My Boring First Time

Posted on February 3, 2014 by lorelei

Since a fair proportion of my thoughts involve the subject of virginity, I figured it’s only fair to share my own first sexual experience. It’s possible I’ve mentioned it before, actually I don’t really remember and can’t be arsed to search through my older posts, so here goes…

In a time, about a decade ago, and a place which was in a different country from where I am now, I was 17 and somebody’s (online) girlfriend. We had known each other (online) for about one-and-a-half years and had met I believe twice before. I’m sorry in advance, it’s been a while and the details are very blurry.

The first time we met in person I was 16, and he was 21, and we made out and fooled around a bit but there was no sex-sex. The second time, at his place, there were too many parents and other such people around to be able to get away with anything much. My memory is trying to tell me he wasn’t that interested anyway, didn’t see the need to hurry and might’ve even liked the idea of waiting, but I’m not 100% sure now.

I on the other hand was not (and still am not) known for my patience.

So, upon seeing each other again around the time of my High School Graduation, we were messing about a bit in my bedroom and I decided it was time. Rather than jerk him off or doing a sort of strange dry humping type thing, I wanted to know what the real thing would be like. I don’t recall being particularly turned on, just sort of curious.

“Let’s try it,” I said. “If you don’t want to after that, we don’t have to do it again.”

He sort of shrugged and mumbled something about thinking we were going to wait, then agreed and I took my panties off.

After climbing on top and trying to figure out what the right angle would be (I’d practised with a vibrator before, but that’s different), I soon figured out a way and the initial stinging went away pretty quick too. I rode him, he came, I didn’t, and it was overall alright.

A little while later we did it again and that was also OK. Then we had a shower together and my insides were on fire and I wondered if that burning feeling would ever go away.

It did by the next day, so we did it again, and a few times later I figured out how to make myself cum. If anyone’s taking notes, he was quite slim, I was as well, and him sitting with legs crossed with me on top, grinding into him while hanging on with my arms around his waist did the job at the time. Sadly, now that I’m not so skinny, any sort of thigh fat gets in the way, plus the hubby’s thighs are quite muscular, so that technique no longer works. Thankfully others do.

I always found it quite amusing that at 17 I lost it at the same age as my mom (yes, we talked about issues like this). Though to this day I wonder if her experience was more exciting. I should probably ask her next time we’re downing wine in front of the TV and expect a blushy, awkward, response in between coughs that starts with: “Why do you have to ask me stuff like this?”

There may be people reading this now, thinking “OMG that sounds boring as hell, don’t you regret it? Sure, he was your boyfriend at the time, but don’t you wish your first time was more… special?”

No, I don’t really care. My virginity wasn’t precious and it didn’t need to be guarded with my life and handed only to my knight in shining armour. And let’s be clear here, that guy was no knight of any sort.

There had to be a first time, and I’m glad it was consensual, that’s all there is to it for me. It might’ve been better if I’d been madly and passionately in love with the guy. But really, the first time is going to hurt and you’re not going to be particularly good at it. The second time it gets a little better, the third, fourth, fifth times perhaps you’ll start to see the point of it. Or not, I’m pretty sure I got over the novelty of it pretty quickly- with him, anyway. I have zero patience for regrets and what-ifs.

I think when you’re with someone compatible enough and you do find that passion, you’ll have an awesome experience anyway. And if it isn’t your (boring) first time, at least you’ll have the frame of reference necessary to know how great it was, plus you’ll know what to do. Sounds like a double win to me.

I Get Shy Talking About My Writing…

Posted on January 27, 2014 by lorelei

I Get Shy Talking About My Writing… And it’s not why you think.

Right, you’re reading this probably because you’ve read my stories and after that might’ve followed me on social media or happened upon this site. Chances are we know each other at least loosely, indirectly. I have zero self awareness on this issue, so I’m not sure if you’d find what comes next surprising, or if I am way more obvious than I thought…

The idea of telling people what I write about makes me feel weird and icky inside. I get a sort of ticklish sensation right above the stomach, sometimes higher up in my chest, which grows into an uncomfortable pressure of varying intensity. This sensation tells me that I’d like to just say what I’m about to say, but preferably not while I’m still standing in front of you (whether literally or figuratively).

I’d like to find the right words, write them down and leave you a note. Then I could run away while you read and understand it so I don’t have to deal with any feedback or risk getting nervous and blurting it out all wrong. These instincts are very inconvenient in a time when writers are supposed to be their own best spokespeople; I can’t afford to end up in a crowd and answer the question with a whispered: “Oh, just some stories, no big deal. Tell me about yourself instead!”

I’ve tried saying I write Erotic Romance which is true enough, but doesn’t feel quite right to me. Another possibility is to say I write ‘Romance with sex’, which is essentially the same but makes me feel like I’m about to be misunderstood and lost between the imagery of rapey alpha male knights and innocent maidens with heaving bosoms. I’d like you to understand, I really do, I just don’t want to have to open up enough to make it happen.

It’s not the sex. I don’t really give a shit about the fucking, the crude language, the cum stained sheets or used condoms that might feature in some of my stories (Mental note: must include cum stains in a future story, that would be hilarious); these things don’t embarrass me. Sex is easy, fun, quite acceptable even.

What gets me tied in knots is that I write about people who are real to me: strange, awkward people with fears and worries and hang-ups that often don’t even need to exist. Secretly, I like them better the more fucked up they are, which to me is quite a horrible thing to admit because it reeks of Schadenfreude. Then I try to justify it by giving those same people a happy ending with lots of fireworks along the way. My absolute favourite thing in the world is to watch (and write about) an underdog ending up on top.

Is that strange? Probably not, if one is to believe expressions like “everyone loves an underdog”. So why do I worry so much about how people will react? I’m not even that bothered about the sorts of people who think the character in question is weak and would prefer a confident type who swoops in with all the answers and the Great Handbook of Sexual Technique memorised beginning to end. Quite the opposite: what worries me the most is for someone to come up to me and say: “What made you think you could take a person / scenario / characteristic like this and use it for entertainment and profit. You’ve made me look and feel like an asshole because of it. How dare you!”

I think it’s because growing up I’ve always felt like an underdog myself. While the popular kids would reject me, I could count on solidarity from the other “outcasts”: I was never truly alone. And it would be a tragedy if something I did made another person feel worse somehow, even if it was unintentional. I’d prefer if it were the opposite actually, but that would make me sound all pretentious, so rather than admit to that, I’d prefer to sit quietly in the crowd, observing and keeping my thoughts to myself… Unless I have something funny to say.

Piracy & Why You Shouldn’t Give a Fuck

Posted on January 10, 2014 by lorelei

If you have a strong opinion about the subject of piracy, specifically ebook piracy, this post may either interest you or ruin your morning. If the word piracy makes your stomach turn and cause anger to well up inside you until you feel like spewing venom all over the computer screen, you may want to give it a miss, especially if you’re very attached to your side of things no matter what anyone says…

Piracy is bad.

Right? That’s what we’re all supposed to believe as authors. Pirates are evil thieves who might as well come into our house at night, take money out of our wallets and crap in our beds. It’s the lowest form of sharing entertainment or knowledge, because its creators do not get direct compensation. Every pirated movie, song, book, whatever, that gets downloaded in this world, is a slap in the face to its creator, nothing else.

I tend to disagree.

Before Christmas, a group of us launched Gratis: Midwinter Tales. Because I’m obsessive like that, I did regular google searches for our title to see if we’d got any blog mentions. Within days, I found a hit from a torrent website. For those of you who aren’t aware, torrents are tiny little files that give a torrent software all the data it needs to download the contents of the file from random strangers online who were kind enough to share it to the world. You can use torrents to download movies, songs, books, software, for free. Usually people use them to share and obtain paid content for free in which case it’s illegal and often what is meant by the term “internet piracy”.

Anyway, back to Gratis: Midwinter Tales. Someone had put this book into a massive collection of Anthologies. Gratis is supposed to be free anyway, but that’s not the point. I don’t know if the other featured anthologies were free or paid. When I downloaded the torrent (selecting only Gratis, before anyone gets their panties in a twist that I downloaded a shit ton of potentially pirated other books), it transpired that it was one of the first versions I’d uploaded to Smashwords.

My first reaction was one of shock. The book had only just gone live, and already someone downloaded it and put it into this collection. This was unexpected and filled me with pride because to me it meant that someone thought it was WORTH putting into that collection. When I was about to share this happy news with others, I wondered though, if perhaps they wouldn’t be equally excited.

Every time I see the subject of piracy come up on Facebook (today is no exception), the affected author feels hurt, outraged and betrayed. Of course there’s a big difference between having a free book “pirated” rather than a paid one, but in truth, when I search for my name on google, I would welcome to see my paid stuff shared freely as well.

More often than not you’ll see statements like:

“I spent ages sending take-down notices to the sites, this is such a pain in the ass and I’d much rather not have to deal with this!”

“It was a review / giveaway copy. I feel so upset, I don’t think I’m going to give out review copies any more or hold giveaways, because you just can’t trust people to be decent nowadays!”

“Pirates are thieves and should understand that when someone downloads my book on there it directly affects my bottom line as an author. I wish people would understand it’s EXACTLY THE SAME as stealing a physical item from me personally!”

And then underneath you’ll see dozens, perhaps hundreds of comments from sympathetic well wishers who join in condemning the evil pirate. Looking at it all, I am often forced to sit on my hands to prevent me from saying something wrong. I want to be balanced and offer another view that might alleviate the frustration the author feels at finding his/her content pirated, but really I feel like starting off with the following:

“Fucking get over yourself!”

This may make me a cold-hearted bitch, but really, I fucking hate seeing all these melodramatic rants about how the author’s children are going to go hungry just because a book got “leaked”. They’re not. It doesn’t fucking matter.

Piracy = lost sales

This is what a lot of people think. If my book is pirated, more people will get it for free and not pay for it. This must be correct, because the music industry keeps crying about exactly the same thing (and they are wrong). Therefore, finding a pirated version of my book is a potentially world-ending disaster which will leave me penniless. Fuck, no!

The biggest problem is, it’s impossible to measure exactly how many sales are supposedly lost by piracy. You can’t go back and test how much you would’ve sold, had your product not been pirated.

Let’s think about this by looking at why people might download stuff for free instead of paying for it:

1. They’re cheap bastards who don’t want to pay for anything.

While you may feel that these people are filthy criminals, such a person does not represent a lost sale. If they don’t download your book for free illegally, they might move on to the thousands of free books legally available on Amazon. They’d have reading material to last their entire lives without ever having to pay a penny.

2. They’re after a particular book, but couldn’t easily find it for sale, or upon trying to purchase it legally found the cost to be prohibitive.

This applies more perhaps to traditionally published books, or self published books which are available only in some regions or on some platforms. If someone’s got a Kobo reader, but you publish only on Amazon, they’re not going to buy a Kindle just to read your book. They may not know how to download a book purchased on Amazon and convert it for use on the Kobo reader either, so the easiest thing to do is perhaps to find out if someone’s already done the hard work for them and put it on a torrent website. Similarly, if you want to sell your 20 page werewolf gangbang story for $9.99, Mr. Pirate is likely to get pissed off and download it for free out of spite. Again, if your (traditional) publisher has in all their wisdom decided that the US gets your release right away, and the rest of the world can wait, because readers there are clearly not as valuable, the same might happen. Piracy may have lost some sales, but really, publisher / author stupidity had already lost the bulk of the sales before Mr. Pirate comes along.

3. I really love this book I purchased on Amazon/wherever and I’d like to pass it on to a friend who I think will enjoy it.

You can do that with a paperback fairly easily, and noone will say it’s piracy or theft. Digital content somehow is subject to different rules and as a reader, I don’t know why that should be the case. To me, a book is a book. But apparently according to Amazon, any ebook I’ve purchased, is actually “licensed content”. If they want to (and they have in October with controversial titles), they can just take it away from me without refunding my money. I’m not easily able to lend the book to a friend. And if I ever buy another ereader, I’m technically not allowed to keep my books and convert them to a different format, because they want to lock me into the Kindle ecosystem. As a reader and a consumer accustomed to free choice, this pisses me off greatly. Just because I want to buy a new, prettier book case, doesn’t mean I will throw out all the books I already own!

If I take a file I purchased legitimately and email it to a friend and openly admit to doing it, I have to worry about the anti-piracy brigade to group together and tell me I’m a filthy thief for not buying the paperback and giving it to that same friend. How the fuck is that fair, I still paid for the damn book in the first place?

Anyway, let’s now look at the possible consequences of piracy:

1. Visibility

Your title up on a torrent website may make more people aware of its existence. It’s like free advertising. Indie filmmakers tend to see the value in trying to get more people to find out about their new movie, so they may even share it themselves.

“The biggest threat facing authors and publishers today is not piracy, it’s obscurity.” – Smashwords founder Mark Coker. See the article I stole that quote from here, it’s well worth it.

2. If it’s any good…

Someone who gets the book for free, who may be new to your work, perhaps really ends up loving it. Maybe they’ll take you seriously as an author and actually go out and buy the rest of your books. Even if they don’t, or you don’t have other books, perhaps they’ll tell their friends about how awesome you are. This, of course is a win as well.

The entire Music piracy debate I’ve referenced above, has actually stirred up some data that music piracy has been shown to increase sales rather than hurt them. Think about that for a moment. When something is good quality, and someone gets it for free, they are motivated to then spend money on it or related products. A reader who gets a free copy of your book, may love the story and the characters that they’re not content with their free version. They may buy a paperback version to proudly display in their home or buy the audiobook to listen to on their way to work. They may turn up at signings and conventions just to see you and buy a hardcover just so they can get your autograph.

How to prevent piracy

People are lazy, we all know this, because deep down every one of us is lazy too. We want to get the maximum result with the minimum effort from our side. We want awesome books, right now, at a fair price and for the ereader of our choice. Some of us think $4.99 is a fair price, and some of us think 0 is a fair price.

If you’re a self published author, you’re in luck because you can effectively counter a lot of the reasons I mentioned in the previous section that might drive a reader to piracy. Make your book easily available in as many places and on as many platforms as possible, and make it a fair price. If you’re traditionally published, your publisher may be to blame for any piracy issues you face. Good luck to you, but it’s still not worth getting that upset about something you cannot control.

Treat your readers right

If you’re anything like me, you value your readers. You still feel that excitement every so often at the thought that someone out there actually wanted to read something you wrote. It’s even more exciting to think someone not only wanted to read it, they were happy to pay for it as well. But don’t forget that just being willing to spend time (as opposed to money) to read your work is a pretty big deal.

A lot of us need to earn something from this writing gig, but don’t be a cheap bastard about it, because readers don’t like to be treated like criminals.

If someone pirated a review copy, and you know who it is, don’t give that person another one if it bothers you so much. But reviews are too valuable to stop giving out copies altogether.

If someone pirates a book received in a giveaway (similar though unrelated, if the very next day after winning a paperback on Goodreads, someone puts it on Ebay), don’t stop doing giveaways of any kind.

Don’t be an asshole to all your readers, just because one of them shared a book of yours on a torrent website. Some of your readers will understand why you’re upset, a lot may not.

Don’t worry about emailing every website to take down your work, it’s a lot of hassle and often has no effect anyway.

Instead, try to feel pleased that at least you’re “famous” enough to be pirated in the first place. Make yourself a cup of coffee, tea, or grab a glass of wine and take a deep breath.

It’s not the fucking end of the world. And be glad you weren’t plagiarised instead, because that’s way worse.

Still on the Rebound (Silver Fox)

Posted on January 6, 2014 by lorelei

If you’ve read Virgin (The Rebound List #1) and are wondering what’s going to happen next, here’s a little sample of #2, Silver Fox:

Commuting by bus can be a pain in the ass. This winter morning it’s cold, drizzly and I missed the first two because they were full. There is hardly anything more disillusioning than standing at the bus stop, shivering uncontrollably and watching a full, steamed up bus drive right past you without even slowing. We’re only two people at this stop, surely the drivers could’ve fitted us in!

It takes another 5 minutes for the next one to arrive which thankfully does have a bit of room inside. A seat is too much to ask for the first five minutes, so I’m forced to stand, hanging on to a grab handle and trying not to get ill while at the mercy of the world’s most erratic bus driver.

The heated air is finally starting to penetrate into my woollen coat, allowing me to open my muffler a bit. At the next stop, someone gets off, freeing up a seat which I am all too eager to take. This gives me another ten minutes or so to take out my diary and write.

Dear Diary,

It has been a month since I started my journey: a quest towards sexual enlightenment sparked by my breakup with Jeff. I’m not sure it’s going brilliantly, in fact I haven’t a clue how to move it all along. Seemingly everything on my list, although tempting, has some kind of drawback or obstacle. But I did by some stroke of immense luck already manage to find myself a virgin to fuck, which was pretty great. The thing that isn’t so brilliant is that I’m having a hard time sticking to the first half of ‘casual sex’ as a concept. I can do sex, not sure I’m casual enough about it.

As a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about him, despite not knowing him at all, not even his name. This is not a situation where I’m fondly remembering just one of the items on my sexual wish list, but rather an inconvenient obsession with the guy. I liked him. And with where I’m at in my life right now, I can’t have that.

We ended our time together with the suggestion (from my side) to perhaps stay friends. I’ve shied away from making contact though. My worry is that I’ll get even more lost in this fixation.

I had planned for more experiences and I’d better get on with it all. But for some reason I feel a bit blocked, like something drastic needs to happen for me to finally consider the rest of my options, or I may just give up. The truth of the matter is, it’s not that I’m not in the mood. But I just happen to want a lot of reruns of that night with him.

I should definitely put that idea out of my head now. This wasn’t what I had signed up for. I didn’t want all this what-if bullshit going on in my thoughts; all I was after was just a bit of fun…

Something needs to happen soon, or my plan will be doomed. I remind myself with my original list, written on a little notepad kept with me pretty much all the time.

To Do:
~~Virgin~~
Silver Fox
Stranger
Threesome

A glance at my watch tells me there’s little hope of still making it on time. Not that that really matters, most of my colleagues work flexi-time. As long as I’m there the 8 hours they’ve hired me for, it’s irrelevant if I’m a little late coming in. Plus in the four years that I’ve been there, Craig has never given me any grief about little stuff like that. In fact he’s never really given me any grief at all.

The moment I reach work, I’m greeted by Sally’s radiant grin.

“Hey Becks, don’t you look grumpy and miserable this morning! No matter, allow me to change that,” Sally says.

“Morning Sal,” I say while taking off my soggy coat.

“You know that guy, the one I told you about?” she continues.

“The one you were doing last weekend, or the weekend before?” I tease.

“Shut up, you slag. Last I checked you were the one making a name as the corrupter of innocents, not me.”

“Fair point. So yeah, the guy. What about him?” I smile.

“Well, so he’s managing the sales team over at Aspect. I sent over our CVs and he’s just called me to say they’d be willing to hire both of us!” Sally is having a hard time keeping her voice down, she’s that excited.

“No shit, that’s awesome!”

“I know, no offense to Craig and all, but this place is kind of a sinking ship. Over there we’d get a raise and I hear they’ve got their own on-site gym. How cool is that?”

“Wow, thanks so much for putting in a good word for me. I’ve been getting kind of sick of the endless austerity bullshit around here. Not even a raise in two years…” I say.

“Totally. It’s going to be great. New surroundings, new people, but we’d still have each other.”

Sally wanders off again, chatting to some other colleagues who have come in. What an amazing opportunity. She was right; this news has indeed cheered me up to no end.

“Morning,” Craig says, steamy mug in hand.

I often wonder if he uses his ‘The Boss’ mug ironically, or because he can’t be bothered looking for a different one after a bunch of us gave it to him two years ago.

“Happy Monday.” I grin.

He makes a face at me and starts talking about the Christmas party. In support of further cost cutting, the one event we’ve all been looking forward to – no, gagging for – has been affected.

“So rather than cancel the whole thing, which would inspire nothing short of a revolution and a bloody coup, I managed to convince them to let us organise it in-house,” Craig explains.

I sigh. He’s a nice guy and I’ll miss him when Sal and I leave, but she’s right. This is a sinking ship.

“I guess, so long as there is booze and halfway decent food. No, strike the food. So long as there is lots of booze, it’ll be fine.”

The Old & the New

Posted on January 2, 2014 by lorelei

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone!

I feel inspired today. Granted, I may have glanced over some of the New Year’s Resolutions or the more sensibly named Goals for 2014 posts on Facebook without taking much of the information in properly. I may also have previously pooh-poohed the need most people seem to exhibit for about a week in early January before slipping into old habits and forgetting all about that brilliant plan to visit a gym three times a week. Nevermind that those extra pounds always seem to ruin any attempts made to purchase a new pair of jeans (except jeggings, thank god for jeggings), junk food and sweets always win by the 20th of January, or early February for the most disciplined of us all.

No! This isn’t one of those posts. (Although I could really use a kick up my arse to finally start using that treadmill which has been collecting dust in my living room. Volunteers, form a neat queue and please, no pointy shoes!).

Instead I’d like to talk books & writing.

2013 has been pretty good, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. It helps to be reminded of just what all has transpired and then perhaps figure out a way to top it in 2014. So let’s start, at the beginning:

3rd of January 2013: I published Just Another Day at the Office Part 1. I had been writing this story for several months at that point and felt like something really had to happen. Mostly it was due to impatience that I was wasting my time with just one short story up on Amazon which wasn’t really doing much. But nevertheless, I published Part 1, and by May had the whole serial out. My first novel(ish) length work. I never thought I’d have the drive to follow through but somehow I got there!

5th of February: Part 2 came out and it was still the good old days when KDP Select could make an impact (that’s the Amazon scheme that gives you 5 days to make your book free as a promo, in exchange for exclusivity). So of course I had to try it for myself. I gave away loads of copies of Just Another Day 1, and sold a bunch of Just Another Day 2. I finally felt like a real writer, and knew I had to start acting like one.

Also in February: Not sure of the exact date, but I was recently reminded by expiration warning emails from my domain name registrar that this site is up for renewal in February. It’s hard to imagine now because it feels like so much time has passed in between, but this website isn’t even one year old! The next thing I did was start a mailing list, because apparently everyone should have one. I still feel like I’m a bit new to the concept (and who in their right mind would want to receive emails from me every month?), but I think it went pretty well, all things considered.

March: I published Just for One Night (I know, I should really sit my ass down and write that sequel I’ve been hinting at), and Just Another Day 3. This of course does not mean I actually wrote two things in March. Sadly I have this thing called Compulsive Procrastination Syndrome which means I write stuff, leave it half / mostly finished and ignore it for months at a time before finally getting it done and published.

May: Just Another Day 4 and with it the end of the serial. Cath & John’s story felt complete. I can’t even begin to explain (again) how very pleased I was and still am. I often dreamed but never fully believed I could write a full book. Now I know that I can because I have: this is going to be the first of many!

July: Just Another Day at the Office came out in print 🙂 It was extremely exciting to hold it for the first time.

October: A much needed sequel to Ladies’ Day came out: British Champions. I promise I won’t leave it another year before continuing that particular story…

December: Gratis: Midwinter Tales came out. A free anthology featuring some amazing talent in the genre, which also happily kicks off another series of mine, The Rebound List, conveniently while I still haven’t finished some stuff I’d started earlier in the year. Of everything I’ve done this year, Gratis was basically the grand finale. In fact I was shocked by the interest we saw in this anthology and encouraged to try and replicate it…

What’s next?

So, enough reminiscing and patting myself on the back for 2013. What’s important now is to look ahead at what needs to happen in this coming year to keep growing as a writer and self publisher!

The Rebound List: I had set myself a goal of finishing #2 in this series in December. Sadly I failed. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up, so right now I’m aiming for January. Hopefully the remaining parts will follow soon after so I can add another full length release to my catalogue.

Just for One Night: That sequel. I know, really, I’ve been way too lax about this one. And the same goes for what happens after British Champions. I’ve got a vague idea for both, but nothing concrete.

Gratis: There will be another Gratis collection scheduled to publish on the 20th of March. The line-up is already looking good, even if I’ve yet to put the first word on paper for my contribution. 🙂

Audio: I desperately want to release Just Another Day (1? Maybe more?) in audio. While I do not fully get audio books (not fiction, anyway), I love listening to podcasts and such in the car. For me the draw is that I get to be entertained and (since they’re podcasts, not fiction,) learn something. But it would be so cool to revisit this story and bring it to life a bit. I have a few parts of it recorded already, hopefully I can get organised and finish it shortly.

Video? Closely related to the audio goal above, wouldn’t it be cool to post the same on youtube? A lot of people create book trailers for their work, which I don’t fully understand. But it might be nice to do some videos of books being read out and perhaps some relevant imagery? I’m not entirely sure, but it’s something to think about.

Diversification: I love the stories I’ve written, the genre I’ve played around in (Erotic Romance). It’s a lot of fun and seems to work well for me because I constantly seem to dream up new stories. This last bit is especially weird because I’ve never been a reader of Romance really. My usual reading tastes are much darker, ranging from Fantasy to Crime and Horror. So because of that, I’d really love to try my hand at something else under a different name… Perhaps 2014 will be the year I diversify!

Efficiency and Timeliness: Since starting the newsletter in March, I believe I skipped one month where I had nothing to say and been late on multiple occasions. This year I won’t skip a single one, I hope! Also, hopefully I’ll have more to add to the blog. What would everyone like to see on here? More previews of stuff that’s in progress perhaps? I’m not a natural born blogger, so coming up with thoughtful articles all the time is just simply not going to happen. Expect off topic rambling and rants, perhaps the occasional anecdote. Now if only I had enough of a life to have suitable material…

Stuff that’s in progress: I have a significant part of a new story written, tentatively called The Best & Worst Year. I know where it’s going, but just haven’t done enough with it. This year, I will. It’s a bit weird, this one, but I know it must be told. Obviously I already hinted at another story for Gratis 2, it’s meant to have a spring / Valentine’s theme and I hopefully will have something. I also have an idea for a fantasy / historical thing which is attempting to develop into a story which will hopefully see the light of day in 2014. This would be one of those attempts of mine to diversify, because I do love fantasy as a genre. But this one still feels pretty erotic as things stand right now.

Marketing / Promotion: perhaps I’ll crack Twitter this year? Nah, probably not. OK, advertising then? I’ll try, but I really don’t know… Perhaps the way forward is to just keep working away and trust that those who will enjoy it, will end up finding it somehow. Maybe 2014 will be the year that I get the fuck off Facebook and ~~onto Google+~~ write more. Realistically though, that’s not likely to happen.

Anyway, I suppose what I’m trying to say in a really roundabout way is that yesterday, on the first day of a brand new year, I spent a lot of time moping around on the sofa feeling depressed. One could guess that it was due to the holidays coming to an end and the day job starting again. Or the prospect of having to take down the Christmas tree which seemed to make the living room so much nicer to be in. It was neither of those things though, instead I was sad because I’d read a bad review. It wasn’t even directed at me personally, just at something I believe in 100%. And somehow I felt a stab deep inside my heart because this other person, a complete stranger, could not see my vision and understand the intent behind it. That’s pathetic, ridiculous even. Why should I feel upset just because some person somewhere doesn’t like something I like? Have I ever sat around wondering why the world is so cruel because a stranger doesn’t like chocolate as much as I do? No, I haven’t.

Why is this different?

Essentially it is exactly the same thing. Tastes differ, and that’s fine. People have opinions and feel like they ought to express them even when they don’t fit in with mine. Fuck it. Despite all that, 2013 has been a great year and I ought to feel happy about everything that’s happened in it. And 2014 will be even better, so long as I don’t get distracted!

Of Gratis: Midwinter Tales and a Virgin

Posted on December 6, 2013 by lorelei

If you’re following me on Facebook, you will have had an impossible time to get away from this news: there’s an erotic short story collection coming out soon (on the 12th). It’s called Gratis: Midwinter Tales, and it will feature – among works by eight other extremely talented writers – a brand new story of mine.

About Gratis
In what is hopefully the first of many instalments, a selection of amazing writers have bundled together some of their short stories to create an anthology which will be made available free of charge just in time for the Holidays.

Contents
Snow Falls Softly by Chloe Thurlow, In the Mood by E.A. Chapterhouse, Wicked Games by Elizabeth Woodham, Virgin by L. Moone, White (Lights Out) by Jason Jaxx, A Pair Well Met, Blinked, and The New Year Dancers by Kay Jaybee, The Future First Lady of France by KM Dylan, Irrecusable by Livilla Sanders, Glove, and A Penheligon Christmas by M.J. Carey.

Virgin (The Rebound List #1)

The idea for this story has been months in the making, a girl in her 20s who is single for the first time in her adult life, exploring a few of the fantasies she has had to shelve while playing the squeaky-clean committed girl friend. See the blurb below:

After nearly four years with Jeff, everything fell apart. I found myself single, scared, but somehow liberated as well. Rather than stumble into another ill advised relationship, my best friend Sally helped me find focus. I would spend the next few months “finding myself” sexually. That’s how The Rebound List was born.
And -this- is how my journey begins: with a virgin. Number one on my naughty bucket list…

What (or whom) would you do to celebrate your freedom after your first serious relationship breaks down?

As this is only part one of what I’m expecting to become a four part story, the follow-up is already in progress. To stay up-to-date with its release as well as any others I have planned, why not sign up to my mailing list.

Sexual Bucket List- What’s your score?

Posted on November 22, 2013 by lorelei

Last night, over some (a lot of) wine, I noticed a link on Facebook. This link.

Some of the items on that list seemed a bit boring, so I decided to create my own personalised version. Now I’m not saying that I’ve done all of the below (there’s still time), but let’s just say I’d score 30.

1. Kiss a girl & Like it
2. Masturbate in public
3. Masturbate with someone else present who didn’t notice (or at least they didn’t let on), extra points if it was a parent.
4. Use a friend’s pic on FB as “(s)inspiration”
5. Have a wet dream about someone you’re not romantically involved with
6. Sleepy / passed out sex
7. Let your partner sleep with someone else
8. Watch
9. Sleep with someone else with your partner’s permission
10. Food play
11. Strap on sex
12. Masturbate in front of a friend
13. Sex in the bath, perhaps realising it’s so not worth getting bruised knees over
14. Finger a guy & make him like it
15. Develop a fetish you don’t want to tell anyone about
16. Threesome
17. Sex somewhere outdoors where you could be discovered at any moment
18. Have a Tumblr feed which should never be opened in the presence of workmates / anyone, ever
19. Post a questionable picture on Facebook and pretend it never happened
20. Sell sex toys online
21. Realise selling sex toys online is a crap business idea
22. Write your fantasies down and charge people for them
23. Have a fake identity nobody knows about
24. Honeymoon sex
25. All the positions in the Kamasutra
26. Pregnant sex
27. Unsafe sex, because you simply couldn’t help it
28. Cybersex
29. Confess your deepest, darkest desires to someone, even the really icky ones
30. Draw blood (accidentally?)
31. Do a virgin
32. Age gap, extra points if over 10 years
33. Make up / break up sex
34. Get spanked for being a bad, bad girl and resist urge to spank back
35. Cry during an orgasm

What would you score?

Friday Filth 5

Posted on October 25, 2013 by lorelei

This Friday Filth teaser is from British Champions, the sequel to Ladies’ Day (so you might want to start there if you haven’t read it yet…) UPDATE 2019: Ladies’ Day and British Champions have since been combined into the novella Beautiful Stranger.

“You’re special. Let me show you how special…” He peels my top off slowly, kissing any skin as soon as it’s exposed.

I smile at him, a little more reassured about our situation than before and completely ready for a good, hard reconciliation. When he makes me feel the way I do right now, how can I worry about what may or may not happen in future? Here and now, everything feels right.

With one hand in his hair, I try to guide him towards my nipple which so far he is carefully avoiding; kissing and teasing only the surrounding skin. I impatiently start unbuttoning his shirt before lifting myself and quickly taking my own top off too.

“In a hurry?” He grins, I just give him a look that says it all.

He leans on one arm and takes my wrist with his other hand. Before I know it, he pins first one arm back against the armrest of the sofa, and then the other. I’m helplessly spread and his appreciative gaze tells me he likes it this way.

“I want to touch you…” I beg.

He shakes his head and kisses me firmly, gathering both my hands together before I have the chance to regain my composure. His lips make me weak. I can’t take my eyes off his face but quickly get distracted when his free hand finds its way down between us, massaging my thighs from the outside in. Getting ever closer to where I really want to be touched.

I let out a moan and he leans in for a further taste. His tongue slips into my mouth the very moment his hand moves past the waistband of my pants.

“How wet you are,” he groans against my lips.

The Great Purge of 2013

Posted on October 14, 2013 by lorelei

Censorship. Remind you of anything? When I hear the word censorship, my mind conjures up images of China, who still insist that Tibet never existed as a separate entity from China. In the (non totalitarian, democratic) West, we tend to think that censorship does not affect us. Sadly, it does, and it’s not necessarily governments wielding all the power either.

Last week, it was pointed out that there are some particularly seedy books out there being sold on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, among others. We’re talking rape porn, (pseudo)incest and other such things which any reasonable person might consider to be going a bit far.

I’m not saying that this makes removing such material acceptable, but OK. These themes go beyond than what you’d expect to see in the average Harlequin romance. It was said that these (self published) books are polluting what (“Oh think of the children!”) one might come across even when searching for fairly innocuous terms on Amazon. I think that is a fair observation, and one which probably everyone who buys or publishes ebooks, especially in the romance / erotica categories had already made for themselves.

But apparently, all this was news to the UK bookshop WHSmith, who had a panic attack and shut down their entire ebook website, leaving up a disclaimer proudly explaining they would root out the evil that is self published books and return only once their catalogue would be squeaky clean and innocent. Note that they didn’t say they would remove all these unacceptable books which technically already weren’t allowed as per the terms of their partner, Kobo, which feeds ebooks to the WHSmith website.

They state they would remove self published books, because clearly, all self published books are vile pornography.

Meanwhile, Amazon and Barnes & Noble haven’t been standing by idle. They also have started to do a bit of knee jerking and grandstanding to demonstrate how awesome they are when it comes to protecting their sometimes younger customers (although why the hell would you have younger customers when it’s necessary to own a credit card before being able to purchase books?) from inappropriate content. I have yet to hear about traditionally published, sometimes classic works of literature being censored for containing some of the themes which are off limits. Apparently all these things are perfectly alright when it comes to “proper” books. But self publishers are fair game, because self publishers do not have the might of a large publishing house’s legal team behind them.

But you might say, fair enough. We don’t want to live in a world where one can buy rape porn for Kindle! OK, fine. This was anyway already against the rules and authors publishing such things knew they were on thin ice. The trouble is that nobody has the manpower to go in and actually check what they’re removing. Instead Amazon et al are relying on automated software going through book listings and deleting things based on unknown parameters. I’ve heard of loads of books being removed which contained nothing unacceptable.

Last time I checked, erotica in itself wasn’t considered wrong, was it?

While personally none of my stuff has been removed from Amazon or B&N (yet), the same cannot be said for Kobo. All my books, except for Just Another Day at the Office (the full novel version) have become unavailable on Kobo. For anyone who’s read my work, you already know that I’m not even that hardcore. Not even controversial. That’s not all though, there are reports online from numerous self published authors who have seen their work in other genres disappear; fantasy, sci fi, mystery, anything really. Things that don’t even mention the word “sex”.

(Understandably), this pissed me off, so I decided to email them to express my concerns. Since I don’t believe in writing anything in an email to a faceless customer service department what I wouldn’t say to someone’s face, I’m publishing my email below for everyone’s benefit. When (if!) I get a response, I’ll share it here as well.

Kobo, you disappoint us. We expected to be stabbed in the back by Amazon who continue to change their rules without bothering to tell their authors. We did not expect this from Kobo who had consistently presented itself as an ebook retailer who actually cares about authors. Well done.

Hello,
After a weekend away from the PC I woke up to some controversy surrounding censorship of certain particularly taboo Erotica books, especially self published ones. This led me to check my listings on Kobo and I found to my surprise I found that a significant proportion of them have vanished, even though they’re still showing as live in the back end. The point is, I do NOT write about any unacceptable types of sex or relationships; it’s mostly steamy romance between ordinary people, not step-siblings or anything else weird. There’s not a horse in sight either and nobody is doing their teenage babysitter. The best part is, one of the books you seem to have censored does not even contain any actual sex.

I’d appreciate an explanation and expect to see my books back on sale shortly after you realise that this was all just a big mistake.

Warm regards,

****** ********

15 October 2013, 6:39am BST

I woke up this morning to an email from Kobo’s Mark Lefebre (Director of Self Publishing / Author Relations which I presume everyone who uses Kobo’s WritingLife platform should have received as well. While it smells of shooting first and asking questions later, at least they are now trying to explain themselves and what they’ve done.

To our Kobo Writing Life and self-publishing partners:

As you may be aware, there has been a significant amount of negative media attention in the UK regarding offensive material that became available across a number of eBook platforms. Kobo was included in the reports from media and we are taking immediate action to resolve an issue that is the direct result of a select few authors and publishers violating Kobo’s content policies.

In order to address the situation Kobo is taking the following steps:

1.       We are removing titles in question from the Kobo platform.

2.       We are quarantining and reviewing titles to ensure that compliance to our policies is met by all authors and publishers. We will ensure that content meeting the policy is made available online as soon as possible.

3.       We are reviewing our policies and procedures to implement safeguards that will ensure this situation does not happen in the future.

We are working hard to get back to business as usual, as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.

Our goal at Kobo is not to censor material; we support freedom of expression. Further, we want to protect the reputation of self-publishing as a whole. You have our promise that we will do all we can to ensure the exceptions that have caused this current situation will not have a lasting effect on what is an exciting new channel that connects Readers to a wealth of books.

Sincerely,

Mark Lefebvre

Director, Kobo Writing Life

Mark, if you had no idea before about the sort of material which “a select few authors and publishers” have been publishing on your platform, and it takes a news article to act on it, you’re quite naive indeed. Meanwhile, all my books, except one are still offline.

25 October 2013

I’ve received an email from Kobo, with further information about what’s going on and the promising underlying tone that everything is either sorted or getting close to being sorted.

A Kobo Writing Life Update

I’d like to give our authors a quick update on Kobo Writing Life in the UK and elsewhere.

As you may be aware, in the face of some fairly intense media scrutiny, we launched a major review of the books we offer for sale to make sure they comply with our content policy on offensive material. We cast a wide net across our catalogue that included genres and books coming from self-published authors, aggregators, and publishers, and we quarantined many of these while we conducted the review which made them unavailable in the UK during that time. The review had to happen fast, and we didn’t enjoy it, but with our esteemed 300-year-old retail partner on the front page of major newspapers and some content clearly in violation of our posted standards, we needed to move quickly. Almost everyone on the Kobo Content Team, spread across a dozen countries and time zones, was involved at one point or another. The urgency was driven by our desire to make sure we were running a store that met our own expectations and equally by the need to get our authors back up and available for sale again in the UK as fast as possible.

The good news is that the vast majority of self-published Kobo Writing Life titles are once again available on Kobo.com in the UK, with most authors experiencing a gap of only a few days before their books were once again in the catalogue. As well, we have been working closely with our self-publishing aggregation partners. Most of their titles are once again available in the UK or will be in the coming hours. If your book is still unavailable and you think it shouldn’t be, send a message to writinglife@kobo.com and the team will get on it.

For those few titles that remain unavailable, some feel that we chose a path of censorship. All I can say is that if your dream is to publish “barely legal” erotica or exploitative rape fantasies, distribution is probably going to be a struggle for you. We aren’t saying you can’t write them. But we don’t feel compelled to sell them. And yes, many titles live in a grey zone with far more shades than the fifty that sold so well in the past year, but that is what makes this all so challenging and so interesting. Many of our readers have no problem with an erotic title in their library next to their romance, literary fiction, investing or high-energy physics books. And we are here for the readers, so erotica stays, a small but interesting part of a multi-million-title catalogue, in all of its grey-shaded glory. My thanks go out to Mark Lefebvre and the whole Kobo Writing Life team and to all of our authors who have been so supportive and understanding in the past two weeks. We will continue to work on reviewing processes and author education about what we can take and what we can’t. It will never be perfect, but our belief continues to be that if we focus on readers and growing our business around them, we will get it right much more often than not.

Sincerely yours,
Michael Tamblyn
Chief Content Officer
Kobo
@mtamblyn

Perhaps mine aren’t a big priority, but they were offline at the time I received that email. And today, on October 29 while I’m updating this blog post, that situation hasn’t changed. Time to send them a little email…