Fuck You, Pay Me #10: The Pornification of My Life

This is part 10 of “Fuck You, Pay Me,” an ongoing series of posts on writing, editing, and publishing. Read the rest of the series: Part 1: How To Become a Writer in 12 Easy Steps, Part 2: The Pros and Cons of Traditional vs. Indie Publishing, Part 3: Scenes From My Life Writing a Porn Novel, Part 4: Why I Hate Memoirs (but Wrote One Anyway), Part 5: 19 Ways to Make Money as a Writer, Part 6: Letters From Johns Revisited, Part 7: Some of My Favorite Things I’ve Ever Written (Journalism Edition), Part 8: Some of My Favorite Things I’ve Ever Written (Fiction Edition), Part 9: How to Promote Your Book Without Going Crazy, Part 10: The Pornification of My Life, Part 11: How to Be More Creative, Part 12: The Fine Art of Applying to Writing Residencies, Part 13: How to Be a Consultant, Part 14: Cranking the Flywheel, Part 15: Why You Should Have a Newsletter, Part 16: An Excerpt From My Memoir, Part 17: How to Write a Short Story.

In this post, I’ll be talking about my current projects. Now that my memoir is in the world and the promoting of it has lessened, I’m focusing my attention on different things. That includes two books and various freelance writing assignments. What do these projects have to do with each other? Well, they’re all pornified.

The Novel

Since sometimes titles change between conception and delivery, I won’t be sharing the title of my novel-in-progess. In fact, I won’t be sharing too much about this project, to protect it. I will say that this novel is set in Porn Valley. Since I first set foot on a porn set in 1997, I have been trying to figure out how to write this book. When I was done writing and revising my memoir, I turned back to this project. Once again, I tried writing it in various ways, none of which worked. Then, sometime late last year, I figured how to do it. Thus far, about a quarter of the book is drafted. It’s such a delight to work on it. It’s fun, and crazy, and oftentimes when I read back over what I’ve written, I laugh out loud, which is always a good thing.

Having spent the last several years working on a nonfiction book, it’s great to be in the fictional realm. People are made up, facts don’t have to adhere to reality, and the world is different. I’ve been writing fiction since I can remember, and my graduate degree is 50% literature and 50% fiction. Over time, my fiction muscles had atrophied a bit, so it’s been nice to feel them getting stronger. Focusing on one central character has also been helpful. There is world building, the world around this character, but the book is most preoccupied with the main character’s interior, which is my sweet spot.

Another craft-oriented thing I’m doing with this project is working on it slowly. I guess you could say I’m part of the slow writing movement. There is nothing about hustle culture that is good for deep creativity; its disregard for time and process and synchronicity doesn’t allow for organic flow. And, it’s better for my body to not be stuck in front of the computer all the time. I recommend slowing down.

The Nonfiction Book

This book is also set in Porn Valley, but in the real one. Again, I don’t want to say too much about this project as a way of keeping it private for the moment, but it has a bigger arc, a lot more characters, and of course is nonfiction. Again, I’m playing to a strength here, which is thanks to the long time I’ve been writing about the porn business. This book will be longer than the novel, and it will likely take longer to write. In addition to being drawn from current journalistic encounters with the porn industry, it will also draw on what in a few years will be 30 years I’ve spent writing about this subject matter.

This time, there is no central character, and while I’m a kind of tour guide — historically, I’ve compared my role as a journalist writing about Porn Valley to Virgil and the reader to Dante in Inferno — I’m definitely not the narrative focus. I’ve always made sure to remind myself that when I’m on a porn set, I am absolutely, undoubtedly, most assuredly the least interesting thing in the room. Porn Valley. The Other Hollywood. The X-Rated Movie Business. I like to think of it as my personal Yoknapatawpha County.

It’s a bit daunting this one, isn’t it? But I guess that’s part of the draw. Also, while other people have written books about the porn industry, I don’t think anyone’s done one quite like this one. If you’re interested in those other books, you might want to check out The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry by Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne with Peter Pavia.

The Other Stuff

One could argue this is not a blog post at all but something of a strategic plan for the days, weeks, months, and, yes, even the years ahead. If one were to argue that, one would likely not be wrong. I’ll be doing other things as well, including posting on Forbes.com, doing freelance journalism, and writing more fiction. A lot of that will trade in the subject of sex, and some of it will include porn.

I’ve spent a long time waffling around this subject matter. Let’s face it; it’s a little weird for a woman to write about sex and porn, to do it for so long, to be so seemingly obsessed with it. It’s a little embarrassing, a little dirty, a little wrong. Or is it? Well, on the one hand, sometimes I encounter people who think just that. But on the other hand, then I’ll remind myself that three of the most visited websites in the world are porn sites, and those numbers testify to the fact that there is a significant interest in it.

One time an idiot editor (a woman, obviously) suggested that while many people (let’s face it: men, mostly) like to watch porn, that doesn’t mean they want to read about it. I think she was wrong. I think people who watch porn want to know why they watch it, and they want to know why they want to watch what they want to watch, and they want to understand what the scenarios on the screen say about themselves.

In any case, I’ll be sharing more about this process as I move forward. Questions? Thoughts? Suggestions? Hit me up here. It’d be interesting to include the consumers’ perspective in the nonfiction book. Do you watch porn? Why do you watch it? What do you get out of it? Most importantly: How does it make you feel?

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