Kinky Writers Talk Writing. And Kink. It’s What We Do: 2015 BDSM Writers Con Friends Old and New

One of the pleasures of the conference is catching up with my fellow authors of smokin’ hot kinky erotic romance. I had a chance to do this on opening day of the Con.

Fired up after the opening ceremony, I grabbed a meal with authors Roz Lee and Cris Anson. Though the fare was modest, we weren’t. We chatted, and laughed and make snarky comments about all manner of things, but what we mostly talked about was writing. It’s what we do. Writing is a world unto itself and we authors generally learn the hard way that the non-writers in the world think you’re a tad odd when you earnestly tell them your characters “want to have sex on every page”. Generally a step back is taken, or the more daring suggest medication.

But we had a wonderful chance to wrap ourselves in the feeling of being part of something special, and apart, as we sat at a small table and the work-a-day world of NYC swarmed around us, unaware that the three average ladies of a certain age were authors of all manner of kinky smutty goodness.

It is a similar energy to the atmosphere of other writing conferences, including the 2015 RWA National conference that was held in July in NYC. That con championed the genre of romance, in nearly all its myriad forms, instilling us with a fervor to produce the best romance we can, even in the face of the perennial snobbery that afflicts our genre.

But BDSM Writers Con goes one step further. Because it champions the vastly popular, but still too often maligned, sub-genre of BDSM erotic romance.

While vanilla erotic romance has slowly been welcomed to the fold after several years of vitriol and exclusion from the mainstream romance playground, kinky romance, with its edgy play and consensual Dominance and submission dynamic, is still viewed with trepidation at the least, or outright disgust at worst.

Yes, even among our romance writing brethren, who know well how it feels to be treated shabbily!

So, it is Dr. Charley’s conference at which we romance writers of this taboo topic are able to let it all hang out. We share, unabashedly, not just our joy in writing, but our enthusiasm for BDSM. For raw and raunchy kink. For sensual and sublime D/s. Books with flogging and pain play. Humiliation play. Master/slave scenarios. Cuffs and canes and nipple clamps, oh my!

And an additional plus of the Con are the readers who joined us. Because it has always been the readers who keep this genre flying off the virtual shelves and onto e-readers with asbestos linings. These readers who have traveled with us into this kinky land of wondrous sexual riches. Where there literally is, something for everyone. No matter your choice of kink, there’s a book for you! BDSM erotic romance covers every genre from shifter to rock star, from billionaire to bad boy bikers. Our readers are looking not just for the happy ending of a romance, not just for the deep emotion of partners in love. They are looking for the complex connection forged in the flames of kinky sex. And ladies and gentlemen, my friends and I are more than happy to make your naughtiest dreams come true!

When Cris and Roz and I took our lunch break, I was thinking about how much it means to me to be a part of this incredibly open and honest community. So, to my supportive and generous community of kinky authors and experts, thanks for another great escape into our twisted universe. Seeing the wholehearted embrace of this genre left me filled with renewed determination to bring all my kinky characters to life – and what deliciously twisted lives theirs are!

And to those readers? The folks who could barely contain their excitement at being a part of the fun, and meeting some favorite authors, and talking with unabashed glee about all their favorite – ahem – action? It was great fun to meet you, talk with you, share with you!

Until next year, keep looking for your favorites stories. Or take up a pen and start one of your own. Let your characters explore their deepest and darkest secrets. And until next year? See you on the page, ladies and gentlemen!

(And if you can't wait until 2016 - HOLD TIGHT, my brand spanking new BDSM erotic romance, debuts September 15, from Loose Id.

PS – if you haven’t discovered the BDSM Writers Con? Check it out! The portal to all the kinky goodness is right through the Golden Flogger Award badge to your write! I mean RIGHT!

A Muse Of Fire: The Magic of Words

“Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.” William Shakespeare

Words are the wondrous tools that can make or break a writer’s fortune. Shakespeare was an alchemist with words. He created magic for his audiences and readers alike. No emotion stymied him. No description stumped him. His characters’ names were perfection, his titles resonant.

He is acknowledged to have altered words to suit his purposes, and to create words when none in his repertoire suited his purposes.

Words. Such a little name for such varied things. You begin each story you tell with a single word. And then you build upon it, creating sentences, paragraphs, and ultimately collect them in groupings of thousands, which you bind together with your creativity, and present to your readers in the hope that this collection enthralls and entrances.

Words are, literally, everywhere around you, so there is vast opportunity to discover and hoard them. Entire books are devoted to nothing but words: Dictionaries and thesauri abound, each one different than the next. There are specialty books about words: Cultural words, slang words, dirty words, curse words, sex words. There are books by and about word lovers, like Ammon Shea Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. There are linguistic tomes, and studies of etymology.

I grew up in a home where my mother kept her dictionary beside her chair. She never failed to use it on a daily basis, and I adopted the habit. Whether to look up a word I may have stumbled upon but did not know, to check the spelling, determine the correct usage, or find out the etymological origins of the word, I am a dictionary and word lover. Every time I open one of these books I discover another golden nugget of literary goodness to add to my word coffers. At the moment I am especially enamored of ilk, sepulcher, crapulous, dogsbody, Machiavellian and loathsome.

I’ve wondered how many words I know? Hundreds? Thousands? Could it be possible to know a million words?

What words amuse and beguile you? As writers words are our basic stock in trade. We can create nothing without them. They are like amazing puzzles –waiting to be arranged in any one of countless combinations to express your imaginative story. Some words are mundane, some are illuminating. Writing romance fiction we have some unique challenges, as well as some typical writing challenges. We must not be purple prosey. So finding alternative words and phrases to express the heaving bosom or the throbbing manhood or to describe yet again a heroine’s tresses or a hero’s eyes, can require a Sherlockian level of linguistic skill.

Overuse of a word, as Isabo Kelly showed us, a verbal tic, can deaden your writing. Pedestrian or repetitive word choices can lead to flat writing, a failure to communicate crisply, and will stifle your power to sweep your reader along into the world of your story.

Wordsmith and wag, Mark Twain (his own pseudonymous name a word play, as “mark twain” was the cry used by riverboat men when measuring the depth of the water) said: “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

And Anton Chekhov, dramatist and short story writer extraordinaire admonishes writers to value and use their words thusly: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Word choices are the difference between creating characters with unique voices, or caricatures of humanity; the difference between clarity and confusion, boring or electrifying tales, hilarious or dull writing, magical or mundane stories. Word choices enable you to create the perfect title, the perfect character name, and a vast fictional world. Would the iconic southern belle have captured our imagination as well if she had been named “Pansy”, as Margaret Mitchell originally intended? Would Harry’s Hogwarts School of Wizardry be as whimsical were it named Eton? Word choices set our stories – they help conjure time and place and mood and tempo. Words can be alliterative or rhyming. They can create the tintinnabulation of the bells. Or enhance the character of Severus Snape with use of a sibilant name. Unfortunate word choices can make a reader laugh as well. A malapropism when words are confused – the character joke embodied in Richard Sheridan’s Mrs. Malaprop. Mistaken word choices can appall an editor. Unnecessary verbosity when a single brilliant word will do can turn off both editor and reader. Hackneyed choices, uninspired choices - when there are so many words to choose among, why ever settle for second best?

Ah, but when the words are chosen with love and care? They are like the mixing of the perfect love potion – one that intoxicates your reader.