When did you first start writing?
I've been writing since I was a kid, and it used to be just about my favourite thing in the world. I used to spend hours in front of the computer writing sci fi and fantasy stories. I stopped as I got older though, and once I hit about 18 I didn't write again for years. I came back to it around age 30, when I was stuck in a bit of a rut. Someone told me, or I read somewhere, that it's useful to think back to what gave you joy as a child, because that's often a good clue as to what you'll enjoy now. When I thought about it I realised how much I used to love writing, and how much I missed it. I also realised that my dream job was to be a writer, yet I'd never done anything to make it happen or to even see if it was a possibility for me. When I realised that, I knew I had to get back into it.
What made you get into erotic fiction?
I wanted to write, but I felt really paralysed by the idea that every sentence had to be this perfect masterpiece. At that time I had a really judgemental attitude towards erotica - I thought it was trash, basically. Looking back I think that's totally the wrong attitude, because erotica needs to be able to evoke some pretty visceral feelings and to do that it needs to really engage it's reader. But that attitude was quite freeing to me at the time, because it meant I could just write what I thought was hot, without the pressure of feeling like it needed to be any good.
At the same time, when I started I was in a relationship that was pretty sexually unfulfilling, and where our communication wasn't great. I had all these fantasies that I felt like I couldn't act on, and I didn't feel like I could share them with my partner for fear of judgement. So writing about them was a way for me to live out my fantasies in my mind, when I couldn't in my real life.
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