I get feedback from people all the time. Some is positive and some is negative. I like it all, usually, because it helps teach me something. That's what feedback if for, right? So, since a lot of you send it to me, I thought you might be interested in what I do with it ... how I process it ... my thought patterns when I read it, and all that stuff.
The positive feedback is easy. It tells me I got it right.
The negative feedback, though, is often more interesting, because it tells me how I can do better..
Sometimes.
I got the following anonymous (of course) feedback on the story "Uncle Bob, The Dick Donor."
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Best quote of the entire tale; "Men are so stupid. I took the bait." Can we get an Amen for that?? It never ceases to amaze me how folks can think that these fantsies are somehow worth reading. Please don't misunderstand me here, your writting skills are top notch, grammar, sentence structure and useage are all superb. IT'S THE STORY PREMIS I can't get over!!!! Who the fuck in their RIGHT MIND would even consider doing this crap?? Especially being kicked off by some off the wall phone call from his sister-in-law?? WTF?? "Oh, I'll just go ahead and carry through, after all, my wife asked me to do it! Of course, she has NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE and there's no chance in hell she'll CHANGE HER MIND no Sir, not MY WIFE!! No, my wife won't ever talk to her Sister again in this lifetime! Right!?! ARE YOU NUTS????? THEY ARE WOMEN!! THEY COMMUNICATE!!!! Jesus Christ on a crutch, how fucking dumb can one male possibly be? Which brings me to the point of this note. I quit reading after the fourth paragraph and have NO DESIRE to finish torturing my poor old mind with this level of insanity. It's like watching a trainwreck in SLLLOOOOWWWW
MMOOOOOTTTTIIIOOOONNNNN! AHHH! Best of luck.
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OK. Let's see what this feedback tells me, or does to make me a better writer.
First off, I must assume the anonymous reader is male, based on the sentence "THEY ARE WOMEN!!" Whether the reader is male or female can be important, since the genders often view something from different directions.
Here are the first four paragraphs of the story his feedback referred to:
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I was minding my own business one Wednesday night, reading a good book, when I heard my wife yell "What?!" into the phone. She was talking to her sister Lara, and I wasn't too surprised to hear them yell at each other. They had that kind of relationship. Don't get me wrong, they loved each other, but both women were headstrong and liked having things their own way, and they clashed often.
So I pretty much ignored Shelly while she yelled at Lara. I heard a couple of things, like "Why in the world do you think I'd go along with that?" and "You have to be crazy - Bob would never do that." I, of course, had no idea what it was that I would "never do" and, while I was curious, I tried to concentrate on my book. Experience had taught me not to get involved when those two were going at it. Voluntarily anyway.
Pretty soon they hung up and my wife walked into the room looking shocked. She stared at me for a minute, not saying anything, until I got nervous and finally said "What?"
"You won't believe what Lara just asked me," she said as she sunk into a chair.
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Now, let's set aside, for the moment, the fact that Shelly should have "sank" into a chair, instead of "sunk" into it. That's been fixed, by the way.
The point is that the first four paragraphs of the story don't tell you anything about the plot. They get you ready to find out what the plot is, but you don't know what's going to happen.
So this reader lied. He said he quit reading at that point. Yet, he somehow knew at least some of what happened after that. Maybe the teaser to the story gave that away. Here's the teaser:
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Bob's wife decides he should help out her sister with her "problem", which is fine. But her daughters turn out to be "problem" children, who need a firm hand... er well... firm SOMETHING.
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Well, I suppose if you've read much erotica, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out that his sister-in-law's problem might have something to do with a stiff dick. I guess if you put the title, the teaser, and the first four paragraphs together, you might get some idea that Bob was going to have sex with Lara, or her daughters.
But the fact is that that's not enough information to result in such a vituperative diatribe about how insane the premise of the story was, and how completely worthless it would be to spend another second watching the train wreck.
OK, so what I have learned so far is that the reader read a lot more than he wants to admit, and didn't like it. The next thing I want to know is why he didn't like it. He's already said that the mechanics of my writing are OK, so that's not it.
As best I can tell, his primary objection is that Bob's wife will likely change her mind about loaning him out for sex with her sister. Or that Bob's wife will talk to her sister about what happened WHEN he was loaned out. It's not quite clear.
So, with the information available to me, which I read all the way through, by the way, here is what I have learned from this feedback:
This reader feels that such a scenario could not reasonably take place in real life and, if it did, it wouldn't work out well at all.
* Sigh *
Believe it or not ... I already knew that. That's why we call this fantasy.
But I don't stop there. No sir! When I get feedback, I sometimes get involved in a dialog with the person sending it to me. We discuss things, even argue about things sometimes. We exchange ideas, which can lead to positive outcomes from what was initially a negative experience for both of us.
Of course I can't do that with someone who sends me feedback anonymously.
If this reader would have given me the opportunity to respond to his complaints, I might have been able to help him, or he me.
I would have suggested that he should stop reading erotica at once. His soul might be at risk here. After all, he's obviously a good Christian man. His use of "Amen" and his invocation of Jesus Christ makes that obvious, though I'm not sure Jesus would appreciate the "on a crutch" part of it. I've read the New Testament several times, and nowhere in there does it say Jesus used a crutch. A crutch suggests infirmity, and if there was anybody in all of history who wasn't infirm, it was Jesus.
Second, I would have suggested that he has fantasy and reality all mixed up, and needs to get that taken care of, because that can cause trouble. I would have reassured him that this story was only a fantasy, where things that would never (and probably should never) happen in real life can be looked at ... just for fun.
He might then have reminded me that he knew it was a fantasy, as noted in his comment about "these fantasies" not being worth reading.
I might then have commented that I agree there are fanatasies that I wouldn't think were worth reading. Such as the fantasy of hanging someone upside down over an open fire and cooking them alive, and then cutting out and eating the liver. I wouldn't start a story that I thought was going to contain that. I'd have asked him why he started this story. Was the teaser faulty? Was it coded wrong? Was he taken completely by surprise in those first four paragraphs?
I would have agreed with him that any man who actually tried what Bob does in this story, could most assuredly be labeled "insane" or "dumb" or "nuts".
And I would have argued that the average person, if given the opportunity, would watch a train wreck in slow motion lots of times. I don't know anybody who doesn't rubberneck when passing an accident.
And, if I would have listened to Peaches, my editor, who gets to read a lot of the feedback that is sent to me, I would have agreed with him that he was right about the best line in the story. Men ARE so stupid ... including this reader.
But I wouldn't say something like that. It's not my style. I prefer to concentrate on the positive in life. I prefer to learn something from negative feedback, so I can be a better author.
Like in this case, where I learned ...
Hmmm.
I guess I'll have to think about that some more.
I am not making this up. I'm usually pretty humble, even if I do say so myself. I'll go back to being humble in a minute, but I have to show you something first.
I'll print the body of the text, but if you want to see the original (plus a really nice photograph) then go to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/08/minnie-driver-hints-at-ba_n_100768.html
Now, here's what it says. Remember, I'm not making this up.
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Oscar-nominated actress Minnie Driver announced her pregnancy on Leno in March but has yet to identify the father of the baby. Busy promoting a country music album, the actress-singer talked about the speculation and the likelihood of marriage in the near future.
Today she's wearing tight black leggings and a T-shirt with a picture of Gandhi, inscribed with the motto "Be True", that would be baggy were it not stretched over her growing bump. Freckly beneath her chestnut mane, and with huge hazel eyes, she radiates the healthy glow of an expectant mother. She's prepared to talk about it too - but not before she's satisfied her daily craving for a cheese sandwich at precisely 11.30am. "This was an unplanned pregnancy," she confesses between bites, "but it's been very happily received by everyone. Which is great," she adds with a wide smile. "It's something I've wanted to do my whole life; I can't believe I've waited this long."
There are no rings on her fingers and she is adamant that she has no plans to marry before the birth of her baby. "Definitely not in the near future," she says. "It's not important to me. I don't think a piece of paper lends itself to the idea of being a good parent and I want to be a good parent."
She has so far kept the identity of the father a mystery, prompting much Hollywood gossip. She won't be drawn on revealing him now but she does say that it's not the man named in many reports, San Francisco musician Craig Zolezzi. "Craig's not the dad!" she exclaims. "He's my great friend and he's been so cool about it. I want to shield the baby's dad as much as I can because it wasn't his choice to get roped into all this stuff. It'll come out in time and there'll be some other bump people will be interested in and I'll have this baby and get on with my life."
The only clues Driver will offer about the identity of her "baby daddy" are that he is English, and "sort of in the same business", and that they have evaded detection because "he's really busy, like me".
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Ehhhhh? How about THEM apples? I remind you, I posted MY story in January of 2008. The article doesn't say how far along she is, but if she's showing nicely, she could have gotten with child sometime around ... JANUARY! Ha!
I have a time traveling muse. This much is obvious.
Now, for those of you who are scratching your heads going "Huh? What the heck is he babbling about now?" I must refer you to the series "The Making of a Gigolo" The story you're looking for is called "The Making of a Gigolo (13) - Misty Compton. If you didn't read the series yet, give just this one story a try. You'll be laughing as hard as I am.
Thanks for reading.
Bob
An interesting thing happened the other day. I found out I had forgotten to do something, and I was astonished that I had forgotten to do this particular thing.
A little background on how I work.
I usually write a story completely before I start posting it. I have this fear that my muse will take a vacation (she has, in the past) and that, right in the middle of posting a story, I won't be able to finish it. The last thing I ever want to see on one of my stories is the dreaded yellow "incomplete and inactive" tag.
Once in a while, though, a story is so long that I start posting it when it's only half done. I'm not sure that was the case with the story I'm thinking about, but it might have been.
Anyway, I post everything at SOL first, and then at my personal web site at ASSTR after that.
So a sharp eyed reader sent me some feedback (in the email account I use with my web site) with a correction to chapter 33 of Prick Van Winkle. I went to my website and fixed it. Then I sent the fix to SOL, only to find out from the friendly moderator that... there WAS no chapter 33 posted at SOL.
Yup. It went from chapter 32 to the epilogue. Somehow, I had forgotten to post chapter 33 of the story at SOL.
So, for those of you who saw the update, with chapter 33 in it ... like months and months and months (OK, more than a year, actually) after the story ended ... well ... what can I say?
I'm old. I forget things. Call it the long lost missing chapter. Maybe you can look at it like the story was sent out in bottles, with different chapters put in different bottles and thrown in the sea, next to the desert island that is my mind. The bottle with chapter 33 in it just floated ashore on the mainland.
And it only took a year and a half. That's not bad, considering ocean currents and hurricanes and all that kind of thing.
Am I embarrassed?
Maybe a little.
But the real embarrassment is that nobody seemed to notice that chapter 32, which apparently ended things, flowed into the epilogue without wrapping up a few loose ends. Of course the epilogue tied up loose ends too. When you have as many loose ends as I seem to end up with, one or two left flapping in the breeze apparently isn't all that strange.
I'm trying to make light of this. Honestly. It is not a nefarious plan to get my fans to read the whole story over again, since chapter 33 will make absolutely no sense, all by itself, for those people who read the story when it was first posted, and have now forgotten it completely.
Honestly.
But it's there now and, if you ever decide to read the whole story again, it will make a little more sense.
I feel like such a goofball.
Bob
For those of you who don't know it, I have an editor. I call her Peaches, because she's sweet. Her father died Easter Morning, and I mentioned that in a previous blog entry. She wanted to say something to you all.
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A Note From Peaches :
I've been meaning to pass this on to Bob for a few days now, so he could pass it on to all of you, and i'm finally getting around to it...
I want to thank all of you that have kept me in your thoughts and prayers for the past week and a half, especially those of you that have sent your kind words of condolence. The fact that so many of you took the time to offer your sympathy to a stranger is making me feel pretty good about the human race right now. And that, more than anything, is very cheering.
My father was a wonderful man and I will miss him terribly. There has never been a moment in my life when I was not proud to be his daughter and I wish I had been able to find the words to tell him that while I still had the chance. The fragility of life is something that we are all aware of in a peripheral way, but most of us rarely take the time to bring that concept into focus. Because, really, dwelling on your own mortality is hardly uplifting. But it is very important that it not be entirely ignored or forgotten.
I know you've heard it all before and I'm not one for spewing cliches, but as I have been so recently reminded, I feel the need to remind others as well...live life to the fullest, live every day like it could be your last, etc. etc. Tell the ones you love that you love them EVERY DAY, more than once, and tell them why. Tell your children AND your parents that you're proud of them. Hug people. Kiss people too. Do what makes you happy and make sure your life is as fun-filled as it can be. Fuck well and often. Embrace your sense of humor and never be afraid to laugh at yourself. Don't waste time being embarrassed. Learn everything you want to know. Meet everyone you want to meet. And never be afraid to reach out.
I also want to thank everyone for being so understanding about the fact that I was not able to edit the last half of Bobby's latest adventure. Bob and I will get to it eventually and the chapters will be reposted fully corrected. Take it easy on him in the meantime. He's an old man, he needs my fresh young eyes to catch all of those mistakes for him.
- Peaches
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I'd like to thank all of you too. Your outpouring of love made me proud of you.
And ... just for the record ... I had to edit one whole word in her note when I posted this.
Bob
I got some feedback from a fellow named Ken and, in the process of answering his mail, I had an epiphany of sorts.
Many of you have written and said that you've noticed my "maturation" as an author. That's really interesting, from my view point, because I'm over fifty. I've been "mature" for a long time. I've been writing things for a long time too. I wrote professionally for one of my jobs. So I just naturally thought when I took a stab at writing erotica, that I might be "pretty OK at it" from the very beginning. I didn't think that my writing would make that much of a splash, all things considered. It was just a new hobby, and it was fun, so I kept doing it.
But in replying to Ken, it occurred to me that this whole erotica writing thing has been like a baby learning how to walk.
First the baby sits there, interested in things, but unable to reach them or explore them. So he just looks around. Then one day he wiggles his way toward something interesting. Then he pulls himself up, to stand on shaky legs. There are the first hesitant steps, with lots of falls and bumps.
The baby doesn't notice all this, of course. The parents do, and are very excited by it. When that baby takes his first series of connected steps, without falling down, there is jubilation. The baby looks around, surprised at all the uproar. All he did was move from point A to point B. What's the big deal?
Of course any of you who have been parents know the rest. Before you know it, the little toddler is tearing all over the place, getting into all sorts of trouble, sometimes going places he's not supposed to go.
But everything is so new and interesting, he can't resist. And the more he practices, the better he gets at it, all the time not realizing there has been any progression at all.
So I'd like to thank all my "parents" out there for making such a fuss about my improvement as an author. I don't really see it, but that's probably because I'm too close to the situation.
I'm having fun learning to walk. And when I toddle over and get into something you don't think I'm supposed to, just bark at me. I won't cry.
Of course I might not stop exploring either ... but then that's normal, right?
Thanks for noticing my growth.
Bob