IBR primer

I’m going to be posting (mostly on Facebook and Twitter) about Ken’s progress in the Iron Butt Rally, so I thought it would be useful to do a quick primer here, to get everyone up to speed on what I’ll be babbling about.

The IBR is an 11-day, 11,000-plus-mile endurance motorcycle event, kind of like a scavenger hunt via motorcycle. Bonus locations are all over the US (including Alaska) and into Canada, and have different points, so part of the challenge is to figure out how to get the maximum number of points in the time frame you have. There are also mandatory timed checkpoints that you must make.

About 1000 people apply to run the rally every two years; 100 are chosen. Because there is a minimum number of points you have to get, you can conceivably hit all the required checkpoints and still not “finish.” About 60 people actually finish.

More people have gone into space than run the IBR. More people climb Mt. Everest every year than have run the IBR since its start in 1984.

Ken got interested in rallies a few years ago and began running shorter ones, which happen all over the country during the year. He applied, but wasn’t chosen in the lottery, for the 2009 IBR. Then he won four shorter rallies in a row—something nobody had ever done before. About a month and a half before the 2009 IBR, he got a call inviting him in. His response (as was correct) was “Let me check with my wife.”  ;-)

Everyone else had about a year to prepare. He had a month and a half. And on his very first IBR, he came in 9^th.

He headed up to Oregon last week to do final work on the bike in a friend’s shop, then ran the short Cal24 rally to give the bike a shakedown. (Yeah, and he won, too!) Tomorrow he’s off to Seattle for the starting checkpoint, where there will be tech inspections and a riders’ meeting and a banquet and all that sort of thing.

As I did 2009, before he left I took an official “start” picture. Unfortunately, he left after dark, and my camera flash had fun with the reflective material on his jacket…. This was the best I could do.

I will be posting FB/Twitter updates on his progress as I can. I’ll be at an intensive writing workshop for the first 8 or so days of the rally….

Emails of encouragement may be sent to him via email, but please understand he won’t be able to respond. Also, comments on my posts are unlikely to get to him, due to my workshop, etc.

The rally finish is in Ontario, CA, on Friday, July 1, from 8–10 am. If anyone wants to join me there, ping me privately for details!


Edited to add


Ken was still working on the bike in Portland when I flew in yesterday, so he came to the airport to give me kisses.  :-)  So I was able to take a proper "start" picture, which is also more proper because a few hours later he really did leave for the IBR start in Seattle.

"Just Be"

I was sure Sarita was going to leave me; the signs were all there. I was too wrapped up in law school to give her the love and attention she needed. Imagine my surprise when I learned that what she really planned was to teach me how to let go and…just be. A romantic lesbian short story from a legendary erotica heavy-hitter.

“Just Be” originally appeared in Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica (Alyson Books, 2007) and was republished in Coming Together: At Last, Vol. 2 (Phaze Books, 2009)

Available in a variety of electronic formats

Amazon |  Barnes & Noble |  Smashwords

Things to read! And some are free!

I’m traveling again (or is it still?) and will be traveling for most of the month (now it’s GA, visiting my sister; then it’s 11 days in Oregon for a workshop; then the IBR finish and Labyrinth of Jareth)…so I apologize for my not being here much. And for the fact that this is kind of turning into a writing/publications blog.

I will do better, I promise. I have lots of things I want to write about, when I can scrape together the time! (The fiction has to come first.)

In the meantime, some groovy publishing news:

First, Sweet Confessions: Erotic Fantasies for Couples is now available for pre-order! Alison Tyler is giving away a copy, if you want to mosey on over to her blog and make a bid for it.

Sweet Confessions contains my story “New Day, New Life,” about a woman recovering from an illness and wanting to experience life to the fullest. It also has a Sophie Mouette story, “Sacred Places,” about a couple discovering a shared dark fantasy.

It’s edited by the venerable Violet Blue, and may be spotlighted on an OWN network show (!!), and has a slew of wonderful authors, so…. It comes out next month, but you can preorder it now.

Next, I wanted to let all you Kindle users know about two free short stories I have up on Amazon for your enjoyment.

“What Dragons Prefer” is a humorous fantasy story, written as Dayle A. Dermatis:

A dragon slayer arrives to rescue a threatened town, but the real threat and the dragon’s true desires are not necessarily one and the same.

The story first appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, Fall 1994; and republished in Dragons: A Celebration of the Greatest of Mythical Creatures, January 1996.

“From Bitter to Sweet” is a literary erotica story (nothing terribly explicit in it), written as Andrea Dale:

An erotic lesbian short-short story about breakups, new love, and chocolate. Go ahead—savor it. Let it melt on your tongue…. The story
originally appeared in Got a Minute? 60 Second Erotica (Cleis Press, 2007)

Both of these are short-shorts, and really too short for me to charge for them—but the downside is, even though they’re labeled as such, reviewers are complaining that they’re, you guessed it, too short! So, y’know, if you like them, it would please me greatly if you posted a nice review. That’s always better payment to me than money!

(My mom and my sister are both still asleep, so I’m gonna get back to work now!)