Monday, October 29, 2012

Launch Week - Why erotic romance?

It's Launch Week for Hot Down Under and my story A Real Online Fantasy.

I thought I should make a concerted effort to blog this week in the lead up to the big event.

Today's topic is Why Erotic Romance?

I've always been interested in the erotic - even before I knew what it was called. I like knowing things, and since "sex" was a subject not terribly open for discussion in our household, it was something I wanted to learn about. I should explain I had a very conservative Catholic upbringing, including the all girls schooling, and I'm the eldest of all daughters.

When I left home, I was incredibly naive in all things. Armed with an Environmental Biology degree and a city upbringing, I got a job in Agriculture in rural NSW. To say I had no idea is an understatement. The guys I worked with were incredible, treated me like their kid sister and taught me to work things out for myself (that's a whole story in itself!). While furthering my education, I stumbled across "talkers" on the internet (this is the early 1990s).

On the talkers I cybet-met a lot of people but one was a guy who "clicked" with me right away. A fellow ag scientist, also studying a post grad degree (me Masters, he PhD). He had this phenominal knowledge of literature, human behaviour, technology, etc. etc. He sent me to the library to read the classics and further my education. Imagine my surprise when I went to the library to find the book I wanted was in "the stack". Thinking this meant it was old, I asked for the Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom. The librarian frowned, flushed and stammered but went away and came back with a book that was not old, mouldy or dusty.

And then I read it...

I was hooked. I own every book I could find by the Marquis de Sade. Then my reading expanded. Then I began to write. I wrote all manner of things. Some were shared with him, others were hidden. But I couldn't stop writing and talking about sex. I liked trying to understand human behaviour and the need to connect intimately. I liked trying to push people into tricky situations and see how they handled it. I liked trying to make sense of the non-sensical.

After fifteen years of a very small readership, I finally decided (or, was encouraged with unending enthusiasm and positivity) to enter contests, submit to anthologies and publishers myself. And here we are... still not one hundred per cent comfortable but getting there!

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