Has writing and publishing changed you?

[MetaBob]

I’m so sorry to hear this. But about your writing and publishing, for whatever its worth, I’m rooting for you!!!

Thanks, and apologies for the TMI.

 

[Alitaptap]

Thanks, and apologies for the TMI.

Hey, no need to apologize. We’re human, it’s natural to share these things. Just know that there’s another person in this world that is wishing, just like you, that the universe grants you all that you wish for. Big tight hugs!!!

 

[onehitwanda]

As a musician and former music teacher, I sometimes find it difficult not to listen to music without analyzing it, for chord progressions and melodic and harmonic flow, as well as critique the performers. I have a hard time in simply relaxing and listening.

I think the same has happened as I read stories here. I seem to struggle to read for fun, and often am thinking of ways I'd rewrite lines and scenes in some of the things I read.

I studied fine art at school. I have a similar problem with art now. Given how much I love music, I'm always thankful I never took that route, it would have been a massive loss for me.

 

[SirBurnInside]

Before I started posting stories here I cared much more what people thought of me, now I couldn't care less about criticism or wildly inaccurate speculation about me made by anonymous people online.

I still feel the overwhelming urge to please people and make them happy that I always did, that's just my natural setting, but now I don't make myself crazy when others who don't know me misconstrue that or use it to try and hurt me

 

[KeithD]

Writing and publishing have sustained me. I don't put much thought into whether or not they've changed me.

 

[Athalia]

It’s helped me to understand my younger self better. To come to terms with some past traumas. And - most positively - to forgive myself for some of the stupid mistakes I made.

Some of the stuff I've written has followed that course... taking something bad that happened to me in my youth and transmuting it into something more positive in my stories. That way, I can restore some sense of control.

My therapist suggested that - as I like writing - I try to write about stuff that has happened to me. I don’t often deal with my own baggage explicitly, but it does shape what I write about and how I write about it. There are echoes of me - often in side and supporting characters; even when I am also the FMC.

I know one writer who wrote his way out of a nervous breakdown. While my own therapeutic journalism hasn't been intense, I do find that writing about a sexual act, allowing to possess a certain part of my imagination as I put it into words, has helped me deal with the act when I encounter it in real life. I am more confident, more able to convince myself that I've got this, and that it will probably turn out OK. Except for any father-daughter incest, nearly everything in my stories is something that I've either done or witnessed in some form or another, and I credit my writing for giving my imagination the ability to try it out in rehearsal, so to speak.

This, in turn, has made me a more outgoing person in general. And it has helped me sustain a level of sexual activity and fantasy well beyond menopause, when many women simply give up and figure that that part of their life is over.

 

[Andrew1968]

Has writing and publishing changed me? Yes, it has made me fatter and sleepier.

 

[SimonDoom]

It hasn't changed me as a person, or affected my real-world life, other than making me spend more time online at this site.

It's given me confidence as a writer. That's probably the biggest impact, since I didn't do any creative writing from about the age of 18 until I started writing stories for this place.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Yeah, quite a lot.

One huge thing I realised from writing and from documenting previous experiences is that I am most aroused by two things in a woman: intelligence and mischief.

I posit any female character should have between two and four from this list:

talent
intelligence
taste
kookiness
mischief
mystery
drive
free-spirit
je ne sais quoi

(list is a work in progress)
(also agency, always lashings and lashings of agency)

 

[Lady2020]

Editing Lit stories definitely did something to me. Thankfully, most of the Lit authors cared about my boundaries. I won't mention a certain LW author. I worked with a few great Lit authors.

 

[Erosfan]

Yeah, quite a lot.

One huge thing I realised from writing and from documenting previous experiences is that I am most aroused by two things in a woman: intelligence and mischief.

It sounds silly, but women are generally portrayed as either submissive/dumb/compliant or dominant/abusive/mean in pornography. I don't actually like either of those things.

When I reflected and wrote about my best experiences I realised that the best of experiences involved her being clever and and a bit tricksy in the arrangement of a particular... eh.. session.

It made me happier.

"One huge thing I realised from writing and from documenting previous experiences is that I am most aroused by two things in a woman: intelligence and mischief."

I love this! My late wife was intelligent and had a deliciously wicked mind. She was my inspiration in all of my writings. She knew all of my kinks and interests and did her best to make a lot of very special times come to fruition for both of us. She read every story before I posted them and she enjoyed them.
It has changed me in that I don't care so much about how others view me as I did before.

 

[SimonDoom]

I posit any female character should have between two and four from this list:

talent
intelligence
taste
kookiness
mischief
mystery
drive
free-spirit
je ne sais quoi

(list is a work in progress)
(also agency, always lashings and lashings of agency)

An interesting point. I'd never thought of it this way. Now, of course, I see it as a challenge to write a good erotic story with a female character who is talentless, stupid, tasteless, mainstream, transparent, lazy, unspontaneous, and rigid.

 

[XerXesXu]

An interesting point. I'd never thought of it this way. Now, of course, I see it as a challenge to write a good erotic story with a female character who is talentless, stupid, tasteless, mainstream, transparent, lazy, unspontaneous, and rigid.

Like your 'Mom'?

 

[SimonDoom]

Like your 'Mom'?

I suppose I teed that one up for you.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

I've always thought intelligence was sexy. I think a sense of humor is very important, too. Both in real life and in fiction.

Writing and publishing has changed my way of thinking. Something amusing or interesting that happens now, often turns into a story. I seem to be always be working on something, even if only in my mind.

 

[XerXesXu]

I suppose I teed that one up for you.

'My fuck-wit Mom fucks with Me.' That sizzles. Just trying to be helpful.

 

[SimonDoom]

Just trying to be helpful.

Your sincerity and good will are appreciated.

 

[JessGabriel]

1000 times yes. I've always been creative, but something I was missing slotted into place when I embraced the writing and published it. I feel like I've found myself and my confidence has bloomed.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Your sincerity and good will are appreciated.

We've all got your back, Simon.

Now, explain to us this Marilyn Monica thing of yours. Enquiring minds and all that...

 

[SamScribble]

If writing and publishing has changed me, it did it a long time ago. I published my first short story more than 60 years ago, back in the days when magazines paid proper money for a well-written short story.

Thanks to some early success, I was fortunate to work with some very good editors. I think each of them had an influence on me. In particular, I think each of them encouraged me to think carefully about each word, each sentence, each paragraph.

One editor in particular believed that reading should be effortless and rewarding. ‘Difficult to read is just another way of saying badly written,’ he used to say.

One of the downsides of all their early nurturing is that, for most of my life, I have been a very critical reader. Writing that is not clear and concise, informative and/or entertaining tends to get quickly abandoned.

 

[Lady2020]

Yes.

 

[stickygirl]

One editor in particular believed that reading should be effortless and rewarding. ‘Difficult to read is just another way of saying badly written,’ he used to say.

One of the downsides of all their early nurturing is that, for most of my life, I have been a very critical reader. Writing that is not clear and concise, informative and/or entertaining tends to get quickly abandoned.

...badly written - that has a familiar ring to it. I struggle with Jane Austen and the Bard's works but I regard that as my weakness.

I was pleased to find other authors have used writing as a form of therapy because the discipline of writing has helped me order my thoughts, explore emotions and finish conversations that chatter in my head. I'm not sure the process has changed me, but it has made me more thoughtful and less likely to judge on a whim.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Yes, writing has changed me. It's been therapy, an outlet for my darker desires. Writing has lifted me into joyful bliss and plunged me into the darkest of my dark places. And by going to those dark places in fiction, I've never been tempted to venture there in my real life.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Yes, and not for the better. Before, I wrote whatever. Nowadays I'm constantly second-guessing myself. Maybe expectations from my readers or the illusion of said expectations is putting major stress on me.

I don't want to disappoint anyone. I don't want to leave stuff unfinished. And then I read what I've slapped onto the page and keep asking myself "are you fucking serious, dude?"

Ctrl+a, DEL, start again.

 

[OlderFitterWiser]

It is something I have wanted to do for years.

It is an outlet for thoughts and fantasies that I have while I an presently working in an all male environment.

I don't believe it has changed me....... yet.