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Year: 2018

Fifty Shades of Erotica: Five Years After

by | June 18, 2018 | | 2 Comments

Recently I got an email informing me that there was a new comment on my article entitled “Six Secrets to Writing Your Own Over-50 Shades of Erotica” which appeared on a website for women over 50 called Zest Now. “Thanks, interesting thoughts!” wrote the gentleman. I’ll take all the positive feedback I can get, even if the article had been published five years ago as part of my campaign to promote the ebook release of my novel, Amorous Woman. I only vaguely remembered what I’d written, so I revisited the site. (The link to the article doesn’t always work, so I’ve reprinted the article in its entirety below in case you’re interested in how my advice holds up.)

I stand by all six secrets and was frankly surprised at how economical the writing was—I have a tendency to ramble on when I’m talking about sex. I was also amused to remember that when I wrote that article about being inspired to write your own erotica after reading Fifty Shades of Grey, I myself had not read Fifty Shades of Grey. However, a friend I trusted had told me that reading about the relationship between Ana and Christian was very interesting to her, so I built from there.

In my defense, so much had been written about Fifty Shades, I felt I knew it well enough to use the social phenomenon as a basis for my suggestions. Also, we erotica writers had been urged to take advantage of the Fifty Shades boom to elevate our own personal brands. I wanted to be optimistic and hope that the bestselling trilogy would whet the appetites of new erotica readers who might then seek out the types of anthologies where my work was published. Could the Fifty Shades wave lift us all?

Five years later I have to say that Fifty Shades mostly just fucked the rest of us over.

Now I don’t have data to back me up, but my sense it that publishers are all the more disappointed when erotica anthologies or novels don’t become the next Fifty Shades. It’s rather like the film industry. The period of openness and artistic risk in the 1960s and 1970s that gave us Five Easy Pieces and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice was destroyed by the blockbuster Jaws, which I recently watched. It hasn’t aged well.

The 1990s marked the advent of the Erotica Revolution, with presses like Cleis and magazines like Yellow Silk and Clean Sheets showing us that “nice” girls and boys could write thoughtful, steamy stories. Again, this might just be me, but the literary quality of Fifty Shades branded all erotica as a mediocre guilty pleasure for mommies. Literary erotica editor friends who’d been getting commissions from mainstream publishers suddenly found the river had run dry.

I still remain optimistic for the future of literary erotica. History shows us that cultural setbacks can be succeeded by leaps forward. In the meantime, I stand by my words of yore: “Whether you’re aiming to publish or please a special audience of one, writing erotica helps you focus on pleasure, which is guaranteed to improve your sensual life–even if it’s already very good indeed.”

Six Secrets to Writing Your Own Over-50 Shades of Erotica
(Zest Now, June 3, 2013)

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, who will turn 50 this year, has shown that the world loves a sexy story. Reading erotica is a great way to spark your libido, but have you ever thought of writing your own? As a 51-year-old wife and mother who’s been publishing erotica for over 15 years, I can confirm that there’s nothing more sexually empowering than putting your own steamy story down on paper. Whether you’re aiming to publish or please a special audience of one, writing erotica helps you focus on pleasure, which is guaranteed to improve your sensual life–even if it’s already very good indeed.

Here are six secrets for bringing your unique erotic stories to life:

Find A Safe Space. Although our generation came of age during the Sexual Revolution, most of us still hesitate to express our positive sexual desires. Find a safe space, both physical and mental, to create your world of pleasure. Close the door against the voices that urge you to feel shame for feeling good. In this protected place, you are free to get in touch with your fantasies, memories, images and scenes that turn you on. Suddenly everything is possible.

The Pleasures of Research. Erotic writers transform sensual experience into vivid words and images, but it takes practice. First, read some erotic books to learn what you like in style and content. Which stories do you wish you’d written? Which scenes turn you on and why? The assignment gets better. The next time you make love to your partner or yourself pay close attention with all of your senses. Where is his skin the softest? When does the sound of his breathing change? Slow down, enjoy each sensation. Try out a new position you have in mind for your story to get the logistics right. Homework has never felt so good.

Start Slow and Let It Flow. Start slow with a sketch of a sex scene or a list of scenarios that turn you on. Erotic stories can be about real experiences, but they are just as often about fantasies, dreams, forbidden desires. Let the thoughts and images flow. Experiment and discover. You’ll surprise yourself with the magic you create.

The Real Secret to Good Erotica. Dirty words only take you so far. The real secret to a compelling erotic tale is the relationship between the lovers. Critics panned Fifty Shades of Grey, but the characters’ deep feelings for each other enchanted millions. Write about a couple you care about, their desires and conflicts and how they overcome them to be together, and your reader will be right there in bed with you. As older women, we bring a wealth of life experience to the writing process. Use your wisdom!

Share It With Your Lover. I’ve published over 150 stories, but my greatest joy is still that gleam in my husband’s eye after he’s read my latest story. A story is also a great way to suggest a new bedroom activity or introduce a fantasy. Use your judgment as some partners can be uncomfortable. If you think your partner might be open to it, start out gently, with a sketch of what you enjoy doing with him, rather than, for example, a hard-core BDSM scene.

Share It With the World. Today it’s easier than ever to share your work with a wider readership. Post your story on Literotica for appreciation and feedback. Self-publishing on Amazon is another popular option. For more traditional validation by professional editors, check out the Erotica Readers and Writers Association Calls for Submissions. Remember all writers face a lot of rejection, so keep trying!

Midlife brings a flowering of confidence and creativity for women. Writing erotica is a rewarding way to renew your passion as well.

Shaka, when the walls fell

by | June 15, 2018 | | 1 Comment

There’s a captivating episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in which Captain Picard attempts to establish relations with a race that communicates entirely in metaphors.

As the Federation representatives pose clear, direct questions to the Tamarians, they respond with phrases that puzzle and frustrate the enterprise crew, such as “Rai and Jiri, at Lungha.” Or, “Shaka, when the walls fell.”

It is only after Picard and the Tamarian commander are forced into a life-or-death predicament do they, out of mortal necessity, work through their misunderstandings.

Lately, I’ve felt a bit like the Tamarian, as more often cultural references I toss out are met with a “Huh?” or just a look of befuddlement.

For instance, I lately referred to Aristotle Onassis in the presence of two young medical students, both of who asked, “Who’s that?” They were in their twenties.

Another time, remarking on a side effect of a medication I’m taking, I complained, “This stuff has swollen my feet and ankles so much my legs look like they belong on Cabbage Patch Kids.”

Again, I was met with a stare and “cabbage?”

A couple of summers ago I was vacationing in a lovely Hudson Valley town and had worked up a thirst for a nice summertime cocktail. I ordered a Tom Collins. The bartender, a young woman, asked “What’s that?”

Had the drinks of my youth fallen out of currency? Had I outlived them?

We all make cultural references. They are the metaphors with which we communicate. And when they falter or fail, it is disquieting in a profound way, not unlike being rendered mute.

Young people of every generation have had their own cultural references and their own slang, but it seems to me as communication technology has progressed faster than our ability to keep up with it, language has become more compact, less layered, shallow and banal.

I was born after the golden age of radio, but I knew about radio shows, such as “The Shadow” and “The Inner Sanctum.” How? My parents used to talk about them.

If I were to mention Paladin or “Have Gun, Will Travel” to anyone younger than sixty, I expect I’d draw a blank stare. Are parents not passing the knowledge down to their children?

Cultural knowledge, which includes such trivia as the names of old television shows, and dead personalities, is part of the collective consciousness of our civilization. I think we all lose something if it decays and evaporates.

And it can leave an old codger like me feeling, well, rather isolated. There’s a proverb that says you only truly die after the last person who has any memory of you dies. I’d add to that, when your cultural memories are no longer shared.

Proofreading – or Utilising your ‘Inner Picky Bastard’

by | June 11, 2018 | | 14 Comments

 

A degenerate like me should be able to enjoy smutty stories in all their dribble-inducing glory. I love nothing more than to immerse myself in the libidinous creations of like-minded perverts, and to delight in the depths of their filthy imaginations.

Writers are creative. They have thoughts and write them down to create fiction. The story is there to entertain readers. When writers have dirty thoughts it’s even better, because putting those thoughts into words creates fucktion. This type of story is there not only to entertain readers, but also to arouse them.

I enjoy stories that I can get into: stories I can see clearly in my head as I read the words. I like to be enveloped in the author’s world and share the experiences through their characters.

But I enjoy many other kinds of stories. I like sluts, slags and slappers. I love horny hotwives and bi-bimbos. I’m happy to read about them getting serviced by studs, bulls, firemen, dwarves and cheating husbands. I like threesomes, foursomes and more-somes, and I love reading an all-girl finger-fest (I suspect I’m a lesbian trapped inside a man’s body).

So as you can see, there must be squillions of stories out there waiting for me to lose myself in.

Unfortunately for me, I have two problems when it comes to reading erotica (I actually have many more, but I’m only going to tell you about two of them).

The first is my ‘realism radar’, which I find difficult to turn off. Put simply, if I don’t believe the story, I can’t immerse myself in it. My radar goes off when characters fall into each other’s underwear at the flimsiest of circumstances (like in a 70’s porno). Or when the guy is hung like a baboon and can copulate for three hours straight—having several copious ejaculations along the way—without the need to stop for a breather or a biscuit.

I want a plot that involves plausible situations and believable performances from the participants – even if they’re less satisfying for the characters. I enjoy a story where the guy comes too soon and the woman has to satisfy herself with an angle-poise lamp.

The second problem I have when I’m reading is my ‘inner picky bastard’, which seems to be something I cannot switch off.

I can be reading a hot scene in a very good story when all of a sudden the spell is broken, and I’m kicked out of the moment by thoughts like: ‘There shouldn’t be a double t in clitoris,’ or ‘I think knobcheese should be hyphenated’.  A simple typo can blip me out of the groove, and so then I have to work hard to re-immerse myself.

 

It’s typos that I’m going to discuss in this post.

 

Typos are an inevitable part of the writing process. We’re all trying to get our thoughts down into a legible story and our fingers sometimes slip, or our brain runs quicker than our hands. We’ve all done it, and we’ll all continue to do it.

I appreciate how easy it is for typos to slip through – especially in early drafts. When authors read through their own work their mind knows what it should say, and their eyes skip happily past glaring errors that they’d pick up immediately in others’ work. I’m as guilty of this as the next parson (see what I did there?).

But it’s important to pick up as many typos as we can when we proofread.

While it’s easy to accept that one or two errors will slip through to the final draft, I find it disappointing when there are so many that it ruins the story. My ‘inner picky bastard’ is so frustratingly ever-present when I’m reading, that I’ve actually abandoned books I’ve paid good money for. But that could be because I’m an anal, sad twat…

Funny examples of spelling mistakes and typos on public signs are forever being posted on FB and Twitter. Even computer programmers aren’t immune:

 

 

A good way for catching typos is to get someone else to read it. Many authors have their own beta-readers who pick up typos as well as plot holes and inconsistencies. This help is invaluable. For others who don’t have beta-readers, ERWA’s email critiquing group, Storytime, is a great place to post an early draft.

The standard indication of a simple spelling error in Microsoft Word is the dreaded red squiggly underline.

If you encounter the red squiggle beneath a word that you know is spelt correctly (such as ‘knobjockey’ or ‘cuntweasle’), then you can right-click on that word and add it to your dictionary. That way, the only time it’ll show a red-squiggly underline in the future is if you spell it differently. You can use the same strategy for characters’ names to make sure you spell them consistently throughout.

Word can often miss typos which create legitimate alternative words. A common mistake I make when I’m typing is to drop the last letter of ‘they’ or ‘then’.

Word reserves the blue squiggly line to indicate where it thinks you’ve used the wrong word. It’s helpful, but you need to use your own discretion as to what you want the sentence to say. As an example of its limitations, below are five sentences. I’ve used bold italics to indicate where Word applied a blue squiggly line:

 

I saw her running through a wood. [This is what I meant to say]

I saw her running though a wood. [Word spots the grammar error: conjunction used as verb]

I saw her running through a would. [Word spots verb form incorrectly used as noun]

I saw her running through would [No mistake identified!]

I sore her running threw a wood. [incorrect verbs still identified as verbs – no mistake indicated.]

 

Another common case of blue squiggly lines comes with apostrophes. The programme sometimes suggests you should have it’s when you’ve written its, and vice versa. Word will also raise punctuation queries; if you start a sentence with ‘What’ or ‘Why’ or ‘Who’, it often suggests you need a question mark at the end.

The story I submitted for consideration to the Twisted Sheets anthology contains the following sentence:

‘Mindy groaned around the cock in her mouth.’

I remember looking at the sentence and wondering what I’d done wrong to earn the blue squiggle. I re-read it and thought it said what I’d wanted it to say (no missing words, etc), so wasn’t sure why it had been questioned. When I right-clicked on ‘cock’, the programme suggested I may have meant ‘clock’.  Obviously Bill Gates has never heard the crude punk-rock version of Bill Haley’s classic 🙂

Options for spelling (US, UK or Canadian), number format, quote marks, use of italics, hyphens, ellipses and dashes are all things you should know before you start the story, especially if you’re writing for a specific call. These elements in particular need to be proofed carefully, because Word will not have the capacity to assess compliance with a house style.

 

Tips on Proofreading

I’ve done some professional proofreading for a local medical writing company, using my scientific background, and have also proofread quite a few papers, theses and dissertations for colleagues, friends and family members.

One of the most common suggestions is to put the story away for a couple of weeks, then go back to it. I never have time to do this as I’m often rushing to meet deadlines and release dates. But what I always do, when I first sit down to write, is to read through what I wrote during my last session. This is a first read-through, and lots of typos get cleaned up at this stage.

Below is a list of tips that I’ve found online and in books over the years. I’m not saying you should use all of them (I certainly don’t) – but some work well for me. I suggest you use the ones that work for you.

 

  • print it out and read it on paper (screen glare tires your eyes, apparently)
  • get into a correcting mind-set. Don’t try re-writing or editing as you go – just concentrate on eradicating typographic errors
  • point a pencil at each word one at a time (apparently this stops the natural tendency to skim)
  • a variation of the pencil pointing is to put a ruler under each line as you read
  • read it aloud (there are apps that’ll do text-to-speech if you prefer)
  • use a different font style than you’re used to and increase the text size
  • read it backwards (start at the end and read back, word by word. Apparently it helps you focus on spelling)
  • listen to classical music while proofreading
  • read it naked (okay – that one’s not actually in any of the articles I read)

 

I tend to rely on the first two, but I have used the pencil and ruler methods for papers with lots of scientific detail and chemical names.

You probably already know what your most common mistakes are, so you’ll be able to look out for them. Things like missing quote marks, missing commas before dialogue tags, putting each character’s dialogue on its own line, repetition or over-use of certain words. Missing full stops at the end of paragraphs.

I know I’m guilty of all the above. A common mistake I make is to hit the wrong key: more often than not, I’ll hit a semi-colon instead of an apostrophe, giving me don;t, can;t or it;s. At least these errors are easy to spot immediately thanks to the squiggly red underline.

Microsoft Word is also a useful programme to check to see if you overuse certain words. I use words like ‘realise’ and ‘just’ far too often. In a recent story I posted in Storytime, someone pointed out I’d use ‘watch’ a lot of times.

To check if you’re guilty of this, when you have your Word document open, press CTL+F (or click on Find at the top right of your Home toolbar (with the binoculars icon), and choose the same thing from the dropdown menu.

This will open the Navigation panel on the left of the screen. Type any word into the box, and it’ll tell you how many times you’ve used that word within the document. It’ll also show each sentence that includes it, as well as highlighting each instance in the document itself. You can use the arrows to click up and down to see all the uses, and if you change any, the number of uses reduces.

Here’s a screenshot of what you’ll see:

 

I hope this post – my first one – doesn’t come across as a dig at anyone for not proofreading their stories thoroughly. I appreciate that not everyone has access to a second, fresh pair of eyes to do it for them. But by spending that extra time on checking for and removing needless errors, it makes the manuscript so much more readable – especially for people with an inner picky bastard that won’t shut up.

Erotic Dreams on the Silver Screen

by | June 10, 2018 | | 2 Comments

 

How many of you have fantasized about somebody making a movie of your erotic masterpiece? I certainly have. In fact, many years ago, I even went so far as to write a letter to Phil Harvey, founder of Adam & Eve, asking if they’d be interested in the film rights to Raw Silk.

I never got an answer, alas. Still, it’s not an impossible scenario. Indeed, here at ERWA we have an adult film luminary in our midst. Kay Brandt has been directing porn flicks for a long time. Right now two of her films are in the top ten most popular films at Adam & Eve.

Kay is responsible for making smash hits out of Selena Kitt’s classics, Babysitting the Baumgartners and Adventures with the Baumgartners.

She’s also turned a number of her own books into adult extravaganzas, including Hot Wives and their Dirty Desires and Safe Landings.

Her newest film “The Seduction of Heidi”, based on Selena’s Heidi and the Kaiser, is currently in post-production. Stay tuned for news on its release.

So – you never know. Maybe you can interest Kay in one of your stories. I hope she’ll stop by to share what she looks for in a possible script source.

She’s a lot more accessible than Phil Harvey!

Creating Characters: Appearance

by | June 6, 2018 | | 2 Comments

By Ashley Lister

Over the past few months I’ve used this space to look at point of view. As an essential for writing, I think point of view is one of those things that needs to be right from the first line, which is why I looked at it early on here. However, there is one thing that most writers agree is more important than point of view – more important than any other feature of fiction writing: character.

Character is the reason why most of us pick up stories. We want to read about new and exciting people doing new and exciting things. We want to meet someone with whom we can fall in love, share an adventure, or solve a mystery. We want all of these things so badly, it’ fair to say that characters are vital to fiction.

There are four things that we use to create characters in fiction: appearance, speech, action and thought. I’m going to cover these individually over the next few months and the first one I’ll be looking at is appearance.

As human beings we’re very visual creatures. Appearance is important to us because this is how we quantify the world. We pay lip service to the idea that ‘you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover’, and yet this is how most books are judged in bookshops. We insist ‘it’s personality that counts’ yet we exist in a culture where potential partners are matched or discarded by a right or left swipe, and you can guarantee that no one is saying, “I didn’t like the look of his/her personality.”

This is the physical description of one of the characters from my latest novel: Doll House.

John pulled the car to a halt outside a pair of tall, imposing gates. He stepped out of the vehicle and stood illuminated in the headlights as he fumbled with a lock and chain. He was an angular man: tall and slender and unnatural in his gait. In his corduroy slacks, sports jacket and a Harris tweed flat cap, he looked like a man who knew how to dress for the countryside even if the environment seemed not quite right for him.

I’ve done this deliberately, to make John look like a man ill at ease in his surroundings. He’s an agent, so it will be difficult for writers to like him anyway. But, in the description, we’re treated to an image of a man that we don’t fully trust because he seems uncomfortable and false in his surroundings. To my mind that’s good, because this is a character that I don’t want my readers to trust.

This is how I introduce the romantic lead in A Taste of Passion.

Her vision was beginning to adjust to the lack of light in the room and she could see the lines that weathered his face. His eyes were wrinkled by the suggestion of constant smiles. She could see he had raised one steel-grey eyebrow, as though encouraging her to continue. She wanted to believe he was grudgingly impressed with her abilities but the lighting in the dining area was too dim for her to read much from the shadows that cloaked his face.

This is Trudy’s first encounter with Bill Hart. I wanted to make him seem like a mysterious character, which is why she’s meeting him in the dark and only getting glimpses of his features. He’s not a youthful character but he’s wearing his age well. The fact that his eyes are wrinkled by the suggestion of constant smiles suggests a pleasant disposition.

Which leads me to a brief writing exercise that I use in classes occasionally. Write a character in a single, short paragraph (no more than three sentences). Give us an idea of the physical, make it so your reader can see that individual, and try to make them distinctive. It’s a tall order but it’s not impossible.

And, if you feel like sharing your work, please post your results in comments box below.

Ash

Orphans

by | May 29, 2018 | | 3 Comments

By Jean Roberta

[Note: please excuse me for missing my regular day to post, May 26. I hope this late post doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s.]

Have you written a story, a poem, a play, or some experimental hybrid that doesn’t fit any call-for-submissions or journal guidelines that you know of? Welcome to the club.

The divisions between erotica and other genres seem thinner now than ever before. Romance novels can be drenched with erotic tension and even include explicit sex scenes, although an unspoken rule in the “romances” of the past was that the wedding had to appear on the last page, and sex couldn’t take place before then. Speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, slipstream, steampunk, horror, etc.) can include sex that doesn’t have to obey the laws of the natural world we know. Suspense narratives, including murder mysteries, can include erotic tension as part of the suspense: Will the central characters solve the mystery and/or take their flirtatious partnership to the next level?

While the definitions of genres, per se, seem fairly fluid, every editor or editorial team has guidelines: lots of sex and magic, but no horror. Realistic character development and sex, but no magic. Elaborate world-building, including sexual traditions that would seem exotic to most readers, but no info-dumps. Horror required, but with minimal bloodshed. Violence okay, but no explicit sex.

And there are usually minimum and maximum word-limits which indirectly define the categories that will be considered. An erotic story of under 3,000 words can include one fairly detailed sex scene, but usually no more than one. A story of at least 10,000 words is pushing into novella territory, and therefore it needs at least two complex characters interacting in a plot which is about something besides– or apart from– sex.

It’s very easy to follow a plot-bunny down its rabbit-hole and write something that might appeal to certain readers, but which doesn’t completely fit the guidelines for a collection, website, or journal.

I still have a few orphan stories on my hard-drive which were rejected by the first editors to whom they were sent, usually for very logical reasons.

I know my weaknesses. The editor of a sci-fi anthology said she loved my story, but it didn’t include any technological revelations. (No surprise there. I’ve never had a very firm grasp of either modern technology or the nineteenth-century steam-driven type. I couldn’t explain to a visitor from another planet how I am able to transmit these words through a machine to people living far away from me. My version of the “sci” in “sci-fi” more closely resembles magic. )

Early versions of some of my stories resemble the feet of Cinderella’s stepsisters in the non-Disney version of the story in which they cut off their toes or their heels to fit into the glass slipper, then leave a trail of blood behind them. In a few cases, I’ve been able to prune a potential novel down to under 6,000, 5,000 or even 4,000 words. This usually requires leaving out something that needed to be left in: a character’s motivations or emotional responses, or the juicy details of a sex scene. Improving the story usually requires reattaching the toes or heels (or the heart, lungs, and brain, which is easier to do with stories than with human bodies), even if that means the story will no longer fit into a certain market.

Languishing in my “documents” are three different versions of an erotic lesbian story in which I experimented with viewpoint. The two central characters are so different (but complementary, I hope) that I didn’t simply want to describe one through the eyes of the other, so the story is divided into alternating sections told by the two narrators. This tends to interrupt the plot in much the way a supposedly true story is interrupted when someone offers a different version of events.

(“We met when you were still a barista at the coffee-shop.”

“No, honey, we didn’t really meet then. I first noticed you when we were in the same class at university.”

“You were so innocent. You weren’t a lesbian, and you weren’t into BDSM.”

“I didn’t have much experience, but I knew what I wanted.”

“You were so uptight because of the way you were raised.”

“Excuse me. My parents gave me everything they didn’t have, and they always encouraged me to think for myself.”)

Will any version of my story ever see the light of day? That remains to be seen. I like both the characters, and the way they resolve their differences. I think the sex is hot. I can also see why the divided viewpoint might prevent a reader (or an editor) from smoothly following the rising tension to a satisfying conclusion.

As usual for me, I probably need to expand the story into something longer, in which different sections or chapters wouldn’t look like unnecessary interruptions.

Occasionally, a story will be posted in the “Storytime” list in the Erotic Readers and Writers Association which includes great lines, great characters, great sex, and sometimes a fascinating plot, but something about the whole piece doesn’t gel. In some cases, character motivations look unclear or unconvincing to several of the readers who offer critiques, and in some cases, sex seems to be inserted into a plot without enough preparation. (The usefulness of lube in real life seems relevant here.)

Self-publishing offers a solution to the problem of where to place writing that doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories, and the Excessica site provides a marvelous combination of writer independence with technical support. However, I’m not willing to post a story for public consumption before it seems ripe enough.

I’d like to encourage all the writers reading this not to abandon your orphan pieces. Some of them probably have good bones. Leaving a first draft for awhile before coming back to it can enable you to see what it needs.

Think of it this way: there is no real failure. Some projects are thrown away, when they could have been recycled, and some just haven’t found the right home yet. Some are never finished, for various reasons. You had a reason for writing the first draft, and it might be calling you to come back to it.

Maximizing Twitter For Writers

by | May 28, 2018 | | 4 Comments

Twitter can be a pain in the butt but it does have its uses. I’ve recently begun using it much more often. I find plenty of writers, agents, and publishers on Twitter. With the help of some good hashtags, I’m finally gaining some readers. There are hashtags for every day of the week. Here are the hashtags I use:

#MotivationalMonday – It’s what it says it is. I post what motivates me to write.

#1lineWed – Post one (or a few) lines from a WIP or new book.

#novelines – Post some of your best lines from a WIP or new book.

#FolkloreThursday – Since I write erotic fairy tales I take stock of this one. I post information about  unusual and obscure folklore and myths. There is often a theme. Follow it.

#indiethursday – More lines from WIPs or new books

#FF – This one always garners retweets and comments. FF stands for Follow Friday. I link to about fifteen people whose tweets matter to me.

#FollowFriday – See above.

#FicFri – More lines from WIPs or new books. This stands for Fiction Friday.

#FictFri – See above.

#SlapDashSat – No themes! No rules! Only freeform writing! Pull dialogue, character descriptions, opening lines, slam poetry, secret confessions, original song lyrics, etc. from the deep recesses of your mind, from your WIP, from the ether… the sky’s the limit (Hell, go byond the damned sky)!

#badwordsat – Use naughty words. Works well for erotica.

#amediting – It’s exactly what it says it is. Tell what you’re editing.

#amwriting – One of the most useful hashtags. Talk about what you’re writing. Talk about WIPs.

#WritingLife – Talk about your writing life; your goals, dreams, writing area, anything.

#WhatToRead – Drop your book info here or recommend books to read.

#amreading – What are you reading? Talk about it.

#reading – See above.

Post memes, photos, book covers and other graphics to make your tweets stand out.  Nothing is as lonely-looking than a plain-text tweet.

I also post hashtags for genres such as #horror, #erotica, #fairytales, and #romance. Limit yourself to no more than three hashtags. Lots of hashtags look annoying and they may be considered spam.

Remember to respond to people who respond to your tweets. Also visit their Twitter pages and follow them if they seem like someone you’d be interested in, or especially if they seem like a possible reader.

I’ve started using manageflitter.com to keep track of people I’m following and those following me. You may trim your follow list by using the following categories:

Not Following You

No Profile Image

Non-English

Inactive

I’m still getting used to this site. There is much more to manageflitter than those four categories, but I am not acquainted with it yet.

Whatever you do, don’t make your twitter feed endless links to your books. You’ll bore people to death and you won’t gain any readers. Your twitter feed will be viewed as spam. Instead, pick a few topics that interest you. In my case, that’s gardening, baking, birding (I have window bird feeders that provide endless hours of entertainment), movies, television, and music. Provide links to interesting articles. Include memes (especially funny ones) that appeal to you that you think would interest your readers. Post quotes from famous people. Within all that, you may post info about your books but don’t force them on your readers. If you have new writing news or a new book coming out, by all means post about it. But don’t post about only it.

Twitter can be useful. It can also be a huge time suck. I confine myself to 15 minutes twice per day. I tend to not post on weekends. Look at Twitter in a new way and make the most of the platform. Engage in conversation. That’s what Twitter is all about. It’s social media – be sociable. And enjoy yourself.

What’s Your Rank? or Is Yours Bigger Than Mine?

by | May 24, 2018 | | 3 Comments

Always keep in mind that the guy who said, “Size doesn’t matter,” probably had a little dick!

Today we’re going to flop them out on the table and see whose is bigger, regarding sales that is?

One of the quandaries in writing anything is, “How are my sales doing?” How badly do I suck at this? Should I go back to truck driving?

To figure out how your sales are doing is sometimes an exercise in futility due to the scarcity of tools available. Looking at the two biggest publishing houses IMHO Amazon Kindle and SmashWords, how can we tell how sales are going?

SmashWords

Zip, nada, nothing is the short answer. I can find no tools for determining your rank on SmashWords. The one thing I do is go to the SmashWords’ home page and click on the category that you write in, such as Erotica. If you don’t see Erotica, then you have to turn off the safe filter.

Once you’re in Erotica, you have a choice, do I want to see my position in Erotica as a broad category or dig deeper in a subsection such as Men’s Erotica. Once you’ve selected your category, click on Best Sellers, Highest Ranked, or another ranking as desired.

My display shows twenty titles per page with covers shown. Then here comes the hard part. Scan down each page and keep advancing until you find one of your stories.

As an Example, today 11-May-2018, if I sort on Erotica | Menage/Multiple Partners | Highest Rated | Any Price | Any Length, we can scan down the stories and marvel at the topics and titles. You will quickly figure out that if you are not writing a story that involves animals, family members, breeding, whips, or gangbangs, then your rating is likely to suck.

Then voila, on the second page we see a familiar name, it’s moi. No clapping required, thank you very much, and autographs will be $5 each.

The story is “A Night At the Bar,” one of my cuckold – Hotwife stories. Counting down from the top, A Night At the Bar is 17 down from the top on the 2nd page. Therefore it is the 37th highest ranked Menage/Multiple Partner story on SmashWords as of today’s date (20+17=37).

By the same token, flipping to Lesbian Erotica | Highest Rated, we find “Nina The Fallen Ballerina” eighteen slots down the first page. I would assume that Nina is the eighteenth highest ranked story in Lesbian Erotica.

Then on the third page, five down from the top, we find “Nina, The Fallen Ballerina,” once again. Amazing how does that Larry Archer do it? Wait? Listed twice, does this mean that the story is twice as good? Modesty prevents me from agreeing, but I’d have to feel that it’s a computer screw-up, but hey I’ll take anything I can get, I’m not proud.
Modesty prevents me from going further, but you should be able to see that with a little hard work, you can get a rough idea of how your story is ranked on SmashWords.

The biggest problem with this is that like Homer Simpson, my mind tends to wander after about ten pages or so, which is the top two hundred and I usually quit and open another beer.

The one good thing about this exercise is that you can quickly figure out what sells by looking at the other stories. It’s not the story about a good church-going couple, who comes home, turns out the lights, and puts on rubber gloves to have two minutes of sex before running to the shower and washing that “stuff” off!

While we would like to think that we’re above it all, the truth is that kink sells and if your story requires plastic sheeting over everything and Wesson Oil, then you’re going to be a hit.

Amazon – Kindle

With Amazon, we have a number of tools at our disposal. I’m sure that you’ve discovered the Reports section of “kdp.amazon.com” where the daily sales are shown along with the normalized Kindle Unlimited results.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you’ll find your Royalties Earned report or as I like to think of it, how many lap dances can I afford this month?

Flipping to “authorcentral.amazon.com” will show your sales rank over time. The sales rank will vacillate up and down with your book sales and over time older books do not move the needle as much as newer books do. So it’s like the old saying, “Publish or Perish.” What I’ve read and it seems to be true is that you need to publish every month to keep your sales up. More is always better.

What I watch is the monthly Author Rank, which is an indication of how popular your stories are in general. The Sales Rank listing shows how each of your stories is selling and keeping the Sales Rank at 500,000 to 1,000,000 or lower should guarantee sales.

Assuming that your sales ranking for the story is between 500,000 and a million which is a decent figure for an erotic story that captures the reader’s eye. This ranking should result in sales of 5-10 copies per month at Amazon or $10 to $20 per month income and the same from SmashWords. Personally, I normally make two or three times as much from SmashWords, but let’s assume the same sales. Refer to one of my previous postings for more on sales by clicking here (an excerpt follows from the previous blog posting).

Excerpt

Before you start rolling your eyes, consider this. A sales ranking of 100,000 should result in the sale of 30 to 40 copies per month or $60 to $80 per month profit per published story.

When your ranking drops into the top one-hundred, you could easily be selling thousands of copies per month and be waited on hand and foot by nubile scantily clad servants who are busily stuffing grapes into every one of your orifices.

Rank To Sales Estimator from David Gaughran estimates your sales as follows:

#1 to #5 = 5,000+ books a day (sometimes a lot more)
#5 to #10 = 4,000–5,000
#10 to #20 = 3,000–4,000
#20 to #50 = 2,000–3,000
#100 = 1,000+
#200 = 500
#300 = 250
#500 = 200
#1,000 = 120
#2,000 = 100
#3,000 = 80
#5,000 = 40
#10,000 = 20
#25,000 = 10
#50,000 = 5
#100,000+ = fewer than 1 a day

From what I’ve seen, this estimate is relatively close. A 100,000 sales rank should return sales in the 30 – 40 per month bracket, but your mileage may vary.

But let’s not get carried away here, the cold, cruel truth is that assuming you are a decent writer of material other people want to read, you’ll likely have a sales ranking around a million. At least that’s what you need to shoot for initially.

SalesRankExpress.com

SalesRankExpress is a very handy site that shows how your story is ranked and whether it is “Safe” or not. If Amazon doesn’t appreciate your story and slaps an “Adult” rating on it, you can kiss goodbye any help from Amazon. Stories with an Adult rating cannot generally be found by searching. The only way someone will find your story is a direct link from your website or some other location or promotion.

As a suggestion, if you are self-publishing, make sure that you put your name in the “Publisher” spot when you list your story. What I’ve found is that if I search on author “Larry Archer,” it brings up a ton of other material but if I search on publisher “Larry Archer,” I get all my stuff and nobody else’s.

BookReport (GetBookReport.com)

I’ve just discovered this ranking program, and it looks to combine most of the features I’m looking for in one place. If you have less than $1,000 in sales per month, the program is free, so that means that it’ll be free for me for quite some time! My sales typically range between $150 – $250 per month so you can see that I can’t quit my day job anytime soon. The bulk of my sales are between Amazon and SmashWords with about 60% SmashWords and 40% Amazon. I think my sales are poorer at Amazon because they’ve “Adult” ranked two of my latest stories “Cheating Glory Hole Wives” and “Stripper or Nurse?“. I’ve managed to get Stripper or Nurse out of the Adult dungeon but have given up on Cheating Glory Hole Wives. There should be no reason that “Wives” should be adult but it’s often like arguing with a post or your wife.

If you want to publish on Amazon, tread lightly as once in the dungeon, it’s hard to escape. That’s all I’m going to say about that as I’ll start ranting!

BookReport allows you to select a time frame such as last week, month, 30 days, etc. and will display the best sellers and what your projected income will be over the selected time frame.

You also get your Earnings per Day which is handy if you’re doing some type of promotion and want to see how it’s working.

You get a breakdown by Marketplace (Amazon server) to tell where your stories are selling or not.


And then finally a breakdown by the individual book for the anally obsessed.

BookReport at least on first glance, tells me everything I need to know except if a book is ranked Adult or not. If you want sales, then you have to stay out of Adult or get most of your sales through other forms of marketing.

NovelRank.com

NovelRank is a super site that gives your estimated sales for the current month, the previous month, and the sales rank for the story. This is very handy for watching your sales.

Note: You can also track other author’s work so that you can compare your sales to theirs.

Tracker.KindleNationDaily.com

This is another site similar to NovelRank except it allows you to sort your stories on sales rank among other categories. This way you can easily see how your story is moving up or down in the charts.

For example, my stories have rankings that go from 240,000 to 1.6M, so most authors have nothing to fear from me.

The listing above of sales rank vs sales is helpful when you’re trying to figure out if advertising is working for you.

#AmWriting

I’ve got about four stories about 75% done, and if I could just focus, I’d get them out the door. I’ve just bought a new MacBook Air and given up on my Windows laptop. I’ve been installing software and trying to relearn how to do things the Apple way. Yes, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid.

I’m trying to finish up the story “Crashing a Swinger’s Pajama Party.” This story grew out of a neighborhood couple who crashed one of our annual New Year’s Eve pajama parties and discovered some 50 or 60 couples trying to reenact one of Caligula’s events except we didn’t sacrifice any goats but maybe a few virgins! The initial part of this story is based on an actual event at our annual PJ party, then expanded by Lisabet Sarai’s and my perverted minds.

It was funny after this that the husband was noticeably cooler towards us, but his wife was a lot friendlier especially when hubby wasn’t around.

What will typically happen to me is I’ll see something that will spark an idea for a story. Then I must at least get enough down such that at a later date, I can pick up my original idea and run with it.

This ends up meaning my “Draft” folder is full of 50-75% finished stories that one of these days, I’m going to finish. Time is always my worst enemy. With our Lifestyle, we always have a full schedule, then there’s work, and Wifey’s poker tournaments to eat up the remaining time available.

There are always House Parties going on or other socials, and we finally had to pull back and limit ourselves to weekends and Wednesday nights as we started ending up like Zombies and not the good kind.

On Wednesday nights, our bowling league, “Friends and Lovers,” is always fun and the alley told us that we have greatly increased their business. Our players run the gauntlet from scores below 100 to some who consistently bowl over 200 so you can tell that bowling is not the most important thing that we do on Wednesdays.

But it’s a lot of fun, and each team takes turns picking the restaurant to celebrate at afterward. One of the nice things about Vegas is that there are literally hundreds of places to have a decent meal and yet get home before it gets too late.

For more from my deranged mind, visit my website and blog, LarryArcher.blog. See you next month! If it’s the 24th, then it’s another day in the barrel with Larry.

Sexual Rehabilitation – #frustration #violence #flasher

by | May 21, 2018 | | 5 Comments

By Lisabet Sarai

How many acts of everyday violence are triggered by sexual frustration?

Or, looking at things slightly differently, how many serial killers, mass murderers and terrorists do you think have healthy, fulfilling sex lives?

There have been many studies linking male feelings of sexual rejection to violence. Sometimes the perpetrators openly complain how woman haven’t given them the attention they deserve. Alek Minassian, the man who ran down dozens of pedestrians, mostly women, in Toronto last month, raged against the women who had made him “Incel” (involuntarily celibate) and vowed to take down the “Chads and Stacys” – online term for people with active sex lives. In 2014, Elliot Rodger killed seven people, explicitly to punish women who had rejected him and men who were sexually active. In 1989, Marc Lepine murdered fourteen women and wounded ten more, claiming that feminism had ruined his life.

You might object that severe psychological problems were at the root of these crimes, that the difficulty these men apparently had in connecting with the opposite sex was the consequence of their poor psychological adjustment, rather than the other way around.

Look around you, though—listen to the way some men talk—and you will realize that a significant proportion of the normal male population is sexually unsatisfied, and angry as a result. This anger might not express itself in atrocities, but it definitely contributes to domestic violence. Men blame women for teasing them, then “not putting out”. They may feel it’s their right to rape a woman whom they perceive as open to sex, but who does not give them the satisfaction they “deserve”. Married men all too often view their wives as the enemy whom they must trick or bribe into having sex. They may justify extra-marital affairs based on the fact that their wives are “frigid”.

Male status is (still) very strongly linked to sexual success (at least in the minds of many men). Thus, not only do men who don’t have regular, enjoyable sex feel physically frustrated, they also experience a sense of inadequacy, especially in our media-saturated culture where they’re confronted every day by celebrity studs.

Please understand that I’m not blaming all this on the men. I believe that the generally poor level of sexual satisfaction experienced by all too many people, both women and men, is a product of how our society understands, presents, reacts to, and educates people about sex.

First of all, sex is still shrouded in shame. Talking and writing about it is not socially acceptable. The whole topic is understood to be fundamentally impolite, nasty, dirty, even evil. Look at Amazon’s attitude toward erotica. Sure, it sells, but you better keep it under wraps if you don’t want to get censured—or censored. Being open about sex still makes people uncomfortable.

Second, our culture often portrays sex is something you “get”—like money, or a degree, or a new car— not something you experience. “Did you get any last weekend?” is a common Monday morning greeting from one guy to another. This perspective tends to focus attention on quantity, rather than quality. Furthermore, it reinforces a view of sex as mostly physical, rather than embedding it in the context of emotional connections or relationships

Third, we’re led to believe that there’s a limited amount of sex to go around, so you’re always in competition. This attitude is prevalent in both men and women. If my husband’s having sex with his administrative assistant, he won’t have any left for me. This notion of sex as a limited resource fosters jealousy and encourages deceit. This is one explanation for why swingers seem to have happier marriages than the average straight couple.

For women, there are additional complications: the possibility of pregnancy, the realistic fear of physical abuse, and perhaps most serious of all, the fear of being labeled as a slut. As archaic as it seems in the twenty first century, sexually active and open women are still viewed in a negative light. Being a stud enhances a man’s reputation; equivalent behavior in a woman can destroy her credibility, threaten her social status, even cost her her job. (I know one erotic romance author who was fired and had to move to a new town when someone outed her.) Even when a woman genuinely craves sexual connection, it’s hard to work up the courage to say yes.

So what’s the solution? Obviously even if everyone agreed with me, we can’t remake society overnight. It’s clear from my personal experience, though, that education is key. Early experiences in the family strongly influence later sexual satisfaction.

I was fortunate to have parents who were pretty comfortable with sex. I never got the message that sex was dirty or wrong. My mom explained the nuts and bolts to me when I was a pre-teen, including the basics of contraception. She didn’t tell me to stay a virgin until I married—in fact, there was never any pressure to suggest that I was expected to get married—but she warned me to be careful, that I’d have a strong emotional connection to my first lover.

As a result (at least, I see a cause and effect relationship), I think I’ve experienced more sexual satisfaction than many women. Furthermore, I’ve seen the reactions of men to my sexual openness. So many lovers have complained about how hard it was to get women to have sex with them. They’ve been surprised and delighted by my eagerness for erotic connection.

If we want to bring up sexually fulfilled adults, we have to start when they’re kids.

But what about today’s men and women, suffering from isolation and frustration, blaming each other for their unhappiness? Could we somehow create an environment where they could learn to let go of some of the negative attitudes they have, not to mention the preconceptions about the other’s desires? Is sexual rehabilitation possible? Or are these people doomed to live out their lives without the blessing of great sex?

Violence and terrorism have become so common. In a way, it’s not surprising. Just imagine you’re a young man who believes in conservative Islam. How frustrating that must be! The women around you are covered and veiled. You can’t even admire their beauty from afar. You’re so desperate you’re willing to give up your life to experience sexual satisfaction in Paradise!

Here’s a flasher on the topic, to end this post on what I hope is a lighter note.

We Were Promised Virgins
By Lisabet Sarai

“By the Prophet, you are beautiful!”

“I’m Miriam. I’ve been assigned to your case.”

“Lie down, woman. I will take you now, before the others arrive.”

“No, no, Abdul—you mustn’t rush! Let’s begin with your licking me between my legs.”

“What? How degrading! No man would lower himself to such an act.”

“If you use your mouth on me, I’ll do the same for you. I see you need relief.”

“I’ll find relief in your virgin cunt!”

“Abdul? Will you eat me out or should I leave?”

“Don’t—alright… Mmm! You’re sweet as ripe pomegranate. Oh! I never…”

“Oh! Oh, yes! Oh, Abdul, YES!”

“Are you well, Miriam?”

“Very! Excellent job! Now you…”

“Allah preserve me! What a wicked mouth! I can’t hold back…”

“No need to.”

“No virgin would use such tricks!”

“I never said I was a virgin.”

“But we were promised virgins in heaven.”

“The bomb didn’t kill you. You’re being rehabilitated.”

“This isn’t heaven?”

“You’ve been transferred to the School for Healthy Attitude Generation – S.H.A.G.”

“I’m alive?”

“Very much so. Mmm. Tasty cum!”

“Whore!”

“No, I’m a volunteer. When you recover, we’ll fuck. Meanwhile, I have to work with the pussy grabber in the next room.”

When “Good” Girls Write Dirty Stories: Kate Manne’s “Down Girl” and the Logic of Misogyny

by | May 18, 2018 | | 4 Comments

I’ve always been a good student and a “good” girl. Or at least that’s what most people think, if they think of me at all. However, there is another side to me, one you here at ERWA know well, but that would surprise many: a woman who is deeply skeptical of authority and who dares to make my private pleasure public in prose, whether that be the joys of female sexuality or my delight in analyzing American history and culture.

In spite of myself, my “good student” ways led me to soak up the messages our society sends to girls and women. Even if I don’t agree with the values of the patriarchy, I know them and feel them and, I’ll admit, even live my life by some of these rules willingly. Still, sometimes I’m confused. How can men love their mothers, wives and daughters and still support laws and customs that harm women? How can so many men be against contraceptives? Do they want a future where they must either be celibate or have twenty children? Why do women as well as men attack the credibility of victims of sexual assault and harassment and make the assailant into the “true” victim? At times I wonder: If men didn’t need us for heterosexual sex, would they simply do away with all women since they seem to be so angry at them all the time?

I’ve been considering these questions for a lifetime, but just this past week, I actually got some interesting answers, thanks to Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, by Cornell professor Kate Manne. Professor Manne’s book is not a beach read, but it’s accessible and especially relevant in these turbulent times. It clarifies so many things about being a woman in our man’s world and about my own actions as an erotica writer, as well as the nature of what men want from women and why they’re so mad when they don’t get it.

I can’t do justice to Manne’s argument in a blog post, so I’ll try my flawed best with a summary of those points that directly impact my experience of writing and promoting erotica. First, Manne discusses the popular, or “naive,” conception of the misogynist as a man who hates all women irrationally, just because they are women, like the way Hitler hated Jews. By this definition, misogynists would be rare. After all, most men love their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters or some subset thereof. And many women are misogynists, too—could they hate themselves in such a way?

Manne then presents a more satisfying functional definition of misogyny as the means by which a patriarchal society polices and patrols female behavior. Sexism holds that women are naturally subordinate, or more euphemistically complementary, to men. Misogyny attempts to put wayward females back in their designated place by “condescending, mansplaining, moralizing, blaming, punishing, silencing, lampooning, satirizing, sexualizing, belittling, caricaturizing, exploiting, erasing, and evincing pointed indifference.” (Manne, 30)

Misogyny also valorizes women who behave properly. Manne’s framing of proper behavior was particularly enlightening for me, in what she calls a bad gendered historical bargain (from the female perspective, that is):

“Women may not be simply human beings but positioned as human givers when it comes to dominant men who look to them for various kinds of moral support, admiration, attention, and so on. She is not allowed to be in the same ways as he is. She will tend to be in trouble when she does not give enough, or to the right people, in the right way, or in the right spirit. And, if she errs on this score, or asks for something of the same support or attention on her own behalf, there is a risk of misogynistic resentment, punishment, and indignation.”

Thus women owe men of equal or superior social status their good will, what Manne calls “hers to give” or feminine-coded goods and services: attention, affection, admiration, sympathy, sex, and children; also mixed goods such as safe haven, nurture, security, soothing and comfort.

Masculine-coded perks and privileges are “his for the taking”: power, prestige, public recognition, rank, reputation, honor, “face,” respect, money and other forms of wealth, hierarchical status, upward mobility, and the status conferred by having a high-ranking woman’s loyalty, love, devotion. (Manne, 130)

If a woman tries to take what is “his,” she is “bad” and misogyny punishes her by calling her out as selfish, negligent, irresponsible, ungrateful, and unfair to men. (Manne, 87)

Manne compares our reaction to this “unnatural” dynamic of female self-regard to a situation where a waitress refuses to take our order, then asks us to serve her. Who wouldn’t be outraged by this betrayal of expectations? Where’s the service with a smile? (Manne, 50)

As I mentioned earlier, women, too, police the behavior of other women. Consider the female commentators who blame #MeToo victims for wearing the wrong clothes, not being strong or savvy enough to fend off a boss’s advances, and worst of all, destroying a good man’s career because she’s a whiny drama queen who wants attention and lots of money.

I also found Manne’s explanation quite reasonable concerning why some conservatives so vehemently oppose the ACA’s coverage of female contraception but not coverage of Viagra: “…We can now make sense of contraception coverage becoming a common point of contention, too. She is asking to be provided with an antidote to human giving—and in a way that often highlights her human capacities being deployed in self-development or geared toward financial success, that is, his province. The latter also threatens to turn her into a usurper.”

Whether this resentment of women who put their own pleasures first must lead all Americans to have families of twenty children is another matter, of course. But at least the outrage makes more sense.

As I was reading Down Girl, I also had some insights into the relationship between misogyny and my erotica writing.

As long as I can remember, I knew I existed to please others. I was supposed to be a good daughter and student and be as attractive a female as I could manage, given my natural limitations. The stares and catcalls of men on the street that began when I was 13 were a reminder of what movies, TV and magazines preached: I existed to please male eyes and egos. I learned to be careful when flirting because if I gave my attention to one boy, then another, the first would take it personally and punish me. While my actual relationships were not nearly as reductive as the messages bombarding me from the media, I knew that, rightly or wrongly, my chief purpose was to be a loyal girlfriend and wife, an enthusiastic sex partner, and a devoted mother. Public achievements were icing, as long as they didn’t interfere too much. As an empty-nester, I’m doing community service and baking cookies for the holidays to please the palates of my friends. Yes, I have my secret life as a rebel, a scholar, and a feisty truth-teller, but for the most part, I’ve chosen the safe route for a woman in a patriarchal world.

Writing erotica under my own name, of course, is the exception to my conformity. I have felt that I am a “bad” girl—the closest I’d ever come to hanging out in the smoking area in high school–for speaking frankly and positively about the female sexual experience. It has been mostly thrilling, although I have been occasionally attacked and shamed.

Manne’s book made me reconsider just how “bad” I am.

For indeed, am I not still a “good” girl in terms fulfilling my patriarchal purpose of pleasing men? I’d guess most of my readers are women, but I’ve gotten fan mail from a good number of men over the years. Many men read erotica because they are genuinely interested in women’s sexual experiences, and that’s a good thing. Still, as I’ve gathered from our cultural messages, sexuality seems like the only thing about women your “average guy” would be genuinely interested in reading about–with the goal of satisfying his own sexual desires. The type of erotica I generally write affirms the desirability of the heterosexual erotic experience (with some lesbian detours, but men like that, too). My work offers support and solace and might even serve as a surrogate partner. If I wrote instead on female friendship and quilting, I’d probably have zero male readers, no matter how eloquent my prose.

On the other hand, a “bad” female erotica writer would make male readers uncomfortable. Some writers I admire greatly do. While I sometimes challenge traditional sexual values, I tend to do it gently, with humor, and accompanied by a fundamental pleasure in male company. What’s there for a man to hate?

I’m not saying any of this is wrong. I just find it interesting how my way of being in the world has been informed by these time-worn values.

Manne also made me more aware of my internalization of the danger of trying to claim any position of privilege traditionally seen to belong to men.

When I published my novel, Amorous Woman, I found it hard to “toot my own horn” to promote the book. It felt dangerous, selfish, and stuck-up to claim for myself public importance as a Published Novelist. Who did I think I was?

I managed to overcome my reluctance by framing my book as my “child.” I had given birth to her and owed my newborn baby a good start in life. Thus I transformed myself from a selfish, egotistical artist into a self-sacrificing mother. That kept me going through many a cold call or excruciating snub from a “serious” bookstore that didn’t have the time of day for novels like mine. My little girl needed me to be strong!

To be honest, I sincerely do not see my work as a means to show the world how great I am. I see it as a way to connect with others, assure them they are not alone in their feelings and desires. I also felt a duty to present a view of Japan that engages with but also transcends stereotypes as a way of paying back the warmth, humanity, and hospitality of my Japanese friends.

So I just have to face the fact that I’m bad at being the bad girl. I’ve learned my good girl lessons too well: Stay safe in a man’s world by being the pleaser, the giver, the titillating, but reassuring entertainer.

Yet I won’t fall prey to another common misogynistic reflex—that anything a woman does is automatically devalued. Manne agrees that men still want women around because the comforts they give are “truly valuable: they are genuinely good and the lack thereof bad. Consider that, as well as affection, adoration, indulgence, and so on, such feminine-coded goods and services include simple respect, love, acceptance, nurturing, safety, security, and safe haven. There is kindness and compassion, moral attention, care, concern and soothing.” (Manne, 110)

I also happen to know many men who give these wonderful human qualities to me and other women–it’s just that it seems they’re allowed some time off now and then with no harm done. Still I’m proud to value those qualities and offer them freely to my family, my friends, my colleagues and my readers. Thanks to Manne, though, I’ll definitely examine my feelings of safety and danger and “good” and “bad” as I continue on my writer’s journey.

Write on!

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

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