Erotica Hobbyist

I am going through like my seventeenth childhood recently. I used to play various tabletop wargames and I recently got the bug to play/invest/paint some spaceship miniatures. This has led to me to dozens of hobby blogs and message boards.

Quite a few of these hobbyists talk about the fact that they may buy rulebooks, miniatures, paints but nnot actually ever use them because they have no one to play these games with. That doesn't stop them from purchasing things because the next best thing to playing is the collecting and reading. In fact, these non-players make up a large part of the consumer base.

Which got me thinking about erotica. While there is an immediate release that can be derived from porn through masturbation, I find myself watching, buying and collecting porn that I don't technically use in the masturbation sense. I collect porn art because I think it is pretty. Or maybe I buy it because it has a gimmick that appeals to me on a mental level. Or maybe I buy it because it's very existence is arousing. But am I buying porn to aid in masturbation? Not really.

In fact, I would say quite a bit of my porn falls into a collector's interest. I have a X-rated parody of Friday the 13th simply because I am appalled/fascinated by the Friday the 13th franchise. I have quite a few bad porn books from the 90's just because I thought it would be cute to collect one particular cover model. I have stuff just because it is weird. I have some stuff just because I wonder if they were as good or bad as I thought they would be.

And then again, I have quite a bit of porn because it is fucking sexy. And yes, I do have some porn just because I do like masturbation aids. I guess in that sense, I am a hobbyist lucky enough to get to play.

All of this has got me thinking if maybe we should approach sex blogs in a different manner. I would wager that most sex bloggers are not banging a hundred different people each year, and although the may want to, the reality is not very conducive. Most sex bloggers are sex hobbyists. We like sex. We like talking about it. We like looking at it. We like reading it. We would like to do it, but the frequency of our activity shouldn't define our level of interest. We are fans. We are creators and consumers or erotica.

Erotica is our hobby.

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

I have been asked by Bird’s Nest Soup to participate in a Blog Hop where I discuss my next book and talk a little about the process. This came at a fortunate time as my buffer of short stories is almost gone and I could use something else to talk about. Also, every time I tell people the subject of my book, they hate it, but once they read it, they love it. Maybe this little behind the scenes will encourage you to give the book a try.

1. What is the working title of your book?

I went with “My Teacher, My Slave” because I am a firm believer in letting people know what is going on by title alone.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

An e-publishing company announced that they wanted to do porn that was reminiscent of the sleazier porn of the 60’s and 70’s but well written. I was intrigued by the idea of taking a trashy premise and elevating it.

For my trashy idea, I didn’t go to sleazy paperbacks. I went to an even sleazier place, the usenet erotica groups where I got my start. Specifically, when I first started reading usenet smut, the most popular subject by far was the domination of teachers by students.

The premise goes like this. A student blackmails a teacher. The teacher does slutty things for the student. The student escalates their demands until the story collapses under the weight of depravity and stupidity. The stories are almost never finished because the writer runs out of awful things to inflict on the teacher.

So, that is my awful inspiration that I hoped to make a good story out of.

3. What genre does your book come under?

I would say Domination/Submission with a touch of young adult angst. This is the story of a young man who has been taught my his father to be a dominant since, well, since way too young. The man is a wunderkind of domination and he is seducing his teacher to be his submissive. He might be a genius of domination but he is also a young man which means he gets a bit melodramatic as young people often do.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

My brain is incapable of answering this question. I describe my characters in broad strokes. Physically their appearance doesn’t mean as much to me as their character. I also find that when it comes to sex, I rather be as inclusive as possible.

For example, the teacher in this story is busty and wears glasses. For the reader, that could be anyone from Scarlett Johannson to Melissa McCarthy and that is the way I like it.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Eighteen year old specially trained dominant male sets his sight on his submissive history teacher.

6. Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher,
or represented by an agency?

The company that inspired me to do this story decided they wanted to do short story collections instead. That freed me up to self-publish it.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

This one pretty much wrote itself and it took less than a week. That is the upside to writing a story in a genre you despise. You know how to fix it and you know exactly what you want.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

You know, I kind of try not to write in my own genre. I would say this story is closer to ‘Parker Lewis Can’t Lose’, a little ‘Bourne Identity’ with spanking and sex.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My biggest problem with Student-Dominates-Teacher stories is that my real life experiences have taught me that you need a lot of practice and play to really know how to dominate someone. To fix that, I drew on movies like “Hannah” and Doc Savage stories for the concept of the really obsessive father figure who trains their child relentlessly. My parents never had an interest in anything I did so maybe that is what I am so attracted to overbearing parental figures who train their kids instead of letting them be kids.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

This is a story told from a rather unique dominant male. I don’t see many stories told from the point of view of dominants and I sure as heck have never read a story about a dominant who practiced spanking his stuffed animals when he was old enough to swing a stick.

Since this is a blog hop I would like to suggest the following two writers.

Daisy Danger who is working on a really great idea of a book so she should tell you about it.

Joe Tortuga writes a little of everything and all of it great.

Appendix X

I have been doing some research lately in several different genres.  When I explore a new genre that I am unfamiliar with, it usually doesn’t take long before I find a list of recommended source materials.  Usually these are book or movies that are either held up as a superb example of the genre, or as something that might not be known to the masses but are influential on the people who create this genre work.

You don’t see a lot of that when it comes to erotica.  This has been bugging me lately.  I think of first time erotica writers and it would be nice if I had a list of books they could read so that they could get a better grasp on the genre.  If zombie fiction, apocalypse fiction and spy fiction has a list, why can’t erotica?

I think before we create such a list, we have to create some standards.  Most lists of classic erotica books include the most famous erotica books like Fanny Hill or Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  The problem with this approach is often the most famous erotica books are famous not because they were good, but because they were banned.  They went to court.  They had big public battles.  They didn’t necessarily have to be good.

I say this not to diminish such classics like Fanny Hill but merely to point out that sexuality is a fluid changing thing.  Fanny Hill can mention in passing that sex happened and it was scandalous for its time period.  I clearly remember missing a sex scene because the abundant euphemisms completely bypassed my reading comprehension.  Maybe the problem was that I was too stupid to enjoy Fanny Hill but I suspect the real problem is that the style was just too old for me.

So if we toss out the classics that are famous for being famous, what real standard can we apply?  Quality seems like an easy choice but erotica is a fickle bitch.  Readers always disagree on which books are better than others but because erotica depends on sexuality, it is even more influenced by personal tastes.  What is exciting and interesting to one reader might seem ludicrous or down right offensive to others.  That doesn’t take into account that BDSM is a different beast from slut stories which are utterly different from romance porn.

At this point you have to fall back on just picking erotica that is well written.  Good luck with deciding that subjectively.

An even uglier thing to consider is just how freaking huge erotica is.  Thousands of books have been published and many of those were printed on a smaller run than most mainstream books.  “My Wife the Golf Slut” might be the greatest erotica book of 1982 but if it was only released to dirty bookstores in the Midwest; odds are most readers will never encounter it.

That is only considering printed works.  The internet has been steadily pumping out erotica since I believe the 2nd day that the internet was in operation.  I would not be exaggerating to say that there likely millions of erotica stories out there at this moment.

What the fuck to do?  You want to list erotica that is either really good and lets a writer see the genre at the best of its form, and you want to include erotica that serves as almost a blueprint for aspiring writers to understand.  You need a list that is not only a “best-of” but is instead a “this is how it is done”.  You need books that inspire writers to write their own tale.

Such an undertaking sounds like a pain in the ass to me.  Therefore I plan to make it my goal for 2013. 

I think I will need to create another blog that is solely dedicated to this concept.  I will call it Appendix X.  I think I need a target number, like say ten prime stories that capture what you can do with erotica.  Oh man, the hubris of typing that last sentence is overwhelming.  Who am I to judge the best stories that exemplify erotica? 

Oh wait, I’m a reader and a writer.  Also, if people disagree, then they are free to disagree.  Dialogue makes anything better.  A blog will help make it a true group effort.

This is going to be a really big pain in the ass

Play With This:Secret Societies

I had a friend who had a very geeky daughter.  This tiny tot devoured Tolkien, Harry Potter and anything else she could get her hands on.  She was like barely 9 if I remember correctly and she had already decided that kids her age at her school were useless.  She wasn’t depressed though.  She was patiently waiting for her invitation to Hogwarts to be delivered.  The parent often confessed to me that even though he told her that Hogwarts didn’t exist, she merely accepted his denials as a test of her faith.

As sad as that story is, the kid has a point.  Real life is way too boring.  There just has to be a place where people just as interesting as her exist.  She just hadn’t found it yet.

Which brings us to erotica.  Current fads aside, often the regular society that surrounds us is not nearly as interesting as the people who read erotica.  The average reader has to feel this same sort of longing.  If only they could get an invitation to where all the other dirty people hang out.  

As all erotica writers know, desire is the most inspiration for writing.  We should be creating these secret societies and we should be taking advantage of that longing for an invitation. 

What kind of secret society is it?  It doesn’t have to be a place of learning like Hogwarts, although sex schools appeal to a large number of readers.  The secret society can be dedicated to goals as lofty as bringing sexual freedom to their members to goals as simple as getting its members laid.  The underlying theme I think is most important is that whatever the goal is, it coincides with the secret wishes of the character that receives the invitation.   Few things are more euphoric than finding out yes, other people like the same perverse things that you do.  Society at large may not approve of you and your sick ways, but your secret society does.

Secret societies is a term that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.  Shit, the Klu Klux Klan is a secret society and who wants to be like those assholes?  It usually evokes images of the Templars, or bad History Channel specials.  But you know who else was a secret society?  The Underground Railroad.   You know who else is a secret society?  A BDSM club in most states.  They do not want their names known. 

Just because a group is organized and secretive doesn’t make them evil assholes who want to take over the world.  It could mean they just don’t want anyone noticing who they are fucking.

Here are three examples of possible Secret Societies for your writing.

The Happy Housewives Club – Being a stay at home housewife can be terribly boring unless you join this Club.  Their goal is simple; let their husbands enjoy all that work stress and social climbing while the housewives get fucking laid.  Most of the housewives fuck each other, engaging in complex lesbian games that would blow the minds of their vanilla husbands.   The Club usually invites new members with a neighborhood house warming party that involves casseroles, local coupons and strap-ons.

The Secret Society of Submissive Sluts – Sometimes a submissive decides that fuck it, they are not in the mood to date and they just want to get dominated with no string attached.  Or maybe these submissives want to be owned for the weekend by someone who doesn’t want to psychoanalyze them.  Or maybe they are just horny and once a week, they call the S.S.S.S. and take the plunge.

Whatever the reason, this society is something of a placement agency.  They put the sluts in a challenging environment with no long term commitments.  The society itself becomes the dominant. 

The League of Sex Bloggers – You don’t think sex bloggers just make all that shit up do you?  Of course not.   Founded by Anais Nin, the League hopes to sponsor sexy writers so that the world is always supplied with new porn.  To aid in this, the League sends struggling writers on expeditions to sexy places.  They give sex bloggers new sex toys and strange artifacts from a sexier time.  In desperate situations, they even provide sex bloggers with alluring sexual partners to inspire them.

The membership fees however, are brutal.

Play With This: Mr. Fix

In the world of fiction, sometimes characters run into problems that they can’t solve by themselves.  In the crime fiction world, sometimes they need to hide a body or maybe turn someone into a body.  Or in the spy fiction world, they need to scrub someone’s identity or create a new one.  The key is that sometimes there are problems too big to solve by yourself so you turn to a professional.  You turn to someone who will not only fix the problem but will also keep their mouth shut about it. 

In the erotica fiction world, they turn to Mr. Fix.

Mr. Fix helps all sorts of people.  He helps college kids finish that term paper that they should have been working on all semester instead of attending frat parties.  He helps parents find that one toy that their kids want for Christmas but it is already sold out and it is only November.  He even helps sex bloggers come up with a post on Monday morning when they have been drinking all night.  Mr. Fix is an expert in his chosen field and he is the best one to turn to when you are in deep shit.

By the way, Mr. Fix is not his name.  He has as many aliases as there are erotica writers.  It would be exhausting to cover all of his other names here, so for the purposes of this article, he will just be known as Mr. Fix.

Why does Mr. Fix do it?  Is it for the money?  Mr. Fix doesn’t charge any money.  His price is your ass.  He is going spank the shit out of it.  It is going to hurt like Hell but man, that old problem of yours is just history.  Don’t try to negotiate because he doesn’t.  Don’t appeal to his sense of mercy because he has none.  Look, you’re the dumb ass who got yourself into this mess in the first place.  Deep down, you suspect that he thinks you are just getting off lightly with a spanking.

It is entirely possible that Mr. Fix is interested in prices other than spankings.  Most characters in these situations are so desperate that they will accept just about any price.  Mr. Fix could easily demand blowjobs, sex with a spouse or even something as minor as a handjob.  The important thing is that it should be something that makes a character and the readers hesitate.  It should instantly make someone think “Is getting a good grade for the semester really worth ____?”  The price can be anything the writer wants but it should be fixed.  It is all or nothing.  He is offering an easy way out for your problems for something you may not want to give.  Like I said earlier, the character is the dumb ass who got themselves into this mess in the first place.

What does Mr. Fix look like?  That depends on the erotica universe.  Universes that lean more towards romantic encounters say that Mr. Fix is a handsome man with a slightly foreign accent.  In more sadistic universe, Mr. Fix has a big belly, a receding hairline and hands that are a little touchy feely.  In some universes, it is actually Ms. Fix and that woman does not fuck around. 

How does one find out about Mr. Fix?  Word of mouth is always good, but people probably hold back a little bit on what they paid.  I have a fondness for mysterious advertisements in local papers.  In this internet age, a character might find out about Mr. Fix from their spam folder.  Mr. Fix works in mysterious ways.

Play With This: Trailer Park of Bondage

Across the world in millions of fetish stories, sexually submissive men and women are being shipped to mansions for erotic delight.  These mansions are owned by controlling dominants that have can buy and sell entire cities.  They offer an escape from the normal world into a world of decadent delight.

The rich and powerful are such strong elements in erotica because by their very nature, they have the power to create an erotic world.  It makes sense and it is very easy for a writer to explain things away but just saying, “Look, they’re rich and they can afford a swimming pool of lube if they want.”  Writers love easy.

The problem is that we live in a world right now with Wall Street bailouts, near world wide economic depression and the One Percent.  There is a good argument that we are living in a Second Gilded Age and the glimpses we get of the real life rich and famous are quite disturbing.  Instead of cool masters of the universe, the rich often comes across as psychotic old men terrified of being taxed.  It is not what I would consider erotic.

(Side note- I would however love to see a kinky mansion story with asshole characters straight out of the financial news.  You want to talk ruthless?  A stockbroker will sell his mother to turn a profit; you think an investor dom is going to have any emotional attachment to some pretty mouth?

But that’s another article…)

Still, erotica is fantasy and sometimes you want to read a story about sex and not worry about the real world.  I get that.  I just think that the real world is hard to ignore sometimes, and when I read about a rich dominant these days, I find myself wondering if his hard limits includes estate taxes and SEC regulations.  Maybe we should retire the rich dominant and his mansion of bondage delights for a little while.  Not forever, just for a little bit.

What can we replace the mansion with?  What does a mansion have going for it anyway? 

A) Seclusion.  You can run around naked and not worry about the mailman seeing you.

B) Time.  Rich people don’t have day jobs.  They can afford to spend the hours and hours tormenting submissives that you need in a book.

C) Illusion of Superiority.  This one is more subtle.  See, we as a people tend to associate money with success.  Our natural tendency when we met a wealthy person is to assume they did something right.  Therefore, when the rich dominant is making the submissive do something outrageous, the mansion adds an air of authority to the dom.  The mansion of wealth is an endorsement of the dominant that maybe he knows better than the poor lowly sub.  After all, who has the mansion here?

Well my friends, what could we possibly write about that satisfies these three criteria?  What is our substitute for the Mansion of Bondage? 

I suggest, the Trailer Park of Bondage.

I will give you a moment to quit snickering. 

Now imagine the Trailer Park of Bondage.  Where is it located?  Well most trailer parks are in very wide open, cheap property.  Our trailer park is located off a dirt road out of town.  It is surrounded by trees.  You can’t see this park from any paved road.

You might think a trailer park is still too wide open but you don’t have my white trash background.  You haven’t seen the tyrannical landlords that run these places.  These landlords pick who live here.  They discriminate on color, sexual orientation and whether or not they like the look of you.  In other words, they can be assholes.

This kind of behavior is shameful in the real world but for any regular sex club, it’s down right commendable.  It is perfect for our trailer park of bondage.  This landlord only allows people he knows are 24/7 in the lifestyle.  Every trailer is a mansion of sin.

Which brings us to time.  Have you seen the economy lately?  Unemployment is near ten percent.  A lot of people have nothing but time.  The rent of a trailer can be pretty low and sustainable on unemployment or a single breadwinner.  I’m not saying that every trailer park is full of the unemployed; I am just saying that for the purpose of erotica, we have a very plausible reason for a home where kinky people have all day to play with their toys.  The husband can work a blue collar job while his wife stays home and dominates the cute college girl they are dominating for the summer.

The Illusion of Superiority is the more interesting thing.  It is almost never mentioned in mansion erotica stories.  If it is, it is just the submissive gasping in wonder at delicious food and pretty art.  It is below the surface of the story. 

Take a moment to think about the snickering you did when you realized this was an article about trailer parks of bondage.  Think of how dismissive you were.  Think of the most cartoonish redneck po’ folks image you had.  Now think of your submissive having that same response.  Think of how snobbish they will act.  Think of how these submissives will think they are better than being in some trailer park of bondage.  Hold that in your head.

Now picture the very competent, very smart, very proud dominant that lives in this trailer.  Picture his/her reaction to this fucking snob who looks down on their way of life.  Imagine how eager they are to wipe that smug smile off that submissive’s face.       

We call that tension.  We call that a conflict waiting to happen.  That’s erotica.

Let’s look at the average trailer.  Modern trailers are huge.  I’ve seen some with a kitchen, living room, 2 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms.  That’s nicer than my apartment.

Less modern trailers still have two bedrooms, one master and one bedroom with is so Spartan that it looks like it was specially designed for submissives.  The walls are so thin that there is no privacy.  Someone being fucked in the master bedroom will be pretty audible to anyone else in the trailer.  Every day is a trail of exhibitionism.

A trailer also has a yard and let me tell you, the pride some people put in their yards would put homeowners to shame.  There is grass to be mowed.  There are flowers to be tended to.  If you like your kinky erotica with housework, there is a shit load of yard work inherent in a trailer to make you happy.  Sure, a submissive can prove their obedience by washing a floor, but real obedience is mowing a lawn in the heat wearing nothing but a collar and a butt-plug.

I submit for your imagination, the following examples of Kinky Trailer Parks.

Thistle Acres – This trailer park caters to creative types.  The landlord has to be convinced of you artistic talent before he will let you rent here.  The residents include woodcarvers, painters, some suffering writers and one phone sex operator.  No one is rich here but they all get by.  They make their money and they keep their sanity by spanking the Hell out of submissives. 

The land lord goes to a bondage club in town where he recruits those who are looking to get away from it all for a week or so.   He considers himself a patron of the arts and know that artists always need new pussy and ass.  As creative types they tend to bore easily so they have taken to trading submissives every few days.  The submissives enjoy a little crazy fun and the artists get somebody to do their yardwork and make meals.  Every one wins.

Last Hope Road – Where do bad submissives go when they flunk out of their fancy kinky mansions?  A better questions is where do the really mean dominants go that are too mean for uppity kink mansions?  They both go to the same place, Last Hope Road.

It is a secluded trailer park with shitty trailers and rather bitter dominants.  The submissives are sent here to learn humility, obedience and an appreciation for the fine things at the mansion.  The dominants are sent here to get their shit together and become better dominants but most of them just use the place as a way to transfer their frustrations to pretty faces.  The dominants doubt they will ever get to go back to the mansion but at least they still got some ass to slap. 

Last Hope road is a good setting for your spoiled princess submissive, or the dominant on some sort of redemption arc.

Golden Estates – The nice thing about getting older is that you figure out what you really want.  The residents of Golden Estates have decided to spend their retirement with pretty young things across their knees.  All the residents are of retirement age and all of them were awesome dominants in their youth.  They don’t have the energy to flirt and seduce shy submissives anymore, but they do love to spank, fondle and fuck the college kids who spend their summers here.  They are eager to teach their skills to the next generation.

Imagine a character who was a young twenty-something thing and he goes to visit his Uncle that the family has shunned.  His uncle lives at Golden Estates and has a lovely young woman that he keeps as a toy.  The character could learn at his Uncle’s side and enjoy that kind of feel good “I learned something this summer” story that everyone likes.

I hope this article and these examples have opened your mind to the possibilities of kinky trailer parks.  I hope the next time you start to write your kinky fantasy story; you hesitate before creating yet another expensive mansion.  I am not saying that trailer parks are better, but I feel they would be different.  We could use more different porn.

Lastly, remember that the Trailer Park of Bondage can be a touching story about the culture shock of a city submissive finding everything they ever wanted in a trailer park.  Or the Trailer Park of Bondage can be the story of ruthless hillbillies inflicting some country punishment on spoiled submissives.  It can be a heart warming tale of down home perversion like a very special episode of the Andy Griffith Show or it can be as harsh as an extra kinky version of Deliverance.  You’re the writer, it is up to you. 

Go play with it.

Let's Do Sex Blogging Differently

Lately I have been reading a lot of role-playing blogs.  For the past two months I usually spend about an hour an night reading blogs about old school dungeons and dragons.  Now D&D is like 5th on my list of preferred role-playing games but I am devouring these blogs like an addict.  I think I have read more gaming blogs than books on my Kindle.

Why do I do it?  Because the blogs I read are in a constant state of creativity.  They are constantly discussing influences, applications of those influences and making shit up.  A lot of the blogs will just drop a one page idea and walk away.  Readers can take those ideas and plug them into their own games.  Imagine that for a moment.  A guy can write some notes about a book that eats fingers and give some ideas of where it came from, and then a hundred other people can put that idea in their game with the inevitable modifications, adjustments and personal touches.

"But Shon, sex blogs do the same thing with writing prompts.  That's when a sex blog tells people to write a story about threesomes and then everyone shares the stories they wrote about threesomes.  Same thing!"

Well no, it is not, imaginary voice.  Writing prompts give a bare tangent of an idea and send writers out into the creative wilds alone.  Role-playing blogs would give people three characters, their personal dynamics and their quirks and then encourage writers to plug those people into their stories.  That is pretty insane by most sex writing blog standards. 

I think the insanity comes from the fact that role-playing games are social.  You can't play unless you have friends to interact with.  Writing is more of a one way process.  I write my story and then everyone reads it.  If I am lucky, I will get feedback.  That is a big if by the way.  Most of the time I write something and then have to wonder if people even liked it.  It can be lonely but thankfully I am a narcissist.  Role-playing on the other hand is constant interaction.  One guy is playing his thinly veiled knock off of Conan and he is interacting with the player who has created his imaginary perfect character complete with twenty pages of back story.  These two mingle their process and grow and edit their characters based on these interactions.  Eventually the knock of Conan will have an appreciation for dogs because of his role-playing with the other player who's character trains dogs.  It is a lot of give and take.  Ultimately role-playing is an exercise in entertainment and wish fulfillment.  Which makes it a lot like porn.

This makes me wonder why I find dungeons and dragons discussion blogs more inspiring than many sex blogs, including my own.  I think I have an answer.  I read a sex blog and I read fiction, true life accounts and discussions about sexual politics.  I read a D&D blog and I read random rules for how to have a drunken party with bar wenches, discussions of fantasy books that inspired dungeon masters in the 70's and theoretical questions about what a society that worships sentient plants would look like.  What is the difference between the two?  One concerns itself with presenting a product, whether that be stories, true life accounts or serious opinions about serious things, and the other concerns itself with making shit up and sharing the creative process behind making shit up.  One is more about presenting the end result and the other is about the actual making.

I wonder if we can change that.

Part of the problem is that writing is a fucking lonely process.  You got to crawl inside your own head and make your own things when it comes to stories.  I find that once I turn to people for their opinions on something that I am in the process of writing, it becomes crippled with doubt.  Writing by committee only works to create the blandest shit possible. 

Sex writers are also often trying to get paid and no one wants to come up with the idea for the next best selling porn book and SHARE that idea before we get our own story out.   I understand that and am guilty of it myself.  As writers we tend to think our original ideas are all we have and we hoard them like, well like dragons and their treasure.

I think that is a fallacy.  Ideas are not as precious as we think they are.  An idea is important but more important is execution.  The writers of Twilight and 50 Shades have the exact same idea; dominant all wise male and fainting wimp female.  One went vampire with her idea and the other went BDSM.  Same idea, different execution.

This example might not be the best because one is a fanfic of the other, but the principle stands.  Even if you want to argue that making a vampire a bdsm dom is an entirely new idea, then try this experiment.  Imagine your favorite tattooed, cynical BDSM writer who attends all the right workshops writing 50 Shades their way.  It would be worlds different from Meyer's 50 Shades but it is still the same idea.  One would just be better written.

Now that I got the prerequisite 50 Shades bashing that all erotica writers are required by law to do out of the way, let's extrapolate on the idea that ideas are not precious gems to be hidden away.  What if sex blogs discussed ideas not in the interest of self promoting their own use of the idea, but just to toss that idea out there?  What would that look like?  Would you like to read that?

I am going to be giving it a try. 

    

Old Shon Critiques the Shit Out of Young Shon

I have been quiet as of late because I have been spending way too much time digging up my oldest stories and getting them into a publishable format. I started posting stories to the internet in 1997 and finding them online is getting a bit harder and harder to do. My fans have asked for some sort of collection that they can purchase and who am I to argue with people's money?

Actually I have been arguing quite a bit. I was not fond of my earliest work. My first year of writing were all parodies and satires on the erotica genre. Older me recognizes that younger me was writing comedy because it was a safety net. If the story was poorly made; hey that was my intent because it was just comedy. I also had very weird grammar perceptions and just seeing two spaces after every comma is enough to make me get stomach pains.

Once again I was my own worse critic. Once I delved into my first stories again, I saw a lot of things that I liked. There were a lot of things I hated but hey, at least now there are things I like.

In my first story alone, I parodied bondage, blackmail, orgies, deathtraps, mud wrestling and a celebrity sex scene. What I lacked in story craft I sure as fuck made up for with ambition. I respect that. I would never recommend that to a newbie writer now but maybe I am wrong. By tackling so many subjects in my first story, I am not sure if I did any of them justice but I at least dipped my toes in those topics. By keeping them all in the same story, I got to see different sides of the same characters which I don't think ever hurts a writer.

What I don't respect is how ignorant I was of copyright laws. Holy crap. Because I thought I was just writing stories for the internet, I never thought I would be in a position to make money from them. I used real life celebrities as characters and a shit ton of comic book references. Worse, one of my main characters, Kiko, wears an outfit identical to the X-Men, Psylocke, and references this at least once per story.

To counter this, I have begun a great conversion process. Instead of Psylocke, Kiko now dresses up as the fictional superheroine, Ninjina. When Kiko took on the evil cosplayers, instead of fighting Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Batgirl, she's fighting Amazon Woman, Ultragirl and Foxgirl. I am conflicted about how this plays out but shit, at least now it is legal.

More problematic is Kiko vs the NWO. Back in the late 90's, the NWO was an exciting evil organization in professional wrestling. In my story, Kiko fucks most of them. Yeah, that is a problem. Changing names would be pointless as I would also need to change signature moves, likenesses, in-jokes etc. At least in the previous story, Kiko was fighting cosplayers instead of actual licensed characters. In the case of the NWO, the story might as well be called Kiko vs the Licensed Characters of a Billion Dollar Company.

What helps me make my decision is that Kiko vs the NWO is my least favorite story ever written by me. I wrote it during a period where I felt compelled to write "something" and so I went with the first shit idea I had. It shows. I am not going to include it in the collection though I will have a note about it's absence.

I am sharing these trials in the hope that any newbie writers out there who think it would be hilarious to have their original character interact with Dr. House would reconsider. Have your character interact with a Dr. House like character and you will thank me 14 years later when you are trying to compile your great archive vanity project.

On a completely different observation, I saw something in my older stories that I hadn't expected and that was plot. I read a lot of first stories by erotica writers and there is a 90% chance that it will be sexy stranger having sex with sexy narrator. I understand that these are prototype stories where the writers are trying to prove to themselves that they can write connected paragraphs but to me they are instant insomnia cures. If they gave them a tiny bit of plot like say, sexy stranger thinks the narrator is their ex, then it elevate their stories from late night masturbation fantasies to something worth reading and remembering.

I might not think Bikini Brothel is the finest thing I have ever written but at least there is a brothel in danger of going broke and an idiot owner who wants to fix it. A plot should always make the reader ask "What happens next?". You might not think your porn story needs it, but trust me, it helps a lot.

*Image is of the talented Yaya cosplaying as Psylocke.

Erotica Threat Level: Three Day Weekend Blue

I am going on a 3-day weekend. I am visiting my mother in North Carolina and will be sure to suffer about a dozen flashbacks from childhood. There may be a trip to the beach involved. I am terribly excited.

I don't think I will have internet for the trip, which is a bit inconceivable. I will be taking the laptop so hopefully I can keep doing my three pages a day.

I have a fraction of an idea that could either be a cute short story or another damn novel. It involves summer. It involves bdsm. The big concern I have is that the last time two times I did summer bdsm stores was BDSM beach and Beach Volleyball Madd-ness. Neither story seemed all that popular and it makes me a smidge hesitant. I'll have to think about it.

You know, I used to think that the biggest crime of erotica writers was their tendency to take a short story idea and stretch it out into a long unnecessary novel with a predictable pornographic path. In other words, the character gets introduced to sex, the character experiments, the character falls in love, the character gets conflicted, and finally a happy orgy. I still feel that way but there is something nice and rich about a novel following one character. I used to call those 'coming of slut' stories and I think they have their place. At 38 years old though, I suspect I should be writing about something else though. If 'coming of slut' is what young people read to feel good about themselves and older people read to get back in touch with your young selves, then what is the sex story of people my age?

I should really not be thinking these thoughts while writing about a space crew trying to murder their captain.

Violatrix Cast or Too Many Fucking Characters

Star Trek has taught me that the proper number of officers required to run a spaceship is somewhere around ten people. Battlestar Galactica taught me that number is more like three or four, but quite frankly, that is boring as shit. The more command officers that a story has, the more possibilities for conflicts and alliances. When you write porn, the more potential sexual partners, the better.

So after writing up the cast for my Violatrix spaceship, I had nine characters. That is quite a few characters to deal with right away. I worry about the reader getting overwhelmed and confused. Since it is also science fiction with some non-English sounding names, the potential of confusion just gets higher.

I soon understood why most Star Trek movies only focus on two or three characters while the rest of the crew gets snappy one-liners. It is hard to divide out attention equally. I notice that Star Trek novels tend to give the crew equal shares of the plot, but I suspect they can do that because they are not introducing anyone to the reader. When a reader of Star Trek picks up a book, he already knows who Spock, Kirk, McCoy and even down to the minor characters like Sulu. The reader knows these characters. In my book, I have to introduce everyone to the reader for the first time.

My strategy was to create a sort of relay. I start with Character A as the focus. We see things for A's point-of-view and what A has to deal with is Character B. So we get to know A from A's perspective and we get to know B from A's perspective. Then the next chapter is told from Character B's perspective and they interact with Character C. This continues as we meet new characters. The character just met in the last chapter becomes the relay to the next character. And since this is a sex book with people plotting to kill each other, it gives a lot of characters some nice one on one time.

I loved this idea so much that I decided to make the entire novel follow this format. I might have nine characters but we deal with two or three at a time at the most. I considered myself a genius.

Well, right up to when it just doesn't work. This format hijacked the plot. I was trying to fulfill the demands of the gimmicky format rather than the needs of the plot. I spent a week trying to make it work before I realized something terribly important about brilliant gimmicks. It is only brilliant if it actually fucking works.

So I have decided to use the relay gimmick only up until the characters are introduced. I do think I will keep with sticking with one character's perspective through the entire chapter as I think that is the only way to write, really. I feel that sex has to be experienced through the eyes of one person at a time, as the uncertainty of what the other character's motives, likes and desires is a big part of sex.

Interesting enough, even giving attention to all the characters hasn't prevented the fact that some characters are just inherently more interesting. Some characters right now are interesting as far as how they are obstacles to other characters. I also found that the most sympathetic character really helps move the story along. I use to criticize Star Trek stories where the minor officers get little air time but the truth of the matter is that maybe they just don't add that much to the story. If a character wants to be a bigger part, then they got to be fucking worth spending time with.

So, what have I learned last week?

Gimmicks are only brilliant if they actually fucking work.

Lots of characters are fine but they need to be character you actually give a fuck about.

Star Trek writers had it harder than I thought.

Circuit Writing

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Sex is Damn Confusing

Domination has always been a part of my sexual fantasy life. As a young child I often delighted in my Princess Leia action figure getting captured by Vader, Boba Fett, random storm troopers or even jawas. Capturing the princess was my favorite past time although my figures and I were often unsure what to do once we caught her.

On the opposite end, when I discovered masturbation, my most common fantasy was of an older woman dominating me and making me have sex with her. As a serial shoplifter as a kid, it was easy to imagine that if I got caught stealing a book, then I was going to have to fuck a store employee. It just makes sense.

As I got even older, I found myself attracted to really strong minded women. When you are young, it is really hard to tell the difference between a strong willed woman and a bossy pain in the ass. My interest in dominant women completely died out as I struggled to deal with the arrogant and uncompromising women I was dating and eventually married.

My wife wanted a poly marriage which technically means that you develop relationships with other people. I soon realized that I was the charming one in the family when I kept meeting people who wanted to be with me while my wife kept meeting people who wanted little to do with her. Every time I did find something I adored, my wife would do everything to sabotage it to keep me with her. Like an idiot, I deferred to her. I'm not proud of that.

It seems completely logical to me now that being in an unhappy marriage really brought out my desire for submissive women. I liked flirting with them, I liked fucking them and I really loved writing about them. I like arguing with them and winning. I like making unreasonable demands and having them met. I liked having control because I had so little in my marriage.

My fiction didn't see many dominatrixes during this time. My wife fancied herself a dom when most of the time she was really just selfish and sadistic. Heck, that is a good definition of a dominatrix but being married to one who dominates you without your consent is a shitty situation. I wrote porn to get away from the troubles of my wife so the last thing I wanted to do was write something that reminded me of her.

There was also a weird social stigma to writing submissive male fiction when I started writing. Most of my stories were for newsgroups and when I did write the occasional male submissive story, my fan mail from submissive females would evaporate. It wasn't that they didn't like the story as much as they felt that if I was writing something like that, then I wasn't the macho dom writer they fantasized about.

It is sad. I roll my eyes at the idea now but during my bad marriage, that kind of response was important to me. I stopped writing about dominant women and submissive males. It wasn't like I had much interest in them anyway, but I had some and it is a shame that I let something as unimportant as what other people think influence me.

At a happy point in my life, I met my current wife. She helped me understand what a fucked up life I was leading. I left my wife and spent a year or two growing up. The sad fact is that I was a submissive to my ex-wife in that I let her win every argument and she made me feel that every small bit of happiness I had was because she graciously allowed me to be selfish.

There is a thing that my friends in the BDSM community often joke about. We will see friends who are doms or subs and they will end up marrying someone completely vanilla. We laugh and shake our heads because we think it can never work out. We also think it is a lot like regressing. We watch people struggle with their dominant or submissive personalities and then right when they are comfortable, they marry someone who isn't part of that life at all. It just seems like a crying shame.

I bring it up because I have become one of those people. My wife is a strong willed woman because hey, I am attracted to women like that. The difference is that she has no interest in steam rolling me and quite frankly, gets pissed when she does. My natural instinct was to roll over and avoid confrontation but being freed of one bad marriage has unleashed my anger. It might be years of repressed rage but it is something I can use. I fight. I argue. I get damn mad. You know, all the things that happen in an real relationship.

Which translates into a rather vanilla romance with my wife. There is no power inequality, so I don't need to supplement my self esteem with bdsm. She has an ass made for spanking but there is no need for a pretext to spank her. I love that woman and she is my partner and my wingman. Neither of us are in charge. It is pretty nice.

The fantasies don't go away. Heck, as a porn writer, I am not sure I could make them go away. I don't see attractive women on the street, I see potential characters in stories that need to be written. I am pretty sure that I could be fucking a dozen away a day for the rest of my life and I would still want to write a story about a guy and a girl doing something naughty. Being a writer is a not a hobby or a job, it is a classification of a compulsion.

What fascinates me is that now that I am happy, my fantasies don't give a shit what people think. My fantasies about dominant women have returned because I no longer feel dominated. My sillier fantasies about over the top action heroes and heroines in peril have returned because I no longer care about presenting a serious face to my audience. I write about male and female submissives because they interest me and I no longer worry about what that says about my own sexuality. My own sexuality is a tangled mess and if a reader thinks they know me, they are terribly mistaken. More importantly, a reader's assessment of my sexuality is really none of my business any more. That is the most important thing I have learned over the last few years. I used to be told not to care what people think but now I realize that although I sometimes care, it is not any of my concern. I have my own misconceptions about my sexuality, what do I care if other people are just as confused?

Sketch card is by the talented Lohmeier

Pirates and Spanking

This lovely sketch card by Joe Gravel is 100% accurate. As soon as you institute sexy spanking as a punishment, ship discipline goes out the window.

When I started writing my pirate anthology set in the 1500's, I went looking to find other erotica books written in the same time period. I turned up jack shit. I found plenty of romance novels set in that time period but they were about all male crews with one woman. It was hardly the co-ed orgy setting I had in mind. I was amazed that I couldn't find anything.

After writing a dozen stories, I am no longer so amazed. Writing in that time period is hard. Even applying porn logic and allowing for a ship of fucking men and women, you still need a pirate ship that functions. Discipline was a big deal on ships back then and the motivation for turning pirate was to avoid getting whipped to an inch of your life for forgetting to salute. Some pirate ships were famous for their tight discipline but again, crew full of sex maniacs doesn't exactly lend itself to a orderly ship.

This creates some interesting problems for my writer's toolbox. Spanking is a lovely subject to devote a story to and one of its most popular settings is to use it for discipline. This actually works in a setting where you can humiliate a person, like say an office workspace, but it is less effective in a setting where everyone is walking around half naked.

In fact, this pirate ship is looking more and more like a sex club with every story. Real discipline is maintained with rather uncomfortable scary threats. Death, marooning and musket ball to the head keep the discipline on this ship. As any good spanker knows, a bad spanking can be very uncomfortable and bad, but it is also hardly sexy. Writing a sex novel, I am required to lean towards the sexy. Therefore, bad painful unsexy spanking is out.

Well shit.

I have avoided this problem by writing mostly pirate stories about lust. I decided early on not to do stories about non consensual sex so the spanking of prisoners and captives is out. I danced and avoided the subject forever before the solution finally dawned on me. Like most problems, when the solution is apparent, the problem looks stupidly easy.

My solution was to make spanking consensual, recreational and part of someone's sex. Not a discipline thing. Not a pirate specific rule or punishment. Taking my inspiration from the sex club atmosphere, I just made spanking a part of sex. Easy. Stupidly easy.

This is what I enjoy about writing odd books like this one. It is part world building as you try to create a logical setting, and part discovery as you puzzle out to make something happen and make it appear natural. I think the reason there is so few pirate sex novels is because the setting is fucking hard. It also means that anything I successfully come up with will be all the more rare. That is worth any headache.

The Mermaid Question

This lovely sketch card was drawn by Joe Gravel and you can try to buy it on ebay. There is a lot to love about this image, from the crab to the pouty look on the mermaid, but it brings to mind a problem I am experiencing. I am not sure whether to include such supernatural hijinks in my pirate anthology next summer.

When one writes about male and female pirates on a ship together in the 1500's, you are essentially writing science fiction. That kind of stuff didn't happen and the kind of sexual pleasure orgy ship I am envisaging would have trouble sailing much less looting with all the fucking they are doing. Porn trumps historical accuracy in this book.

Yet I find myself holding back when it comes to adding things like mermaids and sea monsters. They are such a rich part of the lore and yet once I have mermaid sex in the book, I cross a mythical line on the deck. That would be the point where readers expect Captain Long John Cock and singing pirates.

(Pirates did sing chanties and I plan to have some in the book, but you know what I mean)

Suspension of belief in porn is a funny thing. By funny I really mean it is a pain in the ass. Perfect tits can break suspension or they can make a story. Simultaneous orgasms can make readers roll their eyes or cinch the moment in their memory for the rest of their lives. It is a question of taste, style and execution and sometimes it can be just plain dumb luck. I have written stories about clone women fighting giant lobsters and it was the improper gun safety that one reader complained about. You can't predict these things and if you try to head off every possible problem you can go insane.

Which is what makes writing such an adventure sometimes. Even when you write about zombies, witches and mad scientists, you don't have automatic license to throw in a ship swallowing whale. You have to make that judgment with every story you do. If you do include the fantastic, you have to see how it fits with the rest of the story. Just like perfect cocks and buoyant tits, they might sound great but they don't fit with everything. I wish I had a hard and fast anwser or guide to refer to but the truth is that you just start to develop a sense over time. It doesn't feel right to add mermaids to my book so I probably won't. Only you can tell if weird shit is right for your story.

Pirates however, are always okay.

The Complete Drive-In

When I was in Seattle this year, I picked up Joe R. Lansdale's 'The Complete Drive-in'. It is an omnibus of three novels that take place, well, at the drive-in.

Four friends go to the drive-in to watch a marathon of horror movies. Partway through, something abducts the whole damn drive-in area. I'm talking about multiple screens, all the cars, all the people and the concession stands. They find themselves transported to an area of endless night and unexplained electrical power. The movies keep playing and any one who braves the surrounding darkness is dissolved and spat back out.

Then things get really bad. Some stories will fuck your shit up and these tales are no exception. What starts as an amusing if baffling story degenerates into cannibalism, orgies and a whole fucking lot of murders. Bizarre monsters and even more bizarre insane characters prowl the book. It ain't pretty. As jaded as I think I am as a reader, I had quite a few moments where I just couldn't wrap my mind around the depravity I had just read. Yet I kept reading, because when you are on a roller-coaster of a story like this, you can't wait for the next dropping thrill.

This collection has three books about this abducted drive-in. It is like the best b-movie never made. Just like a b-movie, it is fearless in it's horror while relishing in the insanity of its plot. As a writer, this book was just inspiring in its audacity. I wish porn was half this fearless.

I can't recommend this collection enough to horror fans.

Take Me To Crazytown

Sometime in February, I will be publishing my tribute to pulp books and grindhouse movies that I call Pusse' and Cox. Pusse is a cheerleader turned detective and Cox is a male stripper turned bounty hunter. Together they fuck and kill a lot of lust crazed zombies. They also kill the evil minions of the diabolical Dr. Jamaica Vegas. Dr. Otto Von Madd makes a cameo. There is an entire section of the book dedicated to sex obsessed nuns.

In short, it's some crazy shit.

When Robert Rodriquez's 'Machete' came out a few months ago, I was excited to see it but I was also looking for any tips it could give me. Rodriquez has taught me that every character, no matter how minor, can be a superstar of their own private movie. He also taught me to either go big or go the fuck home. I had written Pusse' and Cox but I haven't done that all important rewrite phase and I hoped that 'Machete' would get me in the mood.

A funny thing happened. Machete was good and pretty damn awesome, but I realized my book was more over the top. Sure, a naked Lindsay Lohan dressed as a nun, but at no point in the movie did a hot blonde mow down a group of nuns with automatic weapons while said nuns were raping a handsome black man. I had somehow managed to out-Rodriguez Robert Rodriguez.

Lately I have been reading about the pulp characters of the 20's through 40's. The average Operative Five story would turn your brains to shit with how over the top it is. Doc Savage and the Shadow had adventures that don't stand up to much scrutiny but shit blew up and people died in droves. That was an insane time.

As I read about the creators of such insane stories and the economic pressures of the times, I am struck by the similarities with today. The economy was awful, American paranoia of foreigners and other cultures was at an all time high, and the only people making a living were the bastards controlling the banks and corporations. It was a shitty time to be alive and they turned to the most outrageous things to keep them entertained. They were already living in an insane world, at least they could read about an insane world where the hero would punch the shit out of a bad guy and get the girl.

As I read about these books and their crazytown inhabitants, I am a bit perplexed by the lack of modern day equivalents. I see quite a few writers who love the pulp era try to create stories that take place in the 20's, but they seem to miss the point that the original pulp writers weren't writing about some mythical time, they were writing about the now. If today's writers are to learn anything about pulp, it is to learn from the insanity not the fedoras and tommy guns. Today's would-be pulp writers need to write about some much needed crazy in our already crazy time.

Which incidentally, is why I think I like Dr. Who so much. I wouldn't call it science fiction, I call it science-crazy. No sane sci-fi writer would come up with Daleks and Weeping Angels.

It is also I think why I have grown disenchanted with comic books this year. I don't see a crazy world of men in tights, I see a giant marketing campaign designed to sell me action figures and movie tickets. There is a lack of crazy as the big companies desperately try to make me care about characters over fifty years old.

Which brings me back to erotica. I want more crazy porn. I am making it myself but seriously, it is too much fun just to keep it to myself. Dive in. Throw an orgy in crazytown. Drop your inhibitions and good taste do something memorable.

Go big.

Art of the Blowjob

My least favorite topic of conversation is how bad video porn is. It is not that I disagree with the idea that most porn is cheaply made and tacky, but as an erotica writer my instinct is to make better porn as an example of what porn can be where as it seems that most people's instinct is simply to bitch about it. That gets old very fast.

Even worse to me is the idea that porn is so bad because it is a gender thing. The attitude that if women would come down from their golden shrines and teach us lowly men how to make porn then the world would be better is terribly insulting. It is even more insulting when this special porn is created and marketed as superior quality and really all they invented was a raunchier episode of the Red Shoe Diaries. It has gotten to the point that when I see something sold as 'superior porn', I automatically skip it. Again it feels like people are more concerned about talking about bad porn then they are in making it.

I bring these points up because I have actually found high quality porn and to my delight, the porn site in question does NOT bring up these points. Instead of bitching about bad porn or trying to explain it, or worse, gloating about how bad other porn is, they simply make good porn. They lead by example and what an awesome example it is.

'Art of the Blowjob' is a site that features the most beautiful blowjobs you will ever see. I guess if you are going to do something, do one thing and do it right. They do blowjobs and they do it fucking amazing right.

Each video stars the lovely Camille Crimson of indeterminate age. It also stars the penis of her boyfriend. Videos range anywhere from six to fifteen minutes. There are no words. There is no bad lighting. There is a lot of jewelry, interesting hairstyles, glasses, music and a fuckload of sucking. There is always a cumshot which really surprises me. It isn't the gonzo explosions of most porn but it is there. They took something that is often the cheesiest part of a porn movie and they elevated it.

Elevation is the word I would use to describe everything they do. The music is often freely downloaded tracks found on the web but in almost every scene, they set the scene. After years if ignoring bad porn music, I find myself actually seeking these songs out for download and repeated listening. This same attention to quality applies to the lovely hairstyle that Crimson's gorgeous red hair is put into. The camera angles are really interesting. Sometimes the camera drifts down her neck and focuses on a dangling earring. Instead of mechanically going through positions, the camera moves like a voyuer as it takes in the whole scene.

There is an intimacy in these videos that really cinches it. Sometimes the boyfriend caresses her face, or starts to stroke her. She glances up at him and breaks into smiles. The blowjob is beautiful but you see it more as a beautiful act of love.

I really love this site and it gives me hope for the future of porn. The fact that they had to do their own site without the support of a major company doesn't surprise me. Art is like that. It is up for artists to show us the way to have something better and it is up to us to support them.

Operation Porn Stash

Ever since I started playing Minecraft, I have taken to naming everything under the sun. It can be fun to work on that mine near the waterfall but it is more fun to work on Operation Blue Lagoon. I am sure I will grow out of it.

In the meantime, I needed to rebuild my buffer of short stories for posting on Wednesday. Operation Porn Stash is the clever name I came up for this project. It harkens back to my youth when I would sneak into the attic to snatch dirty magazines while my parents were out of the house. I had to get enough magazines to satisfy my libido till the next time they left the house. That number by the way is slightly less than infinity.

Anyhoo, I want to make 5 stories so I can have the month of October to work on my next book. Because I am insane, I decided to go for one story a day. Operation Porn Stash is a go!

My personal requirement was that it be one good story a day. It is easy to crank out forgettable stories. It is so much harder to write stories I won't cringe at a year later.

So how did I do?

On Monday I picked up a Fastner and Larson art book and randomly selected a page. It was a woman covered in scanty armor and looking sexy. Not much to work with there. The title caught my eye and it was 'Guardian of the Ancients'.

So, what is she guarding? Ancients sounds pretty old, how old is she? Armor is kind of sexy and impractical but maybe it is from our point of view but not the ancient culture she belongs to.

Anwsering these questions led to me writing a Nash Nighthammer story on Monday.

On Tuesday I decided to write a Halloween story. This time I picked up a Witches art book I had and flipped through the pages. The picture I liked best had a group of witches standing on their brooms and they were worshipping a demonic figure.

I broke down why I liked the picture. I like witches. I like groups of witches because there is fear in numbers. I realized I liked scary witches better than friendly witches. I asked myself what kind of sex would a group of witches have and I came up with a Halloween story on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I decided to take a break from Halloween and work on something else. I wanted to do something about Eros University so I wrote a list of things that colleges have that are interesting. My list includes dorms, student organizations, finals, sports and a lot more. Each idea suggest its own story.

The thing I want to do with Eros University is to write about it in pieces and not really follow one character. I randomly picked one of the topics, which was roommates, and I wrote about that on Wednesday.

On Thursday I wanted to do an Erishella Trick or Treat story. I had a good idea for one but even as was telling it in my head, it seemed more appropriate for a Gazetter entry. The thing about Erishella is I love describing the alien culture but that doesn't always translate into an exciting story. The story idea I had was more of a an excuse to tell the history lesson I was interested in. So I chucked the idea and despaired.

Keep in mind, I had written 3 stories this week. Shit, I deserved a break. There is no shame in giving up on an idea. I think I do feel shame when I fail a deadline though, even a ruthless imaginary one like Operation Porn Stash. I wanted to produce something.

I went back to random inspiration. I also checked my libido and asked myself what i was in the mood for. It been awhile since I wrote about spanking. I popped open another Fastner and Larson art book and on a random page was a skeleton spanking a girl.

Two minutes later, I was tossing out an idea where a man rises from the grave to spank someone. I flipped through the book again and damn, I saw a much cooler spanking scene with a monster I have always been fond of. So on Thursday I wrote a spanking story about an unusual monster and told from a different kind of point of view.

Which brings me to today. The failure of the Erishella story bothers me. I might try a different kind of Erishella story. Or maybe I will hit tumblr and see what grabs me.

I don't usually use this much random inspiration but when it comes to crunch time, I find that unexpected stimuli forces me to asks and anwser questions. Erotica can be incredibly repetitious. I don't read many sex blog because I think I have read the story of the girl who got laid with her cool boyfriend a million times. I may have written that story myself a dozen times. When you turn to random inspiration from fantasy art books, fetish books or even channel surfing,it forces your brain to engage on subjects you wouldn't normally think of as erotic. The moment you look at something and say "Hey, what is the deal with that?", you usually have the genesis of a new story right there.

Outlines and Hemlines

I have spent a week on this outline for the Violatrix and it is so close to being done I can taste it. (It tastes like salty pain.) The book centers on the senior officers of a starship which is comprised of five couples and the asexual science officer. By the end of the book, most of the characters will have fucked each other. These things are important to know.

A lot of my fellow porn writers dislike outlines but man, I need them. I need a plan. I need to know ahead of time what I am writing today. Outlines also help me see patterns and omissions in my story. In the first outline, the First Officer had twice as many chapters as any other character. They were essentially the main character, except that they weren't. Oops. The other interesting oversight was that the Communications Officer only had one sex scene and she is arguably my favorite character at the moment.

My main concern this weekend was fashion for the crew. I wanted a uniform that was sexy but simple. Normally in a written book I need only concern myself with how a uniform can be described to the reader, but since this will be a book with a cover, I have a chance to visually show the uniform.

Star Trek already has a famous evil universe uniform which is basically jagged lines and midriffs. I am quite fond of this look but since I am not writing a Star Trek book, I got to come up with something different.

I turned to Flash Gordon and was amused that although royalty wore great clothing, the soldiers wore rather boring clothes. Neck to toe leather in a vaguely Russian Tsar-era uniform is kind of cool but not terribly sexy.

I am leaning towards some sort of skin tight lyrca-like substance managed by a belt. Press a button and your pants disappear. It has a sci-fi feel to it but it lacks the visual striking quality that the jagged midriff look has.

This is where I wish I could hijack Project Runway and use their skills.

"Designers, your challenge is to create a look for a sci-fi BDSM porn novel. Make it sexy and make it work! Be sure to use the Adam and Eve accessories wall wisely!"

Which reminds me, I have not even started on what the Violatrix itself looks like.

Thoughts Before Breakfast

In my travels on the internet, I ran across an old flame of mine, Playboy Playmate, Ashley Cox. What I remember about Ashley is that I first came across her in my step-father's stash of Playboys when I was 15. I didn't like her. All the other Playmates smiled. All the other Playmates were very happy to be naked. The other Playmates appeared to be thrilled that you were looking at them.

Ashley looked disinterested in her own nakedness. I put her away and masturbated happily to smiling naked women.

But for some reason, Ashley lurked in the back of my mind. My step-father's Playboys were in the attic. I had a hiding space under a shelf in my room that could only hold six issues. The issues that lurked under there were always my favorites. Ashley's issue kept rotating in and out. I wasn't sure why. She was sexy in a different way and I didn't understand it.

I still am not sure. I look at her now and what I like is her weariness. She looks tired. She looks real. She looks like she could use a buddy or a joke.

I think ultimately she is a mystery and mysteries will always intrigue.

On a different note, Joe Lansdale, a writer I admire like he was Santa, writes in an article

"It’s not the place. It’s the story. And most of all, it’s the writer who tells the story, and how he tells it.
Would-be writers often tell me how they’re waiting for the right time or a good place to work, and I think that’s all well and good, but most of them have been waiting a long, long time, and it is my guess they will continue to wait. They don’t have the drive, the real urge to be a writer."

I am often skeptical of writers who say they are waiting for inspiration or the right moment. I sympathize because I know what it is like to want to write but lack that certain something. What is missing is not inspiration, time or the materials. What is missing is the will. It amazes me that people will drag their asses out of bed and go to work with a severe hatred for their job, but they can't seem to find the ability to write 4 pages on something they technically love.

On a third note, I have been thinking a lot about motivation. I am terrible when it comes to updating my bookmarks so this week I took a crack at it. I deleted over 50 sex blogs that I don't read any more. In 95% of the cases, the blogs had already been deleted by their owners. It is tempting to think that they deleted them because people like me were not reading them but then I look at my rather low web hits for my blog and I keep plugging away.

The fact that people read my blog is a plus, but it is not my sole motivation. I am fortunate enough that I have a job that pays my bills and this blog is my hobby. I think I am more fortunate in that I am addicted to writing. I am addicted to story telling. I am addicted to making books for the joy of making a book.

When I am at my snobbiest, I often say that the reason certain people I know are unhappy is because they don't create anything. They fuck a lot, they keep up on every piece of trivia on their favorite shows and they eat to excess but they bitch all the time about their lives. To me this is because they don't make anything. The guy who fucks a different girl every week never seems to be as happy as me when I write a really good threesome scene that week.

Breakfast is done and I promised myself I would quit. Go make something.