:: teaser tuesday - Willa Arch and the King Errant ::

There are very few people I hate in this world but when it comes to Imperials and Spaniards I make an exception. -- Willa Arch and the King Errant

:: it's personal ::

Most of the time writing erotica is fun. I get to daydream about attractive and appealing characters who fall in love or fall in lust, then have hot sex. What's not to love?

But writing about sex, even when writing about a character – someone outside myself – who is doing things and saying things I wouldn't or couldn't, is very intimate. Maybe it's because sex itself is such an intimate act. Maybe it's because in order to make a scene work I have to put myself in the characters place, even if only for a few minutes.

That's when writing erotica becomes less fun.

That little voice in the back of my head starts muttering how someone I know will read this and even if strangers read it they'll judge me and think I'm a whore or a tramp or repressed and projecting unnatural appetites into the fictional world as some means of achieving vicarious satisfaction for an unhappy sex life in the real world.

It whispers that I don't have the experience to write about this kind of thing.

It tells me I'm vanilla.

It tells me I'm perverse.

It tells me I suck.

It's difficult to separate what I write from myself, sometimes. Because no matter how different my characters are from me, no matter how far removed their world is from mine, if I'm writing their story well there are a few seconds where I feel what they feel as if it is me. That's scary. That's what makes it difficult to ignore the voice that wants me to censor what I write.

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I cut things out or change the way a character acts or what they want because it quiets that prude sitting in the back of my head judging every word I write.

Then, my writing suffers.

The only way to write anything – erotica, horror, fantasy, chick-lit, mystery, whatever – is to do it honestly. Even when it is uncomfortable. Even when it is personal.

Otherwise it's just words.

:: teaser tuesday - The Cupid Booth ::

“I don't want your money.” She sounded cross.

“But on the air-ship...” Ellery paused, considering the wisdom of bringing up her occupation.

“Yes. I'm a thief. But I steal because I'm good at it, not because I'm desperate.”

“The fact remains that I owe you my life. At least twice over.” He straightened as best he could without dislodging them both from the horse. “I am a man who stands by his debts and I would pay you back for all that you have done for me. With money. Or goods. Or whatever you ask.”

Jo shifted, looking over her shoulder at him. “Whatever I ask.”

“Well, whatever you ask that I am capable of granting.”

“If I were to ask you to kiss me...”

“That would be inappropriate.”

“Why?”

“We are barely less than strangers. And it would be ungentlemanly of me to take advantage of our situation in that fashion.”

“Ungentlemanly.” She chuckled. “I guess we'll just have to leave it, then, 'cause I don't want your money.”

They rode in silence for a moment or two. Ellery wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His heart was hammering fast in his chest and his palms were suddenly clammy. He had to admit the thought of kissing Jo was enticing.

“Is that what you wanted? To ask me for a... kiss?” His voice cracked on the word and he cleared his throat as though he had gotten a wuft of dust in his face.

Jo shrugged. “Actually, I was thinking of things far more intimate.”

:: oh. you write porn. ::

I don't tell many of my friends I write erotica. Not because I'm embarrassed about it, but all too frequently the response is “Oh. So you're writing porn.”

It's true that written pornography and erotica have a lot in common. In fact, so much so that if you try and get a solid definition of what makes one different from the other you will find as many answers as there are people with opinions.

One thing that everyone seems to agree on is that there is a difference.

Everyone except those aforementioned acquaintances who believe erotica = porn. They are entitled to their opinion and I have no judgment for those who feel that way. I have found, though, that those who lump erotica and porn into one messy (and usually distasteful) package neither read nor enjoy either.

You notice I continue to distinguish the one from the other. Perhaps that's just my conservative upbringing trying to put a respectable slant on something many still consider taboo. But to me there is a difference.

Porn is a wonderful thing. It's raunchy. It's hot. It doesn't bother with story or language or style. It is straightforward and to the point, and that point is sex. Porn reminds me of a guy I knew in college. One night I ran into him at a little restaurant bar turned nighttime dance club. He approached me on the miniscule dance floor and opened the conversation with “My girlfriend and I broke up last week and I'm really lonely.”

Erotica, on the other hand, is more like a secret crush. The one that catches your attention with a laugh; the one you tell your friends is totally “not your type” but makes you wobbly around the knees when you bump into him on the street. Erotica is the guy you don't even realize you're falling in love with until one day you head home after getting a cup of coffee together and inside you feel like you've lost something by leaving him behind. Erotica is the heartache of a fight that turns bitter and cruel, the drama of the unexpected and the vulnerability of loving someone because of their faults and not in spite of them.

In short, porn is a one night stand; quick, hot and fun while it lasts, but by morning the thrill is gone.

Erotica is life. With more sex.

:: teaser tuesday - Miller ::

Vivienne wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. Her lips were full and warm and her tongue, slipping ever so coyly into his mouth, tasted of wine and the golden smell of late summer wheat. Without thinking about it, he put his hands on her bottom, shivering a little as he cupped the smooth curve of it. Through his shirt he could feel the hard pressure of her nipples, the softer weight of her breasts and it left him gasping for breath.

- The Weird Ones

:: the long wait ::

I struggle with the submission game. You're probably familiar with it, too.

You work on something for a few weeks or months or (maybe even) years; you research publishers and what they say they want and who's paying the best money; you polish and tweak and tear hair out trying to make your story the best it can be and, finally, you send it off.

Then you wait. That's the part everyone hates. We hate it more than editing. More than "condomizing" a story that was just fine without but isn't considered PC or socially responsible without those little latex sleeves crammed into the middle of the story. More than trying to meet a deadline that snuck up on us. We hate the waiting.

The nervous game of "Will they like it?" and "If they don't will they even bother to tell me why?" that distracts us from the work at hand which should be writing. Instead we waste time worrying because it's been three months already and not one peep.

We know that editors and agents are busy people. The stack of slush on their desks is enormous. We know that they will get back to us as soon as they have a chance.

But the waiting still sucks.