How do we choose a title which intrigues and tempts a reader to delve a little further when their reading time is so valuable without writing the word sex? 🤔

Sex is a big big seller. We know that, don’t we? I look at this photo below and imagine myself as Grace Kelly in a fifties scenario, glamorous, confident and oozing sex-appeal (when really I look more like Worzel Gummidge on a good day, often interrogate my newfound self-esteem as if it went awol while on parade, and usually stink of horse wee (that’s the downside of running my business – an equine rug laundry service).

However … a girl can dream. I was researching the submission guidelines for Harlequin Mills & Boon last Friday and found, within their bossom as it were, a sister publisher who is on the lookout for erotic novellas.

Rather than haughtily scroll on past, I decided to read more about what they were looking for to satisfy their readers (my self esteem crawled onto my shoulder and also took a good look and together we worried about my father-in-law walking in at any moment and the list of requirements would somehow jump out and slap itself against his face:

1. Frank and explicit sex scenes.
2. Graphic detail.
3. Stories which push characters’ boundaries
4. A romantic arc and a HEA.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

If my followers on WordPress are still with me, all 3 of you, may I ask you a question? You may not search out erotic titles over your classics but I bet there’s a teeny tiny part of you that begrudgingly, occasionally wafts your eyes across a so-called piece of cheeky prose? No?

Oh, well do you watch gritty dramas and maintain a blank face while secretly loving every minute of it?

I’m thinking along the lines of BODYGUARD running on BBC1 starring Keeley Hawes as The Home Secretary (when is the final part? I daren’t miss it 😍).

That was written by an author, screenwriter, call them what you will, long before it hit our screens and are we saying we would not read it in print form, even if we have our tongues hanging out at the screen action? (Oh, maybe that’s just me then 🙈)

What gave me the feeling that I might be able to create some fiction which this publisher might consider? I have absolutely no idea, but the idea grew and grew. I could see the characters and where they were when they met. They were doing ordinary things at the time.

My USP?

A ‘normal’ size, ‘average’ size girl … has a role as a dancer in a gentleman’s club (not every man prefers a size 8-10).

There’s a lot more to this character besides her dancing 😈 btw.

So… I started writing it Saturday.

.. and just kept going …

Today I typed the words THE END, which one day I’d like to type when I finish draft 1 of THE KEY TO VERONA but we all know I get stuck on that.

This thing just flowed … my fingers couldn’t get words typed fast enough. What does this say about me? 😬 (take more water with it?).

It says that in just a few hours, I can produce nearly 15,000 words on a project I’m enjoying 💫

Okay, the publisher might spit their coffee across the table when they receive my submission soon (I wish to sit on it for a few days and caress it into the perfect shape for them), throw it out with the trash and say ‘garbage! Go away and write about the red arrows and the angles their smoke trails make in the sky for Maths Monthly.’

It was fun though (Man of the Woods is avoiding me today … he’s rather tired 😂🙈)