Susie Bright excerpts this chapter from her book about writing erotica.
Her opener:
If you write an erotic story — or any story, for that matter — and never publish it, you will have done a very good thing. If it stays in a box for you to cherish, if it is passed between you and your lover, shared among friends, or circulated on a private e-mail list, you will have accomplished something quite wonderful.
That’s the heart of it really, the heart of the question, Why write?
Why have I been writing blog entries for the past few months?
Because it’s highly pleasurable to spin out words, lightly to sense where they want to go, and to give them their freedom go there, then at times to shape and re-shape them so that the getting-there is even more pleasing, is just right.
You might say, and be half right, that it avoids tackling the longer forms, the short story, the novel.
You might also say, with a similar degree of correctness, that I’m lubing the engine, that this is my free writing, and that, when I latch onto the novel idea that grabs me quite, it’ll be that much easier to write because, hey, here’s my narrative voice, or here’s the easy flow of this or that character’s thoughts.
I have written entire novels, worthy ones, which haven’t interested a publisher. In fact, a few of them I intend in the fullness of time publish here, chapter by chapter.
But even if I didn’t, the writing of them is the ultimately pleasure.