At this point,
Ambrose began to grill me in email. If you ever wondered if he just
handed the group over to a total stranger without so much as a whimper
... think again! He'd put a lot of years (nine) into NSWG, he'd never
laid eyes on me, and he wanted to give the group every chance to succeed
once he gave up the reins. I respect that.
So I answered
his questions in detail through several emails before we finally had
a chance to meet face-to-face. I probably gave him more information
than he was really looking for, but once you're around me for any
length of time, you'll discover two things about me: I'm the Queen
of "Too Much Information," and I have no problem speaking
my mind :)
And let me say
this upfront ... if you're not a 'professional writer' ... don't let
my education intimidate you and keep you away from the group. Those
two degrees and a quick $4.50 will get me coffee in lots of places
in Seattle '-)
I'm not the grammar
police or some kind of ivory-tower academic, despite all my time in
English classes. You have to understand, I went back to college at
age 38, after a little 20-year break between my freshman and sophomore
years. In the interim, I did a number of exciting and boring things.
I worked in recording studios and traveled with rock & roll bands.
Worked construction, where I spent time squatting on a roof nailing
shingles. I worked as a bouncer, and worked in a sewing factory, marking
the pockets for 32,000 pairs of blue jeans a day so the nice ladies
with the sewing machines in the next row over would know where to
put the fancy stitching. I've been a plain clothes shoplifting detective,
collected credit card bills, and repoed cars. I've reconciled multi-million
dollar general ledgers for conservative organizations like banks and
insurance companies, bought and sold everything from mattresses to
scrap metal, managed offices full of women and warehouses full of
men, and even managed a team of Pakistani content developers who lived
8,000 miles away from where my desk was located at the time.
With that kind
of background, becoming a writer just seemed to be a natural progression,
don't you think? :)
As far as my
love of all things erotic goes, I cut my teeth on my parent's porno
collection starting at age eight. It wasn't a couple of Penthouse
magazines stuck under the mattress. It was a (locked) wooden trunk
full of fetishes and kinks of all varieties: films, magazines, and
book after book of hard-core interests (many of them completely illegal
to even own) that my father collected during six years of military
service in Europe in the early 50s. BDSM was one of three predominant
themes in his collection (illegal, completely nonconsensual things
being the other two), and it was the one that always resonated with
me in my own life. If not, I'd probably have a teenaged horse in my
back yard, rather than a dungeon in my bedroom '-)
So if you're
worried that your writing won't be accepted because it's too hard-core
(or too soft-core) ... put your fears aside. 'Content' doesn't bother
me. Bring it on! I love (and often write) everything from bodice-ripper
erotica to hard-core smut, so whether you're fluttering your eyes
appealingly or breaking something off in some orifice somewhere
... I'll enjoy reading it! I discovered a love of reading hot literature
almost 40 years ago. I've never lost the taste for it in all its forms.
And I'm still honing my skills at writing it, too, because I really
only started writing erotica in 1997 myself, right after I went back
to school ... so I'm excited about what I can learn from all of you,
too!
As far as what
I bring to NSWG goes, as I've already told several of you individually
... this is your opportunity to tap into the fancy education I already
paid for ... for free :)
Sure, I can help
you nit-pick your grammar. It's a normal part of workshop. But I have
more tools in my toolbox than just that, and at the heart of me ...
you'll find a writer who loves voice-driven writing. So while I can
(and will) discuss the mechanics of your work with you, I can also
try to help you find your own voice, or hone the one you have to a
razor's edge. Erotica, more than any other genre, is about conveying
emotion to your reader ... and nothing conveys emotion better than
a voice that strokes you like a feather or hits you like a fist ...
in addition to the more logistical parts of your erotic story. I'll
watch those, too. Don't be surprised if I scrawl something like this
on one of your stories:
wait a minute!...you
just had his hands tied behind his back...did he grow a third one
to grab her by the hair?
Beyond that,
I have several ideas I'd like to follow through on with the group,
so stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, my inbox is always open.
If you have questions, send them here
... and I hope to see all of you at a NSWG meeting sometime
soon.
Let's get writing!
Lane
alexandra
