The story is now 8800 words - I swear, I'll spend the next seven days agonizing over what words to cut. It's not about "killing my darlings". With me, it's about repetition. I tend to say something, then repeat it in a smarty-pants "poetic" image. It's quite annoying, to say the least. However, my erotica tends to be more lush in general than my regular genre fiction, so I usually go for the poetry, even if it's a bit over-the-top. Erotica is the one genre where I feel justified in indulging my love of purple prose. I do try to keep it at a minimum, but I can't help myself. When you're writing about sex and all its attendant emotions, sometimes a little excess is the way to go.
Below is a small snippet from "The Unattainable" - this is a paragraph that I think I'll end up cutting. I'm on the fence. At any rate, it's completely work-safe. I'm posting here, because this has become, once again, The Blog That Nobody Reads (my popularity lasted only a day, lol). If I post it on Livejournal, I'll get tons of critiques and quibbling about how crappy it is. Really, I don't need or want that. Ok, yes, it's overblown and poetic. It's the end of a sex scene in an erotic story. Just enjoy the language for what it is, and nevermind that it's not Hemmingway. ;D
***
He wraps himself around me, sinks into me again, and I'm the one who drowns. Liquid-limbed, I sink into delicious half-sleep, floating through half-formed dreams. The land lies all around me, with me, and I am the Cascades, ice-capped peaks covered by his star-shot skies. And somewhere in between, three words thread their way through the night, a radio whisper of the heart drifting from one slumbering body to the other. Let me submit. I reach the black lands of sleep, a frisson of fear pushing its way in with me, as I realize I don't know where the words came from--from me or him, from the mountains or the sky.
Below is a small snippet from "The Unattainable" - this is a paragraph that I think I'll end up cutting. I'm on the fence. At any rate, it's completely work-safe. I'm posting here, because this has become, once again, The Blog That Nobody Reads (my popularity lasted only a day, lol). If I post it on Livejournal, I'll get tons of critiques and quibbling about how crappy it is. Really, I don't need or want that. Ok, yes, it's overblown and poetic. It's the end of a sex scene in an erotic story. Just enjoy the language for what it is, and nevermind that it's not Hemmingway. ;D
He wraps himself around me, sinks into me again, and I'm the one who drowns. Liquid-limbed, I sink into delicious half-sleep, floating through half-formed dreams. The land lies all around me, with me, and I am the Cascades, ice-capped peaks covered by his star-shot skies. And somewhere in between, three words thread their way through the night, a radio whisper of the heart drifting from one slumbering body to the other. Let me submit. I reach the black lands of sleep, a frisson of fear pushing its way in with me, as I realize I don't know where the words came from--from me or him, from the mountains or the sky.
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