My Family, My Lovers...

You may or may not have noticed my publishers and I parted ways. It was on friendly terms. I read in their contract that I signed that incest was not something they were interested in publishing. That's the way I remember it today, but I could re-read the contract to be sure. See, I always had in the back of my mind, VC Andrews. She was a best selling author in 1980’s and it was her tool box. She wrote the same story over and over with the exact same theme in all her books, INCEST. Flowers in the Attic told it best for me.

If OmniFic’s position is not to publish family members bumping uglies, well, I need publishers who are willing to put the family lovin’ business out there. Period. It was the missing element to Forced to Change that tied the story up and helped it right,write itself. Once I added that element into the story, it finished telling me where it wanted to go. Just that easy, my head had the answer to what was wrong with my novel and why it refused to feel finished. I couldn’t write an ending that didn’t include that aspect to the storyline. So, now that I’m staring at less than a weeks worth of rewrites and desiring using NaNo this year to flush out the 2^nd book in the series, Changed by Time, I’m goal-oriented with a full plate.

I first got into Literotica because incest/taboo was the most read category there. All the authors I follow have their reasons, but as the #1 read category, I needed to crack that code. I tried my hand at it, but I couldn’t get a ‘h’ rating for my attempts. Though the reviews were good, when my publishers suggested it wasn’t their style, I adjusted. I pulled down my incest stories from Lit. I see that as a mistake now that I’m correcting. So, that’s why the rights to FTC reverted back to me. No hard feelings. When my needs change, so do my working-on goals. Duh, that’s how my life works.

See, my #1 what if question is 'could having sex with my father have saved his life'? But according to the rules I grew up with, he was off limits as a lover. He was always married. I try hard not to disrespect other women, even one's I barely know. In my mind I passed on the opportunity to bed Peter 'MADE MY PANTIES WET' Steele with a note played on his instrument, a single word from his lips because a girl told me she fucked him the day before I met him (work with me here, in my fantasy, I had a shot). She was funny and beautiful for the twenty minutes we discussed her previous evening activities.

I learned the hard way that it ended friendships I valued to go after another woman's man. So my motto became 'PROS before Bros' IE, LADIES FIRST! Ain't nothing wrong with a PROfessional Sex Worker in my book, I pick up tips from them. The fact that my Sperm Donor wished I'd been an abortion and decided to let me know that information because of his addiction made me who I am today. What he ENJOYED, I HATED on principal from that day forward. What he FEARED I tried, including dating white men exclusively most of the time, especially a white cop. My Bio-dad once said, "No WHITE COP babies!" to me while I was dating one...

I respected my mother's fear of pregnancy before I found my way in the world. So I gave him that one. No babies, until I figured my shit out. Condoms. The Pill. And I knew in my heart if I accidentally got pregnant I was keeping the baby. In the meantime, I mothered animals and became friends with a lot of women who decided to step up for the job motherhood. I am PRO-CHOICE & PRO-LIFE at the same time. I only argued the point with my bio dad because he claimed to be PRO-LIFE while making all the kinds of choices that put him in a grave at 64 years of age. 

So Confused Connie is back up on Literotica once again. There are 2 follow-up chapters but it will take some time to get them all posted again. Bare with me, I'm also close to the finish line on FTC and working on getting that published in the coming year. My goals are set, but adjustable for life. Cuz my personal truth happens to be when I play architect in my life, Goddess laughs and sets a different obstacle (life lesson) in my divine path...

Writing Down The Boners!

In Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down The Bones:Freeing The Writer Within she points out human beings are the only species on Earth with this magical power, literacy, reading and writing. I read the book years ago and have since lost my copy. I mean to replace it one day, so I’ll do a bit a paraphrasing for this post. The one thing that stood out in the book to me, the thing I needed to read most was that it’s okay to write crap. Giving myself permission to write badly is the most valuable tool I ever put in my writing tool box.

Why? Writer’s block...You could be the most talented writer in the world, a true perfectionist at the craft of writing and if you are congratulations, I’m so happy for you. Writing is probably as easy for you as breathing. Not me though. As I mentioned in an earlier post I started out as a ‘edit as you go’ writer. I had to make the switch to a ‘write by the seat of my pants’ writer after reading that book.

I had these great ideas for stories and I would write anywhere for 2,000 to 10,000 words on a particular piece and I’d stop. Either I couldn’t get back into the flow of it or I had no idea how to move the story forward to get to the end. I wrote myself into a corner constantly or the story just got really boring. Cringe worthy material graced the pages and I couldn’t write another word. Before Writing Down The Bones I let myself be defeated by writer’s block. I considered writing a hobby and continued to pursue jobs that took me far away from the goal of writing for a living.

I needed to know how to finish the story. I was desperate to figure that out. Even when I copied another author’s style, storyline I still couldn’t make the magic happen for me. I discovered a formula to most of the books I read and while studying the craft of writing I picked up on a few things like plot, theme, setting, and story world. I stumbled onto Randy Ingermanson’s newsletter which spoke of this formula that I could see in other writers and still had yet to figure out for my work.

Unemployment found me attacking the craft of writing a story like a puzzle that needed figuring out. It could be put together if only I could find the key to the map of writing fiction. I turned to reading authors and genres I enjoyed and I tried to get my characters to do the same, finish telling the story.

Overall my biggest issue turned out to be writer’s block. When I read Writing Down The Bones it was like finding a key to my map with writing. That key was it is okay to write shit, crap, junk. Bad writing is allowed. That was the most freeing thing I could hear about writing. I immediately changed my goal. Instead of telling a great story and worrying that every detail was perfect, I wrote total and complete garbage. The only thing that mattered was I was writing, my new goal.

I’d finish the scene and get past it onto the next. Impossible unrealistic crap could and did happen to my characters. Scene changes that made no sense sprinkled their way across my words. A real world setting would switch to the future and take place on another planet in an entirely different universe. All of sudden in a modern urban tale there would be a 15th century warrior. Fairies and elves would run rampant or a minor character abruptly took center stage. I was writing. Something was happening on the page or nothing was happening on the page and that was okay. Nothing happening was the basis of one of my favorite television shows, Seinfeld. That show elevated the power of ‘nothing’ to a new level.

My grammar and punctuation were awful. There weren’t even darlings that needed killing. It was mundane dribble, but hey, I was writing and finishing stories. As I’ve said, I hate, loathe my first novel with a passion. I got that first novel length story under my belt about two months after I read that it was okay to write terrible stuff.

I was so proud of myself for finishing. Yeah, Woo Hoo! I proved to myself that I could group 75,000 words together to tell a story. I may hate the novel, but after it was done I managed to figure out my next biggest issue as a writer. I read and re-read every single word over and over again cringing the entire time. Often with lots of alcohol to help me get through it. It was painful to discover I had other issues now that I'd made writer's block my bitch. I was able to triage my weaknesses and learned what my strengths were as a writer. Being able to do that honestly and truly as a writer was humbling, yet very freeing.

Turns out that although I wrote for my enjoyment my target audience at that time was my biggest supporter of my writing, my aunt. She’s married to a minister and related to me through blood. This woman who I love and adore changed my diapers and has known me all my life. In the back of my head I was writing stories to please her. Turns out, my fantasies, the things I really enjoyed reading (and writing) were not for her eyes. I know where I intended my first novel to go. My aunt wanted to read it and I’d agreed to send it to her chapter by chapter as I wrote it. I so did not write the novel I meant to write. I only realized this hard truth as I finished writing my first novel.

I dropped my wonderful aunt as a beta reader. Considering she was the only beta reader I had at the time it was pretty easy to do. My next couple of beta readers were virtual female friends but eventually I landed on the right ones for me, dirty old men. At that point, I had a target audience that fit with the kind of writing I wanted to do and this little porn writer was born. So, I write down the boners, or orgasms, sometimes both, occasionally neither. I write until I finish the story and then the hard, difficult work starts. Rewrites and editing...

Christ, That’s Good Porn!

Okay, so I have to give it to Jennie, she swore to me that there would be blog fodder in my family. Originally I didn’t see it though. I had my mom’s best friend and her clan visiting first. Though they had little news to share, other than the fact that hey, they’re all still alive and kicking it was just stuff that I could divine from their Facebook pages.

Yes, it was nice to physically touch them. Hugs are great. Kisses too. There’s the cousin who got out of jail or just graduated from college. I can’t remember. The someone who had a baby and I remember when I changed their diapers. All and all I had no fodder for the blog from them.

Then my aunt and her minster of a husband, my uncle got into town. Clearly these recently retired individuals would have nothing for me to blog about. So I went with the PSA about the library last week.

My aunt and uncle and I chatted about my home life which at the time was more interesting. They’ve recently become RV people and they like the lifestyle. They’ve tried to get me interested, however, I really couldn’t see myself moving my house around to RV park after RV park. I dated someone who lived in a mobile home many years ago and I remember thinking it’s not for me.

The idea of removing my own waste just doesn’t make me go, wow, yes that’s the life for me. I once dated a guy who lived in a double-wide and although that was far more home-like to me, still I just never pictured myself in the situation.

Anyway, my uncle started babbling away about wanting to find a space to do a sermon. He wanted to put a listing on craigslist trying to find the congregation for a church I used to attend when I first moved to Atlanta. The church is gone, replaced by a bank or fast food or something. It was a small venue and although their counterpart near Kennesaw is a nice place to visit I haven’t run into one member of the tiny church I took my aunt and uncle to many years ago.

He found a space, a country club that he wanted to check out and then he announced that he wanted to tie the lesson into my book release.

I was like, wait a second, I write porn.

He said that’s okay. This’ll work. We’ll have the church service and then do a book signing right after.

I was like, but no, I write porn.

He said we’ll relabel it. It’s romance. He smiled completely clueless to the difference between what I wrote and what he thought I wrote.

Once again, I said um, no, I write porn.

Okay, so my novel isn’t porn. It’s more romance, mystery, all the genres my publishers have labeled it. In fact, the sex is downright tame compared to what I have up on Literotica.

The things I have on Lit are in fact porn. Well erotica, but yeah, porn. It was written for dirty old men who have minds that freely wander into the gutter. My visiting aunt who had read everything I wrote up until I started posting on Lit was my original target audience.

Her as a target reader was an accident of course, as she offered to read whatever I wrote. It was before I had the courage to publish anything. I was receiving such positive feedback from my aunt I didn’t share with anyone except her. This is also why I hate my first novel. Nothing against my aunt, but the novel I meant to write should never have had her in mind as a target audience. I sanitized my writing thinking that she would read it.

I had to make a change and I found Literotica. I decided to stop sending my aunt my writing and wrote with an entirely different audience in mind. Strangers. Men. Women. People looking for a good story that well, um, could be used for masturbation material. That’s what I wanted to write and so I did. A few years later I wrote my second novel.

I actually sent that novel to my aunt to read. She read every single dirty word and had nothing but glowing things to say about my writing in general. She enjoyed it, however, I didn’t write it for her so I was able to write it. I really didn’t expect her to read it when I wrote it. I’m sure it wouldn’t have half the graphic sex scenes it did if I had her in mind while writing it.

That’s the thing about writing. Even though I didn’t mean to do it, I would naturally edit my writing based on who I expected to see it. If I expect only older men who jack off while reading what I write, I’m a lot less careful about the sex scenes or unlocking my dark and twisted Muse and letting her play. I use all kinds of dirty words, naughty conversation, and describe things I believe will leave the reader aroused and stroking. In other words, I write porn.