aroslav: Blog

This is number eight in my weekly blog series about my life as an author of erotica. For the past twelve years, I have been on an incredible journey and there is much more to that story. I’ll post here each week with another short chapter of my life as an author of erotica. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.

AN OLD ADAGE in the writing business is to “write what you know.” If you know police procedure, then write a procedural mystery. If you know insider politics at the national level, then write about a corrupt senator. If you know military strategy, write a war drama.

If we took that far enough, only serial killers could write about Gacy. Only an art thief could write about a theft in the National Gallery. Only an astronaut could write space operas. And only an elf could write high fantasy. Writing what you know might not get you where you want to be. It certainly wouldn’t me. I needed to write what I wanted to know.

I took some art classes in 2005, and then, in 2010, I wrote a story about a painter who made love to his models. My second major story was about a painter who was depressed because he felt like a fake. He painted watercolor and oil and murals and frescoes. I’ve never painted at that level. I have suffered from some amount of depression and I suffered with my daughter’s depression when she went off to college. I’d have to say, I wrote what I wanted to know—maybe what I needed to know about handling depression—not what I knew.

During my travels in 2014, I met a one-time neighbor of mine from back in the days I was in junior high and before. He was older than I by half a dozen years. I’d given him my card and he invited me to stop at his farm in Southern Indiana the next time I came through the state. I did the next year and spent a very pleasant long weekend dry camped under an old sycamore tree on his farm. We often relaxed together in the evening with a little drink and I discovered he’d been reading my books avidly.

“Devon, I’ve known you for fifty-five or sixty years. We were neighbors. During that time, my daddy and I raised cattle and horses. We farmed over a hundred acres. I’ve been a farmer and rancher all my life and I still have fifty head of cattle out in the pasture. I know cattle and horses,” Mike said. “And I know you never had a ranch or a farm! So, in that whole erotic paranormal romance western adventure series, how did you know so much about ranching?”

Mike was truly puzzled and amazed. He went on to cite passages where I wrote about how much dry feed it would take to winter cattle, how the price at auction worked, and how many acres were needed for a herd of horses.

How did I know that stuff?

“Mike,” I said, “it’s called research. You worked for a while as a county extension agent. Well, they’ve got those up in Wyoming, too. A friendly bunch who were happy to answer questions. The librarians at the Coe Library on the University of Wyoming Campus pulled down plat maps from 1866, a contemporary history of Laramie written in 1872, train schedules for the Union Pacific, and a record of who the area ranchers were and how much land they claimed at the turn of the twentieth century.

“The school system transportation department was happy to tell me details about how long the bus ride was from Centennial to Laramie, how many kids of what ages were on the bus, how many stops it made along the way, and what they did in bad weather. Research is how I learned about the ranchers’ opinion of the introduction of wolves into the Yellowstone and Rockies and the adversarial relationship with the Forest Service. Research brought me Cheyenne legends, the migratory patterns of buffalo, and the troop movements of the cavalry that massacred the Cheyenne at Sand Creek. It’s all about research.”

Well, of course, it was also infused with what I did know. Laramie Wyoming Bell was a Cheyenne girl I went to school with the summer of 1966 in Colorado. Never forgot her beauty, her gentle demeanor, or her name. And never managed to find her again, no matter how much research I did. I hiked many of the mountains in that range. I rode horseback through some of them and owned my own horse for a few years.

But there are also subjects I avoid because I don’t know anything about them. I’ve learned my lesson with some. In Blackfeather, I mentioned a girl firing a Henry.44 rifle in 1866 and its kick bruising her shoulder. “That rifle wouldn’t bruise a baby! It had no more kick than firing a.44 revolver. That’s all wrong,” wrote a gun person. I believe that was the last time I wrote a story that specified any kind of firearm!

I don’t know military anything. I sometimes have to write about a person’s rank or pay or training, and when I do, it takes hours of research, reading the memoirs of people who served at the time, running it by my editors who served at the time, and trying to wrap my head around what that was like. And I still get it wrong at times. My hero in the Hero Lincoln series was unlike any previous hero in the Damsels in Distress Universe. He was not former military. He was a crippled magician and juggler with a theatre degree. I understood that.

The same was true when I wrote two stories for the SWARM universe. Even though the stories talked about creating a militia, it was a very unmilitary organization. I avoided anything that smacked of regular military. Not because I’m opposed to those stories, but because I don’t know anything about it.

So, if you ask me if I write what I know, my answer is yes and no. Personal experience creeps into everything an author writes, but—as I had to explain to my older sister—having written about a good and caring father didn’t mean that I had a good and caring father. It was more what I wished I had.

And that, I could imagine.

Next week, let’s talk about the exciting topic of genre bending.

I'd like to interview an acrobat (or several), gymnasts, professional cheerleaders, circus performers, or other person trained in gymnastics and either competing or performing. This is to get background on training, competition, job hunting, and life for a new story I'm anticipating starting to write late in the summer or early fall.

I am not looking for a character to write about, but rather would like to be sure that my world-building is realistic. I might borrow experiences, but the characters will all be fictional.

If there is a mixed pair of acrobatic gymnasts, I would love to hear more about your life and how you believe you are perceived by others.

Cheerleading will have a small part in the story at the high school level, so if you know someone you can put in touch with me who has experience in that, please do.

Sound like it could be a fun story? Help me make it a reality!

This is number seven in my weekly blog series about my life as an author of erotica. For the past twelve years, I have been on an incredible journey and there is much more to that story. I’ll post here each week with another short chapter of my life as an author of erotica. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.

I sometimes joke that I write ‘Old Men’s erotica.’ (You have to talk about the weather.) It is replete with wish-fulfillment. “Oh, if I knew then what I know now!” The phrase has given rise to an entire genre of do-overs in which the hero is magically placed back in his fourteen-year-old body with Wikipedic knowledge of all that has happened in his seventy years of life. He is able to bet on obscure sports events and make a fortune, or co-opt inventions that would make him rich. Most of all, he can use his vast accumulation of knowledge of women to seduce all the fourteen-year-old girls who wouldn’t give him the time of day when he was fourteen, and it’s okay to screw them because his new body is only fourteen and not 70.

I conveniently forget to tell them that if they knew then what they know now, they’d be old men in a teenage body. It isn’t just the physical age that separates old men from young men. It is the entire thought process. It is youth itself.

I recall an episode of Star Trek TNG in which Q gives Picard the opportunity to live his life over to avoid having an artificial heart valve that is cutting his life short. Picard discovers that it was the impetuosity of his youth, causing that injury, that set the stage for his advancement to Starship Captain. Exercising the same wisdom and restraint at a young age which was valued when he was older made him less of a commanding man who never advanced beyond the lowest levels in Starfleet.

But in a way, the difference between ‘old men’s erotica’ and women’s erotica is that women are titillated by their imagination. Old men, I’m sorry to say, tend to lack imagination. Or, perhaps they’ve simply forgotten what ‘it’ was really like. This is illustrated by two things.

I was hyping my books at a music festival when one fellow looked at one and put it down again. “I like erotica,” he said. “But I want it to go all the way. I want to read the description of what it feels like to push his cock into a young woman and how she tastes on his tongue.”

This is not particularly bad advice to anyone writing erotica. Engaging the senses is valuable, but for men, it tends to focus much more on the detailed description of the sex act itself, supported by a compelling story.

The lack of imagination was hammered home to me when a reader of Living Next Door to Heaven sent me a note asking: “Could you please put in the bra and cup sizes of the girls so I can get a better idea of what they look like?”

Really? Do you think I work in a lingerie department fitting bras to young women? Please! I don’t understand the arcane art of fitting a bra and the associated sizes. From what I hear, many if not most women don’t understand it either. No, I will not tell you she was a C-cup, because I don’t know what that actually means. However, I will talk about their firmness, response to my touch, feeling when I pressed her close.

I am always amused when I see the meme about men writing erotica with phrases like “she breasted boobily to the stairs and titted downwards.” But in fact, men—specifically older American men—are obsessed with breasts. And I know for a fact that I have succumbed to the most ghastly male descriptions of women’s most treasured assets.

I’m thinking perhaps, I need to develop a close personal relationship with a lovely pair of firm young breasts in the near future. For research purposes.

But we need a little humor with it as well. My favorite scene was of two young people talking about how they played doctor when they were little and she’d complained that her breasts were "swelling." He’d suggested she try icing them.

But physical descriptions aren’t the only things that need to be spelled out. I find that I need to take great care in painting the feelings that are being experienced. I had to develop a vocabulary of emotions that went far beyond ‘happy’ and ‘sad.’ The shock so great that the hero throws up. The joy so intense that he cries. The laughter so hearty that it hurts his chest. The love so intense that he can only hold his lover and rock her in his arms.

I’m an emotional person. I write a great deal of very emotional material. Some of it is sad, some angry, some tender and loving. But I guarantee you that no reader has cried more tears over something I wrote than I wept while writing it.

So, the question facing an eroticist is how to spark that imagination and get the emotional and even physical attention of the reader without succumbing to a lot of, “Oh oh oh, uh uh uh!”

I use a lot of dialog in my stories. Even during sex. Sometimes I have characters telling each other of their erotic fantasies. Sometimes they are discussing mundane things as a way of prolonging their excitement. The conversation is punctuated by movements, touches, kisses. Very seldom do any of my characters rush to a climax.

I have frequently heard from some readers that my story would be better if it had some ‘real sex’ in it. Not only do I not rush to a climax, I don’t rush a teen into bed for the best sex of his life in the first chapter. The teasing is half the fun. The encounter that brings them one step closer, but not all the way. The resistance against nature’s call because of fear, religion, parental lectures, social stigma, or all the above is part of what builds sexual tension. Eventually, the climax is much sweeter.

Next week, I’ll talk about ‘writing what you know.’

This is number six in my weekly blog series about my life as an author of erotica. For the past twelve years, I have been on an incredible journey and there is much more to that story. I’ll post here each week with another short chapter of my life as an author of erotica. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.

Next week: "Writing Old Men's Erotica."

It's always fun for me to celebrate the release of another new book and the beginning of the story on SOL. Today, it is Book Three of the Photo Finish series, Exposure. This continues the story of Nate Hart as he prepares to head for college in Chicago.

There are more models, more photos, and more trouble ahead for Nate. And the promise that he'll learn a lot about his art in college.

Exposure also released on Bookapy today. Enjoy!