Welcome to Deviant Art Members :)

Using a complicated chain of reasoning, I have concluded that some friends from DeviantArt—the website from where I get artist support for the e-book covers—occasionally read my posts!

There are a handful of writers on DA—our internal abbreviation for DeviantArt—who are more likely to actually read the occasional text posts that appear on that site.  

Unfortunately for me, while the majority of folks our age—or maybe some years younger than me; of course, I know you guys don't have a clue exactly how old I am, and that's the way I like it—like to read stories with large amounts of graphic sex in them, I just don't like graphic sex; and by that I mean typical graphic sex.  I find that when an author puts in almost any graphic sex, it clashes so much with my own preferences for how sex between lovers should proceed; or the style of the sex clashes with my perception of how gentle or affectionate a particular character is (or how clumsy, inconsiderate, or rough) that I become unhappy and frustrated.  So I expect that readers, too, will be badly served by being confronted with typical graphic sex.  Now, don't misunderstand me: graphical sex with a certain degree of vagueness can be effective.  That's what I try to do, (and maybe I fail, but that's my objective) and I must confess that I have absolutely no training in creative writing, and maybe that's where both my strengths and my weaknesses stem from!

Many of my DA friends are writing erotica; that is, descriptions of scenarios and sex scenes, with a view to exciting the reader sexually, and not furthering any sort of romantic relationship (in the story).  I don't seek that sort of writing out, but I have stumbled on stories of that sort, and in a couple of instances, I have been really moved by them.  More often, though, I'm thinking: wait, wait, that's not a good move now!  Oh, no!  (In my mind, you know, I'm God's Gift to Women, and if you think I'm delusional on that score, you're absolutely right.  I have very little experience with sex, for various reasons, and I ought not to be trying to write descriptions of sex scenes at all.  On the other hand, how much fun is it going to be for you, to read sex scenes written by a semi-professional lover?)

[Added later:]  I just checked my Smashwords author page, and there have been about a half-dozen downloads of my stories since I looked this morning!  My belief is that whenever I post something on my Blog, here, I get some downloads.  So maybe this post has already borne fruit!!  I had fifteen downloads from a couple of days ago, and fourteen for today.  Keep it up, friends!

I have just repaired Christine's ... Christmas, and uploaded it, with a new cover image.  (The previous cover image simply had my name as Kay Brown, without the 'Hemlock'.)

Kay.

Why I Write

The reason I'm writing this blogpost is because I was becoming more aware of why other authors---mostly on Amazon---were writing their stories.

Some of them, certainly, were writing in order to earn.  Sometimes writing is what someone feels he or she can do the best.  Sometimes they can only write.  Often they're inspired by other writers whose works they have read, and so on.

Others are fired by a need to support emerging lesbian, and more generally, LGBTQ young people, and give them models and instances of other teens and YA women struggling with the need to choose that lifestyle, or deal with the social problems accompanying their preferences.  Yet others want to recount their own stories, or stories of their close friends, which they think are going to be interesting or inspiring to readers.

Still others are still smarting under the hostility they felt from convention-bound parents, or other older adults who simply could not reconcile what they were seeing with how life used to be for them.  These older adults still see the new freedom to choose a respectful lifestyle as an affront to their religious views, or what they consider, for some reason, as right and proper.  Many citizens see the new laws as atrocious, shameful parodies of what legislation should be, and authors feel the need to respond to these feelings, or to support young people who struggle against members of society who harbor these feelings.  Of course, I feel the urge to do this as well, but I don't have the evangelical feelings to do this that some women have.  If challenged, I suppose, I might be provoked into lashing out, but that isn't me.

[To be continued...]