Not familiar with NaNoWriMo? In short it is the Boston Marathon for writers. It's a challenge to write a novel in one month. Write 50,000 words within the 30 days of November. Sound hard? Well it is. But where’s the fun if there’s no challenge in it?
This will be my third attempt in four years. I've been successful twice so far and feel confidant that this year will net another successful attempt. I'll not bore you with the details of NaNoWriMo. Head over to the website and check it out. www.NaNoWriMo.org And if you decide to give it a try let me know. I'd love to help support my fellow writers.
The reason I’m about it here (in my blog about my cross dressing and other sexual exploits) has to do with my warm ups to NaNo. Like a marathon or any other endurance event, there's some preparation and training involved. At least for me. I know that some people dive in to NaNo head first, having never done a lick of prep work and been successful,. But that's not in my personality.
In order to hit that 50,000 goal I try and write about 2200 words a day during NaNo (1667 per day is the base amount if you wan to hit the goal but I like to take a few days off). Since I don't normally write that many words per day either with my fiction or my professional writing I need to work up to it in the weeks leading up. Just like a runner increasing his daily milage before doing a marathon.
My trick to getting the word count up over 2K every day? Erotica. That's right: sex, sex, sex. I drop down to my knees, pump out as many dirty metaphors and creamy similes as I possibly can and then wipe my chin clean with the back of my hand when it's all over.
They say to write about what you know, and I've known my share (and possibly your share too) of engorged pens and heaving beasts over the years so it's an easy topic for me to spread wide on to the page, so to speak.
However, I've found that there are only two ways to keep up the flow of dirty deeds and erotic adventures. I either have to have far too much sex, or far too little. If I’m getting just enough to keep a grin on my face and a bounce in my step then I have no mojo left to drill in to my characters and their activities. So here is my theory on the ratio of actual sex to the amount of sex you can write about.
In the one hand, as it were, you can go without any sex. This includes self satisfaction. The idea being to bottle up all that desire, wanting, and lust and give them no other outlet but in to your writing. This works well enough but has the same problem as a superstitious baseball player who is on a streak. As soon as you stop doing whatever it is that you think was causing the streak, you break it. So the moment you break down and have sex, no matter if it’s alone, with a partner or in a large group of strangers, you loose that deep well of drive and suddenly your erotica falls flat.
On the other hand, having lots and lots of sex can be useful to your writing too. Sex has the magic ability to replenish itself and the faster you turn the crank the faster it will recharge. When you are young it is easy to get right back up and have sex sessions back to back. But as you get out of your teens and early twenties you have to put a little effort in to it. If you do then you are rewarded with an extra measure of desire. Pour that back in to your partner(s) and you get even more back. In short, the more you do it, the more you want it. And that can provide another great source of writing energy. Well so long as you’re writing about sex.
So for now, my awesome wife is “sacrificing” herself to help me get my writing up to speed before November comes. And since we are both participating in NaNoWriMo this year (and neither of us are writing erotica for the event) this also may be some of the last nookie we get for a while.
Technorati Tags: erotica, on the web, Writing
