Thinky Thoughts: Let’s Talk About Fear
Welcome to the spookiest month of the year! I figure this is a great time for some thinky thoughts about fear—specifically how crucial fear is in erotic fiction. For me, at least.
I was a fraidy cat as a child. I was one of those kids who would see Godzilla on television and then not be able to get to sleep for weeks, because I was convinced that Godzilla was definitely coming out of the sea that very night to step on our house. Or that space aliens were coming to kidnap me. Or whatever other horrible thing I could imagine.
What was extra-confusing to my parents is that things other kids were afraid of—like talking to adults, or jumping into the deep end of swimming pool, or snakes—didn’t bother me at all. My mom talked to the school psychologist about it and was told that “gifted” kids with vivid imaginations were prone to such terrors.
Tell her it’s just her imagination, they said. That went okay, I guess, when the reason I couldn’t sleep was my fear of “giant germs that could come through walls.” (No idea where I got that idea from…Star Trek, maybe? Or Space 1999?)
The “just your imagination” strategy failed, though, when …
…my kindergarten class had Fire Safety Week. Although it was super cool to meet the firefighters and all—they gave us hats!—after that I was afraid the house would burn down.
When I say I “couldn’t sleep,” it wasn’t just that I lay there “worrying” about the giant germs/alien abduction/fire/etc… I would be trembling, heart racing, feeling almost ill from the fear.
Experiencing fear throughout my whole body, from threats that were only present in my thoughts, was a nightly occurrence from about age 5 to 12, and then it got progressively less frequent until some time when I was probably 18.
It didn’t occur to me until recently that the dropoff in my experience of full-body fear probably maps exactly to the rise in my experience of full-body lustful erotic longing.
Instead of lying there unable to sleep because I was terrified of Godzilla, I would lie there rapt in hormone-soaked fantasies of my latest crush.
Erotic fantasies, especially ones that made all the skin on my body tingle and the deep center of my chest feel hollow, were far more pleasant than detailed imaginings of how the house would be crushed under Godzilla’s giant foot. But there was a lot of trepidation associated with sex in my upbringing, ranging from fearmongering stories that were told about teen pregnancy, to internalized homophobia and kinkphobia that kept my desires secret, to AIDS hysteria, to just plain fear of the unknown. Would it hurt? Would I ever find what I really wanted? Would sex change me? Would everything be OK?
One type of fantasy replaced the other, not as opposites, but as similar or kindred phenomena. It’s not like fear was dark and erotic fantasies were light. Given how kinky my sexual fantasies were (and still are), perhaps it should be obvious they were a function of the same obsessive imagination that would paralyze me with effervescent terror.
And so perhaps it is no surprise that although I rarely write horror, fear is part of what I like to flavor my erotic writing with. Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords has a kidnapping in it, after all.
Much of the time it’s simple fear of the unknown at play: our protagonist maybe hasn’t had sex before. Or hasn’t had this kind of sex. Or with this person (or creature).
I’ve always thought of myself as a “sex-positive” writer, and one reason I steered away from erotic horror in the 1990s is there was a bit too much of what felt to me like throwing in graphic sex stuff for shock value—to make the horror more horrific. Whereas I wanted the opposite, to use whatever means possible to make the erotica more erotic.
And if that meant adding a dash of fear, a sprinkle of dread, well, so be it. I write often from the submissive or bottom’s point of view, and, well, not to get too deeply into the kind of BDSM play I personally enjoy, but… if I’m not at least a little bit afraid of what my top might do to me while I’m tied up, then what’s the point?
The theme of fear in sex is on my mind right now because it seems to be cropping up a lot as I’m writing Windmark, and it definitely runs through The Vanished Chronicles—which none of you have seen yet, but you will soon. Fear and rapture go hand in hand to make the vampire mythos so erotic, right?
Overcoming fear (and trauma associated with it) to find sexual fulfillment has always been my idea of a happy ending. Now that I look over my shelf, that theme is in every one of my books. The vanilla ones like Daron’s Guitar Chronicles, and the kinky ones like Watch Point and Slow Surrender.
I guess it’s just that now I finally noticed it! Time, I guess, to embrace it.
-ctan
As you may have gathered by now, every month I post some thinky thoughts followed by various forms of updates. Here are the bits of news that follow:
- “Freelance Heroes” Swag!
- DGC Volumes 1-8 now live in KU
- DGC Volumes 1-4 live everywhere else
- WIP Report: Windmark at 76,000 words
- Where I’ve Been Lately
- My Schedule for World Fantasy in Niagara Falls
- 2025 Tour Dates
- Book recs, reversed
- Parting thoughts
“Freelance Heroes”
So, last summer I gave a keynote speech at the Editorial Freelancers Association on the theme of “Freelance Heroes,” complete with a powerpoint slideshow of funny and silly superheroes (and supervillains like “Sticklerman and Stetboy.”) The EFA has decided to run with it and sell some freelance heroes T-shirts, tote bags, etc, via Teepublic! Proceeds go to support the EFA’s mission! See all their fun designs here:
https://www.teepublic.com/stores/efashop
DGC Vols 1-8 are live in KU!
I’ve been steadily plugging along with adding volumes of DGC to Kindle Unlimited, and adding the fancier product listings that KU allows. Book 9 will release in November. (If you’re a KU reader, please give the series a look. *hearts*) If you’re not in KU, but do use Amazon to buy ebooks, Book 1 is A FREE DOWNLOAD right now. (Shutting off at midnight pacific time, I think?) Grab it for $0.00: https://amzn.to/4dNIzeO
There’s a Goodreads giveaway going on for Book 1 right now as well: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209814488-daron-s-guitar-chronicles-vol-1
And I’m waiting on the LAST piece of cover art, for book 13, and then I’l finish up the production and layout for the ones that were never previously in book form, vols 11-13! Coming soon!
Meanwhile, volumes 1-4 are live everywhere, with vol 5 coming in the first week of November. Whew. I knew republishing the series would be a heavy lift, but I’m so glad it’s getting done.
WIP Report
Windmark (aka “the unexpected dragon book”) passed the 77K word mark and continues to get more and more twisted. I’ve been adding to it a bit more slowly the past 1-2 months because various editing deadlines have been sucking up my writing time, but I hope to wrap up a first draft before Christmas? Maybe? (Reminder I am still signing up beta readers.)
I’m at that stage of writing where I’m convinced everyone will hate the hero. Which isn’t necessarily bad, because we’re at the stage of the book where the heroine hates him, and if there’s one thing I’ve been good at, it’s making my readers feel what my main character does.
I learned somewhat the hard way that if book one of a series ends on a cliffhanger and the heroine feels betrayed and abandoned by the hero, the readers will feel betrayed and abandoned, too… by the author. So I’m aiming to avoid that, but as I mentioned last month, exactly where we’ll land, I don’t know yet.
My Schedule for World Fantasy!
In addition to the “mass autographing” (to which I’ll bring a random assortment of my books?) looks like both panels I’m doing will be on Friday. At 12 noon, one on “Fanfiction’s Impact on Fantasy & Horror,” and at 5pm “Is This The Queerest Era of Horror and Fantasy?”
Let me know if you’ll be at WFC! Or if you’re driving distance to Niagara Falls! (I might host a small get-together for patrons and subscribers…?)
Tour Dates & 2025 Appearances
Looks like the dates of ICFA were announced incorrectly, so it turns out I will be able to attend after all! And I’ll be doing Capricon in Chicago again, as well. It’s a really nice sf/f con that is still somewhat underpopulated post-pandemic, so I encourage folks to consider attending!
- January 17-20: Arisia, Cambridge, MA (new hotel: Hyatt Cambridge)
- January 30, 8pm “How to Write a Sex Scene” Class: online for Passionate Ink
- February 6-9: Capricon, Chicago, IL
- March 19-23: ICFA, Orlando, FL
- June 2025: Daron’s Guitar Chronicles Pride Release Tour (details TBA)
- June 25-29: SABR 54 in Dallas, TX
- July 17-20: Readercon, Burlington, MA (back to the Burlington Marriott!)
- August 13-17: Worldcon in Seattle, WA
- September 25: Writing Bisexual Erotica class: online for Passionate Ink
Book Recommendations
Okay, so, you know if I did not like a book, I will not recommend it. So, unfortunately I have no recommendations this time around.
How about you guys recommend me some that I can pass along? Basically… what book would you recommend to someone who you know likes reading Cecilia Tan books?
Leave a comment with your suggestions!
Parting Thoughts
You might remember I saw the Northern Lights back in May. Well, there was another geomagnetic storm this week and I went and saw them again.
This time corwin and I hopped in the car together at 11pm and drove two hours northeast to get out from under the clouds and into the likely aurora zone. I dithered for about half a minute as to whether it would be worth it, and corwin reminded me the best reason to live the life we do is to be able to just hare off in the middle of the night if we feel like it. Why not spend several hours in the car together, in search of adventure?
We were successful at seeing the lights, though not as bright as last time. The incredible thing we could see with the naked eye this time was the solar wind literally blowing, with flashes and puffs of particles looking for all the world like steam being blown off a coffee cup the size of the Earth.
There is wonder in this universe, and it’s worth chasing.
Until next time,
-ctan
