Five things that can make erotica tick

Not the obvious things. I mean, sex is pretty much a prerequisite. But I've been thinking about the little things that make me want to read more from any particular author, and the things I try to create in my own work.

1. Characters who are about more than sex
I like characters who have quirky likes or dislikes, eccentric hobbies, unusual areas of expertise. I wanted to know more about the antiques dealer in Janine Ashbless's Named and Shamed because he has that interest, that area of imagery, a unique lexicon. Although it's factual rather than fiction, I love the way Sophie Morgan in Diary of a Submissive loves cake. It makes characters seem real, rather than just being plastic fuck dolls. And if their eccentricities carry over into the sex, all the better. I've just been set an Erotic Tea Cosy challenge on Twitter, having stated in my profile that I am a knitter of tea cosies. My filthy imagination has already come up with several unusual uses for knitting needles.

2. Kink within meaningful relationships
I'm not a fan of chance meetings with strangers in any kind of erotica (I think this may say something about my own lack of experience of one-night-stands!). I think it becomes more acceptable the further away from contemporary normality you get - so historical or fantasy settings can get away with more. But when it comes to BDSM stuff, however escapist the setting, I get very twitchy when someone lets a complete stranger tie them up. I guess it's hard to identify with a stupid character; and letting a complete stranger tie you up is pretty damn stupid. What I do like is the exploration of kink within committed relationships, although this could be the tentative beginnings of what will probably become a meaningful relationship. Not a passer-by in a dark alley.

3. Pure filth
Go on, push the boat out. Really go for it. I don't want to read about the stuff you might get up to with your lover this weekend. I want to read about the stuff you might get up to if you knew the world would end on Monday. Claudia Varrin, in her excellent book The Art of Sensual Female Dominance, talks about four levels of erotic fantasy. The first is stuff you've done, the second stuff you want to try and the third comprises things you might like to do if you were really pushing the boat out. Well, I like to read and write about level four, what Varrin calls bathtub fantasies. These are things you are not likely to try and might not ever want to try in the real world, but you can still get a thrill from imagining them while you're in the bath. In fiction, you can try anything. 

4. Space for my imagination
I tend not to go overboard on physical description unless it's part of a theme for a particular call for submissions. I want any reader to be able to imagine themselves in the action, which isn't going to happen if I make my characters into Barbie dolls and muscle-bound commandos. And what is it with red-headed, green-eyed women? (I once got quite indignant in an English lit lecture in which the prof said that no-one outside of Mills & Boon actually has green eyes. I have green eyes, for fuck's sake. But not red hair.) I have vowed never, ever, ever to write about a heroine with red hair. I have absolutely nothing against women with red hair. I have everything against romantic stereotypes. I like quirky details, like a mole on someone's left ass cheek, but perfection leaves little room for the reader's input.

5. A sense of shabbiness
Following on from the Barbie doll thing, I don't like worlds in which the women are all size zero (that's a four in English) and the men all have six-packs. Swanky bars, plush offices, slinky evening wear, glitzy nightclubs, obsequious waiters, penthouse apartments, five-star hotels, 4x4s (trans: SUVs) with heated leather seats... these things don't do it for me. This may be a British thing. I like understatement. I like tawdry. I like the irony when you go to tie someone up and the rope snaps. (Or you go to tie a boat up and the rope snaps. This actually happened to me. On the Shannon in Ireland. A bloody big boat.) Some might say that these rich, perfect worlds are the stuff of dreams and people want to imagine living there in their escapist fantasies. But I can't. If I imagined some perfect life, full of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth, something would be sure to go wrong. The champagne would be corked. The 4x4's engine would blow up. I like to see how characters cope when things go wrong.

Review: Named and Shamed by Janine Ashbless

A no-holds-barred descent into the most filthy and degrading sexual acts imaginable, with each fresh round of shame for the heroine soon being trumped by something even more debased. Fantastic!

Tansy’s a freelance investigator of magical creatures in a world in which such beings have returned with a vengeance. And she’s not above shaking her booty to find out what she needs to know. But when she trades one quick fuck with a fairy for his help in retrieving a stolen document, she finds herself under a super-nympho curse that could kill her. With her flatmate cousin, and her fella, in tow she sets out to find the solution.  Along the way she finds herself in the hands of crazed yokels, a witch and her sons and the very king of the Wild Hunt himself. And they all want to stuff her. Repeatedly.

For a tale about shame, this book is utterly shameless. Ashbless has come up with every possible means of reducing the heroine to a set of fuckholes, with a little left over for her companions, Gail and Vince. There is no let-up in the shift from one outrageous sex scene to the next. Every possible configuration of fucking is covered along with many peripherals in the way of bondage, pain and punishment. This is a fantasy tale; don’t expect big emotional interplay between the characters. Do expect to lose yourself in a skilfully written, filthy hot romp with vivid description and a well-constructed crossover world of reality/fantasy.

I’m always impressed when an author can take a classic text and subvert it for the purposes of filth. Ashbless starts off with Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, positing a lost version which is a lot less prudish and cautionary. The tasting of the goblins’ forbidden fruits becomes a parallel to Tansy’s fuck with a fairy; she finds herself unable to eat but desperately wanting more ‘forbidden fruit’. On a wider scale, the novel’s folklore world is thoroughly researched and convincingly drawn, taking up both well-known and more obscure myths and legends and weaving them into a sinister and unpredictable reality.

Having begun the tale with Tansy’s seduction of antiques dealer Edmund – who turns out to be harbouring a libidinous ogress – I expected him to play a part in the story’s development, so I was a little disappointed when this turned out to be a plot device which didn’t involve the character’s return. Similarly, the looming war between the fairy king and the Pendragon is talked up into something significant, but then fades out. I would also have liked to know more about what happened to Gail and Vince after their escape and how they dealt with what happened to them. But these are minor gripes. Named and Shamed was a hugely enjoyable read, refreshingly dirty and compellingly written.

Named and Shamed is published by Sweetmeats Press http://sweetmeatspress.com/erotic_stories/illustrated_erotic_stories_named_shamed.html 

Just for laughs

It's lazy post time. Thought I'd share a few silly things I've stumbled across on the web. I should probably have made a note of who tweeted the links to a couple, so I could add appropriate thanks, but I'm not that organised.

Ever blown the grounsils or made a lobster kettle of yourself? Here are 17 euphemisms for sex from the 1800s: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/140163

Perhaps you fancy a ride on a giggle stick, or would you prefer to pet the poodle? An enormous glossary of, often ridiculous, sexual and scatological euphemisms for your perusal: http://www.uta.fi/FAST/GC/sex-scat.html

Join the campaign to save Brit actor Sean Bean from yet another grisly death: http://rockpapercynic.com/index.php?date=2012-04-13

No matter how often I read these, they get me every time. The funniest iPhone autocorrects:
http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/13603/the-25-funniest-autocorrects-of-dyacs-first-year/

Thoughts: The long and the short of it.

I’ve been polishing off a fair few short stories since I had my first couple of acceptances from Xcite Books a few months ago. They’re fun to write. I was going to say quick, but with all the rereading and rewriting I do they actually take quite a while. What they provide is the chance to play around, try different perspectives, quirky scenarios. I’m never short (forgive the pun) of ideas for shorts. And finishing them brings fairly quick gratification.

But I also have a longer work in progress, begun a couple of years ago and lying stagnant in my ‘stuff to work on’ file. I’m starting to think I should set aside a regular slot or two in my week for making progress on this. In terms of pure wordage, I have 15,000. I’m aiming for about 80,000. This is going to take a lot more stamina than a few short stories.

I had started to think at the back of my mind that the whole thing was a bit silly. I guess many writers will empathise with this. You leave a work for a while and your inner critic starts to tell you it’s terrible. Then you reread it with the benefit of a bit of distance and perspective and think, wow, this is hot stuff. 

So now I have to research life on board an eighteenth-century ship. How many people would it take to crew various sizes of vessel? What is the correct terminology for all those masts, sails, bits of rope? How long would journeys to various exotic destinations take from Europe? What would the crew eat and drink? It’s surprising how many facts I seem to know already from some unknown source, but I don’t think I can blag the rest by just reading Hornblower and watching Johnny Depp. That's Ioan Gruffudd above as Hornblower in the telly series, by the way.

Review: Smut by the Sea

I found this anthology a fantastically fun seaside romp full of top-notch writing talent.

Its overall feel is one of escapism into a wilder world outside the normal rules and constraints of society. The excellent quality of the writing allows the reader to fully immerse themselves in the settings and stories.

I should make a declaration of interest: I love the sea. I particularly love the British coastline and many of the stories are set in Brit seaside towns. I’ve known that late-night, drunken urge to go for a paddle. In fact, I once did this after going to a beer festival – at dusk with the tide coming in – and lost my comfiest sandals because I left them on the sand. I was busy paddling while darkness fell, turned around and couldn’t see a thing on the beach. For me, it’s the wildness of much of the British coast that tugs on my soul: jagged rocks, crashing waves, the cries of seabirds. But I still enjoy losing all my 2p coins at the amusement arcades. This line in Skin by KD Grace struck a chord: ‘You know the sea. You feel it inside you like I do.’

Although a few of the stories are set in more exotic locations, the theme of the British seaside runs through the book. It is one of slightly faded glory, often tacky, tatty or quaint, but full of opportunities for vivid imagery that speaks to all the senses. There are the smells of fish and chips and sun cream, the noise of the fairgrounds and arcades, the taste of ice cream and salty seawater, the feel of sand between the toes or waves in the face. For British readers, there’s sure to be a touch of nostalgia for childhood holidays.

The stories are full of contrasts that constantly surprise and entertain: hot sun and cool breeze, lovers who are both tender and rough, liaisons that are intense but fleeting. The sea itself provides a wealth of sensations and stirs up deep desires in the psyche. The seaside becomes a place between worlds, a special place of freedom and escape. In many of the stories, it is a place where a woman can set out quite deliberately to get laid with no strings attached in a much more picturesque setting than a nightclub toilet.

This is a real gem among erotica anthologies and I enjoyed escaping into its light-hearted world enormously.

Smut by the Sea, edited by Victoria Blisse and Lucy Felthouse, is available at Amazon. For information on the Smut by the Sea event in Scarborough in June 2013, see http://smutbythesea.co.uk/ 

Picture special

September is bringing a fair few changes here and it's going to take a few weeks before I settle into a new routine. I'm hoping to have more time to write regularly and to launch a proofreading business. I will, of course, have more time to exercise. Honest. Although, at this precise moment, the urge to cook comfort food is also strong. I suspect that frying falafel next to a laptop is not advised.

At the moment I have the beginnings of about 12 stories in my files. This is how I like to write. I guess authors who've been doing it for years probably plan better and get it right first time. But I have an idea and I like to set it down, see where it goes and how hot it really is. I think the important thing in doing this is that I'm not afraid to totally rewrite these first ramblings. I do a fair amount of rewriting at work and am undaunted at the thought of shredding a story to pieces and rebuilding it.

Now, before my falafel burn, I'm taking the cop-out route today and giving you some pretty pictures of totty to inspire your own erotic ramblings.

Here's Simon Neil, the singer from fabulous Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro in a video for their track, The Captain. The poor wee thing finds himself tied up, flogged and caged. Somebody rescue that man. But not just yet.

What about English actor Richard Armitage playing John Porter in the telly series Strike Back. Don't tell them anything, Richard.

Ah, a classic. Harrison Ford as a beat-up looking Indiana Jones. Check out the calm defiance in those eyes.

Two hotties together in a rather unequal stand-off. Joaquin Phoenix and Russell Crowe in Gladiator. But Maximus is the one who somehow maintains his dignity despite being chained to the wall.

Those Supernatural boys do find themselves in perilous situations a lot. Probably explains why I have all the box sets. Here's Dean (Jensen Ackles) bound to a tree. I love the great outdoors.

And here's a man who knows how to handle his big weapon. Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe. Finest bit of rough I could find on the internet.

Review: Past Pleasures anthology

I’ve been working my way through the stories that co-exist with mine in this Xcite Books anthology and thought I’d share my thoughts on a few favourites. It’s not all ripped bodices and heaving bosoms; the stories range from ancient pagan tribes right up to twentieth-century New York.

In Pretty Tied Up by Elizabeth Coldwell a woman escapes small-town life by becoming a glamour model in 1950s America. One day, a famous female photographer suggests Lucille tries a bondage shoot. Normally, I’m apprehensive about any story that involves someone being persuaded to try any BDSM-related activity for the first time and suddenly realising they enjoy it when they had never considered it before. But this story makes it clear that Lucille has been excited by the thought and has just never had the opportunity. Her novice status allows the bondage to be described in sensual detail. I like the unexpected titbits too – like photographer Dusty ‘cursing like a sailor’. Lucille’s back story is woven into the narrative, bringing her character and motives to life. And there’s a great balance between the build-up of sexual tension between the two women and the resulting action.

I found Garver by Landon Dixon to be a refreshing dose of light relief, so to speak. A hired gun agrees to track down stolen coins in this cowboy sex fest – but only after a blow job from the skilled bossman. The language and style are far removed from anything I could write myself, which is partly why I enjoyed the read, particularly marvelling at the range of descriptions of cocks (which just goes to show that rules are made to be broken since I wrote a few weeks ago that you should call a cock a cock rather than coming up with increasingly preposterous names for it). It’s a wonderfully masculine tale in every way, prowess as a gunfighter intimately linked to sexual prowess.

In The Gift by Clarice Clique, a princess struggles to satisfy her husband’s desire to be dominated. So she buys a slave to do it for her, which I thought was a nice twist to the balance of power. It turns out the slave allowed herself to be captured because she dreamt that her destiny lay in a foreign place. She thoroughly embraces her contradictory position. And she proves a natural, the story outlining in vivid detail how she orders the prince to submit in new ways.

La Contessa’s Game by Slave Nano is another tale of male submission (there seems to be a theme emerging here among the stories I enjoy ;-), this time with a gender-bending slant. What struck me was the luxury and decadence, particularly in descriptions of clothing. It is set largely in a whorehouse in Venice. The countess dresses her servant as a girl, while she dresses as a man, and pretends (s)he is his young wife and in need of subjugation at the hands of a dominatrix prostitute. Even his/her punishment is decadent in its thoroughness and the whole thing climaxes in a glorious threesome. The story is told in the first person by the servant, which stops it sounding purely sadistic!

Past Pleasures is available in paperback or ebook from XciteBooks.