Nobilis Reed's Blog, page 41

Nobilis Erotica smartphone apps

In the marketplaces for iPhone and Android phones, there are currently apps available to make it easier to access my primary podcast.

I offer them mainly as a way for you to get easy access to the podcast.  I occasionally throw goodies in that can only be accessed with the app, such as bloopers or PDF documents, but the actual podcast itself is the same was what you can get for free at nobilis.libsyn.com.

Here is the link for iPhone, and here is the link for Android.

Maybe Someone was Listening? (Or Maybe Not)

The few of you who read this blog, probably saw my post a few weeks ago about sexist calls for submission in the erotica world and how I would not be supporting, in any way, editors who make them, nor the publishers who publish their anthologies.  Something has happened. Were they listening? I don't know. But an important erotica editor has altered one of her recent calls.

I'm especially looking for stories by male authors, with male viewpoints, about being on the receiving end of oral sex, cunnilingus stories, 69, and unusual settings/scenarios.

Does this change the fact that at least half of this editor's calls for submission specifically discourage submissions from men? No… but it does indicate that there's a possibility for balance. So I'm going to submit to this one. And if we see more of these, I may reconsider my position, with respect to this particular editor.

Edit: I'm having second thoughts.  Reading closely, I think perhaps this editor might be having trouble getting submissions for an anthology she wants to be balanced, gender-wise.  This isn't an anthology specifically about the male viewpoint, after all.  So it may be that this change to this CFS is just a consequence of her policies on other anthologies. I'm holding off on further work on this story until I have a chance to think about it some more.

Insane Hussein interviews me! Listen.

Erotic Romance and sex toy reviewer Insane Hussein interviewed me. Come listen!

Scouts Remastered is Back

After a 6-week unplanned hiatus, Scouts Remastered is back on track, with episode 8 posted and available on Podiobooks.

I am hoping that I can continue posting regularly, leading up to the release of Pirates in May.

Thank You

As an erotica author, my social circles range through a number of different subcultures. One of them is the "Kink" community. While I don't personally participate, I keep tabs on the "scene" because I want to put as much authenticity in my stories as I can, and kink is something people like to read about.

Recently, a friend of mine posted an article about bullying, humilation, and cliquishness in her social circle.

Reading it (and the follow-up article the following day) made me appreciate how little of this sort of thing goes on in the Podcasting circle.



I'm sure there's some (it's impossible to totally erase) but it has been a remarkably inclusive group, in my experience. Maybe I'm being clueless. Maybe I've been lucky. But I'd prefer to think that my friends are just that awesome.

So, to all of you, who have been so welcoming to me and to people like me who came after: Thank You.

A Matter of Principle and Practicality

I have decided, that as of today, I will no longer support any publisher or editor of erotic anthologies, who engages in gender discrimination. I will not submit to them, purchase them, link to them or publish excerpts in my podcast. This might look like rallying cry. It's not, and for this reason I will not list the publishers and editors to which this applies. It is simply a statement of preference, one I'm posting because I was asked to by a friend.

If you are involved in the erotic publishing world you've seen calls for submission roll by with gender-based provisions. Some of them explicitly state that only female-identified authors may apply, regardless of the ostensible gender of their pseudonym. Some are more ambiguous, and leave the possibility of submissions under a female name as an open question. None of these calls for submission openly state that men are welcome to submit, as long as a female pseudonym is used.

In many situations, the authorial persona behind stories is itself fiction. In the case of the "Castle" mysteries (a spin-off of the television series) it's obvious that the author is a fictional character. In the early days of speculative fiction, female authors often published under male or non-gendered pseudonyms in order to navigate a publishing world which was very male-dominated.

But it's not 1965 anymore. We live in a more enlightened age, when the idea that any given gender is incapable of achieving something is to be challenged, not used as a marketing angle. I know that my fiction appeals to women, at least enough of them that the majority of my feedback comes from them.

Ultimately, these anthologies help to perpetuate the idea that a male sexuality is threatening or even dangerous, and that people of all genders need to be protected from it. Protecting men from other men's sexuality is a subtle form of homophobia. Protecting women from it is no better. I have no problem with the editor wishing to maintain a particular tone in all the stories in the anthology they are editing. I also understand that seeing a male name on an author will color the reader's perception of that story. But to state that men are not welcome to submit to an anthology, that they should not even try, is wrong.

Furthermore, as a podcaster, it is difficult if not impossible to conceal my gender. I like to promote the anthologies where my stories are accepted. If I write under a female pseudonym, if I'm required to keep my association with that pseudonym secret, then I can't do that, and I feel less valued as an author for it. I have better uses for my time.

And so, for reasons of both principle and practicality, I have decided that I do not need to have business relationships with these editors and publishers. I hope that they understand that I am not trying to coerce what is a largely economic decision. I really don't care whether they change or not. Instead, I will hope that the world will come to judge stories based on their contents, rather than prejudices arising from the gender of the author.

On Endings

It's day 26 in National Novel Writing Month, and I'm currently writing the end of Hunters. I'm a bit over 46,000 words, which is pretty good for this point in the story. A couple more scenes, and I'm done.

I should be confident, very pleased with my progress… but I'm not.

The lead-up to the main climax of the book is when the characters are going through the worst hell. And that's always hell on me. I am SO glad that I have a long weekend to do that work in. Words cannot express it.

I'm really not good with endings. It's not that I don't write good endings, but that they're quite difficult for me. I don't like them. I wrestle with every word, and agonize over whether I'm doing it right. It even carries over into reading; I hate coming to the end of a book. I even have a term for it: Biblioterminophobia.

What's carrying me forward right now, is that when I get these last few scenes written, and cross the finish line, I can put this darn thing away for a couple months and do something that's less emotionally draining. In fact, I'm hoping I can finish it tonight or tomorrow, so I can write something very lighthearted and fun on Sunday.