Of Flighty Muses, Stampeding Hippopotami And Going Creatively Crazy

Dare To Be Crazy

You’ve probably experienced yourself already what a fickle thing the muse is. She pokes you constantly in the ribs, whispering parts of wonderful stories into your ear, only to hide away when you most need her. You’ve sat for hours and days, stuck on a scene, tied to that story, and wracked your brain until you reached the inevitable, heartbreaking conclusion –

Writer’s Block!

So how do you lure her out into the open again? Forget all the tips about structure, rituals, special surroundings and “simply writing.”

The muse is a little punk, a frail thing with neon colored hair held together by these silver gum wrappers, a crazy bitch who wears dirty blue jeans with holes in tandem with Louboutin heels, who turns off the alarm clock with a well-placed arrow and who uses her original Hemingway first print to prop up the old table on which she fucks the neighbor while she smokes weed. You’ll not impress her with a neat writing room and a lovely cup of tea.

Noticed something? Good.

What works for me, and reportedly for others, is to deviate from the usual questioning of “what if” and, instead, snatch the most unlikely things you come about.

Go For Crazy Yourself

Your main character, Jennifer, is sitting at the kitchen table with her boyfriend Toby? They’ve just argued because he missed their anniversary and now you can’t for the love of it find the way to move the scene from that depressing, static setting to the happy, romantic ever after you had planned?

Stop wracking your brain. Turn on the TV. Sounds crazy? Yes, but remember the muse. Try to find the first thing that you think doesn’t fit your story at all.

I just tried it, and as I still had a documentary channel running, the first thing I saw was a hippo. I scribbled that down, but I still had no success. So I switched one channel down.

Starfighters. Okay, I admit that I’m a bit of a documentary addict. Hippos and Starfighters. So far, so good.

Another channel down, I spotted a bare-chested chocolaty beauty dancing on a carnival wagon in Rio. This was perfect!

A hippo, a Starfighter and half-naked girls dancing on the carnival are to be my ingredients, and I’ll force them into the story, no matter if it makes sense.

Jennifer’s eyes shot open. A hippopotamus shot through the room, trampling the table on its way, and crashed out through the window that was now a door. A Starfighter thundered over the house in hot pursuit of the massive animal, and both Jennifer and Toby tried to duck under the table – if only it had still been there. As if on a signal, both jumped from their chairs and raced out of the house, through the splintered remains of the entrance door and onto the street. Toby rubbed his eyes. A carnival wagon slowly rolled down the road towards them, and on top of it danced the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Is This Stupid? Hell, Yes!

Now you have holes in the wall, a demolished kitchen, a rampaging hippopotamus, the Air Force in an uproar, a beautiful Brazilian dancer in the middle of a small town in the USA with no clue how she got there, and on top of all that, if you haven’t paid attention, most certainly a jealous girlfriend at hand. That last one is a chilling thought.

Let’s Try Something Completely Different

Well, not completely, but let’s at least tone it down some. Trampling hippos are neither native to the States nor very romantic. Romantic? Heart?

Let’s try this:

“You know,” Jennifer said, blinking away her tears, “it feels like hippo has trampled over my heart. I hate it! We used to have fun; we didn’t even need to talk to understand each other.”

Yes! A whole paragraph! So, the Starfighter. Can we use it for another metaphor? Hm. They were renowned for crashing down – let’s not care about how warranted that was. But how to work them into the story. Only someone with a bit of an airplane fetish would talk about Starfighters in such a situation. Or someone who knows one like that.

Toby chewed on his lip. “Grandpa once told me that his relationship with Gran is like a Starfighter. If it doesn’t touch down and get refueled often enough, it’ll crash.”

You think that’s both cheesy and horrible? I do too. Hell, Jennifer does as well.

Jennifer looked at him with wide eyes, unsure if she should laugh or cry. “That’s the silliest metaphor I’ve ever heard!”

Toby deflated. “You know how Grandpa is; it’s either aircrafts or fishing he talks about.”

You think this is going in circles? Nope, *insert evil giggle here* because here comes our last weapon:

“Or that time in ’72 when he visited the carnival in Rio,” Jennifer added with a small smile tugging up the corner of her mouth. “Do you really believe he rode on a wagon with ten half-naked samba dancers?”

Toby covered his face. “Don’t start with that. Gran still hits him every time he mentions it, even after forty years.”

“I’d like to see it.” Suddenly, Toby’s misstep didn’t appear as big anymore.

“What?” He asked. “You want to see Gran hit him or Grandpa with ten…”

“The carnival! God, you’re such a pervert!”

“Hey, just having you on.” He couldn’t stop from chuckling at her outrage. “I’d like to go there, one day,” he told her, his voice now quieter, “with you. There and to other places.”

Jennifer froze. A part of her wanted to stay mad at him, but another part caved under his nervous, hopeful look. “I’d like that too,” she whispered, and then he was suddenly next to her, pulling her up into his arms, and her lips parted eagerly for his.

Yes! We Did It!

See, it wasn’t that hard. This is no guaranteed recipe to cure writer’s block, but more often than not, you’ll find writing a chore when the muse hides. Going crazy will help you come up with ideas that are outrageous enough to make you smile. When you smile, you have fun, and when you have fun, it’s not a chore anymore.

I hope you could take something from my ramblings.

Now please excuse me, as I’ve got a story to write about a punk girl who owns Louboutin heels and a Hemingway first print. I’m still not completely ruling out hippopotami.

Staying With Erin - Another series brought full circle! Yay!

Today's the last day of my holidays, so I'm really happy that I finally finished the last chapter of my erotic novel Staying With Erin.

When eighteen-year-old Paisy's parents go abroad, she sneaks out in the night and runs away to live with her friend Erin, whom she had met in an internet chatroom, in her rented room at a farm in Louisianna. Little did she know that Erin and her landlady Bridget have a wicked sexual relationship and are all too eager to draw her into their world of sex and kinks. Constant nudity and pankings are just the tip of the iceberg, but Paisy can't extricate herself from the sexual thrill and takes part in more and more kinky games.

Click here to read the full novel of 42,500 words for free at Lush!

Teutonic Temptation is online!

A Teutonic Temptation has hit the front page at Lush, yay!

The story grew to more than 9,000 words, a sweet and romantic but also scorching hot and naughty tale of seduction. Working with Katie has been a blast, and we're both sure that this hasn't been our last writing collaboration.

Follow Katie and Chrissie on their holiday in a romatnic spa retreat set amidst a snowy landscape of fairytale castles, and watch tentative seduction overcome insecurities, then lead to steaming, sexy fun.

Click here to read the full novelette at Lush.

Have fun reading!

Sneak Peek at my Collaboration

I'm all hyper! Our collaboration piece is going along wonderfully, and working with KatieElizabeth isn't just inspiring and fun, it's sexy as hell!

We're more than halfway into the story now, which is told from alternativing perspectives, and things are really heating up. To tide you over until it's ready for release, here's a short snipped from my latest part:

...I felt like floating on clouds. I still did, half an hour later when made our way back to our rooms, after what was now open, heavy flirting by both of us. I contemplated ravishing her lips, but settled for a sweet kiss to the corner of her mouth to say goodnight and failed to hide my trembling sigh.

The moment that my room’s door closed behind me, I couldn’t wait to get out of my clothes. Trembling fingers nestled with the dress until I got it loose and simply let it drop onto the floor. My bra flew through the room, then my soaked panties followed. I plopped onto the bed and pulled my shoes and stockings off. That buzz between my thighs had turned into a maelstrom. My lust dripped in thick rivulets down my thighs. The fire in my pussy needed quenching, but not here or I’d make a veritable mess.

I raced into the bath, and with a wicked grin pulled my ‘best friend’ I’d called Pinkie from the pocket in my toilet bag, my pink, smooth, shiny toy, as long as my hand and two fingers wide. The bricked walk-in shower was a dream, and soon a soft, warm rain fell from above. I leaned against the tiles and bit my lip. Pinkie buzzed to life.

“Katie,” I softly moaned her named...

Stay tuned! And meanwhile, don't forget to check out KatieElizabeth's wonderfully sexy stories!

I'm doing a collaboration

Yes, it's the first time (okay, the second time I started one, but that fell short early due to life being a bitch) that I'm working together with another author on a story. I managed to rope the lovely and talented KatieElizabeth into creating a sapphic seduction tale together with me, and we're both having an absolute blast.

A lot of credits for the story outline and perfect planning go to her. She's a veritable well of creative energy and one of the sweetest people I've ever gotten to know.

If you haven't read her works, you can find them all at her author page at Lush.

I don't want to give away too much ahead of time. Our main characters, incidentally named Katie and Chrissie, both end up at a lovely hotel in the south of Bavaria over a long winter weekend without company. Soon, sparks begin to fly and mutual attraction runs its course. I don't think I'm promising too much when I say that you'll find both wonderfully romatic scenes of tentative seduction and steamy, naughty fun that makes your skin prickle all over.

It's going to be a teasing tale, but never a dull one. It shouldn't be too long, so stay tuned!

Just A Tiny Spark

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What A Christmas, Carol!

The snow tumbled from the sky like a curtain in big, wet flakes that glittered in the porch light and added layer after layer to the smooth, edgeless blanket that tried to swallow the world. From time to time, trees capitulated under the weight and threw their branches to the ground with a final, resonating gun shot, or faltered altogether with a cannon blast. The startled jerks and hammering heartbeat were the only things that broke Carol’s miserable monotony while she stared out of the blurred window into the white-gray nothingness and watched through red-rimmed eyes as the snow climbed above the window sill.

Her mood was just like the snow - gray, heavy and cold. It should have been the best Christmas ever. Now she sat there, alone, the ambers of the fire in the hearth behind her dead, and wrapped her blanket tighter around herself, unable to dispel the chill from her heart.

“Going to be a day late. Missed flight. Driving up there by myself. ” Was that the message you wrote your fiancée when you needed to tell her that you’d be late for your first real, romantic holiday together -- for the long-awaited, cozy Christmas week in a remote mountain cabin? Of course it wasn’t.

How he could not have expected her to call him after that, she had no clue. Or perhaps he had, subconsciously. Perhaps this had been his way to tell her that sorry, it just didn’t work for him. The giggling, female voice that had answered her on his fixed phone had been like a punch into her face and guts. But when she had asked for Fernando and Miss Giggles had called out for loverboy, she had felt her heart freeze and shatter, piece by piece, with agonizing pain.

“Don’t bother coming.” It had been a single wave of wounded rage that had kept her voice steady enough to say the words -- before the tsunami of misery following in its wake tore apart her world. She had hung up the phone, and there had been nothing. No frantic call back. No message begging her to talk. Just silence, a broken heart and tears streaming in rivers down her face.

* * * *

The snow was halfway up the windows. Candles flickered and made the room look far warmer than it felt. Carol’s stomach grumbled, but she couldn’t find the energy to get up. A knock sounded.

She should go to the door. But there couldn’t be anybody outside, not on Christmas Eve with the snow already four feet high and still falling. Her fantasy was playing games; loneliness was no doubt making her imagine things.

Another series of knocks broke the silence, loud, insistent. She turned her head around and looked at the door. “Wha…” Her voice was inaudible, raw from crying.

The knocking turned into a pounding. “Hello?” a muffled male voice asked from outside. “Is there anybody inside? Hello?”

* * * *

A deep trench, almost a canyon, wound its way through the snow, and the older couple standing in front of Carol’s door, clad in thick down jackets and with their cheeks reddened by the exertion in the cold, looked relieved. They were both breathing hard and leaning on their snow shovels.

Carol vaguely remembered their faces. “Hello,” she finally managed to stammer, and even as she spoke, the names came back to her. “Mr. and Mrs. Preston.” The tumbling snowflakes gave the scene a blurry appearance.

“June. Please call me June, and he’s Edgar. We’re neighbors, after all. You’re Carol, aren’t you?” The woman smiled brightly, and her breath came out in puffs of mist. A few blond curls clung wetly to her forehead under the jacket’s hood.

“I’m… yes. I remember you. Dad fixed your car once.”

The man, Edgar, chuckled. “That he did. I’d been trying to get it running for a whole day. Took him all of five minutes.” He looked her up and down. “We saw your car and the smoke from the chimney, but then the smoke stopped, though your car’s still up the lane. Are you okay? Are you here alone?”

“I… yes.” It was hard for Carol not to start crying again. “My fiancé was supposed to come too.”

“Oh.” June gave her a look of sympathy. “They closed the roads a few hours ago.”

“I don’t care!” Carol’s breath hitched. “I’m sorry,” she hastily added. “It’s just that…” She looked at the single wooden step in front of her that the snow already tried to claim once again.

“You had a falling out.” It wasn’t a question.

“How…?”

“Your eyes are red and puffy. We saw you crying through the window.”

As if the mere mentioning of the word had open a valve, fresh tears streaked down Carol’s cheeks. She hated that she couldn’t hold it together, but the frozen fingers of loneliness crushed her heart once again.

“Oh my!”

The wooden shaft of the shovel clanked on the cobbles, and then arms wrapped around her and pulled her into a tight hug. A scent of female perfume and sweat filled her nostrils. Sobs shook her, but a soothing hand travelled up and down her back.

“Nobody should be alone for Christmas. You’re coming with us.” June’s tone left no room for discussion. “But first, we’ll go inside and close the door. You have to be freezing in just your pajama, girl!”

“I… oh…” Flustered, Carol extricated herself from the embrace and took a step backwards. “I’m sorry, you have to be freezing yourself. Come in.”

Edgar had already leaned the shovels against the porch railing, and the two of them quickly stepped out of their boots and onto the lush carpet. Once the door shut behind them, Carol nervously looked around, for the first time in days noticing that the living room was quite a mess. “Sorry, I didn’t have much energy for tidying up.”

“And that’s understandable.” June stood next to her, one hand on Carol’s shoulder. “Why don’t you pack your things and jump into some warmer clothes, and we’ll head over. It’s rather cold here.”

“I had blankets.” Carol’s defense fell short against the twinkle in her older neighbor’s eye.

“Oh my god!” Edgar exclaimed far too loud. “Is that an original?” He crossed the room with a few long steps and crouched down in front of the wooden statue Carol’s mother and father had quarreled about so often.

“Not really. But it’s been made at the end of the nineteenth century.” She felt her cheeks grow hot, watching Edgar admire the lewd ebony statue. “Mom always argued that it was indecent, but Dad insisted on having it out in the open. I never got around to stowing it away.”

“And I’m glad.” Edgar’s voice was nothing more than a deep whisper. “She’s beautiful.” He ran a finger down the horned, wooden goddess, over her full, naked breasts and between her lewdly splayed legs.

As her neighbor’s finger caressed the statue in such a loving, almost sexual way, Carol became aware of her own state of being under-dressed. “I… I should really put something on. I haven’t unpacked much. I’ll be just a minute.”

The tightening of June’s fingers around her shoulder stopped her. “You don’t need to hurry.” She winked. “If there are two things that can keep my Edgar happy and occupied, it’s Egyptian history and naked women.”

Carol’s blush intensified, and she quickly headed to her bedroom.

* * * *

“...and this will be your room.”

“It’s lovely.” It was, really. Unlike the rest of the Preston’s cabin, which was all sheepskins and wood, the small room towards the back had two red-bricked walls and a four-poster bed with intricate ornaments and airy, transparent veils. “It’s like a princess’ quarters in a castle.”

June chuckled. “That might be because Edgar modelled it for his princess.”

“You have a daughter?”

“Yes, her name’s Amy. She has to be about your age. It’s a pity you never met. She’s twenty-three.”

Carol bit her lip while she stowed away her clothes in the dark wooden wardrobe, wondering if she should ask the question. But she was curious now. “She’s not coming here for Christmas?”

“Not this year. She lives with her husband in Australia. They visit us over the holidays every other year though.”

* * * *

They had spent the night in front of the fireplace, wrapped in thick woolen blankets, eating home-made cookies, sipping hot punch and sharing stories of past times at the cabins. Whenever June and Edgar had shared a particularly funny moment, they had sent each other loving smiles and winks, and the small touches that accompanied those always sent small stabs through Carol’s heart. But the laughter over -- in hindsight -- hilarious mishaps had more than weighed up these reminders of her loneliness, and when Carol had made her tipsy way to bed, she had felt relaxed for what had felt like the first time in ages.

She awoke to a soft bumping sound and had to blink a few times to realize where she was. The soft, bluish moonlight reflected on the snow and tinged the room in a mysterious glow. Something creaked, and more bumping followed, soft thuds.

Suddenly wide awake, Carol extricated herself from the blanket and slipped into the felt shoes. They were really ugly, but they were soft and warm. She tip-toed into the hallway to get herself a glass of water, but with each step, the thumping sound got louder.

When she was about to pass the Preston’s bedroom, she noticed the door slightly ajar and couldn’t stop herself from taking a peek. She almost gasped aloud and put a hand across her mouth.

Both were naked. June was on all fours in the middle of the huge bed, with her eyes closed and her head thrown back in ecstatic bliss. Behind her, Edgar knelt with his hands around her hips and pushed her slowly back and forth. She couldn’t see his groin, but there was no doubt what Carol was witnessing.

She had never considered herself a voyeur. But these two bodies, in all their slightly pudgy imperfection, were beautiful in the moonlight. June’s big breasts dangled rhythmically in the shape of long, perfect, round cones tipped with dark, long nipples, and gasps and grunts accompanied their dance of love. The looks of passion on their faces were breathtakingly beautiful.

Moisture coated Carol’s fingers and a moan almost escaped her lips. A guilty blush spread over her cheeks when she realized where her hand had strayed. She shouldn’t be doing this! But the rhythm sped up, the creaking and thumping intensifying just like the moans and grunts did.

“Oh god yes, baby, yes, give it to me! God, this feels so good! Harder!” June’s moaned encouragement was shaken by pleasured hitches in her breath.

“I love you!” Edgar grunted in reply, pushing himself hard into her and drawing a moan of delight.

Carol’s own fingers danced between her thighs, delved into the wetness.

Continue reading the full story at Lushstories...