aroslav: Blog

This is number fifty in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.

“I’VE VISITED a lot of places I’ve never been.” That’s kind of a typical statement for an avid reader. Every book takes them someplace they’ve never been. They store up vivid memories of exotic locations, alien planets, fantasy jungles—all from the books they read.

It’s a little different than that for me. Yes, there are places I read about that became very real to me. But I dream.

My dreams are often so vivid that when I remember them later, I assume they were real and not dreams at all. I remember holding Pam W. in my arms in high school. I pressed her to me and felt her breath on my cheek. I spent a week thinking I was dating Pam W. and waiting to hold hands with her as we walked out of school. As if Pam W. would ever even say hello to me!

Last night I woke up at 3:30 a.m. during a dream. I’d entered a rather bizarre theatre. The stage was a proscenium—just a hole cut in a wall with a platform behind it to perform on. The seats were gym bleachers that went up six or eight rows and started about twenty feet back from the stage. But they weren’t just in front of the stage. They extended a hundred feet left and right of the stage, just facing a bare wall.

I was trying to find a seat where I could at least partially see the stage when I saw two women come into the theatre. I recognized them as the new owners of a favorite RV park where I intended to camp soon. That led to the realization that I hadn’t made a reservation. I rushed to the women to ask if they could still get me in and we were discussing whether that would require a $50 deposit… When I woke up.

I lay in bed, smiling, thinking I really needed to stop at that RV park again soon. Then I started asking myself where it was, because I needed to plan my next trip. I racked my brain to remember where exactly that park was located. I retraced my trips over the past ten years and could not remember where it was! It had the feeling of California, but I could remember nearly all the major places I’d camped in California. It wasn’t there. I continued to go state-by-state through all the routes I’d taken and places I’d camped.

Three hours later, I got out of bed, finally convinced that there was no such RV park or highway and city. Sometime in the past ten years or so, while traveling with my truck and trailer, I’d dreamed that location and it was so complete and vivid, I thought I’d been there. Now, I don’t think it exists at all!

Vividly realistic dreams are not a unique occurrence for me. Many years ago, I dreamed that I’d injured my knee. It didn’t hurt when I woke up, but I carried with me the conviction that I had bad knees. I considered running at one time, but simply shook my head and said “My knees won’t let me do that!” It wasn’t until I went to a trainer to lose some weight and he questioned me about what I’d done to ruin my knees that I realized I couldn’t think of having done anything that ruined them. That day, I started running and had no problem with my knees at all!

My dreams have influenced my writing many times. When I was still a child (sometime between 10 and 14), I had a dream that was repeated periodically over the years with exactly the same scenario, so realistic to me that despite its impossibilities, it had the power of being a memory. Twenty years later, when I had the dream again, I incorporated it into the first novel I wrote, Behind the Ivory Veil.

In my dream, I was disturbed from my sleep in my attic bedroom and looked out the vent window to see neighbors and strangers alike, lighting bonfires and setting everything they could find ablaze. I rushed downstairs and out to find out what was wrong and was told it was a sign from God that it was the end of the world and they were lighting the hellfire. They pointed up and I saw dozens of moons crossing the sky. They were in all phases: new, quarter, waning, waxing, full.

I had a new Bible and had been studying faithfully. I attempted to convince the people that this wasn’t a sign of the end, but was a fulfillment of the scripture that said “Many moons shall come and go, but my Word lives on.” Let’s ignore the blatant misquoting of scripture as well as the ridiculousness of the moons in the sky.

Suffice it to say that this prophet was not received in his own country and was pursued by the fanatics. I had a sure sense of direction at that age. East was history: Washington, Gettysburg, Valley Forge, and even Europe. South was the backwoods and hillbillies. I’d been to the Ozarks and to Kentucky. West was the City, not just the comparably small city I was used to, but Chicago. The real city. But North was a sacred direction. I knew that in the North was safety. I fled to the North to escape to the Northern Steppes, which I interpreted as literal steps that I had to climb. They led to the temple of Aurora Borealis, the Northern Light. There, the three sacred sisters, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy, would follow me all the days of my life and I would dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Imagine how vivid and real that repeating dream was that I can recount it so accurately sixty years later. And ultimately, that dream became the basis of Wesley’s captivity in Behind the Ivory Veil. Perhaps it has become as real to readers as it was to me.

Behind the Ivory Veil is available as The Props Master Prequel on Bookapy.

The point—there is a point to this—is that the reason places become real to people in stories… the reason Narnia and Middle Earth and Metropolis and the Matrix and Olympus and Valhalla and Barsoom and Calahan’s Place are so memorably real, is because those places were real to the authors. That erotic scene in which Brian can feel the breath of his girlfriend on his cheek just before they kiss is real because it was real to me in my dream. The Temple of Aurora Borealis is real to Wesley because it was so vividly real to me in my adolescent dreams.

And who knows? In a future story somewhere along the line, there is an RV park waiting that is as real to me as any of the parks I’ve stayed in over the past ten years. If I do it right, it will be real to you, as well.

I’ve mentioned my editors in this and other blog posts. I think next week it will be time to take a first look at what an editor is and how to use one. We’ll call this one, “All hail the editor!”

The sixth book in the Photo Finish Trilogy, Follow Focus, has started posting on SOL this morning, and is available in eBook form. What a long ride it's been.

When I started this series, I had in mind that it would be just three books: one in high school, one in college, and one after graduation. But as memories took over my thoughts, the writing went on and on. Some might say too long, but others clamor for more words. More I say!

Well, Follow Focus is certainly more. This volume, spanning the three years following Nate's graduation from Columbia College Chicago has 45 chapters and will post twice a week until July 11!

In this book, Nate and his family have a variety of challenges to overcome. There's the draft board and former village constable, the new job and its travel demands, a new family member or two, and the challenge of going places he never thought he would go! Most of all, in this book, Nate is challenged to build a life that doesn't revolve around his studio, school, or dick.

I hope you enjoy this chapter in Nate's story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

This is number forty-nine in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.

I’M NOT TALKING about Methodism or Buddhism. I’m talking about authorisms. I definitely have mine. If you write at all, it’s more than likely that you have them, too. Maybe different ones, but they are there.

“This is a place where you could use your favorite punctuation,” one of my editors commented.

“What?” I asked.

“This just calls out for a semicolon.”

Oh, yeah. I do use semicolons. In fact, I have one tattooed on my right wrist.

Why?

A semicolon is used where an author could have ended the sentence but chose instead to continue. I am the author. My life is the sentence.

Actually, the semicolon was an invention of the Renaissance and was first used in a work published in Venice by Aldus Manutius in 1494 and in the famous typeface named after the author Bembo. It was used in Bembo’s essay “De Aetna” to prolong a pause or create a more distinct separation. The current rule of thumb is that what follows a semicolon should be a complete clause—in other words, a clause that could stand alone as a complete sentence.

But the semicolon is not the only -ism in my books. I have other favorite punctuation I use, including the ellipsis (…) and the em-dash (—). You’ll see both used liberally in my work—usually correctly. But using them too often is a sign that the author is incorrect in the usage, or is being boring and repetitive.

Cecelia Watson, in her book Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark, cites Henry James as an author known for his use of em-dashes as well as his use of semicolons. Watson writes that the dash “cutting a path” through any page of James is “an arm outstretched as a barrier to keep one thought from tumbling into the next.” (Quoted in The New Yorker, “Sympathy for the Semicolon” by Mary Morris, July 15, 2009.)

These might all seem like rather minor -isms, and if that’s as bad as it gets, maybe it’s not so bad after all. Far more egregious is the repetitive nature of sex scenes in erotica. This is true in every medium. In fact, the trope is so frequently used in video porn, it is jarring when a different route is taken.

1. Establishing line or two of dialog that leads to sex.
2. Oral sex commences while one or both parties gets naked.
3. Reversal of oral sex.
4. Basic intercourse in one of three positions: Missionary, cowgirl, or doggy. (May use more than one.)
5. The kink: 69, titty-fuck, anal, reverse cowgirl, tribbing, spanking, or whatever the kink is in this film.
6. The money shot.

If a different path is taken through the process, the viewer might be caught off-guard and not be able to get on track with the scene. Fulfillment denied.

The same is true in written erotica—though we can all hope there is more than the requisite two lines of dialog leading up to the main event. But some authors use the exact same words and sequence in every one of their love scenes. In fact, I believe I could identify some authors simply by the sex scene. This repetition of the same scene with different partners makes for a boring bit of prose and is as predictable as the porn trope above. It could be copied and pasted.

Back twenty years ago, my daughter’s ice skating coach started talking about her isms. “She always flips her fingers like this.” Or, “She has to enter her spins from the right.” A lot of time and money was spent on coaches helping to rid her of her isms.

But not completely. It helps us to become more conscientious authors. We become aware of when we succumb to an ism and can make a decision regarding whether it is appropriate in a particular instance, whether it should simply be deleted, or whether it would be more effective if rewritten.

The least offensive isms are simply boring. The worse ones are painful to the ears as we hear them in our minds.

I try to be fairly spontaneous with these blog posts and allow myself to deal with whatever subject comes to mind next. As a result, I’ve postponed the planned next post on editors and will deal instead with “Imaginary Places.”

Over Exposure comes to an end with this morning's chapter. Don't worry, though. The last book in what was supposed to be a trilogy (book 6) is Follow Focus and is available for presale. It will release and start posting on Thursday.

In my own opinion, Follow Focus is the best of the six books in the Photo Finish Series. It covers three years, starting when Nate graduates from college in May of 1972. Post-college life is much different than high school and college. The family has to survive in a whole new world.

Enjoy!

This is number forty-eight in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.

“YOU CAN’T BE TOO CAREFUL,” commiserated Gayle Lynds as we sat together at a writer’s conference back in 2008.

Lynds is the best selling author of spy thrillers, including Mosaic, The Last Spymaster, and Library of Gold. Great reads from a superb author. She was a collaborator on several Robert Ludlum books, Don Pendleton books, and others. She was kindly sharing some of her wisdom with me as I prepared my first intellectual thriller, The Gutenberg Rubric.

“In my last book, I inadvertently said the villain attached a silencer to his revolver,” Lynds said. “Oh, my! We got hundreds of letters telling me what an idiot I was and all the people at my publisher who didn’t know you can’t put a silencer on a revolver! You’d think I said the earth was flat. We all knew you couldn’t put a silencer on a revolver, but somehow, I missed it and all my editors missed it. We had to do a new release with the correction in it.”

Believe me, you don’t want to screw up anything with a firearm in it. People take it as a personal offense. I’ve done it a couple of times and now simply avoid any mention of a firearm of any kind in any of my stories.

“What difference does it make?” Indeed.

I’ve spent a lot of time in this blog discussing voice and character. What makes a woman different than a man? Do you have to describe every detail of appearance or action?

This week I received an email from OddManOut that listed two of the reasons he considers my erotica to be among the best on the internet. “One, you don’t tell me the bra size of the women in your story. Two, you never tell me that he puts his left hand on her right breast, or the like.” He says that level of over-specificity is like having to slow down for an unnecessary speed bump.

It doesn’t help, I suppose, that the writers who use that level of specificity often get it wrong. The hypothetical writer above has already indicated that he had a hand on the girl’s butt and one behind her head, so he was putting his other left hand on her breast. Oh, yeah?

When I wrote Border Crossings, originally released as a serial on SOL as Seven Wonders of the World, I used it as a stepping off point for recalling a whole bunch of stuff from my life. It was to be ‘the memoir of the avatar of the pseudonym of the alter ego of the author.’ I figured I could arrange things however I wished from there.

But the truth was that the women I wrote about were very much the women that I fantasized about as a man. They were adventurous, sexually liberated, looking for fun, and finding me attractive. And that included both the women I wrote about on my trip around the world as well as the women I wrote about from my sixty-five years of life before that. They were very much the women I wanted to remember, not the women I actually remembered.

Border Crossings and the whole Wonders of My World series are available on Bookapy. Illustrated with photos from my trip!

So, the philosophical question arises: If what people want to read about is (like my fanciful memoir) the image they want to see, what difference does all this trying to capture voice and character make?

Even if they aren’t factual, readers do want realistic characters. And this is where authors find themselves walking a fine line. Or ignoring it altogether and wandering all over every place. It’s the plausibility aspect of the story. No one starts reading an outer space adventure assuming it is all real. They suspend their disbelief in the fiction as long as it seems plausible within the world that is being described.

A reader recently commented on Over Exposure,

I just take it for granted that they [your stories] exist in parallel universes that might closely mirror ours. So, to readers, if things seem slightly off…, that's why. Almost always, it’s something inconsequential to the story anyway.

But it still has to sound right. Which is why misrepresenting a firearm, for example, is such a red flag to so many people who are devoted to knowing firearms, and are highly defensive of their position of knowledge.

So, when I write a female character, she has to sound like the majority of my readers believe that woman will sound. It’s not a case of actually being the way a woman thinks or acts as it is a case of how the majority of readers (in my case, older men) want to believe they would think or act.

Much to my detriment, I’m not content to leave it at that. Not always, at least. I have this thing about being honest in my portrayals. I want the highly competent female lead in my upcoming work by Nathan Everett, The Staircase of Dragon Jerico, to be a genuinely competent female who lives in a business world generally dominated by men. And that means she has to sound real to women, not just to men.

One of the ways I do that is to include several women of different ages as my alpha readers. These women are not afraid to call bullshit when they read something that doesn’t ring true to them. After I’ve rewritten the entire story to correct the errors they point out to me, then it goes through my typical editing cycle of three proofreaders and line editors. That’s more for technical stuff.

I can still guarantee that the story will be jumped on by one or more people for some inaccuracy or another. In this story, it will probably be in the process for land development. Or it could be in the progress of the railroad in the 1800s. Maybe it will be in how a Rubik’s Cube works! Of course, there is the ever popular “This is woke garbage,” meaning it just doesn’t match that reader’s personal world view.

In general, developing characters who are genuine and who behave according their internal character may not make a difference to many readers, but it makes a difference to me. I wouldn’t feel I had done my best if it didn’t.

I’ve been asked if I would consider organizing the posts according to my own logic rather than simply by date, and then publishing them as a single book or story. I’m looking at the possibility of doing so after I’ve finished 52 posts (a year’s worth). Next week, I’ll talk about ‘Isms.’