The Short Story: from First Sentence to Final Words

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Adrea Kore, Creative Process, Creativity, Developmental Editing, editing fiction, Fairytales, Greek Mythology, My Bookshelf, On Writing, Published Fiction, quotes, short story, Women Writers

I’ve always been a voracious reader. I learnt to read a little earlier than was usual, and after that it seemed I couldn’t get enough words inside me. As a child and teenager, my reading habits bordered on addictive, and maybe that’s why I loved short stories; as for most children, these came at first in the form of fairytale and myth.

Image Credit: Brooke Shaden

Their brevity and the fact that they were a complete experience in themselves meant I could consume more stories in the amount of stolen time I had to read: under the desk at school while it was officially maths, beneath the bedclothes with a torch long after my parents thought I was asleep, even occasionally (though less successfully) in the shower. Following my mother around the supermarket. Sometimes I’d lose my mother, but never my place.

When it came to short stories, I guess you could say I was greedy.

Writer Ali Smith expresses this idea succinctly, and with a wry twist of logic:

“Short stories consume you faster. They’re connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality.”

We don’t just consume short stories; they consume us. It’s an interesting idea. Even at five years old, I seemed to sense I would only have so long to read in my lifetime, so I’d better get to it.

Myth and fairytale beguiled me as a little girl, and they still beguile me now. I don’t think it was ever the happy endings I craved, but more the sense of magic and the uncanny. Now, I enjoy reflecting on the archetypes in myth and fairytale, that resonate through different centuries and cultures. I like to muse on their themes; themes that swim; primal, invertebrate, deep in our psyches. Love. Belonging. Loss. Yet before I ever knew the words archetype or symbol, I sensed the wicked witch was more than she appeared to be, and that forests were governed by different lore and logic to houses or towns.These are the treasures hidden in fairytales and myths. Upon entering these story-worlds, as a very young reader, I believe I first comprehended the power in words, the pull and expansiveness of story on my imagination.

The world didn’t stop at the end of my street.

As the wonderfully imaginative writer Neil Gaiman observes:

“A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.”

I could visit other times, places, civilizations, and planets. I could be a princess, a witch, Thumbelina – all without leaving my backyard, and return home in time for dinner.

The myth of Persephone, first read when I was five, translated into a short story and included in the Childcraft Encyclopedia volume on stories and fables, has been whispering wisdom and insights to me all my life. What I related to in the story as a child is different to what I related to as a young, sexually adventurous woman in my twenties, and different again to how I relate to her story more than a decade later.

The theme of mother-daughter love drew me in as a child. The tantalizing sexual and psychological symbolism of the Underworld that Persephone is made to spend part of every year in fascinated me as a young woman. The idea that Persephone represents the sexual and psychologically integrated woman from a feminist perspective intrigues me now, and compels me to keep writing about her.

Like a set of Russian dolls, the other parts of me at different ages are still nestled  inside me, and re-visiting stories that have companioned me through my life-journey is one powerful way of accessing these other selves. Changes of perspective in how and what we see in a story, are like sign-posts, or scars, marking the places of our own growth or change.

My well-read collections of Bradbury short stories

As a teenager, I continued to read fairytales, but also developed other tastes – for science fiction, mystery, the macabre and ghostly, the absurd. I devoured the short stories of Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allen Poe, and Roald Dahl. All of these authors approached the short story with their own style and signatures of their era. All of them taught me something about the qualities of short story writing.

Writer Andre Dubus professes that he loves short stories because  “they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.” For certain styles and subjects of short stories, I think he’s right.

We live our lives day by day, and a short story is an apt framework to capture what happens to us or our lover or a neighbour in the commute to work, or late one night, or over a week. Short stories don’t just encapsulate how we live, but the way we recount how we live to others:

“A strange thing happened on the train to work today.”

“So, I met this guy last weekend at my local cafe when I accidentally spilt my take-away coffee over his shoes.”

These kinds of short stories are close relatives to the conversational anecdote. If they are good stories, they will inevitably play with the tension between the everyday and the profound, the trivial and the significant. The teller is not quite the same person they were before the story happened. And they will have that same potential for the reader or the listener.

Short stories don’t just encapsulate how we live, but the way we recount how we live to others.

In this series of posts, I’m going to be exploring the short story up close. I’ll be peering inside, prying the pages apart, savouring sentences upon my metaphorical tongue, and inviting you to do the same. How they differ from longer forms of story, such as novellas and novels, will also be touched upon. Writer Lorrie Moore makes apt comparisons between the short story and the novel:

“A short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

I’ll be exploring the writers of short stories who have inspired and informed my own writing, and I’ll be musing on what works and why. To do this, I’ll be calling on three different perspectives I have into the short story: as a life-long reader of them, a published writer of them, and most recently, a developmental editor of short stories by numerous other authors.

Over my four decades of reading life, the number of short stories I’ve read would have to be in the thousands; maybe even the tens of thousands. Two literary theorists whose work I admire greatly were enthusiasts of lists to bookmark various ideas: Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes. So, here, I’ll list the authors of short stories that have inspired, intrigued or affected me:

• The brothers Grimm
• Ray Bradbury
• Roald Dahl
• Edgar Allen Poe
• Oscar Wilde
• Franz Kafka
• Anton Chekhov
• Patrick White
• Katherine Mansfield
• Angela Carter
• Jeanette Winterson
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Anais Nin
• Tobsha Learner

Some of these, such as Gilman and Kafka, are there for singular, stand-out stories. Most of the authors listed are there, because I’ve read many of their short stories, often returning to them again and again. Then there are the many anthologies I’ve read; attracted more to a genre or theme than a particular author’s voice. Ghost stories, Australian short stories (we’re pretty good at them as a nation) stories about the ocean, stories by women authors.

Try making a list of your own short fiction inspirations – just for fun, or to see who your influences are.

As a writer of short stories, I won first prize for a short story competition when I was eleven. I wrote a few decent short stories at high school, getting some published in the annual school magazine. Then, a long hiatus from any fiction-writing, where I took to copious journal-writing, poetry and snippets of memoir. I’d often had people say I had a gift for writing, but for a long time, I was too focused on pursuing my passion for theatre.

Since I started taking my writing more seriously just over four years ago, I’ve written twenty-two short stories (if I include flash fiction) and had seventeen publications, with a few other offers that didn’t eventuate. The first story I ever submitted for paid publication got accepted, the next one was also accepted, and currently my acceptance versus rejection rate is about 4:1. I think Ray Bradbury would be proud of me for having the courage to submit as soon as I started writing. I’m not one to let finished stories moulder away in a bottom desk drawer for years.

About two years ago, I started working as a developmental editor and have worked with numerous authors across different genres, editing some thirty short stories to date. My first editing project happened somewhat by accident, but was definitely fate in motion. I was asked by friend and writer Emmanuelle de Maupassant to critique one story for her new collection in progress. She liked how I approached it and asked me to work with her on the whole collection. It was a dream first editing project for me. Inspired by Eastern European and Russian superstitions and folklore, Cautionary Tales had macabre and erotic elements, and archetypes and symbols galore.

It’s extremely rewarding to see, through the developmental editing process, a story go from sketchy to stand-out.

Consider this post as an introduction to the series. From my own reading and writing of short stories, but also particularly from what I’ve gleaned through the drafting and editing process with other writers, I’ve compiled a list of seven elements I think are crucial to the writing of a compelling short story, and I’ll explore each element in more detail in a subsequent post.

1 First Impressions: Title, First sentence, First paragraph

2. Finding the Right Words: Imagery, Atmosphere & Metaphor

3. Character: Details, Depth & Dialogue

4. Narrative Gaps:  Sleuthing in the Spaces

5. Developing Themes

6. Paring Back & Revision (What Stays, What Goes)

7. Final Words: Finding your Ending

As an editor, working with other authors, I’ve gained what I’d call a privileged perspective into the potential challenges and blind spots that can be seen to recur over a sample of writers. It’s extremely rewarding to see, through the developmental editing process, a story go from sketchy to stand-out. Every writer has their own strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes these will even vary over different stories from the same author. While one story may have a very strong, engaging opening, another from the same pen might splutter and dither around in the first few paragraphs, or seem to start in the wrong place. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

These posts are intended as much to unravel my own fascination with the short story, to discover what I know about them, as to assist those writing them or wanting to write them. It’s my observation that some writers do need ongoing, considered feedback to help them identify (and strengthen) their weak spots. Other writers will have a gut instinct about what their weaknesses are, and take or leave advice accordingly. I tend to fall into the latter category. Whichever kind of writer you are, I invite you to take what resonates for you, and consider that what doesn’t resonate for you may be helpful for another writer.

Possible approaches to generating material for stories and for writing them are manifold. Any exercises I suggest are based on what has worked for me or other authors I’ve worked with, and occasionally what I’ve picked up or modified from a writing craft book or workshop. Take what you feel might work for you, or try something out of your comfort zone.

I’d also hope these posts will generate some vibrant dialogue, as I know many writers out there who enjoy the short story form, and, like me, would agree with writer Annie Prioux:

“I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.”

Intensity. Brevity. Balance and word play. I love the qualities she singles out, and I’ll be discussing these qualities through the ensuing posts. I hope you’ll join me.

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Dangerous Curves: Erotic Flash Fiction by Adrea Kore

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Adrea Kore, BDSM, Desire, Femme-Doms, Flash Fiction, Published Fiction, sexual fantasies

The text said she had to see him. Now. He drove the coast route, tyres squealing, taking the curves way too fast.

That’s what she’d told him the first time.

“Slow down, kid. My curves are the scenic route kind.”

She’d slashed with her whip, millimetres from his cock. Bowing his head, he’d kissed her boots, begging for forgiveness. Jade.

From then on, he was hers.

What will be her pleasure tonight, he wondered. Last time it was candlewax. Dripped hot on his nipples. Take-away noodles forgotten beside him, he strokes his keyring, a miniature jade riding crop.

“To remind you to jump, like an obedient stallion, when I want you,” she’d teased, dangling it cool against his testicles.

Her tiger-clawed fingernails had inscribed welts in his back, her sex flowing like the Mississippi by the time she’d finished taunting him, and allowed him to fuck her.  Jade …

Finally at her doorstep. Mouth dry with anticipation, his tongue felt wound in wool as he announced his arrival over the intercom.

“Your stallion is here, Mistress,” he rasped.

Eat Your Greens: Erotic Fiction by Adrea Kore

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Adrea Kore, erotic fiction, erotica, Female Sexuality, Masturbation, Published Fiction

Folding the laundry on this hot summer afternoon, I’m still thinking about it.

Sitting so innocuously amongst the unpacked groceries on the kitchen table. Nestled between the tomatoes, the fresh lettuce and goat’s cheese… the cucumber.

A magnificent specimen: firm-skinned and solid, with the most impertinent curve to it. It made me think of something else.  I giggled to myself as I put oranges in the fruit bowl.

I glanced at it again. For just a moment, it seemed its firm outline throbbed. Shaking my head, I put the lettuce in the fridge, thinking salad would be perfect for dinner, after such a warm day.

“You’re going to top off a gorgeous salad tonight,  Mr Cucumber,” I said, picking it up and looking it over, noticing the little indentation in the middle of one end, where it had been pulled off the vine. How like a little eye, I thought.

Then, I swear it winked at me.

The tape measure was already out of the drawer and wrapped around its girth before I even had time to question my actions.Seven inches in circumference. I squealed softly.

“Could I?”

It was organic, after all…

“Megan, don’t be ridiculous. Go fold the laundry,” I scolded myself, yanking open the fridge door and tossing it in the crisper.

So here I am, folding underwear, and all I can think about is the beckoning curve of that cucumber. Where it would touch me inside, if I actually did what I was imagining. If I actually did …

***

Washing abandoned. Skirt rumpled around my waist. Blouse and bra jettisoned, and no underwear in sight. The thought of its shape already has me throbbing and moist. I coax my clitoris into arousal gently, while caressing my breasts. Then as I feel myself getting wetter, I slide two fingers down into me. My internal silkiness expands in expectation. I want my little friend to feel perfect; I want to be wet when I devour him.

“Oh … God…” In he slides. Not before winking at me again, like a cheeky green leprechaun. I eat him up by little mouthfuls, allowing myself to adjust to his delicious dimensions. His topography fits my geography, and that wicked curve upwards kisses that place, that place which sends me into sensory whirlpools of delirious intensity, there on the underside of my navel.

Sure now that my movements are making the most of him, I prop my body up on several pillows, opening my legs so I can see myself reflected in the mirror at the foot of the bed.

“You are a wicked –  wanton – mid-afternoon – harlot,” I admonish my reflection, dipping into myself at each word, admiring my flushed cheeks, the gleam in my eyes, and how deftly my sex is gripping my little morsel of pleasure. I guide him in and out, giving him more daringly to that hungry place inside me, building the intensity of sensations until each dive inwards is met with an outward rush of pleasure.

“Mmm – Yum!”  The word is out before I can stop it. Although it’s rather apt in the situation.

“Oh, Mr Cucumber,” I gasp, my head dizzy from several orgasms. I watch the little harlot in the mirror as she removes the cucumber. Slick and glistening with juices, as if glazed in vinaigrette. I imagine he is rather pleased with himself.

I lie back, luxuriating in the post-orgasmic haze, cupping my breasts, gently stroking my torso, thoughts beginning to return to reality.  A stripe of golden afternoon sunlight lies lazily across my body.  Matt would be here in a few hours -what would I cook for dinner?

***

My lover pours the wine, as I serve up the roast chicken. I have opened the balcony doors, as there is finally a light breeze, easing some of the sultriness of the air into something more tolerable.

“What did you get up to this afternoon?’ Matt says.

As I hand the salad bowl to him, I try not to look too significantly at the contents.

Image: Public Domain

“Oh, I kept myself amused,” I say lightly, as I watch him take a generous serve, lettuce and cucumber spilling onto his plate.

“Good to see you’re a man who’s unafraid of your greens. They’re very good for you,” I remark, smiling.

“Well, I figure I’ll need all the energy I can get for later,” he teases, his mouth full. “That’s a great dressing on that salad. Sweet. Tangy.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Glad you like it.”

Under the table, I take my foot out of my sandal, running it up to the inside of his thigh, tantalizing his crotch with the wiggle of my toes. “I made it myself. In fact, you might say it’s a kind of aphrodisiac.”

He holds my gaze for a moment. “Mmmm.  Delicious.”

“Uh-huh”, I say, taking a sip of wine and running my tongue over my lips. “Well, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

I smile to myself. I wonder if he gets it.

Never mind.

He will later.

© Adrea Kore 2013

(Not to be reproduced or reprinted, in part or in whole, without permission of the author)

This is a version of an earlier story of mine, published as Salad Days. It has a naughtier ending, and goes down well at readings.

Salad Days was first published in Little Raven I (2013), then reprinted in  A Story-telling of Ravens (2014).  

 

 

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“For the Men”: Staging Stories of Male Desire

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Adrea Kore, Anthology Release, Dominance / submission, erotic dancing, erotic fiction, Exhibitionism, Female Sexuality, For the Men Anthology, Male Sexuality, Published Fiction, Seduction, sexual fantasies, Voyeurism

I write a lot about female desire. So imagine my delight (and surprise) at hearing that my story “Dance For Me” had been accepted for inclusion in sassy Rose Caraway’s latest project and anthology: For the Men: And the Women Who Love Them.

Featuring twenty-five stories from twenty-five authors, editor Rose Caraway’s vision for the anthology was to curate “a space for men to partake in the erotic” and to “eliminate assumptions, obliterate out-dated generalizations” about masculinity and male sexuality.

As the title emphasizes, it’s a space that overtly welcomes men, but where men and women readers are of course, both welcome. Here, I very much agree with Rose, in the anthology’s introduction, when she declares ‘the gained strength that comes from our intersecting sexual paths can create a level of intimacy that is more fruitful than you can imagine.”

I believe that is the place where my story “Dance for Me” sits. On its simplest level, it’s a narrative of seduction. It’s also an exploration of how having the courage to own one’s sexuality and explore it through “mutually intersecting” sexual fantasy can deepen intimacy.

Like a courtesan from another era, I must dance for the pleasure of my Dom. Dance for his pleasure and his favour.

I’ve always been interested in the inherent theatricality in sexuality. Dressing up, creating scenes, becoming the one who watches or is watched … Showing parts of our inner secret selves that don’t always get to come out in our everyday lives. So many possibilities in the staging of desire.

I’m standing in this cage. In the centre of a fetish club dance floor. In a leopard-skin corselet. It could look like I planned this, but I didn’t. It’s my first time here, my first play session with this dark-suited Dom, after several intense online interactions. The decisive click of his handcuffs securing the cage door. Ensnaring me in his scene of submission. Arms folded, smiling at my indignation.

“Dance for me.”

I look around at the club full of diversely dressed and undressed people. Bodies poured into and spilling out of latex, leather and fishnets. Unexpected revelations of flesh, piercings and tattoos. Some have stopped their conversations or caresses, or are looking over their drinks, surveying my predicament with interest.

“Please me, and I shall ensure your … release … in more ways than one.”

Cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment, I try to focus on the music, washing over me in waves. Try to focus on his beguiling promise of release. The effect this has on my body. This slow burn, beginning already in my clitoris.

“Disappoint me, and I might make you spend the evening in there.” He kisses my hand, wound around the elegantly-crafted iron bars, and closer to me, whispers: “But I doubt you’ll disappoint.” He steps back, swirls his scotch, withdraws to a velvet couch at the dance floor’s edge. Best seat in the house, I think.

Which brings me to my love of dancing. Perhaps obsession would be the more truthful word. For me, a dance-floor is the place where I can fuse my passion for music with my body’s hunger for rhythm, sensation, sweat and expressive movement. Athletes love to hone and push their body through activities like running, swimming, weight training. I love to do this through dancing. I love how eventually my mind switches off. I become headless, nothing but breath and sensations. I’ll dance alone, while I’m cooking or doing housework. But when someone is watching me, I cannot deny there is an extra charge.When that someone is someone I’m attracted to, the charge soars.

If I could find a way to dance while I write, I would. So, the next best thing was to challenge myself to write an erotic story around the idea of dancing for someone as an act of seduction; translating such a deeply physical act into words and imagery.

Just breathe in the music.

Yellow glow of the spotlight turns my skin into warm pelt. I’m a restless cat in a cage. Tossing my mane of tawny hair, the sensual layers of rhythms are fusing with my limbs, my hips. My dance becomes part of the music. Sure now of my movements, I throw myself lightly from side to side of the cage, writhing down and up, sometimes facing my Dom, mock-imploring him for my release. Sometimes I show him my back, the curves of my ass emphasised by black suspenders; teasing him with a coquettish glance over one shoulder.

I’m in the cage, but he’s the one ensnared.

Dancing can be such an art of erotic and sexual expression – for oneself but also for others.

For me, a dance-floor is the place where I can fuse my passion for music with my body’s hunger for rhythm, sensation, sweat and expressive movement.

Trained in acting and dance from a young age, I was entranced by the magic of being on-stage performing for an audience. I guess it’s no surprise that I saw (and revelled in) the theatre in sex as I grew older and gained sexual experience. I was drawn to exploring the theatrical elements of sex long before I knew there was such a thing as BDSM or kink.

Even now, I shy away from identifying myself in conventional BDSM categories – I am not a sub or a Dom or even a switch. I have elements of all of these within me, and I do enjoy exploring power exchange in sexual play – both on and off the page. That power exchange, happens for me as I access different archetypes within, and I interact with whatever is coming up in those I am intimate with.

Lovers of kink are welcome to see and enjoy the kink elements in my story – they are certainly present. But I try, always, to write inclusively, so that readers of all predilections will find something to draw  them into the story, something they will relate to.

I was drawn to exploring the theatrical elements of sex long before I knew there was such a thing as BDSM or kink.

By now, curious reader, you may have guessed that some of this story is autobiographical; and some of it is fiction. The “true” part is I got to be “the girl in the cage” that night; I got to access my Middle-Eastern temple dancer, my Salome, my dancing whore, my “courtesan from another era”. I feel all these parts of me when I dance, and it was a total and utter liberation to let them all out,  in the service of pleasing the man I was there with.

He was certainly that. And to focus for a moment on him, he said he’d never had a woman dance like that for him before, and the line in the story after the dance is, word for word, what he said to me.

As the lovely Rose observes “erotic fiction has the capacity to liberate our minds and bodies … fantasy can be that powerful.” So, if you’re a man reading this who’s never indulged in a book of erotica – just for you – maybe now is the moment. And if you’re a woman who wants to inspire that man in your life to dive a little deeper into his sexual depths, imagine the look on his face if you gave him this.

You can read more on my thoughts behind “Dance For Me” – and male desire – as I chat to Rose over on Stupid Fish Productions . There’s also a saucy excerpt to whet your appetite. Head over there in the coming weeks to find out more of the fabulous authors  and stories featured, and as listed in the pic below.  But I understand if you can’t wait – and you want it all now. So – here’s where to get it.

Amazon

Smashwords

I-Tunes

Reviews are now popping up, come read what fellow erotica writer Malin James  has to say  – here …

Also, the book will soon be available on Audible, narrated by Rose Caraway, engineered by Big Daddy Dayv Caraway.

Table of Contents

A big congratulations to Rose, Dayv, and all the authors from all over the world who have contributed to opening up this erotic space … For the Men.

“Licked” – Seven Explorations of Oral Pleasure

Tags

Adrea Kore, femme fatales, Licked Anthology, Oral Sex, Published Fiction, Wet Satin Plaything

Only a few days to go till the release of “Licked”, an anthology exploring the theme of oral sex in many different ways. Here’s the casting call, and I’m thrilled to be included (as most of my stories seems to put oral sex centre stage, I think I deserve to be here).

 

Sit back and enjoy seven lip-smackingly sensual stories of all kinds of oral pleasure. Stories of nostalgia for the taste of a lover, long distance relationships, and revenge. Stories taking in both the distant future and pleasures in the past. Oracles, ranchers and café cooks, all united by their love of using their mouth. And tongue. And fingers, for assistance.

Edited by Jillian Boyd (Spy Games – Flappers, Jazz and Valentino) Licked is a tribute to the act of oral sex – to the intimacy, trust and the taste of your lover, the scent, the feelings the act invokes in both the giver and receiver. With stories from the likes of Rob Rosen, Jessica Taylor and Dale Cameron Lowry and more, Licked is a sizzling fictional exploration of some of the many ways oral sex can inspire so much more than just a hot flash of arousal.

Come in. Have a taste.

  *   *   *

My story, Wet Satin Plaything is the darker, revenge-themed story in the collection. The premise? A woman breaking free of a sexually compelling, but emotionally abusive relationship, who does something out of character to create the catalyst necessary to leave him. She stages a sexual scene that seems to give her boyfriend more than what he desires, only to turn the tables on him, leaving him freaked out and humiliated.

 I’ll be discussing the stories’ inspiration, my thoughts on oral sex, and more with editor Jillian Boyd in an upcoming post very soon.

And for those who want a sneak peek of an excerpt of Wet Satin Plaything … come with me.

You can have  the whole anthology, by clicking on the above image.

So get Licked … you know you want to …

 

 

 

 

 

A Peek into “Peek Hour” – From Journal Jot to Paperback Anthology Release

Tags

Adrea Kore, Creative Process, erotica, MBOBNE13, On Writing, Peek Hour, Penephilia, Phallic Worship, Published Fiction, sexual fantasies, short story, Voyeurism

Although I’ve been dabbling in this writing caper for over 3 decades, and received my first offer of publication fifteen years ago, my affair with writing erotica began only two years ago.

Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica is a “Best of” anthology of erotica short stories, that have been published in some form within the preceding year. Hand-picked by well-respected editor Maxim Jakubowski (himself an author of many genres of fiction including erotica), this anthology has been going for over 13 years (it started getting numbered after a few releases) and has a considerable standing amongst the erotica-writing commmunity.

Just one year ago, I was (very politely) rejected from this anthology. The piece I submitted wasn’t even a story, more a scene. But the editor must have seen something he liked, because he encouraged me to submit again. After reading the anthology I didn’t get into, and being so impressed with the quality of story-telling, as well as the diversity of sexuality represented, I was determined to get a story in one of them – one day.

Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 13

My complimentary contributor copies for this year’s anthology arrived earlier this week.

And I am proud for my story to be there, nestled between the covers with writing peers, authors I have oodles of respect for, people I’ve interacted with and exchanged story critiques with, via my favourite online erotica writer’s forum. And proud of my ability to not let a rejection fill me with self-doubt or stop me from submitting to the same editor.

It still stuns me when I see one of my stories in print. I’m a green enough published writer for this still to be enormously exciting, and somehow unreal.

I don’t share this to gloat. I share it to encourage fledgling writers. Persistence and practice can actually lead to publication. (I really didn’t mean to execute that much alliteration in one sentence.) Oh – yes – the other factor :

PUTTING-YOURSELF-FORWARD.

(I seem to be on a roll with P-concepts.) Not at all surprising, considering the subject of this story.