Back Home from a Long Journey

They say travel is broadening, and my boundaries have been tested in the most enjoyable way by the visits to so many wonderful hotel rooms over the past weeks. I want to thank all the party guests in Suite 69 who shared their storytelling talents in celebration of hotel sex and the publication of Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. This truly was an Arabian Nights of the modern day and I am so thrilled to be part of this supportive and brilliant community of erotic artists! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

While I love traveling, but I also like coming back home. Over the past weeks, I've been thinking about another journey I've taken. It's been a little over a year since I started learning about book promotion in order to give my novel, Amorous Woman, a tiny chance of reaching readers. In a way, it was a journey to a foreign land for me, a year-long stay in a place where I didn't know the language or customs, and sometimes wasn't sure I wanted to be there at all. However, the adventure brought great rewards as well. Nearly every contributor to the party in Suite 69 is a friend now due to my efforts to "put myself out there."

Who knows how successful I was as a promoter in the "traditional" sense? Someone recently mentioned an article suggesting that only the very top writers benefit from the promotional machine and the middling writers fare the same as those who do nothing. This might be referring to corporate measures of "success," which are not my measures (by those standards I am a failure and always will be). Perhaps my resistance against that machine, which deemed me unworthy, was completely futile, but I did gain so much. I learned I can do things I never thought I could, but most of all, I made so many wonderful writer friends, so I refuse to accept that pronouncement as truth, even if the financial aspect of it proves the point.

For quite a while now, I've also been talking about a new novel I'd like to write. People are always asking "what's next?" and I had an answer in terms of what, but not when. I was still too caught up in the promotional chase. But recently I realized that it is time to come home to my own writing. I feel an urgency now, a visceral need to do it, that hasn't been there before. Of course, I will have to cut back on some activities to make time for my writing and put that first on my priority list. I will still be blogging a few times a week, doing my columns and doing a few interviews. I'll also be weighing in here on the experience of writing a second novel, which has its own challenges, many of which are the same as writing a first! I'm always happy to join in a blog tour or add my photo to a voyeur's peep into the private lives of erotica writers. But the main focus of my writing will not be in the blog0sphere for some time to come. (I'm also hoping that by announcing this publicly, I'll be motivated to keep this promise to put my new work first).

I do hope my blog buddies will continue to stop by now and then and leave comments, as I will do with your blogs. But I'm starting off on a new journey now, destination unknown. Wish me luck.