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Why Writing the Wrong Thing is Better Than Nothing

by | March 24, 2022 | , , | 1 Comment

The thing that I have learned about writing is that even bad work is useful.

Because whether we agonize over our words or produce them explosively with a mind to go back later and assess the damage, odds are good that whatever we’ve written will either be excised or heavily retooled by by the time we get down to revision. In fact, the odds are good that the very lines I am writing at this very moment, will vanish in the final edit. Such is the nature of the beast.

But one of the few goods things about this beast is that it is much like the Island of the Dead from Pirates of the Caribbean. Cannot be found except by those who helped create it.

Nobody sees the rough drafts. The pages and pages and pages of ideas that don’t pan out. The directions we carve a path towards only to suddenly course correct for reasons we can’t properly explain. This beast belongs solely to the writer and neither looks, nor acts the same from story to story.

Because the funny thing that happens when you write something down, give it form and shape, is that by the end, you at the very least have something to show for it. Now, your beast might be misshapen, or crude, or downright ugly, but however it may look, it still belongs to you. And the hard part that comes when you’ve lived with it long enough, is that if you wait, if you listen to this beast, to the click of its claws and its guttural whispers, you find you’ve got something more.

You’ve got an idea of what the right thing to do is, what the story could look like, if you keep going. Now, this is not a road map, far from it. It’s barely even a compass. But it is a feeling, a pull in a certain direction that you were only able to find by going off in the wrong way. Because sometimes, when you’re not sure which way to go, the only thing you can do is pick a direction and see how it goes, for good or for ill.

Sometimes, if you’re anything like me, you start out with a great plan. Or at least a part of one. You know how a story begins and ends but you get lost somewhere in the middle. The details don’t match up, or change even as you’re writing them, and suddenly you’re lost.

All at once, you stop and you grouse. You moan and you whine. Maybe you even punch a tree (a terrible idea, I speak from experience. But then, after you’ve rested, and taken another look around, you realize that while you might not get to where you wanted to go, you can still get somewhere, even if it is far from where you expected.

Because in writing, unlike almost any other profession, it is only by doing the wrong thing that you figure out what the right thing to do is. And while I know that sounds cliché, like a quote emblazoned across one of those ridiculously expensive journals they sell in trendy bookstores, it is still the truth. And whether we gussy it up or say it plainly, we all need to hear it.

Especially on those nights when all we have is the beast, and no real idea of where we’re going.

Stay Safe, Jerk Off

by | April 24, 2020 | , , , | 9 Comments

I hope everyone is working from home or sheltering in place. Foxy and I are lying low, like most people, and trying to ride this out. Our social life has ground to a complete halt, but at least we are not sick yet. If you’re thinking about publishing a story, now is the time as everyone has time to jerk off.

Las Vegas, a.k.a. Sin City is a ghost town, which is really weird. The governor of Nevada jumped on this like a duck on a June Bug and closed the entire town, except essential services. Casinos, restaurants, and most businesses are closed. At least the price of gasoline is close to breaking two bucks. Average prices in Nevada are about seventy-five cents above any other place, except for California. It’s too bad, we can’t go anywhere.

Even the strip clubs are closed, but Little Darlings hasn’t lost their sense of humor. Their sign says, “We’re Clothed.”

I often opine on urging people to write smut and stop talking about doing it. Shoulda, woulda, coulda!

Since next month is National Masturbation Month, I’ve been practicing every day and sometimes more often. I’ll be ready in a week or so to do justice with self-abuse. At least nowadays, most vibrators are rechargeable, which keeps me from having to go to the 7-11 at 2 A.M.

During those times, when I’m resting my hand, I’ve been working with InkScape, which is an open-source graphics design program like CorelDraw. I use CorelDraw to create my story covers as well as Instagram, Twitter, and other advertising images.

Certainly, I realize that you can do the same thing with PhotoShop or GIMP but the “right tool for the right job,” as my auto shop teacher always told me. CorelDraw is not cheap, and if an open-source program can do what I want and is free, that sounds like a winner.

InkScape works well except that the export process to create a JPG for posting has some size issues that require a little post-processing to fix but not too bad. Someone else I know is trying the CorelDraw Home version, which is $60 at Amazon, and getting good results with it. I’m going to stick with CorelDraw, at least for now, as I know it and have been using it for years. It costs me one-hundred bucks a year, and they send me all the new versions, which is not too bad.

I still have a day job, and writing smut is just a fun exercise. My goal is to make enough money to keep me in computers and camera gear. That’s been working pretty well, but my sights are set on a new Canon R5 system, which is going to blow my savings in one fail swoop.

My other long time hobby is photography, and I shoot a lot of models in town. It’s incredible the number of girls who will take their clothes off for pictures. Everybody wants to be a star, and Las Vegas is almost like LA. I trade pictures for modeling, and everyone is happy. The girls are all looking to have photos to post on Instagram. With digital cameras, you don’t have to spend hours in the darkroom and just have to pop the SD card into the computer and, voila, there are pictures.

I got started when I was in high school, and things are so easy today. The new generation of cameras is capable of outstanding results. I used to use a Hasselblad when I shot film, and my Canon digital is so much easier.

Now I’m shooting mostly landscapes, flowers, inanimate objects, Wifey as social distancing makes it more challenging to work with people you don’t know. When COVID-19 is finally behind us, I can go back to shooting girls. Of course, I still shoot tons of shots of Foxy. She was a model when we met, and I’ve got tens of thousands of pictures of her, but variety is the spice of life. She’s my best critic and always helps me edit the photos I take.

Hunker down and stay safe. Read a dirty book and get ready for next month. Foxy and I hope that you stay safe. We’ll get through this!

LarryArcher.blog/stories

Non-Traditional Writing or The Meaning of Life

by | January 24, 2020 | | 6 Comments

Recently a thought struck me that I guess has been buzzing around in my head for years, but I’ve consciously or subconsciously been ignoring it. I don’t think I write traditional books as my stories are more a slice of life rather than something with a beginning, middle, and end.

When I say a slice of life, my stories tend to be a day in the life of Foxy and Larry, the fictional pervert couple in my books. Just as an average person gets up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, and goes to bed, my stories tend to be that way.

I’ve always struggled with two words, “The End,” which elude me most of the time when I’m writing.

I started writing to give myself the ability to talk about fictionalized versions of our adventures in the world of wife swapping or swinging, also known as throwing your house keys in a bowl.

So far, most of my stories have ended up with a vague ending as I never really had a final chapter in the story but more of, “I’ve got an idea for a new story, so somehow I’ve got to kick this one out the door!”

One of my latest WIP’s is House Party 2, which is an effort to correct the problems I created in the original House Party. In HP, my fictional wife runs off to LA and becomes a porn star. Now in HP2, I’m struggling to be a marriage counselor and patch things up. The original was 85,000 words, and the sequel will likely approach 90,000 words, which is way too long for a smut story, but I just can’t seem to quit.

HP2 is my first serious attempt to write something with Scrivener, the word processor for writers. I’ve pretty much figured it out except for the output process, which I haven’t really looked at yet. Scrivener allows you to break up your story in blocks such as chapters.

Rather that one long file, the story can be broken up into sections (chapters), and the writer only deals with that section at any time. For me, it works well as I get tired/bored working on a scene and can instantly jump to another chapter for something new.

One of my faults is that I’m easily distracted by a shiny object or a short skirt and have problems keeping my focus on the job at hand or possibly in my hand. I guess to be a writer, you should have a vivid imagination, which I seem to be guilty of but have absolutely no control over.

There was a moment of sadness and reflection when I learned of the passing of Terry Jones, one of the key people behind the silliness of Monty Python. I first became aware of the British comedy series of Monty Python and Benny Hill back when we lived in the mid-west. Our public television station would run shows from these two series during fundraising weeks.

The British people have a wonderful sense of offbeat humor and a weird fascination with spanking but to each, his own. Every time I see Spam in the grocery store, I think of those crazy people and wish we could return to a simpler time where our biggest problem was determining the airspeed velocity of an African swallow and what is the best way to tie a migratory coconut to it. At least we learned how to determine if someone is a witch or not. That would have made things a lot simpler for the Pilgrims in Salem. Watch out for the Killer Rabbit!

Once again thank you for struggling to the end of this post without resorting to beer, and as always if you’re in the bathroom with nothing to do, grab one of my stories: https://LarryArcher.blog/stories

XOXO Foxy and Larry

Closer to the Edge of the Amazon Cliff?

by | November 24, 2019 | | 1 Comment

by Larry Archer

As a writer of erotica, I am painfully aware of the Amazon Cliff and how quickly I find my toes hooked over the edge, like a bird trying to hold onto a branch in a hurricane as nature attempts to blow you away.

The “Amazon Cliff” is widely discussed, and while not an official stated policy of Amazon, there appears to be almost undeniable proof of its existence. The Amazon Cliff is a term writers use to describe how an author’s ranking suddenly drops after the release of a new publication.

Previously, we have thought that the “cliff” was approximately 30-days after a new release, but I believe that has now changed to approximately 15-days (or two weeks), at least in my case. While I’ve tried not to be too anal about sales, I couldn’t help but notice the difference between daily sales, after the release of my latest story, Walk on the Wild Side, when compared to sales before the release.

The daily sales chart below shows how my daily sales increased at the time of release and, about two weeks later, dropped to the “normal” daily sales before the release of the story.

When you release a new story, there is typically a bump in your author’s and story’s rating, which translates into higher sales at Amazon, as the release date prioritizes the results of a search. Keep in mind that I’m looking at my sales data, which may or may not mirror the results of others.

A prospective reader goes to Amazon and searches for new smut to read. The results presented are based upon proprietary algorithms, but one of the components is the length of time since the author’s previous release.

The obvious and often stated takeaway from this is that you need to publish new stories frequently to keep you on the peak of the sales wave. However, for a lot of writers, this is not as easy as you might think.

Porn stories tend to be short because if the story is long enough to get you off, then that’s all you need. For me, this is a non-starter because I can’t seem to be able to type “The End.” When I start a new erotic story, I will only have a vague idea of where the story will go, and my characters take advantage of me to never stop doing the nasty.

When I compare my sales ranking at SmashWords, I see more consistent day to day sales figures. Below is a sales chart for the past 90 days at SmashWords. While there is a sales bump with the release of a new story, the overall sales tend to be a lot more consistent. Plus, if you dig into sales of popular stories, I have stories that have been out for over a year and are still in the upper section of popularity. This tells me that SmashWords places a priority on the popularity of a story and not just when it was released.

I think the bottom line is to publish as often as you can with Amazon to keep you higher in the SEO or search rankings. I use the Book Report web-based tool, https://app.getbookreport.com/, for my sales reporting, which is free if your sales are below a certain level.

That’s all for this month, and thanks for slogging through to the end. For more on erotica by Larry Archer, follow my blog at: https://LarryArcher.blog or https://LarryArcher.blog/stories for my list of HEA explicit erotica. Follow me on Twitter, @Archer_Larry, or MeWe at https://mewe.com/i/larryarcherauthor

 

Keeping ‘Em Coming

by | September 21, 2019 | | 2 Comments

Image by Khusen Rustamov from Pixabay

Here at the ERWA blog, we discuss a wide range of issues related to the business and craft of writing. In the past few months, we’ve had great articles on research, writer’s block, creating covers that sell, revision strategies, online marketing, and pruning to reduce word count. Today, I want to cut to the chase, take the bull by the horns, and talk about what distinguishes our genre from writing mysteries, or scifi, or political thrillers. Yes, I want to talk about writing sex scenes. More specifically, I want to offer a few suggestions on how to make your sex scenes more effective: more engaging, more interesting and more arousing.

Who am I to give you advice? Not the best seller I’d like to be, certainly. Still I’ve been writing and publishing erotic for more than two decades, and most of my fans think my stuff is pretty steamy. Plus, I’ve read an enormous number of sexy stories, for editing, reviews and of course my own pleasure. I think I know what works – or at least, what works for me. As always, your mileage may vary. Feel free to take what you find useful from this post and toss the rest in the trash.

There’s a misconception that writing sex is easy. After all, almost everyone has had some personal experience. In addition, when it comes to sex we have a vast cultural repository of tropes, kinks, and classic scenarios to call upon for inspiration. Getting your characters together to do the nasty seems like it should be straightforward. In my experience, though, it’s anything but.

When I can make the time to write, I’m pretty fast at turning out decent prose. Sex scenes, though, take me much longer than any other part of my books. I can write a page of dialogue in ten or fifteen minutes. Sexual encounters may require hours before I’m happy with them. (I’m not including time off to go relieve the tension, either!) I’m not sure why this is true. Maybe I’m nervous, too aware how critical the sex scenes are to the book’s success. More likely, I’m working really hard to capture aspects of experience – smells, tastes, textures, weight, pressure, levels of force, and so on – that are fundamentally beyond words. Despite all the books that have been written, despite all the poems and songs, conveying the true excitement of sex using language is close to impossible.

Still, we intrepid erotica authors have set ourselves this impossible task (cue music from Man of La Mancha), and we can’t seem to stop tilting at our carnal windmills.

My suggestions here won’t necessarily make things any easier. However, they might improve the ultimate outcome.

Less is More

How long should your sex scenes be? One page? Five pages? An entire chapter? The answer depends to some extent on your sub-genre and audience. However, as a reader I find it hard to maintain interest in a really long sex scene, unless it’s exquisitely written. Indeed, I admit I’ve skimmed through plenty of sex scenes, especially when the activities were commonplace and the outcomes were predictable.

A long time ago I read a wonderful article in which a gay erotica author (maybe Lawrence Schimel) compared erotic scenes to a radio drama. People used to sit around their radios for hours, listening to conversations and sound effects and weaving together the stories in their minds. The bandwidth of an audio-only presentation was pretty low. Hence, each listener brought a great deal of her own self to the story. The work itself sketched out the skeleton of the narration; it was the listener who put the flesh on those bones, using imagination and desire to fill in the gaps deliberately left by the author.

Erotica, I believe, is the same, at least partly because sexual experience is so difficult to describe. Oh, you can offer up a million details about bodies, cocks, clits, assholes, breasts, thighs, tongues and so on. But that’s not enough to bring a sex scene to life. Erotica arouses us when it evokes an answer from within us, when it kindles a memory, triggers a fantasy, or tickles a deeply buried fear.

When I’m writing sex, I’m very conscious that less is more. Sometimes I can bring my readers more fully into the scene by leaving out some of the nitty-gritty details, even by cutting off the action before the supposedly inevitable climax. A page or two may be enough to accomplish my task, leaving the reader breathless and wanting.

Variety is the Spice

A few months ago, a Storytime member, in posting an intense BDSM-flavored tale, apologized because her characters had anal sex as their first sexual interaction, instead of what she thought of as the “standard” progression of oral → vaginal → anal. I cringed a bit – and applauded her willingness to break what she saw as the rules. The way I see it, the more variety there is in a story’s sex, the more it shatters the stereotypes and pushes the reader into new territory, the better. Let your sex scenes surprise and delight the reader.

Maybe the sex isn’t reciprocal. There’s a belief that all participants must always have climaxes, but that’s not realistic, and it gets boring. Doing can be as erotic as being done to.

Maybe the sex acts are limited, by the environment or by design, so that there’s no penetration, for instance. That just ramps up the tension for your next scene. On the other hand, perhaps things get really wild and crazy, with mermaid-bound women on crutches, yogurt-filled strap-ons, nuns tumbling down on parachutes, a whole horny rugby team descending on a pre-wedding party…

And of course, there’s always room for toys, kinks, taboos, gender-bending, practices your characters might have dreamed about but never dared to try.

One of my pet peeves in erotic novels involves a series of sex scenes that are more or less the same. They all include foreplay, penetrative sex and mutually satisfying orgasms. Of course there’s nothing wrong with any of this – but if you’ve done it once or twice, why not try something else?

Don’t Hesitate to Escalate

Especially in longer works, you might want to think about your sex scenes not as isolated invitations to wank, but as a progression of increasingly intense experiences for your reader. I discussed the concept of escalation in a post last year. I don’t want to repeat myself here, but I recommend that you consider the role each sex scene plays in the story you’re building. Don’t shoot your whole wad right away. (So to speak!) You might want to hold back earlier in your tale, teasing the reader with less complete, intimate or transgressive scenes, then gradually work up to full-out fuck-fests that will curl your readers’ hair.

It’s All Sex

Freud was right. In compelling, arousing erotica, the sex doesn’t start when one character kisses or touches another. The build-up to your sex scene counts just as much as the physical contact. Mutual glances, shy or heated – flirting or innuendo – an unexpected exposure to strangers engaged in sexual activity – reading a sexy story or watching a movie – you might think of these aspects of your story as separate from your sex scene, but I believe this is a mistaken perspective. The non-explicit parts of your tale increase the reader’s excitement, sexual tension, and anticipation. They’re essential for raising the temperature, so that by the time your characters interact physically, they’re ready to burst into flames – as is your reader.

As I mentioned earlier, my work is generally considered pretty hot. Yet if you looked closely, you might be surprised by the relatively modest amount of time I spend on the “actual sex”. I probably spend twice as long, on average, building up to the official sex acts in the scene.

Beyond Meatspace

Some people consider sex to be an essentially physical instinct, a simple itch to be scratched, a hormone-governed compulsion to rut that highlights our fundamental animal nature. I’m not going to deny the biological imperative of sex. However, society, culture, personal experience and individual personality layer multiple levels of meaning on the act of intercourse. This supposedly simple physical act has become embedded in a complex web of belief, morality, fantasy and emotion. Our sexuality is inextricably entwined with our identity. We are likely the only animals who spend less time engaging in sex than thinking about it. The infamous Rule 34 (if it exists, someone’s kinky for it) highlights the uniquely human predilection to imbue inherently non-sexual actions or objects with an erotic charge.

When you’re writing a sex scene, you can (and in my opinion, should) take advantage of the emotions that accompany (or perhaps even drive) the sex. Show your readers what a particular sexual act means to your character. How does it affect his or her feelings? What desires does it trigger? Does the character feel a psychological connection to her partner(s)? Is she frightened of her own lust? Embarrassed? Jubilant? Powerful? Does the situation remind her of past lovers or long-cherished but forbidden fantasies?

A sex scene that pulls your reader into the head of the protagonist has a lot better chance of arousing her than one which lingers on the surface, dwelling solely on wet cunts and hard cocks. After all, your readers have to imagine the physical part (unless they’re masturbating while they read, and even then, there’s limited verisimilitude). Getting them to identify with your character emotionally is the key to getting them off.

Examples

I had planned to include one of my own sex scenes as an illustration of my points, but this post is already far too long. If you’re interested, you can read some of the scenes I’ve posted on my blog and judge for yourself whether these suggestions are effective.

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2019/05/sizzling-sunday-gazillionaire-and.html

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2018/08/sizzling-sunday-velvet-lesbian.html

https://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com/2018/07/sizzling-sunday-exclusive-excerpt-and.html

Thanks for reading!

 

Making Every Word Count

by | July 21, 2019 | | 1 Comment

The word "shameless"Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay

For the last couple of years, I’ve been self-publishing almost all my work. I love the freedom and control that comes with self-publishing; you can mix and match genres, write books of almost any length, create covers you love, and enjoy the instant gratification of seeing your books hit the shelves immediately rather than having them sit for weeks or months in some publisher’s queue.

However, I’ve come to realize that self-publishing can lead to some bad habits.

When I was submitting to a publisher or to anthology, I almost always had limits on the word count. For short story collections, this was usually in the 3-5K word range. The erotic romance novellas I wrote for specific calls were usually restricted to 15K.

Keeping a story below a word count limit can be a tough job. I almost always have to shorten what I’ve written in order to meet the submission requirements. This takes discipline and effort, but the results usually reflect a higher level of craft. In contrast, a self-published book can be as wordy as you want. In fact, the longer the book, the more you can charge. This tends to encourage sloppiness. Why strive for conciseness when it’s actually against your financial best interests?

Of course, cutting the fat will ultimately improve the quality of a book, but the absence of a limit has a tendency to reduce motivation.

In the last couple of months, I’ve been writing to spec for a publisher who has a hard limit of 3000 words. Every story I’ve produced for them has exceeded this in the first draft. Hence, I’ve been forced to focus on strategies for reducing the length. I’ve been learning (or re-learning) how to make every word count. I thought I’d share some of these methods in this post.

1. Sacrifice setting to story

Anyone who’s read any of my work will have noticed that I give setting a good deal more attention than many authors. With almost everything I write, I have in mind some particular place and time, and I normally dedicate considerable effort to bringing the setting to life. The environment and mood almost always play a role in shaping the characters and their actions.

However, the story needs to come first. Hence, if I need to shorten a piece, I’ll start by looking at the descriptions of the surroundings. I consider how critical each detail really is, how much it contributes to the central narrative. Sentences or phrases which enhance the atmosphere but are not essential to moving the story forward are prime candidates for the cutting floor.

Here’s an example from a recent story:

First draft (50 words)

I tried not to stare as I clambered barefoot onto the bus that would take us from the steamy, crowded streets of Saigon to the Dalat highlands. My sandals stuffed into a plastic bag provided by the management, I peered at my ticket and tried to locate the corresponding seat.

Final draft (41 words)

I struggled not to stare as I shuffled barefoot down the aisle of the bus that would take us from the steamy, crowded streets of Saigon to the Dalat highlands. Peering at my ticket, I tried to locate the corresponding seat.

When I took one of these buses myself, I was fascinated by the process (which everyone except me understood) of carrying one’s shoes, but this detail really isn’t important to the story.

2. Use dialogue to replace description and action

Sometimes you can establish facts, as well as delineate characters, more succinctly using dialogue than description. Although I like to intersperse action and speech in my fictional conversations, sometimes the action can be condensed with if the word count is tight.

First draft (120 words)

“Here’s your coffee.” A decadent swirl of whipped cream decorated the cup Martin placed before me. Perched on top was a tiny milk-chocolate heart.

“That looks amazing. And fattening.”

“Not something you need to worry about, Ms. Jordan.” His hazel eyes glittered with mirth.

Todd appeared beside him. “And your muffin…” Melted butter dripped down the toasted surfaces of the two halves.

“I didn’t ask for butter,” I protested, a bit alarmed by all the calories in front of me.

“You can’t have a blueberry muffin without butter,” insisted the sandy-haired barista. “It’s illegal!”

We laughed together. “What the heck,” I said, surrendering to their charm. “I didn’t have any breakfast.” I dove into the feast they’d prepared for me.

Final draft (66 words)

“Here’s your coffee,” Martin announced. “I added some whipped cream.”

“That looks amazing. And fattening.”

“Not something you need to worry about, Ms. Jordan.”

“And your muffin, ma’am…” Todd presented a butter-soaked plate.

“Hey, I didn’t ask for butter!”

“You can’t have a blueberry muffin without butter,” insisted the sandy-haired barista. “It’s illegal!”

I surrendered to their charm. “What the heck. I didn’t have any breakfast.”

Dialogue is often shorter than description because you do not need to use full sentences. Also, you can convey emotion through word choice and punctuation, rather than describing things like tone of voice or expression.

This example also illustrates another dialogue-related technique, namely, dropping speech tags when the identity of the speaker is clear. However, you need to be careful when excising speech tags; you don’t want to confuse the reader.

3. Modify sentence structure to make it more compact

If you have complex, multi-clause sentences, you can sometimes save words by turning one clause into a modifier. My example under 1 also illustrates this strategy.

First draft (12)

I peered at my ticket and tried to locate the corresponding seat.

Final draft (11)

Peering at my ticket, I tried to locate the corresponding seat.

We’re only saving one word in this case, but in other situations, the benefits might be more significant. Besides, when you have a hard word count limit, every word counts!

Here’s another example:

First draft (20)

Though I’d been watching her like a hawk all evening, I somehow missed the instant when she shed her clothes.

Final draft (13)

Despite my almost constant scrutiny, I somehow missed the instant when she undressed.

4. Consider removing modifiers

Most of my first drafts have way too many adverbs. In some cases, I overdo the adjectives as well. If you’re trying to shorten a story, review all your descriptive words and consider how important each one is to your goals in the story. In particular, consider cases where you use multiple modifiers for the same noun or verb. You don’t want to take them all out; your tale will lose all its individuality and sparkle. Sometimes, though, cutting one or two adjectives or adverbs will heighten the effect of the ones that remain.

First draft (98)

The woman in the window seat to my right had more flesh than I’d usually find attractive, and most of it was on display. Her light, floral-patterned cotton sundress had spaghetti straps, one of which had slipped down over her smooth shoulder. Her massive, pillowy breasts shifted underneath the fabric, every time she moved. The short hem rode up to expose her big but surprisingly firm thighs. She was fair-haired with a peaches-and-cream complexion—her accent suggested she was a Brit. The delicate dress was thin enough, though, that I could make out darker patches surrounding her nipples.

Final draft (85)

The woman in the window seat to my right had more flesh than I’d usually find attractive, and most of it was on display. Her floral-patterned sundress had spaghetti straps, one of which had slipped down over her smooth shoulder. Her massive breasts shifted underneath the fabric, whenever she moved. The short hem exposed her surprisingly firm thighs. She was fair-haired with a peaches-and-cream complexion—her accent suggested she was a Brit. Through the thin dress, I could make out darker patches surrounding her nipples.

In this example, I considered cutting the adverb “usually”, but I decided it was necessary. I wanted to convey the fact that my narrator 1) is attracted to women but 2) is not usually attracted to big women.

Writing flashers is a great way to practice conciseness. What’s a flasher? A complete story in 200 words. ERWA pioneered flashers on its Storytime list decades ago. When I first joined ERWA, flashers were restricted to only 100 words!

Initially, I had great difficulty writing flashers. My approach was to write the story first, then use drastic surgery to cut it to the necessary length. This Procrustean effort rarely produced satisfying results. The story arc suffered; the action usually felt jerky or incomplete.

As I’ve matured as a writer, I’ve also found flashers have become easier (though they’re still an instructive challenge). My current technique is to imagine the story, then begin to write, watching the word count as I do. As I use up my allocation of words, I go back to modify the earlier sentences, using techniques like the ones I discuss in this post. Normally the first full draft will be over by 10-20 words, but it will capture the essence of the plot. Then I can review and further trim the text, without too much fear of compromising the narrative.

You can find lots of flashers in the Erotica Gallery section of the website. If you want to try your hand, consider subscribing to the Storytime list. Every Sunday you can submit up to three flashers for comments and critiques.

Here’s one of my favorites, to give you the idea.

Faded Plaid Flannel

By Lisabet Sarai

He’d left it behind when he moved out. Guess the old bathrobe became too ratty even for his casual tastes. She can’t look at it without seeing his wiry frame wrapped in the faded plaid flannel, crouched over his poetry at the kitchen table. Vodka on one side, smoldering cigarette on the other, close enough to touch, a million miles away.

She holds it to her face, breathing him in, sweat and tobacco, and underneath, that elusive musk that first hooked her. Addictive, intoxicating—in an instant she’s drunk with the astounding lust that first drew them together. Eyes closed, she relives their ecstatic frenzy, the clarity of pure connection. In bed they were one body, obscene and holy. She never cared what they did; every carnal act felt like a sacrament. The loss of him, of that glory, is a vast, black, aching wound in her chest.

He’d felt it, too. Inhaling her female perfume, he lost himself, drowned in her lushness. Scary. One reason— along with his wanderlust—that he’s gone.

Chemistry’s not the same as compatibility.

She stuffs the rag between her thighs. Eventually the flannel will smell only of her.

Why not join us next Sunday? You have nothing to lose except unnecessary words!

Ooooh, a Shiny Object!

by | December 24, 2018 | , | 2 Comments

Well, it’s that time of year, when we generally look back on all the things, we did right but typically remember those times when we stepped on our dick. Let’s be honest, the lessons that hurt are the ones we generally remember best.
This year I’m going to focus on one resolution, and that is to avoid looking at shiny objects. I have a bad habit of getting distracted and not finishing the story I’m working on as I get a new idea about a different story. When the dust settles, I end up with multiple stories in various stages of completion.
This year, I’m going to try and finish one thing before I start another. Checking my Draft folder, I see that there are 173 document files in it. If I assume that there are a certain number of auxiliary files, then this means that since I started writing smut in 2012, I’ve published about 25 stories yet have over a hundred waiting in the wings.
It’s so hard for me though and like when I see a pretty girl, my attention is instantly glued to the shiny new object. All other things fall by the wayside. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I’d finish one story before starting another, but I end up with a bunch of stories that are 25% -75% completed and only need a little push to put them over the top and out the door.

While I realize I should become a better person, lose weight, and stop jerking off so much, I’m not going to strive for something I’ll never accomplish. I’m going to try and do one thing for a change; finish a story before starting the next one.

I’ll do that right after I finish the four stories I currently am working on in rotation!

I certainly know better as I can watch my sales at Amazon and see the dreaded 30-day cliff when my latest story becomes old news and starts to drift off into the sunset. Just like the little engine that could, I can do it, I can do it.

I was reading Lisabet’s latest blog posting about how she got started writing smut, and my path was a similar one except for the fact that I previously hated to write. As an engineer, it seems to be a part of our genetic makeup that writing is always a struggle for us. We are much better at making something rather than telling someone how we made it.

I guess my first masterpiece after college was a paper I wrote on how to throw a swinger’s party. Foxy and I used to give presentations on throwing house parties back when we lived in the mid-west. You’d think it wouldn’t be that complicated to take your clothes off and lie in a pile, but it’s harder than you would expect.

Not trying to pat myself on the back, because it always makes my shoulder sore, we are reasonably successful at throwing parties. I can only remember one party when we invited someone we didn’t know, and the guy got belligerent and drunk. The couple we knew had vouched for them and against our better judgment extended them an invitation.

Our New Year’s Pajama Parties are typically 50-60 couples plus a few Unicorns and stags. The party normally lasts several days or until the next normal work day. After the first night, it’s down to about ten couples who we are very close with and with that one exception, always trouble free.

With several cops, strippers, a surgeon, a paramedic, and a forensic pathologist typically in attendance, we’re prepared for most situations. We can cover you coming and going!

The only problem having a party is that we don’t get to party much as watching out for everything is a full-time job. For us, constantly circulating to check the rooms, restock the towels, and change sheets takes most of our attention.

My first erotic story, Fantasy Swingers, was the offshoot of reading a poorly written story on Literotica and telling myself, “I can do that!” While struggling with the technicalities of proper English, I find that smut will pour out of my keyboard like a kicked over can of beer.

Swingers are still an ostracized group like the LGBTQ folks used to be, and I doubt that we’ll ever be fully accepted, but that’s okay as it’s a lot of fun and never a dull moment. Back home, we had a swinger’s bowling league, Friends and Lovers, that offended the other bowlers but it was amusing and would break up the work week on Wednesday night.

You would hear catty remarks about the girl’s low cut tops or short skirts and that generally encouraged them to be even more outrageous. A lot of women in the Lifestyle are exhibitionists, and the show is always a hoot. The manager at the bowling alley always bought the girls drinks and told us how much we boosted his business.

Unlike our current president, when I look back on 2018, I think it has been a successful year, all things considered. My only advice is first take a breath before proceeding.

Merry Christmas to all, and visit me at LarryArcher.blog for all your smut. Until next month.

Using Cloud Storage for Your Smut

by | June 24, 2018 | | 4 Comments

I encountered a problem with my cloud storage that I’d like to warn you about as it could happen to you. While trying to finish my latest tome, one of my beta readers pointed out an inconsistency in the story. I referenced a scene where one of the guys was previously pegged, yet my “proofer” pointed out that the chapter didn’t exist in the story.

I could have sworn that I wrote that chapter as I knew what happened yet going back through the document, I came up blank. WTF? I said, the scene was completely gone? Luckily, my beta-reader is a lot more organized than I am and was able to pull the chapter out of a previous file that I had sent her.

Thankfully, I was able to reinsert the chapter into the story somewhat like Foxy inserted her strap-on into Greg’s ass. Quick thinking by my beta-reader insured that Greg could be able to take another “insertion” by a tag-team of girls. For the uninitiated, “pegging” is when a man is butt-fucked by a woman with a dildo.

But how did this fulfilling scene get lost? Has my computer suddenly gotten its collective brains screwed out? After all, I was writing this on an iFruit computer.

While writing, I often switch between a laptop and a desktop computer depending on where I’m at. Dragging all of the cables, tower, and monitor into the bathroom was raising suspicions among my coworkers especially with the extension cord into the stall. Plus, the fact I kept dropping the mouse into the toilet didn’t help.

My MacBook Air laptop balances on my knees quite easily and allows me to pound out my smut everywhere I go. But how to easily transfer files between my laptop and desktop required some additional software.

I use DropBox cloud based storage as a storage point between computers. Storing the document in DropBox allows the Internet based software to seamlessly transfer the files back and forth between computers.

DropBox stores a copy of your files in the cloud as well as any computer it’s installed on including PC’s, Mac’s, Android, and I assume iPhone’s. When you edit a file, it’s on your local computer and DropBox uploads any changes to its cloud copy.

Whenever another computer is connected to the Internet, DropBox automatically synchronizes the files to insure that the latest copy is transmitted to all other computers.

The most obvious issue occurs when the same file is opened with two different computers. DropBox doesn’t lock files so the user must insure that there is only one copy of an individual file open at any one time.

In most cases, DropBox will detect this and will store “conflicted” copies of the file. Then you have to open the copies and merge the changes to end up with a single file which contains all of the changed and new data.

Preventing this problem is quickly learned and you always remember to close the file before switching computers.

This typically works seamlessly except when it doesn’t. I’ve come to realize there are a few flies in the ointment. First, make sure that you wait long enough for DropBox to upload the changed files before shutting down the computer. This will ensure that the cloud has the latest version.

If you’re going to be using a laptop and are not sure if WiFi is going to be available, fire up the laptop at home and allow DropBox to sync all the files before walking out the door. This way your laptop contains the latest copies of the files.

What I’ve recently figured out is that DropBox automatically limits the upload speed and generally speaking, this option should be cleared. It can take an inordinate amount of time to upload files and my laptops will often go to sleep before the process is finished, which leaves the state of the changed files in limbo.

By unchecking the upload limit, my WiFi uploads occur almost instantly and insure the cloud has the latest copy. While a little bit of an aggravation, being able to edit your smut on the go allows you to be productive when traveling or killing time at Starbucks.

If you are like me and enjoy working on the go, using a cloud storage such as DropBox makes life a lot easier, especially if you follow the rules.

What Am I Writing – or Did I Forget My Meds?

by | March 24, 2018 | | 0 Comments

What Am I Writing? Or Did I Forget My Meds?

By Larry Archer

Caution, this is another long post so get a fresh cup of coffee before starting.

This is my third blog post for ERWA, and I’ve been conflicted as DropBox calls it. You know when you forget to close a DropBox document on one computer then you open the document and edit it on another computer. DropBox raps you across the knuckles like the nun in third-grade with her ruler.

While I’ve never had the pleasure of going to Catholic school and feel they failed miserably with my wife. Maybe the fact that she skipped out and went to public high school that she now has a rekindled desire for little school girl outfits but hey, who’s complaining? Those white thigh socks, black shiny buckle shoes, and ruffled white ankle socks are so neat. It’s just hard to find Mary Janes with 6-inch spike heels.

I’m writing this on my new MacBook Air and trying not to choke my chicken when I see her lying there, all opened up like a beautiful woman, who’s begging me to touch her with my fingers, the MBA that is.

Like the guy sitting on a park bench, in his raincoat, clutching a bag of candy with greasy fingers waiting for school to be over, the MBA loves me, but we have to be careful because my wife’s getting suspicious about our “alone time” in the bathroom.

I’ve always been a Windows kind of guy and not like my friend Jack who likes to stand outside and watch his wife through the bedroom window. Like everyone else, I bought into the theory that Apple people had drunk the Kool-Aid else why would they spend a bunch more money for a laptop with a half-eaten apple on it?

Going on six years or 3-raincoats ago, I was frustrated with my then Windows laptop. Sort of like Ray Charles, I could close my eyes and let the fevered scene play out between my ears as my fingers tried desperately to keep up with the action.

Then I’d look down and realize that I’d written a page of garbage because I’d mistyped some prose with my fingers on the wrong keys. Mr. Rogers my high school typing teacher would rip the yellow sheet out of my Underwood and scream, “Archer, all you’re good for is writing shit they keep behind the counter in a brown paper bag!”

As we all know, when you’ve tried everything else to solve a problem, throw money at it! By this time, I’d been through three laptops, and Wifey was getting suspicious about the fact my credit card statement was starting to smoke when you pulled it out of the envelope. In desperation, I bought a 2012 MBA, and it was love at first sight. Open her up, and she would instantly light up like a drunk college girl, ready for action and no foreplay required. She never told me no and never had a headache. To touch her was exquisite, your fingers fall naturally on the keys, and the touch is like a mechanical keyboard, without all the clicking noises.

To be able to type with one-tenth the level of mistakes and a battery that never went down on you. I was hooked and wanted more, much more until I got seduced by a new line of Windows laptops.

Since the MacBook Air’s seemed to lose favor with their CPU’s slipping further and further behind, I jumped ship and bought a high-end Windows 10 machine with the top box checked in every category.

My wife being a Luddite and who struggles to understand how to operate a light switch, it only seemed natural to re-gift my trusted MBA to her. I was surprised to see how quickly she became adept with the 3-pound marvel.

I, on the other hand, started to beat my head against the wall. My new machine’s touchpad had a mind of its own and apparently didn’t need any help from me to make mistakes. I spent hours with tech support and even had the touchpad replaced to no avail. Others on the vendor’s website were similarly upset.

Foxy said that she’d give me my Air back, but I couldn’t do that and just struggled in silence. Certainly, my new machine was cool, huge hard drive, bunches of memory, fast i7 processor, but using it always managed to piss me off.

One day she asked me to help to do something on her computer, and as soon as my fingers touched the keyboard, I was back in love. It’s kind of like when you’re doing the neighbor’s wife and will steal little touches when no one is looking, but that’s a whole different post.

After that brief illicit moment, I went right down and bought a new MacBook Air with a 3-generation old CPU but no matter, I’m back in love again. Of course the day my new MBA was delivered, I read that Apple is going to bring out an updated Air in the next few months!

I know that you’re telling yourself, this post is supposed to be about what I’m writing and not about my forbidden love affair with my machine, sort of like Wifey and her LeLo vibrator, except without all the buzzing.

My latest story, “Crashing a Swinger’s Pajama Party,” is rapidly coming to a finish and I thought I’d share a little with you about the story as it’s been a real hoot to write.

Lisabet Sarai and I converse a fair amount off-list about writing and story ideas. I mentioned to her that we’d had a straight couple crash one of our New Year’s Eve Pajama Parties and she suggested that we create a story based on it.

We keep trying to write a story together, but our styles of writing bump heads and we can never seem to get our stories straight, “Fake News!”

But I’m slowly getting the impression that we’re starting to rub off on each other. I’m learning to type with my little finger stuck out, and she seems to be getting more comfortable with her mind wallowing in the gutter. Sort of like that little sailboat and the clown in the sewer drain.

Anyway, I was telling Lisabet about the time we had one of our straight neighbors crash our annual New Year’s Eve Pajama Parties. For some years now we’ve hosted a pajama party to welcome in the new year. It gives kissing under the mistletoe, a whole new meaning.

The PJ party is typically 50-60 couples plus an assortment of unicorns that we run with and 2-3 single guys thrown in for good measure. There are always people from around the country that we’ve met in our travels, for flavor. So by midnight, there are well more than one-hundred naked or semi-naked people in our house. Victoria Secret is proud of us!

We carefully select the invitees and make sure that no one is invited that could cause a problem. Most of the people are professionals, doctors, business owners, and a handful of elected officials, not including the cops. Cops, doctors, and nurses are some of the most perverted when they let their hair down. We have to be really careful who we invite as some of our party animals are also on the social pages and being outed would not be a good thing.

One morning after a New Year’s party, I was reading the paper and on the society page was a couple who’d also come late to our party. The woman was wearing an exquisite dress cut down almost to where the crack of her butt started. The society editor was buzzing about what a knockout she was and how that dress was scandalous. I laughed as I remembered that dress lying in a pile on the family room floor after my wife had pulled down her zipper and let it slide off. 

Anyway, after midnight, the doorbell rings and me being the idiot I am, answer the door. Standing in front of me is an attractive couple dressed to the nines. It was the couple, we somewhat knew from down the street, and I’m standing there with a short bathrobe on and nothing else.

It was somewhat embarrassing, but they asked if they could join our party as theirs was a snooze fest. Not knowing what to do I invited them in. Foxy joined me, and she was wearing her typical New Year’s outfit of an adult sized pair of kid’s long johns with bunnies on it. Except she wears it with all the buttons undone and so is open down to her bellybutton.

You can imagine their shock to see an orgy going on in the living room and all the people running around in teddies or much less.

We invited them to stay, but I think the shock value was too much for the husband. His wife looked like she wanted to stay. This is where the story Lisabet and I are working on diverged from reality.

She fired back with a suggested list of chapters, and we were off to the races.

With our sick minds, it was easy to suck the new couple in and throw them to the wolves. Greg, the dominating always in charge husband quickly discovered that he really wasn’t in control at all, courtesy of Foxy and her assortment of painful toys. Greg’s new word for the day was “pegged.”

Samantha, the otherwise “normal” housewife, was quickly divested of clothes as she realized that she was at an all-you-can-eat buffet or maybe the main course, depending on which end was up.

My stories are always HEA, but I keep getting told that a story needs conflict and resolution, yet mine always seem to lack conflict as everyone is too busy getting laid to fight. So it only seemed natural for Samantha to give Greg his walking papers and move in with the swingers down the street. She quickly discovered that it was a lot more fun to play, “hide the weenie,” with the neighborhood perverts.

But poor Greg was sent home with our real life cuckold – Hotwife couple, Pam and Jack, who proceed to take him within an inch of his life while giving him a sunburn with studio lights. If you look up nymphomaniac in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of our friend Pam, who is one of our resident MILFs. Jack is typically hiding in the closet watching or behind his movie camera.

So now I’ve gotten the neighbors split up, but so far they’ve not realized that they are the conflict part of my story. Greg has figured out that there is truth to the story of being screwed to death but is trying to soldier on. He’s afraid of coming back to our house as the last time Foxy and our redheaded Amazon Chrissy took turns pegging him. But he seems to be a good sport about everything, well except for the beatings!

Naturally, we didn’t want his wife to feel left out as she seemed to be enthralled by the idea of a gangbang and pulling a train. Why should we let her miss that experience? Now every time she hears a train whistle, she feels a tingle between her legs!

The story now stands over 40,000 words, and I’m trying to get the estranged couple back together again so the story can end up HEA. Lisabet and I are planning on co-releasing two stories in the next couple of months, so I should have time to finish it up. I’m looking at this blog post’s word count, and it’s at 1,700 words, and I’ve been trying to hold my posts down to under 1,000 words but not having much success.

You’ll have to wait a few weeks to see how the story comes out. Will Larry write his first non-HEA story, will Greg learn to love the sound of the whip? Or will Foxy sell Greg’s wife to a German Goo Girls movie producer? Check LarryArcher.blog for more ramblings from my perverted mind.

I promise Lisabet, my next blog post will be shorter!

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