Sweet Tooth: Another Morsel - Chapter Four

I just want to say a few things, which you can choose or choose not to read before you skip to the bottom to tear into that new chapter.

My work -- this work -- is really a secret part of my life, and as such, there's not many people I can talk to about what I'm working on or what I'm thinking about or whatever. So when I have a moment of revelation like I did earlier it's kind of a bummer when there's no one to share it with. Then I figured, well, you people pay me to write for you, so that must mean that you care about what I think of my world/characters/ etc. on some level.

I should slap a warning right here for people that are still reading, this might get messy and long winded, so, uh... 

CAUTION: WORD VOMIT AHEAD.

After I re-posted all of my stories to Lit, many people were quick to point out the little note I left on Sweet Tooth about it being a love/hate story for me. Now, I've gone on to explain a few times that it was because ST was my first full length erotica novel, it was packed with a lot of writing pitfalls -- in my personal opinion -- and it was just... I dunno, meh to me. I literally rolled my eyes every time someone would say that it was their favorite story. 

In my head I would be screaming, Why? WHY?! Here's Trifecta, it's an epic coming of age tale about a love triangle wrought with tragedy and the strength of friendship and true love. Or some shit like that. Or even better, take ...But Your Enemies Closer, an enemies to lover tale using an interesting method of dual perspectives AND dual timelines and somehow it manages to make it fucking work. No? Sweet Tooth? *sigh* Alright.

To put it simply, it had become shallow to me. But then something happened. I started editing the sequel to Sweet Tooth for you guys. While I had a ton of notes written for the story -- I am very anal retentive about keeping my duckies in a row -- it was largely unfinished. Especially in regards to the playlist I always build when I write a new story. As I've mentioned previously, music is a really big part of my life so it naturally is in influence on my creative process. 

But I need you guys to understand this instead of nodding and going, 'yeah, I get it' I immerse myself in a playlist dedicated to story when I write it. Practically every lyric in every song I choose to be a part of it resonates within the words of my story. I get emotional attachments to certain lyrics and how they pertain to certain scenes in my book and I will literally get weirdly choked up or goosebumpy when it comes on no matter the circumstance. Here's a great example: Emmylou from the last chapter of Enemies Closer. Just the whole, you are loved deal and how I think about Rebecca saying that to Emily -- fun fact, it is the song she sings to her during that chapter before le sexy times commence -- after she had told this girl that no one would ever love her. My God it just makes me weirdly fucking emotional. It becomes a part of the story, whether you know it or not, is what I'm basically trying to say.

I know you're probably thinking, What is the fucking point here? Well I'm getting there. And if you're going to be impatient, just shoo already. Anyways. What was I saying? Ah. Right.

I recently became a fan of Marina and the Diamonds  -- if any of you out there are fans, I don't know what took me so long either -- and my whole perspective on this entire project and Sweet Tooth itself shifted drastically after I became addicted to her song 'Oh, No!' which is delightfully catchy and quirky and if all pop music was like hers I would listen to it nonstop. Anyways. If you listen to the lyrics it's really a perfect fit to Bear's character pre-Jules. Let me hit you with a few.

"Don't want love, don't want friends, I'm only after success."

"I know exactly what I want and who I want to be, I know exactly why I walk and talk like a machine."

And my personal favorite: "Maybe it is all a test, 'cause I feel like I'm the worst so I always act like i'm the best."

Right?

So this song got me thinking of Bear a lot. Soon I was getting into her head again and it's been allowing me to write her again. Which is awesome for you guys. Getting into that head space did a lot for me though too. It gave me this appreciation for the depth of Bear's character. Which led me to reanalyzing and appreciating the depth of Jules' character and how their love story -- while utterly ridiculous and widely implausible -- is really quite charming. So I fell in love with them all over again, so to speak.

The reason I'm writing this now instead of when I started feeling the change is because something similar happened just a little bit ago today -- that's right, I'm not done talking. 

Marley and Alex have become a bit of a hard subject for me to write on as well. I love those two to death -- #malexforever -- that wasn't the problem at all, it was more that they had become like that cute old couple in my head --chronologically they actually are the oldest of all my characters -- but even worse than that, after having spent months inside of Lil's head (a point I would like to address in a moment) I couldn't even imagine writing about Malex again. It just changes a persons perspective when you write a story from your fictitious characters fictitious daughter's viewpoint and then think of that first fictitious character -- essentially your parent when you get really deep into that character's POV -- having sex. Yeah. I feel dirty now too.

HOWEVER, another song came to the rescue. This time it was the Eli Young Band's 'Crazy Girl', a jam that I used to love when it first came out. I haven't heard it in years and it came on randomly the other day which got me hooked again. A got off work a little bit ago, and I was daydreaming like I normally do when i'm exhausted and this song comes on and I start thinking about Malex for some reason. Like a younger Malex when they were still adorably idealistic and again, I just fell in love with them all over again. It was fantastic. It also got me thinking about the other side of the coin story that everyone seems to want me to do, Trifecta but from Alex's perspective, but I have a million other things on my plate so it would be down the way some.

So what is my point to this huge rant? Good question, dedicated reader that has made it this far. I've given many reasons about why I left Lit -- and all of them were true -- but I think the answer that has the most truth to it is this: there was so much pressure. 

Pressure from the relentless ones who wanted to push me into writing this or that and not caring at all about what I wanted to do. Pressure from the anonymous ones that would try to break down what I had done and then cover it up with shallow compliments. Pressure from my fellow writers that I always needed to be better and better and better and it was never, ever good enough for a second -- which is fucking laughable given some of the content on Lit. 

More than anything though, the lesbian genre is really competitive. Like, I always felt like i had to be doing something in order to stay on top because if I didn't, my work would get buried and it would never be seen. It makes you kind of anxious but for someone that's particularly competitive, it also makes you really mean. I mentioned this to a fellow writer -- not one of the douchebags -- recently when we were talking. There were times that I would look through the Hall of Fame and say or think some nasty things about the people that may have been creeping up on my spot or who had just usurped me. Which is horrible because I was on friendly terms with quite a few of the top authors in my category.

So, coming full circle on the monster of a post. I love this -- Patreon -- platform. Not because it allows me to get paid for my work, even though I do love that, but because it gives me the freedom to set my own standards for what I churn out and knowing that you guys are waiting for what I have makes me want to work even harder. I've felt more creative in this last month than I have in years and I'm gaining all sorts of new perspectives on my work and learning to appreciate them for what they are instead of nitpicking them for all of their flaws.

If you think this is long-winded, you should see what I text my friends, heh. Anyways, That's basically the end of all of that. If you enjoyed my crazy train of thought, awesome! If not, well, you didn't have to read it.

Until next time!