The Rewards of Consistency

(This post is part of my series: An Aversion to Marketing with a Fear of Bleeding)

My last post discussed the benefits and pitfalls of expecting yourself to blog on a schedule. But I need to address the question of why a person should blog on a schedule at all. Why not just post whenever you have something astounding to say?

There are a few reasons. I'll start with the personal ones, and close with professional ones.

If I waited to post until I was ready to knock everyone's socks off, then I'll spend the next six months tinkering with my attempt at the perfect blog post and never say anything at all. I might just drop off the face of the earth. This is the same reason I can't wait to write stories until I'm totally inspired.

There's also something to be said for habit — if I know I'm writing a post daily, or whatever my habit is, then I'll stay alert to what's around me or what's striking my passion. For example, when I hear myself talking in a certain tone of voice, I detect the passion and force of my opinion and think, "I should write about that." Without a regular habit of blogging (as with any other type of writing habit), these ideas will simply get lost, or go on a long to-do list that I will never actually get to.

(However, as I discussed yesterday, neither of these reasons justifies me writing posts by simply manufacturing something to say. I don't send out every story I write — some just aren't good. Blogging, like all writing, requires some ability to assess the quality of what I'm producing, and the level of interest it's likely to inspire in others).

Now for the professional reasons, because consistency truly seems to have rewards.

As a reader, if I'm really excited about a writer I just discovered, and then I visit that person's blog and see that their last post was in November 2005, I get disappointed. I want to know what that person is thinking about now or recently, and it gives me a thrill to see that there's a way to get into conversation with him or her. That's anecdotal, but intuition tells me it's probably true more generally. If someone gets to a blog and it looks uninhabited, that reader is more likely to write that site off than to keep checking up.

Because I never know when that magical excited reader is going to pop in (hopefully, any day now...), I have to keep my blog looking fresh. This is a basic housekeeping principle moved into blogging — I don't let the house go to utter chaos, because I want to be at least somewhat prepared if I have a sudden guest.

But then there is the matter of traffic. I have had other blogs, under my real name, and I spent some years working for a magazine. I always felt skeptical about the claim that we needed more content to get more traffic. To some extent, I could see that more posts would mean more page views, but I also wondered if that would lead to diminishing returns. As an individual, there's only so much I can read, and I'm sometimes turned off by sites that seem "too busy."

In this case, though, I'm going to rule against my personal experience. So long as you're not talking drivel, people who post frequently and regularly seem to be rewarded with increased audience. When my magazine began to do it, we saw a huge jump in our audience. When I blogged daily under my real name, I had a jump in traffic that was not explained merely by the increased frequency — the effect was multiplicative. Places like The Huffington Post are masters of this principle, though I don't agree with all of their methods.

So, in this case, I conclude that it's good to have a blogging schedule, both because of the rewards of consistency, and because of the benefits I discussed in my post on taking a stab. The key is to keep that from becoming the mindless production of empty content.

I've tried schedules such as Monday - Wednesday - Friday, but my observation has always been that posting daily brings me the best results, both in terms of the personal reasons I gave and in terms of the professional reasons.

See the other posts in this series here.

Taking a Stab vs Manufacturing Something to Say

(This post is part of my series: An Aversion to Marketing with a Fear of Bleeding)

Bloggers, particularly those doing it for professional reasons, are under a lot of pressure to "produce content" — whatever that means. There's the idea that it's important to post consistently, whether that's daily or weekly or some other schedule.

I've seen a lot of encouragement to "just write something." I think that's good advice, but it needs to be balanced the right way. It needs to be about taking a stab, rather than manufacturing something to say.

Here's an example of taking a stab:

If you were to read my whole archive, you'd notice that I've made several mentions of nonconsensual erotica. This is a subject I'm interested in, have a lot of strong feelings about, and would like to talk about more on this blog. However, I get nervous because I worry about getting it wrong. It's a complex topic that's volatile, and I feel there's a real risk of losing people forever if I'm not careful about how I structure what I say. A couple weeks ago, I spent most of an afternoon trying to compose a blog post on this subject, but got really bogged down trying to be crystal clear about everything and cover all the bases in that one post.

That's really never going to work. I'll stay stuck in fear forever if I don't take a stab and do my best at expressing a small piece of what I have to say. I'm not going to be careless, but in this case, it's better, I think, to say something about a subject I care about than choosing the alternative, which is to remain forever silent about a subject I care about because I'm not sure I can do it perfectly.

For things like this, blog schedules can be really helpful, because they push me to keep working at a subject and writing about it. Otherwise, I might start a super-long essay that's going to stay hidden on my computer forever because I'm nervous about it.

Manufacturing something to say is very different, and I think it's the shadow side of having a blog schedule. Here's an example:

Opinions take time, and sometimes I don't want to invest the time in developing a smart opinion. I just want to write a post in 10 minutes and check the box that I did this. Better yet, how about getting several days ahead? I, personally, am too nervous to throw opinions around in a situation like this because I'm afraid of being held to something I don't really want to believe. When I want to manufacture content, that's usually when I pull out the inane news posts and promo attempts.

Now I'm not saying all news and promo is bad. But I'm pretty sure it's not what people want to read. A person might put up with a bit of it if it occurs between thoughtful posts, but I have, as a reader, stopped my subscriptions to blogs that were too full of these. I just don't care about this stuff unless the writer gives me a reason to care by nestling it in the middle of truly substantive writing.

Recently, I came to the painful conclusion that manufacturing content is a waste of time. It just detracts from my blog and makes it boring to visitors.

I've seen other things that I suspect of being attempts to manufacture content. I've seen writers come up with a great headline and a few sentences of an interesting premise. Then they abandon that thought and go straight into an excerpt of their latest book. This is the worst, I think, because it disrespects both reader and writer. I really don't want to click on a post that I think is going to be about gay marriage rights or some similar weighty subject only to discover that the author hasn't put in the time.

So, to summarize, I think a blog schedule can be good if it pushes me to take a stab at a weighty subject I care about, particularly over time. This will help me to hone my thoughts and hopefully connect me to others interested in the same topic. On the other hand, a blog schedule is bad if it encourages me to dilute my good, passionate writing with fluff that I couldn't reasonably expect anyone to read.

See the other posts in this series here.

Shame Still Holds Me Back

In my latest post on Eros and Thanatos, I talk about what still scares me as a writer:

If I had to model the way shame works for me, I'd get a set of Russian dolls and use them to sort out the layers of it. On the outer, biggest doll, I'd paint the word "sex." Then, as I moved deeper into the set, I would get more specific. "Kink." "Pain-slut." "Non-consent as turn-on."

The way I displayed the Russian dolls would express how well I was dealing with that shame. Years ago, that set of dolls would have been at the bottom of a drawer in a dresser tucked in the back of my closet. Today, it's on top of the bookshelf in the living room, right near my copy of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women (the book is actually in my living room; the strained-metaphor dolls are not).

You can read the rest here.

When BDSM Lacks Safewords

I don't talk about it much, but my first BDSM relationship was quite abusive. I was young, and had no idea that there was a community, or even that other people understood the things I desired, shared those desires, and had given them names. When I got together with someone who started tying me up, introducing spanking, and so forth, I was excited, ashamed, confused. He was older, and I leaned on him to know what we were doing.

We didn't have safewords. We didn't have negotiations. He just did things to me, and we had all the problems you might expect. There was no way to differentiate between fun "no" and serious "no." There was no way to express that -- really, truly -- I wasn't ready for something. And I was too dependent and not in control of my own sexual fate.

Why am I talking about this now? In conversation on Twitter the other night with @eroticawriter (author I.G. Frederick) and @MenageReviewer (Mary's Naughty Whispers), the question came up: "Is there such a thing as nonconsensual BDSM?"

I understand where the question came from, because these days to me BDSM is deeply intertwined with consent and negotiation. I'm sympathetic to the idea that if there's no clear sense of consent, it's abuse, not BDSM. I wish we lived in that world. But the truth is, we live in a world where a lot of people (including my past self) aren't very educated about sex, and don't have a good sense of how to take charge of what happens to them in a sexual context.

As part of the conversation, I discovered two incredible blog posts on this subject written by I.G. Frederick. I think they're must-reads for anyone who's ever been in a BDSM relationship that felt "off."

The first lays out the difference between abuse and BDSM:

But without training and experience, without care and consideration, abuse can happen even with consent. Someone who consents to a D/s relationship without prior knowledge of what it involves or the person to whom he/she is submitting is a perfect candidate for emotional abuse. This statement, in a “slave’s” online journal, speaks volumes about what the person writing it has experienced in the past. “i need some security and to feel good that i am not going to be thrown away for a simple reason.”

The second describes the anger that inspired Frederick to write disturbing erotic novels on this subject:

These novels are not romances. They’re cautionary tales about abuse and the meaning of consent. (In Broken Jessica consents to enslavement by her professor when he threatens to expel her from the university and blacklist her.) I know some readers find them arousing. Others have found them revolting. But, my intention was that readers find them thought provoking and that has indeed been the case.

This is a great example of why I think it's important for there to be at least some erotica that exists apart from the requirement of a happy ending. I need to read stories like this sometimes to understand the things that have happened to me. Other stories have given me a vision of hope -- the idea of what a BDSM relationship can be. But sometimes, I just need to know that someone else understands these situations in all their complexity -- pain and arousal both included.

Music Mondays: "Not In Love" by Crystal Castles featuring Robert Smith

"We were lovers--now we can't be friends. Fascination ends. Here we go again."

Take nostalgic lyrics, add frantic, desperate electronic music, and then think who might be the best possible person to perform the vocals. If you guessed The Cure's Robert Smith, you have the right answer. The result? A sexy anthem of denial, longing, and obsession.

Doing Good While Being Bad

When I decided to publish The Six Swans with Coming Together: Neat, I agreed to a pretty unusual payment plan. All proceeds for books from that particular line go to Kiva, a website that distributes microloans to entrepreneurs around the world. Think Kickstarter, except that the recipients have to pay the money back and you don't get stickers and tchotchkes for contributing.

Royalties from The Six Swans show up as Kiva gift cards, and I can lend them as I choose, along with other members of the Coming Together: Neat lending team.

The book came out in early April, so I'm just getting the chance to get in on this. I've written before that my participation in Coming Together has often surprised me -- I tend to show up for the erotica and the chance to work with the awesome people, and then later I realize I'm really happy about the "altruism" in the "erotic altruism" that Coming Together espouses.

This was definitely the case here. Only when I went to actually make my Kiva account did I realize how exciting this is.

Here's the deal: Writing is a dream come true for me. How cool is it that I get to help other people achieve their dreams as a byproduct of pursuing my own?

Kiva also allows a really cool sort of transparency. If you want to see where royalties for The Six Swans are going, you can check out my lender page and see who I'm supporting. I probably spent two hours picking out my first loan recipient, Leala. I picked her because I wanted to help a fellow Pacific Islander female.

I plan to periodically update this blog with information about what's going on with Kiva. And, as always, a big thank you to the folks at Coming Together, for helping me learn to do good while being bad.

If you'd like to contribute to this (and read hot stories in the process), you can pick up The Six Swans, or any of the other books in the Coming Together: Neat line.

New Werewolf Erotica on the Way!

A quick update to say I just signed a contract with Breathless Press for a new erotic werewolf novelette, currently titled "Not His Territory."

More details when it gets closer to release, but for now I'll say it's about a woman caught between her werewolf ex-husband and the werewolf investigator who's come to town to challenge him.

Breathless is publishing another werewolf story of mine, "The Arcadian Cure," in the forthcoming Ravaged anthology. I'm hoping to keep a good thing going, and am still thinking about lycanthropes. Perhaps more will be on the way.