Getting Back on the Carousel

I used to think that the way to do things was to "learn discipline," to figure out how to do them every day and never stop. I'm actually great at discipline and habits, it turns out, but that's never been the real answer for me.

So much more important than learning how to do things daily, and so much more important than learning how to make a rigid schedule and stick to it, is learning what to do when that's not what happens.

I call this "getting back on the carousel."

How do I pick up a notebook I haven't touched in a while? How do I go back to the library when I owe them fines for overdue books? I used to go to events that group put on—but how do I face them if I haven't been there for a while?

The reason I call this getting back on the carousel is because the sensation sometimes reminds me of trying to jump onto an object that's already spinning and moving. People have carried on while I was away, or sick, or busy with other things. Nothing is in the place I remembered it being. This is true even if the thing in question only has to do with me. A story I was writing never seems to be quite in the condition I left it in.

For me, it takes a lot of bravery to jump onto that spinning carousel. There's a part of me that wants to go away and never ride a carousel again.

I think this is the source of the admonishments to establish rigid habits and never break them. It's true in my experience that there's an easy flow to following a habit that's solidly in place.

I think, however, that those admonishments are short-sighted. They're so harsh, and they offer little help when it comes to the inevitability of reality: at some point, all of us get off the carousel, for all sorts of reasons, sometimes for a really long time. Sometimes it's a long enough time that when you get back you find out the carousel's been repainted and moved to an entirely different location. Or maybe it just doesn't run anymore.

One of the biggest ways the admonishments don't help me is that they make me feel guilty and afraid—even more than I already am. I learned to write by writing 500 words every day, so you might think I'd like that writing advice. I don't, though, because I know what sort of guilt I lived with when I couldn't maintain that habit.

Instead, I'd say: Write when you can. Write when you want to. Figure out when is a good time for you to write and how you want to do it. Trust yourself. Sometimes rest is necessary. Forgive yourself. Sometimes it's sunny outside or you're sick or there's a book you really want to read or someone else needs your attention. However you do it, though, learn how to get back on the carousel. Setbacks will happen. Give yourself the chance to deal with them. Get the rest you need. Then begin again, gently.

Honestly, I wish I didn't have to say "forgive yourself," because I wish there was a way to not feel guilty at all about setbacks or periods of rest. I wish I could take them in stride and see that they don't actually call for forgiveness. Forgive yourself is a nice idea, but it contains the suggestion that a sin has been committed. And it's not a sin to get sick. It's not a sin to be exhausted.

When I was younger, I read too many stories about writers who woke up at 3 a.m. to write, because that's "what you do when you're really committed." I disagree. It's a way of showing commitment, yes, but over a lifetime what I think means the most is getting back on the carousel, over and over again, whatever that looks like. Seriously. Playfully. Joyfully. Because you hope it will cheer you up. Because your friends are there. Because you hope you'll make friends there. Because you want to. Because you need to. Because you don't know what else to do. Because it's fun.

Commitment, to me, is finding ways to fit what matters to me into my life, however it's possible to fit it there. Maybe I can't write right now, for whatever reason. There are times when I've maintained my commitment by touching the spines of books at the library, just to remind myself that I care about the words that go inside books.

I think things very often get compared to the workplace—and a harsh view of it at that. But what if I compare writing to love? I don't rigidly sit down to breakfast with my partners like clockwork. We live our lives and intertwine them as best we can. And I trust that it's not all going to fall apart just because I don't see one partner for one day—or longer. I trust love to pull us back to each other. These things don't always have to be forced.

Sometimes, I've been uncertain of whether I'll ever manage to get back on the carousel, and then I find myself there, on a cool night, surrounded by the smell of green, and suddenly it feels easy. It's okay to wait for that, if you need to.

I've wanted to say these things for a while. I recently went through a six month period where I couldn't do much beyond basic survival. Not only did I have to forgive myself for not doing more, I had to realize that there was nothing to be forgiven. But it was hard on my sense of self because there's a lot of me that's still wrapped up in that discipline nonsense. The point, though, is that I had to learn to trust my ability to get back on the carousel when I was ready. The things I love don't disappear just because I can't see them. The person I am doesn't disappear if I can't get up at 3 a.m. to do something hard.

This seemed like a good occasion because, after a little over a month of posting daily on this blog, it's now been a week. And I liked the discipline. I was proud of the streak. But I think people put too much stock in the streak, because here I am again, see? Getting back on the carousel. Returning. And if I look at the history of this blog, it's the returning that matters. I've returned so many times, for so many years now. These days, that's something I trust more than discipline.

Revising for Emotional Honesty

I'm in the last phases of revising Untouched (that book you see to your right at the top of the page). While I'm of course paying attention to my language, watching out for inconsistencies, and the like, I'm finding that by far the thing I most want to accomplish with this revision is emotional honesty. It's tempting as a writer to say, "This character needs to say or do this particular thing because I really, really need her to wind up here." But as I've worked on this book over the past months and thought about it lots, I've realized that I don't want to betray my characters that way. I've taken to drawing what I'm calling "bullshit lines" on the page—demarcations of where my characters stop acting like themselves and start saying and doing the things that are convenient for me.

I write from an outline, and perhaps this is a pitfall of being an outline writer. But I think it's more than that. With Untouched, I'm exploring territory that's been hard for me to reach. My main character, Celia, has a sexual identity and expression that can't easily be labeled, and her feelings about it are complicated. Celia fights back against people who want her to become "normal," and sometimes, I must confess, I become one of those people. As the author, I sometimes want her to be more "normal," easier to understand, and I do her, myself, and my readers a disservice when I give in to that.

If I weren't in the thick of this, I might be able to transform this into a more general rule, but right now the best I can manage is the very zoomed-in view from where I sit.

My personality is rather philosophical, and I think that comes through in my writing, but I also want to add something about sexiness. I believe in emotional honesty for its own reasons, but I also think it's hotter than the alternative, and, as an erotica writer, that really matters to me. I've had conversations with other writers about whether our work remains sexy to us. My personal ideal is for my work to always make me squirm. I want to always be genuinely turned on by the concepts and scenes in my stories. I confess, however, that sometimes when I've gone over a draft numerous times, the sexiness sort of disappears under the weight of commas.

Untouched has proven different. This is the wildest, most honest work I've done. It's challenged me heavily. It's hard to hang with Celia because she sometimes scares me. The bar she sets for emotional honesty is so high. On the other hand, even though I've been over and over this manuscript, it's still so hot it makes me sweat. My panties are soaked at the end of every day, and I'm editing.

But that can be a scary thing, too. Because of this honesty thing I'm talking about, I've produced something more honestly hot for me, something closer to what really makes me tick sexually. Writing this book has affected my actual sex life in a number of profound ways, and that's backwards from the way it usually works for me (usually, I transform things I know from my sex life into fiction, and it's a different experience to have my fiction lead me). It's hard to stay true to that, too, because the book feels more personal, much closer to home. If people think it's weird or perverse, it's going to be a little harder for me to shrug and say that's fine. This is a concern whenever writing erotica, but honestly after doing it for five years I thought I'd gotten over that.

I've never pushed myself as hard as I have for Untouched—in every aspect: language, story, psychology, eroticism. There's a responsibility that I feel as I wind down this revision. I want to do justice to all of this. I want the words to burn on the page. So here I am, going through it one last time, making it as real as I can. The humbling thing is that I already know there are ways that I will fail—goes with the territory, I think. I'm just hoping I can fail better. And be as emotionally honest as I can in the process.

2012: A Year in Statistics: Raw Numbers

I've been compiling some stats for 2012 now that it has ended, and wanted to post a few of the results. This was by far my most prolific year for erotica, largely due to some life changes that allowed me to spend more time writing it, and thanks to plenty of support and inspiration from my wonderfully kinky partner.

Without further ado, here are some writing stats for 2012:

I sold 29 pieces of erotica to publishers, ranging from flash fiction to novel-length.

22 of my erotic pieces were published, ranging from flash fiction to novella length.

In 2012, I wrote roughly 275,300 words of completed erotica (noting that this figure includes completed, edited works only, and only works that were entirely begun and finished within 2012).

I think I've done my part contributing to the smut in the world. Here's hoping for an even better 2013!