just the other day we spoke about keeping our work organized and neat...which i totally cant...for example i cant keep a list of the submissions i send out like craig does it..i mean..i really tried it ...but after a while i forget to write my submission titles, the publisher and the date down...or i loose the paper i wrote it down on..loose in this case means throw it away or used the other side for a shopping list and..well..you get the point.......so sometimes i totally forget that i have send out a story..or that i even wrote a particular story...just..gone with the wind...or i also forget that the story which i have forgotten about has been accepted by a publisher...
..so you totally can picture my puzzled face today when fedex delivered me a package from konkursbuch verlag (which is one of the leading and most arty and extremly cool erotica publishers in germany) ...i opened the package..and there were two copies of the yearbook of erotica 09/10..pretty pretty books...and i was like " awww..they got something wrong in the office because i didnt send them a story for this issue" (during the last 3 years i worked several times with konkursbuch) ...then i was sad because i knew i had to send the books back..then i thought "maybe there is a older story of mine inside..a reprint!!"..then i checked the writers bio..a b c ..d...hm..no danielle de santiago..okay..then i knew they got something wrong in the office...sad again..then i jumped up..checked the writers bios again... o p q r....s..there i was..under s like santiago...(usually the have me under d)...and inside they had my essay " beautiful shame"...horray..my book..:-)
but..back to my question today..does your mama know? your daddy? your lover? your friends? your neighbors? your children?...that you write erotica / smut / porn?
my essay "beautiful shame" is all about myself and my struggle to keep my family life and my smut writers life together...a lot people in germany read my work..but no one of my close friends or of my family...even though most of them know what i write about ...most of them dont want to read my work because they dont wanna cross a certain line between them and my naughty mind..but some of them..like for example my grandmother ..arent "allowed" to read my work.....as a example a dialogue between my granny and me:
grandmother: so..when do i finally get to read one of your books??
danielle: well..you...you..cant!
grandmother: i cant read?
danielle: no of course you can read but..
grandmother: so i can read your stuff?
danielle: no! i mean..you can read but you shouldnt read my stuff!
grandmother: i know you write dirty stuff..your sister jade told me
danielle: how nice. well..yes..they are to dirty for you to read
grandmother: do you think i live behind the moon????
crickets*
grandmother: dont think i m silly...i studied!!! i was one of the first women who were allowed to study..dont think i m stupid. i totally know what kind of dirty your stories are!
danielle: (surprised)..you..know?
grandmother: yes
danielle: ?????
grandmother: its those kind of dirty stories where the characters/narrators arent married to each other..right???
danielle: yes granny..thats what makes it so dirty..my narrators arent married...sigh*
so...tell me about how you keep smut writing and family under the same hat...
14 comments:
Another great discussion topic, Danielle. I'm sort of simple-minded about it, but then again my parents and grandparents aren't alive. I'm open with my sisters and my friends and don't shove it in others' faces unless they express interest. My kids know I write books for adults and they are amused by it but as far as I know they haven't wanted to read it. But I keep two copies of every pub for them to inherit, so maybe some day ;-)?
@ donna
thank your for starting the coments on this subject...if you hadnt comented i would have emailed you:-) because i know you have two sons and wanted to know how you deal with the subject torwards them..
so they never wanted to read your books so far..but do they ask things..like details about your work?
Ah, a subject I've pondered at great length. My husband knows (duh!) and my two adult daughters know. My teenage son hasn't been told, but he's smart and can read and probably has seen the shelf of books (not that I'm in any) that are obviously "dirty stories." My parents are no longer alive, but they wouldn't know if they were. My sister and brother don't know. My sister-in-law (husband's sister) knows. A fair number of friends know. Some have read some stuff and some not. I do have some good friends that don't know. Because I write other stuff, there is a lot of blurriness. There is one friend that I'm knowing I need to tell, but I'm dreading that conversation (she's quite religious).
It's funny, almost nobody that I've told has asked to read anything of mine. Some that know me well aren't surprised, but others I'm sure can't quite mesh their view of who I am with this new information. It's all very interesting.
My wife and kids all know, as do my closest friends. My wife is the "first reader" of everything I write and is totally supportive of it.
My good friends have read some of my work and, while none of them are erotica fans, have been very positive.
My mother knows I write, but has shown little interest in my writing of any sort, so I don't share anything about my writing. If my dad were alive, he'd know.
Beyond that, if someone is interested, I'll gladly share, but I'm with Donna in that I'm not "in your face" about it. I know how hung up the world can be, and don't take it upon myself to try to change that!
@ robin
thank you for stoping and comenting so thoughtful again:-)
yes i remeber when you wrote about your thoughts on outing yozurself as a smut writer or not..
what do your daughters think about the fact that you write erotica?
@ craig
thank you for nhopping over again:-)
so its similar with you like it is with me..like most close people dont show real interest in our work..well i also write other stuff aside erotica and my friends read my reviews and essays on society and stuff..but the erotica is like a untouchable field..
but i think i discovered the reason why..when i read the work of an author i know personal or through blogland..i always see them inside my head as the maincharacter in the story...for example donna in her wonderful and exiting amorous woman...so maybe or family and friends dont wanna read our stuff because they feel the same when they do...
Danielle said,
"i always see them inside my head as the maincharacter in the story"
Ha — my younger sister said this about me when she read the first erotica story I had accepted for publication. I found it amusing. :)
All my immediate family and in-laws know as well as most of my friends. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head from whom I've deliberately kept the information unless it's been a parent of a friend of mine or something, in which case I have tended to leave it up to the friend whether or not s/he would like her/his parents to know that about me. I have been similarly open letting people know know about my doing sex work. Generally I've told just about anyone who is asking questions the same way one would about most other jobs and/or forms of writing.
All of that is not to say, of course, that I don't understand why some people choose not to offer the information so openly. That is just how it has worked for me thus far. :)
I think that's a great point. My sister wrote a novel that wasrelatively erotic, and also contained a lot of autobiographical detail and input,though it was fiction. Andfor me, her voicewas so strong in it that I just couldn't see the story as seperate. I think someone who wasn't in her family would have had a v different reading experience, so in a way, my opinion isn't fair to the book, iykwim.
My feeling is, I'd only share my stiff with people who are into erotica, or who show interest. Sadly my husband doesn't really come into that category :(
I love your grandmother story, Danielle!
Everybody who knows me knows. Except maybe the postman ... we just talk about his kittens.
@ em
i love the way you keep people knowing about you and your life as a sexworker...i m a totally sex-worker positive person but still there are a lot of people who think in bad ways about sexwork..mainly because they arent informed properly about sexwork and people who work in the sex fields..so you actually do a awsome and good thing when you keep people informed:-)))
@ jo
a man who isnt into erotica?? i mean..anyone who isnt into erotica?..thats sad indeed..sigh*
but still..things can change:-)
@ janine
thank you:-) i often have this weired conversations with my grandmother..especially because her massage therapist (we, the family call him the beautiful stephan) keeps on printing her stuff about me from the internet..so when i arrive at my grannys house and there is a pile of internet prints next to the cake i know it will be a tough day..cake or not..:-)
hm..i rarelly speak with my mailman..i mainly sign blindly his papers and snatch whatever has the name santiago on it and disapear in the darkness of my house again..:-)
I love that image, Danielle. Of you scuttling back into the dark agian. But I don't buy it. You answer the door topless in pyjama pants, stretch luxuriantly in his direction and wink at him. You know you do.
@ jo
how do you know i wear pyjama-pants and nothing else?????:-)
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