Gabe Habash at Publishers Weekly tells us that “[h]alf of the top 20 bestselling books of 2012 in print were either Fifty Shades titles or Hunger Games titles, and only one book not written by E.L. James or Suzanne Collins…cracked the one-million-copies-sold mark for the year…”*
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| Fifty Shades of a Grey Cat photo by ColKorn 1982 via flickr |
Nerds, please join me in a deep, unsexy, all-too-normal sigh. Bondage and dystopia, dystopia and bondage. The people have spoken. It’s time to strap on the–uh…pen–and get to work.
Behold, the battle plan for 2013.
Step one: Get thyself to the nearest sex-toy-extravaganza warehouse and buy up all the paraphernalia you can find. You can’t expect to write about bondage without getting tied up. My husband won’t mind helping me out with this research–and no doubt you too can find someone willing. How bad could it be? Bring on the feathered handcuffs and cutesy leopard-print whips. Don’t forget the stilettos. And men, you’re not getting out of it–you have wear the eight-inch heels, too.
Then…you know…bond. Or whatever it is they do. Be masochistic–is that like whining? ‘Cause I’m good at that. And then be sadistic. That’s the nagging part. I think I could do this!
Remember, kama sutra is old school. You need a trapeze of some sort. Maybe a Dance Dance Revolution mat. (Music is better ambiance than a spinner in your face; and anyway, when I think of Twister, I feel my back ache.) You’ll want some lacy underthings, over which you will wear black leather with stain protection. (This has already gone too far.) No laughing allowed. Stop giggling. This is serious love/business/research.
I think you’re supposed to have a safe word that you shout out if you want to stop. Mine will be “Seriously?” I mean, seriously. I’m supposed to enjoy that?
Step one complete.
Step two: Become a prepper. You know. Doomsday. Apocalypse. The end of the world as we know it. You’ll have to move to the mountains of Tennessee and put in an underground bunker. But it’s probably tax deductible. Hoard seeds. And canned goods. Practice scenarios for when the moochers come for your gold and silver coins. Teach your children to be afraid…be very afraid. Booby trap everything. Watch marathons of Survivorman–possibly the only part of this I will be able to handle.
And now that I think of it…has anyone on Doomsday Preppers showed us that they can make water out of pee?
Don’t forget to plot out hikes to the lake and your boat, in case you have to get to the lake and your boat. Never mind that if a boat is important, it would have been stolen long before then. Just hike the fifty miles there and back–digging up the gallon jugs of water and plastic bags of granola you’ve pre-buried along the way–to…you know…be prepared.
And no, this is not just an excuse to tromp around in the woods and play with firearms. This is serious research. But…just in case…maybe toy guns are an option.
Step two complete.
These two activities should scar us sufficiently; thus we are now ready to join E.L. James and Suzanne Collins in famous-writer paradise. But, we won’t just write about sado-masochistic sexual relationships or dystopian futures. Heck no. We will be on the forefront of the new dystopian/bondage genre.
Our characters will be thrust into an horrific dystopian future where all sex is sado-masochistic bondage. Only our heroine, Hissatme Nevermore, and her lover, Chrissmackme Darkly can subvert the tyranny of President Ron Jeremy** and make their way to the paradise colony of Nerdland… without accidentally asphyxiating each other first.
It sounds simple enough, sure. But can we all pull it off? Take me for instance. I’m not fond of reading sex scenes…much less writing them. If someone doesn’t crawl out from under the bed mid-copulano and shoot someone, what’s the point? And I’m prone to making up magical worlds or putting my characters right here in the one we’ve got–it’s awful enough when you think about it.
Bottom line: I don’t want to create a dystopian future…and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to imagine sex that requires a trapeze. Not right now, anyway.
So, here we are again nerds. Right back at that same-old, lame-old, just-write-the-story-in-your-head advice. We may not be famous–our books might not make readers hyperventilate. But they excite us in their own way.
Still. A few packs of seeds and some fluffy handcuffs could come in handy one day.
*Originally published on 02/14/2013
**All our wishes for a full recovery go out to Mr. Jeremy.