When you decide to write and to share the things you've written, it opens the door for criticism. Criticism can come in many forms from a standard "I liked it" or "This is garbage! Why are you wasting my time?" Some people say one or the other without reading your story or novel all the way through. This is annoying trolling, but you'll get a lot of that.
I'm not ashamed of the things I write. I've written anything from erotica to contemporary romances. A lot of people ask me about projects I'm working on, and then ask why I chose to write about lesbians, or why I don't write Inspirational novels. I'm sorry if I've somehow let friends and family down by writing what comes naturally to me. I could write other genres, but it wouldn't be my best effort because I just don't feel it.
If you're a writer, you know what it's like to attempt writing something that you don't really understand and you just don't like. You might continue to try and sort through your problems and persevere for whatever reason- be it money or a favor- only to lose interest and start typing away on something else. That's me. I write what I feel and I feel what I write. If you don't like it, don't read it. And if you feel ashamed to call me friend or relative, that's fine too. I'm sorry you feel that way, or if I've somehow made you uncomfortable, but it will save us all some rather uncomfortable Thanksgiving Dinners if we diverge now.
Since my little Connor Gremlin is starting Kindergarten in the next week or so, I decided to treat myself to some new books to keep me occupied while I camp outside his school or classroom for the first few days. I always vowed I wouldn't be that creepy Mom who spends all of her free time shadowing her child, but I feel my Motherly Instincts kicking in.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned the little book store down the road. Like I said, I only go there for special order books I can't get at Wal-Mart. While there, I stumbled upon
Delta of Venus Erotica by Anaïs Nin. Now, before you get in a huff, it's not the kind of book I'm going to be seen toting around the elementary school, but it is some very interesting reading. Nin was born in Paris and became an erotic writer whose short stories, essays, and journals span over 60 years and have been published and read worldwide.
Delta was published after her death in 1977. If you write or plan to write erotica, you should definitely pick this book up. The prologue is very influential and reminds erotica writers that we don't just write mechanical, anatomical, clinical sex, but sex with love, feeling, tears, and devotion.
I'll go ahead and warn you that some of the short stories are not for everyone due to its content, but the writing itself is beautiful, moving, and inspirational. She was a woman living in a different time, writing about sexuality and sex from a woman's point of view. We can thank writers like her for paving the way for us to make our dreams come true.
"Women, I thought, were more apt to fuse sex with emotion, with love, and to single out one man rather than be promiscuous. This became apparent to me as I wrote the novels and the
Diary, and I saw it even more clearly when I began to teach. But although women's attitude towards sex was quite distinct from that of men, we had not yet learned how to write about it."
"Here in the erotica I was writing to entertain, under pressure from a client who wanted me to 'leave out the poetry'. I believed that my style was derived from a reading of men's works. For this reason I long felt that I had compromised my feminine self. I put the erotica aside. Rereading it these many years later, I see that my own voice was not completely suppressed. In numerous passages I was intuitively using a woman's language, seeing sexual experience from a woman's point of view. I finally decided to release the erotica for publication because it shows the beginning efforts of a woman in a world that had been the domain of men." - Anaïs Nin,
Delta of Venus. Xv.
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