A brand new free erotica story that I'm glad got rejected the first time

I'll be writing more about how to handle writing rejection and turn it into a positive step for your career soon, but today I want to highlight one example. My story "Spitting Image" is up today at Tamsin Flowers' Supererotica Advent calendar. I recommend reading all the entries; you can start with day 1, which features "Fallen" by Tamsin Flowers.



She's asking readers to donate to these charities, if you're so inclined: Crisis, The Albert Kennedy Trust or Coalition for the Homeless.

I'm thrilled to have a new, original story free for you to read, because most of my writing lately has been nonfiction, with my only new erotic fiction stories appearing in my recent and upcoming anthologies such as Come Again, Dirty Dates and Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1.

What's especially gratifying for me about this particular story is that I had submitted it to an anthology and gotten good feedback on it, only to later have it be rejected. Of course, I was disappointed. I wondered: What's wrong with my oral sex sensuous spit story? Was I foolish to expect it to make the cut? Am I bad at the male POV?

But then I smartly shook my head, drew up my shoulders, and decided to send my little tale out in the world. I was proud of it and didn't need to take one person's no for an answer. So I sent it to Tamsin and she loved it! Now, I'm not saying it's "good" because someone else approved of it; I don't believe in that. "Good" is by and large subjective—and yes, I say that as someone who teaches erotica writing classes and does believe anyone, certainly including myself, can improve and deepen their writing. But at the end of the day, you can't make someone like your work. You can't insist they read it or appreciate it. You can only work to find what Jennifer Lee calls in Building Your Business the Right-Brain Way your "right peeps." Tamsin is one of my right peeps, and I'm thrilled she chose my story for her project.

No matter what form it takes, rejection isn't fun. I'm actually already dreading having to do it for my next call for submissions, which I hope to have posted in the next few weeks (yes, it's awful to be on the side doing the rejecting too). But it's also part of writing (and dare I say, also part of life), and is why I recommended the podcast Behind the Prose with Keysha Whitaker, because in one episode I listened to, she said, "Getting rejected is part of the process. If you're not getting rejected, that means you're not writing." Sorry, I can't remember the exact episode, but what's great about her podcast is she opens by talking about her writing acceptances and rejections. She normalizes rejection, which is good because she's absolutely right: whether you're talking about fiction or nonfiction, rejection is part and parcel of the process of sending out your work.

The only way to never get rejected is to never submit anything, which is also a valid choice, and not one I mean to malign, but if your goal is to be read by a wide audience, unless you're building that audience via self-publishing or a blog or podcast or some other means, you will need to risk your work being rejected by someone. Once, I was determined to break into a certain online literary journal. I thought that doing so would mean I'd "made it," that I was smart and cool and as good a writer as someone I was desperately jealous of. I submitted three times (and this is one that charges a small fee to submit) before I realized I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I didn't stop submitting because I was afraid of rejection, which had already happened, but because that particular quest was pointless and the rejections were hitting me way too hard (so hard that one led to one of the worst and craziest decisions of my life, which is also a story for another day, but let's just say something illegal was involved in my post-rejection stupor).

I made the leap of risking rejection with this story, "Spitting Image," twice; once my story got the boot, and once it got a thumbs up. It's still the same story, and it's not a "better" or "sexier" story because someone said yes to it. What it is is available for you to read for free. I hope you like it!

What erotica writers thought about the #AskELJames Twitter Q&A

I decided to ask erotica writers what they thought about yesterday's #AskELJames Twitter chat. Their varied takes are up at The Frisky. Thanks to writers Rose Caraway, Abigail Ekue, Tamsin Flowers, Shanna Germain, Tasha L. Harrison, A.M. Hartnett, Oleander Plume and Remittance Girl for sharing their thoughts!



Yes, I do have a copy of Grey, but don't think I'll be formally reviewing it, though I will be writing about BDSM and submission in real life soon. Stay tuned!

Should erotica writers include safer sex in their fiction?

That's the question I pose at Salon, where their subtitle is "Erotica authors don't degree on safe sex demands. I answer by way of opinions from blogger Reading with Analysis, Angie Lynch of review site Shameless Book Club, as well as erotica and erotic romance authors KD Grace, Tamsin Flowers, Tiffany Reisz, Lucy Felthouse, Nicola James, Remittance Girl and Solace Ames. Thank you to everyone who responded to me for this article, those I could include and those I couldn't, and as always, feel free to pitch me on article and column topics at rachelkb at gmail.com - I've got lots more on the way this month!

Erotica Writing Tip Tuesday #1

I am trying to get myself back to regular blogging, and one thing I think will help is having some regular features. So every Tuesday I'm going to share something I've learned about erotica writing based on my writing for the past 15 years and editing for the past 10. I'll do my best to make them practical. Of course, this is my utterly subjective POV and you are welcome to take or ignore or vehemently disagree with my advice. These are things that have worked for me or things I've noticed from other people's work. They aren't all going to work for everyone, but if you're like me and often get stuck in coming up with plots or characters or figuring out what the next step is with your erotica, these may give you a little boost.

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1. Write about more than two people

Now, I don't mean that every time you write erotica there should be three or more people. Two people, or even one, are more than enough for good erotica. But I've found that after writing dozens of two person stories, sometimes I want to add a little more to the action; I want those "extra" characters to help drive the action. There are some major advantages for the writer of adding a person:

more drama - who is the third (or fourth/fifth/etc.) person? are there three or more single people joining forces, or a solo person joining a couple? If it's a solo person with a couple, whose POV is the story told from? How did they all get together? Was it spontaneous or very well planned?

more emotion, more POVs - whether they are polyamorous, swingers, first time threesome enjoyers, the emotional stakes are often higher. You can tell the story in first person, second or third, as always, but either way you go, there's more people to take into consideration. If it's a couples with person A and person B getting it on with person C, told from person A's point of view, A gets to observe B and C, interact with each and see how they interact with each other. Maybe person A thinks they know everything about B, but learns something new about them they'd never considered even after a long time together by watching them with C. I think here is where three or more people can truly add to the stakes of a story like this.

more physical description - you're adding at least two eyes, two hands, two nipples, two ears, etc. to the mix, so you have more room, plus if you've got, say, three people, there are so many more possible permutations to the physical action); voyeurism and exhibitionism - this is practically built into the story when there's more than two people, and can be played up to the hilt; teasing/talking about one of the characters to another - with two people, of course there are plenty of dirty talk opportunities, but with three or more, you can talk about someone right to their face, tease them by discussing them as an object, play up their helplessness or their power; two people can tag team dirty talk a third. There's really endless room for the kinds of conversations that may ring false with just two people.

your story stands out - unless you're writing for a specific menage or multiple partner market, if you make your characters polyamorous or swingers or simply solo sexy folks who get together in some fashion, you're making your piece stand apart from those writing about two people. This isn't some magic bullet that will get your piece published, but it is a way to possibly stand out and also could lead to future writings. In the above example, maybe your first story is from person A's POV, but a future story deals with that same couple but is from person B's POV.

To see an example from my writing, check out the excerpt of my sexy, sadistic dom with two subs (and a bonus one for the sake of the story) tale "Dual Mastery" at Tamsin Flowers' Superotica Avent Calendar. The story is from Best Bondage Erotica 2014 which you can read in print or ebook or listen to:




Amazon

Kindle ebook edition

Amazon UK

Bn.com

Nook ebook edition

Books-a-Million

Powell's

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore)

Audible audiobook (click through for a free sample listen)

Cleis Press