[Full Version] Feeling Uninspired? Make The Projects You’d Never Dare To Make

[Note: This is the full and uncut version of an article which also appears on my main blog too.]

Well, a couple of weeks ago (at the time of writing this article), I wasn’t feeling very artistic. This had been going on for a while and, whatever I did to try to solve this problem didn’t really work.

Yes, I could just about make about one drawing a day if I really tried, but the inspiration was fairly weak and the enthusiasm was barely even there. Making a drawing felt like a dreary and detached exercise.

To use a tired metaphor, squeezing a drawing out of my imagination was like squeezing blood out of a stone. At the time that this article is posted, I hope that this still isn’t the case. Anyway, I was starting to think that this prolonged slump in my artistic enthusiasm was a sign that I should move on to making a comic. But even that idea didn’t really fill me with enthusiasm either – the idea of making a long daily comic just seemed like exhaustingly hard and joyless work to me.

Needless to say, I was feeling kind of miserable and I didn’t even have a solution to my problem which I could use as the basis for another vaguely angst-ridden article like this one. So, I made my one drawing for the day and then just ended up surfing the internet aimlessly, filled with dreary ennui – my soul feeling as heavy, dreary and sluggish as a …Well, I couldn’t even think of good metaphors.

It was a while later that I realised that I had more ideas than I thought that I had. Or rather, I had a few really interesting creative ideas which filled me with energy, enthusiasm and passion – but they were for the kinds of projects which I would never dare to make. Or at least the kinds of projects that I’d never dare to publish or possibly even create. Everything from grotesque blood-spattered horror stories to vivid, quirky and stylised erotica.

In other words, when it comes to my imagination, Eros and Thanatos seem to be the most powerful parts of it. Or, to be less pretentious – sex and death. They’re the parts of my imagination where all of my best ideas seem to come from. In fact, as the old saying goes, virtually every piece of art is about sex and/or death in some way or another.

These days, it seems to be that I like to think of my imagination as being something like this song when, in all reality, it’s actually more like this one (NSFW).

Anyway, the idea that stuck in my mind was an idea for the beginning of a rather bizarre comic which would start with a close-up of a naked man emerging from the sea (like Daniel Craig in “Casino Royale” – but even more handsome and without any swimming trunks) on a rather dreary and gloomy deserted beach somewhere.

Then, a few seconds later, it would zoom out to show two women (who have been camping nearby) lying on a hillside nearby, watching him through a pair of binoculars and arguing over who gets to use the binoculars next.

As for the rest of the story, it’d probably be fairly surreal, eccentric, comedic, slightly kinky and thoroughly bisexual in every possible way.

Well, the idea stuck in my mind even though the idea of devoting a lot of time and effort into a comics project which I probably wouldn’t even think about showing to anyone else, let alone publish on here. So, with no other ideas, I decided to sketch (one of the less explicit, and stranger, parts of) it just for the hell of it…

Fairly soon after I started drawing it, I realised something. I felt like an artist again. I felt all of the enthusiasm, creativity and passion which I thought that I had lost. I remembered how magical creating art should feel like. Rather than sitting back and just drawing something, I was completely immersed in the act of creating art. There’s a big difference between these two things and I’d almost forgotten what the latter felt like.

I don’t know if I’ll ever actually make this comic and I probably won’t. Even if I do, I’ll almost certainly never publish it. But, by even making a symbolic gesture of creating something that I’d never dare to create, I found my creativity and artistic passion again.

So, if you’re feeling uninspired, then it might be worth taking the first tentative steps towards making that project which has always fascinated you, but which you’ve never quite had the courage to even think about making. No, you don’t have to publish it, but it might help you to remember what it feels like to be inspired.

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Anyway, I hope that this article was useful 🙂

EXCLUSIVE ART – “One Hell Of A Time”

Well, I’m very proud to present a rather gothic and vaguely S&M-themed erotic drawing I made a few days ago called “One Hell Of A Time”. This drawing is exclusive to this site and it won’t be posted on my main blog or my DeviantART gallery either.

Although this blog is supposed to be an “uncut” blog (compared to my main blog), I ended up editing this drawing fairly considerably, since I’m not sure exactly what the limits of WordPress’s content policies are when it comes to erotic art. Sorry about this.

Unlike my other drawings, “One Hell Of A Time” is released under ordinary copyright rather than a Creative Commons licence.

“One Hell Of A Time” By C. A. Brown

Three Tips For Writing Erotic Fiction

(Note: Well, I thought that I’d start this blog off with an article I was originally going to publish in late August but eventually decided against publishing because I thought that it would be “inappropriate” for my main blog. Anyway, now that I’ve set up this blog, I thought that I’d post it on here. Enjoy 🙂 )

Whether it’s for personal enjoyment, whether it’s something you dabble in occasionally or whether it’s a genre which you want to specialise in, erotic fiction can be incredibly good fun to write. Although I haven’t read “Fifty Shades Of Grey” (I read an extract online and was pretty disappointed by it), it’s popularity is proof that the genre is starting to be taken seriously and is becoming more respectable.

Whether you see this as a good or a bad thing is up to you, but erotic fiction is as much of a valid genre as horror or comedy fiction (which are also intended to provoke strong emotional reactions in their readers). And, like with any other genre, quality varies quite widely from writer to writer.

In many ways, I would argue that prose fiction is probably one of the best formats for erotica due to the relative lack of official censorship in many parts of the world and the fact that the writer’s level of skill and the reader’s imagination are the only limits to what can happen in a particular story. It is, within reason, a space of pure fantasy where pretty much anything goes.

So, although I haven’t really written that much in this genre, I thought I’d offer three pieces of basic general advice. I won’t be focusing on writing techniques, but on three general things to think about when writing an erotic story.

1) Write what *ahem* works for you: This is the most important rule when it comes to writing erotic fiction. If you’re trying to provoke an emotional reaction in your readers, then your story should provoke the same reaction in you when you are writing it. Yes, this can paradoxically be both a distraction and a source of motivation when you’re writing a story in this genre, but it’s the most important thing to bear in mind if you’re writing this kind of story.

Eg: If you’re straight, stick to writing about straight couples. If you’re gay, stick to writing about gay couples. If you’re a lesbian, stick to writing about lesbian couples. If you’re bi, then this isn’t really an issue. If you’re polyamorous, then write about polyamorous relationships etc……

In short, make sure that your story describes a fantasy you would enjoy even if you weren’t writing about it.

2) Write “springboard” stories: Whilst most stories are designed to produce daydreams and fantasies in their readers’ imaginations, they are usually aimed at telling a linear story with a very clear direction. Yes, the readers may have slightly different ideas about what the characters and the settings look like, but, on the whole, most people’s imagined experiences of a story will generally be fairly similar.

This isn’t really as much the case with erotic fiction, even though many works of erotic fiction have a linear storyline. Because of the type of reaction these stories are intended to provoke – your readers will pretty much automatically see your story in the way that provokes the strongest reaction in them.

In other words, they might mentally alter details of a particular scene into something more satisfying or they might imagine a particular scene from the perspective of a different character than the protagonist and/or narrator.

Rather than being a guided fantasy, erotic fiction is more of a “springboard” for your readers’ personal fantasies.

This is important to bear in mind for several reasons. Firstly, all of your characters should have a reasonable amount of characterisation (even if it’s fairly concise), since your reader could focus on (or feel attracted to) any one of them.

Secondly, make sure that your stories always contain a sense of possibility – in other words, although you might only show certain events in your story, you should at least hint that they’re only a few possible things which your characters could have done. I won’t give any examples here, but I’m sure you get the idea. If you provide enough hints at what else could also have happened, then this is plenty of extra material for your readers’ imaginations.

Thirdly, make sure that you have at least one or two characters which your readers can identify with easily (eg: “everywoman” or “everyman” characters) so that they feel like more of a part of the story.

3)Find a way to keep your inner censor at bay: Given the fact that this genre has been seen as “seedy” or “obscene” in the past and, given the kind of prudish societal attitudes about sex and sexuality which many of your are probably immersed in on a regular basis, then one of the most difficult parts of writing erotic fiction can actually be deciding to write it.

The other problem with writing erotic fiction can be an instinctive sense that you have to “water down” what’s really going through your mind when you put it on the page. If this makes you feel more comfortable with writing in this genre and your “watered down” story is still fairly good, then this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

However, be aware that when people choose to read erotic fiction, they’re looking for something which will provoke a strong reaction in them, in the same way that someone who chooses to read a comedy story is usually looking for something which will make them literally laugh out loud rather than something which might make them chuckle slightly.

Basically, if you’re interested in this genre, then do whatever it takes (within reason) to get past your inner censor as much as you can until you feel more confident about writing in this genre. Write your stories on paper and then shred them after you’ve finished, write under a pseudonym, write your stories in code, write your stories in 8 point type so they can’t be easily readable at a glance etc… whatever it takes to get past your inner censor and, most importantly, to feel comfortable with writing in this genre.

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Anyway, I hope that this article was useful 🙂