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[insanepurin]

Another day, another teeth-gnashing brush-in with my mother. Today I thought it would be better if she got out of my life. When I realized that, I cried.

I've got to stop reading 50 Shades for a while. Not only do I fear it's affecting my writing what little I've done anyway (I almost typed, "and my subconcious agreed" and I cringed) it truly

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[dioschorium]

You might be horrified interested to know that Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty trilogy was recently reprinted with covers evocative of the Fifty Shades books. As if the message wasn't clear, the covers turn the subtext into text by declaring "IF YOU LIKE FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, YOU'LL LIKE THIS." Do you think the older pornographic novels you mentioned will receive a similar treatment?

Confession time: late last year, I wanted to write smutty Star Wars fan fiction starring C-3PO and a humanoid male of nebulous origin, but then I told myself, "Virge, you will not do that. You will write original fiction—not a fic magically transformed by the find-and-replace feature, but genuine original fiction—about a sex slave robot."

Well, I started writing the story, and I am still working on it. But before I'd even written a thousand words, I realized that I was not approaching the situation in a way I could handle. I simply could not romanticize slavery and present it as sexually arousing. So, while the story contains plenty of graphic sexual situations, they're akin to gross-out scenes in a horror novel. When I heard about the freak success of Fifty Shades, my passion grew feverish. Someone had to show people that treating someone else as property was not sexy.

If you feel that your poor life situation has been draining you, think of it this way: writing fiction can be some of the best therapy. Rather than letting your problems distract you from writing, pour them into the story. Good fiction comes from big emotions, much like good music. (One of the reasons my story is turning out as it has is because of the abuse I've endured for years, and without all my anger and frustration, the novel would look like a cheesy, angst-ridden sci-fi sex romp that aspired to meta status.) So, the next time you try to write, look at it as working alchemy: turn the shit that life has tossed to you into imaginative gold.

[insanepurin]

It doesn't surprise me that they'd do that with the Beauty trilogy. "Want more boring sex scenes? Care to yawn at the next spanking? WELCOME TO ANNE RICE'S BEAUTY TRILOGY"

I thought the same way! I don't know if you remember me trying to make a "Yume Nikki"-esque sequel to "The Rise of Darkrai" on RPG Maker, but since I divorced myself from that movie, I had been thinking of revamping Alamos Town and the characters into an original psychological horror novel. Alice & Alicia would be fused into a new heroine, and Darkrai and what I had planned for Cresselia, the Lake Trio, and Wonder Guard!Spiritomb (Cresselia the "dream" counterpart to Darkrai's "nightmare", the Lake Trio representing the id, Ego and Superego, and Wondertomb as a buried evil with a hivemind of 108 spirits) would become its own mythology.

50 Shades pissed me off enough that I brainstormed a "healthy" version with Andy and Marius, and it became a story about two kindly men trying to understand each other. You have a boy from a poor background who wants to understand his boyfriend's kink better, and a successful businessman who is afraid that his love would consider him a freak and that he would one day scare him away. I shared this a friend and said I ought to change the names and give it its own novel since it was distinctive enough from 50 Shades. I've redesigned characters (Marius became a Tatsumi expy named Daniel Glass) and... I might consider writing this. I really don't know, but considering that 50 Shades treats BDSM as something that needed to be "fixed" and that I have friends who are familiar with the BDSM scene, I thought a more accurate representation of the kink with a central healthy relationship would be nice. (Marius/Daniel had been abused by a previous Dom, who sadly represent the respected Doms IRL who abuse their subs beyond their consent and agreement. :( )

That sounds like sage advice. My work is pretty much what's keeping me sane (hanging out with Raggedy Ann, Raggedy Andy, Marius, etc. like they're real people), and I really want to create things again and go back to exploring new worlds. I'm participating in Kink Bingo at DW, so I'm hoping to get a single bingo with a few works of fanfiction included. Writing gives me hope, and that's worth more than all the money and fame in the world. *hugs*

[dioschorium]

Your psychological horror story sounds interesting, and I'd like to read your BDSM novel. The dynamics of sex—the "psychology of desire," as Devo put it—fascinate me more readily than the descriptions of sex itself.