Active Ink Slinger
A richly deserved podium - congrats to one and all! Don't envy the judges having to make the call, though, with so much accomplished writing and variation on show!
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PervyStoryteller
Over 90 days ago
Straight Male, 54
0 miles · Prattville
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Active Ink Slinger
I disagree with the assumption nestling in the question. What I would say is that you can't "make" your stories popular, they "become" popular if they appeal to enough people. That's not to say that you can't do things to increase the visibility of your stories if you have the time, inclination and a flair for self-promotion, but ultimately leading a horse to water doesn't guarantee it will drink. It's clear from the broader culture that incredibly popular stuff often comes about by a happy accident.
It's entirely possible that you can increase the number of views by writing stories that conform to what is already popular. That's grand for you if your own tastes and predilections do conform in that direction, but if they don't, you're not likely to create a very convincing or readable story. By my estimation the easiest way to get clicks is to write about assorted relatives getting it on with each other, but if, as I do, you find that kind of thing utterly mystifying, how would you ever be able to write such a story?
Ultimately you just have to write a story to the best of your ability, accept that you can't please all of the people all of the time, and be grateful for the people who do read and appreciate what you've written.
It's entirely possible that you can increase the number of views by writing stories that conform to what is already popular. That's grand for you if your own tastes and predilections do conform in that direction, but if they don't, you're not likely to create a very convincing or readable story. By my estimation the easiest way to get clicks is to write about assorted relatives getting it on with each other, but if, as I do, you find that kind of thing utterly mystifying, how would you ever be able to write such a story?
Ultimately you just have to write a story to the best of your ability, accept that you can't please all of the people all of the time, and be grateful for the people who do read and appreciate what you've written.
Active Ink Slinger
Yes, I read Black Swan, a good few years ago now and found it an interesting read. Enough at least to have other books of his on my very long list that I haven't got round to investing in/borrowing (so not "godlike-genius-interesting").
But, yes, there's stuff there that gets the cogs whirring and, to my mind at least, he's a lucid enough thinker. I didn't find the book particularly difficult, nor did I find Taleb arrogant, though having educated myself through reading a succession of English aristocrats, it's entirely possible that what others define as arrogance, I merely think of as jocular sarcasm.
But, yes, there's stuff there that gets the cogs whirring and, to my mind at least, he's a lucid enough thinker. I didn't find the book particularly difficult, nor did I find Taleb arrogant, though having educated myself through reading a succession of English aristocrats, it's entirely possible that what others define as arrogance, I merely think of as jocular sarcasm.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by GrushaVashnadze
This, and WW's comments above, are spot on - as I (not a very experienced fiction writer) am discovering. I wonder whether you think that one possible exception, though, might be when one is wanting to write dialogue or narration which needs to seem inauthentic or unbelievable, for satirical or humoristic purposes?
Oh, I absolutely agree that there's a time and a place for obviously insincere or inauthentic dialogue, and the satirical and humorous are two obvious instances of this. Another instance might be when a character is playing a part rather than being themselves - i.e. if the character is inauthentic within the context of the story, then it might help if they speak in an obviously inauthentic manner.
Active Ink Slinger
Firstly, let me second what has been said above.
But to expand in ways which may or may not be useful, the point about speech in fiction is that it is inherently inauthentic. When I was at university and had to transcribe interviews I'd conducted, I became painfully aware of how much spoken language looks absolutely frightful on the page; it's full of pauses and stutters and ums and ers and people correcting themselves or losing their thread, or... Well, you get the picture. Dialogue in films and books is taught and crisp, unless there's an aesthetic or stylistic reason for it not to be. In real life people think of a witty riposte several minutes after it was actually needed.
My observation is that what is called authenticity in music, literature, films etc, is in the vast majority of a cases a performance in itself. The creator of the work has, in some sense, gone to a place of inauthenticity in order to create something which others perceive as being authentic - the perception being the thing of central importance, rather than the rather dull question of whether something "really is" authentic.
The important thing for me, as a reader, is if the manner of speech is congruent with the character (and with the story as a whole). If you have a narrator who the reader knows only through their speech, then of course certain turns of phrase or habits of speech are in a sense the character. It does seem to me, however, that there is a tipping point, relating back to what Wordsmith has said, where you can have too much of a good thing. The paradox is that once you've reached that tipping point, the more authentic you try to make something, the more inauthentic it becomes, because then the performance aspect of authenticity becomes apparent to the reader. Finding the tipping point and sticking as close to the right side of it as you can is the trick. If I were to give any advice it would be to find roughly four or five habits of speech that tell the reader everything you want them to know about the narrator and to leave well alone after that.
Speech in fiction is less about absolute fealty to a particular accent by virtue of location, social class, etc, and much more about what fiction is always about; being believable enough for the reader to want to suspend disbelief for the duration of the story.
Don't know if this is in any way useful, but hope you find the right voice for your story!
But to expand in ways which may or may not be useful, the point about speech in fiction is that it is inherently inauthentic. When I was at university and had to transcribe interviews I'd conducted, I became painfully aware of how much spoken language looks absolutely frightful on the page; it's full of pauses and stutters and ums and ers and people correcting themselves or losing their thread, or... Well, you get the picture. Dialogue in films and books is taught and crisp, unless there's an aesthetic or stylistic reason for it not to be. In real life people think of a witty riposte several minutes after it was actually needed.
My observation is that what is called authenticity in music, literature, films etc, is in the vast majority of a cases a performance in itself. The creator of the work has, in some sense, gone to a place of inauthenticity in order to create something which others perceive as being authentic - the perception being the thing of central importance, rather than the rather dull question of whether something "really is" authentic.
The important thing for me, as a reader, is if the manner of speech is congruent with the character (and with the story as a whole). If you have a narrator who the reader knows only through their speech, then of course certain turns of phrase or habits of speech are in a sense the character. It does seem to me, however, that there is a tipping point, relating back to what Wordsmith has said, where you can have too much of a good thing. The paradox is that once you've reached that tipping point, the more authentic you try to make something, the more inauthentic it becomes, because then the performance aspect of authenticity becomes apparent to the reader. Finding the tipping point and sticking as close to the right side of it as you can is the trick. If I were to give any advice it would be to find roughly four or five habits of speech that tell the reader everything you want them to know about the narrator and to leave well alone after that.
Speech in fiction is less about absolute fealty to a particular accent by virtue of location, social class, etc, and much more about what fiction is always about; being believable enough for the reader to want to suspend disbelief for the duration of the story.
Don't know if this is in any way useful, but hope you find the right voice for your story!
Active Ink Slinger
I may have said this elsewhere, but there's absolutely no significant correlation between my own estimation of a story I've written and that of readers. Sometimes they align, but my feeling about this is that authors may actually be the very worst judges of their own work - too invested, not objective enough. It's actually quite common for properly famous musicians, authors, film directors etc to throw hissy fits because certain work of theirs which they themselves consider the pinnacle of their career are not appreciated to anything like that extent by the public and/or by critics.
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I feel like I should be holding a long, rambling speech, thanking everyone and their donkey...
Joking aside, I am flabbergasted that "Author Meets Reader" has been accorded this honour. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, what a pervy scribbler may think is their best work is almost never what other people think is their best. George Orwell once wrote that, "Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness." While not a book, this particular story took a while, and felt like one of those annoying coughs you get at the end of a cold that never goes away.
So for that reason I'm very happy it's appreciated so much, even if it upsets some of my preconceived ideas about what works and what doesn't.
Many thanks!
Joking aside, I am flabbergasted that "Author Meets Reader" has been accorded this honour. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, what a pervy scribbler may think is their best work is almost never what other people think is their best. George Orwell once wrote that, "Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness." While not a book, this particular story took a while, and felt like one of those annoying coughs you get at the end of a cold that never goes away.
So for that reason I'm very happy it's appreciated so much, even if it upsets some of my preconceived ideas about what works and what doesn't.
Many thanks!
Active Ink Slinger
Well, those pictures certainly set the imagination racing.
Active Ink Slinger
Well it's not like I got out much before the lockdown.
Active Ink Slinger
Showing my age (and younger folks will need to use the search engine of their choice), but Lesley-Anne Down in Upstairs Downstairs, before I was old enough to even understand what a crush is.
Active Ink Slinger
Yeah, big congrats to the prize winners in a field full of really enjoyable stories.
Honoured to be among the honourable mentions. Not sure how that happened, but really happy all the same.
Honoured to be among the honourable mentions. Not sure how that happened, but really happy all the same.
Active Ink Slinger
I suppose it depends firstly on how you define politics, and the relationship of politics to the personal and to ethics and morality. Nevertheless, I offer these long-winded thoughts.
I incline to the view (it’s not my own idea, but I forget where I got it from), that artistic endeavour of all kinds (and in this I include entertainment) is a way for society to discuss itself. I think it’s quite clear that contrary to the belief of some, an interest in high art doesn’t necessarily make you a good person (the Nazis were pretty keen on high art) and liking low art doesn’t necessarily lead you to indulge in base and ignoble acts.
If this idea of art as a way for society to discuss itself stands, then yes, all art is political by virtue of its relationship to society. However, I do not believe that it necessarily follows that art should have an intentionally ethical dimension – that artists have any business telling us how to live. Art is an arena for discussion, not for decision-making.
The trouble is that the political has a habit of impinging on art (and on the personal), and may have a huge effect on the art being produced (if it gets produced at all). When art is regarded as a political act, it can have the effect of closing down discussion rather than opening it up. Any author who is not a hermit in a cave cannot help but be aware of the social and political context in which they’re writing, and must reflect on how their work might be received, whether they want to or not. And of course there’s no easy way of navigating the socio-political arena.
Most often you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, particularly in a highly volatile, polarized atmosphere where people are more concerned with divining (and commending or condemning) an author’s political intent than with engaging with the text; using it as one of many perspectives on the muddle that is life. Art works best when it’s used for reflection, and the best artists are those who allow the recipient to reflect. What I think is to be avoided at all costs, unless you’re a satirist or extraordinarily gifted, is overt political writing, which all too often comes out as mere agitprop. If I wanted to be told what to think, I’d go to a political rally – or move to North Korea.
Erotic fiction as a genre of its own has its own in-built problematic. I think one of the reasons why religious and political authorities have always been nervous about sex is because lust creates its own morality. In this it always exists in some sense in opposition to power structures – this I think is one of the neglected facets of Orwell’s 1984.
This anxiety about sex has traditionally been dealt with by confining lust-morality exclusively to marriage, to the private sphere. And when the marriage ideal fails and lust-morality rears its head outside of marriage, the aim has still been to at least keep it invisible and private. You can see this at work if you study the trial of Oscar Wilde.
From this point of view, the position of erotic fiction is profoundly ambiguous. Publishing erotic stories is a potentially subversive political act, because in doing so, one has refused the idea that lust-morality must be kept in its “proper” private place. But at the same time, the erotic story is its own self-contained space, where lust-morality can be explored on its own terms, without necessarily being constrained by other forms of morality; in other words a private space that is simultaneously highly visible.
To me this idea of the erotic story as a self-contained space within which to explore lust-morality is often overlooked. It harks back to my contention that the function of works of art shouldn’t be to offer guiding principles for life. I think it’s a grave mistake to make analogies between erotic fiction and the wider public sphere. Erotic fiction tells us that the body wants what the body wants, regardless of whether society at large approves or disapproves, and regardless of what political opinions one may hold intellectually oneself.
Lust-morality is singularly useless as a platform for organizing a society, but at the same time the ethics of everyday life are often disconnected from what lust demands. If the two can be kept in their “proper” places, all is well, but the visibility of erotica pushes it into the public arena, the socio-political realm, where it is often discussed on terms that are not its own. So the author of erotic fiction is forced to take into account two separate moral codes that are not easily reconciled (if at all).
So the short answer, I suppose, might be that the artist cannot help but exist in a political space. Regardless of the artist’s intention, any work of art is open to political interpretation. Unfortunately such interpretation and discussion is often nowhere near as sophisticated as it might be, especially in today’s excessively polarized climate.
I incline to the view (it’s not my own idea, but I forget where I got it from), that artistic endeavour of all kinds (and in this I include entertainment) is a way for society to discuss itself. I think it’s quite clear that contrary to the belief of some, an interest in high art doesn’t necessarily make you a good person (the Nazis were pretty keen on high art) and liking low art doesn’t necessarily lead you to indulge in base and ignoble acts.
If this idea of art as a way for society to discuss itself stands, then yes, all art is political by virtue of its relationship to society. However, I do not believe that it necessarily follows that art should have an intentionally ethical dimension – that artists have any business telling us how to live. Art is an arena for discussion, not for decision-making.
The trouble is that the political has a habit of impinging on art (and on the personal), and may have a huge effect on the art being produced (if it gets produced at all). When art is regarded as a political act, it can have the effect of closing down discussion rather than opening it up. Any author who is not a hermit in a cave cannot help but be aware of the social and political context in which they’re writing, and must reflect on how their work might be received, whether they want to or not. And of course there’s no easy way of navigating the socio-political arena.
Most often you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, particularly in a highly volatile, polarized atmosphere where people are more concerned with divining (and commending or condemning) an author’s political intent than with engaging with the text; using it as one of many perspectives on the muddle that is life. Art works best when it’s used for reflection, and the best artists are those who allow the recipient to reflect. What I think is to be avoided at all costs, unless you’re a satirist or extraordinarily gifted, is overt political writing, which all too often comes out as mere agitprop. If I wanted to be told what to think, I’d go to a political rally – or move to North Korea.
Erotic fiction as a genre of its own has its own in-built problematic. I think one of the reasons why religious and political authorities have always been nervous about sex is because lust creates its own morality. In this it always exists in some sense in opposition to power structures – this I think is one of the neglected facets of Orwell’s 1984.
This anxiety about sex has traditionally been dealt with by confining lust-morality exclusively to marriage, to the private sphere. And when the marriage ideal fails and lust-morality rears its head outside of marriage, the aim has still been to at least keep it invisible and private. You can see this at work if you study the trial of Oscar Wilde.
From this point of view, the position of erotic fiction is profoundly ambiguous. Publishing erotic stories is a potentially subversive political act, because in doing so, one has refused the idea that lust-morality must be kept in its “proper” private place. But at the same time, the erotic story is its own self-contained space, where lust-morality can be explored on its own terms, without necessarily being constrained by other forms of morality; in other words a private space that is simultaneously highly visible.
To me this idea of the erotic story as a self-contained space within which to explore lust-morality is often overlooked. It harks back to my contention that the function of works of art shouldn’t be to offer guiding principles for life. I think it’s a grave mistake to make analogies between erotic fiction and the wider public sphere. Erotic fiction tells us that the body wants what the body wants, regardless of whether society at large approves or disapproves, and regardless of what political opinions one may hold intellectually oneself.
Lust-morality is singularly useless as a platform for organizing a society, but at the same time the ethics of everyday life are often disconnected from what lust demands. If the two can be kept in their “proper” places, all is well, but the visibility of erotica pushes it into the public arena, the socio-political realm, where it is often discussed on terms that are not its own. So the author of erotic fiction is forced to take into account two separate moral codes that are not easily reconciled (if at all).
So the short answer, I suppose, might be that the artist cannot help but exist in a political space. Regardless of the artist’s intention, any work of art is open to political interpretation. Unfortunately such interpretation and discussion is often nowhere near as sophisticated as it might be, especially in today’s excessively polarized climate.
Active Ink Slinger
The Apostrophe Protection Society deserves to be known as one of the Great Institutions.
http://www.apostrophe.org.uk/index.html
Of course, if schools actually taught stuff, there'd be no need for such a society. And if it ever extends its remit to include misplaced commas, semi-colons and Capital Letters, I'll be in deep shit ;)
http://www.apostrophe.org.uk/index.html
Of course, if schools actually taught stuff, there'd be no need for such a society. And if it ever extends its remit to include misplaced commas, semi-colons and Capital Letters, I'll be in deep shit ;)
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by Saucymh
I don't like the forced comment box for the exact opposite reason to Wannabe - I often score stories immediately based on my gut reaction but I then need time to think about the comment. I often add them later. Sometimes much later. A forced comment box will either get you a rubbish comment from me or no comment at all - and no score. Sorry.
Yes, this is roughly how I feel too. The pop-up comment box is like having someone demanding, "Say something! Say something!" when you might not have anything worth saying in your head at that exact moment. Some people know exactly what they want to say at once, others, like myself, need a bit of thinking time.
Personally, my libertarian inclinations mean I prefer to leave people free to vote, comment, do both or neither, as they see fit.
Active Ink Slinger
Huge congrats to everyone who placed. Some seriously Ace stories there.
It was a really good competition, and fascinating to see how everyone interrogated the picture differently. Apparently a picture not only says getting on for 5000 words, it is also capable of any number of interpretations.
It was a really good competition, and fascinating to see how everyone interrogated the picture differently. Apparently a picture not only says getting on for 5000 words, it is also capable of any number of interpretations.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by Verbal
They are all the same flavor. You have been brainwashed by Big Candy into believing that different colors have different flavors. #woke
Quite. However, you should be warned that it's been scientifically proven that your colour preference in this matter is directly correlated to your particular perversion.
Active Ink Slinger
Interesting. Nice idea providing a picture; it narrows options in one way, but it also focuses the mind. Definitely something to get stuck in to.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by Saucymh
Another site, another name... that's all I'm saying
Too bad! Pure filth is so much fun, and from a woman of your talents it's sure to be sensational!
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by Saucymh
My earlier stories are raunchier than my later ones. Stories that pre-date Lush are the worst - pure filth!
That's really got me wondering ;)
Active Ink Slinger
Most of the stuff on TV's crap anyway. Why wouldn't anyone spend more time on the web?
Active Ink Slinger
Yeah, as one who sucks at self-promotion, thanks for the opportunity!
1) The one you wish more people had seen.
I’m going to go with ”The Chain”, which is actually a series, but all of the episodes are free-standing. It’s a victim, I think, of series syndrome, with very long individual episodes and being in a category (Fantasy & Sci-Fi) that is a (fairly) niche taste to begin with (not to mention nondescript titles). The basic premise is that of the chain letter, with people receiving a mysterious envelope through the mail, which leads them to experience their deepest sexual desires and passing the gift on to someone else. I suppose the stories are a form of ‘magical realism’. I wish more people had read those stories because I had a lot of fun writing them, and still sometimes consider extending the chain. Maybe when or if I get round to E-book format.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/fantasy-scifi/the-chain-link-1a-1.aspx
2) Character that you've written that you'd most like to spend a night with
I’m going to cheat here, because the “if they were real” part of the question is debatable. I had a particular real life acquaintance in mind while writing ”After the Book Cub”, on whom Karen is loosely based. Nothing can ever happen, because her husband is far from the acquiescent figure he is in the story – but you can always fantasize, can’t you?
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/seduction/after-the-book-club.aspx
3) Most interesting female character.
Again, a series. Catherine in “Dirty Little Secrets”, whose husband’s work takes him abroad every other week. She makes videos of herself to send him, while knowing that she has a secret admirer watching through the window as she pleasures herself. That’s how it starts. Then things spiral. Not all the parts are narrated by Catherine, but the fact that I kept the series up for 11 parts is testament to how interested I was in following her transformation from being ‘a bit naughty’ to… Well, make up your own mind!
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/wife-lovers/dirty-little-secrets-1-performing-for.aspx
4) Most interesting male character.
One I have yet to create, I think. No one character, rather the basically amoral men in the majority of my Cuckold stories. Amoral characters hold a particular fascination for me – in the stories I read as well as the ones I write.
5) Story whose success surprised you.
I’m always surprised whenever I’m awarded an RR or an EP. I mean I wouldn’t submit stories if I didn’t think they were any good, but I’ll freely admit that there are authors on Lush whose stories I consider far superior to my own. The biggest surprise is “The Ride Home”, perhaps because it gave me a “breakthrough” of sorts. Not only is it an RR, but the response to it from readers in general far exceeded any expectations I had, not least because it was a bit of an experiment. I was reading a novel at the time, which I didn’t much like, but the style stuck with me, and it’s that stylistic influence that makes “The Ride Home” a story that many readers seem to respond to as being a bit different (even if I wimped out at the end). Years later I still get the occasional PM about it. I’ve half promised to try and write something else in that style, but I can’t seem to get back into that headspace.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/reluctance/the-ride-home.aspx
6) A story you were nervous about posting.
All of them. Every story submission is presaged by questions like, “Is this too silly?”, “Is this too outlandish?”, “Is there enough of a plot?”, “Is it too juvenile?”. And so on. There are quite a few unfinished or unpublished stories on my hard drive which I just didn’t feel were good enough or going anywhere. But the one published story that sticks in my mind as a “nearly didn’t appear” is my entry for the fetish competition, “Living Doll”. It exemplifies perfectly the rather odd thing that the stories I’m most uncertain about, are often those that seem to strike the most enthusiastic chord with many readers. I was really, really ambivalent about the merits of “Living Doll”, but the readers who like it are extremely enthusiastic, a bit like the situation with “The Ride Home”. Maybe I should dust off some of those unpublished works.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/fetish/living-doll-1.aspx
7) your raunchiest story.
All of them. Well, not quite, but as I state (somewhat pretentiously) in my profile, “I incline to the view that one of the most vital roles of art is to provide what life itself for the most part does not (at least not for most people), or at the very least to provide an intensified, exaggerated or heightened version of reality.” Thus, to me, writing about cuddly, marital sex holds no appeal. If I had to pick one story, it would be “Throwing Prudence to the Wind”, once you’ve got past the explanation of how Prudence gets to find herself in the middle of an orgy.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/hardcore/throwing-prudence-to-the-wind.aspx
8) your sappiest story
None of them. I don’t do sappy. Really. There’s a reason I haven’t written anything in the “Love Stories” category. I just can’t do it. It’s like my taste in music. At the moment I’m excessively fond of the song “All Is Equal in Love” by Meilyr Jones, but that’s my fill of sappy for the year. If I could write something with the same kind of ambience as songs like “Heart of Oak” by Richard Hawley or “Pure” by The Lightning Seeds, I’d do it, but story writing is as much about knowing your limitations as knowing your strengths.
9) the one you're proudest of.
The one I’m proudest of is “Fare Dodging”, my first Flash story. The reason for this is that brevity really isn’t my thing (as you can tell if you’ve read this far). So to manage to produce a coherent story that stuck to a thousand word limit is probably my greatest personal achievement as a story writer.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/flash-erotica/fare-dodging.aspx
10) a story you want to mention just because.
Once a story’s published, I’m more or less done with it, and I become preoccupied with whatever I’m working on, or whatever ideas I have in my head. Right now the story that’s occupying my thoughts is a Reluctance story, working title “Slut-In-A-Box”. Coming soon to whatever device you log onto Lush from.
1) The one you wish more people had seen.
I’m going to go with ”The Chain”, which is actually a series, but all of the episodes are free-standing. It’s a victim, I think, of series syndrome, with very long individual episodes and being in a category (Fantasy & Sci-Fi) that is a (fairly) niche taste to begin with (not to mention nondescript titles). The basic premise is that of the chain letter, with people receiving a mysterious envelope through the mail, which leads them to experience their deepest sexual desires and passing the gift on to someone else. I suppose the stories are a form of ‘magical realism’. I wish more people had read those stories because I had a lot of fun writing them, and still sometimes consider extending the chain. Maybe when or if I get round to E-book format.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/fantasy-scifi/the-chain-link-1a-1.aspx
2) Character that you've written that you'd most like to spend a night with
I’m going to cheat here, because the “if they were real” part of the question is debatable. I had a particular real life acquaintance in mind while writing ”After the Book Cub”, on whom Karen is loosely based. Nothing can ever happen, because her husband is far from the acquiescent figure he is in the story – but you can always fantasize, can’t you?
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/seduction/after-the-book-club.aspx
3) Most interesting female character.
Again, a series. Catherine in “Dirty Little Secrets”, whose husband’s work takes him abroad every other week. She makes videos of herself to send him, while knowing that she has a secret admirer watching through the window as she pleasures herself. That’s how it starts. Then things spiral. Not all the parts are narrated by Catherine, but the fact that I kept the series up for 11 parts is testament to how interested I was in following her transformation from being ‘a bit naughty’ to… Well, make up your own mind!
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/wife-lovers/dirty-little-secrets-1-performing-for.aspx
4) Most interesting male character.
One I have yet to create, I think. No one character, rather the basically amoral men in the majority of my Cuckold stories. Amoral characters hold a particular fascination for me – in the stories I read as well as the ones I write.
5) Story whose success surprised you.
I’m always surprised whenever I’m awarded an RR or an EP. I mean I wouldn’t submit stories if I didn’t think they were any good, but I’ll freely admit that there are authors on Lush whose stories I consider far superior to my own. The biggest surprise is “The Ride Home”, perhaps because it gave me a “breakthrough” of sorts. Not only is it an RR, but the response to it from readers in general far exceeded any expectations I had, not least because it was a bit of an experiment. I was reading a novel at the time, which I didn’t much like, but the style stuck with me, and it’s that stylistic influence that makes “The Ride Home” a story that many readers seem to respond to as being a bit different (even if I wimped out at the end). Years later I still get the occasional PM about it. I’ve half promised to try and write something else in that style, but I can’t seem to get back into that headspace.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/reluctance/the-ride-home.aspx
6) A story you were nervous about posting.
All of them. Every story submission is presaged by questions like, “Is this too silly?”, “Is this too outlandish?”, “Is there enough of a plot?”, “Is it too juvenile?”. And so on. There are quite a few unfinished or unpublished stories on my hard drive which I just didn’t feel were good enough or going anywhere. But the one published story that sticks in my mind as a “nearly didn’t appear” is my entry for the fetish competition, “Living Doll”. It exemplifies perfectly the rather odd thing that the stories I’m most uncertain about, are often those that seem to strike the most enthusiastic chord with many readers. I was really, really ambivalent about the merits of “Living Doll”, but the readers who like it are extremely enthusiastic, a bit like the situation with “The Ride Home”. Maybe I should dust off some of those unpublished works.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/fetish/living-doll-1.aspx
7) your raunchiest story.
All of them. Well, not quite, but as I state (somewhat pretentiously) in my profile, “I incline to the view that one of the most vital roles of art is to provide what life itself for the most part does not (at least not for most people), or at the very least to provide an intensified, exaggerated or heightened version of reality.” Thus, to me, writing about cuddly, marital sex holds no appeal. If I had to pick one story, it would be “Throwing Prudence to the Wind”, once you’ve got past the explanation of how Prudence gets to find herself in the middle of an orgy.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/hardcore/throwing-prudence-to-the-wind.aspx
8) your sappiest story
None of them. I don’t do sappy. Really. There’s a reason I haven’t written anything in the “Love Stories” category. I just can’t do it. It’s like my taste in music. At the moment I’m excessively fond of the song “All Is Equal in Love” by Meilyr Jones, but that’s my fill of sappy for the year. If I could write something with the same kind of ambience as songs like “Heart of Oak” by Richard Hawley or “Pure” by The Lightning Seeds, I’d do it, but story writing is as much about knowing your limitations as knowing your strengths.
9) the one you're proudest of.
The one I’m proudest of is “Fare Dodging”, my first Flash story. The reason for this is that brevity really isn’t my thing (as you can tell if you’ve read this far). So to manage to produce a coherent story that stuck to a thousand word limit is probably my greatest personal achievement as a story writer.
https://www.lushstories.com/stories/flash-erotica/fare-dodging.aspx
10) a story you want to mention just because.
Once a story’s published, I’m more or less done with it, and I become preoccupied with whatever I’m working on, or whatever ideas I have in my head. Right now the story that’s occupying my thoughts is a Reluctance story, working title “Slut-In-A-Box”. Coming soon to whatever device you log onto Lush from.
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In a perfect world, adults would be grown up about adult stuff. In the real world, some grown-ups are shockingly judgmental about adult stuff. Ergo it's perfectly natural for people to want to preserve their anonymity. Nevertheless, not uploading any kind of avatar is a bit dull.
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Unlike the judges, I didn't manage to read too many of the entries over the festive season, but congratulations to the winners and honourable mentions. I've clearly got some catching up to do.
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I hold "A Day in the Life" as the Beatles' greatest moment, though on average I rate a few other bands of the era higher.
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I think George Orwell got it more or less right:
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
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Damn! I have to raise my game, clearly!
In all seriousness, some great entries and deserving prize winners.
Thanks to everyone who voted and commented and expressed their appreciation.
An honourable mention of my own to timojen for "Finding Rachel's Switch". Wish I'd written it myself.
In all seriousness, some great entries and deserving prize winners.
Thanks to everyone who voted and commented and expressed their appreciation.
An honourable mention of my own to timojen for "Finding Rachel's Switch". Wish I'd written it myself.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by NymphWriter
This is something... another story site does. They also collect all the entries and hide them until a set release date. For example, the accept entries from September 1-September 30, then release all those stories on October 1, with the author's screen name hidden for a two week period. Now, the catch is that only the paying members can vote. The winners (the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd) are announced and as far as I know it's solely chosen by the membership.
Yes, this or some variation on it might be worth trying.
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This is a very thorny and difficult issue.
We live in a world where there's ever greater vigilance and policing of speech by self-appointed vigilantes, and yet offense is actually a deeply subjective thing. As someone who grew up in a council house, I'm offended by the term "social housing", which to me stigmatises people who for various reasons can't afford to or don't want to own their own home, yet the phrase is now a part of official discourse.
Clearly there are words that for reasons of history and common usage are, broadly speaking, offensive to a large proportion of people. There are words that I would never use personally, precisely because they are by virtue of history and their nature almost entirely pejorative.
Yet context is very important. There is a tendency today to ignore this, and to find words offensive (in a story) when they're actually being used to establish character, plot, or in an ironic way. I would go as far as to say that words in themselves are almost never offensive, but the context in which they're used can be. I would love to know if "chav" is on the inofficial censored list, since it's almost entirely used in a hateful way. For that matter, the acronym "WASP" can certainly be used in a pejorative sense, as can "MAWM", for Middle-Aged White Male. (OK, I just made that one up.)
A hundred years ago, almost the entire content of Lush would have had self-appointed moral guardians prophesying the end of civilisaton. I like to think times have changed, and they have, but that doesn't mean that there don't remain plenty of people who find stories containing graphic descriptions of sexual activity offensive. That in itself is reason enough to be wary of curtailing freedom of speech in any way.
I'm not a fundamentalist about this. There are some things that I do consider it unacceptable to say. However, I do believe that the present habit in society of policing offensive words rather than making an informed, sensitive and sophisticated judgement based on context is very worrying.
Besides, it's clear that some words that are allowed on Lush divide opinion. Should the c-word be banned? Clearly some people do find it offensive, yet its removal would decimate the number of stories on the site. Giving the offended party precedence over authorial intent is very problematic indeed.
All of that said, it's completely understandable that Lush seeks to minimize risk through the application of certain rules and guidelines. It's also the case, that if you don't like the rules, you don't have to sign up to be a member; in the same way that you can always change channel if a TV-programme offends you. I don't have a problem with that. Beyond the confines of Lush this is, however, an issue with much broader implications.
We live in a world where there's ever greater vigilance and policing of speech by self-appointed vigilantes, and yet offense is actually a deeply subjective thing. As someone who grew up in a council house, I'm offended by the term "social housing", which to me stigmatises people who for various reasons can't afford to or don't want to own their own home, yet the phrase is now a part of official discourse.
Clearly there are words that for reasons of history and common usage are, broadly speaking, offensive to a large proportion of people. There are words that I would never use personally, precisely because they are by virtue of history and their nature almost entirely pejorative.
Yet context is very important. There is a tendency today to ignore this, and to find words offensive (in a story) when they're actually being used to establish character, plot, or in an ironic way. I would go as far as to say that words in themselves are almost never offensive, but the context in which they're used can be. I would love to know if "chav" is on the inofficial censored list, since it's almost entirely used in a hateful way. For that matter, the acronym "WASP" can certainly be used in a pejorative sense, as can "MAWM", for Middle-Aged White Male. (OK, I just made that one up.)
A hundred years ago, almost the entire content of Lush would have had self-appointed moral guardians prophesying the end of civilisaton. I like to think times have changed, and they have, but that doesn't mean that there don't remain plenty of people who find stories containing graphic descriptions of sexual activity offensive. That in itself is reason enough to be wary of curtailing freedom of speech in any way.
I'm not a fundamentalist about this. There are some things that I do consider it unacceptable to say. However, I do believe that the present habit in society of policing offensive words rather than making an informed, sensitive and sophisticated judgement based on context is very worrying.
Besides, it's clear that some words that are allowed on Lush divide opinion. Should the c-word be banned? Clearly some people do find it offensive, yet its removal would decimate the number of stories on the site. Giving the offended party precedence over authorial intent is very problematic indeed.
All of that said, it's completely understandable that Lush seeks to minimize risk through the application of certain rules and guidelines. It's also the case, that if you don't like the rules, you don't have to sign up to be a member; in the same way that you can always change channel if a TV-programme offends you. I don't have a problem with that. Beyond the confines of Lush this is, however, an issue with much broader implications.
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by AbigailThornton
William Stafford said, ""There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough."
On a related note, the famous quote from Thomas Edison, ""Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration""
Though I'm not going to claim godlike genius for myself, the gist of the thing is true enough. My cure for writer's block is to keep writing. Not everything will be publishable - in fact I have legions of abandoned stories clogging up my hard drive - but I find that sooner or later something will give and all that perspiration will spark some kind of inspiration.