My debut erotica novella
'Dirty Little Fuck Doll' was my life, and every thought during the sixty-seven
days it took to write. In this blog entry, I would like to share my experiences
and offer an insight into the writing processes I used. I have been asked on
many occasions on Twitter, what my thoughts are regarding certain aspects of
writing or erotica. Since I am limited to 140 characters on there, I feel that
this blog will answer some of these questions, as well as offer a behind the
scenes insight into what went in to create this piece of work.
As detailed in one of my
previous blogs: 'My Kindle and I', the ownership of an electronic reading
device, and the ease at which 'books' can be bought and read discretely set my
mind racing on writing a short erotic piece to sell on Amazon. I have written
all my life, from short stories to poetry, and even a few pieces for the
theatre. But erotica? Well I'd written a few scrappy pieces, more like diary
entries if I'm honest. So this would be a challenge, something that I never shy
away from. Within about two days of having owned my Kindle, I had downloaded
and read two very poorly written erotica stories. My resolve was set, I would
write one; and it would be much better!
I sketched out a one page
synopsis, made up of half a dozen bullet points with a few character and
location notes. Previous writing projects had seen me spend weeks in the
planning stages, with 'Dirty Little Fuck Doll' I wanted to use a basic skeleton,
around which the story would develop itself. Whilst I acknowledge that it is of
major importance to have a framework for my story, I think it's important not
to over-plan, and therefore restrict the natural evolution of my characters and
their journey. Jackson Pollock said: "The painting has a life of its own,
I try to let it come through", I feel the same applies to literature.
My objective was very simple:
to write an erotica story that was cover to cover hardcore literary
pornography. In fact, I wasn't even sure if it could be deemed erotica! I set
out to use rich, decadent and descriptive language; to dwell on those moments, and write them in over
saturated colours. You may consider these parts to be 'overworked', but that is
entirely intentional. I wanted to write the sex in real-time, giving graphic
descriptions of my characters experiences. Most importantly, I set out to write
about the sex that I enjoy, the kind of sex that I either have, or have had. I
had to turn me on, as the writer it's
paramount that I associate with my characters. You must believe me when I tell
you that I had a lot of fun writing
this!
So, I sat down to write. I
have always written my first drafts long hand, I find the words flow better
between pen and page, rather than from keyboard to screen. I get lost in my own
sentences, writing so fast I can barely even make out my own handwriting. A
quick stroke through a mistake, and I'm off again, without the interruptions of
errors made more obvious on a word processor. I write everywhere, mostly in my
office at home, although I do spend a lot of time in cafes scribbling intently
within a sea of fellow caffeine addicts. I find the step away from my usual
environment breaks my mood, it helps me to think outside of the sphere of my normality.
My goal, was to let the story
go where it needed to go, which sounds straight forward, yet it is anything
but. Despite not adhering to a strict timeline, it was imperative that I knew
where the characters were going; my time alone with my pen and pad would
dictate how they got there. Many people I have spoken to, have told me of their
intention to write, yet their difficulty of getting the words down on paper;
perhaps unaware of how to start their story, or how to write certain scenes,
adhere to a plot etc. My advice, is quite simply: get it down, it's something that I have to tell myself from time to
time, when I'm deliberating over a specific; therefore delaying the process of
writing. My experience has taught me that it is better to write it, and correct
it later, than to get hung up on one small detail. If I dwell on the correct
word to use in a particular part of the book, I lose my train of thinking. If I
know I need to add a word or description, but don't want to lose my train of
thought, I will add lines to the manuscript, and fill it in during one of the
re-writes. I also do this, when I know that I need to research a particular
location or subject. Writing is one of those activities that you need to be in the groove, some days I can sit and write
1000 words without even lifting my head from the page. Others, I can barely
manage fifty before giving up. My advice is that if you are not in the mood to
write, don't. Anything you do write in that frame of mind will probably not
read as well as the sections where you were really at your best.
In terms of the process of
actually 'writing' the book, it took just over three weeks, during which time
it was my only consideration. I took Chloe, Mark and Mikki everywhere; both in
my mind, and on the pages of the notebook in my bag. Everything I wrote about
them, I considered during the day, then wrote it at night. My writing times
were a mixture of early mornings, late nights and weekends. Thankfully my
adorable hub, has been very supportive of my writing.
Once the first draft was
written out by hand, I had the arduous task of typing it all up. I'm not afraid
to tell you that typing is the least enjoyable part of writing for me. There
were several infuriating moments when I was cursing myself, for my ludicrously
bad handwriting, when I had been caught in the moment of inspiration, and
scribbled the words down at a lightning speed. However, the practice of typing
is in itself a part of the editing process, as I can pick out words that don't
work, as well as correcting other mindless mistakes. There is no better feeling
as a writer, than to handle the first printed copy of your work; it was a
fantastic moment when I collated the pages from the printer, and bound them
together.
However, this was where the
real work started. The final copy, which is available now as an ebook is
essentially the seventh draft. The first being the handwritten copy, the second
the first typed imprint. I took that beautiful clean copy of my unedited work,
and wrote all over it with my favourite red pen. I read through it several
times, correcting the obvious typing and grammatical errors. Once it was done,
I typed in the corrections, and ran the third draft. In this section of editing
I added some extra descriptions to the locations, as well as adding a little
more characterisation. I also began to look at the style of language that was
used.
Once this had been typed into
the fourth draft, I spent a lot of time fine-tuning the descriptive style. It
was at this stage that I looked to maximise the vocabulary used, for example,
rather than writing the word 'walk' repeatedly, I would replace it with:
'stepped',' made her way', 'trotted' or 'sauntered'. As a reader, I look to be
extending my vocabulary; I expect writers to do the same. There is nothing more
tedious than reading the same adjectives over and over again. This probably
formed the most lengthy part of the editing process. I quite literally pulled
each sentence apart, and rebuilt it. Then, each sentence had to be tweaked
slightly to fit in with the rest of the paragraph, and so on. During re-writing
the fourth draft, I came up with the name 'Dirty Little Fuck Doll'. Prior to
that, I had never really given the project a proper name; I am cautious about
starting a book with a particular name in mind, in case it dictates where the
story leads; only the story itself should be in control of the direction. That
said, I was exceptionally happy with the title, and felt that it suited the book
perfectly.
The fifth draft saw some major
structural changes, including the ending. I had purposefully not written the
last part beforehand, as I wanted to have time to reflect and consider what the
conclusion should be. A great ending, will let the book live on in the reader's
mind long after they have finished. This is what I aimed for with 'Dirty Little
Fuck Doll'; I can accept that it may not be a classic ending, but I hope that
it goes a long way to explain why Chloe acts and thinks in the way that she
does. I also re-wrote several other sections, as well as altered the
formatting.
By the sixth draft, the story
was pretty much complete (as any writer will acknowledge, a book is very rarely
'finished', I'd like to meet one who could read through their own published
work and not alter anything). I read through it about four times, picking the
odd typos up here and there. Once it was finished, I had the seventh draft and
was ready to upload it to Amazon.
During the latter stage of
re-writing, I began to work on my cover. I explored several options, including
to use a stock image, have one of my artist friends create an illustration or
just to use plain text. There are some great stock images out there that are
really affordable, but there was a niggling thought at the back of my head that
told me to keep the book entirely original. So I counted that option out. The
illustration was a good idea, I even have a couple of sketches of how it would
have looked like. But in the end, I roped my fantastic husband into helping
out. The cover image is me, in a pair of my favourite fucking shoes; taken and
edited by my husband, under my dictatorial direction. That cover itself is the
twelfth version, we kept doing it, and it just didn't look right. I think we
spent two entire weekends working on that. People tell you not to judge a book
by a cover, but you always do! The added difficulty with creating an ebook
cover, is that it has to look good as a cover, as a thumbnail on Amazon, in
colour, and in black and white on the Kindle. Rest assured that it is no easy
task to create an original image that fits all these criteria.
So, once I had the book, the
title and the cover, I was ready to begin the upload process. What an emotional
time that turned out to be. You can submit a Word document to Amazon, and their
KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) site will convert it into the Kindle format.
However, you have to have everything
formatted correctly for this to work properly. Whilst it may look ok in Word,
any mistakes will jeopardise the alignment when you view the file on a Kindle.
Previewing it on a Kindle would be fantastic, but you have to make do with the
'Kindle viewer' that Amazon provide. I wasn't at all impressed with this, it
never looked right, even when it was. To me, it always looked like the text was
wonky! This itself took about five attempts, as I aligned the title and
copyright pages, so the text was in the appropriate places on the page; something
that's made even more of a challenge by the fact that you can change font sizes
and line spacing on a Kindle. Once I had all this the way I wanted it, I
skim-read through the document. There was a moment of absolute despair, when I
noticed a line of messed up characters; after spending several minutes trying
to work out what had gone wrong, I traced the error back to my Word document,
and realised that my cat must have walked across the keyboard! Panic, then I
re-read the whole book three times to ensure that there were no other feline
additions. Once I was finally satisfied, I clicked 'upload' and waited.
It takes about twelve hours
for Amazon to upload your work to their site, during which you will see 'in
review' as your product's status. Those were a nervous twelve hours! Quite what
they actually review, I'm not sure; but thankfully they accepted it, and on
Sunday 29th April, my 'Dirty Little Fuck Doll' was live on Amazon. It turned
out to be one of the most emotional days of my life. I had the despair of my
early problems, the nervous waiting, the excitement of seeing my book for sale
on Amazon, the jubilation of selling several copies on the first day, and the
immense satisfaction of receiving two five star reviews almost immediately.
Those sixty-seven days of hard work and commitment had been worth it!
Throughout this whole process,
'Dirty Little Fuck Doll' had been my every thought, I committed myself to it
entirely. I had a belief in the project that couldn't be broken or compromised.
I feel that this is necessary for a writer, I could never have completed it to
the standard that I attained to if I were to pick it up once a week. It had to be a part of me, woven into my
daily life. At first, Chloe was written as an alter ego of my younger self;
but, as the book progressed, she became more like a friend. I would find myself
wondering what Chloe might think about certain situations, how she would react
to things that happened to me. She became my imaginary friend.
One aspect of this journey
that I feel worked very well was the time I took to write it, there were no
rash decisions, every word was carefully considered. There were parts that just
didn't work, so I would leave them alone, and let an idea evolve over time in
my mind. If the solution came quickly, then great; if it took a few weeks, then
it was worthy of the wait. If I was unhappy with any aspect of the book, I
would not have been able to publish it. It had to be a book that I would want
to read.
There are a lot of
responsibilities that go with self-publishing, one of which is that you have to
promote your own work. I could have easily uploaded my book to Amazon, and done
nothing; if I had done that, maybe I would have sold two copies by now. But I
didn't, I have worked tirelessly prostituting both myself and 'Dirty Little
Fuck Doll' on Twitter. As a result, I have sold more copies of the book than I
anticipated, collecting some fantastic reviews along the way. Of course, there
has been some negative feedback, but that is par for the course. I love to hear
what my readers think, and I hope that they all enjoy reading my book; but if
they don't, well that's their choice. I can't say that I've loved every book
that I've ever read!
I hope that this insight into
my writing practice has been interesting, and encourages you to read 'Dirty
Little Fuck Doll'. I am currently working on a new novella, which I expect to
release this summer. I had hoped to finish it by the end of May or the
beginning of June, but I am not about to start rushing it! I am currently
drawing towards the end of the first draft, and will employ exactly the same
technique as I used for 'Dirty Little Fuck Doll'. Expect something different
though, as a writer I do not want to stagnate, I will always keep my readers
guessing, and eager to download my latest offering.
Brilliant. Thanks for sharing all of that. And well written, too.
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