Dare to Believe

This whole endeavor, like many good things, all began with a dare.

I’ve been writing for a really long time, so I’m no stranger to prose. And I’ve never had qualms with incorporating adult-themed content into my stories when the story warranted: I am an adult, after all, and adult characters in stories often do adult-oriented things. But I’d never really considered writing stories that primarily focus on adult-themed content.

Awhile back, a webcomic-artist friend of mine started publishing erotica art, and was doing really well at it. Several months later, this friend came up in conversation with my wife, and the back and forth went something like this:

Her: Why don’t you try doing something like that, but with stories?
Me: I could, I dunno.
Her: Well, I dare you to at least try.
Me: *shrug* Maybe.
Her: You already write really well, so I’m sure you could write circles around what’s already out there.
Me: Eh, I’ll think about it… I’d need a good premise first….

And less than a week later, I came to her and said, “I’ve got a premise. And I could write a whole series of these things.” Which is weird because I’ve never really been a series writer: I usually write one-off stories and move on to the next thing, so this was a huge step for me in more than one way.

The first erotica book I wrote, Marooned, which ultimately became the first volume in the Strange Tides series, took me a long while to write, mostly because I was working on other writing projects simultaneously. Also, as the old saying goes, the tale grew in the telling. I figured the whole thing would end up being about novella length, but the story and characters kept growing far beyond the initial idea, and so novella length just wasn’t going to cut it. Once I reached official novel length, I knew I had something special, so I ran with it.

During the time I worked on Marooned, other ideas for adult-focused stories started percolating, and before I knew it, I had an entire Scrivener file devoted to various adult-themed story ideas across a large breadth of genres, and that file is still growing. Writing that first story really opened the floodgates in this new venture.

And it all began on a dare.

If there’s something you want to accomplish but are having trouble doing it or finding the motivation, have someone dare you to do it. Have them convince you that you can’t do it, and then set out to prove them wrong. Then go about it, and do so with a vengeance.

—Andrew

4-20-2018