Creativity, life and gold stars

I have often wondered in four decades of writing how it is that time and again my stories seem to gather themselves, write themselves almost (the best ones really seem to), cover the empty pages almost effortlessly - once I get going, that is. Each one is, I believe, the result of forces of a creative fusion, a fusion that simply can't happen unless certain elements are in place, a fusion I don't properly understand, but can only guess at.

Michael Morpurgo (author of War Horse) writes this in Singing for Mrs Pettigrew: A Storymaker's Journey, a kind of autobiographical account of where his stories come from, interspersed with a few actual short stories. He goes on to discuss the elements that create that fusion - the life he has lived and the memories that has given him, the books he has read, the research he does. But, he goes on:

I must wait for the moment before I begin, until the story is ripe. This process can take five minutes (unlikely) or five years. All I know is that you can't hurry it. The story will be written when the moment is right.

When I was training as a journalist, I remember one fellow student being soundly ridiculed by a tutor (it was his favoured teaching style) for suggesting she had writer's block. And sure, if you have deadlines and a living to earn, you can't afford such luxuries as creative procrastination. But news journalism (in the British style at least) is more about getting down to basics than nurturing creative flair. When I am writing, I often wonder about that magical process that sometimes happens in which the words flow and your work manages a coherence of mood and metaphor and style which continues for page after page. But for a fiction writer, the need to actually produce brings a great conflict.

Some set themselves daily word counts to meet, others take part in the month-long slog of NaNoWriMo to produce a first-draft, some may have annual targets of how many short stories, novellas, novels they will turn out. And then there's that balance sheet you fill in to keep the tax man happy, showing what you've 'achieved' in hard numbers. And we've all seen and possibly given (I have) that most basic of writing tips: If you want to be a writer, you have to actually pick up a pen, or place your fingers on the keyboard, and write.

But what happens when you're juggling your writing with another job, relationships, family, the needs of your health etc? Guilt is what, if you're given to such things. Even if you're not, there's likely to be a nagging feeling as the days and weeks go by that you've lost your mojo as a writer. What happens when your brain gets taken up with some other big life event, like a major career change or the ill health of a loved one or a house move? You might find that, even when you have some time to spare, your head simply isn't in the right place. You might lose that sense that, whatever else you're doing, you are always a writer.

Partly, I'm writing this to make myself feel better while I have one of those big life events going on that means my brain's focus is elsewhere. But I think there's a wider point (I'll get to it eventually amid the ramblings). So, partly, I'm saying that sometimes you have to sit back, forget the targets, do other things, look after yourself and those you love, live a little, store up some memories for future stories. (Is it possible that writer's block means we've used up our store of memories and need to get some more? And despite being a writer of erotica, I don't mean that in the most obvious of ways, necessarily, because there is so much more in the way of knowledge of places, the quirks of human nature, the tidbits of knowledge we pick up and store away that all contribute to a good story, sex-based or otherwise.)

But my other point is about the non-linear relationship between both the writer's effort and talent and the reward gained when it comes to publishing fiction. We all know of books that have made it big when many people deride their quality. And we all know of the books we've loved, but which sell very few despite how good we think they are. And we do also know of the talented authors who, after many years of hard work, could be deemed a success - as well as the fact that not all talented authors who work hard will get there. 

So, my wine-fuelled conclusion? Putting in the hours, the practice, getting the words down, trying out new things, writing, writing, writing is, of course, a Good Thing To Do. Have a gold star. But if your target falls from three thousand words a day to three short stories in a year, you're still a writer, you're still living the life you need to live in order to be able to write in the future - and you've probably got as much chance of making your fortune from those three short stories as the people on three thousand words a day.

Blog hop Q&A: Writing goals 2014

I got tagged by the lovely Tabitha Rayne, who got tagged by the fabulous Oleander Plume, who got tagged by the delectable SL Gonzalez for a little blog hop Q&A about this year's writing goals. So thanks guys and here goes:

If you could achieve anything with your writing in 2014, what would it be?

If we’re in daydream, pie-in-the-sky territory, then actually being able to be a writer full-time would be just lovely, but I have too many financial responsibilities to go chasing a dream like that when there are so few writers actually making a living from it with any kind of long-term security. I know there are those who say if you have such a dream, you should go for it and let nothing hold you back – and I do believe that we are all architects of our own lives and futures. I’m in this for the long haul; right now I have competing priorities, but I need to keep practising my craft and building up a body of work.

What are the top three demons you must slay to achieve your goals in 2014?

1. Needing to eat and sleep.
2. Believing that ‘being a writer’ necessarily involves living in a little stone cottage by the sea.
3. Being at the mercy of the muse/my mood/the weather/my surroundings etc, which combine to mean that I don’t always feel most creative when I actually have time to write.

Name three things that inspire you to write.

1. Walking
2. Sex  (Obviously I mean the wondrous richness of human relationships, the search for The One ­- or Two, or Three etc - the union of kindred spirits, the quest for a yang to your yin and vice versa, yada yada yada. I lie. I actually meant kinky sex.)
3. Publication (or, more precisely, the recognition from publishers and editors that my work is good enough for publication.)

What advice do you have for a new writer who is considering writing fiction?

First, just do it. Because there are thousands, possibly millions of people, who say they want to be writers but never sit down and write. Get on with it. Practise your craft. Try things out. Find your voice. Dare to call yourself a writer, right now rather than in some misty dream of the future.

Second, maintain your integrity. A very small handful of people manage to make a fortune from their writing. And when you’re sitting in your mansion in Beverly Hills surrounded by 10ft electrified fences in grounds patrolled by trained killer zombies you may not care how proud you feel of your work’s quality, your hard graft, originality, creative spark, your book’s sexual politics, its contribution to the sum of human understanding. 

Most of us will be somewhere on a line between earning a couple of hundred quid pocket money a year to just about scraping a viable living. So, to me, it’s important that you at least feel you’re doing something worthwhile, something you believe in, something you can honestly say you’ve done your very best at. (For the record: one, I am naively idealistic, and, two, I believe that exploring and perhaps encouraging sexual pleasure is highly worthwhile.)

And I'm gonna tag two of my fellow Best Bondage Erotica 2014 authors Kay Jaybee and Jacqui Brocker! Tag, you're it (*runs away*).

The obligatory...

...writer's resolutions post. 

1. Write less, walk more. I will spend less time staring at a screen when the words aren't flowing and more time switching off and going for a walk, or digging the allotment, instead. Because sometimes you have to get away from the screen and the immediate pressure to produce to some self-imposed word count. The creative me needs fresh air and space and greenness around it in order to function properly.
2. Be more selective. I tried lots of new things last year - m/m, menage, even some vanilla (yeah, yeah, I hear you say, but what about the writing?). This year I have some other Big Stuff going on that means I can't spend as much time on my writing as I have been doing. I'm going to be looking for a balance between submitting to antho calls that really float my boat (and pay reasonably) and building up some story collections and/or a novella or two to get out there as a lone author. 
3. Keep learning. I will keep reading smut, both my favourite authors and new ones (so I can copy them, obviously). I will keep reading around issues in sexual politics and thinking about how my stories fit into the bigger picture. I will keep editing my own stories ruthlessly. I may do the odd bit of practical research ;-)

Editor's notes: Splice the mainbrace

Today, I'm talking about two common issues with sentence structure: run-on sentences/comma splices and fragments. Now, there is advice out there about these problems. But often, writers don't realise they're even doing it, so I'm going to explain what they mean, how to avoid them, and, in the case of fragments, why you might sometimes want to stick two fingers up to the rules. Fragments in particular are something I use a lot in my own writing, but have learnt to be aware of and use sparingly.

What's a comma splice? She crawled up the bed and positioned herself over him, her hair brushing his face, she was ready for him. 

The second comma is where the splice occurs. The first is okay, because 'her hair brushing his face' could not stand alone. To stand alone it would have to say: Her hair brushed his face. There'll be some fancy name for it, but, get this, I don't know that fancy name. I went to school in the eighties and although I know what's correct and what isn't, I don't always know the names for these things. I'm hoping I can make this admission now, four posts into my 'Editor's notes' series without entirely undermining my credibility... Maybe it's got something to do with gerunds. Anyway, 'she was ready for him' is a complete sentence with subject, verb and object. So you can't just split it from what has gone before with a comma. You need a semi-colon, if it's very closely related to what has preceded it. Otherwise, you need to finish the first part with a full stop and start a new sentence. 

She crawled up the bed and positioned herself over him, her hair brushing his face; she was ready for him. 
or
She crawled up the bed and positioned herself over him, her hair brushing his face. She was ready for him. 

What's a fragment? He made the proposal over a bottle of whisky. Which may have had something to do with us agreeing to it. Now that I think about it. Soberly.

The second, third and fourth sets of words which start with a capital letter and end with a full stop are all fragments. They are only pretending to be sentences. To be strictly correct, the one beginning 'Which' should be part of the previous sentence: He made the proposal over a bottle of whisky, which may have had something to do with us agreeing to it. The part beginning 'which' is a subordinate clause. Ooh get me and my grammatical terms; I had to Google it. 

To make the rest into 'proper' sentences, you'd have to do something like this: I realise this, now that I think about it soberly. 

But this is where I'd stick two fingers up to the rules and keep it all just as I first wrote it. I feel like a rebel, somewhat get me Johnny Rotten's phone number. Incidentally, although the phrase 'splice the mainbrace' may have originally referred to an emergency rope repair on a ship, it is now an order of extra drink for a crew. 

I'll be having a wee break for my next post, because I'm due to review Alison Tyler's Dark Secret Love on October 27th, but I'll be back after that to ask if you're ejaculating in my general direction. All my editing and proofreading info is at www.tillyhunter.co.uk.

On having double standards

I've realised I have double standards in my reading. I'm absolutely guilty of hating things in one book that I will tolerate or even love in another. Dangerous BDSM being one of those things. In some books, I start to read about casual hook-ups engaging in bondage 'n stuff and think "oh how stupid, you couldn't do that in real life, recipe for disaster and it's giving kink a bad name." And then I'll read something similar in another book and think "ooh that's a bit risque, but it's fiction, it's all just fantasy and it's hot and I'm going to devour this book in one sitting." Standard romance storylines are another example. Sometimes I fling my kindle down in exasperation (literally; I can be melodramatic) because I find a story formulaic and unbelievable; other times I'll set those misgivings aside because something about the story gets me hooked.

So I admit it, I'm a hypocrite. But it makes me think about what it is that makes me able to accept it in some books and not in others. Partly it's about suspension of disbelief, the quality of writing that draws you in and convinces you that something fantastical could be real. And I think that's created by the quirky little details that stop characters and settings being cardboard cutouts. And partly I think it's about knowing what you're writing, realising what you're doing when you write the fantasy stuff that's not realistic and certainly not a how-to guide for novice kinksters.

All of this reminds me of a post by Violet Fenn over at Kay Jaybee's place in which she puts erotica writers in two camps - insiders and outsiders. Insiders who write it because they live it, it's their world and they want to see that portrayed in fiction. And outsiders who are writing for the excitement of what is to them still a forbidden thrill, as well as the, probably misguided, thought that it's where there's a fortune to be made. It's an interesting way to look at things and brings some insights, although as with any attempt to categorise people it's going to have its shortcomings. 

I tend to assume that everyone's going to have at least messed about with a pair of handcuffs at some point, forgetting that actually getting in touch with your kinky side, if you have one (are there people who don't?!?), is a journey people might make at different points in their lives, if at all. But I think that if you haven't ever judged a bed on its anchor points and you suddenly decide to write bondage stories, it's going to show (and you won't make a fortune anyway.) And those are the stories that exasperate me instead of seducing me. 

Going with the Flow

It could be something as simple as the weather or the inspiration of a beautiful landscape. Maybe it's something to do with hormonal cycles. Perhaps random events or unexpected sources of inspiration that you can't recreate, you just have to be ready for. Is it down to having a routine or to stepping out of normality? I'm talking about inspiration, the Muse, the magic that makes the stories flow at times, and stagnate at others. 

If I could grasp that slippery little fucker in my sweaty palms, I'd shove it in a bottle and cork it tight. Purely for personal use, because it's probably different for everyone. But I'd take a sip when I had time to sit down and write and the words would appear magically. Instead, I find that there are times when I have a whole day free and I get nowhere, which is annoying because I might as well have gone for a walk, weeded the allotment or picked up the knitting project that I haven't touched for months. And there are other times when I have a million and one other things to do but the stories won't let me rest until they get out on screen or on paper. 

There's a tonne of advice out there. Some says you should have a special space set aside for writing, perhaps a ritual you go through before you begin in order to let your brain know it's time. And some says you should get out of your comfort zone, go somewhere unfamiliar to write so that you jolt your brain into some fresh thinking. The trouble is, the people who write this advice aren't me and they aren't you and I have a feeling the Muse works differently for everyone. And the double trouble is that I'm still trying to work it out for myself, to put my finger on the conjunction of circumstances that effortlessly produces images in my brain and translates them into words on a page in a way that makes me think, "Fuck yes, this is hot."

What I do know is that there are some stories I slog away at because I think I should write them. Perhaps it's a new sort of writing I want to try, perhaps it's for an editor I've worked with before, perhaps it's a theme I know I should be into. But the words don't come. And I need to recognise when to give up. I have a kind of Taoist, go-with-the-flow approach to life in general and a well-developed sense of the absurdity of taking anything too seriously. Fundamentally, I write because I want to. And while it's not always going to be easy, if writing about kinky sex isn't enjoyable, then something's wrong and it's time to go and walk on the beach instead.

A little Google irony

I made up the title of a book for a story I've just finished. The imaginary book's going to be called Female Dominance and the Men Who Crave It. A bit long-winded, I know, but it does what it says on the tin, so to speak. I thought I'd better Google it. Incidentally, the real book that was my inspiration was The Art of Sensual Female Dominance by Claudia Varrin. 

So what did I find? Top results:

The power of a woman's submissiveness
How women really feel about male dominance
Women prefer dominant men. You don't say!
Women who crave domination and rough sex
Do you prefer submissive or dominant women (in bed)?
Do most women want to be sexually dominated?
How to dominate a woman in bed
5 ways to dominate your guy in bed
My 'how to' guide for men on how to dominate a woman in bed
Do women really want 50 shades of grey?

Now I realise Google doesn't understand the order in which I placed the words female and dominance and men. I just needed to know there was no real book with that precise title. And this isn't any kind of moral statement or debate of feminist politics; I write femsub stories too. I was simply struck by the irony. By the one-sidedness of the results. Which seems to mirror the one-sidedness of a market flooded with erotica and erotic romance with the same formula - boy meets girl, boy shows girl who's boss, girl initially resists, before finally realising it's what she wants. Deep down. You know, in some part of herself she never knew existed. Because she needed him to show her her true self. Hmm. 

It reminded me of a tweet I saw from Rachel Kramer Bussel recently - who's accepted a few of my stories for anthologies she's editing for Cleis :-). She wrote: "My female fantasy anthology got hardly any femdom submissions. Feels like niche market compared to popularity of female submission." and "I aim for variety in my books, but I also want to cater to what book buyers want to read."

So, there's a huge debate to be had about what readers want and what publishers give them. But the simpler point from all this for me as a writer sending off stories to anthology calls is that a femsub story is going to have to really stand out from the crowd and that there's a need for more decent femdom stories.

I'm off to read 5 ways to dominate your guy in bed...

The long and the short of it: Part 2

Okay, I give up. 

Last September, I wrote about a novel I'd started work on but was struggling to progress because of all the short stories I was writing. I now have another novel and novella started, but, guess what, I'm struggling to make any progress because of all the short stories I'm writing. 

So, I've decided to stop worrying about it, admit that I actually love doing the shorts and let the longer stories sit. I'm going go all taoist on this one and just go with the flow. I'm sure there'll come a point at some time in the future when I look at my list of stories and realise there are no current calls for submissions that have tickled my fancy. And in that natural lull, I will sit down and concentrate on something longer. Honest. 

The thing is, short stories are great for trying out new things, playing around and having fun. (Which sounds like a recipe for a good night in, too...) These are the calls I have been unable to ignore at the moment, although meeting some of the looming deadlines is going to be a close one while that thing some people call real life (not to mention the odd good night in) keeps getting in the way:

Men of the Manor (Cleis Press, ed Rob Rosen) August 1st.
Romance between wealthy aristocrats and their hard-working estate staff with a pre-WWI backdrop. I have a kitchen garden in mind.

The Big Book of Domination (Cleis Press, ed DL King) August 1st.
I need to explain? I reckon the title says it all. And it says: 'Get writing - now!'

Locked Up (Storm Moon Press) August 31st
Men. And chastity devices. What's not to like? Scroll down through the calls to find this one.

Sapphic Smut in the City (House of Erotica, ed Lucy Felthouse and Kev Mitnik) January 1st
I'm not really a city kinda girl. But I have a great idea from a visit to Paris years ago, that gives a very different view of life in the city of love.

Smut by the Sea vol 3 (House of Erotica, ed Lucy Felthouse and Victoria Blisse) March 31st
I am, however, a seaside kind of woman. And my writer's brain is brimming with ideas for coastal fun. 

And if you're very quick, there's still time to get a short in to Alison Tyler's call for bondage stories. She wants 500 to 1,000-word pieces and has extended the deadline to July 25th.

Out visiting

I'm over at Ashley Lister's blog, How To Write Erotic Fiction, today with some ideas for writing dirty. If you haven't seen his blog before, then you might need to set aside some time to read through it because it's chock-full of tips and advice from a huge range of authors and editors from relative newbies like myself through to names you'll recognise. 

Because there's already so many good ideas on there, I've tried to come at things from a slightly different angle, so to speak. My five tips start off with turning off your inner censor and writing out of your comfort zone. 

So about that book I'm editing...

I hope you all spotted my Call for Submissions for More Smut for Chocoholics. I've been asked by Smutter Kev Mitnik Blisse to come on board as a guest editor. And it's my first time. Yes, I edit stories for folks who find me at www.tillyhunter.co.uk. But I've never helped edit an anthology before, which is a whole different ball game.

I'm reading the first Smut for Chocoholics at the moment and thinking about what I'll be looking for. It's not just about what I, personally, enjoy reading, but about getting a balance of stories to appeal to a general erotica readership. So I'll be looking out for the sweetly romantic stories as well as those with a little light-hearted kink. Stories that can add a touch of humour without killing the heat level are always good as are those that come at the theme from a surprise angle. I guess what it comes down to is that most readers can enjoy most types of erotica as long as it's well written, imaginative and original. 

The whole project has emerged after I met Kev and Victoria Blisse, and fellow smutketeer Lucy Felthouse, at Smut by the Sea in Scarborough. And it's made me think about how meeting people face to face for a day or two is worth probably about a thousand hours of Facebook, Twitter and blog exchanges. I hate the word 'networking' but I guess that's what I did in Scarborough, if, for 'networking' you read having a laugh, nattering, drinking tea and beer, sharing the odd innuendo and occasionally remembering to say 'oh, here, have a business card'.

Smut by (and in) the Sea

I read from one of my stories on Saturday evening. Out loud. To actual, real people, right there in the same room as me. And it was fun. People even sniggered in the right places. I’d do it again (something I’ll probably regret saying at some point in the future). It was probably a good job, though, that my story was one of my milder offerings. 

I was at Smut by the Sea in sunny Scarborough, the first event of its kind that I’ve attended and I read from my story in SbtS volume 2. Fortunately, I work in a politically incorrect environment which makes me perfectly happy to utter four-letter words out loud without embarrassment.

A fair few people know that I write smut. Very few know about it in any more detail. A colleague who I asked to do a wee proofread of my mini short story collection, Miranda’s Tempest (blatant plug alert), for me is probably still recovering from the experience. So it was fabulous to be in an environment in which people could talk about their work openly and with pride. It was good to actually meet people I’ve chatted to on Facebook or Twitter. I even eventually won something on the tombola.

And in honour of the theme of the event, and of my story in the anthology, Tabitha Rayne and I did take a dip in the sea, although she looked far more glamorous than me in her itsy bitsy polka dot bikini. I felt more like one of those stoutly built ladies who swim the channel clad in granny cossies and smeared in grease. The lifeguards stood watch, with a somewhat incredulous look on their faces, after telling us it would be freezing. ‘It’s not that cold,’ I said as we emerged from the waves like Bond babes.

‘That’s because you’ve gone numb,’ one replied. And he was right. But it didn’t stop me joining a local group of sea swimmers the next morning. The hardy folk at Sea Swim go out every Saturday and Sunday from May to September for a good long swim. With them, I got a different view of Scarborough and the neighbouring coastline, literally from sea level. They were even literary and artistic – reading poetry and viewing Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus before the dip and penning their own poems or snippets about a Yorkshire Venus afterwards. To be honest, by then my numb hands were shaking a bit too much for legible handwriting. But there’s got to be a smutty story out there about The Venus of Scarborough.

The mock pirate ship that took holidaymakers up and down the bay also made me think of Odysseus’ travels by sea, particularly the brave hero lashed to the mast so he can hear the song of the Sirens without being lured to his death on the rocks. I wrote about his wife Penelope and her 108 annoying suitors in the final story in Miranda’s Tempest (blatant plug alert), but maybe it’s time to turn my attention to her husband...

A big thank you to Victoria and Kev Blisse for all their hard work in organising the event and to all those who helped on the day.

Writing what you know

We’ve all heard this one: ‘Write what you know.’ And, as erotica writers, possibly worried about the assumptions people might make about us based on our subject matter. Just me? No, I didn’t think so. And no matter how many times you repeat the mantra that Agatha Christie wasn’t a serial killer, it's unlikely you'd write about kinky sex if you had no interest in it whatsoever.

But, and it’s a big but (no pun intended), writing what you know doesn’t mean that every story you produce is autobiographical. That would mean there would be no such thing as fiction. And you’d run out of stories pretty quick (speaking for myself; perhaps your life is one big sexual adventure!). 

I think writing what you know is more about the detail than the grand plots. We all have a unique set of experiences and knowledge to draw on and combine in our work. That’s why there’s always room for another decent writer in what might seem like a saturated marketplace. No-one else can write quite like you, or me. I might be able to describe what it’s like to break up heavy soil with a spade because I have an allotment. You might be able to describe something I know nothing about, like reading computer code or the smell of a ferret. I recently read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and was struck by the depth of the description that can only have come from an intimate knowledge of the sea and its wildlife. It doesn’t mean Hemingway ever battled an 18ft marlin like the old man does in the book. But it does mean he used his skills as a writer to bring that to life realistically for someone who doesn't have the same knowledge or experience of the sea.

When you write about sex, I don’t think it means you have to have been promiscuous, or to have done absolutely everything that you write about. Otherwise we could never write from the point of view of someone not our own gender or orientation. This doesn’t mean you don’t have to do your research and get your facts right, but just like researching how to write a murder wouldn’t mean carrying one out, researching sex and kink doesn’t mean you need to be having one-night stands every weekend or own a fully equipped dungeon full of gear.

That’s what your imagination is for; a little knowledge goes a long way in the imagination of a writer. Writing what you know is more about observing the world through a writer's eyes and storing away quirky little things you see and hear for future reference, then applying those unique little details to the fantasy world of your stories to make them really come to life.

Random WIP excerpts

I'm doing my usual thing of working on far too many stories at once and deciding to write for far too many calls for submissions that stop me getting anywhere on the longer works I have on the go. But the end is in sight... until I see some fresh calls that tickle my fancy. 

These are what I'm working on at the mo. The first two are set to be those longer works I keep harping on about. The four after that are all short stories with summer deadlines:

1. This one's a contemporary story exploring what it means to be a male Dom:

She goes up to her bedroom and reaches under the bed for her toys, which she keeps in an old wicker picnic hamper. It makes it look like she’s going to pull out some cucumber sandwiches and a slice of Victoria sponge. What she actually takes out are two lengths of 8mm white cotton rope. 

2. And this one's a story of a couple who build their own house with lots of kinky opportunities in the design. Told by the male sub:

“I’ve been wondering what possessed me to grow these new-fangled round courgettes,” she says, showing me one that looks to me to be the size of a tennis ball, although my mind is probably exaggerating as it runs through the possible things she could do with it. I swallow and put down my hammer. I’ve already had trouble concentrating while I imagined what its handle would feel like inside me. We like to improvise.

3. And here's one in which a couple are separated for several months while he's on secondment so they start having webcam sex. She's just told him to gag himself:

He puts the black ball between his teeth and fiddles with the fastening. I see him cinch it so tight that the straps cut into the corners of his mouth. I’ve grown to love gagging him myself. I think it’s the moment when he opens his mouth and lets me slide it in. It’s another way of penetrating him, filling him all up... But seeing him do it to himself. That’s new. That’s something I’ll be doing again when he gets home too. 

4. And here's a fem sub to even things up a bit, although she's on her own in a 'special' kind of spa in this bit ahead of a date that evening:

My breath seems loud. Perhaps because it’s the only thing I can hear. No rainforest sounds CD, thank God. I’m starting to feel warm and my skin is tingling as my sweat activates the mud minerals. It is a spa treatment, after all. Just one that provides a little extra. If I survive today without dying of embarrassment, I might sign up for one of their shibari experience days. Sounds like something you’d get coupons in the paper for – try paragliding, try scuba diving, try rope suspension…

5. Here's one about sharing fantasies:

That night. It was a few weeks ago. Cabernet sauvignon had been on buy-one-get-one-free, so of course we drank both bottles. Then we started talking dirty. “Go on, there must be some fantasy you haven’t let on about,” I dared him. His turned out to be the relatively mundane one of wanting to watch me with another woman. My confession put a bit of a dampener on the evening. He sobered up pretty quick when I said, “I’d really love to fuck your ass with a strap-on.”

6. And here's a historic m/m one - a Victorian lord and his gardener. The 'fgfgfg' denotes some research still to be done (yellow rose variety around in the 19th century anyone?) And of course, in Tilly World, it's not going to be the gardener who ends up on his knees later...

He comes out onto the front steps to see them off. The parasites that have fed from his table and slept in his feather beds for nigh on a month. I don’t understand how he can be so polite to them all, rigorously observing all social niceties. I know he’s seen me here, kneeling in the rose bed weeding; he made one slight glance to where I’m working beneath the yellow fgfgfg before he turned back to his guests, smiling and shaking hands, lifting the ladies’ gloved fingers to his lips.

On Curves

‘More than half of women hate the sight of their naked bodies.’ ‘The secrets of losing belly fat.’ ‘Sex moves that burn 400 calories.’ ‘By age 6, girls start to express concerns about their own weight or shape.’ ‘Only four per cent of women globally consider themselves beautiful.’ ‘By adolescence, studies show that young people are receiving an estimated 5,260 “attractiveness messages” per year from television commercials.’

These are just a few snippets of the headlines, adverts and news articles I found within minutes on the web about women’s bodies and how they feel about them. I actually live in a cosy little cocoon in which I see a lot less of this than most people; I long ago stopped reading the women’s magazines that are really just a marketing vehicle to get you to buy stuff, I don’t watch telly (I mean it, I can play a DVD but have no TV services) and I don’t do a lot of recreational shopping. I'm also wary of taking information from magazine surveys and beauty company research at face value. But there's no escaping the fact that there is enormous pressure on women to look a certain way. And mostly that way is thin.

Now, I don’t have the time to produce an academic treatise on all of this. But I do write smutty stories. And when I saw the call for submissions to Coming Together: With Curves, I thought I could do a little tiny something to help redress the balance. To present a character who is both curvy and confident. Because there’s one thing I know for sure - that self-consciousness about your flabby bits does not make for enjoyment of sex. It’s unusual for me to even describe a character’s physical appearance in any great depth; I usually leave that up to the reader. But given the prevalence of Photoshopped images of size zero models, I think there’s a need to show that women – and men – come in all shapes and sizes. And that their size does not define them, their appearance does not tell you who they are, the number on their clothing labels does not make them good or bad or healthy or lazy or ugly or sexy or kind or mean or... you get the message. 

If you’re interested, I read a blog post recently by Hanne Blank entitled Real Women, in which she points out that ‘Real women do not look like just one thing.’

All the buy links for Coming Together with Curves are here and profits go to the charity Parkinsons UK. 

Inspiration Calling by Kay Jaybee

I have the lovely Kay Jaybee with me today, so over to you Kay...

Thank you ever so much for inviting me to your great blog today Tilly!

One of the questions that I’m often asked is how, after so long writing erotica, do I keep finding the inspiration for my stories. To be honest, I actually have the opposite problem than you might imagine. I don’t find I run out of inspiration, but have so much my head is continually bursting with ideas I’ll never have time to follow up even if I wrote every day for the rest of my life!

Inspiration is everywhere. It’s in the smell of fresh air, the fall of a leaf, the odd sentence in an overheard conversation, the umbrella accidentally left in the freezer at the supermarket... I saw a hairbrush dropped on a cafe floor a few months ago - the story of why and how that hairbrush came to be there will be written!! Of course, it probably just fell out a handbag - but perhaps it didn’t, perhaps there was another reason...

The story I put together for the anthology Smut Alfresco came about in a similar way. I was travelling, and saw an abandoned mattress out of the window. It looked so sad somehow as it lay unwanted on the edge of a field. I wanted to write its story - after all, if a mattress hasn’t got a tale to tell, then what has!!

Here’s a little snippet for you...

The way the two women sniggered as they spotted me lying on the ground, made me sure they hadn’t expected their walk to produce such a convenient opportunity to fuck.

From the scent of them, I’d say they’d been drinking cocktails. The mildly sickly scent of boozy peach and mango fruit clung to them, suggesting they’d partaken of enough alcohol to be without inhibition, but not enough to be without decision making abilities.

The minute they saw me, cast aside, damaged and unwanted amongst a pile of autumn leaves at the edge of a wood, they knew what they wanted to do, and their giggling became laced with purpose.

            Somehow, during the periods of inaction between eventful episodes of accidental discovery by passersby, I’ve almost blended into the landscape, forming a hinterland of sexual promise between the woods to my right, and a farmer’s field to my left. However, like so many of my opportune visitors, these young ladies didn’t care that a number of my springs were poking out of my sides, or that nights and days of rainfall had given me the musty aroma of the trees that surround me.

            You could see the need for sex burn in the women’s matching green eyes. I’d know that look anywhere. I used to see in the old days when I’d been working as half of a partnership. ‘Mattress and bed!’ What a team we’d formed when we’d resided together in a cheap hotel in town. Couple after couple would visit me and my divan support back then, in a “rent me by the hour” sort of a way. I miss that life. I miss making people happy. I miss fulfilling my purpose properly...’

My advice to anyone finding their inspiration a little lacking is - look around you.

Go on - do it now.

Look at the place where you’re sat, stood, or walking through, right now as you read this blog. I bet you can see a story.

Is there litter on the floor? Can you see an empty coffee cup? Can you smell fresh paint? How hard is the wind blowing? Is the heating turned up too high? Is it freezing, and yet someone has left a scarf on the floor unworn.... I’d love to hear if any of this has inspired you...

Happy writing everyone - and thanks again Tilly for letting me gatecrash your space!

Kay xx

Kay Jaybee wrote the novels Making Him Wait, (Sweetmeats Press, 2012), The Voyeur (Xcite, 2012), The Perfect Submissive (Xcite 2012), as well as the novellas, Digging Deep (Xcite, 2013), A Sticky Situation, (Xcite, 2012), and The Circus, (Sweetmeats Press). She has also written the anthologies The Collector (Austin & Macauley, 2012 & 2008), The Best of Kay Jaybee (Xcite, 2012), Tied to the Kitchen Sink, Equipment, (All Romance, 2012), Yes Ma’am (Xcite e-books, 2011), Quick Kink One and Quick Kink Two (Xcite e-books, 2010). Kay has had over 70 short stories published by Cleis Press (inc. Best of Best Women’s Erotica 2, Best Women’s Erotica 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012; Best Bondage 2012 and 2013, Sweet Love, Smooth, Gotta Have It, Sweet Confessions), Black Lace (Sexy Little Numbers), Mammoth (The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica), Xcite (inc.Ultimate Sin, Boy Fun, Power Play, Threesomes, Finger Music, Tricks For Kicks), Penguin (Oysters and Chocolate; Erotic Stories of Every Flavor), Seal (Oysters and Chocolate; Nice Girls, Naughty Sex),and Sweetmeats Press (Immoral Views)

Details of Kay’s work, past, present and future can be found at www.kayjaybee.me.uk

You can follow Kay on Twitter- kay_jaybee

And on Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/KayJaybeeAuthor

On Goodreads- http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3541958-kay-jaybee

Pinterest- http://pinterest.com/kjberotica/

Kay is also a Brit Babe - http://thebritbabes.blogspot.co.uk/

A year of stories

I'm coming up to a year of committed writing effort. At times I've taken on too much and had half a dozen or more deadlines looming for calls for short story submissions. And I still haven't got very far on writing a longer work. But I've learnt a few things along the way. Bear with me while I give you the stats.

Since last spring, I have written 32 stories. I've just gone through and totted up the word counts: 111,300.

The shortest is a 500-word piece, Vermilion Number Six, published by the For the Girls website. The longest is a 13,500-word story that I sent in for a submissions call at Storm Moon Press in February. Fingers crossed. 

I have five stories out in multi-author anthologies and a collection of three of my own in Miranda's Tempest. I have eight stories round and about on the web.

I have six stories out for submission that I'm waiting to hear about and five in the hinterland between an anthology editor's acceptance and the final say-so from the publisher.

I'm currently writing one short story and have another couple of antho calls I'd like to go for. 

I have started three novellas, which are in a state ranging from a first chapter done to 15,000 words that need completely rehashing.

I've had three stories rejected, two of which were repurposed in some way for another anthology. I sent one submission email that never arrived and one publisher suddenly cancelled their short story calls.

What have I learnt?

• When you submit one story, you get on with the next. Waiting for acceptance or rejection will do your head in.
• If you don't get an acknowledgement of your submission, check it got there.
• If you're going to be a writer, it's going to take over your life at times.
• Having stories accepted is a wonderful thing. Seeing the resulting book is even better.
• Having stories rejected is not the end of the world. You can often use the ideas again and all writing is good practice.
• The more you write, the better you get. And the faster.
• Short stories are great fun, a great place to try things out, practise your craft and get quick gratification. But I could have written four or five novellas or one long novel in the time it's taken me to write 32 short stories.
• It's good to try new things. I've discovered I love writing m/m stories and I can write stories that are quite sweet and contain no rope. Who'd have thought it?
• I have no willpower to overcome internet distraction and I would dearly love a nicer shed than the worm-eaten one at my allotment where I could write without wi-fi and preferably with a little woodburner crackling away.

So what are you pissing about here for when you should be writing?

A writing experiment

Just after publishing my last post, about writing discreetly in a notebook, preferably whilst hiding in a cabin in the woods, I read a snippet in the arts section of my union mag The Journalist about the book Dragon Lords by Silvia Hartmann and her project The Naked Writer. 

Hartmann went in completely the opposite direction and wrote her novel live online using Google Drive so people could see her writing and editing in real time. As she was writing, people were commenting in a separate panel at one side of her screen. Hartmann says on her own website: "I could feel the story reacting to their presence and shifting in response. Very strange and extremely exhausting."

She describes a story-writing process in which you do not plot and plan beforehand, you simply sit down at your keyboard and let the story unfold: "If you so much as think in the direction of the story when you're not in front of a keyboard, it will run and you will have lost the opportunity to document it fresh, and in real time. Then you're writing from memory and it's never the same."

The Journalist reports that between September and November, she wrote 76,000 words at a rate of 16 words per minute and had more than 13,000 readers take part. 

The genre is a bit off topic here - apparently the readers called for more sex but it didn't work for the characters - but I think the process is fascinating. And frightening. 

Hartmann's description of the process goes into much more detail and includes her own take on creativity and the subconscious, which she calls the "energy mind". Read more here.

Ironically, she also describes the day she woke up to a power cut and had to write by hand in a notebook. 

In praise of the notebook

Virtually every advice guide for the novice writer will tell you to keep a notebook with you at all times for that moment when you have a brilliant idea and if you don’t write it down straight away you’ll lose it for ever. Sound enough advice but pretty obvious. I find a notebook useful for far more than that.

I’m the sort of person who fantasises about running off to a little cabin in the woods and living off the land, a la Henry David Thoreau in Walden. I have, in fact, just started to write the story of a couple who build their own eco home – with the design including plenty of kink opportunities, of course. One of the things this means is that I like to know, for psychological reasons rather than out of necessity, that I can work without an electricity supply. So scribbling in a notebook goes beyond practicalities and into my personal idyll of self-sufficiency and isolation. Don’t ask me where the Biros are coming from in this fantasy world; I’m not that authentic.

I use a notebook for everything from those first tentative ideas and notes – a plot fragment, a description of something I’ve seen or heard, a spider diagram leading off a submissions theme – to actually writing the stories out in full. I don’t do that all the time, by any means, but sometimes it feels right. It means you can be discreetly productive anywhere – in an idle moment at work with your notebook propped on your knee under the desk, in the car if you arrive somewhere early, in the middle of a walk when you take a break to sit on a rock and admire a view, in the corner of a pub or cafe, at the bus stop, in a tent. It also gives you a break from staring at a screen all the time, which can be an issue if you have a day job at a desk as well as your writing time. And if you go beyond the notes and planning stage and actually write your stories out by hand, when you come to type them up you find yourself automatically doing the first stage of editing and tightening up the prose.

Although we’re all high-tech these days and you will certainly have to type the stories up at some point, I think there’s something about writing by hand that taps into the psyche in a different way than writing at a keyboard. Your handwriting itself is uniquely yours rather than being a neat, uniform image on a computer screen. If you scribble fast for a while, your hand aches in a different way from the RSI-inducing movement of fingers over a keyboard. I’m sure you can still get RSI from handwriting, but as long as you don’t overdo it the feeling is more like the satisfying ache from digging a vegetable patch compared with the pain of a plastic bag full of potatoes from the supermarket cutting into your palm. And if you do it enough, it will leave a physical mark of your craft; I still have the slight callus on my right middle finger from my pre-laptop student days.

Writing by hand can be more flexible in some ways. You can jump around the page, flick back, scribble notes to yourself in the margin, make spider diagrams of ideas, try things out without them feeling as permanent as if you’ve saved them to a computer file. You can pick up your notebook and be scribbling straight away instead of waiting for your computer to get going, then finding the right file. The biggest drawback for me is having to make sure you can actually read your own scrawl, something that can prove challenging!

If you like to ogle wooden cabins - and who doesn't - then check out these photo blogs: cabinporn.com and tinyhouseblog.com. This image is of a hikers' hut in Kungsleden, Sweden, from cabinporn.com.

Waiting for the muse to strike

I just read a post by Elizabeth Black at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association. It's titled: 'Don't wait for your muse to strike; you'll wait for ever.' It's a topic I'd already been pondering after a period when I managed to get thousands of words done despite being run off my feet with other work and family commitments. 

Elizabeth points out that you can't wait for inspiration

to strike, or you'll never write anything. She advises setting yourself goals, treating writing like a vocation, establishing a routine and creating a support network of people who take your writing seriously.

I've read other advice about the importance of routines and of having a workspace conducive to creativity. I find setting up a routine hard when no day in my life is the same due to strange working hours, family duties and having to make the most of good weather to get down to the allotment. (Stop laughing. I mean generally. I know we haven't had any good weather of late.)

But Elizabeth is quite right. You can't wait around for ideal conditions and expect that they will suddenly make you uber creative where before there was nothing. I remember when I first started journalism training, a fellow student mentioned that they were waiting for inspiration and our tutor took great delight in laughing at her expense. (Humiliation being one of the main methods of training journalists.) Deadlines don't wait for inspiration, and even though your work as a fiction writer might not involve news editors swearing at you at 8am, you still have to get the words on the page.

I got thousands of words written in January when I had a weekend away. I wasn't actually meant to be alone; my partner and I having suffered a minor blip. But the fact that I went alone turned it into a kind of writer's retreat. It was a snowy weekend, which meant I didn't want to drive anywhere once I'd arrived. The cottage was a fourteenth-century building in the countryside with a wood burner (and not much other heating). It was ideal for writing. I'd get up, write for a while until I got hungry, cook breakfast then head out for a walk, during which time I'd mull over ideas (as well as imagining that the animal prints in the snow looked just like I'd imagine a panther's prints to look). Then I'd get back and write some more, with a beer, until I got hungry again. After that I'd spend several hours coaxing the woodburner to stay alight so I didn't freeze to death and get eaten by the resident mouse.

I probably wrote a similar number of words earlier this week. I've had a big editing job to do. I've volunteered to do extra shifts at work. I have the usual family stuff. I've booked to run a five-mile race on Sunday which I really needed to train for. I decided, in my wisdom, to write stories for about six calls for submissions with April 1st deadlines. Which is apt, because I must be a fool.

The point is, that I had a sudden burst of creativity in which I managed to write in a notebook on my knee at work, I mulled stories in my head as I commuted, I typed up late at night when I should have been asleep, I wrote in the twenty minutes I had between the school run and gym class, I wrote in bed, at the dining table and on the couch. I'd probably been storing up inspiration from a million and one little observations and experiences and suddenly there was room for no more.

What's my message here? You can't wait for these periods of creativity. If you're going to be a writer you have to write regardless of whether conditions are ideal. But if you're going to be a writer, you'd better be ready for the muse to strike when conditions are far from ideal as well as in those times when you find yourself alone in an isolated cottage. And yes, that is the cottage pictured above. It's in Shropshire, England, it sleeps two and you can book it at the Landmark Trust.