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Accusations of Plagiarism and Other Grade School Ills

by | June 28, 2020 | | 5 Comments

I stumbled upon interesting discussions about plagiarism and gifted classes recently on Facebook. A Facebook friend asked if her readers had ever been accused of plagiarism when they were children. A large number of women said they had been. In many cases, the teachers assumed these students were lying about their abilities, and that they couldn’t possibly really be that smart. This was worse if the girl was a person of color. Teachers assumed their gifted students had actually copied their work rather than having written it themselves. In one case, a teacher had encircled a sentence and scrawled “Your words?” next to it as if she couldn’t believe her student could possibly string together 25 cent words. I was not surprised at the number of stories I read. Girls saw their aspirations doubted because some teachers couldn’t believe in their own student’s abilities.

I had never been outright accused of plagiarism, but I had been accused of forgery when I was in grade school. I went to a very strict Catholic school. When I was in fourth grade, the nuns regularly accused me of forging my mother’s signature on my homework. All students were required to have one of their parents sign their homework to prove they had done it on their own without resorting to cheating, plagiarism, etc. My signature looked a bit like my mother’s, but I did not forge it. My mom came in and gave the nuns the third degree. One nun in particular absolutely hated me, and she gave me one hell of a hard time. She used to pull me out of my seat and humiliate me in front of the class. This woman should not have been around kids. She continued to accuse me of forgery, but another talking-to by my mother cooled her jets. I transferred out of that school a year later due to severe stress and anxiety. I was only eight years old. I started fifth grade at the local public school.

Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire.

While I got along great with the students in Catholic school, I couldn’t relate to the kids in public school at all. I did not wear the latest fashions. I had frizzy hair. I carried a book bag – no one else did. That was a relic from Catholic school that I ditched soon after arriving at public school. My Catholic school did not participate in any gifted and talented programs. To my knowledge, parochial schools in general don’t do that. By the time I was in fifth grade, I had a tenth grade reading level. Talk about ostracism and feeling out of place!

While I couldn’t get along with the kids in elementary school, I got along great with the teachers which was a far cry from Catholic school. This same Facebook discussion continued with readers talking about their experiences in gifted classes. By the time I reached middle school, I was tested and the teachers recommended the gifted and talented program for me. I had a choice between creative writing and social work.

Guess which one I chose? 🙂

The creative writing classes were college level, and they were held at Johns Hopkins University every Saturday morning. They continued for several years. I finally met kids who were similar to me. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I made some very good friends.

I had never met a college professor before, and when the guy with the tattered shirt, jeans, and long hair walked in and grabbed a full trash can to empty it, I thought he was the janitor. LOL He was the professor! While I did make new friends from schools all around the district, I continued to have difficulty getting along with my classmates. Sadly, I quickly learned to dumb down so I could fit in. It didn’t work, but the harassment wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Contrary to what these students told me, I wasn’t stuck-up and I didn’t think I was better than everyone else. In fact, quite the opposite. After hearing I’m not worth anything by kids who were supposed to be my peers, I thought I was useless, but I wanted to fit in. It’s a shame I felt it necessary to dumb myself down in order to survive. I did pick up one excellent survival mechanism – I developed a very good sense of humor and was quick with a funny come-back. The other kids finally started laughing with me rather than at me.

These were fascinating and eye-opening discussions. I wonder how many writers have experienced this same sort of loneliness? How many other writers were grade school class misfits especially if they were gifted? One person who is an educator pointed out that gifted does not necessarily mean high performance. Gifted kids put a lot of pressure on themselves. I was terrified of failing or getting even a B. I can trace back some of my Imposter Syndrome back to grade school and those nuns who didn’t believe I could possibly have written my own homework. I wonder if this kind of lack of faith and suspicion on teacher’s parts regarding gifted students could lead to Imposter Syndrome? It’s easy when you’re young to internalize severe criticism whether it’s right or wrong.

I’m thankful I had supportive teachers in public school who encouraged me in my creative writing, art, music, and theater interests. I thrived. In particular, I am indebted to my high school advanced English teacher and my drama teacher. They were the best teachers I’d ever had. I hope that gifted students today find supportive teachers and friends. Even one close friend who understands you makes a huge difference in your personal outlook on life.

———

Elizabeth Black writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica, erotic romance, horror, and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and her three cats. Her new LGBTQ paranormal erotic shifter romance novel “Full Moon Fever” is now available for purchase at Amazon and other book distributors. Her collection of erotic fairy tales, “Happily Ever After”, will be released soon..

Web site: http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethABlack

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/elizabethblack

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They Used to Call It Blackmail

by | June 26, 2020 | | 6 Comments

Two things that popped up in my emails recently have reminded me that “revenge porn” can still be used to harm women. Someone with an obviously fake feminine name said she had found my “self-pleasuring video” and would send it to all my friends, relatives, and coworkers if I didn’t pay her off in bitcoins.

I would really like to see my “self-pleasuring video.” I was tempted to ask whatshername (Elise? Amanda? I really can’t remember) to send it to me. If I were to make a hot video of myself masturbating, I would try to avoid showing the cellulite on my aging thighs, and that might be hard to do. It might even require a level of skill in using Photoshop that I never acquired.

I’ve definitely written about masturbation, and I’m obviously not ashamed of those stories. I’ve even been paid for them. I’ve never tried to keep my stories out of the hands of willing readers.

I deleted the email, and hoped never to hear from the sender again.

Then I saw the latest issue of “Medium,” an on-line collection of essays (or e-zine) that I subscribe to. One of the articles was about a woman’s discovery that her ex-husband had posted sexy videos of her on a porn site, from where they were available for download for about three days until the woman found them and was able to force their removal. However, she was unable to get this stuff completely off the internet, let alone out of the private stash of individual porn collectors.

The article was a grim warning about the limits of the law and the potentially eternal, ubiquitous nature of anything that has ever been posted on-line. (Actually, “revenge porn” sounds amazingly close to the kind of curse that witches were accused of casting, circa 1480-1700.)

The unwilling porn star was writing under a pen name, and said it has not been safe for her to appear in public or to use her real name anywhere since her ex decided to trash her reputation beyond repair. She explained that some of the videos show her naked body, and some show her being pleasured — presumably by her husband at the time. So why would the widespread display of this material harm her immensely, and not harm him at all?

Apparently this is the kind of thing that predators like my surprise correspondent hope women will do anything to prevent. “Revenge porn” is assumed to be a kind of assault that can cause more lasting damage than a physical violation.

I remember the heady atmosphere of the 1960s, when the guys I dated all told me that a “Sexual Revolution” was happening, or had already happened (they were usually vague about the timing), and therefore I had no reason to worry about a bad reputation or an unwanted pregnancy. One of their slogans was “We’re in this together,” and they encouraged me to trust them.

Remembering my youth, I’m so glad I never starred in a sexually-explicit film or photo. The only person who ever invited me to do this was my pimp in the 1980s, when computers were just beginning to pop up in local offices and cafes. Even though the man was in the sex biz, he didn’t pressure me at all. He asked if I would be interested, and I said no because I was working on a Master’s degree, and I was afraid this kind of evidence could turn up to damage my future academic career. He graciously accepted my refusal because he wasn’t planning to make films himself; he only wondered if I wanted him to introduce me to someone who did.

It seems I dodged a bullet.

“Blackmail,” as it was called in past centuries, was often associated with sex. Either the sex was the payoff to prevent someone from exposing a secret or a crime, or the sex was the secret that could be used as leverage to pressure someone into spying for a foreign government or embezzling funds or any other thing they didn’t want to do.

Victoria Woodhull, a colourful character who ran for President of the United States before women had the right to vote, apparently encouraged single women to respond to sexual harassment by married men by demanding money in exchange for not exposing the lechers to their wives and associates. The implication was that men, like women, could lose friends, families, careers and fortunes if they were known (or even believed) to have behaved badly.

The word “mail” originally referred to a bag that could carry correspondence or money, and it came to be attached to the renting of farmland. “Whitemail” was rent paid openly in money, or silver coins, and “blackmail” was “rent” paid in livestock (e.g. Black Angus cattle), usually to cattle rustlers who would otherwise take even more than the tenant was willing to give. So “blackmail” came to mean something like “payment for protection,” and seems to have a surprisingly non-racist genesis.

“Blackmail” is no longer a legal term. It has been replaced by “extortion.” What surprises me more than the change in definition is that anyone can still be persuaded to cooperate with an extortionist, and also that consensual sex and even nudity can be used as weapons.

Who would trash a woman who 1) has a naked body under her clothes, and 2) used to enjoy sex with her husband? Whatever happened to the Sexual Revolution? And who first defined nonconsensual porn as a form of “revenge?” Are hordes of Christian men still furious with women for being “daughters of Eve,” who supposedly persuaded Adam to join her in eating forbidden fruit?

It all seems as repulsively retro as the slave trade. But that is a whole other topic.

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Discovering Your Parents Are Swingers

by | June 24, 2020 | | 4 Comments

A couple we know is settling their parent’s estate and disposing of all the belongings after his parents passed away. Lewis and Jenny were going through boxes of miscellaneous junk until they discovered something they never expected.

Lewis called me and said, “My parents were swingers!”

“How did you figure that out?” I asked.

“One of their boxes contained a number of swinger’s magazines from the old days when swingers hooked up by mail rather than the Internet,” Lewis replied. “They made notes in margins of the magazines and rated some of the couples looking to party.”

We all got a big laugh at the discovery of his parents doing the nasty with others. Now that it’s okay to be LGBTQ, swingers are the final frontier, but I’m not sure that it’ll be socially acceptable to swap partners for a while.

Foxy and I have two separate lives as most swingers. We have our “straight” friends and our “party” friends, which hopefully will never meet. But we have a questionable track record so far.

Some of our close Lifestyle couples have met our relatives and vice versa. But everyone understands that certain aspects of our lives are off-limits to our relatives. Several times, we’ve (I’ve) screwed up.

As a semiprofessional photographer, I’m always shooting pictures and videos to document our life. I teach model photography, and a significant portion of my photographs are of models that I work with in a straight setting.

I have a studio at home with a wall displaying photos that I’ve taken. One day, my sister-in-law was looking over the pictures and discovered a nude of my favorite Hotwife.

To be honest, I’d forgotten the picture was up on the wall. But my sis in law focused on the woman out of all the others on display. The woman I call Pam is the fictitious Hotwife cuckold couple in my stories and mirror the real Pam and Jack.

Pam is a beautiful blonde, heading into MILF or Cougar territory, with nice boobs and a slender body. She was nude in the shot as our pool is clothes optional, but it was a tasteful photo with only her jugs on display.

“Wait a minute?” my sister-in-law asked. “Isn’t that, Pam?”

This was a reminder of my relatives knowing our swinger friends was not a good idea. Luckily, my sister-in-law hasn’t brought it up again, but I’m sure she’s wondering why I have naked pictures of my friend’s wife?

Speaking of pictures, I have several poster size shots of Foxy in the bedroom. Most are tasteful nudes, but a couple is with her and Chrissy, our girlfriend. I’ve got everything set up to swap out the photos for less controversial ones in case company is expected. I fear that one day, I’ll forget to switch out the pictures and get caught by one of our relatives.

While the nudes would cause an issue, the ones of her kissing another girl might push the limits.

Occasionally, we’ll run into another couple who we vaguely remember at a bar or restaurant. Then it’s a dance until we figure out, do they or don’t they? Often you can figure out if they swing or not by their attitudes or clothes. A woman who wears an ankle bracelet is supposed to be a swinger but don’t always take that symbol as gospel.

Depending on a couple’s involvement in the Lifestyle, some may actively hunt for other couples or rely on meeting by chance. Foxy and I belong to a large group of like-minded couples and don’t make it a goal to meet new people every day. We travel a lot (last few months excepted) and know many couples across the country.

Most large cities have one or more organized swinger’s organizations, and it’s interesting to attend a social to meet up with old friends and meet new ones. We treat parties as more of a social function than a sexual one, so our goals may be different than other couples.

A ”Social” as we call it is periodic meetings of couples, typically at bars or nightclubs, hosted by a local swinger’s organization. In many cases, these are low-pressure events and are good to get to know people. Swingers, like normal people, fall into several categories. We know some people where it’s take your clothes off at the door and get into a pile. Others appear to be a regular cocktail party except that people will disappear for an hour at a time.

Once you determine the crowd you are more comfortable in, just go to those types of parties. Swinger’s parties are never dull and always fun to attend. Generally speaking, there is little or no drinking, and so an asshole drunk is a rarity.

As usual, my column has drifted all over the place, similar to my mind. Stay safe and stay home for your parents, family, and friends.

Check out my blog and stroke stories at https://LarryArcher.blog. See you next month!

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The Demise of Truth

by | June 21, 2020 | | 3 Comments

Photo by Danya Gutan from Pexels

I’ve been reading science fiction all my life, starting with the Mushroom Planet books when I was seven or eight, graduating to Heinlein and Asimov as a teenager, and branching out from there. Back in the eighties and nineties, I sampled a lot of cyberpunk: Pat Cadigan, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson and their comrades. These authors imagined (or predicted?) many aspects of the modern Internet, decades in advance, and a startling number of their visions have become part of our everyday life.

A vast, worldwide, constantly accessible network of knowledge? These days, who could live without Wikipedia, Quora and YouTube? Voice queries, reminiscent of “2001: A Space Odyssey”? Siri and Alexa do quite a bit better than H.A.L. Instant notification about events? Telepresence? Synthetic on-line worlds where you can interact with avatars and artificial agents? Trends and fads that emerge, take control of the popular psyche then die off a matter of days? I first met all these ideas in science fiction stories.

There’s one aspect of today’s digital world, though, that no author whom I read predicted: the demise of truth.

You can find literally anything on the Internet – including completely contradictory sets of facts, multiple conflicting descriptions of events, alternative histories. It’s scary to realize that there is no such thing anymore as an authoritative source. We tend to believe and trust people who agree with us, but fundamentally that is just bias. Anyone who can tell a convincing story (and the Internet has nurtured and rewarded individuals who have this skill) can acquire a following of believers, no matter how absurd that story might appear to someone outside that circle. Some people are certain the moon landing in 1969 was a hoax – that the Holocaust never happened – that Elvis is still out there somewhere, shaking his hips and breaking hearts.

“Ah, but there’s evidence,” you might say. “Photographs. Historical records. Documents that support some stories and debunk others. Data that can be consulted and analyzed in order to choose one interpretation over another.” Alas, that might have been true a decade or two ago, but the digitalization of our existence means that absolutely everything is mutable. Photographs can be doctored without leaving the slightest trace, or even generated de novo – not just by humans but by AI systems who’ve been fed millions of similar examples. Deep-fake video technology makes it possible to literally put words in someone’s mouth. Software bots can invade social networks to manipulate so-called “popular opinion”, influencing elections and changing history. (But in fact, there is no one “history”. Even before the Internet, every country, culture and group had its own historical narrative.)

Most information needed to keep the world running is currently stored in digital form, in databases of one form or another. That information is unbelievably vulnerable to corruption, both accidental and deliberate. Given today’s technology, it would not be that difficult to erase all primary records of the moon landing to support the hoax claim. One doesn’t have to be a tech wizard to fabricate a totally believable case for almost any wild theory. It’s happening all the time, right now – as you read this blog post.

Now, I remember that initial walk on the moon with great clarity. I was in my senior year in high school, an enthusiastic science geek as well as a reader of science fiction, and from my perspective, this was definitely our first step toward a bright future in an expanding universe. Time corrodes our memories, though. When I compare notes with my husband of forty years about some past event we both experienced, we often have wildly differing recollections. The older I get, the less certain I am that even my most cherished and vibrant memories are accurate.

As prescient as the authors of my youth turned out to be, I can’t recall any of them portraying a world where it was impossible to know what was true. Honestly, this wreaks havoc with almost any philosophical perspective.

As a researcher and computer professional, I’ve been aware of the malleability of truth for quite a while, but the COVID-19 epidemic has shown me just how impossible it has become to discern “the truth”. Every day we are bombarded with “scientific data” and presented with the conclusions of so-called experts. The same statistics will be interpreted in completely opposite directions, depending on the nationality, the politics or the predispositions of the person offering up conclusions. The average person has probably looked at more graphs over the past three months than in the previous two decades. Is he or she any closer to the truth about this crazy disease? What a ridiculous notion!

So where does that leave me – or us? How can we cope in an environment where we’re bombarded by information, any and all of which could be manufactured to serve someone’s agenda – or simply in error due to sloppy programming? Sounds pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?

Well, I have two answers. First of all, we can trust our direct experience, more at least than we can trust something we read on Facebook, USA Today, or The New York Times. Be observant; use your eyes and ears; keep an open mind. If someone claims that immigrants are criminal degenerates, think about the immigrants you know personally. (And if you don’t know any personally, perhaps you should seek some out.) If you read that anyone who likes to watch porn is psychologically diseased and incapable of having normal relationships – well, ask yourself whether the examples you have in your environment confirm this claim.

Second, we can educate ourselves about the fragility of truth in our digital world, be skeptical about every claim, and examine the mustered evidence as objectively as possible. I noted above that almost any sort of information can be faked, but consistency is still a reasonable criterion for evaluating a story. It’s possible to construct an intricate edifice of lies to support a false conclusion, but it’s difficult to make all the pieces fit together perfectly – at least right now.

There is one prediction that shows up a lot in eighties and nineties scifi that hasn’t yet come to fruition – the idea that neural stimulation could create artificial sensory experiences so vivid and convincing that you couldn’t tell the difference between a stim-dream and real life. There are advances in neuroscience that point in that direction, but we’re not there yet.

I rather hope we never get to that point. Already I lament the way how so many of our experiences have switched from direct to mediated. Why go out on a date when you can chat on Messenger? Why bother to travel when you can browse Instagram or binge on YouTube? Why have sex when you can sext?

As I see it, some things can be imitated, but not truly replaced. I cling to that life-preserver as I navigate the shifting seas of today’s digital existence.

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What’s Your Obsession?

by | June 13, 2020 | | 4 Comments

People tend to get attached to certain films, books, TV shows and music to the point of obsession. We find something we like and just can’t get enough of it. Facebook groups, fan conventions and online clubs sprout up over just about anything. For proof, look at things like “Game of Thrones,” “Star Wars,” the Marvel superhero films and the James Bond flicks. Many of these fall into the category of cult classics.

A cult classic is defined as something that is popular among a particular group or section of society. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase, an elaborate subculture that engages in repeated viewings, quoting dialogue, and audience participation. The term cult film was first used in the 1970s to describe the culture that surrounded underground films and midnight movies. Cult status can also be applied to books, as witnessed by the “Twilight,” “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” series. So many cult classics, so many genres…where do I begin? The mind reels with anticipation.

I suppose the obvious place for me to begin is with pulp fiction novels. I grew up reading the works of Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane, among others. It got to the point where I had to own every book I could find by my favorite authors so I could enjoy them over and over. When I was a teen, Spillane was a definite guilty pleasure, the sort of read-under-the-blanket-with-a-flashlight stuff reserved for adults. Then I discovered my parents’ collection of Harold Robbins books. I sure went through a lot of flashlight batteries after that.

We have a wonderful used bookstore where I live, which I only visit once a year because I could easily drop a week’s pay. I picked up some vintage paperbacks, the kind that used to sell for a quarter in the drugstore. Can you imagine the royalties for a book that only costs 25 cents? No wonder they were called starving authors! The titles alone are lurid enough to grab your attention – “Strip the Town Naked,” “Shack Woman,” “Nude in the Sand,” “Gutter Girl,” “Station Wagon Wives,” “Summer Resort Women,” “Sorority Sin,” and “The Lady is a Lush.” That last one sounds like an old Sinatra song, doesn’t it?

Some of the log lines are just as sleazy as the books— “She showed men the way–the wrong way!” “A man, a woman, and a bottle. A tale of sexual excess.” “The intimate story of Ruth Gordon, who made a sin resort out of a fashionable country club.” “Sex and savagery in the advertising agency jungle!” “The nights were cold, but her bed was warm.” “They said she was born to be bad, and she set out to prove it.” “Society uses an ugly word to describe these women!” “She gave herself to men, to women…even to complete strangers.” You get the idea.

All of these came out in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and the writing reflects the era. If there was a woman’s point of view in any of them, I missed it. These were aimed at a male audience, the kind of guys who idolized the Rat Pack, swilled Martini’s, and tried to emulate the Playboy lifestyle. I doubt if Harriet Nelson read any of these books, but Ozzie probably read a chapter or two while she was at the PTA meeting.

Along the way, I became a classic film buff, and gravitated toward film noir from the mid-1940s and beyond. Some of them are among my favorites, and they also reflected the times. World War II had ended, GI Joes were coming home to rebuild their lives, and the country was a bit more cynical than before. A new kind of anti-hero emerged, usually in the form of a tough, wisecracking hero, aided or hindered by a glamorous but dangerous (possibly deadly) femme fatale of the frosty blonde variety. For prime examples of this type of brooding melodrama, check out “Double Indemnity,” “The Blue Dahlia,” “The Big Sleep,” “White Heat,” “Detour,” and “Notorious.”

Sometimes, a film will develop such a following because, in the words of critic Michael Medved, “It’s so bad it’s good.” “Night of the Living Dead” is a prime example, but an even better one is “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1959). It was made by Ed Wood, probably the worst filmmaker ever. He was responsible for such gems as “Bride of the Gorilla” and the cross-dressing expose “Glen or Glenda.” Wood began “Plan 9” with a home movie of his idol, Bela Lugosi, made shortly before his death. He listed him as the star to increase box office appeal, even though his screen time was less than two minutes. Wood then doubled the actor with a guy who was taller, thinner and younger than Lugosi. He also used hubcaps suspended from thread to mimic flying saucers. You have to see this one to believe it.

I found a DVD collection of films from the 1970s, called “Drive-in Cult Classics.” These were ultra-cheap flicks that were shown as the third feature at the drive-in, or at college midnight movie fests. The casts were comprised of C-list actors, the kind that popped up as supporting players on TV shows. These were what we used to call sexploitation movies, the ones that took advantage of the recently-abolished censorship code, giving moviemakers free reign to put out just about anything.

The plots are laughable, the dialogue is unnatural, some of the acting isn’t good enough for community theater, and the sex scenes are ridiculous. One featured an intimate bedroom encounter between a husband and wife, but the guy never took off his pants or shoes while wriggling atop his naked spouse. How realistic is that? Gratuitous nudity also abounds. In another one, the lead actress walked across the screen topless for no reason. That scene came at a place where the story was getting confusing, and the director probably couldn’t think of anything else to do.

And those titles! “Pick-up,” “The Sister-in-law,” “The Teacher,” “The Stepmother,” “Trip with the Teacher,” and “Malibu High Hookers,” to name a few. Check out these poster teaser lines:

“She destroyed her husband’s brother by the most immoral act imaginable!”

“She corrupted the youthful morality of an entire school.”

She forced her husband’s son to commit the ultimate sin!”

“This high school senior worked her way through the faculty lounge.”

A prime example of a cult classic is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975). A local theater hosts a midnight screening of this one every year as part of their summer classic film series. I’ve seen people showing up in costume and reciting dialogue along with the actors, so this is no longer surprising. What did surprise me was when I attended a Sunday afternoon showing of “The Wizard of Oz” last year. I didn’t expect to see so many kids dressed in calico dresses, ruby red slippers and pigtails, accompanied by their mothers decked out as the Wicked Witch of the West, complete with brooms. I felt like I had entered an alternate universe.

I guess a cult classic can be anything you’re passionate about. What’s your favorite cult classic?


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Sex and the Haiku Death Match

by | June 6, 2020 | | 10 Comments


By Ashley Lister

 Last month I mentioned that I’ve recently published a collection of my personal poetry: Old People Sex (and other highly offensive poems). Most of it is rude, or political or simply offensive for the sake of being offensive. However, towards the back of the book, I’ve included some of the contributions I made whilst participating in local haiku death matches.

A haiku, to use the Western interpretation of the form, is typically a three-line format with 17 syllables arranged in a 5–7–5 pattern.

A haiku death match, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, is a face-to-face challenge between poets. The poets are given a list of themes. They have to compose haiku on each of those themes. And then, once they’ve read their haiku to an audience, the audience have to judge which was better.

It’s a bizarre competition. It seems absurd to judge something as subjective as poetry with the objectivity of such audience-pleasing shenanigans. And the phrase ‘death match’ seems wholly inappropriate as I’ve not seen many people die during competitions.

Nevertheless, it’s a lot of fun and I’m regularly successful. The reason why I’m regularly successful is because I usually try to make the content of each haiku embarrassingly sexual. For some reason audiences enjoy the ribald content.

Consequently, out of the following five themes, I managed to turn the content sexual: Dry January, Fancy Dress, Old Rope, Feet and Crufts.

Dry January
Dry January:
Great for my liver but not
for her vagina

Fancy Dress
I wore 300
And 65 used condoms
I was a goodyear

Old Rope
Old rope or new rope
I don’t mind so long as I’m
getting some bondage

Feet
It’s not foot fetish.
It’s a feet fetish. I’m not
a pirate fucker.

Crufts
I once entered a
dog at Crufts. The police said
I was barred for life.

If you fancy writing a haiku on one (or more) of these themes, I’d love to see your poem in the comments box below.

Ash

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The Elephant In The Living Room – COVID-19

by | May 28, 2020 | | 5 Comments

It’s been hard to write with the elephant standing in the living room, staring me down.

I’m talking about COVID-19.

I’m fortunate in that not much has changed in my household. My husband and son are both essential workers so abject fear from unemployment is not an issue for us. Although my husband was moved from 3rd to 2nd shift and he has a lower pay rate because of it, we aren’t hurting for money. We have very little debt – a car payment and that’s it. The credit cards are paid off. There is money in the bank. We are healthy. I know how fortunate we are.

Even though not much has changed for us, I still feel the stress of the pandemic. There are lines at the grocery store. The marijuana dispensaries were closed until this week. We must wear masks in the common areas of the apartment complex and outdoors. Everyone is social distancing, although my husband thinks more accurate wordage is physical distancing. Social distancing implies something like shutting down your Facebook account temporarily because you’re stressing out from all the depressing political and pandemic talk. Physical distancing is more accurate and descriptive, but everyone knows what social distancing means.

I haven’t been able to write much of anything except for some blog posts for my blog tour for my new LGBTQ paranormal romance novel “Full Moon Fever”. I need to work on my horror novel “Hell Time”, but the desire simply isn’t there. I’m having very strange dreams. Not nightmares. Just dreams. I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m sure other people including writers are experiencing much the same. It helps to have someone to talk to about all of it.

While I haven’t been writing, I’ve been reading. I just finished the first book in J. R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. It was good, but I thought the names of the vampires were silly. Rhage? Wrath? Zsadist? Seriously? The book held my attention, though, and I did enjoy it. I wanted to read the top best seller in the paranormal romance category, and that’s the book series that came up first. Now I’m reading a non-fiction book about feminism by Dr. Phyllis Chesler. I want escapism. So do some readers. Readers I’ve talked to aren’t interested in dystopian stories, especially those about pandemics. I do know of some people reading Stephen King’s “The Stand”, but most want something a bit more cheerful and uplifting. I had thought about rereleasing my novelette “Roughing It”. but it’s about a pandemic so I’ve decided against it. I also need to rewrite that story, and lengthen it to novel length. It’s too short.

I’m also watching TV. My husband and I are binge-watching “House M. D.”. I’ve never seen the show before. All I knew about it was that Hugh Laurie, who plays Dr. Gregory House, is British and can do a mean American accent. I also knew it was a medical drama. This show is damned good! We’re also binge-watching “Midsomer Murders”. I love that show. It’s whimsical and funny – just what I need to cheer up my somber mood.

I’m not going to pressure myself to write before I’m ready. I may reread “Hell Time” and see where I stand. The book is almost finished. I need to finish it. I also have an idea for a new contemporary romance/women’s fiction story. It’ll be a bit of a fish-out-of-water story about a woman who moves from the Big City (Boston) to my small island community Caleb’s Woe for the summer while researching a set of old photographs she found from film in a very old camera. She wants to locate the heirs and return the photos to the proper family. That’s as far as I got. I need to flesh out the characters and plot before I may begin writing. When I will write is up for debate. I simply don’t want to. Yes, I’ve been busy with book promotion but that’s really an excuse. I’m too distracted to write at the moment, but I know I will begin again soon. COVID-19 is stressful and I’m sure other writers feel the same way. I guess this is the new normal.

———

Elizabeth Black writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica, erotic romance, horror, and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and her three cats. Her new LGBTQ paranormal erotic shifter romance novel “Full Moon Fever” is now available for purchase at Amazon and other book distributors..

Web site: http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethABlack

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/elizabethblack

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/b76GWD

 

 

 

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Art vs. Life

by | May 26, 2020 | | 4 Comments

Those of us who love to write don’t like to admit this, but there is some overlap between artists in general (including writers) and con artists.

Years ago, when I was a grad student in the Canadian prairie university where I now teach, a woman prof I admired wrote a biography of the writer Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980). The prof’s research turned up evidence that the writer didn’t really grow up in a white-pillared antebellum mansion in the southern U.S. She came from the social class that used to be called “white trash,” and simply decided to reinvent herself. While doing that, she neglected to mention a short, messy teenage marriage. I couldn’t blame the writer for editing her life-story, but I sympathized with the biographer when she had to decide how much truth to tell on the page. Porter still had living relatives.

Stories like this are not that unusual, and they often come out after an artist has died. I was vaguely aware of how easy it would be to fictionalize an actual life while I was still an only child who made up stories about my dolls. My mother often told her friends that children can’t tell the difference between real life and “make-believe.” Looking back, I suspect this belief was probably widespread among parents of the post-war Baby Boom. I decided back then that I was not a baby, and I would always make a serious effort to keep the two dimensions separate.

Writing, whether one gets published or not, is a marvellous outlet for imagination. I like to think I can stay in touch with reality because I can escape to an imaginary world whenever I want to.

This brings me to a breakup that has been on my mind since early March 2020, when no one was hibernating at home. I had a gay-male friend, a polished drag queen. He was/is also a gifted raconteur, on and off a stage. In fact, I learned years ago that my friend (I’ll call him Puck) liked to dominate conversations, and that trying to change the subject was usually futile. At least his stories were always funny or dramatic.

Then he came very close to telling me that he had the missing original final piece of the Bayeux Tapestry (or Embroidery), which tells the story of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.
According to Puck, he was visiting England when someone offered to sell him an old piece of embroidered cloth as a souvenir, and he bought it. He didn’t seem to remember the name of it, but when I prompted him, he said that was probably it.

This story troubled me more than any previous anecdote from Puck’s repertoire. I told my spouse that if something that valuable were really in the private possession of a tourist, a British historian would probably like to see it. But then, I hadn’t seen it myself, I know there are reproductions, and it was none of my business.

Then Puck told me that he and his husband would probably be adopting a little girl because her father (a friend of his) had died, and the girl’s mother was a nymphomaniac drug addict who neglected her. According to the story, the mother was inviting men to line up outside her house to take turns in her assembly-line bed, in full view of her child. Apparently she wasn’t charging admission, but she also didn’t hold a paid job, or spend any time cooking or cleaning.

I had already heard versions of this story, as circulated by some men about their ex-wives or girlfriends, or about women who have turned them down. This was my ex-husband’s description of me in the 1970s.

The slut of legend usually sounds like an X-rated cartoon, or a character in a porn flick which was made for laughs. She has no human limitations, and is imagined as a voracious cunt. (I vaguely remember a horror story by Clive Barker about a woman like this, a victim of her own plumbing.) The people who spread this story have never seen the slut in action, but they assure their audience that the story comes from a reliable source.

I expressed doubt about this tragic scenario when I heard it. I suspected it was invented by the child’s father, while alive.

Meanwhile, Puck’s impending adoption of a child seemed to be the talk of the LGBT community. The next time I saw him, I asked how this process was going. He told me that actually, the mother had custody and seemed to be doing an adequate job of raising her child. According to Puck, he had been lied to about this.

I stewed about this situation, then expressed my feelings in an email to Puck. I explained that I had been a victim of a similar smear campaign, run by my ex-husband, now also deceased. I explained that the death of the person who launches the Story of the Slut doesn’t kill the story as long as it is being passed on. The resemblance of a malicious rumour to a deadly virus seems too obvious to need pointing out.

Puck apologized, said he considered me a friend, and said he never intended to hurt ME. I’m sure he didn’t, but I wasn’t his primary victim. I haven’t responded to the apology.

So here we are. Much as I enjoy interesting stories, I wish all creative types would avoid passing off their own and others’ fantasies as truth. A good story has value on its own, and the best stories, even speculative fiction, are 1) plausible, and 2) about characters with personalities.

——————

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How to Make Your Own Cover

by | May 25, 2020 | , , | 7 Comments

Designing a cover for your masterpiece often involves a lot of hand wringing and angst or the exchange of hard-earned loot. I’m going to walk you through how I use open-source (i.e., Free) software to create a cover image file to send to your publisher.

A lot of people use a cover artist to create a cover, but you have to pay for the service, and sometimes if a book doesn’t sell, then you never get into the black. First, let’s talk about finances.

I’ve always created my covers but assume that a writer is going to spend somewhere between $50 – $300 per cover. You may pay more or less but adjust the numbers to match your unique situation. For the purpose of this explanation, let us assume a price of $50 for a cover. I would think that you are going to pay at least $50.

If your story is going to sell for $2.99 as that’s the lowest price you can charge and get a 70% commission on each sell. Three bucks means that every copy you sell will put about two dollars in your grubby hands

Complicated math tells us that you have to sell 25 copies of your story to pay for the $50 cover design fee. Twenty-five copies may mean that you’ll be working for the cover designer instead of yourself. For a new author, having to sell twenty-five copies may mean that you will never make a penny on a story, much less be able to buy that new vibrator you’ve had your eye on.

I’m going to attempt to create a cover with InkScape for my upcoming story, House Party 3, to show you how easy it is.

First, download the development copy of InkScape 1.1 at InkScape.org. The current released version is 1.0 but go into the development section and download the latest version. You will also need to download 7zip if you don’t have it. 7Zip or another type of decompression program will open the file.

Unzip the file and place it on your computer. Using the Windows explorer look in the \bin folder and double-click on InkScape.exe. The development version doesn’t have an installer yet so you have to manually start it. What I did was create a link on my desktop to run the program.

I create simple covers with typically an image, a text box with my name, and a text box with the name of the story. So it’s three things mashed together.

  1. Double-clicking on InkScape.exe should start the program.
  2. Click on File | Document Properties.
  3. I always make my covers 1600 pixels wide x 2400 pixels high. If you use different size covers, enter the width and length as appropriate. Change the Display Units to Pixels (px).
  4. In the middle of the Page document properties, first change the Units to Pixels (px). Then enter a width of 1600 and a height of 2400. Your Document Properties should look like this.

    Then click on the X to close the window.
  5. After closing the Document Properties, you should see a wireframe and checking the rulers; the size should be 1600×2400.
  6. Using the Windows File Manager, find your cover image. Left click on the image and holding the left mouse button down, drag it over and drop it inside the frame. Just okay the default import options.
  7. The image will likely not fill the wireframe of the cover.
  8. Point in the middle of the picture and holding down the left button, drag the image until the top left corner snaps to the corner of the frame.

    Using one of the corner handles, drag the image until it fills the frame. I’m assuming that your image is the right ratio of width to height. If your image is not a 1:1.5 ratio, then you’ll need to open it with GIMP or PhotoShop and crop it. I’ll save that exercise for another time.
  9. At this point, our wireframe should have the background image fully filling the frame.
  10. Click on the A on the left hand tool box to creat a tex box. Click inside the background image and you should see a blinking vertical bar. Type in “House Party,” without the quotes. Select the pointer tool (the arrow at the left side, top). Then drag the handles until the text looks reasonable. As the background is dark, click the White square on the bottom, which will change the text to white and better contrast the letters against the background.
  12. Pointing in the middle of the text box, drag the words around until they look good. Remember you can drag the handles to change the size of the words.
  13. Using the same method, add a three on the dude’s shirt.
  14. Across the bottom, type in my name, Larry Archer. Our cover is complete!
  15. That wasn’t hard, was it? Now we just need to export the image. This is an area of InkScape that needs to be cleaned up, in my opinion. First, save your cover to the computer.
  16. Click on File | Export PNG Image. Set the Image Size DPI to 300. Then change the width and height to 1600 x 2400. Note that the DPI changes to 96 but ignore that for now.
  17. Click Advanced in the export section, then change pHYs to 300 DPI.
  18. Click the Export As button and select a file name and location.
  19. Then finally, click the Export button, and we are done.

If you right-click on the exported image, it should be 1600×2400 pixels and ready to ship off to your publisher. Pat yourself on the back for saving money and you’ll be able to pocket all that loot rather than sending it off to the cover designer.

What is nice about object software such as InkScape, everything is an object, which can be moved, resized, or deleted easily. Once you have a starting cover, save it as a template. By opening a template, all of the setup steps are already done for you to minimize the amount of work to create a cover.

Until next month, this is Larry Archer, signing off and reminding you that National Masturbation Month is almost over, so keep practicing. If your credit card is burning a hole in your pocket, grab a dirty story to read from Larry Archer. Some of my stories are on Kindle Unlimited and can be read for free. Check out my blog at: https://LarryArcher.blog

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Nerds Make the Best Lovers

by | May 21, 2020 | | 7 Comments

The recent lockdown has given me the largely enjoyable opportunity to reflect on my personal erotic history. One thing I’ve realized is that almost all my relationships have involved people who might be labeled as “nerds”.

That term has been twisted a bit recently, so that it has come to suggest pimply incels who spend all their waking hours playing video games. When I use the label, I mean guys who are might not be conventionally attractive, but who have above average intelligence. Nerds may be shy, unfashionable, or socially awkward. They’re not usually extroverts. Typically, they’re not sports- or fitness-oriented, preferring to read or tinker or hack away at personal projects. They’re the exact opposite of the alpha males so common in erotica and erotic romance. But believe it or not, nerds make the best lovers.

Nerds are grateful. They’re as interested in sex as anyone (maybe more), but in many cases have had less success with women because of their less-than-stellar physical appearance or their geeky interests. So when they do get some nookie, they make the woman involved feel really appreciated. At least, that’s been my experience. A well-fucked nerd is a very happy and generous guy.

Nerds do their research. A nerd understands that research can sometimes be compensate for lack of experience. My nerdy lovers have often known far more about sexual technique than I did – simply because they’d made a serious study of it.

Nerds are creative. They’re adept at devising interesting and unexpected erotic scenarios. Some of them even invent devious sexual devices for pleasure or torment.

With nerds, you have something to talk about in the afterglow. Nobody can spend every waking hour having sex. (Not even me.) When your lover is a nerd, the non-sexual moments can be just as interesting as the erotic peaks. Since I’m something of a female nerd (if that’s a concept that makes sense), I’ve often enjoyed long philosophical and/or technical conversations with my geeky partners.

Nerds are kinky and experimental. Okay, that might not be true of all nerds, but based on my personal experience I’d say the kink quotient is a lot higher than for supposedly masterful alphas. I had one nerd lover who enjoyed dressing up as Dr. Frankenfurter, corset, garter belt, stilettos and all. That same guy took me downtown to some seedy adult theater, where we watched dirty movies and played around in one of the booths. Then of course, there was the man who initiated me into dominance and submission, an Uber-nerd if there ever was one, who had degrees in physics and philosophy and a substantial private collection of BDSM porn.

My husband probably qualifies as a nerd. Certainly he’s brilliant, creative and able to fix any sort of machinery. He also looks a bit like a short Scandinavian troll (especially when I met him, when his face was obscured by a bushy red beard). Yet as we got to know one another, he told me story after story (at my urging) of all the women he’d bedded. Guess they’d figured out they should look past the surface! Alas, my DH is not one of the kinky nerds – but otherwise he’s willing to try almost anything.

Needless to say, nerds figure prominently in a lot of my erotica. One of my favorites is Dr. Theo Moore in The Gazillionaire and the Virgin. A brilliant computer scientist and a closet Dom, Theo is the virgin of the title. When he meets the gazillionaire, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Rachel Zelinsky, he has a lot of theoretical knowledge about sex, but no personal experience. Of course, that’s soon remedied!

Dr. Theo Moore

My current work in progress features so many nerds I can’t keep track of them all. The Pornographer’s Apprentice introduces the Toy Makers Guild, a secret society of Victorian engineers who design and build outrageous sexual contraptions for the rich and powerful. Gillian Smith is one of the few female apprentices to have qualified for the Guild – based on her intellect, her electrical and mechanical engineering skills, and her insatiable libido.

Her experience agrees with mine. Her geeky colleagues are more that capable of satisfying her – both physically and intellectually!

So let other authors swoon over gruff hunks with tight butts and six-pack abs, or pent-house billionaires with designer shoes and perfect hair. I’ll take a nerd every time.

 

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