Sunday Story - Women's Fantasies

Rachel Kramer Bussel has a submission call for Best Bondage Erotica, Female Fantasy Erotica and Sex Toy Erotica. You can find them here. The first two close 1 March, the Sex Toys is 1 April.

I like writing for her anthologies for lots of reasons, like:

• my first publication was in one of Rachel's anthologies (Gotta Have It: 69 stories of sudden sex)
• she's easy to work with - polite, always keeps you in the loop, when she says a date she sticks to it, her contracts are easy to understand, she's a great editor and always has a huge mix of stories in her anthologies.
• they're short, which I find fun as well as challenging
• there's a range of interesting topics/themes each year
• it gives your name exposure to people who may not have read your work before
• it gives you exposure to other authors who are always interesting
• some big name authors have stories in these anthologies
• the submission process is professional, yet easy to navigate

She hasn't always accepted my stories, even after she accepted my first one. And that's good. It tells me that she makes choices based on individual stories and anthologies, not author names.

She also accepts new authors, and makes a point of including new authors into the anthologies. That's great. It opens a door. When you might think you're getting nowhere in your writing career, an acceptance like this can give you hope and help you continue your journey.

And short stories allows you to try something new, something different, and see how it goes. You can write in a different format, use an unusual topic, write with more emotion or less emotion. It's short, so you aren't taking a lot of time trying something that may not work.

I submitted a story for Female Fantasies. It's erotica because there was no happy ending. It's raw and not very feel-good. It's different.

And it came to me as I was driving to the markets the other week. Sitting in a line of traffic at roadworks, this women started talking to me, telling me her story. If I could have pulled off the road then and there I would have but the roadworks made that impossible. She stuck with me though. She told me her story and haunted my mind until I could scribble. Then I got home and that night her voice poured out.

When this happens, I don't know if I have a story. It sort of paralyses my mind. I get stuck in the, 'where did she come from?' and the, 'is she telling me the truth?' questions. So these stories get sent out to my cut-throat critics who I know will tell me if it's shit. Because I'm scared at this point. I'm scared because I can't tell if it's good or not. So I have to rely on someone else, or a couple of someone elses.

They came back saying it was good. So I worked more on it. Made a story. And submitted. Only time will tell how my story, and my cut-throat critics, went this time! But at least my female visitor has left my mind. She told me her tale and went away. I like that. I like that a lot.