Eric Witchey's Blog: Shared ShadowSpinners Blog , page 27

When Your Creative Brain is Deflated, by Cheryl Owen-Wilson

A few weeks back a friend commented, “Cheryl you’re always in a painting or writing class. Don’t you already know enough?”

“What’s wrong with searching for new ways to keep the creative juices flowing?” I countered. But her comment made me pause and question my motives and in so doing I realized I’d been attending many more classes/workshops than normal. That realization led me to yet another very disturbing one—the true reason for my abundant class-hop–I’d lost my spark, my muse. You can fill in the blank for whatever you call your own overwhelming drive to create. I’d been attending classes hoping to find it again, perhaps lying in a corner, or maybe it would magically jump out of someone who obviously processed more than they needed, and into me.

The gut-wrenching blow of losing both my creative outlets at once left me lost, and feeling quite sorry for myself. Then, as coincidence or the universe would have it, another friend—one who I envy for her abundant talent—within the same week said, “I think I’m going to just focus on the day job, because my creative mojo is obviously gone and it’s just too depressing to keep trying.” Now that ladies and gentlemen ended my pity party, because the mere thought of relying solely on the day job made me want to run screaming from the room and into oncoming traffic.

So I did what I’d been doing. I attended another class. Alas no luck. I then turned to books—piles of books now lie on the floor next to my bed—trust me when I say piles, visualize stacks upon stacks. Yet still no mojo. I can however, recommend the two which helped me the most, they are—The Artists Way, by Julia Cameron and Finding Your Visual Voice, by Dakota Mitchell and Lee Haroun.

If you’ve made it this far into my blog have no fear, for my sorry tale does have a happy ending. From the writing side it came to me as I slugged—picture a real slug moving slowly across your computer screen—through reworking word, by every aching word, of a very short story for the sixth time! My brain said, “Cheryl why does this story sound so much better at 2am when you’re rewriting it in the dark?” The proverbial light bulb went off over my head and I heard fellow Shadowspinner, Eric Whitchey say, “You get too caught up in editing as you go, just close your eyes or put a blindfold on and type away.” Now when he gave me this valuable bit of information it was to help me with pace, giving me the ability to write more quickly. Amazingly it helped me and continues to help me, enjoy my writing again. Yes, the writing muse is back sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear as I create with my eyes blindfolded.

Then there was yet another class. I’m an oil painter; have always been an oil painter. But as I said, of late I was bored, not excited about what I was creating. I was just going through the motions. One day I happened upon artist and writer Alan Clark’s paintings. He calls them “controlled accidents”. When I asked, he said he created them with acrylic paint, not oils. I hated acrylics. My typical response to painting with acrylics was—“I like to play with my paint and I want vibrancy in my paintings; you just can’t get that with acrylics”. But as I said, there was this class given by Alan. So I took it and painted with acrylics. Not only did I paint with acrylics—instead of a brush—I used balloons, yes balloons, to design a most spectacular abstract painting! No boredom anywhere in sight, as I laughed and felt like a child again, enjoying the sheer pleasure of seeing what I could create with shear abandon. The fact that it was all done with a balloon still astounds me. I disagree with Alan on only one thing. For me, this type of painting is most assuredly not controlled—the type of oil painting I had immersed myself in most assuredly was. As for my delusional belief about the lack of vibrancy with acrylics—you can see for yourself below. I happy to say I’m jazzed once again to place paint on a canvas and see where it leads me. I’m now rediscovering my passion for oil painting and incorporating acrylics and balloons whenever possible.

In conclusion—never give up or stop learning. Your mojo is out there somewhere, you just have to go out and find it. What have you done, or discovered in search of yours?

Happy Accident in Blue

An Original Painting by Cheryl Owen-Wilson (MeCo)

My New Pal

By Cynthia Ray

Recently, my friend and long-time love was hospitalized with a serious illness. Saying that he had a “brush with death” doesn’t come close to the visceral and gut-kicking experience. This is what it was like: Death grabbed me by the shoulder, spun me around and slapped me, leaving a throbbing bruise on my cheek, then pulled my face close to his and said, “You think you can ignore me? You think you can live your life as if I didn’t exist? I’m tired of being the invisible guest in everyone’s life. Wake up, sister! I’m your salvation.”

That got my attention. I sat next to my love, held his warm, living hand, and looked into his  eyes. Everything that was not important melted away; and most things seemed trivial and insignificant in that moment. The love we have always had for each other lit up the room.

Later, I wondered why we can’t connect like that all the time, not just with each other, but with family and friends, with strangers, with the grocery clerk at Fred Meyers.  When all we have is each other, why do we separate ourselves?

The experience forced me to reconsider everything in my life. What doesn’t matter anymore? What makes me feel connected and whole? What puts me to sleep? It is easy to become complacent and distracted; busy making grocery lists, doing laundry and balancing checkbooks while life goes on around us unnoticed and unfelt.  The sense of urgency and immediacy that I felt sitting on that hospital bed can fade away if I let it.

I don’t want to fall back into sleepy forgetfulness. After experiencing true, deep connection, nothing else will satisfy. Death is my new pal. He hangs around with me all the time; he says he doesn’t have that many friends, and it’s refreshing to have someone invite him in on a regular basis. The more I hang out with him, the more alive I feel.

This is more a blog about living than writing. However, there is a connection between writing and staying awake for me and I intend to continue to dig deeper into that in the coming months.

Tagged: belief systems, blogging, brush with death, Calm, change, death, Emotion, life, love, priorities, what is important

When Real Life Interferes

By Elizabeth Engstrom

Writing fiction takes up an enormous amount of cranial space. It requires quiet, solitude (or your version of those things), and quite a bit of time just staring into space. Or mindlessly playing solitaire. Whatever, you need your version of quiet time to let your mind freewheel.

Carving out that time to write in a dedicated, ongoing, consistent manner is more difficult than any non-writer can imagine. There is always the phone, the ding of email, the person coming into the office saying, “I’m not disturbing you, I’m only…” All of which are distractions so off-putting it’s truly a wonder we get any pages written at all. And when we do, we have a right to be satisfied, even if they suck.

But then there is the other interference, and that consists of life events that vaporize our concentration.

A good friend confided in me not long ago that he was “blocked” for the first time ever in his writing, and what few sentences he wrote were hard fought and turned out to be crap. He was truly mystified. With a little discussion, it turned out that he had not one, not two, but three major events happening in other areas of his life that were of maximum stress.

You know that list of stressors? Here they are:

Death of a family member
Terminal illness (one’s own or a family member)
Physical incapacitation, chronic pain, or chronic illness
Drug or alcohol abuse (self, family member, partner)
Divorce
Marriage
Loss of job or job change
Moving house
Primary relationship problems
Severe financial problems

There are more, of course, but these are the big dogs. Most, if not all of these happen to all of us at one time or another, because that is the stuff of life. That is the human experience. We should welcome these events, even when they stress us out, because that’s how we learn about ourselves—how we react in stressful situations. Need I mention that it is all grist for the mill? We need new experiences to feed our fiction machine.

However, when we work so hard to carve out the time to write (and we can’t give that up, no matter what), and one or more of these situations takes up all of our cranial space to the point where we’re either “blocked” or all we come up with is hard-fought crap, then it is time to reevaluate our priorities.

Sometimes we just need to sit down and deal with what is in front of us. Sometimes writing is not and should not be the number one priority. We have bigger issues to deal with. As writers, though, our fiction-writing minds are busy focusing on future scenarios and how what it is that we’re bothered by is likely to turn out. It almost never turns out the way we imagine, but we can’t help ourselves. Plotting is what we do.

We’d rather feel guilty about not writing.

We’d rather deny the stress, as if confessing to it makes us less of a person, less of a writer, when in fact it not only makes us more of a person, it makes us more of a writer.

And then there’s comparing ourselves with others. We all know that so-and-so pumped out four books last year despite a divorce, the death of a child, and moving to Europe. Well, maybe, and maybe not. Nothing is exactly as it appears. Besides, that person’s career is not your career and not your life. Certainly not a life you would trade yours for, not really.

So if you find yourself “blocked” (I put that word in quotation marks because I don’t believe in writer’s block—but that’s a blog post for another day), or all you can write is hard-won crap, take a look at your life and see if you have one or two or three of these major stressors. If you do, use your solitude and writing time to puzzle out not the plot of your new book, but the way to peace and serenity with the situation that life has handed to you.

The job of a writer is to articulate the human condition. To do that, you must experience it.

Embrace it, live it, journal about it, and when it passes, as it always does, you will write about it, and your life and your work will be all the richer.

Tagged: death, Divorce, Guilt, Human Condition, problems, Quiet, Solitude, Stress, writer's block, writing, Writing Time

Thinking about Home in Life and Writing

Peony from my garden.

By Lisa Alber

Two months ago, I discussed success. I was inundated with finishing a manuscript and buying a house for the first time plus maintaining my regularly scheduled work, dogwalking, Mom visits, and so on. Two months later … wow.

I’m in my new house. Safely moved. Getting organized. It’s all good, even the dry rot repair on the exterior!

But also — !!! — the manuscript I was working on? Its deadline? I now have a two-book deal and a new, fabulous literary agent to boot! All of this transpired this week, and I got word that I could make the news public today. This might explain why I once again spaced out on making my Wednesday deadline for this blog post, hehe.

Even though this all feels very successful, what lingers in my mind is the notion of “home.” In a literal sense, I have a new home. I love it. I love that I don’t share walls, and that I have a fenced-in backyard. I even love rolling my garbage cans to the curb. (I’m sure that will wear off!)

I found this perfect antique hall stand.

But “home” is so much more than houses. It’s also our communities. I’m getting to know my neighbors, and I’m sensing that my street is a nice home street too. My neighbors are an eclectic crew of low-key, independent types. Straight, gay, younger, older, childless, child-full, single, partnered. I’m loving it that no one — and I mean, no one — has asked about me buying the house all on my own.

So now I think about finally have literary representation and a traditional publisher. I’ve been floating in the publishing world, which has been fine and fun. KILMOON turned out great, but I’m so relieved that I have a traditional publishing home with traditional distribution outlets. I’m not even a traditional kind of person — so what’s that all about, you might ask?

I think I’m a floater in life, to be honest, but I no longer have the energy, time, or will to try to do every darned thing on my own. Communities to call home provide relief from that. Even when it comes to my house, I’m overjoyed that I’ve found my handyman husband (big smiley face). I have a contractor. I think I know who I’m going to use for electrical stuff and roof stuff and yard stuff.

Without being conscious of it, I started to gather a house community around myself. And now I have a publishing community. I’ve always had my writing community. I have my family and friends communities too.

And all of these communities are home.

Morning coffee on my deck.

I think we writers create homes within our storytelling too. I’m not just talking about this in the obvious way, like J.K. Rowlings’s world building. Even authors who don’t have series set in particular worlds tend to return to the same themes. For example, I tend toward writing about community failures in my novels — especially related to families. The ways in which home communities can turn dark and dysfunctional. In my novels, this leads to murder.

And, come to think about it, my novels always feature a character or two who are floaters in life. Somehow, they’re outside the community, looking for a way in. Looking for home.

I guess that’s just my thing too. But at least I can say that I own my very own house now! And within my very own house I have my very own community of dog and cat and character voices. And in my very own house, everyone is welcome!

What do you think about when you think about “home”?

Tagged: communities, homes, house, life, writing

The Intentional Tourist

by Christina Lay

Through no fault of my own, I purchased another journal this weekend. I blame the friends who lured me into the maw of Barnes and Noble, which happens to have the best selection of writing journals around. How can any writer resist those lovely blank pages, the promise of new doodling and scribbling adventures?

If you’re like me, you have a stack of blank journals. I don’t even want to talk about how many journals I have that are a third to halfway full, having been started with great expectations, or possibly even mundane ones, but then are shunted aside, having not fulfilled the promise of drawing worthy and profound thoughts out of my uncooperative head.

This new journal will be different, says I, for upon the advice gleaned from travel writer Lavinia Spalding’s Writing Away, I have set an intention for this one. Thanks to a visiting writer friend, who’s on vacation, I cracked open my new journal and decided to play along with the idea of beginning yet another mobile scrapbook, even though I am most definitely not on vacation.

The intention? Here is what I wrote on the first page:

My intention is to stay awake. My intention is to feed the well, capture the response, record the sensation, use big words, use little words in interesting ways, explore language, become a tourist in my home town.

Becoming a tourist in your home town is an experiment I recommend to any artist. We all know how easy it is to go about in a fog, barely seeing the familiar world as it streams by. On this Memorial Day weekend, armed with fresh shiny journals, my friend and I plotted on how to go about this. How could we find something new in a town we both grew up in? Because it was Sunday- I think, still pondering how this came about- my friend came up with the suggestion we attend church. She’s an atheist and I’m a nonaligned spiritualist, so we knew we’d certainly feel like outsiders whichever church we ended up crashing.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church

I harkened back to my catholic upbringing and the lovely old church I hadn’t set foot in for decades. Checking the service schedule, we discovered Spanish Mass was at 1:00 that afternoon. So now it really would be like traveling to a different culture. So different in fact our excitement turned to trepidation as we began to feel like interlopers and filled our heads with preconceived notions and prejudices.

In other words, the perfect setting in which to initiate the pages of a travel journal.

Spanish Mass at St. Mary’s catholic church was lovely, interesting, evocative, and ultimately, boring as hell. For me it stirred vivid memories and replaced a few preconceived notions with a dose of reality. Here’s an example, uncensored-

Expectation #1: Everyone will be shorter and darker than me. They will look askance upon my otherness. Reality: 1. True. 2. Nobody gives a shit.

I think I first read about the idea of “filling the well” in The Artist’s Way, that classic workbook for the artistically stuck. In that book Julia Cameron suggests going on artist’s dates, in which you set a date with yourself to get out and explore your world once a week. We as writers can tend to isolate, hole up in our offices, and pour out our innards onto the keyboard until we’re empty husks of our former selves. We need to rejuvenate our senses, fill our minds with new pictures and have the opportunity to react, respond, be awed, afraid, amused, saddened, angered. A writer’s travels need not be only to look at pretty things or enjoy pleasant moments in carefully constructed tourist traps. In fact, it’s better if it’s not. Become a tourist, but not that kind of tourist.

With or without journal, I suggest you set out on your journey through your day with a tourist’s mind set. Pretend you’ve never been to where you work before, never met those people, never hung out in that coffee shop on the corner. Your intention? To see the ordinary with fresh eyes. To find the new in the familiar. To fill the well, turn the compost pile, ignite the chemistry that inspires art.

Intend to be amazed.

Tagged: creative process, creativity, inspiration, journaling, The Artist's Way, travel writing, writing, Writing Away, writing habits

In Defense of the Good Girl

By Christina Ochs

Let’s face it- bad girls are a lot of fun to write. They’re interesting, they break the rules, they make things happen. And it’s a great time for creating empowered female characters. Readers love them.

I’m writing an epic fantasy based on the Thirty Years War (1618-48), set in an alternate early modern Europe. My world had a considerable amount of gender equality, so my female characters have few limitations. There’s a pragmatic, diplomatically astute princess, a vicious marauder, a talented young cavalry officer, a Machiavellian cleric (or three), an intelligent, ruthless empress and a megalomaniacal military genius, among others. And yes, it is a lot of fun to write all of these bad-ass women.

[image error]

But my biggest problem is a character who is essential to the plot, but also demonstrates the human cost of war. She is a good girl. A refugee who’s lost her home, who’s trying to keep herself and her children safe. She’s done nothing wrong. She’s not feisty, strong or resourceful, and is just pretty enough to attract the attention of predators.

I spent a long time thinking of ways she might plausibly develop into a ninja, but couldn’t make it work. She is a frustrating character. I’ve brainstormed ways to make her more awesome with a few of my beta readers, who also find her frustrating. And yet, as I go through the final edits of this manuscript, I’ve decided to stand behind her non-awesomeness.

This is why. As a military history buff, I know full well that war is glorified and often reduced to discussions of the technical side. Princes make policies and generals move their armies all over land and sea while using cool weapons and wearing great armor. This can be fun to study and write about, but doesn’t take the human cost into account.

It’s easy to recount a conflict from the perspective of those who make things happen. It’s fun to write characters who make decisions and take action, even when they’re the wrong ones. Especially when they’re the wrong ones.

It’s much less enjoyable to write about the average person affected by those bad decisions. Just think of how frustrating it is to watch the news and see human suffering we can do little to ease. It’s far worse to be the victim, unable to stop terrible things from happening to ourselves or those we love. That’s the true ugly side and easy to overlook when we create characters who take charge and overcome.

Most people in a bad situation however, won’t rise to the occasion. Most will muddle through somehow, coming out on the other side worse for the wear, and in extreme circumstances, simply dying.

I don’t feel like I can do a story about a major war justice without showing that side. It makes sense to do it through the eyes of a character who quickly learns that being a good girl doesn’t prevent bad things from happening. She will develop as a person by surviving (for now), becoming a lot sadder and a bit wiser. She will never turn into an awesome, empowered Amazon, because like most of us, she just doesn’t have the wherewithal.

It’s great that empowered characters of all sexes have become prevalent in fiction. But please, spare a thought for the non-awesome among us.

Tagged: bad girls, Characters, Christina Ochs, cost of war, creativity, good girls, historical fiction, kick-ass characters, reality in fiction, thirty years war

A Texture Perceived by the Subconscious

by Matthew Lowes

If you enjoy any kind of art, every once in a while you encounter something that renews your sense of wonder. A couple weeks ago I came across Salome Dancing before Herod by Gustave Moreau and was awestruck by its jewel-like opulent beauty. I have been drawn back to it again and again, to take in the overall picture and to examine the incredible colors and details.

(Click for a high resolution image.)

Image: Gustave Moreau, Salome Dancing Before Herod, 1876. Oil on canvas. The Armand Hammer Collection at the Hammer Museum. Gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation.

I won’t attempt to describe all the amazing elements of this painting, nor articulate its effects on my imagination. But I think a part of its magic lies in the layered accumulation of all those fantastical colors and details. The texture creates a feeling arising from the subconscious. And the effect is more amazing than all its amazing parts.

This layering idea came to me through a book about the making of Blade Runner, one of my all time favorite films. In the book, Future Noir, Paul M. Sammon describes how Ridley Scott was obsessed with minute details of the sets and costumes. For example, newsstands in the background of a city street had to have made up future magazines in their racks, with real covers and articles and artwork. Nobody would ever see them on the film, but they had to be there. He called this process “layering”, with the idea that although every detail would not be consciously perceived, they would create an overall texture perceived by the subconscious.

Photo by Warner Bros./Getty Images – © 2011 Getty Images

To this day, Blade Runner is one of the most influential films in science fiction, and one of most visceral and mind-blowing visions of the future. Nothing about it seems dated or superficial. In fact, it looks better than most recent science fiction films. I wish they still made them like this, with physical sets and models and matte paintings. But I think part of the magic of Blade Runner is also in the layering of so many incredible visual and auditory elements.

The same process can be used in fiction. The layers are built up through details, scene elements, word choice, language, structure, tone, et cetera. Bit by bit, they create the texture of the fictional world. But it’s not an easy task in any art. It took Gustave Moreau two years to paint Salome Dancing before Herod, and Blade Runner was one of the most contentious and troubled shoots in Hollywood history. But the results speak for themselves. Arrange the layers just right, and they create a dream-like reality that resonates with heartbreaking mystery and meaning. As an example of layering words, I leave you with a few by Clark Ashton Smith:

“Tell me many tales, but let them be of things that are past the lore of legend and of which there are no myths in our world or any world adjoining. Tell me, if you will, of the years when the moon was young, with siren-rippled seas and mountains that were zoned with flowers from base to summit; tell me of the planets gray with eld, of the worlds whereon no mortal astronomer has ever looked, and whose mystic heavens and horizons have given pause to visionaries. Tell me of the vaster blossoms within whose cradling chalices a woman could sleep; of the seas of fire that beat on strands of ever-during ice; of perfumes that can give eternal slumber in a breath; of eyeless titans that dwell in Uranus, and beings that wander in the green light of the twin suns of azure and orange. Tell me tales of inconceivable fear and unimaginable love, in orbs whereto our sun is a nameless star, or unto which its rays have never reached.”

– from “To the Daemon” by Clark Ashton Smith

Tagged: art, creative process, film, inspiration, Matthew Lowes, writing

Tell a Story Today; Change the World, by Eric Witchey

Source: georgemuesan iStockPhoto

Tell a Story Today; Change the World, by Eric Witchey

We live in an age when most rational, educated people believe substantial national and global changes to personal behavior, economic structures, and political structures are needed if the human race is to survive and, hopefully, thrive. Some people despair that ingrained, culturally-reinforced behavior has too much inertia and that nothing short of catastrophe can create change. However, culturally-reinforced behavior does change. Unfortunately, it only changes when scientifically proven knowledge becomes a story that can be repeated by people who have no direct access to, or knowledge of, the science that suggests the need for change. Catastrophe does instantly generate culture-wide story, but it is only one way to generate a culture-wide story. Luckily, there are other ways.

Scientific knowledge and the dissemination of scientific knowledge doesn’t have enough social mass to create large cultural changes. Knowledge has to become part of the national folklore that is repeated in ignorance as truth. Huge campaigns to create the science-based, viral memes that seat belts are good, littering is bad, and cigarettes kill had to be undertaken in order to make these messages a part of the unconsidered oral tradition of all the micro-cultures that make up the overall culture of America.

A person can be, but rarely is, logical and rational. A company, a crowd, a tribe, a state, or a nation is always irrational. I am not saying that irrational is bad. I am saying that irrational is the absence of objectively-considered choices that include weighing of long-term and global impact. By this definition, a company, a crowd, a state, or a nation cannot be rational without abandoning its own, shorter-term interests. These institutions are all monkeys with their paws stuck in their own jars. Only when the results of science become part of the foundation of their irrationality does culture change for the better. Corporate marketing people know this. Politicians know this. Story tellers have always known this. Little-by-little, story tellers are making the knowledge of this phenomenon part of the cultural awareness.

Consider the development of the science behind our understanding of climate change. The first presentation of the concept of carbon impact on the future environment was presented early in the 19th century. I wrote poetry about climate change when I was in high school in the 70s. The Carter administration worked hard to address the known issues of fossil fuel dependence and emissions output. About the time I entered college, my home town cut their coal-fired power plant smokestack in half and installed scrubbers. Way back then, we were on our way to cleaner air and alternative, sustainable fuels.

Administrations change. The message to the world changes with them. The influence on developing folklore changed from long term thinking to policies of immediate gratification, and that was the end of that.

The new, functional electric car disappeared. Emission controls were defanged. Education funding was cut, and schools were privatized. Concerns were put down with bandwagon and ad hominen attacks like, “Everyone who really understands the economy knows that’s silly” and “Oh? So, you have doctorates in climatology and education economics, do you?”

It has taken very expensive disasters and some creative rhetoric to make the popular oral tale shift from “Don’t be silly” to “Oh, shit. We better pay attention to this.” Nobel Prize winner Al Gore is one of our world’s best story-tellers. Piggy-backed on the rhetoric of “Oh, shit” is a narrative about how we got to this moment by letting corporate story override objective science.

It is no coincidence that at the same time this message is taking hold, attacks on funding to university research and attempts to mandate “usefulness” of federally funded research are underway. And so it goes.

The true battle is over who tells which story to the tribes. As fiction writers, we have a social responsibility to create tales that allow readers to feel hope and associate that feeling with models of successful personal and organizational behavior. We have a responsibility to create tales that allow the reader to experience the consequences of the individual’s failure to take action when action is called for. We, more than politicians, more than corporate marketing people, and even more than Al Gore, are responsible for creating the national folklore that drives discussions and motivates action.

Create a story today. Change the world.

Are Your Characters Starving? By Cheryl Owen Wilson

We populate our books with people or other worldly beings. Even beings have to eat don���t they? Are they eating bland oatmeal and drinking only purified water? If so, what does that tell the reader about them? Or are they sitting in front of a 3lb. tray of spicy, boiled crawfish, ripping the tails to enjoy the meat contained within, then completing this ritual by sucking the fat out of the crustacean���s head? Now that, my friends, will tell your reader something entirely different about said character, even if he���s green and has four hands. Why just think of how many of those red tiny creatures he could consume with those extra appendages.

I���ve just returned from my childhood home in the deep southern toe of Louisiana, a place where food is its own character. From gumbo���which bares a remarkable resemblance to the muddy waters of the many swamps peppered throughout the state���swimming with white rice���brown would be sacrilegious���to the stuffed sausage known as boudin���food is its own unique being in the land of my youth.

The first words out of anyone���s mouth when discussing my home state is, ���The food, oh man ���the food���!��� Followed lasciviously by. ���Do you know how to cook like that?��� When I say yes, their next words are—“Can I come to dinner?���

Now I know other cultures have their own unique food characters. But I���m writing about what I know and what I know is gator on a stick and grits glistening with sunshine yellow butter. I know if I have my protagonist dusting powdered sugar from her perfectly creased black slacks and eating beignets, she is probably sitting somewhere in the Deep South and drinking a steaming cup of syrupy, chicory coffee.

So again I ask you, are the living beings in your books starving? In many stories I read the meals are skipped over, fading from one scene to the next. What a waste. I say, let���s start feeding our antagonists and protagonists. Take for example, the 4-year-old girl in a story I started this morning who bites the heads off her Barbie dolls. Now don���t you want to know what she had for breakfast this morning or better yet, who or what she���ll have for dinner tonight?

I know you want to go out and eat now. But first, please tell me how food plays a part in your stories.

��

Tagged: Characters, creative process, Food, Louisiana, Silence of the Lambs, southern culture, Thomas Harris, writing

I Know It When I Read It

By Alexis Duran

When I first began my foray into writing erotic fiction, I discussed the “ins-and-outs” of the biz with a writer friend of mine.�� I noticed very quickly into the conversation that��whereas I always used the term ���erotica���, she always said ���porn���.�� It rankled me.�� Eventually I expressed my enranklement and she explained that in her opinion��erotica is just porn dressed up in a more marketable guise.

I beg to disagree.�� I believe there’s��a significant difference between the two genres, though there is a point at the extremes of both where they overlap.�� This is not a judgment call or anything to do with morality, but simply that, as a writer, I have no interest in crafting porn, just as readers of erotica and readers of porn have different tastes and come to the page looking for different experiences.

Pornographic fiction and erotic fiction share one major thing in common: hot, graphic sex.�� It���s my opinion that while in porn the sex is the reason d���etre, in erotica it is the icing on the cake, sometimes the filling as well, but never the whole cake.

Eros & Psyche by Antonio Canova

In porn, there is a setting; a roadside bar, an office, a castle on the hill. There are characters defined by easily identifiable labels; bored housewife, rebellious biker, lonely traffic cop.�� There is a very brief set-up; bored housewife stops at seedy bar and meets rebellious biker.�� There is action; hot, graphic sex on a pool table.�� That���s it.

Erotica has these things as well, of course, and depending on the style of the writer and the subgenre, these elements are developed and complicated to varying degrees. ��In erotica, the setting becomes a more richly detailed world designed to heighten the senses and provide both opportunity and challenges.�� The characters become actual people who��transcend labels. They have lives beyond looking for sex. They have complications and maybe as many reasons to avoid their destined mate as to jump their bones.�� There’s not only action, but plot.�� Here is where things really diverge.

In porn, there’s very little resistance between contact and coitus.�� Readers of porn aren���t interested in watching characters overcome obstacles to be together. As a matter of fact, I���d guess the reason they prefer porn is that they are tired of obstacles and just want to have fun. Porn is lust at first sight. Complications, if they exist, involve questions like ���how many bikers will this pool table support?��� not ���if I have sex with this stranger, will it be the end of my marriage?���

Essentially, erotica offers two major elements ��porn doesn’t: Romance and suspense.�� By romance I mean a developing relationship at the core of the story.�� By suspense I mean obstacles, doubts and delays that get in the way of the romance, or in other words, the grand human mess that is human intimacy.�� Erotic fiction ranges from pure fantasy to gritty reality, but always, there is some element of that most delightful state of being: anticipation.�� You might scoff and say there���s no suspense in romance because we know damn well who���s going to boff who.�� Well, that���s just like saying there���s no suspense in your average mystery because we know the detective will solve the crime.�� The suspense lies in the journey. What twists and turns shall we endure? What challenges will the lovers face? How often will their fatal flaws get in the way? Will X panic when he falls in love with Y? Will Y go back to her old boyfriend, or run away with Z?�� It���s all deliciously complicated, frustrating, and if done well, arousing.

And speaking of sex.�� Porn goes straight for the hot sex with a sprinkling of story on the side. In erotica, it��is��the story��that makes the sex hot.�� It hardly matters who does what with which parts, or how large or slippery those parts are. The reader has already slid beneath skin of the characters and ridden out the storm with them. The sex will be hot!

I believe we all dream of that perfect mate, that awesome, mind-blowing connection with another human being. That���s what erotica offers that porn doesn���t.�� The purely realized fantasy of love achieved, love expressed in its rawest form; hot, graphic sex. Dirty sex. Kinky sex. Sad sex. Angry sex.�� There is physical bliss but there is also emotion. Doubt. Fear. Longing. Rejection. Joy. Erotica removes sex from the realm of simple fantasy to that of complicated fantasy. Characters in erotica��earn��their orgasms, by golly.

Maybe I���m splitting hairs, but in this world we market and shop in, labels are important. While I will click on a book labeled erotica, I���d never click on one labeled pornography.�� So maybe my friend is right? Maybe it���s all just lipstick and fishnet stockings and fooling the search engines?

Call me a romantic, but I don���t think so.

Tagged: Alexis Duran, anticipation, Erotica, fiction, romance, Sex, writing, writing sexy fiction