What Are You Working On?
Writers on their works in progress

Violet Blue

writer and editor

Violet Blue (website) is the best-selling author and editor of ten books on sex and sexuality, all currently in print, three of which have been in Amazon.com's top ten sex and erotica categories for the past four years. Two titles have been translated into French, Spanish and soon Russian. Violet is a sex columnist and a sex educator, writing about erotica, pornography, and sexual pleasure and health for various outlets. She is the Assistant Editor at Fleshbot.com, and lectures to human sexuality students at colleges and independent teaching facilities. Her podcast, one of iTunes' most popular, is Open Source Sex. She has also been a machine artist with Survival Research Laboratories for ten years.

I always have a bazillion projects going at once! Best Women's Erotica 2006 just came out; I just finished editing another erotica anthology Lips Like Sugar, and that's off to the printer this week; I've started on Best Women's 2007; I'm getting ready to write another sex guide (topic TBD) that will be released at the end of this year. Oh, and I wrote a book called The Smart Girls' Guide to Porn, due out in Summer. I have a lot of ongoing personal pet projects, like podcasting and creating a bookstore/recommended reading guide about sex for my website.

But what I really want to do is write a novel, so go figure: I've even started an outline.

 
What led you to this project?

While working on the recommended reading guide for my site, which contains about 60-70 nonfiction books, I realized that I'd read a lot of books. And that you can't be a good writer, or at least connect with your readers, unless you're a good reader. It's like being a careful listener.

When I'm not reading sex books, I'm reading novels, and I know what I like now -- but I'm not finding what I like anymore. I've reached the point I was at when I pitched my first book to Cleis Press, where I knew what was out there, and how I wanted to see it done differently. My first book sold out in its first month based on the subject matter alone, so I think I have a chance to tell a story... if not, then I'll at least get my own jollies writing a story.

 
What's your novel about?

I'm cautious (superstitious) about talking about books I'm writing myself (as opposed to anthologies, which require the world to know about them before they print) until they're finished. So I'm deliberately not revealing the topic -- until it prints or fails. I hope that's not too frustrating -- Violet's not-so-secret novel in progress.

 
What are you trying to do with this project that you haven't done before? What challenges are you overcoming?

I'm primarily a nonficiton writer and a fiction editor, so I'm re-learning how to tell a story. I hope to do so without corrupting my sense of innocence at being able to pick up a book and be entertained by it. I'm also planning on pulling from personal experiences -- the really scary ones, so I'm looking inside myself a lot for direction, and I think that's the hardest thing writers do.

 
What has been rewarding about this particular project?

Being able to totally sink myself into the areas of study that fuel the book -- it's like a guilty pleasure, being able to spend all this mental time in a place that's like junk food for my brain. Also, doing a book without a publisher, or the possibility of having one feels incredibly free.

 
When do you expect (or hope) to finish, and what happens next?

No publisher, and I don't have an agent at this time; I'm thinking I might publish it myself through an online publishing service, under a Creative Commons license. I hope to finish it by summer or early fall.

Links

An interview on the Cleis Press site

Violet's podcast: Open Source Sex

Pix of Violet operating machines at an SRL performance

Violet's books on amazon.com

See more What Are You Working On? interviews.

published 11 Jan 06 on Too Beautiful. email copyright 2006 Mark Pritchard, Bernal Heights, San Francisco