I just completed my first ten-chapter
erotica story this month, a book that I started over 20 years ago. It took me
three weeks to edit it. I wrote many stories and poetry over the years but
never published them formally. “Maestro Island,” my latest published tome, well
sort of as this book is part of an erotic series titled Erotica Manifesto – is
a self published digital book through Kindle Digital Publishing. The printed
version of my story will be released in three weeks. What an amazing impression
to have accomplished writing a substantial book and then seeing it uploaded
onto Amazon’s self-publishing platform. This gives me a sense of control over
my own literary business. Of course, it will be a challenge, as I do not have
an agent or a publishing machine to promote my book. What the hell? I’m
learning all about the publishing industry and what I do and don’t want for my
literary creations.
You see, I caught the travel bug
early in my life. That nasty bug first took me to Britain where I enrolled at
Cambridge University in Economics and British English courses during my college
days. I considered myself a very good writer and I do love to write, but
writing daily journals was not going to get me very far. After returning to LA
and finishing my education at USC, I went back to traveling globally, all the
while writing about my experiences while on the road, or in the air. Such
countries as China, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Dominican Republic, Japan,
and Thailand – I visited and in half of these countries I lived, even with my
daughter by my side as she grew up.
When I went
on the KDP website a few months ago, I thought excitedly, ‘OMG, I’ve been
saved!’ Over the years, I’ve submitted sample chapters of manuscripts I had
written and always received rejection letters from various publishers around
the country. Several months I would wait for an answer only to get a rejection.
None of the letters ever gave me a critical reason why my books were
unacceptable for publishing. Was it subject matter, was it poor quality, or was
it not marketable enough? These publishers gave me no clue.
It wasn’t
until this year that I felt that I should pick up the pin, literally, pull out
my old works, dust the pages off and start back to writing again. I am still
accustomed to writing down my thoughts and stories free hand in a notebook, and
then I type it out when I think my story is completed. However, I type all my
research for my stories into a word doc, as most of it is gathered by my
research assistant. Then I transfer it to Google docs so that I can share it
with my editor to do the necessary corrections.
Recently, I’ve gotten an itch to
write erotica. Though I’ve written on such subjects as socio-economics, secular
humanism, and corporate power fictional stories, I’m drawn to the subject of
sexual expression and freedom in today’s world. Something is lacking in a pure
and clean way we look at sexual passion in our society. Why does it all have to
be so capitalistic, turning sex into porn, $2.99 chat rooms, Vegas prostitution
and dirty magazine smut? Why does sex have to be associated with love to be
beautiful? I create tasteful erotica that is explicit but has sophisticated quality
and well-researched topics. I veer away from the typical smut and allusions to
pornography. You’ll get no ‘50 Shades of Shit’ in my stories. All scenarios and
characters that I develop in my stories are based on real experiences, real
people I’ve encountered and real places I’ve visited while on my travels. What
comes out of my head is what I’ve seen, done or witnessed. It is rare that I
would write something fabricated. Instead of just publishing what I’ve written
in my journals over the years, I’ve decided to put my journals into erotic
fiction.
I will eventually write about the
dichotomy between the impression of sex and its taboo stigma in our country’s
Christian community. Another subject that is important to me is the man’s role
in a woman’s sense of creativity and expression and how much the male presence
tends to skew the pure female experience in her creation. Then I’ll blog about
the educational system in America or lack of and the reasons why I give a
failing grade to our K-12 system.
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