My Desensitized Bits--A Reader/Writer's Journey
Greetings and happy Tuesday in January (a.k.a. Purgatory).
I have a sort of sensitive topic to address today so bear with me.
In the course of my research for the final Stewart Realty Book, Good Faith, I'm pondering the addictive personality. You know the type--usually good looking, athletic or otherwise driven to succeed, many times off the charts smart but with an inability to curb excess. Be it alcohol, drugs, exercise, work, or even sex, this person is a therapist's wet dream I-can-send-my-kids-to-college-thanks client. They are, in short an -oholic waiting to happen. I have known a few, and am related to a few more. I could be accused of this at different times of my life, the difference being (I think) that I caught myself, recognized it, and made changes to my own behavior accordingly.
Having watched a young relative drink themselves to death, literally, despite valiant efforts to "cure him" on the part of a lot of people, I realize this is no easy task for many humans. So please before you dash down to the comments section to lecture me let me make one thing perfectly clear: IT IS MY NON PROFESSIONAL OPINION that the alco/narco/sex/work/fitness/food-oholic needs help, support, and many times to be restrained physically from the thing that has them addicted however, ultimately the only change that EVER sticks comes from within that person. IF they can get the proper help.
So, back to my research (now that you are calm again). I am crafting a crucial character that the novel GOOD FAITH will turn upon, whose entire life has been spent in the spotlight--both for good and bad reasons. He came into the world a surprise, but was the center of attention from day one thanks to his high maintenance tendencies. Because his parents are wealthy, but driven they give him the sort of attention THEY got ("hey we turned out all right") from their equally successful sets of parents. Which turns out to be unintentionally half-hearted at times, and stiflingly overbearing at others. This book will explore a lot of things, including how parents do their best, wanting for their children a different life than they led and in the process merely enable a certain type of DNA-driven personality to be lazy, and expect things to be handed to them. Not that this character is "lazy" in the traditional sense. He is a talented athlete, ends up playing full scholarship football at an NCAA division one school (star quarterback with NFL hopes) and his focus on that from the time he could hold a football is admirable--and many times an addiction in itself.
Without revealing much more to my loyal fans and potential new readers, rest assured that this final novel in the best selling Stewart Realty series will pack a series of punches for this young man's family, his friends and the young girl who loves him so much it nearly destroys her--until she figures out maybe she can't love him anymore.
So, the research led me to the MOST fascinating article in Salon.com (my go-to source for news every day, right after the Louisville Courier Journal on line and annarbor.com). Written by a young man trying to come to terms with his inability to enjoy "real" sex thanks to his early addiction to internet pornography, it really got me thinking about those of us who write/edit in the realm of "lady porn" a.k.a. erotic romance.
While I really am trying to encourage new readers or those who stop me in the bar and ask how the "porn writing" is going (with a knowing rise of the eyebrows) to consider what I write as "just fiction," please, I have a few works that are best described as sex books--mostly those in my "menage" catalogue. I read these, and enjoy the well written ones, but have found myself less and less..ah...stimulated, erotically speaking the more I read them. Don't get me wrong: I still maintain to new authors in this genre that if you DON'T require a little "me time" during or after you write a sex scene of your own, you are really Doing It Wrong.
However, since this is my blog-thing I just thought I'd point out that without realizing it, my response to a "desensitization period" I may go through because I'm reading way too much explicit sex in my fiction can lead to a similar "out of body" experience as the young man writing the article about online porn. As many of you know, I don't read romance UNLESS it contains erotic elements. And, in an apparent odd transposition, I sometimes find the more subtle, less overt activity going on in "mainstream fiction" even more mentally stimulating than the blatant "lick, suck, pound, thrust and groan" going on in the majority of the books I have written.
Just an observation really. I don't plan to lighten up much on the explicit sex in my books, but I will say I am taking a lighter touch, trying to make it mentally stimulating and less like "porn writing" if you know what I mean. All in the name of improving my craft....
***EDITOR'S NOTE: This is NO WAY meant to belittle anyone's books, style, preferences or genre. So get a grip on your egos and just ponder how you handle your own moments of sexual desensitization****
Liz
And the blatant Liz Promo of the day: JOIN THE ROMANCE FOR REAL LIFE GROUP ON FACEBOOK NOW! I'm about to launch a 3-week reveal party for MUTUAL RELEASE the 7th Stewart Realty book that could (like book 8 will be ) be read as a stand alone novel with BDSM elements. "MUTUAL RELEASE: A NOVEL ABOUT TRUST, ON THE LONG ROAD TO LOVE."
I have a sort of sensitive topic to address today so bear with me.
In the course of my research for the final Stewart Realty Book, Good Faith, I'm pondering the addictive personality. You know the type--usually good looking, athletic or otherwise driven to succeed, many times off the charts smart but with an inability to curb excess. Be it alcohol, drugs, exercise, work, or even sex, this person is a therapist's wet dream I-can-send-my-kids-to-college-thanks client. They are, in short an -oholic waiting to happen. I have known a few, and am related to a few more. I could be accused of this at different times of my life, the difference being (I think) that I caught myself, recognized it, and made changes to my own behavior accordingly.
Having watched a young relative drink themselves to death, literally, despite valiant efforts to "cure him" on the part of a lot of people, I realize this is no easy task for many humans. So please before you dash down to the comments section to lecture me let me make one thing perfectly clear: IT IS MY NON PROFESSIONAL OPINION that the alco/narco/sex/work/fitness/food-oholic needs help, support, and many times to be restrained physically from the thing that has them addicted however, ultimately the only change that EVER sticks comes from within that person. IF they can get the proper help.
So, back to my research (now that you are calm again). I am crafting a crucial character that the novel GOOD FAITH will turn upon, whose entire life has been spent in the spotlight--both for good and bad reasons. He came into the world a surprise, but was the center of attention from day one thanks to his high maintenance tendencies. Because his parents are wealthy, but driven they give him the sort of attention THEY got ("hey we turned out all right") from their equally successful sets of parents. Which turns out to be unintentionally half-hearted at times, and stiflingly overbearing at others. This book will explore a lot of things, including how parents do their best, wanting for their children a different life than they led and in the process merely enable a certain type of DNA-driven personality to be lazy, and expect things to be handed to them. Not that this character is "lazy" in the traditional sense. He is a talented athlete, ends up playing full scholarship football at an NCAA division one school (star quarterback with NFL hopes) and his focus on that from the time he could hold a football is admirable--and many times an addiction in itself.
Without revealing much more to my loyal fans and potential new readers, rest assured that this final novel in the best selling Stewart Realty series will pack a series of punches for this young man's family, his friends and the young girl who loves him so much it nearly destroys her--until she figures out maybe she can't love him anymore.
So, the research led me to the MOST fascinating article in Salon.com (my go-to source for news every day, right after the Louisville Courier Journal on line and annarbor.com). Written by a young man trying to come to terms with his inability to enjoy "real" sex thanks to his early addiction to internet pornography, it really got me thinking about those of us who write/edit in the realm of "lady porn" a.k.a. erotic romance.
While I really am trying to encourage new readers or those who stop me in the bar and ask how the "porn writing" is going (with a knowing rise of the eyebrows) to consider what I write as "just fiction," please, I have a few works that are best described as sex books--mostly those in my "menage" catalogue. I read these, and enjoy the well written ones, but have found myself less and less..ah...stimulated, erotically speaking the more I read them. Don't get me wrong: I still maintain to new authors in this genre that if you DON'T require a little "me time" during or after you write a sex scene of your own, you are really Doing It Wrong.
However, since this is my blog-thing I just thought I'd point out that without realizing it, my response to a "desensitization period" I may go through because I'm reading way too much explicit sex in my fiction can lead to a similar "out of body" experience as the young man writing the article about online porn. As many of you know, I don't read romance UNLESS it contains erotic elements. And, in an apparent odd transposition, I sometimes find the more subtle, less overt activity going on in "mainstream fiction" even more mentally stimulating than the blatant "lick, suck, pound, thrust and groan" going on in the majority of the books I have written.
Just an observation really. I don't plan to lighten up much on the explicit sex in my books, but I will say I am taking a lighter touch, trying to make it mentally stimulating and less like "porn writing" if you know what I mean. All in the name of improving my craft....
***EDITOR'S NOTE: This is NO WAY meant to belittle anyone's books, style, preferences or genre. So get a grip on your egos and just ponder how you handle your own moments of sexual desensitization****
Liz
And the blatant Liz Promo of the day: JOIN THE ROMANCE FOR REAL LIFE GROUP ON FACEBOOK NOW! I'm about to launch a 3-week reveal party for MUTUAL RELEASE the 7th Stewart Realty book that could (like book 8 will be ) be read as a stand alone novel with BDSM elements. "MUTUAL RELEASE: A NOVEL ABOUT TRUST, ON THE LONG ROAD TO LOVE."
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