A Long Unfinished Novel – What Do YOU Think?

So, a long time ago, I started a novel. I won’t give any specifics. I was very young, and so was the Internet. I threw some adolescent fantasies of ghosts and sexuality into ten chapters, half novel length, and shared them on nifty.org. It was an exciting time, kind of a thrill to be writing anonymously, and I loved getting feedback from readers. I still have those feedback emails… somewhere.

I put aside writing erotica for a lot of years, and turned to other writing pursuits. I pretty much forgot my unfinished novel.

Why won’t I share specifics? It was on Nifty. It must still be there, right? (It is.) Nor would I take it down. But I don’t think I want anyone to go chasing after it just now. You see, I recently dusted it off and started reading it for the first time in all these years. Some of it I really liked. Some of it made me say, “Wow! Did I write this?”

And some of it made me say, “That’s just bad storytelling,” or “Wow! That happened way too soon in the narrative!”

But I still like the idea a lot. I think it’s fun. I think it deserves to be finished.

So… While I ponder… I’d like to ask fellow readers and writers of erotica out there, do you think free services like Nifty are good marketing? Should I, as I develop a new version of this novel, or any other story I might share here, also cross-post there? Is there a downside?

What do you think?

 

Story: The Last Paltry Drops

So this story didn’t have a print version. It went straight to the Nobilis Erotica Podcast. I thought I’d just share the whole thing here. Hope you enjoy it, and please comment!

The figure stepped from the shadows. Indeed, for a moment it was naught but shadow. “Your Majesty?”

The Queen of Ireland turned, answering with a smile. “Lady Margause.” Naturally, a queen received a king’s sister with a smile, even though the Lady Margause had startled her. The Queen had been lost in thought, staring at the sun as it set over Camelot’s spires.

“I’m told your daughter Iseult is to marry King Mark of Cornwall.”

“Yes,” said the Queen.

“And yet I sense unrest in you. Do you oppose the match?”

“Not at all. What I oppose is…” The Queen shook her head. “I must not think of it.”

“Must not think of the love your daughter feels for the young knight, Tristan?” At the Queen’s surprised gaze, the newcomer added, “Anyone can see it in her eyes.”

“There is nothing to do but pray Tristan places honor above all.”

“Quite an expectation of a young, virile man. He accompanies your daughter to Cornwall… alone.”

The Queen shrugged, but it was clear she was disturbed at the prospect of Tristan and Iseult, alone on a boat for days.

Margause’s voice was soothing. It could be, when she needed it to be. “Perhaps you know my heritage. I am of the Fay.”

“I’ve heard rumors. I didn’t think it polite–”

“I’m not ashamed of what I am. And you will be thankful.” She produced a vial, which she held out to the Queen. “A powerful love potion. When Iseult tastes one portion, and King Mark the other, they will be inseparable, unable to love another.”

Wide-eyed, the Queen accepted the vial. “Why?” she asked.

“The Fay can see the future. I know Mark and Iseult must marry.”

“My maid, Brengwain travels with them. She shall carry it.”

The Queen hurried off, not noticing that the figure watching her go was no longer that of Margause.

Mordred hummed a happy tune. Impersonating his mother was one of the first tricks he’d learned. Stealing ingredients and recipes for potions from her was another. She’d refused him help. He’d taken it all the same. King Mark wanted Iseult for his bride. Iseult wanted Tristan. Mordred had his wants, too.

Tomorrow, the potion would be consumed by only one of the lovers. Mordred himself would have the other half. His beloved would love none but him.

Forever.

Upcoming Story – “The Boy He Left Behind”

When I decided to break away from mainstream writing–well, not break away. I’m still doing it. I should say, “When I decided to supplement my mainstream writing with erotica,” I started off by seeing what markets were out there. There are a few paying sites, a few paying podcasts, and usually there’s a call for several anthologies. Anthologies seemed like a good place to start. A book may be more permanent than a website, and some of the anthology publishers actually get their books on the shelves in brick-and-mortar stores.

One of the intriguing calls was from Cleis Press, for a collection called Warlords and Warriors. I immediately thought of Conan, but the description was broader. This collection would include stories from any historical period, about combatants in any war setting.

I don’t care for war stories. I don’t believe in war. It’s legalized madness, destructive to the human race. I never got off on Saving Private Ryan or any other war movie. The idea of men killing each other because they’re ordered to is just sick to me. I’m not a big Conan fan either.

But I was intrigued. Historically, warriors are men. That hasn’t always been true, and it’s changing. But the traditional view of a warrior is of a tough man without fear who subsumes his emotions in the interest of victory in battle. I think that was the point of the collection. What emotions do rage beneath the armor or in the chest bedecked with medals? If a warrior is a man, couldn’t he also be a gay man?

Also historically, the big wars were not fought by professional soldiers. They were fought by draftees, often young kids who wanted nothing to do with war, but were either legally bound, or morally blackmailed, into joining the fight. Since I hate war and refuse to glorify it, it seemed to me the story I would tell in this context would be about one of these. So I picked a war and a battle I was familiar with–the Battle of King’s Mountain from the American Revolution. I threw in a healthy dose of folklore–a mountain witch. And I made my story about Zeke, a boy whose first love is killed in the war. He meets Duncan, a British deserter who fled his first battle, guilt-ridden over actually killing a man. Zeke falls in love with Duncan, only to learn that the man Duncan killed was the love he lost to war.

What’s more important? Love of self, love of another, or love of country? Zeke wrestles with these questions in “The Boy He Left Behind.” It was my first piece of erotica written to sell, and it sold in 24 hours. I wish they were all that easy. With luck, Warlords and Warriors will be out in the Spring of 2016, edited by Rob Rosen, who has been a delight to work with.

Memories of Awakening… The Black Condor (Seriously?)

I’m a geek. I like comic books, science fiction novels, TV shows set in space, movies about super-heroes. So, naturally, when I started to wake up sexually, my fantasies were root in, well, fantasy. A lot of my early sexual feelings were triggered by heroes who explored space or had super-powers.

It wasn’t all the characters. A lot of them still seemed too different from me to be sexual. Mostly I noticed the ones close to my age. I don’t think that shows any innate morality. (I don’t know if I have any!) I think I was attracted to people I could see as being like me.

A lot of super-heroes have big muscles, wide pecs, firm, square jaws. A lot of super-heroines are intimidating, lacking the vulnerability that makes me feel a common cause with them. I didn’t really look at Superman, Batman or Thor as sexual beings. I noticed the Teen Titans, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Human Torch… the young heroes.

My comics-reading history goes back farther than I do, thanks to my inheriting comics from older relatives. I knew about characters that a lot of kids my age didn’t. Unlikely as it sounds, one of my first “awakening” moments was tied up in an obscure character called the Black Condor. This was a guy with no super power other than flight. He flew without wings or any sort of jetpack. He just defied gravity.

Normally, I wouldn’t have noticed him. Granted, he ran around in skimpy clothes, but… big muscles, wide pecs, firm, square jaw… not my thing. In one issue of Freedom Fighters from the 1970s, though, there was an origin story for him. As a child, he was orphaned in the desert. A mother Condor scooped him up and took him to her nest He was raised as a bird. He spent his childhood learning to fly like his “brothers.” His attempts were shown in flashback: a naked boy, running, jumping, trying to fly.

I’ve always been fascinated by nudity, even before I knew what sex was, or that nudity was supposed to be a sexual turn-on. I’m not even sure if my feelings about these images were rooted in sex. They were overlaid with sexuality because, at that time, everything was. I probably loved them for the same reason that, at a younger age, I loved reading about Tom and Huck swimming nude. I just loved the idea of being in a world so free that I didn’t have to hide anything.

No age was given for the boy show. I was 12 or 13 and I figured so was he. His youth said he was like me, and I felt a connection. His nudity, in addition to suggesting sexuality, suggested innocence and freedom, two concepts that tug my heartstrings to this day. His tentative attempts to fly and his subsequent successes evoked the joy of self-discovery.

Naked young man in flight. How’s that for Freudian? Hey, I was young. What did I know?

Thoughts on “The Last Paltry Drops”

There was a solicitation a while back for Arthurian stories. I’m not a rabid fan of King Arthur and his knights, but I studied Arthurian legend in college, including accounts by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chretien De Troyes, Sir Thomas Mallory, T.H. White and Mary Stewart. I figured I could tell a new story of the knights and damsels.

But what story? I’m not a rabid fan because I don’t really get into the characters. Arthur’s not a very nice guy, really. You can talk about his honor and his leadership, but, in the end, a hell of a lot of people died because his wife cheated with a Frenchman. And then he made peace with the Frenchman! Lancelot, the Frenchman, has the same blood on his hands, so his vaunted purity does not impress me.

Guinevere? Meh. Few of the women of Arthurian legend interest me. They’re not strong or clever, except for Morgan La Fey, and she’s scary. They’re not principled. In fact, almost no one is principled. And I’m a bit of a perv. I need to be attracted to a soul as well as a body. I need beauty and morality. If I want to write a story that will turn others on, it has to turn me on first. To do that, it needs characters who turn me on.

So I needed a focal character who was sympathetic to me, somewhere in that shallow, unprincipled lot. I chose Mordred.

Mordred? Bastard son of Arthur? Killer of the King? Scheming, devious, Mordred? Yeah. Because he was one I could feel sorry for. He was evil, ultimately, but he had no control over his destiny. Everybody must have hated him. I could get inside his head and understand how that felt. I could imagine that Mordred, as a young man, must have been attracted to someone. And no doubt that someone reviled him. He’s a villain. He’s weird.

And then the story of Tristan and Iseult had stuck with me. It’s a classically structured courtly love story. There are rigid definitions for that, and I wanted to follow them. Tristan struck me as less ugly and sweaty than his fellows, and Iseult was at least not a devious bitch like Guinevere. Which would Mordred love? Why not both? Their love was induced by a potion anyway, and Ser Tristrem, a Middle English version of the story, says that Tristan’s dog drank a few drops of the potion and also fell in love with Iseult. And there that plotline dangled.

Mordred, possibly son of powerful sorceress Morgan Le Fay, possibly son of Arthur, could certainly change shapes. Mordred could be a dog. I imagined Mordred drinking the last paltry drops of that potion, falling in love… and a story was born.

I didn’t actually sell the story to the publisher who solicited it. I sold it instead to Nobilis Erotica, where it received wondrous narration by Rish Outfield. You can listen to it here.

Why Erotica?

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was nine years old. I discovered it when we did a Fourth Grade English project, creating our own book. We stitched a stack of paper together with needle and thread, then glued cardboard to the end papers, split where the stitches were so the covers would open. We then decorated the completed book cover and wrote and drew our story on the pages of the book.

It was a very, very cool thing for a nine-year-old to do. The possibilities for the content of our book were endless.

I liked super-heroes. Even at age nine, I liked sexy super-heroes. So I chose to write about Hawkgirl. Heard of her? Sexy redhead. Member of the Justice League. Seen on TV back in the day. Why Hawkgirl? She looked cool, and a redhead with hawk wings and a predator’s mask had to be a pretty tough customer.

At that point in my life, I think I liked super-heroines because they were allowed to have feelings. Male superheroes, whether they were adults or teens, weren’t allowed to feel hurt or cry, because that would have compromised their manhood. That made them hard to get to really know.

As I got older, my favorite super-hero characters were the Teen Titans and the Legion of Super-Heroes, because they were teens operating without adult authority, and they had both boys and girls as members. It seemed like a teen’s paradise, living together alone, wearing tight or skimpy costumes, no parents or teachers in the way. Imagine the sexual adventures! (Even if the comic books weren’t allowed to show them.)

I daydreamed threesomes and same-sex hookups. I had a particularly strong fantasy about the Emerald Empress enslaving Superboy. And they weren’t just sexual fantasies, either, as I said. Most were romantic. Sex isn’t just about getting your rocks off, it’s about feelings. Even masturbation is about validating yourself and being good to yourself, giving your mind and body a chance to break away from the rest of the world and play.

So, why erotica? Because it’s a direct line to the most personal feelings we have. I write erotica, and I’m naked before you. (It’s okay, I’m a shameless exhibitionist.) You know what I like. You know my weaknesses, my foibles, my fears. You’ve been to my secret places, at least one or two of them with each story. But if I’m careful, I’ve left you wanting to know more. There are missing pieces. There’s mystery.

If I read someone else’s erotica, the story is the same. I’m getting a glimpse of them naked. And we all like to see someone naked, don’t we? At least, the right person. The person with the soul that looks good naked.

Why erotica? Because we might see something interesting.