Behind Automatic Transmission

Oh, Automatic Transmission, so very close to my heart. Firstly, it is with Violet. Fucking. Blue. in Best Women’s Erotica 2015. Oh god, that was one of those fannish moments where my brain shorts out for a little while. Violet Blue. Jesus.

Anyway.

Automatic Transmission has its roots in a few things:

• the gamer who was casting and forgot and loaded up some porn and started masturbating so people not only could see him take himself in hand, but also what he was doing it to;
• my own indecent level of interest in men’s hands on their cocks;
• stupid shitty apps and websites with godawful privacy;
• the amount of times people have forgotten to mute their microphone while having intimate conversations with their partners while the rest of us in the game listen and pretend not to.

So those four things gave rise to another story sans ‘proper fucking’ but replete with the power differentials that I adore. There are a few reviews out, Amos Lassen for one, and some from fellow writers like Tamsin Flowers, Malin James

Also. Violet Blue. *faints dead away*

Behind On My Honor

And we take a hard right into historicals. On My Honor (in Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors edited by Delilah Devlin) is a bit of a departure from my previous two pubs. No kink, really, no power struggles (…mostly) and, in a fit of inspiration, no actual fucking. Oh there’s orgasms and cocks and quims and wetness and filthiness, and a bath, but there’s no PIV sex.

I explain my reasoning here.

This was my third pub, and being the cool, calm and collected graceful lady I am, when I got the acceptance I responded with ‘uh, did you mean to send this to me?’ (sorry Delilah!) (Delilah Devlin is also a totally lovely editor, and I loved working with her). The promotional aspect of writing was a challenge for me, and a departure from previous pubs as well.

Behind Before They Burn

Before They Burn was my second pub, with the totaly fabulous Tenille Brown in Can’t Get Enough. It had a very different genesis and journey to Deeper. And you can read an excerpt.

It started with a few images; booted feet bracketing bare ones, those awkward moments where you unconsciously expose yourself*, and the way lust can colour everything.

Plus, I really like cooking.

One of the other things that shines through is how I like to write about the speech acts of sex. Not dirty talk, but those grunting, snarled incoherencies that make sex filthy. I still don’t know that I’ve gotten it right but I try. Oh Lord how I try. Oh Lord how much fun I have trying.

*I had one of those moments the other evening (…it even involved spanking). Not a physical interlude, just one of those moments where the conversation stalls because the joke took a hard left into delicious imagination.

Behind ‘Deeper’

Deeper was my first pub, in the inestimable Alison Tyler‘s Bound for Trouble. Now, Alison is a fucking goddess among editors, truly. I am always impressed with her, so I have a bias, but she was the perfect gateway to erotica writing for this mildly terrified blushing not-really-a-virgin.

But, we’re not here to talk about how much I like her work.

I wrote Deeper as part of a kind of writing cure. Erotica is one of the most densely descriptive and internally focused of genres. Or it is when it is done well. So Deeper began as an exercise in not shying away from the messy emotions and senses of the fictional world. I’d always written erotic material, and when I first discovered Black Lace in my local public library (!) I remember thinking “I can do this”* and so when I realised the deficiencies of my other writing, the ‘cure’ seemed pretty obvious.

And, to be entirely honest, it started as something of a fantasy about a public figure…

Regardless, by the time I got to the slick and messy end, I realised I had enjoyed every moment of writing it. That’s not to say it was easy, just that I enjoyed it. Working out exactly how to show Miko’s strength and submission, Grace’s drive and change from the more socially acceptable and expected submission to her own natural instincts. I like writing switches, I like writing people who hover around boundaries and haunt liminal spaces.

I like writing, in general. I like exploring through what I write.

*I also promised my best beloved friend to send her copies. Which I have done, signed and posted down to her, with a kind of awkward pride.