In my very first column here, I advised to write what you know, but what you ‘know’ can as much be what you have done as what you fantasize. And if it be your fantasies and you want them to be all fantastical (and shit) then have your way with your writing anyway you see fit. If you are looking to write accurate descriptions of what you have never tried, though, some research might be in order.
This said, still, the question becomes (and I am most often asked): Where Do Ideas Come From?
Yes, it can be the stuff of your sexual fantasies as much as you elaborating on something you heard when passing a conversation. When my nephew was a little guy, I thought I heard him say “pizza-slipper,” to me, which of course, I stored away for future use…mmm, pizza-slippers. He also uttered one of the best quotes I ever heard about my most favorite holiday, “Why can’t Halloween be every day?” Another idea I stored away. (Sorry, I have copywrites on these, go get your own, you moocher).
As a writer of smut, as a writer of anything, you need to always keep your eyes and ears open. You are a reporter on the human condition, an interloper, audio voyeur (ok shoot me if I am messing up that term), a sneak, a maker-upper of stuff from what you experience. And yes, this is where ideas come from. Unconsciously writers fine-tune their senses so that as they walk through their day, they sniff in stuff and later that stuff circles around our brains, snakes its tendrils into our beings and infects us so as we come to stew, ruminate and even do other stuff… A snippet of a conversation or something we saw or smelled comes to us later as an idea, or a character’s name, or a picture in our minds of a place two lovers are walking. Again, this all happens on a subconscious level, but the longer you do it, the better you get at it.
Way back a few columns ago I also told you to read. No writer who is a writer I would ever want to read doesn’t read voraciously. Most writers I know, when they are not writing, are reading. In fact, if you gave me the choice, I’d rather be reading than writing. Reading as much fills you up as experience does, and you need to be filling-up all the time.
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
The thing with writing erotica, though, is that you come to reveal yourself in ways other writers don’t. Sure, you can brush off your latest robot spanking story as something that just came that you don’t have any interest in, but try selling that excuse to the masses. When you write about piloting a space ship, readers immediately take this for the fantasy it has to be. But scribble something sexy and BAM! that’s obviously either something you did or damn well want to do.
So I sympathize, as writers of naughty words our ideas are sometimes given a little bit more scrutiny, as much as for the idea itself (and how well you executed it) as the fact that little old, seemingly innocent you, came up with something so nasty.
Lastly, there will come those times, through writing, where you birth wholly new kinks to your experience–a fantasy born right from your head you never thought about until that very moment, even possibly an amalgamation of stuff, a mash-up of two ideas (maybe something you have done and something you have yet to try) that becomes something else entirely. The thing to do here, as I have always said and will go to my grave shouting: write it, puke it forth, don’t overthink where your dirty words will end up or even what they will be. If you do indeed want those ideas to come, you as much have to be ready and open to take them in, as let them out.
Featured Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay