Several years ago I was casting about for an idea for some new stories. I came upon the premise of people who go out on a limb and take a risk by making a bet. Sometimes their motivations for doing so are sound and reasonable and sometimes those reasons are unsound and unreasonable. Sometimes those motivations are impulsive and sometimes they are carefully considered or have a particular purpose behind them.
I thought the idea was an interesting premise to pursue as it allowed for people to be placed in jeopardy for various purposes: to gain something, to exact revenge, for entertainment, to accept a personal challenge, for personal growth in some way, and so on. And sometimes those plans work out well and they come out on top, and in some cases the plans blow up in their faces. Regardless, the act of taking the chance, making the bet, and seeing it through, win or lose, will profoundly affect that person's life and relationships.
The most important decision I made early in the writing process was to root the stories in the real world. I wanted to write characters who are genuine, complex, and who grow and develop. I wanted the making of and the result of these bets to be part of the real world, to have all the real consequences that might flow from such an experience: personal discovery, affects to self-image and self-esteem, impacts on relationships. I hope I've been successful in that regard, and I believe I have been if the reactions to and the reflections on these stories I've received from readers is an indication. Readers consistently point to the realism of these tales as being a valued feature.
All of that has meant that I've had to leave behind most of the conventions of 'erotica' or adult prose fiction. As I have, I'm sure you've read stories with a similar premise in which the character involved ends up discovering that they just love the experience of losing a bet and spend their time in complete bliss. But that's not the real world or real humans. Making wagers is often bitterly adversarial and losing such a bet can become an unwanted, even painful or humiliating, ordeal. Many of the bets in these stories (but not all by any means) end up that way, and I intentionally work for that realism.
In 'erotica' or adult prose fiction the protagonists and antagonists are often undeveloped cardboard cutouts. But I wanted to write real characters in real experiences.
Another aspect of 'erotica' is that the prose is almost always heavily or exclusively themed to a particular sexual orientation, practice, or fetish (gay male, lesbian, BDSM, spanking, cross-dressing, exhibitionism, and the like), but I specifically did not want to confine these stories in that way. They are prose fiction stories that just happen to have a great deal of sexual content (that I approach honestly and non-euphemistically). So the sexual events in these stories range from the tenderly romantic to the edges of kink. If you're looking for a specific sexual 'thing' I can't promise you'll necessarily find it in these stories. All I can promise is that you'll read stories with a fresh take on adult fiction, interesting and developing characters, and engaging plots.
The stories of Taking Chances are , and I hope you will find them interesting and rewarding reads.
Interests In addition to writing I have also done a good deal of editing. If you are a writer and are looking for someone to edit your story, or act as a beta reader, then please get in touch. I can't always do it depending on my schedule and commitments, but often times I can, so it doesn't hurt to ask.
Favorite Books Till We Have Faces This Perfect Day The Lord of the Rings
Favorite Authors Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Ira Levin
Favorite Movies Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Wag the Dog Interstate 60 Atonement In Bruges The Beach Vanishing Point (1971) Cabin in the Woods State and Main The Spanish Prisoner Cloud Atlas Easy A Jacob's Ladder Short Cuts The Player Boogie Nights Blow Up Blow Out
Favorite Music Sibelius, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Beatles, Tom Waits, Frank Zappa
The following Spring, six and a half months later, in late April, early morning light shyly lit Peter's apartment as a key quietly slipped into the door lock. If the locks had been changed Heidi would know Peter was no longer there, but the key and the kn...
