This is number 122 in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
“WE’RE SORRY. Because of extremely high call volume and cuts to the park service, wait times at The Void may exceed three hours. Try our website at TheAbyss.con which still has a few openings. If this is an emergency, please hang up and scream into your pillow.”
My writing group down in Las Vegas stays together by using a Discord server. We have group write-ins online as well as in person, with an online sprint manager that times the word sprints and tracks word count. There are social events and tips and tricks. And a channel simply called The-Void.
“If you would like to vent, rant, whine, moan, or complain, you may throw your negative feelings into the-void and the-void will accept them as sacrifices. They may be witnessed, but never discussed. If you would like advice, feedback, or comfort, please use the pillow-fort instead.”
I recall numerous times when I worked in high tech that I closed my office door and silently screamed at stupid decisions made by the management or actions by my co-workers. I found out by accident that I often sent my co-workers to their own version of The Void to scream.
It doesn’t seem to make a difference what our situation is, there are times when we just want to scream. But what I’m seeing more of, that might be more concerning, is people getting lost in their thoughts. A grocery store stock person stopped beside me the other day and asked if she could help me find something. I discovered I’d been staring at a shelf of cereal for several minutes.
“Oh. I was looking for batteries,” I said.
And it’s not just old people. Kids in school are known for staring vacantly into space while the teacher lectures. I’ve even seen the cameras scan the fans at sporting events and land on someone who, amidst the yelling and cheers around them, is staring off into The Abyss.
The Abyss is calling us.
Friedrich Nietzche in Beyond Good and Evil (1886) famously said, “If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.” Some of my books are simply The Abyss staring back.
What got me thinking about this?
Oh, yes. I’m preparing another book for my Signature Collection that I plan to release around the first of November. I’ve combined all three volumes of Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon into a single massive book. (8.5x11 inches and nearly 700 pages! Published in hard cover.) In addition to having a digitally signed photograph of the author (me) in each book, there is an exclusive interview. Airline thriller author Karlene Petitt agreed to interview me for this edition and set about reading all three volumes.
After reading the third volume, she sent me a message that said, “I just finished your series. Quite fun but disturbing read. I was dreaming of sex trafficking last night!!”
Yes, that third volume definitely looks into the dark. And the dark looks back.
I completely rewrote the third volume and will re-release it as an eBook in October, but the message is the same. There are things in this world that need to be cleaned up. If there was a demon running around, we wouldn’t be happy with the way he started the cleanup.
All three volumes of Bob’s Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon are available as eBooks on ZBookStore. The hardcover trilogy will be released in November. The second edition Volume 3 eBook is coming in October.
By the way, in case you're confused, you are supposed to scream into the Void and stare into the Abyss. People often reverse them, to no one’s harm.
But what’s the point?
Why should a writer of erotica be concerned about sex trafficking, depression, PTSD, and autism?
When Bob attacks a vast trafficking network and destroys it, why isn’t that the end of sex trafficking? When Tony (Model Student series) gets four wives and a successful career with high praise as an artist, why isn’t his depression cured? Why does Henry (Forever Yours) continue to suffer from PTSD years after the attack? Why isn’t Art (Strange Art series) cured of his autism when the dark goes away?
Because that’s not the way life works!
In a recent interview, I was asked “What is one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring erotica writers?” To me, the answer is simple: “Before you focus on sex, story, or world-building, create believable characters that people can engage with.” Believable characters have to act in believable ways. The simple truth is that there is no cure for depression, PTSD, or autism. People won’t stop trafficking in humans as long as there is profit to be made. Governments will always be corrupt. People will continue to exploit others.
Yes, I sometimes write stories in which there is some kind of deus ex machina. The gods ride in to save the day. I consider them light and unreal—and so do my readers. In reality, the gods don’t step in to save the lives of Denise and Lexi and Fletcher and Harper because there are crappy people who interfere even with God’s plans.
And that’s where the stories lie. In elementary writing, we are taught that a story needs a conflict, an obstacle, a reason to exist. Or as I have said on occasion, “There is no happily ever after if it is happily ever before.” No one cares.
And so, when I write a story like Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain, Jett is still dealing with the problem of being a GenZ teen, or a digital native, in a world where hopes and dreams seem to be forever out of reach. There will never be enough money that he can just devote his life to his art. His polycule will have people leave as they find their own path. They’ll have to live through the pandemic without killing each other. They may never have jobs that support their lives, let alone prepare them for retirement.
No matter how escapist the story is, it isn’t interesting if it isn’t relatable in real life.
I have readers who complain that they read erotica to escape from reality, but I shove reality down their throats. Sorry about that. In my daily interactions with people in the real world, I find they are doing just fine at denying reality.
And so, like an ancient Greek playwright, I look at my characters and determine their fatal flaw. Then I exploit it by looking into the dark.
I get some great ideas sent to me by readers. This week I received one from a devoted reader and it struck a chord with me. The topic is creating a title and description that attracts readers. Now that’s something worth considering next week!