Massages, Measures and erotic thoughts ...

Some great news this morning as my haiku describing the whole of Shakespeare in just three lines (yes! It can be done ...) can be found at the Ink, Sweat and Tears webzine today - enjoy!

Talking of poems, here's this morning's meditation:

Meditation 101

The Valley of Acacia
is hot with intermingled

breath, the sleek dolphin
shape of limb

on limb, the wooded
warmth of a strange god’s

calling. In the tent
of desire, secretly,

death’s gleaming spear
pierces flesh and bone,

drives sweet disease
down into earth again.

And, interestingly, the lovely people at Strictly Writing have asked me to draft an article on my approach to erotic writing for possible publication in May. Lordy, it's a tough job but someone has to do it, eh ... (thank you, Samantha!). The big (if I may use that word without chortling) difficulty is going to be restricting myself to the 500 word limit, I fear ... It's like being given chocolate, diamonds and instant access to Ioan Gruffudd all at the same time, yummy ... Quite honestly, I can't wait to get started.

Anyway, back to relative normality, I'm now in the 104,000 word zone with Hallsfoot's Battle and still working on those end scenes. I wonder now if this novel is going to be longer than I anticipate, as I feel there's a lot to go back on and add clues about. And a fair amount of things to explain in these final chapters too. Still, better off that way than thinking I've written a whole load of tosh about nothing. In that case, surely it would be Lord of the Rings (hush my mouth) ...

This afternoon, I've been having my regular relax zone with a Clarins facial and massage. Hilary thought my back was very tense today - perhaps it's the aftermath of last week's aches and pains? I've been doing all right this week, I thought. Anyway, the session was lovely and I am now a totally new woman. Hmm, either that or I'll have one delivered.

Tonight, and returning to the subject of Shakespeare once more, Lord H and I are preparing ourselves for a darkly erotic theatrical experience (wait for the end of the sentence, people, please!...) as we're off to Guildford to see Measure for Measure which is described with typical Surrey flair as "a story of passion and power, lust and restraint, sin and virtue and finally forgiveness and mercy". Sounds like a normal day to me, my dears. Anyway, it's a great play and sadly underperformed so good to see it given an airing here.

Today's nice things:

1. A published haiku
2. Poetry
3. Thinking about erotic writing
4. Hallsfoot's Battle
5. Clarins
6. Dark and passionate theatre, hurrah.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - taking a walk on the wild side tonight ...