Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Knowing Me Knowing You

Check it out: a brand new essay I did on smut-writing just went up on the great Erotica Readers and Writers site:

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker:
Knowing Me Knowing You

On the surface it sounds like a ... well, no duh. But it's really quite remarkable how many writers – especially erotica writers – put huge amounts of work into their craft, yet neglect an essential part of the process of actually getting people to read their work.

They slave over characters, plot, setting, language; they set up sites, join Facebook and Twitter and Good Reads; they network and network and network; and, in the end, they may be very well known ... but only by other erotica writers.

Believe me, my own glass house has plenty of smashed windows: I'm far from immune to intimidation that can come from reaching outside your authorly comfort zone.

A certain level of anxiety is expected, after all: as I've said more than a few times, writing is a very tough life ... and far too often the only people we can get to understand and appreciate what we do are other writers. Yes, they understand and, if they are good people, they will be supportive but the cold hard fact is that writers just don't buy other writers' books ... or at least not often.

Sitting on the other side of the fence – as an editor and Publisher for Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions – I see the side effects of authors not willing or able to understand their audience: poor sales. As said, they pour massive amounts of time and effort into their books but when they put their work out there it's like they haven't spend a single minute trying to think about who the book was written for ... who the audience is.

Sure, it's uncomfortable – as I've also said, writing is a very solitary thing so it goes very much against the grain for us all to have to deal with publicity – but it really is vital to spend some quality time thinking about who your readers actually are.

And it's not exactly rocket science – though there are a few tricks, as you might expect. The main one, of course, is when you reach out to sell your work keep in mind that's what you are doing: selling ... and no one likes to be sold to. There is a fine line between letting people know about your kick-ass erotica book and becoming a spammer. That is why simply throwing ads about your stuff out into your audience pool is never a good idea.

Instead, try to meet your readers halfway. Example: you've written the greatest gay Western romance ever. Congratulations! So where should you focus your social media and such? Not to be rude but ... come on! The answer is right there: Gay. Western. Romance.

Join or reach out to queer sites -- especially gay western or romance ones. Reach out to romance sites – especially western or gay ones. Reach out to western sites – especially gay and romance ones. Not just book sites (and I can't emphasize that enough) but sites for folks who like what you have written. Send them announcements but also share other things as well.

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Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Luck

Extremely cool - check out this brand new column I just wrote for the excellent Writesex site:

There’s a deep, dark secret that no writer wants to talk about. Oh, sure, in our braver moments we will talk about depression, anxiety, envy, frustration, spitefulness … the whole dark rainbow of negative emotions that come with being a professional author. And by professional author I don’t mean actually being paid for your work but, rather, being brave enough to send it out into the big, wide—and far too often cruel and uncaring—world.

This secret is lacking of mention in most books on writing—though it should have at least its own chapter, or maybe an entire volume, dedicated to it.

Okay, I won’t string you along any further. You’ve probably guessed it, anyway, by the one-word title of this article. We may not talk about it much, but luck is a powerful force in the life of a writer.

I wrote career in the last sentence before scratching it out and replacing it with life because, as I’ve said many times before, writers don’t have careers: this is not a profession—or even an unpaid pursuit—that you can plot and plan like many other occupations. You can’t, for example, say that this year you will write an award-winning story that will open the door to a major book contract, and then that book will be made into a flick starring Liam Neeson. You can dream about stuff like this all you want, but you can never, ever plan for it.

All because of luck.

Personal story time: I wrote—totally unsuccessfully—for ten years before I sold my first story (an erotic one … and so here I am). My wife at the time signed me up for a class taught by Lisa Palac, of the late-lamented FutureSex Magazine. At the end of the class, I brazenly handed her a story that I had written.  If I hadn’t taken that class, if I hadn’t handed her that story, if I hadn’t mentioned that Pat Califia and Carol Queen were pals of mine … I seriously doubt that she would have even glanced at it.

Personal story time (2): about this same time I was best friends with someone—who, sadly, I am no longer close to—who introduced me to all kinds of other writers and, more importantly, editors and publishers. Without his help, I don’t think I’d be where I am today.

I think you can see where I might be going with this.  If, if, if, if … looking back on my writing life I can see far too many branches that just happened to work out in my favor. Am I a good writer? I like to think that I am a capable writer—with a lot of learning still to do—but I’m not so arrogant as to think that my work is so absolutely brilliant that it would transcend the slush pile or get past the insecurities and nepotism of far too many editors and publishers.

In short, I am where I am today because of luck.

Dig around in any writer’s life—or the life of any creative person, for that matter—and you will see a lot of these branches that just happened to work out in their favor. Friends-of-friends, right-place-right-time … it’s pretty clear that ability is only one part of what can mean the difference between renown and obscurity.

This is just one reason why I despise arrogance in writers. Oh, I can certainly understand it: writing is damned hard—so it’s far too easy to protect a bruised and battered ego by lying to yourself, and the rest of the world, that your blistering talent got you where you are instead of admitting that it all would have been very different if the dice had landed ones instead of sixes.

But luck doesn’t just magically appear. You can’t summon it with “likes” on Facebook or by chugging bourbon.  A cosmic alignment didn’t get me from where I was to where I am now. Luck is about circumstance but it’s also about people. My wife, that one friend who helped opened doors … they were my horseshoes, my rabbit feet, my four-leaf clovers.

Not to sound too Machiavellian, but it’s very important to look at the people in your writing life and think—at least on some level—how have they helped me? …or are they a hindrance? Writing can be hard, almost miserable, but it can be a glorious way to live when you have people surrounding you who are kind, supportive, and encouraging.

Another reason I can’t stand arrogance is that it’s ultimately self-defeating. An old stage maxim says that you should be careful of who you step on while on the way up—because you’ll be meeting them on the way down. By pissing off all kinds of people you are also severing your connection to all kinds of opportunities—luck in the making. Some of these rolls might work out, some may not, but none of them have a chance if you don’t have anyone out there to hand you the dice.

Skill? Very important. Dedication? Extremely important. Flexibility? Absolutely. Luck? We might not want to talk about it but, yes, luck is a key factor … but luck can only find you through friends.

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M.Christian has become an acknowledged master of erotica, with more than 400 stories, 10 novels (including The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes and The Painted Doll). Nearly a dozen collections of his own work (Technorotica, In Control, Lambda nominee Dirty Words, The Bachelor Machine), more than two dozen anthologies (Best S/M Erotica series, My Love for All That is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, The Burning Pen, and with Maxim Jakubowksi The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Road).  His work is regularly selected for Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and others. His extensive knowledge of erotica as writer, editor, anthologist and publisher resulted in the bestselling guide How To Write And Sell Erotica. He can be found in a number of places online, not least of which is mchristian.com.

Baton Blog Post

 (from M.Christian's Technorotica)

This is very fun: I just took part in a kind of round-robin blog post with some very cool folks - including my great pal, Brent (Made In DNA). Enjoy!

1) What am I working on?

Let's see ... aside from the very cool stuff that's happening with Renaissance E Books (which includes our Futures Past Editions sf/f/h imprint and the erotic Sizzler one), where I am an Associate Publisher, and Digital Parchment Services, where I'm a Publisher (stay tuned, great stuff coming very soon), I just finished a sequel to The Bachelor Machine (a new edition coming out soon, btw), tentatively called Skin Effect. I also just started a brand new, non-erotic, allegorical/satire SF novel called Blue ... which (fingers: crossed) I hope to finish by the end of the year.

Beyond those, I'm still plugging away on a few dozen other projects that are way too nascent to chat about just yet.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Well, my work has always been – to put it mildly – rather unusual. Yeah, I've thought about trying my hand at more "commercially viable" things (despite having penned two vampire novels and a romance) but I'm simply having way too much fun writing odd stuff. Not to say that I haven't been open to opportunities: 90% of my stuff came because someone asked for it – erotica, gay fiction, romance, non-fiction, the whole enchilada – but I've always put my own odd spin on it.

In the case of Skin Effect ... well, the original Bachelor Machine was rather a creature of its time: full of cyberdelic psychedelics, dystopic architecture, and circuit-pattern tattooed outlaws. Not to get up on my soapbox but I'm frankly tired of the knee-jerk negativity that still seems to permeate SF these days. But what honestly scares me is that it could very well become a self-fulfilling prophecy: that we are looking forward to the apocalypse. So I challenged myself to create a book of erotic short stories that take some of the old cliché's of SF (memory manipulation, genetic engineering, AIs, etc) and give them a positive spin. I had a blast writing them ... just hope people enjoy reading them.

3) Why do I write what I do?

I don't really have a choice: while my day-job might be working for the wonderful Renaissance E Books and Digital Parchment Services in my heart I'm a writer – though my Publisher duties do give me a chance to try and be the Publisher I'd like to have as a writer. Sure, it can get damned hard to create anything these days – when everyone on the planet seems to have written a novel, a screenplay, become a photographer, or [fill in the blank] but I always try to stay to the fact that I just love to write stories. There's really nothing more ... to be woo-woo for a sec ... magical about putting words together to make a tale that has never existed in the history of ... well, history and, if I'm lucky, will outlive me by hundreds or maybe thousands of years by changing how people see the world. Can't get much better than that.

4) How does my writing process work?

While my Publishing jobs take up most of my time, I've been working very hard to give myself at least one or two days a week to just write. I don’t follow a regular schedule because I've always been very good about knowing what I have to do and when I have to do it. An odd thing about me is that I can't work in dead silence, so I have my Xbox running Netflix or Hulu or Amazon or whatever all kinds of tone-setting movies or TV shows. Another odd thing is that I don't read a lot of the genres I write in – sure, I do when I have to, as a Publisher, but for the most part I find it just gets in the way of what I want to do as a writer. But that's just me and my style ... your millage may vary.

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And now it is my great pleasure to introduce to you four authors (in no particular order):

Jason M. Griesse
Jason M. Griesse is an author from Southern California who dabbles in all kinds of storytelling. Not content to stick to one genre, his books often incorporate elements of horror and science fiction with a pinch of mythology for flavor. He also writes articles and books concerning PTSD and Mental Illness and is two semesters away from finishing a degree in Psychology.

Brandon Black
Having learned to read at an early age in part due to an ancient cardboard box in his uncles’ room at his grandparents filled with Golden Age comic books, Brandon Black has read science fiction and fantasy his whole life. Raised by a physicist father and sociologist mother, instead of receiving a teddy bear as other children did, Brandon was given an inflatable astronaut.

Falling in love with shows about space travel, exploration and combat from an early exposure to Star Blazers and Robotech, Brandon was inspired to write his own science fiction after hearing the narrator’s line in Robotech — “Meanwhile, twenty light years away…” The idea that a story could have such scope and breadth as to involve relevant, simultaneous events light years distant from each other was a miraculous thing to young Brandon who decided then to give writing a try.

Brandon received a Bachelors in Military and Political Journalism from UNO and went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from LSU. Brandon’s time travel story, “Time and the Wrinkled Prostitute” has been published in Dark Oak Press’Dreams of Steam III. His stories, “Songs of the Divine Pulsation” and “The Gift” were published in New Orleans By Gaslight, an anthology of gaslamp fantasy and steampunk poetry and fiction set in Victorian-era New Orleans, which Brandon edited with Christopher Wong. Brandon’s most recent short story publication is “I Knocked Up My Fairy Girlfriend” which appears in Seventh Star Press’ A Chimerical World: Tales of the Seelie and his steampunk poem “Ballad of the Dashing Skywayman” has been recently published in Cowboy Poetry Press’ Unbridled anthology.

Brandon’s upcoming projects are Cairo By Gaslight, a steampunk anthology set in Cairo, Egypt and The Other World, an anthology of modern-day short stories about the Fey. He has also written a children’s book, The Tortoise and the Little Witches Three, and is currently writing his first steampunk novel. Brandon lives with his charge and protector, Battle-cat Princess Kaleidoscope, in his home town of New Orleans, Louisiana.

M. Christian
Calling M.Christian versatile is a tremendous understatement. Extensively published in science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers, and even non-fiction, it is in erotica that M.Christian has become an acknowledged master, 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 in fact too many anthologies, magazines, and sites to name. In erotica, M.Christian is known and respected not just for his passion on the page but also his staggering imagination and chameleonic ability to successfully and convincingly write for any and all orientations.

But M.Christian has other tricks up his literary sleeve: in addition to writing, he is a prolific and respected anthologist, having edited 25 anthologies to date 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 many more.

M.Christian’s short fiction has been collected into many bestselling books in a wide variety of genres, including the Lambda Award finalist Dirty Words and other queer collections like Filthy Boys, BodyWork, and his best-of-his-best gay erotica book, Stroke the Fire. He also has 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.

As a novelist, M.Christian has shown his monumental versatility with books such as 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.

M.Christian is also the Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books, where he strives to be the publisher he’d want to have as a writer, and to help bring quality books (erotica, noir, science fiction, and more) and authors out into the world.

Shon Richards
Shon Richards is allegedly an erotica writer who writes science fiction, pulp adventure, sexual magic and the occasionally suburban bondage. He is really a herald of an unnameable erotic entity who writes to prepare the psyches of the human population for the coming Apocafuck. His latest book, Doom Vagina, tells the story of a groupie for the world’s most demonic girl band. His current plane of existence can be found at ShonRichards.com

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Worth a Thousand Words: My Life with Tumblr

Extremely cool - check out this brand new column I just wrote for the excellent Writesex site:

It may come as a surprise, but far too often authors—people who are supposedly very comfortable with words!—have days when they just don’t want to write at all.

It’s a common mistake writers make when they begin to think about social media, marketing, and all that other fun stuff: this idea that words are the be-all and end-all for them. They force themselves far too often to script tweet after tweet, Facebook post after Facebook post…until they just can’t write another line of original content, even if only to say “Look at my book!” Worse, they come to feel that because they’ve burnt out on writing tweets and posts and marketing copy, they have failed. They think about all the potential readers they have lost; markets they haven’t tapped; piles of beguiling words they should have written—because are they not supposed to be endless fonts of text? (Spoiler: no.)

Fortunately for you if you’re one of these writers, there are some great options for social networking that don’t require you to write a word. They are wordless yet powerful, simple yet evocative, easy yet poignant.

In short, Facebook and Twitter are not the only games in town when it comes to keeping yourself and your writing in the public eye.

I’m talking about using pictures rather than words. Using Flicker, Instagram, Pinterest or Tumblr to make your point, catch your Twitter followers’ imaginations, engage them emotionally in a way that leaves a favorable impression of you in their minds. An image-sharing tool like these can help you reach out to others, and save you a thousand words of writing, every day.

There are quite a few image-sharing venues out there—and while your mileage and social media needs may vary, in my experience they’ve basically boiled down to just one. Allow me: Flickr is ridiculously clunky and doesn’t share well with others—just spend a few minutes trying to either find an image or a keyword, or pass along a photo. Pain. In. The…youknowwhatImean. Instagram is fine and dandy for taking snapshots of your dinner, your dog, your kids, your whatever…but when it comes to sharing what you snap, or using images from other sources, it’s not exactly user-friendly.

This basically leaves us with two choices, if you want to save those thousands of words: Pinterest and Tumblr. I’ve tried both and the choice was extremely easy to make—it comes down to one thing: sex.

Let’s face it, when you’re an author of erotica and erotic romance, you are dealing with—in one way or another—characters having sex. Like lots of erotica authors, I’ve learned to (sigh) deal with platforms like Facebook that will wish you into the cornfield for showing—or in some cases even talking about—something as threatening as a nipple. We deal with Facebook because we have to. But an open-minded image-sharing social media venue is a bit like Twitter: the more the merrier.

Pinterest doesn’t like sex…at all. I used to have a Pinterest account but then I began to get messages, here and there to start, but then tons: each one about a posted image of mine that was removed due to the dreaded Terms of Service. A few were obvious, but then the images they were yanking became and more innocent. Bye-bye Pinterest.

Tumblr isn’t perfect—far from it—but even after being purchased by the search engine deity Yahoo, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times it has caused me any kind of headache. Mostly they will reject anything that really pushes a button—think of the deadly erotica sins, but with pictures, and you know what I mean (hate speech, rape, bestiality, incest, underage, pee or poo, etc).
In a nutshell, Tumblr is easy, fun, and—best of all—a rather effective social media tool that also neatly and simply integrates into Twitter and Facebook…and, no, I do not own stock.

The way it works couldn’t be less complicated: you can create any number of Tumblrs—think folders—(even with an “age appropriate” warning if you want), and then design them with any one of a huge number of themes. From your master dashboard you can see—and tweak —all the separate Tumblrs you’ve created. The themes are a blast, and the interface takes very little skill to navigate.
As for what Tumblrs you should create…well, that’s up to you. Like food? Make a nice edibles Tumblr (and they have an app that lets you to take shots of your meals if that’s what you’re into). Like history? Create a vintage photo site. Love sex? Well, it’s pretty obvious about what you can do with that.

Where do you get your pictures? You can certainly take them yourself or upload them from your various devices, but where Tumblr becomes a real social media machine is in reposting. Once you create your account just look for other Tumblrs by interests or keywords and then hit that little follow button. Then, when you look at your dashboard, you’ll see a nice stream of pictures that you can like, share, or repost to your own various Tumblr incarnations. Plus, the more people you follow, the more people will follow you.

Just to give you an idea, I started—rather lazily—my dozen or so Tumblrs four or so years ago and now my main one, Rude Mechanicals, has close to 4,000 followers. You can imagine the reach you could have if you really put some work into it.

And if you want to see how far that reach extends, you can go back and look at your posts to see how many times they’ve been liked or reposted. It’s harder to tell when it’s a reposted picture but it can also be very heartwarming to see that, for instance, when you post about a good review or a new book announcement, dozens of people liked your news or, even better, shared it with their own vast audience.

What’s also fun about Tumblr is the auto-forward feature. It’s not perfect, as there are some periodic glitches, but all in all it works rather well. When you set up your separate Tumblrs you can then select an option where—if you choose—you can also send any image to Twitter or to Facebook.
That increases the number of people your image will potentially reach. It can even go to a Facebook page you’ve created. Neat!

One trick I use is to click the handy “like” button to create an inventory of images and then—once or twice a day—go back into my list of likes to repost them to my appropriate sites…with or without Twitter or Facebook reposting as I see fit. Tumblrs also feature RSS, which means you can subscribe to one of them through an aggregator like Feedly.

What’s also neat about Tumblr is its flexibility: you can post images (duh) but you can also embed video (from YouTube or wherever) and post text, quotations, links, chat streams, and audio.
Let your eyes do the walking and let the images they find do the talking. Image-sharing tools like Tumblr are a super easy way to fulfill your need for social media presence without having to write anything.

M.Christian has become an acknowledged master of erotica, with more than 400 stories, 10 novels (including The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes and The Painted Doll). Nearly a dozen collections of his own work (Technorotica, In Control, Lambda nominee Dirty Words, The Bachelor Machine), more than two dozen anthologies (Best S/M Erotica series, My Love for All That is Bizarre: Sherlock Holmes Erotica, The Burning Pen, and with Maxim Jakubowksi The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Road).  His work is regularly selected for Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Erotica, Best Fetish Erotica, and others. His extensive knowledge of erotica as writer, editor, anthologist and publisher resulted in the bestselling guide How To Write And Sell Erotica.
He can be found in a number of places online, not least of which is mchristian.com.

Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Confessions

Extremely cool: check out this brand new column I just wrote for the excellent Writesex site:

 

My name is Chris – though my pseudonym is usually M.Christian – and I have a confession to make.

I’ve written – and write – a…what’s the technical term? Oh, yeah: shitload of erotica. Some 400 published stories, 12 or so collections, 7 novels. I’ve also edited around 25 anthologies. I even have the honor of being an Associate Publisher for Renaissance eBooks, whose Sizzler Editions erotica imprint has some 1,300 titles out there.

I’ve written sexually explicit gay stories, lesbian stories, trans stories, bisexual stories, BDSM stories, tales exploring just about every kind of fetish, you name it and I can all but guarantee that I’ve written about it. I like to joke that a friend of mine challenged me to write a story to a ridiculously particular specification: a queer vampire sport tale. My answer? “Casey, The Bat.” Which I actually did write…though I dropped the vampire part of it.

Don’t worry; I’m getting to the point. I can write just about anything for anyone – but here comes the confession:

I’ve never, ever written about what actually turns me – what turns Chris – on.

This kind of makes me a rather rare beast in the world of professional smut writing. In fact it’s pretty common for other erotica writers to – to be polite about it – look down their noses at the fact that I write about anything other than my own actual or desired sexual peccadilloes. Some have even been outright rude about it: claiming that I’m somehow insulting to their interests and/or orientations and shouldn’t write anything except what I am and what I like.

To be honest, in moments of self-doubt I have thought the very same thing. Am I profiting off the sexuality of other people? Am I a parasite, too cowardly to put my own kinks and passions out into the world? Am I short-changing myself as a writer by refusing to put myself out there?

For the record, I’m a hetero guy who – mostly – likes sexually dominant women. I also find my head turned pretty quickly when a large, curvy woman walks by. That said, I’ve had wonderful times with women of every size, shape, ethnicity, and interest.

So why do I find it so hard to say all that in my writing? The question has been bugging me for a while, so I put on my thinking cap. Part of the answer, I’ve come to understand, relates directly to chronic depression: it’s much less of an emotional gamble to hide behind a curtain of story than to risk getting my own intimate desires and passions stomped flat by a critical review or other negative reaction from readers. I can handle critical reviews of a story – that’s par for the course in professional writing – but it’s a good question as to whether I could handle critical reviews of my life.
But then I had an eye-opening revelation. As I said, I’ve written – and write – stories about all kinds of interests, inclinations, passions, orientations, genders, ethnicities, ages, cultures…okay, I won’t belabor it. But the point is that I’ve also been extremely blessed to have sold everything I’ve ever written. Not only that, but I’ve had beautiful compliments from people saying my work has touched them and that they never, ever, would have realized that the desires of the story’s narrator and those of the writer weren’t one and the same.

Which, in a nice little turn-around, leads me to say that my name is Chris – though my pseudonym is usually M.Christian – and I have yet another confession to make.

Yes, I don’t get sexually excited when I write. Yes, I have never written about what turns me on. Yes, I always write under a name that’s not my legal one.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel when I write. Far from it: absolutely, I have no idea what actual gay sex is like for the participants; positively, I have not an inkling of what many fetishes feel like inside the minds of those who have them; definitely, I have no clue what it’s like to have sex as a woman…
I do, however, know what sex is like. The mechanics, yeah, but more importantly I work very hard to understand the emotions of sex and sexuality through the raw examination of my own life: the heart-racing nerves, the whispering self-doubts, the pulse-pounding tremors of hope, the bittersweetness of it, the bliss, the sorrows and the warmth of it, the dreams and memories…

I’m working on a story right now, part of a new collection. It’s erotic – duh – but it’s also about hope, redemption, change, and acceptance. I have no experience with the kind of physical sex that takes place in this story but every time I close its file after a few hours of work, tears are burning my cheeks. In part, this emotional investment is about trying to recapture the transcendent joy I’ve felt reading the work of writers I admire.

When I read manuscripts as an anthology editor, or as an Associate Publisher, a common mistake I see in them is a dedication to technical accuracy favored over emotion. These stories are correct down to the smallest detail – either because they were written from life or from an exactingly fact-checked sexual imagination – but at the end, I as the reader feel…nothing.

I’m not perfect – far from it – but while I may lack direct experience in a lot of what I write, I do work very, very hard to put real human depth into whatever I do. I may not take the superficial risk of putting the mechanics of my sexuality into stories and books but I take a greater chance by using the full range of my emotional life in everything I create.

I freely admit that I don’t write about my own sexual interests and experiences. That may – in some people’s minds – disqualify me from being what they consider an “honest” erotica writer, but after much work and introspection I contest that while I may keep my sex life to myself, I work very hard to bring as much of my own, deeply personal, self to bear upon each story as I can.

They say that confession is good for the soul. But I humbly wish to add to that while confession is fine and dandy, trying to touch people – beyond their sex organs – is ever better…for your own soul as well as the souls of anyone reading your work.

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: "A Cookie Full Of Arsenic"

Check it out: I just posted one of my classic "Streetwalker" columns on the wonderful Erotic Readers And Writers site.

Here's a tease - for the rest click here

 

Ever seen Sweet Smell of Success?  If you haven't then you should: because, even though the film was shot in 1957, it rings far too much, and far too loudly, in 2013.

In a nutshell, Sweet Smell of Success (directed by Alexander Mackendrick from a script by the amazing Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman) is about the all-powerful columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) – who can make or break anyone and anything he wants -- and the desperate press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), who loses everything for trying to curry favor with Hunsecker for ... well, that Sweet Smell of Success.

So ... 1957 to 2013.  A lot's changed, that's for sure.  But recently rewatching this, one of my all-time favorite films, gave me a very uncomfortable chill.  But first a bit of history (stop that groaning): you see, J.J. Hunsecker was based – more than thinly – on another all-powerful columnist, the man who once said, about the who he was, and the power he wielded as, " I'm just a son of a bitch."

There was even a word, created by Robert Heinlein of all people, to describe a person like this: winchell – for the man himself -- Walter Winchell.

A book, movie, star, politician – anyone who wanted success would do, and frequently did, anything for both Walter and his fictional doppelganger J.J. Hunsecker.  Their power was absolute ... even a rumor, a fraction of a sentence could mean the difference between headlines and the morgue of a dead career.  As Hunsecker puts it to a poor entertainer who crossed him: "You're dead, son. Get yourself buried."

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Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Writing Coaches and Teachers

Check this out: the fun article I wrote for the new - and wonderful - WriteSex site has just gone up at the equally wonderful Erotica Readers And Writers site.  Here's a tease:

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker:

Writing Coaches and Teachers

For new writers, the temptation is obvious: after all, if you don’t know something, shouldn’t you seek out a way to learn about it? The question of how to educate yourself as a writer is a necessary and important one, of course, but an often-invisible second question follows: how do you sift through the piles of would-be writing coaches, teachers and other purveyors of advice to find the ones who will lead you toward genuinely better writing? The problem isn’t that there are over-eager teachers galore, but that far too many of them are preaching from ignorance—or just dully quoting what others have already said.

This is particularly true of erotic romance. Now, I have to admit I’ve been more than a bit spoiled by other genres, where you can write about whatever you want without much of a chance—beyond clumsy writing—of getting rejected for not toeing the line, so approaching erotic romance has been a bit more of a challenge. Romance authors, after all, have been told time and time again that there is a very precise, almost exacting, Way of Doing Things … and if you don’t, then bye-bye book deal.

But times have changed, and while a few stubborn publishers still want erotic romantic fiction that follows established formulas, the quantum leap of digital publishing has totally shaken up by-the-numbers approaches to romance writing. Without going too much into it (maybe in another column…), because ebooks are so much easier to produce, publishers can take wonderful risks on new authors and concepts, meaning that they don’t have to wring their hands in fright that the new title they greenlit will go bust and possibly take the whole company with it.

Because of this freedom, erotic romance can be so much more than it ever was: experimental, innovative, unique, challenging, etc. These are no longer the Words of Death when it comes to putting together a book.

One of the great, underlying tasks of teaching—one I love, but with some reverence and an occasional pang of dread—is challenging the boring, formulaic, way that so many talk about writing (which is also to say that a huge part of the reason I love to teach is that it’s a weird form of revenge against all the bad writing teachers I’ve had over the years). There are, however, far too many writing teachers who relentlessly parrot that erotic romance has to follow a strict formula to be successful. They spell out this formula in stomach-cramping detail: what has to happen to each and every character, in each and every chapter, in each and every book.

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Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Save the Frog

The coolness continues!  Check out this brand new column I just wrote for the fantastic WriteSex site - where I'll be contributing a monthly piece.  Here's a tease - for the rest you'll have to check out the great site.

#

For new writers, the temptation is obvious: after all, if you don’t know something, shouldn’t you seek out a way to learn about it? The question of how to educate yourself as a writer is a necessary and important one, of course, but an often-invisible second question follows: how do you sift through the piles of would-be writing coaches, teachers and other purveyors of advice to find the ones who will lead you toward genuinely better writing? The problem isn’t that there are over-eager teachers galore, but that far too many of them are preaching from ignorance—or just dully quoting what others have already said.

This is particularly true of erotic romance. Now, I have to admit I’ve been more than a bit spoiled by other genres, where you can write about whatever you want without much of a chance—beyond clumsy writing—of getting rejected for not toeing the line, so approaching erotic romance has been a bit more of a challenge. Romance authors, after all, have been told time and time again that there is a very precise, almost exacting, Way of Doing Things … and if you don’t, then bye-bye book deal.

But times have changed, and while a few stubborn publishers still want erotic romantic fiction that follows established formulas, the quantum leap of digital publishing has totally shaken up by-the-numbers approaches to romance writing. Without going too much into it (maybe in another column…), because ebooks are so much easier to produce, publishers can take wonderful risks on new authors and concepts, meaning that they don’t have to wring their hands in fright that the new title they greenlit will go bust and possibly take the whole company with it.

Because of this freedom, erotic romance can be so much more than it ever was: experimental, innovative, unique, challenging, etc. These are no longer the Words of Death when it comes to putting together a book.

One of the great, underlying tasks of teaching—one I love, but with some reverence and an occasional pang of dread—is challenging the boring, formulaic, way that so many talk about writing (which is also to say that a huge part of the reason I love to teach is that it’s a weird form of revenge against all the bad writing teachers I’ve had over the years). There are, however, far too many writing teachers who relentlessly parrot that erotic romance has to follow a strict formula to be successful. They spell out this formula in stomach-cramping detail: what has to happen to each and every character, in each and every chapter, in each and every book.

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Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: "Oh, How Beautiful-"

Check it out: I just posted a Streetwalker column on the always-wonderful Erotica Readers And Writes site. It might be an old one but it's also something a lot of writers need to hear. Hope you like!

 

Funny that these columns are called Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker because ... well, I have a confession to make.

I'm very much on the fence about the whole thing, and am still dealing with doubts about whether or not I've made the right decision but - in the end - I think it will end up being a good thing.
I've joined Facebook.

I know, I know: I've been a rather vocal - if not strident - opponent of that particular corner of the social media universe, but a very good friend of mine pointed out that, to call down The Bard, I "doth protest too much."

It hasn't been easy: I tell ya, nothing like having a nearly (gasp) twenty year writing career resulting in only 433 'friends' and 68'likes' on my author page to really make the dreaded depression demon really flare up.

But I'm sticking with it - not because I think that I have to, or that Facebook is the end-all, be-all solution to all my publicity needs - but because it was something I really, honestly, didn't want to do.
Obviously, explanations are in order. See, I'm a firm believer in pushing yourself in all kinds of ways: as a person and, particularly, as a writer. Sure, you have to like what you are doing - both in how you live your life as well as the words you put down on 'paper' - but growth comes not from comfort but from adversity, from challenge.

I didn't set out to be an pornographer, but then an opportunity presented itself and (surprise!) I was actually pretty good at it. I didn’t plan on being a 'gay' writer - because, no duh - I'm not, but (surprise!) I not just did it but came to really enjoy it. I didn’t think I could be a teacher, but (surprise!) I've found that I really get a kick out of it.

I may have hated Facebook - hell, I still hate Facebook - but I had to at least try it. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't, but at least I'll have stretched myself.

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Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: Self Or Not?

Check it out: I just posted a Streetwalker column on the always-wonderful Erotica Readers And Writes site.  It might be an old one but it's also something that a LOT of people have been talking to me about - so I thought it was worth posting again.

Before I begin, a bit of disclosure: While the following has been written in an attempt to be professionally and personally non-biased I am an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books. 

Now, with that out of the way...

So, should you stay with the traditional model of working with a publisher or go the self-publishing route?

I'd be lying if I said I haven't been thinking – a lot -- about this.  The arguments for stepping out on your own are certainly alluring, to put it mildly: being able to keep every dime you make – instead of being paid a royalty – and having total and complete control of your work being the big two.  

But after putting on my thinking cap – ponder, ponder, ponder -- I've come to a few conclusions that are going to keep me and my work with publishers for quite some time.

As always, take what I'm going to say there with a hefty dose of sodium chloride: what works for me ... well, works for me and maybe not you.

Being on both sides of the publishing fence – as a writer, editor, and now publisher (even as a Associate Publisher) -- has given me a pretty unique view of the world of not just writing books, working to get them out into the world, but also a pretty good glimpse at the clockwork mechanisms than run the whole shebang.  

For example, there's been a long tradition of writers if not actively hating then loudly grumbling about their publishers.  You name it and writers will bitch about it: the covers, the publicity (or lack of), royalties ... ad infinitum.  Okay, I have to admit more than a few grouches have been mine but with (and I really hate to say this) age has come a change in my perspective.  No, I don't think publishers should be given carte blanch to do with as they please and, absolutely, I think that writers should always have the freedom to speak up if things are not to their liking, but that also doesn't mean that publisher's are hand-wringing villains cackling at taking advantage of poor, unfortunate authors.

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Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Howdy!

I'm thrilled to have another one of my Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker pieces up on the excellent Erotica Readers And Writers site - here's a tease ... for the rest just click here.

Howdy

While it isn't the most important thing to do before sending off a story (that's reserved for writing the story itself), drafting an effective cover letter/email is probably right below it.

So here is a quick sample of what to do and NOT when putting together a cover letter to go with your story. That being said, remember that I'm just one of many (many) editors out there, each with their own quirks and buttons to push. Like writing the story itself, practice and sensitivity is will teach you a lot, but this will give you a start.

So ... Don't Do What Bad Johnny Don't Does:

Dear M. (1),

Here is my story (2) for your collection (3), it's about a guy and a girl who fall in love on the Titanic (4). I haven't written anything like this before (5), but your book looked easy enough to get into (6). My friends say I'm pretty creative (7). Please fill out and send back the enclosed postcard (8). If I have not heard from you in two months (9) I will consider this story rejected and send it somewhere else (10). I am also sending this story to other people. If they want it, I'll write to let you know (11).

I noticed that your guidelines say First North American Serial rights. What's that (12)? If I don't have all rights then I do not want you to use my story (13).

I work at the DMV (14) and have three cats named Mumbles, Blotchy and Kismet (15).

Mistress Divine (16)
Gertrude@christiansciencemonitor.com (17)

(1) Don't be cute. If you don't know the editor's name, or first name, or if the name is real or a pseudonym, just say "Hello" or "Editor" or somesuch.

(2) Answer the basic questions up front: how long is the story, is it original or a reprint, what's the title?

(3) What book are you submitting to? Editors often have more than one open at any time and it can get very confusing. Also, try and know what the hell you're talking about: a 'collection' is a book of short stories by one author, an 'anthology' is a book of short stories by multiple authors. Demonstrate that you know what you're submitting to.

(4) You don't need to spell out the plot, but this raises another issue: don't submit inappropriate stories. If this submission was to a gay or lesbian book, it would result in an instant rejection and a ticked-off editor.

(5) The story might be great, but this already has you pegged as a twit. If you haven't been published before don't say anything, but if you have then DEFINITELY say so, making sure to note what kind of markets you've been in (anthology, novel, website and so forth). Don't assume the editor has heard of where you've been or who you are, either. Too often I get stories from people who list a litany of previous publications that I've never heard of. Not that I need to, but when they make them sound like I should it just makes them sound arrogant. Which is not a good thing.

(6) Gee, thanks so much. Loser.

(7) Friends, lovers, Significant Others and so forth -- who cares?

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Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker: The Right Word

I'm very proud to have another one of my Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker pieces up on the excellent Erotica Readers And Writers site - and bit thanks to the folks at Erotica For All where the article first appeareed.

The Right Word

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
– Mark Twain

No insult to Mr. Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens to his pals), but he’s a bit wrong there … but, more importantly, a lot right.

Wrong in when writing, slaving over just the right word can, too often, grind the process to a halt. When I hit that speed bump I usually just put the word I know isn’t the perfect, ideal, and – yep – right I just highlight it so I know, when I look over whatever I’m writing I can come back and fix it later. The key to keeping up your flow is not just writing well but to keep writing. Period. It’s far too easy to let niggling details get in the way of where you’re doing, and what you’re saying: it’s far better to just keep at it and then come back and do some tweaking after.

But Sam (Mark Twain to everyone else) is damned right about the damned right word. It’s been a very strange trip, going from writer to editor and, now, to publisher: I see a lot of things I wish that writers would get into their heads – and, similarly, try to get into my own thick noggin. The number one has to be to show and not tell: in more words, rather than less, it’s far better to be evocative and imagination-feeding than completely, unarguably, accurate.

Let’s try something: the brown chair. Not much there right? We know it’s a chair, we know it’s brown. End of story. But what if I wrote, “the chair was the color of a well-worn dirt road”? Immediately you not just see the chair but might even feel a bit about it: the road, and it’s color, overlaid with an image what a chair like that might look like, feel like, smell like, etc.

It’s far better to conjure the chair, with magical language and imagery, than carry it onto the stage. You can so much with so little if you take the time to think of words, and language, that is evocative and alluring that unarguably precise. The same, naturally, goes with sex: rather than saying that, say, someone’s breasts were perfect, or conical, or whatever shape you’re thinking of, try, instead to say they were “happily rich and full, tipped by the inquisitive arousal of umber nipples.” Okay, that might be a bit too much but I think you get my point: the first was dull, boring – the second says so much more happily at that.

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Fun With Erotica For All

This is a blast: not only did I just do a fun little Q&A with the fun folks at Erotica For All but I also just posted a brand new Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker article for them as well.

Here's a taste of both:

Interview: M. Christian

How did you start writing erotica?
To be honest it was quite the quirk of fate: after trying for a long, long, long, long – ten years to be exact – time, I signed up for a smut-writing class taught by Lisa Palac, who was editing a magazine called Future Sex.  Lo and behold she liked the story I slipped her – my first shot at erotica – and she not only bought and published it but it was then picked up for Best American Erotica … and the rest is history.

What’s your favourite published work of yours and why?
I don’t really have a favorite ’cause that seems like looking backward – something I really try not to do.  When I’m feeling like a smart-ass I usually say that the best book of mine is the next one I write … but, to be honest, I do think that Me2 and Finger’s Breadth came out well-enough.  Though I am also having a blast working on my new book….

What erotic authors do you enjoy reading? To be honest I don’t read that much erotica – unless I’m editing an anthology, when I have to (smile).  I admire quite a few of them but I don’t like to pick favorites because we are in the same field … and emotionally and spiritually on the same journey.  Writing can be tough enough without elevating one writer over another.  As I like to say: a writer – no matter what awards they win, money they make, fame they have acquired – is no better than any other writer … who writes, and tries to improve themselves and their work.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Pretty much everywhere, honestly.  If I am working for an editor or publisher I normally have to listen to what they want – which sets the stage for what I do.  But when I work more ‘free form’ I get ideas from all over the place: movies, other authors, video games, taking a walk … you name it.  I do have a certain weakness for moral questions and putting people in unusual, and sometimes very difficult ethical quandaries – but I also love playing around with new, and sometimes very challenging, genres.  After all, a writer really doesn’t know what the may be good at until they try something new – and I love trying new things.  If they work it’s terrific … and if not no big deal: it’s just part of the learning curve.

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Guest Blog: M. Christian - The Right Word

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
– Mark Twain

No insult to Mr. Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens to his pals), but he’s a bit wrong there … but, more importantly, a lot right.


Wrong in when writing, slaving over just the right word can, too often, grind the process to a halt.  When I hit that speed bump I usually just put the word I know isn’t the perfect, ideal, and – yep – right I just highlight it so I know, when I look over whatever I’m writing I can come back and fix it later.  The key to keeping up your flow is not just writing well but to keep writing.  Period.  It’s far too easy to let niggling details get in the way of where you’re doing, and what you’re saying: it’s far better to just keep at it and then come back and do some tweaking after.

But Sam (Mark Twain to everyone else) is damned right about the damned right word.  It’s been a very strange trip, going from writer to editor and, now, to publisher: I see a lot of things I wish that writers would get into their heads – and, similarly, try to get into my own thick noggin.  The number one has to be to show and not tell: in more words, rather than less, it’s far better to be evocative and imagination-feeding than completely, unarguably, accurate.

[MORE]

A Nice Chat With Erzabet's Enchantments

This was a lot of fun to do: I just sat down - virtually - with the great Erzabet of Erzabet's Enchantments for a great little interview. Here's a tempting tease:

1. How did you get started writing erotica?

Well, to be honest, I didn’t really start out to be a smut writer. Oh, sure, I wanted to be a writer – got the bug sometime in late high school – but I never really wanted to write dirty stories full time. Like a lot of writers I tried most of the familiar genres (science fiction, horror, fantasy, mysteries ... you name it) but, frankly, the competition was just far too rough.

Then, by chance, I took a class in erotica writing taught by Lisa Palac (of the late-lamented FutureSex Magazine) and she actually bought one of my stories ... which was then picked up for Best American Erotica 1994 and the rest, as they say, is history.

That's not to say I don't like writing erotica. Far from it: I actually really like being part of a genre that's still new and fresh, with lots of room to experiment and play. While I did spend a lot of time writing and getting rejected I think it's getting me more comfortable with stories and language. So, in the end, it's all turned out pretty well.

2. What is the absolute hottest scene you have ever written...oh please share...we like it naughty here. *cheeky grin*

You know, I don't really think of hotness when I write. I'm usually just focusing on the writing and the tale I'm trying to tell, and the sex scenes just spin out of that. Makes me more than a bit different, I think: some of my smut-writing friends say that they write from ... well, let's say below the belt. I don’t do that – and when I've tried it gets far too distracting to focus. So I just tell stories about characters and sex and the while thing just comes together.

3. I really enjoyed your book about how to write erotica-it was what got me started in the right direction. Can you tell the folks who have not heard about it a little bit to whet their appetites...

Thanks so much! The book is called How To Write And Sell Erotica and it's out (in print as well as 'e') by the great folks at Renaissance E Books ... who (ahem) I happen to be an Associate Publisher for. It's a collection of my essays and articles from my irregular column Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker for the fantastic Erotica Readers And Writers Association. More than anything, the articles were kind of my ... revenge against all the bed writing classes I took when I first started writing. That, and some of the stuff that's come up when I've edited anthologies and now as a publisher. I like to think of the book as being a buck-naked writing book ... but not because it's about smut, but because it's more revealing than and honest than a lot of writing books out there.

4. Tell us about your current work.

Well, right now I'm making my way through a new collection of science fiction erotica – a follow up to my well-received Bachelor Machine book. But I also have plans for a new novel (just have to decide which book too actually write). Meanwhile I'm having a blast working for Renaissance and enjoying teaching classes here in the Bay Area on everything from smut writing to bondage and other kinds of kinky stuff. Check out my site at www.mchristian.com for into on everything I'm into ... some of what I'm into, at least. I do have to keep a few things private ;-)

5. Whip or flogger?

Oddly, even though I teach classes in both (and canes and bondage and paddles and much, much more) I'm actually a very simple fellow ... sexually, at least. Oh, sure, there are a few things I like (ahem – big girls – ahem) but I'm more of a sensualist than a sadist, and more a lover than a masochist. I guess you could say my biggest kink is my writing: I get the biggest turn-on from telling stories than just about anything else.

6. Chocolate or peanut butter?

Chocolate for sure – especially the wickedly wonderful fun stuff like Vosges, or salt and caramel chocolates. Yum!

(I knew we were kindred spirits!) *grin*

7. Beach or mountains?

Hum ... tough call. I like both quite a bit: always loved the ocean and I like it cool, so the mountains are also a favorite. The only place I don't like is anywhere too hot so I'm not a huge fan of the desert ... tough for the right trip and adventure I'm sure I could be convinced to go.

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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: Definitive Definitions

Check this out: a new "Confessions Of A Literary Streetwalker" piece for the always-great Erotica Readers and Writers site just went up.

All my previous columns, of course, have been collected in How To Write And Sell Erotica by Renaissance E Books.

Here's a tease:

 

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? 

 

[MORE]