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This is number forty-one in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
THIS ABOVE ALL, to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3
I’m not sure how long before I was actually cast in Hamlet I became aware of this quote. I suspect, however, that I assumed it was biblical. Any good quote must have come from the Bible. Right?
But it’s one of the gems of literature that I also think is often misinterpreted. When I hear it quoted these days, it is usually to the tune of “I do whatever I want and I speak my mind no matter what.” That essentially denies the preceding twenty-one lines of fatherly advice Polonius gives his son Laertes before sending him off to France. The beginning of this soliloquy is “And these few precepts in thy memory look thou character.” Polonius generally exhorts his son to high character, reserved behavior, and limited speech. He expects that his advice to be true to himself is reflected in a noble character.
Which brings me to writing erotica. I write, as I said last week, to be read. Unlike the writers I hear who state they don’t write for others, only for themselves, so they don’t need to please anyone else, I do write for others. But at the same time, I must be true to myself.
When I first started writing erotica, I was surprised at the response of readers to what I was writing. I originally wrote The Art and Science of Love as a kind of therapy because I needed a happy ending. The success of the serial surprised me and lifted my spirits considerably. I decided to write a book that I’d thought of years earlier, but never really got off the ground. But it would be a long story and I wanted to keep my name fresh in the minds of readers on SOL so they didn’t forget about me.
That next story—a short story titled “Welded Together”—was a dismal failure. There were some real reasons it flopped and they were lessons I needed to learn. You see, ASL and “Welded Together” were not my first projects. I already had three books in the market with more underway. I’d published over a dozen books by other authors. I considered myself a professional in the industry.
But I started writing on SOL because I wanted a happy ending, and I forgot that was what most of my readers also wanted. My literary fiction and mysteries (see Wayzgoose on SOL or Nathan Everett on Bookapy) did not have particularly happy endings. People who read those genres are not necessarily looking for happy endings. I betrayed my own intent, however, by giving “Welded Together” a bitter ending, and I received scathing comments as a result. I rewrote the ending in time to stem the flood, but the story was not very good at that point.
The story stuck with me because I thought the concept had a lot of potential that I’d failed to live up to. So, when I wrote the stories in Pygmalion Revisited a few years later, I rewrote that story as “Iron Alchemy” and included it in my stories of Pygmalion. “Rewrote” is too light a term. I completely threw out the story and started from scratch with the same basic theme, and it is one of the most beautiful stories in the collection. The fact was that in the original, I had not been true to either myself or my readers—corrected in the new version. Pygmalion Revisited is available on SOL by author aroslav.
So, my first principle in writing erotica is that we get a happy ending. If I don’t have a happy ending to my erotic stories, then I’m not being true to myself or my readers.
However, that doesn’t automatically make every story happy all the way through. In fact, my second principle is that you can’t have a “happily ever after” if you have “happily ever before.” Pain and loss are things that make people compassionate, loving, empathetic, and aware. Loss is an obstacle that must be overcome in order to have that happy ending.
I have often been accused of letting my liberal political views creep into my stories. In fact, I recently received a truly lovely (unintentionally) compliment in the comments to Double Take. “Woke garbage,” said Papawtoo. Thank you. I try to always be aware of and concerned about social injustice. That is the definition of woke, and I’m happy that makes it into my stories. For me, that means equally fair treatment to characters of all races, religions, genders, sexual preferences, and political viewpoints. It is who I am and I must be true to it.
I place a disclaimer at the head of my stories now that I never used to consider important.
This book contains content of an adult nature.
This includes explicit sexual content and characters whose beliefs may be contrary to your religious, political, or world view.
If a person is unable to deal with religious, political, or world views that differ from their own, I don’t consider them adult enough to read my stories. You don’t have to agree with it. Just deal with your own response to it. I don’t write material to offend people. I write material that will be thought-provoking and entertaining.
“This above all, to thine own self be true.”
What and who I am will always be revealed through my stories. I cannot help it and wouldn’t if I could. There is nothing about my religion or politics that requires me to convince you that I am right. Nor is there anything in my religion or politics that requires me to listen to you trying to convince me.
Enjoy the story for what it is.
I remember hearing once that the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction must be believable. Next week, I’ll deal with what is believable and what is not believable in erotica: Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
This is number forty in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I'll also mention that as of this posting, my Sunday chapter of Over Exposure has not yet cleared the posting queue. It is currently list as "Submission Processing." It happens sometimes. The chapter will be up soon, I'm certain.
“YIKES!”
That’s internet alarmist-speak for “This person thinks his work is worth being paid for. Avoid!”
I made a point in my last post that the important things to me in writing erotica were:
1. Get readers to read what I’ve written.
2. Engage with readers and get feedback.
3. Write lots of different kinds of things.
I also said, “I realized that my heart wasn’t in the idea of writing for money.” So, why the heck do I sell my books?
When I burned out in theatre in 1978, I started my career writing and publishing technical manuals and training material. Times were hard. I wanted to be a novelist and possibly a playwright. But I needed money. Something about paying rent and eating. I was fond of both. My one marketable skillset, honed during my graduate studies and previous jobs in film, was my ability to type 100+ words per minute on a Selectric typewriter. When I presented that credential to a temporary agency and they tested me to confirm, I was immediately sent out on a replacement secretary position for a home manufacturer.
I’d been at the company for a week or two when one of the company executives passed my desk. He turned around and came back to me and accusingly said, “You aren’t really a secretary. What do you really do?”
With the first test of big balls I didn’t know I had, I responded, “I’m a writer.”
“Good! Come to my office. I have a job for you.”
Who knew getting a job as a writer was so easy?
I was met at his office by a director of sales and they laid out a writing assignment for a three-volume sales training manual and paid me close to $6,000 over the next six months to write and produce it! In 1978, that was a lot of money!
I was hooked. I could get money for writing about subjects I technically knew nothing about. They paid me to learn the steps of the sales process, the construction process, and the financing, so I could in turn teach it to sales people who knew even less about it than I did.
That started a journey into writing and publishing that has continued to this day, though the characteristics have changed significantly. It was always, “Learn something so thoroughly you can teach it, and then write about it.” It’s funny, but even in writing erotica, I’ve had to learn art, racquetball, cooking, television and movie production, photography, government, real estate, ranching, music, history, autism, basketball, martial arts, military ranks and government pay scales, theatre, paganism, Greek mythology, world history, and much more. I had to learn the subjects well enough that I could talk about them convincingly in a story (though I’m still caught out by real subject matter experts on many stories).
So, writing erotica was much like writing the technical manuals and training material for other subjects. But I was doing it for free. I posted my stories at StoriesOnline as serials and anyone who wanted to could read them. People started contacting me—unsolicited—asking me how they could contribute to my writing fund. I accepted donations and after a great deal of encouragement, began to produce eBooks and even some paperbacks.
I discovered that nearly all my donations and sales came from people who had already read all or part of the story online for free. People were willing to pay for my stories! But I also remembered when I started reading erotica on ASSTR and from there was introduced to SOL, I didn’t have any spare money. The idea of paying to read a sex story was insane. I was going through loss of job/income, divorce, and unsettlement. I couldn’t ‘waste’ money on a feelgood story.
The more I wrote and the more I was introduced to my readers—including over 400 respondents to a survey—the more I realized that the vast majority of my readers were in the same boat. Unable or unwilling to pay for stories. Just like I had been. So, I made a pledge that all my stories would be available for people to read online for free. Period.
That did not preclude me from selling eBooks and paperbacks through other channels. To this day, 90% of my sales are to people who have either read or are reading the story online for free. The same is true of my Patreon members. I do not feel dependent on those sales and contributions for survival—as I once felt about my technical and non-fiction writing—but they do enhance my quality of life, as the only other income I have is social security.
In the publishing world, my erotica is authored by Devon Layne. My online moniker for those stories is aroslav. My literary fiction, mystery, and thriller is authored by my alter ego Nathan Everett. My online moniker for those stories is Wayzgoose. You can find all my stories available for free online reading, and I renew my pledge to continue that practice. Nearly all my stories are also available through major eBook distributors. My patrons receive my new eBooks for free, in advance of their public release.
I’m a little behind on getting blog posts written in advance, but my intent is to continue the series next week with an analysis of what works and what doesn’t work in my erotica. I think I’ll title this one, “To thine own self be true.”
This is number thirty-nine in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.”
So, how do I celebrate the end of NaNoWriMo 2023? My 2023 novel has not left me devastated or depressed. Readers will probably be happy about that, too. But writing a story with a really happy ending is very much in mind. And I have a few of those stories ready to be finished.
I’m in the mood to have a little magic in my life. I think my editors will like the change of pace a bit, too. The first series of stories I began back in the late 1970s was “The Props Master” series. But before I finished it, I became wrapped up earning a living and writing non-fiction. So, I think it is time to complete “The Props Master” book four, Child of Earth.
["YES! - editor Pixel the Cat]
The entire first three volumes of “The Props Master” were focused on ‘the real world’ in which some mystical things seemed to happen. Those who believed saw the magic. Those who didn’t merely saw coincidence. In Child of Earth, it will be far more difficult to ignore the supernatural occurrences as anything other than supernatural. That will be how I celebrate NaNoWriMo 2023 TGIO. I’ll start writing it this week.
I’m aware that my blog about My Life in Erotica has not had much to do with erotica the past two months, but has rather been generally about writing. Well, writing good erotica requires the same disciplines that any good writing does. But next week, I’ll get back to looking at erotica more specifically with “Profit and Non-Profit.”
This is number thirty-eight in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.
And so is The Staircase of Dragon Jerico. Or at least it will be this week. There is always a sense of joy, accomplishment, and let-down when I reach the end of NaNoWriMo. Next week: “TGIO.”
This is number thirty-seven in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.
Well, the US Thanksgiving Holiday is coming this week. I’ve made a reservation at a local restaurant for my ‘traditional’ prime rib dinner. Thanksgiving’s also a time traditionally reserved for catching up on NaNoWriMo for those who are behind. Then we have the ever-popular “Sprint to the Finish.” Next week.
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