lisa writes stuff issue #23 smut and poetry
(this is safe for work fyi)
Dear Internet,
When it rains, it pours. I’ve had three pieces published in the last two weeks (listed below). I’m also working with an editor on a poem to be published TBA.
Two of the pieces are written under my government name, third piece under my smut/romance name, and the poem will be under my nom de plume.
When the smut piece came out, I decided to make the smut name public. I choose a separate name for the smut because I wanted to keep the genres separate. I don’t want someone to read a poem by me and then read a piece of smut and never read Lisa Rabey again. I want the reader to know exactly what they are getting when they choose to read one of my names.
With the smut piece, it’s explicit so if you choose to read it, keep that in mind. When I posted the link to the smut piece on FB, I made it clear that I write for my own enjoyment. I do not want to hear about what the piece did to you or your own fantasies or what you think I’m “really” like. When I published smut many years ago and posted the links on FB, I had quite a few people take that as an invitation to drop their desires onto me. No. I speedily unfriended and blocked them. I think I slapped down one of them before blocking him. He and I dated in high school, and he dumped me because I wouldn’t sleep with him. All these years later, he decided that my writing smut was an open invitation for he and I to sleep together. Oh god no.
I like the idea of Kat MacFee, sexy times and romance extraordinaire. I’ve been reading smut and romance for a long time (and having sex just as long). I feel I can write better than many smut/romance writers and I have a large imagination. Sex, as an act, an invitation, a passion, a job, highly interests me. A very close friend of mine used to go to a sex club with her creepy ex-boyfriend and would regal me stories about what went on. I really, really want to go with her to a sex club and just watch (which is allowed thank you for not being that creepy) and ask questions. There is only so much you can imagine! (Plus, details and the intricacies for some kinks would be helpful when writing about them. You can only read and imagine so much!)
I want to be Margaret Mead, scribbling notes while various acts are happening.
(You know, I’ve only read bits and pieces of Marquis de Sade so I should take him up again. I’ve read Anaïs Nin but it’s been a million years. I just requested Delta of Venus, Little Birds, and Henry and June from interlibrary loan since none of Nin’s books are available in eBook across my 11 libraries. I’ve also dabbled in Henry Miller’s, contemporary and lover of Anaïs, works. His novels are available for eBook checkout so if I want to dabble in him again, easy peasy.
Anaïs and Henry both moved to Paris in the 1920s so surely they hung around Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Stein, but they are often not mentioned when discussing The Greatest Generation.)
Well, that took a turn!
I like the stuff Nin, Miller, Lawrence, de Sade, and Colette wrote. (Links take you to their list of works on GoodReads.)
On one hand, it sounds a bit basic on the other, they could write sex and make it into beautiful and generous acts. Contemporary sex, and I’m talking outside of Penthouse Letters and most adult magazines, is that it’s tab A into slot B. It’s immediate and rough but not in good ways. It just puts me off reading it because the head fuckery is missing. Sex, to me, is also about how to seduce the brain.
They say those of the female sex need the mental before the physical while those of the male sex are totally visual. Even with what I wrote, I don’t quite know if I believe that. I’ve gotten off on being visual alone.
Such deep thoughts.
Finding a market to submit smut that is “literary” is actually quite hard because most market submission sites do not count “erotica” as a legit literary endeavor. Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve found only two so far. Do a search for erotica/smut/etc and you are directed to porn and porn like sites. I suppose I could publish there but again, more mind fuckery please.
There are several sites that prefer “clean” romance (aka no smut) and I’ll be submitting some there too under Kat’s name. Keep people guessing!
#
I’m working with an editor for a market on a poem that will be published under my nom de plume’s name. I’ve never worked with an editor before so this is exciting! He really liked the first submission but thought there could be more. So, I doubled the length, keeping the original bits, and he loved it. Now we’re fine tuning line by line.
I’m considering publishing this poem under my government name because I’m super proud where it’s going and I want to show it off. Nom de plume has zero audience and is not on social media other than having a website which gets very few hits a day. I could use this poem as a kickoff of her work and build a base?
I had REASONS when I came up with the nom de plume but they feel so secondary now. I’m really at a loss at what to do.
Why do I do this to myself?
#
Thanks to all who are buying my chapbook! I got another payout from Amazon. Not much but it’s something. You chums are the best!
Submission update
74 submissions, including 48 rejections, 6 acceptances, 1 withdrawal, and 1 consideration.
Publications
“vincent; in the bedroom” (flash) / 50-Word Stories, September 2023
“her heart was broken; it was made whole” (flash) / CafeLit, September 2023
“melodramatic poets are the worst kind” (smut) / eighteen seventy magazine, September 2023 (as kat macfee)
chapbook: commercial breaks
Snippet
This is from a piece I’m working on, “IPAs are not beer; you've been lied to.”
I’ve got 500 words in but not sure where it’s going yet.
Steve/Chad/Aaron is okay looking. He’s neither attractive nor unattractive; he just looks like every other 30 something guy valiantly trying to hold on to his youth. He has a slight paunch in the stomach, his shirt is a bit ill fitting, and he wears his jeans as if he intentionally gave no thought to their fit but thinks this no thought to the fit is on trend. He’s wearing motorcycle boots but you assume, and correctly so, he came in an Uber. There is a flash of a tattoo on his right bicep but you’re guessing it’s some kind of tribal work he got in his early 20s. You are also betting he is thinking about getting it covered but pride tells him to keep it as is.
Ladies love tattoos. What do they know?
His short hair is combed forward and you’re betting it’s more to cover the receding hairline than to be fashionable.
You’re not terribly off.
I really hate IPAs,
lisa x