Busy are you? Where's the proof?!

Being a freelance writer is strange. Increasingly as I progress further into my current career I'm finding that I'm always super busy, with lots going on and I do a great amount of writing related work each day, but then at the end of the week when I think back over everything I've done, I ask myself: where is it all?

It's funny really, because I have more to do in a day than is possible to fit into the hours it offers (it's this excuse I'm using for why I've not updated my blog in over a month) and finally I'm getting to a point where I have enough writing work rolling in that I'm able to cover my London living costs. When someone asks me though, "what work have you got on at the moment?" it's sort of difficult to recall, or remember, or show them. It's not like I'm appearing in the printed papers, weeklies or monthlies, or popping up on an endless amount of mainstream blogs or online magazines to justify my increasingly steady income thanks to the world of journalism. Ironically, the largest web e-zine that I contribute to, I do so free of charge and it doesn't effect my earnings at all.

Unfortunately, the brutal reality of it is that a lot of what I do is sort of "background writing" as I like to call it. Copy and content writing that you don't put your name to as a rule. Sure you can use it in a portfolio to show as evidence of different styles of writing, but that's about it and don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it. So far it has meant I've had the opportunity to work with and write for some really exciting businesses.

It's either that, or I'm writing porn. As much as I'd like to, I'm not the kind of person that when one of my Mom's friends, or my accountant, or a stranger asks me, "where have you recently been published?" to whip out the latest issue of Escort or Adult Sport. Of course I'm proud of the work I do for those titles, but I appreciate it's a niche area of journalism that not everyone wants to see or read. Still, I maintain it's a better level of sex writing than appears in many of the women's glossy lifestyles, but that's an argument for another time.

Writing social media is another funny one too. There are now a couple of companies who's Twitter and Facebook I look after on a daily basis. It's still writing, it's still journalism, but I have to admit that when I was studying my journalism degree, I didn't think it would be such a profitable aspect of my writing career. How times have changed.

Of course, there's also a massive amount of reading and research to be done. If there's one lesson about freelance journalism I've come to learn over the last year, it's that pitching is bloody hard. Trying to get a commissioning editor to take the bait and give you the green light is tough. Rookie journo Rose was trying to knock pitches out every day with just a minimal amount of research to support my idea. Honestly, I look back over some of my early proposals and shake my head. There are some, of course, I maintain are good ideas and editors missed a trick...or oddly enough my ideas appeared in the not so distant future. Blokes Guide To Surviving Sex Shopping was one that coincidentally surfaced. Shame you can't copyright an idea, eh?

The lesson I've learnt though is the more you put in to start with, the more likely your idea will come out of the other end in the form of a printed/published feature and a pay cheque.

Anyway, I suppose I'm typing this to some how appease my conscience that I am, actually, doing enough. There is evidence of this here, here, oh and right over here too. Not to mention I am all over this. And so it continues. Where there are more shiny new PDF's I can add to my website, I shall make sure you're the first to know.

Rose -x-

Feet that could kill a fetish

I have never had a pedicure.

There. I've said it and this is not something I'm proud of now that summer seems to be in full swing and my feet are on display. Lots. Even daily I would say. It's now far too hot for socks.

Usually I'm not so fussed with such tedious beauty regimes as getting my feet scrubbed and toe nails polished, but when I looked down at my pinkies the other day I was horrified by what I saw. I can only apologise to any small children in South London that are naturally closer to the ground, thus nearer to my feet and forced to suffer the horror! Glancing downwards my eyes were greeted by scarred, blistered toes, cracked heals and hair!

Since when did my feet get so hairy?!

Ok, I wouldn't say that I'm hobbit level yet, but there are noticeable long strands of hair on my big toes. Upon examination of my boyfriend's feet I'd say I rival him and I'm yet to see any of my girlfriends with toe-hair as long as mine. (I bet it's not as glossy either...)

Is it acceptable to Immac toes?

Generally I wouldn't care about the state of my feet at all, but I've noticed that the condition of them has become increasingly worse over the last year. This could be down to the many 12 hour shifts I do in the sex shop, or that I've found it harder to give up my favourite pair of trainers and it's not exactly been the weather for flip-flops ("thongs" for my Aussie readers) or sandals until very, very recently.

Last week I dared to wear out a pair of, what I thought were comfortable, sandals. They have a back to them, so no one would be able to see the hideous cracking and dead skin on my heels. Skin that rather than really do anything about, I like to pick at a bit at a time for a good hour or so each night. Sorry. Anyway, I wore these sandals and they only added to my foot strife. They dug in and caused huge blisters on each of my little toes. One of them even bled. They remained open wounds for about three days and now I have matching large scabs on each foot.

At least my new foot design still makes them look like a pair.

I once went to a fetish club (yeah, you're gonna like this story) and a man put the whole of my foot in his mouth. I kid you not, he basically deep-throated it. It was slightly disconcerting, but rather impressive at the same time. I imagine it was nothing like having those little fish nibble at your heals, but I've never done the fish thing before, so I wouldn't know. (Weirder than a stranger sucking your feet or not?) He said that although I had "quite wide feet", he thought they were very lovely.

I tried not to be offended by his obvious distress at my slightly wider feet, because I know that feet with a bit more girth just isn't feminine. I know this because when shoe shopping there are very few nice women's styles tailored for wide fit femmes. Usually I try a pair of attractive new heals - or even trainers for that matter - and my little toes shamefully protrude through the side of the leather.

Two years on and I'm pretty sure that if the chap from the fet club saw my feet again, he wouldn't touch them with a barge pole. Width would be the last of his worries.

So, unless anyone has the spare cash to fly me to a sandy beach for a week - because that's how long it takes for natural sand to sort your feet out...ahem... - I'll be resigning myself to trying to sort the issue myself and whip these little piggy's into shape before the sun sets on summer. Tips welcome!

Finish This Sentence... (not this one though.)

Usually I can't stand people finishing my sentences, but on this occasion I'd really like YOUR help with completing this one:

"During sex I love it when he..."

The aim of the game is simple, finish the above sentence by posting below on my blog, tweeting me @RoseC_Leic, hit me up on my Facebook or email me rose_m_crompton@hotmail.com with your response. Last rule is that this is open to women only. Sorry guys, I'm not doing it to be sexist.

Those of you that know me well will probably have figured out by now that this is for a feature. Well done, gold star for you! :-) It is for a sex article to appear in a top shelf mag. Don't worry, real names can be changed, or it can be left anon if you prefer so if you want to join in, but are worried about where it's being printed, then don't. I'm not out to expose anyone! If you give me a good answer that I decide to use then we can work around the name thing, no worries.

Honest, serious answers only please. This is supposed to be fun, but also give an insight into what different women enjoy during sex.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Rose -x-

The Miserable Month of May

For the last two years May has been an awful month. In 2012 I learnt we were being "kicked out" of our house, right before the Olympics. Money was scarce, stress was high and there were few places that were not rat infested shit holes that I'd actually consider living in. This year May has been rubbish because money has been scarce, my bike got nicked, there's been family sadness and the weather has seriously sucked arse, bar two days.

In conclusion: May can fuck off with itself.

If May were a person, it would be one with a seriously twisted sense of humour.

It's for the above reasons that I've not blogged in a while. Those and when I have had spare time it's been filled with work and deadlines (which is a GOOD thing). A quick update of work as I think it stands is that you can see my interview with a sex toy reviewer in the current issue of Escort magazine; there's mind blowing motorbike facts in issue 16 of Adventure Bike Rider; I'm still doing the events for www.cityplanter.co.uk (despite what the latest byline reads) and am going social media mad with @Harmonystoreuk. Seriously, give us a follow.

Will be off to escape for a little while tomorrow and kiss the Miserable Month of May goodbye up in Edinburgh, where there will be much walking and jollity...and if the forecast stays right, not a lot of rain. Huzzah! After that, normal service will resume with witty blogs, a multitude of sex toy reviews to catch up on and more pitching fun that I can shake a stick at!

Until then, lets look forward to June and what will hopefully be a much more positive month.

An Idea. (You can have this one for free.)

Recently the boyfriend and I celebrated the anniversary of when our relationship began. Aww, sweet, I know. We went for dinner. It was lovely and romantic, but it's not dinner I want to talk about; it's presents.

You see, the chap and I have this genius and fun way of doing anniversary gifts that a) keeps the cost down, b) means you don't have to spend hours trawling the shops umming and ahhing about whether something is "right" or not c) it's a lot more fun than just getting them any old cliched gift. We've been doing it for three years, so it's been tried and tested to assure it works, and now I'd like to share it with you.

The game is this: first you both need to agree on a budget. Maybe you'd like to put this into perspective in relation to how long you've been together? For example, in our first year we only agreed to spend a fiver on each other. Well, we had only been together for a year and not that we were wanting to be cynical or anything, but if we had split up I wouldn't be so narked off at having only spent £5 on him.

I don't understand those couples that celebrate three or six month anniversaries and spend hundreds of pounds on each other in order to prove and/or declare their love. Next thing you know, two months later the relationship has fallen apart and people are demanding to have stuff back.

"Well, I spent a trillion pounds on the two and three-quarter week anniversary gift I got you and now I want it back!"

Slight exaggeration there, but you get the picture. Quite why a soon-to-be ex would want the gifts back I don't know. Spite? To regift? Anyway, agreeing a lower budget when you first start out takes all this crap away and then you can obviously increase it year on year.

Like I said, we started with no more than a fiver on each other. Three years down the line we're up to only £15 on gifts. Not only does this mean we're not spending a stupid amount of money on each other, but it means that the money we do earn/save can go towards a nicer, shared experience instead. Often we spend it on an exceptionally fancy dinner and a good bottle of wine in a restaurant we wouldn't usually be able to afford to go to. Much more practical.

The other rule with the money thing is that under no circumstances are you allowed to go over budget. You can go under budget, but if you go even a penny or two over then shame on you, you ruined the challenge. This leads me nicely onto the second part of the game...

Pick a shop/store/website/goods outlet that reflects your budget. There's no point saying you only have a fiver to spend and deciding it has to be something from Selfridges. That's chuffing stupid. After all, it is your anniversary, so you want to get something at least a little bit decent, not just any old tat.

For example, for our first year celebrations we picked Argos as our shop of choice. A fiver can go a long way there, so it seemed like a sensible outlet and there's lots to choose from. I got a frozen beer cooler jacket (I drink a lot of beer) and he got a bedside lamp (he needed a lamp). Granted, they're not the most romantic gifts, but that's sort of the point as well; it forces you to put a little bit more thought into what you think you're partner will appreciate, but takes away the bullshit of going over the top. It also makes for a good conversation point and can be stupidly funny.

Since then we've done £10 from Amazon and £15 from Camden Market - the main market by the station, not the whole town as a market. Next year we're doing £20 and it has to be something from a charity shop (any charity shop in London), which should be interesting as it will be so pot luck as to what's in there!

So, there you have it. A sure-fire way to add a fun, interesting and true element of surprise when it comes to buying anniversary gifts. No more tacky, 'romantic' From Me To You bear gifts around here.

Enjoy,
Rose -x-

If you choose to use/repost this idea, that's cool, but drop me a line to let me know how it goes or give a link to my blog and original post :-) -x-

My sex revolution...is on hold.

"There once was a little sausage called Baldrick..."

This is how my boyfriend suggested I started my blog today and I suppose that speaks volumes about where my head is at in terms of writing. Faced with a blank page I honestly couldn't think where to start or what to put down.

It's not that I'm suffering a bout of writers block. On the contrary, I was up last night until 1am furiously scribbling down amazing, revolutionary sex feature ideas and potential topics for my column. Turning my brain off and managing to fall asleep took real effort. Not even my favourite method of, er, a bit of quality "me time", was able to send me to the land of nod.

Anyway, this morning although I felt a bit bleary eyed, I was ready to go. I was ready to take on my next load of sex features and had plenty of new ones I was ready to pitch. Sex world, prepare yourself for a revolution and my fingers are itching to write it!

The problem though is that freelancing, pitching and getting commissioned takes time. A lot of time.

*Sigh*

Granted, this isn't news to me, I'm just feeling all enthusiastic and like I've got a lot to say, but no where to put it at the moment. Think this was mostly spurred on last week when I met a lot of interesting, sex industry related people. Writers, kinksters, swingers, mag editors. I'm just feeling "meh" today because I want EVERYTHING to happen now.

Guess I'm just having one of those days where creativity and patience refuse to go hand in hand.

Further [sex] Reading

It's funny how a series of events all come along at once, that are so perfectly linked. Following on from my last blog post, Sex Education, I've come across a couple of other articles and events that tie into it nicely and further highlight the importance of writing sex right.

The day after my original post I attended a Critical Sexology talk held at Queen Mary University, London. The theme of the lecture was Sex and Pedagogy. Unfortunately, I was only able to stay for the first two speakers as other deadlines and work commitments meant I couldn't go for the whole afternoon.

The first talk was titled, “More than Words? Erotica, Sex Education and Responsibility: How Adult Media Can Provide Adult Advice” Massively interesting; in brief it discussed how far do the materials adults use for sexual satisfaction (erotica, porn, magazines), and in some cases inspiration, need to include particular messages to promote greater sexual awareness and how can it be used positively to further adults sexual education. Although I haven't got access to the lecture, the chair of the event was tweeting, so you can get a fair idea here and I strongly encourage you to take a look and have a read.

The second talk was at the other end of the spectrum and looked at how sex education is received by young people. Again, all the tweet links are here so you can look into it. What struck me about this talk was a model sex educator Jen Hazel, was putting out there that in the UK we still teach sex ed on quite an archaic model working on the basis of what's considered "normal" and what's "other". For example, being heterosexual is "normal", therefore most sex ed for young people will be taught from this p.o.v. Other sexualities such as gay, bi, asexual may be touched on, but would fall under the "other" category.

What Hazel suggests is finding a common starting ground for sex, something that everyone will at some point experience and then branching out the education to fulfil the needs of the audience you're dealing with. She called it an 'Inclusive Pedagogy' - I think from what I remember - and means that you start with shared experiences and then work outwards to cover all angles. I'm doing a really bad job of explaining this so briefly, but I don't want this post to get bogged down with me regurgitating the whole lecture. Seriously, read the Tweets.

Ok, so this then links in with another blog article I came across and about how in the media we're still getting it so wrong and looking at furthering our sex education in a sensationalist manner, rather than a positive or practical one. Rewriting The Rules discusses how we're still framing important debates around sex and sexuality in a very narrow minded manner and asking the wrong questions.

Finally, if this has in any way tickled your fancy and you're starting to question whether the sex ed you're reading is good for you or not, or you're a writer in the media and concerned that you're not doing sex writing justice, there are a couple of upcoming events you may enjoy/benefit from.

The first is Eroticon 2013. This is all about 'writing sex right' and ideal for anyone from amateur sex bloggers to sex researchers and professional authors. Short notice, but it's taking place this weekend (March 2-3) in London.

The second is another, new, lecture evening on March 17th called 'Birds, Bees, Please' and has been organised by adult performer Johnny Anglais. I urge you to find it on FB by doing a quick search of the title as it's set to be a really interesting evening of sex positive talks from professionals across the sex industry.

Phew, right, I think that's it. Hope you find some of this useful. I certainly have and am only just realising how much of a questionable impact some of the material out there is having on the sexual progression of adults. Sex ed certainly DOES NOT end at high school.