so anyway

so anyway. I have been absent for some time. Struggling with the new book, wondering how the Vagina project can become the Sister project, generally feeling insecure about my work - no surprises there. But I am excited about talking with Kate Holden ('In My Skin' and 'The Romantic') at Avid Reader on Tuesday night. I can see so many parallels with our work and I am quite excited and a little nervous about meeting her properly. I said a passing hi at the Text Publishing party but now I will get to have a proper face to face beer with her followed by a very public chat about writing sexual memoirs. For some reason the idea of this has made me feel nostalgic for writing about sex. I have been struggling with the sister stuff. I have to admit it is much easier for me to write about sex than for me to write about sisters. I have such a complicated relationship to the idea of family. Somehow writing fiction seems more revealing than writing memoir. This meeting with Kate makes me want to get back to the easy stuff, the bodily joy of skin on skin.

I dreamed about a vagina the other night, not my own, someone elses. The dream was quite graphic, a pubis,shaved so the fine hair was cropped to a little line. there was a strong smell, but not unpleasant. The hair was light brown with a reddish tinge. There was a taste and texture in the dream and I woke up wet as I am rarely wet. I was itchy in my skin.

I am inundated, busy with work and the NYWF coming up next friday. It will be my birthday. It has been 2 years since I finished that first draft of Affection. I feel like I have been running ever since.

Tomorrow I will sit and talk about writing about sex with Kate Holden. On Tuesday I will sit and talk about writing about sex in public. Now I am in the mood to read sex, write sex, have some, although that is something out of my control. Maybe Furious Vaginas will take up where it left off. Keep my sister stuff for my weekend novel scrawling. Keep my sex stuff for the web. Who knows. I make no promises.