National Day on Writing

[jana_denardo]

I said in a recent interview, I write because I do not know how to not write. I've been writing since I was ten years old and I saw Star Wars for my birthday. Yes, I started in fan fiction. I still enjoy a little fan fiction to this day. It helped me find almost all my beta readers and helped me hone my craft in a semi-safe environment.

I feel stressed and tight when I don't get a chance to write. I find this to be a great tension tamer. I think I enjoy writing mysteries so much because I can knock off fictionalized versions of people who annoy me. You can kill them without penalty on the page and while I have no empirical data to prove it feels better than the real thing, I'm happy enough not to, you know, commit real evil.

So why do I write erotica? At first, it grew out of fan fiction (surely there's no surprise that a good half or more of fanfic is the author letting their favorite characters do in a story what they usually can't do on screen). I realized I enjoyed being able to do everything I could ever want to with a character, explore all their aspects via erotica. Part of me wanted to do it because well, I was told "oooo, you can't do that! No one will ever take you seriously .

I'm pretty much hoping that's not true. Certainly my readers take me seriously. Granted fifteen to twenty years ago when I first started writing erotica that was true. You couldn't put erotica publishing credits on non-erotica author information or you wouldn't be given much regard. I hope that's no longer true.

Then I was told, "Oooo, you can't write gay erotica. You're a woman " Again, fifteen years ago when I started publishing and getting paid, that was true. My pen name was Adrian something or other. I honestly don't remember as my day job was all consuming so I had to put away the erotica pen and concentrate on my non-erotica since I did love that a bit more and in some ways still do.

I still enjoy my erotica though and when I came back to writing it, under this name, no one has hassled me about having a female name. Yes I am a straight woman who writes both heterosexual and homosexual (and for that matter, polyamorous and BDSM) erotica. I have gay friends who write heterosexual stuff, male friends who write from female points of view. I'm glad we can feel more free now to explore and write what we want. I think it's become obvious that women not only write and read het erotica but many enjoy gay erotica as well.

I write because it is fun. I have stories in my head and I want to share them. I hope people love my characters as much as I do and I have to prepare myself for those who will not. It's all part of this writing thing.

I hope I never lose my love of doing this.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't, either. :D

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

thanks

[bay115.livejournal.com]

Great post there! Ha, a while ago at a forum there was this misconception from a few people how only certain people write het/gay erotica and such. Indeed no matter the sex or sexual orientation people write what they want.

[jana-denardo.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. When it comes to writing erotica i think there are a lot of misconceptions in general