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Other Eyes

by | February 21, 2020 | | 1 Comment

 

Writing can be a solitary occupation. Sure, your characters may be clamoring in your head, haranguing you and trying to hijack the plot, but ultimately you’re sitting by yourself in front of the keyboard, making the decisions and turning those choices into (hopefully) engrossing and sexy prose. It’s your book, and when you’re stuck, you’re more or less on your own.

We’re all a bit in love with our own work – I am, at least, and I suspect if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably confess to the same feelings. To be emotionally invested in our writing makes sense. If we didn’t care about both the process and the result, why would we bother? However, this makes it very difficult to be objective about the stories we create.

We can edit from dawn to dusk, yet still might not see some of the glaring flaws in our masterpiece. No tale is so perfect that it cannot be improved. No matter how imaginative we are, no matter how experienced in the writing craft, we all have our blind spots. That’s why participating in a critique group can be so worthwhile.

Submitting your work to a critique group allows you to see it through the eyes of others. A story offered for critique must stand on its own. When you’re reading your own work, you can’t help being aware of the background: your intentions, the origins of the premise, the characters’ back stories, all the ideas you’ve considered but decided not to include. Someone reading to critique evaluates the tale solely on its own merits. For instance, a passage that’s crystal clear to you might be judged as confusing, because you have extra knowledge that didn’t quite make it into the text. No matter how ruthless you try to be in self-editing – no matter how willing you are to kill your darlings – you can’t completely separate yourself from the process of creation, a personal process that will never be accessible to your final readers. An insightful critique can highlight gaps where critical information exists in your mind, but is missing on the page.

In a productive critique group, members tend to have different foci and different skills. Some people excel at noticing typos, misspellings and grammar gaffes. Others are particularly good at pointing out problems with sentence structure: excessive repetition, awkward phrasing, run-on sentences, sentences that are too long or too short. One critique might highlight issues with pacing or continuity; another the use of anachronisms or terminology inappropriate to the time or setting; a third, “head-hopping”, that is, slips in maintaining a consistent point of view.

Members of the ERWA Storytime critique group also tend to comment on the sexual content of the submitted stories. Maybe the sex develops too abruptly. Maybe the erotic pace drags. Maybe the characters’ actions or reactions are not plausible. Perhaps some aspect of a tale has the potential to trigger readers’ traumas, or makes it more likely that a tale will be banned by more mainstream sales channels. Many crit groups won’t deal with sexually explicit content; the members are too embarrassed. Storytime may be unique in this regard.

Of course, every author wants to receive critiques that read like rave reviews. This is even more true for erotica than other genres, I believe, because authors of erotica can’t help but inject a lot of their personal sexual interests and emotions into their work. Storytime provides a unique opportunity to test the erotic appeal of our favorite sexy scenarios on a sympathetic and broad-minded audience.

Ultimately, though, objective criticism is more valuable than unbridled enthusiasm.

I’ve been a member of ERWA for more than twenty years, and during the first few was an active participant in the Storytime list. (Yes, Storytime has been around that long!) Then I stopped subscribing for more than a decade, mostly due to lack of time. I returned when we started working on the ERWA anthology Unearthly Delights, since we planned to use the list as the submission mechanism. I’ve stayed because I enjoy the diverse authorly talent represented in the group, and for the invaluable advice I’ve received on my own stuff.

I don’t have the time to read and crit every piece that comes through the list, and I don’t submit every story I write, but I try to maintain a good karmic balance. Meanwhile, I can say without reservation that every piece on which I have received crits has become much stronger due to the process.

Not that I follow all the advice I receive. Working with a crit group is different from engaging with an editor. With an editor, there’s a power differential, unless you’re paying out of your own pocket. The editor assigned by a publisher plays the role of enforcer. He or she is tasked with making sure that your work fits the publisher’s style guides and follows their content rules, in addition to correcting typos and grammaticos. I’ve had editors make some pretty ridiculous “suggestions”, which I was more or less forced to accept.

In a contrast, everyone in a crit group understands that a critique represents one person’s view, and should be viewed as advisory rather than prescriptive. We are a community of equals, dedicated to helping one another hone our craft.

I’m writing this on Sunday, 16 February, and feeling somewhat bereft, because Storytime has been offline since last Wednesday. The tech folks are working on the problem, but meanwhile, my Sunday is a bit emptier without the usual flashers. Indeed, I have a flasher of my own queued up, targeted at one particular member of the group whom I know likes this particular sub-genre. Alas, I’ll have to wait to share it.

I do hope that by the time this blog post appears, on Friday 21 February, the issue will be resolved. I can write and publish decent stories (or perhaps I should say “indecent”) without receiving crits, but I know my work will be both technically improved and more appealing to readers if I can have the benefit of other eyes.

 

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

Ephemeral

by | November 21, 2019 | | 4 Comments

Snowy Day

 A black-and-white photo from my high school years

When we moved from the US to Asia, more than a decade ago, I got rid of at least three quarters of my material possessions. One thing I kept, though, were photographs. We shipped two plastic crates of prints and negatives, plus a box of fancy photo albums where I’d pasted the very best of our travel and party photos, selected to showcase our adventures to others.

Photographs possessed a certain importance, a gravitas, as historical markers. They were artifacts to be preserved and cherished. Family photos adorned the walls in my mother’s and grandmother’s homes, not only of people that I knew, but also of people I’d never met. Our family marked important transitions with group portraits. My archives include the originals of at least two expensive studio shots of me and my siblings, one when I was around seven, the other aged twelve. In addition, my first lover was an amateur photographer, who taught me a bit about his craft. Among the boxes we shipped were envelopes of black and white “art” photos I shot in my junior and senior year in high school with my used Kodak single lens reflex – and developed myself.

Photos were precious then.

How things have changed! Now we all carry cameras in our pockets, and capture images of the most prosaic subjects. We flip through the pictures, allocating a few seconds to each – “sharing” them, deleting them, editing and enhancing them, rarely if ever printing them. Photos have become nothing but electronic data, ephemeral. We keep them on our devices, upload them to social media, and sometimes download them to our hard disk. If we don’t back them up regularly (and how many of us do?) they could all vanish with a single computer crash. Life’s history, gone in an instant. Maybe that doesn’t matter, but it’s quite a contrast to the thick-parchment, colorized, pricey studio photos of my childhood.

Books have followed the same trend. In that move halfway around the world, I also kept a selection of my favorite volumes from my youth. In fact, they’re still sitting on my shelves here, in some cases fifty to sixty years after I acquired them. Many are what I’d consider timeless classics: the complete Sherlock Holmes stories; Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass; Edgar Allen Poe; Shakespeare’s plays. I also have very old versions of books that have been important to me personally, including Anne Rice’s vampire books (a 1975 edition of Interview with the Vampire) and The Story of O.

A book was a magical object, back then. Opening the covers, you entered the gates to another world. This was still true when I published my own first novel, twenty years ago. I held the paperback in my hand – the paperback with my name on the cover! – and marveled that I had joined the illustrious ranks of real authors. Like all writers, I even fantasized about my book becoming a best-seller or a classic.

And now? Books are just bits. I have a box full of author copies I can’t get rid of, including four different versions of that first novel, and a hard disk packed with manuscript files. There are multiple different versions of many tales, published and re-published, tweaked, expanded, reworked. The notion of a book as a finished creation, whole and perfect, has disappeared.

I used to suffer from what I called “narrative inertia”. What I meant was that I found it almost impossible to make significant alterations to a book after I’d written “The End”. My work seemed to resist revision. Almost as if it were solid and real.

I’m past that now. I can slice and dice my books to suit the perceived market. They have no special status, and I have no illusions about their pretensions to longevity.

The notion of a timeless classic being published today almost seems laughable. Fifty years from now – nay, even twenty years – hardware and software will have evolved to the point that ebooks from this era may not even be readable.

Of course, according to Eastern spiritual traditions, change is the only constant. Everything is ephemeral, the universe a construct of our minds and emotions. It’s all Maya, the sparkling, ever-mutating illusion that masks the incomprehensible, eternal nature of God.

(Gee, am I really talking about God on the ERWA blog? Well, why not?)

Perhaps it’s a side-effect of growing old, but these days almost everything seems temporary. News. Crises. Fashions. Celebrities. Technologies. Scandals. The rate of change seems to be constantly increasing. I don’t even bother to pay attention to much of what flashes through my life, or across my screen. It’ll be gone before I can even grasp it.

In fact, one of the less ephemeral phenomena in my life happens to be the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. Next January will mark twenty years that I’ve been part of the ERWA community. (ERWA itself has been in existence for twenty three years! Nearly a quarter century!) There are actually a few people on the email lists whom I’ve known that entire time. I’ve been writing the Erotic Lure newsletter since 2004 – fifteen years. That’s a lot of alliteration under the bridge.

Of course, ERWA has changed. We have new blood – young, talented, energetic writers and editors who help keep things interesting. The feelings, though, remain remarkably constant: warmth, respect for others, a spirit of fun, and of course a lively interest in all things erotic.

It’s pretty amazing that a community that exists only in cyberspace could be so resilient and so real. Our communications are just bits – but they matter. I enjoy closer relationships with some of the friends I’ve made here than with people I know in “meat-space”. Watching the world rush by, buffeted by the winds of change, I am truly grateful for ERWA, a “place” that doesn’t even exist, but where I always feel at home.

Retrospective

by | April 21, 2019 | | 3 Comments

Twenty years ago this month, I published my first novel.

 

I’ve shared the story dozens of times, in my long bio and on various blogs—how in November 1998 I picked up a Black Lace novel from the book swap shelf at my Istanbul hotel, was hooked by the intense emotion and free-wheeling sexual variety I found within, then got the urge to write something in the same genre. I dashed off three chapters of Raw Silk and sent them (by postal mail, of course) to England, pretty much on a lark. I had no expectations. The form letter I received in response, thanking me for my submission but warning me that due to the size of the backlog I might not hear anything for several months, didn’t surprise me in the least.

 

On the other hand, when I got email from the Black Lace editor three days later, offering me a contract, I was stunned. Now I had to actually write the novel, a minimum of 80,000 words. The publisher wanted to know when it would be finished. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue.

 

In the two decades that have followed, Raw Silk has seen four different editions. Meanwhile, I’ve published ten other novels (if you define a novel as a work of 50K words or more). Not that impressive a history, I guess, especially compared to many of my colleagues. Of course, I’ve also produced dozens of shorter works, ranging from flashers to novellas. In addition, I’ve edited both multi-author and single-author erotica anthologies, including several focused on ERWA authors.

 

Although pretty much all my work falls into the general category of erotic fiction, I’m otherwise eclectic. I’ve played with a wide range of genres, including BDSM (my first love), erotic romance, paranormal, science fiction, suspense, steam punk, historical, gay and lesbian. My tales range from literary erotica to pure smut, with everything in-between. For many years I worked mostly with a romance publisher, and chafed against the constraints of that genre. The rise of self-publishing has freed me to write whatever inspires me—which usually means stories that would make some romance readers squirm.

 

Not long after the release of Raw Silk, I found the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. I was looking for a way to promote the book (a very different enterprise in 2000, before the rise of social media). ERWA wasn’t what I was seeking, but it turned out to be what I needed. Though I’d been writing for self-expression all my life, I’d never imagined a career, or even an avocation, as a published author. I knew next to nothing about either the erotica genre or the nuts and bolts of the publishing world. The community I found here, the acceptance, support, knowledge and creativity, have helped me to develop my skills, to nurture my erotic imagination, and to market and sell its products.

 

Many people have remarked that being an author is a lonely business. I think that’s even more true if you write a denigrated, socially sanctioned genre like erotica. ERWA offered a delightful antidote to that loneliness. Some of the people I care most about in this world are folks I’ve come to know in the online world of ERWA. A few of these dear friends I’ve met in meat-space, but I know many of them only through the warmth of their emails, the generosity of their critiques and the arousing and challenging fiction they share.

 

I was in my forties when I published my first erotica, reliving and embroidering on the sexual adventures of my twenties. My early tales were fueled by cherished recollections and personal fantasies. I penned that first novel in just a few months. Passion poured out of me, onto the page. I wrote whatever pushed my own buttons, with no censorship and little focus on craft.

 

Now that I’m in my sixties, my motivations have shifted, but not as much as you might think. I still write to turn myself on. If I’m not aroused, how can I expect that of my readers? These days, though, I have a bit more distance from my work. I feel far more in control. Like a sculptor, I start with the raw material of ideas and mold them into the shape I envision.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the decision to self-publish has given me new energy and self-confidence. Perhaps as a result, in the past few years, I’ve found myself conquering what I’d always thought were intrinsic limitations to my writing skill.

 

For instance, I used to complain that I suffered from “narrative inertia”. What I meant was that once I’d written a story, I found it very difficult to make significant changes. I felt as though the story had chosen its own form, had set itself in stone, permitting me no more than cosmetic modifications. Attempts to alter the structure, the plot or the ending left me dissatisfied and deeply uncomfortable.

 

Those feelings have mostly disappeared. I’ve taken old tales with ambiguous, even tragic, conclusions, and revised them to end happily. (The market far prefers happy conclusions.) I’ve taken short stories and expanded them into novellas. My words and ideas now seem far more malleable than they did in the past.

 

When I first joined ERWA, I tried to create flashers and failed miserably. My method involved writing the whole piece, then trying to cut things out to get down to the word limit. The process felt painful and unnatural, and the results were rarely worth sharing.

 

At some point during the past few years, that changed. Probably this had something to do with editing Daddy X’s flash fiction collection. In any case, my flasher composition approach has become quite different. Rather than writing the full story, then pulling out the editing scalpel, I compose and check the word limits as I go along. I’ll always need to cut a few words, but my first draft is usually within 10-15% of the target. I won’t say it’s easy—flashers are a challenge for any author—but I enjoy the activity more and I’m far more pleased with the outcomes.

 

Finally, I always swore I couldn’t write a series. By the time I’d written “The End” on a novel, I really was done. I had little inclination to revisit the characters or their worlds. In a couple of cases, I had thoughts about follow-on books, and deliberately left threads to be followed, but somehow I couldn’t motivate myself to start on Book Two.

 

Then I wrote a book purely for fun, which turned out to be pretty popular (Hot Brides in Vegas). Almost as soon as it was published, I had more outrageous ideas about the characters, so I started a sequel. The Vegas Babes series is now up to four books, and I plan at least one more.

 

Nobody is more surprised by this than me.

 

Twenty years is a long time—nearly a third of my life on this planet. I’ve never made much money as an author. Given my other responsibilities, I’ve never been able to devote the sort of time necessary to publish regularly. Still, I do congratulate myself on my staying power. Through the ups and downs, I’ve continued to write and publish—and continued to participate in the erotica community.

 

I sometimes wonder whether I’ll still be here when I am in my eighties.

 

Stay tuned!

Erotica Readers & Writers Association: Changing of the Guard

by | November 13, 2015 | | 14 Comments

The Erotica Readers and Writers Association has been around since 1996. It pre-dates my foray into the erotica genre by ten years, and is coming up on its twentieth anniversary. Adrienne Benedicks has run it from the beginning, and I remember finding my very first publisher (Stardust, now defunct) on their Author Resources page. Adrienne is now retiring – and moving to greener pastures and a warmer climate! She felt it was time to pass the baton, and I was honored that she thought of me.

In recent years, as Amazon (and other retailers) have pushed back against erotica authors, I have seriously considered giving up on the genre altogether. But in the end, I simply can’t walk away from something I’ve invested nearly ten years of my own time and energy into. Besides, I love erotica as a genre. And I love erotica authors. I have never met a more fun-loving, open-minded, good-hearted crowd of people. Erotica authors are the first line in the defenders of the freedom of expression. They go places others are often afraid to venture, and tackle topics that far too many shy away from.

I have some great ideas about how to develop the Erotica Readers and Writers Association into an even stronger community and resource for both readers and authors that I’m sure I will be implementing in the future, but truthfully, what’s in place right now is a gold mine that, I’m afraid, too many people don’t know about!

For instance, did you know that the Erotic Readers and Writers Association has a lively discussion list? In fact, they have several! The Parlor is a place where everyone can discuss whatever’s on their mind, Storytime is where authors can offer their work for critique, and the Writers’ List is a place where authors can network and talk about all things writing related. I’ve been a part of those discussion lists for the past year, and it’s been a great experience to connect with new erotica authors and erotica lovers.

For readers, there’s a huge library of erotic fiction available for free in the Treasure Chest! There’s straight erotic fiction, queer fiction, kinky erotica, the softer side, quickies, flashers, and even poetry. It’s not just erotic books, either. There are a wide array of articles in the archives, plus adult movies, sex toys, even suggestions for erotic music to set the mood. It’s an erotica lovers dream!

You can also follow ERWA on Twitter, we have a brand new ERWA Facebook page, and you can sign up for the ERWA newsletter to keep up on what we’re doing next.

For those who are already a part of the ERWA, I want to assure you that I have no intention of dismantling the site or bringing a bunch of new changes in too quickly. The site has grown and changed organically over the past twenty years, and I imagine it will continue to do so over the next twenty years.

Self-publishing and the rise of ebooks have given erotica a newfound freedom of expression that was unheard of twenty years ago. If I look into my crystal ball to see what the next twenty-years holds for erotica, I have to admit, it’s a bit cloudy. But I do know one thing – as a genre, erotica isn’t going anywhere. As long as there are humans, the expression human sexuality in all its forms will be explored by the most daring and adventurous of writers, and read by the most curious and open-minded readers. That much I do know.

My hope is that erotica’s future is so bright, we’ll all have to wear shades.

Portrait of sensual brunette woman in red hot lingerie.

But wherever the future of erotica as a genre may lead, I intend to be a part of that for a long time to come.

selenasigsmalltrans

Selena Kitt
www.selenakitt.com

Ten Years in Bed with the Best: The History of ERWA

by | June 11, 2014 | | 4 Comments

By Adrienne Benedicks (ERWA founder)

It’s
difficult to write good erotica. Authors in any fictional genre have
to master the elements of the craft: plot, characterization,
dialogue, and so on. Erotica authors need to go further. They need to
depict sexual acts, situations, and emotions that are believable and
arousing. To do this, they draw on their personal insights and
images. They delve into their imaginations, lay bare their sensual
fantasies, and share those visions with their readers. Authors who
dare expose themselves via erotica are brave souls, indeed.

To
my delight, I find myself today surrounded by these fascinating
people: the writers of sexually explicit fiction. These are the
people who populate the virtual world of ERWA, the world we have
built together over the past ten years.

In
1996, when I first plugged into the Internet, I admit that the first
thing I looked for was porn. I craved sexy stories. Much to my
disappointment all I found were boring, mechanical sex scenes, and a
lot of “Oh my Gawd, I’m cumming” nonsense. It didn’t take me
long to realize that much of the adult web was simply a digital form
of male-oriented one-dimensional smut, a cyber circle-jerk. I was
disappointed. As a woman I felt left out of the dirty stuff.

I
thought that surely I wasn’t unique in my desire for well-written,
hot erotic stories – real stories, not just bits and pieces of fuck
scenes. So I hit the chat rooms and asked, “Where’s the quality
sexy stuff?” That was like plastering a blinking “Who wants to
screw me?” tag on my emails. Live and learn!

For
my next attempt, I joined the Romance Readers Anonymous (RRA) email
list. I thought that surely romance readers would be comfortable
discussing erotic stories. In those days, though, we couldn’t talk
about sex in our public posts, even though many romances were highly
erotic.

A
few of us listers took to chatting off-list about the erotic parts of
romance. I suggested that we live on the edge and start our own list.
Great excitement greeted my suggestion, and on June 5th, 1996, the
Erotica Readers Association was born. ERA, an affectionate play on
the Equal Rights Amendment, was a sister list to RRA, and the
foundation of the current Erotica Readers & Writers Association.

At
that time my children were in high school, and I had the opportunity
to finish my degree in Anthropology. As a student, I had access to
various online options and with the endorsement of my professor, the
University agreed to host the ERA email list. My goal was to provide
a private, secure online space where women could comfortably discuss
erotic fiction and sexuality, away from the “hey baby, whatcha
wearing” crowd.

Subscription
was by request or invitation. Publicity worked via word of mouth.
Within two months we had sixty women onboard – fabulous, fun,
curious women who were eager to talk about sexy writings, and to
discuss the joys, problems, or disappointments of their own
sexuality.

It
didn’t take long before these readers decided to try their own
hands at writing sexy fiction. “I bet even I can write a sex scene
better that!” was a typical inspiration. We quickly learned that
writing good erotica wasn’t as easy as it seemed. The general
assumption was that if you were capable of having sex, then surely
you could about write it. Not necessarily true, but that didn’t
stop us from trying. We were having a lot of fun, even when our
fictional efforts fell flat.

Before
long, a few brave men who were friends of ERA subscribers were asking
to join. They liked reading erotic stories, and they liked the idea
of smart discussions about sex. So I opened the door; ERA became
inclusive rather then exclusive. Most women were pleased with the
change. A few stomped off the list, sure ERA would crumble into a
“hey baby” chat room atmosphere.

That
didn’t happen. Men brought their unique sexual insight into ERA,
and our horizons grew even more as people of all sexual persuasions
requested subscription. ERA became a dynamic robust community of
people interested in sexuality in the written word, and in their
lives.

Of
course, we had our fair share of narrow-minded confrontational types,
rigid view points, and egos too big even for the World Wide Web.
Overall, though, ERA-ers were non-judgmental, mutually respectful and
more then willing to get along.

ERA
grew quickly that first year. Subscribers suggested I started a web
site to house all the material we were accumulating: book
recommendations, hints about popular authors, discussions on where to
buy erotica (at that time erotica wasn’t sitting on book shop
shelves). A subscriber volunteered to build a site, and the domain
“www.erotica-readers.local” became an on-line reality.

We
decided to be really daring, and started putting subscribers’
original stories behind a password protected “Green Door” on the
ERA web site. We felt so very sophisticated, and risqué, with our
personal secret stash of erotica sitting right out there on the Web!

ERA
continued to grow, and so did subscribers’ interest in writing
erotica. Writers were taking a serious interest in helping each other
improve. Stories were shared on the list, and critiques and
suggestions on how to improve the works were cheerfully and willingly
given. ERA was evolving, moving from its readers’ base to a
writers’ base. More and more focus was on writers helping writers.

Around
this time, erotica anthologies were becoming very popular. The
Herotica series (Down There Press) had made a big splash, leading the
way to The Best Women’s Erotica (Cleis Press), Best American
Erotica (Simon & Schuster), The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica
(Carroll & Graf), Best Lesbian Erotica (Cleis Press), and
Ultimate Gay Erotica (Alyson Press).

Web
site magazines were springing up like grass (and weeds). There was a
growing market for erotic short stories, and many ERA subscribers
were ready to try publishing their work. They exposed themselves, so
to speak, behind ERA’s Green Door; the experience gave them
confidence. With support and encouragement from their peers, ERA
subscribers started to submit stories to various calls for
submissions.

ERA
already had a solid community feel. Subscribers really did care about
each other. We were a virtual family. Even so, I was pleasantly
surprised at how generous writers were in sharing calls for
submissions. Rather than concealing the information to reduce the
competition, ERA-ers said: “Hey everybody, look what I found! Let’s
give it a try.”

At
that time, the ERA web site was still a small dot in the adult web,
but there was no doubt our growing resources and stash of sexy
stories was drawing in a smart crowd. I took the plunge, and with a
lot of help and suggestions from the community, gave the ERA site a
new look that was sensual and classy, as well as easy to navigate.

I
didn’t realize the obvious: being out in the Web made my private
email list, nicely hidden and hosted by the University computer
center, suddenly quite visible. Subscription was still by request or
invitation, but now inquiries came pouring in. People landing on ERA
web site liked the resources they found there, and wanted to know
more. Subscriptions grew, the site grew, and soon ERA was pulling in
more then 13% of the university web traffic. ERA had to go, they told
me, and gave me two weeks to find another host.

Ah,
the price of success! Fortunately, an Australian subscriber
volunteered the help of her husband, who ran his own ISP service.
Kevin hosted ERA for free for several years until we once again grew
too big and had to move on to our present home, a major adult web
hosting company.

By
2000 ERA had grown so large and had such a varied focus that things
were getting out of hand. The sheer number of emails on the list
caused confusion and havoc. Writers were frustrated in their efforts
to have their stories critiqued because their works were lost in the
deluge of chit-chat emails. Questions and concerns about publishing
and marketing went unanswered because busy subscribers didn’t have
time or patience to dig through hundreds of emails, and were simply
deleting it all.

Meanwhile
the amount of information on the site was overwhelming. The
organization was on the verge of losing itself in too much of
everything. It would have been an ironic death by popularity.

At
this point I understood that ERA was no longer a simple hobby. Good
erotica had become a worthy pursuit. Erotica readers were hungry for
the good stuff, and publishers were geared up to provide it. I wanted
the ERA web site to be the place where erotica readers and
writers would come for the information they needed and where editors
and publishers would come when looking for talented writers. I wanted
ERA to be the premier web site for quality erotica. Finally, I wanted
to continue to provide an email list where erotica readers and
writers could network, and where people could comfortably discuss
sexuality.

The
first step was to change the Erotica Readers Association name to
better reflect what we had become: the Erotica Readers & Writers
Association (ERWA). The second step was to create a flexible
infrastructure for the site and for the email list, a foundation with
enough latitude for future changes. Here’s where ERWA subscribers
came to the rescue, once again. Suggestions poured in, and I followed
through. The evolution of ERWA was, and I suspect always will be, a
community affair.

ERWA
became three distinct parts that made up the whole: ERWA email
discussion list, ERWA web site, and the humorous and informative ERWA
monthly newsletter, Erotic Lure, currently written by the editor of
this anthology, Lisabet Sarai.

The
ERWA web site retained its basic design. The richness and utility of
the site grew as publishers and editors recognized ERWA’s
potential. No longer did I spend hours searching for viable markets.
Calls for submissions now came to me.

ERWA’s
story galleries became a source of quality erotic fiction. Editors
routinely mined the galleries’ content for their “Best Of”
erotic anthologies. Renowned erotic authors came on board as
columnists, providing advice in our Authors Resources section. The
luminaries of the adult literary world offered provocative articles
on hot sexual topics in the Smutter’s Lounge pages.

I
divided ERWA email discussion list into four opt-in sections; Admin
(for news related to ERWA, calls for submissions, events, and other
items of interest); Parlor (an open forum with a social ambiance);
Writers (dedicated to authorship and related issues); and Storytime
(an informal writers’ workshop where authors share their stories
for comments and critiques). The very best of Storytime works are
placed in ERWA Erotica Galleries, and many of them are showcased
right here in this volume.

Currently,
the Erotica Readers & Writers Association hosts an email
discussion list of over 1200 subscribers. Our newsletter goes out to
more then 5000 readers, writers, editors and publishers. The web site
is accessed over six million times each month.

ERWA
has been favorably reviewed by Playboy, Elle magazine,
AVN online magazine, Writer’s Digest, and recommended in a
host of books and articles as the premier resource for erotica
readers and writers. Every month, we entertain, educate and inform
millions people from all over the globe who are interested in
erotica.

Although
we’ve grown tremendously, ERWA’s strength is still in community.
We are diverse and far-flung, but tightly connected. The result is an
ongoing effort to understand and accept all persuasions, lifestyles,
and expressions of sexuality. We want to bring the very best of
erotica to readers, partly by helping writers excel in a genre that
is making headlines and causing the entire publishing industry to sit
up and take notice.

Personally,
I’m amazed at what we’ve built together, and extremely proud. Now
I can say to those frustrated folk who are searching, like I was, for
sex writing that is simultaneously intelligent and arousing: here we
are. Search no further. Welcome to ERWA. You’re home.

[This article is an afterword from the erotica anthology Cream: The Best of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association (Running Press, 2006, edited by Lisabet Sarai). Of course this written was almost a decade ago, and a great deal has happened since then. Still, the spirit of ERWA remains vital and – dare I say it? – lusty as ever. ~ Lisabet Sarai, blog coordinator]

 

 

Coming to a Conclusion

by | January 25, 2014 | | 11 Comments

By Rose B. Thorny (Guest Blogger)

As writers, we all know that there
comes a time when we have to end it all.

Whether we’re plodding, strolling,
prancing, or hurtling towards the inevitable, we know it is precisely
that… the unavoidable conclusion that we must reach if we’re
going to have a marketable product, even if we don’t actually sell
it for money. By marketable product, I mean a story that satisfies
someone other than the writer. The way I see it, the point of
writing a story is to tell a story you have inside you, but the point
of finishing it is to share it with others.

That last part is the gamble, though,
isn’t it?

Not long ago, I was involved in a
discussion that arose from a writer saying, essentially, that she was
“stuck” part way through a major project. Part of the discussion
touched on where, in stories of any length, one is likely to get
stuck, and I gleaned that it is not unusual for authors to stall when
their stories are reaching the conclusion. If it had occurred to me
at the time, I would have taken a little informal poll just to get a
ballpark percentage, rough data on the number of writers who stall
near the end of their projects.

Of the stories I’ve started and not
finished, the majority of them are close enough to the end – beyond
the major turning point – that I realize that point is where I have
stalled. It isn’t that I don’t know how the story is going to
end, because I have a very clear vision of the where and how of the
conclusion. Of the stories I’ve written and finished, though, I
think about how much easier it seemed to be to finish them before
I’d had any successes.

The more stories I wrote and finished,
the harder it became to finish them. While I was writing the final
act of my later stories, I’d write a sentence or two and then I’d
feel paralyzed. I’d have to get up and walk around, look out the
window at the bird feeders, or get a coffee, then I’d sit down and
write another sentence, then maybe do a chore – put on a load
laundry, or walk out to get the mail (and that’s a fifteen-minute
break, because out to the mailbox is a quarter-mile hike) then sit
down and a few more words. It got really bad when I’d watch myself
writing two or three words and then being so antsy I’d have to get
up and move around for ten or fifteen minutes (taking deep breaths
and feeling totally wired), before I could sit down and write another
few words. I reached a point where it really just wasn’t fun. It
was all anxiety about writing the perfect story.

I’ve thought about this a lot, just
to try and analyze what’s going on in my brain when this
unfortunate impasse occurs.

I’m not going to get into the
mechanics of writing and how, if such a thing happens, you should
just sit and write, write, write, even if what you are writing is
crap. I don’t believing in writing crap on purpose, the same way I
don’t believe in making a crappy dinner on purpose, even if I’m
cooking just for myself. If it’s crap, it isn’t the story I’m
writing and all I’d have, if I did that, is a good story with a
crappy ending, which, I think, is why I’m subconsciously afraid to
continue on to the conclusion in the first place – the fear of
writing a crappy ending. To me, a crappy ending means there wasn’t
much point in writing the story at all.

I’m also not going to be shy about
saying that when I’m writing what I consider to be a good story, I
sincerely believe it is a good story. My gut tells me
it’s a good story. Of course, I don’t know if that’s misplaced
confidence, or an example of perfectly appalling hubris, or pathetic
self-delusion, or, by some weird twist of fate, true. I do know that
when I read and re-read (and re-read) the story, up to the point
where I’ve stopped, I find it entertaining. I think, “This
is a story I would read right to the end, if someone else wrote it.”

And that’s when I wish someone else
had written it… and finished it!! I think that if someone
else had written it, they would have known, in advance, what the very
best slam-bang ending would be, the one that would have the readers
saying, “Wow…just wow.” I know what the ending is going to be,
but I think what happens is that very special fear creeps in. It is
the fear that the conclusion will not live up to the rest of the
story, that it will be a disappointment, not to me (because I can
self-delude with the best of the self-delusional), but to the reader.

With the stories I’ve written and
finished, I thought the endings were good, but before I heard
that from anyone else, first I would think it’s good and then I’d
start thinking, “No, it sucks. Everyone is going to hate this.
Why did you even put it out there?” And then I’d get the
feedback and it confirmed that my initial gut reaction was on track –
the story, including the end, was good.

And that is the bigger picture:
Writing a good story and finishing it and having it
acknowledged as worthy by one’s peers and other readers. That’s
great, when it happens, but then the next story is all
conclusion, by which I mean that before I’ve even gotten a few
hundred words into it, I’m already thinking, “This is going to be
a disappointment. I won’t be able to do it again. Even if the
story line is good, the ending is going to be a letdown.” I can’t
help but think that any success is a fluke and the odds of flukes
continuing are not good.

Conclusions mean, to me, that I just
have to keep getting better and better and better, but, in my
experience, at some point, there is no better, there is only a “this
is as good as it gets” plateau and after that, it’s just like the
boiling point of water. The only thing that happens when water
reaches the boiling point is that it starts evaporating. But there’s
also no sitting on your laurels, because, well, that’s what
everyone says… don’t sit on your laurels. The implication is
that sitting on your laurels is the equivalent of failing. So what’s
the alternative? Keep going, keep boiling that water in the pot.
Keep proving to everyone that you’re as good as, or better than,
your previous success. Keep walking along that edge. Keep that gut
of yours clenched and those hands shaking and your heart pounding
with anxiety wondering when the fall is going to come. Rest on your
laurels and you’re a has-been failure, who loses all respect, or
keep going knowing that, eventually, you’re going to fail anyway.

This isn’t just the ravings of an
insecure, anxious wimp.

Very few published authors, whose work
I enjoyed initially, maintained a level of quality and anticipation
that has kept me coming back for more. Of course, there were/are
some, a few, who have maintained the momentum, but so many others
started out writing stories that had me gripped to the end and then
something happened. Somewhere along the line, while their subsequent
stories held the promise of, “Yesssss, that was a fabulous read,”
the conclusions became predictable, and then, even the stories became
repetitive and predictable, and the endings a yawn I saw coming.

I don’t want that to happen to me,
but if it happens to so many oft-published professionals, with so
many years of writing under their belts and so much more experience,
how can I possibly expect it not to happen to me? Why would I
be an exception to that? What would make me think I’m so
special that I believe I would be? And that creates the specter of
being a disappointment, the image of a has-been that nobody cares
about or even remembers. “Yeah, what’s-her-name was good to
start, but then, pfffft… she lost it. What was her
name, anyway? Well, doesn’t matter.”

The conclusions become harder and
harder, because every ending means a next beginning and the doubt is
always present that there will either be a plethora of
three-hundred-word beginnings, or no next beginning whatever, because
all of it, and not just the slam-bang endings, will have dried
up.

Okay, so if you’ve read this far,
you’re probably thinking, “This is the most downer blog piece
I’ve ever read on ERWA,” and, perhaps, you’re right, but bear
with me. Just keep reading a bit further… I’m almost done.

I started a story, way back in
September of 2012. Just as I reached the turning point of the story,
the part that heralded the conclusion, I stopped. Over the
subsequent months of 2013, I went back to it regularly and re-read
it, edited it (and by edited, I mean embellishing or changing
phraseology, or finding a better word, or rewriting sentences –
nothing major, just touch-ups), but never added to it following the
last sentence of the story as it stood when I’d stopped. I really
enjoyed re-reading the whole story over and over. I couldn’t see
much at all wrong with it, and still don’t.

While it is unfinished, though, it
holds all kinds of promise. I think the fear is that once I finish
it, it won’t live up to the promise and, if I put it out there and
it’s a flop, I will have neither the energy nor the inclination to
do it all over again. The second fear is that if I put it out there
and it is not flop, what do I do next? The expectation will
be that the next one has to be even better, and if this one took over
a year to write, and it’s good, how long will it take to write an
even better one? I mean we’re not talking novel, here. I’m
talking about a story that is, at this point, just under 14K, and
it’s taken me fifteen months to get that far.

But here’s the upshot. I did
get over the first hurdle of the conclusion. Over the past winter
break, when I had thirteen days mostly to myself (if you don’t
count getting up every two minutes to tell the new puppy, “Get
down,” “No, you can’t have that,” “Drop that,” “Here,
play with your toy instead,” and ask “Do you need to go out and
pee?”), I actually sat down and wrote the pivotal scene that
presages the final act of the story.

If I can do that, then I can finish the
story. And if a neurotic, anxiety-ridden, over-analyzing
perfectionist with crazy-ass self-esteem and insecurity issues can
finish a story, anyone can.

The End.


About Rose

Rose B. Thorny (the “T” is often
silent) has been a denizen of ERWA since 2005. She has been
published in the anthology, “Cream, The Best of the Erotica Readers
and Writers Association,” and boasts stories in Volumes 7 and 10 of
Maxim Jakubowski’s “Mammoth Book Of Best New Erotica,” plus
stories and poetry in ERWA’s Treasure Chest. By day, Rose is a
not-exactly-mild-mannered administrative assistant. The rest of the
time, she is all over map trying to focus on writing, cooking, art,
photography, wildlife and running the homestead with her husband, all
the while, looking after three cats and now a new puppy. Rose is
also an ERWA Storytime editor; she loves the thrill of reading work
by the promising new writers who make ERWA the coolest hotspot in
literary erotica.

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