Ask an erotic novelist

[Esquilax]

Ok, two questions.

1. What do you say to people when they ask you what your job is?

Depends on the person: most people get a bland "I'm a writer," answer, and I'll fill in details by being vague and saying I write romance, if they ask. If I feel like they'd be okay with it I might say more; my in-laws and parents know what I write, for example.

2. How do you feel about 50 Shades of Grey? Don't shoot me, I am just the messenger 

Hate it. Mostly because it's bad writing, somewhat because it's a terrible example of kink, but also because it's a bad kink in general. I actually growl when I pass it in bookstores.

Do you write only about things you enjoy, or can you picture how some fantasies you don't like feel to other people and write about it?

Though I mostly write about my own personal kinks, given that I've got the most immediate experience there, I do sometimes branch out and research other things to put in my work too, sometimes to the extent that they become one of my kinks in the process; I didn't have much of an interest in, say, genderplay, until a friend of mine who was into it made a request. Apparently I was pretty good at that, too: my first attempt got rave reviews from a few queer readers.

Is there any topics which are taboo in your industry!


Eg: a catholic nun doing it with a muslim dog!
Or something unheard of: a catholic priest doing it with a minor! (in an innocent tasteful way)

It changes depending on what your goals are, with publishing; most big publishing houses won't accept anything with animals, or kids, or rape or whatever, nothing illegal. The more romance-focused ones won't even let you get away with threesomes or one-night-stands because they want happy, monogamous endings for their stories, outside of specific group sex publishing lines. The ones more focused on sex will let you get away with more, though the kids/animals/rape trifecta are still hard lines in all but one company that I've seen.

Of course, all bets are off if you go outside the mainstream publishing system; self publishing through amazon and other e-reader stores can be quite lucrative on its own, and the quality and length requirements are non-existent, so it's actually a completely insane market to boot. People and animals, people and dinosaurs, people and (I swear I'm not kidding, look up Chuck Tingle on amazon if you want to confirm) the ghosts of gay unicorn colonels... you can write anything and probably turn a profit if its weird enough. Readers will buy erotica for a laugh if the concept is out-there enough, and maybe there's even a fetish community just waiting to be capitalized upon.

How on earth do you get any work done?


Do you get desensitized to sex?

For me, it's actually pretty hard to get aroused while I'm writing. It's too much concentration to do both, and since I work on a computer I have easy access to... relief, if I need it. But I don't ever get desensitized to sex, in the sense that I become disinterested in it; it's more like compiling a list of things I want to do, or emotions I want to evoke when I do have sex. It does make me less likely to bat an eye at sexy situations in inappropriate places though, make of that what you will.