WriteSex And Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker

Busy little bee, aren't I?

Check it out: up on the fantastic Erotica Readers And Writers Association blog is a new Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker piece - AND I have a new article on the fun WriteSex site. Here are teases of both - just click on the [MORE] button to go to the full thing.

Definitive Definitions

A pal of mine asked an interesting question once: what's my definition of erotica, or of pornography? Other folks have been asked these questions, of course, and the answers have been as varied as those asked, but even as I zapped off my own response I started to really think about how people define what they write, and more importantly, why.

It's easy to agree with folks who say there's a difference between erotica and pornography. One of the most frequent definitions is that erotica is sexually explicit literature that talks about something else aside from sex, while porno is sex, sex and more sex and nothing else. The problem with trying to define erotica is that it's purely subjective—even using the erotica-is-more-than-just-sex and porn-is- just-sex-analysis. Where's the line and when do you cross it? One person's literate erotica is another's pure filth. Others like to use a proportional scale a certain percent of sex content—bing!—something becomes porn. Once again: Who sets the scale?

What I find interesting isn't necessarily what the distinction between erotica and pornography should be but why there should be one to begin with. Some writers I've encountered seem to be looking for a clear-cut definition just so they won't be grouped together with the likes of Hustler and Spank Me, Daddy. While I agree that there's a big difference between what's being published in some of the more interesting anthologies, magazines and Web sites as opposed to Hustler and Spank Me, Daddy, I also think that a lot of this searching for a definition is more about ego and less about literary analysis. Rather than risk being put on the shelves next to Hustler and Spank Me Daddy, some writers try to draw up lists and rules that naturally favor what they write compared to what other people write: "I write erotica, but that other stuff is just pornography. Therefore what I write is better."

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Thinking Outside Your Box

Sure, we may all want to just cuddle in our little garrets, a purring pile of fur in our laps, leather patches on our sleeves, a pipe at the ready, and do nothing but write masterpieces all day and night – with periodic breaks for binge-drinking and soon-to-be legendary sexual escapades – but the fact of the matter is that being a writer has totally, completely, changed.I’m not just talking about the need to be a marketing genius and a publicity guru – spending, it feels too often, more time tweeting about Facebook, or Facebooking about tweeting, than actually writing – but that authors really need to be creative when it comes to not just getting the word out about their work but actually making money.

A lot of people who claim to be marketing geniuses and publicity gurus will say that talking about you and your work as loud as possible, as often as possible, is the trick … but have you heard the joke about how to make money with marketing and PR? Punchline: get people to pay you to be a marketing genius and/or a publicity guru. In short: just screaming at the top of the tweety lungs or burying everyone under Facebook posts just won’t do it.

Not that having some form of presence online isn’t essential – far from it: if people can’t find you, after all, then they can’t buy your books. But there’s a big difference between being known and making everyone run for the hills – or at least stop up their9 ears – anytime you say or do anything online.

Balance is the key: don’t just talk about your books or your writing – because, honesty, very few people care about that … even your readers – instead fine a subject that interests you and write about that as well. Give yourself some dimension, some personality, some vulnerability, something … interesting, and not that you are not just an arrogant scream-engine of me-me-me-me. Food, travel, art, history, politics … you pick it, but most of all have fun with it. Forced sincerity is just about as bad as incessant narcissism.

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Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: A Universal Madness

This is very nice: the great Erotica Readers And Writer's site just posted a brand new Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker essay!

"Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing." –Margaret Chittenden

Maybe it was because of a recent birthday – thank you very much, that's very kind – or perhaps it's because I just realized that I've been at this, being a 'professional' author for over 20 years – shocking, I know – or possibly it's because of a few .... (ahem) sad experiences recently but I want to revisit something I've said before.

I really wonder about writers.  Okay, internet, let's hear what you have to say: artists, musicians, actors ... how to you treat your fellow creators?  I used to have a wonderful roomie who was a musician.  We used to chat all the time about this, that, and other things but a lot about how even though there's a sense of competition among his fellows there was also a lot of camaraderie: he'd come home full of bright energy from playing for hours and hours with other musicians ... just jamming. 

Meanwhile I'd spent the night struggling with getting a stubborn story to cooperate, but mostly dealing with one insanely arrogant writer after another demanding they receive special treatment (oh, as a matter of transparency, I work as an editor and a publisher in addition to trying to deal with my own writing 'career').  This all came to a head when I realized that for those two decades of being a published about I currently have only a dozen or so fellow authors I consider to be 'friends' (and Facebook doesn't count).

Sure – as a writer myself – I can understand why ... but that doesn't make it right.  Again, I'm not sure what it's like to be a painter, actor, photographer, musician, or victim of any other creative pursuit, but writing is damned hard: we get little or no respect, no money, and everyone and their Great Aunt Maude thinks they can do it as well.  Our years of work, the care and concern we put into our stories and novels, are ignored unless we sell something – and then only if it makes millions – or if you take home some pretty little trophy.  If you have a day job – and every writer out there does, and if they aren't then they're either lying or a member of the rare 1% of writers – you know the deafening silence that comes when you mention finishing a work. 

But what's worse is that far too often it seems that the greatest barrier every writer must face ... are other writers. Like said, it's understandable ... but not excusable: we get our teeth bashed in, our souls crushed, our work ignored – or slammed by trolls – and so, wounded, we try to bolster our scarred egos by wrapping ourselves in a cloak of supposed superiority. 

Write erotica?  I'm better than a pornographer.  Write science fiction?  I'm better than a romance writer.  Write romance?  I'm better than a thriller writer.  Write thrillers?  I'm better than a science fiction writer.  Have 5,000 Facebook 'friends'? I'm better than someone with none.  Won an award?  I'm better than anyone who hasn't.  Write for a blog or site?  I'm better than anyone who doesn't.  Have an agent?  I'm better than someone who doesn't have one.  Write a novel?  I'm better than anyone who hasn't.  Sold to a 'big' publisher?  Then I'm better than anyone who hasn’t.  Sold a book for five figures?  Then I'm better than someone who hasn't.  A professional?  Then I'm better than someone who hasn't sold a word.  Become a 'name'?  Then I'm better than anyone who isn't.

It's pathetic. 

No, it's fucking pathetic.

Oh, I've heard all the lame justifications for this arrogance: if I treated everyone equally then I'd never have time to write, that everyone has to earn their stripes, that you should take public pride in your accomplishments.  But that's exactly what they are: excuses.  The bottom line isn't taking time, or the fear of becoming a full-time mentor or support system.  The awful trust is that treating other writers poorly makes weaker authors feel more important.

Like said, I understand it – and, I'm ashamed to say I've fallen victim to be on more than once occasion.  But that doesn't mean I'm not aware of it – as well as despising myself when I do it. 

But it doesn't have to be this way.

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Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Fetishes

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)


Of all the things to write, I feel one of the all-time toughest has got to be fetish erotica. Gay or lesbian - or straight if you're gay or lesbian or bisexual - is a piece of cake. I mean take a quick look at it: the elements of arousal are obvious, just insert body part of preference and go with it. For gay erotica it's male body, for lesbians it's female. For straight it's the opposite. You don't have to create the ideal man or woman, in fact it's better to describe someone (the lust object) who is a bit more ... real. Perfection is dull, and can be bad story telling, but a body with its share of wrinkles, blemishes, or sags can ad dimension and depth.

Same with the motivation, the inner world of your character. I've said it before but it bears repeating: the trick to writing beyond your own gender or orientation is in projecting your own mental landscape into the mind of your character. You may not know how gay sex, lesbian sex, or straight sex feels (pick the opposite of your own gender) but you do know what love, affection, hope, disappointment, or even just human skin feels like. Remember that, bring it to you character and your story, and you'll be able to draw a reader in.

But fetishes ... fetishes are tougher. Just to be momentarily pedantic, Webster's says that fetishes are: "an object or body part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification." That's pretty accurate - or good enough for us here - but the bottom line is that fetishes are a sexual obsession that may or may not directly relate to sex. Some pretty common ones are certain hair colors, body types, smells, tastes, clothing, and so forth.

We all have them to some degree. Just to open the field to discussion, I like breasts. But even knowing I have them doesn't mean I can't really explain why I like big ones. It's really weird. I mean, I can write about all kinds of things but when I try and figure out what exactly the allure of large hooters is for me I draw a blank. The same and even more so used to happen when I tried and write about other people's fetishes.

But I have managed to learn a couple of tricks about it, in the course of my writing as well as boobie dwelling (hey, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon). I've come up with two ways of approaching a fetish, at least from a literary standpoint. The first to remember that fetishes are like sex under a microscope, that part of their power is in focusing on one particular behavior or body part. Let's use legs as an example. For the die-hard leg fetishist their sexuality (all or just a small part) is wrapped around the perfect set of limbs. For a leg man, or woman, the appeal is in that slow, careful depiction of those legs. The sex that happens after that introduction may be hot, but you can't get away with just saying he or she had "a great set of gams." Details! There has to be details - but not just any mind you. For people into a certain body type or style the words themselves are important. I remember writing a leg fetish story and having it come back from the editor with a list of keywords to insert into the story, the terms his readers would respond to, demanded in their stories. Here's where research comes in: a long, slow description is one thing but to make your fetish story work you have to get your own list of button-pushing terminology.

The second approach is to understand that very often fetishes are removed from the normal sexual response cycle. For many people, the prep for a fetish is as important, if not as important, as the act itself. For latex fans - just to use an extreme example - the talcum powder and shaving before even crawling into their rubber can be just as exciting as the black stretchy stuff itself. For a fetish story, leaping into the sex isn't as important as the prep to get to it - even if you do. Another example that springs to mind is a friend of mine who was an infantilist - and before you leap to your own Webster's that means someone who likes to dress up as someone much younger. For him, the enjoyment was only partially in the costume and roll-playing. A larger part of his dress-up and tea parties was in masturbating afterward: in other words the fetish act wasn't sex, it was building a more realistic fetish fantasy for self-pleasure afterwards. Not that all of your literary experiments need to be that elaborate but it does show that for a serious fetishist the span what could be considered 'sex' can be pretty wide.

The why to try your hand at fetish erotica I leave to you - except to say what I've said before: that writing only what you know can lead to boredom for you and your readers. Try new things, experiment, take risks. In the case of fetishes, it can only add to your own sensitivity and imagination - both in terms of writing and story-telling but maybe even in the bedroom.

And who could argue with that?

Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing… Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!

Fantastic!  A brand new Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker article just went up at the amazing WriteSex site - this time on the hows (and how-nots) of tweeting.  Enjoy!

Okay, to be honest: I used to be extremely anti-Twitter.

It’s not like I’ve done a complete turnaround—far from it—but I’ve begun to use it more seriously, and …I have to grudgingly admit that it can be an effective social media tool.

While I am still fairly new to tweet-tweet-tweeting, I can’t but help notice a lot of authors making what I think are serious mistakes. Part of that, of course, is because twitter is counterintuitive to the way writers think. Unlike blogs and other forms of social media, twitter is ephemeral: tweets coming and going in the space of a few seconds…with few people taking the time to backtrack on what anyone is saying.

This means that quantity is key to tweeting; zapping out a tweet, say, every few days or weeks or only when you have a book or story coming out is pretty much pointless. Even if you have a huge audience of loyal followers, tweeting infrequently means that you will have an very small percentage of that audience who happen to be looking at their Twitter feed for your short pearls of wisdom, or important book announcements, the moment you send them—and that moment, O infrequent tweeter, is the only one you’ve given yourself. To make effective use of Twitter you not only need to tweet every day, you need to tweet several times a day.

And then there’s the question of what you’re tweeting. Yes, you need to talk about your writing; yes, you need to post book announcements; yes, you need to praise your publisher; yes, you need to scream about good reviews…but you also need to come across as a person. So, share interesting information about yourself, share pieces of your writing that you aren’t necessarily trying to sell, talk to your followers as if they were friends (though, not necessarily the kind of friends to whom you’d say anything), rather than potential customers…get my drift? Your followers are interested in your work, but they’re also interested in you.

One thing I’ve been doing—though probably not as much as I should—is a Fun Fact thread: sharing tidbits about little ol’ me that people might find interesting. Hopefully it makes my feed seem a lot less stridently I’M A WRITER READ MY WRITINGS and more human, intriguing, and engaging.

Fortunately, frequent tweeting with varied messages isn’t as hard as it sounds. You don’t have log in to  your twitter account multiple times and send out each tweet manually. With the right tool you can post a half dozen tweets or more all at the same time, and have them sent out every few hours. One of the best tools I’ve found for this (and, no, this isn’t a commercial) is called Hootsuite; it’s a web-based twitter aggregator that allows me to post, schedule, track, and do other fun things, and from more than one Twitter account (which is handy, since I work for a publisher and send out tweets about myself as well about them). The scheduling feature is very handy: I can create multiple tweets and then copy and paste them into Hootsuite’s scheduler—and program them to pop up over the span of a few hours or even days.

Of course, you don’t want the tweets to be mind-numbingly similar and spammy. No one—ever—wants to listen to a commercial, let alone the same one several times a day. So flooding your poor followers with nothing but BUY MY BOOK BUY MY BOOK BUY MY BOOK is not going to sell a single copy, and will more than likely get you unfollowed. Give the repeated content some variety, switch the words around, say the same thing in different words, etc.

Here are four tweets I sent out for one of my books when Sizzler Editions was giving it away free one weekend:

He drank blood but wasn’t a vampire. Even he didn’t know what he was! Free 14-16thh Manlove novel @MChristianzobop http://amzn.com/B00CWNRFYM

#Free 14-16th #Manlove #Vampire classic complete in one ebook Running Dry by @MChristianzobop http://amzn.com/B00CWNRFYM

Like #Manlove #Paranormal #Romance? M. Christian blazes a new trail in Running Dry only @MChristianzobop http://amzn.com/B00CWNRFYM

#Free this weekend only Lambda Finalist M. Christian’s gay vampire classic Running Dry http://amzn.com/B00CWNRFYM

In addition to varying the wording of what is essentially the same information, you can parcel out different bits of information about the same event, in a way that’s easy for late-afternoon or evening tweet-readers to catch up on whatever you’d posted in the morning. Say you were going to a convention where you would be on a panel and also reading. Don’t write one tweet about it. Write a tweet about the fact that you will be there and the dates; another about being on the panel and when it is scheduled; a third about your reading, and when and where.

Another feature of Twitter (and other social media platforms) that a lot of people ignore when sending out info is autosharing. In short, this means that whatever you post to one place gets automatically shared to others. Let’s say I have a blog. Using RSS Graffiti, whatever I post there is picked up on Facebook. Let’s also say I have a Tumblr (I actually have seven). With Tumblr’s built-in system I can share (or not) what I post on it to Twitter and then to Facebook. There is also a setting in Twitter that passes your tweets along to Facebook as well. These settings let you decide what’s automatically reposted where, so your aunt Betty doesn’t end up hearing about your new erotic novel unless you want her to.

It can be a tad confusing—to put it mildly—but it saves a lot of time and effort to automate these things. That said, one word of warning: you want to be careful with a quantity-driven thing like Twitter that you don’t choke your slower-rate social media places like Facebook with too many autoshared reposts—that’ll start to get pretty spammy. Hootsuite, nicely, allows me to post to Facebook as well as Twitter, so I can vary the number of posts I send out to match the nature of the media venue. It may take a bit of trial and error to get this all balanced for rate and time and such but it’s really worth the investment.

Pay attention, as well, to hashtags…though the #trick with #these is #not to overuse #them as your post will look really #silly. You can check trending tags and use those—but all that means is that yours will compete with millions of others. Far better to use them only for what you are really writing about, and then only a few per post.

And retweet items you find important, amusing or interesting. Remember, Twitter is supposed to be social media: meaning that the goal isn’t to talk at people but to them. Tweeting a lot but not actually communicating useful or interesting information is going to get you zilch.

Relatedly, don’t, as too many people do, ignore retweets of your tweets or mentions of your name. It’s not a quid pro quo situation, but it’s nice to pause and acknowledge that someone cared enough to spread your tweets further out into the world. Being ignored, specially by a writer whose career, or books, you have retweeted or shared…well, it doesn’t take much of that for a “follow” to turn into an “unfollow.”

Sure, Twitter too often sounds like a parrot who’s been sitting next to the television for too long and is about as deep as a Justin Bieber song—but the fact remains that, if you approach it intelligently and efficiently, it can be a valuable source of marketing for writers.

Just, as with all social media, try not to get sucked into spending so much time playing with it that you don’t #get #any #writing #done…

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: The Four Deadly Sins, Part 2 - Bestiality

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)

One in awhile someone will ask me “What, if anything, is verboten in today’s permissive, literate erotica?” The answer is that pretty much anything is fair game, but there are what are called the four deadly sins: four subjects that a lot of publishers and editors won’t (or can’t) touch. These by no means are set in stone, but they definitely limit where you can send a story that uses any of them. So here, in a special series of columns, are theses sins, and what – if anything – a writer can do with them. Enjoy!

#

Only in erotica can the line “Come, Fido!” be problematic. Sorry, that was a nasty joke. Unlike some of the other Four Deadly Sins of smut writing, bestiality is very hard to justify: with few exceptions it’s not something that can be mistaken for something else, or lie in wait for anyone innocently trying to write about sex – unlike, for instance, discussing a first time sexual experience and have it accused of being pro-pedophilia. Bestiality is sex with anything living that’s not human: if it’s not living then it’s a machine, if it was once-living then its necrophilia. Can’t get fuzzy about that, eh? Sorry, another bad joke --

A story that features – positively or negatively – anything to do with sex with animals is tough if not impossible to sell, though some people have accomplished it. However, there are some odd angles to the bestiality “sin” that a lot of people haven’t considered – both positive and negative.

On the negative side, I know a friend who had an erotic science fiction story soundly slammed by one editor because it featured sex with something non-human, technically bestiality – despite the fact that there is a long tradition of erotic science fiction, most recently culminating in the wonderful writing and publishing of Cecilia Tan and her Circlet Press (both very highly recommended). Erotic fantasy stories, too, sometimes get the “we don’t want bestiality” rejection, though myth and legend are packed with sexy demons (incubi and succubae, for example), mermaids (only good for fellatio, of course), ghosts, etc. This doesn’t even get into the more ‘classical’ sexy beasts such as Leda and her famous swan or Zeus and other randy gods and demi-gods in their various animal forms.

Alas, “someone else did it” doesn’t carry any weight with an editor and publisher, especially one that might be justifiably nervous about government prosecution or distributor rejection. Erotica, once again, gets – bad joke number three – the shaft: because erotica is up-front about the nature of its writing, alarm bells go off, unlike if you were writing something scholarly or even pop-culture. Market something as “erotic” and the double standards start popping up all over the place.

On a positive note – as the already mentioned Cecilia Tan has proved – sex with aliens and mythological creatures has always been popular. Anthropomorphizing an animal, adding intellect or obvious will to a creature is a very safe way of touching on (or even embracing) the allure of sex with the unusual, including bestiality. The furry subculture is a close example of this, though they are very clear (and I agree) that this is not bestiality – it’s just a way of eroticizing the exotic, mixing human sexuality with animal features. As long as the critters being embraced are not “real” animals and can give consent, then protests and issues usually fall away. Fantasy, after all, is one thing, and there’s nothing more fantastic that dating a being from Tau Ceti V or something that looks like a raccoon crossed with Miss November, 1979.

There’s another feature of bestiality that can be explored but only until recently has been: the idea of role-playing. In this take, a person will behave like an animal, usually a dog and usually submissive. In these S/M games, the “dog” (notice that they are never cats) is led around on a leash, communicates in barks or whines, drinks and eats from a bowl, and is generally treated – much to his pleasure, or as punishment – like a pooch: one-way it’s a unique power game, read it another and it’s bestiality.

One thing worth mentioning, because some people have brought this up in regards to all of the sins, is the “dream out.” What I mean by that is simple, say you really, really want to, say, write about doing some member of another phylum. That’s cool, but your chances of seeing it in print, or even on a website, are just about slim to none. SF doesn’t turn your crank (okay, okay, enough with the bad jokes) so you say: “Got it! It’s a dream!” Well, I got news for you: a story that’s slipped under the door with that framing device, as a way of getting about the idea of a “real” bestiality story apparent, especially when it opens with “I went to bed” and ends with “Then I woke up” is a pretty damned obvious excuse to write an un-sellable bestiality (or any other “sinful” story).

In short, like with a lot of these erotic “sins” whether or not a story comes across as being thoughtful or just exploitive and shallow depends a lot on how much you, as the writer, has put into the concept: something done cheap and easy will read just that way, versus the outcome if you invest time, thought, and – best of all -- originality. Good work really does win out, and even can wash away some of the more outré’ erotic “sins.”

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: No Muse Is Good News

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)


People sometimes ask me about my muse. In other words, where I get the ideas for stories, or how I work.

I hate the idea of a muse and have to bite back the response that I had one once but I clubbed it into submission and now keep it chained up in my basement.

The reason I hate the idea of a muse is that, for me, it takes the responsibility for creation away from the artist and puts it in control of another. "We don't write stories," the muse seems to say, "but we give them as gifts to special people."

Bunk.

Here on earth, we have the writers who feel they have to wait until a story 'speaks' to them, or for a visit from their very own personal muse. Not to put down other writer's habits, but this also strikes me as bunk. Now, I'm the first to say that what writers do is extraordinary; damned near magical. After all, one person creating a work that can live for decades, centuries, and change millions of lives -- if that's not incredible, I don't know what is.

Incredible, yes. Handed down from beyond -- no. Not at all. Shakespeare, Homer, Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Pynchon, Woolf, Mishima. Make up your own list. These men and women didn't have anything you don't already have. No angelic or alien visitations, no mutant genes, no Formula X, no extraordinary gifts. They had brains and minds and worked very, very hard.

Of course that's simplistic, but that doesn't make it any less valid a point: what did they have that you don't have? What do they have that I don't have?

What does any of this have to do with writing erotica? Well, more than you think. Creativity, ingenuity with language, craft, flair, insight, wit, observation -- these are all things that come with work, with practice, with trying, with experimenting. Not once, but over and over again.

Where is this coming from? Well, every once and a while when I put out a call for submissions for an anthology -- or hear other writers talking about someone's project -- I will hear someone say "Oh, I could never do that," or "That's not my kind of book," and I think about muses.

That kind of attitude, that a writer has to be "inspired" to write to a certain theme, or even a certain type of story, reminds me of that myth, that a story has to 'come' to a writer.

Good example: write me a Transgendered Erotica story. Okay, I agree the subject is a bit daunting but don't let that stop you. Think about it, play with it, do some research. What does gender mean? Who are you? What could you be? What must it be like to have been born one way, but know you should have been the other? What does our society say about sex and gender? Does there have to be only men, only women?

Think, read, play -- and write. No muse is going to ring your doorbell and say "Have I got a story for you!" You have to do it yourself, you have to sit down (or walk around) and think, dream, stretch your creativity, and do it yourself.

That's the trick, you see -- where this circle I've been drawing connects up. To be a better writer you have to work at it. Try new things, new techniques, new styles, new markets. Who knows, you might be the best damned transsexual writer ever, maybe you'll write a really great story, maybe you'll only write a good story, maybe your story will suck -- but no matter the result, you've stretched yourself, tried something new. Inspiration and craft are not gifts from above, they're what happens when you put yourself out there and try new things.

As I like to say, the only time a writer fails is when they either give up writing, or simply don't try.

So try. Don't wait for inspiration. Don't wait for just the right market, don't wait for anything. Write. That's the only magic in a writer's life: the writing.

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: The Best of the Best of the Best

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)


Here's a quote that's very near and dear to my heart:

"From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs, but all I have done before the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokosai, but today I sign my self 'The Old Man Mad About Drawing.'"

That was from Katsushika Hokusai, a Japanese painter of the Ukiyo-e school (1760-1849). Don't worry about not knowing him, because you do. He created the famous Great Wave Off Kanagawa, published in his "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" -- a print of which you've probably
seen a thousand times.

Hokusai says it all: the work is what's really important, that he will always continue to grow and progress as an artist, and that who he is will always remain less than what he creates.

Writing is like art. We struggle to put our thoughts and intimate fantasies down just-so, then we send them out into an often harsh and uncaring world, hoping that someone out there will pat us on the head, give us a few coins, and tell us we did a good job.

What with this emotionally chaotic environment a little success can push just about anyone into feeling overly superior. Being kicked and punched by the trials and tribulations of the writing life making just about anyone desperate to feel good about themselves -- even if it means losing perspective, looking down on other writers. Arrogance becomes an emotional survival tool, a way of convincing themselves they deserve to be patted on the noggin a few more times than anyone else, paid more coins, and told they are beyond brilliant, extremely special.

It's very easy to spot someone afflicted with this. Since their superiority constantly needs to be buttressed, they measure and wage the accomplishments and merits of other writers putting to decide if they are better (and so should be humbled) or worse (and so should be the source of worship or admiration). In writers, this can come off as someone who thinks they deserve better ... everything than anyone else: pay, attention, consideration, etc. In editors, this appears as rudeness, terseness, or an unwillingness to treat contributors as anything but a resource to be exploited.

Now my house has more than a few windows, and I have more than enough stones, so I say all this with a bowed head: I am not exactly without this sin. But I do think that trying to treat those around you as equals should be the goal of every human on this planet, let alone folks with literary aspirations. Sometimes we might fail, but even trying as best we can -- or at least owning the emotion when it gets to be too much -- is better than embracing an illusion of superiority.

What this has to do with erotica writing has a lot to do with marketing. As in my last column ("Pedaling Your Ass") where I vented a bit on the practice of selling yourself rather than your work, arrogance can be a serious roadblock for a writer. It is an illusion -- and a pervasive
one -- that good work will always win out. This is true to a certain extent, but there are a lot of factors that can step in the way of reading a great story and actually buying it. Part of that is the relationship that exists between writers and publishers or editors. A writer who honestly believes they are God's gift to mankind might be able to convince a few people, but after a point their stories will be more received with a wince than a smile: no matter how good a writer they are their demands are just not worth it.

For editors and publishers, arrogance shows when more and more authors simply don't want to deal with them. After a point they might find themselves with a shallower and shallower pool of talent from which to pick their stories -- and as more authors get burned by their attitude and the word spreads they might also find themselves being spoken ill of to more influential folks, like publishers.

Not to take away from the spiritual goodness of being kind to others, acting superior is also simply a bad career move. This is a very tiny community, with a lot of people moving around. Playing God might be fun for a few years but all it takes is stepping on a few too many toes -- especially toes that belong on the feet of someone who might suddenly be able to help you in a big way some day – making arrogance a foolish role to play.

I am not a Christian (despite my pseudonym) but they have a great way of saying it, one that should be tacked in front of everyone's forehead: "Do onto others as you would have then do unto you." It might not be as elegant and passionate as my Hokusai quote, but it's still a maxim we should all strive to live by -- professionally as well as personally.

Seven M.Christians: Number 3 - My Mission In Life

Check it out: as part of my Seven M.Christian series I just posted the second installment as part of my on-going Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker column for the always-great Erotica Readers And Writers Site:

My Mission In Life

Being a writer – or, to be a bit more precise, the way I became a writer – has really affected how I view the writing life ... well, actually any kind of creative life. Part of it, of course, is that it took me a long time to actually become a professional -- but more than that I think it's the transformation I went through during that far too lengthy process.

Like a lot of people, when I first began to write with an eye to actually getting published, it was a very painful process: the words just didn't come, I was always second-guessing my stories, felt like my characters were dead-on-arrival, and doubt was around much more than confidence or even hope.

But, as we read in our last installment, I kept with it and was able, finally, to step into the word of professionalism. But an odd thing happened during those years: I actually began to like to write.

Shocking, I know (and, yes, that was sarcasm), as that is what writers are supposed feel, but when I wrote like I should have said loved: sure, the words were still clumsy, the plots a struggle, the characters stiff and uncooperative, and I thought more about being out-of-print than ever getting into-print, but somewhere during those years something just clicked and I began to look forward to losing myself in my own tales, having fun with language, playing with characters ... I began to see the joy in actually telling stories.

But, more than that, I began to see the magic – which gets me, in a rather convoluted way, to the title of this little piece. Working on my stories, before and after being a professional, I developed a real appreciation for what it means to be a creator. Distilling it down a bit, I began to see writing – or painting, music, etc – as very special: what a creative person does is truly unique, incredibly difficult, and immeasurably brave.

Think about it for a second: how many people out there, milling about in their lives, have ever even considered doing what a creative person does. Sure, they may think about it, dream about it, but very few actually take even the simplest of shots at it: a creative person is a rare and special treasure. Now consider this: not only are creative people one percent (or less) of the people walking this world but they are willing to actually get off their day-dreaming clouds and do the work – often against overwhelming odds. We hear of the successes, of course: the award-winners, the 'names,' the celebrities – but we don’t hear about millions of others who tried their very best but because of this-or-that they just weren't in the right place at the right time with the right creation. Lastly, even the idea of stepping into a creative life – especially a professional one – is awe-inspiringly courageous: not only do we do the work, struggle with every element, fail and try and learn and fail and try and learn but, despite it all, we keep going.

I call this installment "My Mission In Life" because I've been there, I know the pain of rejection, the struggles of trying to create something from nothing and so when I work with, talk with, or teach – though my classes – anyone doing anything creative I always remind them of their rarity, their dedication, their courage.

I once wrote a little piece that kind of got me into trouble – especially with other writers. In it I laid it on the line: you will never be famous, rich, or have one of your books made into a movie, no one will ask for your autograph ... but, if you remember that what you are doing is rare, special, and brave then some of that might actually happen. The trick is to remember the magic, to forever hold onto the pure enjoyment that comes from creating something that no one has ever seen before.

I don't use the word magic lightly: when it happens just right, when we put it all together, what creative people do is transport people into another world, show them things that they may never have ever considered, and – if we are very lucky – change their lives. If that is not magic then I don't know what is.

So, "My Mission In Life" is (1) remember my own lessons and not lose sight of the joy in creation, the specialness of what I am trying to do, and the courage I have in sending my work out into the too-often cold and uncaring world; and (2) to tell as many creative people the same exact thing.

Sure, some of us might be 'known' a bit more than others, sell more books, make more money and all the rest of that crap – but I sincerely believe that anyone who has dedicated themselves to creation, of any kind, deserves support and respect. No one who creates is better than any other person who creates: we all face the same difficulties, the same ego-shattering failures, the same Sisyphian tasks of trying to get out work out there and noticed.

What writers do is magic -- pure and simple: we are magicians using only our minds, imaginations, and lots of hard to work to use only words to transform, enlighten, transport, amuse and maybe even enlighten.

As a writer, an editor, a friend, and now as a publisher, it is my heartfelt "Mission" to remind anyone who creates that they are truly special: published or not, 'successful' or not, rich or not, famous or not, we are all magicians – and that we are all in this together and that there is absolutely no reason to make an already tough life tougher through needless competition, arrogance, conceit, or just simple rudeness.

We magicians should stick together – and never forget why we are all here: to experience the joy in telling stories.

Me: Erotica Readers & Writers Association Guest Author!

You may not know it but I am really, seriously blushing: the always-wonderful Erotica Readers & Writers Association (for whom I wrote my "Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker" column for many years) just made me a guest author!  In addition to my bio three of my favorite stories are up there as well: "Hack Work" from The Bachelor Machine, "Billie" from Rude Mechanicals, and "Tinkling Of Tiny Silver Bells" from Licks & Promises.  Check it out here.

Stroke The Fire On Cecilie Smutty Hussy's Place

(from M.Christian's Queer Imaginings)

Very cool: as part of the Stroke The Fire blog tour, the very fun Cecilie Smutty has just posted a brief Q&A with yers truly about my best-of-my-very-best queer erotica: STROKE THE FIRE: The Best ManLove Fiction of M.Christian (part of the special Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions M.Christian ManLove Collection)

I am pleased to say that M. Christian has graced the Lair with his presence... Please put together a warm, smutty welcome for our guest today!

Since you are a new to me author, I am hoping to bring you to the light of others! So let’s share!

Why don't you tell us a little about yourself.... Something that we cannot Google about you, lol!

Well, let's see ... I began with fertilization (thanks, mom; thanks, dad) then quicly moved along to being a zygote and then to cleavage before going onto blastocyst differentiation. Nine or so months and I was on the scene as a – according to mom – rather big infant.

From there to about high school is not really worth talking about -- bullies, zits, voice cracking, hair where there hadn't been hair before, hormones – the usual stages of development from sprout to young adult.

I'd always been a creative kid – thus the bullies – but didn't really have much of a direction for it, but then in High School I was struck (almost literally) by the idea of being a writer. When I say struck I mean it almost literally: I went after being a published author with a serious vengeance. Reading somewhere that the best way of becoming a writer is to ... well, write I set myself a rigorous regimen.

In the end it paid off ... though in a rather usual way: in 1993 (or so), on the spur-of-the-moment I took a class in writing erotica taught by Lisa Palac (who was editing a magazine at the time called FutureSex). Spur-of-the-moment (2) I handed her a story I had just written ... and was totally, completely, utterly shocked -- and totally, completely, utterly delighted – that she bought it for her magazine. A short time later the same story was picked up by Susie Bright for her Best American Erotica 1994.

Just like that I was a published author: a pornographer, sure, but after struggling with my rigorous regimen for (yes, you may gasp) a little under ten years I was ecstatic. After that first story I write another and another and another until...

...here I am: 400+ published stories in anthologies like (the already mentioned) Best American Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica – and even Best Gay Erotica, and Best Lesbian Erotica – plus a whole lot more. I've edited over 25 anthologies – including the Best S/M Erotica series; Pirate Booty; My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica; The Burning Pen; The Mammoth Book of Future Cops, and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi); Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant), and lots more.

My short stories have been collected into many books covering a wide variety of genres, including the Gay Literature/Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words and other queer collections like Filthy Boys, and BodyWork; also collections of non-fiction (Welcome to Weirdsville, Pornotopia, and How To Write And Sell Erotica); science fiction, fantasy and horror (Love Without Gun Control); and erotic science fiction including Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, and the acclaimed Bachelor Machine.

I've even written quite a few novels: the queer vamp novels Running Dry and The Very Bloody Marys; the erotic romance Brushes; the science fiction erotic novel Painted Doll; and the rather controversial gay horror/thrillers Fingers Breadth and Me2.

I'm even an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books, where I (really) try to be the publisher I want to have as a writer, and to help bring quality books (erotica, noir, science fiction, and more) and authors out into the world. My site is www.mchristian.com.

Tell us a little about your book?

The book I'm pushing right now is called STROKE THE FIRE: The Best ManLove Fiction of M. Christian and it's the best-of-the-best of my queer erotic short stories – taken from my previous collections Bodywork, Filthy Boys, and the celebrated Dirty Words. In addition to the best stories from each book I also included the introductions to each book as well: Me from BodyWork, Felice Picano from Filthy Boys, and Patrick Califia from Dirty Words. A lot of the stories have been in books like Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, and the like.

What's rather odd (to be polite) about this book is that while it's queer erotica –and I've written a lot of queer fiction in general – I'm straight.

The way it happened – me being a straight author of queer fiction – is actually rather simple: one day an editor friend was doing a book of gay erotica and wanted to know if I could write a story ... so I did, and he bought it. A few dozen or so stories later I got an offer by a gay publishing house to write a novel, which led to move novels, some anthologies and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

Being serious for a second, I am always very clear with every editor and publisher I work with that I am not gay. In fact when I teach my Sex Sells: How To Write And Sell Erotica class – and what I also say in my How To Write And Sell Erotica book – is that fiction is fiction and that writers should always stretch themselves creatively but when it comes to be a writer talking to a publisher they should never, ever pretend to be someone they are not.

I cannot begin to say how touched I am by the queer community for being (1) to supportive of my work and (2) so understanding of who I really am. A great friend of mine – a publisher of many of my books – once said, and I totally agree with him, that love is love: meaning that even though I may not be sexually queer I adore my gay characters and friends. The mechanics are secondary once you realize that all of us – gay, bi, straight or otherwise – have more in common than less and that we all share the same, basic emotional landscape.

Oh, and just for shits and giggles, here's the table of contents forStroke The Fire:

Stroke The Fire
The Greener Grasses
Hollywood Blvd.
The Hope Of Cinnamon
Suddenly, Last Thursday
That Sweet Smell
Utter West
Friday Night At The Calvary Hotel
Spike
How Coyote Stole Sun
Echoes
Blue Boy
Matches
Wet
Coyote And The Less Than Perfect Cougar
Counting
About The Author (which is actually the title of a story)

How easy do stories come to you?

I like to say I have it bad -- I'm not just a writer by profession but in every way, every part of myself: I just absolutely love to think about stories, plots, characters, novels, settings ... you name it. Sure, writing can still be a trial (to put it mildly) especially when you have to hammer your head again and again and again against things like publicity and the other awful, icky parts that come with the professional side of writing, but when it does get difficult I always try to get back to the joy I feel when I'm writing ... when I'm tellingstories.

What is your favorite part of the book?

I don't really have any favorites ... mainly because I always try and look forward rather than backward when I think about stories and novels and all that.  When I'm feeling cute I say that my favorite story is the one I haven't written yet.

You can only pick 3 words for your main characters ... what would they be?

Hum ... I do know that my stories and books and characters have a tendency to be bittersweet – which kind of reflects my view of life, I guess: that there really aren't happy, shiny endings but, instead, shiny, happy moments in what can be dark and stormy lives.

That being said I'm actually working on a new book – a sequel to my science fiction erotica collection The Bachelor Machine – where my goal is to write not just hot science fiction erotica but stories where the future is depicted as being a very positive place. Part of my reason for doing this is noticing that the stories in I wrote for the original Bachelor Machine were a tad ... stormier than usual, but also because I've noticed a lot of people seem to be reflexively negative about the future. So I want to show that the future could just as easily become a wonderful, positive place – even with scary things like genetic engineering, artificial intelligences, memory alteration, and so forth.

Which was the easiest character to write and the hardest -- and why?

Characters themselves, believe it or not, can sometimes be the problem. I usually write as more of a storyteller, who keeps his characters really tightly in check as what they are doing is usually more important who they are. I know some writers who let their characters roam free, and say that their books or stories aren't done until the characters tell them so ... but that's just not the way I work.

But I should also say that I'm a huge fan of pushing yourself in all kinds of ways: professionally, personally ... you name it. So one thing I'm planning for the future is a book where the characters are running the show – if just to see how it all goes. After all, I didn't know I could write erotica until I tried, didn't know I could write gay fiction until I tried, didn't know I could edit books until I tried ... you get my gist. Who knows what I – or anyone – might be good at until you give it a shot?

What are you currently working on?

Well, I just mentioned a book that is more character than plot-driven as an experiment, and I also chatted a bit about my follow-up to The Bachelor Machine ... but I'm also planning in starting a new novel very soon. I really enjoyed writing the books Me2 and Finger's Breadth – as they touched on a favorite theme of mine: playing with the unexpected and unusual way we human beings act and interact with each other -- the roles we unconsciously play, the dark (and light) sides of our natures that come out under adversity, mob psychology ... all that fun stuff.

Do you have anything due to release soon?

The great folks ay Renaissance/Sizzler Editions (who I also – ahem – happen to be an Associate Publisher for) are going to re-releasing a new edition of my erotic romance, Brushes, and a collection of my non-queer short stories. I'm also finishing up my first shot at a comic book, called Masquerade (with incredible art by Wynn Ryder), and an anthology I edited – about food and sex – called A Lover's Feast, and a new edition the transgender anthology I edited a few years back, Trans Figures.

In other words I like to stay busy – and then some! I'm also getting out there more as a reader/teacher/performer. Just check out my sub-site at mchristian-teaching.blogspot.com for info on all that fun stuff.

What's one thing that you enjoy about writing?

Well, as I said I have it bad. I see writing as an almost spiritual thing – that, somehow, my one little brain can create characters, worlds, tales ... all kinds of things ... that, if I do my job right and/or am damned lucky can reach out and truly affect people's lives. And if I really do my job right and/or am lucky my words will outlive me by decades or maybe even hundreds of years.

When I teach my classes I tell my students – and tell myself when things get dark and depressing – that writers are true and real magicians: our spells are our words, our stories, and they can literally change the world.

I truly love to explore, learn and more of all play with language and story. It's not just what I do as a living but who I am as a person. I don't think I could ever not be a writer.

What do you prefer ebooks or paperbacks?

I actually started my 'career' in the days of paper so I'm one of those folks who can actually look at both pretty clearly ... and I have to say, without hesitation, that eBooks are better for both writers as well as readers. Sure, writers won't get those advances again, but they always seem to forget that's just what they were: money givenagainst the sales of their books, and the brutal truth is that if their books didn't make that money back – and more – their 'career' could very well be over. With eBooks there is no pressure to make your book into a bestseller in the first month – in fact, eBooks can sit on their virtual shelves for a very long time before taking off and it in no way affects how the publisher feels about that author's work. This also means that publishers can take books that are more ... experimental, as they don't have to invest thousands of dollars into printing, distributing and promoting them – just to break even!

eBooks are great for readers (and authors as well) as books don't have to die. One of the man things I love about working for an eBook publisher is being able to re-release books that otherwise would be either out-of-print or practically out-of-existence. I think that is marvelous as there are so many fantastic books out there that otherwise people would never have a chance to read. With eBooks they can!

Is there a genre you would like to write but are a little apprehensive to try?

Well, I always try to push myself in all kinds of ways – you've already heard my little rant about "not knowing you are good at something until you try" so, with that in mind there are a LOT of things I'd love to try: I have plans to try my hand at either a one-act play or a screenplay, a more (ahem) optimistic romance novel, a straight-up horror novel, plus a few really out-there-experimental projects that will hopefully push the boundaries of what a book can be. We're seen a little bit of this kind of stuff with augmented reality games but I want to do so much more with it.

Okay ... personal time! Oh yeah, I go there: If you thought you were safe ... Nah ... Forgot it ... Not a chance! We will start off slow and easy, I promise!

What is on your night stand/dresser?

I really don't have either: I live in what I call an artist's colony – which is really just a big, crazy house I share with a musician, painter, and a gardener. My room is small but – as mom was an interior decorator – it's really very nice. I only have room for a small bookcase (comic books) a large bookcase (books), my desk, and a bed. I do have a few odd things, a pair of model Theo Jansen strandbeests, another pair of models but this time from Hieronymus Bosch's Garden Of Earthy Delights, a miniature terrarium, and two huge stained glass windows my father made.

What are you listening to you right now?

Actually I don't write to music: I'm much more of a visual person so I watch movies while I work. I don't have cable – in fact I can't stand broadcast TV – but I have a great Internet connection so I have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and a whole bunch of other great sources of entertainment and information. Right now I'm watching Roger Corman's War-Gods Of The Deep on YouTube (with Vincent Price) but later I'm planning on watching one of my all-time favorite films: Seconds by John Frankenheimer (starring Rock Hudson).

What are you reading right now?I have an iPad and a rather huge eBook library but, thanks to a nice sale on Amazon, I scored a bunch of Philip K. Dick books for a buck each, so I'm halfway through my favorite of his: Eye In The Sky.

What is your favorite season? Holiday?

My family is just my brother (my mom and dad both passed away) and so my family is all my friends -- so we don't have a lot of traditional holidays. I like to say that we have a celebration every time any two of us get together ... that and holidays and such just feel a bit too stiff and 'traditional' for me.

You know you do ... Quickie time ... Think fast ... Dark or Milk Chocolate?

Dark, absolutely. Vosage's bacon dark when I can afford it, Trader Joe's dark chocolate peanut butter cups when I can't

Whipped or Melted?

Definitely melted: cheese is one of my big weaknesses – though I have been trying to cut down on it a bit.

Straight up or with a twist - sex?

Even though I've written quite a lot of queer fiction (erotic or non), I'm straight – and even though I've written a lot of kinky sex I'm actually a very meat-and-potatoes straight guy ... though I have a weakness of big, beautiful girls. But I never let my libido run the show: I fall in love with a woman, first, and her body second.

What's your fave drink - in a glass or on her?

Can I say in her ... I'm more than a tad orally fixated when it comes to sex.

Spank or Flogger?

Neither, but I teach classes in both ... as well as bondage, caning, nipple play, cupping, and a whole lot more.

Junk or Health Food?

Neither, as I'm kind of a foodie – though I do try and eat as healthy as I can. At home I've been experimenting (be afraid ... be very afraid) to give me better options than just quesadillas, but I love to get out and try new places and new cultures. There's this Turkish place in Berkeley I'm seriously in love with....

Leather or Lace?

Either is fine with me. I'm a very empathetic lover so if my partner lives something and gets turned on then I get turned on ... even though, like I said, I'm really a very simple guy when it comes to sex.

Control or Be Controlled?

I say controlled: I'm a pleaser – especially in bed. Oh, I know how to top and am quite good at it but my heart is never really in it ... though, again, if my partner is into it then I will definitely try anything.

Vampire or Werewolf?

Neither – even though I wrote two vamp books (Very Bloody Marys and Running Dry) and plan on working on a sort-of werewolf book – I really am quite bored with the whole paranormal thing. Come on, folks, let's be a bit more original!

Creative Sex Play For Dr. Amy Marsh's Sexuality Salon

(from M.Christian's Classes And Appearances)

This is going to be a LOT of fun: I just agreed to lead a group discussion on the future of sex for the fantastic Dr. Amy Marsh's Sexuality Salon on February 22nd.

Here's a quickie write-up on the event ... hope to see you there!

Creative Sex Play

"Even the most experienced sexual adventurer may run short of ... shall we say 'inspiration'? In this wild and provocative seminar participants will not just learn al kind of new techniques and sexual worlds to explore – and do that exploration safely (both physically as well as emotionally) but they will also have lots of fun with various techniques to expand their basic imagination muscles: picking up new and enjoyable games to help them add a lot more to their lives – and not just their bedroom play."

About M. "Chris" Christian:

"As M. Christian I am - among many things - an acknowledged master of erotica with more than 400 stories in such anthologies as Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and many, many other anthologies, magazines, and other sites. I'm the editor of 25 anthologies including the Best S/M Erotica series, Pirate Booty, My Love For All That Is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, The Burning Pen, Guilty Pleasures, The Mammoth Book of Future Cops and The Mammoth Book of Tales of the Road (with Maxim Jakubowksi) and Confessions, Garden of Perverse, and Amazons (with Sage Vivant) as well as many others. I'm also an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions (premier publisher of BDSM erotica). I'm the author of the collections Dirty Words, Speaking Parts, The Bachelor Machine, Licks & Promises, Filthy, Love Without Gun Control, Rude Mechanicals, and Coming Together: M. Christian; and the novels Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Me2, Finger's Breadth, Brushes, and Painted Doll. My professional site is at www.mchristian.com"

Don't forget to purchase food and drink from the Cafe, which is so generous in providing this space for us!

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: What's Next?

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)


A fellow pornographer startled me the other day when she said that she wanted to be "the best erotica writer." I couldn't help but applaud and also be a bit disappointed. I mean, why stop there?

I mean erotica is fine and good and to reuse one of my favorite lines "it's been very, very good to me," but it isn't the only thing out there. Why stop with writing just smut?

Aside from the expansion of your potential sales arena, there are lots of other great reasons to try your hand at other genres. Erotica isn't just about sex, it's merged and melded with all kinds of other genres - mainstream, science fiction, horror, fantasy, and all the rest of them - or, it could be argued, erotica is nothing but those genres with the sex put back in. In any case, increasing your hand in other genres can't do anything but add something extra to your smut.

But we're still talking about smut. Okay, wanting to be great in anything is a noble effort but it's still trying to be big in a relatively small pond. Writing other things is it's own reward.

I know that's a scary thought, especially if you're either beginning to get comfortable with being an erotica writer or even building up some respectable credits. It's definitely not easy to jump into a whole new genre and basically start from scratch.

But you know what? Writing is hard. When it stops being hard maybe it's time to give up and do something else. No, I'm not saying that it never gets easier, just that writing is a process, and as with all good processes there's a good deal of stretching and straining that goes into it. Staying with just one kind of writing, or genre, is fine and fun but playing it safe and easy can make a writer lazy, and worst of all - dull.

Besides, you don't know what you might be great at. Sure you may be a fine and dandy erotica writer but you could be a real kick-ass non-fiction, horror, romance, mystery, thriller and so forth writer. You won't know until you try.

Certainly there's a chance of failure, of being rejected, but at least you would have done what few people have done: tried to stretch your ability, or writer's voice. Here's something else to think of: in all the world you're doing very few people would even dream of do, let alone have the courage to do - be a writer. That's the hard part. Trying to write something else, that's easy by comparison.

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Commitment

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)

I don't believe in talent. Sure, I think some people have a touch more hardwiring in their brains that lends them to be artists, musicians, scientists, and even lowly writers but I think that having this turn of mind never guarantees being able to utilize this towards a satisfying pursuit. When someone uses that word, 'talent,' I think of something that makes a person have a kind of special dispensation, a phenomenal leg-up on everyone else. I use an analogy to explain this supposed hypocrisy: just because you're a good driver doesn't mean you'll be a great driver - and not all great drivers started out being good drivers.

Maybe it's because I think of myself as a Liberal and believe that everyone is created equal, or they at least have equal access to making themselves a better person. I don't like the idea of someone, by virtue of luck (good or bad) having an edge over anyone else. I also think the idea of talent is what a lot of people use to give up on something. They put pen to paper and when it doesn't work out perfectly the first time, they toss it to the floor, saying, "What's the point? I just don't have it."

There is one thing, though, that's true of great drivers as well as great writers: commitment. To do anything well you have to practice, you have to get up and do it even though you'd rather do anything else in the world. It's easy to hang your hopes on tales of first story sales, first book sales, and think that such events are common, expected. But the fact is they are alarmingly rare. For every one phenomenal success, there are thousands of other writers who sit in front of their machines every day and work, work, work. Sure, those flashy first timers often deserve their praise and fat checks, but they often vanish as fast they appear. Without determination and a willingness to be there for the long haul, they suffer from expecting the next project, and the next project, and the next project, to be as easy as the first. Someone who's battered and beaten their way up, however, knows that for every five stories, only one will be any good – it's part of the game.

Here's another analogy. If you go out and just circle the track, drive the same car at the same speed, over and over again you may be a better driver but you'll never be Tazio Nuvalari. Writing the same story over and over, never stretching, never trying new things, will have the same affect. Same with writing page after page after page but not taking the time (sometimes very painful times) to sit down with your work and really, honestly read what you've been writing. Determination and commitment is one thing, useless thumb twiddling is quite another.

You have to look really had at what you're doing, to look at it and face the fact that sometimes what you're going to write is going to be crap. Some stories deserve to be thrown in the trash, but what separates the casual dreamer from the person really in pursuit of their destiny, is when you can look at what you've written and say: this is crap, but I know how to make it better.

Personal confession time. Does ten years sound like a long time? Sure, it might be an eternity if you're in a prison cell sometimes, but maybe only the blink of an eye if you're a parent watching a child grow up. For me, ten years is what it took for me to become a published author. I started writing very seriously just out of high school. Ten years later I sold my first story. Though I honestly feel that selling something is not the signpost of quality for writing, this was a defining moment in my life. Ten years of trying finally yielded results.

Nine years after that I have a pretty respectable resume of projects. Sometimes I think I took too long to get where I am, but other times I think maybe it would have taken much longer – or never happened at all – if I'd never sat down and done the work; word after word, page after page, story after story. Those words, pages, or stories pushed me along part of the way, but I believe publishing success came because I tried to be better, tried to improve what I was doing, and was willing to look at what I was doing.

Saccharine sentiment notwithstanding, I really do believe dreams can come true. It can happen, but it too often requires a huge amount of difficult, time-consuming, heart breaking work.

Is it worth it? Ten years is an awfully long time, true. But when I think of the stories I've written, the fun I've had, the things I've learned about myself and the world, I would do it all again in a second.

The choice is yours. But it's better to really, truly try, then pass on regretting you never even made a first step.

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: 10 Commandments of Smut

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)

I. Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord’s Name in Vain

“Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod” need I say more? The same goes for any other kind of onomatopoeia: “ooh”, “urg”, “gack”, “mmmm”, etc. Use your words, people; use your words!

II. Thou Shalt Not Own a Thesaurus

An exaggeration, of course (to get that vicious Roget off my case). The need to change a descriptive word after every sentence or paragraph is the clear sign of an amateur. Example: ‘cock’ in the first paragraph of the sex scene, becomes ‘rod’ in the second, ‘staff’ in the third, ‘pole’ in the forth ... and you get my gist. The same goes for the silly need to be ‘polite’ in describing either a sex scene or various body parts. Unless you’re writing a Victorian homage (or pastiche), women don’t have a ‘sex’ between their legs, and a ‘member’ doesn’t live in a man’s trousers. If you can’t write ‘penis’, ‘clit’, ‘cock’, ‘cunt’, or the rest of the words you can’t say on television then find another job - or just write for television.

III. Thou Shalt Not Equate Dirty Movies with Erotic Writing

Films are films and stories are stories and very rarely do they meet. Another stigmata of the greenhorn is thinking that a smut story has to have the deep characterization and suburb plotting of a porno film. Even a story written for the lowest of markets has to have something aside from sex scenes. So face it, just siting down and writing out Debbie Does Everyone won’t do anything but bore you and the reader.

IV: Thou Shalt Not Exaggerate (too much)

I’m big, but not the biggest - my girlfriend’s tits are nice, but not the nicest in the world. Same should go for your stories. Unless you’re being silly (or surreal), keep your proportions to a human level. Every cock can’t be tremendous, every pair of tits can’t be the most beautiful, every cunt (or asshole) the tightest, etc. It’s okay to hedge a bit, frame it with “- right then, at that moment -” or some such, but keep in mind that it’s a cheap-shot at both sex and your readers to assume that desire can only be the result of seeing (or fucking) something of inhuman proportions: it only makes you look like the biggest of amateurs.

V: Thou Shalt Not Be Ignorant of Sex

Okay, it’s perfectly reasonable not to be too realistic in describing sex - after all, smut stories are supposed to be entertaining - but pointing out every nasty smell, or ... ‘shortcoming’ will make the reader anything but turned on. But there’s still no excuse for making anatomical errors or perpetuating sexual myths. For example: simultaneous orgasms, “sucking” orgasms (“My g-spot is in my throat’), masochists who are automatically subservient, gay men who are attracted to every male who walks by, every woman is a potential bisexuals, etc. TI recommend research and empathy, trying to understand, explore what sex is and what it isn’t. Virgins (and the ignorant) after all can certainly write porno - they just can’t write good porno.

VI: Thou Shalt Not Be Too Clever

I loved Fight Club, The Sixth Sense, and The Usual Suspects - but they worked because the screenwriters brilliantly knew how to tell an unusual story. It’s another common myth that a story needs something mind-blowing to be entertaining - so many newbie writers will often try to toss in so many devices and situations because they’re scared of boring the reader. As in all things, KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Don’t try to be too elaborate or devious - half the time the reader can see it coming a mile away. Rather than elaborate plotting or grandiose story constructions, concentrate instead on characterization, description, dialogue, a sense of place, pathos, wit, and THEN plot. Simplicity and subtlety can be dynamite, shock and surprise are just firecrackers - they don’t move anything, and are often just annoying.

VII: Thou Shalt Not Write Porn

- unless, of course, that’s what you’re writing. I explain: too often editors get erotica that reads like something you’d buy in the bus station. Now if you’re trying to write erection-producing materials suitable for long-distance public transportation then do for it. But if you’re sending something off to, say, a ‘respectable’ editor or publisher you should at least have a slight clue about what’s being written and published for that market. A good technique is to throw out the idea what you’re writing something that’s supposed to get someone hard/wet (or anything betwixt/between): just tell a good damned story about sex. Just a long, drawn out sex scene with bad writing, no characters, no plot, atrocious dialogue, etc. isn’t a story - even if you start with a title and conclude with THE END.

VIII: Thou Shalt Not Do Everything

Just because humans have cocks, cunts, clits, assholes, tits, nipples, mouths, noses, and hands doesn’t mean you have to put them all, in their many and varied sexual interactions, in each and every story. After all, unless you have a free weekend and a Viagra IV drip there’s no way you could do it all - so how can you expect your characters in your story to? Simplicity again: sometimes a story screams for a blow and fuck, sometimes all it needs is a long, lingering kiss. The story will often speak for itself - don’t bow to the pressure of “Okay, I’ve done A, B, and D, so all I need to do to finish it off with E,F,G, and the rest of the alphabet. Good smut is sweet, simple, and hot - bad smut is clumsy, forced, and obvious.

IX: Thou Shalt Not Be Sterile

Nah, I don’t mean well-scrubbed or squeaky clean; I mean that sex can be emotionally complex, that it can bring up a wide range of emotional states in the course of one romp in the hay: joy, happiness, ambivalence, exhaustion, anger, fear, disgust, guilt, etc. A story that’s just about the sex, where everyone is happy, healthy, and horny is dull - the characters don’t change, nothing is revealed or explored. A story like that can lead to only one kind of emotion in the reader: boredom. Be daring, be risky, be dirty (and not just sexually) with your character’s emotions. Use what you know, what you’ve been through, not just what you want to have happen. Life is icky, tricky, and messy - and what’s what makes it great. Use it!

X: Thou Shalt Not Forget the Writing

It’s easy enough: plot, characterization, description, motivation, and all the rest of it, the pieces of a good story, are so in the forefront of our minds that the fundamentals slip through the cracks. Now, I’m not talking about the real basics of spelling, grammar, punctuation (though they are important), but rather the real key of any story, smut or not: the writing. After all, when you write a smut story you’re writing a story first, that it happens to be about sex is secondary. Plot, characterization, description, motivation can add up to nothing if the writing itself is stilted, flat, or clunky. Writing should flow, sparkle, crackle, and evoke. It’s a tough act, but really the most important. Don’t let those obvious pieces get in the way of what you’re doing: you’re a writer, and telling a story.

The bad news is that you can follow all of these “Commandments” and still fail if the writing isn’t good, but the good news is that if you can do it - if you can amaze, amuse, or arouse with your words - then you can break any rule.