The incomparable Violet Blue has made a book trailer for her forthcoming erotica collection Sweet Love: Erotic Fantasies for Couples. I’m thrilled that my fun, kinky, sex-and-spanking-in-the-kitchen story “(S)pan(k)cakes” is one of the 19 stories in the collection.
I did something in “(S)pan(k)cakes” that I’ve never done with the other 80 or so erotica stories I’ve written-- I developed a recipe to go along with the story. So, if you buy Sweet Love, you not only get 19 delicious stories, you also get my delicious pancake recipe!
If you are on Facebook or Twitter and you are a writer-- or travel in circles that include writers-- you will often see posts about writing. Especially in the morning. My morning Facebook newsfeed is a scrolling to-do list of all the writers in my community.
Going to finish chapter three this morning.
Finishing the first draft of my novel today.
Plan to write three scenes before I pick the kids up at school.
These proclamations are often followed by the insistence that caffeine is needed to meet aforementioned goals.
Hours pass, frequently punctuated by updates from the procrastinators (such updates will include complaints about the caffeine not kicking in, links to LOLcats and the writer’s current musical accompaniment), less so by the nose-to-the-grindstone writers who might only check in during a lunch break to say that progress is being made.
Finally, at the end of the day (which may be five o’clock for some writers, midnight for others) or the next morning, pre-coffee, many of these writers will boast their accomplishments for the day, often including word counts.
It can be disheartening for a writer who has been hobbling along just trying to keep up with the baby thank yous to read these daily updates. It can also be inspiring.
Last Tuesday, I joined the ranks of writers checking in for the day with my own goal:
Kristina Wright hates it when the end of a story is so clear… but there are 2000 words between here and there.
Of course, I was checking in at almost 3 o’clock in the afternoon, but still. I was referring to a story that had been bouncing around in my brain for a couple of weeks. (My Jakob Dylan inspired story.) A story that I expected to come in at around 2500 words, when (if) I managed to finish it. A story that I had only managed to write about 700 words of-- 700 words that had taken two or three days of writing to accomplish. Two thousand words seemed an impossible goal and I didn’t even bother to say in my update that I was actually intending to make the goal. It was a throwaway comment. And then the hours passed and the only update I posed was the picture below of Patrick. I was writing at Starbucks until 4 that day, then I was home with baby and writing during his naps. Then he went to bed and I wrote for a couple more hours. And then I posted this at almost midnight:
Kristina Wright wrote 3835 words today. That’s a post-baby record x 4.
You could have knocked me over with a feather that night. (As much from exhaustion as surprise, I’m afraid.)
The story that I envisioned as 2500 words came in at over 4700. The title came last-- “Here in Between"-- and seemed fitting enough for a writer who was trying to bridge that gap between new mom and rusty writer trying to find her way back. (It’s also from the lyrics of the Wallflowers song One Headlight that I posted a couple of weeks ago.) This is my first story after baby and I like it. A lot. Thanks to a deadline extension, it was sent off to Rachel Kramer Bussel for consideration in her Passionate anthology. Whether it makes the cut or not, it’s the story that brought me back to writing in a flood of words and imagery.
My 3835 words for the day (which ended up being my writing total for the week, as well) is pretty measly compared to some of the authors in my circle who regularly turn out twice that on a daily basis. One writer very nonchalantly posted a 8,900 word count recently-- and though I don’t know her personally, I sensed it wasn’t an unusual occurence. I think it was the lack of exclamation points, stars and capital letters that suggested a familiarity with high daily totals. But I’m still proud of those words and proud of the story that they became. Maybe announcing how many words I needed to write gave me the motivation to actually write them-- and then some. Who knows?
The most amazing thing about the writing is that once I started, once I really put my heart into feeling it and not just relating it, the words came easy.
Up until March 1, my submissions log for this year was a blank. In fact, I didn’t even realize I didn’t have a submissions log for 2010 until a couple of weeks ago when I made my first submission for the year. My last submission in 2009 was sent out on December 1, but that wasn’t even a new story. To be honest, I hardly wrote/submitted anything after September 2009. That’s six months of almost no writing for someone who calls herself a writer.
Six months is a long time. Six months without that sense of accomplishment of filling in my log sheet with project, publisher, genre, date. A few months-- not six, but at least three-- without that sense of anticipation that any day I might make a sale or receive a rejection. I did sell a few reprints at the end of 2009, which is always nice. And over that six month period I put together an anthology (including writing the introduction and a story of my own) and had a baby and have mostly been taking care of that baby by myself, so I guess I’ve been kind of busy. But still. Six months. Wow.
Since March 1, I’ve added 7 stories and one anthology pitch to my submissions log. Not bad for two weeks. Not good for six months and two weeks. I’ve sold the anthology-- yay!-- so that gives me a new project to work on. I will be sending out two new stories by the end of the week and have two more that I hope will be finished by the end of the month. I’ve been making notes about various novels and sketching out scenes. I’ve compiled a list of possible new markets to try this year. I’m drafting a new pitch for another anthology. And I’m doing all the pre-publication stuff for Fairy Tale Lust, too. I’m a working writer again after six months of barely writing and then not writing at all.
I’ve had a babysitter for Patrick since February 8. It’s no coincidence that the above accomplishments have occurred in the five weeks since I started having some time to myself. Not just to write, but to think about writing. It’s only 20ish hours a week, but it has made all the difference.
I’m looking forward to the next six months of writing. I have some catching up to do.
Well, it’s official… I will be editing another anthology for Cleis Press! I’m thrilled. The theme will be paranormal erotic romance. Doesn’t that sound delicious? It seems like I’ve come full circle back to my roots in romance. Isn’t life strange like that?
And this is my shiny new page on the Cleis Press website! Pretty, pretty! (Despite a couple of typos… )
If you go to the Cleis Press website and click “Authors” in the search section, it will pull up the entire list of Cleis Press authors. There I am, at the very end, right beneath… Virginia Woolf. Virginia freakin’ Woolf. The significance to that? Virginia Woolf is the reason I write erotica under my real name. Whenever I wonder if my writing career-- or my life-- will be affected by the erotic fiction I’ve written, I always think of something Virginia Woolf wrote:
For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.
Thanks, Virginia. You inspired me to be… well… me.
Call for submissions coming soon!
I’m at Barnes & Noble this evening, working on a story that has a fast-approaching deadline. (See below for my inspiration. Thanks, Jakob.) It feels good to be writing again, to be putting new words down on the blank page (or blank Word document, in this case) instead of just adding words or editing words on old stories.
New words, new stories. I feel renewed. It’s not impossible to contemplate making all of these writing deadlines and even writing a novel this year.
I received the copyedits for Fairy Tale Lust this afternoon. I’ll be busy working on those next week. Going through a manuscript I’ve already read several times should feel tedious-- and it might, by the time I’m done with it-- but right now I’m excited about it. It’s such a terrific collection of stories-- I hope it finds a wide and receptive audience.
I am awaiting approval on my next anthology and hope to have a contract in hand soon. I’m excited about this new theme and I can’t wait to put out the call for submissions.
I’ve been doing some reading lately-- research for a potential novel. I got the idea a month or so ago and it’s sticking with me. There are other novels in various stages of completion in my files. I want to find some time soon to open them up and see where I am with them-- and where I might be going.
All of these little pieces add up to Kristina, the writer (and editor, now). It’s a part of me that has been missing-- or sluggish-- for more months than I care to contemplate. It’s still slow going, and the time devoted to writing isn’t what it used to be. But then, I used to procrastinate from writing because I always had more writing time on the horizon. Know what I mean? Now the writing hours are limited and my discipline is growing. It’s not where it should be yet-- and neither am I-- but it’s getting there. And so will I, in time.
What’s it all about?
Life. Love. Writing. Editing. Sex. Books. Romance. Movies. Friendship. Photography. Teaching. Coffee. (Lots of coffee.) Travel. Feminism. Academia. Insomnia. Memories. Experiences. Rants. Raves. Reviews. Chocolate. Mmm… chocolate. Musings of an insomniac writer. Want to know more?
