I’ve been in the scene for years, but I still can’t wield a flogger. Mostly, I just rush at kink with my brain in my vagina. I’m not one of those subs who can handle a bullwhip. I’ve never picked up a hitty thing unless it was to pack it a...
2025-04-03 10:32:51 +0000 UTC View PostThe trouble with the memoir genre is that writers frequently tell stories that have already been told. Perhaps you were abused or assaulted. Maybe you spent years recovering from addiction or depression. You might think these stories are worth tel...
2025-04-03 09:50:40 +0000 UTC View PostStorytelling requires distance and objectivity. Memoir writing offers neither. When you’re telling your own story, you’re at a disadvantage every time you recall what happened in your brain during the experiences you’re describing. You c...
2025-04-02 11:31:41 +0000 UTC View PostIn early 2019, someone was stabbed on my train back home. We were scared of missing the train when it set off again, so we stayed in our carriage while the security team tried to find the muggers. We had a schedule, dammit, and it involved arrivin...
2025-03-31 06:09:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe average fiction novice knows everything there is to know about their book—what Sara thinks about when she’s not murdering people, what Greg does when he gets home at night, who the victim was, and what their city was like before their prot...
2025-03-29 09:25:09 +0000 UTC View PostEvery now and then, I receive messages from suicidal readers. When I try to point them to a doctor or friend who’s made out of cells instead of pixels, the person who was desperate for help just a second ago dials it back to, “No. I’ll be fi...
2025-03-28 06:35:57 +0000 UTC View PostThe best lecture I ever attended was run by South African writers, Antjie Krog and Ingrid de Kok—both celebrated poets in their own rights. For this lecture, though, they were discussing translation. Both had translated the work of one of our gr...
2025-03-27 06:43:09 +0000 UTC View PostThis is probably the biggest Swiss Army Knife ever built. You’re only as ...
2025-03-25 11:50:59 +0000 UTC View PostIf you’ve known me a while, you might have noticed that I’m slightly enthusiastic about blowjobs (and cupcakes). I know that’s more vanilla than ice cream (and cupcakes). It’s not going to win me any kink cred, but hear me out.
<... 2025-03-25 06:44:56 +0000 UTC View PostI once dated one of my country’s shadow ministers. He might have been a touch too boring, but he taught me a lesson I apply to every single relationship: If a dude who’s helping run the fucking
mana...
2025-03-19 10:26:03 +0000 UTC View PostWriters and proofreaders are rarely the same people. There’s a reason for that. Just because we can edit other people’s work, doesn’t mean we can edit our own. Ask me. I proofread my own work all the time, and when it’s passed onto an edit...
2025-03-19 06:41:22 +0000 UTC View PostI promised we’d talk about worldbuilding this week, but another theme keeps popping up in the workshop: How to self-edit. This week, we’re going to look at how to process your own work, and part of that has to do with when. The moment...
2025-03-18 09:25:00 +0000 UTC View PostI’m a little shy if I’m tired, and pretty confident when I’m not. I’m submissive with some men, but not all. If you condescend to me, I'll bury you in angry pixels until you use your safe word.
Your safe word is, "I'm a mansplaining ...
2025-03-17 09:39:17 +0000 UTC View PostAn internet stranger once told me that I only write because I’m too ugly to earn popularity through my photographs. Four days later, another stranger accused me of being too attractive. Back when I did have photographs up, men told me I looked t...
2025-03-13 08:18:57 +0000 UTC View PostWhen I created my Fetlife account, my health was in tatters. I’d spent two lonely months figuratively chained to my living room. I was too sick to leave my home and too ashamed of my condition to accept visitors. My Fetlife account opened a door...
2025-03-09 05:07:48 +0000 UTC View PostWe’ve spoken about adjectivitis in the past, but adjectives have baby brothers that can become equally problematic: Adverbs. They express the “how” in a sentence:
SpanishRed ate the cupcake greedily. She was grinning madly ...
2025-03-05 06:04:15 +0000 UTC View Post
After my rape, I started a relationship with a psychologist. You’d think I struck it rich: at the darkest time of my life, I stumbled on the most qualified person to support me.
I was so, so wrong.
Without the boundaries that come wi...
2025-03-03 09:37:49 +0000 UTC View PostIt’s Woody Week, and naturally, our first post must be about imposter syndrome. I’ve known and worked with thousands of writers in my lifetime. Very few of them would call themselves writers, even if they do this as a profession. I rarely call...
2025-03-03 09:21:59 +0000 UTC View PostWriting requires us to be two people: The creative and inspired writer, and the perfectionistic editor. You must be Writer A when you set down your first draft, and you must be Writer B when you edit your work. The more you learn about literature,...
2025-02-28 07:59:52 +0000 UTC View PostUniversity is a terrible thing for a writer. Everyone who graduates has worse writing skills than they did when they signed up—or at least that’s what they think. There comes a time in every learner’s life when they know enough to know how m...
2025-02-27 09:07:20 +0000 UTC View Post> All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
That’s one of the most famous mixed metaphors in history, and you’ve probably never thought about it as such. It qualifies, though, because people don’t play on st...
2025-02-27 09:05:12 +0000 UTC View PostS was the kind of top who felt his way through power exchange one guess at a time. To him, my limits were just a guide. His instincts knew better, and so he crashed through my boundaries mid-scene as though they were just another object to dominat...
2025-02-27 06:28:49 +0000 UTC View PostI once had a relationship with a man who was so addicted to his technology that I would find myself repeatedly sitting at a figuratively empty table staring at a wall while he texted people who weren't there. So I left him.
I’ve never regr...
2025-02-22 04:59:25 +0000 UTC View PostI receive enough stylish, stylised, polished Fetlife messages to create my own riveting anthology. The problem is they remind me of my college economics papers. My brain might be delighted at your awe-inspiring prose (how could it not be?) but the...
2025-02-19 10:38:18 +0000 UTC View PostLogging into Fetlife is like following the white rabbit down the hole into Wonderland. Not a hell of a lot makes sense there. I’ve seen some absurd scenarios play out here year upon year. Groups of people get whipped up into chaos every week, bu...
2025-02-15 09:39:41 +0000 UTC View PostA couple of weeks ago, an internet stranger kindly informed me that I should take all the “ugly” stuff out of my album because it detracted from the pictures of my face. I told him I was primarily built out of personality traits, not skin and ...
2025-02-15 09:35:32 +0000 UTC View PostEvery morning I wake up before the sun. I make coffee. I review the previous day’s work, and then I do some creative writing. My brain is primed for setting words down before anyone else is awake. Susan Sontag used to keep her mornings sacred, t...
2025-02-15 09:32:57 +0000 UTC View PostThe world of a brat is covered in unicorn colours and bedazzles. On this planet, dildos fly and the rain is made of glitter. We don’t take obedience too seriously ‘round here because we’re citizens of Irreverence, so if BDSM is your religion...
2025-02-09 08:47:38 +0000 UTC View PostD went with sex the way Mentos go with coke. You could almost see his bliss rising out of his body like foam. A man like that doesn’t even need to touch you. His feelings creep out of his pores and into your skin, and no pair of hands will ever ...
2025-02-09 08:45:29 +0000 UTC View Post