Advice on overcoming self-consciousness?

[ImperfectAnimals]

Hi everybody. Just joined last night, so forgive me if I make any newbie mistakes or am posting this on the wrong board!

A little background on my situation: I've been interested in writing erotica for some time now, and have dabbled in short stories (exclusively while drunk) that I only share with my partner. I'm now at the point where I have an idea for a longer story, one with world building and fleshed-out characters, and I'm physically frustrated (ha) that I haven't written it yet. My ideas are too big to simply keep in my head. I haven't written anything for fun since grade school but I've been told by my professors that I'm a great writer and I feel somewhat confident in my writing abilities.

You may be asking, why haven't you just written the damn thing already? That, my friend, is because I'm deeply embarrassed! Not only am I totally new to this, but I'm a serious people pleaser and I find that I won't write anything unless I'm certain people will think I'm the next Shakespeare. I worry that I'll start writing and then I'll get to a point where I look at myself and think, "girl, WTF are you doing? [lol] [cringe] [uncool]" and delete everything I've written and set my laptop on fire for good measure.

I know I'm going to end up writing it, because I'll basically die if I don't at this point. It's just a matter of making the writing process less internally painful and ensuring that I finish what I start. If anyone else has had experience with these feelings, how did you deal with them? Any advice for a newbie erotica writer? Is writing with a bottle of vodka at arm's reach a viable solution?

Cheers!

 

[Lifestyle66]

Hi everybody. Just joined last night, so forgive me if I make any newbie mistakes or am posting this on the wrong board!

A little background on my situation: I've been interested in writing erotica for some time now, and have dabbled in short stories (exclusively while drunk) that I only share with my partner. I'm now at the point where I have an idea for a longer story, one with world building and fleshed-out characters, and I'm physically frustrated (ha) that I haven't written it yet. My ideas are too big to simply keep in my head. I haven't written anything for fun since grade school but I've been told by my professors that I'm a great writer and I feel somewhat confident in my writing abilities.

You may be asking, why haven't you just written the damn thing already? That, my friend, is because I'm deeply embarrassed! Not only am I totally new to this, but I'm a serious people pleaser and I find that I won't write anything unless I'm certain people will think I'm the next Shakespeare. I worry that I'll start writing and then I'll get to a point where I look at myself and think, "girl, WTF are you doing? [lol] [cringe] [uncool]" and delete everything I've written and set my laptop on fire for good measure.

I know I'm going to end up writing it, because I'll basically die if I don't at this point. It's just a matter of making the writing process less internally painful and ensuring that I finish what I start. If anyone else has had experience with these feelings, how did you deal with them? Any advice for a newbie erotica writer? Is writing with a bottle of vodka at arm's reach a viable solution?

Cheers!

Write a story, then post back here asking for someone to Beta-read it to provide objective feedback. Take their suggestions and incorporate those you admit to yourself you need. Then post to the LitE site to await the general public's opinions.

But, there will always be nay-sayers. Learn to accept that you won't please everyone. Even Shakesphere has his haters.

 

[Djmac1031]

Just because you write it doesn't mean you have to publish it.

Write it. Have fun with it.

Most importantly, finish it.

Even if it's just for you.

Bit who knows? The act of writing alone may give you the confidence you're looking for.

 

[8letters]

My advice is to accept that your first story is going to suck. The first time I've done anything, I've always done poorly. My first story wasn't very good. But I worked hard to learn from that first story. Then I wrote another, which was better but still had lots of problems. So on and so forth.

Bonus advice - strive for writing at least three pages (12k words). That's a good length for introducing the characters, having a decent story arc and having a satisfying sex scene.

 

[SimonDoom]

but I'm a serious people pleaser and I find that I won't write anything unless I'm certain people will think I'm the next Shakespeare. )

I realize that, deep down, you know that this is self-defeating thinking, but here goes: this is self-defeating thinking, and you must let it go. You almost certainly are NOT the next Shakespeare, and there is no way whatsoever that you can be certain people will think you are unless you are crazy.

So let this go.

My advice: Put your big world-building story aside for the time being and go small. Write a short story under 8000 words. Just do it. Publish it. See how it goes. That's what most of us did.

I wrote and published my first erotic story 5 years ago in my 50s after having spent my entire adult life never having done any creative writing. And it's been great. Publishing that first story is like jumping in a pool. There might be nerves beforehand, but you get used to it once you've done it. So just do it.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

OK, you start writing and get to the point where you wonder WTF you are doing. That hits just about everybody at some time.

Aaaand… so what? Nobody’ s looking over your shoulder, nobody’s mocking, nobody’s pointing fingers on Twitter. It’ll just be you and you’re cool/brave for writing it so far. You won’t erase it. You’ll maybe put it away for a week, open it again and find that, while not perfect, it’s not bad either, that it has some good ideas, stuff worth developing.

Welcome. Grow, young eroticist. Have fun.

 

[RoperTrace]

. .

 

[8letters]

My advice: Put your big world-building story aside for the time being and go small. Write a short story under 8000 words. Just do it. Publish it. See how it goes. That's what most of us did.

SD and I disagree on the size of your first story, but otherwise I agree. To supplement his point, I strongly suggest not writing a series as your initial effort. Many people will disagree. My reasoning is that if you write a series as your first effort, your first chapter will very likely not be very good. Second chapters always have much less views than the first chapter, and you'll get even less so as the first chapter wasn't very good. And then you're locked into writing stories that have a very small audience.

 

[SimonDoom]

SD and I disagree on the size of your first story, but otherwise I agree. .

I don't necessarily disagree. A story of 10,000+ words on average will do better than a story of 8,000 words (to the OP: A "Literotica page" is about 3750 words; stories at Literotica on average are better received when they are 3 Lit pages are more). But I want to encourage the OP to take on a challenge he really can and will complete. Any story is better than no story. I think you and I agree it's a mistake to take on a novel-length project for one's first story.

There's a tendency for first-time authors to take their first work too seriously, as though it has to say something profound to the world. Just write a story.

 

[TxRad]

Welcome to the madhouse of the AH and the insanity of writing.

The first thing I ever wrote was a long novel. It is posted here as twenty chapters. It was wrote that way and nothing was posted until it was all finished. About a year in the making and it was ten years before I posted it.

Reading it back before I posted it, I realized it was all short choppy sentences. Hemingway wrote that way but not porn. I learned a lot over the years and did some editing before I published it. It has done fairly well over the years.

After I finished the monster, I wrote several short stories. Short for me is 6-8 lit pages (20-30k words) but that is just me. With each story I write, I learn more.

In the end, my best advice is to just write something. It is a learning curve. Let your imagination fly free.

 

[Comshaw]

Hi everybody. Just joined last night, so forgive me if I make any newbie mistakes or am posting this on the wrong board!

A little background on my situation: I've been interested in writing erotica for some time now, and have dabbled in short stories (exclusively while drunk) that I only share with my partner. I'm now at the point where I have an idea for a longer story, one with world building and fleshed-out characters, and I'm physically frustrated (ha) that I haven't written it yet. My ideas are too big to simply keep in my head. I haven't written anything for fun since grade school but I've been told by my professors that I'm a great writer and I feel somewhat confident in my writing abilities.

You may be asking, why haven't you just written the damn thing already? That, my friend, is because I'm deeply embarrassed! Not only am I totally new to this, but I'm a serious people pleaser and I find that I won't write anything unless I'm certain people will think I'm the next Shakespeare. I worry that I'll start writing and then I'll get to a point where I look at myself and think, "girl, WTF are you doing? [lol] [cringe] [uncool]" and delete everything I've written and set my laptop on fire for good measure.

I know I'm going to end up writing it, because I'll basically die if I don't at this point. It's just a matter of making the writing process less internally painful and ensuring that I finish what I start. If anyone else has had experience with these feelings, how did you deal with them? Any advice for a newbie erotica writer? Is writing with a bottle of vodka at arm's reach a viable solution?

Cheers!

I've got over 100 stories that I've started and left because I hit a spot where I was saying to myself, "This is shit!" or "WTF are doing?" or "Where the hell do I go from here? I wrote myself into a corner!" The interesting thing is, eventually I go back and read what I started.Often I find what I had written wasn't as bad as I thought, or as much of a dead end as I thought. Often when I reread those beginnings, a path to the end of the story blossoms in my head.

I've struggled all my life with crappy penmanship, a brain that makes spelling a huge chore and an ego that, no matter the stoic, tough, machismo I projected to the world, is as fragile as the finest lace and can be torn to shreds with a few choice words. I forced myself to step out of my comfort zone and allow any and all criticism when I began to post my stories.

That fragility has grown less over the years. Why? I have no idea. Maybe I've learned that some criticism isn't meant to be destructive, but instructive. Maybe it's because I've become numb to it. All I know is as the years roll by it doesn't affect me the same way.

It appears from your comments, you are caught between two seemingly irresistible forces, the desire to write and post your work and your own internal critic. If so you will have to choose to follow one or the other: write and deal with the negative voice that says you aren't going to do it right and that when you post it no one will like it, or take a deep breath, ignore those damned dark little devils sniping at you from inside your head and GO FOR IT!

Perhaps you can let your partner read them (my beta reader for a long time was my wife) before you post them.

Either way, I wish you well.


Comshaw

 

[rescatooor]

I don't think most people ever get over insecurity. Not fully anyway. They just learn to live it it.

What might help is reading what else gets published. I'm sure we could point you in the direction of stories that will make you think that "actually, I can write better than this".

There's some a good chunk of quality on this site so you may not stumble on it right away. But you will.

 

[oggbashan]

A story for Literotica is as long as it needs to be to tell the story.

I am a specialist in fifty-word stories, but I have written every length from the minimum 750 words (for an Authors' Hangout challenge) or from less than a Lit page (3750 words approx) to many Lit pages.

As others have said, your first story is likely to be a mess. Write it, get someone else to read it, and then file it while you write another with the experience of writing the first one.

 

[KeithD]

In terms of Literotica, this is where you can submit with very limited scrutiny, and you can do so totally anonymously. It should be the least self-conscious way to begin sharing your writing. And if what you start with isn't working, you can quickly change accounts and even erase what you've written. It's up to you to think in these terms, though. There isn't going to be more of a forgiving approach to sharing writing--and no one can give you the comfort you won't give yourself.

 

[SamScribble]

Personally, I wouldn't recommend the vodka method. It can work for for a while, perhaps a page or two, but then you run the risk of falling asleep in mid sentence. This can not only be embarrassing; it can also make it difficult for the reader to know what happens next.

My suggestion would be a simple brown paper grocery bag that is big enough to slip over your head. Once in place, the bag will prevent anyone from knowing that it is actually you who has suddenly taken to putting your disgustingly perverted thoughts down on paper (well, down on the electronic equivalent of paper, anyway).

Professional tip: If you are not totally confident in your touch-typing skills, you might want to cut a couple of small eyeholes in the bag so that you can see what you are doing. Keep the holes small, so that you can see out but others can't see in.

Good luck.

 

[rescatooor]

Personally, I wouldn't recommend the vodka method. It can work for for a while, perhaps a page or two, but then you run the risk of falling asleep in mid sentence. This can not only be embarrassing; it can also make it difficult for the reader to know what happens next.

My suggestion would be a simple brown paper grocery bag that is big enough to slip over your head. Once in place, the bag will prevent anyone from knowing that it is actually you who has suddenly taken to putting your disgustingly perverted thoughts down on paper (well, down on the electronic equivalent of paper, anyway).

Professional tip: If you are not totally confident in your touch-typing skills, you might want to cut a couple of small eyeholes in the bag so that you can see what you are doing. Keep the holes small, so that you can see out but others can't see in.

Good luck.

Are we sure the embarrassment stems from the fact that she is writing smut or the fact that it isn't "Shakespeare-level"?

 

[SamScribble]

Are we sure the embarrassment stems from the fact that she is writing smut or the fact that it isn't "Shakespeare-level"?

Good point.

Either way, I'm not sure that asking for advice from a bunch of other pornographers is likely to produce a useful solution.

 

[rescatooor]

Good point.

Either way, I'm not sure that asking for advice from a bunch of other pornographers is likely to produce a useful solution.

Call me a weirdo with a silly hat on its head but I don't really think all of us are pornographers. Bunch of us don't describe the sex scenes at all. Good for them really, since they really don't do any people-pleasing that is expected of the genre.

Even when we do, I don't think that's a fair depiction for everything we write. Just because you write about sex doesn't mean it's meant to give someone a good wank. Quite the opposite, half the time.

 

[JuanaSalsa]

I think i wrote somewhere around 50k-60k words in a novel before I worked up the courage to actually reread what I wrote and discover if it was shit or not. I was physically sick to my stomach when I started that process.

Spoiler alert: It was shit!

Despite that, I had been posting it in a (very low visitor volume) blog to maintain motivation to keep writing and commenters did not tell me it was shit. They were all encouraging and nice.

Moral: You are your worst critic.

Like anything, the more you practice the better you get. I think the only way to make it easier is to care less, but then the product suffers so maybe don't do that.

 

[yukonnights]

Hi everybody. Just joined last night, so forgive me if I make any newbie mistakes or am posting this on the wrong board! …

… I know I'm going to end up writing it, because I'll basically die if I don't at this point. It's just a matter of making the writing process less internally painful and ensuring that I finish what I start. If anyone else has had experience with these feelings, how did you deal with them? Any advice for a newbie erotica writer? Is writing with a bottle of vodka at arm's reach a viable solution?

Cheers!

Above, I've tried to narrow your concerns down to what seems to be the core issues.

Like others have said; Find someone who will walk the trail with you from beginning to end. That someone should have some experience in writing erotica (ideally in the genre you want to write). It'd be best, IMO, if that someone is an author of Literotica because they can also help you step over any stumbling blocks in the story-submission process. Most all of us here write as a hobby and primarily for our enjoyment.

Without the "helper", there is a greater risk for overlooked issues with any story by any author — be it a first story or the fiftieth. To find that helper, one might write a description of the story and the approximate length and post a new thread in the Editors Forum and perhaps even here also.

PS: I'd save the vodka for the celebration party once your story is published

 

[Lifestyle66]

The first story I posted here was for the February 750-word contest. I had been writing for my own pleasure for years, and never posted.

But that February contest caught my attention, and I shortened one of my stories to fit.

That story in Loving Wives has seen my best responses on this site, with over 15,000 views, 629 ratings and an average rate of 3.83 (LW stories average about 3.5 due to the haters). And with 23 comments ranging from loving the story to "WFT?", all of my other stories have been a slow crawl trying to achieve that same response. But I think I'm getting better.

So, look at eventually writing for the contests. Those have more dedicated readers to overwhelm the anonymous nay-sayers here.