Saturday 29 November 2014

Saturday Spankings - "The spanking is really important"

Why hello there, very familiar looking spanker and spankee. We meet again.

It's almost here!

My Corbin's Bend book East End Girl is out next Wednesday! Any of you who bought the very exciting Corbins Bend Season 2 prebuy set will have the delight of seeing it magically turn up your Kindles (other e-book readers are avaiable) via the mystical powers of fairy dust. (I presume this is how e-publishing works.)

So just a measly little eight sentences or so to get you in the mood. But not long to wait now. Next week you'll be able to read many, many more East End Girl sentences. Thousands of 'em.


This snippet is from our heroes, Kirsty and Logan's very first conversation with one another. She is under the mistaken impression that he's gay, plus she's had a few beers and the conversation has (naturally) turned to spanking.
"I’ve tried to get other guys to get into it but it’s surprising how hard it can be to get guys to want to give you a spanking. It’s a couple of light taps and they’re all ‘oh, I didn’t want to hurt you.’ Thing is,” her voice was beginning to slur but she took another swig of her beer anyway. “The thing that I never thought anyone else would understand until I found out about this place, is that the spanking is really important. I couldn’t have any kind of serious relationship without it. If I had to choose between just sex or just spanking, I’d choose the spanking. I mean, I’d rather not choose. I’d rather have both. Sex and spanking just go together, you know? Like, like…” 
“Peanut butter and jelly?” supplied Logan. 
“Peanut butter and jelly!” she agreed enthusiastically and somewhat loudly. “Exactly! That’s totally fitting given that I’m an American now."
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Saturday 22 November 2014

Saturday Spankings - Discussing Domestic Discipline


It's like she never learns.

Happy Saturday, spankos! Corbin's Bend-flavoured Saturday Spanking this week.

We are now four books in to the awesome second season of Corbin's Bend. Constance Master's The One She Loves has just been released. I can't wait to read it.

A pretty prodigious bunch of authors to be hanging around with.

And the very next Corbin's Bend book to be released will be mine! Well, technically the very next Corbin's Bend book to be released will be the Thanksgiving special "Other Uses For a Wooden Spoon" but the very next Corbin's Bend book which isn't a cookery book, will be my very own East End Girl.
Here's the blurb:
Kirsty Beale wants a fresh start. She’s quit her life in London and moved five thousand miles to start a new one in Corbin’s Bend, Colorado – the world’s only spanking-based community. As a lifelong spanko, Kirsty thinks Corbin’s Bend is the perfect place for her but the reality doesn’t match her dreams and she struggles to fit into her new suburban environment. Reluctant to get involved in community life she dismisses her new neighbors as ‘boring’. With one exception. 
Fellow newcomer Logan Barrett is good looking, funny, and occasionally dominant in a way that Kirsty can’t decide if she finds sexy or annoying. Logan moved to Corbin’s Bend hoping to find a sweet, old-fashioned girl, willing to submit to domestic discipline. Kirsty who drinks heavily, smokes and swears like a sailor is pretty much the opposite of his idea of the perfect woman. Yet despite their differences, Logan and Kirsty can’t deny the attraction they have for one another. 
Logan hopes to bring stability into Kirsty’s chaotic life but Kirsty’s increasingly out-of-control behavior might just jeopardize her whole future at Corbin’s Bend.
And here's a tantalising little snippet to get all you excited. Not long to wait, now.


In the excerpt below, Logan and Kirsty have been discussing the idea of having a Domestic Discipline lifestyle (as opposed to just enjoying sexy spanking shenanigans as they are currently are). Kirsty is sceptical.
When Logan had proposed putting some rules in place, Kirsty had asked whether these were rules he expected her to follow or rules he expected her to break. 
“I’d expect you to follow them,” he’d said. “That’s the point.” 
“See, that’s the bit I don’t get. I can accept the idea that there are these old-fashioned households where the Head of the Household lays down the law and expects his wife and kids to do what they’re told or suffer the consequences. The thing is, if the consequences of breaking the rules are a spanking, then surely that only works if a spanking is an actual deterrent. The threat is meaningless in a spanko relationship. I like being spanked. You like spanking me. It makes as much sense as threatening to punish me with a backrub or a trip to Disneyland.”
Don't forget to check out the rest of this week's Saturday Spanking posts.

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Expanding My Horizons at Smut Manchester

I went to Smut Manchester last Saturday.  This was a fairly nerve wracking undertaking for me as it involved going out in the real world and meet real people while maintaining my guise as Etta Stark (Etta Stark does look remarkably like my real name self, which helps of course. Although she may be slightly taller).

Until now, Etta Stark has been a mostly online presence, a mishmash of electronic signals much like Mr Smith from the Sarah Jane Adventures or Max Headroom.

Except I have better hair.

No more. Now I have gone forth into the world (or at least the bit of the world that is the Manchester Conference Centre) and had actual conversations with people over actual cups of tea (and actual glasses of Pinot Grigio) about writing erotic fiction as though it were a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do. Which of course it is. I feel quite invigorated.

Smut Manchester itself was great - and eye-opening. My mind has been expanded in all sorts of new and interesting directions. There are some great writeups of all the exciting activities that went on. Check out blog posts by Anna Sky and Charlie J Forrest to find out more about the day's events including sex toys, cinquains, writing collaboratively and rope-tying. Many, many thanks to the tireless Victoria Blisse who organised the whole event.

Alongside the other activities, there were readings from a whole bunch of writers including Ashe Barker, KD Grace, Liv Honeywell and Bella Settarra. Most of whom were new to me. My Kindle 'to read' list became considerably longer this week, I can tell you.

I was scheduled to read my Flash Fiction Story, "The Final Straw" in the afternoon. I am not used to reading out loud in public. I think the last time was probably the poem I read at my sister's wedding fifteen years ago. And that (as far as I recall) didn't even have any sex or spanking in it. The idea of reading my somewhat smutty story was fairly terrifying.

However, by the time I came to do it (it was the last event of the day in fact - clearly everything else had just been a mere prelude), I'd heard at least a dozen readings from fabulous writers covering every conceivable subject ranging from the mildly suggestive to the absolutely filthy which made me feel a good deal more confident about my ability to say the word 'cock' out loud in mixed company. And I did it. Without fainting or freaking out or anything. So yay me. Jaye Peaches also read her lovely Flash Fiction story, Big Wheel Date Night which you should go and read. It's considerably less smutty than mine,

I had a wonderful weekend and am immensely glad that I forced myself to do it. And there was a bit of force involved. A definite moment before I had to leave to catch the train on Friday evening where I had to shout down the persuasive inner voice making the case for calling the whole thing off and staying home instead. But you know, that whole going outside of your comfort zone thing? There's a lot to be said for it.







Saturday 15 November 2014

Saturday Spankings - “It is I who should be thanking you”

Time for a Spanking!


The lovely and amazing Renee Rose wrote the most wonderful review of Lord Westbrook's Muse for Spanking Romance Reviews last week. If you haven't already read it, I urge you to go and read it after reading this weeks spanky snippet. Or before. Or instead of. Just make sure you do.

It really is a terrific review. Renee finishes it off by saying

"Etta Stark in an author to be watched – her intelligent portrayal of characters and plot are beyond compare in the spanking genre." 

This is possibly the nicest thing anyone's said about me ever. And this is Renee Rose saying it, people. She's a lady who certainly knows her way round a well-written spanking romance.

There's an excerpt from the book in Renee's review and because I really, really want you to go and read it, (have I mentioned that?) this week's spanky snippet is the bit that happens directly afterwards.

The noises she was making in her pleasure were quite loud but she was powerless to stop them even if she had wanted to. Lord Westbrook’s finger still pressed against her kernel causing her orgasm to go on for what seemed like forever. This was a hundred times better than anything she had managed to achieve on her own she thought when she was finally able to think of anything at all.
She smiled at Lord Westbrook who was watching her intently. “Thank you,” she said quietly. 
“It is I who should be thanking you,” Lord Westbrook replied kissing her softly on the lips.  Cass found herself surprised by his tenderness. She had worried briefly that he would be appalled by her wanton behaviour and throw her out the moment he had had his way with her but that didn’t seem to be the way of it at all. Their lovemaking seemed to have thawed his cool demeanour.

Available at all your favourite places
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Friday 14 November 2014

Life Without The Internet

I moved house two weeks ago. Moving house is very exciting. I’m on the property ladder! It’s like I’m a proper grownup at last!

There are drawbacks of course. And the biggest drawback in the last couple of weeks is that I have been forced to live a somewhat internet-free existence.

Sure, I’ve had my phone but my phone and I have a lukewarm relationship with one another at best. I jab at its onscreen buttons in increasing frustration and it does the phone equivalent of a shrug and says “Yeah, I have no idea what you’re asking me to do there, mate. Soz.” It grudgingly connects to the internet in about one in nine attempts, spends nine minutes bringing up a page and then decides that it’s all far too much effort and that it needs a bit of a lie down.

This is a far healthier phone/user relationship
Trying to connect my laptop via my phone’s WiFi hotspots resulted in unusably sketchy internet connection and a bill increase of about sixty quid. Not my cleverest investment ever.

I do have access to the internet at my day job. While it may be acceptable to to check one’s emails or pay the odd bill in the office, I think that updating one’s Spanking-themed blogs might be considered somewhat outside the company’s Acceptable Usage policy. “Why yes, I did visit a sex toys website, a BDSM blog and purchase a copy of The Spanking Psychiatrist from Amazon while connected to the office network. However, I assure you it was for perfectly legitimate business reasons.”

"And I can claim this as a business expense right?"
For the first week, it was sort of nice. I had just moved, after all. I was occupied with lugging boxes about the place and I didn’t have to worry about being Etta Stark for a while. But when the Man from British Telecom came on Monday, I was happy that my exile from the web was about to come to an end. But the Man from British Telecom couldn’t make it work. Then he went away. Then he came back later on and told me that it would be switched on at midnight. I think he just wanted to get out of my house because he certainly hadn’t activated any magic Turn Etta’s Internet On At Midnight button. Several days passed, stroppy phone calls to the help centre happened and I really, really, really wanted someone to just come round and sort my fucking internet connection out.

Then yesterday my car packed up. The whole Not Having Internet escalated to slightly hysterical proportions in my head. “I DON’T HAVE A CAR OR INTERNET!” I wailed. (Internal wailing you understand. I’m considerate of my new neighbours.) “I AM COMPLETELY CUT OFF FROM THE BOTH THE REAL WORLD AND THE VIRTUAL ONE!”

This guy, however, is totally in touch.
I had been away just too damn long by this point. I hadn’t even been able to read the lovely review Renee Rose  wrote of my book Lord Westbrook’s Muse for Spanking Romance Reviews because on the rare occasions my phone would allow me to connect to the internet it wouldn’t allow me onto Adult Only websites. There was a phone number to ring in order to have adult content switched on. It turns out I’m not brave enough to ring anyone up and ask them to switch my porn on.

I haven’t promoted my forthcoming Corbin’s Bend book. I have barely mentioned Smut Manchester the conference I’ll be heading off to later this evening. The World Wide Web was merrily getting on with its business and I was stuck on the sidelines unable to take part in the fun.

Even my Kindle ended up as a sort of book time capsule with no broadband network to introduce it to, I couldn’t purchase any new books resulting in probably the quietest two weeks in my Amazon account for years. I read all the books I had downloaded and not got round to reading (a bunch of serviceable non-spanking Historical romances for the most part) and then when I run out of new books, I re-read all the Sons of Johnny Hastings books for good measure. Because it turns out that when one doesn’t have internet connection (or a working television), one tends to do even more reading than usual.

(As a side note I originally typed that as The Sons of Johnny English which would be an altogether different proposition.)

And just when it was all getting too much and I thought I was going to do something drastic like renounce all technology and live in a cave (or go to my parents’ house to update my blog – one or the other), a new man from BT came round, did whatever Telecoms Engineers do and RECONNECTED ME TO THE UNIVERSE.

What the inside of a WiFi router looks like.

I’m back! How’s it been without me, Online Community? I’ve missed every damn last one of you.

Saturday 1 November 2014

Saturday Spankings - "I’m sure I shall give you plenty more reasons to spank me"




It's Saturday Spanking Time folks. This week, we've got a bit of post-Halloween sweetness for Robert and Cass from Lord Westbrook's Muse. They've been through a lot lately but now it's time for our heroes to discuss marriage.


“Do you really want to get married straightaway?” Robert asked
 “Why not? You know we’ll be getting married anyway sooner or later,” Cass shrugged. “We could do this the traditional way. You could court me, propose on one knee, we’d have a long engagement during which time I would pester you so much about wedding arrangements that you’d end up turning me over your knee and giving me a sound spanking for being so annoying.”
Robert laughed. “It would be a shame to have to forego that bit.”
“Oh, I’m sure I shall give you plenty more reasons to spank me.”
“I intend to make sure of it," replied Robert.


Always deserving of a spanking
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