Friday 2 October 2009

Toyntanen Goes Mobile / Startled by (A) Marvel

Yet again I have been guilty of neglect where this blog is concerned (and lust about everywhere else in my life too). I tend to use everything and anything as an excuse to go down the pub and my hand injury and daughter's illness have been no exception to the rule! In my defense, though, I must say that I also suffer quite badly with depression and it doesn't take much to set off an episode and again, another drinking spree soon follows. Today however I had resolved to stop... but it is such a lovely sunny day here in autumnal London I fear a visit to a pub garden or two will have to be scheduled into my itinerary.

But fear not, gentle reader, for I have my enthusiasm for writing back and some great ideas and very soon you will find me updating the blog even more regularly than I did at its peak. You see I am going to be purchasing, very soon, a light weight computer, one of those ones that doesn't have a hard drive, that I can carry about with me - possibly today because I expect to be popping down to John Lewis in the West End (Oxford Street) a bit later on.




I expect the thing to come with a built in camera (that's the plan, but if it doesn't I can always carry my trusty digital) and so I will also start updating with a picture of my surroundings each time and from anywhere I can get a wireless broadband connection. I prefer to work away from the desk as much as possible - in pubs, parks, cafes etc - and so you can expect glimpses of all sorts of bits of London (and elsewhere) - famous landmarks, the not so well known, the infamous and the downright scummy underbelly (like my local pub - though it was probably fine until I moved in).


Now, do you remember that comic-book cover I posted a while back? Well look about you, true believer, and you will see!

Punitive hair cutting, gagging, chained bondage - it has it all - shame about the lack of focus when it comes to the corporal punishment aspect, but you can't have everything... and I can't quite work out how the sexual servitude thing would work either, given the size differential.
As always, just click on any picture to see a larger version. I hope to venture into the gym for the first time since injuring my hand later today and I'll let you know how it went. Next up will probably be some more pages from that manual of female discipline that I have in my possession and that I told y'all about and that did so much to influence my writing - particularly in the direction of non-corporal punishment ironically. Unless I pick up my new portable computer today or over the weekend, that will probably have to wait until Monday. Meanwhile I have at last started work on the immediate follow-up to INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2. As I think I have said before (but I'm so drink-befuddled these days I can never be sure) it is not volume 3 but rather a sort of prequel / linking work that pulls together all the loose ends and avoids my having to work with flashbacks in volume 3 and in which we learn all about the way in which both Lavinia and Susan were manipulated into their situation, the domestic aspect of their discipline, in the case of Lavinia, the uniform she was placed in at home. We also learn how both came to be so dependent on the woman that had set herself up as their governess, lost her self confidence and sense of defiance, became a virtual prisoner in the woman's home - through the gradual development of agoraphobia and a debilitating stammer - and was initially introduced to, and learned to accept, corporal punishment at that woman's hands.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would love it if your future writing included heavy and severe doses of non-corporal punishment, such as writing thousands of lines, copying page after page from the dictionary or telephone book, standing in the corner for many hours contmplating the interesection of two walls, etc.

Anonymous said...

Pulling together all the loose ends will be just fine, as I hate flashbacks, either in novels or in films! I prefer the more satisfying chronological sequence.