Shiver with antici..........pation.

There's definitely excitement in the air this week (which is a pleasant change, for me anyway, after last week's whingefest) as we count down the days to Eroticon 2014. Maybe it's because I feel like I've finally got the hang of Twitter, or at least finally seem to be able to participate in an ongoing discussion without confusing the crap out of myself, but I'm bouncing around in a way I haven't done for years. It's not quite like kid-revving-up-for-Xmas, more the chattering, buttonholing-people, spreading-the-word vibes I've had before going to particularly good gigs or parties.

I don't think I ever got this worked up before the Guild Of Erotic Writers conferences. Runup to one of those was generally a matter of deciding what butties to make and how many boxes of wine to buy from Tescos, and how to make whatever damp community centre we'd booked for the event look a little more cheerful.

Even though our conferences were generally enjoyable once they were actually happening and usually ended with me getting to sleep with yet another of the editors from a particular arthouse publisher I don't recall quite such feverish anticipation beforehand.

It could be just another example of How It's All Changed These Days. We ran the Guild via photocopied newsletters and (in the independent part of its existence) a PO box that letters had to be fetched from once a week. While there was an Internet, it was still rather esoteric and not many people knew how to use it: there was no Twitter to whip up a feeding frenzy, no Facebook to create a group and invite everyone you could think of. I think I like things better the modern way. Better outreach, more fun, faster access and all the rest of it. So I'm counting the number of sleeps till Eroticon. And if I get to sleep with any publishers over the course of the weekend, well, I'll probably keep that to myself, if you don't mind.

Pity the poor writer. Or don't, if you've got it worse.

I’ve got enough self-pity for all of us. About 15 years ago, in the midst of a welter of self-harming friends, court cases, sleep deprivation, excessive responsibility and a sore hoohoo along with the rest, someone said to me: it’s not a competition.

About 30 years ago, when I was wailing on my bed about having been dumped, someone said to me, it could be worse, you could be starving in Africa.

It’s not a competition. It could be worse. That doesn’t mean it’s not horrible. I’m having a shit-there’s-no-money week at the end of a shit-there’s-no-money month. There’s still a roof over our heads. There’s the makings of at least two meals in the freezer, though they won’t be very nice and may or may not involve at least one portion of something that’s incubating a few toxins. Because it’s been in the freezer against emergencies through a power outage when we were away and too skint to top up the electricity meter.

But I am a Professional Writer. I’ve been Published. If I want to be Published again, I can’t own up to being broke. I’ve got to smile sweetly when someone forgot to pass the invoice to the accounts department, or comes out with the old actually-we-don’t-pay-till-next-week-oops-sorry-next-month and say never mind, doesn’t matter. Because these days just about everyone who works in the arts or the media has parents who will bail them out or already gave them a trust fund, and thinks being broke means shopping at Tescos rather than Waitrose, and consider it a bit peculiar and ‘difficult’ and ‘demanding’ of freelancers or authors to be concerned about money. 

So then it comes down to the point where the cable bill hasn’t been paid and therefore the internet is off, and the emergency dongle all of a sudden has a minimum connection fee of a fiver when you only have two pounds, and even when you’ve paid it, you're on the old computer because the decent one's been pawned, as has everything else that isn't nailed down. So the connection is apocalyptically unstable and after you’ve hit Page Unresponsive Reload about 25 times you still can’t get where you want to be, and therefore can’t fulfil the promises you made and all the duties that are now expected of a writer, And OK, you're not needing a referral to the food bank yet, but all that's in your inbox is chirpy requests to submit work to organisations that 'don't have a budget but it will be great exposure for you', then maybe you start thinking that it’s not just writers who should be aware there’s something wrong somewhere.

A Hugger's Guide

Hugs, it's said, are wonderful. They certainly can be. Most people like to hug friends or family, when meeting again after a separation, when someone's sad, when someone's happy, when you're scared or disappointed or just feel appreciative. Whatever. Hugs can be Very Nice.

Just not always, and not from just anyone. While I'm tippy-toeing round making any assumptions about the guilt or innocence of any high-profile individuals accused of abusive behaviour, I have been thinking about the sort of people who claim to have a 'cuddly' personality. We all have personalities, and personality traits, and some of them will win us friends and some of them will make other people run away screaming, but one of the ways to show that we're actually grown-up and decent individuals is to be aware that we can control our personality traits around others. Even the ones we think make us 'better' than the rest. People who are loud and proud about their 'honesty' and 'plain speaking' for instance, are quite often hell to be around. For one thing, they're never honestly nice. What they usually are is fucking rude and self-righteous about it.
Cuddly, huggy people can be just as dubious. OK, obviously, some 'tactile' individuals genuinely are creeps who are just interested in copping a quick feel.

They may disguise their rapey, predatory behaviour with a lot of guff about how they are just being friendly, but they're a bit too prone to other obnoxious behaviours and/or fairly blatantly wandering hands. They also don't tend to go on, and on, and on, about the wider world's need for more hugs, because they don't care.

Some people use hugs, and the concept of hugs as necessary and a Good Thing, to feed their own egos, not necessarily in a sexual context. They see themselves as touchy-feely Special Snowflakes, who can 'help' other people to be more in touch with their emotions and less uptight. Unfortunately, a lot of people in this category don't wash often enough, which makes their hugs even more of an endurance test.

And some people are just stupidly socially inept. They've read or heard that Hugs R Good, so they just bumble around hugging at random and then wonder why people run off crying, kick them in the shins or press charges..

It's really for the benefit of the clueless that I profer the following advice:

If someone shows no interest in having a hug, walk away.

If someone has actively expressed a complete distaste for being hugged, do not hug this person.

Hugs are not medicine, people don't NEED them , much, certainly in adulthood.

If you are wealthy and successful and powerful DO NOT hug your workforce. Because you are their boss and you pay their wages, and even if you smell like three-day-old Nandos leavings they will feel obliged to tolerate hugs from you no mutter how much they hate the idea. They are under no obligation to be hugged against their wishes. Nor is anyone.

Eroticon 2014: Introduction

I've posted before that I will be attending Eroticon and, with just over a month to go, everyone's getting busy introducing themselves. So here's my introduction thread - to read the others (andfindout the schedules and, of course, buy yourselves tickets, hop off to theWriteSexRight site and check it all out.

What’s your name?
Zak Jane Keir
What are you most looking forward to about Eroticon 2014?
Catching up with some of the pals I've made over the past year, making some new ones, introducing myself to editors and finding out more about what's going on in general.
What are you most nervous of about Eroticon 2014?
Ballsing up my spot on the panel. At least it's an early morning one so I won't make the mistake of having one drink too many beforehand.
What do you hope to get from Eroticon 2014?
Contacts, friends, ideas, information.
What is your bad erotica writer’s pen name?
Depending which 'Me' I'm being, it's either Humpy Klungewizzle or Nymphella Wingwangle.

Feminists are not all the same. Get the fuck over it.

Feminists disagree with each other. Oh noes! Some feminists focus on particular aspects of feminism and ignore others. Boohoo, I'm telling! Some feminists go batshit on Twitter and some other feminists either run off crying or go even more batshit in return. Well, what is the world coming to?

From the position of someone who's getting on a bit, here's the first truth I can impart: any kind of movement for social change is going to attract a percentage of people who are fucking difficult to deal with. Egotists, bullies, people whose own insecurity takes the form of high-volume self-righteousness and those who are so focussed on the main goal that they bash into everyone else on the way there - along with a well-meaning herd of waa-ing, baa-ing sheep. Sometimes it's better to take a deep breath, accept the good things such people bring and try to ignore their less desirable attributes, sometimes it's better to ignore them. Of course, sometimes laughing at them is a useful option, as well - one current threat apparently peddled by the officious is to 'unfollow you on Twitter and tell everyone else to do so.' Well goodness me, that hurts a lot. Don't let the metaphorical door clout you square in your twitching sphincter on your way out, will you?

 

Also from a purely personal viewpoint: the fact that no one has threatened to shoot me or burn my house down for a couple of years tends to make me think that I might be losing my touch. I rather miss Usenet, and Fidonet echoes, where you could always find a good fight if you fancied one.

 

But what I do find irritating about the current bout of wailing, bedwetting and handwringing is that it's another version of the same old Feminism Is Awful! It Hurts! It Will Make You Ill! Radical movements led by men have always featured fights, flounces, furious denunciations and people running off crying, whether that's religious schisms or the kind of demented squawkfests and group-rearranging that's always been such a big part of student socialism. If you think about it, Marx, Lenin and Trotsky all had their rucks, backed up by assorted acolytes, over fairly minor differences of opinion. Unfortunately these factional disagreements tended to lead to an awful lot of people actually dying, not just having to switch off their computers for a bit.

 

As yet, the warring feminist viewpoints on Twitter haven't escalated as far as executions for ideological unsoundness or questionable doctrine. Being called privileged or anti-intersectionalist might be a bit upsetting but it's hardly life-threatening. Plenty of people who broadly agree on the need for more social justice but disagree hugely on certain specific aspects of the worst problems facing the world, particularly  the women of the world, are able to get along fine and even be friends.

 

Disagreeing with some feminists, or having them disagree with you, doesn't mean that feminism is itself broken, wrong, unnecessary or a Bad Idea. It just means that feminists are people, too.

Look where I'm heading!

Actually I'm having a total techno-strop as it has taken me about 40 minutes to work out how to get that banner to show up. So please admire it and consider attending the event, which is going to be brilliant.
I've posted before about how much writers benefit from hanging out with other writers, whether that's to weep on each other's shoulders when publishers are being tiresome, pick up tips on improving our work and better marketing strategies, or just for shitz'n'giggles. It's all true. Come along, you will love it.

All the Special Days

Everybody's got their own set of special days, influenced to a greater or lesser extent by culture and religion. Maybe it's another of those signs of advancing age that I find a chunk of comfort and joy in marking the passing of time and the turning of the seasons with a certain number of set incidents and rituals (of sorts) - or maybe it is just because I'm working on a short story about this very subject right now. As a feminist, atheist, English deviant, mine are a mixture of personal (a friend's annual birthday event that's achieved the status of a tradition) nature-related (longest and shortest nights) historical and/or vaguely pagan, and a sometimes-shifting selection of kink-related occasions that happen annually. SM Pride used to be one to stick on the calendar, but that fell into disarray and vanished a few years ago.

One of my perennial favourites, which is just about to come round again, is the Burns Night party run by The Firm.

I was at the very first one of these in 2001, and had a phenomenally good time, despite having elected to dress as a Bay City Rollers fan (well, you know, Scottish...). The concept of haggis, bagpipes and smacked arses in the same room has confounded some people but delighted loads of others for over a decade now, and the sheer delicious daftness of it is what keeps it high on my list of favourite annual playdates.

The other ones I take notice of are, in the order in which they occur, St George's Day and May Day (morris-dancing), Summer Solstice, The Boat (another Firm event), Halloween, Bonfire Night, Winter Solstice, Christmas and New Year. Yes, of course I've omitted dates that matter to you. I am not you and you are not me. But I'd be quite interested in hearing how other people's annual calendars pan out. Any particularly good lists (especially if they introduce me to a festival that I'd like to keep in future) might even win a small prize.