Is there a minimum amount of material to publish?

[ElectricBlue]

Let me pose a question to see if I can illustrate more clearly what's happening for me, that spawned my questions. Over your nine years of writing, and the thousands of hours it would take to produce that body of work (congrats BTW), did you completely ignore all of the rating and feedback mechanisms on Lit? I most certainly understand the creative drive to write and express, what I'm trying to do is connect the dots to the concerted effort needed to publish.

Good questions. I've always cut my own furrow, by which I mean, I've always written what I want to write, and am not much influenced by the more popular categories, nor the traditional porn tropes.

I wrote a couple of token incest stories, for example, early on - attracted by the numbers, for sure - but if a kink doesn't do it for me personally, I don't write it. I've written follow-on chapters to stories that did well, but only because I wanted to, not because readers clamoured for more.

My stories have always pulled pretty high ratings, so low scores have never been a disincentive. I find writing easy - I'm a stream-of-consciousness writer who is fortunate enough to get a good first draft easily, so I keep it raw. I don't do the whole outline, plan and plot and endless edit that most writers seem to do, so writing's not a chore. If it was hard work, I wouldn't do it - plenty of other things I can do.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Many new writers seem to insist on wanting to write a long story when I think they'd be better off starting with stories under 10,000 words until they feel more confident.

Exactly. Do an apprenticeship first, learn your technical chops, learn your own style, learn what you want to write about and how to write it.

Write ten short pieces before you start on your first big one. You're not going to write the Next Great American Novel, ever, so do what I do. Go to your local cafe and write a story about the two hot women at the next table. That way, Simon gets story ideas, and you get a fun little fantasy.

Do that a few times, then set off for Mars, or the Dark Ages. But learn to observe first, because the best erotica, I think, is made up of simple observational stuff. Describing O's bare bottom on a cold leather car seat is more erotic than the whippings she gets.

 

[jasperrocks51]

Good questions. I've always cut my own furrow, by which I mean, I've always written what I want to write, and am not much influenced by the more popular categories, nor the traditional porn tropes.

I wrote a couple of token incest stories, for example, early on - attracted by the numbers, for sure - but if a kink doesn't do it for me personally, I don't write it. I've written follow-on chapters to stories that did well, but only because I wanted to, not because readers clamoured for more.

My stories have always pulled pretty high ratings, so low scores have never been a disincentive. I find writing easy - I'm a stream-of-consciousness writer who is fortunate enough to get a good first draft easily, so I keep it raw. I don't do the whole outline, plan and plot and endless edit that most writers seem to do, so writing's not a chore. If it was hard work, I wouldn't do it - plenty of other things I can do.

This is encouraging news. I started to make an outline, which seemed like a 'reasonable' thing to do, and got writers block on the outline....said fuck it, I just feel like writing a story, and didn't come up for air until around 25k words. I only had a few general ideas, and then the story wrote itself and I was just along for the ride. It did feel like stream of consciousness.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is encouraging news. I started to make an outline, which seemed like a 'reasonable' thing to do, and got writers block on the outline....said fuck it, I just feel like writing a story, and didn't come up for air until around 25k words. I only had a few general ideas, and then the story wrote itself and I was just along for the ride. It did feel like stream of consciousness.

Yep. Most here use a very structured approach to writing, editing - colloquially known as plotsers. A minority, the pantsers, just get on and write, no plot, no plan, no character list. I've had major characters show up in the space of a paragraph. "Where the hell did you come from?"

"Your psyche. Don't think about it, just write me."

"Oh, okay."

You're either one or the other, and most cannot comprehend the "other". There's no right nor wrong way to do it - neither yields superior results. People think differently, that's all there is to it. Write the way you write, is all I can say.