lisa rabey writes stuff issue #14 writing sex
Dear Internet,
Big news! I’m kicking off a new project called 51 Stories in 51 Weeks. I announced it on my other newsletter last week. To sum: I’ve decided to write 51 word stories and post each one for 51 weeks for a total of 51 stories. I’ll be launching on my birthday, Monday June 12 (where I turn 51), and posting it on A Most Unreliable Narrator. I’ll be linking to each post on the project’s webpage. The stories will be posted every Monday for 51 weeks. I decided to go with the AMUN newsletter because it has a larger audience. This newsletter is great, but the audience is small and I’m not really doing anything to promote it so no new subscribers. (I promote none of my work so I’m a terrible marketer.) Anyway, feel free to bookmark the project’s webpage or subscribe to AMUN!
I signed up for a class to learn how to write “intimate scenes (without going all the way)” which is due to start in a few weeks. I’ve been signing up for classes via the various associations I’m on and they have been super helpful. As a member of these associations, the cost is usually pretty low (Under $25) and I get a lot out of it. I’ve been debating for ages on getting my MFA, which would be handy, but I think I like this hunt and peck version of getting instruction better. I’ll gain more insight for niche topics that I wouldn’t get out of an MFA. BUT! That does not take getting an MFA out of the running. I’m keeping my eyes on online programs and hope to do some in the future when life calms down.
Speaking of hot sex, I wrote a piece (well started to anyway) that is pretty sexy. It was for a group I’m in (we were to write about self-pleasure and take it any direction you want), and I really enjoyed writing it. No one has read it yet, but it got me thinking about what to do with the work.
I checked a few lit mag search sites and erotica can be a hard sell. I did find a lit mag that was 100% erotica but it was produced by a man and written by men. The images peppering the site were obvious photoshops of thin women with big boobs and different faces then the body.
The writing was total fantasy and bad.
Here is an example:
Their mouths met in a lucious kiss. Her cherry flavoured lipstick slowly melting onto his tongue and making him feel he was a teenager again.
(I left in the incorrect spelling.)
I spent most of Monday reading smut across various sites, mainly Lush Stories, and here are a few more examples of what erotic content is like out there:
“and the cum shot that followed and moisturized my face"
"My pussy percolates in anticipation of a taste"
“’They will notice my breath reeks of sperm.’
David laughed. ‘I have mints in my pocket.’”
It got me thinking: I think I can do better than others but can smut be hard to write? How many times can you talk about a man’s shaft rubbing against her quim. (“Quim” is used heavily in Regency romances. It’s etymology dates to the mid-18th C.)
I have a very active imagination when it comes to sex. I think most people do as well, but it seems for many of us, there is a lot of repression. I don’t feel repressed for sure, sexually I’ve been experimental, and there is sexual stuff I’d still like to try out so with writing, I can tell those stories.
As for repetitive words, Laurel Clarke put together a sexy thesaurus. It’s ingenious how she did it: she cross referenced four to five romances across time periods (Regency, contemporary, etc) as well as fiction. Reading it has given me ideas.
If you’re interested in her thesaurus, here are the links:
Way back in Issue #2, I wrote about picking nom de plumes. I have two and I decided that one of them will write smut.
After talking to Mr Lisa, and walking him through my own smut, we got this brilliant idea for me to write smut and sell it on Amazon. There is a giant world out there of erotica in all written forms where the author makes money. And the better you are, the more you sell, and the more you make.
Does everyone make money selling smut? No. But I like reading smut and I like writing it, so why the hell not?
The smutty nom de plume, like my other nom de plume, will not be connected to my government name for reasons. I want to keep everything separate so I can switch brain gears when I write.
I whipped up smutty nom de plumes website this past weekend. It took about an hour to buy the domain, set up the hosting, and knock out a simple site. While the primary nom de plume is on Twitter and Mastodon (and has a website), the smutty nom de plume only has a website. I signed up with a mailing list company to start building a mailing list for smutty with the idea of sending out a new, and free, flash erotica every week. I have to collate what work I have written and bundle it up as an eBook. I might knock out the production myself because this is a low stakes buy in. If I do start writing longer pieces for the smutty nom de plume, then I’ll invest in an editor, book designer, etc. When I was posting about writing smut this weekend n FB, a friend commented that after reading almost exclusively on Kindle Unlimited for ages, she canceled the subscription and started checking out books from her local library. She said that there is huge difference between indie and trad publishing and how much better the books were that were in Libby.
Which is why I don’t want to end up like most people publishing on Kindle Unlimited!
(Back in Issue #7, I note that I don’t know how Kindle Unlimited pays its authors. Now I do: authors are paid per page read. The current payout is $0.00412 per page read. And it only applies to the first time the reader reads your book. If your reader reads your 100 page novella, you’re paid for the pages read. if the same reader re-reads your novella, you do not get royalties. More info on the KU program here.)
In other writing news, now that we’re in N Michigan for the summer (and early fall), I’m super excited to get writing Aubrey Jones Gets a Life again. I’m also editing some existing pieces to submit and started collating the smut. In Issue #4, I wrote about my anonymous Instagram poetry account that I ended up taking down because it was too much work. I started going through those poems the other day and there is a lot there! I want to start submitting those to lit mags too.
Got a few rejections in the last week and one that really stung was for a lit mag that has 60% acceptance rate. 60% and I still got rejected. My ego was dinged a bit. But I like what the lig mag stands for so I’ll write up a new piece and submit again.
There is a lot going on and I’m super excited!
Media
What I’m Reading
This year I’ve committed to read 75 books via the Good Reads Reading Challenge.
Glenarvon Byron’s ex-lover was so distraught about their breakup; she wrote a roman à clef about their relationship.
The Lost Apothecary “A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them.”
Big Swiss “A brilliantly original and funny novel about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions.”
Pirate Vishnu (Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery #2) Sacred riches from India. Love triangle. Murder. Jaya has her work cut out for her.
Stiff (audio) “The curious lives of human cadavers.”
Shadows in Bronze (Marcus Didius Falco #2) “Ancient Roman gumshoe” is on the case again.
Trespasses “Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion.”
Hestia Strikes a Match “the slyly funny story of a woman looking for love and friendship in the midst of a new American civil war”
Murder in Westminister (Lady Worthing Mysteries #1) A darker twist of Bridgerton.
Galatea “reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion.”
Atomic Habits “An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones”
Check out the media I’ve consumed for 2023
Submission update
40 submissions including 29 rejections, 2 acceptances, and 1 withdrawal.
Publication
chapbook: commercial breaks
Snippet
This snippet is from “i climbed the walls of the wasteland” which was a poem I wrote for poetry class in 2005 and re-worked in 2018. It needs to be re-worked again now that I’ve read it with fresh eyes. Clearly I was reading T.S. Elliot and Walt Whitman in that class.
underneath a tree You sing of the body electric I watched you lie in leaves of grass While I navigated the wasteland
waiting for something, anything a hat to fit boots to fall some pieces of me
underneath a tree while you sang of a body electric upon your leaves of grass I climbed the walls of the wasteland
lisa x