I *must* be better ...

My insomnia's back in town.

Consequently feel like pure pounded shit this morning, but at least I can take comfort (?) in knowing that some of that is the four hours of sleep. Bleah.

Whiled away the hours of wakefulness by working on the new story (*bouncebouncebounce*) and finishing this, my umpteenth rereading of Gaudy Night. In pursuance of which, I had yet another thought about where and why A Civil Campaign went off the rails.

I know, I know, you'd think I was obsessed or something--or had some hate-on for Lois McMaster Bujold. Which, I want to reiterate, I don't. I think she's a fabulous writer, and I'm going to keep buying her books in hardcover as soon as they come out (a sure sign of reader-love). But this thing I noticed last night turned out to be extremely important to me-as-a-writer as well as me-as-a-reader, so I thought I'd stick it up. But (and yes, this would be the third hand) since I feel sheepishly certain that there must be people reading this who would rather poke their own eyeballs out with a tongue depressor that read more wittering from me on this subject (plus, you know, the whole spoiler thing), I'm going to tuck it neatly back behind a cut tag. Enter at your own risk.

( the subject of apologies )

shamelessly pleading for fiction recs

Because I have so few books to read. *g*

Actually, because I'm setting myself up to do some difficult things in The Project, and I'd like to see how others have done them. I believe firmly in learning from examples, which is why I've been gnawing on A Civil Campaign like a dog with a bone for the past, oh, month. So I'm looking for stories--any length, but, please, original fiction because of my ethical Issues--y'all would particularly recommend (either as good models or Horrible Examples) which have either or both of the following:

1. a blind protagonist/narrator

2. explicit m/m or f/f sex (R to NC-17) written by actual practitioners of same, because I don't want to fall into the het woman trap of writing the sex scenes like it all assimilates to my experience. Vanilla, BDSM, various flavors of kink, it's all good. N.b., I am NOT looking for erotica; I'm looking specifically for stories in which the sex, while steamy, is part of the plot, rather than the raison d'etre. Actually, come to think of it, if you know any het fictions which use their steamy sex scenes for more than just steamy sex, stick them in, too.

And because--despite my brain the size of a planet--I am sadly lacking in intellectual staying power, the more sfnal the story the better.

*looks at post*
This will be interesting.