OK, I've been really slack and haven't posted for ages so happy Christmas, happy New Year and happy [insert religious festival of preference]. Hope you had a fab time and got lots of presents/copped off with the person you fancied under the mistletoe/got a snog from someone cute at midnight on New Year's Eve and whatever else you wanted to happen, well, happened.
I was really looking forward to having a break over the festive season. I finished writing the sex games book a few days before Christmas, the publisher was happy with it and didn't want any changes and issue four of Scarlet was at a state that meant I could take some time off. For the first time in years, I'd decided to go for the family Christmas thing, with my mum and sister coming down for the day (I love doing the cooking thing so had stocked up on all the turkey and trimmings). The day came around and it was fab: lots of eating, lots of drinking, no rows at all and just at the point at which my mum and sister were thinking of heading home, a girlie mate came over and she and I spent the rest of the night putting the world to rights. She gave me a copy of her first book Easy which I strongly recommend reading because it's incredibly funny and no-bullshit.
Sadly, I woke up the next morning with the evil lurgy - that manky flu thing that's going round - so spent the rest of the break, until New Year's Eve, alternately sleeping, sweating, coughing and feeling sorry for myself - then felt horribly guilty for feeling sorry for myself when I was well enough to switch on the TV and saw the tsunami attrocity (if you haven't already donated, donate here)
So, I pulled myself together and started preparing for my New Year's party (apologies if this is horribly glib but there's been infinitely better coverage from people who know what they're talking about when it comes to this kind of thing and, as someone who didn't know anyone there, thank God, and knows nothing about freak nature events, I'm not really in a position to comment other than to go 'that's incredibly sad' and 'give some money to try to get things sorted asap')
I'd decided to go for a small gathering of close mates, which meant there was an interesting mix of people: a friend who works for the police, two porn stars, a sex writer, a couple who got married after seeing each other face to face for only 12 days (though they'd spent 3 years chatting on IM - and two years in, they're still blissfully loved-up, so it just goes to show that the internet can be a good place to find love. Though this young lady clearly demonstrates it's not always the case...) a sex video producer, a diplomat and one of Scarlet's sales team. Unsurprisingly, sex was the main topic of conversation (well, it is a universal thing.) and, come midnight, I was snogging one of the porn stars, which seemed as good a way as any to greet 2005.
New Year's Day was somewhat painful; partly because of my hangover and partly because one of my best mates was having a leaving do, because he flew off to work in California the day afterwards. It's proof of how much I like him, because very few people could have convinced me to get out of bed the day after downing quite so much cava. I met some interesting people there, one of whom is a 'professional seducer' - cue lots of conversations about the ethics of using NLP to get women in the sack (something I'm now even more dubious about, having read some of the links he sent me from blokes writing about seduction techniques to persuade women not to use a condom. Other than being idiots of the highest order, do these men not realise that STIs go both ways?)
And then, it was back to work, in that 'it's January and no-one really feels like getting back to work' kind of way. The new designer on Scarlet is a genius and has made the mag look all glossy and sexy and generally even more gorgeous than it was. Then, earlier this week, we had the first freelance meeting of the year, and I got to meet half the writers who I've only previously chatted to over email. It's a diverse team but there seemed to be a lot of common ground, regardless of age or gender; one such example being when we were chatting about the amount of sexual partners people admitted to, to see if there was a feature in it and I asked 'do blow jobs count?' As one, the table of 20 people chorussed 'No'. Other highlights of the meeting include meeting the jammiest man in the world (dating a bright glamour model 15 years his junior who's bisexual and brings fellow glamour models home with her for threesomes. He could barely conceal his smugness, in the nicest possible way.) and discovering that two of our contributors had previously worked in hostess bars. It's amaing what beer will do to people's openness levels.
In other news, next week my deputy ed and I are going off to make a pilot for a Scarlet TV show, which should be fun. I've been asked to write another book - non-fiction but other than that, I have an open brief - by the publishers of Brief Encounters: The women's guide to casual sex. And excitingly (for me, anyway) that book's now been sold to Italy and Germany as well as France and America. On which note, when I did the check on Amazon.com to see if they'd listed the book, I noticed that they're describing it as a "...slightly controversial yet lighthearted guide".
Slightly controversial.
SLIGHTLY.
I am offended. I either want to be controversial or not controversial. I didn't actually set out to be even remotely controversial but being 'slightly' controversial is like being 'fine' in the sack. Not a compliment. See, I can understand the US publishers thinking that the book is controversial by moral majority standards - there are sections on self-fisting and water-sports in there - but the fact that they only see it as slightly controversial makes me begin to wish that I'd thrown in something more extreme (though other than bestiality and scat - neither of which I see as having a place in your average casual encounter - I'm not entirely sure what I could have put in). But if I'm going to be controversial, I want to do it properly.
So, that's about it so far: lots of writing about sex, reviewing sex toys (best one for comedy value this year has to be the pink limpy) and meeting interesting people. OK, there was an amusing incident with a penis-casting kit, but I've been sworn to silence on that one, so that's about all I can say on the matter. Except that if you ever decide to use one, make sure that both of you are sober...
Posted by emilyd at January 15, 2005 10:25 AM