The Spanking Writers

Lately, I’ve not had as much time as I’d have liked to read other blogs out there: seeing kinky friends in real life has rather taken priority over my online explorations. I’ve just about kept up-to-date with my “Spanking – Friends” category in Google Reader (that is, blogs written by people we’ve actually met, or know so well online that they class as friends even though we’ve yet to met in person).

But when I glanced at  my “Spanking – General” feeds the other evening, I found a ridiculously high number of unread posts. At the same time, I noticed that a surprisingly large proportion of the blogs to which I subscribe weren’t showing any new posts at all. So I started pruning: if a blog on the list didn’t show any new activity – and had thus been dormant for the eight weeks or so since my last catch-up – then I deleted by subscription. Of course, I may have been a tad premature with some – we’re unusual in posting every day, and some may be happy posting every few months when they have something of particular interest to say. But it’s a fair guess that two months of no activity suggests the site in question isn’t exactly that active!

And guess what proportion of the 201 spanking blogs on my lists appeared to be defunct? No fewer than 97 – very nearly half – including many that had previously been pretty active.

Why is this, I wondered? Boredom or a lack of time on the writer’s behalf  - or simply running out of things to say: a sense that they’d come online to explore the ideas that had been percolating in their minds for so long, had explored them, and found nothing left to share? Perhaps their blogs have achieved their objectives (introduce myself, meet a partner, disappear happily back into the shadows)? Perhaps they just didn’t enjoy writing in this format as much as they’d thought they would.

Or maybe it’s resulted from ennui amongst their readers, leading to too few site visits or comments for writing to be worthwhile? Or (I pray not) a mass migration to Twitter? Or even a defection from blogging to the boards of the kinky social networking sites – such as  Fetlife or  SpankoLife (my personal favourite); I’m listed as ‘Abel’ on each, if you ever fancy saying hi!

It does make me wonder about trends in the spankosphere. I’m guessing that, a few years down the line, we’ll still see a still-smaller number of blogs – the best and most popular of those here today complemented by some new arrivals (as new folks discover the scene, pluck  up the courage to post, or reach the age at which they’re legally or practically able to set up a site). The percentage of blogs with purely commercial content (as a means to attract customers for paid sites) might increase in comparison to those of us who simply have a passion for writing about kink.

And technology will inevitably evolve: I’d love it if that involved an easy and elegant way to consolidate our blog with our stories with our tweets with our podcasts (watch this space: ‘spankingcasts’ on the way soon!) – and to collaborate more on writing, ideas and conversations with others who share our enthusiasms.

Nearly four years in, we’re still buzzing with ideas, for sure. But I’m really interested to learn what others think…

Well, it’s finally here… Pauses for fanfare…

My lords (assuming at least some of the nobility must be kinky), ladies and gentlemen, I am very proud to present:

To quote from the book’s blurb:

Since 1999, “Abel’s Spanking Stories” has been one of the web’s most popular sites for fictional accounts of young women receiving traditional-style corporal punishment.

This collection features ten exclusive, brand-new stories alongside newly-updated versions of eight of Abel’s best-known tales. Perfect for fans of the cane and the birch, schoolgirls in trouble and judicial floggings, this is English discipline at its very best!

…

“Abel’s stories were my first introduction to spanking erotica, and I have never tired of reading his work. I’m sure this book will become a must-have for any spanking enthusiast.” – Eliane Chevalier, author of New(ish) to Spanking.

“Abel’s stories have long entertained and inspired the online community. I’m delighted that some of his best loved stories are now available in print. A worthy addition to any collection of spanking literature!” – Emma Jane Woodhouse, author of A Painful Awakening.

The book’s available online here from today for £9.95 or the local equivalent (currently around $16 / €11). If you prefer, you can order it on Amazon US, or Amazon UK, or Amazon DE, or wherever you live. If you enjoy reading your spanking stories in electronic format, “The Punishment List” is available in a Kindle edition.

I have to say that I’m particularly pleased with the new stories, which appear only in the book and have never been published online. And I did have great fun going back through 70+ older pieces of writing to pick out (and then re-edit) my all-time favourites.

Huge thanks to those who’ve helped with the book: Haron for the technical stuff; Catherine for painting the quite wonderful cover picture; Martha for the laborious task of proofreading (and Alison for helping on that front too).

Treat yourself, treat friends (perfect for Valentine’s Day?!), enjoy – and I’d love your feedback, as always.

Haron woke up to a good six inches this morning – of snow, perverts: I was already at work at my desk. I do wonder: am I the only person in the UK to have looked at last night’s snowfall and wondered what girls could get themselves into trouble for in such wintry conditions? The result of my kinky daydreamings follows below, thanks to my meetings today having been cancelled – allowing me to focus on far more interesting things like writing a new story!

By the way – we’ve set up a new category to bring together all of the stories we’ve published here on the blog (as well as the usual tab at the top of the page which takes you to my “Abel’s Spanking Stories” collection).

–

The snow and the birch

Gasps gave way to gossip, shock to speculation, as the girls of Hadlington College filed into their morning assembly. The birching block’s presence on the stage before them was the stuff of legend, of nightmares – making fleeting appearances that left indelible marks on girls’ attitude and conduct. And there it was, atopped by a freshly cut sprig of birch rods, tightly bound.

Who? Why?

The head girl quelled their excited, nervous hubbub with her customary proclamation: “Silence for the headmistress”. Miss Jensen walked between them from the back of the room, climbed the stairs to the stage and frowned down at her charges as if seeking out the guilty party. “We will start with hymn number 184,” she announced, proffering no clues as to the more fascinating matter at hand.

Readings followed – young Charlotte O’Neill of the Upper Fourth reciting her carefully rehearsed poem into a vacuum of bored anticipation; the Lower Sixth’s Caitlin Quinton quoting a dull passage from Keats that merely prolonged the agonising wait.

Miss Jensen herself spun proceedings out – a lecture on dress code (“too many girls are wearing skirts that are far too short”), praise for the lacrosse team’s latest successes, and a warning about conduct in the snowy weather. “It’s dangerous underfoot, girls: easy to slip. I’d ask you all to re-read section 27 of the school rulebook, which you’ll no doubt recall relates to safe conduct in wintry conditions.”

She paused, as if for effect, and looked up disapprovingly. “On which subject… A very disturbing incident took place yesterday afternoon, just after the final bell, when a gaggle of girls were engaged in a snowball fight immediately inside the school gate. They were challenged by Professor Carter, who as you’ll all know is Chairman of our Governors, as he was on his way to a governing body meeting.”

Amidst 250 enthralled pupils listening to the story unfold, a few were starting to panic. “To my great concern, as soon as he walked away, the snowballs resumed once more – and one was thrown directly at him, hitting him on the back of the head. This is not how Hadlington girls behave. I have assured the Professor that this is completely out of order, and that the girl responsible will be soundly punished. Will she please come forward to the stage.”

Heads turned, seeking out the culprit, the soon-to-be-victim. Those involved? Trying to supress blushes, trying not to make eye contact with their friends. (They wouldn’t be able to identify us, would they?). And the guilty party? Panic, fear, hope that she might evade detection…

“I’m waiting. I’m sure you know who you are, and it’ll be even worse for you if we have to go to the trouble of identifying you during the day, rather than you coming forward voluntarily now.” And so Amber Underwood, tears welling in her eyes, pushed past the line of girls around her and walked unsteadily towards the stage. A collective gulp of surprise marked her confession: Amber? Quiet, well-behaved, academic Amber?

Read the rest of this entry »

Today Abel finds out the answer to life, the Universe and everything (by turning 42). I’m sure he’ll tell us what it is eventually!

To celebrate his birthday, we’re introducing the new design here on The Spanking Writers. As we haven’t changed the look of the site since it launched in early 2006, it was due an overhaul. So here we are.

You’ll also notice that down on the sidebar we’ve introduced a link to “A taste of The Spanking Writers” – a free ebook with a small selection of our posts, so that folks new to the blog have an easy way to get acquainted with us.

Happy birthday, Abel!

(I’m sure a birthday spanking is also going to happen at some point today. He’s unlikely to forget, is he?)

Right, we thought it was about time that we all swapped holiday gifts. So here’s the plan…

We know that many of our readers have their own blogs – yet we also know that not all of you are aware of each other’s lovely sites. Given that there can surely be no better gift than that of spanking, here’s what we’d like you all to do… if you have a spanking-related blog (or site) containing original material, please leave a comment below with its title, the URL and (if you like) a brief description.

We’d love it if you could all take part – the bashful amongst you who have pages that aren’t yet as widely known as they could be; any lurkers who may not have stepped into the limelight thus far; and those of you who already get lots of hits (for, who knows, there may be fellow readers here who’ve not come across your site thus far).

And then, of course, we can all spend as much time as possible looking at each other’s sites over the holiday season!

Thank you for joining in!

‘Tis the season for our Annual Awards, the fourth year now in which we’ve presented these to our favourites. (Click here for links back to our spanking awards winners from the previous years). So, with many congratulations to the winners. In no particular order, here goes…

Hottest Kinky Blog – Zille Defeu’s “Fetish Fantasies” wins this category, for its mix of consistently wonderful writing and photos.

Edgiest Blog – “News of the Lash” steals the prize here, for publishing the real-life spanking stories others leave out, amidst a selection of hot photos.

Most Fascinating Historical Blog Entry – we adored the history of the Markham Project, which appeared at “Voice in the Corner”. It’s in two parts: here and here.

Best New Blog “Emma Jane’s “A Painful Awakening” is a wonderful, regularly-updated exploration of the kinky lifestyle with some truly excellent posts.

Hottest Vanilla Exhibition – no contest: Waterhouse at the Royal Academy. One of those vanilla events that really isn’t.

Best Spanking Video – Lupus, the highly-respected Czech outfit, capture the prize for “A Garden Party”. Great cast, great direction, great fun.

Most-Lamented Site – the wonderful Lowewood Academy, which came to a glorious finale at the end of the last school year. (A special mention too for Jessica, for her achievements editing Lowewood – and subsequently for her own excellent blog).

Most Romantic Blog Story – this just has to go to Ludwig and Kaelah of “Rohrstock Palast”: just great to see a spanking blog bringing such lovely people together.

Leading Internet Spankologist – again, Chross’s site excelled, bringing together his original content with well-researched links to the best snippets from the spankosphere.

Perviest Rock Band – Rammstein, for the outrageous artwork on the cover of their new album combined with the utter depravity of the video for their single, “Pussy”.

Many congratulations to all of the winners!

The lovely Eliane, of “New(ish) to Spanking”, and I were swapping silly messages on Thursday. She proposed that I should set up a tour company visiting places of spanko interest; we debated a few possible locations; I pondered the idea of mapping them, and she – very cleverly – has set up such a scheme. So do head over to her post which introduces the concept – and to the Spanko Map itself.

Ideas very welcome for more places to add to it – either in comments here, or on Eliane’s blog. I’ve already noted at least one I didn’t know myself!

I wonder whether, before too long, we’re going to need a companion piece – the “Spanked Map”, where people can record the locations of places they’ve received or given spankings!

—

PS for those of you who are wondering: Haron’s going to be abroad until towards the end of the coming week, so you’ll have to put up with me being the only one of us posting for at least a little longer. Normal service, with alternate posts from each of us, will hopefully be resumed before too long!

… hand my mobile phone to my mother-in-law a couple of days ago, to show her a photo of Haron cutting her 30th birthday cake… forgetting that all of the girls in the background were wearing school uniform?

Fortunately, she already thinks that all westerners are weird, so I got away with it! But I wonder whether anyone else has inadvertently nearly outed themselves like that?!

On other matters… we were wondering which of us is more corrupt: me, for telling my wife at a family gathering that I fancied her brother’s ex, or my darling wife for then informing her brother’s ex of said fact?

And finally… it may be childish of me, but I took great delighted in seeing Ukrainian TV adverts for fruit juice known as ‘Sok’. Only, in the Cyrillic alphabet, that’s spelt ‘Cok’. As in: ‘Drink cok’; ‘Cok is good for you’; ‘Cok, fives times a day’…

–

PS I got back to the UK yesterday; Haron’s still going to be in Kiev for a few weeks yet. Thanks to so many of you for your kind and touching comments over the past, difficult week. We’re both so thankful to have such wonderful friends.

We’ll both be away this week attending to family commitments in Ukraine, and Haron will probably be out there until next month.

As we’re unlikely to have internet access over there, I’ve lined up some posts for the coming few days that I already had written. And most (if not all) of the posts here for the next few weeks will end up being from me rather than Haron.

Comments are as welcome as ever – just excuse us if any that need moderating sit in the queue for a while.

Well, there’s finally some good news to report on the anthology of the best of my spanking stories, to be entitled “The punishment list.”

The stories have all been selected – including a few old favourites, as well as many new ones that never previously been published. A wonderful painting’s been done for the cover (thanks, Cath!).

The book’s formatted. And it’s now being proofread: our friend Martha was working on this for us on a train journey the other day. As she wrote to us:

The binder is out on the table, with my various other paraphernalia, and I’ve been reading away for some time, pen poised for any notes.   Sitting opposite me are an American couple.

I get up and go to the buffet car. On my return, as I sit down, he smiles winsomely and says, “So, on your way back to school then?”

How I didn’t collapse laughing is anyone’s guess!   Just wrong, on so many levels   If he’d had any idea what I was reading…!   Unless he took a sneaky peak when I was away, of course!   (I did close it!)   In the end I contented myself with a heartfelt, “I wish!” and explained that I was “proofreading some work for a friend”.

The target is for the book to appear in print at the very start of the new year. Watch this space!