Do you ever wonder?

All right. I'll admit I peruse random sites when they offer free books. Lately I caught some from B&N, and one of them - seriously - was amateurish. No punctuation in the proper places, plus the narrator told me what was going on through 80% of the story. I skimmed it, deleted it, then started thinking.

I know I write better than that. I have a decent grasp of showing versus telling. Punctuation is not a problem unless it gets fancy, and I can reword a couple sentences if I have to get around it. I have a few stories I could take out there to Smashwords (where they originated) and see what happens.

My reluctance stems from time commitments. I have several things pressing, and I'm not sure how much time I have to market the things. The other question is length. Since many of my stories are very short, I'm not sure how I'd put them together - in collections or by themselves or what.

So I'm curious - for those of you who read erotica - how do you buy it? Do you buy it? Do you look at it only if it's free? Do you want good descriptions in order to grab your interest? Do you want a certain length for $0.99, or per dollar spent? What makes that worth the investment? Where do you look for it? And, last question, would you buy, read, rate my stories if I got them out there?

Looks Can Be Deceiving

If you just went with posting frequency to this blog, you might think there was nothing on my mind. I'd assure you that isn't the case, but most of my readers know that I'm simply preoccupied with other matters.

Which is sad, because this part of my brain has been working overtime while I sleep. If I blogged that on a daily basis, you'd all stay tuned, I'm sure.

I thought today that I ought to change this blog's title to something more appropriate. Erotica Musings strikes me as what I'd like to be saying, knowing full well that half or more of the erotic musings I get don't make it into the blog, but into my varied stories. I suppose it'll take me awhile to figure out exactly what I'm attempting to share here.

Or I could easily just get my money's worth from the 18+ rating on this blog. Sex and more graphic sex. I've been expressing myself through sex, for the most part, but in a way that simply doesn't require the content rating.

Just letting everyone know that I'm still here. My brain isn't empty. I'm just considering options. Wouldn't mind if you'd want to weigh in. Thanks!

And for all of you playing at home, I hope you didn't forget National Underwear Day on August 5.

Teen Pregnancy

Recently, a friend of mine wrote a story that featured a pregnant teen. I found it interesting, her point was that hiding from the problem - or just hiding the problem - wasn't going to solve anything.

Perhaps the question is about how to bring awareness to the problem without everyone yelling about promotion of it. Is it about celebrities who are not celebrities just because they had a child as a teenager? One of said celebrities is listed as an abstinence spokesperson on wikipedia.

I read a lot of articles about teen pregnancy today. One thing I find very interesting is that most of the data saying teen pregnancy is increasing is reporting data from 2005 to 2007. Even most of the data printed in 2010 leads back to those years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27teen.html
http://www.cdc.gov/Features/dsTeenPregnancy/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/25/AR2010012503957.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2010/12/teen_birth_rate_hits_record_lo.html

So the things that are changing in a positive way. It's still very disturbing that the US has the highest teen pregnancy rate in any industrialized nation. So what are they doing that we're not? Why isn't that the question we're asking? Why don't we figure out what's different between the cultures that have significantly lower birth rates and ours? Maybe that would make too much sense.

The media has decided to make teen pregnancy something we see- we have shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager dedicated to showing some of the drawbacks (though they've been criticized for not showing enough about contraception and STIs) and others like 16 and Pregnant actually touted for lowering the pregnancy rate among teens in its documentary-style presentation.

Why is it, then, that so many people have mentioned to me that these television shows are promoting teens getting pregnant? Maybe because the last time they heard about teen pregnancy rates, it was before any of those shows aired, before those 'celebrities' had their babies, and years out of date. It's so tough to keep up with those statistics.

Cliches and Writing

Have you ever noticed that so many pieces of advice given by writers to writers are just cliches? Then they tell us not to write in cliches. It's just beautiful.

Here are some cliches for thought:
Show, Don't Tell
Write What You Know
Writers Write
Criticize the manuscript, not the author.
You must finish what you start.

And with that lovely start of a list, I think I'd better get back to the actual writing.

Favorite Erotic Words

A friend asked me what my five favorite erotic words were, and I don't have a clue. Is this something writers can rattle off the top of their heads? Should we be able to spout off favorite words?

Wouldn't that mean we're using those words far too often by reason of word density or whatever?

While there are only so many body parts that can be used to write erotica, there are names aplenty for all of them. Just note the 'throbbing member' ridiculed by so many.

Okay, I can't say I've actually written anything and used the term 'throbbing member' but sometimes it just seems like there ought to be a way to use it without giggling horribly at the purple prose.

I think one of mine is pussy. Yes, I know some would argue that belongs in pornography and not erotica. I don't really care. It isn't about shock value for an explicit word. It's just a good way to counteract my erotica pet peeve of referring to the woman's genitalia as her 'sex'. Really? Sex? That's the best you can do? Can you find a less descriptive word out there for it?

I've struggled through several books that used 'sex' as the only word for pussy. It's repetitive, boring, and I cringe every time. It may sound odd, but I'd rather see 'cunt' in print. Next to that, pussy looks pretty good, huh?

And get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about the words! Link to find more words here.

Happy Birthday, BC Pill!

Hard to believe it's been 50 years. So many innovations to make our lives both simpler and more complex; this is the beauty of modern life. We might be able to imagine life a hundred or more years ago without a pill or even a lot of reliable barrier methods to prevent pregnancies. No wonder so many families were larger back then.

And yet the Catholic Church still wants women to churn out new converts as fast as their bodies can stand. Well, not the entire Church - just the Pope, beginning with Pope Paul VI, who had a few commissions going about the Church's stance on contraception in the 1960s. Read more here. I love that everyone overwhelmingly voted to change the policy, and the Pope didn't listen.

If women don't listen to this edict, will they listen to other teachings of the Church? I guess that's the Church's problem.

In writing news, I received two rejections this week. Tough, but I resubmitted one and I'm looking to rewrite the other. The editors had some good points.

Zoning Out

I don't think it's too far from the norm to quit writing as much erotica after having a baby. It's just such a struggle to get back into that mindset.

Part of it is the hormones. Since I'm breastfeeding, hormones are released to keep me satisfied. Or so they tell you.

Have you ever tried to write erotica when your hormones say you have no interest in sex? Maybe things will change soon. Until then... I'll find something else to write about. Emotions, for instance, are not nearly so elusive at the moment.