Tag Archives: inspiration

Selective Memories and the Gift of New Beginnings

Written on Christmas Day 2014 in the Hotel Rixos Libritas, Dubrovnik, Croatia

I’m sitting on the terrace at the Hotel Rixos Libritas in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It’s the first time I’ve ever gone away for P1030161Christmas. It was Raymond’s suggestion, and an inspired one it was. I’ve not been back to Croatia since the war. Before that it was my home for four years. It’s where I met and married Raymond. A Louisiana Boy and an Oregon Girl had to go all the way to Croatia to meet and fall in love.

I can’t lie. Coming back is something I’ve put off for all these years, afraid of what I’d find, afraid of the change and haunted by those last memories as we left ahead of the tanks, as the place I loved fell apart before my eyes. I remember making one last phone call at the post office – no one had a phone at the time — to my former roommate, who was Bosnian. I was surprised we were able to connect at all. I told her we were leaving, asked if her family was safe. We’d been good friends. We didn’t know if we’d ever see each other again. The phone line went dead before we could say good-bye. Then Raymond and I packed two bags each and left everything else in the flat. One of the refinery drivers where Raymond had been working at the time drove us to Belgrade, which was the only airport still open. That night, while we slept safely in the Intercontinental Hotel, the national highway closed and the tanks rolled. Yugoslavia fell a
part, horrible things happened to people I loved, and I walked away.

I suppose I was a coward not to return earlier, but I never claimed to be otherwise. And even though Dubrovnik is a P1030298long way from the Bosnian boarder where Raymond and I were living after we married, I felt the knot in my stomach tighten as we sat down at the airport at Cilipi. Then we got into the taxi and the world righted itself as I spoke my rusty Croatian to the driver, and he understood, as the music playing on his radio was Croatian, as I saw signs in the language I’d loved and lived in for four years and I read them in whispers so that my tongue could feel the language again. The sea was a deep rich blue off the rocky Adriatic coast and our driver told us in Croatian that it was always blue when the temperature of the water dipped below fifteen degrees. He spoke and I understood, and spoke back awkwardly at first. Some of my words were missing and the grammar was rusty, but the rhythm, like a heartbeat was still there.

It’s my first time in Dubrovnik. I lived in Croatia four years and never visited because I thought I had all the time in the world. When I lived in Zagreb, I couldn’t imagine wanting to be any place else. And being back now, it’s not hard to remember why I felt that way, why I loved the place and the people so much.

P1030502It’s easy to look to the future in Dubrovnik. The city is vibrant and the people are friendly and energetic. Even after being under siege for nine months during the war, the place has been rebuilt and no one would question for a moment that it is the Pearl of the Adriatic. The food is that delicious blend of Croatian, Italian and wonderful seaside flavors. The café bars are full of locals and a fair amount of tourists even in the off-season.

But yesterday we took a trip to Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina, and looking to the future was much more difficult. The buildings are all recent, rapidly built, and in varying stages of completion. Most everything was destroyed during the war, and the remains of bombed-out buildings are everywhere. Mostar is now a city divided – Catholics on one side, Muslims on the other, and the bridge, the incredible stone bridge that stood for 500 years before it was destroyed in 1993 is once again rebuilt. But there’s no looking at it without being reminded that something so seemingly indestructible could be destroyed so quickly. As I watched the film of that destruction, I was reminded again just how
thin the veneer of civilisation really is, and how incredibly fragile all that makes us human, all that rises us above ourselves, all that makes us more than blood and bone really is.

P1030523As we explored the Old Town, on the left hand side of the city, the church bells began to peel. Not seconds later, on the right side, the call to prayer sounded from multiple minarets, and the two in my head became a cacophony of noise breaking the peaceful winter air, while all around us people went about their business trying to make a living in a place where unemployment is over 40%

The bridge is rebuilt, but something was destroyed that may never be rebuilt, and I guess that’s why I stayed away so long because I remember what it was like before the destruction. The stone sign on the bridge carved in English reads Don’t Forget 1993 and I can’t help wonder what should a people remember and what should be, if not forgotten, at least mourned, and moved beyond. How much suffering is caused from remembering too well, or from remembering selectively?

In the night, I woke to a neighbourhood dog howling in the darkness. The hairs on my arms stood at the sound that seemed so lonely and desolate. This morning, we woke to the church bells ringing in Christmas Day. Right now church P1030147
bells are ringing all over the city, and I’m looking out over the peaceful Adriatic to the islands and the mountains beyond. Coming here was a gift, and I have laughed and I have cried and I have found a place where I can begin to heal from wounds that seem so negligible in comparison to the wounds of those who have lived through the destruction and lost so much. And yet the four years I spent in the Former Yugoslavia have moved me more deeply and changed me more completely than any other experience in my life. And though I’ve been away for a long time, I’ve taken the place with me in my heart every day since. To return as we have in a time of celebration and reflection, to have the place I loved restored to me with all the wounds, the battle scars and the vibrant laughing memories is truly a gift of new beginnings.

In the time of new beginnings, I wish all of you good memories, healing of wounds and hope and love for the New Year.

Mythology and Inspiration

(From the Archives)

It’s elusive, it’s mysterious, it’s exhilarating, and we erotic writers crave it more than the sex we write waterhouse_apollo_and_daphneabout. We chase it shamelessly, we long for it passionately, we would gladly make ourselves slaves to its every whim and, no matter how fickle it is, we always welcome it back with open arms. When it’s with us, it’s at least as good as the best sex. And when it’s not, we mourn its loss like a lover. I’m talking about inspiration, of course. It’s the breath of life for every story ever written and the coveted ethereal presence that every writer yearns for.

The mythological link to inspiration is especially interesting to me in the light of a life-long fascination with mythology. My novel, The Initiation of Ms Holly, is a retelling of the Psyche and Eros myth. My new novel, The Pet Shop, is a rough retelling of Beauty and the Beast, which of course is just another version of Psyche and Eros. Several of my short stories have direct mythological connections.

Greek mythology – mythology of any kind, really — is fabulous inspiration for smutters. The gods are always dipping their wicks where they don’t belong and finding ever more creative ways to do so. Nine months later, viola! A magical child is born, a child with gifts that will be needed to save the world, or at least a little part of it. But there’s one story where the lovely virgin resists, and no wick-dipping occurs. That’s the story of Apollo and Daphne.

The Muses serve Apollo, so of course this myth interests me. Apollo is the god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; medicine, healing, and plague. He is the god of music, poetry, and the arts; and all intellectual pursuit. Daphne is a mountain nymph and not interested in giving up her virginity to some randy god. While Apollo is pursuing her, she prays to her father, who is a river god, and he turns her into a laurel tree. Ovid claims it’s not Daphne’s fault that she’s not hot for Apollo right back. He claims that Cupid, who is angry at Apollo shoots Daphne with a leaden arrow, which prevents her from returning Apollo’s feelings. But what matters is that she misses out on Apollo’s inspiration.

My theory is that the whole mythology of gods coming down from Olympus, or wherever else gods come down from, to seduce humans is really nothing more than a metaphor for inspiration.

leda Cornelis_Bos_-_Leda_and_the_Swan_-_WGA2486Consider all the different forms in which Zeus visits his paramours. He takes the form of a swan with Leta, he visits Danae in a shower of gold coins, he approaches Europa as a white bull. Writers understand that inspiration can take absolutely any shape, and often the very shape we least expect.

The gods aren’t always gentle in their seductions. Hades drags Persephone off to the underworld
screaming and kicking all the way. Zeus turns Io into a white cow, who is tortured and tormented by Hera. In the form of an eagle, he abducts Ganymede and drags him away to Mount Olympus. Writers know well that inspiration doesn’t always come in a gentle form. In fact one of my creative writing teachers used to advise her students to go to the place inside themselves that most frightened them, most disgusted them, most disturbed them, and that’s the place where they would find inspiration, that’s the place from which their writing would be the most powerful.

Finally, whether inspiration comes in gentle, beautiful forms or whether it drags us kicking and screaming and tears us from limb to limb, the result will be something greater than what it sprang from. From the seductions of the gods, the children born were always larger than life. They were heroes and monsters and fantastical creatures, but they were all born of that joining of divinity and humanity, they were all the result of what happens when something greater penetrates the blood and the bone and the grey matter that is our humanity. What comes from that inspiration may indeed be monstrous or fantastical, but it will always be, in the mythical sense, born of the gods.

Which leads me back to Daphne and Apollo. The cost of inspiration is the loss of innocence. We are seduced, we are penetrated, we are impregnated with something new, something fresh, something possibly even frightening, something that we, as writers must carry to term and give birth to. But none of
that can happen without yielding to the seduction. Daphne became a tree, unable to move, unable to
think, unable to ever be penetrated or inspired. One can only imagine what may have resulted from the psyche_et_lamour_327x567willing union with the god of light and truth and poetry and the arts and all the things we writers crave. I’ll be honest, I fantasize about Apollo. I fantasize about inviting him right on in and saying I’m yours. I’ll
take all you can give me, and please, feel free to stay as long as you like. Though, in truth, in my fantasy, I skip the dangerous and scary bits. And encounters with inspiration can often be dangerous and scary.

There is a cost to inspiration. It’s the obsession we all know as writers, the one that won’t allow us to think about anything else in the waking world and sometimes even in the dream world until we get the very last word down, until we make it shine exactly the way we conceived it, exactly the way it penetrated us. My heart is racing just writing this because every writer knows what it feels like, and every writer lives for it to happen again and again and again. So yeah, forget the tree rubbish, laurel or otherwise. Inspiration, take me, I’m yours. Have your way with me. I couldn’t be more willing if I tried.

The Power of The One

(Archived from post written for ERWA Sept 2012)

Like most writers, I spend a lot of time analysing what makes a story work. Why does one story grip me when another doesn’t? Why do the characters in one tale make me want to curl myself around them and never let them go while others feel more like they’re only people waiting at the bus stop with me, people who barely register in my mind.

How much of what makes a story work is plot and how much is character? Sometimes nothing happens in a story, and I’m enthralled. At other times everything happens in a story, and I don’t care. Am I just picky? I wonder if in the age of free Kindle downloads, being spoiled for choice hasn’t jaded us so much as it has left us frantically searching for The One. And the stories that really do work for me are the stories in which I most fully experience the power of The One.

It seems to me that the power of The One is more evident in erotica and romance than it is in any other genre. I suppose that sounds really obvious in a Cinderella and Prince Charming, or best fuck ever sort of way. At the risk of over-simplifying, it’s all about being The One, finding The One, enticing The One, seducing or being seduced by The One. Happily ever aftering with The One.

In our need to connect, in our need for intimacy, it seems to me that the power of The One draws us more than any other element of story. It isn’t so much the need for a knight on a white horse as it is the need for a kindred spirit, as it is the need for someone who groks us, someone who gets us on the deepest level of our quirkiness, our flaws, our potential, our Oneness. The archetypal story is that The One goes on a journey that no one else can go on, and on that danger-fraught journey, The One finds The Other One, the only Other One who really gets him/her, who is the flint to The One’s steel. And the resulting fire is what propels the story, what takes the reader in and entices her into her own place of Oneness. Hearts and flowers – maybe. Best fuck ever – could be. Magnetic connection – bound to be.

The thing is, not everyone’s fire is fueled the same way. One person’s One is another person’s bloke at the bus stop. The story of The One can be a game of substitution in which our minds edit out the hero/heroine and insert ourselves making the story about us. WE become The One. Or the story of The One can be more of a voyeuristic menage in which we find ourselves happily inserted into the relationship, experiencing a bit of the hero, a bit of the heroine, and basking in the chemistry that happens in the space between, when two Ones collide. I find this to be more of a 3D way to experience The One. In a lot of ways that space in between, that joining place where the rough edges rub up against each other is the real One. The joining place is the space in which the two become a different kind of One.

Beyond romance and erotica, the power of The One is what so much of story is about. The One who catches the serial killer. The One who is the serial killer. The One who wins the battle, The One who pulls the Sword from the stone, The One whose face launches a thousand ships. The One who can wear the glass slipper.

The tale of The One is the mathematics of story. The One plus the Other One equals One, and that One is
the Whole, the plurality of One.

Writing imageThe tale of The One is the physics of story. When the One fuses with the Other One, they join together to form THE ONE. That fusing results in a release of energy, energy that feeds the reader, energy that drives the story.

When The One reader finds The One story, the energy released can change the reader’s internal landscape. The constant search for The One story by the reader is a treasure hunt that can change everything. Every reader has experienced that post coital bliss of indulging in The One story. It’s chemistry, it’s fire, it’s magic! It doesn’t happen often, but every time it does, it’s enough. It’s enough to drive us on in search of the next One

Finding Inspiration: An Erotica Author’s Tale

By M. K. Elliott

I read a great quote from someone on facebook the other day. I can’t remember who it was, so sorry if it was you and I haven’t named you! This particular quote was something along the lines of, ‘Just because I write about it, doesn’t mean I’ve done it … But it doesn’t mean I haven’t done it either.’ I loved the cheeky allure of this quote, and I had to smile when I read it. After all, I’ve lost times of the number of times I’ve been asked this very same question!

MK Elliot MarissaSo where does an erotica author get his or her inspiration? Even authors who don’t live a more exotic lifestyle, such as being in a BDSM relationship, or working in the sex industry, can take inspiration from real life. Life for me is far from exciting. I’m a married mother of three small children, so I have to get my inspiration from the more ‘normal’ things in life. This isn’t a problem, of course, because inspiration can come from all the influences in our lives. My latest novel, ‘Survivor’, which I hope to have out later this year, was partly influenced by my husband’s love of survivalist shows. The only reason I happily watch these shows with him is because of the (usually) hot, half naked man who spends an hour fighting his way through the jungle; the very epitome of an alpha male. On one particular show, they brought a female celebrity along, and I thought to myself ‘I bet she’s only gone on this show so she can spend a week up close and personal with him.’ And so my novel was born. I started writing it that very same night!

My latest serial was also inspired by a real life event. A few years ago, I attended (and spoke at) an erotica writer’s conference, Eroticon. Speaking at this conference was an erotic photographer. I’ve always loved anything artistic, and so went along to his session. It was during this talk that I started wondering about how the relationship between the photographer and a model might develop, especially since the model is exposing herself in the most intimate of ways. How could there not be some sexual tension in the room?

And so my serial, ‘Model, Wanted,’ came into creation. There are now four parts to the serial, with the fourth part just released, and part one free across most retailers!

So how about you? Are there any particular moments in life that have inspired a short story or a novel, or, if you’re a reader, moments that have happened that you wish could have inspired a story? If so I’d love to hear about them! And if you’d like you check out ‘Model, Wanted: Part One’ for free, you can do so by clicking on the following links!

Model, Wanted: Part One Excerpt:

Eric cleared his throat and forced himself to his feet. His job was to photograph her like this, not imagine how she would taste as he pushed his tongue inside her cunt.

He adjusted the lighting hanging from the rail on the ceiling and then picked up his camera. He started with shots of her face, one cheek crushed against the white paper-covered floor, her eyes wide and innocent, portraying her vulnerability. Such contrast to the pose she was in. He moved to her back and hands, taking shots of the metal bound around her slender wrists.

Finally, he moved the camera to aim between her thighs, at the way her spread position exposed her pussy and ass to him in all of their perfection.

“Are you going to fuck me like this?” she asked out of the blue.

He lowered the camera in shock. “That isn’t what this is about.”

She twisted her neck as best she could and locked eyes with him. “What about if that’s what I want this to be about?”

“Anya …”

But he didn’t know what he was going to say. Surely he didn’t intend on telling her no? The position she was in, with her cheek pressed against the floor, her ankles forced apart, her perfect heart-shaped bottom pushed into the air, was just ripe for fucking hard. Between her slender thighs, the swollen lips of her vulva peeped out. He didn’t think he imagined the sheen on her pussy or the inside of her thighs.

His balls ached and his cock lengthened in his pants. Her gaze shifted, resting on the increasingly obvious bulge in his crotch.

“Anya,” he tried again. “It’s crossing a line. I don’t want to be that kind of man …”

“But I want to be that kind of girl,” she said. She spread her ankles wider, pulling the small chains between the spreader bar taut. The metal clinked in response. The position widened her stance, her thighs even more spread than before, exposing the star of her asshole and the delicate inner folds of her pussy.

“Oh, God,” he moaned.

Fuck it. He might want to be a professional when it came to his photography, but he was still a man.

With one swift move, he undid his belt and whipped it from the loops of his pants. He took her bottom between his hands and lowered his face to her wet slit like a man starving. The scent of her juices filled his senses, a musky but sweet perfume. He buried his tongue between her folds, seeking her waiting hole. Hardening his tongue, he slipped inside her easily, her arousal and juices opening her up to him. Her cream covered his mouth, moistening his chin, and he moved in and out, feeling her inner muscles tighten and contract around his tongue.

Anya writhed and moaned beneath his attention, but he wasn’t going to let her come yet.

Eric knelt up behind her, admiring the view. He’d never had someone so submissive to him before, allowing him to do such things to her without any trepidation at the possibility that he might hurt her in some way. He knew she trusted him implicitly.

He took the rock-hard length of his cock in one hand and gave it a couple of strokes. The head was purple and bulbous, the length ridged with veins standing out beneath the silky skin. His balls throbbed with a heavy ache and he longed to bury himself in her silken heat. It was what he’d been dreaming of doing from the moment she’d first walked into his apartment.

With her head twisted so she could watch him, her cheek pressed against the floor, her gaze locked on his face, he slowly ran the head of his cock along the opening of her cunt. He groaned at the heat of her, smearing himself with a mixture of his saliva and her desire. Then he grasped her bottom, one cheek in each hand, and thrust himself deep.

Part One: Blurb

Meet Eric Rutherford, bad boy of the photographic world, guaranteed to bring his models to their knees.

At the top of his game, Eric creates images for five star hotels and portraits for wealthy families.

But Eric has a dream. He longs to create erotic art. He has an eye for a woman’s beauty, but he doesn’t just want to photograph a woman naked, he also wants to tie her up, and down. He wants to bind rope across her breasts, tight enough that the rope leaves an imprint on her skin. He wants to have her on her knees, with her hands handcuffed to her ankles. He wants to whip her rounded pale bottom with a leather flogger, and then photograph the red stripes.

So his search for his perfect model begins and when an advert brings the beautiful, blonde Anya into his apartment, his one fear is that she’ll say no.

Follow erotic photographer, Eric, and model, Anya’s sexy exploits as they push the boundaries of not only their art, but their relationship. How far will they go to fulfil their sexual and artistic desires? 

Find Model, Wanted: Part One Here:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Barnes & Noble

iTunes

About M.K. 

M.K. Elliott is the author of the bestselling short story collection, ‘Rescued.’ A British author, she was born in Devon, England, where she now lives with her husband, three young daughters, two rescue cats, and a crazy Spanish dog. Though she has a degree in Zoology, her true love has always been writing and she now works as a full time author. As well as erotica, she also writes paranormal fiction in the name Marissa Farrar, and has recently published her twelfth novel.

Since ‘Rescued’ hit the number one spot, she’s also had several other titles hit the bestseller list, including another short story collection, ‘Some Love it Hot,’ and her erotic vampire novella, ‘Deadly Beauty.’ Her most recent work is the sexy serial, ‘Model, Wanted.’

M.K. writes everything from contemporary romance to steaming hot erotica, and her love of travel and adventure is her main influence in her stories.

If you would like to know more about M.K. then please visit her Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/M.K.Elliotts.Erotica or blog http://mkelliott.wordpress.com/. You can also stalk her on twitter, http://twitter.com/M_K_Elliott .

It’s Time for Garden Porn!

From the Archives

Two words…garden porn. Oh yes! I’m most definitely addicted. Do you have any idea how many luscious, deliciously explicit garden sites there are? Though I like pretty flowers just fine, and though plump red strawberries are enough to get my heart rate up, what really gets me going, what really makes me quiver all over is vegetables. My, oh my, how I love to look at sites that sell vegetables, or sites that give advice on how to grow vegetables, or sites that show photos of really well put-together veg gardens. Does it get any better than that?

Oh, and the garden centres! I adore the earthy scent of fresh compost and fertilizer, of greenhouse heat and rank, growing plants, all overlaid with the scent of espresso from the coffee shop. And it’s not just the scent that I love, it’s the feel of a quality wooden handled hoe or garden fork resting in the relaxed but firm, grip of my hand. Some are designed especially for a lady’s light hand, while others are thick and long and manly. There are metres and meters of gossamer thin garden fleece all ready to caress my plants with that peek-a-boo hint of what lies beneath on a frosty spring night. There are multi-coloured, oh so soft, gloves to protect my hands while I’m groping and tugging in a weedy bed.

And the plants. This time of year plants that aren’t just loaded with gaudy blooms already are heavy and swollen with buds about ready to burst. Stiff phallic shoots are coming up everywhere, and the heady scent of new growth is intoxicating.

Personally, I don’t think it’s any surprise at all that I go both ways – erotic writer and vegetable gardener. We’re talking about the best of both worlds here. And inspiration, Wow! My seedlings are mostly in the mini greenhouses now, but when they first push up through the soft potting compost with just the tiniest hint of pale plant flesh pressing through the glossy black earth, it’s a teasing par excellence. My breath catches, my heart races and I’m positively bouncing with excitement.

I’ve written about naughty things to do with carrots and courgettes, and I’ve written about kink amid the topiary. It’s true, getting down and dirty among the growing things makes me hot and sometimes sore. I planted runner beans today, squatted in the rich earth, digging and watering and patting in place. There’s still dirt under my nails and my shoulders ache. Yes, it was good for me.

Sweet Corn on paradeIt’s true — I like the heat and the dirt, but what I like best of all is that the Muse hangs out in the vegetable garden. When I’m getting down and dirty in the beans, the Muse whispers fabulous naughtiness, amazing imaginative titillating tales in my ear. She’s practically giving it away, when I’m up to my knuckles in compost. I think the Muse likes garden porn too. It makes her  loose and easy with her ideas, and there I am hunkered down amid the weeds and the beans, completely unsuspecting of what she’s about to whisper to me. It’s always hot, and she always makes it good for me. Oh yes. I do like garden porn. I can hardly wait to write down all that she whispered in my ear while I took my pleasure planting beans.

Just a little added note: Keziah Hill informed me that there is an actual site called Garden Porn. I just checked it out. A site where the ‘Hortisexuals’ hang out is my kind of site