Clara Brooks's Blog: The Diary of a Nobody Writer - Posts Tagged "writing"
A Revelation - Why I Decided to be a Writer
This nobody woke up one morning a few weeks ago and decided that she was going to be a writer. That is, for the first time in her life she would actually put some writing out there in the world that consumers could physically purchase with real money and then proffer their opinion - for good or ill - should they so desire.
In some ways this was one of the biggest decisions of my life and it’s certainly one of the scariest. The reason being that I know almost certainly that this endeavour is destined to fail in every way (resulting in pain, frustration and feelings of social abandonment), but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. I decided to do it anyway because - for good or ill - I love writing and I have things that I want to share with the world.
When I say hat I *love* writing, I actually do mean that I *love* it. Not the potential money, not the potential fame, not the cult of reading/writing, but the actual sitting down, the creating of strange stories in my head and the expressing them through writing. Everyone has that *thing* that they have that takes them to a happy place where they feel that nobody can hurt them, and my happy place is writing. And by writing I mean reading too, of course (how many writers don‘t even enjoy reading all that much?). I've read voraciously since I was a child. You all know that story; sad little loner with no friends takes comfort and solace in the world of imagination. The passion for reading is perhaps not quite that simple, but that’s how it inevitably starts and being an awkward, anti-social geek all of my life, that’s how it started for me. And my love of reading stories quickly turned into a desire to tell stories. And that desire was quickly crushed by a society that doesn't want people to have inner lives that they can express outside of the dreary narrative of the 9-5 job. I don’t have time, money or motivation. I'm mostly too busy trying to find a Room of My Own
You see, I've considered become a writer many times in my life but being an anti-social, awkward unconfident geek I've always withdrawn into myself when others have been better able to exert their own egos. I'm the girl who never aces the job interview because there’s always some other guy who with supreme cocksure arrogance who can talk the talk. I'm the girl who sit and giggles and does her best to look cute in the hopes that will be enough to get my by. It never really is though.
And so I've always felt that I'm destined to fail. And so I've never made the decision to do it. And I feel like I'm destined to fail because if you have a little surf on the internet everyone involved with writing, writing communities and publishing will tell you that *you* are not good enough. Encouragement inevitably comes through copious criticism. Not that I don’t appreciate criticism but my fragile ego just can’t take that much of it. I have spent countless hours reading blog posts and articles telling me I don’t work hard enough, I don’t grammar check, I don’t re-draft, I need an editor, self-publishing is so difficult and I won‘t be famous overnight, I need to re-draft and also I need to redraft (virtually every time I've brought up the topic of struggling to write someone has kindly informed me that I need to redraft more). Not that I don’t appreciate the tip-off on “you need to work hard to write well” but I always wondered where the plain and simple “I am awesome” part came in.
I mean, I'm working hard to write stories to entertain people. I think that is awesome.
Well, I woke up a few weeks ago and realised that that was, in fact, awesome and that I should write and the pursuit of the endeavour should come before the online obsession with perfection. Before getting an editor, proofing, grammar checking and publishing perfection. Before waiting 2+ years to put anything out there in which time my fragile ego will have been disintegrated. I'm not saying that I intend to put out substandard work but I am saying that what my writing is about is *me* expressing myself to other people and if that’s a little bit wobbly in places, well I hope that the fun, frivolity and general awesomeness - the fabulousness of Clara Brooks - will make up for that. When did self expression become so bound up with perfection anyway? (Ok I’ll answer that - when reading as a hobby became marketed like coca-cola)
So I woke up and I had an idea - which I have now published as the first fabulous erotic adventure of Clara Brooks - and I thought it was awesome so I wrote it down in a couple of weeks of furious excitement. I edited it myself, I proofread it myself, I made the cover myself and I self-published on Kindle myself. And the whole process made me unspeakably happy. It probably won’t make me rich but an economic exchange or two may take place whereas some people give me small amounts of money in exchange for the pleasure of reading it an in my wildest dreams some people might ask me to write another (NB they’re getting another whether that ask or not but that’s besides the point).
Anyway, I was going to write about why I chose to write and publish erotica of all things but that will have to wait for the next post!
In some ways this was one of the biggest decisions of my life and it’s certainly one of the scariest. The reason being that I know almost certainly that this endeavour is destined to fail in every way (resulting in pain, frustration and feelings of social abandonment), but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. I decided to do it anyway because - for good or ill - I love writing and I have things that I want to share with the world.
When I say hat I *love* writing, I actually do mean that I *love* it. Not the potential money, not the potential fame, not the cult of reading/writing, but the actual sitting down, the creating of strange stories in my head and the expressing them through writing. Everyone has that *thing* that they have that takes them to a happy place where they feel that nobody can hurt them, and my happy place is writing. And by writing I mean reading too, of course (how many writers don‘t even enjoy reading all that much?). I've read voraciously since I was a child. You all know that story; sad little loner with no friends takes comfort and solace in the world of imagination. The passion for reading is perhaps not quite that simple, but that’s how it inevitably starts and being an awkward, anti-social geek all of my life, that’s how it started for me. And my love of reading stories quickly turned into a desire to tell stories. And that desire was quickly crushed by a society that doesn't want people to have inner lives that they can express outside of the dreary narrative of the 9-5 job. I don’t have time, money or motivation. I'm mostly too busy trying to find a Room of My Own
You see, I've considered become a writer many times in my life but being an anti-social, awkward unconfident geek I've always withdrawn into myself when others have been better able to exert their own egos. I'm the girl who never aces the job interview because there’s always some other guy who with supreme cocksure arrogance who can talk the talk. I'm the girl who sit and giggles and does her best to look cute in the hopes that will be enough to get my by. It never really is though.
And so I've always felt that I'm destined to fail. And so I've never made the decision to do it. And I feel like I'm destined to fail because if you have a little surf on the internet everyone involved with writing, writing communities and publishing will tell you that *you* are not good enough. Encouragement inevitably comes through copious criticism. Not that I don’t appreciate criticism but my fragile ego just can’t take that much of it. I have spent countless hours reading blog posts and articles telling me I don’t work hard enough, I don’t grammar check, I don’t re-draft, I need an editor, self-publishing is so difficult and I won‘t be famous overnight, I need to re-draft and also I need to redraft (virtually every time I've brought up the topic of struggling to write someone has kindly informed me that I need to redraft more). Not that I don’t appreciate the tip-off on “you need to work hard to write well” but I always wondered where the plain and simple “I am awesome” part came in.
I mean, I'm working hard to write stories to entertain people. I think that is awesome.
Well, I woke up a few weeks ago and realised that that was, in fact, awesome and that I should write and the pursuit of the endeavour should come before the online obsession with perfection. Before getting an editor, proofing, grammar checking and publishing perfection. Before waiting 2+ years to put anything out there in which time my fragile ego will have been disintegrated. I'm not saying that I intend to put out substandard work but I am saying that what my writing is about is *me* expressing myself to other people and if that’s a little bit wobbly in places, well I hope that the fun, frivolity and general awesomeness - the fabulousness of Clara Brooks - will make up for that. When did self expression become so bound up with perfection anyway? (Ok I’ll answer that - when reading as a hobby became marketed like coca-cola)
So I woke up and I had an idea - which I have now published as the first fabulous erotic adventure of Clara Brooks - and I thought it was awesome so I wrote it down in a couple of weeks of furious excitement. I edited it myself, I proofread it myself, I made the cover myself and I self-published on Kindle myself. And the whole process made me unspeakably happy. It probably won’t make me rich but an economic exchange or two may take place whereas some people give me small amounts of money in exchange for the pleasure of reading it an in my wildest dreams some people might ask me to write another (NB they’re getting another whether that ask or not but that’s besides the point).
Anyway, I was going to write about why I chose to write and publish erotica of all things but that will have to wait for the next post!
An Ill-Advised Interview with Talentless Hack Clara Brooks
Since she’s now firmly on the road to superstardom, it seems somewhat criminal that the delightful and enigmatic Ms. Clara Brooks has not yet been approached by either Time Magazine, Playboy or Cosmo for that all revealing interview. Yet since her many adoring fans are simply gagging to know the truth behind the mystery that is Clara, I decided to take the mammoth task upon myself and created the equally unusual Mr.X to do the seemingly impossible task and interview the seemingly uninterviewable.
So, dear reader, love of all things erotic and forbidden — read on and see this incredible personality reveal all in this exclusive interview.
***
Clara Brooks sits before me alluring, impatient, weaving all manner of dizzying, spellbinding, erotic enchantments on this humble interviewer. Dressed in a tight revealing red dress, she crosses and recrosses her legs seductively. She smiles warmly and leans forward, hugging me intimately rather than the usual aloof shake of the hand. I catch a whiff of her Chanel No.5 and a slight touch of her breast against me makes me feel….
CB: Can we get on with this, this wasn’t quite what I hand in mind?
Mr.X: It’s an honour, Ms.Brooks, to be given such a great opportunity to interview someone so smart and interesting such as yourself. May I just say that as alluring and provocative as I find your fiction, in person you are ten times more intoxicating. I feel as if I have been graced with the presence of a Goddess.
CB: Really, Mr.X, you do exaggerate, I’m just this cheeky little London girl…
Mr.X: I know, but I have to set the scene correctly for the reader. In truth you’re really rather ordinary, it’s a bit of a disappointment really. And frankly, I find your fiction rather cliché…
CB: OK, OK can we get on with the questions please? This is supposed to be a fucking puff piece.
Mr.X: So, how did you get into writing erotica, Clara? Isn’t that a bit of a filthy and disgusting thing for a lady to be doing. Why don’t you stick to Fantasy, Vampires or YA like a good girl?
CB: I’ve tried writing those things — OK not YA – for many years it was my ambition to write poptastic, exciting genre fiction. But my muse really hated me for it and she ckept screaming rude words in my ear at night, like “cunnilingus” and “cocksucker”. I realised that the world didn’t need any more fucking heroes, or if it did, they needed to be literally fucking heroes. I read a wide range of fiction and it occurredd to me that for one reason or another I’ve always been let down by sex in novels, whether it’s a work of porn/erotica or a single sex scene in genre/literary fiction – it’s always boring, That doesn’t gel with real life. Sex is a fundamental – possible the most fundamental – part of our human experience and yet we’re always so coy, dismissive or just plain terrible at expressing it in fiction. So I decided I wanted to attempt to capture sexual experience in its many and interesting forms; arousing, comic, strange, beguiling, terrifying …
Mr X: So you’re not just trying to cash in on the whole 50 Shades thing then?
CB: Well, that too. No, honestly, romance erotica is not my thing and so marketing my work will be as difficult as if 50 Shades had never existed. I want to push boundaries in terms of idea, form and content. I want my readers to feel like they’ve experienced something.
Mr. X: But don’t erotica readers just want to “get off?”
CB: They have my blessing to do that. I’m willing them on. But there’s more than one way to be aroused, and something can excite you erotically and stimulate you intellectually at the same time. I’ve had people – especially guys, for obvious reasons – tell me that they get off on my stories, and I think that’s awesome. If nobody did I’d feel a little sad because I want my writing to arouse people.
Mr.X: So your work is more than just porn? Do you see a big difference between what you write as “erotica” and pornographic jerk-off material?
CB: Honestly, people make such a big deal over that distinction and I’m not sure that I really care for it. I might think of my own writing as “artistic” but I don’t really need someone to invent a label to categorise it as such. “Pornography” for me is material that’s subversive because it pushes the tastes of decency and acceptability in society, that is, the idea of it heralds from a time when “sex” and representations of sex weren’t considered to be decent. Everything has changed now and “porn” just means hardcore sexual content. My writing has hardcore sexual content.
Mr.X: Now for the question that everyone wants the answer to. Do you base your stories on real life experiences, or do you just make them up.
CB: I’ve had so many people ask me this one already. I think that people want to bridge a gap between the concept of Clara on the page and with the Clara they might meet in real life. But I don’t actually answer it, not because I’m coy or care what people think about my sex life, but because my fiction is about blurring the boundaries between what we are, who we are, what society wants us to be, how it defines us and our fantasy-dream-erotic inner worlds.
It seems enough to me to say that writers can only write fiction if they have experience and understanding of the world and writing is a way of expressing their experiences and understanding.
Mr.X: OK that’s getting too deep for me. Before we end up getting personal again do you want to take a moment to plug your first published short fiction, currently languishing at the bottom of the Amazon Sales Ranks, “Proud and Prejudged?
CB: Buy it because it’s awesome. Basically it’s my cross between a fan fiction, erotica and comedy and I think that makes it unique. It’s a story about a girl – Clara, my alter ego – who has a hyperactive sexual imagination, and so when reading Pride and Prejudice she ends up fantasising about fucking Darcy ; that’s what good literature appreciation is, of course. The lines between fantasy and reality become blurred, so there’s a little weirdness, strange encounters and hardcore sex. Read it, it’s some good shit.
Mr,X: Sorry, I don’t have time, I’m reading Dostoyevsky.
CB: Motherfucker!
Mr.X: Any plans for future works you’d like to tell us about?
CB: Yep, loads of stuff.In the short-term I’ll be writing a sexy semi-sequel to Clara’s Dream, which ahs easily been my most popular flash fiction so far. It’s really going to be fucking hot, so watch out for it. I’m also writing another fabulous comic Clara fiction in which Clara meets Sherlock Holmes. I’m not gonna give anything away, including who fucks who, but there’s a lot of drama, comedy and hardcore threesomes.. I’m also planning a magical novel featuring Clara which is going to be insane and a little wonderful.
Mr.X OK, this is kinda boring. My readers are more interested ion dirty facts about you. Namely, do you masturbate while you write your stories. And is that even possible?
CB: Yes, I do. And I can promise you it’s perfectly possible. It’s not the quickest, most productive way of working, though.
Mr.X: You’re bisexual. So, you like girls? If you kissed one, would you like it?
CB: I’m very into girls. Girls smell of roses.
Mr.X: That’s your Chanel perfume actually, Clara.
CB: I’m a girl.
Mr.X: Good point. Can’t we discuss their breasts and the things you’d like to do to them, though?
CB: Try using your imagination huh? But seriously, LGBT issues are very important to me. That’s half of what my blog is about.
Mr.X: You also label yourself as a feminist. Isn’t that a bit PC for this day and age? Do you want people to see you as militant?
CB: I don’t see it as militant or too “PC” at all. I just happen to think that there’s a power imbalance in the world that’s developed over time and that we should all work together – men and women – to redress that imbalance. It’s just a way of saying that I think it’s important to see women as important as men, and that women have the right to express themselves and be the people they want to be.
Mr.X: What are your major literary influences. You claim to love books and movies. Which ones are your favourites?
CB: I’ve had lots of influences over the years and I try not to be a slave to any particular style. I read a lot of classics and am into women’s writing, my favourites are Jane Austen, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. I love Dickens, of course. I’m also a big sci-fi/fantasy fan and I love Lord of the Rings, Asimov’s Foundation, A Song of Ice and Fire, Robert E Howard’s Conan books, Gene Wolfe … the list goes on. I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan, so Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love graphic novels too – Alan Moore’s Lost Girls was one of the workd that inspired me into thinking that Erotica could be pretty cool.
I could spend all night listing movie influences. David Lynch is probably my biggest. And Kieslowski’s Three Colours. But really I love anything from Classic to Modern Hollywood, to art house, to Hammer Horror. I love Star Wars, of course.
Mr.X : What’s your ideal fantasy threesome.
CB: I could easily have said Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but this morning I realised that Kurt Cobain and Courtenay Love would have been damn hot. I fancy most celebrities, this won’t be a problem for me. Natalie Portman, Scarlet Johannson, Johnny Depp, Michael Fassbender… you get the idea, I could do this all day.
Mr.X: Finally, any tips for aspiring writers?
CB: Work harder than I do. Don’t masturbate while you are writing.
Mr.X: Clara, I’d love to say that this has been a pleasure, but honestly, apart from being able to stare at your overly exposed cleavage for extended periods of time, it’s frankly been a really dull interview with a talent less hack.
CB: I really can’t believe I created a fictional interviewer who insults me and my work. I must have a serious psychosis,
Mr.X : Don’t be so hard on yourself, most authors do. Especially the ones destined to fail.
CB: Ouch.
So, dear reader, love of all things erotic and forbidden — read on and see this incredible personality reveal all in this exclusive interview.
***
Clara Brooks sits before me alluring, impatient, weaving all manner of dizzying, spellbinding, erotic enchantments on this humble interviewer. Dressed in a tight revealing red dress, she crosses and recrosses her legs seductively. She smiles warmly and leans forward, hugging me intimately rather than the usual aloof shake of the hand. I catch a whiff of her Chanel No.5 and a slight touch of her breast against me makes me feel….
CB: Can we get on with this, this wasn’t quite what I hand in mind?
Mr.X: It’s an honour, Ms.Brooks, to be given such a great opportunity to interview someone so smart and interesting such as yourself. May I just say that as alluring and provocative as I find your fiction, in person you are ten times more intoxicating. I feel as if I have been graced with the presence of a Goddess.
CB: Really, Mr.X, you do exaggerate, I’m just this cheeky little London girl…
Mr.X: I know, but I have to set the scene correctly for the reader. In truth you’re really rather ordinary, it’s a bit of a disappointment really. And frankly, I find your fiction rather cliché…
CB: OK, OK can we get on with the questions please? This is supposed to be a fucking puff piece.
Mr.X: So, how did you get into writing erotica, Clara? Isn’t that a bit of a filthy and disgusting thing for a lady to be doing. Why don’t you stick to Fantasy, Vampires or YA like a good girl?
CB: I’ve tried writing those things — OK not YA – for many years it was my ambition to write poptastic, exciting genre fiction. But my muse really hated me for it and she ckept screaming rude words in my ear at night, like “cunnilingus” and “cocksucker”. I realised that the world didn’t need any more fucking heroes, or if it did, they needed to be literally fucking heroes. I read a wide range of fiction and it occurredd to me that for one reason or another I’ve always been let down by sex in novels, whether it’s a work of porn/erotica or a single sex scene in genre/literary fiction – it’s always boring, That doesn’t gel with real life. Sex is a fundamental – possible the most fundamental – part of our human experience and yet we’re always so coy, dismissive or just plain terrible at expressing it in fiction. So I decided I wanted to attempt to capture sexual experience in its many and interesting forms; arousing, comic, strange, beguiling, terrifying …
Mr X: So you’re not just trying to cash in on the whole 50 Shades thing then?
CB: Well, that too. No, honestly, romance erotica is not my thing and so marketing my work will be as difficult as if 50 Shades had never existed. I want to push boundaries in terms of idea, form and content. I want my readers to feel like they’ve experienced something.
Mr. X: But don’t erotica readers just want to “get off?”
CB: They have my blessing to do that. I’m willing them on. But there’s more than one way to be aroused, and something can excite you erotically and stimulate you intellectually at the same time. I’ve had people – especially guys, for obvious reasons – tell me that they get off on my stories, and I think that’s awesome. If nobody did I’d feel a little sad because I want my writing to arouse people.
Mr.X: So your work is more than just porn? Do you see a big difference between what you write as “erotica” and pornographic jerk-off material?
CB: Honestly, people make such a big deal over that distinction and I’m not sure that I really care for it. I might think of my own writing as “artistic” but I don’t really need someone to invent a label to categorise it as such. “Pornography” for me is material that’s subversive because it pushes the tastes of decency and acceptability in society, that is, the idea of it heralds from a time when “sex” and representations of sex weren’t considered to be decent. Everything has changed now and “porn” just means hardcore sexual content. My writing has hardcore sexual content.
Mr.X: Now for the question that everyone wants the answer to. Do you base your stories on real life experiences, or do you just make them up.
CB: I’ve had so many people ask me this one already. I think that people want to bridge a gap between the concept of Clara on the page and with the Clara they might meet in real life. But I don’t actually answer it, not because I’m coy or care what people think about my sex life, but because my fiction is about blurring the boundaries between what we are, who we are, what society wants us to be, how it defines us and our fantasy-dream-erotic inner worlds.
It seems enough to me to say that writers can only write fiction if they have experience and understanding of the world and writing is a way of expressing their experiences and understanding.
Mr.X: OK that’s getting too deep for me. Before we end up getting personal again do you want to take a moment to plug your first published short fiction, currently languishing at the bottom of the Amazon Sales Ranks, “Proud and Prejudged?
CB: Buy it because it’s awesome. Basically it’s my cross between a fan fiction, erotica and comedy and I think that makes it unique. It’s a story about a girl – Clara, my alter ego – who has a hyperactive sexual imagination, and so when reading Pride and Prejudice she ends up fantasising about fucking Darcy ; that’s what good literature appreciation is, of course. The lines between fantasy and reality become blurred, so there’s a little weirdness, strange encounters and hardcore sex. Read it, it’s some good shit.
Mr,X: Sorry, I don’t have time, I’m reading Dostoyevsky.
CB: Motherfucker!
Mr.X: Any plans for future works you’d like to tell us about?
CB: Yep, loads of stuff.In the short-term I’ll be writing a sexy semi-sequel to Clara’s Dream, which ahs easily been my most popular flash fiction so far. It’s really going to be fucking hot, so watch out for it. I’m also writing another fabulous comic Clara fiction in which Clara meets Sherlock Holmes. I’m not gonna give anything away, including who fucks who, but there’s a lot of drama, comedy and hardcore threesomes.. I’m also planning a magical novel featuring Clara which is going to be insane and a little wonderful.
Mr.X OK, this is kinda boring. My readers are more interested ion dirty facts about you. Namely, do you masturbate while you write your stories. And is that even possible?
CB: Yes, I do. And I can promise you it’s perfectly possible. It’s not the quickest, most productive way of working, though.
Mr.X: You’re bisexual. So, you like girls? If you kissed one, would you like it?
CB: I’m very into girls. Girls smell of roses.
Mr.X: That’s your Chanel perfume actually, Clara.
CB: I’m a girl.
Mr.X: Good point. Can’t we discuss their breasts and the things you’d like to do to them, though?
CB: Try using your imagination huh? But seriously, LGBT issues are very important to me. That’s half of what my blog is about.
Mr.X: You also label yourself as a feminist. Isn’t that a bit PC for this day and age? Do you want people to see you as militant?
CB: I don’t see it as militant or too “PC” at all. I just happen to think that there’s a power imbalance in the world that’s developed over time and that we should all work together – men and women – to redress that imbalance. It’s just a way of saying that I think it’s important to see women as important as men, and that women have the right to express themselves and be the people they want to be.
Mr.X: What are your major literary influences. You claim to love books and movies. Which ones are your favourites?
CB: I’ve had lots of influences over the years and I try not to be a slave to any particular style. I read a lot of classics and am into women’s writing, my favourites are Jane Austen, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. I love Dickens, of course. I’m also a big sci-fi/fantasy fan and I love Lord of the Rings, Asimov’s Foundation, A Song of Ice and Fire, Robert E Howard’s Conan books, Gene Wolfe … the list goes on. I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan, so Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love graphic novels too – Alan Moore’s Lost Girls was one of the workd that inspired me into thinking that Erotica could be pretty cool.
I could spend all night listing movie influences. David Lynch is probably my biggest. And Kieslowski’s Three Colours. But really I love anything from Classic to Modern Hollywood, to art house, to Hammer Horror. I love Star Wars, of course.
Mr.X : What’s your ideal fantasy threesome.
CB: I could easily have said Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but this morning I realised that Kurt Cobain and Courtenay Love would have been damn hot. I fancy most celebrities, this won’t be a problem for me. Natalie Portman, Scarlet Johannson, Johnny Depp, Michael Fassbender… you get the idea, I could do this all day.
Mr.X: Finally, any tips for aspiring writers?
CB: Work harder than I do. Don’t masturbate while you are writing.
Mr.X: Clara, I’d love to say that this has been a pleasure, but honestly, apart from being able to stare at your overly exposed cleavage for extended periods of time, it’s frankly been a really dull interview with a talent less hack.
CB: I really can’t believe I created a fictional interviewer who insults me and my work. I must have a serious psychosis,
Mr.X : Don’t be so hard on yourself, most authors do. Especially the ones destined to fail.
CB: Ouch.
The Diary of a Nobody Writer
In which I ruminate on life as a wannabe writer and hopefully make a few profound and rewarding observations on books and stories along the way.
