To Do In 2012
Learn to be Cruel
Kink is a complicated thing. My own sadism is a confusing desire, since in a lot of ways my instinct is to comfort and please a partner. I do enjoy hurting people. I enjoy it a lot. It just takes a lot for me to get comfortable doing it.
In public settings, like a dungeon or party, it is a lot easier for me because the rules of engagement are often pretty well rehearsed. There are things you can do and things you can’t do and a scene is less of a psychological and emotional thing and just basic rough trade. She wants to be tied up and hit, I want to tie her up and hit her.
I enjoy that sort of thing a lot. Casual play with new and interesting people. There is a high I get from learning the intimate things about how someone reacts to pain and pleasure without knowing much else about them. It’s easy for me to flick out a knife and grab their throats and be mean, but that is different from actual cruelty.
Cruelty, both emotional and physical, is something hard to summon. When I do go there it usually scares me.
I want to work on this. I want to figure out how to be comfortable with the cruel monster inside of me. It’s been peaking out more and more, especially since I started playing with knives, which put me in a very different mindset the minute I have one in my hand.
Exploring Punishment and Dominance
I have often stated that I don’t like the idea of play as punishment. In that I mean I don’t want to spank someone for doing something wrong, I want to spank them because I like to spank them. I want to hurt someone because I get a thrill out of controlling them (via my ability to give or not give them what they want; pain, pleasure, oxygen, my attention, comfort) and because the actual physical act is hot. Hands and asses and breasts and slapping and stinging and the feedback loops of sensation.
I have been rethinking this.
Actual D/S dynamics have always been a little murky for me. I think it’s about time I demystified them. A lot of people around me, including my partner, do a lot of more formal and D/S play. There are rules, there are expectations, it isn’t a exploration of the physical and the sensational, it is something a bit more thought out and something rife with ideas about power and responsibility.
So that is something I need to look into this year. I understand that the two things are actually very different and certainly can be mutually exclusive, but I’m listing them both in one because I have similar feelings about them.
Working on Non-Erotica Writing
Publishing these erotica ebooks has been a hugely cathartic act for a variety of reasons. More than anything else it has helped me let go of a lot of writing. There is something about selling something that makes me feel so much better about letting it go and not tinkering with it. The money and the whole process is also a wonderful motivator for making me finish all of these half finished or half started stories.
Another effect is that when I sit down to write after publishing on of these ebooks I have a huge flash of inspiration for my non-erotica work. Now, my other fiction, which is far more person and something I’m far more guarded about, is still usually somewhat erotica, but it is not porn. These are the stories I want to get published in literary journals and possibly anthologies as well as the three novels I’ve been working on for the last ten years.
This year feels like the year I will make some real progress on these projects. It feels goof to write that because honestly I haven’t felt that way before about these projects. Just writing all this smut has exercised my writing muscles and so when it’s time to work on my “serious art” I feel so much more prepared.
Excelling in my Career
I don’t write much about my day job for a variety of reasons. I’m a graphic designer and blah blah blah. I actually enjoy my job a lot, even if I have mentioned the ineptitude of my boy a few times on twitter . In the last few months my job has changed a lot and it looks like in the next month or two things are going to change a lot more. It’s exciting and scary and I will have new and different responsibilities that really test my skills and know-how. Hopefully there will be more monetary compensation as well.
So work is good and money is getting better.
This year I want to up my game. Learn more about digital mediums, get my portfolio in order, etc. I have specific amounts of money I want and specific things I plan to do.
