I was interviewed by the Squick and Squee podcast that you can listen to here.
It was a few weeks ago but I remember discussing my interactive erotica books, word choices, my fondness for Leisure Suit Larry and what I would create with a million dollar budget. I had a lot of fun doing this and I hope you enjoy listening to it.
The next interactive book I wrote was supposed to be about aliens. For years I have kicked around an idea about female aliens attacking the Earth and enslaving the men. I had in mind something that was a cross between Wells’ War of the Worlds, Mars Attacks and Cinemax skin movies. Some days I pictured it as an anthology book like World War Z, and other days I imagine it as a short novella centered around one character. I could never quite decide.
This year I decided to finally stop speculating and just write it. I needed a subject for a short interactive erotica book and figured running from sexy aliens would do the trick. 2020 would be the year of the alien invasion!
As you can tell, it didn’t quite work out that way.
2020 has felt like an invasion already. COVID has us trapped at home, making targeted raids on grocery stores while guarding our mouths and noses from germ penetration. A sinister occupying force of heavily armed assholes called the police have been killing civilians without reason or mercy. An insane tyrant screams misinformation at us everyday through our phones and computers.
I don’t know about you, but I needed a fucking vacation. My thoughts turned away from marauding aliens and towards lovely hotels located in the Smoky Mountains. Instead of fighting for our lives, I wanted to meet new people and make friends. Most of all, I yearned for a little peaceful escapism.
Which is what I have created with “Work at the MILF Hotel.” You play Gregory, a young man who works at a very special hotel. The guests are all older women who need a little tender care. Gregory is an Attendant, a special role that takes care of the guests’ carnal needs. It is your first day and you are expected to work three shifts. Along the way, you will encounter other employees of the hotel and engage in some serious foreplay before attending to your next guest.
This is one of my more relaxed books. There is no danger and no abrupt. You can’t be killed or even fired.
This might also be my most vanilla work in awhile. If you like stories ground in the real world, then this is for you. There is some blackmail roleplay and a lot of women-in-charge, but the only spanking is by request. I have a witch performing a ritual and a certain mysterious encounter, but that is because you can’t get away from that stuff in the Smoky Mountains. trust me on that.
This book is shorter than my other interactive books. That is by design. I want to produce two or three of these books a year. As much as I love an epic story, I think there is more value in a book you can visit and enjoy a short vacation.
Television shows are winding down or going on hiatus because current COVID-19 lockdowns prevent companies from making new episodes. I spend a lot of time wondering what if those shows will acknowledge these weird pandemic times when they get back.
My first assumption is that a lot of the shows will pick up after the pandemic. There will be jokes about characters did while working from home. Or there might be plots where characters investigate why so-and-so never came back. I think the pandemic will be treated as something that happened off screen.
I get that. After months, and possibly a year or more of being on lockdown, people might want their fiction to get back to normal as soon as possible.
But I hope not. I feel like some shows, especially superhero or genre shows, might be a heck of a lot more interesting if they spent a season dealing with a pandemic. Does crime drop in Gotham with everyone home? Do serial killers run out of easy prey? Do monsters get COVID? I want to find out.
I also wonder what the first movie that is informed by the COVID experience looks like. We now know for sure that a large number of Americans refuse to take even the most basic safety precaution if Fox News tells them not to. Modern zombie movies should have conservatives sticking their arms into zombies’ mouths to prove that transmission-by-biting is a liberal hoax.
Porn, of course, is already leading the way. A quick check of clip sites bring up results for self-isolation, pandemic and quarantine. Self-isolation is a classic “Oh no, we’re stuck together and you are looking hot but you’re my not-quite-familial relation!” The thrill of the illicit affair can be be replaced with the fear of breaking quarantine. Is that pussy really worth getting sick and maybe killing grandma? Maybe, if grandma is really racist!
Let’s just hope that enough of us survive to get to see the post-pandemic fiction.
A few minutes ago I hit ‘Publish’ on my next ebook. Sometime this weekend, “Be the Supervillain” will be available for purchase. It is an interactive erotica book about being a bad woman with super powers. I think you will like it.
Two things happen when you finish a big project. One is relief that it is finally over. Months of writing followed by months of editing is exhausting. The daily progress can seem so small. Knowing that there is literally nothing more to be done is a huge weight off my shoulders.
The other feeling is a void. You have this big project that dominates your day-to-day thinking and suddenly it is gone. Now what? Should I replace that thinking burden with another? Or should I take time to myself, knowing everyday that I goof around is another delay for my next big thing?
Either way, I plan to be grateful for the act of creation. A lot of us have books in our head, begging to be written, but a select few are blessed with the time to actually get those books written. Writing is work, and thank the Goddess, thank my wife and thank the Muses that I was able to conceive, write and finish another one. It is a truly rare act and I am grateful to be able to share more of my smut with the world.
I finished the first draft on my Mary Poppins inspired ebook. It went pretty fast and I still have whiplash. Writing an entire story in two weeks? Madness!
The only thing I am unhappy with is what to call my main character. She is a magical older woman who brings some tough love and dominatrix magic to two roommates. She fills that Mary Poppins niche of being magical and strict, but also nurturing. There isn’t many words for that.
Simply calling her a magical dominatrix isn’t specific enough. Nanny is the obvious one, but I feel like that infantilizes the other characters too much. She is closer to a Life Coach, but everyone knows Life Coaches are not a real thing. I toyed with Godmother, but that has its own baggage. Arrggh!
Right now, I think I will just call her by her name, Mrs. Aytricks, but I want to open the floor for ideas. Do you have a word for a strict, nurturing dominatrix?
I am a big believer that anyone can write porn. Whether you can sell that porn and make money is a whole other topic, but I can guarantee you that you can at least write it. Writing erotica is a fun activity and everyone should do it at least once. With Valentine’s Day coming in two weeks, I suggest you give a gift that no one else can give, the gift of personalized erotica.
But Shon, I only write grocery lists, how can I write porn?
Look, you’ve written letters, right? What about texts? A personal erotic story for a loved one, or lusted one, is just a long text message that you proofread first. You got this. I know you do.
Plus, unless your loved/lusted one is an asshole, no one is going to be critiquing your story for character development or coherent themes. They are going to be delighted that you spent time and effort making something just for them.
Your story has a main character, it is your loved/lusted one. Describe them with every bit of your affection. This is not the time for humor. This is not the time for honesty when it comes to their flaws. Hell, in this story, they have no flaws. Describe them like you are bragging about them.
The setting is wherever you want it to be. This is erotica, so it can be a place with a personal connection like where you first dated, or it could be a place completely out of fiction like your favorite television show about dragons. Pick a setting that works with one of your personal fantasies, or a fantasy that you know the other person likes.
Introduce yourself into the story. Describe what you are wearing or not wearing. Sell yourself as the sexy person you know you are.
Now, do your characters talk? Do they just fuck? Is there a lot of flirting and teasing? You tell me. Better yet, tell the story.
This is the part where some people get uncertain. When writing about real people, there is a tendency to want to accurately predict their actions. The better you know someone, the easier this is but still, I think it is the wrong way to think about it. This is a fantasy. This story is your chance to share your erotic thoughts with someone else. The only thing that needs to be authentic is your desire. It is your desire that you are expressing in this story.
Indulge yourself. Describe the sex as explicitly as you want. Or make it vague and flowery according to your preference. There is no right or wrong way. It is all according to your taste.
One thing I do suggest is that you don’t end the story with an orgasm. This is Valentine’s Day, so end the story after the sex with a declaration of affection and/or lust.
Once your story is written, congratulate yourself! You did it! Now print the story out and put it away somewhere. Put it where it won’t be found. Don’t look at it for a day or two.
Seriously, don’t peek.
After a period of waiting, dig that printed copy out. Give it a read. Better yet, read it out loud. Wince at the typos and bad sentences. Fix them.
Ideally, you would repeat this step six more times but hey, people have lives. Hopefully you caught all the mistakes. Print a final copy and save it for your loved/lusted one.
Personally, I don’t like to watch people read my work. I give someone my story and then I get the fuck out of there to another room. I recommend doing the same as that way you won’t fall into the trap of over-analyzing their reactions as they read it.
What happens next is your business. Hopefully it will give you ideas for the next story you write for them.
I have returned from Seattle! It rained a lot. I went to two(!) gaming stores that doubled as restaurants that you could play games in. I played so many board games. I saw a LGBTQ Christmas show called “Jingle All the Gay” and ate at a Brazilian place where waiters come by and give you all kinds of meat. It was a nice time.
Now I am looking forward to 2019. I spent the tail-end of 2017 and all of 2018 working on one story, Fight in the Sex Arena. The damn thing is finished but needs one more edit run through. At 600K+ words, that is not a quick thing to do but my goal is to publish it by February 1st.
After that, I want to do much shorter projects. Much, much shorter. Here is a brief preview.
Project #1 is code-named Mary Pops-You about a magical dominatrix who visits two misbehaving adults and gets their shit in order. It is inspired by the Mary Poppins books, which is a different beast from the Poppins movies, while at the same time, not being a direct parody. That shit is tricky.
Project #2 is code-named Mastermind and it is an idea I started in 2016 but never finished. In short, a submissive woman enters into a BDSM relationship with a criminal genius who needs some excitement in his life other than robbing banks, museums and oligarchs. The woman gets swept up in her dom’s rather thrilling lifestyle in addition to experiencing some bizarre bondage scenarios.
Project #3 is is code-named Cult and I started it last year. I wanted to write something that I would enjoy playing as a role-playing game. My idea is that the main character worships six VERY demanding Gods/Goddesses of Sex while assembling a cult of followers. It is a round-about harem story mixed with weird magic and modern mythology.
Project #4 is code-named Road-fucker. It is set in a post-apocalyptic world where everything went to shit but people still watch television. In particular, they watch a daily racing show where various scumbags race across America for prizes and their lives. The story centers on one racer and his adventures. It is a combination of Mad Max, Cannonball Run and Blood Drive.
All of these projects are books I can envision as series if they sell well enough.
Project #5 is another choose-your-own-adventure book to be determined. All I know is that it will be short and not take a fucking year to write.
These projects are in addition to my monthly Vaquel stories. Clearly, I feel I do not have enough to do.
I guess it started with role-playing notebooks. I was often the gamemaster so it would be up to me to write up the adventures. As I got more sophisticated, I wanted to keep track of continuity so I would fill up these spiral notebooks with maps, names and vague notes about plots.
As a player, I almost never took notes until I played Call of Cthulhu. Like any Lovecraft hero, I recorded my adventures into madness and despair. Those notebooks were very short.
When I started to write, I only needed one notebook. It had scraps of ideas. Once in awhile I might actually outline something. Mostly though, I used those notebooks to create lists of ideas I wanted to explore.
Nowadays, I have too many writing notebooks to count. There is a drawer in my cabinet filled with nothing by writing notebooks. I start one for each big project, scribbling ideas, character names, outlines and anything I can think of that I can’t use right away.
My chose-your-own-adventure books involve three of four notebooks for each one. I dedicate a page in the notebook for each choice, then I number every page. These notebooks become my hard copy outlines. I use a page for each choice because even though I usually only use three or four sentences for each choice, I rewrite a lot and I need that extra space.
When I got into magic a few years ago, every books recommends keeping a journal. This is so you can record your magical experiments and have a document that you can refer to. That is what it is for in theory, but I find that more often I find the empty pages to be a gentle reminder to do more magical stuff so I can have something to put in those pages. My magic journal is the only one I do on my computer, because I type way faster than I write and I don’t want the urge for brevity. Plus, it is backed up on three computers thanks to Dropbox.
When I moved to Wisconsin, I decided to take up bowling. My first few games were really bad and I got discouraged. I got a tiny notebook to fit in my pocket so I could record the days I played, how many spares and strikes as well as my scores. Only when I wrote them down did I see that I was actually getting better, just with some hiccups. I also found that I bowled for shit on Sundays.
When my Mom got cancer, I drove from Wisconsin to North Carolina to visit her. My wife was just starting her job so I had to go alone. It was the first real trip I had done by myself as an adult. I was a little nervous and overwhelmed by the details I needed to keep up with, so I got a notebook. Using a little magic, I have it a name and a personality to that not only do I have a notebook to keep track of my reservations, mileage and receipts, but I also created a placebo safety blanket of knowing my trip was magically protected.
This year I worked on my biggest book yet. It consumed so much of my head space, that I struggled to keep track of chores. I read a book that had a lighthouse keeper, and the book showed the deterioration of the keeper’s mental state by printing the daily report that he logged. There was something about the listing of chores he accomplished or didn’t finish that really clicked with me. I used to do something similar for my factory job, and I remembered how writing all the breakdowns on my machines made me feel better by how little I accomplished some days. I decided to start keeping a daily housework notebook, and it really helped me keep up with my chores as well as assure me on those days that I got overwhelmed.
Last month, I made fried chicken for the first time in ages. I remembered the seasoning blend, but couldn’t recall the cooking times. I had written them down, but lost track of it. We have a binder style notebook for recipes, but the times and temperature it listed was outdated. The book mostly contains recipes we have printed or cut out. what I really needed was a journal that I could write experiments or works-in-progress until I settle on a final recipe for printing and inclusion in the binder. So that’s why I got a spiral cooking notebook.
I put stickers inside my notebooks. It sounds childish, but it really makes the notebook stand out. It transforms the blank pages into something that has a life of its own. There is also a lot of adult themed stickers out there on the internet.
Anyone else compulsively notebooking?
My next interactive sex book takes place on an alien planet inside a sex arena. You play a fuck-fighter who is there to compete in a sixty-four being tournament. Before you can begin, I explain how a normal fuck-fight happens. Now, drawing on my years of explaining rules and instructions to players and employees, it occurs to me that I may take some knowledge for granted without realizing it. I would like to share the training section with you today and get some feedback. Could you please read it, and let me know if there is a part that you don’t understand? Thanks!
***
Fuck-fighting is a three round contest between two fighters. Each combatant is allowed two articles of clothing and one set of energy weapons. Clothing and weapons vary from fighter to fighter and the whims of the Queen. Prisoners, for example, are often poorly armed and dressed and added to the fights as a punishment. Other fighters will have access to better and more expensive weapons than their competitors due to rank or wealth. There is no fairness in Fuck-Fighting.
Clothing usually covers a fighter’s genitals or secondary sexual characteristics although there is no rule as to what must be covered. Clothing can sometimes be armored to provider protection, but most clothing is designed to titillate the thrill starved crowd. The only rule is that clothing must be easy to be removed by an opponent.
Energy weapons are used in the first round. An energy weapon is usually a hand-to-hand weapon with an energized tip or side instead of a sharp edge. An energy sword, for example, consists of a metal hilt that projects a sword made of energy.
Glancing blows from energy weapons on bare skin will cause pain and burns. A direct blow to a limb might cause paralysis in the limb as the energy overloads the nervous system. Energy weapons that connect with the heart, head or other vital organs will cause uncontrollable seizures and partial loss of consciousness.
Once a fighter is incapacitated by an energy weapon, the Arena Warden will sound the horns and Round One will come to an end. Round Two will begin immediately.
Round Two is fought with no weapons. Only the fighter’s natural abilities are allowed. Round Two continues until a fighter is stripped and then knocked unconscious or forced to submit.
Because stripping an opponent is essential to winning, most winners of Round One will take advantage of their enemy’s helplessness to begin the stripping. All fighters recover at different rates from an energy weapon, so speed is important.
Every move is legal in Round Two except the further use of energy weapons. Biting, punching, scratching, groping, kicking, penetrating, slamming, fingering and head-butting are all allowed.
When a fighter is knocked unconscious or screams their submission, the Arena Warden will sound the horns and Round Two will come to an end. Round Three will begin immediately.
Round Three, also known as the Queen’s round, is a chance for the victor to win favor from the crowd and the Queen. The victor can do whatever they wish with the defeated competitor’s body. They can inflict pain and punishment on the loser, as well as sate their carnal desires.
It is important to consider the crowd’s wishes. Fuck-fighting is a favorite sport of the masses and they delight in the humiliation of the fallen. If the crowd is unhappy, or worse, bored, with a victor’s Third Round, it is possible that the Queen will be displeased.
Displeasing Queen Erishella is considered a form of suicide on Euphoria. You have been warned.
Round Three comes to an end when the Queen wishes it to be. The horns will sound and the Queen will make her judgement. She will either spare the life of the loser if she wishes them to endure future humiliation or she will consign the loser to the Pit.
The Pit is the final resting place of fallen Fuck-fighters. Last year the pit was filled with a terrible machine that shred and sprayed the blood of the loser a hundred feet into the air. It was a great success with the crowd but a single drop of blood landed on the Queen’s heavenly right breast and she was displeased. The designer of the machine was fed into the machine and the machine was removed.
This year the Pit has been filled with a Cocksquid from the distant planet of Cronen. The Cocksquid is twenty meters long and has ninety-six tentacles that double as sexual organs. Stimulants have been added to the Pit to keep the cocksquid in a constant state of sexual frenzy. Fighters thrown into the Pit can look forward to days of being violated before the cocksquid realizes they are edible.
There are sixty-four fighters who will compete against one another in single elimination rounds. To win the tournament, you must defeat six opponents. The Grand Winner will be rewarded personally by Queen Erishella. This can include wealth, slaves, or personal attention from the Queen herself.
Glory to the Queen!
***
I’ve been on vacation all week in Orlando at an undisclosed location. Hint: There are alleged Islands of Adventure nearby. That is to say, I should be on vacation this week, hurricanes and other disasters permitting. I am writing this post in the past and it will go up while I am on holiday because blogging while on vacation is a no-no.
“But Shon, you write every single day. You are a machine put here on Earth to give us porn. Don’t you write while on vacation?”
Good question, highly insightful person that I did not make up. I do write almost every day and it wouldn’t be a vacation if I didn’t take some time off from writing. Besides, my wife would really like my company while exploring these alleged Islands of Adventures. I owe it to my brain, my spouse and my sore fingers to not do any writing while on vacation.
But I do admit that the act of creation never stops. When I go on trips, I take a brand new notebook with me to jot down ideas. It is essential that it is a new notebook because if I bring my current notebook, I’m more likely to work on current writing problems and then the chances of me sneaking to the laptop and wanting to maybe write a page or two while my wife is gathering eighteen more pillows for the hotel bed, greatly increases.
A new notebook is a lovely thing. It has all these blank pages. It has no expectations. A new notebook pretends that you don’t have a dozen other stories waiting to be written. It exists to record whatever weirdo idea you come up with as you stand in line to a place that promises the thrills of your life even though the ride only lasts ten minutes.
“But Shon, what if your old ass body needs a break from standing in lines and you are at the hotel room killing a few hours while your knees recover AND your wife is off doing something because she still has knees?”
Well, that is another good question, person who is strangely knowledgeable about my knees. What I do in these situations is read the hundred books on my Kindle that I haven’t gotten to yet, but if I am feeling really antsy, I might crack open the laptop and edit. Proofreading is always a challenge but reading your work in a new setting, like a hotel room, gives you that New-to-Me experience.
But really, I don’t recommend that. If you write on a regular basis, even if it is a just a little time a week, then you still deserve a break. People often treat writing as a recreational activity and I get that, but it is also a lot of work. Take the vacations when you can and make the most out of them.