The Well's Run Dry

It seems a break was a bad thing for my creativity levels. Instead of inspiring me to write acres of words, my (shallow at the best of times) stream of creativity has completely dried up. Bugger.
It's not that I don't feel kinky, I do fairly, there just seems to be no thoughts in my head whatsoever. None. I'm this great big void of nothingness. I'm hoping that by actually writing something down, no matter that it's a load of dross, it might kick start something? If not, I've got quite a lot of play planned for next weekend so that might do it. So, anyone seeing me next weekend, feel free to give me a good thrashing, and see if you can beat the inspiration back into me. Any other suggestions to get some sparks going in my head again also gratefully received!

Off On Holiday

Thank you all so much for the great comments over the last week. I've really enjoyed reading them all, even if I haven't had time to reply. You are all so much more intelligent than insightful than me, and it's always great to read what you think.
Anyway, I'm off for a week or so on holiday. No computer, no internet, no stress. Yum. I hope to return refreshed, renewed, and full of posts. Or Winterbrook stories. I'm not guaranteeing anything though!

Something's Gotta Give

I love the first verse of the song "Something's Gotta Give" as sung by Frank Sinatra:

When an irresistible force such as you
Meets an old immovable object like me
You can bet just as sure as you live
Something's gotta give
Something's gotta give
Something's gotta give

To be honest I've not really ever paid attention to the rest of the lyrics, but I find these words absolutely delicious and I'd never really thought about why until the other day, when I realised that my interpretation is that she's met her match. "Something's Gotta Give" and its going to be her. It taps into to my desire to be dominated (once in a while). To have that immovable object put in front of me stopping me in my tracks and derailing me in the nicest possible way. To know that here is a boundary that I can't push or try and cross without there being trouble. There's no way I'd want to live my life like that, but just once in while? Yum!

So What Turns You On?

Having spent some time thinking about how to write a spanking, it led me on to thinking about what actually turns me on. What gives me my kicks? I'm not so much talking about the actual act of spanking here, more how I get my kicks when there's no spanking available. I suppose the big choice is between visual porn and written porn. I prefer spanking stories to films, which is not a huge surprise as that extends further out than porn. I'm one of these people who would rather read the book first and then see the movie, so that I can get my own pictures in my head rather than a directors vision. Of course, this leads to the unfortunate situation where I end up hating most book adaptations that I see because they ruin a perfectly good story!

Anyway, wandering back to the point, it's the same with porn. While I do enjoy watching spanking films, I often prefer reading a story, as that enables me to build the images myself. So, in a quest to understand what would make my own paltry writing better, I started to think about what in particular in a story turns me on. Is it the actual spanking, is it something else? The conclusion I've come to so far is that it primarily IS the spanking that turns me on, but that would be nothing without the build up leading me there. If I just read a story that was "Slap, slap, she felt guilty, slap ouch", I would be left cold. I need the context, the background, the anticipation, the empathy with the character. I also need to feel the emotion of the spanking rather than just the mechanics of it, or again, it is somewhat meaningless.

So what does it for you? Do you prefer film to written stories? Is it the physical act of spanking that is the turn on, or the anticipation, or the aftermath? You know me, I'm endlessly curious (okay, nosy!) so feel free to enlighten me.

Writing a Spanking

Do you have any idea how hard it is to write a spanking? Seriously... you'd think it would be easy. After all, it's something that's happened quite a lot to me now. I'm not as experienced as some other people, but I've not been short of spankings in the past 18 months. Well, I retract that – I'm always short of spankings as I never get as many as I would like, but I've certainly had enough to give me a pretty good, ahem, "feel" for what happens.
When I started writing fiction (on holiday, in June '08, I can be very precise about when) my biggest concern was being able to craft some sort of story. That was the piece I was worried about. The actual spanking would just write itself, wouldn't it? It was the lead up, the situation that would be hard.
I was soon disabused of that notion. Writing the stuff before the spanking is not necessarily easy, per-se, but it turned out not to be half as hard as I thought. If you get the right story and situation in your head, words just seems to flow. I often find I've actually written several hundred words and am not even approaching the point where a spanking might be happening, which is often a good thing, as it's writing the spanking that I've come to dread the most.
There's one problem with writing a fictional account of a spanking, or even documenting a real life one. Spankings tend to be fairly formulaic in the way they happen. There's only so many variations on a theme, especially if you are not wanting to build a sexual element into your story. They also hurt, and there's only so many ways you can say so before you become intensely repetitive. So finding a way to imaginatively and compellingly write about a spanking without sounding cheesy and resorting to 24 “smacks” and “ouches” is very, very tough, for me at any rate. So tough, in fact, that it turns out I don't do it that often. Looking back through my writing, both fiction and accounts of fact, not a huge amount of page space is dedicated to the mechanics of the event. The anticipation, oh yes, the aftermath, ditto, but not much about the actual spanking.
So tell me, fellow bloggers and readers. How do you do it? Is it just me who finds it so bloody difficult to recount the actual spanking, be fiction or non? Or do the rest of you have the same problem? Any hints, tips, tricks? All will be gratefully received, I can promise you.

Love Our Lurkers Day

Today is “Love Our Lurkers Day”, the brainchild of Bonnie from MBS. This is the fourth annual Love Our Lurkers Day, and the aim of the day is to get all you lovely Lurkers out there, who read but don't comment, to say hi!
So, if you've been here for a while, but never had the courage to write something down, or you felt, like I did in my early days, that my comments would not be worth reading, then please, let today be the day that you take that first step and de-lurk. Believe me, it's well worth it. If I hadn't taken the step and delurked on other blogs, I would not have the wonderful group of real life friends that I have now.
Go on, you know you want to... You don't have to do with with your real name, obviously. You don't have to comment with any name at all! If you wish to leave an anonymous comment that is great as well.
If you don't know what to say, feel free to paste in the text below.
“Hello, I'm a regular reader of your blog, and I'm delurking for the first time.
I think your blog is
a) a work of genius, on a par with Shakespeare and Moliere.
b) utter rubbish, only fit for the bin, and I'm not entirely sure why I've delurked at all.
c) somewhere between the two.
d) What blog? I was surfing for Furniture Village Outlets and got here by accident. And it seems to be all about spanking, you total perve.”
See? I even did the hard work for you! You just need to choose what option to pick!

Struggling...

Struggling not to shout out loud "that's what belts make on bums" when someone talks about straplines.

Struggling not to giggle when a colleague has accidentally covered up "ysis" with their hand on the word analysis leading to, well, anal.

Struggling not to nudge my friend and point that that the "V" I have copied from the Volvic water bottle in front of me actually looks like vibrator rabbit ears. (The meeting was very boring.)

Struggling, when discussing why netball can be a violent sport, not to reveal exactly how I know this. (Thanks to Lowewood if you're interested!)

Struggling, in a discussion about favourite films, not to announce that mine is "Secretary" just to see what the reaction is. It's not, but that's not the point.

In short, struggling to be vanilla.

The Best?

I was supposed to be elsewhere tonight, but for various reasons did not manage to make it out of the house. Prior to retiring for the night I was chatting on line with a friend and we got onto the subject of who was "the best" spanker. The original question was around spanking film producers, but as I've not watched a huge amount of movies, I wasn't that able to comment. It did get me wondering about what would constitute "the best" in a spanker. Of course it's a very subjective thing, and for each person their best spanker would have different qualities. To generalise though, I think that the following is true: the best for each individual spankee is the one who pushes your buttons in the right way, who understands what really makes you tick when it comes to kink, who takes into account your limits, your desires, your quirks. They will delight in pushing you to your perceived limit, and maybe a little bit further than you thought you could go. They will make you expect the expected and then spring the unexpected on you.
That's my take on "The Best", anyway. What's yours?

Lack of Posts

Posts may be a little think on the ground over the next few weeks because, as those who know me in real life will be able to testify, there's some exciting "real life" stuff going on at the moment that's taking up much of my time. I do have some thoughts floating round in my head, but I don't seem to be able to find the time to get them down on (virtual) paper.
So, just in case anyone was missing me, I'll be around when I can, and I promise it's nothing personal ;-) (Well, unless you've said something to offend me, in which case it absolutely is personal!)