Archive for August, 2011

John Cleland it Ain’t.

Potentially, NSFWish.

OK, I am elbow deep in Dissertation write-ups right now, and it’s getting to the point where I’m losing the ability to write, or indeed sleep without feeling guilty about not writing, hence the lack of blog, which is the Wrong Kind Of Writing. But I had to share this one.

Today, I found myself profiling two books two books which were just… ouch.

I am not convinced that “It’s just like Twilight, but with more sex!” ought to have been a winning sales pitch. But “It’s just like Twilight with some quite badly written sex!” ought to have got you shot.

It’s hard to write sex well, I guess. At least, the Internet seems to think so, and if there’s one thing the Internet knows about, I’m pretty sure it’s how to write bad sex scenes. But seriously…

Is it just me that thinks the phrases “Fisting his hand in her hair” and “As pleasure broke her into a thousand iridescent pieces” do not sit comfortably together? I’m pretty sure they don’t even sit comfortably on opposite sides of the room whilst staring intently at the carpet, personally.

Even so, I was holding it together, only to be made to burst out laughing by the end-of-scene paragraph which ran, verbatim, “And the kisses… he sucked and licked and nipped at her neck, her mouth, throughout, making her feel unbearably cherished even as he sexed her brains out.”

Oh dear.

It was going so well! And then you suddenly ran out of ideas and just finished like that. That’s just embarrassing, that is.

I seem to recall there’s an award for awful sex scenes. I should look it up and send them copies. Well, not copies, because that would increase sales of the damn thing, but I could email them the ISBN, or something.

Huh.

I somehow missed the news that London Calling is being used to market the 2012 Olympics last week. But it’s mildly amusing.

Also, as long as we’re making total Regans of ourselves, can TfL please try to  reduce queues at underground stations by  marketing Oyster Cards to tourists by way of The Jam?