Positive Changes in the Personal Sphere #MondayBlogs #Mindfulness #Meditation

 It's four in the morning and I can't sleep, so I'm reflecting on some of the positive things I've accomplished over the past year.  I'm weaning myself off my habit of ruminating on everything I'm not satisfied with, in my life.  There's a positive, right there.

I wrote some books.  That's something.  It's something I don't customarily acknowledge as an accomplishment, now that I've been writing books for 15 years. I need to work at celebrating each new book I write.  I'm a work in progress, in that regard.

For well over a year now, I've been posting daily to my music blog. That's something I'm proud of.  Doing anything daily is hard work, and there have been many times I've considered throwing in the towel. I kept at it, though, and I'm pleased to share music and memories with the reading public every day of the year.

The things I'm most proud of are personal.

But not too personal that I won't share them with you.

Since the start of this pandemic, I've enrolled in three free online courses that focused on personal growth. I completed the ones on happiness and relationships, and I'm currently working on a course in mindfulness.

One thing that came out of the happiness course was a commitment to meditation practice. I try to do this daily, but it doesn't always happen. Every time I meditate, I feel like I've done it wrong. I don't think I'm getting results or seeing effects.  But I keep hearing about all these studies showing the positives that come out of meditation, so I keep at it, and I see those positives manifest in my life. 

Even if I don't feel like I'm doing meditation right, I'm still seeing benefits.

The most significant course I took this year was a course of therapy.  This is something I've needed for decades, but I've never had the resources. The pandemic changed that, for me, because the province I live in made free therapy available to everyone.  

I went through an extremely intensive twelve weeks of CBT combined with the support of an excellent therapist, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that it changed my life.

Honestly, the reason I sought out therapy was that I looked at my behaviour, my mood swings, my midlife crisis, my perimenopausal rage, and I saw that I was being very unfair to my partner. Unpredictable. Irrational.  Out of control.  I was so afraid of losing him. Our time together has been the best time of my life.

I wish I could have sought out therapy for ME instead of doing it for my partner, but I guess I never valued myself highly enough. I never thought I was worth it. 

Looking back, I realize therapy would have been worth any money--even money I didn't have. But I can't change the past, so I won't bother saying I wish I'd done this decades ago. Because I did give therapy a shot decades ago, the last time I had access to free therapy sessions. Unfortunately, there therapist I was paired with wasn't a good fit for me.  The three sessions I had were not terrible helpful.  Certainly not life changing. 

These ones were.  

The work we did led me to insights about my personality that were truly mind-blowing. And they were the kinds of things where you're like... how did I never notice that about myself? Why did I never connect those dots? They're the sorts of things you see in someone else and go, "Oh, well, she behaves this way because of that thing that happened to her." 

Easy to see in someone else, much more difficult to see in oneself.

When I did that happiness course, I found out that my overriding positive personality trait is gratitude. 

But I could have told you that.  

I am deeply grateful for this career I get to keep because of readers like you. I'm grateful that book sales provide a roof over my head and put food on the table. I am grateful to have a loving and supportive partner who welcomes personal growth rather than being intimidated by it. And I'm grateful for all the resources I've been able to access that cost only my time and effort.

The other day, I said to my partner, "This time last year, I thought I was going to lose you. With all my hormonal changes and mood swings, I didn't think you'd stay with me--and I couldn't have blamed you, if you'd left. But with all the therapy and meditation, I feel so much calmer. Is it just me, or have I changed?"

He assured me that the change has been tremendous. I guess I didn't need him to tell me that, but it's always nice to get positive feedback from someone you hold in high esteem.

Now I just need to work on being one of those people I hold in high esteem.

The work is never done. 

Apocalypse of the Self: #Queer #Identity and #Aging

When I was a teenager, older adults warned me that no matter how old you get, you always look into the mirror expecting to see your eighteen-year-old self.

My eighteen-year-old self isn't all I expect to see.

There are so many layers to the person I think of as ME.

Most salient is my queer identity.

I don't think I'd heard the word QUEER used in an empowering way to describe one's own sexuality until my final year of university. I'd been kicked out of a psycholinguistics course because I didn't have the prerequisites. The university notified me by post, except they sent the letter to my mother's address--and I didn't live there.

By the time I discovered I'd been kicked out of my class, it was too late to pick up another course.

I wouldn't be graduating with my cohort. I needed to take a summer course if I wanted to convocate in the fall.

To complicate matters, I'd already secured a full-time job. I would be working for the same company where I'd worked part-time throughout most of my university years.

So I needed an evening summer class to accommodate my new job.

I'd shied away from taking LGBT courses in university. I felt like taking those courses meant committing to an aspect of myself I wasn't fully ready to embrace at that stage. But when one of the only appealing evening courses during the summer happened to be an LGBT course, it sort of felt like the universe guiding me gently toward my identity.

Gently, but firmly.

During the course of that course (which changed names three times that summer--I have no idea what it ended up being called), I felt like I'd found my people, and found myself. Hearing the lecturers talk about queer identities was both enlightening and empowering.

I still shied away from calling myself queer, because I didn't feel "qualified." Which is stupid, but it's easy to feel that way--and it was even easier to feel that way back when I was in university. There's a ridiculous amount of gatekeeping that goes on in queer culture.

In time, I adopted my queer identities. Not only is my sexual identity QUEER, but my gender is, as well. Even before I'd embraced my genderqueer identity, I pushed back against the gender binary by dressing androgynously. Androgynous attire felt like a safety net, for me. That's how I showed the world I wasn't the person they wanted me to be.

Another aspect of identity I've clung to throughout my adult life has to do with living under the poverty line and setting myself apart from "rich people." I grew up in a "bad neighbourhood," and that's stayed with me even after 15 years of living in a "good neighbourhood."

A couple weeks ago, I was on my way to a volunteer shift. My work takes place in an office space where people dress well, and so I started dressing well when I went in. My co-workers don't need to know that my business attire came to me in a garbage bag from a clothes horse friend of the family, who generously unloads her old clothes on myself and my sisters. Every garbage bag is like Christmas, particularly because this girl's clothes fit us so perfectly.

Anyway, I was on my way to my volunteer shift this one day when I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window.

My reflection truly shocked me.

Not only was I no longer 18, but I didn't look poor, I didn't look queer (whatever that means), I didn't look androgynous--I didn't look the way I felt.

I looked like a yuppy.

I looked like the kind of person who goes to their office job and comes home to a husband and kids.

How do I know who I am if I look like someone I'm not?

The image I'm used to seeing in the mirror is a greasy-haired androgynous kid in dirty, ripped clothes. I'm used to being mistaken for homeless. Not anymore. I dress better than I used to when I leave the house. And, because my "nice" clothes are femme, that means I'm presenting femme more often than before.

Not just that, but I'm no longer in a relationship with a woman--a relationship that outwardly validated that, yes, I am queer.  Just look at who I'm dating!  She PROVES my queerness!

The partner I have now is a man, so anyone observing us as a couple would make the assumption that I'm straight.

My sexual identity isn't reliant upon the gender of my partner. I can be queer with a partner of any gender, or without any partner at all. Queer is who I am. However, when you look like you're cis and you look like you're straight and you look like you're financially secure, the world treats you a hell of a lot better than it does when you look homeless and queer.

So, if the world is suddenly a more hospitable place, why am I complaining?

I don't know. It just doesn't feel like me. It isn't me. I look like something I'm not. And I'm rattled by that.

The mirror doesn't reflect the me I see inside. But the truly troubling thing is that, aesthetically, what I see in the mirror... I actually kind of like it.

We don't talk about these things: #Sex, #Taboo & 90210

I've been re-watching Beverly Hills 90210 on DVD.

I just finished the first season and I'll tell you this: I remember watching EVERY SINGLE ONE of those episodes when they originally aired in 1990.

Yesterday I got to the episode that has lived inside my brain since I first watched it: the one where Dylan and Brenda have sex for the first time. It's been almost 30 years since I first watched this episode and I still remember tons of lines from the show. Like how after they have sex for the first time Brenda makes the hotel bed and when Dylan tells her she doesn't have to do that she says, "What will the maid think?"

That line has stayed with me all these years. I don't know why.  I just like it.  It would make a good book title, wouldn't it?  The butler did it! What will the maid think?

Okay, something else about that episode has stayed with me too.  Something more personal.

My parents knew I loved 90210 even though, being a preteen when it first came on the air, I was a tad young to be watching it.  Maybe not by today's standards, but I don't have kids so what do I know about today's standards?

Anyway, I've mentioned before that my mother worked nights and my father was always passed out by the end of Entertainment Tonight.  That meant I got to watch 90210 (and everything else that came on after 7:30) without parental supervision. And THAT meant I didn't experience the awkwardness of having my mom glaring uncomfortably in my direction as teenagers on TV discussed the risks and rewards of having sex.

Thank goodness for that, because sex was a taboo topic in my household. Still is. Nobody ever discussed sex when I was a kid.  Nobody ever discusses it now. I'm very close with one of my sisters. We've never talked about sex.  Not once.

My mom did give me "the sex talk" (which was more awkward than informative) but here's what prompted that discussion:

When my mom announced that she was pregnant with my youngest sister, I was mad as hell.  This wasn't your typical sibling rivalry or whatever kids go through when they're afraid a new baby will usurp their Favourite Child crown. I already had other siblings. I hadn't been upset about their existence.

This one was different. I was ten years old and already I had more than enough experience raising children.

You know, I had an epiphany a couple months ago. I heard the word "neglect" and started thinking about the way definitions shift over time.  When I was a kid, I would have defined child neglect as, like, taking off for two weeks and leaving your kids to fend for themselves. I wouldn't have considered myself or my siblings neglected. There was always an adult body present in the house. Now I realize that if that adult body is not conscious, it doesn't count. If one parent is out of the house and the other is perpetually drunk and you've got a 7-year-old running the show, yeah, sadly, that's neglect.

Ouch.  I hope my mom never reads this.  It would kill her.  She is such a devoted parent.  Being a mother is the most important thing in her world.  I know she did what she thought was best for us, always, but living in a domestic violence situation with an alcoholic made life really difficult for all of us.

Not only was I raising myself and my siblings, but I was babysitting a parent as well.  I remember that I always had to wake myself up during the night to go downstairs and check the kitchen. My dad had a habit of coming to late at night or early in the morning and cooking when he was barely conscious. He would put something on the stove or in the oven, then pass out again.  One of my responsibilities was to get out of bed at regular intervals to make sure there was nothing burning downstairs.

So when my mom announced that she would be having another baby, my little 10-year-old brain did its little 10-year-old version of screaming, "How dare you stick me with another kid?" I felt like she was spitting out babies for me to look after. I was so mad.

For whatever reason, my mom was convinced I was angry about her pregnancy because I didn't clearly understand where babies came from.

When I heard this theory, everything inside me did a little 10-year-old version of going: "You have got to be fucking kidding me!" Her theory seemed so juvenile and irrelevant. I had bigger fish to fry.

Of course, I didn't communicate to my mother WHY I was mad.  It would have hurt her feelings, for starters.  More than that, we didn't talk about feelings in my family.  That was a taboo even bigger than sex. I chose to sit through the awkward sex talk rather than admitting to my mom that, at 10 years old, I was already too worn out to take care of another kid.

A few days after that highly memorable Brenda-and-Dylan-have-sex episode of Beverly Hills 90210 first aired, my mom confronted me on the topic. She told me I wasn't allowed to watch the show anymore. Apparently that episode had caused an uproar. Moms across America (and Canada too, I guess) were pissed these two teen characters on a TV show discussed the possibility of having sex, had sex, were happy about their decision, and nothing bad happened.  Everybody knows that when teens have premarital sex on TV, their genitals are supposed to shrivel up and fall into a bucket of boiling lava.

Anyway, the hoopla around this episode was such that my mother heard about it and confronted me on the issue.  I remember her exact words: "I heard that Dylan and Brenda had sex!"

And you know what I said?

"No they didn't."

I lied for them.

I lied for Dylan and Brenda.  I did it to protect their reputations.  No, that's not true.  I lied because I wanted to keep watching the show.  Mind you, one of the perks of being a neglected child is that, between raising someone else's kids and making sure the house doesn't burn down, you can really watch whatever you want on TV.

Giselle Renarde is an award-winning queer Canadian writer. Nominated Toronto’s Best Author in NOW Magazine’s 2015 Readers’ Choice Awards, her fiction has appeared in well over 100 short story anthologies. Giselle's juicy novels include Anonymous, In Shadow, Cherry, Nanny State, Seven Kisses, and The Other Side of Ruth.

What Good is #Writing?

I used to tell people writing meant nothing to me. Family, friends, writers, readers... I told everyone that writing was something I only did to make money. Writing wasn't like breathing, for me. I didn't feel like I had to do it or I'd die.

I'd heard from a lot of other authors that they'd write even if nobody paid them for it.  Even if nobody bought their books.

Not me. I was only in it for the cold hard cash.

That was then.

It took me quite a number of years before I started to realize the place of meaning and resolution writing held in my life.  When I first started writing, I was selling erotica shorts to anthologies and periodicals. I was signing contracts with niche publishers.

I think it was the market for periodicals that dried up first. Anthologies followed a few years later.  Around that time, the small publishers I was signing with started toppling like dominoes.

So I started self-publishing. Why not?  The stigma was lifting.  It was suddenly easy to publish independently. And I had quite a number of works at my disposal, including those that had come back to me from publishers that had folded.

Things went pretty okay.  I was hardly a Kindle Millionaire, but I understood the process.  Publishing seemed pretty straightforward. I uploaded my books to various retailers through various distributors and in various formats. They sold copies. Again, not a million copies, but enough that I could pay my rent and put food on the table (and in my cats' bowls).

And now?

Looking at my life holistically, I'd have to say, at the moment, it's a mess. My career is a huge part of that mess. I've experienced an enormous amount of grief and loss this year--in terms of loved ones dying and so forth--but also in terms of loss of income, dwindling sales.

The last book I wrote that was meaningful to me sold two copies.

Although my career is writing, writing is not merely a career.  Not anymore.

Writing has become much more than a career.

Much, much more.

After my cousin's death this summer, I started writing about grief.  About my grief.  Non-fiction. I started out telling myself it was publishable, that I was writing for monetary gain. But I realized very quickly that allowing anyone on the planet to read the most intimate details of my family's pain would be a betrayal to those who were hurting the most. There could be a time in the future when that changes, but that's kind of not the point.

The point is that, even after I realized I was writing stuff I couldn't possibly publish... I kept doing it.

I kept writing because the act of writing helped me. That's when I realized I was actually journaling. Didn't feel like it, because I'd never typed a journal before. I'd run out of people to talk to (or, I convinced myself I had, convinced myself nobody wanted to hear me repeat the same thoughts over and over again), but I could always write.

It helped me so much. I could never have imagined how much, honestly.  If you're going through some shit and it's never occurred to you to write it all down, I highly recommend it. Most people have probably figured this out by the age of eight.  Guess it took me a little longer than that.

There's something freeing about getting to a low point in your career.  You can stop thinking about what others want from you, because clearly they don't want anything--if they did, they'd be buying your books.  It's a time when you can turn to yourself and ask, "All things being equal, what would you really like to work on?"

And then you can write a book like this:

Or a book like this:

Or a book nobody's ever going to see, because it isn't a book at all.

When the Student is Ready...

The other day I was listening to a tarot podcast, when the podcaster mentioned she's the type of person who is often accused of reading too much into things. She said she analyzes everyday events as though they were meaningful, because, in her mind, they are meaningful.

I tend to do the same thing. If you were writing a paper about some literary novel, you would read significant insights into the most mundane details. You'd assume the author inserted those details intentionally, to represent a character's state of mind, or to foreshadow upcoming events, or something.

(As an author--at least, as the kind of author I am--I can attest that a huge amount of symbolism makes its way into the text via the subconscious. I'm not generally thinking about what every little thing represents when I'm working on a first draft. In fact, I make an effort not to think too much about what it means while I'm creating.)

The aforementioned podcaster went on to mention that when we hear a saying like "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear," we assume that "teacher" is going to be an actual human being, someone who will flutter into our lives and take on a guru role.

More likely, the teacher will appear in many forms simultaneously. It won't be a person. It'll be many people. It'll be a situation and a book and a TV show. It'll be an interaction with a cashier, with a co-worker, with someone you meet by chance. You don't have to wait for the Wise Woman to show up and guide you.  You are constantly being guided.  You just have to pay attention.

Last night I attended an event where a young man read a short piece of writing composed by his late grandfather.  This piece was beautifully written. I couldn't possibly do it justice here, but I want you to know we're talking about some fine-ass prose.

He wrote about a train journey. When it begins, you're entertained enough by the views, by the people around you, by the simple fact of being on a train. After a time, you start pacing the aisles, wondering how far you are from the station. When you get to the station, that's when the good times really begin. That's when you'll have arrived.

The truth, he writes, is that there is no station. It is an illusion.

This message has been coming at me, lately, from multiple sources. It just so happens that I LOVE trains (my maternal grandfather worked on the railroad), so this incarnation of the message struck me hardest.

I've been living a life without goals for a long time, now, and it's felt very empty. Now that I finally have a goal in sight--and a big one, at that--I'm super-focused on achieving that one thing that'll bring me happiness at long last. Meanwhile, as I wait for that goal, I find myself feeling antsy, wanting to get there faster, wanting to be there NOW.

One thing I've learned is that I need the goal in sight. I know what my life looked like when I had nothing to look forward to: empty, desolate, almost uninhabitable.

But the more I get lost in dreams of what life will be like when I reach the station, the less attention I pay to the little wonders along the way.

Without my goal, I'd be lost. Even if it is an illusion, it's a necessary illusion.  Now I need to learn to enjoy the journey. There's no sense feeling miserable along the way.

A Tale of Three #Taboo #Erotica #Anthologies, or Testing the KU Waters in 2019

In case you haven't heard about Lexi Wood, she's the sock puppet who lives in my apartment and writes taboo erotica for me to publish.

Two years ago, Lexi wrote 6 brand new, never-before-published stories about stepdaddies and stepdaughters doing the nasty. Usually I publish Lexi's stories individually, but since I had 6 in my possession that had not yet been published wide, I figured I'd bundle them together and introduce them to Kindle Unlimited for 90 days.

I'm not sure why I made the decision to put New Taboo Erotica in Kindle Unlimited. I almost never put anything in KU, seeing as I have a monstrous fear of commitment--so much so that being exclusive to one retailer even for 90 days makes me jittery.

But I made the decision, and, boy, was I glad!

As an author, as a business, as an author-business, I generally rely on a long tail of sales to earn my income. We're talking mediocre-to-poor sales spread out over years, even decades. That's how I operate. I view every book I write as a long-term investment.  I don't expect it to earn its keep within a week of being published, or even within the initial 90 days. If I had a baby (highly unlikely), I wouldn't expect it to walk and talk at 3 months. I view my books in the same way.  At 90 days, they're still infants.

That's how I operate. I don't have monumental expectations of anything I publish.

So when New Taboo Erotica brought home the bacon, I was blown away.  Truly.  I don't think any other book I've written has paid my rent in the first month of its existence. I know there are a lot of authors who rely on new release income spikes, but I'm not one of them.

New Taboo Erotica felt like a boon, and the results came as a big surprise.

Still, by the end of that 90 day exclusivity period, pagereads had trickled off, so I took the book out of KU and sent it out into the wilds of the big wide world.

The next year, I decided I would do it all over again.

I didn't see any reason why lightning wouldn't strike twice.

Except that Amazon's algorithms seem to change on almost a weekly basis, and you can never expect the same thing to work from month to month, much less year to year...

At any rate, I instructed Lexi to write 6 more brand new taboo erotica stories.  I bundled them together, called them New Taboo Smut, and published them into KU last winter.

It was a total flop.

I'd tried to replicate my initial success using the same steps, the same template, the same theme, the same author... and the result was utter and dismal failure.

What a let-down.

So why on earth would I try it again this year?

Well, I didn't actually plan this.  I'll start by saying that.

November was National Novel Writing Month. I planned to... you know... work on a novel. But then my grandmother died, and I was still reeling from the tragic death of my cousin last summer, and grief sent me spiraling.

Most unexpectedly, it was Lexi who saved me.  She took over, planting herself at my computer and spewing out story after nasty, taboo story.  She was uncontrollable! She'd finish one story and immediately start on the next.  She'd have two on the go simultaneously.  It was wild.

What we ended up with were 6 brand new taboo erotica stories. And these ones were themed: sex-with-an-ex. How can a stepfather and stepdaughter also be exes?  Well, you'll obviously have to read these six stories to find out.

With these 6 previously unpublished stories at my disposal, and at the same time of year I'd published New Taboo Erotica and New Taboo Smut, it seemed only natural to continue my KU experiment.  Well, it wasn't an experiment the first two times, but it is now.  As much as I distrust and dislike KU, curiosity got the best of me.  I NEED to find out what will happen in 2019, on my third attempt to publish a bundle of 6 new taboo erotica stories by Lexi Wood.

The book is called Taboo Sex with an Ex.  Will it be a huge success?  I doubt it.  Will it be a dismal failure?  Probably!  Don't you love my optimism?  Hey, I'm a realist.  Everything seems to be tanking these days.

But I'm giving Taboo Sex with an Ex the opportunity to succeed in its initial 90 days.  Lexi's stories are scorching, they really are.  She writes dirty stuff.

If you're into dirty stuff--especially dirty stuff with a daddy fetish and a focus on the tension that exists between ex-lovers--you're going to want to read this collection. And I don't just say that because I want your sweet, sweet KU pagereads... although that's definitely part of it. These stories deserve to be read. They're trash in the best sense of the word.  They're filthy, forbidden garbage stories that will get you off just like they got me through a period of intense grief.

They're just that good.

Am I skewing the results of my KU experiment by asking you to read Taboo Sex with an Ex? Maybe. But it doesn't matter. This isn't real science. It's just me and Lexi, earning a living with our sex writings.

Read it Taboo Sex with an Ex today:

Taboo Sex with an Ex
6 Explicit Erotica Stories
By Lexi Wood

These girls love taboo sex so much they just keep coming back for more… even though they know they shouldn’t… even though they said they wouldn’t! In this mouth-watering collection of sinful smut, six young women return to strictly forbidden men to fill their needs as only the man of the house can. They shouldn’t have done it in the first time. They shouldn’t come back for seconds. But here they are, pretty and purring and ready for more!

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MLW8Z3F?tag=dondes-20
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MLW8Z3F
CAN: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07MLW8Z3F
AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MLW8Z3F

Preorder In Shadow Today!

Last November I wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel-Writing Month). I wanted to write something commercially-viable, something that would hit the market running and earn me enough money to buy fancy cheeses and maybe even a house.

Well, you've known me long enough to realize my plans to write anything with more than niche appeal tend to fall flat.

I set out to write a stepbrother romance because those were really popular at the time. What I ended up with was an allegory of colonialism.

Technically I guess it is still a stepbrother romance... but it takes a bit of a circuitous route to get to a happy-ever-after. It's really more of a psycho-sexual thriller. Even the eroticism isn't as as blatant as it is in most of my books. Or maybe it's MORE blatant because it's more understated, if that makes any sense. I don't think the words "pussy" or "cock" appear at all in this novel. I found a way to communicate powerful images without using vulgar language. Not that I'm opposed to vulgar language! I mean... this is ME we're talking about, author of Nanny State and Adam and Sheree's Family Vacation. But I do realize there are some books you're willing to read on the bus and some books you're only going to read in bed.

You can read In Shadow anywhere.

And you can preorder it now from many vendors--ebook only at this point, but I'll let you know when the paperback is available.

In Shadow launches November 1st, 2016. Preorder now so it pops up on your device as soon as it's available.

If you follow the https://books2read.com/links/ubl/3kZrvO/ link, it'll show you all the sites where you can preorder.

Here's that list for your convenience:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1141673003
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/ebook/in-shadow-a-novel
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-shadow-giselle-renarde/1124327243

In invite you to subscribe to my mailing list too, so you can stay up to date with my literary comings and goings: http://eepurl.com/R4b11

Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher

I thought I was a Femme Fatale.

I did.

I thought that for years.  I thought I was this sexy little number who wouldn't rest until she'd seduced an unwilling high school teacher, by hook or by crook.

And then I found my diary from that time of life.

What a rude awakening.

I can't believe how innocent I was, considering I was 18/19 years old when I wrote those words. For years, I thought I'd entered that "relationship" as an adult. Any time anyone suggested a man in a position of power was taking advantage of me, it made me extremely angry. Now I realize the suggestion made me so irritable because it touched a nerve, hit the nail on the head, that sort of thing.

It's impossible to put myself in 19-year-old ME's shoes. The closest I can come is to read the words I wrote at that age. And those words are pretty damning.

I don't like to think of myself as someone who was taken advantage of, particularly when I continue to enjoy writing erotic material involving older men and younger women. It's pretty fucked up.

I'm pretty fucked up.

But I don't think THIS relationship made me that way. I think it was merely a symptom.

Having said all that, Like It's 1999: Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher is now being posted at http://likeits1999diary.blogspot.com for your reading pleasure. And my perpetual humiliation, probably.

Because Like It's 1999 is my actual diary from when I was 18/19.

It's written in short journal entries (and dreams, because my diary doubled as a dream journal) so it'll be posted that way. Each and every day, you'll be able to read a new entry. There are enough posts to take us to mid-March, so this'll be quite a journey.

Discover why my nickname in high school was Flakie. I always thought it was because I ate these mofos every day:

Passion Flakie: the breakfast of champions

...but after reading my teenaged journal, I'm not so sure.

http://likeits1999diary.blogspot.com



Love you,
Giselle

p.s. you can read the introduction to Like It's 1999 right here: http://likeits1999diary.blogspot.ca/p/read-introduction.html

Give Me the Music

This one's for @amhartnett.  We've been tweeting back and forth about Rufus Wainwright a lot lately, and when I was searching for another post to show her, I came across THIS one.  I wrote it for Oh Get A Grip, where I blog every other Thursday, but if you're a die-hard Donuts and Desires reader and you will read NO OTHER BLOG but this one, you probably haven't seen it.

So here it is:

Give Me the Music

Have you noticed how pervasive "rockstar romance" erotic novels have become lately?  I'll admit, my finger's not exactly on the pulse of modern romance trends (much as it ought to be, since I operate at least somewhat in that genre), so if I've noticed it, it must be a thing.  Books, stories, 30-novel box sets, all about girls and guys lusting after rockstars.

And this is probably a brilliant trend to hop onboard--because if there's one kind of hero that never gets old, it's a rockstar hero.

I'm going to get way too personal here, because I know how much you love it when I tell you all my sexrets. (that was supposed to be "secrets" but I can't bring myself to erase a Freudian typo)

Right.  So, you've probably heard me mention that, at this stage of my life, my primary attraction is to women.  If you want to know something quirky and odd about me, here's a random fact: the only guys I've found myself attracted to in the past few years (aside from Professor Snape, but he's fictional anyway) are musicians.

Super-SUPER-gay musicians.

Rufus Wainwright.  OMG.  My heart is beating faster just looking at that name.

This is nothing new, come to think of it.  When I was a preteen, I recorded my father's Elton John's Greatest Hits record onto a cassette tape and played it every night as I fell asleep, fantasizing about dancing endless tangos with him.  Someone was wearing a flashy red gown, and I don't think it was me.

Earlier this year (or maybe it was last year), Ryan Field posted a call for submissions.  He was putting together an anthology called The Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance.  It happens that I don't read gay romance (or any romance, for that matter), but his concept of having female authors insert themselves into gay sex scenes hooked me, totally.  I had to write something for him.  And I did.

And it was about a gay musician. Obviously.

My story featured a fictionalized version of a Canadian indie artist called Owen Pallett. You may remember him from when he performed as Final Fantasy. Or maybe you don't know him at all.  Here he is:



I wrote a story called "Baby Got Bach" for Ryan Field's anthology--a what-if scenario based on... oh boy, this is embarrassing... 

See, last year Owen Pallett's first violin concerto was premiered with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.  He didn't perform the piece himself, but he was there.  He hosted the afterparty.  Yeah, so after the show I found myself in the same room as him.

He was standing right there.  Right-the-fuck there. And do you think I could work up the courage to say, "Hey, I love your music."

Nope.

I stood in the corner and stared at him like a huge creepy perv.  And then I left.

(I could tell you a strikingly similar story about not talking to Peter Oundjian at the Toronto Reference Library, but we'll save that for another day, methinks...)

When I got down to writing "Baby Got Bach," I kind of hit a wall of writer's block. I just couldn't envision myself engaging in any kind of activity with this Owen Pallette-esque character of mine.  If I got my hands on one of the gay musicians I'm constantly perving over, what would I even do with him?

Here's the big question: do I want Rufus Wainwright's penis in my vagina?

Umm... actually, no.  I don't want that at all.  And yes, I realize there are many other ways to have sex, but when it comes right down to it, I don't want to do any of those things with these people.  I could perv over Rufus Wainwright concert clips on YouTube ALL. NIGHT. LONG. but I don't want to fuck him.  I'm almost disappointed in myself, admitting that, but I just can't picture it.

Maybe it's not the musicians.  Maybe I want to fuck the music.

The music gives me this giddy, blissful feeling that's... well, a lot like love.  Like a frenzy of misdirected lust and joy and cosmic orgasm.  It's hard to explain, because it feels like infatuation.  There's a longing and a pull, a desire, and it's strong.  It's damn strong.  I'm not even sure what you'd call it.

Romance readers can keep their rockstar heroes... as long as they give me the music.


Edit: I should have mentioned Owen Pallett's Heartland is one of my favourite albums of all time. I highly HIGHLY recommend it. The song in the clip above (Lewis Takes Off His Shirt) appears on this album, as do many other Lewis-related songs.

...but the weird part was...

Random middle-of-the-night post, here. My girlfriend had this dream about us. And when I say US, that includes YOU:

I had a weird dream ... well not really weird but different for me .. usually dont dream about sex

.. it was one of those no lead-up no end dreams .. just the action in the middle ..

I finally got my entire hand inside you .. all the way past the wrist .... you were totally naked flat on a table with a velvet table cloth and you kept trying to pull your shoulders up so you could get a view of what I was doing .. but the angle was wrong and you kept wincing with a touch of hurt but smiling to encouraging me to keep going

... but the weird part was ....

.. that you didnt seem to notice (or if you did you didnt care) that there were people around watching sort of like bleacher style and they were making comments and encouragements 

.. weird huh ?

Take the Heat (Take it! It's yours!)

I thought I'd mentioned this book before, but I can't find the post and, anyway, I've got some new news about it.

The anthology is Take the Heat: A Criminal Romance Anthology and the news is that it's now available for pre-order at Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MT7UD04

Can't beat that price, amirite?

My story is dark as fuck. I haven't read the others, but I'm guessing "dark" is a pretty consistent theme.

The ultimate bad boys, criminals capture our attention and awaken our darkest desires. Celebrate the illicit in this romantic suspense anthology, where handcuffs are used for more than play. These stories are shocking, sexy, and thought-provoking.

In New York Times Bestseller Skye Warren’s Magnolia Hotel, meet the heroine who pays her brother’s debt to a loan shark—who happens to be her childhood crush. Find out if the jury made the right decision in Acquitted by award-winning author Giselle Renarde. Explore a dark and sensual psychology with New York Times Bestseller Pam Godwin in Unlawful Seduction.

New York Times Bestseller Skye Warren – Magnolia Hotel
Cynthia Rayne – Captivated
New York Times Bestseller Pam Godwin – Unlawful Seduction
Sheri Savill – Slipknot
New York Times Bestseller Shoshanna Evers – This Might Hurt A Bit
Candy Quinn – The Bombshell
Tamsin Flowers – Playing with Fire
Elizabeth Coldwell – Disposing of Donnie
Audrey Lusk – Surprise Witness
Trent Evans – Last Day
Giselle Renarde – Acquitted

Ride the edge of desire and see if you can TAKE THE HEAT…

Pre-order now: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MT7UD04

Why I Want to Write a Book About Depression (also, I need your help!)

A few months ago, I was sitting in my grandmother’s living room with my sister Leslie, my mother and, of course, Grandma herself.  That day, my grandmother told Leslie and me a family secret that had been buried so deep we’d never heard it before.  We’d never even heard whispers about it.

The family secret involved family violence and mental illness.  It involved my mother’s siblings being removed from their parents’ custody, divided up, and temporarily placed in orphanages, institutions, and a predecessor of the current foster care system.

My mother had never told us she’d been in foster care as a child.  If my grandmother hadn’t brought it up that day, I’m sure Leslie and I would never have found out.  As far as my mother was concerned, it was a memory she’d rather forget.  As she put it, “What happened in the past has no bearing on the present.”  She wanted her shame to remain a secret, even from her own children.  Mom was not happy with Grandma for telling us.

“We’ve gone too long not talking about these things,” my grandmother said.  “It’s been almost sixty years of pretending these things never happened.”

And then she brought me into the conversation, saying, “Giselle had the right idea when she saw a therapist in university.  She needed to talk to someone, so she did.  That’s the healthy approach.”

My mother was livid.  She shouted, “Don’t you ever mention Giselle’s therapy again!”

I looked around the room.  There were only the four of us, and we all knew I’d been severely depressed as a young adult.  I asked my mother, “Why don’t you want her talking about my therapy?  It’s not a secret.  It’s not something I’m ashamed of.”

My mother snapped, “Well, you should be!”

The room went silent—that heavy sort of silence that sits on your chest, making it hard to breathe.

“Why should she be ashamed?” my grandmother asked.  “She needed help and she got help.  That’s admirable, if you ask me.”

“No, it’s not,” my mother said.  “When you go around saying you’re depressed, you’re in therapy, who’s everybody going to blame?  The mother!  Everyone will think it’s my fault.”

“Who is everyone?” my sister asked, after keeping quiet for a long time.  “There are only four of us in the room and we all know.”

My mother said, “I don’t want to talk about this.” 

And that pretty much shut down the conversation.

Though I don’t think it’s a healthy attitude, I can understand my mother’s fearful defensiveness.  If anything, it made me sad for her. Maybe she’ll never be able to stretch her emotional boundaries wide enough to discuss her past.  But to shut me down so adamantly, and to insist that I muzzle my experience with depression?  It was jarring, to say the least.

That’s why I’ve decided to write a book about living with depression.  Not to spite my mother, though I kind of see how it might come across that way.  No, she’s welcome to feel ashamed on my behalf, if she so chooses.  Writing this book is important to me because I don’t want other people to feel ashamed of their depression.  Being depressed is bad enough without being shamed for it!

My depression peaked when I was in my late teens and early twenties, but it never went away.  I still live with depression.  Though I’m no longer seeking therapy to cope with day-to-day life, I find that talking to other people helps tremendously.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who’s been chastised by a loved one for admitting I’m depressed.  Fortunately, I have a partner who understands depression intimately, because she’s experienced those lows too.  I can’t overstate how much it helps to have someone in my life who gets it because she’s been there.

That’s what makes this book so important to me.  I’m not a psychologist (I failed out of the psychology program at the University of Toronto—I was too depressed for success!), but I am a writer, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from spending time around other writers, it’s that a lot of us are depressed.

We battle depression. We live with depression.  We cope with depression.  We all have our own takes on how it interacts with our lives, and how we interact with it, but with fifteen years of depression under my belt, I’ve learned that sharing and communication makes a huge difference.

But I can’t do this on my own.  I need feedback from other writers—other writers who are now or who have in the past been depressed.  If you’ve got experience with depression, I need your opinions.  I’ve written out some questions and included them in this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8SQ7RJC

You can fill it out anonymously, or leave me your author name and bio for attribution. If you fill in your email address, I’ll be only too pleased to send you a copy of the book when it’s written—though, realistically, this book’s going to take a while to compile and compose. I can’t write this book without your input, so I express my humblest gratitude in advance.  Thank you for your time and opinions!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8SQ7RJC

(And if you think of any other questions you'd like answered in this book, please put them in the comments and I'll do up another survey. SurveyMonkey only lets me ask 10 questions at a time because I'm cheap and I only have a "basic" account. Basic is code for free. LOL)

Thanks again,

Giselle

Bestseller in Adult Children of Alcoholics: My Diary, LIKE IT'S 1999

Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher

Hard to believe, but as I write this blog post, my diary "LIKE IT'S 1999: Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher" is ranked #2 in Kindle > Recovery > Adult Children of Alcoholics at Amazon.

Never thought I'd see the day one of my books became a self-help bestseller. I kinda feel like Brian in that episode of Family Guy--you know the one--where he writes some bullshit piece of crap and then has to shovel his own hype.

I won't be hype-y about LIKE IT'S 1999. Primarily because it's not a self-help book.

OR IS IT?

It isn't.  It's a diary.  It's my diary from 1999, when I was reading all the other books in the Adult Children of Alcoholics category (well, not those books in particular, but books like them) and struggling, alone, to heal my poor damaged inner child.

If you want a textbook Adult Child of an Alcoholic, you're lookin' at me.  In that sense, my diary can easily be read as a case study. Me at 18, in love with a 50-year old man. Me at 18, in love with a MARRIED 50-year-old man.  Who happens to be my teacher.  Let's ask the professionals to weigh in on my life...

If you're an adult child of an alcoholic and you see my book on that bestsellers list and ask, "Hmm... should I buy that?" my answer is yes.  Yes, you should.  When I was a younger person, particularly when I was a child and teen, I would have given anything to know that there was someone out there who shared similar experiences.  I was a walking, talking ball of shame.  For so much of my childhood, I knew I had a secret, but I had no idea other people had that secret, too.

That's why I think you should buy my diary--to share my experience. Or to analyze and judge me.  The choice is yours.

But if you're buying my book because you're an adult child of an alcoholic and you need help, I would advise you to also select at least one of the other books in that category--like, an ACTUAL self-help book--and buy it as well.  Pick one that appeals to you in tone and in scope. I truly hope you'll find peace with some of the same issues I know all too well.

I've selected a few books from Amazon's Adult Children of Alcoholics category to showcase here. I haven't read any of them, so I can't tell you which are useful for whom (although I hope they're all helpful for everyone!): 

After the Tears: Helping Adult Children of Alcoholics Heal Their Childhood Trauma

Jane Middelton-Moz (Author), Lorie Dwinell (Author)

The trauma and grief of growing up in an alcoholic or addicted family create a lifetime of baggage. If you grew up in an addicted family, the dysfunction that permeated every aspect of your childhood may have seemed 'normal,' and you may not even realize the level of affect alcohol still has on your adult life—whether or not you drink.

 If you are one of the millions of Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOAs), the cost of your childhood pain can be unbearable. You may have learned how to 'survive,' but are you 'living' your life? Do you fear normal conflict? Do you blame yourself when something goes wrong—even when it isn't your fault? Are you a chaos junkie? Or do you just fear relationships because they are too difficult or too painful?

 Having devoted much of their careers to working with ACOAs, therapists Jane Middelton-Moz and Lorie Dwinell now take a deeper look into the origin and cost of childhood pain, as well as the grief resolution process that is integral to recovery. This revised and expanded edition of their groundbreaking 1986 hit After the Tears discusses the latest research and offers insights on living a good life despite a dysfunctional childhood by tackling issues such as intimacy, sibling relationships, codependency, breaking the alcoholic pattern, building a relationship with the inner child, forgiveness, and opening a window to spirituality.

http://www.amazon.com/After-Tears-Children-Alcoholics-Childhood-ebook/dp/B004GUSDQS/ref=zg_bs_156549011_12


The Complete ACOA Sourcebook: Adult Children of Alcoholics at Home, at Work and in Love
Janet Woititz (Author), Robert Ackerman (Foreword)

When they were first released in the 1980s, Janet Woititz's groundbreaking works, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Struggle for Intimacy and The Self-Sabotage Syndrome, provided a new message of hope to adult children who had grown up in the shadow of alcoholic parents. Their message today is as profound and timeless as it was two decades ago.

Now, in this complete collection, readers will learn again the insight and healing power of Janet Wotitiz's words. The Complete ACoA Sourcebook is a compilation of three of Dr. Woititz's classic books, addressing head-on the symptoms of The Adult Children of Alcoholics syndrome and providing strategies for living a normal life as an adult. Readers will find help for themselves: at home, in intimate relationships and on the job. They will discover the reasons for the way they think, believe and feel about themselves; ACoAs often feel isolated, have difficulty in relationships, in the workplace and in feeling good about themselves.

Readers who are familiar with Woititz's work will find wisdom once again in this classic collection. Those new to ACoA will gain fresh insight into their behavior patterns and find an avenue for self-love and healing. Noted ACoA expert Dr. Robert Ackerman, author of the best-selling Perfect Daughters and Silent Sons, provides a foreword and explains why Janet Woititz's message will continue to help millions of readers for generations to come.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-ACOA-Sourcebook-Alcoholics-ebook/dp/B004FN1RLY/ref=zg_bs_156549011_10


The ACOA Trauma Syndrome
Tian Dayton (author)

Growing up in a home where there is addiction or relationship trauma puts a child at great risk for long-term, post-traumatic stress effects that adversely compromise adult relationships. Bestselling author, psychologist, and psychodramatist Tian Dayton examines this trauma through an exploration of the way the brain and body process frightening or painful emotions and experiences in childhood, and she shows how these traumas can become catalysts for unhealthy, self-medicating behaviors including drug and alcohol abuse, food issues, and sex, gambling, and shopping addictions.

Through Dr. Dayton's insightful analysis and thoughtful examination, Adult Children of Alcoholics will learn how and why the pain they experienced in childhood plays out in their adult partnering and parenting, and they will learn how to restore health and happiness through their resilience.

http://www.amazon.com/ACOA-Trauma-Syndrome-Tian-Ph-D-ebook/dp/B008TPUJSG/ref=zg_bs_156549011_20

And, of course, buy my book too! 

It's on sale right now, but a price this low can't last.

Get your copy today: 

http://www.amazon.com/LIKE-ITS-1999-Teenager-Teacher-ebook/dp/B00IZOQLL0

LIKE IT’S 1999: Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher

If you're an author, you know the anxiety and exhilaration that go along with a release day.  Well, what if your book wasn't fiction?  What if you were exposing yourself in a way you'd never done before... by publishing your teenaged diary?

Well, if you've visited Donuts and Desires much over the past month, you're probably aware that today's new release, LIKE IT’S 1999: Diary of a Teenager in Love with a Teacher is just that: my actual diary from when I was 18 years old and, as the title suggests, in love with a teacher.

Many of you have told me how excited you are to read my journal, because you're all a bunch of emotional voyeurs, but, hey, have at it!  That's what it's there for. Be warned, though, if you're a fan of my erotic fiction: this is NOT that. It's not a sex diary. In fact, there is no explicit content... certainly not in an "erotica" sense.

I've changed the names of every player (my New Year's resolution was to name all my characters after Toronto subway stations, but I used up pretty much every one on this book), so don't go lynch-mobbing some guy named Lawrence West.  That's a subway station, not a person.  In fact, it was Sweet who convinced me to name the teacher "character" Lawrence. The married man in my Audrey and Lawrence series was also based on him. I thought I'd be be original and call him Wilson, but then you'd just be picturing a volleyball the whole time, so I guess it's just as well.

Okay, enough talk, Giselle.  Get to the good stuff.

Here's the book description:

True confessions of a real-life high school student on the cusp of a new millennium.

On the eve of the year 2000, high school student Giselle struggles with spirituality, ambiguous friendships, a family dealing with the aftermath of substance abuse, and deepening feelings of attraction toward her English teacher, a married man more than twice her age. Over the course of one school year, she shifts from seeing Lawrence as a father figure to falling obsessively in love. Is Giselle making a total fool of herself, or will her teacher return her affection? Having an affair with a student would easily cost Lawrence his career, his wife, and his kids, not to mention his sanity. Will a by-the-books teacher sacrifice everything to indulge Giselle’s teenage crush?

LIKE IT’S 1999 is the actual, unabridged, honest-to-god diary of a teenager in love with her teacher.

I may be a little biased, but I really think you should buy a copy. I recommend the paperback, but the e-book is a really reasonable price, so the choice is yours.  Plenty of places to find both:

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/like-its-1999-giselle-renarde/1118723655

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/409509

OmniLit: https://www.omnilit.com/product-likeit039s1999-1449694-262.html

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IZOQLL0

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IZOQLL0

Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00IZOQLL0

Amazon PRINT: http://www.amazon.com/LIKE-ITS-1999-Teenager-Teacher/dp/1496039777/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394776364&sr=1-1&keywords=like+it%27s+1999

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/like-it-s-1999-diary-of-a-teenager-in-love-with-a-teacher

Coffee Time Romance: http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookStore/pubs_product_book_info/indie-authors-giselle-renarde-c-152_193/like-it-s-1999-p-11955

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=4GvzAgAAQBAJ

CreateSpace: https://www.createspace.com/4684686