So yesterday’s 30 Day Writing Challenge was an erotica piece that I wrote and let me tell you, it was the most difficult thing I wrote.

I’m not sure how erotica writers make it read so effortlessly.

Making sex sound sexy and enticing is hard work. You can’t have an erotic story use the word penis and vagina without sounding clinical and using the word “member” for a man’s private area just sounds dumb in my opinion.

As a writer, I’m comfortable with words and use them to tell a story, but I found that while trying to make words like cock, pussy, and clit sound sexy and that in my head as hot, steamy, and sexy as it sounded, as I wrote it on paper it sounded boring and bland.

I found myself switching between verb tenses and spent hours editing the piece (which still probably has tenses wrong) and I even started questioning what tense was correct. Things I know. Things I don’t normally find myself questioning.

The character names…I have two character names that are my go to names when I start writing anything. They are my generic names and have been that way for most of my writing life. I usually use these two names (male/female) until the character’s true colors are revealed and they reveal their true name to me. As I wrote “A Late Night Visit,” I couldn’t use those names because I know real life people with those names and it ruined my painted image of Lillian and Gray (a writer’s problem I suppose)…and having images of the real life people having sex in my head vs my characters Lillian and Gray was needless to say gross. (I assume that anyone I am not attracted to are flat front Ken & Barbie dolls…asexual with no appeal.)

I did learn a lot while writing this piece though.

• The word come/cum is interchangeable.
  It is just the preference of the writer. I prefer come because tense wise it is visually better on paper to me. Today I come. Yesterday I came. Tomorrow I will come.
  The word cum to me is a lazy man’s spelling of come and yet when I had to write the words pre-cum, I went for the visually pleasing on paper version and could not force myself to write the words pre-come and used pre-cum instead. Pre-come didn’t look nearly as sexy on paper as pre-cum.
  See…interchangeable and totally a preference of the writer. I spent a good hour on the word come alone, deciding which version was correct to use, and in the end I realize it doesn’t really matter as long as the characters get off.

• I still find myself laughing when I am writing a sex scene.
  I can mentally turn myself on and be in the writing moment of the scene but I’m also giggling all the way through it.
  I think that’s a reflection of what I think of sex. It should be fun and not a chore or a bore. If bondage is your thing, have fun with it. Don’t be so goddamn serious that you suck the fun out having sex. We’re one of the few species who have sex for recreational purpose. Swing from the chandelier, do a strip tease, dress up, make it messy, whatever gets you off. Just have fun with it.

• As hard as it was to write an erotica piece, I had a lot of fun with it.
  I did have fun writing this piece. It was great to see how far my imagination would go and what it would come up with. I had several ideas of what I wanted to write, but “A Late Night Visit“was a complete idea. I could see the whole thing unravel in my head like a movie.

• I like writing erotica and reading it.
  While researching various types of erotica and writing styles of erotica writers, I realized I liked reading it. Yes it can be a mental turn on, but I also like it for the honesty and openness. Some of us are lead to believe that sexuality is shameful and liking sex is even more shameful and here are writers who are exploring and sharing. It’s like what Sasha Grey writes in her forward of “The Juliette Society“: “This is for all the women and men like me, who at one point only had literature and film as an outlet to feel comfortable with the sexuality.”
  You can be embarrassed and shamed or you can stand tall and be comfortable in your sexuality.
  I enjoyed writing the erotica piece. Like I said above, how far could I take my imagination? The more I read and the more I wrote lead me to be more comfortable with my own sexuality, more comfortable in what was a turn on for me, more comfortable in what I like, and more comfortable in my skin.
  It’s amazing what you feel when you don’t judge or shame yourself and it’s even more amazing how you feel when you let the judgement and shaming of others about your thoughts, likes, etc roll off your back like water on a duck.

I don’t see myself writing several erotica novels. I will attempt to write one because I see it as a writing challenge: Can I actually write a novel complete with plot, twists, turns, and sex scenes that are not gratuitous but move the plot further along?

To all you erotica writers, I envy your hard work. Thank you for expanding my writing world and my mind.