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Monkeyarcher

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I don't know if I count as lurking, since I just wandered into this thread, but howdy.
I am still feeling my way around here, and this is possibly the topic that I feel the most foreign in, so of course it is the topic I should probably learn more about, right?
 

FCChen

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I don't know if I count as lurking, since I just wandered into this thread, but howdy.
I am still feeling my way around here, and this is possibly the topic that I feel the most foreign in, so of course it is the topic I should probably learn more about, right?

Welcome to our little nook of the AW world! Research is great, and who knows? You might find yourself enjoying a little romp-in-the-word-processor with a good erotic novel. :p
 

s.j.l

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Hi all,

I joined this forum because of the awesome Erotica Board. My mind's always been full of smut, from the sweet steamy stuff to the XXX.
I stumbled across the forum looking up something for a tamer story and found myself reading through this board instead, ha go figure.
So now I'm finally getting as much of the raunchy stuff out in shorts and am pushing myself to self-publish them, that way others can get all hot and bothered over them too :)

I'm looking forward to getting to know you all and sharing the smutty people in my head.
 

Maryn

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It's so nice to see our new people! Nice to have you all here.

Maryn, in her mom's hostess apron (surely they don't make those any more)
 

malamute

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Okay giving a shy hello :) I'm not used to forums and have lurked crawled and wandered over this one and found it to be brilliant, the amount of information and help I've discovered here is well, can't put it into words really.(says a writer LOL) Its awesome, and just to say I LUVVVVVVVVVVVVV erotic romance, talking about it, writing about it hell girl I'm smut on legs ;)

Anyway a bit about me. After a tentative start to writing, I was slated to pieces by a very kind publisher that got low down and personal. Not nice so it shook my confidence. But I didn't leave it beat me, I kept on writing and basically stock piled books until I thought what the hell and sent them off. Sooo glad I did because I've got fab editors who are boosting my confidence instead of battering it. Anyway that's my little sob story over, and one day I would love to write a best seller and tell this publisher where to stick her edits :D
 

Filigree

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Welcome, Malamute. I hear ya, about gaining self-confidence.

But before you waste any neurochemical output on that particular editor, let an old woman tell you a story.

I started querying my debut M/M erotic romance novel to seven publishers in early 2012, after realizing that at that time, there were NO qualified agents open to both that genre and unsolicited queries. Some publishers said 'No'. Two said 'Maybe', with the caveat that I fix certain things. Loose Id wanted to keep more of the story, so I said 'Yes' to them and began the mad scramble to get an agent's help on the contract. (Yes, I did need it.)

But two weeks before LI offered, one of the declining publishers did so with a rejection letter that put my blood pressure through the roof. I thought the editor's comments proved they hadn't read any of the damn synopsis, and barely skimmed the sample text (which, due to their guidelines, just had to stop in the most gut-wrenching part of the book).
I'd believed this publisher when they said they wanted strong crossovers with romance and science fiction. I'd handed it to them - and they said 'we don't publish rape fantasy' and kicked it back to me.

Yeah, I was furious. For about a week. Then my F*****U filters kicked in.

Six months later I was published. A year later, I realized the declining editor had inadvertently saved my debut novel from a slow death with an incompetent publisher, and I got LI's great support instead. And much better sales numbers. If I ever see her at a con, I owe that editor a drink and many, many thanks.

Time does change perception.
 

malamute

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Aw thanks for that, think what hurt me the most was the description of my sex scenes basically a parody and laughable but jeez as I write erotic that's hitting low :tongue But it was nice to see a five star review saying the sex scenes in Promises were the hottest she'd ever read.

My confidence is returning bit by bit, its getting there, as you said time does slow perception. And can I say again how nice it is to be on a forum with people that are nice and CARE.:Hug2:
 

Filigree

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Hmmm. I got started in writing M/M fan fiction in 1991, when a beta reader told me I'd just written the worst sex scene she'd ever read. She talked me through why it was ridiculous. With dolls as physical models. Once I stopped crying I started laughing - because she was right, alas.

She wrote out a prescription of various M/M and M/F books and stories, magazines, and other resources I was to search out when I stopped blushing.

It helped. Your skill levels will constantly advance, the more you write and think about what you write.
 

Maryn

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Yeah, as a group the erotica writers here are wonderful, not just as writers but as people. I seem to be the lone exception.

Maryn, horrid
 

Beachgirl

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Hey, new de-lurkers! Welcome to the dark side!

And don't let Maryn and Fil try to convince you they're meanies. They're really awesome! Just don't spread it around, 'cause they have their reputations to think about. ;)
 

Moriar

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So... Hello there.
Long time on and off lurker here. I am starting to write more on the whole AW in general but I'd like to say hello to you guys in particular, if you don't mind.
I don't write Erotica as a genre (not yet, at least!) but do enjoy reading it; I also find many aspects of it fascinating and worthwhile in relation to other genres, writing in general and personally too, and I've been having so much fun reading some of the threads in here *grins*
So, I do thank you for all the knowledge and fun and stuff you guys provide pretty much daily!
I'll try to contribute more -be warned I tend to have a pretty filthy mind (double entendre could be my middle name).

A bit about me? An Italian living in London UK, writer of mostly fantasy, not published yet, lover of movies, food and tons of other things.

*offers cookies warm from the oven*
 

Maryn

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Cookies? There's cookies?

Maryn, who has a new best friend
 

Moriar

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You can never have too many cookies :D
And booze and/or coffee make excellent companions, so bring 'em on, I say. Or hot chocolate. Or boozed hot chocolate.

*ahem*
Thanks for the welcome, I like it already around here!
 

Hunter S Johnson

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Lurked for a week or two before registering... There is almost too much info here! I have started copy/pasting info into a notepad file so I can centralize some of this stuff for my own use. Can't wait to get critiques from folks here... this place effin' rocks...
 

beatrixfrey

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Hi all,

I'm new. I've written erotic fiction for my own enjoyment and for my partner. I'm looking to take a leap and start sharing a little more. I've been lurking for a while now - there's a whole lot of great advice here. Now it's time to take the plunge and start posting on the forum.
 

cyberninjasio

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Well now, looks as this thread's been dead a few months, but hopefully the odd bit of necromancy isn't completely frowned on about these parts.

Thought I might have a go at doffing my lurker cloak and saying howdy to y'all fine lads and lassies. The account's a fair new one, but I've been lurking about for the last year and some without signing up as well, honestly I just kept forgetting I hadn't. But 'tis the season, 'tis it not? So here I be! And if you can place my home from how I write, then by God you're a better creature than I.

I've been writting since I was knee high to a grasshopper (and I'm likely not as old as that phrase probably dates me to) and for the longest time devoutly swore I didn't write erotica. And I didn't. Until a friend gave challenge by claiming my denial meant lack of ability. As in that my "wouldn't" was more "couldn't" which my inherent stubbornness wouldn't (or couldn't) let lie and a few thousand words later, I cheerfully made him eat his words. Since then, I've written quite a few more thousand erotic words and been a main moderator of a fairly popular fandom kink meme that really blew my eyes open as to what kink is (kink is EVERYTHING! Seriously.) and changed my ability to look at worms of all things ever again. It can be exciting, sure, but often in a way unexpected. Fun though, if demanding. Some of my readers suggested taking it to a more professional level, so here I be.

On a personal level, I'm dyslexic and have full-bore rheumatoid arthritis which makes writing a challenge on occasion, but I figure where there are words there's a way. Plus, I'm a stubborn little cuss. ;)

Working towards publishing under a psudeonym cause I'd really rather not my fair and proper grandmother finding out one of her granddaughters writes "that nasty filth". I love her dearly, but she's pretty set in her ideas of "proper behavior" (the which I don't much correspond to). So her finding out wouldn't be pretty. :p

Anyhow, y'all can call me Sio and it's good and great to meet y'all and here's to many more to come!
 

Maryn

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Welcome, Sio! One of my AW friends--I do have friends who don't write or read erotica, honest I do!--also has RA, really bad a times, so you have my sympathies.

Many of us use pseudonyms for our erotica. Just don't be a dope like I was and "pollute" your pen name by using it for other things as well. (I answered writing questions with it at Yahoo Answers, then expanded to questions about sex, until a google of that name was all answers and none of my titles. Idiot.)

Maryn, glad you came out of the shadows
 

cyberninjasio

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No dangerous of that. I prefer to go by Sio most places, but using a combination of the surnames names present in my family two generations back at the time I was born to come up with a psudeonym. Sometimes a genealogy hobby comes in handy in the oddest ways. Only situation I might stumble into is folks thinking I'm a guy with a first name of Ward. But hey, online that happens half the time anyway! ;)
 

Filigree

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Welcome, Sio!

I'm Filigree here and most anywhere, but I'm also several other different names. All of which I linked up a couple of years ago because of a legal challenge, deciding that I wasn't that worried about hiding who I am and what I write. But I understand the need for privacy, for many other writers. Families, careers, and even lives can be on the line. If I ever move back to my little hometown, I might be screwed - or I'll be that scandalous eccentric writer lady.

I know what you mean by challenges. My interest in fan fiction, then original erotica, happened because a beta reader told me I'd written the worst sex scene she'd ever read - and she directed me to some online catalogs of the good stuff (back in 1991.) Cue a decade later, and some other online friends chided me for writing happy, fluffy stories: 'You couldn't write dark if your life depended on it. Go on, write us a death-story.' They didn't know me very well; I wrote a dozen dark stories in a row, and I still get comments on them to this day.