Lisa writes erotic fiction too…

Kerri Sackville’s blog post last week, Nadia writes erotic fiction, got me thinking. How many secret erotic writers are out there? Is every soccer mum turning out purple prose? The protagonist in my, second novel, Terry, is a shy, reclusive erotic fiction writer. And, well, I’ve done my share too.

Erotic writing is one of those things that can go very badly wrong in so many ways. It can also be a hoot. I had a lot of fun making Terry’s heart spin ‘like the wheels on her ergonomic chair’ as she made her way through love ‘like a salmon swimming upstream through grizzly bear infested waters.’

Advice on how to write about sex ranges from; ‘don’t mention the ‘p’ or ‘v’ words to ‘don’t use euphemisms’. It’s all very confusing.   Perhaps the best advice I have heard is ‘pretend that your parents are dead and then write it as you would anything else.’

Some of the best erotic fiction is also very funny. The opening scene in Linda Jaivan’s outrageous Eat Me is one of my all time favourites. Does anyone remember; ‘Eat me, you filthy spud’?

Are there any other erotic writers out there who would like to out themselves at this point?   What are some of your great moments in literary erotica?

And next week, I will definitely write about coffee with Veny Armanno (which is totally unconnected to the topic of this post).

Hyperventilating with Nick Earls – on the perils of literary fandom

On Sunday I was lucky enough to catch Nick Earls at the Brisbane Writers Festival where he was promoting his new book. Nick is a delightful speaker, full of funny anecdotes about people he has met on his book tour and the process of researching The Fix. Some authors swing trips to Europe or Japan but Nick went on a mini-golf tour of the Gold Coast and chatted with an inebriated stripper in Coles on Sunday morning. The glamour of an author’s life.

The crowd was in stiches when he talked about people hyperventilating in his book signing queue and fainting with excitement. Hilarious.  Until I am standing in the book signing queue, clutching my copy of his book. It is quite a long queue. Easily long enough to have too much time to think about what I want to say to Nick. And suddenly hyperventilating and fainting doesn’t seem so unlikely.

The queue inches forward and at last it is my turn. I am overcome with excitement. I am also recovering from the flu and the stress of meeting my favourite author is having a bad affect on my sinuses. Nick looks up and my nose starts running. I pull out a tissue and with it come several other tissues that scatter on the table in front of him. I sneeze. At last I manage to gush how much of an inspiration he is to me. I tell him that I have two books coming out soon and how I owe it all to Zigzag Street. I am probably quite scary. He is probably wishing I did hyperventilate and faint. But, hey, I bought his book. And when you’re an author that counts for a lot.

Next week, I spill coffee on Veny Armanno…

Has anyone else ever had an embarrassing moment with a literary star?

Sometimes a banana is just a banana

The part of the world I live in is great for all sorts of reasons; surf, lifestyle, sun, people and… big things.  For obscure reasons, I recently did a tour of big things in my area. For the record, these included the big; Banana, Prawn, Knight, Avocado, Pie, Redback Spider, Pineapple, Macadamia, Cow, Shell, Pelican and Lawnmower, yes that’s right, lawnmower.

So, what was the highlight of this adventure? Well, there were in fact, many highlights. Sadly (or not so sadly) big things are closing down at a great rate. Ballina’s Big Prawn is just a shell and the Big Stubby, so fondly remembered by visitors to Tewantin, has made way for development. The closure of the Big Pineapple was breaking news on my journey. A local newspaper displayed a sad picture of a family who had driven all the way from Sydney to go to the Big Pineapple, only to find out it was closed. I guess they just turned around and drove all the way back again.

The Big Macadamia is next to the Big Pineapple, but it is hard to find. After much searching, we saw its peak, protruding over the forest like a lost Inca temple. This intrepid traveller trekked down through long grass for a closer look but got chased out by a tractor-riding guard. You can’t buy excitement like that.

The Big Banana is fabulous in a totally kitsch and, it has to be said, slightly kinky way. I felt like I might have lost my way and ended up in a Kings Cross sex shop. Is there really anyone out there who buys plastic moulded boxes to protect their bananas? How could you pull one of these out in public, without feeling like you were making an inappropriately raunchy statement? As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but usually…

All these big things gave me a nostalgic yearning for the 70s, a time when kitsch was big, when we were happy to be amazed by the view from the top of a pineapple’s crown, when a ride on a train through a banana plantation was the height of excitement.

Ah, the 70s; kaftans, flares, and strange food, but that’s another story.