tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73964379190693108502024-03-05T06:59:09.844-05:00The Erotica Readers & Writers Association BlogHighlights and new features from the Erotica Readers & Writers Association, a resource for authors that includes writing advice, calls for submissions, publishers guidelines, networking opportunities. For readers; erotic book suggestions, reviews, and a gallery of explicit fiction and poetry. For sensualists; recommendations for adult movies, sex toy education, porn site reviews, and an adult forum focusing on sexual issues, activities and relationships.Croco Designshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04417265522875605547noreply@blogger.comBlogger808125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-75675220080681693772018-04-28T21:09:00.001-04:002018-04-28T21:09:44.864-04:00Amazon Scammers Take Over Kindle Unlimited - Game Over for Real Authors?I've been quiet about Amazon's Kindle Unlimited Program, and self-publishing in general, for several years. Part of me just gave up. (It really does feel good when you stop banging your head against a wall!) I'm an old cynic about Amazon now, I guess. They have been squeezing authors, paying us less and less, since the program started.<br />
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Personally, I've removed most of my books from the program, even though I've left a lot of money on the table doing so. Why? Because it's unethical. There's no other way to say it. Authors are getting screwed by Amazon every which way in the program. I kept a few books in, hoping to entice those all-you-can-eat Kindle Unlimited readers into paying customers.<br />
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I am, however, now rethinking that. Why? Because <strong>any author in the KDP Select Program is now in danger of losing their account.</strong><br />
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I've been accused of being "Chicken Little" in the past, and here I am again, screaming at the sky. But this is reality. This is happening.<br />
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I'm going to let my author friend, D.A. Boulter explain it to you in his open letter to Jeff Bezos. He explains it much better than I do.<br />
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And it happened to him. Authors, it can happen to you. Readers, it can happen to your favorite author.<br />
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<strong>Even if they did nothing wrong whatsoever. </strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><a href="https://daboulter.blogspot.com/2018/04/forced-from-kindle-unlimited-open.html">OPEN LETTER TO JEFF BEZOS from author D.A. Boulter</a><br />
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Mr Bezos:</div>
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I opened my email program and found I’d received a message from your company.</div>
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The mail came from ‘content review’, asking for my attention, and I got the immediate feeling that this would be bad. I didn’t know why I’d receive that message now; I’d done nothing with my account in almost six months, haven’t changed a bit of content at all. Thus, it was with no little consternation I opened the message and found that my account is in violation, and if it continues to be so, I’ll be faced with penalties up to and including the termination of that account.</div>
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What did I do wrong? Actually, nothing. Not a thing. Amazon claims that accounts suspected of ‘manipulation’ have borrowed my book and I therefore accrued ‘illegal page reads’. I’m told that Amazon doesn’t offer advice on marketing, but I’d better be careful because if this happens again, well, see the termination threat above. There’s only one problem with that: I don’t do marketing. I’ve never hired any marketer, and for the past year or more I’ve not even advertised any of my books.<br />
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The only advertising I get is by word of mouth. Yes, I sometimes – but not always – put a notice in one of the infrequent entries in my blog, and I sometimes, but not always, make a mention of a new book in the two writers’ forums of which I’m a member. Other than that, nothing. I’m lazy, know nothing about marketing, and don’t want to spend the energy finding out about it when I could be writing.</div>
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So, because Amazon alleges that suspect accounts have borrowed my book through Kindle Unlimited, I’m in danger of losing my account with Amazon. I use the word alleges, because Amazon up front refuses to give any details on their ‘investigation’. At first I found myself just sitting there, stunned. Then I looked up my stats. I’d sold three books so far in April, and had 3000 page reads in nine days. What kind of manipulation was that? Like a fool, I asked.</div>
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Why do I use the words ‘like a fool’? Because we can rarely get any sort of a straight answer when dealing with Amazon KDP. I asked, “What sort of manipulation?” I got the reply that they rechecked my account and stand by their determination; I will not be paid for illegal page reads.</div>
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See what I mean? I didn’t ask them to assess the status of my account or to reinstate my page reads. For the leader of a multi-billion dollar industry, you can’t seem to hire anyone for KDP who can read and understand a simple sentence in plain English.</div>
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I keep daily records of my sales and pages read through Amazon-provided KDP reports. After receiving this letter, and conferring with other authors with whom I share certain authors’ forums, I discovered that the letter would refer to my March totals, not my April month-to-date. I checked my March figures. Of the 24,829 Kindle Pages read (from the daily reports), I find that Amazon has now removed 15,924 or 65%.</div>
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As the book which constituted over 80% of my previously counted page-reads contains upwards of 750 Kindle Pages, I have to suspect that your company believes that I contracted marketers to “read” a grand total of 21 copies during a 31 day span, grossing me some $72 (approx). You must think I engage the bottom of the barrel marketers.</div>
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Amazon has a great reputation with respect to customer service. In fact, I’ve enjoyed just such great service. Last year, a CD I ordered from one of your 3<sup>rd</sup> party suppliers in Germany failed to show up in the stated time – in fact, I didn’t complain until some weeks after that time had passed, wanting to give the CD every opportunity to show up. Within hours of my finally making a complaint, I received a choice of them sending a second CD or giving me my money back. I chose to receive the second CD. It took 8 weeks to arrive – but I don’t blame Amazon or the 3<sup>rd</sup>party retailer, because the postmark on it showed that the German Post Office had received it only 3 days after my complaint (and one of those days was a Sunday and Monday was New Years Day, as well). It was marked Luftpost (airmail). So, I blame the Post Office – either the German PO, the Canadian PO, or both. (The first CD never did arrive.)</div>
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Yes, you are rightly proud of your company’s customer service. However, the concern that you and your company show to your customers falters somewhat when dealing with your content providers – those of us who write books and place them in the Kindle Store and especially in Kindle Unlimited.</div>
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When I began providing content to Amazon in 2010, things were simple. If someone liked the presentation of an author’s book, they bought it outright or read the sample and then bought it. The author then collected the royalty. If the customers didn’t like our presentation or the sample, they didn’t buy it, and we received nothing. And, finally, if the book did not live up to their expectations, they returned it for a full refund and again we received nothing.</div>
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There existed no way to scam the system to get more royalties than we deserved. Customers either bought our books or they didn’t. They bought short books, long books, epics. They either paid the price we set – or they didn’t buy. No one had a valid complaint over length or price; if they didn’t feel they got value for money, they didn’t buy the book or they returned it. The only scamming that occurred came from a very tiny minority of readers who bought books and then returned them on a regular basis. Some authors noted that book after book of theirs got purchased and then returned, in order. This suggested a multiple returner. We lived with it.</div>
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Then came Kindle Unlimited. KU started out and remains an irredeemably and irretrievably broken system. Its terms and make-up were almost created with the interests of scammers in mind, and it continues to provide them with the means and opportunity to – let us not mince words – steal money from legitimate authors. That went for the original iteration of KU and every iteration since then.</div>
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We legitimate authors don’t know what to do. We can only complain, but that rarely gets us anywhere. We hate scammers even more than Amazon does. They steal our money, not Amazon’s.<br />
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We hate the manipulation of rank that goes on. We believe in value rising to the top. We work very, very hard to provide the best reading entertainment we can. So, yes, we hate scammers. And, at times, we try to do something about it.</div>
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Example: One scam entailed putting up books full of repeated sentences, paragraphs, or short chapters – thousands of pages worth of repeated verbiage. A poorly-made cover and an enticing, though totally inaccurate description, accompanied the publication of these books. The authors in one of my groups spotted them, and we counted something like 40 obvious scam books in Amazon’s top 100. Eight “authors” with five books each. If a scammer had someone “read” one of these books (with 10,000 pages or more by my estimate), he’d make $50 for that one read.</div>
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I took it upon myself to report this to Amazon. All I wanted was an e-mail address to send the details to. Unable to find such on the Amazon site, I went the route of “Chat”. Upon discovering that I was not a customer who had been cheated out of money, nobody really wanted to hear from me. Over the next 45 minutes (I still have the transcript), I got passed through 6 different representatives, the last of which agreed with me and gave me an e-mail address. Those books quickly got taken down. I thought I had done my part. It took time, caused frustration, but a blow had been struck for justice.</div>
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You’d think that your company would be happy. I thought so, too. On my own time, I had investigated and presented the evidence. Amazon had struck quickly to maintain its honour. All was well with the world!</div>
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Then it occurred again just days later – the exact same sort of scam. Another 20-40 books. Annoyed with the scammers, I sent a second e-mail, only to get told that I should use “Chat” – they wanted to subject me to another 45 minutes of pass-along only to get told in the end to use the email address I’d just used? Not a chance; I then gave up.</div>
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So, if I’m a customer, I get treated royally. If I try to help Amazon prevent fraud in KU, I’m a nuisance. I’m a nuisance, because this fraud didn’t really hurt Amazon financially – they had already set aside the pool of money – it only hurt legitimate authors who would receive less for their page-reads.</div>
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We legitimate authors hate scammers with a passion. But then, Kindle Unlimited – as well as being a haven for scammers – is something of a scam in itself.</div>
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The contract we sign with KU gives Amazon exclusive right to sell and lend out our books; we can place them on no other platform. For this, Amazon undertakes that they will pay us per kindle-page read (present edition of KU). However, it turns out that Amazon does not have the ability to accurately determine how many pages get read. Scammers depend upon this weakness for their scams to bring in the money they steal from legitimate authors.</div>
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Authors have imaginations. You might consider possession of such as a prerequisite for the trade. We’re curious, inquisitive. Thus, when things seem just a little off, we investigate and talk among ourselves. At first we accepted Amazon’s word that they would pay us for pages read at face value. Then we noted strange things, and began experimenting. The result: we have determined that if someone borrows a book, downloads it to their Kindle reader and then turns off the wireless, bad things can happen. If that person then reads the book through – every page – but then returns to page one before again turning on the wireless and syncing with Amazon, the author gets credited with only one page read. This, in effect, is Amazon stealing from us. Amazon uses our content to entice readers to KU, promising to pay us for each page read, then paying us less than ½ cent for an entire book read – no matter how many pages.</div>
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I have often seen my page reads tick up by one page. [Let’s face it; I’m not a heavy hitter. I don’t sell a lot of books, and I don’t get hundreds of thousands of pages read per month – or per day – like some do. So, I can note this sort of thing better than more popular authors might.] And seeing my stats tick up by one page, I wonder if someone read one page of my book before putting it down, or if someone read through my whole book and then returned to the beginning before syncing with Amazon. Did I get my half-cent for one page, or did I get paid a half-cent for seven hundred and fifty pages? Did Amazon pay me justly according to contract, or did Amazon scam me out of three dollars? I don’t know, and Amazon relies on non-transparency to ensure that we don’t have more than the minimum amount of information useful to finding out.</div>
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KU’s lack of transparency doesn’t stop there.</div>
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When it became obvious that scammers were getting the monthly “All-Star” awards, and authors made this clear in blogs, in posts on forums, etc., Amazon’s solution to the problem seemed to be to make it more difficult … no, not more difficult to scam an “all-star” status, but more difficult to see the results of the scamming. Amazon stopped publishing the names of the winners, making it even less transparent.</div>
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When Amazon reacts to problems, it often uses a shotgun, where a rifle should be used – in other words, the solution often hurts the innocent as well as the guilty – often more than the guilty, because the guilty, if caught, simply abandon that account and start another. We legitimate authors cannot do that – or, if we do, we lose all books previously published.</div>
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Take this present situation. I, who have absolutely no control over who reads my books, find myself in danger of losing my account. Why? Because someone Amazon considers a scammer has borrowed them. I didn’t ask anyone to; I didn’t pay anyone to; I didn’t do anything. And my sales figures should show this to be the case. I had an average of 800 pages read per day in March (initial figures) of which you claim an average of 513 per day were scammed. No scammer worth his salt would try for a $2.50 per day payout.</div>
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I put in a lot of work to write a novel. It takes me a minimum of about 400 hours work to get one ready for publishing – I’m not fast. Sometimes it works out; other times I get a flop. One of mine (which I still believe is a fine novel) has sold 103 copies in almost 4 years. That’s $200 for 400 hrs work, or $0.50/hr. Not near minimum wage. A scammer puts in a couple hours work and nets thousands. We legitimate authors don’t think this is fair. But that’s what KU invites, what by its very composition it has always invited.</div>
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As I said, I don’t advertise – not any more. I did try AMS, but it gave me a very poor return on investment. And AMS has authors bid against each other to get what the Amazon algorithms once gave for free. The last time I tried for an ad, the bid went up over $1 per click. I think I got about 1 impression and no clicks before I gave up. At $1 per click, I would need a 50% success rate to barely break even. In fact, more likely I’d be paying Amazon more than my book is worth for the privilege of finding a reader. And Amazon knows that and still operates AMS like this. If I were to pay those readers a dollar each from my own pocket to read my books in KU, I’d make money – but that would be scamming, and I’d lose my account. So, doesn’t that make Amazon Marketing Services somewhat of a scam in itself as well?</div>
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To finish, I’m threatened with termination of my account for no valid reason; AMS doesn’t work for the author; KU is filled with scammers, and the innocent are tarred with the same brush by what? association? by the fact that alleged scammers may actually have read our books?; Amazon doesn’t seem to care who they damage with their shotgun attacks; Amazon actually scams us by not paying us for pages read – because they don’t know how many pages are read, and they knew they didn’t know this from the introduction of Kindle Unlimited. Yet they said that they did, and made a contract with us on that basis.</div>
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To protect my account, you have forced me to withdraw all my books from Kindle Unlimited when their present terms finish (one’s turn was up today – my best earner – and it’s out, the others should be gone by the end of the month). I can’t stop anyone from borrowing my books if I leave them in – I have no control over that aspect – and if the wrong people continue to borrow them, I may lose my account. I understand: your game; your rules (even though they are generally undefined publicly, and the internal definitions change at a seeming whim and without notice).</div>
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There is much more I could say, but this letter is long enough as it is.</div>
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So, if you can, sir, please tell me one good reason that I or any other legitimate author should endanger our accounts by maintaining any books in KU? (I already know why scammers should: they get our money – and in large amounts.)</div>
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D. A. Boulter.</div>
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Selena Kitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17783685215421352626noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-74038264133958090012017-04-26T03:23:00.000-04:002017-04-26T03:23:09.489-04:00The Free Lunch in the Secret Caveby Jean Roberta<br />
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<i>Queers Were Here: Heroes and Icons of Queer Canada</i>, edited by Robin Ganev and R.J. Gilmour (Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2016).<br />
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This book is a charming little anthology in which a group of “queer” Canadians answers the question: Who were your role models when you were “coming out?” One of the editors teaches history in the same university where I teach English, and I attended the local book launch.<br />
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In the introduction, the editors explain: “Our guiding purpose was the conviction that queer pioneers who challenged the dominant culture and fought for greater tolerance needed to be remembered and celebrated.” It seems that the 1980s were a crucial decade for most of the contributors, as they were for me. (I “came out” then too). Most of the contributors seemed to have been drawn to the “gay scene” in Toronto when they were young, and I recognized their references, even though Toronto seemed as far away from my prairie town as San Francisco or New York City.<br />
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The contributors are both male and female, and none of them emphasize the differences between gay-male and lesbian culture, but the differences are clear. Much of the urban “gay culture” described by the men seems exclusive to them.<br />
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This book fits into a pattern of recent histories of LGBTQ life in Canada since 1969. All of them discuss the long-term influence of the Omnibus Bill that was passed that year (under a previous hip, sexy Prime Minister, father of the current one), a sweeping piece of legislation which decriminalized sex between men throughout Canada, among other reforms. And of course, no book on “gay” life could avoid mentioning The Plague: the trickle of AIDS deaths in the early 1980s that soon became a flood. <br />
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Both these events left lesbians fairly untouched, except as concerned bystanders. In that sense, these events were parallel to the U.S. government’s drafting of young men into a war of imperialism in the 1960s, which supposedly inspired the rebellions of the Baby Boom generation and motivated American families like mine to move to Canada. I was a teenager at the time, but I didn’t need to “dodge” the long, uniformed arm of Uncle Sam. I was a girl.<br />
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Here in Canada, the Omnibus Bill has been described as another thing that helped to define a generation. Like the Stonewall Riots in New York City in the same year, the bill paved the way for “gay rights” by modifying (not completely ending) the legal persecution of male-male sex in Canada. This change was groundbreaking, but it had no direct effect on women. <br />
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Female-female sex has never been mentioned in the Canadian Criminal Code, which had its roots in Victorian England. There is an anecdote that Queen Victoria refused to sign a bill which would have criminalized sex between any two or more people of the same gender on grounds that “ladies wouldn’t do that,” but I have my doubts. I suspect that the gentlemen who wrote that legislation simply thought that whatever sexual games women could play with each other were unimportant (even if unladylike), and should therefore remain unnamed, even as a crime. At that time, few women had the rights of adult citizenship, so the law-makers probably assumed that improper behavior among girls or women could be privately dealt with by fathers or husbands. <br />
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Regarding the Plague, various writers and lecturers in queer venues in the 1980s tried to frame AIDS as a threat to everyone on the margins of society. An earnest lesbian acquaintance once tried to convince me (during a long car ride) that we should all start using dental dams and gloves in bed with each other because transmission of the virus from one female body to another had <i>not been disproved</i>. While I admired her good intentions, I felt as though she were advising me on how to protect myself and my dates from hurricanes and earthquakes, none of which happen on the Canadian prairies.<br />
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The Plague reached my town several years after I first read about its effects in larger cities, and I was sincerely upset when it destroyed the lives of men I liked and respected. I was disturbed when I read about the effects of AIDS on heterosexual women (or those who couldn’t avoid unprotected sex with men) in African countries. In the 1990s, I joined a drama group, directed by my sweetie, that went into schools to perform educational skits about HIV prevention. I wished there was more I could afford to do. <br />
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Nonetheless, the Plague didn’t seem any more universal in the world than a hurricane slamming into a Caribbean coast. Where were all the HIV-positive womyn-loving womyn? Where was the evidence that AIDS-related deaths were cutting a swathe through the Amazon Nation? <br />
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I came to realize that lesbian <i>sex</i> (not to be confused with lesbian <i>life</i>) is the free lunch that we have all been told does not exist. Women don’t get each other pregnant, except when this is mutually desired, and one woman wields a turkey baster. Even then, the sperm has to come from someone else. Women are less likely to spread sexually-transmitted infections to other women than any other sexually-defined population. Although lesbians, even in Canada, have faced discrimination based on gender identity and general nonconformity, sexual activity between women here has largely occurred below the radar of police intervention.<br />
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The relatively conflict-free nature of lesbian sex becomes clear to me when I am deciding what kind of sex to describe in a story. Conflict in some form seems necessary to move the plot along, and in some scenarios, it’s easy to find. Sex between men and women can result in unwanted pregnancies, as well as disease. Women have reasons to fear violence from men. Men have reasons to fear manipulation from women.<br />
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Sex between men seems much less stigmatized now than it used to be, but HIV is still around. Plus there is still a feral, homophobic, straight-white-male subculture which seems especially dangerous now that it is less socially accepted than before. I don’t want any of my gay-male friends to seem too obvious among strangers.<br />
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Conflict between women in an erotic story usually has to come from something other than their sexual orientation. A story about the seduction of an innocent maiden by an experienced dyke is likely to seem unbelievable if set in the current era. How many young women, fresh out of high school in the 21st century, are unaware that sex between women is possible? How many are inclined to faint when they figure it out? (Fainting from pleasure seems like a different thing.)<br />
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I sometimes wonder why more erotic writers, of various genders and sexual inclinations, haven’t focused more on lesbian sex as a set of activities with a high ratio of immediate pleasure to negative consequences. Maybe it’s because lesbians are still often seen (if at all) as a subset of some larger demographic.<br />
Jean Robertahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08805088081675965859noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-24452032661347913632017-04-24T00:00:00.000-04:002017-04-23T14:22:58.501-04:00Pop!by Kathleen Bradean<br />
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We live in bubbles nowadays. Social media makes it so easy for us to silence voices that annoy us. I am so guilty of this that I can't point fingers. The band director of my high school friended me on FaceBook a while ago. When I was tempted to reply to one of his diatribes about opioid addicts being weak by reminding him of the bottle of vodka he kept in his desk in the band room, I decided to block him rather than engage. Friends continue to speak to him, to try to soften his dogmatic view of the world and fact check all the nutter memes he posts. I don't know if they have more patience, lower blood pressure, or a sunnier view of humans than I do. Although, bless them, at least they have the stamina to keep the channels of communication open.<br />
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Bubbles are meant to be fragile. Easily pricked. But what I'm seeing is a calcification. Flimsy, transparent walls are becoming fortresses.<br />
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One of the most troubling turns in recent years - for me - is how the left responds to the right. Speakers at university campuses are either uninvited or met with violent protests. Weather or not the protesters are part of the campus community or not is a different discussion. Freedom of speech is under attack from all sides. And to be clearly biased about it, after years of watching science and health education under attack in schools, I expect that sort of thing from the right, but the left was supposed to embrace and protect free speech. How could they betray that idea so easily? How can they be so intolerant and not see the irony of it?<br />
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I guess the answer is "two sides of the same coin." The sins of one extreme are reflected in the other. People are people. No matter what tenets they follow, some will chose to express it violently, many will blindly report memes without fact checking, and some will gradually grow quieter as they wait for all this ugliness to blow over. The last group includes me. Unfortunately, sitting it out isn't really an option anymore. I was in short-selling for a good swath of my professional career, so I definitely have a streak of "Let's wait to see how bad this can get while we eat popcorn" gallows humor, but even I know that mindset leads to such dire circumstances that dramatic implosion ends up being the only remaining option. While that's interesting to watch when it's a stock, when it's your country, it isn't so amusing.<br />
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This matters to erotica writers. The right has been trying to shut us down on moral grounds for decades. Heck, Utah recently declared porn to be a public health crisis, which is the new spin on "We consume more porn than any other state, so we know what we're talking about when we say we have to control your access to it." But there are stirrings on the hard left about safe spaces and trigger warnings and appropriation that are just as effective at silencing speech and art. <br />
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FaceBook isn't the only enabler. Google uses its logarithms to bring up search results tailored to my previous choices, so I see less of the whole world with every click. I'd love to chat with their programmers about what they're doing. It's fine to figure out that I like a certain type of shoe and change suggestions accordingly, but politics should be treated differently. Instead of showing me further extremes, how about pointing all of us to the middle? Even that isn't enough though. When we meet there in the middle, we have to start listening, even if we vehemently oppose what is being said.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"I disapprove of what you </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #6a6a6a; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">say</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">, but I </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #6a6a6a; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">will defend</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> to the death </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #6a6a6a; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">your right to say it.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">" ~~ Evelyn Beatrice Hall</span><br />
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"...Especially if it's smut." ~~ Kathleen Bradean<br />
<br />Kathleen Bradeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347913255760493335noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-19671112302311863092017-04-17T23:02:00.002-04:002017-04-17T23:02:31.986-04:00We've Moved!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You'll find all your favorite contributors and features at the <span style="color: #660000;"><i><b>new</b></i></span> Erotica Readers & Writers Association website, here:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Visit us frequently for incisive and provocative posts about writing, sex and society.</span></span></div>
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<br />Lisabet Saraihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-80192242591177103102017-04-06T00:00:00.000-04:002017-04-06T00:00:03.623-04:00Swifties Revisited<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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More than three years ago on this blog I mentioned the swifitie. Because I still think it's a lot of fun, I figured it was time to revisit this writer-friendly parlour game.</div>
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Tom Swift was the central character in a series of books produced between 1910 and 1933, the majority of which were attributed to author Victor Appleton. One of the characteristic (and much parodied) features of the narrative in these stories was the speech attribution. These attributions, usually adverbial, have become the source of an entertaining parlour game where the attributive adverb has to be linked to the content of the sentence, usually with a pun.</div>
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“We must hurry,” said Tom swiftly.</div>
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“I’m working as a security officer,” she said guardedly.</div>
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“I have a cold,” he said icily.</div>
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“Do you want to see my pussy?” she purred.</div>
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“But I asked for a cabernet sauvignon,” Tom whined.</div>
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“I was just looking at pictures of my mother,” Oedipus ejaculated.</div>
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Take a shot at producing a small handful of your own swifties in the comments box below. It goes without saying that these swifties are entertaining as a writing exercise, and a great way for warming up your pen hand and getting words on the page, but they should not enter into serious attempts at fiction unless you’re determined to stop your readers from enjoying your work. <br />
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I genuinely look forward to reading your swifties.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-85654603403302064332017-03-30T07:30:00.000-04:002017-03-30T07:30:00.891-04:00Editing ... Was it Good for You?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://kdgrace.co.uk/" target="_blank">K D Grace</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I love editing. Always have. I know many writers don’t share the love, but I think editing is one of the sexiest parts of the writing process. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that, for me, if the editing process doesn’t feel like good sex, then I’m not doing it right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Take it off!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Since I’m not precious with my words, one of the first, and probably easiest parts, of editing is taking it off. What I mean by that is stripping my WIP, undressing it, getting rid of unnecessary paragraphs, sentences, phrases, even whole chapters -- anything superfluous or repetitive. I need to be sure I don’t repeat what’s already been said or what doesn’t need to be said. I need to trust my readers’ intelligence. They’ll get it the first time. Readers are as anxious as I am to get on with it, to get to the good stuff. That means I need to pop the story’s cherry and move on to the main act. So my first editing goal is to undress my work, get it down to the story beneath, to what really matters, what will turn my readers on. My job, at this point, is to expose that story and then let it seduce me. If it can’t seduce me, then it’s not very likely to seduce my readers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Tweak, Touch and Play<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Once I can see what’s underneath, what’s really there, then I can begin tweaking, touching-up and playing. This is the time-consuming part. This is the point at which every single word matters. I learned how important each word is by writing shorter stories. When you have only 2K, every word has to matter – even more so with something as precise and boiled-down as poetry. Writers of novels – myself included sometimes forget this because we have a whole novel’s worth of words to play with. This is the point at which I remind myself that I’m making love to the story, and I want my readers to be seduced by what I’ve written. Every word is an erogenous zone. Every phrase can be stimulated and heightened and engorged until it literally bursts with meaning, with intrigue, with seduction for the reader.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I don’t want phones ringing or knocks on the door from the mailman when I’m having sex or when I’m editing. I don’t want anything that will pull me out of the moment. I especially don’t want anything that will pull my readers out of my story. That includes distracting words, actions that are out of character or excessive use of words and phrases. (My inner goddess definitely frowns on that sort of thing.) That also includes replacement words. I’m far less likely to be pulled out of the story by multiple uses of <i>breast,</i> and <i>tits</i> than I am by globes, orbs, mounds, hillocks. Fingers, fingers, fingers, please! Digits are for numbers and for anatomy lessons. If I can’t find a word that won’t distract the reader from the seduction, then I’ll try to rephrase. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Exploration<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">While exploration is a part of the tweak, touch, and play process, it’s also the place where I discover hidden meanings, hidden tidbits, sometimes whole bits of story that need to be teased and written or rewritten and brought into focus. I can’t count the number of times I’ve discovered depth in my characters, secrets, quirks, emotions I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t made the effort to make love to my story during the editing process. Exploration is searching out the little moles, the scars, the sensitive spots that turn the story – and the reader -- on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Bring it to Climax<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">All of this effort is heading for the big climax, the pay-off -- the story version of the Big O. While that’s true, the story is </span></div>
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also about the journey, making it last, sustaining the pleasure and building it. The biggest part of editing, for me, is making sure that the journey, the tweak and touch and play are so gripping to readers that they’ll want it to last just a little longer, just a few more pages. I don’t know about you, but on a great read, I find myself slowing down near the end because I don’t <i>want</i> it to end. I want to make it last, even as I can’t wait for the pay-off. I need to have that experience while editing my own work or how can I ever expect the reader to have it? I need to feel that journey to the very end, right down to the blaze and fireworks of the climax. After it’s over, when I’m basking in the afterglow, I need to feel slightly bereft as the experience lingers in my mind, hopefully, long after the fact.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">If I feel that way at the end of the editing process, then I’m confident I’ve done my job as a writer, and it’s now time to lean back on the pillow, have the imaginary cigarette and ask my readers, ‘was it good for you?’</span></div>
K D Gracehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02623197044690751762noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-60935428596292547752017-03-29T03:00:00.000-04:002017-03-29T03:00:01.782-04:00Playing in Someone Else's Gardenby Jean Roberta<br />
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My actual posting date was March 26, but my post wasn't ready then, and someone else's post conveniently appeared. I hope I can slide this into an available date.<br />
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One aspect of sexually-explicit fiction that doesn’t seem to be discussed much is its connection to parody (or in some cases, libellous caricature), or imitations of work that is usually taken more seriously. Sex is a funny activity in some literary traditions, dating back to <i>Lysistrata </i>(ancient Greek comedy from approximately 450 BC). The British tradition of the Christmas pantomime is always advertised as family-friendly, but there is usually a “Dame” (over-the-top female character played by a man in drag) and a lot of double-entendres intended to amuse the adults while going over the heads of the children, who are entertained by the fast-moving plot, which often occupies the same territory as a Walt Disney movie: a familiar story such as <i>Aladdin</i> or <i>Cinderella</i>. Adding sex (even in the form of mildly naughty suggestions) to a traditional story tends to debunk its seriousness. <br />
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In the lead-up to the French Revolution of the 1790s, Queen Marie Antoinette was apparently a favourite subject of satirical writing, some of which focused on her “furious womb” or supposed inexhaustible appetite for sex with people other than her husband, the last of the French kings named Louis. The purpose of this type of porn was clearly to ridicule the contemporary Court, and it didn’t help that the Queen Consort was originally a foreigner from Austria. I don’t know how much influence this kind of underground fiction had on the actual revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille and dragged much of the aristocracy (including the royal family) to the guillotine, but it certainly didn’t encourage the kind of respect for the hereditary upper class that lingers on in Britain to this day. <br />
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There is a parallel tradition in porn films, which I discovered when I held a position on the local film classification board in the early 1990s. Some porn films are deliberately based on popular mainstream movies of the time, which is why I got to watch <i>Edward Penishands</i>, among other epics. The relationship between Hollywood and the porn industry seemed to be friendlier than that of Marie Antoinette’s detractors and the <i>ancien regime</i>. As far as I could tell, the people who produce visual porn often want to comment on popular culture, not necessarily to sneer at it.<br />
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Two literary traditions that have contributed to sexually-explicit art (both porn and more complex erotica) are fan-fiction (including “slash”) and tell-all paperbacks with titles like: <i>I Was Joe Rockstar’s Sex Slave</i>. When I was starting out as a sex-writer, just before the beginning of this century, I didn’t think I was influenced by either of those genres.<br />
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I learned about Kirk/Spock “slash” in the 1980s, and I was intrigued that some writers were willing to spend time and effort constructing a love affair between Captain Kirk and the half-alien Mr. Spock from the <i>Star Trek</i> TV series, even though stories about copyrighted characters couldn’t be “published” for sale. They could only circulate in the form of little ‘zines, and then on-line, among devotees. I liked <i>Star Trek</i>, but I didn’t feel moved to write about a male/male affair between two major characters since I didn’t have male plumbing myself, and didn’t think I was likely to get the details right.<br />
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In 2000, an anthology titled <i>Starf*cker: A Twisted Collection of Superstar Fantasies</i> was published by Alyson Publications. It was edited by a major sex-writer, Shar Rednour, who collected other sex-writers’ fantasies about actual people whom they hadn’t actually fucked, or vice versa. I was aghast. To this day, I don’t know why that book didn’t give rise to a flurry of lawsuits. This seemed like an updated version of eighteenth-century porn about Marie Antoinette. <br />
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I had already promised my Significant Other that I would never violate her privacy by describing her in my stories about sex. I thought I had even less right to describe sex scenes starring real people I had never met in person. I prided myself on being saner than a celebrity stalker.<br />
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However, the popular culture of today and yesteryear has a huge influence on sex-writing, and every literary tradition involves a certain amount of imitation. Anne Rice’s homoerotic vampires of the 1970s are clearly descended from the nineteenth-century vampires of Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu, even though every writer seems to have a slightly different take on the bloodthirsty undead. Writers with a distinct style and an appealing imaginary world tend to spawn imitators.<br />
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Over time, I wrote two stories based (at least loosely) on Lewis Carroll’s dream-like novel, <i>Alice in Wonderland </i>(1865), a BDSM fantasy based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” a story about a contemporary woman who composes raunchy little ditties in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan (who wrote comic operettas in late Victorian England), a lesbian fairy tale based on “The White Cat” by Countess d’Alnoy (circa 1690s, pre-revolutionary France), a modern lesbian threesome involving a version of the Shakespeare romantic comedy <i>Twelfth Night</i> for a Shakespeare-themed queer anthology, and a sexually-explicit story about the conception of King Arthur, based on the brief version in <i>Le Morte d'Arthur</i> by Sir Thomas Malory (from the 1480s, itself based on French sources).<br />
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After all this frolicking in the imaginary worlds of earlier writers, I was prepared to write something more clearly satirical, even if it didn’t include explicit sex scenes. In late December, I tried my hand at a Sherlock Holmesian mystery story which suggests more scandalous sex than it delivers. (Several women are found naked and murdered, but the thickening plot reveals something much different from Victorian conceptions of lust, adultery, or perversion.) I don't know yet whether this story will be published in the foreseeable future.<br />
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In the winter of early 2016, I read a call-for-submissions that had been cooked up by a publishing couple at an annual literary con in Baltimore, Maryland, named Balticon. The working title was "Inclusive Cthulhu" and the stories were to be based on the work of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). The editors asked for stories which would horrify Lovecraft himself by deliberately challenging his prejudices: racism, White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant chauvinism, class snobbery, misogyny, homophobia. The stories needed to be Lovecraftian in some sense. I wrote a story and sent it off. After several months, I was asked for revisions which I was glad to make (the revised version gives my plucky heroine a happier ending). I waited some more.<br />
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At last, the editors have sent out contracts and announced that the book, now titled <i>Equal Opportunity Madness</i>, is due to be launched at Balticon near the end of May 2017. I’ve never been to this con, and I would love to go. (Baltimore is the setting of the comic musical <i>Hairspray</i>, about the cultural Spirit of the Sixties. I experienced that as a teenager.) I bet Baltimore has good weather in the spring, and a trip could be inspiring.<br />
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Alas, I'm afraid to cross the border from Canada under the current political regime. Before I could board a plane, some new ban would probably be in place. As a Canadian citizen who was born in the U.S., I could be treated with suspicion even if I travelled with no electronic gadgets whatsoever. <br />
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I’ll just have to stay in my own real-life setting until the regime changes, while visiting others only in my imagination.<br />
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Jean Robertahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08805088081675965859noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-84585403652008404652017-03-28T00:00:00.000-04:002017-03-28T00:00:12.745-04:00Is Blogging Still Relevant?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Elizabeth Black
writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica, erotic romance, horror,
and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son,
and her three cats. Visit her <a href="http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #0000c9;">web site</span></a>, her <a href="https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack"><span style="color: #0000c9;">Facebook</span></a>
page, and her <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/elizabethblack"><span style="color: #0000c9;">Amazon Author Page</span></a>.</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Her new m/m erotic medical thriller <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Roughing-Elizabeth-Black-ebook/dp/B01E7ZPVFW/">Roughing
It</a> is out! This book is a sexy cross between The X Files, The Andromeda
Strain, and Outbreak. Read her short erotic story Babes in<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017KXN09M/"> Begging For It</a>, published by
Cleis Press. You will also find her new novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-Restraint-Elizabeth-Black-ebook/dp/B01IGHFZI0/">No
Restraint</a> at Amazon. Enjoy a good, sexy read today.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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My first blog post goes way back – Sept. 3, 2003. Back when
dinosaurs ruled the Internet. LOL Back then, iPhones hadn't even been imagined
let alone invented. Internet piracy was a new thing. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NCIS, Arrested Development</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Two
and a Half Men</i> were new TV shows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Adam and Jamie in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mythbusters</i>
started their schtick. Usenet (Newsgroups) was at its height. Blockbuster was thriving. Video tapes were still a
thing. As far as I remember, CNN was the only 24 hour news station. Fox News
was not a thing yet. AOL<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was at its peak.
And I still remember what dial-up sounded like. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I had read about blogging in the New York Times, and it
fascinated me. What a weird term - blog. It sounded like a shoe or some type of awkward dance. Or the sound a cat makes when it's throwing up furballs. LOL But I wanted in. How could I become a blogger? Where could I find blogs? The
articles I read sent me to conservative blogs like Instapundit, which was the
first blog I ever read. It didn't appeal to me much because I'm a flaming
liberal, but it was a sane, intelligent read so I read it regularly. I did find
the liberal and feminist blogs. Each day over the years I devoured Daily Kos,
Talking Points Memo, Body and Soul, Scrappleface, Kevin Drum, Echidne of the Snakes, and many
more. I wrote several times per day and I had over 1,000 hits per day. This was
the heyday of blogging.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Blogging back then was much more like The Wild West. As a
political and feminist blogger who concentrated on family law issues, I made
quite the name for myself. I was trolled. I made many friends and fantastic
networking colleagues. I received hate mail and death threats. It was fun! LOL My
blogging led to non-fiction political writing jobs for reputable and respected
publications like the Ms. Magazine Blog, Alternet, American Politics Journal,
and On The Issues Magazine. It was different back then. Not everyone and his
brother was a blogger. It was easier to make a name for yourself. I've since
stopped political and feminist blogging and concentrated on sex writing and
entertainment. Burnout was a huge factor. I also enjoy sex blogging and
entertainment much more. Both are much more relaxing and considerably less
stressful.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Today, writers are told they must blog in order to gain
readers. Is this really necessary? The problem is there are so many blogs it's
hard to keep track of them. In my opinion, the ones who do best are the ones
who have been around for close to a decade and therefore have developed a large
following. The first ones out the gate who survived do best. If you start up a
blog now, you'll be lost in a sea of blogs with very few readers. I think that
group blogs with a huge readership are the best way to go if you are a writer looking
to attract readers. The blog for the Erotic Readers and Writers Association
(this one, heh heh) is a great example of such a blog. You have the advantage
of a huge audience that reads frequently. Fans of better known authors will
read your posts and possibly buy your books as a result. When I set up my own
blog tours, I go to group blogs most often. The key is to find a blog with a
large audience. That's not always easy to do. Write about something other than
your book unless the blog's owner requests such a post. I write about
writing-related topics and anything fun that may appeal to my chosen audience.
Then I include a blurb, excerpt, cover, and link for one of my books. Don't
spam. Talk to your audience. If you can get a conversation started in comments
you're already ahead of the game. Conversations – or arguments, if you want to
be more accurate, LOL – on my first blog (the political/feminist one) could go
on for days. That isn't as common anymore unless you're an established blog. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Blogging is useful today but it's not the way it was when I
first started. Granted, I was writing in a different and volatile genre but
things have changed. Find a few group blogs or busy individual blogs and try to
write for them. Blogging is a great way to get word out that you exist, but
only if the blog has a huge following. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.
Above all, have fun blogging. You're chatting with people about what interests
you. Enjoy it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-54935274094237560772017-03-26T12:24:00.003-04:002017-03-26T12:24:52.180-04:00Wait Your Turn!by Kathleen Bradean<br />
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Many people start novels. Few finish.<br />
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It's a bit like love, or lust. As the story idea comes to you, your enthusiasm soars and your imagination frolics through scenes. It's infatuation. A rush.<br />
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Writing the story is a different task. You can't gloss over parts that aren't as fun, and the weaknesses become glaringly obvious. Each step is more of a buzzkill until you get mired down in the reality of producing a written work somewhere in the middle.<br />
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Relationships are work. This includes your relationship to your writing. When the excitement flames out and the going gets rough, it's easy to get distracted by thoughts of other stories. The initial thrill of creativity is addictive and fun. Maybe one story muscles in, or it could be several.<br />
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I can't tell you when it's time to throw in the towel on a story. Sometimes, no matter what you do, it's never going to work.<br />
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I can't tell you when it's time to walk away from a difficult story for "a while" to give yourself time to gather the grit to see it through.<br />
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What I can tell you is that slogging through the difficult work is the only thing that will ever get you to the end, and that developing a habit of dropping work to play with the newest, shiniest idea is going to leave you with a lot of failed novels and nothing else.<br />
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If that pesky, enthralling new idea will not leave you alone, write down the idea and firmly tell yourself that it has to wait its turn. The reason it looks so great is because you've reached a difficult part in your current work. It might be something too emotional for you to handle right now. So step away and process it until you can face it. Or maybe you don't know what to do next. This is writer's block and you can find lots of advice on how to get past it. But try not to let another story jump queue. There was a reason you got excited by this idea for this story. Remember what it was, and fall back in love with it. You've put this much time into this relationship. Don't throw it away.<br />
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<br />Kathleen Bradeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347913255760493335noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-58643256478014071292017-03-21T03:00:00.000-04:002017-03-21T03:00:17.525-04:00Dynamic Tension<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style> <br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">By Lisabet Sarai</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So what <i><b>is</b></i> the difference between erotica and porn?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oh no! Not that old chestnut again! I’ve been a member of the ERWA Writers list for almost two decades. At least once or twice a year, some newcomer resurrects that question. Those of us who have been around for a while roll our eyes and grin to ourselves, already knowing how the discussion will go. </span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">However, as I was thinking about my ERWA blog post for this month, I had an insight on this issue, which relates to writing craft.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Porn is easy. Erotica is hard.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m not saying that porn is easy to <i><b>write</b></i>. Though some people believe it’s a snap to throw together a great stroke story, I know that’s not true. Getting people hot and bothered takes talent and work, skill and imagination. This is true of erotica as well, of course, despite the disdain lavished on our genre by the literary establishment. </span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">What I mean is that in porn, things are easy for the characters. The focus is on obtaining sexual satisfaction, the sooner the better. Readers don’t want the author to put obstacles in the way of the characters getting off. Hence, porn rarely features any significant conflict. The path from meeting to fucking is smooth and direct, with few if any stops along the way. </span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Erotica (and especially erotic romance), in contrast, thrives on obstruction. Erotica authors are more likely to put their characters through an emotional or physical wringer before the final consummation. Meanwhile, erotica <i>readers</i> tend to be more accepting of deferred gratification than readers of stroke fiction, in return for a richer and more complex narrative in which the characters overcome internal or external barriers in their journey toward release. </span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Conflict creates dynamic tension. It prevents the characters from rushing headlong into a sexual connection. As conflict keeps the protagonists apart<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;">—</span>or at least denies them complete satisfaction<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;">—their level of arousal increases. When the conflict is finally resolved, the resulting experience, both for the characters and the reader, can be far more intense than the problem-free hookup in a stroke story. </span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Classic theory categorizes fictional conflict as man versus nature (or God, or demon – super-human forces at least), man versus man, and man versus himself. I hate the sexist terminology, but agree with the general breakdown. I’ve read (and written) erotica that used all three categories.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">K.D. Grace’s recent novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flesh-Medusa-Consortium-Book-ebook/dp/B01KG8RG1Q" target="_blank"><i>In the Flesh</i></a> offers a wonderful example of the first type of conflict. Her heroine Susan falls under the sway of an evil but mercilessly seductive disembodied entity who uses her natural sensuality as a route to destroy her. In fact, the perilous lure of supernatural sex is a common theme in paranormal erotica. It would be all too easy for Susan to succumb; she fights her erotic urges because she recognizes the danger. </span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Daddy X exploits “man versus man” (or more accurately, man versus woman) conflict in his fantastic short story <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gonzo-Collection-Daddy-X/dp/1511899794/" target="_blank">“Spy versus Spy”</a>. Nicolai and Lilya have been sexual partners for years. Their long acquaintance and shared history means each is still aroused by the other. However, neither trusts the other—for excellent reasons.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Conflict internal to the character is perhaps the most ubiquitous type found in erotica. Characters are often torn between their own deepest desires and their beliefs about what is acceptable, healthy or normal. Remittance Girl’s controversial novella <i>Gaijin </i><span style="font-style: normal;">illustrates this pattern in the extreme. Kidnapped and raped by a Japanese gangster, her heroine still finds herself aroused—and hates herself for those feelings. In Cecila Tan’s </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Licks-Secrets-Cecilia-2016-08-02/dp/B01LP2Y2W8/" target="_blank"><i>Wild Licks</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;">, we meet rock star Mal Kenneally, an extreme sadist who never has sex with a woman more than once because he’s worried he’ll do serious physical or psychological damage. Uncertainty about sexual orientation or identity</span><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">—religious </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;">guilt</span><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">—memories of abuse —</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;">fear of losing control</span><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">—struggles with fidelity—sex is an emotional mine field. </span></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">We erotica authors regularly take advantage of that fact.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">How is this relevant to craft? If you’re trying to write erotica (as opposed to porn), you need to consider the question of conflict. All too often I find that stories I read in erotica anthologies are really just vignettes. They may be well-written, but ultimately they consist of sex scenes and little else. They’re not really stories. (Belinda made a related point in her <a href="http://erotica-readers.blogspot.com/2017/01/thats-not-story.html" target="_blank">Editing Corner post</a> a few months ago.)</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Other readers may enjoy these tales, but I find them flat and unsatisfying. When I read erotica, I want something more complex and challenging.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Please note that I do not mean to denigrate stroke fiction. In fact, my observation about conflict can be applied to this sub-genre as well. If you want to write one-handed stories (and I’ve definitely done so), you should probably </span></span><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><i><b>avoid</b></i></span><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> conflict. Your readers very likely do not want characters who agonize over whether or not to do the deed. </span></span></span></span> </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Actually, it’s funny. Sometimes when I set out to write stroke fiction, I don’t completely succeed, because my characters’ motivations become too complicated. A good example is my story </span></span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Antidote-Lisabet-Sarai-ebook/dp/B013ZS2678" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><i>The Antidote</i></span></a><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">. I wrote this very filthy tale <span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;">in</span> reaction to the self-censorship required by my erotic romance publisher (hence, the title). I wanted to create something full of no-holds-barred sex scenes. Instead, I ended up with an arousing but rather heavy tale about sex, society and deceit. Erotic, but not the porn I was trying for!</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The distinction, of course, is not clear cut. That’s one reason we veterans sigh when someone brings up the porn/erotica debate. There’s really no black and white answer, only (please forgive me!) shades of gray.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "dejavu sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Whichever direction your writing leans, though, you should consider the question of conflict. Are you going to give your characters what they want right away, or make them jump through hoops? Your decision makes a big difference in your readers’ experience.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Lisabet Saraihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-1592098631423969192017-03-19T00:19:00.001-04:002017-03-19T00:20:33.050-04:00Sexy Snippets for March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cCLzvKyVuHk2ADVO90EgiSq_JNQWCzlt94XlwCmEfBW8ZbL0jMKLqQp6lzdWpvHrd-eFSu8JP9vIQXoCq032HlKD5N7XzqByBF8nkjl0lWdAD98uUV83HHskTdJZ0TU56y_iXTMlDzg/s1600/SexySnippetButton.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Sexy Snippet button" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2cCLzvKyVuHk2ADVO90EgiSq_JNQWCzlt94XlwCmEfBW8ZbL0jMKLqQp6lzdWpvHrd-eFSu8JP9vIQXoCq032HlKD5N7XzqByBF8nkjl0lWdAD98uUV83HHskTdJZ0TU56y_iXTMlDzg/s1600/SexySnippetButton.png" title="" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
So I woke up this morning, looked at the calendar, and thought "OMG! It's Sexy Snippet Day!" That's what happens when you get a short month like February!<br />
<br />
Anyway, today's your monthly chance to share your hottest bits of prose with the world. <br />
<br />
The ERWA blog is not primarily intended for author promotion. However,
we've decided we should give our author/members an occasional
opportunity to expose themselves (so to speak) to the reading public.
Hence, we have declared the 19th of every month at the Erotica Readers
and Writers Association blog Sexy Snippet Day.<br />
<br />
On Sexy Snippet day, any author can post a tiny excerpt (200 words or
less) in a comment on the day's post. Include the title from with the
snippet was extracted, your name or pseudonym, and <span style="color: #660000;"><i><b>one</b></i></span> buy link. No extra promo text, please!<br />
<br />
Please post excerpts only from published work (or work that is free for download), <i><b>not works in progress</b></i>. The goal, after all, is to titillate your readers and seduce them into buying your books!<br />
<br />
Feel free to share this with erotic author friends. It's an open invitation!<br />
<br />
Of course I expect you to follow the rules. One snippet per author,
please. <i>If your excerpt is more than 200 words or includes more than one
link, I'll remove your comment and prohibit you from participating
in further Sexy Snippet days.</i> I'll say no more!<br />
<br />
After you've posted your snippet, feel free to share the post as a
whole to Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else you think your readers
hang out.<br />
<br />
Enjoy!<br />
<br />
~ Lisabet<br />
<br />Lisabet Saraihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-47251785481130432742017-03-18T00:30:00.000-04:002017-03-18T15:48:27.531-04:00Fifty Shades of Republican<div style="text-align: center;">
By Donna George Storey</div>
<br />
The movie <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fifty_shades_darker" target="_blank"><i>Fifty Shades Darker</i></a> was released just before Valentine’s Day. No one cares. The box office on opening weekend was slightly more than half of <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fifty_shades_of_grey/" target="_blank"><i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i></a>. The quality of the second movie may be a factor. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson did not return to do the sequel, which lacks the humor and sizzle of the first film, critics say.<br />
<br />
Then again perhaps we’ve lost interest in the fate of Ana and Christian because our nation is too busy navigating our own intimate BDSM relationship with a billionaire? “You’ll let me hurt you, because you love me, right?” he snarls gently. “Don’t resist! You’ll enjoy it. Now stop calling your Senators and let me put these handcuffs on you. Trust me, it'll be something terrific...”<br />
<br />
Not sure how that’s been going for you, but I’m learning a lot about myself from this experience. <br />
<br />
Indeed I find it fascinating that the <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> phenomenon of just a few years past is suddenly painfully relevant to our everyday lives. This month I’d like to share some lessons from E.L. James’ erotic novels that illuminate the power of fantasy, BDSM and billionaires.<br />
<br />
<b>Don’t Bother Fact-Checking A Fantasy</b><br />
<br />
Do you remember all the dire warnings about Christian Grey as a stalker and a dangerously controlling personality? <a href="http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jwh.2013.4344?journalCode=jwh" target="_blank">Therapists</a> and cultural critics alike worried that the female fans of <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> would be fooled into thinking that the relationship between Christian and Ana was desirable and that these poor women would then seek out <a href="https://50shadesabuse.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">sociopathic narcissists who would abuse them physically and psychologically</a>. Many more criticized the bad prose, the passive heroine and the inane plot lifted from <i>Twilight</i>. Anna J. Roberts even analyzed the novels <a href="https://annajroberts.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/fifty-shades-of-shit-the-original-recap/" target="_blank">chapter by chapter</a> to show how silly, embarrassing and wrong the story was at every turn (her commentary is highly entertaining). BDSM aficionados pointed out that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/consent-isnt-enough-in-fifty-shades-of-grey/385267/" target="_blank">James’ grasp of power exchange is misleading and amateurish</a>—indeed she has little, if any, personal experience in the kink for which she has become famous. <br />
<br />
In other words, <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> was fact-checked by therapists, experienced authors and editors, and BDSM practitioners. In every respect, it was found lacking. Four Pinocchios all around.<br />
<br />
The fans of the series didn’t give a fig. They loved the story, even if it was “bad” and “wrong.” Adding to the huge audience of true fans were the curiosity seekers. Thanks to them and a celebrity-driven press, <i>Fifty Shades of Grey </i>became—and still is, because I assure you I will get at least twice as many reads for this column as any I’ve written without “Fifty Shades” in the title—a code word for “exciting, kinky sex.” So what if the actual sex scenes in the book are far more vanilla than advertised? E.L. James is still a rich woman.<br />
<br />
Mind you, how many of us would appreciate our fantasies being fact-checked? What are the chances that any given neighbor spying on you while you undress is a gorgeous sexpot who somehow knows your pleasure buttons intimately without speaking a word once you finally beckon him or her over to your boudoir? Most of us know this is unlikely to happen in real life, but there’s no harm done if we merely imagine idealized encounters without consequences in moments of privacy. <br />
<br />
Yet problems do arise when fantasies are taken so seriously that, say, you vote for someone who promises you a health care plan that covers everybody and costs less and offers more benefits except it’s not single-payer because that’s socialism--and you actually expect them to deliver on the promise. <br />
<br />
Therefore, let us take note from the <i>Fifty Shades</i> example, that a “good story” trumps harsh reality when the desire to believe is strong.<br />
<br />
<b>The Strict Father and the Republican Party</b> <br />
<br />
The general consensus seems to be that <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> is just a standard Harlequin romance that wouldn’t have gotten a second glance except for the BDSM. Apparently the novels finally made it completely okay for the ordinary Jane to think sexual thoughts about cable ties and handcuffs. Unfortunately, this openness has also brought out a lot of misogynistic cultural “analysis,” which says as much about the commentator as the topic. The books’ popularity was seen by <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/working-womens-fantasies-63915" target="_blank">some</a> as proof that women naturally want to be submissive because they find their new “equality” in society a burden from which they long to escape into the arms of a billionaire with a secret playroom full of canes and whips. In other words, the Freudians were right that women are intrinsically masochistic.<br />
<br />
I’ll let Leslie Bennetts challenge this conclusion most eloquently in “<a href="http://microsites.ew.com/microsite/longform/fiftyshades/" target="_blank">Sex, Lies & Fifty Shades</a>”:<br />
<br />
“So when people pontificate about women’s intrinsic sexual nature, I find myself thinking: How do you know? How can we ourselves even know? From earliest childhood, women’s experience of sex is so inextricably intertwined with all forms of male control that submission is forever eroticized in more ways than we can possibly unravel. As females, we have been dominated physically, politically, socially, legally, and economically, and pop culture endlessly reinforces the message.”<br />
<br />
So if it’s not that women just naturally like to be dominated straight from the womb, what could be the compelling appeal of BDSM to millions? I humbly present an alternate explanation for the popularity of <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i>, and it has to do with the Republican party. I owe this insight to George Lakoff’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/022641129X/?tag=eroticareadersas" target="_blank"><i>Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think</i></a>. <br />
<br />
Lakoff argues that conservatives in America believe in the Strict Father model of the family and by metaphorical extension, the Strict Father model of our government. In this traditional, patriarchal structure, the father/president has the primary responsibility for supporting and protecting the family/citizens. He also gets to whip their butts if they don’t follow his directions.<br />
<br />
“He teaches children right from wrong by setting strict rules for their behavior and enforcing them through punishment. The punishment is typically mild to moderate, but sufficiently painful. It is commonly called corporal punishment—say, with a belt or a stick. He also gains their cooperation by showing love and appreciation when they do follow the rules. But children must never be coddled, lest they become spoiled; a spoiled child will be dependent for life and will not learn proper morals.” (Lakoff, p. 66)<br />
<br />
Under the Strict Father moral order, humans are more powerful and important than animals and plants and the environment, adults are more powerful than children, and men are more powerful than women. Thus, if a woman challenges this hierarchy by assuming male privileges, she is threatening the natural order and must be punished. This explains why those who oppose government regulations on almost everything else are quick to legislate to control women’s bodies--and also why the environment is fair game for whatever we humans want to grab and exploit.<br />
<br />
The liberal family ideal, in Lakoff’s terminology, is the Nurturant Parent model. In this type of family, parents of both sexes embrace empathy, nurturance, social ties, fairness and happiness in the family relationship. Parents earn their authority by acting kindly and fairly and setting an example for their children. Children are encouraged to express their needs and opinions. Men and women are equal. This model of the family has been gaining traction, particularly among younger baby boomer parents. The downside of nurturant parenting--and government--is that it’s hard work and involves self-doubt, constant negotiation, and expensive social programs.<br />
<br />
The majority of American voters today are likely to have been raised in a family more closely resembling the Strict Father model. This is why conservative rhetoric about family values touches deep chords in so many Americans. <i>Fifty Shades</i> puts the focus on women’s experience of submission, but men, too, must deal with power hierarchies in every aspect of their lives. Those with a Strict Father worldview are especially intimate with hierarchy, authority and punishment for disobedience. Yet while hierarchical power relations start in the family, we find them flourishing in schools, in the workplace, the doctor’s office, the military of course, and pretty much any setting that you’ll find as the unifying theme for an erotica anthology.<br />
<br />
Speaking of erotica, allow me to call in another expert to support my argument: Jack Morin, the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060169753/?tag=eroticareadersas" target="_blank"><i>The Erotic Mind: Unlocking the Inner Sources of Sexual Passion and Fulfillment</i></a>. Morin introduced me to the idea of the “core erotic theme.” You can figure out your personal core erotic theme simply by identifying the sexual fantasy that is most likely to turn you on, especially when you’re having trouble getting aroused. <br />
<br />
In my <a href="http://erotica-readers.com/ERA/Archive09/DS-Erotic_Alchemy.htm" target="_blank">earlier review of Morin’s book</a>, I mentioned that I found this quote relevant to literary erotica writers: “Many find it discomforting to tolerate the ambiguity of the erotic experience, to accept its mixed motivations, or to observe how the erotic mind has a habit of transforming one idea or emotion into another.”<br />
<br />
Morin is describing the genesis of sexual fantasy. That is, our erotic minds take material from our actual experience--such as our family or religion-induced guilt about sex, our doubt about our desirability, or frustration about sexual limitations--and transforms it into arousing fantasies that address or redress or overturn the limitations of the real. In erotic fantasies, we are often freed from the restrictions that rule our behavior in real life. Lovers are abundant, orgasms even more so. Even in the submissive role, the dreamer is always, in some fundamental way, in control of the situation as she or he manipulates all of the characters in the sexual drama unfolding on the imaginary stage. Our minds perform the magic of converting desire, humiliation, confusion and powerlessness into sensual pleasure and release.<br />
<br />
In real life, there are always restrictions upon our desires and thus feelings of anger and powerlessness to manage in one way or another. No matter how powerful a Strict Father might be, there are always women, profits, federal employees and deals that elude his control. Although men have social privilege in the abstract, millions of individual men don’t experience those privileges for reasons of economic standing or ethnicity or any other quality that might lower status. We each have a complicated relationship with power, and a mind that readily translates these ambiguities into the language of fantasy. <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> was the first popular novel to give ordinary people the cover to explore more fully the intersection of power and sex—whether to enjoy it, condemn it or both.<br />
<br />
George Lakoff’s Strict Father model is very helpful in understanding the conservative approach to family and government, but we must remember that both the liberal and conservative family models are essentially fantasies in themselves. Human patriarchs are never unassailable towers of strength and rectitude, nor are real-life nurturing parents always perfect models of kindness and equality. Both kinds of authority figures wield power they invariably abuse and both disappoint us.<br />
<br />
Our current political situation has allowed us a naked glimpse of the abuses of power in government that is a disorienting blend of reality and fantasy that all too often bleeds into the surreal. However, when you involve another adult partner in playing out your fantasy, it is extremely important to get her or his consent at every step of the way. This is the difference between a purportedly pleasurable BDSM scene and assault and battery.<br />
<br />
Where indeed will this unfolding relationship between our Strict Father leaders and our many Ana-like uncertain citizens lead America’s democratic experiment? Might <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i> have the answer?<br />
<br />
<b>Does America Get A Happy Ending?</b><br />
<br />
After much self-inflicted drama and misunderstanding (spoiler alert), Ana and Christian end their travails as a deliriously happy married couple with two adorable children. Their chief problem in life is getting the kids to sleep. Ana, just by being herself and also saving Christian’s sister from an evil Princeton-alum kidnapper, has “cured” Christian of his kink and healed his heart. <br />
<br />
That’s the fictional version. So what about our real-life power-kink tale? How will the American people deal with the unprecedented challenges presented by our billionaire Master? Will we live happily ever after in the end? <br />
<br />
I’ve decided to be optimistic. In this, too, let’s take our inspiration from E.L. James and move this plot as best we can away from dysfunctional obsession and toward a supportive relationship between government and citizen that honors our Constitution and the rule of law. The “how” this happens is, of course, the most important question for every story.<br />
<br />
Yet unlike <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i>, the citizens of the United States are the authors of this narrative. The ending of the story lies in our hands. Let’s make it good.<br />
<br />
Donna George Storey is the author
of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Amorous-Woman-ebook/dp/B0092X2SN8/ref=tmm_kin_title_0"><i>Amorous Woman</i></a> and a collection of short
stories, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Erotica-presents-George-ebook/dp/B008G04C46/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342560983&sr=1-1&keywords=best+of+donna+george+storey"><i>Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey</i></a>. Learn more about her
work at <a href="http://www.donnageorgestorey.com/">www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com</a>
or <a href="http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor">http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor</a>
Donnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13615190390845433428noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-86001470379605760502017-03-15T00:30:00.000-04:002017-03-15T00:30:29.529-04:00How much of the extraordinary do you require?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Constantia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">So
how much do you need to be drawn out of your world to enjoy a book? Any book,
any story? We all read popular fiction to escape the mundane cares and routines
of life. But how much of a leap are you looking to take?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Folks
who like police procedurals I think require a story to be severely grounded in
reality. They're not looking for the primary detective to suddenly sprout
wings. SciFi fans, however, are ready to plunge into realms utterly alien from
our everyday world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">How
about people who read erotica? They are a bit more difficult to pin down,
because the genre itself spans so many other genres: erotic SciFi, erotic
mystery, erotic horror. Some are only looking to satisfy a yen for fantasy. The
anonymous man and anonymous woman who agree to a session of bondage in an
anonymous hotel room. Readers don't need to know anything about either character;
they just need to place themselves in the story and vicariously experience what
the characters experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Perhaps
one requires a bit of embellishment to that bare-bones trope. The man becomes a
tycoon, the woman becomes the willing, or maybe just a tad reluctant sex slave
of the man as they jet off to exotic locales.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">It's
the same trope, just better dressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But
I've always wondered why a character has to have an extraordinary life to
experience extraordinary eroticism. Maybe the idea is only people with access
to wealth and power have access to the erotic. Who wants to read about Joe
Everyman having sex with Mary Everywoman? What chance do they have to visit a
penthouse, much less a penthouse bondage chamber?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But,
you know what? I think the ordinary made extraordinary is what gives the
eroticism pop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">They
say, write what you know. Well, I don't know any tycoons. Nor am I acquainted
with the sort of women who flirt with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">What
I know, where I'm from, is the realm of the blue-collar working class. So I
tend to write protags who occupy street level. Some examples: a city health
inspector with a suppressed domination urge, who falls into a relationship with
a tough, Chinese-American police detective with a craving for humiliation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Other
working class protags include a baker and a long-haul truck driver, a few dozen
cab drivers, and a stationary engineer (you know what a stationary engineer is,
right?) Anyway, this stationary engineer and the love of his life are brought
together after a bout of the flu and a case of diarrhea ... hers. He cleans her
up after she loses control of her bowels and nurses her back to health.
Eeeewww! Right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Similarly,
I concocted a sweet, shy lady plumber who gets loosened up in the shower by a
young man who uses a home brew formula to rid her of the stink of sewage she
had nearly drowned in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Really?
I bet you thought if it stunk it can't be romantic. Well, you're right. There's
nothing sexy about diarrhea. But, every so often, unless you're a romance novel
tycoon, diarrhea happens and sewage exists, and most folks make a living at
street level and get their hands dirty ... and not just their hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But
even people like these can have a transcendent moment, an epiphany of passion
and the erotic. And the grit under their nails might just be the magic dust
that makes it all seem real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Constantia","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Just
sayin'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01197243464390416289noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-80318902350982286582017-03-11T21:13:00.003-05:002017-03-11T21:13:43.358-05:00Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: PENIS, COCK, DICK, MEMBER, ROD, ETC. By M.ChristianIn case you might be wondering what I've been up to lately, check out <a href="http://futureofsex.net/author/m-christian/">this link to the articles I've been doing for the great Future Of Sex site</a>. Other things brewing, but writing about the sexuality of tomorrow has been a blast!<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsflnJNfHO4nVxo95lhyphenhyphenxP8noSaaVCup8fRcknCMUa5ln1ixLgPiq-DLx9qYZMI5TksYS0C-lSRzTJIg8Jo65qBE7NwKSl1HOXnxeowrO0YovWwKhilHjUJVphfJv8FFGuljdnb6dQfw/s1600/Future+Of+Sex+Logo.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsflnJNfHO4nVxo95lhyphenhyphenxP8noSaaVCup8fRcknCMUa5ln1ixLgPiq-DLx9qYZMI5TksYS0C-lSRzTJIg8Jo65qBE7NwKSl1HOXnxeowrO0YovWwKhilHjUJVphfJv8FFGuljdnb6dQfw/s200/Future+Of+Sex+Logo.png" width="200" /></a><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">PENIS, COCK, DICK, MEMBER, ROD, ETC. </span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
Erotic writing isn't any
different than any other form of writing: you still need a plot,
characterization, description, a sense of place, suspension of disbelief, and
so forth. Thinking otherwise will only
put training wheels on your writing, which – believe me – readers and editors
can easily pick up on. If you sit down
and try to write a damned good story, that happens to be about sex or
sexuality, the result will generally be much finer artistically than an attempt
that's just tossed off. The instant you
approach a story as <i>just</i> anything,
you'll demean yourself and the reader. The bottom line is that there really
isn't much of a difference between a great erotic story and any other genre's
great story.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
One difference between
erotica and other genres is that erotica doesn't blink: in just about every
other genre, when sex steps on stage the POV swings to fireplaces, trains
entering tunnels, and the like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other
words, it blinks away from the sexual scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In erotica you don't blink, you don't avoid sexuality; you integrate it
into the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the story you're
telling isn't just the sex scene(s), it's why the sex IS the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something with a bad plot, poor
characterization, lousy setting, or lazy writing and a good sex scene is always
much worse than a damned good story full of interesting characters, a great
sense of place, sparkling writing and a lousy sex scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sex scene(s) can be fixed, but if the
rest – the meat of the story itself – doesn't work, you're only polishing the
saddle on a dead horse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
Aside the lack of blinking,
the other difference erotica and other genres is repetition: a lot of people
preach that it's poor writing to use the same descriptive word too many times
in the same section of writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other
words:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The sun blasted across the desert, scorching scrub and weed into burnt
yellow, turning soft skin to lizard flesh, and metal to rust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outside LAST CHANCE FOR GAS, the radiation of
the explosion had turned once gleaming signs for COCA-COLA and DIESEL into
rust-pimpled ghosts of their former selves.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parked outside LAST CHANCE, there was a rusted pickup collapsed onto
four flat tires, the windshield a sparkling spider web under the hard white
light of the sun's explosion.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
That wasn't terrific, but
the point is – aside from the poor metaphor of the sun as an explosion – the
word <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rust</i> springs up a bit too
much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> bad a description, but having the same word pop up repeatedly
comes off as lazy, unimaginative, or simply dull.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To keep this from happening, many writing
teachers and guides recommend varying the descriptive vocabulary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now you don't need to change rust to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">corrosion</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">decay</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">encrustation</i>
once you've used it once in a story, but if you need to use the same kind of
description in the same paragraph or section, you might want to slip in some
other, perhaps equally evocative, words as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
But let's go onto that
exception for erotica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In smut, we have
a certain list of words that are required for a well-written erotic scene: the
vocabulary of genitalia and sex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you
follow the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don't Ever Repeat</i> rule in
a sex scene, the results are often more hysterical than stimulating.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bob's cock was so hard it was tenting his jeans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He desperately wanted to touch it, but didn't
want to rush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, as he sat there,
the world boiled down to him, what he was watching, and his penis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally, he couldn't take it anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carefully, slowly, he lowered his zipper and
carefully pulled his dick out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike a
lot of his friends, Bob was happy with his member.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was long, but not too long, and had a
nice, fat head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike the rods his
friends rarely described, his pole didn't bend – but was nice and straight.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
It's another bit of
less-than-brilliance, but, hopefully, you'll get the idea: if you follow the
non-repeat commandment, you'll quickly run out of words to describe what the
hell's going on in your story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With
women's anatomy it gets even worse: I've read a lot of amateur stories that go
from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cunt</i> to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pussy</i> to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">quim</i> to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hole</i> to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sex</i> ... somehow turning a down-and-dirty contemporary piece to a
story that should be called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lady Rebecca
and the Highwayman</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
It's more than perfectly
okay to repeat certain words in a story – especially an erotic one – if other
words just won't work, or will give the wrong impression (is there anything
less sexy than using <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hole</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shaft</i>?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My advice is to stick to two or three words that fit the time and style
of the story, then rotate them: cock to dick, pussy to cunt, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some words can also be used if you feel the
story is getting a bit too thin on descriptions<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>– penis, crotch, groin, etc. – but only if kept to a very dull
roar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
One of the best ways to
avoid this problem is to describe parts of the character's anatomy rather than
using a simple, general word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
example, lips, clit, glans, balls, shaft, mons, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only does this give you more flexibility,
but it can also be wonderfully evocative, creating a complex image rather than
a fuzzy impression of the party going on in your characters' pants.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: .2in;">
The bottom line is what
while there is a core similarity between a good erotic story and any other
genre, there are a few important stylistic differences – and, as the old saying
goes: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">viva la difference!</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
</div>
mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-4280336763762120412017-03-11T01:13:00.000-05:002017-03-11T01:13:40.811-05:00Scope/Research/Logic<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
by Daddy X</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ruELrzdKSZsMdsIQ_cFpgKHCwvtWSU2fGbZM8s_FQ80GYEAQEVS_wRVCBrPSiYxMnpYCbvDSj2K8mdFent9RgaKQ_l2w55N9aWCIpqf3eO300_RRWa8QE2uR5laHnSq5oMInDHA2CVwp/s1600/EditingCornerBanner.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ruELrzdKSZsMdsIQ_cFpgKHCwvtWSU2fGbZM8s_FQ80GYEAQEVS_wRVCBrPSiYxMnpYCbvDSj2K8mdFent9RgaKQ_l2w55N9aWCIpqf3eO300_RRWa8QE2uR5laHnSq5oMInDHA2CVwp/s320/EditingCornerBanner.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Scope</i> is a quality
I look for in a read. When I engage with a book, I want more than just the
story. I want to know what the story implies and impacts in a larger sense, how
it relates to fundamental cause and effect.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When our mind wanders, one thought follows another,
establishing a kind of sense to us, a logical progression incorporating our own
experience, knowledge and reason. Problem is, to someone else our so-called
logical progressions may not make sense. Plotting a path of logical thought can
be a quite personal thing. If our reader knows something about a subject, it is
perfectly possible for them to fill in connective blanks supplying their own experience.
But how do we supply just enough <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">correct</i>
information to lead the reader to what they suspect are his/her own conclusions?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps a few examples will more effectively explain this
tie-in of scope and logic:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I read Simon Winchester’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Krakatoa</i>”, a non-fiction work, not only did I learn how big the
explosion was in 1883, how it reckoned to be the loudest noise humans have ever
experienced. I learned that the blast was heard in Australia, all the way from
Indonesia. It affected the skies for years, creating lower worldwide
temperatures. The eruption launched eleven cubic miles of the planet into the
air. I learned that there was no dawn in the area for three days<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I also learned the workings of the geological structure of
the inner earth, below the crust we live on. How currents of molten metamorphic
rock constantly flow in predictable patterns over millions of years. How these
destructive vents we call volcanoes, though devastating in violence, are
actually relief valves, periodically releasing pressure that if not checked,
would result in much bigger cataclysms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I learned that the eruption of Krakatoa could have been
connected to the first known act of Islamic extremism. The notion that the
world was ending made earthly matters no longer relevant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How it all fits together. Logical cause and
effect—backed by history and research.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Winchester does his due diligence. Research, research,
research. In this case, research is certainly an indispensible tool.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another book, this time fiction, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Smilla’s Sense of Snow</i> was a mixed read for me. Popular back in
the 90’s, they made a film (which I didn’t see) of the screenplay. Although I
read it at least twenty years ago, the conflicting impressions are still clear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Smilla's Sense of Snow</i> by Peter Hoeg began as an all-encompassing read.
The first person MC, an immigrant female investigator, is working a murder in
Denmark. While relating her story, the history of her mother’s native land and people
comes alive with facts and anecdotes about the Greenland culture and how they
fare socially when transported to Europe. Her people are described to fit
within the sturdy genetic and cultural stock of our far northern Inuit tribes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Consider the village in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Highbottom Affair</i>”, available in “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Gonzo Collection</i>” for a fuller, more fanciful description of
these people.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those tangential drifts didn’t detract from either the flow
of the story or a reader’s attention. Hell, it was one of those books that one
resents any time <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> spent reading.
The book had <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">scope</i>. Everything
happening on the ground coincided with the MC’s drifts of whimsy. In the first
half.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unfortunately, at one point, the story turned around on its
face. It was as though another writer (a not-too-bright one) had pushed the
author away from the word processor and took over, turning the story into cheap
sci-fi deep-core earth bullshit run-of-the-mill pap.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it sounds like I’m
angry about that—I was. Although I got over it—at the time I felt as though
something had been stolen from me. A stellar read had been bastardized and I still
don’t know why. Maybe they ran out of info? Not enough research to get through
the book? So they piled it all up front and filled in the rest for readers with
a double-digit IQ? Man, was I pissed!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Donna Tartt’s “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Goldfinch</i>”
really did deserve its Pulitzer. Not only was the story wondrously compelling,
her research seemed faultless. Being in the antiques trade, I saw that her impeccable
references to art history and enlightened attention to aesthetics appeared to
represent a tremendous amount of knowledge. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But did it really? Can authors, using selected and sometimes
subtle facts and hints, fake that knowledge? Can we give ‘em a little that seems
like a lot? Give the reader enough so that their own logical thought
progressions will provide veracity? This is fiction, after all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The idea of research is daunting, and for me, not much fun.
Writing is fun. But what constitutes the correct level of inside info to
convince a reader? Yet not get weakened by inaccuracies or omissions? How to
work those subtleties to our advantage as a writer? I know there’s no
substitute for knowledge, but can we fake it in fiction? Is there some fine
line that can be walked? Anybody have a process?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What would one even name that skill? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Daddy Xhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927663248424944119noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-69476441568775267382017-03-06T00:00:00.000-05:002017-03-06T00:00:13.487-05:00Writing Exercise - Six Word Stories
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> by Ashley Lister</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">On Saturday this week, I was lucky enough to attend the
first day of this year’s Eroticon, the conference for writers and bloggers who
work with erotica.</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As always, it was a
wonderful experience. The erotica writing community is one of the most supportive
environments a writer could encounter. Each year, I find the event is akin to
meeting up with my dearest friends.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Whilst there I was delivering a session on plotting erotic
fiction but, before we began, I gave the writers in the room a brief warm-up
exercise.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most of us are familiar with the apocryphal story of
Hemingway writing a six word short story. (For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never
Worn).</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And it was the idea of a six word
short story that I offered to those attendees participating in my session. In
short, I asked them to produce the sexiest short story they could think of in
six words.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I offered some of my own examples to illustrate the point. </span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">*</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Him hard. Her wet. Both satisfied.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">*</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Her: “Harder! Faster!”</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Him: “Tighter! Wetter!”</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">*</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A vampire? He’ll get lucky. Period.</span></i></div>
<br />
<div align="center" style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">*</span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As always, please post your six word stories in the comments
box below.</span><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I look forward to reading
them.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ash</span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-56568359024107617872017-02-28T00:00:00.000-05:002017-02-28T00:00:07.784-05:00Erotic Horror Music - February Is Women In Horror Month<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Elizabeth Black
writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica, erotic romance, horror,
and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son,
and her three cats. Visit her <a href="http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #0000c9;">web site</span></a>, her <a href="https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack"><span style="color: #0000c9;">Facebook</span></a>
page, and her <a href="https://www.amazon.com/author/elizabethblack"><span style="color: #0000c9;">Amazon Author Page</span></a>.</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Her new m/m erotic medical thriller <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Roughing-Elizabeth-Black-ebook/dp/B01E7ZPVFW/">Roughing
It</a> is out! This book is a sexy cross between The X Files, The Andromeda
Strain, and Outbreak. Read her short erotic story Babes in<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017KXN09M/"> Begging For It</a>, published by
Cleis Press. You will also find her new novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-Restraint-Elizabeth-Black-ebook/dp/B01IGHFZI0/">No
Restraint</a> at Amazon. Enjoy a good, sexy read today.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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It's the last day of Women In Horror Month, and I wanted to
talk a bit more about erotic horror like I did in January's post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last month, I talked about eroticism in
horror. This month, I want to talk about setting a proper mood for writing
erotic horror. There is a lot of music out there that lends itself to both the
spooky and the sensuous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn't want
to include the usuals like Mussorgsky's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Night
On Bald Mountain</i> or Bach's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toccata
and Fugue in D Minor</i> since they're a bit overplayed and are very closely
associated with horror, but not erotic horror. There are some classical pieces
that are great accompaniments to writing erotic horror because they are so
majestic.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Stanley Kubrick used Bertok's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adagio from Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta</i> in his hit
movie <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shining</i>. Although The
Shining is obviously not erotic, this music can easily set that kind of mood.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-9LWHEf0VFo" width="460"></iframe><br />
<br />
Back to Kubrick, he used Ligeti's <i>Requiem</i> in his movie <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>. This haunting piece is perfect to set a darker mood for your erotica.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GgqI32JX_jY" width="460"></iframe><br />
<br />
<i>Sally's Song</i> from <i>A Nightmare Before Christmas</i> is a haunting and sad tune that will bring tears to your eyes. So when your hero and heroine are far apart, this is the song to listen to that will gain you access to their hearts.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8rivTGBzBMM" width="460"></iframe><br />
<br />
Lustmord was one of the first dark ambient artists I discovered over 20 years ago. The music is very atmospheric and perfect for setting a dangerous albeit sexy mood. Lustmord's <i>Astronomicon</i> sounds like something Emily Brontë or Daphne du Maurier would have liked. It has a Gothic and sensuous feel to it.
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wi6lBFrhc7g" width="460"></iframe>
<br />
Now for something a bit more melodic. Enigma's <i>The Principles of Lust</i> is perfect for any sexy mood. You'll crack open the flavored lube listening to Enigma. You'll have to go to Youtube to watch and listen to this video.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJ-TLZcS0Es" width="460"></iframe><br />
<br />
Enigma's <i>Sadeness</i> (Marquis de Sade?) is another go-to piece. Here are parts 1 through 3. Same as above - you must watch and listen to this video on Youtube.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MIRfXznFzRY" width="460"></iframe><br />
<br />
Now for something with a bit more bite to it. I can see listening to Lords of Acid while writing action-packed dark vampire erotica. Their album <i>Voodoo U</i> is especially sexy. Here's <i>Special Moments</i>.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iGlwqij21Mk?list=PL955AF93476CB0C5A" width="460"></iframe><br />
<br />
How can you resist a song with a name like <i>Dirty Willy</i>, also by Lords of Acid.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Now that you're in a sinister but sexed up mood, grab a suitable book like Anne Rice's <i>Sleeping Beauty</i> trilogy or Poppy Z. Brite's <i>Exquisite Corpse</i> and give your dark side a treat.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-14979094050241620782017-02-27T12:43:00.001-05:002017-02-27T12:44:23.031-05:00Getting to the Good Partsby Jean Roberta<br />
<br />
The introduction of sex in a work of fiction can feel problematic for several reasons: sex has traditionally been considered “unspeakable,” something that can’t and shouldn’t be described in detail, at least in the social mainstream, and sex is considered an exceptional activity, a form of interaction that is completely different from any other. Of course, sex <i>is</i> different from every other shared activity, but even the most casual hookup is usually preceded by a comment or question (“Looking for a good time, sailor?” “Are you alone?” “Do you come here often?”). <br />
<br />
The challenge for an erotic writer is how to get from here to there. Going beyond conversation to the shedding of clothes usually means shedding certain readers as well. Erotic writers know that some readers won’t read writing about sex, even if these readers actually have sex lives, and even if they bring murder mysteries with them to the beach for “light” reading. <br />
<br />
Besides all this, there still seems to be an amazing amount of confusion about what is sexually acceptable in the real world. I recently had a conversation with my stepson (age 36, and a veteran of several serious heterosexual relationships) when he agreed to drive me to the home of a fellow-volunteer counsellor on the local sexual assault line so I could pass on the satchel that contains a mobile phone for emergency calls. <br />
<br />
Stepson seemed to feel he was under suspicion of various crimes just because he is male. I assured him that I trust him more than I trust most men, having known him since his ninth birthday. <br />
<br />
My assurance apparently didn’t ease his discomfort enough. He told me that when he sees an attractive woman, he wants to have sex with her. I wasn’t sure if he was confessing a sin or defending his male nature against a particularly feminist form of prudery. I told him that wanting sex is fine. (He knows I’m an erotic writer, but this fact often seems to slip from his consciousness.) I explained that wrestling a protesting woman to the ground or putting a drug in her drink to knock her out is not fine; in fact, those activities are crimes. He implied that no sane man would do any of those things, but he still seemed troubled. <br />
<br />
I was aware that a stepmother-stepson relationship is an awkward context for a conversation about sex that is not intended as foreplay. For all practical purposes, I am one of his parents, but we’re not actually related by blood. I still feel as if someone needs to explain the concept of consent to him as thoroughly as possible, but I doubt if I’m the best person to do that.<br />
<br />
I wonder how many other men either feel like criminals because the sight of attractive women excites them, or who feel entitled to do whatever they have to do to overcome most women’s refusal to have immediate (unpaid) sex with strangers—or with men they know too well.<br />
<br />
A fellow erotic writer recently suggested to me that none of us are “politically correct,” which apparently means that scenarios about men using force or deception to have sex with women shouldn’t offend any of us. It’s not as if any erotic writer was ever a young woman who needed a job, and didn’t want to be tricked into a sketchy situation involving non-consensual sex and no pay, with the risk of getting killed. And it’s not as if any erotic writer was ever a woman who wanted human status.<br />
<br />
As I’ve said here earlier, my fantasies about true sexual freedom (without degradation, contempt, or various forms of punishment) take place in an alternative world because I’ve rarely seen it in this one. I can imagine a culture in which it would be perfectly acceptable for a person to approach another person for sex, and perfectly acceptable to accept or refuse. In the case of rejection, the seeker would just continue looking for a playmate. In the absence of sexual hypocrisy, homophobia, or a sexist double standard, the search probably wouldn’t take long.<br />
<br />
In a fantasy novel that I read years ago (sorry I can’t remember the title or the female author), the question “May I offer you anything?” was widely understood to be a proposition, and the answer was often yes. The simple honesty of this form of etiquette appealed to me, and I wished I could visit that imaginary world.<br />
<br />
So in the world we live in, as well as in the stories we write, how do we take two or more sympathetic characters from everyday interactions—in which everyone is fully dressed—to sexual ecstasy? A standard guidebook on sexual etiquette would help. More honesty and empathy in the culture at large would help more. <br />
<br />
What would help the most would be a general understanding that no one is “out of character” when they are out of their clothes. Au contraire. The butcher, the baker and the cabinet-maker want sex is some form, with someone. So do the doctor, the lawyer, the accountant, your child’s kindergarten teacher, and the bag lady pushing a shopping cart. <br />
<br />
I haven’t found a way to segue comfortably from non-sex to sex on the page without feeling as if some part of the narrative doesn’t fit with the rest. As my spouse often says, I want to live on my own planet.<br />
<br />
As long as I am stuck on this one, I will be tempted to describe sex (when I do) in a culture that speaks what is still largely unspeakable here.<br />
----------------------<br />
Jean Robertahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08805088081675965859noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-24055570065791339542017-02-24T00:00:00.000-05:002017-02-24T00:00:26.976-05:00Weird Writer Problemsby Kathleen Bradean<br />
<br />
Have you ever been writing and felt as if the sex scene was going to ruin your story? I have, and was weird, because I'd started out to write erotica. It wasn't one of those other genre stories where I reached a point where the characters were getting turned on and I had to make that decision to follow them or move on to a later scene. This was the point of the story. And yet...<br />
<br />
I've mentioned before that I write in another genre. I made the decision to leave out sex scenes (honestly - because my father wanted to read my work and he wouldn't if there was sex) and find it's difficult to stop myself when it's the natural progression of a scene. I often feel like writing little fanfics of my own work so I can write what I imagine follows rather than let all that lovely sex stay locked in my imagination.<br />
<br />
Why would it be so easy in those stories to scorch the pages when sometimes it's so hard to get into the mood to write the actual sex part of my erotica? I've seen writer burnout in this genre. Few of the writers I "came up" with at ERWA still write. But it feels like it's a different issue than burnout.<br />
<br />
I think - and this may be off base - but it seems to be an issue with the characters. The pair in my series have great chemistry. Even when it isn't about sex with them, it's about sex. I recently reread The Thin Man and it reminded me how fun it is to see a couple that's so deeply into each other. There was no sex on those pages either, but you just knew between the scenes that Nick and Nora Charles were all over each other.<br />
<br />
There's an annual bad sex writing award - which I hate. The whole idea is to laugh at writers - usually big names - who did a terrible job writing sex scenes. In every case, I can sense the dread. The smooth writing becomes awkward. At times it feels as if they wrote everything else around it, maybe using a place keeper *insert sex scene here* then circled back at the end, leaned as far from their computers as they could, wrinkled their noses, turned their heads, painfully sputtered a few words across the page, slammed the computer shut and sent the manuscript off to their editor like it was a used diaper left cooking in the back seat of a car in Atlanta in August.<br />
<br />
Have you ever felt like the sex scene ruined the flow of your story? Have you felt it ruined the flow of the story? How did you fix that?Kathleen Bradeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06347913255760493335noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-43784242059532698482017-02-21T03:00:00.000-05:002017-02-21T03:00:22.798-05:00Let’s Get Real
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfuULUsgveAX0dDiqxuY8wwe0irhz92oZaII91XlW78SiUw3v6VyxGPlk0Lo2JHDWVNS6Ig5b5IjiQn4u-4h1wztjtJefYy2O3YHW_x0xkS2K8t1d25YzBMqpGOF0OV7gjamf4z_N1u7I/s1600/Pixabay_18plus_no-987214_960_720.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfuULUsgveAX0dDiqxuY8wwe0irhz92oZaII91XlW78SiUw3v6VyxGPlk0Lo2JHDWVNS6Ig5b5IjiQn4u-4h1wztjtJefYy2O3YHW_x0xkS2K8t1d25YzBMqpGOF0OV7gjamf4z_N1u7I/s320/Pixabay_18plus_no-987214_960_720.png" width="236" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">By
Lisabet Sarai</span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A
few days ago, I received the welcome news that a short story of mine
had been provisionally accepted into an anthology. The editor wrote:</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I
love your story, but it will need a little bit of amending: we cannot
have any mention of anyone under the age of 18 having sexual thoughts
or masturbating. (I know this is absolutely silly but we are not in a
position to risk it.)”</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Let
me make it clear that this story (which would probably be categorized
as literary erotica) does not feature underage sex. The main
character has an unusual and rather dangerous fetish, which first
appeared after an experience in his mid-teens. The story includes a
flashback in which the protagonist describes those early events and
how they shaped his current, adult sexuality. Like most teens, his
reaction to arousal was to masturbate. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I’m
not going to fight with this editor, first of all because I really
would like to be part of the anthology and secondly because she
recognizes the ridiculous nature of the prohibition. However, this
state of affairs still makes me fume. I mean, let’s get real.
<i>Nobody</i> masturbates more often than teenage boys! And sexual
thoughts? As I recall my high school years, it was pretty difficult
to focus on anything else! </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s
hard for me to understand the logic behind this rule. We’re not
talking about pedophilia here. We’re discussing private sexual
stimulation. Who is being hurt? Why should this be a forbidden topic?
</span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
first time I remember masturbating, I was four. I didn’t have any
idea what I was doing, but I knew it felt good. I had erotic
fantasies in grade school (about being kidnapped at the beach by a
classmate who wanted to pull off my bathing suit). It’s an accepted
scientific fact that children have sexual urges, and that in the
years right after puberty, hormones run rampant. What purpose does it
serve to pretend otherwise?</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Does
anyone still cling to the myth of childhood purity and innocence? </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
fact, fetishes often have their roots in childhood experiences.
Changing my story probably won’t do great violence to its main
points, but it does reduce the authenticity of the tale. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">People
write, and read, erotica for many reasons. As for me, I’m simply
fascinated by sex. My personal motivation in writing is to explore
the way sexuality complicates, illumines and transforms human
existence. I want to realistically portray the experience of desire
and to show its varied impacts on the lives of my characters. If I
can arouse my readers in the process, I’m pleased, but that’s a
side effect rather than my primary goal. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It
become quite difficult to achieve this goal when I’m forced to deny
power and importance of teenage sex. Confusing, scary, wondrous,
indescribably intense</span></span><span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">—</span></span><span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">our
earliest encounters with sex strongly influence our adult fantasies
and needs. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: DejaVu Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyone
who says otherwise is either a liar, or out of touch with reality.</span></span></div>
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</div>
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Lisabet Saraihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-18037803191410753642017-02-19T01:00:00.000-05:002017-02-19T01:00:24.292-05:00Sexy Snippets for February<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin75B-zYVQ3Hk2DAWyXHCoQ7ZjaUdgUry_kLs_R7pfonGtAPpD9OfmAYNupNDY02sg6M4RPtfZvYMr6E9QJhXVtGjoyyc-ouSkD2ysaZxnBYr35vL_KPy1KlGxyX8QWBHIecV6rdnHs1U/s1600/SexySnippetButton2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin75B-zYVQ3Hk2DAWyXHCoQ7ZjaUdgUry_kLs_R7pfonGtAPpD9OfmAYNupNDY02sg6M4RPtfZvYMr6E9QJhXVtGjoyyc-ouSkD2ysaZxnBYr35vL_KPy1KlGxyX8QWBHIecV6rdnHs1U/s1600/SexySnippetButton2.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Greetings, Authors!<br />
<br />
At this point, Valentine's Day is just a sweet, hot memory. However, you can help keep the erotic fires burning through February. Today's the day for sharing your Sexy Snippets. <br />
<br />
The ERWA blog is not primarily intended for author promotion. However,
we've decided we should give our author/members an occasional
opportunity to expose themselves (so to speak) to the reading public.
Hence, we have declared the 19th of every month at the Erotica Readers
and Writers Association blog Sexy Snippet Day.<br />
<br />
On Sexy Snippet day, any author can post a tiny excerpt (200 words or
less) in a comment on the day's post. Include the title from with the
snippet was extracted, your name or pseudonym, and <span style="color: #660000;"><i><b>one</b></i></span> buy link. No extra promo text, please!<br />
<br />
Please post excerpts only from published work (or work that is free for download), <i><b>not works in progress</b></i>. The goal, after all, is to titillate your readers and seduce them into buying your books!<br />
<br />
Feel free to share this with erotic author friends. It's an open invitation!<br />
<br />
Of course I expect you to follow the rules. One snippet per author,
please. If your excerpt is more than 200 words or includes more than one
link, I'll remove your comment and prohibit you from participating
in further Sexy Snippet days. I'll say no more!<br />
<br />
After you've posted your snippet, feel free to share the post as a
whole to Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else you think your readers
hang out.<br />
<br />
Enjoy!<br />
<br />
~ LisabetLisabet Saraihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05162514190572269660noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-72714061514190680422017-02-18T00:30:00.000-05:002017-02-22T10:53:30.137-05:00Abstinence, Condoms, Or Twenty Kids: Male Choices in Our New America<div style="text-align: center;">
by Donna George Storey</div>
<br />
We live in a tumultuous time and few can predict the news each day will bring. However, we can be certain that under a Republican Congress and President and with a Supreme Court that is bound to become more “conservative,” the U.S. government will move to limit its citizens’ access to contraception and sex education.<br />
<br />
When I say citizens, I mean both women <i>and</i> men.<br />
<br />
Yes, <i>men</i> will be intimately affected by limited access to contraception. Why do so few of them seem to understand this?<br />
<br />
Shutting down funding for Planned Parenthood is always presented in terms of its effect on women’s health. Reproductive choice is regarded as a woman’s issue, something that might sway the votes of women, but never men. It’s as if men don’t play a role in pregnancy at all. <br />
<br />
Men may no longer have the luxury of ignoring the fact that they do.<br />
<br />
Let me pause here to say for the record that my argument has nothing to do with abortion, which is about what happens after conception. I’m talking about the access adult men and women have to modern medical technology that will enable them to have sexual intercourse without conceiving a child. <br />
<br />
But seriously, you say, who would take this access to birth control away from us? That would never happen! <br />
<br />
Haven’t you noticed? All kinds of crazy and unimaginable things are happening these days. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately, there are plenty of powerful male politicians who either actually want to take access away--especially from the young and people with low incomes--or who go along without thinking through how it might affect their male voters’ lives. Too many of us take for granted that contraception is part of our right to privacy. Birth control has nothing to do with government control. However, a look back in history shows that our government has zealously denied its citizens access to contraception for a period of over ninety years.<br />
<br />
Before the Comstock Act, a federal law pushed through a tired, distracted Congress in 1873, birth control was legal in the United States. The Comstock Act cleverly prohibited sending any device or information having to do with contraception through the mail. Its pure-minded father, Anthony Comstock, was also appointed as a special agent to the post office to enforce his law, which he did with sanctimonious enthusiasm. He most often targeted small-scale, immigrant-run condom and “womb veil” producers, while letting Goodyear, a wealthy company which manufactured rubber condoms as well as other rubber goods, avoid surveillance and consequences. By the way, the Comstock Act also prohibited sending obscene materials through the mail—including sex toys, pornography and erotica, although the latter was surely not as well-written as erotica authored today!<br />
<br />
The Comstock Act was terminated in 1957--that is, not all that long ago--although in 1936 there was a court ruling, <i>United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries</i> (the best court case name ever!), that the federal government could not prevent a doctor from providing contraception to his patients. In other words, those who were wealthy enough to have enlightened physicians who supported family planning could enjoy the benefits of reproductive technology much earlier than the common man.<br />
<br />
In <i>Griswold v. Connecticut</i>, the Supreme Court decided that the Constitution protected the right of married people to use birth control as late as 1965. Only in 1972 did Eisenstadt v. Baird allow unmarried people the same right. Estelle Griswold was the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut who opened a birth control clinic in New Haven to challenge the state’s lingering Comstock law. William Baird purposely got himself arrested and convicted for handing a condom and package of contraceptive foam to a 19-year-old unmarried woman after a lecture on birth control. We must remember this didn’t just happen. These brave people along with many others (Margaret Sanger and her husband and many more) endured prison and hardship to win us our right to control our reproduction.<br />
<br />
It might be a fight we have to wage once more.<br />
<br />
Indeed some want to turn back the clock to a more idyllic time in America, before all these pushy women had the idea they were equal and wanted to have sex without consequences. I’d like to consider what such a renaissance of old-time values and customs would mean for <i>men</i> who want to have sex today.<br />
<br />
Until the 1920s, when sexual intimacy was first acknowledged as an important part of a married couple’s happiness, an enlightened man would be considerate of wife’s health and abstain from sexual intercourse as much as possible. That was the only universally accepted way to control family size. The desire for sex was a bestial urge, and the civilized man would conceive a few children to help his wife fulfill her womanly nature, then nobly refrain—or visit a prostitute.<br />
<br />
Now some men were not so noble, or inclined to visit prostitutes, and relied on other means to control family size. <br />
<br />
Clelia Mosher’s survey of married women beginning in 1892 revealed that withdrawal was a fairly popular birth control method back when men were men and women wore corsets all the time and not just for fetish reasons. <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/withdrawal-pull-out-method" target="_blank">Planned Parenthood reports</a> that if always done correctly, only 4 in 100 women will become pregnant each year using the withdrawal method. I was told it was a terrible form of birth control, so I’m surprised it’s that good. Of course, the rate climbs to 27 out of 100 if the man is not as conscientious, so it probably is not a great method for teenagers. <br />
<br />
Back in the early twentieth century, many doctors recommended against withdrawal because it would make men weak and mentally infirm. The argument was no doubt self-interested, but most men today would probably agree. The rhythm method was not discovered until 1930. Before that, most physicians thought women were “safe” at the midpoint of their menstrual cycle based on studies of animals. The rhythm method might also be called “limited abstinence” because the couple might have to <a href="http://www.everydayhealth.com/sexual-health/rhythm-method.aspx" target="_blank">abstain as many as ten days of the cycle</a>. If you don’t like sex during menstruation, the period of abstinence will be even longer. <br />
<br />
Is traditional-values living sounding good so far?<br />
<br />
Condoms were the most popular purchased contraceptive back in our glory days. Goodyear rubber condoms were so thick and sturdy they could be washed and reused. If we return to such a way of life, remember that recycling is good for the environment! Latex condoms were invented in the 1920s but men still had to purchase them under the counter in cigar stores, gas stations and saloons. Bellboys usually had a few on hand if you tipped nicely. Again we might ask—who would take condoms from the shelves of CVS? Can we take anything for granted in this crazy twenty-first century world of ours?<br />
<br />
The other option was and is, of course, to have lots and lots of children. If followed to its logical conclusion, a policy which prohibits family planning and sex education means that someone with an active sex life will have twenty children. Since every other man with an active sex life will also have twenty children, that's a lot of babies. And babies don’t die as often as they used to from diphtheria and measles as they did back in the day, although with an anti-vaxxer in the White House, infectious diseases might be great again, too. But let’s figure the world will be really crowded and competitive with all those kids running around. You think it’s hard to get into a good college now?<br />
<br />
So in summary, gentlemen, if you don’t stand up and insist on every citizen’s right to reproductive options to your elected officials in the most vehement terms, you may well be left with the following choices of yore: <br />
<br />
Abstinence <br />
Withdrawal <br />
Rhythm method <br />
Rubbers<br />
Twenty kids<br />
<br />
Then again there is one more option for sexual expression I forgot to mention: read erotic stories with your lover and pleasure each other manually and orally. Save the intercourse strictly for when you want kids.<br />
<br />
Come to think of it, if we’re not slapped with a revival of the Comstock Act, the new era of reproductive restriction might be good business for erotica writers after all.<br />
<br />
Donna George Storey is the author
of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Amorous-Woman-ebook/dp/B0092X2SN8/ref=tmm_kin_title_0"><i>Amorous Woman</i></a> and a collection of short
stories, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mammoth-Erotica-presents-George-ebook/dp/B008G04C46/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342560983&sr=1-1&keywords=best+of+donna+george+storey"><i>Mammoth
Presents the Best of Donna George Storey</i></a>. Learn more about her
work at <a href="http://www.donnageorgestorey.com/">www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com</a>
or <a href="http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor">http://www.facebook.com/DGSauthor</a>
Donnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13615190390845433428noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-56080723797845682672017-02-15T00:30:00.000-05:002017-02-15T00:30:01.238-05:00I have a Crow to Pluck<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I
have a crow to pluck (bone to pick) with James Joyce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Joyce
has been credited with writing the greatest short story of the Twentieth
Century, "The Dead," one of a collection of tales he compiled under
the title, "The Dubliners." "The Dead" is also recognized
as one of the first and best examples of <i>modernist</i>
fiction, when writers began to use characters to look inward into themselves
rather than out at the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Okay,
don't panic, or worse, <i>yawn</i>. I'm not
going to lead you through a class of Modern Fiction .101. It's just, there is
something about "The Dead" that always rubs me wrong, despite that
it's a marvelous story, on its face so simple and yet fraught with wry humor
and symbolism. After many years I recently reread it and, sure enough, it still
leaves me a tad irritated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
story revolves around a social gathering that takes place years before the
Irish rebellion hosted by three spinster ladies who are the queen bees of the
Dublin musical scene. Included in the company are locally known musicians, an
up-and-coming operatic tenor, an Irish nationalist and a token Protestant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
master of ceremonies is the nephew of two of the ladies, and cousin to the
other, Gabriel Conroy. Gabriel is portrayed as a nice enough guy by Joyce, but
a bit of a stuffed shirt, a music critic who feels his education and world outlook
elevate him intellectually several notches above the rest of the company. He
frets his speech/toast that he has prepared for the evening will go over their
heads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">By
the end of the story, Joyce arranges to have the wind taken out of Gabriel's
sails, his ego deflated and his sense of place in the world utterly unmoored,
and in a way equally poignant and, I think, cruel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Gabriel
is in a static, lackluster marriage with Gretta, a simple girl from the West of
Ireland, with whom he shared – he thought – an exuberant, lustful courting and
nascent wedlock, until children came along and ambition became his main focus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Before
the party ends, he catches sight of Gretta at the top of a stairway, stock
still, in what he sees as a classic pose, such as a goddess rendered in a Greek
sculpture. She is rapt, listening to the tenor's rendition of a popular Irish
ballad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
vision ignites in Gabriel a long dormant passion. He wants nothing more than to
hurry her to the hotel room he's booked for the evening, a night away from home
and the kids. His heart swells with memories of the romance he experienced with
Gretta in their youth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Later,
in their room, he's watching her undress, and it's all he can do to keep
himself from pouncing on her. He makes his overture, but he is rejected. She
just can't ... she's too upset. The song that had so enraptured her was one a
young boy from her girlhood used to sing to her. His name was Michael and, she
sobs, he died out of love for her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Gabriel
is at once amazed and angry. Gretta has never once told him of her previous
relationship. He begins to interrogate her and she explains that Michael was a
"delicate" young man, a euphemism for tuberculin. The night before
she was to leave her home in Galway to move to Dublin, she found him standing
outside her yard in the pouring rain. A week later, in Dublin, she learned he
had died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Gretta
then cries herself to sleep, leaving her husband alone to contemplate life and
his place in it. An epiphany shatters his illusions about himself and life. He
realizes he has never inflamed the passions of Gretta, nor any woman, as the
dead Michael had. He finds himself envying the sickly young fellow now long
dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Despite
Gabriel's shortcomings, his arrogance is a mild sort. He's not a bad guy. In
the moments before his wife's revelation, he was bursting with love and lust
for her, only to have that proverbial bucket of ice water poured over his
ardor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Joyce
uses Gabriel's story as a metaphor for Ireland at the time. He was impatient
for his homeland to get on with modernizing, but it was held back by quaint
tradition and notions. It seems contradictory then, that he uses Gabriel, who
looks outside of Ireland, for example taking his holidays on the continent.
Still, he's also in a sort of stasis, benighted by notions of class and culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But,
those are the greater themes. I'm not so much affected by what he is supposed
to stand for, than as a sympathetic character who has just had his heart broken
to pieces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">And
perhaps that has always been the problem I've had with <i>great literature.</i> The BIG IDEAS never mattered as much as the small
and very human characters who make their way between them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "constantia" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01197243464390416289noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-26167104770322636732017-02-11T08:44:00.000-05:002017-02-12T07:59:26.801-05:00Slipping in the humour...<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdj02s8QnANEKHXbZ4XW5qa2EZOaI55UDsb_1geMq2WUjUpbzQDAlSD3pOsPsbHepEZUg3q-OotE89KEJraAMr-RrZrCSc4LEOylmOYjYFp0Dzz3IXr-xcFEbVx-eMBGN9nAlN9XrBeyk/s1600/EditingCornerBanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdj02s8QnANEKHXbZ4XW5qa2EZOaI55UDsb_1geMq2WUjUpbzQDAlSD3pOsPsbHepEZUg3q-OotE89KEJraAMr-RrZrCSc4LEOylmOYjYFp0Dzz3IXr-xcFEbVx-eMBGN9nAlN9XrBeyk/s320/EditingCornerBanner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><b>By Sam Thorne, ERWA Editor</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">As an
editor, the strangest request I’ve ever had from a prospective author was ‘can
you make this funny, please?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">That’s all
they wanted (other than a proof of the existing story). This chap had sent his
85k words of beautifully-composed gloom to a publisher who loved the story and
the premise, but wanted him to lighten things up in parts so that the true
gloom glowed. Yes, I know that sounds like a total contradiction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">I have to
admit—it was the most intimidating job I’ve ever taken on. Black humour takes
many forms so there were plenty of tools to apply to the job, but returning
this supposedly FUNNY manuscript to the writer gave me separation anxiety. Pressing
‘send’ from my gmail account was akin to wobbling my way onto a stage on
stand-up night and hoping I didn’t squeak into the microphone. Happily, the
author loved the little touches added to his MS, but as it transpired, he was
given a publication offer from an editor who was a fan of his original grim and
loveless offering. That’s not meant as an insult, incidentally—it’s how he
described his own writing (with pride!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">That was
many years ago. Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time reading books about how to
write comedy (none of which were particularly helpful), and looking
forensically at the forms of humour across a range of novels, coffee-table
collections, and TV programmes. This is not a hilarious business, I can tell
you. To paraphrase Jimmy Carr (co-author of the fantastic book ‘The Naked Jape’),
examining a joke or script is like dissecting a frog; by the time you’ve got to
the bottom of what made it tick—note the past tense—nobody’s laughing and the
frog has died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">So, before I
get into the meat of this article, I’d like to post a disclaimer. You are
unlikely to titter, guffaw, or snigger at any point. I'm just talking about tools you can use.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most
intimidating aspect of creating humour is that humour is totally subjective. Of course it is. Whether or not your witticisms will elicit a grin in your reader depends on a few
factors:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Their life
experience and prejudices</li>
<li>Their mood</li>
<li>Their
natural tendency towards schadenfreude (the laughter reaction at someone else’s
expense) vs their preference for kindness</li>
<li>Their sense
of enjoying the ridiculous.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Different
people are tickled by different things, so it may help, as a starting point, to
associate different types of humour with different beasts:<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><u>The elephant</u><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The elephant
is king of the farce. It’s situational humour brought about by characters with
entirely conflicting goals. Most sitcoms largely fit into this category. But
wait! Some sitcoms are considered to be lacking in substance, while others give
the impression of being up-beat and edgy. Why? Because the situations depicted
are those that the audience strongly relate to, which brings us to… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><u>The owl</u><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The owl is
the wise one, who’s seen everything and has the worldly knowledge. People
grinning at an episode of ‘Modern Family’ quite often do so because of the distinct
feeling of connection. The owl has been there, done that, and worn the tee shirt.
The owl is all about observational humour. The owl is the representative for a
huge branch of stand-up comedy. Yet, even if the situations discussed in a
monologue have the potential to make you laugh, whether you do so or not
depends on the delivery. Not everyone enjoys an observation which is harsh or
close to the knuckle. Which brings me to…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><u>The snake</u><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The snake is
the overlord of deliberately cutting humour. Schadenfreude belongs here, as
does the razor-sharp quip, clever word-play and black humour. The snake represents
one-liners, the put-down you wish you’d used while engaged in an argument. Stand-up
comedians with an abrasive edge belong here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Primary
enjoyment of snake humour doesn’t mean you have a dark soul—perhaps you simply effective
sarcasm, or a twist on a cliché: <i>I don’t
have much shame; I have to ration it.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="line-height: 107%;"><u>The bat</u><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The bat is
the creature of the zany. Think groan-humour. Think total surreality or
incongruity. Monty Python’s sketches (and The Holy Grail) largely belong in
this category, as does Airplane, the Naked Gun series, and so on. Stand-up
comedians who fire off a hundred puns in ten minutes fall into this category. If
the majority of your chuckles are generated from bat humour, then you have a
very strong sense of the ridiculous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Classifying
humour sources in this way goes a long way to showing why<i> </i>humour is so subjective, and why some comedy series or films do
better than others—because they combine the beasts so well. Breaking Bad has a
situational concept (elephant), with a strong snake edge. Blackadder (which
remains one of the most successful British series of all time) combines all
four. I’m sure you can think of a few stand-up comedians who blend owl and
snake to perfect effect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Hopefully
all this provides a framework for understanding what tickles you, and why. You
might want to keep this guide at hand for a few weeks while you’re reading or
watching films or TV. Get to know <i>your</i>
sense of humour. Make friends with it. Hell, give it a name, even. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">So, in terms
of conveying your sense of fun on the page, what tools do you have? Within
dialogue, you have quite a selection:<u> <o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">* <b>understatement </b>(most prevalent in Brit,
Aussie or NZ humour)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">* <b>sarcasm and exaggeration </b>(good for
snake or bat humour, depending on tone).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">* <b>indignation </b>(arises naturally from
elephant humour, empathy deriving from owl humour).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Humour within
dialogue works best when your characters have very conflicting goals. This in
itself will guide the intonation in your characters’ speech, doing half the job
for you. If you've heard a good one-liner you want to use, build your scene around it. Create the context in which this is said. </span>In constructing
a scene where you want your characters’ banter to work well:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>keep dialogue tags to a minimum. The faster the conversational flow, the better.</li>
<li>let the punctuation
create intonation and tone of voice as far as possible.</li>
<li>Play it
straight. Have your MC laugh at other characters’ lines by all means, but limit
the number of times that another character falls about laughing at your MC’s
wit. If that’s going to happen, <i>let the
reader do it</i>. However, if your MC gets into a pickle, there’s no problem
with other characters having a laugh at their expense.</li>
<li>If you’re
writing omnisciently, or writing memoir-style in the first person, you can get
away with a far more visible narrator. In which case, you can apply the principle
of <b>contrast</b> to your speech tags:</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="line-height: 107%;">“He’d look wonderful in a harness.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="line-height: 107%;">“Or a headlock,” I offered, marching
away before Stella could give me the be-nice-to-Dan speech. </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Some of the most
memorable and effective comic moments come from the laugh generated by
surprise. Without <u>actively trying to be funny</u> or consciously writing
lively banter, you’ll find that you’ll get a lot of mileage out of the concept
of <b>incongruity. </b>It’s hands-down the
easiest tool to use to create that note of levity in your work, whether you’re simply
to lighten the mood after a tense scene, or creating a bit-part personality to
bring the best (or worst) out of your main character.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">The trick is
to present a very strange situation or personality with a totally straight face. </span>The incongruity principle covers diversions from the expected such as:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>an unexpected
foe: like the hard man who’s reduced to impotent, furious, tooth-grinding
compliance by his formidable four-foot-tall grandmother. The foe could be
internal, too. Imagine being a real estate agent with claustrophobia. It’s not
good if you have to ask your clients to walk themselves around the property…</li>
<li>a
stereotype smashed to pieces: like the nonagenarian who’s hysterical at the thought
of going into a nursing home because they might not let him take his X-box. Or perhaps
the bloke who’s really shy at work but who gets arrested for public indecency…</li>
<li>an incongruous
partnership: this is where the best bromances are born. The reader should be
intrigued to find what two such totally different people could possibly have in
common. Perhaps the brutish, widowed, aloof personal trainer develops a soft
spot for the teacher at his son’s school, who’s about half his size and a
nervous wreck. However, they bond in mutual indignation when someone parks in the
disabled space…</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">So – how to
use all this information?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%; text-indent: -18pt;">Write down things that annoy you. Groups
of people who annoy you. Can you get any mileage out of making them opponents
to your characters? Even if only as part of a scene to bring out your main
character’s timidity / wit / annoyance / eloquence / indignant speechlessness?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="line-height: 107%; text-indent: -18pt;">Conversely, if a friend makes you crack up
laughing, think what you were talking about. A situation? A mutual acquaintance
struggling with a situation? Did they crack an awesome one-liner? If so, borrow
semi-shamelessly (in other words, ask first).</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 107%;">Yes, humour
is subjective. It’s dependent upon delivery, context, timing and audience. But once
you’re on speaking terms with your own funny bone, your inspiration for
creating grin-worthy prose will increase tenfold.<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Tighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08201951133464625185noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7396437919069310850.post-15746166609845440192017-02-10T18:26:00.004-05:002017-02-10T18:26:50.998-05:00Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Thinking Beyond SexIn case you might be wondering what I've been up to lately, check out <a href="http://futureofsex.net/author/m-christian/">this link to the articles I've been doing for the great Future Of Sex site</a>. Other things brewing, but writing about the sexuality of tomorrow has been a blast!<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsflnJNfHO4nVxo95lhyphenhyphenxP8noSaaVCup8fRcknCMUa5ln1ixLgPiq-DLx9qYZMI5TksYS0C-lSRzTJIg8Jo65qBE7NwKSl1HOXnxeowrO0YovWwKhilHjUJVphfJv8FFGuljdnb6dQfw/s1600/Future+Of+Sex+Logo.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsflnJNfHO4nVxo95lhyphenhyphenxP8noSaaVCup8fRcknCMUa5ln1ixLgPiq-DLx9qYZMI5TksYS0C-lSRzTJIg8Jo65qBE7NwKSl1HOXnxeowrO0YovWwKhilHjUJVphfJv8FFGuljdnb6dQfw/s200/Future+Of+Sex+Logo.png" width="200" /></a><br />
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Thinking Beyond Sex</span></i></b><br />
<br />
<div class="page" title="Page 158">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Say you've written an erotica book. What's more, it's a quality
erotica book, which is to say that it isn't just about positions,
sensations, steamy looks, and lingerie. It has an engaging setting,
multidimensional characters, and a plot. It's well written and seeks to
do more than turn the reader on. Hurray, and congratulations! I've
said it before, but it certainly bears repeating: this is an incredible feat.
There are very few people in this world that could have done what
you've done. Take a moment to luxuriate in your success.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Done luxuriating? Good. Now you've sent your book out and
congratulations (part two), you've managed to find a publisher for
your novel—this is no mean feat, especially these days. So now
you've written a book, you've sold a book, and soon it's going to be for
sale.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Now is the time you must do something very important, and it may
surprise you, given the genre in which your book is written.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Don't. Think. About. Sex.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">I know, I know—a bit weird, right? After all, you've written an
erotica book. So it seems more than natural that you'd want to reach
out to sexy, kinky, smutty, erotica venues—and well, you should. But
after you do that, you should really try and reach out to places a bit
more ... tangential.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Let me explain: erotica is a fine and dandy genre (I'm not
disparaging it), but it's also a bit limiting. In erotica, your book is one
of dozens, and every last one of them is clamoring to be the center of
attention. Sure, yours is different—for whatever reason—but in the
erotica world, your book is common first, and special second.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Let's say, for example, that your book is about a soldier during
World War II. So why aren't you thinking about your book being a
World War II book? Sure, you know you wrote it as erotica, and
that's certainly essential to the book's allure, but its more than that,
see? Try reaching out to soldier sites and World War II sites (and
authors, forums, and such). Sure, there's a damn good chance your
emails and announcements will be ignored, but if someone does </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">respond then your book will really stand out: a World War II book—
but an EROTICA one. Wow! Unique! Different!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">In fact, I'll bet if you really looked at your book, you could find
several places to branch off. Is it a love story? Then it could be
romance. Is there a mystery involved? Then it could be—well, you
get the idea.
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<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Here's an important detail. You should absolutely tweak your
announcements in a way to reach these different audiences. Instead of
"erotic" and "explicit," try "sensual" and "stirring"—play up your
book's connection to their world: </span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRoman,Italic';">a sensual tale of a love and
intimacy set in the latter days of World War II </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">... that kind of thing.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Yeah, I know that sounds like another bit of Madison Avenue
trickery, but keep in mind that for many people, the whole idea of a
book with any kind of sexual content is a brain turn-off. You have to
get them to see your book more broadly—as a bona fide story, rather
than merely a sexual tale. The only way to do that sometimes is to
squeak it in under their radar. No, I'm not saying you should lie, but
what I am saying is this: why get the door shut in your face before
you've even had a chance to say one word about your cherished
novel?
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<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">Thinking of yourself as an erotica writer and your work as nothing
but erotica will limit you as well as your publicity opportunities.
Look beyond that simple label, and so will readers. You know your
book is more than </span><span style="font-family: 'TimesNewRoman,Italic';">Dick In Jane</span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">; you know there's something special
about it—so why not use that uniqueness to open a whole new world
for both you and your works? Not only will this outlook give you a
possible new audience, but you'd be shocked by the number of
connections that also could emerge from stepping into other genres
and interests. Someone who never would have dreamed of reading
so-called smut suddenly has their eyes opened—by you, with your
wonderful book.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: TimesNewRoman;">So try and use the imagination you've developed in your writing to
expand more than just your storytelling: try expanding on other
possible places for exposure—and other possible places for you to
grow and develop as a writer. </span></div>
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mchristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11887406428164757014noreply@blogger.com1