Why Writing Erotica is... Weird

 

Vanessa Hawkins Author Page

I wanted to call this blog post: Neurotic Erotica, but I didn't think it quite got the point across. Now I am an avid fan of assonance. Chaotic Erotica, Psychotic Erotica, and Hypnotic Erotica were all valid choices, but the fact of the matter is erotica... and writing it... 

is weird. 

Now I'm not bashing the genre! I have greedily offered many hours of my life to the pursuit of reading words that might offer the slightest tingle or giddy laugh in the middle of a rainy day... or on a bus ride, or at work... or during... I dunno, a family reunion or somethi--

Ahem! 

But! 

Not that kind of butt! Get your head outta the gutter.

...There is a world of difference between reading something spicy and writing your own. I am quickly learning this the hard way. 

Hur hur! No pun intended...

READING sexually explicit material is... well, discreet. It feels okay to do on a crowded bus or in lieu of your biology class, because the only thing giving us away is perhaps the front cover. But even cover pages are becoming less obvious! Unlike flipping the centerfold of an old playboy magazine during your daily Americano at that high traffic Starbucks downtown, we are free to wallow in our lewd literature because at the end of the day, it is head and shoulders classier, even if it isn't!

Even if it isn't... 😒😒😒

But personal taste aside, WRITING erotica--at least for me--is entirely different. Writing erotica is like tossing yourself off a cliff and hoping that someone catches you at the bottom and likes what you've happened to wear that day. It's being that weird woman at the typewriter, living out her own lecherous fantasies while she takes you along for the ride. It's... weird... 

...but only because we're inviting you. In fact... we hope you tag along and recommend us to all your friends!

"Captain Pedro's buff trouser soldier was in full salute at the sight
of Madame Avery's ankles on display..." This is sure to get five star reviews!

 On top of that, there is always the awkward time of completion where you sit and wonder if you really want to let everyone read your guilty pleasures. I'm talking #authorproblems. 

Like I've said before, I've read erotica. I'm not ashamed to say it! I READ SMUT! However, now that I am writing something that I want to eventually publish, but also has the potential to be terribly embarrassing/controversial/etcetera... there is the issue of whether I want to attach my real name to said piece of scandalous pron. 

I know you're proud of me for becoming a 
published author, Mom... but my new book has tentacles... and people
who sit on cakes for fun...

On one hand, doing so will ensure that I receive sales from my usual group of fans. It means I can do book launches, online video giveaways, signings, you name it! But... it also means that people will know I wrote it. It means other weirdos may see me as their own personal sexy safe space. It means people might think I'm into all the weird stuff I write... it means...

...

...

...

that my family may read it. 

AHHHHHHHHHH! 

So what do I do!? Narcotic Erotica! That's what I should have named this post, because if I ever finish my next work in progress, I am going to need narcotics to get through the marketing phase!--which, by the way, is the devil.

How do other authors cope?! How do they continue on writing salacious material without an alias and without having awkward dinner conversations at Christmastime with grandma?! What in the heck do I do?? How do I respond to the question of... hey there, Vanessa! Heard you were coming out with a new book! What's it called? 

It's called...Lord of the Flings, Middle Girth...
thanks for asking Auntie Anne 

So I am at a loss. I suppose I should just write the darn thing first, figure out what to do later. But still... it's eating at me... I need to figure it out! Any advice? I know what George's response would be at least... 

Just don't finish it!

 

But what about yours? What would you do? 

HALP!

Can you tell a book by its cover?...by Sheila Claydon

Click here for my BWL page

Once, long ago, I wrote under the pen name Anne Beverley, and Golden Girl was my first published book. Then I wrote more books, still as Anne Beverley, until my family eventually persuaded me to stop hiding behind a pseudonym and write under my real name. That earlier book was still out there though, and to say the cover looks dated is an understatement!

Original cover

Then, many books later, the publishing house that owned it closed and the publishing rights returned to me. I sold it on to another publisher on the proviso that it would now be published under my real name. But in the field of publishing things are not always straightforward, so in the end I had to agree to Sheila Claydon writing as Anne Beverley, as well as a new cover. One that was certainly an improvement on the first.

Second edition cover

Then, a few years later, the same thing happened all over again. Another publisher, this time Books We Love, another cover and, finally, Golden Girl published under my own name. By then this book had been out there for a long time, so now it is a vintage romance with characters behaving a little differently than we expect them to in the twenty-first century. The heroine is still feisty though. It just takes her a little longer to get there!

Third edition cover

Now, thankfully, all my books bar one are with BWL Publishing, and I am very happy indeed about that.

In my next blog I will introduce another of those early books together with the covers they have had over the years. In the meantime, if you would like to have a taster of Golden Girl, then go to the Book Snippets page on my Website and let it take you back to what it was like to be a secretary in a large company in London and Paris in 1964. Manual typewriters, desk phones connected to a central switchboard, no screens, hardback dictionaries, shorthand dictation, blotting paper...I could go on. It was a different world except for one thing...people still liked to read romances. And if you would like to let me know which of these is your favourite cover, I'd love to know.