My short introduction and not so short thoughts and questions as a newbie writer

[SimonDoom]

So, what I'm thinking right now is that I'll probably just start writing and publishing submitting stories for free here on Literotica for now, just to get started with writing again, practicing and improving. Maybe let people suggest stuff for free if they like my work. Then focusing on actually making any money off of it all in the future, if I both manage to stick to the habit of writing consistently, and actually turn out to be pretty good at it.

All my rambling thoughts aside though, I'm still basically very new to all this, I have no idea whether or not all this makes sense, for all I know, I may be completely off the mark here. If you managed to get through my wall of text, I'd love to hear any comments, suggestions or advice that you have, anything is appreciated.

I like your idea of focusing on the personal and psychological elements. Since this is a fascination of yours, writing probably will be more interesting to you if you focus on this aspect of your stories. And if it interests you, there's a good chance it may be more interesting to readers.

Just take the plunge, write, submit, publish, and see what happens. Chances are your goals will begin to adjust after you've actually published something. That's been true for me. I make no money off this, so my goals are a constant work in process.

If I may make one additional recommendation, it's this: Don't take on too big a project at first. Write something that's manageable so you can get it published and see how it goes.

 

[ChloeTzang]

If I may make one additional recommendation, it's this: Don't take on too big a project at first. Write something that's manageable so you can get it published and see how it goes.

I'd second that. You'll learn more and get better faster by writing shorter stories, and making a checklist of areas you need to improve in, then focus on one or two of those for the next story, and so on.

Also, more stories will get you more readers and more followers, and that translates into more views.

 

[HectorBidon]

Hi everyone, just registered yesterday so I'm pretty much brand new here . . . and as you can probably tell, I really enjoy writing.

And you're pretty good at it. Your post really paints a picture of the vibrant life going on inside your head. I think many readers would find your writing appealing.

I can't give you any advice about monetization. For me, writing is just an indulgence. I don't have to worry about trying to make any money from it.

But I think that many authors find this site to be a useful "open mic" for practicing their craft. Reader ratings and comments will hopefully give you some encouragement. If nothing else, they will teach you to grow a thick skin. And this forum is not a bad place for talking shop.

So best of luck. Keep writing.

 

[KeithD]

Because he's obsessed with quantity and bragging about said quantity. Watch his posts, he can never answer a question without adding "I" and the long list of things he's working on.

Everyone writes for different reasons, his is attention and validation because despite all the claims of greatness and success, he has to constantly remind everyone of his countless stories and output...meaning he's reminding himself.

As my first Sensei told me back in my teens. "Show me someone who brags and I'll show you someone who wishes he had something to brag about." In other words, just do what you do, let others give you credit, don't give it to yourself.

Snarky reply? No, just the truth which is seen as snark these days because the truth is "mean"

Well, lookee who's stalking again. I don't think you need to point to anyone but you on seeking attention here and puffing yourself up. Your obsession with me certainly looks like an inferiority complex from a failed life that has found it's zenith on a porn site. How's your ex wife? Been keeping your violence low enough to keep yourself out of jail now? Everything cleaned up yet from your failed business? They keeping you occupied in the warehouse you said four years ago you were quitting to become a best-selling author, are they? Been in contact with the half-sister you've admitted to lusting over? Want to tell us one more time how much you make a month off your self-published books? How's your hate campaign against Literotica admin going? Making any headway in telling folks what they can and cannot publish on Literotica?

 

[lovecraft68]

On the note of debut novels, few would compare with the long lasting sales and impact of Blatty's the Exorcist, between the novel and the movie its the grand daddy of them all in the horror genre and even most who don't like horror have seen or at least know of it.

He'd done screen writing in the past-comedy as ironic as that is-then set out to write a horror novel. He wasn't prolific, a handful of other books including an Exorcist sequel :Legion, but with that debut, where do you go from there?

King might be king in horror as far as overall catalog and combined sales/adaptations, but nothing he did can compare to Blatty's tour deforce.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

My take away from the OP's post was mostly, "I don't know what to write that will sell, so maybe someone can tell me what they want to buy and I'll write that!"

The OP might want to consider a site like fivver - sure, it's only five bucks a story at the base rate, but I think they allow add-ons. Maybe offer something like two pages for five bucks and always leave a cliffhanger at the end.

 

[lovecraft68]

My take away from the OP's post was mostly, "I don't know what to write that will sell, so maybe someone can tell me what they want to buy and I'll write that!"

The OP might want to consider a site like fivver - sure, it's only five bucks a story at the base rate, but I think they allow add-ons. Maybe offer something like two pages for five bucks and always leave a cliffhanger at the end.

I saw an ad on Craig's List around valentine's day offering to write an erotic story based on details you provided about the SO the story was for.

Pretty good idea. I contacted them to get some details and they were charging $50 for 10k words which wasn't bad at all. They then asked if I wanted a sample of some of their stories because a lot of people have never read anything truly erotic.

Irony....

 

[Comshaw]

Hi everyone, just registered yesterday so I'm pretty much brand new here. First and foremost I have a bunch of questions about being an author, but I figured I might as well let this be my introduction too, while I'm at it.

At this point I should probably warn you that walls of text are very much my element. I will attempt to keep this relatively concise, but don't be surprised if I fail.

Without retelling my entire life story, let's just say that I'm kind of a mess, way too introverted for my own good, and I spend more time online and less time in actual real life than I should. However, even if the lifestyle itself is far from healthy, it has resulted in a lot of sexting throughout the years. I have been praised and told that I should try writing more than once, and as you can probably tell, I really enjoy writing.

The first time the idea of being an erotica author caught my interest was about a year ago, when I found a subreddit about it and started doing some research. I was pretty into it for a week or so. I worked on four different short stories, trying out different kinds of settings and scenarios, just experimenting pretty much.

I abandoned the first one because it was honestly just not good. I was happy with the third and fourth ones, but didn't finish them. I managed to finish the second story though, and I liked it quite a bit. I followed some guidelines from both Reddit and other sources, trying to learn how publishing my stories on Amazon works, just the basics, nothing fancy. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with the story, I'd like to think I'm a decent writer, but the cover and the title make me cringe just thinking about them. I can partially blame that on the templates I followed, but either way, that's not important right now.

So, I published that story, even had a few readers, which felt good. I think I made, like...$0.5 or something along those lines? I didn't stick with it and keep writing though, and while my main reasons for that mostly had to do with how I'm pretty terrible at sticking with things long-term and other mental health shit, there were some parts of it that I, well...had issues with. I'd like to ask you guys about those things today to see what your perspective looks like, regardless of whether you feel that there are alternative ways of writing that would fit me better, or those things are just part of what being an author is like, and I should just get used to it.

Now then, it's about time that I get to the point. The subreddit and other sources that I learned from put a considerable amount of focus on the monetization aspect of being an erotica author. The truth is, I didn't mind that so much. While I enjoy creativity for creativity's sake, I could definitely use some change. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm basically a shut-in mess who has struggled to make ends meet for a long time now, and knowing that my writing is something productive in my life would definitely help, even do we're just talking $3-5 a month. Things like reading fiction, watching movies, watching porn and so on, basically anything that momentarily ignores problems rather than attempting to fix them, tends to come with a constant inner dialogue of negativity that I'd rather not invite.

The problem with the "Disregard creativity, let's make some green"-approach that I learned there was that the "optimal" approach to the Amazon market seemed to be blatantly soulless, to the point of looking like a parody. It would look something like this:

1. Find a popular genre that isn't too horribly oversaturated, preferably one that you can tolerate writing in the long run. For example, let's say that your niche of choice is "Young inexperienced secretary falls for handsome dominant sadist billionaire CEO". Yes, that sounds exactly like what you think it sounds like. No, it's not a parody, just a normal example of those niche markets.

2. Keep writing very similar stories in the genre you chose. A lot of them. Practice makes perfect and you'll become a better author over time.

3. Give them hilariously generic titles that look more like search engine optimization than authorship. The example in point 1 is not a joke, they really do look like that. I think that the purpose of it is to help readers figure out at a glance whether or not your niche is the one they enjoy. It also makes it easy to follow series of short stories that continue the same narrative, which is how you find your hardcore long-term fans, aka consistent customer base.

4. Make book covers using free images that can legally be used for commercial purposes. Once you've established yourself as an author and sell enough to afford it, pay someone to make better covers for you.


At this point I'm painfully aware of how whiny and excuse-y all that sounds, but let's just say that it really didn't seem like my thing. It reminded me a lot of the summer I spent many years ago as a "Recruiter", pestering people on the streets just trying to live their lives, doing my best to pressure them into signing up for a monthly $10 donation to some vague charity cause that I personally couldn't care less about. Needless to say I couldn't stomach it for very long at all. Having an income that I personally earned felt great, but nowhere near great enough to justify the how terrible it felt to make a living by making life worse for other people.

To you, this might sound like the ego of a delusional inexperienced author thinking they're God's gift to fap fiction and generic stories are below them, but I hope and would like to think that that's not it. I just feel like I would feel like shit if I spent my days endlessly shoveling more and more generic, soulless, minimum effort, maximum monetary efficiency stories onto Amazon. I hope that makes sense.

So, what do I think that I should write? A common newbie mistake that I was warned about was the temptation to just transform all of my personal fantasies into written stories. I get that you probably have to do that to some extent in a way, in that you probably shouldn't write stories that you have zero interest in, or even would be repulsed by. Seems like the kind of thing that you learn to balance with experience.

This might sound odd, but for me, erotica, porn and just sexuality in general has slowly become more and more personal over time. I've learned that I have an admittedly pretty dysfunctional habit of being in my own head a lot. To put it bluntly, plenty of inner dialogue and not nearly enough actual action. Unsurprisingly, this led to a pretty strong interest in psychology, an urge to understand, both my own mind and people in general.

Often when I read or listen to erotic stories, watch porn or even when sexting, I think about the fantasies and scenarios, what it is about them that is arousing and attractive to me, and why that is. I find stuff like that fascinating. There's a good example that happened many years ago but still hasn't left my memory to this day. I was hanging out in a group voice chat with a couple of friends, which was pretty much a daily habit back then. Porn and masturbation habits came up as a topic, and one of my friends told us something that seemed a bit unusual to me. He would always get off in the evening right before going to bed, every day, without fail. Just a quickie, no edging, sometimes not even really much arousal. Just a daily habit that he had to do in order to be able to fall asleep. That alone probably isn't all that rare, plenty of people are habitual masturbators and do it more to soothe themselves mentally than to deal with actual horniness. The second thing he told us was more unique and much more interesting though.

Like most of that social circle, he spent most of his waking time in front of his computer, and like pretty much all of us, he had a habit of having "Background noise" on his second monitor. He would hang out in the voice chat with the rest of us, either just talking or playing games at the same time. Some people also listened to music ik the background. I personally found music distracting for some reason. I preferred playing YouTube videos on my second monitor, not really paying much attention to them at all, but it felt nice I guess. So what did this guy use as his "background noise", rather than something like music or YouTube? Porn. Specifically, lesbian porn. Most of us were surprised by that and asked him more about it. Apparently, he never really masturbated "off-schedule" so to speak, his bedtime ritual took care of that. But for some reason, a reason that none of us, himself included could figure out, he really enjoyed playing videos of women having sex on his second monitor for pretty much 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that, and even if there was, I feel like shaming is rarely if ever helpful at all. It absolutely fascinated me though. What was it in his mind, about his life, about his mindset, that made him so into watching, but not masturbating to or even getting that aroused by this? It's not like it was foreplay for the bedtime thing and he sat there with a hard-on the entire day. To him, it was just a nice thing to have in the back and barely pay attention to, like music or YouTube videos.

That was a hell of a tangent. I got a little carried away, sorry about that. My point is, even if I'm not interested in "writing for myself" and using it as some form of psychoanalytic mental masturbation, I'm still super interested in the personal, psychological aspect of it all. I have my reasons for wanting to avoid using my own interests as my main source of inspiration. As I mentioned earlier, I want this to be creative and hopefully even a tiny bit productive. I have more than enough experience when it comes to masturbation for masturbation's sake, and the self-loathing that my mind likes to couple it with. In addition to that, I want to learn to write about a variety of fantasies, scenarios and genres. I may have plenty of kinks but they're a drop in the ocean compared to all the kinks that I don't have. If I only ever write about things I'm personally into, that would leave a lot of unexplored territory.

That being said, I would still love to approach writing from this more personal, psychological angle. I've been thinking about taking suggestions and/or doing commissions. I think that it would be a lot of fun to write stories that real, individual people can enjoy and feel more personally attached to than they would to something less bespoke.

I realize that this might be a very bad idea from a monetary perspective though, especially as a beginner. If you write something with wider appeal, you get a lot of readers and potentially customers with every story. Writing something personally written to interest a single individual probably means that it's less likely to appeal to others, I imagine.

The second issue with this personalized approach is establishing myself as an author. The Amazon crowd focused a lot, and I mean a looot on that particular part. Sticking to a niche, serialized stories, mailing lists, discounted story bundles, that kind of stuff. I mean, that mentality makes a lot of sense if efficiency is your game and Amazon is your playing field, and it seems like a very effective way to build awareness of your existence as an author. That market doesn't make any sense for something more personalized though. The first thing that comes to my mind is, of course, Patreon. I can imagine for example having a basic tier that just gives people free access to all my stories and maybe letting people vote on ideas for future stories or something along those lines, and possibly doing personal commissions on a per story basis in addition to that.

The thing is, understandably, no one in their right mind would ever subscribe to that Patreon. Why would anyone ever subscribe to an author who has very little if anything at all when it comes to experience and reputation alike. That simply wouldn't work.

So, what I'm thinking right now is that I'll probably just start writing and publishing submitting stories for free here on Literotica for now, just to get started with writing again, practicing and improving. Maybe let people suggest stuff for free if they like my work. Then focusing on actually making any money off of it all in the future, if I both manage to stick to the habit of writing consistently, and actually turn out to be pretty good at it.

All my rambling thoughts aside though, I'm still basically very new to all this, I have no idea whether or not all this makes sense, for all I know, I may be completely off the mark here. If you managed to get through my wall of text, I'd love to hear any comments, suggestions or advice that you have, anything is appreciated.

“To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.”

Mark Twain

 

[Acktion]

Heyla, Savannah.

First off, as someone who is pretty infamous for "wall of text" myself, you do what you need/want to and ignore the jackasses that wander in from Twitter and can't seem to figure out "so, just don't read it."

As for the rest...

Way back in the time that has mold and dust on the chronicles and duct tape on the bindings, I was perhaps unfortunate enough to have my first poem published before I graduated high school. I say "unfortunate" because it went to my head in a pretty big way.

Oh, I got a degree in something else and went off on a career. But, I always had in the back of my mind that I was gonna make my mint with the writing gig. And I collected books and magazines about the art and craft of writing that were the envy of many a small library on top of taking courses and attending seminars.

But, I was a cocky, arrogant little shit. And wouldn't hesitate to ignore anything that I knew better. Or at least thought I did.

Chief among these was a common thread that anybody that wanted to write should start off with erotica. Letters to Penthouse, for example, was a big stepping stone often mentioned by various and sundry. Well, I had issues that were really more of a running subscription. And I saw no practical reason for me to waste time on stroke fodder when I had talent (that was nowhere near as large as my swollen head).

But, I was pretty busy. Working a career. Getting married and all that newlywed stuff. Going back to school for a graduate degree. All kinds of stuff.

To misappropriate and probably misquote something I hazily remember from Rita Mae Brown (possibly), "don't try to write if you can imagine yourself doing anything else."

And I was doing everything else I could think of rather than sitting my ass down and actually writing anything other than the odd scrap of poetry or prose in margins or on napkins.

Until I decided I'd had enough of pulling over six times on the drive to work to vomit because I was having to go back to that Hell hole and took an exceptionally early retirement. And rather than looking for another gig, I decided it was time to put up or shut up about the whole "I can be a writer" thing.

And you know what? I was a pretty damn good writer if the metric you use is getting words on screen. In just a few short months, I cranked out a self-help book, five novels, twenty-two short stories, and one hundred and forty-four poems that were then gathered in their own chapbook with hand-drawn illustrations of my own.

But, if the metric you use is placement... Not so much as I only placed four more poems for the payment of a free issue they appeared in. And most of those periodicals went tits up before they got to mine. What I did accumulate was a rather epic collection of rejection letters. Over two hundred for one novel alone, including two identical ones rubber-stamped by Jim Baen and Tom Doherty.

My delicate flower pointed out to me with judicious application of a frying pan up the backside of my head that I'd burned through my entire pittance of retirement and we just weren't going to make it on hers alone.

So, late one night, I piled all of my manuscripts and carefully tabulated rejections in the bathtub, tossed my three-foot ponytail shorn from my head in for good measure, doused the whole thing in lighter fluid, and flung in a match. She was decidedly unamused since this was about two ack emma and she came bailing out of the bed awakened by the smoke alarm.

She was reasonably mollified when two days later I started bringing home a check again. But, it bothered her for a long, long time that I didn't write anymore. And, in fact, was pretty vehement about shooting her down when she brought it up.

As far as I was concerned, I'd taken my shot and missed. And it was time to grow up and forget childish daydreams.

And I did pretty well, willfully forgetting... until my health spiraled out of control, costing me my second career.

Unable to do much in between sitting around waiting for another medical appointment, I discovered Lit. While I enjoyed most of the stories I was finding, there was always some little thing about the execution that I felt I could do better. And then I stumbled across this one... Man, Laurel must have hit the wrong button that day! I staggered through three paragraphs, having to re-read to try to make sense, before I just threw up my hands in disgust.

And went off to write a little something and show these neophytes how it was done.

Laurel sent that story back in my face like I'd written about her mother! And not just once, but four times total.

Unlike earlier, I literally had nothing else I could do in between waiting for Nurse Ratched... I mean, my beloved wife... to circle back around to dose me again. So, I kept trying until finally, I managed to slip something past Laurel on a day when she was out of coffee or something.

And was just hammered in the voting and comments. And rightfully so, quite frankly.

But, I really had very little else that I wanted to do that I still could do. So, I wrote when I could. And managed to get... I'd have to go look, but I think nineteen total up, only four of which managed an H.

Health issues and financial issues and some other issues caused me to disappear for a while. And when I came back, I couldn't remember this account (obviously since remembered). So I created a different account and slung up a novella just in time to swipe a third-place prize from, in my much less arrogant opinion after getting smacked in the nose so much, much more deserving works.

And health issues and financial issues conspired again to drive me off-line. And a few months later when I managed to get back, I couldn't remember that account either.

So, I created a third account. And the third story under that one, my one and only joint effort with my wife, swiped another (much more deserved thanks to her efforts) third-place prize.

Then, she died.

I'd already disappeared twice unannounced. And had inadvertently done some damage to those I considered friends when I did. So, this time I swung by and said I probably wouldn't be back and just why.

And to my surprise (and no little consternation) several people that I wouldn't have thought knew me at all came out in support. And encouraged me to try to keep writing.

They were right. Writing did help. Some. While I was writing. I managed to get four more stories finished and submitted in the months following her death. The last was submitted over three years ago.

Oh, I'm not done, I don't think. I still write. I just haven't managed to get anything finished that I think worth submitting since. And I may not again. But, the writing itself gives me something to do. And sometimes it's cathartic and other times a brief escape.

My long-winded (as usual) point is that I've been there, Susannah. Across the decades, I've written for every single one of the reasons you've mentioned in your OP.

And, you know what? I don't think it really matters WHY you write. If you have a story you want to tell, then that's all the reason I think you really need. After that, it's just wanting to tell it more than you want to do any of the thousand Sisyphean tasks we can distract ourselves with each day.

Write because you want to. Write because you enjoy it. Write because you have a story you want to tell.

Worry about the rest after the first proofing once you've got it written... whether you will publish it or not, whether you will publish it for money, finding the right market, etcetera etcetera.

Life is too short to do anything you don't have to do that you don't at the least enjoy.

 

[DoctorSmith8]

If you want to have fun, write erotica. If you want to make money, pick up a hammer and some nails.