Blog Guilt

Father, it's been almost a month since my last confession... er, blog.

I have sinned.

I wish I could say that I've been off doing something IMPORTANT, but, no, not really.

I have been trying to write some science fiction erotica, though. I can't imagine that it's going well, as I have ten manuscript pages written and so far... no sex. Although my friend Bill Stiteler suggested to me in a letter that "someone once described erotica as porn that wants to separate itself from the boner of the common man." So maybe I'm on the right track. God(dess) knows, I have a _story_.

What's funny about this to me is that I was struggling and struggling with the concept I'd come up with and finally I sat down and decided to take my own damn advice. I've been teaching a class at the Loft and I have told my students a million times that the most important question you need to ask yourself before you begin writing is: "What's at stake for the main character?" I realized that my previous stops-and-starts happened because I had no idea. I was meandering my way into the character (and the plot, really,) and coming up with dead ends.

So, I sat down for a few minutes and came up with the answer. And, for erotica, it's kind of a deep issue. The main character, Edie, has lost her faith because her prayers weren't answered. The whole story is kind of her journey back to faith... uh, through sex.

Well, it *is* erotica, after all.