xakara

*Stretch*

I just submitted my contest entry an hour or two ago and it feels like a weight has lifted off of my shoulders.

The story was written three years ago, maybe four, with absolutely no place to submit it. Back in January while I was looking for open calls and contests to enter I found the perfect place for it at Clean Sheets magazine. They have a contest called Sex & Spirituality that's absolutely perfect as far as context. Content on the other hand left me feeling a little shaky.

When you write Bible Slash (yes, I said bible slash, you aren't misreading and please don't ask unless you seriously want to know. Minor curiosity is not enough), there's really no place to even have it looked at outside of an erotica magazine. However there's a certain level of explicitness that is expected in erotica that the story lacked. I couldn't use all the allegedly 'liberating' words because the flow of the story was bibilical and had to stay in the same lyrical expression. There was also something in the story that would have been lost to throw out the obligatory cock reference just because.

So it took me over three weeks to add three, maybe four paragraphs to the story. It broadened the love scene and the sexual tension but without becoming what most expect with the word erotica. I just couldn't do it. I was so reticent to the idea that I didn't want to write at all and was ready to shut the computer off and not deal with it until the day before the deadline.

In the end I'm glad I didn't do that, it was much better to finish and then hope for the best. If it turns out not to be for them, then I'll post it here, or at least post a link to it here so that everyone with greater curiosity can have a read. If it turns out they do like it despite its more "tasteful" language, I'll post a link so that you can read it on their site and see my name in print.

Well, my pen name most likely. But still, it's all good.

Pen names will have to be a blog topic all its own one night. I have several thoughts on it and not enough energy to share them at the moment.

So for now...

Ramble done.