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The Ivory Tower vs. the Garden of Vulgar Delights: The Feud Continues

by | June 26, 2014 | | 10 Comments

by Jean Roberta

I’ve written here before about my comfortable niche in the English Department of the local university, where I teach nuts-and-bolts composition and literature to first-year students plus the occasional course in creative writing. I have access to funding for writing-related travel, which includes erotic writing conferences, readings, and award ceremonies. Every three years, I submit a Faculty Review Form on which I brag about my accomplishments, including publications. Before I compiled my list for 2011-2013 inclusive, the friendly department head told me that I don’t brag enough; he advised me to list every review and blog post I’ve written, as well as every erotic story I’ve had published and every panel I’ve sat on. His summary of my latest Faculty Review begins with a statement that I am a model of productivity for the whole department.

My personal experience leads me to hope that writing about sex is no longer something that anyone needs to keep hidden under a fake identity, complete with over-the-top pen name (Scarlet Veronica Filthy-Mind) and manuscripts/publications in a lockable trunk.

But I seem to be living in an oasis of exceptional acceptance. Here is the latest piece of evidence that scholarly endeavor, as practiced in universities, is still widely considered far above – or at least far separate from – sex-writing of any kind.

In March 2014, the friendly department head circulated an announcement to the rest of the English Department about a one-day conference to be held at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, on June 3. The event was titled Reforming Shakespeare: 1593 and After. Here is the description:

“This is a one-day scholarly symposium on the kinds of alteration that have occurred to Shakespeare’s writing as it has made its journey from author to readers and playgoers. ‘Reforming’ may take the sense of being given new shape as authorial or non-authorial adaptation, rewriting, borrowing or allusion and arguments about any of these processes in connection with Shakespeare fall within our purview. ‘Reforming’ can also suggest correction and improvement, including censorship, editing, and tidying up of text to make it conform to new conditions of reception, and contributions on those topics are also welcome. Send proposals for 15-minute papers to Prof X and Prof Y.”

My first reaction was: How cool is this! I noted that the conference was:

– Not being held at one of the ancient, prestigious British universities (Oxbridge)
– Apparently not dedicated to bardolatry, or reading/teaching the works of Shakespeare according to some time-honoured method, and
– All about work that could be described as Shakespeare fan-fic, innovative performances, parodies, and other spinoffs.

I wished I could find a way to get to Leicester for this event. But alas, I didn’t see how I could justify travelling all the way there from the middle of Canada while I was teaching an intense, six-week course.

I decided to spread the word, especially to my fellow-contributors to an erotic anthology: Shakespearotica: Queering the Bard, edited by Salome Wilde (Storm Moon Press). This collection, I thought, would fit in perfectly with the theme of the one-day conference. All the stories involve “queer” (lesbian/gay/bisexual/gender-bending) characters in Shakespearean plots, and some of the stories are quite faithful to the originals. There is much same-sex emotional intensity and gender ambiguity to be found in Shakespeare’s plays, as well as much bawdiness. He wrote plays in a time when all the female parts were played by males, some of whom continued to cross-dress when they were not onstage. Whether the Bard was “queer” himself has never been decisively proven, but there are mysteries in his life that have never been completely cleared up.

I contacted Salome Wilde, U.S. editor of the anthology, and asked if she could spread the word to the rest of the contributors. I was hoping that one of them might live close enough to Leicester to make the trip worthwhile. Salome asked me for the name and contact information of one of the organizers, so I sent it to her.

A few days later, I got this email from Salome:

“Just an update to say I contacted Prof X.” This person apparently claimed there was no way to make use of the book, “as there will be no display or way to share it, and as it is in early June, I [Salome] can’t possibly attend. . . I was even thinking of giving an eBook to everyone who attended, or perhaps sending a flyer.” Apparently Prof X didn’t see how a book like Shakespearotica could possibly be included in an event named “Reforming Shakespeare.”

Sigh. I couldn’t help wondering if I (as a Canadian English instructor/erotic writer) could have bridged the cultural gap between a British Shakespeare scholar and an American erotic writer/editor, but maybe not. That gap might be unbridgeable, or I might not be the right person to bridge it. I can’t help feeling as if I threw Salome Wilde under a bus after she graciously accepted my story (loosely based on the Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night) for the Storm Moon anthology.

Maybe I should be grateful that Prof X didn’t erupt in rage over the proposal that a discussion of Shakespeare spinoffs should be contaminated by “smut.” Even though I remind myself in these cases that things could be worse, I don’t feel grateful at all.

William Shakespeare (or whoever wrote under that name) knew in the 1590s that sex was a part of life. I wonder when the scholars who study his work will figure it out.

———-

Getting Together

by | June 23, 2014 | | 2 Comments

by Lucy Felthouse

Writing is a very solitary thing. Something you have to just sit down and do, all by yourself. Yes, you may have other people involved in the research stages, and you may have beta readers once it’s finished, then editors, publishers, cover artists… the list goes on. But the specific act of getting words down on the page is a lonely task. Nobody can do it for you, and unless you’re super-talented (and if you are, I’m very jealous), you probably can’t talk to people while you’re doing it.

Which is why it’s nice to have writer buddies. Whether you know them in real life or just online, they’re a valuable bunch. There to encourage, to rant with, offload on, ask questions, sympathise, celebrate, commiserate… as much as friends, partners and families may try to be and do all of those things, it’s really only other writers that truly get it.

I’m very lucky in that I have writer buddies living locally, ones I see on a fairly regular basis, as well as ones I chat to pretty constantly online. Some of those I get to see occasionally, too. One such example being last weekend (not the one just gone, the one before!). A whole bunch of erotica and erotic romance writers and readers descended on Scarborough on the east coast of England for Smut by the Sea, a day of smut, workshop, socialising and fun. And fun it was! There was lots of chatting, giggling and all of the above supportive-types things going on. It’s so nice to be reminded you’re not alone as a crazy writer that’s battling away on something that’s bloody hard work, often for very little reward.

Now it’s all over, I’m already thinking about the next such get-together. Which is in November. I’m sure it will be upon us within the blink of an eye. So if you’re in the UK and can get to Manchester… it’d be great to see you there!

Happy Reading,
Lucy x

*****

Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and
erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 100
publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several
editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic
Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and
co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house.
She owns Erotica For All, is book
editor for Cliterati, and is one eighth
of The Brit Babes. Find out more
at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk.
Join her on Facebook
and Twitter, and subscribe to her
newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

Gone Researchin'

by | May 23, 2014 | | 4 Comments

So, as this post goes live I’m actually out of the country. In Paris, France, one of my very favourite places on earth… so far 😉

I’ve gone researchin’. For some reason, ever since my very first visit to Paris back in 2010, I found it beautiful, fascinating, interesting and inspirational. Since then, it’s spawned several stories which have been set there, all very different and all so much fun to write. And yet, I’m not done! One of those tales has been begging for a long time to be extended into a novel, but my hands were tied due to a shitty publisher, who shall remain nameless. Since then, I’m glad to say the publisher is no more (yeah, seriously, they were that bad), so I have the rights to that short story and the characters back, and I can work on the novel. I’m really looking forward to it because I love the story, the plot and the fact that my crazy little brain actually figured out this could be turned into a series. It’s been languishing for too long, and I’m hoping that another research trip to Paris will inspire me all over again and I’ll be bubbling over with ideas, new settings and enthusiasm for the project 🙂

Happy Reading!

Lucy x

*****

Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and
erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 100
publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several
editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic
Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and
co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house.
She owns Erotica For All, is book
editor for Cliterati, and is one eighth
of The Brit Babes. Find out more
at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk.
Join her on Facebook
and Twitter, and subscribe to her
newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

Sexy Snippets for April

by | April 19, 2014 | | 6 Comments

It’s the 19th of April – the wettest month of the year in many locations. Today’s your chance to add to the general soaked state of the world by posting your Sexy Snippets!

The ERWA blog is not primarily intended for author promotion.
However, we’ve decided we should give our author/members an occasional
opportunity to expose themselves (so to speak) to the reading public.
Hence, we have declared the 19th of every month at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association blog Sexy Snippet Day.

On Sexy Snippet day, any author can post a tiny excerpt (200 words or less) in a comment
on the day’s post. Include the title from with the snippet was
extracted, your name or pseudonym, and one buy link, if you’d like.

Please
follow the rules. If you post more than 200 words or more than one
link, I’ll remove your comment and ban you from participating in further
Sexy Snippet days. So play nice!

After
you’ve posted your snippet, feel free to share the post as a whole to
Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else you think your readers hang out.

Have fun!

~ Lisabet

Why My "But" Is Here to Stay

by | March 27, 2014 | | 3 Comments

By Jean Roberta

(Note: My apologies for arriving late. I had trouble posting this piece earlier.)

The word “but” seems wildly unpopular these days. According to television counsellor Dr. Phil, whatever follows a “but” negates whatever came before it. In the context of personal relationships, there seems to be some truth in this claim. When a guest on the Dr. Phil show tells a Significant Other: “I’m sorry I cheated on you, but …” the rest of the sentence is always an attempt to justify the behaviour that the speaker supposedly regrets. When the defense lawyer in a sexual assault case says, “I’m not really saying the victim deserved what she got, but. . .” the rest of the sentence usually implies that she, not the perpetrator, was responsible for an unfortunate misunderstanding. When someone in an on-line thread says, “I’m not racist, but. . “ well, you see the pattern.

My spouse, as a professional counsellor, agrees with Dr. Phil. She tells me that when I say, “I like X, but . . .” the sentence contradicts itself in a confusing postmodern style.

Allow me to present the case for “but.”

I was delighted to teach a credit class in creative writing for the first time in Fall 2013, at the university where I have taught first-year literature-and-composition classes for (as of spring 2014) a quarter-century. I had offered informal crits of other people’s writing in the Storytime list here at Erotic Readers and Writers, but I was nervous about doing this in an official capacity. How could I judge other people’s short stories, poems, scripts or opinion pieces and assign grades to them without being unreasonably biased in favour of what I happen to like? On a deep level, this question nagged at me: Why on earth should other writers (even those almost young enough to be my grandchildren) respect my opinions? Am I brilliant or famous?

As it turned out, it seemed surprisingly easy to evaluate student assignments by the same standards I use to evaluate academic essays on literature. This is my general checklist:

– What is the purpose of this piece? (In the case of an essay, I look for a thesis, a controversial statement which will be defended with fairly objective evidence, much like an appeal to the jury by a prosecutor/district attorney or a defense attorney in criminal court. Neither lawyer can be neutral, or defend both sides.)

– How does this piece approach its purpose? If this seems to be a mood piece, does it use descriptive language? Does the writer “show” a situation or “tell” about it? What are the advantages of the strategies used, if any?

– Is this piece written grammatically, in standard English? (In the case of an essay, ungrammatical writing automatically lowers the grade.) If a creative piece is written informally, in slang or dialect, is this an attempt to produce the effect of spoken language? If so, does it work? Is the piece a linguistic experiment? If so, is it understandable?

– Is this piece coherent, or does it switch viewpoints for no apparent reason? Is the pacing uneven? Does something important seem to be left out?

When grading the assignments of eager young writers (of stories, novels-in-progress, structured poems, short plays and essays), I found much to admire, but I always had a “but.” Usually I liked the plot premise, but sometimes I found the characters two-dimensional or the dialogue full of cliches. I was taken aback by the number of apparently unintended grammatical problems in student writing. In the case of structured poems, the technical problems were easy to spot. (This is one reason why I gave the assignment). How many sonnets, I asked aloud rhetorically, have lines that vary from eight syllables to thirteen?

So my evaluations usually started with praise for the general conception of the piece, followed by a “but.” Example: Interesting contemporary drama about a dysfunctional family (and aren’t they all, if you look closely?), but do Canadians in the 21st century say, “Mark my words?” (As far as I know, this phrase might still be a part of local speech in some quaint backwater, but I suspect the student was too influenced by the literature of the past.) Or: Exciting, ambitious fantasy story, but how can an immortal character drop dead of natural causes, and why does the invisibility cloak only work on some occasions?

This brings me to a recent discussion in the Writers list, here at ERWA. Someone said that as writers, we can never know why an editor rejected one of our submissions. This statement seems akin to saying that we can never really, really know what another person means. I can agree with this, but I’m not convinced that editors are especially cagy about expressing their true opinions.

I’ve received numerous rejection letters. Trust me. They no longer sting as much as they used to because I’ve also had approximately 100 stories (mostly erotic) accepted for print anthologies, as well as a novella and three single-author story collections. Some of the editors who reject Story A from me (despite my hope and faith that this particular editor will love this particular story) then accept Story B, which I sent in on a whim, not expecting much. As they say, there is no explaining taste. When an editor tells me “I really like this story, but it’s not what I’m looking for,” I usually have no reason to think this message isn’t sincere. I know that editors could usually say more about their choices than they usually do say (especially in rejection messages), but a brief explanation isn’t necessarily code for: “Your writing sucks, and I never want to see any more of it.”

I value the “but.” It’s a useful and meaningful word. Sometimes when I reread my own writing, I use the “but” on myself. (Still love the idea, but OMG, this passage is unnecessarily long and draggy. Or conversely, no wonder this piece was rejected. It has lots of potential, but it’s a fantasy novel in embryo that I tried to squeeze into just under 5K. In its present form, it probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone but me.)

I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I use “but” (a co-ordinating conjunction that balances two grammatical units of equal weight), I hope the reader will understand that I’m really trying not to be obscure, snarky or completely negative. No one’s art – and no one’s life –could honestly be summed up as all good or all bad.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Writing in the Red-Light District

by | March 12, 2014 | | 3 Comments

I’ve been considering the genre of erotica in historical context as a way to understand where it came from and what it has become. From a European perspective, it seems fair to begin with the Greco-Roman poetry of Sappho, Ovid, Juvenal and the Dionysian spectacle of the Satyr Plays (of which we no longer have any clear records). But we have a problem: it is almost impossible for us today to truly grasp what kind of a relationship the ancient Greeks and Romans had with sex. Judeo-Christianity and, later, the Enlightenment and rise of rationalism have had profound effects on the way we contextualize desire and sex both in relation to ourselves and to our society. We often represent the Greeks and the Romans as being a lawless bunch of reprobates, but this isn’t true. There were very strong prohibitions and social rules about how one conducted oneself as a sexual being and how that reflected on the overall character of a person. They were just very different from ours.

Boccaccio wrote the Decameron in the 12th Century –  a collection of tales which borrowed mostly from earlier erotic folk stories as well as westernized oriental narratives. The Tale of Two Lovers, an epistolary novel of the 15th Century, was penned by a man who later became a pope. The Heptameron was written by Marguerite de Navarre in the 16th Century. All these writings are bawdy and explicit in their exploration of human sexual adventure. But it is also fair to say that they are not simply detailed descriptions of sex. To one extent or another, they all contain a good deal of humour and there is a considerable focus on the licentious behaviour of characters whose social status demanded they be modest. They were often about the secret sex lives of the rich and celibate. Eroticism, politics, and social satire it seems, went hand in hand.

The libertine movement of the 15th and 16th centuries was an interesting evolution. Written by aristocrats for aristocrats, it represented the pursuit of pleasure as a radical philosophy in itself. Its comparison with earlier writings is interesting. For all its sexual excess, its humour is more curdled and jaded and, for all its explicitness, seems more aimed at offending sensibilities than representing the pleasures of the flesh. (It always reminds me of people desperately trying to fuck on way too much cocaine at four in the morning. Take my word for it, it’s not all that much fun.)  Then we get to Sade,with his lists of debaucheries and his blatant attack on Catholic mores. These books are pornographic in the sense that they are explicit, but as Angela Carter pointed out, they are also aimed at honestly representing the almost unlimited power of the wealthy and the violent and dehumanizing use of the poor. Sadean writing may be erotica, but it is also heavy handed social critique.

The Victorian era saw a new age of confessional erotic writing. For the most part, there isn’t much obvious attempt at social commentary, other than the adolescent glee of writing explicitly about sex acts in a society that had developed an almost psychotic fear of discussing it in public. Certainly there was pleasure taken in writing and reading about what was socially forbidden. But it lacks the confrontational nature of earlier erotic writing.

Although I would include Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs,  it was not really until the 20th century that we see the use of erotic writing as a tool for exploring or defining the self in relation to society.  In the works of Miller, Nin, Nabokov, and Duras, you begin to see erotic stories that have deeply psychoanalytical dimensions. They all, to some extent or another, pit the individual’s pursuit of erotic desire against the prevailing environment. As conscious, revolutionary acts of disobedience in pleasure. And yes, the sex matters and the sex is erotic, but it is also a private struggle for inner structure in the face of a confusing world.

I’d like to stop here and say that there has always been pornography, both visual and written, whose sole purpose was as an aide to sexual arousal. Certainly most of the Victorian works could not really be viewed as having other uses. And the sexually explicit pulp erotica of the 50s and 60s served the same purpose. But the literary and financial success of novels like Miller’s The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, and Nabokov’s Ada or Ardor put pressure on writers in the 70s to add more explicit sex to their work in order to sell more books. It was no longer a revolutionary act to describe a sex scene in detail, it made monetary sense. 

It is ironic that the genre we now call erotica hasn’t really been around that long. Until the early 70s, writers either considered they were writing pornography as a sex aid (and usually for the money) or they felt they were writing literature which, as a function of exploring the human condition, explored the characters erotic lives as well. 

The post-modern literary world has, with the exception of some outstanding Queer writers, mostly portrayed graphic sex in their writing as a site of alienation. From Michel Houllebecq to Ian McEwan, it seems that authentic characters shouldn’t ever have good sex, or sex that informs them of anything other than the emptiness of the act. Intelligent people, it seems, have uniformly awful sex, according to the literary world.

So erotica, as we know it, is a genre that has tried to serve many interests. There are still writers and readers who see the job of erotica to simply provide stimulating imagery for masturbation or spicing up a couple’s sex life, but are uncomfortable with consuming what is clearly labeled pornography.  There are also writers and readers who see erotica – particularly erotic romance – as a way of narrating romantic stories more realistically, including the sexual aspect of the evolving romantic relationship. And then there are those of us who feel that exploring the complex erotic desires and actions of characters continues to offer a landscape in which to reflect on the human condition as a whole.

It’s hardly a wonder that readers get disappointed when they pick up an erotica book and falls short of their expectations. As a society, we still feel the need to shove our written explorations of eroticism into a single, literary red-light district. It is a crowded little enclave, with many agendas.

Reading Like a Writer

by | February 28, 2014 | | 2 Comments

by K D Grace

There are few things I enjoy as much as a
good read. I don’t read like I used to. I now read like a writer. I realized
this after reading a short story that completely enthralled me for the course
of several thousand words. When I came back to the real world, I found myself
not only analyzing what made the story so amazing, but analyzing how I as a
writer read it differently than I would if I didn’t write.

I always think back over the story after
the fact and try to figure out what made it work for me or not. That process
within itself can’t keep from changing the story making it a story of multiple
plots and constructs the writer never intended, but my mind can’t keep from
creating. If in my analysis there are lots of changes I would make, things I
would have done differently as the author, at some point it becomes my story, the one I’m writing in my head,
and no longer the story the author intended.

For me, the big clue to how I esteem the
story is the point at which I begin to analyze. If I’m analyzing the story as I
read it, then it’s clearly not going to get five stars on the K D story
critique scale. The sooner I begin my analysis while I’m reading, the fewer stars
the story rates from me, until at some point it becomes an exercise in editing
and recreating it as my own story rather than reading for pleasure. When that
happens, the whole process becomes a different experience than the one the
writer intended.

If, however, I get totally lost in the
story, then my whole internal landscape changes. The writer in me is temporarily
replaced by the ravenous reader who simply loves a good story. When I am pulled
in, rough and tumble, to the world the author created, the story becomes multi-dimensional
and experienced twice, sometimes thrice over, sometimes even more. When I’m in
the queue at the supermarket, or in bed waiting to fall asleep, when I’m
waiting for the bus, I can have the secret pleasure of reliving that story over
and over.

Being pulled in is the first part of
experiencing a great story. The second part, the analysis part, happens after
the fact. When the story moves me, excites me, changes me, then my analysis of
it is a different process. Because I don’t feel I can improve on it, analysis
then becomes taking the story into myself from a write’s point of view. In
other words, what is it that makes this story so fantastic, and how can I
incorporate some of that fantastic-ness into my own writing?

A perfect story, a story that pulls me in
and devours me whole is a lingering experience. I’m a firm believer that a good
story should somehow change the reader. But a good story should change a writer
even more so. A good story should be like discovering a view from a mountaintop
that we didn’t know was there before, a view that changes everything, the
waterfall we didn’t see, the storm we never expected, the castle that dominates
the landscape. A really great story has the potential to make me a better
writer, a better weaver of story, a better seer of nuance, a better wielder of
my craft.

But a good story should change more than
just my views of my writing world. It should touch and stimulate in ways I
would not have expected. It should open up the landscapes in my unconscious and
my imagination. In some ways, a good story acts as a Muse, and that is the
pinnacle of what a writer can glean from a story. I won’t say that doesn’t
happen with badly written stories as well, after all the Muse chooses her own
time and place. But with a good story, somehow the appearance of the Muse seems
more numinous, more dressed for the occasion.

For me, the most powerful element of any
story is the key relationship and how it expresses itself. That expression is
often sexual, and a well-written sex scene carries with it the weight of human
emotion. It carries with it the drive to reach that magical point where two
become one, where we are as close to being in the skin of ‘the other’ as it is
possible to be. The power of sex and relationship in story can hardly be
overstated. Even in mediocre stories, the power of love and relationship can
still pull me outside of the editor-me and into the roil of the archetypal
story of human need. To me, that means we erotica writers wield one of the most
powerful tools in the writing craft; sex in story. Use it poorly and it just
sounds stupid and crass. But use it well and it’ll be the moment in the story
that the reader remembers while in the queue at the grocery store, while
drifting off to sleep, while waiting for the bus. And it’ll be remembered with
that ache of commonality of all humanity, the driving force within us all.
Keeping that in mind, I don’t think it’s any wonder that so many writers fear
writing sex. 

Being Part of The Brit Babes

by | February 23, 2014 | | 4 Comments

By Lucy Felthouse

For just under a year now, I’ve been part of a group called The Brit Babes. We are eight British erotica and erotic romance authors that have clubbed together for several purposes. One, to promote all of us as a group, rather than just ourselves as individual authors. Two, to have a street team that reads, reviews and promotes all of our books. Three, to stand out from the crowd and establish a benchmark for quality. Four, because we’re good friends and it’s nice to have seven other women to rant with, exchange ideas with, ask favours of, and so on.

So far, it’s been fantastic. The workload for administering the street team has been divided, and the reach of us, our books and our members has increased many fold. The street team itself is fantastic, as they read and review our books, spread the word and are also a lot of fun. There are some extremely fun conversations that go on in our private group, let me tell you!

Aside from that side of things, though, it’s been fantastic having a group of like-minded women just at the other end of an email. Of course, they were always at the other end of an email, but now we have this official group, it’s made us more, well, official. We don’t just talk about books and the street team, but we exchange ideas – writing related and not – life news, rants, good news, bad news… the list goes on. It’s a support team that totally gets it. Yes, our personal lives are different, but we all have the same struggles writing-wise that only fellow writers truly understand.

So, as we draw closer to the anniversary of The Brit Babes Street Team, I want to say what a brilliant experience it’s been for me, one I’ve appreciated in so many different ways. Here’s to many more years, ladies.

For any writers out there who have been toying with the idea of a Street Team but are worried about going it alone, I’d definitely recommend getting together a group of other writers in your genre that you trust and having a group street team. It’s benefited us in so many ways.

The Brit Babes are: Lucy Felthouse, K D Grace, Kay Jaybee, Victoria Blisse, Lexie Bay, Lily Harlem, Emmy Ellis and Tabitha Rayne.

See you next month!
Lucy x

*****

Lucy Felthouse is a very busy woman! She writes erotica and
erotic romance in a variety of subgenres and pairings, and has over 100
publications to her name, with many more in the pipeline. These include several
editions of Best Bondage Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica 2013 and Best Erotic
Romance 2014. Another string to her bow is editing, and she has edited and
co-edited a number of anthologies, and also edits for a small publishing house.
She owns Erotica For All, and is book
editor for Cliterati. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join
her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her
newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

Heroes and Villains

by | January 30, 2014 | | 2 Comments

by K D Grace

Confession time! I’ve been totally
gorging on J. R. Ward’s dark and sexy Black Dagger Brotherhood novels.
Honestly, I’m totally addicted! These seriously delish novels along with the
fact that I’m working on the final rewrite of an epic fantasy novel got me
thinking about heroes and villains. First of all, I want to be almost as afraid
of the hero and I am of the villain. Secondly I want to be almost as attracted
to the villain as I am the hero. Oh the angst! I honestly can’t think that
anyone could really fall for a vampire or a werewolf or a ghost or a powerful
witch, or any other paranormal or fantasy hottie and not be terrified at the
same time. For that matter, even in just a really good erotic romance, the hero
is so much hotter if he’s dark and dangerous.

A part of what makes good story that has
even an inkling of romance in it, work for me is knowing that the hero could
easily turn and destroy the very thing he loves and longs to possess. More
often than not, the best heroes are really antiheroes, striving, or being
forced by circumstances, to be greater than their nature, and the more
difficult the struggle, the more endearing I find them to be.

In fact, there
are times when the only separation between the hero and the villain is how
willing he is to do battle with his own flaws. The fact that the lover is not
safe raises the level of the tension and the excitement. And yet that danger
makes the sex all the hotter and the angst all the angstier.

I remember
seeing Frank Langella’s Dracula back in the day and thinking, as I watched the
horribly delicious scene in which he takes Lucy, even with the terrible truth
of what the end result of his sexy attentiveness to her would be, who could
possibly refuse even if they had not been under his thrall? He was a gentleman,
he was charming and mysterious, he was hypnotic, he was gorgeous, he was
terrifying. And I wanted him!

NBC’s new
steam-punkish re-think of Dracula
with Jonathan Rhys Meyers blurs the lines between the hero and the villain still
further in the battle with flaws. I want him too! In fact I want him much more
than I do Jonathan Harker, but then Jonathan Harker has always taken a sad
backseat to Dracula in his full glory.

Dangerous heroes and seductive villains
aren’t just for paranormalsies though. Writing as Grace Marshall, I found that
the villain in The
Exhibition, the third of the Executive Decisions novels was an
evil nasty piece of work, and yet oh so fuckable, even though, like Dracula,
the chances of surviving such a shagging intact weren’t good. And yet …

It’s not so much that evil is sexy as it
is that nothing is really all that black and white. It’s the contradictions
that make for a good, chaotic story, and it’s the shades of grey (Oh please
tell me I didn’t just say that!) where the story takes place. If I want to shag
the villain and run from the hero, then how can I trust my own heart, and how
can I possibly keep from turning the pages? Those flaws are oh so sexy and oh
so scary and those endearing character traits in a truly delicious villain make
us squirm, makes us uncomfortable in our fantasies, and from a fictional point
of view, what the perfect place to be.

But what happens when I write the baddies? Why do I love
being in their presence so much? And even more to the point, what does it say
about me that I find them so easy to write? Am I all of those people, the
heroes, the victims, the incidentals and the baddies all rolled into one
neurotic, twitchy woman? Do I have all of those traits somewhere hidden inside
me — the fantasies about being the evil tyrant as well as the fantasies about shagging
him? I doubt there’s any way to peek into the strange depths of my own
psychology that’s quite as revealing as writing a baddie. I shiver at the
thought.

On some level we writers live on the page in all the
characters we create, whether they’re hot and gorgeous and deliciously flawed
in sexy ways or whether they’re evil and twisted and scary as hell. The darker
parts of me are kept in check and held in balance by all of the other parts of
me, all of the other parts that participate in the tenuous semi-democracy of my
inner workings so that the evil demon in me and the potential sociopathic
tyrant in me and the petty back biter in me are all channeled in full bloom onto
the written page. Instant therapy? Am I scaring you yet? I promise, I’m
harmless –ish.

The Beautiful Experiment

by | November 30, 2013 | | 4 Comments

By K D Grace

I was bored. My flight had been delayed.
I’d already been traveling forever, and I’d reached that point at which I was
too tired to read, too tired to concentrate on writing, too tired to sit still
without being twitchy. I didn’t want to drink, I didn’t want to eat. I just
wanted to be done travelling. That’s when I began The Beautiful Experiment. I
was seated off one of the main concourses, which was a constant hive of
activity, of people coming and going, popping in and out of shops and scurrying
to make tight connections. It was the ideal place to people watch. But with a
twist. I decided to watch the masses to see just how many truly beautiful people
I could spot.

Okay, I know everyone has a slightly
different ideal when it comes to beauty, but we all know it when we see it. We
all know that look that turns heads, that look that makes us want to stare, to
take in all that loveliness just a little longer. I didn’t care if the real
lookers were men or women. I mean if we’re honest, we look at both, whether we
admire it, want it or envy it. So I sat and I watched. … and I watched … and I
watched. Since that time I’ve carried out my little experiment in pubs, in
museums, on the tube, in busy parks, and the results are always the same. There
just aren’t that many real stunners out there!

I was struck by that fact in the airport
that day, so I decided to add another dimension to my experiment. I decided to
look for people who were interesting. It didn’t necessarily have to be their
looks that were interesting, it could just as easily be their behaviour, their
dress, something, anything that made them worth a surreptitious stare. And wow!
Being delayed in an airport suddenly became a fascinating grist mill for story
ideas and intriguing speculation.

I’ve carried out this experiment lots of
time now, and the results are always the same. There are very few stunners out
there, and even when I spot one, even when I find myself sneaking glances at a
beautiful person, my eyes, and my attention, can always be drawn away by the
interesting people.

In erotica and, in particular erotic
romance, the characters are usually voluptuous, sculpted beauties and broad shouldered,
wash-boarded hunks. It’s fantasy after all. But how long can a story focus the
reader’s attention on washboard abs or perfect tits? Descriptions give us a handle.
Descriptions are like the label on a file. They might attract us to the file,
but if the file is empty, it won’t hold our attention. It’s what makes the
described beautiful person interesting that makes the story.

In our genre, sex is a large part of
what makes our beautiful people intriguing; how they think about sex, their
kinks, their quirks, their neuroses, their baggage – all of those things make
the fact that our beautiful people are interesting way more important than the
fact that they’re beautiful.  Add to that
some seriously delicious consequences for that sex, some chaos and mayhem, a
few character flaws that catch us off our guard, that draw us in and voila! A
gripping story is born!

Perfection in a story, in characters, is
the equivalent of a literary air brushing. No flaws = no story; no rough spots
= nothing to hold our attention. Our characters’ beauty is only their handle.
Their flaws and their intriguing quirks are what catapult us into the plot,
what make us want to stay on for more than just a look-see and to dig a little
deeper, to really know those characters and become emotionally involved with
them.

Last night on the tube in London, I
tried my little experiment again, just to make sure. More data is always a good
idea, and good science has to be repeatable, doesn’t it? Taking into account my
own preferences and prejudices, the results were the same. I can remember a
half a dozen really interesting people, people I could very easily write a
story about. There wasn’t a single stunner among them, which leads me to the
conclusion that we’re more interesting in our flaws than in our perfections.
We’re more interesting in our experiences and the way they manifest than in the
static beauty of the moment. It also excites me to think that I’m surrounded by
interesting people all the time. A story is never farther away than the next
intriguing person. Is this an ordinary-looking person’s version of sour grapes?
I don’t think so; I hope not. Truth is there’s an astonishing transformation
that takes place in the company of truly interesting people. Before long, right
before my eyes, those truly intriguing people become the beautiful people.
There’s always a story in that.

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

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