Pollygraph (interviews with erotica authors): J Strickland

Why erotica?
I read many things. I love to read, and erotic romance is just one of the things I read. I write primarily erotic romance because I want to explore how people feel and react in different situations. My first novel, I Met My Old Lover…, was inspired by a dream about an old friend. I had long wondered what it would be like to run into her again. That idea consumed me so I wrote about it to live out the fantasy in a harmless manner. Once I did write the story, I found I no longer spent time wondering what it would be like. I had lived out the meeting in a fictional manner. Years later, when I did run into her, it was a friendly meeting but not something I obsessed over. We’d both gone on with our lives, and found others to love, though we do get in touch with each other from time to time. Ours was a nice friendship when we were much younger, and that friendship continues today.

How did you get into it?
I had read erotica and erotic romance for years. I was reading Summer Camp by Nick Scipio and started by creating some of the supplemental materials for his books. Later, he asked me to proofread for him. That is something I still do for him today. Later, I wondered if I could write so I tried it, hoping eventually a hundred people might read the story I wrote. I hit that goal within hours of the release. The number of readers grew to hundreds by the next morning and they clamored for me to write more. I was hooked, and it also gave me a chance to give back for all the stories I had enjoyed over the years.

What kinds of erotica do you write?
I write mostly erotic romance. The stories usually involve a man and woman in love. They are typically either married or get married by the end of the story, though sometimes I vary from that. I like to think outside the box and give my stories an unexpected twist, like for example Yellow Lambswool. I often get inspiration from interesting places I’ve visited. Most of the settings are based on real places, or combinations of real places. Very few involve totally fictional settings.

Tell us about your experiences as an erotica author. 
What have the big challenges and successes been? One of my biggest challenges was writing The Cuba Stories series. Originally, I planned a short story about a man going to Cuba illegally and falling in love there. The story would end with him going home, leaving his love behind and promising to return one day. I released that story a chapter a week as I wrote it.  Past the halfway point, my readers began to see how the love was doomed. They demanded a sequel where the characters could get back together. I hadn’t planned to continue the story, but I caved into the demand and figured out a way of continuing the story. I had a lot of help from my readers, many of whom had been through the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. In the end, the original story (Havana Club) turned out to be the introduction to the real story (After Fidel).

Another was writing Secrets Revealed, which uses a non-linear timeline. The narrator relives memories in the order they come back to him, rather than in chronological order. Time shifts happen mid-sentence as one thing in the present meshes with a memory of something similar in the past. Readers report being confused the first time the timeline changes, but by the second shift are able to follow the story as it skips forward and backward between his present day experiences and his memories of his past.

Perhaps my single biggest challenge was writing Paddling Upstream, which involves a man working through the death of his wife and learning how to love again. For this one, I had the help of a good friend who is a psychologist. He helped me understand how the man’s recovery would go. In the end, it was a success, based on all the fan mail I got from readers who had lost a spouse. They without fail assured me that I had exactly captured the recovery process. The book is one of my longest, and took over a year to write. I enjoyed writing it, and find myself reading it again from time to time.

Do you write in other genres, too?
Yes, I write in other genres. I use different pen names (and keep the different identities separate) so I can write with a different style in each. I have one mainstream novel out now and am about to release a second one. The mainstream novels are written under my real identity. Most of the people who know I write have no idea that I also write anything besides mainstream. I’m always careful when doing interviews and appearances for the mainstream work to not mention that I write other things. When I have multiple books out, I will be able to refer to multiple works. The mainstream writing is a front for the money and success I have enjoyed writing in the other genres. The third pen name has also done well and involves e-books only slightly similar to the Strickland stories.

Do the people around you know what you write? How have they reacted, or how would they react? 
Because I publicize my mainstream works under my real name, many people know I write. The fact that I write in other genres such as erotica and erotic romance is told on a need to know basis. Besides my immediate family, only people who serve on my editorial team know the other names I write under and what kinds of other books I write. This is to protect me from the celebrity or notoriety of my other stories, and to protect my wife’s career. People are always pleasantly surprised when they learn that I write.

The friends who have been told about the other genres are always quite surprised. They think of me as reserved and don’t expect that I would be someone who would write the kinds of things I really write. In spite of their initial reactions, they are always very supportive of me and of what I write. Erotica and erotic romance have become very much mainstream and are more accepted now than they were just a few years ago.

Tell us about your most recent titles. 
Most of my writing over the last few years has been for the other pen names, but last year I released Can I Bring A Friend? under the Strickland name. This was based on an idea I had carried in my head for years, about a man in a long distance relationship. His girlfriend brings her friend along on one of her visits and initiates a three-way encounter. Most recently, I released Sharing A Boyfriend, inspired by a very short story I read years ago. It's about a young woman walking in on her sister having sex. She joins them and the twosome becomes a threesome. The story is told by each of them, and this gets interesting because each knows something about what really happened that the others don't.

Do you have a favourite, or favourites, among your stories? 
Among the erotic romance, I have two favorites. One is Yellow Lambswool, of which parts are based on my own time in college spent touring Europe. Many of the characters are based on real people I met there, but the central plot is fictitious. I especially like the ending which came to me after I had written most of the story. I had another ending in mind, but when that one came to me I knew in an instant there was no better way to end the story. I believe the popularity of the story is due to how I ended it.

The other is Paddling Upstream. This is a long novel about an author dealing with his celebrity as well as moving on after the death of his wife and letting himself love again. The story is as much a journey of recovery as it is a great love story. Along the way to the ending he deals with many obstacles as he rebuilds his life. A unique feature about that novel is that the book is the story of how he wrote the book itself. Visiting the place that inspired the town in the story is always a special treat now. I see it in a different light. It's almost like stepping inside my book.

How do you normally go about writing an erotic story? Is there much, ahem, research involved...? 
I don’t start writing a story until I can start to see it in my head. I start with an opening scene, have an idea of a few key things that need to happen along the way, and I know where I want the story to end up. From there, I start writing. I’ve often described it as being like sitting in the corner with a pad and pen, watching the characters act out the story. I feel like I’m just writing down what I see them doing as the story plays out in my head. When I sit down to write, I often don’t know what is about to happen until I write it. I’m as anxious to see what happens next as the reader will be.

Depending on the story, I often have to do a lot of research. I’ve had great success cold calling people and businesses to conduct interviews. I’ve done everything from calling a hotel front desk to ask the kind of floor in the lobby, to calling a small airport to ask what it’s like to hang out in the pilot’s lounge on a summer morning, to talking with an airline’s spokesperson to find out details of the interior of a particular aircraft and what their procedures are for dealing with a crash. People love to talk about themselves and their jobs. When I identify myself as an author writing a story that involves some aspect of their lives, they are always eager to speak with me.

Google Earth and Google Street View have been wonderful aids when I need to check what a detail looks like in a real location, or how it's changed over the years.

One story that required a lot of research was King Size Bed. I’ve never had a threesome (my life is not nearly as exciting as my characters' lives) but I interviewed a few people who did. When I wrote the story, one of them read it and told me how I had written it as a man’s fantasy. After listening to her comments, I rewrote it and she then told me it was perfect. I never expected that story to do well but wanted to try stretching myself by writing about something I hadn’t personally experienced. That story has gone on to win awards and be read by an incredible number of people. It is my most popular story to date, and was the first to receive inquiries about movie rights.

Do you have any favourite erotica authors? 
There are a few who influenced me, whose works I enjoyed, and who inspired me to start writing. I learned how to put realism in my stories from reading their works.

One was Nick Scipio, who encouraged me to start writing and showed me how to do it well. I’ve enjoyed reading everything he’s written. He wrote the foreword to the more recent editions of my first novel.

Another was Carree Wilson, who wrote the Carree Loves Billy series. Her stories were some of the last I read before I decided to start writing. When I had achieved success as a writer, I tried writing to her to thank her for her influence and learned that she had recently died. I wish I could have thanked her before her death because she influenced me greatly.

There are a few others, but these are the two who come to mind first.

What are you proudest about regarding your writing? 
That would be the other authors I encouraged to start writing. I believe everybody has a story to tell and I have often encouraged others to tell their tales. I enjoy being able to share my success by helping others realize their dream of writing.

What about frustrations?
I am frustrated that I have to hide my identity. It’s best for a number of reasons. One is because of the large number of fans. Based on e-mail I’ve received, it’s best that a small number of them can’t find me, for the protection of my family. I’ve met a very few in person, and spoken by telephone with others - mostly members of my editorial team. Another reason is because of writing Havana Club and After Fidel. The details in those stories makes it obvious I’ve been there. I’m not allowed to publicly talk about that experience. Writing a fictional story with a pen name allowed me to disclose some of what I learned on my visit. I’d love to be able to reveal publicly who I am, but various legal and personal reasons require me to keep this identity a secret.

Besides writing and reading, what do you enjoy doing in your leisure time? 
I enjoy hiking in the mountains and I enjoy running. Many of my plots were worked out while on long runs.

And finally, what can we expect to see from you soon?
I’m always writing, releasing several e-books a month, but usually under other names. When one of the stories fits the erotic romance genre, I release it under the Strickland name. I have a lengthy queue of stories to write and some of them will be Strickland stories, but I’m not working on one right now.

How can we connect with you?
You can find my Author Central page at http://www.amazon.com/J.-Strickland/e/B005WKMBQYI am on Facebook as Jay Strickland. Facebook wouldn't let me use an initial for my first name so I spelled it like it sounded.I have a Yahoo discussion group, Strickly Speaking, which you can find at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Strickly_Speaking/Finally, I use Twitter from time to time. Follow me at @strickland83