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Year: 2013

Validation, Desire and Other Reasons to Write

by | October 18, 2013 | | 20 Comments

By Donna George Storey

I haven’t written a new story in almost six months. Not that I haven’t had a few fallow periods since I first started writing fiction seriously sixteen years ago, but the break in the flow this time around has inspired me to listen to an inner voice that is usually drowned out by the word-rush of my latest story project.

Who am I writing for?

(Yes, I know, it should be “For whom am I writing?” but my inner voice is not particularly interested in proper grammar!)

“For my audience, the bigger the better”—that’s the first simple answer that comes to mind. Or “for myself,” which feels fleetingly self-empowering and bravely feminist, but doesn’t ring totally true. To be honest, although no work I’ve ever done has felt so personally expressive and revealing as fiction writing, from the beginning the driving force has been my desire for validation through publication. While an audience is implied, the images of success that come to mind are acceptance letters, contracts, books or journals to hold in my hands. Oddly no readers are in sight.

I publish, therefore I am a writer. That was my creed. Always an eager student, I immersed myself in how-to-get-published books of all kinds, scribbling notes on how to write a cover letter, how to hook an editor, sure-fire techniques of the selling writer (throw a lovable character into trouble, then deeper trouble to keep the pages turning). I’m not sure if any of this advice actually affected the stories I wrote, but it did reinforce my sense that ultimately I wrote to please an editor and, stretching endlessly beyond her, a faultlessly wise literary establishment.

Over the years, I eventually did get published—with over 160 credits to my name right now. Damn, even my cruelly judgmental inner voice has to admit that’s some form of validation. Yet, what inspired me to write before now seems a barrier. Perhaps it’s because I know too well what publication, after the first rush of pleasure and pride, means. Promoting your work is an endless, soul-draining task. Nor do the writing experts allow for resting on your laurels. Everyone knows a truly successful writer must produce a constant stream of novels to establish her brand and a deep backlist for new fans to explore. At this level, success is, of course, married to profit rather than a mere byline. But in order to make cartloads of cash in the gold rush of self-publishing, you must above all be savvy about what sells.

Trapped as I am in an attitude that has apparently given me what I wanted, when I think about writing another novel, I feel bored rather than inspired. Experience (or rather, feedback from editors over the years) tells me every chapter has to have a sex scene. The story or vocabulary can’t be too complex. My book has to fit into a well-oiled slot in the store (none of this genre-busting nonsense) and it has to be excitingly fresh, yet reassuringly the same as every other best-selling erotic novel out there. This is what “they” want from me. I ignore their desires at my peril.

But at long last, what I’d like to call the “real” writer inside me is saying enough. Enough of reading the market and second-guessing editors and thinking these skills are enough to satisfy my heart, mind and spirit. Write what fascinates you, she tells me. Write sex scenes only where they belong in the story and only at the level of explicitness that feels right, because sometimes suggestion is far sexier than a blow-by-blow. Write only for yourself at least once in your life. At the very least, the experience will teach you lessons you will never learn if you’re always looking to others for your reward.

It all sounds pretty sweet right now.

I can’t guarantee myself I’ll have the courage to do this, but after months of indifference, I’m finally getting excited about writing again.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Donna George Storey is the author
of Amorous Woman (recently released as an ebook) and a new collection of short
stories, Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her
work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com
or http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor

What If #1 Random Thoughts About How Venus Flytraps Experience Time

by | October 15, 2013 | | 6 Comments

Saturday morning. 
Sitting in the backyard with a little espresso.  A notepad.  A pencil.  A pack of Biscoff cookies.  Thinking. 
The grass needs cutting, I’m thinking. 
I had that lucid dream again, I’m thinking.  It was the dream about the old house that
needs fixing but also the old house is haunted. 
It isn’t my house, but it may be the inside of my head.  And there was that room and the room was
filled with old shoes I’ve worn at different times in my life, even baby
shoes.  Shoes.  What do they mean, shoes?

The thing is I woke up inside the dream and could have had
dream sex with someone and it would have been okay that way and I didn’t.  The hell’s wrong with me?

A sip of coffee.  A
notebook.  A pencil.  Thinking.

A glance to the right, my little collection of carnivorous
plants in their pots in the sunshine, enjoying the morning.  At night they grow.  At night the insects come out.  The fly traps are beginning to go
dormant.  The tropical pitcher plants
have grown pitchers the size of beer bottles that are catching roaches
now.  They sink to the bottom and ferment
in a nasty soup for the plant’s nourishment.

How does the plant know there are roaches?

I don’t know if God exists. 
I don’t know what happens when we die. 
But when I look at a pitcher plant and the hapless roaches drowned in
its wells, I wonder.  How does it
know?  How does it know there are roaches
to be eaten and that roaches are good to eat?

It knows.

Plants know about the world they live in.  How do they know?  Is it all random selection, pure luck?  They don’t have brains or nervous systems
like we do, they don’t experience the world in the same way we do, but a
dandelion knows the wind blows.  They all
know the sun shines and for how long in a day. 
They know when the days get shorter and winter is coming.  They know there are animals that want to eat
them and they have each taken a position towards that reality.  They stab them and poison them.  They cut deals with them.  There are fruit vines with thorns that have
packed tiny indigestible seeds in sugary fruit. 
“Here,” says the plant, “don’t eat me, eat this instead.  Take my berry, package my seeds in your shit
and drop them where they’ll grow far away. 
This is better for both of us.” 
Pollen.  There are plants that
offer you these bribes – exchanging sex for food.  The oldest and most universal bargain there
is, man, beast and vegetable.  Feed me
and you can fuck me.   I give you
food.  You give me a place to put my dick.  Everybody has what they want.  Nobody has to die.

Random elements.

These random elements. 

Sex and death are God’s great tough love creations to drive
diversity and make sure life survives against asteroids and mega-volcanoes and
every other goddamnedist  thing the
universe does to our planet.  I believe
in science, I believe in natural selection. 
But there is this other mystery I can’t get around.

Carnivorous Plants. 
How do they know?

I think the plants, especially the hungry ones, have taught
me about God.  I don’t believe in God the
way I once did – but there’s something huge underneath all this that
knows.  Plants know. How do they
know?  Is it all by accident?  A flytrap’s trap leaves don’t snap closed in
the way people think; they don’t move together the way a bear trap does.  The leaves of the plant are actually warped
and suspended in an open concave shape. 
The plant shoots water hydro dynamically into the leaves to
counter-warp the shape into a convex form which instantly closes the space
between them.  It doesn’t use movement –
it uses geometry.  Geometry!  Geometry is much faster than movement. 

But a flytrap has a technical problem – how can it tell the
difference between a raindrop and an animal? 
Well, it knows animals move around.  Raindrops don’t.  Somehow it knows that.  So it invented a
motion detector.  How?

Arithmetic.

A Venus Flytrap can count to three.  One, two, three.  Snap.

A fly trap has three tiny spines standing up inside its trap
leaves.  When an animal touches one
spine, the plant feels it, the plant watches, but it waits.  When something touches two spines, it
knows.  When an animal touches three
spines – one, two, three then snap – water fills the leaves, the leaves change
their shape.   Geometry! Then they
squeeze.  They squeeze until they’re
airtight.  You can’t open them until the
plant does.

Random elements. 
Random elements.

To be in the center of the universe you have to be where the
random elements are mixing.

Sex and death.  I
don’t know if God is a god of love or not, when you look at nature it doesn’t
really look like it.  It looks as though
God is more about turnover.  Life
survives because of the mixing of random elements into an infinite variety of
new forms and no matter what happens to the world some of those forms are set
up ahead of the game to survive the new world they’re in.  That means everybody and everything has to fuck, mix their genes and have orgasms
and feel wonderful.  If there is a god
out there the only thing you can be really sure of is God wants you to get
laid.

And then you have to die. 
Everybody has to die.  You have to
clear your ass out of the way so the next generation with the new random mix of
genes can come marching through, get laid and die. 

What if . . . .?

. . .  what if – there
is only one fly trap? 

What if there has only ever been one fly trap in the history
of the world, divided and spread out over generations?  But its all the same one fly trap, making
these decisions as it goes along?  Maybe
a plant doesn’t experience time the same way we do.  Maybe . . .

. . .  what if –

. . .  what if a venus
flytrap is one vast colonial organism spread out laterally over
space-time?  It looks like a lot of
little plants, but it really isn’t?  What
if Time is one block, one dimension.  Not
an arrow.  What if – for a plant – time
exists like a loaf of bread?  You can
slice into it, experience different moments, but all those same moments exist
at the same time?  For a plant?  There is only one fly trap, exisiting
multidimensionally in all moments simultaneously?  Could humans exist like that?  Like brain cells scattered across the ages?

The Dalai Lama is what’s known in Tibetan Buddhism as a
“tulku”.  A tulku is an individual soul,
usually a great teacher, who, after death, chooses to return to incarnation in
order to continue his work teaching others. 
They just reincarnate over and over, their previous students search them
out and raise them and continue. 
Theoretically the current Fourteenth Dalai Lama is the same guy as the
first Dalai Lama.  The same guy has
returned fourteen times so far and picked up right where he left off before he
died.  That’s a tulku.  Death doesn’t even represent a career
change.  

What if a fly trap, or any plant, what if they’re all one
tulku spread out over infinite time?

What if  . . .

. . . .what if – human beings, all of us, are one Tulku
spread out over time, like flytraps? 
What if we are all one soul, the same soul, co-existing incarnationally,
over 6 billion life times but all here simultaneously?  Because we experience time as individuals,
instead of being spread out, experience it as an arrow instead of a loaf of
bread?  Maybe nobody else in nature does
that. 

What if you reading this are really me, but in a different
incarnation?  Maybe incarnated as a woman?

But what if . . . .

. . . .  but what if
someone found this out?  What would sex
be like for that person?

What if that person woke up, as though waking up inside of a
lucid dream, and realized that every person he met was actually himself/herself in a
different incarnation, spread out, traveling side by side with him?  What would that be like?

I pick up my notepad and pencil, wash down a cookie with a long swig of cold
coffee.  And begin.

           On the subway to
Battery Park, the woman in the black raincoat snuggled over and nudged Ron
gently but assertively in the ribs.  He
lowered his New York Times and looked at her.


           “Excuse me, sir,” she
said.  “Listen, if I should start
screaming?  Just wake me up.”

C. Sanchez-Garcia

Immersive Proximity and the Luxury of Space: POVs in Erotic Fiction

by | October 13, 2013 | | 14 Comments

Justine by de Sade, the first two editions were in 1st person,
the final version in 3rd.

I took a quick poll last night on my twitter stream to find out which point of view was the preferred one for both readers and writers of erotica.  As you might imagine, no one behaved themselves and I didn’t get a definitive answer. 

Now, you’re asking yourself why this question might not pertain to other genres equally. Of course, POV is always significant to the reader’s experience of the narrative.  But there are both historical and cognitive reasons why it is of greater interest to erotica writers than it would be, say, to murder mystery writers. 

Before the 20th Century, much erotic writing was written in first person and often presented to the reader as a candid confessional.  The choice of this voice is significant because it was, in literary terms, the equivalent of the money shot. First person was felt to convey veracity and solicit reader empathy.

Narrative theorists, novel critics, and reading specialists have already singled out a small set of narrative techniques–such as the use of first person narration and the interior representation of characters’ consciousness and emotional states–as devices supporting character identification, contributing to empathetic experiences, opening readers’ minds to others, changing attitudes, and even predisposing readers to altruism” Suzanne Keen writes, leading to narrative empathy. (1)

Certainly confessional memoires like ‘My Secret Life,” by Walter, strove to create the effect of a confidence being shared between ‘men of the world’ about the forbidden landscape of sexual experience.

The firmness of her flesh impressed me, whether I put my finger between the cheeks of her arse or between her thighs I could with difficulty get it away; she could have cracked a nut between either.  (2)

This approach survives to this day, with the same strategy to convey genuineness and confidentiality to the reader in letters to the Penthouse Forum.

She started out by telling me that she loved me, then asked, “Honey, what would you say if I told you that I wanted to have sex with some other guy?”

I was thrilled with the thought, but needing to act like I was maybe too macho for that, I asked, ‘Where did you ever get an idea like that?'”  (3)

But before you start to think that first person erotica just results in downmarket pseudo porn, it’s worth remembering that Henry Miller wrote “The Tropic of Cancer” in first person:

At any rate, I had not yet come to the end of my rope. I was only flirting with disaster. … I understood then why it is that Paris attracts the tortured, the hallucinated, the great maniacs of love.  (4)

Interestingly, de Sade’s two first versions of Justine were written in first person, but for the final publication, La Nouvelle Justine, he changed it all into third person.  (5)  Considering how long it is, this must have been quite task. It should tell you something about how important he felt the POV was to the way he wanted the story read.

In an interesting meta-strategy, although the stories in Anais Nin’s “Delta of Venus” are in third person, the collection starts off with an intensely first person narrative prologue in which she talks of how the stories came about and how she wrote them, which cleverly assures the reader of the author’s personal erotic investment in the work, while presenting the stories as her own intensely narrative sexual fantasies set at a distance to allow the reader into her lascivious world.

She was a very, very clever writer. She gains the confidence of the reader in the same way that first person narratives do, but her use of the third person POV in the actual stories works an interesting magic. First person erotic narratives work very well when the reader finds it easy to empathize with the narrator.  Walter, de Sade and, I would hazard a guess, Miller, all assumed their readers would be men. Men like them. 

Nin not only set out to write beyond her lived and (perhaps) autobiographical experience, but take the reader into erotic fantasy and position both she  – the writer – and you – the reader – as voyeur. Third person narratives allow the reader enough distance so as not to be put off by the gap between fiction, the fictional characters, the erotic fantasy and the reader’s sense of self.  Moreover, the third person narration makes it possible to present male protagonists without jarring the reader with the reality that the writer is female.

“Now the Baron, like many men, always awakened with a peculiarly sensitive condition of the penis. In fact, he was in a most vulnerable state.”  (6)

Some erotic writers find themselves compelled to tell a story and it presents itself with a voice in which to be told and they remain faithful always to allow the story, in essence, to ‘tell itself.’

However, after I’d been writing a while and I began to get stalled on stories that didn’t seem to slither off my fingertips with the fluidity I had hoped for, I began to take more notice of POV. I realized that sometimes a story wasn’t working because it wasn’t being told by the right character. This is what really prompted me to think deeply about POV.

I realized that sometimes my stories didn’t have the level of conflict I wanted because I had started out writing the story in the POV of the character who was least conflicted. This gave me a more reliable narrator, but a less exciting story.

When I began to venture into writing male protagonists, I stuck to third person for the same reason Nin did. I wanted to acknowledge my unmaleness as a writer, and underscore the fictionality of the story.  But more recently, in stories where I felt I really could truly empathize at a deep level with the male protagonist, I have attempted first person.

It is often said that ‘literary’ works are usually written in third person and, if you take a look at the literary canon, a large portion of them are, but by no means all of them.

I think one of the reasons for the perpetuation of this myth is a legitimate one. Literary fiction attempts to ask the reader to, in a way, be conscious of the writing while reading. It asks the reader to split themselves in two – immersing in the narrative but also always remaining a little distant in order to afford the reader the opportunity to read critically at the same time.

You might think this has no relevance in erotic fiction, but I would argue that there are times when it can be very effective.  Say, for instance, you are writing a story involving a paraphilia or fetish that the vast majority of your prospective readers might not share. You want to tempt them to glimpse in at the eroticism of it, but you don’t want to assume their compliance, from a literary perspective. Third person affords readers the space and distance to intellectually acknowledge the eroticism of something they might not want to do in real life but might be aroused by in fiction. So, if you want to write a watersports story that is not aimed at readers who you know will get off on it instantly, third person is a great way to afford them wiggle room and allow them to indulge in the erotic descriptions of it without feeling like they’re living it personally.

On the other hand, I have at times wanted to intentionally disorient the reader, to prompt that fine line between disgust and lust, and a first person narrative can be much more immediate and immersive for this, forcing them into the world and the scene for narrative effect. In a way, intentionally violating their comfort zone.

Most people who have been writing a long time make POV decisions very consciously. They’re well aware of the pros and cons of each voice.  If you haven’t tried to go against the grain of your instincts yet, give it a try.  Even if, after a few attempts, you decide to return to your favourite POV, at least you will have had the experience of wielding the power that the decision of POV can offer you.

____________________

 1. Keen, Suzanne. “A Theory of Narrative Empathy.” Narrative. 14.3 (2006): 207-236. Web. 13 Oct. 2013. <http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/narrative/v014/14.3keen.html>.

 2. Walter. My Secret Life. 1. Amsterdam: Privately Published, 1888. Web. <http://www.horntip.com/html/books_&_MSS/1880s/1888_my_secret_life/vol_01/index.htm>.

 3.  T.P. “A Fucking Good Time.” Penthouse Forum Online. GMCI Internet Operations Inc., 28 Apr 2013. Web. 13 Oct 2013. <http://penthouseforum.com/2013/04/a-fuckin-good-time/>.

 4. Miller, Henry. The Tropic of Cancer. New York: Grove Press, 1961. Print.

 5. “Justine (Sade).” Wikipedia. N.p., 18 Jul 2013. Web. 13 Oct 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justine_(Sade)>.

6. Nin, Anais. Delta of Venus. OCR. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977. Web. <http://optimisinglife.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/nin-anais-delta-of-venus.pdf>

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Writing Coaches and Teachers

by | October 10, 2013 | | 2 Comments

(thanks to WriteSex, where this article originally appeared)

For new writers, the temptation is obvious: after all, if you don’t know something, shouldn’t you seek out a way to learn about it? The question of how to educate yourself as a writer is a necessary and important one, of course, but an often-invisible second question follows: how do you sift through the piles of would-be writing coaches, teachers and other purveyors of advice to find the ones who will lead you toward genuinely better writing? The problem isn’t that there are over-eager teachers galore, but that far too many of them are preaching from ignorance—or just dully quoting what others have already said.

This is particularly true of erotic romance. Now, I have to admit I’ve been more than a bit spoiled by other genres, where you can write about whatever you want without much of a chance—beyond clumsy writing—of getting rejected for not toeing the line, so approaching erotic romance has been a bit more of a challenge. Romance authors, after all, have been told time and time again that there is a very precise, almost exacting, Way of Doing Things … and if you don’t, then bye-bye book deal.

But times have changed, and while a few stubborn publishers still want erotic romantic fiction that follows established formulas, the quantum leap of digital publishing has totally shaken up by-the-numbers approaches to romance writing. Without going too much into it (maybe in another column…), because ebooks are so much easier to produce, publishers can take wonderful risks on new authors and concepts, meaning that they don’t have to wring their hands in fright that the new title they greenlit will go bust and possibly take the whole company with it.

Because of this freedom, erotic romance can be so much more than it ever was: experimental, innovative, unique, challenging, etc. These are no longer the Words of Death when it comes to putting together a book.

One of the great, underlying tasks of teaching—one I love, but with some reverence and an occasional pang of dread—is challenging the boring, formulaic, way that so many talk about writing (which is also to say that a huge part of the reason I love to teach is that it’s a weird form of revenge against all the bad writing teachers I’ve had over the years). There are, however, far too many writing teachers who relentlessly parrot that erotic romance has to follow a strict formula to be successful. They spell out this formula in stomach-cramping detail: what has to happen to each and every character, in each and every chapter, in each and every book.

This is not to say that new authors should put their hands over their ears any time someone offers up advice on romance writing; there is, after all, a huge difference between a teacher who inspires from experience and one who is just a conduit between you and a textbook. A publisher, for instance, who looks at their catalogue and can see what is selling for the moment—they’re worth listening to. On the other hand, one who sets down unbending rules on what Not To Do and What To Do, regardless of the changing interests of readers or the innovations of writers, is only mumbling at you through the sand in which their head is lodged. Case in point: I once had a erotic romance novel rejected by a major publisher not because of the writing, the plot, the characters, or the setting but because it was about a painter and, according to this publisher, “books about painters don’t sell.” Needless to say, I didn’t let this feedback stop me from sending the book to a different publisher—where it sold quite well.

The A-to-B-to-C form of teaching writing is likened to cutting up a frog: certainly an efficient way of finding out (ewwwww) the contents of an amphibian … but totally useless as a way of creating your own. A good test of a writing instructor, by the way, is how you feel at the end of the class or how-to book: if you’re shaking like a leaf that you might have made—or will make—some kind of horrible erotic-romance-writing mistake, then the lesson was a bad one … but if you leave feeling elated, inspired, confident and ready to build your story into something powerful then, you guessed it, the class was good.

Folks have come to me with questions like “Can I start my story with an email?” “Can I start with the weather?” “Can my setting be in a foreign country?” “Can I write about an artist?” I think you can guess what my answer always is: just write! One, you can always change it later and, two (most importantly) write what you want to read: don’t suffocate your creativity with formulas, set-in-stone rules, mandatory character arcs and Hero’s Journeys, or any standardized thing that isn’t relevant to what’s really happening in your story. Instead, think of writing—especially erotic romance—as creation. Sure, you’re going to make some mistakes, but everyone does. That’s what learning is all about. Taking class after class after class doesn’t write books: you do! Taking class after class after class doesn’t even make you a better writer: you do!

Sure, you should seek out some teachers—especially when you are ready to step into the completely terrifying world of publishing—but don’t think that there is a guru out there who has all the answers, who is the Sacred Keeper of the Great Romance Writing Secret. If they were, wouldn’t they be sitting on their yacht sipping immaculately prepared daiquiris?

The best advice, the best lesson that anyone can give a writer, is the simplest: write. Create stories and books and on and on and on until it begins to flow and the words aren’t words anymore but just notes in a composition, until plot and character and setting and dialogue aren’t separate things but part of a greater, beautiful, whole. Once you can hold what you wrote in your hand—or on the screen—and say to yourself that what you have created is good, then you can study the lessons of how to put it out into the world.

But, until then, do everything you can to keep yourself inspired, enthusiastic, creative, thrilled, and excited about writing—by staying away from the tired idea of formulas … and keep that frog intact.

Writing Exercise – The Rhyme Royal

by | October 6, 2013 | | 10 Comments

James I of Scotland

 By Ashley Lister

 The rhyme royal (sometimes called the rime royale by those
who prefer to spell things incorrectly) is a fairly straightforward poetic
form.

It refers to a stanza of seven lines, each line containing
ten syllables, and the whole poem following a rhyming pattern of a b a b b c c.
The form, according to the Poetry Foundation, was popularized by Geoffrey
Chaucer and termed “royal” because his imitator, James I of Scotland, employed this
structure in his own verse.

Here’s an example of one I wrote earlier.

We talk about our plans for this evening

Things we’d love to do when at our
leisure

I long to give your sexual bells a ring:

Thrill you with a night you’ll always
treasure.

In return you give a choice of pleasure

But I care not if you swallow or spit

I’m happy if you put your mouth round it.

Note that there are ten syllables per line. This isn’t iambic
pentameter. This is merely ten syllables per line. Writing in iambs might make
for something more profound but, as regular readers of these exercises will be
aware, I am an exceptionally superficial poet.

One of the many fun things about this form is that the
stanzas can be used to form verses in a longer poem. This is the way Chaucer
used it in his work and we can see examples of this in Wyatt, Auden and many
others.

I pluck your pubes from twixt my teeth
and smile

The taste of you still lingers on my lips

Your scent’s a mem’ry that’s made to
beguile

I yearn to squirm beneath your fingertips

And play with toys like canes and crops
and whips

And savour pleasures borne beyond belief

Then pluck more pubes from in between my
teeth

As always, please feel free to share your rhyme royals in
the comments box below.

Erotic Lure Newsletter: October 2013

by | October 1, 2013 | | 2 Comments

From Erotica Readers & Writers Association
By Ashley Lister
_______

 There once was a man who
wrote verse

He rhymed stuff so bad
some would curse

His friend Lisabet (uh)

Asked him to write a
newsletter

And then things went
from bad to worse

Greetings,

My name is Ashley Lister. I’m covering the Erotic Lure
newsletter for Lisabet this month whilst she goes gallivanting on her nefarious
travels. I’m hoping she updates us all with pictures, streaming video or at
least salacious tales of her incredible adventures.

This month here at ERWA we doff our caps to Halloween,
as evidenced by the supernatural bent in the exemplary stories found in this
month’s gallery.  Or, to say that in
verse:

If you like to read sexy
sweet shorts

Tales of friction in
fiction so fraught

Visit the gallery

And there you will see

The theme this month’s ‘La
Petite Mort’

EROTICA GALLERY
La Petite Mort
https://erotica-readers.com/story-gallery


Books you say? What about Books for sensual readers?
What a timely question! I’m so glad you asked.

As always, there are plenty to choose from. Purchasing
those books through the Amazon links on these pages helps ERWA to provide a
consistently superlative service to readers and writers alike.

We’ve read books aimed
at everyone’s kinks

From cool cougars to
maddening minx

If you want these pages

To help with our wages

Buy your books through
our Amazon links

BOOKS FOR SENSUAL READERS
https://erotica-readers.com/books/


Have you written something? Or do you fancy joining
the glamorous world of the published authors? Then check out our calls for
submission this month and see if there’s a niche you might be able to fill. (NB
– Ashley, insert a joke here about filling a niche, use a clever double entendre).

If you’ve written a one-handed
read

And you typed till your
fingers did bleed

You have our permission

To view the calls for
submission

You’ll find everything there
you might need.

MARKET NEWS & CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS
https://erotica-readers.com/erotica-authors-resources/


As a writer I’ve always considered “Inside the Erotic
Mind” to be an invaluable resource. 
Being able to glean honest insights into how others approach sex, sexual
reactions and sexual responsiveness is extremely helpful and interesting. Or, saying
that in limerick form:

Our writers are terribly
kind

And here, on these pages,
you’ll find

There’s words of wisdom

About how best to come

Click into our erotic
mind


INSIDE THE EROTIC MIND
Describe Your Orgasm: How Does it Feel? Don’t be Shy…
https://erotica-readers.com/inside-the-erotic-mind/


Words are good. Stories can be entertaining. But
sometimes we just need a plastic companion. 
Now I’ve written a couple of narrative poems in this milieu but I won’t
bore you with those details here. Instead, I’ll say this:

In all of my travels
I’ve found

That there’s people I
like being around

But when they’re away

And I’m wanting to pay

I must visit the Sex Toy
Playground

SEX TOY PLAYGROUND
https://erotica-readers.com/sex-toy-playground/

What about films? ERWA is about all things erotic,
whether that’s words, toys or films. On a cautionary note, here’s a verse about
erotic films and why it’s important to watch them on Blu-Ray, DVD or at least a
streaming download.

The saucy things we like
to see

Are best watched from a
DVD

Cos’ the multiplex staff

Will just point and
laugh

At least, that was what
happened to me


BEST IN ADULT MOVIES
https://erotica-readers.com/adult-movies/


Right, tidying up loose ends here. As always, thanks to all those hard at work behind the
scenes at ERWA who have made this resource possible. I was saying to a
colleague last week that it would be hard to imagine a world without ERWA. It
really is unlike any other writing resource in the world. I could name names
here and discuss the hard work invested by each member of the group, but I’d
likely mess up and miss out on someone important. Instead, I’ll be glib and end
with a poem.

Thank you for reading
this, member

There’s one more thing
you should remember

Whilst I loved writing
these poems

I’m now going ho-em

Lisabet will be back in
November

Ashley Lister

____________

Ashley Lister is a writer, poet and columnist and the author of How to Write Erotic Fiction and Sex Scenes. Aside from being behind more than thirty pseudonymous erotic novels, Ashley also teaches creative writing. Read Ashley’s Writing Exercise right here on ERWA  blog.

Write, learn, and play on ERWA . Details at:
https://erotica-readers.com/erwa-email-discussion-list/

Lip Service

by | September 30, 2013 | | 7 Comments

by K D Grace

Auguste Rodin's The Kiss

Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss

On the 22nd of September, Grace Marshall and I helped Victoria Blisse celebrate the 100th Sunday of her weekly Sunday Snog posts by posting sexy kissing scenes from a couple of our novels. The proceeds went to help Médecins Sans Frontières, and a lot of filthy writers had a lot of fun sharing sizzling kisses on their sites. That got me seriously thinking about kissing and what an important part of our sexuality and our culture it is.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like it’s a proper sex scene, or even a proper PG love scene, unless there’s some serious lip action. Here are a few fun factoids about the lip lock that I discovered while I was writing my post for my Sunday Snog. They are from Psychology Today , How Stuff Works and Random Facts:

  • The science of kissing is called philematology.
  • Lips are 100 times more sensitive than the tips of the fingers. They’re even more sensitive that the genitals!
  • The most important muscle in kissing is the orbicularis oris, whichallows the lips to “pucker.”
  • French kissing involves 34 muscles in the face, while a pucker kiss involves just two.
  • A nice romantic kiss burns 2-3 calories, while a hot sizzler can burn off five or even more.
  • The mucus membranes inside the mouth are permeable to hormones. Through open-mouth kissing, men introduced testosterone into a woman’s mouth, the absorption of which increases arousal and the likelihood of rumpy pumpy.
  • Apparently men like it wet and sloppy while women like it long and lingering.
  • While we Western folk do lip service, some cultures do nose service, smelling for that romantic, sexual connection. Very mammalian, if you ask me, and who doesn’t love a good dose of pheromonal yumminess?
  • Then there’s good old fashion bonding. It’s no secret that kissing someone you like increases closeness.
Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1890 painting of Pygmalion and Galatea

Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1890 painting
of Pygmalion and Galatea

While all that’s interesting to know, what really intrigues me about kisses is how something seemingly so fragile can become so mind-blowingly powerful when lips, tongue, a whisp of breath, perhaps a nip of teeth are applied in the right proportion at the right time on the right part of the anatomy. And with the size of the human body in proportion to the mouth, the possibilities for a delicious outcome are only as limited as the imagination.

One theory is that kissing evolved from the act of mothers premasticating food for their infants, back in the pre-baby food days, and then literally kissing it into their mouths. Birds still do that. The sharing of food mouth to mouth is also a courtship ritual, and birds aren’t the only critters who do that. Even with no food involved the tasting, touching and sniffing of mouths of possible mates, or even as an act of submission, is very much a part of the animal kingdom.

The sharing of food is one of the most basic functions, the function that kept us all alive when we were too small to care for ourselves. The mouth is that magical place where something from the outside world is ingested and becomes a part of our inside world, giving us energy and strength. Not only is the mouth the receptacle for food, it’s the passage for oxygen. Pretty much all that has to pass into the body to sustain life passes through the mouth. I find it fascinating that the kiss, one of the most basic elements in Western mating ritual and romance, should involve such a live-giving part of our anatomy.

But the mouth does more than just allow for the intake of the sustenance we need. The mouth allows us voice. I doubt there are many people who appreciate that quite as much as we writers, who love words and the power they give us. And how can I think about the power of words without thinking about the power of words in song and poetry? Our mouths connect us in language, in thought, in the courtship of words that allow us to know and understand each other before those mouths take us to that intimate place of the kiss. And when that kiss becomes a part of our sexual experience, it’s that mouth, that tongue, those lips that allow us to say what we like and how we like it; that allow us to talk dirty; that allow vocalise our arousal; that allow us to laugh or tease our way to deeper intimacy.

The fact that the mouth offers all those wonderful, life-giving, life enhancing things, AND can kiss, makes it one of my very favourite parts of the body.

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Scene 5
William Shakespeare

The Wisdom Of Wine – On Writers And Drinking

by | September 28, 2013 | | 4 Comments

Elizabeth Black writes in a wide variety of
genres including erotica, erotic romance, and dark fiction. She lives on the
Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four cats.

UPDATE: While this article touches on writers and alcoholism, I don’t discuss it directly. For a more direct discussion about writers, alcoholism, depression, and suicide, please read my article “The Madness Of Art“.

—–

Writers and drink go
together like, well, writers and drink! I have a drinking ritual I follow most
mornings. I start off with a cup of coffee at home. Then, I pour coffee in my
travel mug and head to the beach. I walk for an hour, running plots and other
things through my head, and drink my second cup of coffee. Then I return home
and drink my third cup. After that, I’m all coffeed out.

I save the alcoholic
stuff for the afternoon. Most often I drink champagne, but I won’t turn down
red wine or reisling. I sometimes drink cognac and liqueurs. I developed a
taste for Grand Marnier after reading too many British murder mysteries. My
other favorites are unusual drinks like Benedictine, Strega, Campari, absinthe,
amontillado (hat tip to Poe), Quantro, and Drambuie.

I’ve met a few
writers who didn’t like coffee, which is something you wouldn’t expect because
writers and coffee is a match made in Heaven. I quote two writers who don’t like coffee below. My son is a computer geek and he can’t stand coffee, either.
You’d never expect to meet a computer geek who loathes coffee, but I know one.

Some fictional
characters are well-known for their drinking habits. Jack Torrence liked his
bourbon on the rocks, much to his downfall. Maggie in Tennessee Williams’
“Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” was surrounded by alcoholics. Agatha
Christie’s Hercule Poirot liked his sirop de cassis as well as hot chocolate.
He also liked tisane, an herbal or lime hot tea.

Two of my own
characters have a penchant for drink. Catherine Stone in my Night Owl Top Pick
erotic novel “Don’t Call Me Baby” prefers a TNT (Tanqueray and
tonic). That was a popular drink in the 1980s in America, during which time the
book is set. Jackson Beale in my WIP “Alex Craig Has A Threesome”
prefers expensive liquor, especially Cristal champagne. That man enjoys the
good life.

There’s something
soothing about a hot or alcoholic drink. It helps releases your inhibitions so
that you write more smoothly (in some cases). A drink or two may make you more
sociable – something that doesn’t come easily to many introverted writers. The
ritual behind preparing a pot of coffee, a cup of tea, or a fancy drink can be
satifying in its own way.

Some writers are
famous for their enjoyment of alcohol. William Faulkner noted, “I usually write at night. I always keep my whiskey
within reach.” Carson McCullers preferred hot tea and sherry she
kept in a thermos. At Yaddo, the writers’ colony,
she had her own ritual. She started writing with a beer shortly after breakfast,
then moved on to her hot tea and sherry (her “sonnie boy”), and ended
in the evening with cocktails. F. Scott Fitzgerald preferred gin since
he believed no one could detect it on his breath.

Absinthe is a drink
that has been long favored by writers, including Ernest Hemingway. Absinthe is
nearly a mythical drink. It has its own cachet, but the reputation may be borne
of myth. The chemical that causes the hallucinations you get from drinking too
much absinthe (thujone) exists in very minute amounts in the drink – not enough
to make you hallucinate. Absinthe alone is a very powerful drink. You’d get
drunk and hallucinate by simply drinking the stuff because it’s so strong. The main
reason absinthe was so popular in the 1800s was because the stuff was cheap and
strong. For those unable to afford better, more expensive liquor, absinthe was
the way to go. Plus big drinkers favored it and got drunk not because of the
drink itself but because of the massive amounts of it they drank. Absinthe
drinkers drank a lot of absinthe. Calling it “The Green Fairy” only
gave it a mystical allure that hid its true nature as a fancy version of
rotgut.

I interviewed some
of my author friends to learn what they drank when writing and why they drank
it.

Kathy
Tanith Davenport Lewis – Cider. Because I like it. And I find it easier to
write without second-guessing myself after a drink.

Dana
Fredsti – Wine, both sparkling and still. I try to reward myself with sips of it
as I write as a little relaxes me enough to not beat myself up over what I’m
writing (my inner critique is a mouthy bitch), but too much relaxes me to the
point I don’t write enough. It’s a fine line…

Lisa Lane – I used
to drink often when I wrote (I have a weakness for margaritas, tequila shots,
and chocolate wine–not together, lol). I ended up getting drunk too often, so
I switched strictly to coffee (or, more specifically, mocha). I brew my own
espresso and use Ovaltine in place of cocoa. It’s very yummy.

Adriana Kraft – We
never drink while we’re writing – but champagne to celebrate a release?
Absolutely!

Gemma Parkes – Only
water! I couldn’t drink alcohol because I get drunk too quickly and I don’t
like coffee!

Sharolyn Wells – I
don’t drink alcohol. My father was an abusive alcoholic when he was younger and
I saw the things he did to my mother when he was drunk. I drink either water or
Dr. Pepper. Sometimes milk, depending on what I’m eating at the time. My mother
had a rule–chocolate milk if you’re eating anything non-chocolate; white milk
if you’re eating anything chocolate. I never drink coffee. Never acquired a
taste for it.

Devon Marshall –
Strictly speaking, I’m always drinking something when I write – mostly water
and coffee though! I do drink alcohol sometimes when I write, especially if I
happen to be having a drink on that day, with beer or cider being my poison of
choice. As someone else said above, there are times when alcohol helps relax me
enough that I can write without continually nitpicking at it. Was it Hemingway
who said “Write drunk. Edit sober”? Sounds like something he’d say
anyway!

Vanessa de Sade –
Don’t drink at all, especially not while I write but I do use other stimulants
whilst composing sexy scenes

Phoenix Johnson – Tea
is my trending drink right now because it relaxes and soothes to get the mind
clear of everything but what I need. I accompany it with water or big cup of
juice for endurance and energy once the tea has cleared my mind.

It’s only natural
for writers to drink something while they write, whether or not that drink is
alcoholic. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “Here’s to alcohol, the rose colored
glasses of life.” He was right in more ways than he was probably aware.

Here are some quotes
by the famous about alcohol:

“I drink to make
other people more interesting.”

― Ernest Hemingway

“An intelligent man
is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”

― Ernest Hemingway

“I have absolutely
no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not
been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and
reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories,
from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending
doom.”

― Edgar Allan Poe

“In wine there is
wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.”

― Benjamin Franklin

“The Hitch-Hiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in
existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the effect of which is like
having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold
brick.”

― Douglas Adams

“Drink because you
are happy, but never because you are miserable.”

― G.K. Chesterton

“I like to have a
martini,

Two at the very
most.

After three I’m
under the table,

after four I’m under
my host.”

― Dorothy Parker

“Death: “THERE
ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT.”

Albert: “Oh,
yes, sir. But alcohol sort of compensates for not getting them.”

― Terry Pratchett

Now I’ll go enjoy a
bottle of champagne. Cheers!  🙂

Dead but Not Forgotten

by | September 26, 2013 | | 3 Comments

by Jean Roberta

Let us pause for a moment in our busy lives to remember all the quirky magazines, websites, and small presses that have vanished forever during the upheavals of the publishing business. And while we’re doing that, let’s remember a few people who have either left this world or have gone on to do other things and take on other identities.

During the summer of 2013, I had to move all my books and papers from one university office to another, which meant that I had to sort through approximately twenty years’ worth of material: the useless, the outdated and the valuable (“So that’s where I put it!”). In sorting out and reclassifying, I realized that I needed a shelf dedicated to Dead Publishers, where I keep a few choice pieces of correspondence, old contracts, eye-catching letterhead and other ephemera from publishing venues that went bust from the late 1990s (when I joined the Erotic Readers Association) to the current year.

The publishing biz in our time, or the apparent general shift from paper publications to e-books and resources in cyberspace, is not the only villain that has killed off too many publishing venues. Before I wrote erotica, I was in a collective that ran a local alternative bookstore, and I tried to keep track of feminist publishing in the 1980s, when many a grassroots, kitchen-table women’s press produced a few books and then crashed. In some cases, enthusiasm and idealism helped a small press get off the ground, but a lack of business experience and a political discomfort with the process of selling anything for a high-enough price to pay the bills (not to mention conflict within the press collective) killed the thing off.

Despite many closures and upheavals, niche publishing in general seems to keep expanding. Just as feminist publishing (books by women, for women, produced and circulated by women) amazed and delighted me in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, erotic publishing has amazed and delighted me in the 2000s. Sexually-defined communities that didn’t visibly exist in the social mainstream in the recent past now have a presence in the world because they have presence in cyberspace as well as in journals, e-zines, fiction and how-to manuals. Every small press, website and journal has its own flavour, and words on a page (or even on a screen) have the potential to last forever.

Here are two relatively big, successful presses whose deaths surprised me. I keep souvenirs from them on my Dead Publishers shelf.

– Naiad Press. For many years, this was the only lesbian-centred press I knew of, founded by the late Barbara Grier, who had written anonymously in The Ladder, newsletter of the Daughters of Bilitis, a fairly closeted lesbian organization of the 1950s and ‘60s. Naiad produced numerous lesbian romances, in which the sex generally appears in soft-focus. Bella Books has been referred to as a successor to Naiad, and it produces explicit erotica.

– The Haworth Press, including its Harrington Park imprint. This was the only scholarly producer of fiction and non-fiction on gay/lesbian/bi/trans subjects until its fiction and non-fiction operations were sold off separately, in approximately 2007. Several Haworth anthologies in the pipeline were simply cancelled. Luckily for those of us with stories in Haworth books, several of them were picked up and reprinted by other publishers.

Here are some smaller publishers of erotic and/or LGBT material that I still mourn:

– Masquerade Books of New York. This press seemed very ambitious to me in the 1990s. It had imprints for (among other things) BDSM, gay-male and lesbian material. It also put out a very attractive newsletter illustrated with vintage erotic art. This was the first publisher I ever heard of that focused exclusively on sexually-explicit work. As far as I know, however, Masquerade died before 2000.

– Amatory Ink. This was an e-press run in England by Roy Larkin, who also wrote BDSM fiction as “Laurie Mann.” This press closed shop in 2006 after producing an interesting variety of novels and anthologies. The owner complained after the closure that it was hard to find good literary erotica in the slush pile.

– Black Books, run in San Francisco by Bill Brent, a gay man who also produced a magazine, Black Sheets, and community fundraising events such as the reading series Perverts Put Out (which has continued). I was privileged to take part in one of these soirees in 2001. (There was nothing like this in Saskatchewan, where I live.) The crash of Black Books in the early 2000s seemed directly related to economic factors in the publishing biz. Unfortunately, Bill Brent ended his own life in 2012, but his influence is still felt.

– Suspect Thoughts, run by two San Francisco men with an experimental approach to literature. They favoured the offbeat and the postmodern. They produced a large, meaty newsletter and a literary website that had theme issues. I suspect that economic issues also forced them to close.

– Love You Divine/Alterotica of Ohio. The closing of this press in 2013 has affected me directly, since I had a collection of erotic stories, Each Has a Point, in their catalogue. The larger-than-life owner, Claudia Regenos (who also writes as “Lady Midnight”), finally had to close shop when her serious health problems threatened to destroy her mobility. The LYD group on Yahoo has enabled Claudia to keep in touch with her authors, and apparently her recent surgery has helped immensely, but running a press is not on the agenda – at least, not now.

Here are some dead websites that I miss:

– Ruthie’s Club, run by Desmona Dodds of Ohio. This was an attractive, entertaining subscription site for erotic stories, each illustrated by an artist who worked with the author. Each story appeared for only one week, after which all rights reverted to the authors, who were paid well. (Payment depended on length. A story of 4K + was worth $45 U.S.) All stories were carefully edited, but editors were open to negotiating with authors about revisions. I can only assume that the generosity and professionalism of the owner and editors cut into the profit to be made from paid subscriptions. Alas.

– The Dominant’s View, run by Kayla Kuffs, an ERWA member from the west coast of Canada. As far as I knew, this was the only BDSM site focused on self-defined Dominants as complex human beings rather than deliciously-scary, unknowable characters in erotic fantasies. I was honoured to write reviews for this site, and Kayla provided me with an endless stream of books for review. (Review material did not have to feature a Dominant’s viewpoint.) As far as I know, Kayla could not continue running the site by herself.

There is other cherished material on my Dead Publishers shelf, with a label in gothic font. However, if you’re still reading this post, I don’t want to wear out your interest. I could continue on this topic next month.

I can’t help thinking there should be an actual or virtual museum for erotic publishing venues, much like the sex museums of Amsterdam, where archaic sex toys and erotic art are on display. I hate removing the names of defunct publishers from my own list of publications.

As various cultural pioneers have pointed out, if we don’t remember our history, we are doomed to reinvent the wheel – or our favourite devices.
——————-

What Is Allowed?

by | September 24, 2013 | | 5 Comments

By Kathleen Bradean

Lately, I’ve had to rethink my relationship to the word
Artist. I never felt comfortable using it to describe myself, but now I’m using
it as a defense of my work.

Artist –

A person who
practices one of the creative arts.

A person who
is skilled at a task or occupation.

A habitual
practitioner of a reprehensible activity.*
                                                                                                                   

I don’t see the word “But” in those definitions. “Paint what
you want, but don’t offend anyone.” “Write what you feel, but not just for
shock value.” “Create what you want, but to be a true artist, it must be
aesthetically pleasing to the general public.”
 

As erotica writers, we’re aware of the big taboos. Many
writers see the taboos as a brick wall at the end of a path and aren’t ever
tempted to step toward it. Some writers climb the wall and precariously balance
on the edge. Others see the wall as the beginning of the frontier and
gleefully, or contemplatively, leap into the beyond.

I’m here to tell you that you can write the taboos. You may not ever get published,
but publication isn’t the be-all, end-all goal of writing. Being published is a
step down a well-trod path but it isn’t for everyone and it has nothing to do
with the creative process. If your first thoughts in creativity are
self-censoring (“I can’t write that because it won’t get published.”), you’re
limiting yourself. Yes, yes, yes, if you make a living off your writing, you
write with an eye to be published, but in reality, very few writers make a
living from their work, so for the majority of us, why not put artistic freedom
first in your hierarchy of needs and publish-ability further down? And even if
you do write primarily with the goal of being published, would it hurt from
time to time to let yourself run wild across the page?

As many of you are aware, I write a SFF series The Devil of
Ponong under a different pen name. While it takes place on a different planet,
readers tend to identify the main character and her people as Pacific Islanders
and the other main race as being from southeast Asia or China. I’m white. Some
people have asked me, ‘How dare you appropriate another race?’  That was when I had to admit I’m an artist.

An artist dares
anything. An artist creates. That is their sole responsibility.

However, no one has to like what I create.

The accusation I dislike the most is that I’ve somehow
stolen someone’s voice by writing this story. Stolen or silenced – both are
terrible things to say. Just because I wrote a story doesn’t mean I’ve stopped
someone else from writing theirs. Is it important to hear the voices of different
cultures? Absolutely. My world gets bigger and smaller at the same time when I
read a novel by someone with a different POV.  I want to read voices from other cultures. I’m
not the enemy here! I’m a potential reader.

Is it wrong to speak for someone else? Well, (tiny cough),
that’s been happening to women and minorities forever. Does it make it right?
In what sense? No one questioned Tolstoy’s right to create Anna Karenina.
Whether or not readers think he did a good job of depicting a realistic woman
is another matter. So I’d say, yes, an artist has the right to speak for the other,
just as readers have the right to say, ‘That’ isn’t like anyone I know from my
race/religion/neighborhood,’  ‘This is
racist or misogynistic,’ or ‘Yeah, this character is just like my aunt.’  And the thing is, none of us has to agree.
It’s art. It’s subjective.  

*Oprah voice* You get and opinion, and your get an opinion,
and everyone gets an opinion! Yay!

Bringing this back to erotica, from the practical side, you
can always point to the taboos and let them be your guide. But from the
artistic side, why not write what you want to? Create. Be a bit mad. Follow
your imagination down rabbit holes and into dark corners. Let it creep through
the gritty side of your fantasies and peek through the curtains into a parallel
universe. What will it cost you? Or better yet, stop thinking of writing in
terms of profit and loss and start letting yourself be an artist.

Are you an artist?

Yes.

What is allowed?

Anything you dare to create.

~~

*They meant ‘as in con artist,’ but I’m sure some people would include erotica writers in that category. Reprehensible. That word makes me think of prehensile, and suddenly I’m off in tentacle pornlandia.  <==This is why we can’t have nice things. But we can have naughty.

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