Is Porn Going to Save Your Stalled Writing Career?

If you call yourself a writer, and you have yet to be published, you will inevitably hear a lot of advice from well-intentioned folks on What You Should Write to Get Published.

This advice usually runs along the lines of: "You know what you should write? Erotica. Seriously, I heard a radio show/friend/stranger talking about how this man/woman writes about pirates/vampires/dragons and sex and s/he's making six figures a year."

You're most likely to hear this advice after having not written a word in months and not being laid in about as long and of course the person telling you this advice is about as qualified as a carnie to advise on matters literary or otherwise.

And yet, despite all this, you will always have in the back of your mind this sense that that well-intentioned asshole is right.

Well, the asshole is right. Sort of. British author Rupert Smith has received critical praise and popularity for his high-minded fiction, but he's now revealing that he's outsold himself as a gay erotic writer under the nom de plume James Lear.

According to Smith:

"One disgruntled customer on Amazon described a James Lear novel as "smut with pretensions", and I think this is actually quite a good summary of the Lear method. It is unashamedly smut; let's face it, most readers like good sex scenes, whether they're dressed up in literary drag or not. The "pretensions" are the added extras: I try to provide a ripping yarn, some decent character development and a lot of good jokes."

Of course, knowing that good porn sells is not the same as being able to write good porn. I was once complimented by British author D.M. Thomas (author of the smutty White Hotel) for my "talent for writing sex." I've admittedly held this praise near and dear to my heart, along with a comment from a girl who told me I had big eyes (I don't really), and the guy who once admired my "perfect nail beds."

You know why? Because writing about sex is hard (groan). I'm just finishing up Camilla Gibb's Sweetness in the Belly, and last night I actually grimaced while reading a passage in which she describes heterosexual intercourse.

I reached out and grabbed him from behind to pull him in as close, as deep, as could be, me the shell, he the snail, home.

First of all, while a limp penis may resemble a slug, there is nothing sexy about it. Secondly, if your vagina is a shell, you might want to go get that checked out.

As always, people will assume popular writing (i.e., erotic) must be easy to craft. But sex, whether literary or literal, is a delicate business that, no matter how tempting, offers no guarantees.

Sometimes the pay-off is huge and sometimes, well, sometimes, you're better off watching TV.