Guest Blog: How Erotica Helped Save My Muse by Louise Bohmer

I invited my friend Louise to stop by today and give me a little insight into why she likes writing erotic fiction -- I wrote an introduction for her current project, a teaser of her upcoming story collection, Passion Plays, on a similar subject, and of course we all have slightly different reasons for doing what we do. That's the fun part.

So here's the word from a wonderful author who's been hard at it for a while! (Yeah, I won't pretend I didn't mean for that to be punny. I will apologize though. Sorry, that was bad.)

How Erotica Helped Save My Muse

by Louise Bohmer

I started writing erotica and erotic romance for the first time back in about 2006. A dear friend who writes romance as Ann Cory introduced me to these genres. Through various author groups, I met tons of great friends also writing erotic fiction of some kind or another, and I discovered organizations like ERWA and the EAA. These proved to be great research resources.

But after producing a handful of short stories, I decided to step away from erotica and erotic romance while I concentrated on editing and other freelance work. I continued to write dark fantasy and horror, but I figured something had to get cut, and I wouldn't have time for erotic fiction with editing, too.

Though I only wrote erotic fiction for about two years, I did miss it. There's something freeing about writing in these genres. They're fun, sexy categories of fiction that let the writer's imagination get kinky--or, at least get a lot of action. And, when I hit a stumbling block writing-wise a while back, I came back to erotica and erotic romance because my muse needed that type of fun and freedom.

I tend to overthink my writing too much sometimes. And, while I had started on a novel that was also chipping away at the muse's stage fright, I still kept stalling. I needed another genre or two to kick me in the butt.

Enter another good friend who, coincidentally, I met through my erotic romance loops of old. She and I got talking about erotic fiction, and she encouraged me to get back into writing it. After a few more chats, she and I started writing an erotic romance steampunk. Then I dove into an erotic romance novella of my own, and, subsequently, I've started a few other erotic fiction projects. I also pulled out those first stories I wrote when I got into erotic fiction back in 2006, and I put them together in an erotic romance collection called Passion Plays.

It's funny, but since I returned to erotic fiction, and opened my muse to more genres, it cleaned out the imaginative constipation I had going on. I've found my muse needs this creative freedom (or museli, as there's more than one, but I digress).

Another aspect of erotic fiction that works well for my muse--and this might sound contradictory, in light of my above paragraph about needing freedom--is the certainty. The certainty of sex. I know the story must contain lots of it, wrapped in a good piece of fiction (was that pun intended?). It is because of this certainty I don't overthink erotic fiction. Instead, I tend to embrace the challenge of wrapping a good story around loads of sex. How exactly will I reveal this facet of the character's personality, while still getting him and his partner to have sex in a car on Valentine's Day? That sort of thing.

For some writers, that certainty is counter-productive. Me? Even though I need creative freedom, I often find this foundation of sex inspirational. That and I'm a pervy horror writer. But taking the basis of sex and seduction in its many forms and building great characters with sizzling chemistry around this can be akin to building a puzzle. Creating the erotic story can be akin to the art of seduction itself. As you 'meet' these characters your brain builds, you lose yourself entirely in the moment. In the creation of the story. Fingers often fly faster and faster over the keyboard. And you have those 'ahah!' moments when all elements of the story come together perfectly, and a satisfying conclusion is reached.

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L. Bohmer was the pen name under which Louise Bohmer once wrote erotic fiction. Today, she writes erotic fiction under other pen names, Isabel Dyakov being one.

She lives in New Brunswick, Canada, with a tattooed giant and assorted fur children. To learn more about Louise and her alter egos, visit: www.louisebohmer.com

Her erotic romance collection, Passion Plays, will be released February 14. The Passion Plays Teaser, featuring an essay On Love from Katey Hawthorne, is now available at Smashwords, Kindle, and Louise's website. To keep up with release news for the collection, bookmark: http://www.louisebohmer.com/site/passion-plays/

I love Louise's erotic shorts -- they're especially good if you read m/f and dig a little f/f/m. (Which I should note is my absolute favorite menage pairing. Predictably enough.)