Elizabeth Black lives on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four cats. She has written erotic fiction for numerous publishers and she is self-published.

—–

I normally stuff my
feelings. Old habit. I don’t like feeling strong emotions because I’m afraid of
losing control, which makes writing all the harder for me. Good writers
regularly open a vein and empty it all over their computer screens. As
Hemingway wrote, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a
typewriter and bleed.”

I’m a very private
person, so opening up so much of myself in my writing takes a lot out of me. I
do write my escapist fantasies like “Trouble In Thigh High Boots”
(erotic Puss In Boots), “Climbing Her Tower” (erotic Rapunzel), and
my work-in-progress “Alex Craig Has A Threesome”. They’re like
setting me loose in a candy store. I get the gimmes and I want it all! However,
I have exposed a little too much of myself in some of my other stories. Two
include my contemporary 1980s novel “Don’t Call Me Baby” and especially
my short dark romance story “Alicia”. Those two are partially based
on personal experience. As I worked on both stories, I felt over-exposed and a
bit embarrassed and even ashamed. However, all of those feelings reflected how
much I opened up in writing both stories, and they made the stories all the
better.

“The best people possess a feeling for
beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the
capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they
are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.” – Ernest Hemingway

How often do you
open up as a writer? You can always afford to open up more. Get inside your
character’s heads, and expose their weaknesses for all they’re worth. In doing
so, you expose yourself. The problem with sitting down at your typewriter and
bleeding is that it makes you vulnerable. How vulnerable are you willing to
make yourself for your art? Sometimes writers use their fiction as a cathartic
way of coping with their own problems or coming to terms with trauma. It isn’t
an accident that writing in a journal is a form of therapy often prescribed by
therapists.

Full disclosure here
– my short dark romance “Alicia” is based on my rape. Twenty years
ago I was raped by my then-husband, and the experience was obviously very
traumatic. He choked me so hard I coughed up blood, and my voice was hoarse for
several days. It took me many years to come to terms with that ordeal, and
writing “Alicia” is one big way I was able to deal with it. The
imagery I used in the story reflected how I coped with it. The entire ordeal
was like being trapped in a horrific dream and I couldn’t wake up. So, in both
telling a good story and dealing with my own abuse, I dove head-first into my
past and tore open some very old scabs. Here is the opening of the story, to
give you an idea of the visceral nature of what happened to me – and to Alicia.

This excerpt from
“Alicia” shows how using vivid description and strong emotions pull
the reader into a story. Just so you know, “Eric” is the pen name of
a dear friend of mine whom I care about deeply. “Carol” is my middle
name. “Alicia” is one of my favorite women’s names. Those three names
have significant meaning for me. I’ve found that choosing character names close
to your heart helps you to get inside their skins – and get inside your own so
you can’t hide from yourself. It’s an interesting exercise – if you are basing
characters on people you know, use their real names. Once the story is
finished, go through the document and change the names to something different
to establish some distance.

Eric stepped out of
the shower and a foul stench—mingled with the crisp peppermint of his
shampoo—smacked him in the face and left a coppery taste in the back of his
throat. His stomach heaved. Confused, he looked around the room to figure out
where the smell came from, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Dread clung to him,
dark and sticky, ruining his relaxed mood. The light bulbs over the sink
hummed, casting harsh yellow light about the room. He shaded his eyes against
the glare, trying to see.
 Why were those
lights so bright? Something was terribly wrong in his peaceful world, and not
knowing what it was frightened him.
 His wife Alicia
brushed her teeth as if nothing was unusual, while the stink of rot lurked
beneath the cool mint of his shampoo. Why didn’t she notice the smell?
 He leaned towards
her to place his hand on her shoulder, and she turned her face towards his for
a kiss on the cheek. Ugly, purple bruises darkened her eyes. He pulled away,
repulsed and alarmed, not quite sure what he was seeing. One side of her face
had swelled to a dark mask, not unlike a pumpkin that had been left outside in
the damp earth to rot. An angry red welt encircled her throat like a bloody
ribbon wrapped around her neck. Frightened, he reached out one hand but he
couldn’t bring himself to touch her swollen face. Touching her would make the
vision real and it couldn’t be real.
 Alicia spat in the
sink. Two of her teeth bounced against the porcelain. Blood tainted the paste.
 “The girls are
running late again.” Alicia’s bloodied mouth leaked crimson and white
toothpaste. Why did she act as if nothing strange was going on? He gaped at
her, not understanding what was happening. The safety of his home evaporated as
she spoke with her raw, torn mouth. “Make them wolf down their cereal, and
toss them out of the house before they miss the bus.”
 “Alicia, who
did this to you?” Eric asked. She did not answer him. She brushed her
teeth, running the brush over her ragged gums where the teeth had been knocked
out. His stomach heaved again, and he swallowed hard to keep from vomiting. He
wanted to knock out the teeth of whoever had assaulted her, but she acted as if
nothing was wrong. Why?
 The phone rang. Who
would be calling him at this hour? It wasn’t even 7:30 yet. He asked Alicia
again who had done this to her, but she didn’t answer him. She dried her torn
mouth, and then she smeared foundation over her face. To his horror, the
foundation did not cover her bruises. It only made them look uglier and even
more purple.
 Eric walked to the
phone and answered it.
 “Hello?”
 The phone continued
to ring. Eric’s steam-hazy mind knew that that wasn’t supposed to happen.
 “Hello?”
 Eric woke up in bed
to the ringing of the telephone on the dresser next to him. His wife, Carol,
stirred at his side.

When I first wrote
that excerpt and a later excerpt that takes place in a hospital, I wanted to
delete, delete, delete! Too much revealed. In many ways, that’s a good thing.
It had shown I got to Alicia’s soul, and my own. If you want to feel like a
freshly torn scab when you write, make yourself vulnerable. You will likely
feel exhausted and a bit worried you’ve said too much once you finish, but the
end result is worth it.

Here are my blurb
and buy links for “Alicia” if you’re interested in reading the rest
of the story.

Buy Links:

http://tinyurl.com/alicia-amazon

http://mochamemoirspress.com/alicia/

Blurb:

When the love of his
life, Alicia, calls him in the middle of the night to report she had been
raped, Eric drops everything to come to her rescue. She takes him on an eerie
ride through turbulent hours he can’t quite comprehend. Alicia may need his
help, but her situation is not what it seems.

 ABOUT ELIZABETH BLACK

Elizabeth Black
writes erotica, erotic romance, speculative fiction, fantasy, and dark fiction.
She also enjoys writing erotic retellings of classic fairy tales. Born and bred
in Baltimore, she grew up under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe. Her erotic
fiction has been published by Xcite Books (U. K.), Circlet Press, Ravenous
Romance, Scarlet Magazine (U. K.), and other publishers. Her dark fiction has
appeared in “Kizuna: Fiction For Japan”, “Stupefying
Stories”, “Midnight Movie Creature Feature 2”, “Zippered
Flesh 2: More Tales Of Body Enhancements Gone Bad”, and “Mirages:
Tales From Authors Of The Macabre”. An accomplished essayist, she was the
sex columnist for the pop culture e-zine nuts4chic (also U. K.) until it folded
in 2008. Her articles about sex, erotica, and relationships have appeared in
Good Vibrations Magazine, Alternet, CarnalNation, the Ms. Magazine Blog, Sexis
Magazine, On The Issues, Sexy Mama Magazine, and Circlet blog. She also writes
sex toys reviews for several sex toys companies.

In addition to
writing, she has also worked as a gaffer (lighting), scenic artist, and make-up
artist (including prosthetics) for movies, television, stage, and concerts. She
worked as a gaffer for “Die Hard With A Vengeance” and “12
Monkeys”. She did make-up, including prosthetics, for “Homicide: Life
On The Street”. She is especially proud of the gunshot wound to the head
she had created with makeup for that particular episode. She also worked as a
prosthetic makeup artist specializing in cyanotic blue, bruises, and buckets of
blood for a test of Maryland’s fire departments at the Baltimore/Washington
International Airport plane crash simulation test. Yes, her jobs are fun.
 😉

She lives in
Lovecraft country on the Massachusetts coast with her husband, son, and four
cats. The ocean calls her every day, and she always listens. She has yet to run
into Cthulhu.

Visit her web
site at http://elizabethablack.blogspot.com/

Her Facebook
page is https://www.facebook.com/elizabethablack

Follow her at
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ElizabethABlack