Writing: Why Do I Write Erotic Stories?

That's a question I often ask myself and I'm still struggling with the answer. The rewards, financially at least, are meagre. I certainly don't do it to be famous. That's the last thing on my mind. I value my privacy. You won't find any huge two page spreads in national newspapers telling the world how wonderful I am, or fancy overblown articles on websites and you won't see a photo of me anywhere online or in my ebooks. I don't need the trappings of fame, though a little more money would be useful - I do have the basic human necessity to eat and drink and keep a roof over my head, like everybody else. It's not an easy task. I've spent days poring over a single paragraph trying to find out why it doesn't work and trying to fix it.

So why do it?

I'm reminded of a story I read a long time ago of a writer who, not doing so well, made a pact with the devil. The terms of the contract were that he'd be assured of great prosperity and fame in return for handing over his soul at the allotted time. As planned, he enjoyed a lot of success with his stories but when the time came for the devil to collect, the man's soul was missing. It turned out that he'd left a tiny bit of himself in every single story he'd written. The devil couldn't spare the time to hunt down all those hundreds of thousands of little scraps of soul so, grudgingly, conceded defeat.

What's the point of that?

I guess that when you write, you are putting down a little of yourself for the world to see, revealing some of your own thoughts and attitudes as you go. I obsessed over my first story. I took ages to release it, bracing myself for the flood of negative comments. They actually didn't materialise - neither did any positive comments but that's another matter entirely. Now I just push the stories out when they're ready to publish and hope for the best.

One reason for writing that I came up with would be to put myself, mentally at least, into my stories. Who wouldn't want to be that tall lithe green eyed beauty clattering down the street without a care in the world in her ridiculous boots with a plume of flame coloured hair billowing out behind her? (You can meet this beautiful fantasy in my story "Watching the Girls" - part of the "Just Girls" collection)

A Good Enough Reason?

I suppose, at the end of the day, I just take pleasure in writing the way I do. I like reading erotic literature and I enjoy writing it - which, since it's not hurting anybody else, or myself for that matter, is a good enough reason to do it…

Here's an interesting post on Aerogramme Writers Studio: Why I Write: 23 Fascinating Quotes From Famous Authors.

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This is part of a collection of thoughts on writing that I'll be posting as and when I complete each part. When complete, it'll all be packaged into a free ebook (probably)...