Yes, I know it’s Saturday, but that loses not only the alliteration but also the link with my name đ Anyway, I thought I’d post one of my earliest stories, just as a sort of celebration of a decade of writing. I like to think I write even better now, but it’s not bad…
It’s also NOT SUITABLE FOR UNDER 18s.
Today I’m offering you an excerpt from Loving My Lady, the Regency novella which came out last week. Hope you enjoy it.
I do not think that I knew what love was before that moment. I had loved my father, of course, with the obligation of a righteous daughter; the romantic love the poets write of, though, had never previously touched my life.
She stepped down.
The one and only “she” there would ever be for me. My eyes met hers for a second, and I was first to look away. This was not the elderly lady I remembered from my childhood. Who, then, was she?
“You are most welcome,” I stammered. “Um⌠Lady Dennyson⌔
“Yes?”
“âŚis expected shortly, I imagine?”
“I beg your pardon?”
She strolled toward me. I would have died for a dress such as the one she wore with so much elegance.
“When do you expect Lady Dennyson?” I asked shyly.
There was a pause, followed by the most beautiful laughter I had ever heard — even though it was at my expense.
“My dear!” she exclaimed. “Cordelia — I may call you that, may I not?”
My voice too unsteady for words at the sound of my name on her lips, I nodded.
“I am Lady Dennyson.”
“But⌔
“Surely you did not expect my mother-in-law?” she laughed.
Mother-in-law? Then she was⌠then my cousin Adam (unknown, therefore unavoidably unmissed) must⌠must be married — married and dead.
“Lady Dennyson?”
She smiled.
“That is indeed my name.”
Unbidden, unexpectedly, I curtsied — as if I were a maid. Well, perhaps a companion was on such a level.
“My lady.”
One hand pinched my chin, the other slid luxuriously down my arm like velvet.
“You need not call me that. I am Lady Juliet, and you are my Cordelia.”
Okay, so this isn’t exactly fiction. It isn’t exactly finished. It isn’t exactly serious. But I was having a frivolous moment and thinking about the editing process.  Just channel The Sound Of Music and think of some of your favourite things…:
Headings and titles, appropriate slashes
Full stops and commas and even em-dashes
Too few apostrophes make it confused
Is this some writing you wish to be used?
Â
When the pen falls,
In the edits,
And you’re feeling sad.
Simply remember youâre writing at all
And then it wonât seem so bad.
Happy Friday, folks!
It’s been a while since I’ve done a ‘Friday Fiction’ post, but I’m hoping to do them more often when I’m not up to my ears in novel. For today, however, I wanted to point you towards an interview I’ve done with Scope, for their A-Z ‘End The Awkward’ campaign about sex and disability. I come in under ‘N’ – for Not Safe For Work (NSFW) đ
N is for NSFW â #EndtheAwkward
Erotic fiction is definitely NSFW but itâs perfect reading material to get you going. And why wouldnât the âLusty Ladyâ use a wheelchair or the âHorny Hunkâ be deaf?
N is for NSFW is part of Scopeâs A to Z of sex and disability
Writer Penelope Friday talks to us about mixing sex and disability in the pages of her erotic fiction.
I came into writing erotica through fan fiction. Fan fiction (often called âfanficâ) is a class of writing in which you take other peopleâs characters and give them adventures of their own. A large proportion of this is dedicated to writing âadultâ fiction â no matter whether the original characters were engaged in sexual activity or not!
So, my short story Pansy Learns A Lesson came out recently. It’s a sequel to Punishing Pansy, which I wrote quite some time ago and (despite what the middling reviews might tell you) has probably been my most successful short story ever.
Fancy a quick taster (as it were)?
Naughty Pansy is getting off at work again. But when her boss (and lover)Â catches her with another man, will she finally learn her lesson?
EXCERPT:
It was about twenty minutes before three when Pansy stopped innocently at Aaron’s desk. David had a meeting until three o’clock; he often liked to work off his frustrations with Pansy afterwards. But it also meant she was safe from him noticing her plotting… well, until she wanted him to see, that was.
âAaron,â she breathed huskily. âThere’s some sheets of A3 paper I need to get from the basement, but the shelf is too high for me to reach. Will you help me?â
âSure.â
Aaron glanced at her and then away. He was shy, then, and still uncertain of her motives. Even better. He got to his feet and she led him down the stairs. There was a little stepladder in front of the paper shelves, and Pansy climbed onto it, reaching her arms upwards as if trying to reach the highest shelf. Her skirt hitched higher around her thighs, and she heard a sharp intake of breath from Aaron.
âYou see?â she asked, looking round, her arms still reaching up. âI’m just not quite big enough. But I saw you and I thought ‘Oh yes, Aaron is definitely big enough’.â
So, my latest blog for the Huffington Post is up, in which I’m talking about a subject which can get many people up in arms (just read the comments if you don’t believe me) – disabled parking spots.
Why Parking in a Disabled Spot Without a Badge Is Never Okay
Again, this is my most current article for Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine. I’m writing about ‘Cranks, Quacks and Miracles’ – alternative health treatments in the Regency.
Jane Austen shows a number of hypochondriacs in her stories (Mr Woodhouse in Emma, with his gruel and his soft-boiled eggs, and Mary Musgrove in Persuasion with her tendency towards ill health whenever she felt herself neglected come to mind) but it is in her unfinished novel Sanditon that she particularly concentrates on medicine â looking at both conventional and experimental (to put it mildly!) treatments. Indeed, Jane Austen specifically uses the phrase âquack medicineâ in describing the Parker sisters, saying that they had âan unfortunate turn for medicine, especially quack medicineâ. Mr Parker, their brother, is first introduced to the heroine, Charlotte Heywood, when he sustains a carriage accident, trying to find a doctor for the village of Sanditon. (As an aside, I was fascinated when I first read the book that he had seen a notice in the âKentish Gazetteâ â a local newspaper I grew up reading, and which is still in print.) His sistersâ alleged poor health had encouraged him to look for the doctor, though it turns out, when Diana Parker writes to her brother, that she has for the moment eschewed conventional medicine, saying:
â[P]ray never run into peril again in looking for an apothecary on our account⌠We have entirely done with the whole medical tribe. We have consulted physician after physician in vain, till we are quite convinced that they can do nothing for us and that we must trust to our own knowledge of our own wretched constitutions for any relief.â
Of course, this is a decision not dissimilar to ones made by many people today, who find themselves dissatisfied with the results of conventional medicine â though perhaps, given the limits of medical knowledge in the Regency, Miss Parker had more reason for her suspicions!
So, I have recently been writing about mistresses in the Regency Period for Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine, and I thought I’d share a little bit of it with you for  today’s Friday Fiction. (I continue apparently not to know what ‘fiction’ means.) Here am I wombling on about the difference between mistresses and prostitutes
In the Regency Period (and indeed in other eras) there was a definite difference between a âmistressâ and a âprostituteâ. A mistress belonged to, or was âkeptâ by, one specific man, whereas a prostitute would have sex with any man for money. Mistresses might be taken up by one man after another, and perhaps have the role of courtesan in between gentleman lovers; however, a mistress was by definition not a prostitute. Whilst it was expected that she would have sex with her lover whenever he required it, she would also be likely to have a social or emotional relationship with the man as well. For the mistress, it was not necessarily a bad choice, though it could have problematic outcomes not only for the lady herself but for her family. For a start, it would be considerably more difficult to marry after having been a mistress: if Darcy hadnât forced Wickham to marry Lydia Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, it is very unlikely that anyone else would have married her â and the ill reputation would also have fallen upon her sisters. It also left a woman reliant on the gentleman in question: in Sense and Sensibility, we are shown the downward spiral of Eliza Brandonâs life after her first affair.
I have been blogging for the Huff Post again – this time about satirical political songs. I wanted to do a mix up of all the parties, but couldn’t find options so instead I’ve concentrated on Ukip, as they are apparently very easy to satirise. (I make no further comment on that…)
Random anecdote time: My grandmother had a slightly eccentric habit of clipping out pictures and phrases about cats and sticking them all around the two bathrooms she had. (When I say ‘bathrooms’, there was actually only a toilet and washbasin in one, and a toilet in the other with a washbasin in the ‘real’ bathroom next door. But I wrote ‘toilets’ to start with, and it gave me a mental image of picture-covered-u-bends…) Anyway, she has been dead for many a year, but a whole lot of the phrases/poems/extracts about cats have stayed with me. There was one, I recall, which read:
The gardener’s cat called Mignonette
She hates the cold, she hates the wet.
She sits amongst the greenhouse flowers
And dreams for hours – and hours – and hours.
Now, in one of my more pretentious moments as a 13 year old (fresh back from holidaying at my grandmother’s house), I wrote a poem. I felt a little guilty because it was the poem I’ve just typed out that gave me inspiration, and you can see links between the two. But I doubt if the original author would feel that I had stolen their poem. Mine?
Oh rose! Thou rose of ruby red
When summer comes, lift up thy head,
And dream away the passing hours
Sitting alone from the other flowers.
Oh rose! No greater beauty known.
A summer flower, yet one alone.
As pure and simple as is gold;
A sign of love from days of old.
Oh rose! No flower quite so sweet.
As cold as ice in days of hear.
In summer thou art dearly blessed,
But then in winter, sleep and rest.
Now, before you comment – I know, I know, it is not the most wonderful poem ever written. And even when I wrote it, I was sometimes embarrassed by it. But it’s interesting how one thing may trigger another. And my grandmother’s bathrooms will live in my memory forever đ
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