Libre Paley's Blog: Libre Paley - Thoughts on Literary Erotica, page 18

The best possible taste

Having written about using the sense of smell in writing (here) I wonder that writing about the sense of taste is not even more of a challenge. Like smell, taste preferences are highly personal and, if anything, even less tangible, less universal. Yet we cannot omit it. It’s utterly primal. Our sense of taste, we … Continue reading The best possible taste

Nora, adore her

On the radio yesterday, I heard a recording of the speech that the late writer, journalist, screen-writer, and filmmaker Nora Ephron gave at her alma mater Wellesley College’s Commencement in 1996. It was featured on BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) Radio 4, one in a series of great speeches broadcasts that were inspired by last week’s 50th anniversary … Continue reading Nora, adore her

Creating the senses in writing: smell

Sense of success A common piece of advice in writing is to use all five of the human senses. I think this is especially important in romance and erotica, when you’re creating something sensual, that needs to appeal to and gratify the senses. It’s relatively (relatively!) easy to focus on the visual and the auditory. … Continue reading Creating the senses in writing: smell

Calling it like it is

Calling it out I am dangerously addicted to TED talks. Yesterday during an indulgent ‘TED session’ (it was a national holiday here in UK), I was listening to What Young Women Believe about their Own Sexual Pleasure by writer Peggy Orenstein, author of the Girls & Sex and Cinderella Ate My Daughter. Orenstein outlined worrying … Continue reading Calling it like it is

What’s yours called?

The article below discusses words for male and female sexual parts in frank terms. It does not describe any acts, is meant to be partly humorous, and I think is only a little bit crude, but please do not read on if you’re likely to be offended.

Lengthy Problems and Sticky Issues

‘Cock’ appeared in the list of overly repeated words highlighted by my grammar checker* the other day. I’d stumbled on the same old problem, familiar I am sure to most erotica and erotic romance writers: what do you c...

Mud God by Fallacious Rose

The Mud God: Micro Erotica: (very) short stories by Fallacious Rose

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Never mind birds do it and bees do it, it seems that fish and cars and even domestic appliances do it. Not to mention mythical earth creatures, sexually frustrated super-heroes, and (this one stretches credulity a bit, I know) exhausted mothers doing it. Sometimes. Quickly and thinking about their to-do lists. In Fallacious Rose’s world, everything hums with sex. Like her prose. Her writing is sensual, carnal at a visceral level. Much is left to the imagination, but enough is said to stimulate it.
I liked some of the stories more than others – especially liking the title story, Jekyll and Hyde, When Superman Comes... All the stories are short, as we’re told they will be (though not all are ‘mico’), but somehow also they are just the right length. It’s a varied selection, highly inventive. Fascinating to understand, at last, the real reason for Dr Jekyll’s chemical experimentation.
This collection helps demonstrate what a broad genre erotica is. I wish more of it was like this one.



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If food be the music of love…

In a scene I’m writing, I’ve just had to stop my couple from cooking and eating together. Yes, put the chopper down people and back away from that carrot. I had to give them a different ‘warm-up activity’ to do instead. Not because there isn’t a strong affinity between food and sex, and indeed love, but because I’ve realised how often throughout the book this ravenous duo, and other partnerships, are at it. Chowing down, that is. And I don’t use the term as a euphemism.

Food is the perfect as...

A Second Coming

Manual sex

The discovery and sale last month (February 2018) of a Georgian ‘sex manual’, dating from 1720, provoked curiosity and some gentle mockery in the press. This was apparently due to some of its dubious and unscientific advice, such as the efficacy of root vegetables and songbirds on male fertility, or the female lying on her right after sex to produce a boy, on her left for a girl.

However, one of the most striking points of the manual for me is the fact that women were expected to...

Review to a Thrill

Ah book reviews! Attracting them, proactively seeking them, getting and maintaining a high-star rating… A massive topic for writers who publish independently.

However, here I am taking a specific point of the process relating to reviews for erotic works. First of all, it can be a particular challenge to obtain reviews for erotica. Getting reviews is never easy, but anecdotally, erotica typically attracts fewer reviews than do other genres. One possible reason is that some readers are too bas...

Writing by Numbers

Have you done your homework? So demanded the subject line of an email falling into my inbox a few days ago. Not a question I’d been asked in over a decade. Okay, in over two decades.

In this case, my ‘homework’ was the investigation I should have done before writing and attempting to sell books as an independent. Research demand, find out what’s selling, identify the tried and tested market… Then produce more of the same thing. It makes hard-headed sense, aligning with the fundamental marketi...