Foucault, Death and the Happily Ever After.
Thinking about the metanarrative possibilities of the Happily Ever After trope, it has occured to me, in re-reading Foucault’s “What is an Author?” that there is a kernel of something here to be explored. In examining the relationship between writing and death, Foucault gives us two examples: the hero in the Greek epic and case […]
Introductions and Thank-Yous
This is a post to introduce you to a few erotic fiction writers you may not have read yet. They all very generously talked to me on the subject of non-con in erotica and they are all writers I respect. Please take a look at Gillian Colbert’s site Catherine Leary’s site Kathleen Bradean’s site M. […]
No More Crits: I have a form letter
It has taken me years to figure this out, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that when people send you stories and ask for feedback, most of them just want you to say ‘it kicks ass’. Which, in a way, is good, because a few lines of praise are SO MUCH EASIER to drool […]
How to Approach the Question
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to approaching the subject of happily ever after endings. I have a deep prejudice against any form of literature which prescribes plotlines. As a writer, I’ve been deeply influenced by theoreticians like Eco who view formula driven fiction as a lesser form of literature. As a creative – […]
The Hard Goodbye: When the Artists We Admire Disappoint Us.
Today I’m sad. I’m sad because I read this: Frank Miller’s invective-filled hate piece about the Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s a pretty shocking piece of badly reasoned, idiosyncratic garbage. Not because he disagrees with the OWS folks, but because he unloaded a shitload of baseless hyperbole on a movement he clearly doesn’t even understand. […]
The semi-colon: underused and over-abused.
Has it ever struck you how inadequate punctuation can be? Do you find yourself over-using ellipses? Have you ever yearned to use both an exclamation mark and a question mark at the same time? Sometimes, when I write, I just get so frustrated by how punctuation-poor our language is. Commas seem brief. Periods seem so […]
The Uses of Closure. Some thoughts on Happily Ever After.
I have been disdainful of romance and erotic romance, and yet it is undeniable that it brings a huge number of women, and no small number of men, joy. These people are not idiots. They are not intellectual midgets who cannot cope with writing that reflects the harsher realities of the human condition. The sheer […]
What Erotic Fiction is Not
If you’ve come to my site for a quick wank, you’ve come to the wrong place. Let me assure you that for sheer sexual stimulus, nothing works like porn. So get over whatever hesitation you’ve got about it and get your ass over to xhamster. You’re bound to find a clip that will do the […]
Defining Erotica
This has been a very exciting week on the blogsphere. Oh Get A Grip has had a week of posts from the members of their group on defining erotica. And Catherine Leary went on to respond to this in her own inimitable way. One of the proclamations that came up over and over again was […]
The Problem of Careless Language & the Deconstruction of Rape Fantasies
I’ve been doing a lot of interviews with fellow writers on the subject of restrictions in erotic fiction. With a few exceptions, most erotic fiction writers write about the things that turn them on. This makes sense. It’s very hard to ensure that you are going to write about something you don’t have fantasies about […]