Ever considered writing erotica? #OnlineClass #EroticWriting @mchristianzobop @asyoulikeitshop

If you’re visiting my blog, you probably enjoy sexy stories. I’ll bet you have lots of fantasies, too. Maybe you’ve played around with the idea of trying to write some of them down and publish them.

Now is the ideal time to turn those ideas into reality. With people still stuck at home, book sales are soaring. And erotica and erotic romance are among the best selling genres.

Plus (take if from someone who knows!) writing erotic fiction is tremendous fun!

Not sure how to get started? You’re in luck. Later this month, legendary erotica author M.Christian will be teaching a special two-part online class in erotica writing for As You Like It, a women-owned adult pleasure shop in Eugene, Oregon.

This virtual class has been designed to appeal to those new to storytelling as well as to anyone ready to make the big, and frequently challenging, leap from enthusiastic amateur to well-seasoned professional. The two segments of the class will both take place in June 2020, via the video conferencing service, Zoom.

The introductory segment, Sex Sells, Part 1: Getting Started As An Erotic Writer will be on Sunday, June 14, 2020, from 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PDT, and will cost $20 for the hour. Tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite (https://tinyurl.com/yccxytxa).

The advanced class, Sex Sells, Part 2: How to Sell Your Erotic Writing follows on Sunday, June 28, 2020, from 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM PDT, and will cost $20 for two hours. Tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite (https://tinyurl.com/yb2fkr6f).

You can find more details here: https://tinyurl.com/yctlgdod

M.Christian:

Email: mchristianzobop [at] gmail [dot] com

Website: www.mchristian.com

Twitter: @mchristianzobop

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mdot.christian &

https://www.facebook.com/zobopmchristian

As You Like It:

1655 W 11th Ave #1, Eugene, OR 97402

Website: https://asyoulikeitshop.com/

Twitter: @AsYouLikeItShop

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AsYouLikeItshop

Leaving the Garden - #innocence #fantasies #amwriting

I have been writing all my life, and publishing for nearly twenty years. Over that time, my work has changed considerably. Of course, I’ve become more adept from a craft perspective, writing more convincing dialogue, curbing my tendency to produce overlong sentences and so on. However, in this post I want to talk about a more fundamental issue—my loss of innocence.

My early works were naive translations of my favorite fantasies into prose. I’d had little exposure to erotica as a genre. I wasn’t following any sort of rules. I wrote what aroused me personally, without worrying about whether it would have the same effect on someone else. My heroines were sexually voracious, unapologetically experimental, brave, curious and eager for new experience. I was like that myself in those days. The women (and men) in my books were more so.

As a consequence, my first three novels, especially (Raw Silk, Miranda’s Masks and Nasty Business) feature all sorts of activities and couplings. Taken together, they include everything from cross-dressing to enemas—voyeurism and exhibitionism, homosexual and lesbian interactions, group sex, gang bangs, age play, fisting, golden showers, pegging, femdom, pseudo-incest, as well as spanking, flogging, bondage and the like. I wasn’t shy about writing it if it turned me on. And in those early days, before I’d read and written hundreds of thousands of erotic words, almost everything did.

I suspect that many writers of erotica began, like me, by exposing and exploring their own favorite scenarios of desire. The result is often searingly sexy. The author has poured his or her personal libidinous imaginings into the story, with all the accompanying emotions. Readers pick up on the emotional truth, and react to it. These self-disclosive stories are direct and intense. They hit you in the gut, or perhaps more appropriately, in the groin.

Even as I cringe at the quality of the writing, my early stories still have an intensity that melts me to a puddle of lust whenever I reread them.

As I became more familiar with the world of publishing, my work became less spontaneous, more consciously constructed. I began writing short stories to match anthology themes. I contracted with an erotic romance publisher and discovered that readers didn’t necessarily share my preference for pan-sexual diversity. Without realizing it, I acquired the knowledge of good and evil—or rather, marketable versus not.

My writing changed in response to this knowledge. I tamed my id to satisfy editors, reviewers and the public. At the same time, I was learning how to communicate more effectively through my prose, how to grab the reader’s attention and keep it focused where I wanted it. I moved away from writing as confession or self-gratification toward writing for an imagined audience. I acquired the ability to modify my style to match the preferences of that audience.

The market was changing at the same time. The readership for erotic fiction grew but I think the tolerance for extreme or unusual activities shrank. My pre-AIDs-era heroines who’d have unprotected sex with strangers if the mood was right began to seem shocking as well as old-fashioned. My occasional interest in enemas and golden showers would make the bulk of the reading community run away screaming—as well as getting me banned from Amazon.

Perhaps to compensate for the reduced sexual diversity in any one of my tales, I began to experiment with different forms. I wrote M/M, F/F, ménage, paranormal, historical, science fiction, steam punk, in addition to the BDSM that was my first love. As I’ve matured as a writer, I’ve gained the confidence to tackle new sub-genres. I even tried writing a tentacle porn story (“Fleshpot”, currently available in my dark paranormal collection Fourth World).

My publishing history makes me proud. I may not be as prolific as some of my peers, but I’m a far more skillful and accomplished writer than I was in 1999, when Raw Silk poured out of me in an excited frenzy. Still, I can’t help looking back with a sense of nostalgia to the days when reading my own work would leave me breathless and damp.

I’ve finally given up on the notion of being financially successful with my writing, and so I’ve decided to try suspending the censor and critic, if I can, and writing once more from my loins. I’m not the same woman I was back then, though. My life-changing initiation into dominance and submission is thirty years behind me. Memories grow pale and worn with constant rehearsal. I’m post-menopausal, a state which gives me new appreciation for the power of hormones. And I’m pretty well sated from reading erotica by others. It takes an extraordinary story these days to make an impression.

I’ve been away from the garden for a long time now. The gates are barred by time and experience. I have to accept that I may never write my way back into that state of innocence.

Thankful - #Gratitude #AmWriting #ThanksGiving

Okay, I admit it. Sometimes I'm a kvetch. For those of you who are not familiar with Yiddish, a kvetch is an inveterate complainer. My poor husband bears the brunt of most of my complaints, which range from the physical to the metaphysical.

“I never have any time to write,” I moan. “Lots of other authors I know put out a book per month. It takes me a month to finish a short story. I'll never be a success as a writer. I'm just not prolific enough.”

“I can't stand doing all this promotion,” I sigh. “It doesn't seem to matter how many excerpts I post, how many blog entries I write, how many contests I run, how many fans I have on my mailing list. My royalties just aren't what I'd like them to be. And then I'm so busy with promotion, I never have any time to write.”

“I don't know why I bother. I don't have the energy anymore. My head aches. My joints hurt. I'm a wobbling mass of cellulite. I look at myself in the mirror and see an old hag. My wrinkles are starting to rival the Grand Canyon. No wonder I have so much trouble writing erotic fiction. I feel about as sexy as a dead flounder.”

“A dead flounder?” my husband asks, finally stepping in to interrupt my downward spiral. “I imagine that there might be flounder fetishists who'd find that exceptionally arousing.” I laugh in spite of my determination to hold on to my sour mood. “Anyway, I think you're sexy. At that point, my husband is usually behind me, rubbing his crotch against my butt and groping my breasts. I really can't in good conscience continue to complain!

The fact of the matter is, despite my laments, I'm incredibly fortunate. Okay, so I normally have at most one day a week to write. I find that I need a block of devoted time. I've never been one of those authors who can fit writing into the cracks in her daily schedule, so I try to keep one full day clear of other commitments. When I finally do sit down, I can produce 3-5K per day – maybe not up to some professionals' standards, but not too bad either. And my first drafts are normally pretty clean, based on feedback from my editors. At this point, I'm also confident that I can find a publisher for almost anything I write.

Now there's an area where I really can be grateful. Many of my colleagues struggled for years to get their first acceptance. The history of my first novel is rather like a fairy tale in comparison. I sent it off to my target publisher, almost on a lark, and two weeks later was offered a contract. In fact, I didn't even submit the whole novel, just the first three chapters and a synopsis. After Raw Silk was accepted, then I had to actually finish it, but somehow that wasn't a problem. I can hardly complain about long hard years pounding the pavement, hundreds of queries or dozens of rejections.

Okay, it's true that promotion is not much fun. (I'd be interested in knowing whether my more successful colleagues actually enjoy the grind of shameless self-aggrandizement.) But I've got advantages in this domain, too. I have enough technical knowledge to maintain my own website, which saves me huge amounts of aggravation and expense. I've been in the business long enough (more than a decade) to know a number of other authors with whom I can partner or exchange promotional opportunities. I have a good excuse (grin!) to opt out of most chats – I live in Southeast Asia and my time zones never match up. (I do spend lots of time interacting with my readers via email.) And I've always been an organized person. As time goes by, I discover or invent new ways to promote more efficiently.

As for the physical stuff, well, we all have heard that growing old is not for sissies. At least I can reminisce about the sexy adventures I had when I was younger, more flexible and more energetic – not to mention using them as grist for the creative mill. I still have my black satin corset and the form-fitting burgundy velvet halter dress I wore for my first reading. I haven't donned them for a while, but I'll bet they still fit, albeit with an extra bulge here and there.

I've been blessed with a top-quality education, work that is creative and satisfying, opportunities to travel around the world. Despite my complaints about aging, I am and always have been mostly healthy. I love and am loved by my parents and siblings. (Being far from them is the only downside of living overseas). I feel valued and cherished by my remarkable husband of more than thirty eight years. Loving him keeps me sane and whole.

Every now and then I stand back and look at my life, amazed. I never expected that it would be so interesting, or so much fun. I was a little mouse of a girl when I was growing up, living in books and dreaming about romance and faraway places. I am astonished, humble and grateful to realize that my life has surpassed my wildest dreams.

And that is just so far.

The Words Fly Free - #amwriting #lastwords #legacy

"The paper burns, but the words fly free."

- Akiva ben Joseph (c.40-c.135) (at the stake, when the Torah was also burned)

We are all destined for dust. Not exactly a pleasant thought to be contemplating on this rainy Wednesday afternoon, but mortality is a truth that no one can dispute. Sooner or later, we will vanish from the earth. Life will go on without us, presumably; we will, most likely, not be in a position to know.

Of course, death is fundamentally a mystery. Perhaps we simply cease to exist. Perhaps we are reincarnated as someone else - with or without memory of our former lives. Perhaps we're shuffled off to some eternally blissful paradise or agonizing realm of punishment (although I personally view these alternatives as unlikely). Maybe the material world is nothing but a dream that will dissolve when we cross the threshold of death. At that moment we'll understand that we are beings of pure spirit, joined into one Being.

Since the truth is unknowable, mostly when I think about dying I consider what I'll leave behind. No children. None of the great scientific discoveries I expected to produce when I was in my teens. Certainly no riches! No, all I can hope for is a small circle of friends and family who may mourn my passing and remember me fondly. And of course, my writing, which even in this ephemeral digital era may still survive.

I feel a bit sheepish, considering the sum of my oeuvre as some kind of legacy. A dozen smutty novels, a hundred or so naughty stories, a couple of notebooks full of poems: is that really all I'll bequeath to the world at large? I don't harbor any illusions that I'm a Great Author, that my writing has some sort of serious significance or speaks to the Human Condition. At the same time, I do mention my writing in my will. When I die, it will all belong to my brother, who's also a creative type though in a different realm of the arts.

Regardless of its literary value, my writing has made a small difference in the world. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of people outside my personal sphere have read my work and been entertained, challenged, possibly moved. Even if I were to die tomorrow, my words would remain. My erotic visions would endure, living on to enrich the fantasy lives of those who happened to encounter them.

When I sat down to pen this post about famous last words, of course I went to Google first. I found a page with hundreds of quotes (http://www.mapping.com/words.shtml): clever, humorous, ironic, inspiring. The one above struck me as particularly relevant to anyone who is a writer.

Rabbi Akiva was a Jewish scholar and martyr, executed by the Romans for his faith (and according to some accounts, for supporting a Messianic rebellion). He was talking about the Torah and the Talmud, written works of great spiritual and historical meaning. 

I realized, though, that all words have a spiritual dimension. They are more than marks on paper (or bits on a hard drive). Words create realities. Even my sex-drenched novels have that power. Their ability to alter the world transcends their physical form.

Think about your favorite authors, the ones whose reading changed you forever. They may be long gone, crumbled to dust, but their words endure. I'd like to think that when I die, my words, too, will fly free, ready to alight on a reader's shoulder and spark her imagination.

I doubt that I'll manage to be as witty as many famous individuals at the moment of my death. However, I wouldn't mind borrowing my last words from Errol Flynn (1909-1959):

"I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it."

When I'm gone, I hope that my readers continue to have fun. I could hardly ask for more.

Seven Sci-fi Books that Changed Me -- #ScienceFiction #SaturdaySeven #LASR

From my earliest years as a reader —which began when I was four—science fiction has been one of my enduring loves. The first sci-fi books I remember were The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron and The City Under the Back Steps by Evelyn Sibley Lampman. I doubt I was more than seven at the time, just introduced to the wonders of the library.

Of course, I grew up during the dawning space age. I was in fourth grade when Alan Shepard circled the globe in his tin can. Men landed on the moon the year I graduated high school. Indeed, I wanted to be an astronaut, until I learned that there was no way they’d take someone with my serious myopia and flat feet. (The fact that I was female never seemed to me to be an obstacle.)

Over the years, I’ve read lots of sci-fi, though to be honest, much of it has been forgettable. However, here are seven science fiction titles whose memories I cherish, books that opened new vistas for me or changed my view of the world.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

I’ve loved Bradbury ever since I first encountered his work. This book presents a poetic, nuanced vision of true strangeness. On a planet where man is the alien, there is much to be learned about ourselves. Beautiful, scary and intense, this book taught me that we humans weren’t the center of the universe.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

I read this when I was just past puberty, overwhelmed with hormones like all teens. I have to admit that what made the most lasting impression on me in this book was the sex. No, there are no explicit sex scenes in this novel. However, Valentine Michael Smith, the human brought up by Martians who is the “stranger” of the title, establishes a polyamorous tribe in which sex (“water-sharing”) is both ecstasy and sacrament, a connection of mind as well as body. I know my own views and experience of sexuality (often expressed in the stories I write) borrows a lot from the philosophy of this book.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

 
Hard as it might be to believe of a sci-fi afficionado, I’d never heard of Philip K. Dick until my husband introduced me to this book. (A love of science fiction is just one of many things my DH and I have in common.) I was totally floored by its audacity, its detail, the darkness of its themes and the brilliance of its exposition.

Dick paints a vivid picture of an alternative present in which the United States and its allies lost World War II. Starting from that single premise, he imagines a world in which the Nazis and the Japanese have divided the continent, then spins out the consequences.

How did this book change me? (Aside from making me a huge Philip K. Dick fan, that is!) It crystallized my awareness of what I like most about science fiction—the way one powerful idea, one modification of reality, can change everything. That’s the sort of sci-fi I usually like most, not the space operas with tons of technological marvels, or the interstellar epics with dozens of planets and civilizations. I’m interested in the social implications of technology, more than the technology itself.

Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling

This book came out in 1997, and I probably read it soon after. It’s interesting what I do and don’t remember about the novel. The heroine, Mia, is an ancient woman, over a hundred, who undergoes physical rejuvenation. What I recall most vividly is the disconnect she feels between her gerontocrat mind and her youthful body. We like to fantasize about eternal youth, but Sterling does a fantastic job portraying the complexities that would likely arise if this technology were to become available.

As I am now well on the way to being an old crone myself, I sometimes fantasize about what it would be like to have my lithe, sexy young body back. When my thoughts tend in that direction, I recall this cautionary tale.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

I said I don’t usually prefer science fiction books that construct elaborate new worlds, with their own cultures, languages and so on. Anathem is an exception, partly because it really is a book about ideas—competing ideas about the nature of the universe, time, man, and the earth, battling for supremacy.

Stephenson has a brilliant imagination but sometimes too little discipline. I’ve tossed his books halfway through because he didn’t know when to stop going off on tangents. In this massive novel, though, he keeps himself in check, building an exquisitely detailed universe in which science, and power, are centered in monasteries scattered over the earth. As was the case in the Middle Ages, these monasteries preserve the past, but also are limited by it.

I can’t count how many times, reading this book, that I stopped, amazed, at some incredible (and often slyly humorous) notion or description. You can read Anathem as an adventure, but I think it’s a far deeper effort by intent. 
 

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

This novel, published in 2009, is hands-down one of the best science fiction books I’ve read—ever. Since it won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, I guess other people agree with me.

The book is set in Bangkok, in a not-so-distant future when the planet is crushed under the heel of the agro-conglomerates who control all the genetically modified food stuffs. Petroleum reserves have long since been exhausted. People use gene-edited beasts of burden and kinetic energy storage to accomplish their work. Thailand has preserved some original, non-modified seed stocks, though, and Company Man Anderson is determined to get control of this precious, subversive genetic material.

This book deeply impressed me, on a whole range of levels. The portrayal of Thai society and culture is so accurate (based on my past experience living there) that I can hardly believe the author isn’t Thai himself. The many characters are distinctive, rich, sympathetic yet highly flawed. Meanwhile, the conflicts and the environmental scenarios are all too believable.

I picked up a copy of this book at a used book sale. Since then I’ve bought it for at least half a dozen people as a gift, and recommended it to many more. Astonishing.

Quarantine by Lisabet Sarai

Wait a minute! Am I really about to include my own novel in this list?

Well, I’m talking about books that changed me. Despite my love of sci-fi, or maybe because of it, I haven’t dared write very much in this genre. Quarantine is to date my only full-length science fiction title. Writing Quarantine, a MM sci-fi romance, was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. The process gave me new respect for writers of sci-fi.

The book takes place in a dystopic near future. After a sexually transmitted plague kills millions and devastates society, a shadowy group steps in to restore order. The self-styled Guardians of American Greatness incarcerate all males who carry the “homogene” in remote internment camps, supposedly to protect the population from a recurrence of the plague. One of my protagonists, Dylan, has been a camp prisoner for seven years; the other, Rafe, is one of the few humans who supplement the robot guards that maintain camp security.

Rafe is H-negative. He’s not gay. Yet he falls in love with the brilliant, desperate young detainee. Together they escape to the riot-scarred city of SanFran, where they find both allies and enemies.

Throughout the process of writing this book, I worried that my world wasn’t sufficiently imaginative to hold readers’ interest. I agonized over details, struggled with back-story, lost my self-confidence. I stopped working on the book for more than six months, convinced it was worthless.

Now, though, I think it’s one of the best things I’ve written, with a lot more substance than most romance (including my own). The process taught me that sometimes, creation involves the pain of self-doubt.

Still, I’m not eager to tackle writing another science fiction novel anytime soon! I’ll just enjoy books written by others.

Anyone have any suggestions? What science fiction books have made the most impression on you? Leave me a comment to let me know, and I will enter you into a drawing for a free copy of Quarantine. (Don’t forget to include your email!)

A Mile A Chapter - Writing and Exercise ( @KateHillRomance #pnr #werewolf #vampire)

By Kate Hill (Guest Blogger)

I love writing. To me, it’s a way to escape as well as a way to express myself. There is a short list of things I don’t like about writing. At the top of that list is that writing is sedentary.

It’s easy to sit at a desk and get lost for hours in a book. For me, sitting for extended periods of time can be a problem, especially now that I’m older. Body parts stiffen up and I have a pelvic issue that is aggravated by sitting. I also enjoy movement, and for most of my life I’ve worked out on a regular basis. Though I set aside time for formal workouts at least five days a week, I’ve found it helpful both physically and emotionally to sneak in spurts of exercise throughout my day.

Since exercise and writing are important in my life, I’ve found ways to combine the two, in particular during the editing stages of my books. One of my favorite ways to do this is my mile a chapter routine. I work on edits and proof reading for one chapter, and then I get up and walk a mile. That gives me a fifteen to twenty minute break between chapters that allows me to exercise my body and also clear my mind so that I’m more focused when I sit down to work on the next chapter. If I’m doing a five chapter novella, by the time I’m finished, I’ve walked five miles, which is about ten thousand steps. I love to wear a pedometer so that I can keep track of my steps throughout the day. Sometimes I’ll do other types of exercise in between chapters as well. Whatever keeps me moving, feeling good, and inspired to work.

I use a similar routine when I’m writing a first draft. I set a goal of five hundred or one thousand words and do some type of exercise in between. It can be a short walk, yoga, or calisthenics. Five to ten minute movement breaks are preferable when I’m working on a first draft because I don’t want to lose track of the story. When writing a first draft, I like to go with the flow, so if I’m in the middle of a scene that I want to finish, I won’t stop at a particular word count, but in general I try to get up and move every half hour to an hour.

As a writer, I’ve found that stretching is especially important because typing for long periods of time creates tension in my upper body. Unfortunately, stretching is something that I don’t do often enough throughout the day. I find that keeping an exercise journal motivates me and reminds me to fit stretching into my day. The journal also makes me happy because it’s another kind of writing and it makes referencing past routines easy.

Do you like working out? What are some ways you enjoy fitting exercise into your daily routine?

Fangs and Fists 2: Grit

By Kate Hill

An erotic paranormal romance from Changeling Press.

Blurb

Werewolf gladiator Grit faced his own mortality in the arena, only to be resurrected by a demon. Grit now lives a shadowy existence as one of the soulless, remembering only bits and pieces of his former life. Nonetheless, he recognizes evil and knows he must fight for the future of his young son, as well as the rest of the world.

Zari, a vampire warrior, helped Grit escape the tower where he had been imprisoned. She had feelings for Grit when they'd first met, but at the time he had been mated to another wolf. Now that he's on his own, they're free to explore their feelings as they fight side by side as part of the rebellion against the demons. In the midst of war, their love grows, but danger is everywhere.

Haylen, the demon who resurrected Grit, offers a bargain that may save or destroy the rebellion. Whatever the outcome, Zari and Grit intend to face it together and explore the once forbidden passion between them.

About Kate

Always a fan of romance and the paranormal, Kate Hill started writing over twenty years ago for pleasure. Her first story, a short erotic vampire tale, was accepted for publication in 1996. Since then she has sold over one hundred short stories, novellas and novels.

When she's not working on her books, Kate enjoys reading, working out, spending time with her family and pets and running the Compelling Beasts Blog, dedicated to antagonists, antiheroes and paranormal creatures. She also writes under the name Saloni Quinby.

Links

http://www.kate-hill.com

http://www.kate-hill.com/blog

http://www.kate-hill.com/compellingbeastsblog

https://www.amazon.com/Kate-Hill/e/B002BLS7OW/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1485103167&sr=1-2-ent

http://www.facebook.com/katehillsaloniquinby

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16157.Kate_Hill

https://plus.google.com/110359814167605096582

http://www.twitter.com/katehillromance

http://www.twitter.com/compbeastsblog

My Not-So-Evil Day Job (#work #passion #amwriting)

I complain a lot. Anyone who's been in touch with me lately has heard about how I'm busier this term than I've ever been; how I'm teaching two brand new courses and don't have time to breathe with all the preparation, let alone write; how I leave at 9:00 AM and don't get home until 9:30 PM some nights; how I feel like Alice in Through the Looking Glass- I have to run as fast as I can just to stay in one place.

You might assume, listening to me, that I hate my work and would rather be writing every day. Indeed, for many writers, that's the ideal: to make enough money from book sales that you can quite your ordinary, boring day job and write full time.

Honestly, I don't feel that way. Perhaps that suggests that I'm not a “serious” writer. So be it. Despite the stress I sometimes feel – especially when I try to balance the demands of writing and marketing with the requirements of my public profession – I'd never want to give up my “real world” job.

My work requires a huge investment of time and energy, but it also provides great rewards. I don't mean financial rewards – I make just enough to meet my needs – but I've never aspired to wealth . I'm talking about less tangible benefits: the opportunity to be creative, the freedom to try new approaches, the respect of my colleagues and (sometimes, at least) my students, the satisfaction that comes from knowing that I've been a positive influence on the lives of at least a few young people every year. I also enjoy the fact that I'm able to use my long years of study and experience in positive and productive ways. And finally, my day job is just plain fun.

Writing is fun too, of course. I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it. (I think the secret of happiness may be to only do what you enjoy, or conversely, to enjoy whatever you do.) One reason I don't have much of a desire to make my living off my writing is that I suspect that might kill the joy. If I were forced to write, day after day, I strongly suspect that the stress would leach away any creativity I can claim now.

I believe that I could support myself, at least at a basic level, by writing erotic romance or BDSM smut. I think I know what sells, and I could churn that out if I had to. I write quickly and my first drafts are generally in a lot better shape than many authors. I could put out one or two 15-20K novellas a month, if I had to.

I really would rather not. In fact, I find myself deliberately choosing to write genres and styles that don't sell as well, out of a kind of perversity, I guess. My M/M books have outsold anything else I've written, by several times. I find myself shying away from writing more because I don't want to make money my object.

Plus I hate stress. I can function when the chips are down. I can make tight deadlines if I have to. But the pressure takes its toll, draining me of psychic energy and basically making me miserable. Yes, my day job is stressful, too, but it provides enough variety to keep me excited. It also includes natural breaks, for midterm and final exams, vacation periods and so on. If I were writing full time, none of that would be true. I know authors who support themselves with their work, and you really can't take much of a break. You have to produce that three or four or five thousand words per day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health, or you'll fall behind. You'll miss deadlines. You'll lose readers.

My husband tells me that much of the stress is of my own making. I think there's some truth in that. Probably I need to learn how to say no. Maybe my unwillingness to refuse requests can be traced back to my submissive nature. Hard to say!

In any case, I'm not a wage slave. I'm not oppressed by my employer. I work long hours, but not at some repetitive, meaningless occupation. I'm incredibly lucky.

I tell my students that money will not make them happy. The first key to happiness (according to what I've learned in more than six decades of life on earth) is having a partner whom you love and whose company you enjoy. The second key, almost as important, is finding work that feeds your soul, work that ignites your passion. I'm fortunate to have succeeded in both these areas. Really, I have no right at all to complain.

Why I Write (#amwriting #motivation #suffering)

It's three AM, that bleak, endless stretch of time between midnight and dawn. I hunch over my keyboard, my head pounding, writing and rewriting a single sentence, struggling to capture the elusive truth that I feel so clearly but somehow cannot express.

I've been here all night.

The desk lamp creates an ellipse of brightness in the otherwise dark apartment. My glass sits forlorn and empty on the desk next to my laptop, among the sticky rings from previous drinks. My cigarette has tumbled out of the tuna fish can that I use for an ashtray and charred the cheap composite surface. The room smells of scotch, smoke and frustration.

I should get some sleep. I've got work in the morning. But the story won't let me go. It has me in its jaws. It worries me back and forth, threatening to tear me apart. I've got to get it out and onto the page, to set it free, before it destroys me.

Not!

The scenario above, the tortured author driven to write, hounded by his own stories, has a romantic quality. Alas—or maybe I should say, thank heavens—that's not me. I'm not one of those authors brimming over with stories that won't let her rest. My characters do not in general scream and rant in my head, imploring me to write their tales, hounding me until I'm dangerously close to the edge of sanity. I don't write in order to search for or reveal any kind of upper-cased Truth.

When all is said and done, I write to amuse myself.

When I can't write, I certainly miss it. I love the creative effort involved in weaving webs of words into a final product that may excite, intrigue or challenge my readers. However, I don't delude myself that I have much to say that is of enduring importance. The one serious message that I have to impart (and I've done so again and again, in what are arguably my best stories) relates to my view of dominance and submission as a sort of communion. Other themes that I like to explore include the flexibility of sexual orientation and the healing, enlightening, maturing possibilities in sexual relationships. Overall, though, I'm just creating characters, letting them interact (sometimes in outrageous ways), and telling their stories in order to entertain and arouse.

There are secondary reasons for my writing, of course. There's nothing like the satisfaction that comes from an receiving enthusiastic acceptance—no matter how many times you experience it. (And rejections still hurt, regardless of the fact that my rejection to acceptance ratio is really low.)

Monthly royalty statements make me feel that some people, at least, really do enjoy what I write. I'll never support myself with my writing; I'd never try as I'm sure that if I did, whatever creativity I possess would immediately vanish. However, I'd be lying if I pretended that the increments in my PayPal balance don't delight me.

I also deeply appreciate the friends that I've made, among writers and readers, since I began my authorial “career”. The erotica romance genre, in particular, seems to provide opportunities for me to communicate with readers. I remember once having a release on Monday, then on Tuesday receiving an email from a reader, asking me if I had a sequel planned because she was dying to know what happened to the characters. Yes, that had me smiling all day.

Finally, for me, writing erotica offers a way for me to experience new sexual adventures. I definitely arouse myself when I write—if I'm not turned on by my sex scenes, I know that they're no good. I can relive past experiences, cloaked as fiction, or imagine outrageous scenarios I never got to try.

My erotic thriller Exposure begins: “I strip for the fun of it. Don't let anybody tell you different.”

Just substitute “write” for “strip”. That's the truth about Lisabet Sarai.

Review Tuesday: In the Flesh by KD Grace (#paranormal #review #erotica @kd_grace)

In the Flesh by K D Grace

Self-published with Smashwords and Amazon, 2016

No one writes paranormal fiction like KD Grace. In penning her tales of myths and magic, she plumbs psychological and spiritual depths that most authors don’t even realize exist. Ms. Grace ignores tropes and conventions, following the trail of her stories down the rabbit hole of her own fertile imagination. The truths she unearths amaze, arouse, terrify and delight.

In the Flesh shows more of this narrative serendipity than any of her other paranormal titles I’ve read. The novel began as a serial posted on her blog; I suspect that each installment was as much a discovery for her as it was for her fans. Certainly I found myself continually surprised by the story’s twists and turns, though in retrospect none of the plot devices seemed implausible. I just didn’t see them coming.

That’s a compliment. As anyone who reads my reviews will know, predictability in a story can really kill my enjoyment.

The tale begins when author Susan Innes is invited by her close friend Annie to visit Chapel House, the de-consecrated church Annie purchased six months previously. Susan finds Annie much changed. Her formerly plump, boisterous girlfriend has become skinny, pale and distracted, obsessed with a mysterious, invisible lover who she claims is God. As Susan watches Annie bathed in moonlight in front of the old altar, moaning and writhing with pleasure, she tries to rationalize her friend’s strange behavior as some sort of psychological illness.

However, Susan herself senses the presence of the unseen being who haunts the church’s half-ruined halls and overgrown garden. She feels his erotic pull, hears the promises of unspeakable ecstasy he whispers to her. Though she sees that Annie has been literally consumed by her spectral paramour and understands she is in danger of a similar fate, she cannot resist falling under his spell. Only the arrival of a burly workman named Michael saves her from losing herself completely.

Michael rips her out of the Guardian’s sphere of influence and takes her as his lover, but he cannot totally eradicate Susan’s irrational lust for the invisible but overwhelmingly seductive spirit. When the Guardian uses Annie to lure Susan back to his territory, Michael enlists the aid of allies equally powerful, and equally dangerous.

I don’t want to spoil things by saying too much more about the plot. However, the emotional and erotic intensity continue to build throughout the tale. There’s magic and terror and death, plus lots of sex—sex that involves deeper connections than the purely physical. As she did in her Lakeland Witches series, Ms. Grace explores the ways in which sexual experience is a gateway to new capabilities and states of consciousness.

As an author, though, there’s one aspect of the plot that I just have to mention. Susan gradually comes to understand that the act of writing is literally infused with magic. Her writing shapes reality. Even the supernatural creatures who surround her recognize and honor her awesome power as a true scribe—a woman whose imagination can alter the world, a woman whose words are made flesh.

I understand.

This is what it feels like to be a writer, on the best days when the ideas are flowing and the words write themselves. We’re immersed in the sacred act of creation, totally sure of ourselves, molding the universe in subtle but important ways. And this is perhaps what I loved best about In the Flesh: the fact that Susan manages to save herself and her companions not by casting a spell or wielding some enchanted sword, but by writing a story.

When I Grow Up (#amwriting #future #dirtyoldlady)

You never know how things will turn out. When I was in grade school, in the early days of the U.S. space program, I wanted to be an astronaut. I liked science and math and I loved reading Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. What other qualifications did I need? I was devastated to learn that I would disqualified by my extreme myopia and the total absence of arches in my feet. (It never dawned on me that my gender might be an obstacle as well.)

In high school, Watson, Crick and Franklin had just deciphered the genetic code and I was determined to become a molecular biologist. My role models were Marie Curie and Jonas Salk. I imagined myself in the lab, making world-shaking discoveries to benefit mankind. Then I had the chance to do a summer internship in a food chemistry lab and discovered how incredibly boring laboratory research could be.

As I entered undergraduate school, my goal was to be a doctor. I took all the required pre-med courses, but the more I got to know my fellow aspirants to medical school, the less sure I was that I was on the right path. Meanwhile, I took some experimental psychology courses that suggested we were on the verge of understanding perception, planning and memory. I switched majors and got my next three degrees in cognitive experimental psych. At the same time, I started to study computers and programming, since computer modeling had become a popular tool for testing psychological theories about human cognition.

Two years out of graduate school, I was burned out on psychology research. All I seemed to be accomplishing was producing publications. I yearned for a more practical, useful career. My computer courses came in handy when I applied for a job as a programmer. It was love at first coding. I discovered that I had an aptitude for developing software. The disciplined, step-by-step approach I had cultivated during my years as a researcher was a huge advantage in the software arena. Meanwhile, I loved the fact that I could take my ideas and turn them, almost magically,  into an artifact that could have concrete, beneficial effects in the real world.

Then my husband (whom I had acquired along the way) and I got offered a two year contract teaching computer-related topics in Thailand. All of a sudden I was back in an academic setting, where I'd spent so many of my earlier years. Skills that I had expected never to use again—reading, writing and editing technical papers, planning research, doing statistical analyses—suddenly became relevant once more.

Back in the U.S., I returned to software engineering, this time at a higher level, as an expert consultant.  But at the same time, my husband and I developed a software product of our own and established a company to market it. Now in addition to producing code, I was writing user manuals, advertisements, brochures and demos. I was attending trade shows and talking to potential customers. As the treasurer of our small corporation, I was also paying bills, filling out government forms, and dealing with tax issues. 

In 1999 I published my first novel. I don't think that my career exploits up to that point had much to do with my aptitude for writing smut (though the heroine of Raw Silk happens to be a software engineer). However, many of the other skills I had acquired in my professional life turned out to be amazingly useful.

My computer knowledge obviously helps in today's world of on-line promotion. I developed the first version of my website using WSIWYG software but got terribly frustrated by the bugs and the lack of control. These days, I maintain my website manually, writing the HTML code by hand using templates developed by a graphic designer. It may sounds like a lot of work but making changes is fast, easy and most important, reliable. When I edited Cream, I was able to create a script that generated customized contracts for each of the forty odd contributors, based on a few items of information they entered in a web form. I've also considered doing some scripting to automate announcements for my blog and other news, based on my calendar.

My experience as a small business owner has made me moderately comfortable with the monetary aspects of my writing career.  I have no problem keeping financial records or dealing with taxes.

Probably the most vital characteristic derived from my professional life is my relatively disciplined approach to time management. I set aside specific times for idea generation, research, writing, and promotion. Both my software and research careers helped me to develop a capacity for managing detail, which gets more and more critical daily as the world of publishing and promotion becomes more complicated.   

So what happens next?  I have an image of myself in fifteen years, gray-haired and frail, sitting in front of my computer and writing hot sex scenes. Given the various twists and turns my professional life has taken to get to this point, I suspect this picture may be far from accurate. But then, you never know. Maybe I've finally discovered what I'm going to be when I grow up.