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Writing For Exposure And Other Frustrations

by | March 28, 2015 | | 8 Comments

Elizabeth Black writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica, erotic romance, and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and three cats. Visit her web site, her Facebook page, and her Amazon Author Page.

—–

Several years ago, I
made the huge mistake of applying for a writing job from an online site that
required a few “sample articles” as examples of my work. I was to
post them on the web site’s forum, and get as many views as I could. I wasn’t
about to write anything new, so I posted my old stand-by article about the time
I tested the Altoids
mints blow job on my husband. That post alone got more views than anything
else that was posted, and lots of people posted. I posted at least one other
previously published article, which also got an amazing number of views – more
than anyone else. I was confident that I had jumped through all the hoops and
was on my way to paid employment.

I didn’t get the
job.

I didn’t realize
until later that the web site was farming for free content. I did all the
legwork proving the time and product as well as promoting my posts, and the site
didn’t have to do a damned thing. I learned my lesson. I have never again sent
sample articles to any writing job application that required them. That said, I
understand reputable companies need to see examples of my writing to determine
if I’m a good fit. I realize that. Instead of creating new content, I send
links to existing articles so the company may see what I have already
published. Sometimes I get a response, but I usually don’t hear back from those
companies. Now, I don’t bother to send anything to companies asking for sample
articles unless I can provide links. Burned once, shame on you. Burned twice,
shame on me.

Why are writers so
often asked to work for free? Or for “exposure”? Promising a vague
form of exposure is another way of getting free content. There are some things
I do as a means of promotion for which I am not paid. Writing on this blog is
one of them. I gain an audience writing here, and it keeps my name out there in
between books. I’ve written stories for charity anthologies because I like
contributing to a good cause. However, I will not simply give someone a free
story or article just because. No more content farming scams. No more free
writing for web sites that make scads of money from advertising and
subscriptions.

Designer Dan
Cassaro ran into a similar “opportunity” when he was invited by
Showtime – a company clearly needing to rub dimes together to pay for paper
clips – to join a design “contest” he felt was really only a way of
fishing for free content. The contest involved promoting the Floyd
Mayweather-Marcos Maidana boxing match. Those who submitted designs for
Showtime’s use could – to quote the message Cassaro had received from Showtime
– “be eligible for a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas and have your
artwork displayed in the MGM Grand during fight week!” He let Showtime and
everyone else within earshot know exactly what he thought about it, dripping
with sarcasm:

“It is with great sadness that I must
decline your enticing offer to work for you for free. I know that boxing
matches in Las Vegas as extremely low-budget affairs, especially ones with
nobodies like Floyd “Money” Mayweather. I heard he only pulled in 80
Million for this last fight! I also understand that a “mom and pop”
cable channel like Showtime must rely on handouts just to keep the lights on
these days. Thanks a lot, Obama! My only hope is that you can scrape up a few
dollars from this grassroots event at the MGM Grand to put yourself back in the
black. If that happens, you might consider using some of that money to
compensate people to do the thing they are professionally trained to do.”

Why are writers (and
artists in general) so often expected to work for free – or for
“exposure”, as the request is often sugar-coated? Would you expect
your dentist to give you a root canal for free? Do you pay the housecleaner?
The car mechanic? Do your plumber and electrician walk away without monetary
compensation once they do the job you’ve begged them to do because they are
professionals and you are not trained to do the work they do? So why expect a
writer to write for free?

Science fiction
writer Harlan Ellison had plenty to say about those who expect writers to
provide free content. A
DVD company asked him if he’d let them use a very long and very interesting
on-camera interview about the making of “Babylon Five”. He said,
sure, pay me. The woman who called was flabbergasted, as if she expected him to
just fork over his hard work for free – even though she received a
paycheck. Here’s a portion of what he had to say about it.

“Does
your boss get a paycheck? Do you pay the Telecity guy? Do you pay the
cameraman? Do you pay the cutters? Do you pay the Teamsters when they schlep
your stuff on the trucks? Then how—don’t you pay—would you go to a gas station
and ask me to give you free gas? Would you go to the doctor and have him take
out your spleen for nothing? How dare you call me and want me to work for nothing!”

If you want to read his entire rant – and it’s
worth reading – check out “Harlan
Ellison On Getting Paid” at Print Magazine. There is also a link at
that page to a video of his rant. It’s from the film “Dreams With Sharp
Teeth”.

Ellison is not alone. This “we won’t pay
you” schtick is something lots of writers and other artists hear. Last
year, hula hoop performer Revolva
was contacted by Harpo, Oprah Winfrey’s company, to perform at Oprah’s “Live
The Life You Want” event stop in San Jose, California. Revolva was
thrilled –  until she realized Harpo had
no intention of compensating her for hours, effort, or travel. In fact, Harpo
intended to not pay any of the creative workers it contacted, despite the fact
that tickets
to this event cost anywhere from $99 to $999 just to get in the door. The
events producers claimed they didn’t have the budget to pay performers. Yes,
that’s right. A billionaire’s tour didn’t have the budget to pay
performers. If Revolva and the other artists wanted To Live The Life They Want,
they could have it – without being paid for it. She chose to not perform. She,
like Ellison, had plenty to say about being not only asked but expected
to work for free:

“Back
to that spiritual lesson you had in store for me, Oprah. Maybe it’s because my
car broke down, and I’m struggling. Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing this for
12 years, and after all the requests for free or discount work, the one by a
billionaire’s tour was the straw that broke my back. But I thought it through,
and achieving “the life you want” is not always easy. The risks we have to
take, to transform this culture into something more nurturing, involve looking
at the way things are and saying, ‘Hey, wait. That’s not cool!'”

It’s ironic that
this tour of Oprah’s was about realizing your self-worth. Apparently, you’re
worth a great deal – as long as you don’t expect to be compensated in cold hard
cash.

Stories like these
strike a nerve with artists, including writers. They grate my teeth. All of us
get these messages, and they really harsh our cool. It’s almost as if those
doing the asking think artists create the works they create only out of
“love” or an internal drive and have no interest or understanding of
how money works. Granted, some writers do write for the love of it, but not all of them.

As Tom Cruise
said in “Jerry Maguire”, Show
Me The Money!

The corollary to
being expected to work for free is being expected to work for peanuts. We’ve
all seen the calls for submissions on places like Craigslist where a potential
employer requires an assload of work – but will only pay $20.00 for said job. I
just counted three such jobs, including one that called for you to be available on weekends. Nope, nope, nope. The
other way of parting writers from their money are Get Rich Quick schemes – something
like “7 Easy Steps To Getting Paid As A Writer”. Write a book telling
people how to make money writing a book and watch the cash pour in. I’ve seen
these ads on Facebook, and the comments are always some form of “f—
off!”

There is an old
adage in creative work like writing – aim high and work your way down. Aim
first for the pro rates. Aim for the big publishers. Aim for the best agents.
Don’t start at the bottom and work your way up because you don’t think you have
enough experience or talent. Don’t downgrade yourself. Don’t settle and demean
yourself by doing a shitload of work for a paycheck that barely covers a Big
Mac, fries, and a Coke.

The sad thing is there
are plenty of writers and other artists who will eagerly take up these offers.
They tend to be newbies who are so green they don’t know any better. They may
not feel they have a right to ask for money. Or they fall for the
“exposure” line. They see stars when Oprah or Showtime contacts them,
and they happily give over free content only to inevitably get little to
nothing out of it, or at the very least not be compensated in a way that the
very wealthy company can easily afford. As long as these people exist, the free
content farms will continue to thrive. Don’t ask to be paid what you’re worth.
Demand it. You have that right.

Post-Partum Literary Depression

by | May 28, 2014 | | 6 Comments

Elizabeth Black writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica,
erotic romance, and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her
husband, son, and four cats. Visit her web
site, her Facebook page, and her Amazon
Author Page.

—–

I read a Facebook
post recently in which the person talked about Post-Partum Depression that
results when you finish a project such as a story or painting. You’ve given
birth to something you’ve created, and in the aftermath you feel down – PPD. He
wrote that it’s a feeling of emptiness. You don’t know what to do. You don’t
want to watch TV. You don’t want to start something new. All you feel is bored,
restless, and even a little depressed.

Has it ever happened
to you?

I recently went
through a case of PPD when I recently finished writing “Full Moon
Fever”, my (so far) unpublished m/m werewolf erotic romance novel. At
first, I was elated. I always celebrate finishing a project and getting an
acceptance. My husband and I cracked open a bottle of champagne and made
toasts. Granted, I drink champagne all the time, but this called for a new
bottle. Delirious with glee, I spent the rest of the day getting tipsy and
watching bad movies on TV.

About a day later,
the depression hit. It was as if I had come down off a great high. Crashing
describes it quite well. I missed my characters. I longed for the joy of seeing
what kind of mischief they would get into. There were plenty of things for me
to do, including writing a sequel but I felt so spent I couldn’t work on
anything, including my other works in progress.

I had to do something. Anything. This downer had
to go.

After I wallowed in
my misery for a day or two, I made a conscious decision to pull out of it. This
kind of depression isn’t like clinical depression in that I was able to pull myself out of it by
distracting myself. What worked for me may not work for you, but here’s what I
did. First of all, I got away from the computer. For several days, I took a
break from writing. I watched movies and my favorite TV shows. The kitchen got
a workout because I baked. If it’s sickeningly sweet, I’ll bake it. This is the
time I buy new plants for my container garden. If weather permits, I go for
walks on the beach. I finished “Full Moon Fever” in the dead of
winter so beach walks were out but scenic drives weren’t.

For me, the key was
getting out of my head. I needed time to recharge.

Everyone is
different. Responses varied to that Facebook post. Some people didn’t go
through PPD – they celebrated. Others always had new projects in the works so
they were working on something all the time. I’ve done that one myself, but not
always. Some edit or sleep more. Others get out into the fresh air.

Do you suffer from
Post-Partum Literary Depression? What do you do to alleviate it?

The Myth of Immortal Prose

by | November 18, 2013 | | 10 Comments

by Donna George Storey

Write what you want to write instead of what you think you’re supposed to write.

That’s what I’m hoping to do, as I discussed in my last column here at ERWA, but I know there’s no quick and easy way to make the big switch. It takes time to discard old habits, to trust inner voices, to take risks. As part of this process, I’ve been thinking back to the messages I’ve gotten over the years about “good” writing from teachers, how-to books, famous writers, literary critics. Or in other words, the specifics of my supposed-to’s.

Back when I first started writing seriously, about sixteen years ago now, I was talking with a friend who had signed up for a pricey writing workshop with the former editor of a national magazine that published fiction. She mentioned that this teacher’s highest praise for a student’s story was “this is writing that will last.” And indeed, he urged all of his students to aim to write “something that will last.”

At the time, I took this as simple wisdom from an expert. After all, wasn’t that the dream of every writer—to be so amazingly talented that we attain immortality like Shakespeare? That guy lived four hundred years ago and everyone still knows his name! Of course, as I became more familiar with what the writer’s life really involves in our commercial age, I realized that “lasting” means your book is reprinted many times or that it’s taught in high school or college classrooms year after year. Unfortunately, authors who achieve either of these goals are rare, and in the latter case, most are already dead. Gradually my goals became more modest. I was satisfied—in the best way–if someone told me that my story lingered for a day or so after s/he read it. Perhaps I would never be immortal, but whenever a reader confessed that s/he read a particular story of mine many times for erotic inspiration, I knew I’d made a true connection, the highest praise an erotica writer can hope to hear.

Yet I still believed that there were “important new voices” up there in Literary Land, penning gorgeous and unforgettable literary prose that would earn them a throne next to The Bard for all eternity. I didn’t really question this (I’m now somewhat embarrassed to admit) until very recently when I happened to read a book by Leslie Fiedler, a renegade English professor who both entertained and scandalized academia in the latter half of the twentieth century by embracing popular literature as worthy of analysis. (He is also credited with coining the term “postmodernism” among other things). I originally sought out his book What Was Literature? for an essay on Rhett Butler as a symbolic Black Stranger in Gone With the Wind, but I ended up reading the whole book with great enjoyment. 

I was hooked at Fiedler’s opening redefinition of the classic distinction between literary (high) and popular (low) fiction. He wrote that literary fiction could in fact be seen as “minority” literature, read by few and penned by tormented, introverted male artistes to stimulate the intellect, whereas popular literature was “majority” literature, mainly scribbled by female hacks to drug us with cheap sensationalism. More amusing was his description of popular fiction as “optional,” whereas, for most readers, literary fiction was “compulsory,” as in school assignments that needed professional explication to be understood fully.

But what really struck a chord with me was Fiedler’s insistence that “writing that lasts” is not about the quality of the prose. It is what he calls the mythopoeic power of the story, with characters that live on in our minds long after the beautiful metaphors (if any) are forgotten. This got me thinking about which stories have indeed lasted over time, stories our culture returns to again and again in modern riffs and movie remakes. My Anglo-centric list would include the Bible, some of Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth), Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol, Huckleberry Finn, Dracula, The Great Gatsby, and Gone with the Wind. Harry Potter, Twilight, and Fifty Shades of Grey certainly define contemporary popular tastes, but I’d need to reconsider their lasting impact in about 30 years. By this measure, all the towering literary figures of my youth—Hemingway, Faulkner, Bellow, Updike, Roth—are still reasonably famous as names, but rarely read except in class or by a small minority of literati with historical inclinations.

I know my particular list is open to argument—maybe you’d delete Macbeth and Huck Finn and add King Lear and To Kill a Mockingbird–but the specific examples are less important than the redefinition of “writing that lasts.” Because I now see it’s not about the world’s admiration for a writer’s brilliant prose, fresh metaphors, and carefully structured chapter breaks—although many of these works are beautifully written and a pleasure to read because of it. The immortality belongs to the story for its power to connect deeply with readers across cultures and time.

As a writer myself, I was also very interested to learn that Harriet Beecher Stowe was inspired to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin when she had a vision during a church service of an aged black slave being beaten to death by a cruel master. The image rose up in her mind, demanding a novel to be written around it. I also remembered that Charles Dickens was planning to write a political pamphlet about poverty and injustice in the fall of 1843. However, inspired by the rousing response to a speech he gave to a workingman’s club in Manchester, he walked the dark streets of the city, possessed by images of a redeemed miser. In a few short weeks of feverish work, he wrote one of the most retold stories ever, A Christmas Carol.

So what does this mean for a writer who seeks to create works that linger if not last forever? For me it means taking one more step away from writing as ego gratification, as proof of my worthiness or cleverness–because really, let’s face it, no one cares if I can turn a phrase or not. It also means taking one step closer to stories that move me, that draw me in to their magic, that beg to be told through me.

Which stories beg to be told through you?

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

Validation, Desire and Other Reasons to Write

by | October 18, 2013 | | 20 Comments

By Donna George Storey

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

Who am I writing for?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It all sounds pretty sweet right now.

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

I’ll let you know how it goes.

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

Kill Your Darlings

by | May 13, 2013 | | 14 Comments

“I’m beautiful, I’m literary, please don’t hurt me.”

It was William Faulkner who said it. The venerable Samuel Johnson said something very similar. It really refers to lines or phrases, but can sometimes involve whole scenes.  Received wisdom is that, if you come across a line or a phrase that makes you puff up your chest at your own literary or poetic brilliance, many accomplished writers and editors believe it probably needs to die.

First, I want to own up to the fact that I have not always followed this piece of writerly advice and I still don’t. But I think I’ve come to understand the rationale behind it a little better, and I have killed my fair share of darlings more recently, and shifted others.

I’m concerned with the ‘literariness’ of my writing.  I care a great deal about the poetics of my work. I spend time frantically trying to avoid the many cliches to which it is so easy to resort when writing erotica. When I write sex scenes, I obsess about approaching them from at least a slightly fresher angle than most of the erotica I’ve read. I don’t believe my reader needs to be given a blow-by-blow description of intercourse, and I have a deep faith that language itself can evoke eroticism, and that you can brew metaphors that become new sites of eroticism for your reader.

But pride comes before the fall. I’m going to sound utterly arrogant when I say that I have forged erotic imagery that felt like it shone on the page, that made me think, ‘wow, you’re a fucking good writer’. The problem is that a lot of readers thought so too.

How can that be bad?

Well, it can. Because the moment you’ve forced a reader to look away from the story and think, ‘fuck, what a brilliant writer I’m reading, how poetic, how eloquent!’ is the moment you just kicked them out of the story. You’ve just interfered with your reader’s engagement with the fictional world in order to show off.   It’s literary narcissism and it means you’re more concerned with literary bukkake than telling a good story.

Let me give you a brilliant example of a darling that sorely required execution. It’s from Rowan Sommerville’s “The Shape of Her.”

“He grasped the side of her hips, pushed her away and pulled her to him with a slap. Again and again with more force and velocity. Tine pressed her face deeper into the cushion grunting into the foam at each thrust.

The wet friction of her, tight around him, the sight of her open, stretched around him, the cleft of her body, it tore a climax out of him with a final lunge. Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her.”

After being awarded the Bad Sex Award for this passage, Sommerville defended himself by saying it was a literary allusion, an homage to Vladimir Nabokov, who had been an avid amateur butterfly collector.

At this point, I hope you’re saying ‘who gives a fuck about your literary allusions?’ because you have every right to. Readers deserve better than literary in-jokes and canonical masturbation. The last line is both literary and fucking awful.  If you were anywhere near being aroused by the passage, that line killed your mind erection stone dead, unless you happen to be one of the very few entomology fetishists out there.

Admittedly, I’ve never written anything quite so eloquent or out of place as that. But I once described an orgasm thusly:

“I can feel my orgasm long before it arrives, a plane in the distance and my body the control tower. The landing lights in my belly light up to guide it in. Gary’s cock has grown huge inside me and there’s a pleasant dull pain each time he thrusts upwards.”

Oh, good god, what possessed me? Landing lights? Control tower? What was I thinking? And yet, at the time, I thought it was a wonderful metaphor. It just felt so ‘right’.

Another problematic darling is the encapsulating and eminently quotable line. Rather than kill it, consider shifting it to either the beginning of the story, chapter or scene, or the end of one of those. It probably is a great line but if you impress your reader so deeply with your pithy, perfectly worded brilliance, same deal. You impress the reader with your linguistic abilities, but you interrupt their relationship with the story.

And this is not about you or how brilliant you are; it’s about the story. So, when it comes to your edits, read through your piece and find those lines, phrases or passages which make you want to give yourself a manly, Hemmingway-style pat on the back. Ask yourself who is truly served by that line or phrase. Is it serving the story or  your own writerly ego?

Writing Using Strong Emotions

by | April 28, 2013 | | 8 Comments

Elizabeth Black lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four cats. She has written erotic fiction for numerous publishers and she is self-published.

—–

I normally stuff my
feelings. Old habit. I don’t like feeling strong emotions because I’m afraid of
losing control, which makes writing all the harder for me. Good writers
regularly open a vein and empty it all over their computer screens. As
Hemingway wrote, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a
typewriter and bleed.”

I’m a very private
person, so opening up so much of myself in my writing takes a lot out of me. I
do write my escapist fantasies like “Trouble In Thigh High Boots”
(erotic Puss In Boots), “Climbing Her Tower” (erotic Rapunzel), and
my work-in-progress “Alex Craig Has A Threesome”. They’re like
setting me loose in a candy store. I get the gimmes and I want it all! However,
I have exposed a little too much of myself in some of my other stories. Two
include my contemporary 1980s novel “Don’t Call Me Baby” and especially
my short dark romance story “Alicia”. Those two are partially based
on personal experience. As I worked on both stories, I felt over-exposed and a
bit embarrassed and even ashamed. However, all of those feelings reflected how
much I opened up in writing both stories, and they made the stories all the
better.

“The best people possess a feeling for
beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the
capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they
are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.” – Ernest Hemingway

How often do you
open up as a writer? You can always afford to open up more. Get inside your
character’s heads, and expose their weaknesses for all they’re worth. In doing
so, you expose yourself. The problem with sitting down at your typewriter and
bleeding is that it makes you vulnerable. How vulnerable are you willing to
make yourself for your art? Sometimes writers use their fiction as a cathartic
way of coping with their own problems or coming to terms with trauma. It isn’t
an accident that writing in a journal is a form of therapy often prescribed by
therapists.

Full disclosure here
– my short dark romance “Alicia” is based on my rape. Twenty years
ago I was raped by my then-husband, and the experience was obviously very
traumatic. He choked me so hard I coughed up blood, and my voice was hoarse for
several days. It took me many years to come to terms with that ordeal, and
writing “Alicia” is one big way I was able to deal with it. The
imagery I used in the story reflected how I coped with it. The entire ordeal
was like being trapped in a horrific dream and I couldn’t wake up. So, in both
telling a good story and dealing with my own abuse, I dove head-first into my
past and tore open some very old scabs. Here is the opening of the story, to
give you an idea of the visceral nature of what happened to me – and to Alicia.

This excerpt from
“Alicia” shows how using vivid description and strong emotions pull
the reader into a story. Just so you know, “Eric” is the pen name of
a dear friend of mine whom I care about deeply. “Carol” is my middle
name. “Alicia” is one of my favorite women’s names. Those three names
have significant meaning for me. I’ve found that choosing character names close
to your heart helps you to get inside their skins – and get inside your own so
you can’t hide from yourself. It’s an interesting exercise – if you are basing
characters on people you know, use their real names. Once the story is
finished, go through the document and change the names to something different
to establish some distance.

Eric stepped out of
the shower and a foul stench—mingled with the crisp peppermint of his
shampoo—smacked him in the face and left a coppery taste in the back of his
throat. His stomach heaved. Confused, he looked around the room to figure out
where the smell came from, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Dread clung to him,
dark and sticky, ruining his relaxed mood. The light bulbs over the sink
hummed, casting harsh yellow light about the room. He shaded his eyes against
the glare, trying to see.
 Why were those
lights so bright? Something was terribly wrong in his peaceful world, and not
knowing what it was frightened him.
 His wife Alicia
brushed her teeth as if nothing was unusual, while the stink of rot lurked
beneath the cool mint of his shampoo. Why didn’t she notice the smell?
 He leaned towards
her to place his hand on her shoulder, and she turned her face towards his for
a kiss on the cheek. Ugly, purple bruises darkened her eyes. He pulled away,
repulsed and alarmed, not quite sure what he was seeing. One side of her face
had swelled to a dark mask, not unlike a pumpkin that had been left outside in
the damp earth to rot. An angry red welt encircled her throat like a bloody
ribbon wrapped around her neck. Frightened, he reached out one hand but he
couldn’t bring himself to touch her swollen face. Touching her would make the
vision real and it couldn’t be real.
 Alicia spat in the
sink. Two of her teeth bounced against the porcelain. Blood tainted the paste.
 “The girls are
running late again.” Alicia’s bloodied mouth leaked crimson and white
toothpaste. Why did she act as if nothing strange was going on? He gaped at
her, not understanding what was happening. The safety of his home evaporated as
she spoke with her raw, torn mouth. “Make them wolf down their cereal, and
toss them out of the house before they miss the bus.”
 “Alicia, who
did this to you?” Eric asked. She did not answer him. She brushed her
teeth, running the brush over her ragged gums where the teeth had been knocked
out. His stomach heaved again, and he swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. He
wanted to knock out the teeth of whoever had assaulted her, but she acted as if
nothing was wrong. Why?
 The phone rang. Who
would be calling him at this hour? It wasn’t even 7:30 yet. He asked Alicia
again who had done this to her, but she didn’t answer him. She dried her torn
mouth, and then she smeared foundation over her face. To his horror, the
foundation did not cover her bruises. It only made them look uglier and even
more purple.
 Eric walked to the
phone and answered it.
 “Hello?”
 The phone continued
to ring. Eric’s steam-hazy mind knew that that wasn’t supposed to happen.
 “Hello?”
 Eric woke up in bed
to the ringing of the telephone on the dresser next to him. His wife, Carol,
stirred at his side.

When I first wrote
that excerpt and a later excerpt that takes place in a hospital, I wanted to
delete, delete, delete! Too much revealed. In many ways, that’s a good thing.
It had shown I got to Alicia’s soul, and my own. If you want to feel like a
freshly torn scab when you write, make yourself vulnerable. You will likely
feel exhausted and a bit worried you’ve said too much once you finish, but the
end result is worth it.

Here are my blurb
and buy links for “Alicia” if you’re interested in reading the rest
of the story.

Buy Links:

http://tinyurl.com/alicia-amazon

http://mochamemoirspress.com/alicia/

Blurb:

When the love of his
life, Alicia, calls him in the middle of the night to report she had been
raped, Eric drops everything to come to her rescue. She takes him on an eerie
ride through turbulent hours he can’t quite comprehend. Alicia may need his
help, but her situation is not what it seems.

 ABOUT ELIZABETH BLACK

Elizabeth Black
writes erotica, erotic romance, speculative fiction, fantasy, and dark fiction.
She also enjoys writing erotic retellings of classic fairy tales. Born and bred
in Baltimore, she grew up under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. Her erotic
fiction has been published by Xcite Books (U. K.), Circlet Press, Ravenous
Romance, Scarlet Magazine (U. K.), and other publishers. Her dark fiction has
appeared in “Kizuna: Fiction For Japan”, “Stupefying
Stories”, “Midnight Movie Creature Feature 2”, “Zippered
Flesh 2: More Tales Of Body Enhancements Gone Bad”, and “Mirages:
Tales From Authors Of The Macabre”. An accomplished essayist, she was the
sex columnist for the pop culture e-zine nuts4chic (also U. K.) until it folded
in 2008. Her articles about sex, erotica, and relationships have appeared in
Good Vibrations Magazine, Alternet, CarnalNation, the Ms. Magazine Blog, Sexis
Magazine, On The Issues, Sexy Mama Magazine, and Circlet blog. She also writes
sex toys reviews for several sex toys companies.

In addition to
writing, she has also worked as a gaffer (lighting), scenic artist, and make-up
artist (including prosthetics) for movies, television, stage, and concerts. She
worked as a gaffer for “Die Hard With A Vengeance” and “12
Monkeys”. She did make-up, including prosthetics, for “Homicide: Life
On The Street”. She is especially proud of the gunshot wound to the head
she had created with makeup for that particular episode. She also worked as a
prosthetic makeup artist specializing in cyanotic blue, bruises, and buckets of
blood for a test of Maryland’s fire departments at the Baltimore/Washington
International Airport plane crash simulation test. Yes, her jobs are fun.
 😉

She lives in
Lovecraft country on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four
cats. The ocean calls her every day, and she always listens. She has yet to run
into Cthulhu.

Visit her web
site at http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com/

Her Facebook
page is https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack

Follow her at
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethABlack

Don’t Wait For Your Muse To Strike. You’ll Wait Forever.

by | March 28, 2013 | | 7 Comments

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

I recently read an
article about the daily routines of famous writers,
and it made me wonder about muses. Some writers, especially novice writers,
occasionally say that they must wait for their muse to inspire them. The
problem is that waiting for your muse to give you a kick in the pants means
you’ll wait forever, and you won’t get any writing done. E. B. White said:
“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die
without putting a work on paper.” The actual day-to-day routine of writing
isn’t nearly as glamorous as suddenly feeling a lightning bolt of inspiration
from your muse, jolting your creativity awake and sending you to your computer,
hands busily typing away until The Masterpiece is born. It requires setting
goals, making a routine, and establishing a support network.

MAKING GOALS

Have you made yearly
goals for yourself? What do you hope to accomplish this year in your writing
career? You do treat your writing like a vocation, don’t you? If you want to be
taken seriously as a writer, you must take writing seriously. Don’t treat it as
a hobby if you intend to make real progress. That means making goals and
establishing a routine. Sounds dull? Maybe, but it works. That’s the reality of
being a writer. It’s not all absinthe parties and movie contracts.

Make goals. List
five things you want to accomplish this year as a writer. Which projects do you
intend to finish? Are you aiming for specific markets and publishers? Would you
like to self-publish? You need to pin down a few workable, realistic goals for
the year. My workable, realistic goals for this year are to finish my erotic
novel “Alex Craig Has A Threesome”, write one human sexuality article
every two weeks for a company that just hired me, write my blog posts
(including my monthly one for ERWA), submit several short stories to good
anthologies (both erotic and dark fantasy), and work on promoting my
self-published books as well as write at least one more (for now). Those are
laudable goals for one year. They are specific. You can pin them down. They
aren’t ephemera floating about your muse’s head.

ESTABLISH A ROUTINE

Once you have goals,
you must meet them. That means work. Establish a routine, even if your schedule
seems impossible. It isn’t. There is always a moment you can find for writing
and achieving your goals.

Joan Didion’s
routine interested me because it’s similar to mine. In a 1968 interview, she
said the following:

I need an hour alone before dinner, with a
drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. I can’t do it late in the afternoon
because I’m too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It removes me from the
pages. So I spend this hour taking things out and putting other things in. Then
I start the next day by redoing all of what I did the day before, following
these evening notes.

I don’t wait for my
muse to inspire me. I have a set routine that I try to follow every day. I work
best in the mornings, being a lark (definitely not a night owl). I start my day
by brewing a pot of coffee, turning on some ambient music like Brian Eno or
nature sounds to music like Dan Gibson and Tony O’Connor, and I read and answer
my email. Then I check Facebook. I stay there for about a half hour, reading,
posting, promoting, and waking up as I drink my coffee. By that time it’s about
7 am. I then work on either an article, a blog post, or a story for one to
three hours. Sometimes I multi-task and work on all three, one hour each. By
noon, I finish that portion of my day, and I enjoy lunch with the occasional
glass of wine or champagne. Then I begin the second half of my day. Afternoons
I devote to research, more article and blog writing, and sex toys reviews. If
I’m working on a fiction story, I may go over what I had done the previous day.
I, like Didion, cannot go over what I had written that morning because I’m too
close to it. I need some distance. So 24 to 48 hours gives me enough distance
so that my judgment isn’t clouded when I look over my work. I then do the exact
same thing the next day – I play Tetris with my writing; move things here,
rewrite things there.

I’m aware of how
lucky I am to make a living writing, and I know most writers aren’t that
fortunate. They have day jobs, children to tend to, spouses that need
attention. They’re exhausted and over-extended. Still, a writer must write.
We’re driven. Find a time every day to write, even if it’s only for fifteen
minutes. Use that fifteen minutes well. You’d be surprised how much progress
you can make in a mere fifteen minutes.

Each writer’s
routine is a personal matter. What works for me most likely won’t work for you,
and vice-versa. You must find your own routine and become familiar with your
inner, day-to-day clock. Carry a notebook and pen around with you, and write
down any inspiring observations or thoughts that come to mind during the day
lest you forget them by the time you are sitting in front of your computer.

Another way to
establish a routine is to go by word count rather than time. I don’t usually
aim for a specific amount of writing time because my days vary. I aim for a
minimum of 1,000 words per day in a short story or longer work and 300 per day in an article. Writing
according to word count is one good way to get your voice out there. If you
can’t muster 1,000 words per day, try for 500. Or 100. Each writer sets
different goals depending on the busyness of his of her life.

ESTABLISH A SUPPORT
NETWORK

Part of a writer’s
routine that may be somewhat neglected is to establish a support network.
Considering the volatile nature of writing and publishing, all writers need
support, and that support may come from friends, online colleagues, and family.
Not all erotica writers are fortunate enough to have supportive friends and
families. Some of my Facebook colleagues have told me stories of how their
spouses, children, and friends do not take their vocation seriously, especially
because they write erotica and erotic romance. They have been judged and met
with disapproval over their choice to write erotic literature. Find at least
one good friend you can fall back on when you get yet another rejection, when
your family snubs you, or your new book isn’t selling. Please do not suffer alone.
A support network is vital for your emotional and mental health. Also turn to
your support network when things are going well. It’s good to have someone to
crow to when you get an acceptance, you win an award, or you finally snag that
agent.

As writers, we often
get so caught up in our daily lives and dreams that we don’t set workable goals
or take the time to plan ahead, meet deadlines, and treat our writing like the
job it is. Once you break down your writing into goals, a routine, and a
support network, you are well on your way to enjoying the path on which writing
takes you.

ABOUT ELIZABETH BLACK

Elizabeth Black
writes erotica, erotic romance, speculative fiction, fantasy, and dark fiction.
She also enjoys writing erotic retellings of classic fairy tales. Born and bred
in Baltimore, she grew up under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. Her erotic
fiction has been published by Xcite Books (U. K.), Circlet Press, Ravenous
Romance, Scarlet Magazine (U. K.), and other publishers. Her dark fiction has
appeared in “Kizuna: Fiction For Japan”, “Stupefying
Stories”, “Midnight Movie Creature Feature 2”, “Zippered
Flesh 2: More Tales Of Body Enhancements Gone Bad”, and “Mirages:
Tales From Authors Of The Macabre”. An accomplished essayist, she was the
sex columnist for the pop culture e-zine nuts4chic (also U. K.) until it folded
in 2008. Her articles about sex, erotica, and relationships have appeared in
Good Vibrations Magazine, Alternet, CarnalNation, the Ms. Magazine Blog, Sexis
Magazine, On The Issues, Sexy Mama Magazine, and Circlet blog. She also writes
sex toys reviews for several sex toys companies.

In addition to
writing, she has also worked as a gaffer (lighting), scenic artist, and make-up
artist (including prosthetics) for movies, television, stage, and concerts. She
worked as a gaffer for “Die Hard With A Vengeance” and “12
Monkeys”. She did make-up, including prosthetics, for “Homicide: Life
On The Street”. She is especially proud of the gunshot wound to the head
she had created with makeup for that particular episode. She also worked as a
prosthetic makeup artist specializing in cyanotic blue, bruises, and buckets of
blood for a test of Maryland’s fire departments at the Baltimore/Washington
International Airport plane crash simulation test. Yes, her jobs are fun.
 😉

She lives in
Lovecraft country on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four
cats. The ocean calls her every day, and she always listens. She has yet to run
into Cthulhu.

Visit her web
site at http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com/

Her Facebook
page is https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack

Follow her at
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethABlack

All About Pleasure: What You Need to Succeed

by | August 18, 2012 | | 3 Comments

Talent.  Luck. 
Hard work.  If you have all three,
you will definitely be published.  With
only two, you have a good chance of seeing your work in print.  With just one, your chances fall
considerably, although it’s still possible, especially if you’re blessed with
luck. I’ve forgotten exactly where I read this advice when I was a novice
writer, but it’s stayed with me for over a decade (my apologies to the veteran
who wrote this—I hope the sharing of your wisdom will partially make up
for the lack of attribution!)

Interestingly enough hard work is the only one of these elements within an individual writer’s control.  Talent is something you are born with and
much harder to determine in yourself than another, so an aspiring writer must
soldier on without sure knowledge she has It to complete the magic three.  While it could be argued that preparation
paves the way for luck, by its very definition, luck is something we can’t
really order on demand.  But, and perhaps
I’m being romantic, in almost every case you can become a better writer by
writing–a lot, day after day, year after year—whether or not the muse is with
you or money and fame reward you.  Much
like a musician, you will improve if you practice. 

Yet hard work is the
element that is also glossed over in the popular portrait of the Real
Writer, who spends her days by her swimming pool giving interviews to the press
about her lastest critically-acclaimed bestseller.  Naturally, since celebrity is the modern
manifestation of aristocracy, such a being doesn’t sweat or get dirt under her fingernails.

I lay part of the blame for
this misconception on the cinematic montage, the classic way to show major
growth and progress in the movies, which, let’s face it, reach a far greater
audience than books.  The writer,
frustrated, yanks a piece of paper from his typewriter and tosses it in
trash—or in a more modern incarnation frowns at his laptop and deletes a huge
block of text.  In the next ten-second
scene, he repeats the procedure (perhaps downing a blender full of raw eggs for strength).  On the
third pass, he smiles at his work, and in the fourth, he’s typing merrily.  In the next instant, he’s shaking hands with
a prominent editor and being taken off to lunch, concluding with a book signing
with a mob of adoring fans.

Intellectually we know
this is supposed to represent a year’s worth of effort, or more practically ten, but
emotionally, I wonder if we don’t all think that writing a bestselling book takes
all of two minutes.  That’s how it
happens on the screen after all.  And
while we can all agree this is a convenient fiction and shouldn’t be taken
seriously, I believe these fantasies can have an unfortunate influence on our
subconscious.  If the words, money and
fame don’t come easy, then we don’t have It. 
We aren’t Real Writers.

In grappling with my own
relationship to the hard work of writing—beginning with the fact I only had the
courage to devote the necessary focus and effort to writing at the
less-than-precociously-talented age of thirty-five—I’ve come to realize that I
don’t want to waste my time reading something that is not the result of hard
work.  Perhaps the actual writing of the
story took but a day (which has happened for me only once in a hundred stories I’ve written),
but the preparation, the gestation of ideas, the apprenticeship took years of
focus and dedication.

That’s why I so
appreciate stories of the writing life that celebrate the hard work, rare as
they are.  That’s why I’ll freely admit I
spent fourteen fallow years between minoring in creative writing in college and
sending out my first story, took five years to write my first novel and
five-and-counting to write the second. 
It’s not glamorous.  It’s not the
most efficient way to “achieve” fame or money. 
But it is deeply satisfying to see a long-term dream come to fruition.  

I still agree that
talent, luck and hard work do play a role in the mysterious equation that leads
to publication.  Yet for me, true success
requires more—respect for your ideas, your reader’s time, and the process of
storytelling itself.  That’s all you need to be a Real Writer, swimming pool not required.

Donna George Storey has 150 publications to her credit, most
recently a collection of short stories, Mammoth Presents the Best of Donna George Storey. Learn more about her work at http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor. 

Finishing What You Started

by | August 15, 2012 | | 5 Comments


Last month, fate and a friend gave me an ultimatum: finish my novel, Beautiful Losers, or lose the opportunity to see it published by a prestigious press.

As much as I say I don’t care about being published, the confrontation was a reality check. Was I going grab opportunity by the balls and get this book out there, or let it wallow in the digital swamp forever? Was I a competent writer or just a pretender?  It seems, to my surprise, that a deadline is my friend.

So I finished it: the four final chapters in two weeks.  Admittedly, I had known how the book would end for over a year (come on, you KNOW how it ends), but the motivation to sit my butt down and write it had eluded me.

I suspect I’m not alone in this strange hesitation to close what’s been opened.  Some writers fervently create and cling to outlines as a way of making sure they push themselves to the last period.  I sequentially put my inability to finish down to a lack of planning, a fear of saying goodbye to the characters, a lack of discipline as a writer, etc.

It turns out that none of these were the problem at all.  My problem was a fear to revisit a level of writing that I believed I had surpassed. I didn’t want to spend time in the pool of my own earlier inadequacies.

But when the two-week deadline forced me to get my head back into the work, I found a vibrant, optimistic, and charming voice there. Perhaps a little over-exuberant, perhaps a little addicted to adverbs, but nothing that a stiff bout of editing could not cure.  I made peace with the fact that this was a younger writer.

So here, for what it is worth, is the recipe to how I edited and finished the book:

  1. Chapterize the objectives
    I knew how the story would end, but I knew I would lose interest in doing the job if I thought about it to much.  So I didn’t really outline the ending. I simply typed sentences of WHERE the story needed to be at that point.  That would allow me to be creative about how the characters got there, but still forced me to get there.
  2. Revise and Edit.
    I knew one of the challenges was going to be getting back into the headspace, storyspace and the voice of the story. I spent one whole week revising and editing the first 50,000 words.  When I say ‘one week’, I don’t mean a 40 hour week. I figure this phase took me about 70 hours.

    a.     First read through with a pen in hand, noting every time I winced or shuddered and why.

    b.     First edit to fix discontinuities or plot issues that needed earlier strengthening. I used my notes from the first read-through and would jump back to shore up character traits, reactions, settings.  I fixed any discontinuity issues, and sometimes I added nuance. Dialed down foreshadowing in places, strengthened it in others.

    c.      The second edit was all about language: grammar, punctuation and style. I have a propensity to over-use certain words, phrases and sentence structures.  I used http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp to identify repetitions.  Then I’d search for the word and fascistically decide if it really needed to be there at all, or if a synonym might do (‘very’ and ‘really’ are two of my sick addictions). I also searched the whole document for *ly . I looked at every adverb. Did it need to be there? Was there a better verb?

    d.     Read-through again for fluidity.  I work on a mac, so I use the read-aloud function, but you could easily just force yourself to read aloud.  I listened for jarring rhythm, overly long sentences, and anything that interfered with smooth reading.  It also is good for listening critically to dialogue.  I corrected as I went along.

  3. Write the final chapters.
    By then, I was deeply into the zone. I felt comfortable about the tone of the writing and wasn’t so worried that the last chapters would sound too different, writing-wise.
  4. Repeat step 2 a, b, c and d with the new writing.
  5. Last read-through.
    At this point, I knew I wouldn’t recognize a good novel if it crawled up my nose and took a bite out of my brain. All I was concerned with was ensuring it held together fairly well.
  6. Other eyes.
    I sent out a call for beta-readers. Luckily, because I had serialized Beautiful Losers on my blog,  there were many people willing to read the draft, because they wanted to know the ending. In exchange, I asked them to note down any typos, grammatical errors, and anything else that really jarred them storywise.
  7. Went through all the crits, reader by reader, and corrected any errors they found. Thanked the readers profusely.

This did not make the perfect novel. And, had I had the time, there were some plot structure things I would have liked to change, but my two weeks were up and my deadline loomed. I sent the MS in to the publisher.

In an even midly sane world, I would have really liked a professional editor, but I knew I didn’t have the time to work with one.  I would have received great feedback and been unable to incorporate it. And I knew that would make me feel like shit.

I’m pretty sure there is a better way to finish a novel. But this was the way I did it. I hope there is something of value in my experience for other writers.

What It Means to be a Full-Time Writer

by | April 28, 2012 | | 31 Comments

by Kristina Wright

Every month or so, I receive an email from an aspiring erotica writer. Often, they haven’t read anything I’ve ever written– they just Googled ‘erotica’ or ‘sex stories’ or something similar and up popped my blog, which is probably the least sexy blog ever written by an erotica writer. But they write to me anyway, inquiring about how they, too, can quit their day jobs and write erotica full-time. Or write anything full-time as one person told me: “I’d write anything if I could quit my job, erotica or science fiction or children’s books, whatever.” Which seems to me to be more about hating the current job than about a love for writing. And by “full-time” they mean make at least as much as they’re making at their current full-time job, if not more.

I’m a bit boggled by these emails, coming as they from strangers not familiar with me or my work or even  an idea about what it means to be a “full-time” writer. I’m equally boggled by the comments from friends and acquaintances alike (and sometimes strangers, too), who alternately joke about my “smut” writing or say things like, “I don’t want to get a real job when I retire. I want to be a writer.” Sigh… But I do know what they’re trying to say, I really do. What I do is not “real” to most people and I realize that. From the outside, what I do looks easy. Fun. Not work. Not effort. I try to explain the realities, but their eyes glaze over. Writing in and of itself is a very boring occupation to hear about. Writing is to other careers what golf is to sports. No one wants to hear about it, but from the outside it looks easy enough for anyone to do. What’s the big deal, right? You just write your fantasy or your dream from last night or an updated version of some story you read in high school. It’s as easy as hitting a little white ball into a little cup in the grass. How hard can that be, right? Until they attempt to do it. Then they’re looking for the magic backdoor into the world of being a full-time writer. The fun kind, of course.

I say I write full-time and I do, but it’s not 9-5 or 10-6 or Monday through Friday with weekends off. It’s when I can, as much as I can. It’s 11:30 AM until 4 or 5 PM, Monday through Thursday and sometimes 8 PM to midnight on those nights, too. It’s a few hours on Friday when my husband gets off work early and Saturday from the time the babies nap until Starbucks closes at 9:30 PM. It’s some Sundays when I’m under deadline, it’s even when I’m sick or tired or invited to go do something more fun. It’s staying up 3 AM writing a proposal on Thanksgiving morning when I have to get up at 7 AM to put the turkey in the oven. It’s thinking about and plotting stories when I wake up in the middle of the night, when I’m driving, when I’m playing with the two year old or putting the seven month old to bed. It’s cobbling anywhere from 30 to 50 hours a week from my schedule to do the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. That’s what writing “full-time” means to me. And sometimes I long for a regular schedule, normal hours, weekends and holidays off, not to mention a steady paycheck and vacation time and health benefits.  Full-time writers don’t get any of that. Sometimes we don’t even get a royalty check– I’ve seen royalty statements with negative signs in front of the numbers on the bottom line. Has a non-writer ever seen one of those from their full-time job?

I don’t think my schedule is what people have in mind when they say they want to do what I do. Not most of them, anyway. They don’t want to hear about the hours, or about the sheer hard work that goes into writing. Or about the rejections that come for stories only I love. They don’t want to know that they might put in six months of hard work into a manuscript that will never see the light of day. I have several manuscripts like that. Books that taught me a lot about writing but will never be published, which means I will never make any money on them. That’s the other thing aspiring writers are most interested in, after the easy and fun work schedule– the money. They envision bucket loads of cash raining down on them from the New York publishing gods. The polite ones assume I make more money than I do, the rude ones ask me outright how much I make. The answer varies from, “Not much” to “Enough to keep me in coffee” to “I can’t complain” to “How much do you make?”

Here’s the harsh truth none of them want to hear or believe about their own future-fantasy writing career: precious few full-time writers are just writers. We are freelance copyeditors and proofreaders. We ghostwrite memoirs and write advertising copy for the local freebie newspaper. We do technical writing and text book editing. We are fact-checkers and researchers. We are librarians and bookstore managers. We are anthologists and bloggers and artists. We teach three sections of College Composition at the community college each semester and we teach Writing the Personal Narrative at the local literary center. We hold writing workshops in library meeting rooms and we review books for a dozen different magazines and websites. We design blogs and websites for other writers and creative types and we do lots of things that have no real name but are somehow writing-related. Sometimes we do many of these things in any given year– and we still don’t make enough money to buy a new car or take a proper vacation.

Aspiring writers don’t want to hear the harsh realities of the easy and fun job of hanging out at Starbucks all day. They want to be the next Stephen King or Suzanne Collins or E.L. James. They want to be famous. They want that Glamour Shots photo they had taken five years ago (or that photo of them on that yacht that one time in St. Thomas) to be on the back of a shiny hardcover book in the front of Barnes & Noble. They have already chosen their pseudonym, it’s a combination of their mother’s maiden name and their favorite Jane Austen character. They spent a lot of money on a shiny new MacBook Pro but so far the only thing they’ve written are Facebook status updates about their muse and how they love the writing life. Mostly, they play Solitaire and drink $4 espresso drinks and send vague query letters to agents about the book they’re going to write if the agent can get them a three-book deal. When they haven’t gotten a response (much less an offer of representation) from an agent within the week, they write Facebook status updates about how the publishing industry is a clique, a dinosaur, a closed door to talented newcomers. Then they play another round of Solitaire and tell themselves they need to self-publish like what’s-her-name who made all that money on Amazon writing those vampire stories. Except they never bother to learn the ins and outs of successful self-publishing and none of the writers they have emailed randomly will tell them the secrets of being full-time writers. They assume it’s because those writers are intimidated by someone more talented– they never assume those writers are too busy writing, editing, teaching, etc., to tell them the truth: the only way to be a full-time writer is to find a way to write full-time, even if you also have a full-time “real” job, even if you have kids and a house and a chronic illness and elderly in-laws and, and, and… The only way to be a writer is to write. That is not what they want to hear. So they write a shitty review on Amazon for a book they never read, write a Facebook status update about how author X is a hack and her book is illiterate trash, then they go back to playing Solitaire, smug in the knowledge that when they do finally get around to writing and self-publishing their book, they will have the last laugh.

Does that sound harsh? A hack smut writer in her ivory tower pooh-poohing the brilliant aspiring writers who only need a bit of advice and an introduction to my agent, editor or publisher in order to become The Next Big Thing that I can never hope to be? Yeah, you caught me. Sorry. God knows I make so much money and I’m so wildly successful that any question about how to obtain my fun and easy lifestyle is to be perceived as a threat and immediately condemned. My apologies. Let me make it up to you and buy you a coffee while you tell me about your muse. What’s her name again?

What do I tell those questioning souls who email me for advice? I tell them all the same thing and, oddly enough, not one of them has ever written me back to thank me. I guess I didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear. But here is what I tell them: read a lot. Read everything. Read in the genre you want to write, yes, but also read outside of it. And write. For the love of all that is holy, write your ass off. Don’t write erotic romance because it’s the hot new (old) genre right now. Don’t write horror because you have a lifelong crush on Stephen King (I did and I do). Don’t write children’s books because they’re short and therefore must be easy to write. Write what you love to read. Write what inspires you and makes your heart go pitter-pat. Write the story you’re carrying around in your secret heart even if it doesn’t fit into any genre category. Write without thinking about the money, because the money might be years in coming if it comes at all. Hell, write without thinking about who might read what you’re writing. Write to please yourself. To turn yourself on. To scare yourself with how far off the deep end you’ve gone. Write with your real name at the top of the page, to remind you of who you are, not who you want other people to think you are. Forget about finding an agent or submitting your manuscript to a publisher until you actually have a manuscript to submit– a manuscript that has been written, edited and proofread, then read by a few trusted souls and edited again. A beautiful, as good as it can get manuscript that is representative of your very best work as a professional writer. Don’t have that yet? Then you’re not a writer. 

There are countless books and magazines and blogs about How to Be a Writer and I encourage all aspiring writers to read and understand as much about the craft as they can. But at the end of the day, the only thing you have are the words you have written. And if you haven’t written any words, you are not a writer. 

Oh, and one last thing: that word– aspiring? It’s bullshit. You either are a writer or you’re not. Which are you?

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

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