Clara Brooks's Blog: The Diary of a Nobody Writer

The Delights of Man

So, I have a proper blog post in the works regarding the matter of how many men feel it's appropriate to act and behave online, but as a prelude to it I thought I'd post for all to see a lovely conversation I had with a lovely creature regarding my ass. Apparently chivalry isn't dead yet.

Thank you facebook for this entertaining and intimate little moment.

clara??
Friday 15:41
Report · 15:41
are you there??
10 minutes ago
Report · 11:08
bAby?
i wana bAng y0ur asS
Report · 11:09
cute
I wanna bang yours.
Report · 11:12
how would u bAng mine?
do you have a cock?
Report · 11:12
No, a strapon
Report · 11:12
l0ls.
i am male
i just bAng asses.
Report · 11:13
I know, but I can still bang your ass with a strapon.
Report · 11:13
and cAn tUrn u mad.
Report · 11:13
Don't you want to be my submissive little bitch?
Report · 11:14
i had 8" loNg c0ck.
hmm n0
i wana play a bit difrnt r0le bAby.
Report · 11:14
Did you, what happened to it? Did someone chop it off?
Report · 11:15
wil you be my sexy teacher?
Report · 11:15
Teaching you about strapons?
Report · 11:15
s0ry i didnt undrstand? whats meaning of chop?
Report · 11:15
cut, slice, dice, remove with a sharp object.
Report · 11:16
l0ls n0 you became my teachr n get me nakeD by trick n thn have hard fucking.
l0ls i stil have and it wants to ridE your ass bAby
Report · 11:17
Now excuse me, I'm writing and not currently in need of any ass banging activities. Done well, though, anal stimulation can indeed be most pleasurable.
Good luck in your future endeavours and may you be fruitful in your search for feminine ass eager to swallow up your amazing 8" specimen.
Report · 11:21
clara?
what happeneD bAby.
i was just fun.
Report · 11:22
Yes, dear? Are you ready to submit?
Report · 11:22
c0me oN have roleplay
submit?
what i have to submit?
i will fuck your vagina by my t0unge :-D:-D
Report · 11:23
Your ass. I told you, I want your ass.
Report · 11:23
then aftr that w0uld u gv yourz?
Report · 11:24
What I really like is guys whining and submitting and being my bitch, taking a pounding with my strapon. I love to give it good to a guy up his ass.
No, you get what I give you and you like it.
Report · 11:25
are you 36year old?
Report · 11:26
Maybe we could get another guy to join in so he could cum on your face? Would you like that little bitch?
Yes, 36.
Report · 11:26
you pr0file sh0ws 1977 as your birth year.
n0o i d0nt like gr0up sex.
i wana cum in your vagIna
Report · 11:27
Well, looks like you can't please me. See you later darling.

An Ill-Advised Interview with Talentless Hack Clara Brooks

Since she’s now firmly on the road to superstardom, it seems somewhat criminal that the delightful and enigmatic Ms. Clara Brooks has not yet been approached by either Time Magazine, Playboy or Cosmo for that all revealing interview. Yet since her many adoring fans are simply gagging to know the truth behind the mystery that is Clara, I decided to take the mammoth task upon myself and created the equally unusual Mr.X to do the seemingly impossible task and interview the seemingly uninterviewable.

So, dear reader, love of all things erotic and forbidden — read on and see this incredible personality reveal all in this exclusive interview.

***

Clara Brooks sits before me alluring, impatient, weaving all manner of dizzying, spellbinding, erotic enchantments on this humble interviewer. Dressed in a tight revealing red dress, she crosses and recrosses her legs seductively. She smiles warmly and leans forward, hugging me intimately rather than the usual aloof shake of the hand. I catch a whiff of her Chanel No.5 and a slight touch of her breast against me makes me feel….

CB: Can we get on with this, this wasn’t quite what I hand in mind?

Mr.X: It’s an honour, Ms.Brooks, to be given such a great opportunity to interview someone so smart and interesting such as yourself. May I just say that as alluring and provocative as I find your fiction, in person you are ten times more intoxicating. I feel as if I have been graced with the presence of a Goddess.

CB: Really, Mr.X, you do exaggerate, I’m just this cheeky little London girl…

Mr.X: I know, but I have to set the scene correctly for the reader. In truth you’re really rather ordinary, it’s a bit of a disappointment really. And frankly, I find your fiction rather cliché…

CB: OK, OK can we get on with the questions please? This is supposed to be a fucking puff piece.

Mr.X: So, how did you get into writing erotica, Clara? Isn’t that a bit of a filthy and disgusting thing for a lady to be doing. Why don’t you stick to Fantasy, Vampires or YA like a good girl?

CB: I’ve tried writing those things — OK not YA – for many years it was my ambition to write poptastic, exciting genre fiction. But my muse really hated me for it and she ckept screaming rude words in my ear at night, like “cunnilingus” and “cocksucker”. I realised that the world didn’t need any more fucking heroes, or if it did, they needed to be literally fucking heroes. I read a wide range of fiction and it occurredd to me that for one reason or another I’ve always been let down by sex in novels, whether it’s a work of porn/erotica or a single sex scene in genre/literary fiction – it’s always boring, That doesn’t gel with real life. Sex is a fundamental – possible the most fundamental – part of our human experience and yet we’re always so coy, dismissive or just plain terrible at expressing it in fiction. So I decided I wanted to attempt to capture sexual experience in its many and interesting forms; arousing, comic, strange, beguiling, terrifying …

Mr X: So you’re not just trying to cash in on the whole 50 Shades thing then?

CB: Well, that too. No, honestly, romance erotica is not my thing and so marketing my work will be as difficult as if 50 Shades had never existed. I want to push boundaries in terms of idea, form and content. I want my readers to feel like they’ve experienced something.

Mr. X: But don’t erotica readers just want to “get off?”

CB: They have my blessing to do that. I’m willing them on. But there’s more than one way to be aroused, and something can excite you erotically and stimulate you intellectually at the same time. I’ve had people – especially guys, for obvious reasons – tell me that they get off on my stories, and I think that’s awesome. If nobody did I’d feel a little sad because I want my writing to arouse people.

Mr.X: So your work is more than just porn? Do you see a big difference between what you write as “erotica” and pornographic jerk-off material?

CB: Honestly, people make such a big deal over that distinction and I’m not sure that I really care for it. I might think of my own writing as “artistic” but I don’t really need someone to invent a label to categorise it as such. “Pornography” for me is material that’s subversive because it pushes the tastes of decency and acceptability in society, that is, the idea of it heralds from a time when “sex” and representations of sex weren’t considered to be decent. Everything has changed now and “porn” just means hardcore sexual content. My writing has hardcore sexual content.

Mr.X: Now for the question that everyone wants the answer to. Do you base your stories on real life experiences, or do you just make them up.

CB: I’ve had so many people ask me this one already. I think that people want to bridge a gap between the concept of Clara on the page and with the Clara they might meet in real life. But I don’t actually answer it, not because I’m coy or care what people think about my sex life, but because my fiction is about blurring the boundaries between what we are, who we are, what society wants us to be, how it defines us and our fantasy-dream-erotic inner worlds.

It seems enough to me to say that writers can only write fiction if they have experience and understanding of the world and writing is a way of expressing their experiences and understanding.

Mr.X: OK that’s getting too deep for me. Before we end up getting personal again do you want to take a moment to plug your first published short fiction, currently languishing at the bottom of the Amazon Sales Ranks, “Proud and Prejudged?

CB: Buy it because it’s awesome. Basically it’s my cross between a fan fiction, erotica and comedy and I think that makes it unique. It’s a story about a girl – Clara, my alter ego – who has a hyperactive sexual imagination, and so when reading Pride and Prejudice she ends up fantasising about fucking Darcy ; that’s what good literature appreciation is, of course. The lines between fantasy and reality become blurred, so there’s a little weirdness, strange encounters and hardcore sex. Read it, it’s some good shit.

Mr,X: Sorry, I don’t have time, I’m reading Dostoyevsky.

CB: Motherfucker!

Mr.X: Any plans for future works you’d like to tell us about?

CB: Yep, loads of stuff.In the short-term I’ll be writing a sexy semi-sequel to Clara’s Dream, which ahs easily been my most popular flash fiction so far. It’s really going to be fucking hot, so watch out for it. I’m also writing another fabulous comic Clara fiction in which Clara meets Sherlock Holmes. I’m not gonna give anything away, including who fucks who, but there’s a lot of drama, comedy and hardcore threesomes.. I’m also planning a magical novel featuring Clara which is going to be insane and a little wonderful.

Mr.X OK, this is kinda boring. My readers are more interested ion dirty facts about you. Namely, do you masturbate while you write your stories. And is that even possible?

CB: Yes, I do. And I can promise you it’s perfectly possible. It’s not the quickest, most productive way of working, though.

Mr.X: You’re bisexual. So, you like girls? If you kissed one, would you like it?

CB: I’m very into girls. Girls smell of roses.

Mr.X: That’s your Chanel perfume actually, Clara.

CB: I’m a girl.

Mr.X: Good point. Can’t we discuss their breasts and the things you’d like to do to them, though?

CB: Try using your imagination huh? But seriously, LGBT issues are very important to me. That’s half of what my blog is about.

Mr.X: You also label yourself as a feminist. Isn’t that a bit PC for this day and age? Do you want people to see you as militant?

CB: I don’t see it as militant or too “PC” at all. I just happen to think that there’s a power imbalance in the world that’s developed over time and that we should all work together – men and women – to redress that imbalance. It’s just a way of saying that I think it’s important to see women as important as men, and that women have the right to express themselves and be the people they want to be.

Mr.X: What are your major literary influences. You claim to love books and movies. Which ones are your favourites?

CB: I’ve had lots of influences over the years and I try not to be a slave to any particular style. I read a lot of classics and am into women’s writing, my favourites are Jane Austen, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. I love Dickens, of course. I’m also a big sci-fi/fantasy fan and I love Lord of the Rings, Asimov’s Foundation, A Song of Ice and Fire, Robert E Howard’s Conan books, Gene Wolfe … the list goes on. I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan, so Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love graphic novels too – Alan Moore’s Lost Girls was one of the workd that inspired me into thinking that Erotica could be pretty cool.

I could spend all night listing movie influences. David Lynch is probably my biggest. And Kieslowski’s Three Colours. But really I love anything from Classic to Modern Hollywood, to art house, to Hammer Horror. I love Star Wars, of course.

Mr.X : What’s your ideal fantasy threesome.

CB: I could easily have said Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but this morning I realised that Kurt Cobain and Courtenay Love would have been damn hot. I fancy most celebrities, this won’t be a problem for me. Natalie Portman, Scarlet Johannson, Johnny Depp, Michael Fassbender… you get the idea, I could do this all day.

Mr.X: Finally, any tips for aspiring writers?

CB: Work harder than I do. Don’t masturbate while you are writing.

Mr.X: Clara, I’d love to say that this has been a pleasure, but honestly, apart from being able to stare at your overly exposed cleavage for extended periods of time, it’s frankly been a really dull interview with a talent less hack.

CB: I really can’t believe I created a fictional interviewer who insults me and my work. I must have a serious psychosis,

Mr.X : Don’t be so hard on yourself, most authors do. Especially the ones destined to fail.

CB: Ouch.

A Dark and Lusty Knight - Being a Clara Brooks Procrastination

For a better formatted version, please go here

Author's Note As a writer occasionally you just want to write something, edit it lightly and share it with people. It's good for productivity. I woke up this morning and realised that, whilst I have many Clara adventures in the works involving classic literature, it would also be awesome to be able to write the modern pop culture stuff. It would be awesome if Clara met Batman. I can't possibly write and sell that without getting my ass sued and I don't have that much time to spend in all these fabulous ideas. So, I wrote this in a few hours of fun, and will write part two when I next have a rampant lusting after a few hours of fun. Enjoy, in all its first - and possibly, but hopefully not the only - drafted glory.

A Dark and Lusty Knight -
Being a Clara Brooks Procrastination

Part One

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.””
- Polonius, Hamlet.

Clara lay on her back, on her boyfriend’s bed, uniquely dissatisfied.

“No girl was ever less satisfied than I,” she lamented.

As Clara lay demurely on her back, her boyfriend pounded into her with all the grace of a troop of horny monkeys. Clara was reminded of the monkeys who had been set the task to write the complete works of Shakespeare. If one randomly pushes Clara Brooks’ buttons in whatever manner one chooses enough times and for an infinite length, perhaps one day you will be lucky enough to create an orgasm. The monkeys hardly cared at all whether they accidentally stumbled across the First Folio edition of Hamlet any more than her boyfriend seemed to care about the script for Clara Brooks sensual pleasure. In both cases fun was being had pushing buttons regardless of the outcome, so long as - she supposed - there was some kind of innate physical response happening.

She closed her eyes and attempted to imagine an orgasm into existence. It was awfully difficult to do as much whilst a man is gnawing at your breasts as if they were an overdone piece of steak, ramming into you so hard and inelegantly, in a seemingly desperate attempt to find the back wall of your vagina, perhaps hoping that by doing so the seemingly elusive g-spot will make its first time appearance.

“Oh me, oh my!” She internalised. “My dashing Romeo has turned out to have all the grace and passion of a Jeremy Clarkson. Although I’m sure he, at least, could work through my gears a little more smoothly. Externally, she breathed with a heavier, steady rhythm and began to moan, “yes darling, yes, just like that baby. Oh, fuck yeah don’t stop, don’t ever stop!”

“Please, for God’s sake let it be over with. Just fucking cum already,” her inner demon scowled..

“That’s a bit harsh,” the daintier Clara replied, a little shocked by her other self’s attitude.

“Why, he’s a monkey, you said as much yourself not one - orgasm free - minute ago.”

“True, but just in bed. Otherwise he’s sweet, isn’t he? He bought me an ice-cream earlier while we walked around Hyde Park and then laughed as we watched the squirrels. That was nice and I simply love ice-cream. Earlier, while we were getting naked, he said that my nipples were like juicy little cherries. He simply loves cherries”

“Is that really it?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Clara felt glum.

“He’s got nothing else going for him than buying you an ice-cream?”

“He’s absolutely atrocious in bed, Clara. It’s terrible. I can have more orgasms when I flick through the Next Directory.”

“That’s not good Clara. Not good at all. Although, some of those catalogue models are pretty hot.”

“I’m glad we agree on something.” She nodded to herself.

Clara realised that she’d been discussing things too intimately with her other half, and that she’d forgotten to continue the play. “Oh, shove that huge dick in harder loverboy,” she screamed. “Was loverboy too much?” She wondered. Maybe it was the wrong word, perhaps it sounded fake. Could the guy tell if she was faking? Would he even care? Her concern was wholly misplaced since her pert little fruit pastilles were currently being chewed out of existence by what could only be described as a rabid chihuahua, who yapped annoyingly as he did so. “Oh Clara baby, you’re so hot, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cuuuuuuum. UHHHHHHH!”

“YES - go on baby, DO IT. FUCKING DO IT MY DARLING!!”. For the first time since they’d arrived back at her boyfriend’s apartment she’d spoken with an ounce of sincerety. “C’mon my amazing Superman, give it to me good and hard.” The mistake was made, the agony was about to be prolonged.

He stopped abruptly, completely destroying the rhythm of the thing....

(Interjection) - “there was no rhythm Clara, no rhythm at all. If you’re going to describe this gruesome ordeal in minute detail, then at least get it right. I’ve had better rhythms listening to 5 hours worth of Dubstep. And you know what dubstep does to your neural pathways. It’s not an experience I’m anxious to repeat” -

… he stopped abruptly. Breaking the condom as he pulled out.

(Interjection) - “Please, I don’t intend to get pregnant, not from this bad sexual experience anyway. I need something better to remember the baby by. If there’s going to be any condom breaking accidents, let it be during an orgasmic epiphany, OK?” -

...he stopped abruptly. This did at least stall the pain that had slowly devoured her increasingly sore breasts for a few seconds.

“Don’t be stupid honey. I’m totally not Superman. Superman is a douche and a pansy.”

“Errrr what? ( did he really just say that?) Never mind, carry on pet, carry on” (did I just say, pet?)

The boyfriend mercilessly continued. “There’s no internal drama going on with Superman. It’s all boy scout save the world stuff, and Apple Pie Americana.”

“Ok, sure, now fuck me baby. I am so fucking horny for you,” came out slightly more monotone than Clara’s intention. Her pleas for sexual attention were, however, wasted.

“I’d even prefer Captain America to Superman. At least Captain America can’t just do anything he wants. Fly, shoot lasers from his eyes, superhuman strength. No one can beat Superman ever. That’s just not awesome.”

“Riiiight, Ok. So anyway I was just thinking he probably had a huge superpowered dick that can give me a good time like you do. I bet no-one fucks like Superman. So show me a good time, big boy.” She was scraping the barrel of her sexual vocabulary, but admittedly she was also truly beyond caring at this point.

“Don’t be an idiot. Superman would be a terrible person to have sex with. He’s too strong and too powerful. Not human. He’d just break anyone he tried to enter into, in two. You don’t want Superman to fuck you, honestly.”

“OK.” Clara screamed, sorely running out of patience. “Forget I said anything. Can we PLEASE just get back to having sex like a normal couple and stop talking about Fucking Superman - you moron.

“If anything, I’m Batman.” Was she even there, Clara wondered? “Batman has deep emotions. Batman is badass. Batman understands the shit that goes down.”

Batman.

Clara lay back, ready to embrace yet more missionary position torture. She was demure. The warmth she felt as he held her before re-entry was a moment of calm and pleasure before the onslaught continued. She reached out her arm sideways to grab some lube from the dresser in an attempt to stop her being sore in the morning, but instead her hands found one of the many Batman graphic novels that were strewn around the room. She sighed, winced in pain, opened the book and looked at something that seemed to resemble Batman kicking Superman on the jaw.

“C’mon baby, she muttered with a good deal less enthusiasm than before. The difference it made was untraceable “Fire that me that great big load inside of me. Mmmm wow you turn me on so much, honey.”

*

“Oh wow. This is the best sex I’ve ever had. Truly”

Clara Brooks, you’re a filthy, dirty lying whore. Why tell stories? Why don’t you tell him the truth? He’s a fucking terrible lover.

“I don’t know. It’s easier. It’s just easier. Better. I like stories. He won’t get hurt this way. Nobody will get hurt. Stories are good.”

You’re going to hell Clara Brooks.

No, shut the fuck up. That’s a lie. There’s no hell. It makes no difference.

Lie back and dream Clara. Take it like a woman. Lie back and take it. Be the girl you were born to be.

No, be the dream you were born to be, Clara. The monkeys didn’t write Hamlet just by pressing buttons. The monkeys will never write Hamlet. You really can’t write a great play that way. You don’t just press the buttons, you have to press them in the right order.

“To sleep, perchance to dream”

I’m Batman, I’m Batman, I’m Batman.

“Why does he always get to be Batman?”

*

The ordeal was finally over. Thick night had long since descended across North London, a dark squalid haze of pollution depressing the spirits of all but the night-owls, the lifeblood of the City; aspirational bourgeois socialites who had partied hard, played hard and would soon go home to fuck hard; the petit bourgeois who deplored the stale heat of the working day and their calculated little lives run on schedule, preferring the fetid stink of manufactured fun, the ambiguous cocktail of sweat, stale vomit and casual sex. The witching hour was about to come, the last tube home would be leaving imminently and woe betide any who should miss it, left out on the streets with the sneering homeless, the murderously insane, the troubled whores, and the hopelessly lost. Clara, a conventionally pretty 20 year old medical student at UCL, wondered if she, too, was destined to be hopelessly lost, shrouded in bourgeois darkness with no escape save the Asylum. Would anyone rescue her from this darkness?

She had better leave her partner now and get the last tube back home to Claraland; if she missed it, how long before the next one?

“If you’re Batman then who am I?” She asked as she quickly dressed.

“What do you mean? You’re Clara.”

“I mean, If you’re Batman I could be your Catwoman, or Poison Ivy or something like that. Catwoman is pretty hot, right. Surely you want a Catwoman?”

He laughed sourly. “Don’t be silly Clara. Matilda is more of a Catwoman. She has this sexy, sultry slutty, purry thing going on”

“My best friend Matilda. You think she’s a purry slut?”

“No, not at all. I just mean she’s probably a lot wilder in bed. Into kinky shit. You’re a little demure, and proper.”

“I am? Demure?”

“Sure.”

“I want to be Catwoman. I want to be sexy. I could be kinky.” Clara protested, but wondered why she bothered.

“Well, you’re not Catwoman. I just don’t see you that way.”

“Who am I then? Dark Phoenix, Wonder Woman, Black Widow?”

“Nobody, you’re none of those, you’re just Clara OK?”

“Is that who you want me to be? Just Clara.”

“Sure. Just Clara.”

“Demure and proper Clara?”

“You can’t very well have a relationship with a slut, can you? Good for one night stands, I bet Matilda is amazing in bed, but just not dependable. Not like you are. You’re lovely, Clara. I know you’ll always be there for me. You put up with my shit.” He laughed and Clara was unsure whether it was at himself or her.

Dependable Clara.
Demure Clara.
Proper Clara.
Lovely Clara.

Just Clara.

Are you not wild, Clara?
Can you never be a slut, Clara?
Do you not fake your orgasms well enough for him, Clara?

Do you not fake life well enough Clara?

“Hey, there’s an RSC production of Hamlet on next week,” the thought just occurred to her. “You wanna go? I really love Hamlet.” Why did she bother to ask, she wondered.

“No, I can’t, I’ve got an exam and I’ve already promised Vicky I’d go round hers and help her with Ophthalmology”

“Sight – that’s King Lear.”

“What?”

“Oh Nothing. Vicky huh? OK, whatever, it doesn't matter” she sighed. “Look, can I borrow this Batman comic?”

She didn’t want to know any more about Vicky. Vicky was a leggy blonde who had been receiving a lot of help on medical topics recently. She pulled on her thick cloak and flew out into the night, ready to stalk the streets of London.

Onset of Darkness at the End of the Day

So, I'm well into writing my next Clara story but needed a break so I thought I'd divert myself by writing a straight-up parody - of Twilight. I was quite pleased with how it turned out so I'm going to publish it for fun, it might even be ready tomorrow I'm not sure. Here's the opening extract. (excuse GR for wreaking havoc with the formatting)

Onset of Darkness at the End of the Day

by Clara Brooks

Life sucks.

No, I’m serious. I’m not even joking. Oh my days, life really sucks. Really, really, really really sucks. Total, maximum suckage. I’m saying that if you got a vacuum cleaner and put it on maximum strength for, like, twenty minutes, it wouldn’t come close to creating the amount of suck that there is right now in my life. Look, my life is just so terrible I’m going to give you an example. I was eating dinner with my my mum and my stepdad - just before I moved away - and they’d served up mashed potatoes and peas and sausages, and it was just horrible, and so I told my mum;

“This is really horrible mum. This has to be the worst dinner I have ever eaten in my entire life and I’m not even joking. God, my life sucks. I totally said I didn’t want mashed potatoes again tonight. We had them last month.” My mother totally doesn’t understand me. Why would she serve mashed potatoes when I told her specifically that I hated them. And don’t get me started on the amount of times she's given me peas. Gross.

“For the Lord Almighty’s sake Irma Goose, not this again. Just eat them will you? There are children starving in Ethiopia you know who would die for that mashed potato and you’re complaining about this wonderful God given gift of food you have on the plate in front of you.”

“Please, Mary, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain in front of the child, we’re trying to raise her as a good Christian. It’s not going to reflect well on us if she starts saying that at school, is it?” My idiot stepdad intervened.

“Oh do shut up Joseph. Now Irma, think of the poor little Ethiopians who aren’t blessed to live in such a wonderful God-blessed country as you and eat up your potatoes like a good girl.”

And this is what I said, because this is - the point I’m trying to make with this interesting anecdote - how much my life sucks. “I’d rather be a starving Ethiopian than have to eat your mashed potatoes ever again mum. And do you know why mum? Because they suck and my life sucks. Everything about my life sucks. I bet those poor starving Ethiopians don’t have parents who decided to get divorced. They’ve got absolutely no idea how terrible my life is They don’t know what it’s like to have divorced parents” And do you know how she replied to my heartfelt burst of emotion?

“You’re being a little overdramatic dear.” Typical. Just typical. You put all of your feelings, all of your emotions out there and that’s the typical response you get from parents. She’s the one walking away, not me.. Why should I have to suffer for it? By the grace of God, she filed for divorce which I’m sure is something that Jesus would never do. Just because my Dad was caught in a compromising situation with a cheerleader. Sure, it might have been a little wrong and I hate him from the bottom of my heart for doing it, but at least he asked for mum’s forgiveness in front of God, and honestly, if God can forgive him for doing it then why can’t she? “Cheer up dear, you’re going to live with your Dad in Spoons, which is a beautiful little town, and I’m sure you’ll meet a really nice handsome young man there and you can have so much fun going to Sunday school together and listening to that noisy rock music you like so much, Stellar Kart isn’t it?

“Spoons. I’m quite sure that Spoons is the dullest place on the entire planet.”

A Revelation - Why I Decided to be a Writer

This nobody woke up one morning a few weeks ago and decided that she was going to be a writer. That is, for the first time in her life she would actually put some writing out there in the world that consumers could physically purchase with real money and then proffer their opinion - for good or ill - should they so desire.

In some ways this was one of the biggest decisions of my life and it’s certainly one of the scariest. The reason being that I know almost certainly that this endeavour is destined to fail in every way (resulting in pain, frustration and feelings of social abandonment), but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. I decided to do it anyway because - for good or ill - I love writing and I have things that I want to share with the world.

When I say hat I *love* writing, I actually do mean that I *love* it. Not the potential money, not the potential fame, not the cult of reading/writing, but the actual sitting down, the creating of strange stories in my head and the expressing them through writing. Everyone has that *thing* that they have that takes them to a happy place where they feel that nobody can hurt them, and my happy place is writing. And by writing I mean reading too, of course (how many writers don‘t even enjoy reading all that much?). I've read voraciously since I was a child. You all know that story; sad little loner with no friends takes comfort and solace in the world of imagination. The passion for reading is perhaps not quite that simple, but that’s how it inevitably starts and being an awkward, anti-social geek all of my life, that’s how it started for me. And my love of reading stories quickly turned into a desire to tell stories. And that desire was quickly crushed by a society that doesn't want people to have inner lives that they can express outside of the dreary narrative of the 9-5 job. I don’t have time, money or motivation. I'm mostly too busy trying to find a Room of My Own

You see, I've considered become a writer many times in my life but being an anti-social, awkward unconfident geek I've always withdrawn into myself when others have been better able to exert their own egos. I'm the girl who never aces the job interview because there’s always some other guy who with supreme cocksure arrogance who can talk the talk. I'm the girl who sit and giggles and does her best to look cute in the hopes that will be enough to get my by. It never really is though.

And so I've always felt that I'm destined to fail. And so I've never made the decision to do it. And I feel like I'm destined to fail because if you have a little surf on the internet everyone involved with writing, writing communities and publishing will tell you that *you* are not good enough. Encouragement inevitably comes through copious criticism. Not that I don’t appreciate criticism but my fragile ego just can’t take that much of it. I have spent countless hours reading blog posts and articles telling me I don’t work hard enough, I don’t grammar check, I don’t re-draft, I need an editor, self-publishing is so difficult and I won‘t be famous overnight, I need to re-draft and also I need to redraft (virtually every time I've brought up the topic of struggling to write someone has kindly informed me that I need to redraft more). Not that I don’t appreciate the tip-off on “you need to work hard to write well” but I always wondered where the plain and simple “I am awesome” part came in.

I mean, I'm working hard to write stories to entertain people. I think that is awesome.

Well, I woke up a few weeks ago and realised that that was, in fact, awesome and that I should write and the pursuit of the endeavour should come before the online obsession with perfection. Before getting an editor, proofing, grammar checking and publishing perfection. Before waiting 2+ years to put anything out there in which time my fragile ego will have been disintegrated. I'm not saying that I intend to put out substandard work but I am saying that what my writing is about is *me* expressing myself to other people and if that’s a little bit wobbly in places, well I hope that the fun, frivolity and general awesomeness - the fabulousness of Clara Brooks - will make up for that. When did self expression become so bound up with perfection anyway? (Ok I’ll answer that - when reading as a hobby became marketed like coca-cola)

So I woke up and I had an idea - which I have now published as the first fabulous erotic adventure of Clara Brooks - and I thought it was awesome so I wrote it down in a couple of weeks of furious excitement. I edited it myself, I proofread it myself, I made the cover myself and I self-published on Kindle myself. And the whole process made me unspeakably happy. It probably won’t make me rich but an economic exchange or two may take place whereas some people give me small amounts of money in exchange for the pleasure of reading it an in my wildest dreams some people might ask me to write another (NB they’re getting another whether that ask or not but that’s besides the point).

Anyway, I was going to write about why I chose to write and publish erotica of all things but that will have to wait for the next post!