Industrial (re-)action

What a bummer. Woke up this morning to the thought that today is one of Significant Other's rest days (SO works shifts) and rainy, mid-week days off often turn out to be play days. Spent some time thinking about recent naughtiness and misdemeanours that might need to be addressed...
And then I remembered that today here in the UK the public sector workers are on strike. Which means that the school is shut and the kids are home. Damn!
So here I am trying to get my books straight to send to the accountant. I'd rather be finishing up the edit on Project Kindle, my attempt at a spanko novel, but can't really do that with the offspring around.
So it's forms, figures and a calculator. It's probably for the best as I'm very close to the returns deadline and I don't want to get hit with the penalty surcharge (Note to editor: is there a story idea here? Lazy client, strict accountant...)

Update: It has been brought to my attention that the vengeful accountant story is already out there... It has been made flesh as part of the marvellous Pandora's new Dreams of Spanking project. Wow, how sexy is Kaelah's accent?? Lovely pussycat too.

In the method

Why is it that you can just take against some film actors, while others you really warm to? I've read a lot about 'A Dangerous Method' and I love the Freud/Jung thing, the costumes look fantastic and I can't get enough of Viggo Mortenson (good enough to eat).

And to that the fact that the script has been written by Christopher Hampton. How good much better can it be. I'd put 'Dangerous Liaisons' in my Top Six all-time costume dramas.
But can I go and see it? Reading Hermoine over at Hermoine's Heart on the subject reminds me that I have to decide one way or the other soon. It's Keira Knightley. I have a real problem with her. She always seems so limp lettuce-lifeless in whatever role she takes on. Loved 'Atonement', but KK didn't convince, while 'The Edge of Love' lost it every time she was on screen.
The critics don't sell it to me. For example, the guy in The Guardian says "what the spanking can't do, unfortunately, is knock some life into this heartfelt, well-acted but curiously underwhelming slab of Masterpiece Theatre".
But I'll probably swallow my pride and go and buy my ticket if only to sit in a crowded cinema watching a spanking scene. That's too good to pass up on.

Surf break

Up early today to face a day wading through a mountain of words. I can only do editing in big chunks, but today I fear I may have bitten off more than I can chew - 30,000 words by the end of the day...
I plan to be especially sharp on the use and abuse of the semi-colon today, thanks largely to a useful discussion about punctuation over at Remittance Girl. Already straightened one or two out since I started and it's only breakfast time.
'Breakfast' is probably stretching it as I've only had a coffee and a short recreational bit of web exploration. I've been trying to find out a bit more about the artist Jim Black, but haven't got very far. Apparently he was a Belgian whose real name was Luc Lafnet and who died early in World War Two. He lived in Paris and published his erotic art under pseudonyms - one of which was Jim Black.
The Jim Black drawings are wonderful. I love the energy of them - there's usually a lot of emotional intensity in there. The spanker is in a passion and is spanking in anger. Often every muscle is being tested by the effort of correction. At the same time the poor spankees (both female and male) are overcome by the moment.
Anyway, no more spanko surfing - the semi-colon calls.

Those were the days...

Or were they? It's interesting how long it takes for a decade to begin to go all hazy with nostalgia.  The 1990s are in sharp detail - we were there, weren't we, so we know. But the 1890s are all fuzzy and soft focus and just right for all sorts of imaginings.
At the moment I'd say that the 1950s were going through the process. They are certainly being re-invented and especially by spankos, who see the decade as a sort of domestic discipline nirvana. And why not?
The fashions turn up in shoots and there are any number of stories featuring no-nonsense dads, scarily strict mothers and 18-plus daughters (and sometimes sons) who accept corporal punishment when they do wrong.
And it sort of works for me as a child of the 1970s. Growing up in the 70s corporal punishment was part of our lives, but a rarity (where I lived anyway). But adults were more than happy to tell us about how we had it good and how the tough the rules - and punishments - were when they were kids.
As a spanko-in-the-making it gave me a thrill - it was scary and exciting all at the same time. I'd love to know your favourite decade for spanko fantasy - please vote in the poll over on the right of this page.

The End

No more new chapters, first draft complete. Just after mindnight I had the pleasure of typing 'The End' and the first draft of Project Spanko Novel was complete. At about 15 per cent over the target word count it is now going to need a lot of pruning, but it's a big step in the right direction. It has been fun and a treat to be writing something that is led until by you - no publisher or editor tugging at the reins.

Start the week

Early start to the day and it's grey, cold and gloomy outside. Plus fog and heavy rain. Significant Other has an exam. I suggest we forget the exam and stay under the covers in bed for an hour or two. I have a very attractive mental image of how we could spend the time. A grumpy SO says I'm naughty and heads for the motorway - without pausing to address my naughtiness (sulk).

Travel section

First-class seating

Four episodes in and I'm loving the costume drama Pan Am. The hype was misleading - it is not the new Mad Men - but it's fun and the costumes are unbelieable (as is the CIA sub-plot). Those tight, blue pencil skirts are worth watching in themselves.  Then there's also the Spanking Startles.
I've only seen three of the four episodes and have notched up two so far. That's a little under a Spanking Startle an epidsode. Maybe in time we'll get an actual spanking... Christina Ricci or Margot Robbie? Tough choice.