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KD Grace

Good-byes and New Beginnings

by | December 30, 2017 | | 2 Comments

It feels right that my last post for ERWA should be my favorite post of the year. On the 30th of the month, I’ve been posting on the ERWA blog for five years and the December 30 posts are always the ones I enjoy most. They’re more festive, more reflective and more fun because they’re winding up the old year and anticipating the New Year about to begin. I always feel like I should write something profoundly moving for this end of the year post. Last year the stress of not feeling very profound got to me and I gave it all up and just wrote a poem instead.

 

There is no dearth of inspiring posts this time of year. In fact, inspiring posts are easy to find any time of the year, and even I’m not sadistic enough to subject you lovelies to yet another one of my bad poems.

 

Any December 30 can’t help but bring with it a look back at what the year has brought and a look forward to what is ahead in the year to come. That has never been more true for me than it is this year. As I mentioned, this will be my last post for the ERWA blog. As much as I will miss my monthly palaver with my wonderful friends here, it’s time for me to move on. (Though I have every intention of popping by and checking in from time to time) Over the course of the last two years my writing has been slowly transitioning from erotica and erotic romance to urban fantasy and paranormal. I still have an open bedroom door policy and I still believe that just as sex is a vital part of our humanity, it should also be a vital part of the stories I write. But sex has become less the driving force of my stories and more a component of a larger whole. Much of that transition has taken place in my Medusa’s Consortium series, which strangely enough began with the very erotic M/M romance, Landscapes. (free at the moment, BTW)

 

The heart wants what the heart wants, and I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for urban fantasy and paranormal. There’s no time like the present for me to experiment and spread my writing wings.

 

I want to thank you all for being so tolerant of my navel gazes and for following along on those strange wanderings through my imagination on the 30th of every month. It has been a pleasure to be a part of such a respected blog. Most of all, it’s been a joy to share a bit of myself, my filthy mind and my writing journey with you. Believe me, you have given me a much bigger gift by reading and commenting than I could have ever managed in my monthly postings.

 

As you reflect on the events of 2017 over a little fizz or maybe a nice cup of hot cocoa, I hope that the memories warm you and inspire you and that the year past has brought you much joy and growth.

 

As you anticipate and plan and prepare for 2018, I wish you a wild and wonderful 365-day journey full of love and laughter and deepening.

 

I thank you again for sharing the journey this past five years, and as I close my last ERWA post, I leave you with one final really filthy, seasonal story from my own blog. Please read and enjoy Doing the Gingerbread Man.

 

Happy Holidays Everyone! Wishing you all the best in 2018

Writing Good Sex Scenes

by | November 30, 2017 | | 4 Comments

As a writer of erotic romance, I’m always trying to analyze the ways in which sex strengthens story. I’ve been very vocal in my belief that a story without sex is like a story without eating or breathing. Sex is a major driving force in our lives on many levels that I’ve dealt with in many blog posts. Because it is a major driving force in our lives it must also be a major driving force in story. Sex is a powerful way to create conflict and chaos in fiction. It’s a way of allowing our characters to interact on an intimate level. And it’s one of the very best ways to cut through our characters’ facades and get an honest look at who they are when their guard is down and they’re at their most vulnerable. With that in mind, I’ve decided to share a few points that I always find helpful when I write sex scenes. For me, going back to the basics is always a great way to sharpen my skills. And I love to share the things that work for me.

I would like to add that many of these points I have learned as much from reading bad sex scenes or gratuitous sex scenes as I have from my own efforts. But then every writer hones her craft through being an avid reader.

Three occasions not to write sex

1. While writing children’s books
2. While writing the definitive work on antique saltcellars.
3. When you’re not a writer, you’re a bricklayer. Even then …

Three important reasons to incorporate sex in your writing

1. Sex adds tension.
2. Sex adds depth and dimension to a story, and gives it more humanity.
3. Sex adds intimacy and transparency to the story and helps the reader better know the characters.

Three big no-nos in writing sex

1. Sex should never be gratuitous. If it doesn’t further the story, don’t put it in.
2. Sex shouldn’t be a trip to the gyno office. Technical is NOT sexy.
3. Sex should never be clichéd or OTT. (unless it suits the story)

Four suggestions for writing better sex scenes
1. Write sex unselfconsciously. No one is going to believe you’re writing about yourself any more than they believe Thomas Harris is a cannibal.
2. Sex scenes should always be pacey. Too much detail is worse than not enough. Sex should neither slow nor speed up the pace of the novel. It shouldn’t be used like an interval in a play. It should not serve as filler to bolster word count. It should always keep pace with the story being told.
3. Approach sex in your writing voyeuristically by watching and learning from your characters. Their personalities, emotional baggage and behavior traits will dictate how they have sex and how you write it.

4. You should always be able to feel a good sex scene in your gut. I’m not talking about wank material, I’m talking about The Clench. It’s a different animal. The Clench below the navel is for the sex scene what the tightness in the chest and
shoulders is for the suspense scene. Ya need to feel it.

The power of good sex can drive a story in ways that almost nothing else can. Good sex can be the pay-off for a hundred pages of sexual chemistry and tension, but the pay-off is even better if it’s also the cause of more chaos, sling-shotting the reader breathlessly on to the next hundred pages and the next.

Bloodless Sex and Paranormal Erotica

by | October 30, 2017 | | 2 Comments

Perhaps it is because I’m approaching the ‘old git’ stage of my life. Perhaps it is because I’m a bit of a luddite, but as much as I love my iPhone and my Kindle, as much as I live on my computer and wouldn’t want to be without Netflix and YouTube, as much as I live in my head, I can’t help the feeling that more and more we are living in a bloodless world. I’m not talking about violence, because bloodshed, needless death and destruction, of which we have no shortage. I’m talking about living in a bloodless world in the Klingon sense of the word, in that willingness to get messy in the pursuit of the fullness of life. As a writer of erotica and romance, I often ruminated on whether internet porn, virtual reality, social media and all of the technology that makes an inconsequential voyeuristic experience possible have made sex too safe, too bloodless. The bloodlessness of virtual sex and the closed, once-removed, environment in which it takes place makes me think that perhaps fang bangers, shifters and all things paranormal and fantasy in books, films and television is, in a very literal sense, an unconscious offensive against that too safe, bloodless sex.

 

The cleaning up of sex, the dressing it up for proper company by keeping the physicality of it once-removed isn’t just something that happens online. It’s something with which we’re bombarded every day by the media and by social pressure. We are informed on a regular basis that the sanitizing, deodorizing, decorating waxing and reshaping of the equipment, is a must if we want good sex. We are led to believe that only people who look a certain way can have good sex, and those who don’t, well that’s what internet porn is for. With the idea that good sex is for people of a certain type, a certain age, a certain smell or lack there of, it’s hardly a surprise that the more bloodless — and scentless our encounters become.

 

Fang bangers return our animal nature to the bedroom. What could be a better counter for bloodless, sanitized sex than sex with a vampire? And how better to get back in touch with the animal in us than sex with a werewolf? I wonder if on some unconscious level we miss our animal nature, we miss dirty, nasty sex that doesn’t involve a computer, or expensive lingerie, or waxing off all body hair and making sure all of our bits smell springtime fresh.

 

When I first conceived the idea of The Pet Shop back when it was a short story for Black Lace, and later when it became the Zoo in one of my favourite chapters in The Initiation of Ms Holly, it was that same desire to reconnect with the natural, unashamed, naughtiness that our animal counterparts seemingly partake of, to reconnect with a spontaneity driven by desire and not marketing. It seems to me that fang bangers are at the forefront of that return to a more earthy connection with sex. Ultimately I think it was this earthiness, this blood and dirt approach that enticed me to explore the paranormal in my story telling. But it was more than that, it was also the danger of the paranormal encounter and the way it indulges our fantasy of losing control to something too powerful to say no to.

 

A quick glance back through mythology – all types of mythology, reveals the common archetype of creatures that are half animal, half human, often gods or demigods. There has never been a time when the part of us that is most closely related to our animal cousins hasn’t frightened us. The creationist, battle against evolution is a modern example of it.
How can we be both like gods and like animals? If anything, having a big brain only strengthens the drive of our ‘lower’ brain. We can run but we can’t hide.

 

Our archetypal connection to the beast and the blood may be temporarily sublimated or denied, even dressed up and
taught to dance, but it will never go away. The loss of control we fear is ultimately the very thing we crave, the thing we find so alluring in tales of vampires and werewolves and demons and gods.

 

True enough, biology cares nothing for control, nor does it care who it hurts in furthering its cause. Our big brain can balance our lower brain, can come to some sort of agreement with that lower brain, but it can’t deny it, at least not in any way enduring or healthy or satisfying.

The Sex that Didn’t Happen

by | September 30, 2017 | | 2 Comments

K D Grace

Sometimes the sexiest part of a story is the sex that doesn’t happen. Let’s face it, half the fun in novels is imagining what would happen if the villain and the heroine got together … just once, or maybe the villain and the hero, or even all three. You get the picture. It’s very difficult to read a novel, watch a television series, see a film and not do a bit of shipping or fantasize about a little slash. I figure that’s why dream sequences of the sex that doesn’t happen are so commonly used. It’s a way of giving a nod to the fans’ fantasies. I think it’s also a way of letting fans know that the writer was thinking the exact same thing.

 

My novel, Blindsided was just released yesterday, and it’s very much the reason I am thinking about the sex that didn’t happen. Blindsided is a steaming cauldron of the sex that didn’t happen, but gets fantasized about by both my characters and me. Oh don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of sex that does happen too, but a great deal of the plot momentum comes from the sex that doesn’t happen. That’s a part of what made the writing, and I hope the reading of it, so damn much fun.

 

In my early days of writing erotica, when the old ‘sex scene every 2K’ was the standard expectation from editors, my efforts were all about telling a story in spite of the sex that I knew most people were reading it for. My challenge was engaging readers beyond the one-handed read. The sex was most often simple, straightforward and graphically written. Perhaps that doesn’t get boring for the reader — especially if all she wants is a one-handed read — though I have my doubts. I guarantee it gets boring for the writer who wants to explore sex and relationship at a deeper level, who wants to tell a story that takes the reader beyond basic porn-sex.

 

The power of sex has always been that it is about so much more than just procreation or recreation. I’ve written multiple posts about sex as magic, sex as transcendence, sex as a creative force. But as I’ve begun work in earnest on the Medusa’s Consortium novels and stories, I’ve become more and more intrigued with the sex that doesn’t happen. Sometimes that’s the sexiest bit. Intercourse is not necessary for a relationship between characters to be sexual. And the lack thereof can serve to make their journeys even more intriguing.

 

There are things, experiences, moments that ‘take us there’ in far more powerful ways than getting just naked and fucking. Music, scent, spoken word, watching the way someone moves, listening to the way someone describes what matters to them, and so much more — these are the things that get us inside a person’s head. The convoluted path inside each person that leads to what turns us on at a more visceral level than just the physiology of sex is the journey of story. It’s the journey that makes the sex act a part of something greater than itself. Following the characters down that winding path makes for more than just a fascinating read. It offers a three dimensional experience for the reader/watcher, it offers a much deeper connection with the characters and their stories. When it’s done exceptionally well, the sex that doesn’t happen creates an empathetic experience that allows the reader/watcher to identify, to connect with, even to vicariously become the character.

 

The sexual nature of characters is intrinsic in who they are and in the way they view the world and the people they care about. It is so closely tied to their self-worth and their view of self that it’s impossible to tell their stories without in some way exposing that sexual taproot of identity. The more closely the story is tied to that view of self, the more that link is exposed, the more readers see the true nature of those characters. And when the true nature of a character is exposed, there may very well be a lot of powerful sex that doesn’t happen.

 

Divine Villainous Sex

by | July 30, 2017 | | 2 Comments

K D Grace

I judge a good villain by how badly I want to fuck him … or her and how serious the consequences would be if I did. I think bad boy antiheros are as popular as they are because they’re the next best thing to fucking the villain. Sort of villain lite, if you will. The consequences of sex with the bad boys aren’t as severe.

With Blindsided about to be released and Buried Pleasures not far behind, I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with my villains and thinking a lot about … well …sex with them. Sex with villains has been an ongoing theme in my novels almost from the beginning. Wouldn’t Freud have a field day with that?

Fucking a villain is only slightly less dangerous than fucking a god, though I would argue that in some cases there really isn’t much of a distinction. If sex with a baddie or a god were a doctor’s prescription, the listed possible side effects would include addiction, death, and major changes in personality, ability and worldviews. With those side effects clearly listed on the label, why would anyone even consider taking the risk? For a writer, sex with the villain offers a whole treasure trove of plot complications and chaos. Will the character who takes the risk survive, become a worthless addict if they do, or be transformed into something greater, possibly even more terrible, than themselves? What writer or reader, wouldn’t want to find out what happens when a character fucks the villain or the god?

I’ve often speculated what might have happened if Daphne wouldn’t have been so hell bent on preserving her innocence that she allowed herself to be turned into a tree. What would have happened if she had simply turned to Apollo and said, “take me, I’m yours.” Would she have died? Would she have become a worthless groupie or would she have been given a gift worth the risk? How many of us cheered when Buffy and Spike finally did the deed? But Spike didn’t stay the villain. How could he after sex with Buffy? That’s another fascinating element of getting it on with villain. Sometimes it’s the villain who is transformed, which raises a whole other world of psychological issues. Do we really want Spike defanged? Do we really want the villain tamed?

For me that’s another reason why Medusa’s story is so fascinating. When Poseidon rapes her and Athena curses her, she’s transformed with hideous power. The story of what she does with that power and the end result is pretty typical of myths from a male dominated, Bronze Age culture. If Medusa’s story were rewritten for the modern age, we might very well take a different view on who the villain is.

Fucking the villain is the ultimate in transgressive sex. It’s the ultimate wanting what we shouldn’t want and, most of the time, wouldn’t dare take if the opportunity presented itself. Warnings on the label tell us this is not a good idea. However, fantasizing about doing the dirty with the villain, imagining what it would be like to submit to a god, reading stories about what might happen when one takes in all that power at the point of le petit mort is risk free and hotter than hell.

Most of the time the fantasy doesn’t involve falling in love with the villain or becoming his colleague. The hero is always the better man, the love choice at the end of the day. Most of the time the dalliances with the villain are just an irresistible erotic encounter spurred on only by attraction. Mythology is full of such encounters. So is fiction in general. This is the other side of the coin. Who doesn’t want to be irresistible to the villain? Who doesn’t want to be the object of a god’s lust, the obsession that drives him to distraction. The conquest of the good girl, the virgin in white, the leaving of his mark on her, the sullying of her, is as repellant as it is attractive. I would suggest that this is why there are so many dream sequences in which the villain and the good girl, or boy, get it on. We want them to do it … but we don’t, because … well, the hero, and good and evil and stuff. I would also suggest that in the cases in which they really do have sex, the writers often go out of their way to redeem the villain or to at least make him not quite so villainous. After all, he’s literally been inside what’s good and light and pure. How can that not rub off? How can that not change him?

But do we want the villain redeemed? Do we want the good girl sullied? In fiction, that sexual encounter is often a way of reaching some sort of equilibrium, a way for both characters to see the world as less black and white. It’s a way to make the villain more human, more likeable to the reader. On the other hand, it’s also a way of muddying the plot, adding to the chaos with guilt and internal battles over inappropriate responses to inappropriate desires. Anyway you look at it, sex with the villain is a plot changer. It’s a story that titillates and intrigues, even as readers shout at their Kindles, “No! Don’t do it!” All the while they’re still thinking to themselves with all the bravado only a reader can muster, “Oh go on then. Let’s see what happens, cuz I’d do him if I were you.”

Wonder Woman V Mesusa

by | June 30, 2017 | | 2 Comments

K D Grace

While I’ve seen Wonder Woman twice, and no doubt I’ll see it again, right now I’m living in the world of another powerful woman from mythology, a woman whose story is much darker, a woman whose story doesn’t find its way into comic books and graphic novels as a heroine, but as a villain, her name taken on mostly by evil characters. I’m talking about Medusa. She is very much at the forefront of my thoughts as I finish up the final rewrite of Blind-Sided, book 2 of Medusa’s Consortium. It hit me the other day as I was out walking that these two women of myth and legend could easily be the opposite side of the same coin. While the darkness and grit of the Wonder Woman film is refreshing, making her story more three dimensional, more human, there’s no doubt she brings light and hope into a broken world. Medusa, not so much.

While Wonder Woman’s Diana is raised in the isolation of an island of supportive and loving women warriors, who train her and prepare her for a world they hope she never has to face, Medusa draws the unwanted attention and lust of a god who rapes her. Then she is betrayed by the very goddess who should have protected her in one of the most horrendous examples of victim-blaming ever. 

Both mourn the loss of innocence, in their own way. Both pay a high price, Diana for the choice she willingly makes, Medusa for the choices taken out of her hands. Because Wonder Woman is Diana’s story, we see her evolution from an innocent to one who understands that there is darkness in the world and yet she makes the choice to stay on and fight that darkness. We know little about Medusa’s choices after her forced loss of innocence, other than that anyone who looks into her eyes turns to stone. 

I find it very interesting that Patty Jenkins, the director of the new Wonder Woman film, was also the director for the 2003 crime drama film Monster about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a former prostitute who was executed in Florida in 2002 for killing six men during the late 80s and early 90s. While we embrace characters like Hannibal Lector and Dexter as anti-heros, half rooting for them, even as they terrify us, Aileen Wuornos, is the monstor. A woman super hero must be the bringer of goodness and light and love, while we rejoice in a male super hero who brings vengeance, even very ugly vengeance. Is it possible that a woman Hannibal Lector, a female Dexter, a modern-day Medusa, is just too disturbing for us to be comfortable with? 

Both stories are tales of the archetypal woman. The Virgin Mary, who is allowed to bring the savior into the world, if you will, and Kali or Sekhmet, whose destruction, when called upon, cannot easily be controlled. Perhaps the inability to entirely control or predict what’s at the core of a woman’s heart is a part of what makes the negative anima such a terrifying beast. There is a part of each of us longing to be the bringer of light and love in a world sorely in need. But that we also rage at our core, long for revenge at our core, fantasize about making the oppressors suffer and pay is something fewer of us are willing to embrace. By embracing those parts of us, we run the risk of being labeled ‘monsters.’ And even we fear the results of allowing that negative feminine loose on the world. I find it very interesting that Medusa embodies what happens with the embracing of that inner darkness, pushed down, hidden away and denied. While it’s perfectly acceptable to embrace our inner Wonder Woman, we’d rather keep our inner Medusa’s raging revenge as far away as possible. Diana Prince wears a golden diadem. Medusa wears a crown of angry vipers – the golden reward for love and light or the poisonous sting for darkness and rage.

The dichotomy of who we are and how we see ourselves is the subject matter of a million psychology and self-help books. What we embrace in order to be seen as good women, and what we must push down into the dark caves of our unconscious and repress at all cost is the split we all bear. While we may be part Wonder Women, we are just as much Medusa, whether we like it or not.

While one is the daughter of a god and sent into the world of men to bring hope, the other is raped by a god, cursed by a goddess and cast out from all she knows and loves. While one brings a virgin’s curiosity and an innocent’s delight in all things new. The other brings rage and bitterness for what’s been done to her, for all she has lost.

The way in which the story of both women is tied to their sexuality is also perhaps a telling tale of the archetypes we, as women, find safe to embrace. While the Wonder Woman of the film is enlightened enough about sex, she is also an innocent in the love of men, and she is led to the experience by the love of her heart, Steve Trevor. This is the tale of true love embraced and then lost too soon. Medusa’s past, we see little of. Her story begins with an ugly rape in a place where she should have been protected, followed by a horrible curse. And now we see why the two women are the opposite sides of the same coin. While Diana’s story of love and loss inspires, Medusa’s story of rape and humiliation disturbs, and yet ultimately both women, hero and monster, stand alone, adored or feared from a distance. They are what we strive for and what we fear, they are, each alone, complete in themselves and yet broken in their completeness.

Writing as Masturbation

by | May 30, 2017 | | 2 Comments

K D Grace

Happy Masturbation month, everyone! I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. Aside from the obvious, May is my favorite month for a lot of reasons. The flowers are blooming and the birds are singing … and mating themselves silly and everything is suddenly made new. As is always the case in this glorious month, I can’t keep myself from thinking about those new beginnings and the fact that many of them seemingly come from nothing. 

At the moment, I’m finishing the final rewrite of Blind-Sided, the second novel in the Medusa Consortium series. Like all the Medusa tales, it’s a big book and, as I work through the final draft, reading it out loud as I go, occasionally I find myself wondering how we writers can create something out of nothing, from the tiniest seed of an idea. And that’s all any novel I’ve ever written is in the beginning. Honestly, I’m amazed at what results. But this is masturbation month, so how can I not think about the absolute pleasure I take in creating something out of nothing, in the solo act of sitting in front of a laptop for months and hammering out a tale that didn’t exist before. Oh yes, my dear friends, for me, writing a novel is very much self-pleasure.

The ancient Egyptians believed masturbation was a creative act in its own right. In the Heliopolis creation myth, the
god Amen rises from the primeval ocean and masturbates the divine son and daughter into existence. Then they, of course, populate the world. Even the Judeo/Christian myth of the first two chapters of Genesis, in which God speaks the world into existence, is a solo act. And what writer of stories and teller of tales can’t identify with ‘the word becoming flesh,’ or with the ritual of creating a world using nothing but words alone.

If creation is, in the great myths, masturbatory, then it makes sense that so many writers I’ve talked to, myself included, find their work, whether it’s erotic or not, to feel almost sexual. That leads me to wonder if perhaps the writing of story is a form of masturbation, a form of solo creation. Certainly for me, when I’m in the throes of story, completely in the thrall of something that seemingly came from nothing, there is a physical response, and it’s quite often arousing. But then how could the visceral euphoria of being The Creator not be a total turn-on?

A writer friend once told me she’d had a novel rejected by an editor who said that, while it was beautifully written, there was no blood on the page. Every novel I’ve ever read that sticks with me has demanded something physical from me. I’ve felt the story in my body and not just had an awareness of it in my mind. That being the case, it’s not much of a leap to think the power of the written word, the power of story, comes as much from a writer’s body is it does from the mind. It also isn’t much of a leap to think that writing from the gut stimulates the libido. When I’m under the spell of story, the physicality of the experience, the way I feel it below my waist, is as much a part of the creative process as the hours spent in front of the computer. 

While I can completely see writing a story as a masturbatory act, even a curmudgeonly introvert like me needs the social connection with people, and the flip side of my masturbatory acts is that they’re also exhibitionist acts. Creation, from a writer’s point of view, may take place in solitude, but the resulting story is very much meant to be shared far and wide. While story telling is an act of love for me, it’s not complete until I can share my creation with someone else. What comes from my isolation is meant to be exposed for the world to see. I suppose like the gods of the myths, I want adoration. I want people to look and see and gasp in awe at the power of what I’ve created. (Can’t you just hear my sinister laugh as I plan world domination?)

Masturbation as a creative act, to me that’s what Masturbation month is all about. There are connections, deep connections to the Self and to the mysterious creative force curled at the center of all of us that, I’m convinced, can only be accessed through solo acts of exploration and pleasure. Those places within us are places only we can discover, and the discovery is, indeed a cause for celebration.

Friends with Benefits

by | April 30, 2017 | | 2 Comments

by K D Grace

Acquaintances of mine told me once that, while they had been friends forever, they’d made a pact. If neither of them was married by the time they were forty, they’d marry each other. This was long before My Best Friend’s Wedding. I suspected they were friends with benefits, but it would have been rude to ask.

 

The number one rule of friends with benefits is that you don’t talk about friends with benefits – at least not the friend with whom you have the benefits. That’s part of what makes those added benefits so sexy. You don’t fuck your friends … except when you do. And if you do, then the assumption is that the person you’re having sex with is not the person of your dreams, nor you theirs. But you’re still ,above all else, friends. If you go for it, then the assumption is that you’re both still looking for that special someone and you’re both okay with that, even encourage that. Friends with benefits involves a level of trust that might call for some secret keeping. 

 

I got to thinking about friends with benefits on my walk today. There’s something really hot about having sex with someone you’re not supposed to, about finding that you’re attracted to someone you’re not really supposed to be because … well because you’re friend. And there’s something outrageously arousing when you discover that you just might be able to have your cake and eat it too. Friends with benefits is a delicious stop-gap in which friends get to admit while they’re not The One True Love, they’re a whole lot better than humping one’s hand, elevating the idea of friends taking care of each other to a whole new level.

 

I was in such a relationship when I was in Uni – a man I’d been best friends with since high school. During that time there were three of us who hung out together when we were in between relationships – which was most of the time. The other woman was also a long-time schoolmate. The two had been my best friends for years.

 

Suzie (we’ll call her that to protect the not-so innocence) confided in me that she had flat-out asked Tom one night when they’d both had a little too much to drink and they were bored and in between relationships, why he didn’t fuck her. He told her he didn’t want to ruin their friendship.

 

I kept it to myself that with me he had no such qualms. Later when he told me about it, he simply said that he trusted me. He knew our friendship was strong enough to take it. Funnily enough, while I was never jealous when he was in a relationship, I think I might have been had dear old Suzie been getting equal benefits from Tom.

 

That dynamic comes back to me in a lot of the stories I’ve written – the idea of finding a secret port in the storm, a temporary fix, a way of dealing with libido and ‘singleness’ that’s mutually beneficial. We talked a lot about the thin line we walked keeping our friendship safe in spite of having a physical relationship. That’s probably why it worked for us. We talked a lot. We had fun together. We looked out for each other on a lot of levels. And we were both very certain we weren’t ever going to be a real couple. The fact that it did work, however, means it certainly wasn’t good story fodder. Think When Harry Met Sally, Friends with Benefits, The Ugly Truth. The real story gets going when our lovely couples have sex and RUIN EVERYTHING! That’s why the idea of friends with benefits fascinates me as a writer. 

 

 A big part of that fascination is because friends with benefits is a relationship so full of contradictions. There’s less
stress, more honesty with sex because the relationship is already set. But there’s more stress for fear of destroying the friendship both partners value. The person is not an unknown because the partners are already friends. But adding sex to the equation means discovering and uncovering things about each other that can totally change that dynamic. There’s openness and yet there’s subterfuge. We kept our relationship secret. To the outside world we were best friends. We both decided that was the most important part of who we were together. But seeing someone naked and vulnerable can’t help but change the way we view each other. And whenever sex is thrown into the mix, things can get complicated.

 

Within the delicious stew of friends with benefits there are a million sexy story ideas, a million minefields to be navigated and a million conflicts to up the chaos of the story. And in the midst of it all, there’s Forbidden Sex Lite. You don’t fuck your friends … except when you do. Then you do it at your own peril. How can that not be a serious turn-on in erotica and romance?

 

Editing … Was it Good for You?

by | March 30, 2017 | | 4 Comments

K D Grace

I love editing. Always have. I know many writers don’t share the love, but I think editing is one of the sexiest parts of the writing process. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that, for me, if the editing process doesn’t feel like good sex, then I’m not doing it right.

Take it off!

Since I’m not precious with my words, one of the first, and probably easiest parts, of editing is taking it off. What I mean by that is stripping my WIP, undressing it, getting rid of unnecessary paragraphs, sentences, phrases, even whole chapters — anything superfluous or repetitive. I need to be sure I don’t repeat what’s already been said or what doesn’t need to be said. I need to trust my readers’ intelligence. They’ll get it the first time. Readers are as anxious as I am to get on with it, to get to the good stuff. That means I need to pop the story’s cherry and move on to the main act. So my first editing goal is to undress my work, get it down to the story beneath, to what really matters, what will turn my readers on. My job, at this point, is to expose that story and then let it seduce me. If it can’t seduce me, then it’s not very likely to seduce my readers.

Tweak, Touch and Play

Once I can see what’s underneath, what’s really there, then I can begin tweaking, touching-up and playing. This is the time-consuming part. This is the point at which every single word matters. I learned how important each word is by writing shorter stories. When you have only 2K, every word has to matter – even more so with something as precise and boiled-down as poetry. Writers of novels – myself included sometimes forget this because we have a whole novel’s worth of words to play with. This is the point at which I remind myself that I’m making love to the story, and I want my readers to be seduced by what I’ve written. Every word is an erogenous zone. Every phrase can be stimulated and heightened and engorged until it literally bursts with meaning, with intrigue, with seduction for the reader.

Beware of Distractions  

I don’t want phones ringing or knocks on the door from the mailman when I’m having sex or when I’m editing. I don’t want anything that will pull me out of the moment. I especially don’t want anything that will pull my readers out of my story. That includes distracting words, actions that are out of character or excessive use of words and phrases. (My inner goddess definitely frowns on that sort of thing.) That also includes replacement words. I’m far less likely to be pulled out of the story by multiple uses of breast, and tits than I am by globes, orbs, mounds, hillocks. Fingers, fingers, fingers, please! Digits are for numbers and for anatomy lessons. If I can’t find a word that won’t distract the reader from the seduction, then I’ll try to rephrase.

Exploration

While exploration is a part of the tweak, touch, and play process, it’s also the place where I discover hidden meanings, hidden tidbits, sometimes whole bits of story that need to be teased and written or rewritten and brought into focus. I can’t count the number of times I’ve discovered depth in my characters, secrets, quirks, emotions I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t made the effort to make love to my story during the editing process. Exploration is searching out the little moles, the scars, the sensitive spots that turn the story – and the reader — on.

Bring it to Climax

All of this effort is heading for the big climax, the pay-off — the story version of the Big O. While that’s true, the story is also about the journey, making it last, sustaining the pleasure and building it. The biggest part of editing, for me, is making sure that the journey, the tweak and touch and play are so gripping to readers that they’ll want it to last just a little longer, just a few more pages. I don’t know about you, but on a great read, I find myself slowing down near the end because I don’t want it to end. I want to make it last, even as I can’t wait for the pay-off. I need to have that experience while editing my own work or how can I ever expect the reader to have it? I need to feel that journey to the very end, right down to the blaze and fireworks of the climax. After it’s over, when I’m basking in the afterglow, I need to feel slightly bereft as the experience lingers in my mind, hopefully, long after the fact.

If I feel that way at the end of the editing process, then I’m confident I’ve done my job as a writer, and it’s now time to lean back on the pillow, have the imaginary cigarette and ask my readers, ‘was it good for you?’

Sex is a Scary Thing

by | January 30, 2017 | | 3 Comments

By
K D Grace

Sex
is a scary thing. That’s pretty obvious in the present political climate. But
Sex really is a scary thing. I had a
conversation once with another writer who wrote cozy crime. It wasn’t actually
a conversation so much as it was a rant. She didn’t understand why sex was such
a big seller. What was all this erotica stuff about anyway? Why did sex always
have to be dragged out in a novel for the whole world to see? Why couldn’t it
just stay in the bedroom where it belonged? Surly proper educated, intelligent grown-ups
should prefer proper literature. This was in the halcyon days of 50SoG and the
resulting erotica boom. The woman was not someone’s grandmother parading out
her Victorian sensibilities. This was a person who was a good deal younger than
I am. Seriously, sex is scary stuff! 

I
don’t want to talk about obvious reasons why sex is scary. STDs, unwanted
pregnancies, sex as abuse – sadly the fear of those is a constant. What I want
to talk about is why sex is a scary thing just by the nature of being what it
is.

Sex
makes us vulnerable. We’re quite literally exposing our tender parts, the parts
we keep hidden from public view, the parts we sometimes have disturbing dreams
of exposing in the super market or the office. More than that physical exposure,
we make ourselves vulnerable to another person, and that experience of opening
ourselves is something we can never take back, something that permanently
changes our perception of each other.

I
remember my first view of split beavers and hard cocks in the pages of a
dog-eared Hustler magazine that a
friend and I had surreptitiously taken from her parents stash. My first
response was ‘gross!’ I remember the little knot in my stomach. I remember the
feelings below my stomach that
disturbed me and at the same time intrigued me. All these years later
having gained a healthy appreciation for the view of the tender bits hard and
slippery and ready for action, I often find myself thinking about that first
response, that first sense of shock that both disturbs and intrigues.

Sex
is governed by something other than our rational mind. Anyone who has ever
watched dogs or other animals mating understands that what’s happening is a
primal imperative rather than a hot date. That we have a good bit of that
primal urge in us just below the surface just waiting to kick aside the
rational self and rut like rabbits is pretty scary. That we can somehow
convince ourselves that sex among humans is more civilised, more easily
controlled is even scarier still. 

Finally
sex is scary because it offers an altered state that nothing else can. It feels
as though we’ve been transported either to a deeper place in our bodies or
someplace beyond.

I
was eleven when I had my first orgasm, quite by accident. I was extremely
ignorant of what touching my own body could lead to, and I thought I was having
some sort of seizure. I was terrified. But then when it passed into little
tremors, and I realised I wasn’t going to die, I was intrigued enough to
wonder, in scientific fashion, of course, if my results could be replicated.

I
wish I could say that it was all smooth sailing from there on, but those of us
who grew up in the western world all live with the religious and mythological
shaping of our civilisation, whether we grow up in a liberal family or not. I
had to fight the battles with guilt and shame. I had to fumble and faff about
in those first sexual experiences with none of the elegance and aplomb we
always read about and imagine. I had to decide for myself what it meant to be a
‘good girl.’ I had to find a way to claim and own my own scary
sexuality. That, to me, is the scariest thing of all. Even now female
sexuality is shamed and vilified. Even now tremendous lengths are gone to in
order control it – efforts that are inadvertently just as damaging to male
sexuality.

In
many ways, I think, erotica and erotic romance are about rebelling against that
control. Mind you I

don’t think erotica is our effort to tame sex and make it
safe and toothless. I think it’s our way of walking with the wild beast and
never forgetting that it is
dangerous, that it is and always will
be wild. The written word, story, is a safe place, in essence a container, in
which to approach what will never be safe and yet what by our very nature, we
long to embrace. Having said that, those of us who have been moved, disturbed,
intrigued, changed by what we read or write can vouch for the fact that even in
the written word, sex is a scary thing. 

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

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