Writing This Novel part III

However you write is the right way to do it. Forget The Rules. If you plot out everything ahead of time, good for you. If you sit down and write with no idea where the story is going, that’s great too. I’m telling you this because what follows is my weird method and I’d hate for you to think it’s The Right Way or The Only Way to go about it.

I’m about thirty thousand words into The Night Creature. It will probably be around sixty thousand words when complete, so that’s theoretically half way through. Now I’m in what writer Jim Grimsley so accurately described as ‘the murk in the middle of the novel.’ If you’re into the journey through the woods metaphor, this is the moment when you lose sight of the forest for the trees. The ending seems unreachable. Maybe by now the story bores you. You fell out of love with it once you got to know it better. Hey, it happens. I’m wondering myself if I’m on the right track, if I’ll be able to tell the story I set out to and if it’s worth telling even if I can. Yep, I’m stuck in the murk.

Several options here. 1) procrastinate 2) blunder around until I discover the right path to the end, or 3) give up.

Many writers have procrastination honed to a fine art. Deadline looming? Wash the dishes and vacuum the spider webs off the ceiling. Have a cookie. Then decide you need tea with that. Or scotch. Then go to FaceBook and look at cat memes.  Stuck and floundering? Throw yourself into research. The internet makes it so easy. You don’t have to head to the library with focused questions and a limited amount of time and patience. Oh no. You can look up the price of a Hermes scarf in British pounds, watch a YouTube video of the 600 year anniversary light show for the astronomical clock in Prague, and scour maps of Lake Geneva for the exact location of the villa where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. These are actual examples of research I did for my novel. Google Maps with street view is a fantastic tool. I found out there are no cafés on the same street as the Hermes store in Paris. I also know there are five Hermes boutiques in Paris, but I showed some restraint and only looked at one. I know what houses look like in the old city section of Prague. I know which trains I’d take from Paris to Prague, or from Lake Geneva to Milan. Most of this I don’t need to know and will not use and I knew that at the time I looked it up but I did it anyway. Eventually, I had to get quite stern with myself and stop playing around with the wealth of information out there. As Mary Poppins says, “Enough is as good as a feast.”  

Writing articles about writing a novel is a great procrastination technique, by the way. But now people are tracking my progress, so I feel a little pressure to stop screwing around and get it done.

Too much procrastinating is a bad habit, but it can be useful. It gives me time to step back from the story for a while and mull over the story arc and insights into who the characters have become as the story unfolds. The order of events tightens into focus. It’s a chance to play around with ideas before I commit them to words, or so I tell myself. The problem is that I’m stuck and until I can move forward, fooling around with research seems as useful as staring at that damned blinking cursor. What comes next? I have no idea! Leave me alone, you nagging black line of doom!

Yeah, yelling the cursor isn’t productive. 

One trick to avoid being stuck: When you finish a writing session, get one or two sentences of the next scene down before you stop. That way you’re primed to move on when you open the file the next time. Or stop just short of the natural end of the scene. If you have an easy writing prompt to start with, you’re more likely to type the next sentence.

But what do you do if that doesn’t work? This is where the ‘this works for me but I don’t recommend it’ part comes in. The blundering about method. I go over what I’ve already written and tighten it up. You’re not supposed to start editing until the first draft is complete. The reason for that ‘rule’ is that some writers futz around with their first chapters forever and never move on. The reason I break the rule is that rules are really only guidelines, and guidelines are code for ‘this works for many people.’ That’s no guarantee it will work for you and I’ve found it doesn’t for me. That being said, the first novel you write, your major goal should be to finish it. Millions of people begin novels. Few finish them. Finish yours. Revel in the accomplishment. Slog through to the end no matter what. Then go back and edit. (says the woman who admits she doesn’t do it that way)

 I try to write a linear, meaning that I don’t tend to write scenes out of order. Every sentence in your story should have forward momentum toward the end. Jumping ahead or behind disturbs the forward flow of the narrative. (That can be fixed in the editing process) But just because that’s what I prefer to do doesn’t mean it’s what I really do. A few days ago I wrote a wonderfully evocative scene but realized later that it occurred too early in the emotional arc of the story. Normally, I’d just delete it and write it again later.

You’re probably screaming right now. I know, I know. You’re supposed to save all your precious snippets and tuck them away for later. This is where my view of writing may differ dramatically from yours. I don’t think of anything I’ve written as a rare gem to be set in a tiara to make it sparkle. I’m not saying that you do, or that’s it’s wrong to feel that way. It simply isn’t my approach to my writing. While I write literary erotica, pretty prose isn’t my aim. So it’s rare that I feel anything I’ve written is too precious to delete. I care very much about the emotions evoked in my scenes though, so often the only thing I ‘save’ is an impression of the emotional impact.

However, this time I really liked the way the scene turned out. Plus it took me a long time to write. So I cut and pasted it to the end of my MS (manuscript). It’s lurking out there, waiting for me. Once I reach the right place in the story to incorporate it, I may have to entirely rewrite it to make it fit into the flow of the story. Or cut it if it never fits. I’m sort of brutal that way.

I knew that scene didn’t come next, but what did? Cut to me pacing in the backyard and thinking quite a bit about the story. For days.

Truly stuck at this point, this is when I daydream about being one of those writers who creates an outline before they begin writing. How lovely it would be to see that my next scene is ____. It’s written in stone. It’s meant to be. Yeah. No. The problem with outlines is that I discover the story while I’m writing it. An outline I wrote in advance would be worthless after the first major deviation from it, so why bother? Or worse, I’d try to force the story back to the outline and just… *full body shudder* Not going to happen.

Rather than give up on the novel now that I’m mired down in indecision, this is time to dig into my bag of writer’s tricks to get moving again. The first thing I did was make myself stay away from FaceBook and all other temptations. Then I deliberately wrote a scene I knew was wrong. I used a POV (point of view) character who had no business narrating any part of the story. I explored how she saw the major characters, what changes she noticed in them, and let her ramble on about things that mattered only to her. When I’m not sure what to do next, doing the most wrong thing helps me focus on the right thing. Sure, I wrote a thousand words that I deleted the next time I sat down to write, but I was writing, which beats glaring at the blinking cursor.

When even that trick failed, I broke another one of my rules. I wrote part of the closing scene of the story. I’ll probably have to rewrite it entirely, but it reminded me where I was headed, what was at stake for the characters, and all the events that must happen before they get to that moment. That got me moving forward again, but I also realized something that was wrong way at the beginning of the novel. When you have an option, write new stuff and move forward. Even though it’s killing me to leave the error, I’m working toward the end. I can fix the errors in the editing process. I keep telling myself that. I will avoid temptation!

Is it ever the right decision to give up? I hate to say yes, but the answer is yes. I know some writers who start off strong and know the ending but simply can’t write the middle of the novel. Part of it may be a loss of faith. Sometimes it’s something outside the book such as fear of failure, fear of success, or one of the other evil mind games we play on ourselves.

What if you can’t write more because the story reached a point where it bores you? News flash – if it bores he writer it will bore the reader, so save us all the grief and figure out how to make it interesting. Do you just want to get to the exciting stuff? Then deal with the dull stuff in a sentence or two and get on to the fun part.

But what if that doesn’t work? If you have a bad habit of quitting at this point, force yourself to slog through it. Forcing yourself to finish might not help you produce a publishable novel but you’ll have broken your streak of unfinished work. Then move on to another novel and force yourself to finish it. However, if it isn’t a habit and you just can’t write any more on this story and more urgent ones are hammering at your brain trying to get out, then your best option might be to set this one aside for a while, maybe forever. Give up. Making yourself miserable isn’t worth it. Do you have a contract for the novel? No? Then let it go. Yes? Oh man. You’re in a spot, aren’t you? Put on your professional writer hat (or panties) and try anything, everything, to get it done.

Whatever you do, no matter how uninspired you feel, force yourself to write. That’s my best advice to escape the murk in the middle.

Let me know if you have tricks that help you write when you’re not feeling it. I’m always interested in what other writers do.

Next time, I expect to have finished my novel. I’ll tell you how I brought it on home.

Writing This Novel part IVa

Tomorrow, January 24, the current installment of my Writing This Novel series goes live on the ERWA blog.  I started keeping a side journal as I wrote Night Creatures, but now in real time I've finished the fourth (final) draft while part III of the series is only up to the middle of the first draft.

I say final draft even though I keep going in and futzing around with words and phrases here and there - to the extreme annoyance of my beta reader. That's how I know it's a final. When I'm clarifying themes, I'm done. When I'm changing one word in a sentence from cage to prison and back to cage again, it's time to start working on my submission packet. Pretty much, if I'm at the point where I absolutely hate my novel and can almost recite the entire stupid thing from memory, it's time to send it to a publisher.

Even though I have six or seven months of blog entries for this series, there are things I don't have room to talk about, so I thought I'd expand on part IV here. In part IV, I will talk about (did talk about. I love straddling time lines. 'Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff' indeed!) the difference between my first and second drafts. The first draft is 'throw it all down and deal with the problems later.' Second draft is 'it's later, bitch.'

My first draft had two big problems. One was the timeline. When you read a book, it seems as if the story unfolds in a fated manner, as if that's the way it's meant to be and it couldn't be different, but as a writer, you know nothing is set in stone. But how do you know if a scene needs to be moved? I'm not sure I can tell you. It's instinctual storytelling.

The timeline issue was easily fixed, sort of. Just send the characters to Prague first instead of later on. Cut and paste, right? Uh, no. Now the trip is at the beginning of their adventure and they don't know each other as well. Subtle things such as the way they touch or even the rhythm of their conversations had to be adjusted. Bigger questions such as 'do they know this yet?' had to be addressed. Everything is cumulative in a story. It flows forward. If you move something after the first draft, you have to make sure you've re-established that continuity, flow, and forward momentum.


The other major change I brought to the second draft was the elimination of two secondary characters. Many first novels have far too many characters. As I said (will say) in part IV, you aren't Cecil B DeMille. Cut your cast. So I did. I cut my cast. But I already had a very limited cast of characters to begin with. Why did I trim two more? They were distracting and I didn't trust their motivations, in that their motivations seemed to serve plot rather than come organically from them as characters. I don't like two-dimensional characters and I don't write plot driven stories, so they had to go. Again, I can't tell you how I sensed they were a problem or why I decided to cut them rather than flesh them out. Sometimes I wish there were formulas or proofs for this sort of thing.

Anyway, part III is up tomorrow over at ERWA and I'll post it here a few days later. Part III is about the dealing with the middle of the novel, which is where most writers give up. It's a bit of a downer, but hey, due to the dual time lines we have going on here, you can read about me struggling through the murk in the middle while already knowing that I made it through! It's a bit like jumping forward to read the last page of the book. Cheating? Yes, but I won't tell anyone you did it.

The Next Big Thing

D.L. King tagged me in the Next Big Thing blog tour

1. What is the working title of your book?  The Night Creature

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? Discussions with other erotica writers about the definition of erotica and the nature of desire.

3. What genre does your book fall under? Literary erotica. Erotic horror.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Sophie - Rachel McAdams or Lara Pulver. George - Ewan McGreggor or Benedict Cumberbatch or David Tennant. I'm crap at this because I'm so far inside my character's heads that it's hard to imagine them as anything but thoughts and emotions.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? I'm so tempted to say: Blood splatter, but sexy. And NO VAMPIRES. (I hate writing vampires) Ugh. You'd think I'd be better at this. I can do this for other writer's books, but not mine. Hmmm. How about... Nope. See, everything I try ends up sounding stupid. "Boy chases girl. Boy bites girl. Shit gets reals when she bites back." (But again, NOT VAMPIRES) Fuck. I'm going to pour myself a glass of Glenmorangie and probably smoke a cig and forget this ever happened. I suggest you do the same.   

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I can't imagine what an agent would do for me. I'm talking to a publisher.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Eleven weeks. Much longer than it should have.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Story of the Eye, Blue of Noon

9. Who or What inspired you to write this book? Remittance Girl. She explores ideas behind erotica as a distinct literary genre and gives me so much to think about. 

10. What else about your book might pique the reader's interest? Most people read erotica to get off. I'm not sure if I've ever helped a reader do that. But there are readers who want to explore desire and the other. I hope I've created something for them.

BTW - I want to license Fabio Selvatici's work for the cover. Perfect.

Since she tagged me, you can see D.L. King's post here: http://dlkingerotica.blogspot.com

Oh, she's talking about the anthology she edited, Under Her Thumb. I'm pretty sure I have a story in it. Cool cover.

Best Sex Scene Ever Written?

I'm not obsessive about checking the stats on this blog. Last I did was seven or eight months ago, because I have a steady readership that doesn't fluctuate too much. Or so I thought, but in the meantime I'd posted a critique of the book about the the best sex scenes ever written (except that it wasn't about that!).

So I checked my stats this week.

Have you ever read The Little Prince?
Picture the drawing of the elephant.
Now picture the drawing of the snake that swallowed the elephant.

That post about the best sex scenes book is the elephant in the graph of my readership, a spike of about 500% over my other posts. Obviously, many people want to know where to find the best written sex scenes, and you'd probably think that I, being an erotica writer and long time reviewer of erotica at Erotica Revealed, could point you to the good stuff.

I want to help, but I'm not sure if I can. What do you mean when you ask for the best? If you're looking for something that will get you off, are we ever in for a long conversation.

Does it take a certain scenario to get your libido humming? Horny nymphet? Alpha male? Cowboys? Like it romantic? Want to dabble in rape fantasy? Are you into BDSM? Which part? The B? B&D? D? D/s or S&M? Female dominant or male dom? How do you feel about leather? Rubber? Balloons? Furries? Mucus? Tickling? (As an aside, many of the pink salons in Japan offer menus so shy types don't have to state their preferences. Want blow jobs from twins dressed as sexy nurses? Just circle it on the menu. Brothels in Pompeii had pictures on the wall you could point to. How brilliant was that?)

I can almost hear you grumping, "I just want sex, ferchrissakes! Regular old sex!"

Okay. But regular for who? I assume you mean vanilla, as in not BDSM and not kink or fetish, but do you mean vanilla for a lesbian, a gay man, a hetero male of female, transpeople, or a threeway? (And be sure to define if that threeway is FMF MFF MFM MMF FFF MMM FMT FFT MMT FTF MTM TFT TTT TMT....)

What works for me probably won't get you off (almost guaranteed), so while I can appreciate your triggers, I can't possibly point to one story and say "This is the definitive 'sex during a high wire act while in full clown makeup and wearing fetish ballerina shoes' story that will get you off in no time flat!" Sorry.

But if you're looking for erotica with literary merit, there I can help you. There are the classics, such as Anais Nin's work, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Story of the Eye, Fanny Hill, and The Story of O.If you want to read contemporary writers, I suggest anything by Remittance Girl, M. Christian, Alison Tyler, Sommer Marsden, Fionna Zedde, Nikki Magennis, Donna George Storey, Peggy Munson, Mike Kimera, Xan West...

Hmmm. Erotica is a small but tight (go ahead and roll your eyes or smirk if you must) community. A list is only going to bruise egos. There must be a better way to point you in the direction of quality erotica.


How about this? Publishers. Oh, wait, readers don't care who publishes a book. Only writers do. So if I were to tell you to look for offerings from Cleis Press, Circlet Press, Torquere, Coming Together, etc your eyes will probably glaze over.

Would you be willing to search for editors such as D.L. King, Kristina Wright, Simon Sheppard, Alison Tyler, Kathleen Warnock, Rachel Kramer Bussel, M. Christian, Maxim Jakubowski, or Todd Gregory? They have great taste in the stories they choose for their anthologies, which is why they're often trusted with acclaimed annual anthologies such as Best Lesbian Erotica, Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Best Women's Erotica, etc. and/or themed anthologies. You'll find good or even great literary erotica in those offerings, which will lead you to well-written sex scenes.

However, as with sexual preferences, literary merit is definitely in the eye of the beholder, so I can't tell you the best 100 Sex Scenes Ever Written. You get to judge that yourself. But at least with my recommendations there will actually be sex in the sex scenes. You're welcome.

Oh Get a Grip

The reason my posting grew so sporadic on this blog was my weekly column at Oh Get a Grip, but now that I only write there twice a month, and on ERWA blog  once a month, I have enough time to post here again.

Also, I have books coming out. I should probably keep better track. Coming Together In Vein is out now. I have two stories in it. Not wild about the cover, but I'll survive. I could swear I have more. I've been so wrapped up in novels that I haven't given the anthologies much thoguht after I submit.

Anyway, part III of Writing This Novel will post after it goes up on ERWA, so sometimes around the 24th.

Coming Together In Vein

Helping Vampires to Save the World

Let's face it. Vampires are sexy. Something about the undead stirs up our juices. Perhaps it's their irresistible power. Even when we know the danger, we're so very tempted to surrender to their all-consuming lust. Maybe we want to comfort them, to save them a lonely, bloody eternity. Maybe we secretly crave immortality ourselves.

Vampires are frequently portrayed as evil or at least amoral, viewing humanity from the jaded perspective of centuries. Now, though, vampires are doing their part to save the world.

Coming Together: In Vein is a brand new collection of vampire-themed erotica and erotic romance edited by Lisabet Sarai. All sales of this novel-length volume support Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières). MSF works in nearly 70 countries providing medical aid to those most in need regardless of their race, religion, or political affiliation. Right now, despite being barred from the country, MSF doctors and nurses are in Syria, working with patients from both sides of the civil war. They're performing surgery in caves and sneaking into refugee camps to distribute desperately needed medications.

You can help MSF in its life-saving mission, simply by indulging your passion for vampires. Buy a copy of Coming Together: In Vein in ebook, Kindle format, or print. Enjoy! Then help spread the word! Every copy we sell has the potential to save someone's life.

The list of contributors includes many names you'll recognize. Every one of these authors has provided his or her work free of charge, to support the charitable aims of the project. Furthermore, the editor is giving away a free copy of her short story collection Body Electric  to everyone who buys a copy of Coming Together: In Vein. (For details of this offer, click here.)

You'll find an excerpt below – just to whet your appetite.

Sink your teeth into Coming Together: In Vein. Help our vampires save the world. 

~

From “Willing” by Xan West

I pull out my blade and show it to him. His eyes widen and he whispers, "My safeword is chocolate." I am surprised. Most who frequent the fetish scene know nothing about real BDSM. That these are the first words out of his mouth shows that there may be more to this boy than I thought. I stand still, watching him. He is older than I had first surmised, at least twenty four. The little leather he wears is well kept, his belt clearly conditioned and his boots cared for by a loving hand. He is motionless, knees slightly bent, shoulders back, offering me his chest. His pulse is not rapid, but his eyes eat up the knife and his lips are slightly parted, as if all he wanted was to take my blade down his throat.

His brown eyes stay fixed on the knife as I move toward him. I tease his lip with the tip of it and then speak softly.

"How black do you flag?"

His eyes stay on the blade. He swallows.

"Very black, on the right, Sir."

"Is there anything I need to know?"

"I am healthy and strong. My limits are animals, children, suspension and humiliation, Sir."

"And blood, hmmm?" I am teasing. I know the answer. It is why I found him here, and not at the Lure.

"Oh please, Sir. I would gladly offer my blood."

"Why?"

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes a moment, and then opens them. The pulse in his throat starts racing, but his voice is calm, and matter-of-fact. I tease my blade against his neck.

"I have been watching you a long time, Sir. I have seen how you play. I see the beast inside you. I know what is missing. Those boys at The Lure don't know how to give you what you really need. They don't see that they are barely feeding your craving, and not touching your hunger. The boys here don't see you. They just see their own fantasy. They are simply food. I am strong, Sir. Strong enough for you. I can be yours. My blood, my flesh, my sex, my service. Yours to take however you choose, for as long as you want. To slake your hunger. I would be honored, Sir."

I take a deep breath, stunned, studying him. This boy who would offer what I never really thought was possible. He has surprised me again. That alone shows this boy is more than a meal. He just might be able to be all that he has offered.

*****

I'm a big fan of Xan West's work, so I chose this excerpt among a few really great ones.

Writing This Novel part II

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Writing This Novel, Part I

Yeah, I haven't posted in forever. I've been busy working on a few novels and articles for Oh Get a Grip and the ERWA blog, but I thought I should start up again here, so I'm bringing over my entries from ERWA blog where I'm recording my progress as I work on my current novel.
 ~~

 Anyone who has ever tried to write a novel knows this is tricky. I might not finish. I might get bogged down in the middle and have no clue what to do next. And you’ll get to see me fail in real time! Oh, wait…

     Several years ago at a writer’s conference, Poppy Z Brite commented that you don’t learn how to write a novel. You learn how to write this novel (as you're writing it). I’ve written a couple novels since then and agree with her comment.

   Where do you begin? With the idea of a story. That sounds logical but I’ve seen people claim they sit down and ‘just write.’ I have no clue how that works. It probably doesn’t. Have an idea of the overall story you want to tell even if you don’t have the specifics, who the main characters are (I suggest you have a solid fix on them), and where you want the story to end so you have a goal to aim for. Sure, there are people who claim to be pantsers –- seat of the pants storytellers who don’t outline—but I’m sure they have an idea of what they want to do when they start. Otherwise it’s like entering a forest without a path, walking for several hours in whatever direction your feet lead, then the sun starts to set and you ask yourself where the hell you are and how to get out. That’s how people end up writing two hundred thousand word novels with no end in sight. That’s not the best use of your precious writing time.

     Stephen King, in his fantastic book On Writing, admits he doesn’t know where his stories come from. In the ‘writing is a talent’ versus ‘writing is a craft’ debate, I’m firmly in both camps.  However, I believe that the ability to imagine a story is a talent. You either have it or you don’t. If you have it, you understand why Stephen King can’t tell you where stories come from. He can’t, and I can’t. But I can tell you how this novel began for me.

     I had a vision. It’s sort of like daydreaming, like a snippet of a movie, but so vivid that I swear I can smell and feel things. These scenes hit me while my mind is wandering. I’ve never sat down and said, ‘I will now imagine something.’  This particular story idea came to me after reading comments by Remittance Girl on the ERWA Writer’s list as the group discussed what defined the erotica genre. She (I’m paraphrasing) said that the central question of erotica is how we (the characters) deal with desire. I mulled over that for a few days and this vision came to me:

(I’m not going to record this in any attempt at pretty prose since this would never go into a story raw. This is the way I would have jotted it down on paper.)

    Fog hangs heavily in the air. It condenses on the bare limbs of winter trees and splatters on cobblestones. It’s just before dawn, and even though my vision is in color, it feels like a black and white photograph, like the movie poster from the Exorcist with the priest under the gas lamp in the fog. Street lamps cast cold light on a small train station. A young woman in ratty punkish clothing paces the station platform and stomps her feet to keep warm. She wraps her arms around her waist and mutters to herself. I can’t hear what she says, but she repeats it over and over, so I know she’s losing her mind. At the far end of the station platform, a man appears. He’s been there all along, but she (and I) just noticed him. The young woman is suddenly ravenous and aroused. Her gaze lingers on the groin of the man’s jeans. He’s cold too, with his nose buried in a thick scarf and his hands shoved into the pockets of his thick coat. Just a guy, going to work on the early train. She walks over to him and asks in German, “Want to fuck?” (although I’m convinced that she’s American)

    That’s it. That was all I had to go on. It takes five minutes to write down, but in my mind, it was only a ten or twenty second movie. As I do with most of these visions, I immediately asked all the pertinent questions. Who was she? Clearly the main character. Where and when was she? The train station’s architecture said Eastern Europe. The gas lamps, black and white tones, and train travel suggested the past, but her clothes said 1990s to 2000s, so I knew that the story would be set in current times but have a timeless feel. I also knew from the lighting and the fog that the story’s tone would tend gothic and share genre elements with either horror or noir (a term which technically only applies to movies, but you know what I mean) Why is she at the train station? She’s chasing someone. Why was she losing her mind? Hunger. What was she hungry for? Sex.

    Where do those answers come from? Imagination. As I’m asking myself these questions I’m filling in details. They may change as I’m writing the story, but these are my characterization, setting and tone starting points. This is also where I ask myself: What is the story about? The answer is one sentence, hopefully under twenty words. I write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the wall above my computer so it’s always there to remind me as I write. I also get a summary idea of the story (which can and will change). This isn’t the same as plot, but it’s similar.

   I let my mind run with those answers for a couple days. I sensed a novel in it, but was so caught up in the intensity of the story that I wanted to get something down. Plus, I worried that a story about someone chasing a lover (or lunch, depending on where I went with it) wasn’t a big enough idea for a novel. So I threw myself into writing a short story which ended up on ERWA’s blog in October under the title It’s Lovely. It’s Horrible.  (If you missed it, the story has already been picked up by an editor for a vampire anthology even though it’s not what I’d call a vampire story.) Almost every critique on ERWA’s Storytime list stated that the idea was too big for a short story and I needed to expand it to a novel. So that’s what I’m doing.

    A note about titles. I either get a great idea for a title off the bat or I struggle. Orbiting in Retrograde – flash of inspiration. She Comes Stars – came from a line in the story. It’s Lovely. It’s Horrible – I settled on only after I mentally shoved bamboo slivers under my fingernails. And believe me, that was the best I could do after some truly awful ideas.  That wasn’t the title I wanted to use for a novel so it was back to the bamboo. Desire was my initial title idea since a discussion about desire sparked the story idea, but what the hell does Desire tell the reader? Not much. It could be a great title for another work, but not this one. I flirted with the idea of Consumed for a while but I recognize a yuck title when I see one. I think I was taunting myself with that one. “Pick a better title or you’ll be stuck with this one!” At that point I gave up trying to find a title and forged ahead with the story. You don’t have to have a title. It’s nice to have one, but you can work without one.

A couple chapters into the first draft I stumbled into a title. I’m still trying to decide if it’s The Night Creature or The Night Creatures, and if I’ll drop The, but it strikes me as a good fit. The Night Creature warns you that the work will be dark. It hints at horror. That’s the tone I want to set from the beginning.

Next time I’ll talk about how I decided where to begin the story.

Harder She Comes Blog Tour

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101 Best Sex Scenes Ever Written

I bought 101 Best Sex Scenes Ever Written: An Erotic Romp Through Literature for Writers and Readers by Barnaby Conrad when I bought his other book 101 Best Beginnings Ever Written. While I liked the 101 Best Beginnings Ever Written, I have issues with Best Sex Scenes.

It started off promising. In his forward, he states

"The selections were not chosen gratuitously, not included to titillate - (sorry) - the reader. They all advanced the plot in some way of helped to characterize the protagonist of the story they came from."

He at least seems to respect that sex has a legitimate place in storytelling, if you can overlook his comment in the previous paragraph that

"Justice Stewart surely would label this book pure porn, and of course, considered out of context, many of the scenes read as though they were, indeed, porn. Yet every excerpt is from a distinguished writer, often a great one, and its source is a published and respected novel or short story."

Okay, so if you're a literary writer, you don't write porn. You write pornographic scenes, but you can be forgiven because your work is published and respected.

After the first couple chapters, it became evident that to Mr. Conrad, a great sex scene takes place off page and leaves everything to the imagination. Worse, at the end of chapter six, he states:

"But, by reading Lolita, a would-be writer can learn how to write a beautiful sex-driven novel with no gross language or uncomfortable images."

Lolita is his example of a book that doesn't contain 'uncomfortable images?' Does he think that most people are comfortable with the idea of some old geezer lusting after a twelve-year old girl? I'm not arguing the literary merit of the book, but even I have real problems with the subject matter.

If his squeamishness over the depiction of sex wasn't clear enough by then, the title of chapter thirteen drove it home: Ugh, E-e-e-uuu, and Gross. 

Really, Mr. Conrad? Why on earth would you approach this subject if the best you can summon is a juvenile reaction to the subject? And why is it that that

"I shall leave the literature of same sex and kinky sex and bestiality to those who see drama or purpose or exemplary behavior therein."

So gay sex is equivalent to bestiality and not exemplary behavior and has no purpose?

Ugh. *Flings tome across the room* I suggest Mr. Conrad avoid this subject until he's mature enough to approach it as an adult.

Will She or Won't She?

With the publishing world in such flux right now, I'm mulling over the idea of self-publishing The Devil's Concubine. I've already contacted Kelley from Sterling Editing about reserving a slot in her schedule, because editing is something you don't skimp on if you want your readers to have a good experience with your story. Editing is something you treat yourself to as a reward for finishing a novel. Editing is a personal masters level course in writing.

I'm reading blogs and tapping into resources to find out how to go about this. If my budget were really tight, I guess I'd try to learn as much of this as I could on my own, but I'm probably the least visual person on earth, so I don't trust my ability to do a good job on things such as the book design, which is how it looks on the inside, and the cover art. And there's formatting for the different ebook platforms and ISBNs and POD and ... so much to learn about.


I'll keep you posted.  

This is How it Works

I saw a recent pie chart of how readers find ebooks. I can't seem to find a link. so I can't share it, but the upshot was that people rely mostly on recommendations on groups they belong to, then recommendations by family and friends. Those slices combined were well over 50% of the chart.

In a book store (remember those?) it's called hand selling. That's when a knowledgeable clerk says "Oh, you like that book? Well, let me tell you about this one!" Even without book stores, it remains the most powerful selling tool for a writer.

This isn't self-promotion. Hey, I'm a writer, I understand letting people know that you have a book out. But it becomes just so much background noise especially to those of us with a lot of writer contacts. I don't think I've ever read self-promotion SPAM and thought, "Hmm. I must read that." However, I have on occasion said,  "I will never read anything this writer ever writes because she's pissing me off with her ten posts a day about her book."  I've heard that from others too. There's obviously a fine line here, and it's different for everyone, but one or two announcements are plenty. After that, you're teetering on the annoying edge. 

So how do you tap into this all important 50% plus marketing vein? Well... You have to write a really good book. You have to write something that gets a reader excited enough that they talk about it. You can't force them to talk. You can't SPAM them into talking. All you can do is write such a great book that a complete stranger will tell another person, "You have to read this."

That's the big secret.

Now you know how it works.

NaNoWriMo is coming!

NaNoWriMo - national novel writing month - begins November 1st.

Last October, writer Nobilis suggested trying the snowflake method of outlining as a way to prepare for the grueling month of writing ahead, so I tried it. It's an interesting exercise for a non-outliner (I could even say for someone hostile to the idea of outlining) to engage in. Would I do it again? Probably not, but I learned some useful stuff just by trying.

I tried other experiments outside my usual method of writing. Some were useful, some weren't.

While I hit the 50,000 word mark, the novel I produced wasn't useable. However, after the third rewrite, I now have The Devil's Concubine, and readers have a lot of good things to say about it.

So am I going to try again this year? No, but nothing about the experience was wasted. I learned how to write even when I didn't feel like it (here's when having an outline really helped. I didn't stare off into the distance as I tried to figure out what happened next. I'd already done that work in October). I learned how to distill my story down to one sentence. Hopefully, I learned how to write a decent synopsis. (I'll test that when I try to prep The Devil's Concubine submission package).   I'd suggest it to anyone who ever wanted to try to write a novel. If anything, it teaches you to just write.

It's Been a Week

and I'm still in recovery from the conference.

But, I'm hearing back from my beta readers on The Devil's Concubine, and what I'm hearing is encouraging. It's good to know that my third try at this novel was worth it. The common complaint is that the story ended. Hah! Success!

EAA Con wrap up

I'm still in recovery from this weekend, but what a weekend it was!

Thanks again to D.L. King, Nan Andrews, Kate Dominic, and Jolie du Pre for their amazing hard work running this. Andrea Dale also pinch hit for us in a spectacular display of generosity.

Where do I begin? Things that went wrong. Hmm.

Well, the starting hour was way to early. Unfortunately, we we took this date, the hotel didn't mention to us that 9/10/11 was a huge day for weddings. If we'd known that "suddenly" the hours we needed the rooms that they wouldn't be available and we'd have to start at the crack of dawn to get in our programming, we would have gone a week later. Live and learn. Get the hours in a contract and fight it tooth and nail when they change it on you.

No readings opposite panels. The readings were sparsely attended, and the schedule was to blame for that.

Have more staff! We were blessed that Nan and Kate, and Andrea, were willing to be drafted. We couldn't have done it without them. But we need to recruit more people before hand. Andrea - I will never forgot that you offered to help with programs next year! NEVER! Programs were the bane of my existence. And some of the things she mentioned were so obvious in retrospect that I'd wished I'd tapped her insight beforehand.

Some panelists and class leaders weren't able to come last minute. Oh man, were they ever missed. I don't know how you work around real life emergencies, and we filled in fairly well, but some guests were really disappointed that certain people they came specifically to see weren't there. All I can do is apologize. And get viruses to obey me. And flooding rivers too. I'll work on that. Oh, and internet connectivity. It was crap in the convention center. Sorry.

I should have asked the hotel to show me their worst rooms as well as their best beforehand. I hope no one besides me ended up in one of the frankenrooms.

I'm sure that there's more that I missed. People were generous with their insights, and I hope we can address those problems next year. We will send out a questionnaire and please, tell us again, because right now, I barely remember my name.

What went right? Our amazing panelists and guests. Imagine all sorts of people you admire chatting and laughing and having a great time. Imagine people so engaged in panel discussions that they groan when the time warning goes off. Imagine for once as an erotica writer not having to self-censor an honest question about your work.

I'm thrilled that so many people came and that there was a broad spectrum of interests, writing styles, sexualities, and backgrounds represented. The generosity of everyone who came and shared blew me away. So I'm tired, but very happy.  

My Bags Are Packed, I'm Ready to Go

Except that I'm not leaving on a jet plane. Tomorrow morning, when I try to shove my suitcase into the car, things are going to get interesting, because my poor car is so stuffed with boxes that I may have to pack my clothes and toothbrush in a grocery bag. Climbing the Cajone Pass with that much extra weight in the car is going to be interesting too, to say the least.

One panelist fell ill and another had to cancel at the last second, leaving us a bit short on one panel and eep! one class short in a time slot. I really wanted to go to the synopsis writing class, so it was the only one I demanded free time for. Now I'm leading a class in that slot. Oy vey.

See kids, this is why you never put on a play in the old barn. You end up playing seven roles when all you wanted to do was be the prop person and enjoy the show from the wings.

Truthfully, it's not that big of a scramble to fill that slot though. D.L. King and I talked a long time ago about what we'd do if this situation came up, so I already had some notes together for a class on character development. (I'm not going to try to teach synopsis writing)  So this is what I'm doing tonight - fretting over character. (I hope everyone goes to the taboos panel instead.)

That, and moving boxes around my car trunk to make sure every inch of space is filled.   And wondering what else will go wrong.

Eek!

I didn't realize that it had been so long since I'd made an entry. I blog weekly over Oh Get A Grip and that's been about all I've managed to do as D.L. King and I have worked off our butts putting together the first EAA Writer's Conference (this coming weekend in Las Vegas). It's gong to be amazingly successful. I hoped for sixty-five attendees. We just hit eighty. So that's huge, and wonderful, and scary.

I've also been writing madly to finish The Devil's Concubine. It's in the hands of a few beta readers. This is my third stab at the novel, but this one works (thank goodness!). At least it does for me. We'll see what they think.

Once the conference is over, I'll try to be much better about regular posting. I may have to give up my slot at Oh Get a Grip. It's fun, but I'm not sure if I like the amount of personal disclosure it sometimes pressures us into. This week's topic was a good example. While I'll admit that there a (very) few erotic diarists who can share interesting stories about their sexual fantasies, I'm just not into that.

Interview about the EAA Conference

Sharazade was kind enough to interview me about the conference. Check it out!