did something I rarely ever do… I posted a comment. My comment said he looked hot in the video and if he ever wanted a sugar mama in Southern California to look me up. Once I’d posted the comment it preyed on my fertile mind. I kept wondering what if…

What if a woman… an ordinary woman who aspired to be a romance writer… began haunting a male model’s blog? What if she was fascinated with him and his life? What if he was amused by her comments and the bits of her personality he could discern from her posts? What if he went looking and found her blog? What if he was secretly falling for her and she for him? What if he somehow got her address and showed up on her doorstep one day? Not looking for a sugar mama but looking for the woman whose blog posts had enthralled him. What if she was 15 years older than him, shy and not beautiful? Would he still love her? Could he win her? Would he want to?

So I guess being a webpage builder and writer but not a blogger I decided I’d better figure out what the hell it was like to have a blog. You’re supposed to write about what you know so this is my research project. I doubt Andrei Andrei will come by and read it and fall in love with me and show up on my doorstep but it’s a nice daydream for about 2 minutes. I’m too old for the hot young things now but I can look at them and remember what it was like to be with one. Besides, Andrei looks like a piece of my past and a man I had to leave behind.

Whoever said that being old and boring means you were always that way? I wasn’t. I have a past. A murky one with spikes of high romance and lust and lows of depression so dark and deep it’s a wonder I survived to type this here today. I went from Hell to the Cemetery (where I work now) to this Blog. If my teenage daughter reads this she’s gonna roll her eyes but at the same time she knows… Mom lived. I tried not to let life pass me by. If living meant grabbing the ass of some hot young man… well then, I guess I’ve lived. Righteously.

Laters peeps. Until the next time…

Just click if you’re interested in The Bar Story.