Introduction
You never know when the call might come. I was in Venice, standing on a bridge opposite Tintoretto’s house, when a colleague phoned to ask me if I’d like to compile a guide on how to write erotica for Mills & Boon. And you thought proofreading was boring! Fifty Shades was all the rage and the publishers presumably reckoned that if there was a market for that sort of thing, they might as well try and fill it with the most stylish product they could find. It’s not all just panties and nipple clamps… apparently.
I had some experience in the sex industry. My early years as a proofreader had been mostly spent working in erotica – I suppose there were often holes to be filled due to the high turnover in those imprints – and here was my opportunity finally to put that knowledge to good use. I was immensely proud of the racy little tome I produced, a brisk and cheeky little number which, albeit with a light touch, managed, I think, to get across some important truths about the genre, together with a few handy tips on good writing generally. How to Write Erotica: a Guide currently ranks 251,684 on Kindle.
A few years before, I’d completed another little volume which, again, had come straight from my wheelhouse. Once more writing about what I knew, I concocted The Naff Student’s Handbook, an indispensable, albeit spoof, guide on how to survive at university. It was based closely on my own experiences. Try as I might, I could never quite get on top of the work at Oxford – too hard, too much of it – which didn’t stop me trying my best. I was not at all the typical drop-out student; I did not spend my nights partying, I never missed a lecture, and I never once took drugs. (It was only last year that I discovered ‘pot’ is not an abbreviation for ‘peyote’.) And I have only ever been drunk twice in my life: the first time was after finals when my best friend, unbeknownst to me, laced my lemonade and lime with vodka. (The second time was the afternoon I’d been invited to resign from my job before I got sacked, but that’s another story.) So to write the book I had to pretend to be someone else. No bad exercise for an author – or an amateur actor, come to that, both of which I was aspiring to be in the 1980s. The friend who got me drunk, by the way, still haunts my dreams as much as he does my fiction. I suppose he was my first love. But which of those two books I should dedicate to him is an open question. Both? Neither? He lived the one as much as he stalks the other like a wraith. Maybe I’ll just dedicate this introduction to him instead.
Oh, and there is a novel, the only one of the four I finished that I still talk about. Up For It is here too.
There may be more. I hope there will be. It’s just finding the time.
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