No one's leaving until I get a few answers...

by Kate Pearce




Scene: The Lust Bites Dungeon
The players: various Lusties tied up, bright lights shining in their eyes.
Asking the questions: Kate (the quiet ones are always the worst) Pearce, and Grumpy David Beckham.






Cool I finally get to ask the questions, show off all my favorite pictures like this one and all my new book covers!!

Aren't you all excited? Oh, I forgot, you're all tied up...anyway, let's start with an easy one.

1. What has been your favorite thing about Lust Bites?

Olivia Knight:
Being part of a community of writers, not just one isolated writer with a sole point of contact (The Editor) and no idea what else is happening ~discovering other people's tastes, writing styles, and ideas about erotica ~being converted to man candy, wet men, and the joy of muscles ~ having a place to natter, witter, and argue ~ social contact, frankly: it's a rarity in a writing day."

Madeline Moore
My favorite thing about membership in Lust Bites has been getting to know so many of my peers. Writing is a solitary business and writing erotica in Canada is entirely solitary – no readings, no conventions to attend, no book signings. It means the world to me to have been a part of this blog and I hope we’ll keep in touch.

Janine Ashbless
Meeting other writers (some in the flesh, most online), some of whom I like very much. Getting my blogging wings. The regular readers (Huck L Berry, t'Sade, Jothemama etc etc) who, albeit fleetingly, seemed like friends it was always a pleasure to hear from. Having my eyes cranked open to other forms of pleasure. The chat behind the scenes as well as in front. Compliments about my posts. Jeremy Edwards' jokes.


Being first shown the link to www.provocateuse.com very early on. The mutual support in times of despair. The sexy pictures. The wit.

Nikki Magennis
The great sparkly whoooshy feeling that I'd found a place full of clever, witty, brave and creative women who were so much fun and so full of ideas and - no, look, I want to say spunk but I really can't in this context ...

Dayle Dermatis
The wide range of authors and ideas we had. We really proved that "erotica" can mean different things to different people, and is such a huge, varied genre. Some people wrote light-hearted, some wrote dark. Some had lush prose, others mastered the art of crafting a story with spare, sparse, yet evocative brush strokes. Some wrote paranormal, some wrote contemporary, some wrote historical, some write combinations thereof. We could disagree on who was hot and who was not, on what turned us on or off, and yet we all had a common thread: healthy, hearty, enjoyment of our genre.

Okay, all the discussions about sexy rock stars and science fiction hotties are at the top of the list, too!

Erastes
I love the enthusiasm from the Lusties for their wonderful smutty and beautifully written work. I love the gratuitous photo posts and the range of different subjects covered - there may be a lot of smut but there's so much interesting stuff too - travelogs and history and interviews and industry news.


Portia Da Costa
Choice excerpts of some great novels that I hadn't yet had chance to read, interesting guests, and also the sillier stuff that people posted just for the hell of it.

Kate Pearce
Getting in touch with my British roots and learning so much about what turned other people on. I especially loved all the pictures and the links to the gay porn sites.
Ooh look a new cover! This is for my next Kensington Aphrodisia book which comes out next April :)





2. What surprised you most?
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OK: For myself - I discovered for the first time that I can write light and I can write funny. I'd never really let my sense of humour onto the page before and then, thanks to frantically cranking out a few last-minute articles, discovered I could just switch on the funny button. And promptly wrote a comic novel, with my newfound skill! More generally - that I was
not the Last Time Lord travelling through the vast stretches of space-time in noble isolation but that there were a whole lot more out there like me. It's like the Doctor suddenly landing on Gallafrey and saying, "Well, bugger me! Mum! Dad! Hi!"

MM: I was surprised by how many women write m/m erotica, and by the number of Lusties who enjoy gay porn. It never occurred to me to troll the gay porn sites for pictures but now I do and I have the virus alerts to prove it.

JA: The fact that even when you've got a basket of free sexy books to give away, barely any of the hundreds of blog lurkers (yes - we know you're there!) will stick their hands up and say "Yes Please!"

NM: How wildly (and sometimes violently) different everybody's backgrounds and opinions were, how there were so many things I'd never known or thought carefully about before, and how incredibly and endlessly rich and varied sexuality can be.

DD: I came into the fold expecting there would be more discussions about the writing process, about craft and a little about business and all that. Don't know why, though! :-) Also, as a former reporter, I was surprised at how hard it was to write nonfiction again!

E: Being invited! I wasn't a Black Lace writer and I write gay erotica and I nearly wet myself with excitement.

PDC: Nothing really. The world of blogging is crazy and I've learnt to expect anything.


KP: It surprised me how what turned some people on absolutely horrified others. It also surprised me because I discovered I liked a lot more than I'd been prepared to admit to in public, (cough cough gay porn anyone?)





3. What annoyed you most?

OK: Blogger's mad-as-a-bag- of-rats html variations, insane picture-insert function, and refusal to allow the align="center" attribute for the image tag. And what the hell are they doing with that backslash when a tag closes? Huh? HUH? Yes: this troubled me deeply.

MM: It annoyed me when a fine post received a paltry number of comments. Sometimes this happened because of a holiday in the UK or US, sometimes because of technical difficulties, and other times – who knows? So much work goes into a Lust Bites post, and it’s extremely discouraging when it hangs there with a humiliating dearth of posts. I always try to bump a post up to at least double digits, but sometimes even I run out of things to say.

JA: The fact that I'm not as intelligent, articulate or funny as Olivia Knight or Kristina Lloyd, lol!

NM: htmbloodyl, and all the fights! But mostly, the enormous amount of time and energy it took.

DD: Meh. Water under the bridge. Why bring it up again? I like that we're all parting as friends as well as business associates!

E: The gradual lack of response from the readers, and the way that it all the work seemed to end up being done by the same few people - although having done a couple of other blogs now, it seems this is fairly normal! It was gratifying to see the people saying "Oh No! - We love you, don't go!" but if they had supported us a little harder while we were open, we may not have taken the decision to close down. It's not something that annoyed me, but I
was often frustrated that I couldn't come up with as many blog ideas as I'd have liked - the muse just rarely visited me and I applaud those more frequent posters than I.

PDC: Better not answer that one. Suffice it to say there have been things that have annoyed me.

KP: It's hard when you've labored over a post and it seems that no one is interested. it's also hard when personalities clash, although with such a talented group of writers it seems that this is inevitable. I'm sure we'll all laugh about it one day LOL-Oh look, I'm laughing now...
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4. What will you miss?

OK: Behind-the-scenes witter, displacement activity, a place to express my wit and wisdom / burble at random, and the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful men. I can't say "the people" because they're not dead, but the group.

MM: I’m pretty sure I’m a Lust Bites addict so it’s safe to say I’ll miss everything about it. But I’ve learned a lot about writing erotica and what turns women on and marketing and promotion, so I think the one thing I’ll miss the most is the information Lust Bites provided – in an entertaining and provocative manner.

JA: The individual people. A social life - How am I going to get my chat fix? Seriously, some of you had better come round my blog sometime or I'm going to devolve into a batshit old lady muttering to myself...


NM: I think the feeling that we were all discovering brand new things all the time. At least, I was! And for a writer, it was fabulous to feel part of a community, even though in real life it was scattered all over the world. Thanks all of yous! xxx

DD: Oh, the camaraderie, definitely. It's what was drawing me back, as I got past my months of travel and busy-ness, when I got the news that Lust Bites was coming to an end. I raise a glass (or maybe two. Possibly even three.) of champagne to the fabulosity that was Lust Bites!

E: I'll miss the chat behind the scenes, for certain - I've made some good online friends and I hope that some of them will keep in touch. And I'll sure miss those pictures - goodness knows people found them!!

PDC: Really nice people who posted and commented.

KP: I'll miss the chat, the anticipation of opening up the site and never quite knowing what I was going to find out and learn (well except on my own post days and even then it was a close run thing.)

Psst: And while they're all still tied up I'll take the opportunity to tell you that I sold 3 more books to Kensington last week-2 more 'Simply's" and a contemporary!!-What was that Grumpy David? You want to let them go now? Do we have to??