Too many works in progress?

Unless I'm being told to take my panties down (or do housework), I have real trouble telling people 'no'. I don't like doing it... it makes me feel bad. 

Which is why I now have no less than EIGHT books in progress. Yup, that's right, eight. I keep being asked to write books for an anthology or a series, to which I cannot say no, and then of course I have my own ideas, and now, seeing as it's been a year since my last book was published *hangs head* I've ended up with eight current #wips.

But... this was me all last year:

Actually, I went to around twelve different countries in 2015, and between that and meeting the man of my dreams and working full time in my 'day job', my writing unfortunately took a backseat.

But no more! Sir is going to help me make sure I write every single day (and he has some *very* persuasive tools, ahem) and it is my intention to get five books out this year. I may not make five, but one is already scheduled, and yeah... fingers crossed.

Now my only problem is: which one do I finish first? The sexy first book in what will hopefully become a hot contemporary BDSM series? The dark, dark non-con? The historical age-play with a twist? The wild Western? Decisions decisions... answers on a postcard, please!

~ Tabby x

M is for... MAN!

I'd like to take a moment to share my idea of a real man. These are in no particular order, but for me, both in my books and in real life, these are the traits a real man should possess:

• Kind: He should be kind and caring, always. In other words, he's a genuinely nice person to be around; empathetic and sympathetic to the needs of those around him.
• Self-confident: He should know who and what he is. Not to be confused with arrogance - instead he's aware of both his strengths and weaknesses.
• Strong: Of course, physical strength is a bonus, but I'm talking about inner strength here. He has to be strong enough to go after what he wants, to make decisions, to take care of himself. 
• Humorous: This one is a no-brainer. I can't resist a man who can make me laugh.
• Intelligent: He doesn't have to be an astrophysicist, but whether it's books or general knowledge, he's smart. He can teach me something I don't already know.
• Insightful: He can read his partner's moods, he can understand why or how she's feeling a certain way.
• Generous: I don't need a man to keep me - I make my own money. I'm talking general generosity; a man who will share his time, love... and chocolate. 
• Kinky: This definitely wouldn't apply to everyone, but *my* perfect man is kinky as fuck. 
• Protective: Is it just me, or is a man who looks after his family, friends and woman not irresistible?
• Dominant: This one goes without saying. My perfect man knows what he wants; especially from me.
• Romantic: Little notes left lying around, compliments, remembering his girl's favourite food, drink or erogenous zones... there are so many ways to be romantic.
• Faithful: Goes without saying. Even if the relationship is an open one, he doesn't hide other women from you. 
• Reliable: If he says he'll do something, he will do it. Nothing worse than a man you can't depend on.
• Honest: White lies are okay. Real lies are never okay.
• Humble: The perfect man is readily able to admit when he's made a mistake. After all, nobody's perfect!

What about you? Do you have any 'ideal man' traits I forgot? Please leave your comments below!

~ Tabby x

H is for... Helpless

One of the things I love most about this kinky little world of ours is the way the slightest, most simple nuances can shine a whole new light on any form of conversation, situation or scene.

Picture it... you're bent over and you can feel the goosebumps on your flesh, the cool whisper of air brushing your bare skin, the prickle of anticipation tingling up your spine as he raises the implement with which he's about to punish and hurt you.

And now picture the same scenario - only your wrists are tied fast and your mouth is gagged.

Doesn't that add an entirely new layer? A slight hint of danger, a little more trepidation... not to mention quite a bit more excitement - at least, if you're anything like me. 

Whereas before, you could still move, could still potentially run away (although there may be consequences for that later on), you're now powerless to resist. You can't protect yourself. Shit, you can't even call out and beg for him to stop.

He is in complete control.

You're helpless.

Don't forget to check out the other amazing blogs - I certainly intend to, and as always, I adore and welcome your comments and thoughts. 

Huggles,

~ Tabby x

#SpankA2Z The letter F is for... Face Slapping.

I must admit I started this month's blog hop A-Z challenge with no clear idea of whether or not I'd even stick to any kind of theme... but, as is so often the case, one seems to be appearing without my conscious involvement.

Where I am at this point in my life and development is leading me to a lot of self-reflection and exploration, and I suppose it's therefore logical that at least some of that would make it into this, my blog. 

Some authors put on a 'face' for their readers/fans, and every word they say on social media is carefully constructed, designed to increase sales and strengthen their specifically chosen image.

I'm not one of those authors.

In this, as in real life, I tell it like it is. I'm just me. Yes, I write fiction, but that's pretty much where any exaggeration, bending of the truth or just plain fantasy begins and ends - and even then, I can't hide myself. I wouldn't want to.

With that being said, this blog challenge is also making me start to explore subjects I hadn't really considered thinking about before. And I'm enjoying it. 

In real life, I like to experiment... one of my favourite mottos is: I'll try anything once. Twice if it hurts. And I don't shy away from many of the more extreme BDSM practices, even though most of them will never make it into my books, which are, after all, primarily romantic spanking erotica. I wouldn't want to frighten anyone. 

However, this isn't one of my books, this is my blog, so I think it's a great place for me to a) examine my own opinions on some of these practices and b) get your opinion on them. I do like to hear what others think about stuff - I'm a very curious little Tabby-Cat, after all.

Which brings us to today's post: face slapping.

I chose this subject because it absolutely fascinates me. And it does so because I'm so incredibly ambivalent about it. 

If I'm watching a movie, and a guy slaps a girl in the face, my instant gut reaction is a mixture of disgust and horror. How fucking dare he? It's violent, it's derogatory, it's insulting.

But it's for those exact same reasons that, when a Dom does it to me (when I'm in the right headspace, mind you, not just coming up to me and whacking me across the face while I'm washing up), I melt. It puts me into the most submissive but most liberating frame of mind - one I'm not even sure I can explain properly. 

I'm forced to ask myself: why? It's not the most painful thing anyone can do to me, nor the most insulting, nor even the most humiliating. But for me personally, it's just so incredibly taboo.

It goes against everything I've been taught as a girl who was born in the late twentieth century and now lives as an adult in the twenty-first. It goes against everything the man who's hitting me has been taught. It's Just. Not. Done. Men who do that are scorned and reviled (and believe me, I am not advocating it unless done with full consent and prior discussion within a D/s or DD or whatever relationship), and seeing a man slap a woman hard across the face is (and should be) enough to have any sane onlooker calling the police.

And still I get off on it when it's done to me. 

Case in point: I just searched and searched for an image to insert here - an image where a girl/woman is having her face slapped. I would have settled for a nice old picture; a movie still perhaps, from back in the day when it wasn't quite as taboo to slap (or spank) your woman - but I came up completely empty. There are, on the other hand, loads of pictures of men being slapped in the face. By both men and women.

Was there ever a better illustration of a double standard? I have never, ever, ever slapped a man - or a woman, come to think of it - across the face or anywhere else, for that matter. No doubt it's partly because I'm naturally submissive and a pacifist, but it's also because I have respect. I respect people - even in a vanilla setting. I've had partners cheat, say horrible things, mistreat me terribly, and still I've never even considered slapping them. 

So seeing a woman do it to her boyfriend or husband provokes the same reaction in me as it does when the genders are reversed... revulsion. Physical violence should never be the answer - to anything.

Well, at least, not without consent.

What are your thoughts? Is it something of a trigger for you? Do you like the thought - or, for my fellow lifestylers, do you enjoy it being done to you (in the relevant setting, of course).

Please feel free to comment away - and don't forget to hop on over to the other blogs. 

~ Tabby x

Spanking A-Z Challenge... B is for Bastinado

We all like spanking on the butt. It is, after all, the most common place for a girl (or boy) to be chastised soundly.

But there are other body parts which, if done correctly, can also be whipped/flogged/beaten/spanked... with an equally intense, albeit different, effect.

Breasts, Back, Thighs, Genitals... they all lend themselves well to a bit of a beating, provided you use the right implement/s and know how to do it safely.

And then there are the feet. Flogging of the feet, also known as 'Bastinado' is my word for today's blog post. Why? Good question. Perhaps because it starts with a B. Perhaps because I think it's time our poor, oft-forgotten tootsies are given some love (in the form of carefully applied pain, of course!).
Or, perhaps, just because I don't think it's mentioned enough in the spanking romance genres... at least not in the books I've read. But why?

I've tried it (then again, I've tried almost everything)... and it was interesting. Intense. Like suspension bondage, fire flogging and a million other things I've tried before, it was new, unknown, therefore exciting. Did it push my buttons the same way a good old, honest-to-god-you-are-in-for-it-now-my-girl spanking does? No. But that's okay.

There are squillions of nerve endings in the soles of your feet, and here's the thing, they all run up through the rest of your body. In the same way that massage can reach pressure points in your soles to help with ailments elsewhere, a sharp flick of the cane can send waves of pain spiralling up right through your entire being. Which is absolutely exquisite - if you happen to be a masochist, doing it consensually and the Top knows what he/she is doing.

Just as with flogging, Bastinado was used as a form of torture (probably still is, in places) - and in that way it is horrid. The feet are far more delicate than you'd think, considering we spend so much time resting all our weight on them, and blows which are too hard or in the wrong places can easily break bones and cause all sorts of nasty damage.

But having said that, under the right circumstances, a gentle to moderate whipping of the soles of the feet can be a very pleasurable experience, and I'd like to see just a little more of it in fiction.

What about you? What parts of the body would you like to see spanked or whipped or caned occasionally, other than the butt, of course? Please comment if you like and then hop on over to the other lovely blog participants in this #SpankA-Z challenge. 

~ Tabby x

A is for... Asking for it.

It's one of the hardest and yet sexiest things to do... be made to ask for a punishment. You know you've done wrong, you know you're about to 'get it', and yet you're still put in the position where you have to swallow hard, bite your lip, and actually ask for what you're about to receive. 

"P-please may I be punished, Sir?" 

All the other aspects of discipline aside; the waiting, the scolding, the Look your Dominant gives you when you've been naughty... even the receiving of punishment itself - nothing makes me feel as submissive, as ashamed, as small as when I'm made to ask for it.

Some might argue that it's a consent issue - and for some people that may be the case. But for me, it has nothing to do with that. He will spank me anyway, regardless of whether I ask him to or not. (He'll just likely do it harder, or for longer, or both, if I don't.) 

No, for me it's not a consent thing, it's all about the headspace. If I've done something bad and I'm about to pay the piper, having to ask for my spanking/belting/caning/strapping puts me into a better emotional place to receive it. To work through my guilt. To atone.

Atonement. Damn, now that would have been a good word for 'A'. Ah well, next time.

Having said that, what are your thoughts on having to ask for a spanking? Please feel free to comment and hop on over to the next blog taking part. 

~ Tabby x

Fiction vs Reality, Or Passion vs Business

It's a fine line.

Way back, years and years ago, when I first started writing spanking stories, I had never actually experienced it for myself. I'd read about it - LOTS, and fantasised about it even more than that, but had I ever really been slung across someone's knee and had the brat spanked right out of me?

Nope.

Then I discovered the BDSM scene. I discovered real life kinksters. I met them at parties, talked to them, watched them play, let them do nasty, delicious things to me. I even married one - I signed my slave contract to him before I signed the marriage certificate. The marriage has since ended but luckily my new experiences did not.

I had a lot of experiences. Spanking, obviously, with every implement I could think of (and many I hadn't even imagined before, like liquorice. I'm serious. It HURTS!) - and so much more. Needles, medical staples, cutting with a razor blade, cutting with a scalpel, edge play, knife play, fire play, electro play, breath play, sutures, wax play, orgasm control, orgasm denial, forced orgasms, bondage, rope suspension, corsetry, fire flogging, cupping, fire cupping, TENS units, clamps... the list goes on and on and on. I do have a few hard limits, but not very many. Not really.

So it's only natural that I want to incorporate at least some of these experiences into my writing.

Now I don't know exactly how many of my fellow authors live the lifestyle. I know some of them definitely do, and some of them have even more experience than I do. I also know some of them are right where I was ten years ago; a surface vanilla with deep, dark fantasies I had yet to fulfill. And these people have one thing in common; they write my favourite books in the genre. Not just because I'm lucky enough to be able to call them my friends, but because there is an element of truth in what they write; an element of realism. I adored their books before I ever chatted to them. It was only later that I discovered that, as well as being amazing authors, they are amazing people with a real passion for spanking, ageplay and/or BDSM.

There's a saying: 'write what you know.' I call bullshit on that, because many authors would be severely restricted in their content if they were to abide by that rule. Did J.R.R. Tolkien ever MEET a hobbit? Did Lewis Carroll really fall down the rabbit hole? I doubt it. As Oscar Wilde said, "One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

However, I do ask that people write what they're passionate about. Lately, more and more people have been admitting to writing certain genres because 'they sell well'.

Writing fiction is an art form. It's a passion. It's a dream. It's something you do because you can't not. It shouldn't be dragged down to the level of business copywriting, or sponsored blog entries, surely? There's marketing writing (which I'm not bashing, I've done it) and then there's fiction writing. You do the first, usually, because you have bills to pay. You do the second because you feel compelled to tell a story.

If you hate scary stories, don't write them. If fantasy fiction makes you yawn and you never read it, don't bother trying to write it. Write what fires YOU inside; because only then can you deliver a great experience to the readers.

"Whenever I want to read a good book, I write a good book. I've never not been writing." ~ Gore Vidal

To all my fellow lovers of good quality spanking/BDSM erotica out there, I can't promise you won't mistakenly pick up a book written by someone who churned out what they thought would sell. However, I can - and DO - promise you that that will never be the case with any of my books.
Sharing Silver was the first contemporary BDSM book I wrote. Many readers will undoubtedly find it 'too heavy'. But I hope there are some out there who will enjoy it. Who want to find out what fireplay feels like. What being auctioned off to someone feels like. What being truly submissive feels like.

And to those readers I say, keep your eyes peeled for my next books. I have many stories to tell and, while they may never make the best-seller lists, they will always be true to my own fantasies and experiences.

Now I'd like to hear your thoughts. Do you care whether an author is passionate about their chosen subject matter? Do you think you can tell? Please feel free to comment away. :)

Do You Prefer it Delivered Fast or Slow?

My latest novella for Blushing Books is coming along wonderfully and I'm really excited about it. However, I have noticed that, as far as pace goes, it's much, much slower than my previous books.

Novellas are usually 30-40K words long, on average, and with the exception of 'Taken In Hand', which I wrote on a chapter-by-chapter basis for the Woodshed, mine have been mostly even shorter than that.

And a lot takes place over the course of those works... usually the book covers a time period of at least a few months.

My new book is different. For some reason, I'm about a third of the way in to an average-length novella and so far, only the first two plot points have been addressed. In other words, our heroine has not yet had a single night's sleep.

I became aware of this fairly early on and tried to speed things up a little but it's just not happening! I find myself taking things slowly, going into detail, wanting to enhance and build suspense.

I really don't think this will necessarily always be the case from now on. In fact I'm fairly certain that the story in my next book will move along more quickly.
But this one? It's writing itself and forcing me to relinquish any notions I may have had of telling the whole tale within 30K words.

So I thought I'd ask all you lovely spanking fiction fans out there - what's YOUR preference? Do you like a story to be slow, leisurely, detailed? Do you prefer fast-paced action where a lot happens within a short period of time? Or do you just skip all the boring stuff anyway and scroll straight to the juicy bits?

Any comments on this would be greatly appreciated, I genuinely want to hear from everyone.

Thank you so much!

~ Tabitha xo