You know I’ve had a lot of physically challenging jobs in my life.  I”ve held many different jobs.   I’ve been a CNA, a housekeeper, a telemarketer, an insurance agent and most recently a fork lift operator.  And not one of these positions is what I call my hardest job.    My hardest job is being the mother of three active children.   This job comes with no user manual, no training, and no set rules of engagement.  The hardest part of my job is the disciplining of them.  What works with my son, doesn’t work with my daughters and vice a versa.   Some of it has to do with age.  My son is a ‘tween’.   His term, not mine.  He’s 12 and according to him, he’s not a child anymore but he’s not yet a teenager either.   With him I can take away his privileges like his XBOX and Gameboy, and it usually works.   With my daughters, taking away such privileges doesn’t work.   They are seven and five.   Time outs work fairly well with my five year old but my seven year not so well.   Sometimes a swat on the bottom is required.

Now, before someone jumps to conclusions here, I am not talking about beating my kids.   And there is a huge difference between beating a child and spanking them.  I’d never smack my kids with anything other than my bare hand.  And it’s always been on the bottom.   My dad use to have a saying that God gave us a kids a bottom and him hand and if we got out of hand they would meet.

I know it sounds old school and from a different time.  And it probably is, but just because it is, does it make it any better than the new ways of disciplining our kids?  What do you think?

I don’t know about other authors, but my life is hectic at the best of times. My writing is something that has to be fitted in around two jobs, three kids, assorted pets, not to mention other interests. Some days I truly wish I had multiple personalities and could therefore delegate some of the more boring tasks. Failing that, I wish my kids could be more [bleep] helpful!

Most of my work is written in hurried bursts during quiet interludes at the office, or whilst waiting for a pan of assorted items to cook for the evening meal. At the office, I have devised several methods for hiding the true nature of my writing. Any document I work on whilst there is always re-named as something innocuous. I often use acronyms of the true title so that any passing colleague is blissfully unaware that SMH.doc is in fact erotica, as opposed to an innocent letter.

One particular story was named html.doc for ages as I was supposed to be working my way through a HTML and CSS tutorial. Well I was – but I was also writing pages of steamy sex at the same time.

Working at home is less fraught. Since my laptop is password protected and strictly for my use only, I can work on anything I like without the risk of being caught. The only problem I have there is the constant distraction of domestic chaos.

Have you tried writing a sex scene while WW3 is raging in the adjacent room? No? Then try it sometime and see how far you get!

He slowly unbuttoned her blouse, revealing the curve of her breasts as she held her breath almost to the point of asphyxiation. When she felt the first touch of calloused fingers, Melissa moaned softly. Her traitorous body wanted him, even if every nerve in her body screamed that it was wrong to feel this way about her cousin. . .

“MUM! Issy won’t let me go on her computer. I hate her!”

“GO AWAY!”

Cue the sound of screaming before my bedroom door rudely bangs open. “Mum! Tell him! He’s annoying me!” my younger daughter cries petulantly as her brother throws things at her from the relative safety of the bathroom.

“Oh for [bleep] stop bickering!” I mutter crossly as I minimise my document window. Once the argument has been sorted out in the best tradition of parental diplomacy (both offspring sent to their respective rooms under the threat of extreme violence), I return to my story.

Ryan pushed her down on to the hard mattress and smiled slowly as he raked his gaze across her semi naked body. Melissa watched helplessly as he unzipped his jeans. Even though she was aware that anybody could walk in on them, the fear of reprisal was not enough to make her run away. When the denim finally slid down his taut, muscular thighs, she gasped out loud in shock. . .

The phone rings, jarring my concentration once again. A sullen teen on the end of the line asks in a monosyllabic tone to speak to my eldest daughter.

“Phone for you!” I yell, trying to make myself heard above the thumping dance music emanating from my daughters bedroom. The music momentarily deafens the entire neighbourhood as her bedroom door opens. My Britney Wannbe flounces in and snatches the phone from me with a disdainful toss of her dyed hair before flouncing back out, talking a foreign language of ‘yeah, whatever, he’s so fit…yeah…like well fit!’

I pull a face at her, but she is oblivious – I don’t blip on her radar unless she wants my cash, my clothes, or my make-up. In that order.

By now my characters are in a state of severe coitus interruptus and frankly I know how they feel.

I wistfully dream of a sun kissed patio beside an azure pool, where I wish I was sitting in the shade of a lemon tree, able to write for hours with no distractions. However, knowing my luck, I would probably end up being cursed with writers block in the unlikely event opportunity gave me a winning lotto ticket. Still, I’m certain the pool boy and a nice bottle of Chianti would soften the blow.

In the meantime, I should be able to give my characters a mutually satisfying orgasm before the Bolognese is ready . . .

Dinner’s cummmmmiinnng!

Pasta anyone?

Rachelle LeMonnier