I love writing, and one thing I love is each piece is its own world.  Brit and Isaac's fantasy werewolf world is vastly different from Shelby and Brent's suburban college town  But despite the fact that the setting in The Box of Chocolates books was the same the characters saw it vastly differently.  The model, the visual chocolate art piece, the wrestler.  None of them had the same perspective and that meant that despite the fact that the convention was the same, and the characters even bumped into each other on occasion, their worlds were different. 

I think that sometimes we as erotic authors take the easy way out, throwing together a quick sex scene and barely adding story.  Its certainly the case on some websites of erotic fiction where you weed through hundreds of poorly crafted stories to find a semi-decent one.   

What is fun about playing with settings is they can be as visually impacting, or as glossed over as you want them to be, sometimes the fact that a man and woman is in a barn is enough, sometimes its not.  

Making a world believable is not difficult if it is believable to your character.  Purple grass if it is real to your character is acceptable, just as fantastic creatures, elves, gnomes, centaurs, vampires, etc. are.  Remembering setting is an element that shouldn't be forgotten, just like creating realistic sex, in most pieces, shouldn't be the entire story.  

The good news is there is a lot of world out there for your inspiration.  

The Exercise: 
Simply Google landscapes, cityscapes, and oceanscapes.  Take five minutes and describe one picture in visual detail - then set it aside.  Do three to five of them, and leave them for a few days - then go back to them, look at one and read over it - what do you picture now?  Is the scene as vivid as the photo or do you need to add more to make it have more impact?

So with all the stuff that kept coming up about Paypal censoring online retailers like Smashwords, All Romance eBooks, and Bookstrand I got frustrated and flustered.  I didn't know where to turn.  So I turned to my favorite author of erotic literature (though not erotica per se) Ms. Jacqueline Carey. 

She was the one who found this article and linked it on her facebook page, I am repeating it here so that you may hopefully repeat it to your masses and we can spread this throughout the web.  

A petition to stop Internet Censorship.  

To quote the Petition: 
PayPal has a long track record of suspending, freezing, and terminating customer accounts on the thinnest of justifications, but this is going too far. By telling Bookstrand what books they can and cannot sell using PayPal services, they are also telling readers they don't have the right to read what they wish and telling authors that PayPal has the right to take away their freedom of speech and the press. If you use the Internet to find new reading material, if you use PayPal, and/or if you support the rights of authors and readers to have the widest possible selection of topics to read and write about, please sign this petition and let PayPal know that censorship, no matter what form it takes or how it is implemented, is not acceptable. Readers, publishers, storefronts and authors have the right to choose what books are sold and bought. Don't leave it up to PayPal to choose how you spend your money or where. 

I feel like my genre is working against me.  

I have been dwelling on censorship for days, my editor Ember Rose has pneumonia and has been unable to read what I've submitted to her, and my lover and I have been experiencing some interesting life changes.  (Possibly good possibly not hehe.) 

I haven't felt at all sexy, so how do I write about sex?

The Babysitter Rides With Mr. Thomas, my short "all sex" story that was published last week has however brought in good sales and has helped me against feeling discouraged that The Binding: An Erotic Fantasy was removed from Smashwords and that it, The Babysitter Rides With Mr. Thomas, and The On-Call Babysitter are no longer able to be available on it or several other vendor sites I was looking into, due to the fact that they contain barely-legal teen sex.

My pseudo incest book that was in the works is on pause frankly because I feel dirty writing it...which is RIDICULOUS.  I am a strong, confident, GOOD writer.  I don't write vanilla sex...I never have, even when I wrote "sweet romances" novels there was a level of kink.  Satin blind folds, gentle coercion.

But today despite the fact that I feel so "out of it" I want to get "into it."  Even if my lover tells me the stuff I produce today is crap I want to get it out there.  I want to immerse myself in writing and fiction and games again.

So the Paypal fiasco that has hit Bookstrand and All Romance eBooks has come to Smashwords and they too are refusing to speak against Paypal, they are bending over and taking it up the @$$.  Titles to be removed: Incest, including Pseudo-Incest, Rape, Barely Legal, and Bestiality. 

For the complete "press release" from Mark Coker Founder of Smashwords read here.

To quote some of my favorite bits: 

*THINGS TO AVOID:* Avoid using words such as ‘bestiality,’ ‘rape,’ ‘incest,’ ‘underage,’ or ‘barely legal’ in book titles, book descriptions or keyword tags, otherwise Smashwords may conclude you’re violating the Terms of Service, or trying to push the limits. If you’re writing non-erotic works, and any of these words are necessary, then you’re okay. 

(Particularly the bit about if you're writing non-erotic works then your okay.)

The moralists forget that we humans are all sexual creatures, and the biggest sex organ is the brain. If it were not the case, none of us would be here. Erotica authors are facing discrimination, plain and simple. Topics that are perfectly acceptable in mainstream fiction are verboten in erotica. That’s not fair. Our decisions today are imperfect. Please, act responsibly, don’t try to game the system or publish content that pushes the limits of legality. Help us continue to help indie authors around the world to continue to publish and distribute with freedom. 

At least he sees that it is unfair... Its infuriating that we really have zero options.  Whats even more infuriating is that there is really no course of action - because we are a "Gray area" within society not many people/companies/places will stand up for our voices and our rights to speak out.  Paypal is completely a bully.  

The Binding: An Erotic FANTASY is being removed on Monday because my main characters make love when he is shifted in half wolf-half human form.  Its your last chance to buy it from Smashwords - I will keep it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble as long as they let me.

I was raised on fairy tales, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White.  Always protected by their knight in shining armor, their prince.  Everything always worked out and everyone was always happy.  I have believed for a long time that you just need to keep going and trying and things will work out.
 
By now you probably have heard about the Paypal fiasco, Bookstrand and ARe removing hundreds if not thousands of titles, or declaring that they will be.  Bookstrand sent out letters to indie authors or in release statements saying it was a "Mistake" to publish indie authors because of our "obscenity" and effectively removing most of the indie authors that competed with the sales of their in house published Siren books.  

ARe has seemed much more "politically correct" in their statements, gently admonishing the removal - or reminding that these "pseudo-incest, rape, and barely legal titles" shouldn't have ever been published on their site originally due to their graphic nature.

But whether nice or mean they're still sharpening their swords.  These seeming supporters of Indie writers have turned and hacked of our hands.  

Sure we can still sell our "obscenities" at other markets like Smashwords, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, but in truth I feel more concerned that these "small contenders" didn't even pretend to fight for us.  They simply hacked us apart and didn't think twice.  

What happens when Paypal, our own personal nemesis, starts pushing on our "bigger" resources, will they chop off our heads or stand for our (and their!) rights to publish and make money with us.  Will Paypal - the big fish in online money transactions really take on a site as big as Barnes and Noble?  Will we be secluded and sequestered down to Amazon alone - not because of KDP Select or Barnes and Noble's determination to remove Amazon published books from their brick and mortar stores, but because they offer Paypal as an option for payment?  

Life's not a fairy-tale, its very possible that our Knights like B&N won't stand for us... we have to fight for ourselves, even if we can't lift a sword.

I follow a blog called One Handed Writers. 

Lately they have been focusing their blogs on Paypal using their influence to censor what Paypal feels is "filth" from online retailers (specifically Bookstrand and All Romance Ebooks.)  Read the full blog here.   

I posted the following comment and felt it was worth repeating here:

I absolutely agree with Anjasa (Another commenter) - Nothing about this situation feels good to me.  

Its so murky and frustrating.

The thing that is even more frustrating is all the different twats Paypal has fingers in...  If they make a big stink are they going to force the removal of authors like: 

Jacqueline Carey
George R. R. Martin 
Laurell K. Hamilton
Ayn Rand
And countless others?

One of my all time favorite books is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  The story is about a society who have taken censorship to extremes, firemen burn books.  At the end of the version I have is a letter/coda from Mr. Bradbury explaining that if we don't stand up against censorship eventually everything will be censored... honestly I think he said it best: 

"The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme." 

I wish there was something we could do.  Some "March on Paypal" we could join in.  
What happens when they decide that Pseudo-incest isn't enough?  When any form of "tying wrists" or "restraint" is cut off completely?  Will we re-enter the society too conservative that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz can show THEY OWN ONE BED and don't sleep in two separate?  Personally the idea of going into that repressive society scares the shit out of me.    

When a person looks up "erotica" some classics immediately pop up, babysitters, cheerleaders, the occasional nurse.  When we look up romance we get modern day cowboys, knights in shining armor, Victorian historical pieces....  There's a lot of mainstream out there, and many others that weave in and out of mainstream so much that they're inseparable, and yet more that are sub-genres enough that they are becoming mainstream themselves (for example vampire and werewolf erotica.)

The difficulties with mainstream erotica is that there really is SO MUCH out there, the good news with it is that its out there because of DEMAND.  My "mainstream babysitter" erotica has sold double every other piece I've offered.  

Kinks are an entirely different beast.  There are people out them that want them - but there are less of them.  The good news with writing "kink" erotica is that you reach more people, and you may be up against less competition, plus if you enjoy it the variety will help you from keeping burned out.  The other problem with a kink - as shown with the Paypal and Bookstrand removal of Pseudo-incest, "rape", etc, is that it may meet opposition from society.  Telling someone you write erotica is one thing - telling them you write rape stories may be quite another.  

In the end my mainstreams bring in my paycheck - my kinks are fun and are an added bonus.  :) I'm curious how everyone else fairs with their kinks? 

Do you write solely within that kink?  I've heard it said over and over to spread yourself out - do you believe in that?  Write me comment and tell me your thoughts!

By now LMFAO is no secret, their music has been preformed across the world, hitting award shows and frankly being enjoyed by grandma and 2 year old alike.  This one however is often over looked!  :) Its really great fun for sexy writing.

Most any writer knows the adage "Characters make the story."  Well I want to tell you to let it go one step further.

Characters TAKE the story means that a plot-line and setting, no matter how developed, is taken over by the characters.  These are always the stories that I feel the most connected with.  Your piece follows more in line with what decisions your characters make, your story seems to click into place, you hear the voices of their words.  In The Binding, I decided I wanted to have a woman boinking a Christmas Tree salesman.  I planned out a little tree lot with a little trailer and a hunky man named Isaac.  I beat my head against a brick wall for about seven hours thinking about the story and trying to figure out why in the world I couldn't get my lead female interested.  Why the lumberjack-butch male wouldn't conform.  Finally I sat down and just started seeing it through Brit's eyes.  She was a college professor who lived alone.  Extremely intelligent, extremely beautiful - what use did she have for a dead tree rotting in her living room?  And then I landed on it.  She was magically pulled by Isaac - who was not just a big hunk of man flesh as I'd originally pictured.

The story practically wrote itself and ten hours later I had a completed piece, and my editor and lover LOVED it. 

Nearly the same thing happened with The On-Call Babysitter and A Night With Them Both.

I don't think its any coincidence that these pieces also happen to be my biggest sellers to date.  The characters are alive in them, almost humming with their own life.  

When you sit down to write a story don't spend so much time focusing on conforming to the exact plot, the exact setting, the exact introduction, focus more on hearing your characters speak, seeing them dress--or undress.  Focus on their feelings.   

My lover and I have never stuck to missionary.  He was who I lost my virginity to and despite the fact that I lost it in missionary, by the end of the night we'd tried two other positions.

We've tried doggy style (one of my personal faves) and what my friend calls the "Four square," which essentially is him upright and me on my back.  We've scissored, and mirrored, and spooned, and frankly we've contorted ourselves into some crazy stuff.  I've ridden him and he's pounded into me, but perhaps that is more personal then you want to hear.  My main point is that when you are writing and coming up with sexual positions keep in mind what actually WORKS.

Some positions really are really not about comfort (yes I have dangled almost completely off the bed upside down before) and are supposedly more about the "angle of trajectory." (Though that one made me feel like I was going to pass out and wasn't great enough angle to try again!)  Some things are physically impossible without props like slings, balls, or wedges. 

When you write about sex in some cases its great to throw in a position that will make your reader go "WO! I wanna try that!" but in many cases its more important to emotionally connect with the characters - if they're loving this particular position then you won't need to go into the actual specifics of how tab a goes into slot b.  You can loosely describe and the reader will insert the rest.  Don't spend all your time driving home the point about this kinky position your brain made up unless it is something important to the story (and a sweet little virginal girl and boy who are experiencing their first time aren't typically going to try an upside down and backwards flip.)