Why RA Changed my Writing Focus

I constantly lament that Romance, Romantica, Erotica has become so canned...
Okay, I've been around awhile...
20 years ago when I started this Blood/Sweat/Tears Journey of Writing there was one size fits all, white on white boy meets girl ...
Sure, there was gay erotica and bdsm erotica but it was not in the mainstream...

I'm still ranting on and on because the fight for diversity across the love/sex genres is still sparse...
Yes, yes, there is multiracial diversity, gender diversity, and preference diversity (kind of...) because you still have to hunt for great writing in those genres...
But it's out there...the romance novel of today is not the same as yesterdays...

Back on track:
My lament continues because their is hardly any chronically ill/disabled persons represented in Romance, Romantica, Erotica ...thank you The Fault in Our Stars and Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl for making me cry my guts out and I love you for that because emotion is so cathartic,: however, I am still looking for the great story that portrays the pain, challenges, laughter, and orgasmic sex that chronically/ill or disabled people face every day...

Maybe the writers are out there, writing their hearts out...but publishers are afraid to take a chance. Yeah... there's a blog post I kinda touched on the taboo aspects...

Maybe its the size of the target audience is so small...
Ummmm... 1 in 5 US citizens is disabled... that's a pretty small number, right?
Yep, 36 Million...tiny
Annnnnd... 1 in 2 US Citizens have a chronic, invisible illness... 1 in 2? Seriously?
117 Million

If I could whistle, this is where I'd do it...
In my mind, my current frustration that we as writers are not writing what we are living is justified...

Except, my part of the "we" equation is now methodically introducing damaged people in my novels because six years ago I was hit by a train that didn't stop moving so that I could patch up the damage. I had to pull myself out from under that moving train and climb onboard for the ride of my life that would leave me mentally, physically, and emotionally forever altered. The train was the invisible chronic illness known as Rheumatoid Arthritis...and I will be a passenger the rest of my life, leaving me feeling out-of-control of where I'm going... And occasionally I get thrown under the train so I can battered and scraped up again...

Thank you RA Train, I am forever in your debt because I am a better writer today than yesterday. A lot can be said for an author that writes with their own blood...
So now my BDSM-LGBT Erotica is more raw, authentic, both forgiving and unforgiving, because the taboo truth is that chronically ill and disabled folk have sex too...
And I'm trying to keep it real to balance the scale a bit.

Thank you Delta of The Romance Reviews for touching on the fact that my heroine lives with the invisible illness BiPolar Disorder in the great review of the Consequences of the Big Mistakes

Chronic Illness and Disability in Erotica

Career Sidelined by Chronic Illness...

Yes, that was me five years ago when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. 

I turned inward. Facing the devastating diagnosis I felt lesser, defeated, pushed aside...
In that moment I learned a valuable lesson from my Loyal Readers because once I stopped producing books on a regular basis I started hearing from my committed and concerned followers.

Reading their notes and emails I learned many of my readers are house-bound and chronically ill and by conversing with them I realized I wasn't useless or throw-away because of a label. My readers who so compassionately shared their stories with me to lift me up define who they are every day and if they can do it and still have a light sometimes sarcastic take on living with Chronic Illness and still be Sexual Beings, so could I...

That information combined with the knowledge that almost all of my personal friends are dealing with a chronic mental or physical illness made me start thinking about erotica and asking if our lives are so filled with the interruptions of illness, why isn't it  represented in erotica?

And now I am back!

Since those first dark years spent trying to get a diagnosis, I have found medication, which helped to normalize my life as much as possible and allowed me to return to my career as an erotica writer...

I wrote LOVERS with a woman in a wheelchair who suffered with childhood into adulthood rheumatoid arthritis. What seemed like such a small thing to me was suddenly a big deal to that titles original publisher who insisted I take out the wheelchair because it didn't belong in erotica. At which point I had a conversation with my publisher and shared a list of bdsm play parties and etceteras specifically targeted toward the disabled. I also chose to explain my own experiences because I am not a novice in dealing with chronic illness and became even more determined to "normalize" chronic illness in erotica because having to receive medication on a schedule or being confined to a chair does not make the person a lesser human being. 

Come'on... haven't we moved beyond treating people with mental and physical disabilities like children?
Apparently not.
Disability in erotica is hard to find because it confronts the idea a disabled person is nonsexual, which made it a taboo topic for far too long...

I am personally offended by that attitude!
I've always heard to "write what you know" because you can real and emotional layers impossible without having experienced something first hand. With that in mind...

I understand Chronic Illness ...
I understand BDSM on a 24/7/365 basis ...
I understand polyamory...
I understand bisexuality

I have life experiences in all four, why not mash-em-up? Enter the Van Zant Series...

To boot...

Why not have a Chronically-Ill Kick-Ass Heroine? 

And that's exactly what I'm trying to do in my Van Zant series by tackling all four points in spades, not by having the "token disabled secondary character my main character meets for lunch" but by creating main characters who are dealing with major medical problems but who are able to continue to love, laugh, play because that's what chronically ill people do every single day.

I feel confident in being able to write their stories.

Having personally played with a chair confined girlfriend and finding the experience amazing, I am able to approach my main character Alyssa who has MS and is chair bound from a positive reference point and use the lessons I garnered from "Anne" like learning to shift the focus of sex from "what makes me feel good" to "where can I touch you so that you feel good?" 

Few people know my first husband suffered from bipolar disorder complicated by schizophrenia or that he became a quadriplegic during our marriage because I never talk about him and for twenty years I have kept those memories tamped down. Recent events have brought the emotions from that time in my life to the surface and having a character with bipolar disorder was the perfect place to deal with my conflicted emotions. The side note being I have a much lesser and more manageable form of Bi-Polar, which allows me to create huge volumes of work during my manic phases is only that I am soooo thankful for my manic phases for that very bonus.

With Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Attention Deficit Disorder being introduced as a major players in my character Alexandra Van Zant's stories, I have really been forced to face both my present and past demons... every day I remind myself... write what I know... because I know that my experience may not be another's experience...

Reviews like this one that actually talks about how I have handled Alexandra's medical conditions as part of her characterization let me know I am on the right track and to keep going.

The series gets progressively hotter as it goes along, from Simmering to super HOT so I hope you will read Alexandra's stories and let me know what you think :)

Surviving the Big Mistakes

Conquering the Big Mistakes

Learning from the Big Mistakes

Shibari Presence

(additional works in progress)