Tag Archives: erotica

Music Monday 9/16/13

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It’s that time again. Gonna go back to the 80s this time. Here are some tunes that make me happy. It’s a huge mash up of artists and styles. A real reflection of what I listened to, what I liked and what still makes me smile.

First up is some Judas Priest. Yeah, that’s right. The song I chose is You Got Another Thing Coming. Funny story. Not from the 80s but from the 90s. A cover band in Branson, Missouri played this song for me and started off an evening I have never forgotten. It involved a guy with one leg who had one brother named Daryl and another brother named Daryl- I kid you not… it’s how he introduced them, some cops, a local party house and memories that have lasted. Those of you who went with me, a group of 20-something law students, got an eye opening experience that night. It was AWESOME! lol

Next up is some Run DMC. I have never, not ever, subscribed to the theory that one type/genre of music is better than another. I like and listen to EVERYTHING. And this includes rap music. I liked it when it begin, when it went through growing pains and I still like it today. What’s not to like- it’s got beat, heart and speaks to the underdog, oppression and telling a story. Well, at the least, the best raps do. And the best rappers? Well, they can turn it on it’s head. And combine some Aerosmith as well. Run DMC was all that and a bag a chips. I got two selections. One is Walk this Way featuring Aerosmith. The other is pure 80s DMC, Can You Rock It Like This. I gotta say… I had a HARD time choosing the second selection.

Now the next artist blew up the 80s. And the 90s and the new millennium. Madonna. Need I say more? I remember my head cheerleader brought her record back from New York. It was totally bootlegged. The sound was terrible. But the music? The music was incredible. And thus, my love affair with the pop diva herself was born. Lots of selections from her. The one I selected is a different kind of groove. All the more sensual for the understated quality. It’s a naughty song. But then again, I’m a naughty girl who writes naughty stories. So I guess, Madonna’s Where Life Begins, is exactly where I was to end this Music Monday. Although, her entire Erotica album ROCKS!

Enough with the Hating

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I was informed that m/f sex in m/m books was offensive, disrespectful, yada, yada, yada. And all I have to say is Fuck You JesseWave.

Read what you want. Write what you want. Review what you want. But don’t couch your misogyny in terms of choice and needing warnings that a vagina is about to be used for sex. Warnings on books should be and traditionally has been about rape, incest, excess violence and the like. Not about vaginas being fucked. Ain’t nothing disrespectful about vaginas being used for their intended purpose. Not at all.

And trying to play off your vagina hating rant as anything but HATING is a lie. Don’t want to play in my sandbox? Fine. Don’t want me to play in your sandbox? Fine. But don’t call me, the toys I bring to the sandbox or anything about me names. Derogatory names and tell me I’m being disrespectful. Apologizing for calling my vagina and vaginas around the world as being cootie filled is full of hate. Cause you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. Now I know how you really feel about vaginas.

And I don’t normally write m/m stuff. I do write menage stuff. I read a whole lot of shit though.

This whole issue pisses me off.

Not long ago, just WRITING about m/m romances and sex could get you tarred and feathered. So the m/f community excluded it from ALL writing and pairings regardless of the reality of the situation. Then someone got a clue, smacked the shit out of the m/f community with a two-by-four of common sense, and viola, we get some m/m action. Then m/m took the fuck off. Which I applaud. Seriously. Love having some diversity in my ability to read some different stuff. But now, to be told that women writers of m/m are clueless and/or having women having sex in m/m stories is denigrating in some fashion pisses me the fuck off.

Don’t we have enough hang ups about fucking in this society without the m/m community- which, by the way, should be MORE tolerant, having hang ups about some people having sex. I don’t have girl cooties. None of my gay friends have fag cooties. None of my multi-gendered friends have freak cooties. I don’t care who’s catching or pitching. Nor do I care what instrument they are using. What I care about is the derogatory terms with which they are being described.

Fuck you. It is hard enough in this puritanical society to be free to express ourselves sexually. To be labeled as having girl cooties makes me feel about the same as being referenced as a breeder. I won’t stand for it in RL. I won’t stand for it in my writerly life. Just like I wouldn’t stand for nasty shit being said about others who have sex not in conformance with the “norm.”

It is beyond time to have m/m sex portrayed in mainstream fiction of all genres. Just as it is beyond time to have m/f sex portrayed in m/m fiction of all genres. M/m should be leading the way, not crying that there are vaginas in the m/m world. No m/m couple lives in a vacuum. Surprisingly, there are lots of vaginas in the world- yes, even in the m/m world. And sometimes, they even get used.

I don’t write off-scene sex often. So if the peeps in my books are fucking, you’re seeing it. I’m sure there are authors that write off-scene sex. I’m sure there are authors that write explicit sex scenes. I bet the heat level has nothing to do with sexual orientation or preference. It’s just the way they write about sex in their books.

So here’s your fucking warning: People in my books like to fuck. Some have dicks. Some have pussies.

That is all.

Plagiarism

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So there was a big brouhaha this past weekend when Lorelei James found out that @AlisonGilmore had ripped off her entire book and put it up as her fanfic and then to a blog. AlisonGilmore claimed she was writing the book chapter by chapter. She wasn’t. She was and is a thief of the highest order. She ripped off someone else’s work and claimed it as her own. There was a huge internet smack down. HUGE. Like by several people all getting into the act and it brought her blog pages down and she ended up shutting off her twitter account. She now has a new twitter account and has made it private. Only the internet isn’t “private.” Not at all. The internet is very public and is forever.

Limecello posted a blog about the internet takedown.  As did Rilzy on her blog. They both have several pictures of the images capturing the twitter logs and the blog and the subsequent takedown. They have a, forever on the internet for all time and for anyone to see and read,  blog entry about the blatant plagiarism AlisonGilmore engaged in when she ripped off Lorelei’s book. The book was ALL JACKED UP.

Plagiarist aren’t new. They are the necessary evil when you are an award winning author. Only the internet makes it so much easier to find them and ferret them out. Like ridiculously easy. Almost as easy as it makes for someone to do the ripping off. So the internet is both a sword and a shield. It cuts and protects all at the same time.

What it can’t do is make stupid people smarter. Or people who can’t write, write. And that’s what it boils down to. Plagiarist are inherently lazy, stupid and weak. No talent is involved when you steal someone’s ideas and storylines. Word for frickin’ word.

AlisonGilmore sent a tweet that said in effect- writing romance, erotic romance and erotica is for talentless dweebs. I won’t go into why writing GOOD smex is hard- almost as hard as writing comedy. But what I will go into is my response to AlisonGilmore’s talentless dweeb comments. My tweet is below. I bolded what I wrote in response to her tweet. What I wrote is true. And it was a kick-ass response to her assertions.

 

D.R. Slaten ‏@DRSlaten 14 Jun

Plagiarism is for people who can’t think. @laurahunsaker @megantgrimm @loreleijames smut is for people who can’t write.

Men Should Read Erotic Romance

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Normally I post random thoughts on Friday. But this Friday, my random though deserved a separate post. Men should read Erotica and Erotic Romance. They should do this for a number of reasons. Here’s a perfect illustration why.

*I used to be in a book club. It was a chick lit book club. But we had a dude in it. And he’s the one that turned me on to erotic romances. He told me he read them because his wife appreciated it.*

So guys, read erotic romances. Your women will appreciate it. Really they will.

First, read it because it’ll help you get into the mind of a woman. Now I’m not telling you to use lines from the things you read. But if your at a loss for what a woman wants in a particular situation, use the readings as guide posts. If your feeling at a loss because your brain is from Mars and her brain is from Venus, women writing men characters can give you a glimpse into the wants of how women might want you to respond. This isn’t rocket science dudes. And even if you don’t think any real life dudes would behave the way males behave in romances, still it’s like an outline for how she wants you to behave. Get as close as you can while still being authentic.

Second, read and reread the sex scenes. Seriously. Reading explicit erotic romance can make you a better lover. Trust me on this, you want to be a better lover. After many martinis and lots of heart-to-heart girl talks, LOTS of men need to do better. If you don’t think this is about you, it is. Your girl just won’t tell you. I will. Read some frickin’ books. Learn some new techniques. Figure this shit out cause YOU really need to. Really. I can’t stress this enough. Can’t. Stress. This. ENOUGH. This post is about you. Seriously.

If you’ve ever wondered what women want or the woman you are with can’t verbalize what she wants, read some frickin’ books and try out a variety of the things being written in those books. It’s a pretty sure bet, at some point, you are going to hit upon what your woman wants. If you’ve gotten into a rut or you don’t think your current technique is all that, don’t read dude publications to fix things. You want to read women’s writings, thought and wants. I mean it is women you are sleeping with. Who better to give you pointers on how to be a better lover than women? Ummm, no one.

Third, even if you’re not in a rut or your woman thinks you sex it up fine, it’ll still expand your mind. You’ll get ideas. And they are kind of fun to read. It’s not called mommy porn (a term I loathe but fits here) for nothing. Even though most dudes are visual, there’s only so much shitty porn on TV you can watch before you’ve seen just about everything. Reading erotica and erotic romance will help broaden your horizons and you can visualize as you read. It totally engages your imagination. See it’s a new avenue to get your stranger sex fix.

So there are a lot of reasons guys should read Erotic Romance and Erotica. For them and for their partners. Of the three reasons above, I find one of them to be the most relevant to me. But I hope I given some dudes some things to think about because all of the reasons are relevant to guys.

Smutty Sunday 4/28/13

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Hey, looky here… it’s Sunday. Smutty Sunday to be exact. It’s that time again. So, here’s my weekly reading recommendations.

The sci/fi recommendation for this week is an oldie but goodie. This series helped one of my friends get into science fiction and fantasy as a genre. Made her excited to read that “weird” stuff. One of my other friends, a guy, scoffed at this series and the Eddings  series I started her on. He wanted her to jump right into Piers Anthony or something. You know, “real” science fiction. I told him that she would get hooked on this and then he could move her into the other stuff. You can’t just start someone on serious sci-fi. So I guess Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince Trilogy and it’s follow up series Dragon Star series is like one of the gateway drugs. Cause we did get her hooked and she did move to more serious sci fi and fantasy. But still, this series will always have a special place in my heart.

Cynthia Eden’s Fallen series ROCKS! I love her books. All of them. Usually when I read an author, there is a book or two that I just can’t stand or don’t think is as good as the others. Not so with Ms. Eden’s books. And her latest series in her ‘verse, the Fallen, about fallen angels is all kinds of deliciousness. Seriously. Hot angel dudes, crazy supernaturals, fabulous sex and action that just doesn’t quit. A girl really doesn’t need much more, yeah? I can’t wait for the next in this series to be released this summer. Can’t. Wait.

Kate Pearce House of Pleasure series with Simple titles are historically hot. I started reading these books a while ago. They just kept getting better and better and hotter and hotter. When  I read historicals, I am not really used to fabulous sex in them. Not many writers go there. Sure, some of them put in a little more than mainstream sex scenes but really Georgian and Regency period books are lean on the smex. Not these. They are HEAVY on the smex. And not just the mainstream kind, but the kinky, dirty, naughty kinds. Now can you see why I like them? But it’s not just that. In addition to fab sex, they have a story. A good story. They are yum!

Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner is my weekly non fiction rec. If you want to know little bits of everything and not a whole of of something, this book will help you. It explains the economics behind all sorts of random facts. Like why drug dealers still live with their moms. They talk about the hidden cost/benefits behind crazy random things. This book is funny, interesting and it will get you to think. Not a bad thing for any book. But for a nonfiction book that talks about economics, you know a topic that makes most people’s eyes glaze over, well that borders on miraculous, yeah?

Current Projects

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The bane of a writer’s life is all the ideas that bubble up inside the brain. So many stories, all limited in getting on the page by how fast I can type. At this point in my life, I really, really wish I had taken a typing course in high school or something. I didn’t. So now my stories are prisoners until I can liberate them slowly. In the meantime, I can use a pencil like a ninja. So I guess that would make me pencil ninja. Able to sharpen my tools and take copious notes in a single bound. So what if my superpower is that I can outline like nobody’s business. In the end, even with notes and outlines, I type like molasses.

Normally the speed of my typing isn’t too much of a problem. It takes my ideas a little while to percolate and become grownup enough to need to be told. At some point, they are so ready and ripe, they won’t leave me alone. I think about them when I am awake and I dream about them when I sleep. They hammer and hammer at me until they become the black on a white page and get told.

The problem right now though is that I have four stories in progress. And I feel a little schizophrenic. They are all clamoring to be told. Each one is yelling that it is more important than the other. As they yell over each other, I am finding it hard to listen to any one of them because I can’t hear just one clearly. I need them to take a number and stand in line. Otherwise, I fear that madness is not too far off. Okay, I am already a little crazy. But these four stories that I am in the process of writing are so not helping by being the crazy-making stories that they are. Each one feels like it is the most important. None of them want to take a backseat to the others. Unfortunately, I am only human and can only write one story at a time. Slowly. So very slowly.

I think the one that is winning out currently is my contemporary romance. It is going to be the first in a five to seven book series. I didn’t know it would be a series until I started writing it. But shortly after I was properly introduced to the characters, I realized that some of the secondary characters needed their story to be told. Those secondary stories aren’t even more than glimmers of thoughts. Yet. I have a feeling once I am done with the first story, one of the others will start making itself known in ways destined to bug me until I do what it wants. So this contemporary romance is winning out right now because even with all the yelling in the background, I can hear the voice so clearly. I can see the story in my mind.

I put my May-December bdsm story on the back burner. I started writing it and realized that the idea wasn’t quite ripe. It was hard for me to. see the story line clearly. And the writing was coming slowly, not because of my typing speed but because the story wasn’t completely mature. It was hard to put it away because even in the early stage, this story wants to be told. And it is a compelling story with some great characters. Plus, I don’t like stopping the story telling in mid story telling. If that makes sense. I feel a certain amount of pain when I stop. But it’s not ready and I can’t force it. I can feel that it will be ready soon though. Really soon.

The next book that I have partially written is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/urban fantasy combo. Yes, yes, it is crossing genres (but not really). Which I don’t think is as bad a mixing metaphors but what do I know? This tale is going to be told in three parts. It came to me as a trilogy and it has remained that way. In fact, a lot of my stories come to me as trilogies. I don’t know why. In the end, I am glad. Because sitting down and trying to write a 300,000 word single title would really take me around the bend. I couldn’t do it. I won’t do it. I think this project is in three parts because it is a classic tale of questing. Only the main characters don’t know they are on a quest. Not yet. They will by the end.

My last current project is a middle grade/young adult space opera. Really it is more like a space western. It started off as a request to write something everyone could read cause I normally write naughty things. No smut in this one. At all. Just lots of shoot outs and action. Good guys versus bad guys, lots of ingenuity and some math and science thrown in for good measure. It is is the far future, unlike my PA Sci-Fi/UF which is in the near future. The far future has brought a lot of changes to Earth. A lot. But the basic stuff is still the same because no matter how far in the future you get, underneath it all, we are still human. With all our human greatness and all our human failings. Good to know, right?

While all these full length stories are battling each other for supremacy, I have lots of little projects as well. Teasers, pleasers and short-shorts. I need to write the second of three novelettes that are loosely affiliated to the novelette that was recently accepted (did that even make sense? it did in my brain). It is going to be about shifters and will be MFMM menage. Then I have the second of a two part story that is novella length. This is also a menage but it will be a MMF menage about a witch, a vampire and a shifter. I have another short I want to get out about a dominant woman as well. Not a lot out there about Dommes. More needs to be. So that will be my contribution. See how giving I am? lol There are more little projects but until I can get the ones already outlined done, I really can’t even spare the brain cells for even thinking about them.

It’s a good thing that I am able to multi-task. Because if you think my real life has stopped to let me write, you would be sadly mistaken. My real life hasn’t even slowed down. Then again, I didn’t really expect it to. Life NEVER works that way.

Smutty Sunday

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So I thought I would start a regular feature. A wrap up of the week by giving some suggestions about reading material. Books I like. If you like them too, well there you go.

For my SF/F fans, I’ve been digging on Kate Elliot. I first read her Crown of Stars books a while back. They have stayed with me. She had such a nice pace in her works. I haven’t read her newest Spiritwalker books but I’m going to. Not a lot of sex in her books. Just great world building. Which takes no small amount of talent. She also has great pacing. When I read, there is in invisible metronome that ticks in my brain. Good books have a certain pace. Words are carefully chosen to make that come alive on the page. Like poetry almost.

I’ve been on a motorcycle kick lately. I don’t know which came first, my love of bad ass dudes on motorcycles or Kristen Ashley. Cause her books have a lot of them. I just finished her first Chaos series book and it ROCKED. As usual. Can’t wait for the next one. Her mountain man series had a motorcycle rider in one of them, Sweet Dreams. And then Motorcycle Man had the ultimate bad boy rider. AWESOMESAUCE. Her books are contemporary romances with a lot of drama. And now she has a whole series dedicated to badass boys on their toys! Shew, color me a happy happy girl.

For the people that like a little paranormal romance, I read and reread Nalini Singh’s Archangel books. It just has a whole lot of goodness in them. Lots of magical realism. Magical realism is concept that is being bandied about a lot in writerly circles. It just means that the world building in the book just accepts the supernatural elements regardless of what they are without question or explanation. Kind of like an alternate reality that just is the way it is no matter how much it looks like our reality in the here and now. So in her books, angels and vampires and hunters just are. Always have been, always will be. But her angels and vampires aren’t the sparkly kind- thank christ. They are just smokin’ hot alpha-y and the back stories ROCK.

To break in with a book about spirituality might be a little jarring. But I am going to do it anyway. Hey, a girl can’t live on smut alone. Ya know? So if it isn’t offensive to you, your god, your beliefs or whatever. Check out Ram Dass’s Paths to God. The book rocks. Lots of insights that aren’t particular to one kind of belief system. It is broad enough to touch on lots of different areas. Cause there are a multitude of paths. And really none of us know which is the right one. Besides, what if there is really more than one. It could happen.

Now on to my smut rec for the week. Been thinking a lot about Tymber Dalton’s Reluctant Dom book. Yes there is sex in it. Yes there is bdsm in it. Yes there is menage in it. A trifecta of goodness in my opinion. But there is also a sad story. A journey of discovery. And an evolution of character. Happiness comes to all of us when we can take such a journey with the characters in the book. And while there is kink in there, there is more than kink. Which to my mind is the best kind of kink book. Even a book that is about sex has to have more than just sex. Ya know?

Now that’s a wrap. Have a great week.

Sex in Books

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Yesterday  I posted a little something something on a writers’ forum about sex in books. Yup I said sex. The questions that was asked was who my reader was. I am reposting my answer below:

 

People who don’t think that sex should be excluded from every genre but erotica. And people who don’t think that just because people are sexing it up in a book, it is erotica. It can be erotica. But it can also be the adult version of sf/f, horror, mystery, etc. It amuses me that whole weirdness that exist by genre writers. Ummm, people in the old west had sex. It’s a western whether the sex is portrayed. But now all of a sudden because we put some sex into it, it’s an erotic western. Ummm, okay. I’m actually good with that. I can then choose those books that have adults writing them for other adults to read doing adult like things. Okay, I’ll confess I was a pervy teenager as well. I probably read those adult books back then. Okay, Okay. I did. Hmmm, maybe that’s why I like to write sex in all my fiction regardless of genre, well except those that are actually targeted for kids. Cause that would just be gross.

 

So I guess, I’m the target audience. Perverted adults that like to read about sex in all genres. lol

 

Now, there are a lot of things to talk about in that post. One, authors are weird. And so are the people that categorize books. Sex makes people feel all CRA-CRA in western culture. Well, in a lot of other cultures too. I promise, weirdness about sex is not limited to America or Japan. Lots of people in lots of different cultures have lots of weird hang ups about sex. In print and in real life. Genre fiction writers are as prone as everybody else in the whole my crap is better than your crap and I want to point that out so I can make myself feel like I am superior to you or make you, at least, feel inferior to me. Cause, they whisper, you write dirty things. I write in the great genre of mystery, sci-fi, etc. etc. etc. insert genre of your choice here. Just another form of discrimination peeps. That’s all it is. So move long. Yeah?

And two, not all books with sex in them are erotica. Seriously. Erotica to me is if sex is the main theme throughout the book. The genre is secondary. While genre books written for adults have whatever the genre is as primary with the sex as secondary. The sex happens in those books um, cause, um, there are adults in those books. And adults have sex. I promise it is true. Adults have sex. Including it in writings is just more honest. To me at least. Getting squicked out about sex in a book whether you are the writer or the reader is really juvenile. Seriously.

I mean how do you think we have kids in real life? Sex. How do you think little aliens can crop up in fiction? Sex. In every genre, to even have characters to talk about, there first was sex to make that character possible. And if there are adults in the books, they are probably having sex too. Cause it is a biological imperative. It really, really is. Food, shelter, sex. I promise there are lots of studies on the biological imperative of species continuation. So really, it’s not just erotica, it’s science. lol

Alrighty, talking about all this smex, smut, and borderline porn, as erotica is portrayed, is making me want to go write. Laters.