#84 — DEAD OR ALIVE | On writing | Community | About me
Bashing out Steamy Stories Listening to Hard-fi
Deep Dive into My Writing M.O.
- When did you start writing? Is there a specific story?
My mother was a writer. I saw her sitting at a typewriter creating stories and it was a normal lifestyle, along with reading voraciously. My favourite lessons in school were Art and English. I grew up taking every opportunity to write stories, and book reviews, indulge in art and craft, and I even had a piece of poetry published in a children’s literary magazine (age 11).
2. Do you have rituals in writing? If yes, then please share them with us.
I try to write every day, usually after walking the dog and having breakfast, although I ought to knuckle down quicker! I waste a good hour reading and answering comments on published stories, any e-mails and direct messages from writing pals. I check my notebook for prompts or my Medium library, otherwise, I think about progressing a story that is serialised — I try to end each episode on a cliffhanger.
Sometimes playing music in the background sets the mood (currently Haim, Hard-fi and the Cars) and I hang a sign on my study door “Shh … I’m writing.” (This doesn’t always work!)
3. The ugliest monster that writers are afraid of is writer’s block. If you have a recipe to deal with it, kindly share it with us.
I suffered my worst writers’ block near the beginning of the 2020 lockdown, my brain seemed to be shouting “now you’ve got all this free time, write something!” But I couldn’t — I froze. I learned my muse runs and hides under pressure.
Whenever I have an idea for a title or a scene, I jot it down in ‘notes’ on my phone or a notebook — I always have at least 1 on the go. It can be years before I use something in a story, but it’s saved so I’ll find it. An idea can be used more than once, because there are always different directions to go, or keep using the same character(s) in different stories, because some have a lot of adventures in them. Exhibit A — The MILF Tina collection.
Do you ever start reading a story and have a ‘guess’ at where the action might go? Sometimes that’s a story I’ll write up after I’ve finished reading: what I would have done differently with that title or those characters.
Collaboration is a font of inspiration. Bouncing ideas around with another writer, who makes me think outside my comfort zone, is amazingly refreshing. It usually starts with chat in DMs, then we open a Google doc and share access. Now the writing magic begins to happen; we can dump ideas and passages, reference films or books that inspire us all in one place. We do plenty of suggesting and discarding before we get writing.
Check out this Egyptian-themed tryst with a secret breeding ceremony, sapphic love and some nefarious scheming. It was written with the talented JK Mill just as I’ve described. Our writing styles are similar so it was easy to blend seamlessly. Another way I write collaboratively is me taking one side/voice in the story and my collaborator another.
Here’s Shared, an early collaboration which I wrote via e-mail, with a blogger I knew as Starcross, springing from a conversation where we both admired the artwork. We took turns to add sections and move the plot forward. (Starcross is no longer online).
Please look out for projects coming soon, I am working with Hardison Parker and also Eve Taylor.
4. Describe the process of finding ideas for your stories. Please elaborate : My inspiration can come from many different places. Perhaps a concept from a book/film/tv show, an experience that happened to me or someone I know, a prompt/title, a song or even learning details of a new kink or slang term.
I wrote “She Wants Him in the Worst Way” after watching a short Gif.
I heard the song “break up with your girlfriend I’m bored,” by Ariana Grande on the radio. It sparked me to write “Forget your Fiance, Pick Me”.
5. As humans, we suffer without knowing it by choosing not to move outside our comfort zone. Do you have a “comfort zone” in writing ( i.e a topic that you always like to write about)? Have you tried to step outside your comfort zone and write something drastically different?
Do we suffer from not going outside our comfort zone? Perhaps you mean we limit ourselves, which I’m more inclined to agree with. I am attracted to a personality, not the look of a person, so in my scenes with sex, I write less about 1-night-stands and casual hook-ups and more about romantic meet-cutes and what makes sparks fly in established relationships. That’s my preferred end of the scale.
I also love YA novels, where experiences are being learned, and the protagonist finds everything either fresh or confusing. The life of a young adult is more of a blank notebook or untrodden snow than an older person. Plus a character who is reluctant to ask for advice or listen to guidance makes for great plot tension. In my youth, I remember feeling everything intensely, a bad experience was like a wound, and a good experience could be all-consuming. Life is a rollercoaster, hence I enjoy writing this genre.
6. Besides Medium, do you use other writing platforms? Please share your experiences.
Yes, I do. I write erotic fiction for FrolicMe & Meet Rosy. For these sex-positive sites, I create original fiction which strives to enhance women’s positivity about their needs and desires. As a bonus, their excellent editors encourage me to grow and polish my writing to a high shine.
Early versions of my fledgling stories still exist on Literotica which is easy to use and a popular destination for the 1-handed reader. There’s no money in it, but the quantity of views is an ego boost!
7. Have you published a book? If yes, how and where…etc. Plz, feel free to share your links with us.
Not a whole book, that is still a goal of mine, but I am in these 3 anthologies: The Gift — Compiled by Kate Pasithea Breaking Limits : Strong Women Letting Go — Compiled by Vlad Lioncourt Best Bondage Erotica of the Year, Volume 2 — Compiled by Rachel Kramer Bussel I’m also one of seven diverse contributors who kept a diarised record of how we fared in the first week of the Covid-19 Pandemic Seven Days in April : The Lockdown Diaries — Compiled by May More 💜 Tales
All these books are available from Amazon, but some are also available from Book Hub and Smashwords.
8. You write because writing provides you with something special. Could you share your experience?
Creativity is a wonderful thing, which buoys me along and lifts my spirits; when I’m not doing something creative, I feel kind of blocked or fidgety. In previous years I channelled my energies into arts and crafts, scrapbooking, and cardmaking, but since I began blogging, and now writing on-line, I have found my niche. Younger me wanted to be a journalist or writer, so I am living my dream.
9. Do you write a paragraph, a chapter, or a story with the end in mind or not? plz explain: Sometimes. I usually have a rough idea of the point I want to make, a situation I’ll portray, plus I have roughly shaped my main character. I start to write, and as the characters flesh out from 2D to 3D, their personality(ies) often influence the direction of the plot. The more clearly I see them, the better I can discern how they would react to the situations in which I place them. They might even give me a twist that wasn’t in my rough draft.
Example: When I wrote Jack-Off I planned only to demonstrate gaslighting: A confident girl becoming a cowed shadow of her former self after hooking up with a toxic guy. The setting was a working man’s club because the loser doesn’t take her anywhere fancy. The barman popped up in my plot because the boyfriend sent her to get a drink. Here was someone who saw the spark of the girl as she used to be. From their interaction, the girl derives a much-needed confidence boost, providing an upturn in her attitude. I hadn’t planned my ending, but suddenly I saw one with the girl and the guy behind the bar.
10. Every writer has an idol. Who is yours? And what do you find inspiring in her/his trajectory?
I’m not a writer with an idol — I have authors I love to read: Jane Austen, Holly Black, Maggie Steifvater, Diana Gabaldon, Rin Chupeco, Charlaine Harris, Jennifer Crusie. When I was younger that list would have been different: Patricia Cornwell, Jilly Cooper, Dean Koontz, Janet Evanovitch, Anita Blake, JR Rain. The common ingredient is how well the authors know their characters and the world in which they portray them. They take me there too, always making me want to know more.
Some books have felt like eureka moments to read: Great Expectations, The Thirty-nine Steps, The Great Gatsby, The Turn of the Screw, White Teeth, Fingersmith.
Two writers who know their craft inside out: Agatha Christie and Stephen King.
11. Does being on a writing platform like Medium help your writing plans? Plz, elaborate.
In many ways it does — it is easy to publish and label (with tags), Medium has great layout options, including use of images. But sometimes it is tempting to press publish too soon, many of the publications I write for trust my work to be ‘ready’ because I submit it, when it could still be improved by a beta-read. (It’s one of the things we do at my publication, Tantalizing Tales, ensure that every story gets the input of an editor).
Comments from readers can be really helpful, telling me what bits worked (and maybe what didn’t), and feedback on what they want more/less of is invaluable. There is much to learn from an editor who ‘red pens’ all over my first draft; sharing stories on Medium then consuming the reader’s comments and private notes can work in the same way.
Obviously reads and claps are encouraging, but I often write erotica, and Medium does not promote content of that nature. So I need to be self-sufficient in promotion and must rely on word of mouth, networking, and, of course, choosing engaging images, titles, and subheadings, so that’s a little drawback. In fact fiction writing on Medium is the poor relation to non-fiction. Engaging and original fiction must fight to be found and boosted amongst a sea of listicles, self-help articles and posts about cryptocurrency or getting more views on the platform.
But I can’t moan too much because I am doing what I love … and loving what I am doing.
This is written in response to an article by Subhi Najar, but I was tagged either by Marie A. Rebelle or Celia McKinley, writers whose style I admire. I wonder if I could persuade Ravyne Hawke, H.A.L., E. Ardincaple or Jay C Wells to share?
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