I was supposed to study plant genetics at Uni so I decided to do Art instead. Did nothing with that degree, just travelled around for a few years, while gathering another one in English with the OU. Finally thought I should have a proper job and did teacher training but that was boring so took Astronomy at the same time. Tried teaching. Left before I ran wild in a staff room, deliberating sitting in other people's chairs, an act which could have sent many old teachers over the edge.
And now...I freelance in various areas of the written word, and in one particular specialism: proofreading erotica, mostly gay, often bdsm. I know *exactly* where to stick a hyphen. Does make those "what are you working on at the moment" conversations awkward.
I financed some of my PhD by writing smut on a paid-per-word basis (gawd bless the nascent web and California entrepreneurialism). Being on the writing, as opposed to editing, side, it wasn't really where the hyphens were inserted that concerned me, or I suspect the readers.
Oddly, I don't specifically mention this career episode on my CV. I think I probably have it all on several ironically floppy disks. Most of it was made up. Even twenty years later I'm still unsure whether much of it was anatomically feasible. Well, at my age, I know it's not.
I'm not brave enough to Google and find out if any of it is still in circulation.
I think you owe it to the forum to post it all on a thread in NSFW.
Alas, it was anonymous and it must remain so, since I am now a semi-responsible adult. There probably is a lot of it and I should be deeply ashamed. Actually, I know no shame. There are disks in the multiple and I was paid about 3 cents a word (top rate, I had a fan club who I most definitely didn't want to meet). I think there might have been a 125,000 word epic. What can I say, a man must drink, and while my stipend might have been modestly generous, it was the kind of generosity outpaced by a succession of bar tabs.
Writing smut is actually quite difficult. The readers think they want to get to the squelching immediately. They're wrong, you have to bracket it between plot elements, and have actual characters – it really needs to be a proper story. Of course, all the characters are massively endowed and have a post-coital refractory time measured in the milliseconds, but they're humping for an audience not entirely unfamiliar with misplacing their sense of disbelief. You also need to avoid the flowery. None of that "'O!,' she gasped, as his hot love gravy spilled over her pert yorkshire puddings." That only works in proper literature: wankers your audience may be, but they're not pretentious wankers.
There comes a point when you can't keep it up. The writing that is. Still, with erotica resurgent, this could be a retirement plan.
