Alankria

Weekly productivity

2008-05-11T21:58:34Z

05/04 - 1,159 words on ch18 of TBQ
06/04 - rewrote a poem, sorted out some submissions
07/04 - travel flailing → evening off
08/04 - 367 words on ch19 of TBQ + working on critique
09/04 - working on critique + 1,070 words on ch19 of TBQ
10/04 - 1,019 words on ch18, 249 words on ch19, 1,406 words on ch20 of TBQ
11/04 - 1,123 words on ch20 of TBQ

And, as noted earlier today, I passed the 50k mark. Huzzah!

Some things

2008-05-11T14:46:01Z

1. Penis birds. And a vulva bird. Link goes directly to the image. Unsurprisingly, it is NSFW.

2. Sam Tomaino has taken a look at Kaleidotrope 4 and mentions my little flashfic as "a strange tale of how a woman carries a world in her backpack and how she keeps it fed." Not completely a value judgement, more of a summary, but he gave it no negative words either. He also says, "If you like quirky little tales from out of the mainstream, then Kaleidotrope is for you. Check it out!"

3. The sun is shining. Earlier I was sitting at a shady little table, with a half-circle of plant-covered trellis behind me, and a cat near my feet. ~~About 550 words to go until I reach 50k on The Bone Queen draft 2.~~ 50,056 words! That's ~10k since April 30th, with 4 of those 11 days not actually given to working on the rewrite. Not too bad! I am now about to go for a swim in our pool, and then contemplate cooking dinner (my parents are away for the weekend).

4. In my procrastinatory wanderings I have found the TOC for the next issue of LCRW, out in a few weeks. Which has my name in it. It also has: Carol Emshwiller, Maureen McHugh, Becca De La Rosa, other names I recognise. Awesome.

the ones on their travels homeward from afar

2008-05-10T23:39:55Z

I just remembered something awesome that work-time wikipedia procrastination unearthed the other day: two books I absolutely loved almost a decade ago, The Wild Roads and The Golden Cat (though I think I read them the other way round), are actually co-written by M. John Harrison, and there's another book that comes after them! And remarkably, for me, I still have those two books! (I take batches of books to charity shops quite regularly; it's a sign of how much I loved them that they're still here.) I'd pretty much forgotten about them until I was reading Harrison's wiki page. I shall have to re-read them sometime, and pick up The Knot Garden too.

Maybe I can... strap my books to my body?

2008-05-07T18:25:54Z

Oh god, I just noticed that my layover on the way home from Wiscon is only one hour long oh jesus fuck.

Oops.

The one on the way in is only two and a half hours, and I'll have to go through immigration+customs during that one, but I can help that partially by not checking in luggage (taking a bigger bag, empty and folded, inside my small carry-on bag). And I intend to plead with the nice people on the airline to help me queue jump at i+c.

On the way back, though, if I want to buy any books, I'm certain I'll need to check in my luggage.

And somehow make a one-hour layover.

Ooooops.

*chews of ~~fingernails~~ hands in a fit of panic*

*moves onto arms*

So, I should find out size restrictions on size of US -> UK carry-on bags. They may be less strict than UK -> US. Anecdata regarding US -> UK, specifically departing Chicago O'Hare and with United Airlines, please? I'm a pretty awesome suitcase packer, and other than books will not be carrying much stuff, and I can wear all my clothes if need be, so I ~can~ cram quite a lot of stuff in. And, I guess, it may be better to buy fewer books than to check in luggage. *woe*

~~And, obviously, I will be taking out travel insurance to cover costs incurred should any flights be delayed.~~ Ahh, if only travel insurance were useful and gave good cover for this. I'll still get some (medical costs cover!), but it looks like it'll be pretty useless if my connections go awry.

ETA: I've settled on just taking a carry-on bag. The increased likelihood of making my connections kind of outweighs the woe at having to buy fewer books.

In just two and a half weeks!

2008-05-07T08:39:15Z

Frustratingly the tickets I wanted must have been sold in the last few days, so I wound up paying more in order to get decent times*, but I now have flights booked for Wiscon!

I'll be landing just before 7pm on the Thursday night, attending the writing workshop on the Friday morning, spending the weekend soaking up panels, keeping the company of many people, and buying a large quantity of books, before flying away at about 3pm on the Monday.

I think, in order to maximise socialising time, and thus justify the money spent on flights and hotel, I will not be sleeping very much. >.>

*Which is, of course, my fault for booking two and a half weeks before I depart. An expert in procrastination am I.

Weekly productivity

2008-05-05T20:02:10Z

Bank holidays always mess with my brain. I keep thinking it's Sunday, but of course it's not. Belatedly, last week's output:

28/04 - 1,331 words on ch15, 86 words on ch17 of TBQ
29/04 - 537 words on ch15 + working on critique
30/04 - 292 words on ch15, 301 words on ch17 of TBQ
01/04 - working on critique
02/04 - 2,969 words on ch17 of TBQ
03/04 - 540 words on ch17 of TBQ, 410 words on “in its velvety chambers”
04/04 - social life

Half of the 2nd's output was copy-pasted from what I wrote last year, but I'm still counting it because they're words towards the final word count.

City of collections: artifacts, old buildings, shops, parks

2008-05-05T12:56:17Z

I come again in praise of the internet: yesterday I spent the whole day in London with the visiting stephcampisi, taking her on a small tour of the city. The parts that I particularly enjoy, that is, which meant that we went first to the British Museum and wandered through the Assyrian and Ancient Egyptian exhibits (discussing, among other things, the origin of the cuneiform languages and hieroglyphics), and then went upstairs to an exhibit on bird, flowers and insects in Chinese art (ceramic, scrolls, fans), where we learnt how Chinese artists used images such as the preying of insects on other insects to indicate the political turmoil of their times. I imagined a room full of people holding fans, each fan making a subtle political statement. I bought two books in the bookshop, for potential research purposes: a small book on Persian myths, which will be useful for this novel, and a very small book about ancient calendars. Afterwards we walked to Forbidden Planet, where I managed to only buy two books (Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler, the first of hers I'll have read, and Undertow by Elizabeth Bear) and Steph lamented the extraordinarily high prices of Australian books in comparison even to ours. We ate sandwiches in a church garden, where children ran around screeching but the blossoming trees and greenery made up for it. We then walked along to Piccadilly, stopping briefly in Fortnum & Mason, and continued along to Harrod's and, via its candy hall, went up the Egyptian escalator well to the chocolate bar, at which almost everything on the menu is made of delicious chocolate. A chocolate that melts so finely, it can be drunk through a straw-spoon; I did just that, and we dipped strawberries in another small bowl of it. We walked more afterwards, through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Steph admired the squirrels from a bench in the Princess Diana memorial walk bit in Ken Gardens: a strip of pathway, planted on either side with brightly flowering plants. (She also admired the many old buildings in the city.) We ate dinner at Wagamama, ambled a bit more through the hazy, dusky Kensington Gardens and admired the swans from a safe distance (Steph has an anecdote about Australia's black swans, involving cheese and wine and a mango and fleeing from the birds), before I had to get the train back home. The weather was perfect for all this: warm but lightly overcast, so it was not too hot, but somehow not humid either.

A full day, and now I'm home for the Bank Holiday with some sunshine -- and according to my parents our swimming pool has reached a survivable temperature so later I may have my first swim in it of the year.

you could be happy

2008-05-03T19:11:54Z

Most of the time when I write, I don't feel that I'm channelling a character in the truest sense of the notion. I know what they're likely to do, to think, how they're likely to react, and so on. But it's still me, Alex, picking over the best way to structure the sentences, even as a sense of the character guides what I do.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like Alex is left to one side.

I had this with the 1,500 or so words of viewpoint that the Bone Queen has in the current novel-in-progress. (Yes, it's named after her, but she's not a viewpoint character. She's the catalyst.) Her words ran out of me onto post-it notes one afternoon at work, then on the train home; I couldn't stop until they were done.

And there's another character who's been in my head for some months now, ever since I had this dream about a conquering emperor and a rebellion -- and the thing that stuck in my head was the pinch of emotion felt by the young man at this one point. I couldn't shake it when I woke up, and I still can't. Normally I get zero inspiration from dreams -- they're too muddled, too vague, no arc or character depth -- but this one character has stuck and I may soon be ready to write a short story for him, I may be approaching good enough not to write something I'll find terrible, not felt I've done him a complete injustice.

I managed, just before dinner today, to write down a few lines in my notebook, to capture what I felt in the dream. I'll see where I can go from there.

I'm kneeling on the side of a dusty road, head pressed to the small, beige stones. Hiding my face. The Emperor's assemblage of cars comes past and of course he does not see the dusty, scrawny teenager in the stirred-up dust and identify him as his enemy's son.
I am surprised -- every hour today, this moment of not understanding -- that I have reached this birthday.

My father at the table, thirty-seven years old, saying, "My father went at eighteen, my brother at nineteen, my uncle at twenty-one, my other uncle at nineteen. We are not a family well suited to life."

Even though this is not my story, not my story at all, writing just this little bit of it feels like laying a small part of myself bare. I can't figure why. If I write the whole story, I wonder if this will be the first one that makes me truly upset when it's rejected.

Looking at flights for Wiscon

2008-05-03T14:14:06Z

Two questions:

1) Has anyone flown American Airlines before? What are they like?

2) I recall hearing horror stories about having to change flights at Chicago O'hare. Is it a bad airport to go through?

Currently this is looking like my best compromise for cost and arrival time. The cheaper option would only get me to Wisconsin at 10pm on the Thursday night, after departing the UK early in the morning (somewhere in this option is a horrendously long stopover, I think). Whereas with the AA flight I can get there are about 3.30pm and thus enjoy my day a bit more, including GOH readings.

and in other news, Boris Johnson is London's mayor. the end times are but a step away.

2008-05-03T12:17:45Z

Mum: Do you hear the noise?
Me: Yeah
Mum: Is that the same noise you've heard the washing machine make before?
Me: That's the WASHING MACHINE. I thought that was SOMEONE NEXT DOOR PLAYING DRUMS.

Excited flailing has ensued

2008-05-01T12:18:30Z

The pro in my group at the Wiscon writing workshop, where "Star Anise, Paprika, Nutmeg, Rosemary" will be critiqued, is Kelly Link.

*excited flail*

it's made of magic and with a little flick

2008-04-30T18:25:27Z

And today draft 2 of The Bone Queen slipped past the 40,000-word mark. Which is fairly timely, as I'm at about the halfway point in the narrative. It looks likely that the novel v.2 will land in the 80k-90k region.

~40k in the next two months? I can do that ~~one-handed.~~

~~Please don't cut off my hand.~~

Weekly productivity

2008-04-27T21:45:11Z

21/04 - daily cabal story + working on critique
22/04 - working on critique
23/04 - 350 words on ch14 of TBQ
24/04 - 720 words on ch14 of TBQ
25/04 - 486 words on ch14, 301 words on ch16 of TBQ
26/04 - 1,534 words on ch16 of TBQ
27/04 - working on critique + 761 words on ch16 of TBQ

It wound up being a pretty productive week! I'll not be writing a short story this month either, unfortunately, but maybe I can do a brief short story splurge immediately after finishing The Bone Queen (which will be by the end of June, if it goes according to plan). Completing draft 2 of the novel is the most important thing to me right now.

temptation, temptation

2008-04-27T19:12:48Z

I’m getting very excited about a novel I want to start writing this summer, once draft 2 of The Bone Queen is done.

Originally I planned to work on The Ephrebet Bed, the novel I wrote 50,000 words of during Nanowrimo last November, but for various reasons I no longer want to. A driving reason is that TBQ is a fairly straightforward novel, albeit a bit weird in places, and the idea of writing a novel that's even more straightforward after completing TBQ doesn’t fill me with enthusiasm. Writing a more unconventional novel, however, has the opposite effect.

The novel is currently dubbed [novel told by various texts]. As the temporary name suggests, it will be told via a collection of various documents. I know what three of them will be:

1. A report for the king, written by a minister or someone in another important position, detailing what's happened so far in the war with the river-women and algae-men. The facts of what happened will be tainted by at least two agendas: his own, and his government's.

2. A woman is translating some documents (however they're written/presented - not on paper, not expressed in the same way as human language) written by someone(s) from the water/algae-peoples society. There is both the viewpoint of the water/algae-person who wrote the original material, as well as notes revealing what's going on with the translator. (NB: 'river-women and algae-men' are only the terms the humans use to describe these 'people'. There will be some gender playaround in here.)

3. As chapter titles/quotes, there will be excerpts from the river diaries -- daily records kept by various administrative bodies throughout the kingdom, detailing the height of the rivers and making other observations.*

There will be two or three more threads.

One thing I find interesting about this idea is that, on the surface, it has potential to be a pretty dry, character-less novel. But it actually won’t be. Each text (excluding the river diaries) will be highly driven by the person writing them -- their motives, ambitions, desires, and so on. What is included and excluded will be completely decided by the characters. I’m hoping to get a balance of slightly drier, fact-emphasised content, such as the report for the king, and more personal content where more personal dramas can get through to the reader.

Not everyone will find the human element compelling and deep enough, I’m sure, but hopefully I can make it interesting and enjoyable for a lot of people.

I’m certainly looking forward to it. =D

Of course, first I need to finish The Bone Queen. My revised self-deadline for draft 2 is the end of June. That may or may not be possible; if necessary, I’ll consider turning June into a Nanowrimo-style push to get it done.

In the meantime, I have my eye on a "short" history of Thailand that I plan to buy, as the world of [novel told by various texts] is a secondary world loosely based on Thailand. Later in the year, when I've finished TBQ and am planning this one more thoroughly, I'll need to get a reader's pass for the British Library so that I can look at some more specific books. The necessity of going to the British Library fills me with glee; I love that place. (If the zombie apocalypse comes, I'm setting up fortress in one of their storage-buildings.)

I'm hopeful that looking forward to writing this book will help spur me to finishing The Bone Queen.

*The idea for these came from the Babylonian(?) astronomical diaries, which kept records of each day’s weather, as well as occurrences such as eclipses. This is how we know that it was raining the day Alexander died.

wisdom on msn at 1.14 am

2008-04-27T00:23:19Z

Alex Mac says: (01:14:27) hahaha
Alex Mac says: (01:14:37) I'd love fanfic
Alex Mac says: (01:14:42) I'd read all the cracktacular ones
Alex Mac says: (01:15:08) I think it'd be a mark of my success if I got an mpreg fanfic
Fennecs! says: (01:15:29) : D
Alex Mac says: (01:17:38) and then, of course, I would fuck with their ships

Fame would be a terrible burden.

reeds driftin' on by you know how I feel

2008-04-26T23:43:15Z

An observation:

In the first two attempts at writing the scene where Joselin tells Beth she wants to come along too to meet the Bone Queen (a potentially life-ending encounter), Beth told her to stop being so stupid, and then their conversation devolved into a stupid, pissy little argument.

It works far, FAR better to have Beth point out the danger and question whether Joselin's potential gain is worth it, not in a condescending way, but as one adult to another. It works far, FAR better to have two adults respecting each other's right to make her own slightly foolish decisions.

- - -

(oh hai 00.41 am, bedtime soon yes/yes?)

I saw, I saw the stars tonight

2008-04-25T18:14:27Z

My story, "Tattoos of the Sky, Tattoos of the Days," which appears in Sybil's Garage #5, has now been put online as a free sample.

“The night is a blackbird and it lives on Gemma’s arm. When it is still, its tail feathers brush her elbow and its beak sits below the curve of her shoulder, pointing behind her. When it moves, which is most of the time, it can be anywhere within the confines of her left arm.”

You can find the rest here.

As you'll see under the title, this story is "to the sound of" a song -- Patrick Wolf's "The Stars." Here is a youtube video of him performing it live, although there seems to be little video (and oh, damn, it cuts off before the end, but there are 3 minutes of it and sound quality is pretty decent).

So now you can listen and read, as Sybil intends.

And if you enjoy my story, please consider buying the issue or another product from the Senses Five store.

OMG YOU GUYS

2008-04-24T20:36:29Z

Recently aliettedb posted about two books she bought from the excellent-sounding A Handbook to Life in... series, which tonight while procrastinating led me to discover this forthcoming book in the same series -- A Handbook to Life in the Persian Empire.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DO WANT.

It will be mightily useful when I write this novel.

.

2008-04-22T08:38:23Z

jimhines has made a very good post about rape.

Choice quotes:

"1. Ever notice how often we talk about how someone was raped? When was the last time you heard it phrased, "Someone raped her." Because of course, the latter construction puts the responsibility on the rapist. It isn't something that just happens. It's something a person chose to do.

2. Rapists choose to rape. Nothing you do -- nothing you wear, nothing you drink, nothing you say -- nothing makes that choice for them. If someone raped you, it wasn't your fault. End of story."

And from one of his comments: "There's a natural consequence of drinking too much. It's called a hangover. Rape is not a consequence of drinking, it's a consequence of someone else making a choice to commit a crime."

Can we hand this out in schools? In the street? Can it be posted up on walls in large print with flashing lights?

"No" means no. Why do some people have this GAPING GIANT HOLE in their understanding of such a simple word?

I've never been raped. I hope that remains the case. But I have been repeatedly molested by a guy, JJ, at school who thought it was HI-LARIOUS to continue prodding my crotch with assorted objects, grabbing my leg at the lunch table, and other uncomfortable, unpleasant acts. I said "haha" the first time, moved his hand off my leg. After that I told him to stop. Which he didn't.

Apparently I can't take a joke.

My ex still thinks my opinion of JJ is an over-reaction. (Reason #7,392 he's my ex.)

It's not just JJ's fault. It's the fault of all the other guys at school, and some girls, who thought it was all funny and that we girls should just shrug it off.

No. It's not funny. And no one, regardless of gender, age, race, anything, should have to "shrug off" sexual harrassment or laugh along as if it's some kind of joke.

Here's the reason why it wasn't a joke: I didn't want it to happen.

That's all.

One of my regrets is never going to a teacher or the headmaster about JJ. I sincerely hope that he's since learnt the error of his attitude, and that other women aren't having to deal with harassment from him.

Weekly productivity

2008-04-20T19:24:13Z

And this week I have managed the following:

14/04 - 127 words on ch12 of TBQ + working on critique
15/04 - 291 words on ch12 of TBQ + working on critique
16/04 - social life
17/04 - 1,146 words on ch12 of TBQ + working on critique
18/04 - 675 words on ch13 of TBQ
19/04 - 484 words on ch13, 141 words on ch14 of TBQ + social life
20/04 - 693 words on ch14 of TBQ + daily cabal story

Not bad at all. =D

Now to flop into the bath and read for a while.

The thermometer in the shade is saying 17C

2008-04-20T11:34:18Z

And for, I think, the first time this month, the weather is actually being seasonal.

I am sitting on the lawn in a sleeveless top, enjoying the warmth and hoping I can start recovering some skin tone. (I am actually olive skinned. Put me in the Mediterranean for about 3 weeks, and I will be the same colour as the locals. Right now I am so pale, my friend's mother asked me yesterday whether I'd been ill recently. =D )

Yay sunshine! That is not accompanied with near-freezing winds!

My fail icon is not FAIL enough

2008-04-18T07:34:34Z

Listening to the radio this morning--

I do wonder at the point of conducting a survey about British people's opinions on immigration and only asking 1,000 people. Wow. That's, like, not even a per cent of our population? I'm sure their views are going to extrapolate perfectly to everyone else's!

I fucking hope not.

At least a half (or maybe it was two-thirds) of these delightful specimens want immigrants to be encouraged to leave. It might have been the two-thirds who worried that racial tension could easily spill over into violence. A quarter of them (or possibly more) think that Britain doesn't feel British any more.

Hi. British people. You know that racial tension requires attention from both ends, right? And that, actually, the end it probably requires the most attention from is your end. The privileged end. The racist asshat end.

Because that line about Britain not feeling British any more? Hmm. I wonder. What this "perfect Britain" is meant to look like.

I bet it's very white.

(Which is not to say that there are no violent, unpleasant immigrants. There are. But they're a minority. Most of the immigrants I encountered while working at McDonald's? Far more hard-working than the British kids, and decent people as well. Yes, despite being Muslims. SHOCKING, I KNOW.)

(I guess the delightful people in this survey are planning to start picking trash off the streets of London, huh, once all the durty forriners are gone. And all those other jobs they very nicely do so we ~~can sponge of the taxes they pay~~ don't have to.)

I'm pretty sure the pavement gives me better interest than that

2008-04-17T21:22:27Z

Today I received a statement for an old savings account, which contains a grand total of £2.82! Sweeet. For some reason, when I emptied it out many years ago, I couldn't close it, and a tiny amount got left behind as well. It's earning 1p interest a month right now. *wealthy*

I also have contributor copies of Kaleidotrope issue 4. Inside is my little flashfic, "The Life and Times of a Hungry World, Told Briefly," alongside other stories and poems. And the cover is of a robot smoking a pipe. Full ToC is here, purchase options are here. I got a mention on the subscription page! The info for issue 4 says: "Featuring a cavalcade of terrific stories and poems from returning favorites like Mark Rich, Kurt Kirchmeier, and Aurelio Rico Lopez III -- as well as voices new to the zine like Alex Dally MacFarlane, Paul Abbamondi, and Marcie Lynn Tentchoff!"

Published and wealthy.

Do I get my holiday home in the Aegean yet? I'd like one of those.

Never arrange to meet by a fast food outlet in a major station. There ~will~ be 2 of them.

2008-04-16T20:29:55Z

I love the internet. Among many things, it's brought me in contact with a bunch of awesome people, who I'd possibly never have encountered otherwise -- a fact I was reminded of today, when I got an email from tithenai saying that she was in London and would I like to meet up for dinner? One meal at Wagamama later, and we've had a great time. Can't wait to see you again at Wiscon, Amal!

*smooches internet*

Angry Alex is angry

2008-04-14T18:14:33Z

I'll skip any preamble: I read a story, I disliked it strongly, I am now ranting about it.

It's been published for a few years, so maybe these points have already been raised, but I read it recently and am filled with a lot of dislike for it. Thus, a rant.

The story is "Pinnochia" by Paul di Filippo, appearing in Sex in the System ed. Cecilia Tan -- which, this story aside, is for the most part a very good anthology. I recommend buying it. You just might want to skip this one story.

As the title of the story suggests, it riffs on the idea of the Pinocchio story, replacing the male puppet with a female sexbot* who wishes to be human. I actually quite like that idea; it had a lot of potential.

(*I think she's got a reasonably human body, but her brain has been pre-programmed -- defectively, in this case, which is why she wants to be human -- and her body "expires" after 7 years.)

It derailed, somewhat.

The first sex scene is between the sexbot and the man who bought her. For me, this falls into the hazy area between consensual and non-consensual sex. Okay, she's been programmed to enjoy it, and so she does. I'm just not sure being programmed to enjoy sex is entirely consensual. I found this scene uncomfortable, but it was right at the beginning so I read on in the hope it would improve.

After this, she realises she wants more from life, and goes later that night to her owner to ask for his help -- by starting to have sex with him while he sleeps. (Actions speak louder than words?) Once he wakes up, he's understandably freaked out, and decides she needs to be sent back to the factory because she's defective. She understandably decides to run away -- to discover how to be a real woman and not return "until she was ready to present herself to him as his perfect mate."

As a starting point, her goal for self-discovery does make sense. Even within her faulty programming, she is still a sexbot designed to pleasure her owner. I can understand that she would initially frame her need for self-discovery within this fact. I expected, though, that she would eventually realise there's more to life as a woman than being perfect for another man. More on this later.

With the assistance of a colony of insect-machines, she plans to cross a city in order to get help from the Blue Fairy. But she's sidetracked by the sight of some prostitutes, and decides she must have sex with one of them -- being a sexbot comes with a lot of lust, it seems. She winds up in a threesome with one of the prostitutes and the pimp, but this backfires when the pimp takes her prisoner afterwards to sell her. So that she can be a sex slave.

This is going to be very erotic, yes? Mmmm rape. <--in case you are confused, that was sarcasm.

I do not care that she becomes "relatively innured to the messy chore of milking the manjacks." It is rape. Repeated rape.

Kind of squinting at the page, I went on. Eventually she's rescued by the Blue Fairy, who agrees to cancel the programme that would make her expire in 7 years. Huzzah! She's a real woman!

Cue a sex scene with the Blue Fairy, which administers the nanites to do this. And then the story ends with these lines:
Pinocchia thought of Tom Geppi, the sad and lonely man who had first purchased her, for whom she had dared all, for whom she had undergone such trials.
And bumping backwards to reseat the Blue Fairy's undiminished cock up her ass, she knew she could do much better.

Yay, she's a real woman! She can get a *better* man!

Don't you feel empowered too?

She has one line where I felt like she had learnt something: Pinocchia sat up, angry. "I'm not a subject of study! I'm a real woman." There she acts like someone who has learnt to respect herself, who has come on a journey of self-discovery. But the rest of the time, her learning to becoming a real woman seems to translate to 'getting her body altered so it has a real woman's life span' and 'learning that she can find a better man.'

It all seems to be about the sex, rather than a true journey of self-discovery. I don't care that this is an anthology of erotica. The other stories didn't sacrifice depth for the pr0ns; they combined the two.

I'm not feeling that Pinocchia has become empowered. I'm feeling that she's learnt how to become a better sex object.

To which I say: DIAF! ^_^

Oh, and I forget to mention the other thing that seriously grossed me out. Pinocchia's nose grows longer when he lies. So, you see, a part of Pinocchia's body does the same: her clitoris. Gets up to four inches at one point, apparently.

I... I just... what the hell was the point of that? Do some people find that hot? I thought it was nasty.

I thought the rape was even nastier. And no, I'm not suggesting authors never write about rape. I've read stories containing rape where I, unsurprisingly, found the rape unpleasant, but the author handled it with respect and taste, and I thought the story was a good one, sometimes even an excellent one. This is not one of the stories where I felt the author handled it with respect and taste.

But my biggest problem is with what she learns from these escapades. I only kept reading the story because I hoped, just a little, that all the things I disliked about it would be at least a little bit redeemed by her learning something significant. Learning how to be a better little fleshlight is NOT what I was looking for.