Naughty Memoirs; Erring On The Side Of Discretion

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February 15, 2021

pexels-ekaterina-belinskaya-4674372 — Photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya from Pexels

The subject I am tackling in this installment can add up to quite the sticky wicket when it comes to erotic writing (and God knows, not everybody likes their wicket all that sticky). In one’s naughty scribbling, especially in the adult fiction one creates, one (be one lucky enough to have had some fun or have shelled out an inordinate amount of cash over the years) often plucks ideas from that which they have experienced as much as from what one fantasizes about.

But what happens when one takes their pen or flying fingers to an erotic memoir? How discreet should you be in making your real past into a story?

If you cover your shapely, possibly blushed posterior enough by changing names, places, and even tweaking action here and there, you can pretty much get away with masking real stories/memoirs. I’d recommend this, at least a little. Your exes usually don’t want to be outed, would probably rather there wasn’t a hint of them in your reiteration; discretion really is the better part of valor here.

But lots of writers want to stay as true to their experiences as they can, and charge full speed ahead by writing real names, specific places, and step-by-step saucy action into their memoirs.

I’m talking less compromise here and more maturity.

Have you a care for an ex sex partner, a smidgen of good taste, and seeing as we are presently in the throes of rabid connections through social media, you might want to err on the side of not telling tales out of school even when you are telling ‘those’ kinds of tales.

I have been working on a memoir for a while now, a full account of some of my wild and woolly years of singledom, specifically as this time in my life relates to the kinks I have enjoyed with some wonderful ladies. But I’ve changed names, places, and shifted times, as well as also writing this book under a pseudonym. I don’t feel I’m compromising myself in any way and truly feel in my heart that the only way I can get this story told (and I do want to tell it) is to do all I can to hide identities.

As I always say here, you do you.

Proceed as you feel best. In fiction, you’ll certainly have more opportunities to distract your reader off the scent of a real person, place, or time. And while you can do the same in a memoir, I feel the trick when spinning as true an account as you want to (or dare) is to try and stay as close to the truth as you can while still maintaining discretion.

Remember, there are lots of naughty stories to read, write, tell, and Jill and Jack-off to in this great big world of ours. If you are contributing in any way to the erotica of the world, no matter what it is you are writing, please consider discretion.

The ass you keep from getting kicked could be your own.

I Hate My Shameless Self-Promotion

By

Ralph Greco

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December 17, 2020

I have mentioned this before, in this column, to friends, in erotica writing classes I come to teach, commiserating with my bestie, fellow fantastic naughty scribe, M. Christian (who also happens to be my co-host on the podcast Licking Non-Vanilla); I am very uncomfortable with self-promotion. Yes, I just ‘dropped’ the name of the podcast, but you have no idea how it pained me to do so and how I’ve come to regard lots of my writing across the web, even that which I am paid to do, as falling a little too close to shameless attention-getting.

Still, we all do it, don’t we? Or we should. Right?

Nobody is going to champion your work like you, no matter the work you do. If that work is contingent upon your customer’s taste (as opposed to someone buying insurance, which they usually need and pick a carrier or agent who can offer them the best price), then the maker of the product (in my case, the product is words on a page) is at the mercy of the consumer/client/audience liking (or not) that product from a subjective assessment. Yes, we are told repeatedly that criticism/rejection is just personal opinion, take of it as we may anyone’s particular like or dislike, still losing a reader or even a writing job can rankle one deeply.

And one needs to build a thick skin for the game.

In building this thick skin, one is also advised by writers/PR people/and just plain folks smarter than me to self-promote any chance you can. And therein, as we know from Hamlet, “lies the rub.”

In my case, I think my aversion to self-promotion comes from the fact that for many years of my life, mainly my brash and wild 20’s, I was a performer. I fronted a five-piece band that performed music I wrote and did my best to present a ‘show’ replete with costume changes, ribald and sardonic patter, and not a fair amount of big hair waving (yes, my neck was killing me 24/7). I was loud, ‘out there,’ pushing the band’s brand way back before the Interweb was a place one could get seen and heard on (it didn’t even exist way back then), self-promoting wherever I could lay my stank and ever-expanding ego. It was fine for a guy in his mid-20’s, ‘young, dumb and full of come.’

These days, all the yawping I see across the web, Instagram posts, tweeting and twatting infinitum, shameless self-promotion at every quarter makes me run screaming from the din. Certainly too long in the tooth now, all but completely jaded and seeing less and less of a reason for any of this as I am, I am caught between having to push my ‘stuff’ and damn well finding it seemly to do so. Sure, I love me a good prostitute, and I’ll entertain anybody asking me a question pretty much about anything. But I’m just not so comfortable talking about myself or my writing.

But again, I know I must if I want to get some traction, gain/keep an audience/make a living.

Chris and I say this all the time (yes, on our podcast Licking Non-Vanilla, which you can hear @ Licking Non-Vanilla), one must choose the platforms (or not) that work best for them. I can’t tell you that you must make a website landing page and pepper it with links to your work (I do not have a website for my work, had one for my music, which I have since taken down and even now am struggling if I want one for my writing) or get yourself up on Twitter. I don’t know what will work for you, what you will be able to stomach, and even if anything, at all, in modern self-promotion, even works these days.

All I can advise is, think hard and long about what you might be able to stomach and move forward slowly, always knowing that at any moment you might come to hate yourself for all the ego you are displaying or come to love yourself even more.

Saying “NEXT”: When Fired From A Sex Writing Job…

By

Ralph Greco

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September 16, 2021

nature-2569232_640 — Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Saying “NEXT”: When Fired From A Sex Writing Job, When Losing Your Fuck-Buddy, To Life In General

I lost a job today (well, by the time you read this, a few weeks may have gone by). I feel kinda shitty about it; I have to be honest. As much because I always need the work as the fact that I now, once again, doubt my abilities. There are a whole host of reasons why I failed to make a connection with this client, an adult toy site, and I can rationalize all I like. My contact, who has been aces with me all along, took lots of the blame herself, claiming miscommunication and her bosses not really laying out what they needed from the get-go, so she, in turn, couldn’t relate those exact needs to me. Still, I feel kinda icky.

But I know I need just to say “NEXT.”

This might just be the hardest lesson we come to as freelancers, and I don’t mean only freelance sex writers; this “NEXT” rule we could probably all learn to hone to a fine edge. By all means, I am not saying not to reflect on why something didn’t work out, not learn from mistakes you made, not to delve back into the well and consider your skills, but if you are not able to at least whisper a ‘next’ and flow past the rejection, you might just get too weighed down by that rejection.

Which I feel myself indeed slipping into even now as I write this. But writing, as it usually does for me, is therapeutic and helps me to work this all out.

The good thing about moving forward is… you move forward. You set yourself in motion for something coming down the pike you can’t even predict. I’m not saying it will be better or worse if and when you find some other guy or girl to take the place of the fuck-buddy who no longer wants you, when you find another job beyond that employer who has fired you, that you will come to love the game anew when your chess club revokes your yearly membership. I’m just saying that if you’re able to say “NEXT” at those instances when you are rejected for whatever reason, you will be ready to snatch, grab and maybe even make a more robust pass at whatever is coming.

And something is always coming.

Another powerful aspect of the “NEXT” and certainly something I am feeling mostly here, even stronger than the rejection, is that I am no longer fence-sitting. In the two weeks, I was surfing the logistics of my new working assignment, had delivered and been paid for the work, I had an uneasy feeling that things were not so hunky-dory. You know how you can sense these things, right? Even in the face of my contact telling me she liked my work, I felt unease as the weeks passed with how long it was taking for the powers-that-be to get back to me when, in the first week, the work was coming fast and furious, and my contact was riding me a bit to get things done. I might no longer have the job, but I am no longer working this worry, this fence-sitting of “Is everything ok, or is it not?” that I seem to have been right on the money about.

I also made sure to thank my contact, assure her that she and I are all good (which we are), and to tell her that, if things change, if they want to give me another chance, I am here for further consideration. And I am. I don’t hold grudges or look to spank someone later (well, maybe in my bedroom play, but that’s another story). I know you can’t un-ring a bell, and I would say it’s a 99% certainty that I won’t hear back from her about another job or further work from her higher-ups, but I am indeed always open to have the discussion of working for anyone at any time. And, as I have mentioned one more than once in this sex writing column and plenty on my podcast Licking Non-Vanilla with M. Christian (a shameless plug I know, but as Chris writes stuff here, I figure why not?), you should never burn a bridge. I do indeed like the contact from this job that just fired me, I certainly want to keep in touch with her and don’t want her to feel bad about the news she had to deliver to me today. But who knows where she will go, if indeed other opportunities at her company will open up for me with her (again doubtful), if she might go someplace else where she might need me?

So, here I am today, feeling a little dejected but ok. I had to pen a new column, so here it is, and I thought maybe the lesson of saying “NEXT” was a good one to impart to you my struggling or maybe even entirely happy erotica writer.

“NEXT.”

Self-Publishing & Erotica: The Cold Hard Facts-Part 3

By

Ralph Greco

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August 15, 2021

pexels-cristian-jako-4512823 — Photo by Cristian Jako from Pexels

Ok, so here it is. Sorry, it took me three columns to get here, but the stuff I laid out in part 1 and part 2, I thought necessary. If you are still with me and want to furrow forward into self-publishing, here are some specific facts I can offer.

1.) There are lots of book producers out there; choose wisely.

For those of us looking to get a book out there, especially first-timers, there are plenty of companies—what I call ‘book producers’ (you can call them a ‘vanity press’)—who will help you through various stages of preparing your book or can push you through the entire process. Some of these companies are honorable; others not so much.

There are always lots of folks out there looking to take advantage of you. I’m sorry, but it’s true. If you go this route, do your research, read reviews, talk to other self-published authors if you can, and learn which of these companies are worth giving your money to.

Remember, you can also reach out to a copywriter, layout person, cover artist yourself.

2.) Amazon will help…to a certain degree.

In some cases, Amazon has become the only game in town, something I warned about way back in one of my earlier columns, and they can be incredibly sketchy for erotica writers. Amazon can/will and forever determine what they want on their portal, and when it comes to erotica, they tend to move the goalposts at whim, determining just what subjects, even what words, they will allow. Subjects like age-play, certainly anything to do with people pretending to be family members (this includes characters calling each other “mommy” or “naughty baby boy” in a story), get in trouble all the time with Amazon. Sex mixed with horror and anything hinting at ‘water sports’ also tends to throw up the old Amazon-y red flags.

The good stuff about Amazon (beyond their reach and that everyone who is anyone will ask you first and foremost “So, is your book up on Amazon?”) is that you can order an ‘Author’s Copy’ (see here) from Amazon for only a minimal amount of money. Doing this, you can get a print copy of your book in your hot little hands, gaze at every inch of it and determine if the book is to your liking. If not, you can easily go back into Amazon and change whatever you like, even order another copy later (yes, just one) and have another look-see. This cuts down on the expense (and believe me, way back, I incurred this expense, so I know it can be expensive) of ordering a box of your book (even now, book printers have a minimum amount that they need to print to complete an order) and realizing the print version didn’t come out the way you wanted it to! Then having to go back and change templates and order a bunch all over again, hoping for the best.

3.) Diversify.

You can list your book across multiple retailers. If you want to grab an ISBN #, you can do so via the Library of Congress and pretty much reach out and sell at any retailer that will have you. You are under no contract when you self-publish.

4.) Erotica is indeed different so treat it differently by self-publishing

As I have been writing here, erotica is different. Considered by many, even other professional writers, as the red-haired stepchild of fiction genres, it’s hard to get mainstream attention for a naughty book without that attention being pejorative. So doing this yourself, at least for your first few forays at publishing, and maybe ever onward, is a good way forward. But don’t worry, there are plenty of places to contact and network. There’s the SEX POSITIVE BOOKS BLOG on Twitter@BooksSex, the UK-based eroticaforall.co.uk, GoodReads.com, and the ERWA, to name just a few places that will get you up and running.

5.) The Profit Is Yours.

When you are under no contract, when you set up your little self-publishing concern on Amazon or wherever, print a box of books for that lecture you are giving, even sell your tomes out of the back of your car, the profit from sales are 100% yours. By selling eBooks, you’ll keep your overhead even lower as you do not have to incur the expense of printing books.

You might indeed find or get contacted by a publisher you do want to publish through. God knows, there are many advantages to doing so. But keep an open mind about self-publishing. Do your research every step of the way and find the avenue that works best for your book, knowing that, these days, you can do a lot of the work you pay others for (either directly or from a split of your royalties) yourself and enjoy a better percentage of the profits.

Aged Out

By

Ralph Greco

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May 20, 2022

Photo by michael schaffler on Unsplash

You just might find, having the good fortune of steely DNA or coming to apply the exact prescribed medications in the correct manner, that you live long enough to become obsolete. It’s pretty much happened to me. Just tickling into 60 as I am as I write this, I surely feel I do not fit into how the world presently spins, see no value in what present culture deems important, and pretty much eschew technology to the point where I am exhibiting the values of a modern-day Luddite as the days progress.

This is fine; the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new is supposed to happen from generation to generation. I have become one of those, “Hey, you kids get your bikes off my lawn,” curmudgeons, where very little new has much meaning to me, and how I have done things for so very long has been all but deemed archaic. I get it; to everything, there is a season and all that.

The problem here is that I do not have infinite monetary resources. Not that I’d give up writing or music-making, but you best believe I wouldn’t pursue my career in any marketable way if I didn’t need to make money. So, trying to still do what I do (and believe me, I feel the dwindling of my faculties every day, so I have no idea how long I will be able to keep doing what I do) becomes infinitely harder in a world I truly no longer understand. But it’s less the blisteringly fast changes of technology that stupefy me (I don’t self-flagellate over concepts and technology I did not grow up with, although they do piss me off!) as being aged out in how work works these days.

Best I can, I deliver the work I can in the best way I know how, keeping my head down. I won’t answer an ad for writing I do not do (social media posts, grant writing, or ‘pharma’), knowing I will never be able to just pick up the knowledge of those subjects as I go along. I won’t engage an employer looking for me to have a strong social media footprint, which I do not (a fact I revel in). More often than not, I refuse to review books (something I am paid to do from time to time) if that book can only be sent to me in PDF form, as I already read way too much sitting at my computer. And if I can help it, I avoid communicating via Zoom, Skype and text if someone agrees to get on the phone with me, or if they are close to my area and can meet me for a cup of coffee.

Does the above keep me from work? Certainly, but I can’t do my job the best way I can making all too many concessions on the above. Although I have and do, they kill my spirit every time I try to fit in and in the end, I’ll produce less, in quantity and quality, than I am capable of.

Let me give you get another example from my writing life and something that illustrates well another of my modern work ethic pet peeves…how nobody is communicating all that well when, in this day and age especially, we can communicate the best we ever have.

I work for one of the better-known adult websites in existence. I love the writing I do for them and am quite fond of the people I do it for, from my immediate boss contact to the other editors who come to me from time to time, giving me extra work, to the main boss. They are all nice people, honest and forthwith, when I can get them to be so forth…with…it. Herein lies the problem. As with many other modern businesses, hell with many other people I have found these days (and this is certainly a generational thing), there seems to be an aversion these days to answering a direct question. Or not following up over something some asks me to do, I do it, and then they don’t confirm if they got the thing and it was done to their specifications.

What should I just assume? Everything’s ok if I don’t hear from you?

I don’t need you to tickle my taint with constant ‘job well dones.’ (I tickle my taint daily with the new Remco ‘Taint Tickler and Bass Catcher’ thank you very much) But, when you come back to me a week later and tell me this or that copy isn’t working for you, well a.) don’t be surprised that I am surprised b.) don’t expect me to drop everything to get on what you should have got on, or at least told me about. a week ago.

If you hire me to do a job and I have a question about that job, why not hit me back as quickly as you can (yes, I know you’re busy setting the world on fire with your new dildo and bass catching machine), but when you have the ability of being able to communicate from anywhere at any time, but find it more important to watch a TikTok video about a bunch of dogs jumping into a lake or you think spending time on Twitter is going to actually increase your nescient business, over a writer asking you what SEO keywords you’d like him to use in your web copy, web copy you keep badgering that writer to deliver, maybe you should prioritize a little.

Or at least drop me a line within a few days.

But I am hoping for responses, considering the world as it used to be, not as it is. I am forever confused by a remote job situation where you have me working six set hours a day but don’t mind wasting money paying me for working maybe all of two hours of that time. I don’t understand working by committee, where one set person can’t ever make a final decision. I am stymied by the fact that I am stigmatized when I choose not to indicate a pronoun in my byline or a job application. I can’t understand why…

Yeah yeah, yeah, I’m just old, I know. I should just shut up, pull up my blanket after enjoying another ‘Early Bird’ special. Hey, I think there is a Matlock repeat on. Got to go!

Self-Publishing & Erotica: The Cold Hard Facts-Part 2

By

Ralph Greco

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July 30, 2021

pexels-lisa-4194403 — Photo by Lisa from Pexels

Sorry to leave you hanging in the last column, spurting through a ruined handjob, left with aching clit or blue-balls. But there is lots to say about this subject, and I needed to get through part one, regale you of the prickly potential of print and the wonderfulness that is eBooks, especially for us erotic writers.

Now onto self-publishing…

As with most things I find in our dizzying digital age, there are good and bad aspects to self-publishing. The good is, you can potentially get your book out there for not so much money, little effort, while controlling pretty much every aspect of its publication. You can also set it up to see 100% of the profit from your book’s sales.

The bad?

I’m sure, to some degree, you already have this figured.

For one, you have no distribution network set-up, or if you do, it will most probably be woefully weaker than an actual publishers’. Not that you can’t create a healthy and profitable distribution network over time, you can even begin a cottage industry all on your own, but it will take a lot of time and a lot of work… unless you get exceedingly lucky.

And if you don’t think luck figures into the publishing game, as it does in lots of aspects of our lives, then you have probably not lived all that long.

And be warned, if you do indeed take this route, as most self-published books need to, promoting your book all on your own, working hard to Twitter and Twitter news about it, catch every opportunity to spread the news of its existence far and wide, you must realize (again, this is something you are probably aware of already, just not something you want to admit) that there are plenty of other writers just like you, pushing their books.

You are just one of many.

Competition is fierce, while the facility to self-promote is better than ever before.

Do I write this to discourage you? No. It’s just one of the cold hard negatives of self-publishing.

Another negative is that you will not make a ton of money or maybe any real money at all with self-publishing unless, again, you are exceedingly lucky. The good here, though, is that, because you self-publish (and hopefully do so smartly; and I’ll hit on how best to do this in a bit), your overhead is low. You don’t have to sell a lot of books to put yourself into profit. As I mentioned last time, there are tons of books by well-known authors returned to their publishers all the time. The cost for these books returned/not sold can come out of the author’s profits, advance, reputation (all 3) with his or her publisher. Printed books produced by a company and not sold and indeed returned, or put on a clearance rack, always creates ramifications.

You won’t have this problem with self-publishing.

There’s more cautions you might need to consider along the way: companies that advertise packages where they take your book through copywriting, formatting, publishing, and distribution (they are not a publisher per se but a book ‘wrangler’ ) who might rip you off in any of those areas of work they do for you; the complete waste of time and resources that could plague you as you crawl deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of social media self-promotion; surfing through the soul-crushing criteria listed at each place/site you try and put your book up on (especially true for erotica authors) that might, in fact, get your book thrown off that list/site or call for revisions you can’t see clear to make.

But mostly you come to level the playing field when you self-publish, and as I mentioned before, the best way of doing so presently, is in eBook form.

And I will tell you all about it… in part 3. 😉

So, You Want To Write Dirty Words: 5 Tips On How To Start Your Naughty Scribbling

By

Ralph Greco

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November 17, 2023

DirtyWords-Small — Photo from https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/writing-dirty-words-ralph-greco/1143819024

Whether you are an old hand at scribbling flowery prose or long screeds or just trying your hand at getting down some thoughts, sometimes we come to be quite surprised at what can come ejaculating out of our metaphorical pens.

But what happens if the stuff you happen to write is naughty?

No worry. There is hope for you. In fact, there might be some lucrative avenues to pursue with your salacious prose. At the very least, you might be able to finally get out of your head some of those hot and heavy fantasies you’ve had stored up. Maybe, in fact, by writing some of this stuff down, you could muster the courage to find a partner to try some of your more interesting interests.

Don’t be afraid; here are 5 tips on how to start your naughty scribbling:

1. Write it.

First and foremost, get that stuff that’s been percolating in your brain, out. Write it. Go ahead; nobody is looking. Don’t worry what the words might be, what form they might take, if you deliver more a stream-of-conscious puking than an actual story. Just get it out of you.

2. Don’t worry about what is coming out.

Whether we act on them, or even admit to them, we all have fantasies. Some are deep, some we would never entertain in real life, and some keep us up at night. Writing dirty words lets us let this stuff out, and just as you shouldn’t worry about the form you’re writing takes (at first), you should also not worry about the content. Go back to point #1…get it out.

3. Somebody somewhere said writing is rewriting, which is true…to a point. But don’t worry so much about rewriting, the proverbial ‘nip and tuck’ of editing, at first.

Rinse and repeat points #1 and 2.

4. You might be able to sell it.

Yes, there are places to sell this work.

A quick souring across the net (or even this site) will prove that there are indeed places for your naughty scribbles, be they fiction, non-fiction, a blog, etc. You might not make millions in your first few months out there or even get paid. But with a little digging, you might just find some places to sell your dirty writing.

5. You are not the only one doing it. Be it an E.L. James and her “Fifty Shades,” or your old

aunty typing away in her upstairs spare room, you’d be surprised how many pro and non-pro writers alike are typing up some sordid scene or working out some fantasy across pages they keep hidden in a folder on their desktop, disguised with the name “household receipts.”

Take solace that you are not alone in what you are thinking about and writing.

Now, go back to point #1 and have at it!

Ralph Greco, Jr. indeed knows what he writes about above, being a pro writer in the adult space for the past 20 years and having just penned: Writing Dirty Words: The Not-So-Sexy Reality of Making a Living Writing (and the Occasional Crack of a Whip)

De-balling, Retracting and Playing It Safe: How Cultural Inclusionary Language Is Killing Sex Writing

By

Ralph Greco

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May 16, 2022

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

As I have written previously, I do indeed use the Grammarly program in my editing, but I am very cautious of it. I notice quite often the algorithm spits back suggestions over word choices it feels may not be known by the general public.

Go figure. My vocabulary is that highfalutin?

Then there are those instances where I might use a word like salesman, and Grammarly will prompt me that this is ‘gender-biased.’ If the person I am writing about happens to be a man who sells, wasn’t I being specific, not exclusive? And quite frankly, stopping at every instance to substitute the word ‘person’ for man or woman is exhausting.

And this is just Grammarly, a program I can choose to ignore or not use at all. What has had me worried now for some time, and what I feel is quite an insidious seed change to the cultural mindset, is an all but cloying approach that cuts many of us, sex writers, to the quick: the dangerous trend in the all-inclusive defusing of language.

I saw this writ large in a series of articles I recently wrote about orgasm denial and chastity for what tends to be a feminine-skewed website. I know I could already be welcoming some criticism just for writing the word “feminine,” but I don’t feel that word is offensive, and it describes the tremor of the stuff on the site. I have lots of respect for the editor and my fellow writers at this place. There’s lots of really good writing alongside my few articles, some super cool exposes, and opinion pieces on a great many subjects I have never considered and know nothing about. But in my pieces and plenty of others, I have noticed an increasing number of the editor’s warnings at the beginning of the articles, a couple-paragraph ‘Language note’ caution. Specifically, the last warning topping my piece stated that my article “employed language that was ‘intentionally gender non-specific,’ and that words like words ‘cock’ and ‘penis’ are used with absolutely no gender specificity assigned to any term. “

I don’t even know what the fuck that all means nor why anybody has to be warned about it.

I’m one of those heart-on-my-sleeves guys so sensitive to other people’s feelings. Fuck, I cry at commercials! If I can manage the good fortune to have someone feel enlightened, empowered, aroused, what have you, from reading something I wrote, I figure I have done my job well, and then some. The very last thing I’d ever want is a reader feeling uncomfortable from my use of some word or misconstruing my meaning when I know I never intentionally seek out to exclude anyone. Yes, I write a lot of satire, and it can be biting at times, but I never attack those who cannot defend themselves, and I am never mean for mean sake. Really, most times, especially in my non-fiction writing, I am hoping to make my reader feel a bit freer about their sexuality and maybe consider something that they might not have yet tried. Or consider not judging somebody who is trying something they might never want to get into or even might feel is repellant.

It’s all about spreading the love on my side of the street.

The warning up above then, while unfortunately currently ubiquitous in the current climate, is lost on/for me. The powers-that-be running websites, publishing magazines, even teaching in our schools worry so much about offending anyone that they bend over backward, making sure to include everyone. They over-explain, offer apologies, and over-compensate for offenses they assume are being made at every turn. But I have lots of faith in the intelligence and reason of the everyday reader. I believe that even when we encounter something that rankles us or sits counter to our belief system, we have the mature ability, most times, to digest, consider, then move on. It comes down to the old ‘sticks and stones’ axiom, and I fear there’s a lot more happening in your world if you get so twisted by a word used or even an idea expressed that you’d take that much offense to what you read.

And if you are prone to such deep feelings over what you read, dare I say, a pre-article warning isn’t going to diffuse you.

I wrote a story recently, where a lady (yes, an actual biological born female…although is it ok for me to write ‘biological female?’) was looking for a right good humping to the exclusion of anything else. It was thought by an editor who sent the story back to me that my lady was exhibiting harmful stereotypical behavior, that I had not written her with enough complexities. Not that I ever do so with a rejection, but I could have easily argued that some ladies (as some men, as some transgender people, as some…) love to fuck. And for some of us, and certainly, for the sake of my story (an erotic story at that), it was all about this person seeking and getting some to some fucking across the course of the action. Some characters, yes, have lots more layers to them; some do not. And really, I’m not that great of a writer where I can create such rich characters in a short story that rival those concocted by a Poe, or a Hemingway. But by writing my lady where she mainly was motivated by getting a dick in her (sorry, there I am being exclusionary, but she was a hetero lady and therefore only wanted warm, real penis inside her), I wasn’t making a blanket statement about heterosexual females, as this editor came right out and told me he felt I was.

One person’s opinion and all that. It’s ok, I took the rejection and moved on, but I didn’t change my character and how she acted.

I fully understand that there are great big groups of folks who have felt marginalized for a very long time. Many people have not had a voice in our global culture until recently when minorities now seem to have gained some push-back and power across cultural lines. This is fantastic. As I said, I want everyone to be happy, to feel that they matter, and truly, I feel all lives matter. But looking for something to be there that’s not, from a lousy old writer like me, is lots of wasted time. Being ready to jump at any provocation, or what’s worse, getting your panties in a twist (and sorry, if I am excluding those of us who do not wear panties?) over an offense you simply could never feel (for instance, if you happen to be a middle-class heterosexual white male who scribbles erotica writing columns for sexpert.com and get yourself worked up to a right lather over some expose not showing the requisite deference to the plight of the indigenous island birds half a world away) falls well into the category of virtual signaling and not much else.

Go forth and be happy, my little droogs. That’s all I could ever want for you and yours. And don’t take life so seriously. Mostly, what we encounter littering our way are other people’s opinions, not much more. And you know what they say about opinions and assholes…we all got them. And degree of potential stinky-ness around both various to a great degree.

Sorry, did that offend you?

Should You Take That Writing Gig? Five Red Flags Your Potential Employer Might Wave

By

Ralph Greco

-

September 15, 2021

pexels-elina-krima-3343253 — Photo by Elina Krima from Pexels

Part of the freelance writer life, at least mine, un-agented as I am and writing across lots of formats and genres (it’s not all just chocolate sauce dripping on robots’ nipples with me), is to consistently look for writing jobs. There seems to be a bunch of them out there. But don’t be fooled; quite frankly, a lot are right shite. Too many supposedly “legitimate” employers are looking to rip a writer off and still many more, have no clear idea what they want and what a fair price is for the scribbling we do.

How then does one cut the fat from the meat, sanely vet these jobs, keep from falling into the trap of spending time, energy, and sometimes even money on a job that is not going to pan out?

Here are five red flags to be on the lookout for when searching through those writing jobs.

1.) You see the same ad over and over.

While Craig’s List is the lowest common denominator for most things, and I think I find maybe 1 job out 20 there that I send resumes out for, it is a place I do check on occasion. But if I see the same ad for freelance writing needed from the same poster frequently (or every day as I do this one ad) there might a reason why this position isn’t ever filled. No, it’s not because the employer has a ton of work! Beware.

2.) They ask for specific samples.

This is not an absolute red flag, but I have come across enough would-be employers out there asking for ‘samples’ from writers they are considering. What always prompts my suspicion here is that it would be all too easy to cull a bunch of samples for writers hungry for work (which most of us writers always are) amass a bunch of free pieces, then never have to pay anybody.

3.) The payment is unspecified or “contingent upon.”

Sorry, but there are tons more net businesses and those ‘going-to-be-the-next-big-thing’ ideas than are those that are genuinely successful. Waiting for your pay contingent upon how much or well a site sells views, downloads, etc. or not ever given a set price per work (or however else the employer wants to set up your pay scale) are sure signs this might not be the employer you want to deal with.

4.) They take forever getting back to you.

In this day and age, as I have mentioned before, there is no reason not to get back to someone in a timely manner… that is, if getting back to them in a timely manner matters to you. If it does not matter to your possible employer than it shouldn’t matter so much that you work for them.

5.) Even if they do get back to you in a timely matter, you don’t know what the hell they are talking about.

This is no small point and something I have encountered more than once. From my experience, there is usually nothing malicious here, and the employer isn’t trying to be obtuse, it’s just that I come to a communication loggerhead with them. Even if two people want to work together and a good amount of the preliminary is worked out, there are just those times that even the most reasoned and well-intentioned employer and employee can’t seem to understand what the other wants. As I say, I have been in this pickle a few times, my writing just doesn’t hit the mark they were hoping for, even after I have been paid, or I just can’t seem to hit on the vision the employer wants, despite how much we come to talk about the work.

In Conclusion:

Granted the above are only five points you need to watch out for when looking for a job. The money might be great, the potential employee the nicest person you have ever spoken to, but for the reasons above and many more, there are times you’d be well cautioned to take a job. Yes, I know you want to work, I know the writing jobs are few and far between. But not all jobs are for all people or are even worth pursuing at all.

I Seduce You; You Seduce Me

By

Ralph Greco

-

March 1, 2022

The Seduction of a Story

This is the first of a three-part article specifically aimed at you, my fellow naughty scribes. Indeed, we are like most fiction writers in that we endeavor to simply tell a good story, build rich, interesting characters, set time and place in a way where the reader can ‘feel’ themselves in the action. But between our beginning, the middle meat of the tale, and some sort of satisfying end, an erotic story needs to have some sure heat in it. The level of that heat and where it leads, if anywhere at all, is up to you. How you mix that heat with the real world or even otherworldly elements, this too is only for you to determine. But I believe almost all erotic fiction (notice I say “almost all” there are exceptions to any rule) needs have the progression of seduction, foreplay, and climax.

So, let’s start with seduction.

I can’t tell you how to set up the seduction of your story. God knows, these days, your possibilities are limitless on how seduction can come off. It could happen in email, Twitter, or when two people bump into each other in a Starbucks’ line. It might take all of a paragraph and represent the moment we first meet your characters, as it can last for pages. I’ve as much written drawn-out slow dances of fits and starts or the grand big complicated tease as I have Whammo Bango ‘let’s get it on,’ explosions of realizations. One person might recognize a fellow kinkster sitting across from them in their college study hall, and these sophomores manage to squirrel away to an empty classroom for some mutual bare ass spankings minutes after they meet. Another couple might bump into one another at different junctures of history and try to bring off their attraction only to be thwarted at every turn by some supernatural element, their seduction therefore taking decades.

Again, your possibilities are limitless.

As most likely, your seduction will come at the beginning of your story; it can serve multiple purposes. As much a solid place to begin your heated scribbling, during the seduction, you can also introduce characters (as mentioned up above), as you could set a location or slip in the overall theme of your tale right from the jump. Here too, might be the place or impetus for the supernatural element to be made plain or for you to tickle the beginnings of a mystery you slowly reveal across your pages. The seduction scene might also birth a subplot or two.

But be cautioned, as always, when writing erotica; we need to balance the heat with how much exposition we slip in. Whatever you bring to the seduction(s) scenes (setting, the complexity of character, introducing a MacGuffin) to just ‘info-dump’ because you have the room to do so is not always the best course. I’ve seen many a writer (me included) begin a story, bring a handful of characters together, settle on a juicy little seduction scene, sprinkle in a whole bunch of other elements, but then end up stymied for the next steps worrying they (I) have already blown their (my) load.

Think of the seduction as the first bloom of heat between your characters. It’s the set-up, clumsy or sly, dangerous portent or promise of passages hotter than any E.L. James, an easy entre’ to a metered romance or the reluctant happenstance of a moment two people know they should avoid at all costs, but simply cannot.

Make of it what you will.

But remember, the essential part of writing the seduction of your story is… you won’t be able to apply any of what I have just advised unless you first write it.

So, start writing.