Authors blogging all the time!
Meet Bold Strokes Books author Jeffrey Ricker. He seems to have a story in every genre that exists. Go Jeffrey!
And for those of you who are dying to know what bildungsroman means, here you go: a novel whose principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character.
This year has been quite heady for me, but it all really started in September 2010 when my first anthology of erotica, Tented: Gay Erotic Tales from under the Big Top, was published by Lethe Press. It got some great reviews, but gay circus erotica is—to say the least—a niche market, and I was ecstatic to simply get my firstborn out into the world.
And then it became a Lambda Literary Award finalist.
I had put it into nomination with faint hope and $35.00, and I don’t think anyone was more surprised than I was when I checked the website the morning the finalists were announced to find that Tented was among them. Coincidentally, I had been contacted by the judging coordinator of the Lammys to judge another category, so the Lammys loomed large for me. I made reservations and plans to go to NYC.
I lost. Or as my friends say, I didn’t win.
And I was okay with that. As the losers (or not winners) on all awards telecasts say when the cameras are on, “It’s just an honor to be nominated.” And it was—especially for my first book out. My powers of rationalization then took over, and I considered how difficult it would have been for my next project to measure up had I actually tripped my way to the stage and took home an award. Losing (or not winning) never looked better. But Tented had achieved some measure of success, and I had to make sure the next book was up to snuff.
As my introduction to 
Riding the Rails suggests, a personal experience with sex on trains led me to want to do a whole anthology with that theme. There’s such a wonderful connection to the past with trains, not to mention so many opportunities for sex, that I knew authors would be intrigued by the concept. And if my authors are intrigued, so are my readers.
With all my anthologies, I strive for themes not normally explored in erotica. Whenever I encounter a list of Calls for Submissions, I’m chagrined by the lack of variety in those calls—it’s all daddies and college boys and twinks. I like something new and different—like circus sex (and yes, there were clowns in that book). And train sex. And restaurant sex (that’s the book after Riding the Rails, called 
The Dirty Diner, due out July 2012 from the wonderful people at Bold Strokes Books).
And, apparently, authors enjoy writing for those calls. I received some amazing stories for Riding the Rails—historical stories, time travel stories, interplanetary stories, psychological stories, even a story about a sex angel. Of course, it helps if you have a core group of authors to work with. I usually put a closed call for submissions out simply because I like knowing the people I work with. It seriously cuts down on the drama. But again, you have to keep things fresh, so I’m always adding and subtracting names from that list.
And Riding the Rails has some of the best and brightest names working in erotica today, featuring established favorites (Jeff Mann, Dale Chase, William Holden, Gavin Atlas, ‘Nathan Burgoine, Rob Rosen, Hank Edwards, Rick R. Reed, Erastes), up and comers (Joseph Baneth Allen, Jeffrey Ricker, Daniel M. Jaffe, Jay Neal, Dusty Taylor) and first publications (J.D. Barton) with an incredible array of stories—some hilarious, some bittersweet, some romantic, some creepy and some flat-out weird. But all of them have the hottest sex you’ll ever see on trains.
My cure for the sophomore slump? Come up with a creative concept, surround yourself with as much talent as possible, edit with scissors instead of pruning shears, find a supportive publisher and …
… maybe this year I’ll get to use that acceptance speech.
What’s the biggest and most defining moment of your life?
A friend asked me this question recently, and my initial response was, Only one? I’m not sure I could point to one particular moment. The question reminded me of a conversation I had with my mother a number of years ago. I can’t remember how we got on the topic—perhaps we were talking about my grandmother, who was an irascible, often unhappy woman for most of the time I knew her. However it started, we got on the subject of my high school and college years, and I asked her a) if she thought people really changed, and b) if she’d thought I’d changed, because I felt like I had. She said, rather, that she didn’t think I’d changed in a fundamental way. I was still the same person I was when I was a kid. Rather, she said, we tend to grow into ourselves as we progress through our life.
I tend to think that’s true. A life is an accumulation of decision points, choices and signposts along the way, and altering any one of them might possibly change the outcome of our life profoundly. So I could point to any number of moments along the way: choosing to go to New Hampshire for college, then choosing a year later to transfer to Missouri. Spending a summer in D.C. instead of going with my parents to London. Turning down a job offer for a copy editor post at an English language daily in Prague (I’m still kicking myself over that). Saying yes to another date with Mike. Buying a house. Selling a house. Forging the friendships that led to my first publication and, eventually, my first novel.
There’s usually a defining moment for a character in a novel, but if you imagined their lives beyond the pages of the book, certainly you could conjure up any number of turning points for them. (And really, it’s good if you get more than one such moment in a book.)
But if we spend our lives becoming more fully who we are, as opposed to truly changing, does that mean our sense of choice is an illusion? When we get to those defining moments, it would mean that really, there’s only one outcome we would choose, one decision we would make.
Is it one or the other? What defines your life?
In just about every aspect of life these days, I’ve been pretty much the equivalent of a juvenile delinquent.
My eating habits have devolved to something slightly above those of a college student. A glass of wine becomes “well the bottle’s open we might as well finish it off.” A recent little accident led to a pulled muscle, which meant I didn’t get to the gym for almost three weeks. Now, if I’d been disciplined, I’d have reined in my eating habits to compensate. But, no.
On top of all that, my writing output has slowed to a trickle because I’m working on revising a story that’s become complicated and a bit murky, and I’m perpetually procrastinating on starting the second draft of book number two. A day’s worth of good intentions go out the browser window when I sit down to look something up online and—ooh, shiny!
Note that by loss of discipline I don’t mean lack of inspiration. Personally, I don’t believe in waiting until inspiration strikes in order to write, and I don’t know any serious writers who do either. To me, that’s like saying, “I don’t think I’ll go to the office and work until I really feel inspired.” That’s a surefire way to get fired.
In other words, if I had to punch a clock on my writing lately, I’d have been out on my ass some time ago.
On the suggestion of my friend Scott, I’ve decided to carve out a tiny island of discipline in this month, at least. I’ve signed up for 100 Words, which basically only has one rule: write 100 words a day, every day, for a month. It can be about anything. The entries don’t have to be individual stories; they don’t have to add up to be a complete story by the end of the month (though I suppose they could, which is an interesting idea, now that I think of it). It’s a little less (OK, a lot less) daunting than NaNoWriMo, and in my case, I hope it helps springboard me into further writing for the rest of the day.
I’m on day five now, and it hasn’t really done that, but at least I’ve got five vignettes that I didn’t have at the beginning of the month.
I’d love to hear how others tackle this situation, so tell me: what do you do when you’ve lost your discipline?
(Excerpt from “Lifeblood,” published in Blood Sacraments from Bold Strokes Books)
Let’s get one thing straight: I never bit Darren. I never drank from him. I never tried to turn him into one of us. I didn’t even think about it until the end. If I’d offered, though, he would have said no, of course. I could have begged, but I think I’ve forgotten how to do that. I would have done anything Darren wanted. I would have walked right out into broad daylight if he’d asked me to.
