|
|
The Sex Blog Of Record
Sunday, November 20th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
I’ll cap off this series of posts on making your own with a little practical, if perhaps boringly technical, advice about tools you can use to make your experience as creator go well.
On things everyone ought to get a little familiar with is WordPress, exceptional blogging software, some version of which powers both ErosBlog and EroticMadScience. Most hosting companies make WordPress installation available directly from your control panel, so if you set up your own domain it will be sitting there waiting for you as soon as you’re up and running. In thirty years of working with computers I’ve had few technology experiences as agreeable as being a WordPress user: it installs in seconds and if you want, you can be up and publishing to the world in minutes. You can customize it and make a really good-looking site in hours, so if you follow Bacchus’s First Rule of the Internet and start making your own on your own site, I’d say this is definitely the way to go.
An option now available in WordPress that makes it an especially good tool for creators is that not only can you use it to publish to the universe, you can also create private, password-protected multi-site blogs by using a few simple plugins. These make splendid collaboration tools: you can, if you want, create a blog that is just for you and a single artist, which might sound silly but actually allows you to see a commission develop over a series of posts from initial script and visual references through pencil sketches and other drafts (which can be accepted or critiqued in comments) to delivery of finished product: the whole thing laid out right in historical order on a page, which is both useful as a means for both you and your collaborators to learn and creates something that can be quite gratifying to look back upon as well.
For writing tools that go beyond the capabilities included in WordPress or ordinary word processors you might want to look into a product called Celtx, which I’ve been using for a few years now. Celtx is media production software which you can use to create beautifully and correctly formatted and organized screenplays, stage plays, storyboards, and comic book scripts. You can download the basic version and use it by yourself — this version is available for free. It can also be used as a collaboration tool if you subscribe to something called Celtx Studio. The studio is subscription-only, but it does allow you (and people you’re working with) to work on common projects anywhere there’s an Internet connection.
Just think what she could have accomplished if she had had Celtx!
If you want to make your own e-books, look into a tool called Calibre. This is powerful and free e-book software which not only allows you to keep track of your e-books on your own computer, but it has a conversion utility which enables you to take, say, the beautiful archive of comic books pages you’ve created and turn them into a compact file useful for other people, like a .mobi file for people to read on their Amazon Kindles (or other e-book readers — it handles many), or a single neat PDF for them to read on their desktops.
For managing images, whether re-sizing, cropping, watermarking, etc., I strongly recommend an image tool called GIMP. This usually comes pre-installed in most Linux distributions I’ve seen, and there’s also at the very least a version available for Windows as well. It is very much the publisher’s friend, and like so many good things in life, it is also available for free.
Finally, while we’re talking about free, those of you who have ever been over to EroticMadScience might have noticed that it is liberally bespangled with little icons that look like this:
These are Creative Commons Licenses. You might or might not be interested in them, but if you see your work as being a form of hedonic philanthropy especially, please consider using them. They in effect give you a way of allowing other people to share and enjoy your work, with requirements for attribution and permission for commercial use or the creation of derivative works (or not) at your option. If you want your work to spread far and wide, and want people to feel comfortable that they are in the right in doing so, the Creative Commons license gives you an excellent tool for doing that.
So now you have tools: go forth and make something!
Similar Sex Blogging:
Sunday, November 13th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
So you’ve found someone you’d like to work with out there on the wide wild web. What now?
The first question worth asking yourself is, how do I present myself? A good place to begin would be to have a public presence where you can show a potential partner that you’re for real and what you’re into. There are many ways that you might do this, but I happen to think that setting up a site of one’s own and doing a little writing is an excellent start.
Write down what turns you on. Try to make that into a vision and publish. Don’t be shy. You can use a pseudonym if you want (I do!). About two years ago, after having diverted myself with writing a sequence of weird and porny screenplays that I’m pretty sure will never be acted out in front of a camera, I sat down and wrote an illustrated essay about what I really liked. This essay became A Thamatophile Manifesto, and together with that strange screenplay material, became the foundation for the site Erotic Mad Science. Then I started blogging about what I was into, writing posts as simple as “Look! A concept or image makes me squee (even if it makes others squick)!” or “Wow — here’s a provocative historical forerunner of one of my own kinks!” The useful outcome of all this activity (which, okay, maybe I took a little far) was that when I started looking for creative partners to commission I had a rich bed of source material to point to and say: here is what I am into — do you think you’re sufficiently interested in it to want to join me in working on it?
And I do think it is important for your creative partners to, in at least some degree, share your enthusiasms. If they do, they’ll be much better able to understand what it is that you’re asking them for when you place commissions. The art they work with you on creating will be sexier, because they’ll engage and have some of themselves in it. And they’ll be able to come up with ideas that contribute positively to the projects you work on.
A note about setting up sites and publishing. There are tons of places on the Internet that will allow you to do this for free, but as a general matter I endorse Bacchus’s First Rule of the Internet: “Anything worth doing on the Internet is worth doing at your own domain that you control.” Anyone who’s done anything with erotica for any length of time knows horror stories: material deleted, accounts canceled, creators banned. You and your material are much safer if you set up your own domain. Sure, there are some up-front costs, but it’s easy to find someone out there who will register your domain and host your site and leave you alone as long as you pay the rent, which will work out to pennies a day if you get anything remotely like a good deal. With tools like WordPress available (for free!) it is easy to be up and running with a good-looking, customized site in a few hours. And of course, you will look a lot more for real if your domain name reflects your Internet identity.
Approach with respect. If you’ve found someone whose work you like and who want to commission, get in touch. Explain what you like about their work and inquire whether they might be interested in accepting a commission. There’s nothing rude at all about this. Remember: creators who publish on the Internet are out there because they want to be found, and in general, they want to hear from you. One good thing to try, especially if you have a site of your own, is to ask permission to publish an image or story-excerpt or whatever of theirs on your site (with attribution, of course). This is an effective way to communicate your admiration of their work, and as long as the request is reasonable, they will generally say yes.
When it comes matters of money and commission cost, be courteous but matter-of-fact and businesslike. Other creators have opportunity costs for their time and just like you they have to eat and pay the rent, and generally they’ll be able to tell you what they need to charge to do a given piece of work.
Don’t be afraid to ask in detail for what you are looking for. Here is an example of where it pays to have done preparatory work for what you’re into, because it will help another creator figure out what you might like, but at the same time, don’t be afraid to write a detailed script. (Your preparatory work writing on your own site will help a lot here to, because you’ll get in the habit of describing what you like in detail.) When working with a visual artist, use of visual references is also an excellent idea. For example, when working with Lon Ryden on the character design for Bridget O’Brian (one of the four adventuresses in the current Tales of Gnosis College story Study Abroad), I suggested basing her on Clara Bow. (A 1920s screen goddess not too much remembered today, except perhaps for some astonishing rumors which turn out not to be true.)
Lon’s artistry then resurrects the 1920s sex bomb as an early 21st century college student (how’s that for practicing mad science?):
Ask for what you want, and more often than not, you’ll come away happy.
Finally, and I think centrally important, remember that your creative partners are partners, not servants, and that this is true even when you’re paying them. If you’ve selected them well, they are people who are sympathetic to what you’re into. They’ve read what you’ve written and looked at visual images that turn you on and they have taken on your projects. Remember that they are creators in their own right. If you trust them, they can and will contribute to what you’re doing. They will have ideas about how to do things. You don’t necessarily have to accept them, but remember that they are often very good at what they do and often might think of ways to do it better. Take them seriously. Among the more gratifying experiences you can get as a co-creator is working with someone who has become sufficiently into what you’re doing that you no longer always have to write a detailed script or commission: you can just outline it and have gratifying results come back. You can get to that point, but you need to establish respect and trust, which you easily do if you use decency and common sense and keep the maxim of this paragraph in mind.
You can do it. I know you can.
Similar Sex Blogging:
Sunday, October 16th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
It doesn’t matter how strange you are. The human race is very large, and there are people out there who are like you and who will like you.
The real question is not whether they are out there, but how to find them. I’ve long asserted that publication of erotica is not just about expression, but association, a means of forming part of civil society and overcoming personal loneliness. I have yet to tire of enlarging on this point.
Publishing erotic art of whatever kind is actually a pretty good way to find them, especially if you’re weird. It’s unfortunate, but for the most part we live in a society not terribly friendly to kink, and so frank expressions of unusual turn-ons are likely to get you into trouble. But if you can put yourself on the line and manage to get the fantasies out of your head, you are doing two things simultaneously. You are making a friendly gesture and providing a bit of happiness to people who are like you, and you are also identifying yourself as someone they would like to talk to. You are reaching out to people and showing them that they are not alone, and that you are committed to a common interest by having put in time, effort, and resources, to something that will make them happy. Many great friendships have started over less.
(It is also possible that if you identify yourself as interested in something that you’ll find people who want to play with you. In candor I cannot speak to this possibility all that directly myself if only because the thing I’m into can’t — or shouldn’t — be realized in real life. Your situation might be different, because there is a galaxy of things that you can be into — and it can be anything from an interest in exotic edible oils to speaking Russian in bed to re-enacting scenes from Stephen Douglas’s Slaveworld stories — that you can realize with the right partners. And if that’s the case, awesome! I hope you get together with like-minded people and have a blast. Although if you do want to go the Slaveworld route, please make sure to keep it safe, sane, and consensual.)
Also worth nothing is that there are lots of people out there who not only have common interests with you, but who will be interested in being creative partners, and that too is a rewarding form of friendship. If you’re a writer you will want to find artists and vice versa, and working together with the right sort of people you can experience a form of mutual enrichment.
When you publish, you show the world your individuality. Not the phony simulacrum of “individuality” you get through social networking sites, where you check the boxes as to what cheesy pop-cultural phenomena you “like.” You are rather putting something unique into the world, something that’s not just a formula for the convenience of corporate marketers. Remember that your friends aren’t internet persons who “friend” you. They’re people who really care about who you are.
So assert that you are human. Create!
Similar Sex Blogging:
Sunday, October 9th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
Beginning about a year ago over at EroticMadScience.com I published a series of posts about creating erotic art called “on making your own“, in which I urged people to do just that. I now have a year’s more experience, having written and published an entire graphic novel (as well as a fair amount of additional bespoke art) and I have decided to revisit the subject for a more general audience here at ErosBlog. The first few posts will be about the good that making your own does for you and for others. And then I hope to follow up with a series of posts with more practical advice for those of you who want to make your own.
So why should you try to make your own erotic art? Fun, friends, and philanthropy.
This post is about fun, just by yourself.
We all have busy lives, I am sure. But try this exercise. Block off some time for yourself. Sit down with whatever means of writing you feel most comfortable with whether it’s pencil and paper or your computer or even your manual typewriter if that’s what helps set the mood for you.
Now think of something that really turned you on. Go on, there’s something there. If you’re like most people there are dozens or hundreds of things there, but just think about that one thing for now. Now try to write it down. Don’t worry about whether what you’re writing down is “good.” Don’t worry about whether it’s absurd. Or “immoral.” And don’t worry about what anyone will think. Not your partner, not your parents, not your children, not your friends. No one. For right now, this only about you. Don’t worry about whether what you’re writing will “last” — that’s not the point. Have a paper shredder or secure delete program right at hand if it will help you relax. Just let whatever it is unspool in your head like film running through a projector and try to describe in your own words what you are seeing and hearing, or feeling, tasting, or smelling if your mind runs that way.
There, you did it. And how do you feel?
I’ll tell you how I felt the first time I tried, which was rock-hard (I’m a dude, so that’s not an uncommon response) and aroused beyond all measure, as much or more so as I ever was during any act of either solo or partnered sex I ever had. (If you’re curious as to what strange fantasy pushed me to these heights, it was a variant on the scenario eventually illustrated here.) Your reaction might not be quite so extreme as mine, but I’m willing to be that there’s something there, and that you may well be on the brink of some rather serious enjoyment right now.
If you wish to retire to your chambers for a little while now, please be my guest. Pleasure is not so common in life that we can afford to just throw any of it away.
The point here is that the more you were able to let go and write, the more fun you doubtless had. And the more you practice doing it, the easier it will become. The act of writing will be an adventure of transformation and discovery as you find new ways of finding pleasure in your own imagination. As Susie Bright, who has more experience with this sort of thing than I’m ever likely to have, put it in How to Write a Dirty Story:
Writing sex scenes will make you excruciatingly aware of your own body. As you compose your work, you will search your memories to find the most sensitive and lasting observations. You’ll remember what you’ve seen and felt in the most acute way. The strength of your imagination is what makes the fiction come to life; and if you’re writing at your best, you’re going to internalize those stories — when you’re writing them, they feel real.
Now who wouldn’t want a piece of that? A few years ago I wrote here at ErosBlog about Robert Nozick’s famous “experience machine” thought experiment, expressing a bit of skepticism about Nozick’s firm conclusion that we would not want to plug into the amazing science-fictional machine that could give us any experience we wanted. Well, there’s some good news for those of you who might want to plug in to the experience machine for a least a little while. You don’t have to wait for superscientists to make one. You already have one within you. It’s just a matter of working your imagination sufficiently to access it.
And that, I hope everyone will agree, is a lot of fun.
But there’s far more fun to be had with friends than alone, and that will be the subject of my next post.
Similar Sex Blogging:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
|
