2018: Year in Review

As we’re coming to the end of another year, I thought I would look back at what, at least for my writing, has been a pretty memorable twelve months.

I started 2018 with the goal of self-publishing my first novel as an e-book. I’d never published a book before; the most productive thing I had done with my writing was sharing short stories on erotic fiction sites. Sharing stories on these sites is pretty straightforward; you write your story, think of a title and blurb, post it all into a web form and the site does the rest.

Putting together and publishing a book was very different to that and required a lot more work. I went into 2018 very excited because towards the end of 2017 I had finished writing my first erotic novel, Best Friends With a Naked Girl, and I had a target to publish it in the first few weeks of 2018.

Well, I managed to meet my target but the book was far from perfect, with a poor quality cover that had to have some very clumsy edits in order to be accepted by the platform Smashwords, which I was using at the time, so they could distribute it to other e-book retailers who might be a bit squeamish about having so much nudity on the cover.

So I published it, but it still needed some work.

As 2018 went on I began to think about how I actually wanted my book to appear, the image I wanted it to have, and I went back to one of my influences, Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise comic. I decided I wanted to have an illustrated cover rather than one which used photographs. I can draw a little myself but not well enough to put on the cover of a book I was expecting people to pay money for. After a lot of searching I found an illustrator (Danielle Fenner) through the site DeviantArt who took commissions and was happy doing mildly erotic work with some nudity, and whose style looked like what I had imagined in my head for the book.

I republished the book with its fantastic new cover showing the two main characters; Becky (the titular ‘naked girl’) and Lisa (the ‘best friend’).

I had few expectations of how the book would sell and indeed, in the first couple of months it was in publication, it sold about what I imagined it would. I was happy with any sales at all; I didn’t get into writing to make money (if I had I wouldn’t have chosen nudist/exhibitionist erotica as my genre, I’d have gone for something more profitable!) and it was nice that even a few people had bothered to check out my work and seemed to like it.

This was encouraging to me and it caused me to go back to a book I had begun working on earlier in 2017. This was a slightly different novel – an alternative universe version of our world in which public nudity has become legal in the USA, I called it Brave Nude World because I can’t resist a pun!

Although I had not expected to finish Brave Nude World any time soon, I was now inspired and I ended up publishing the book as my second novel only a few months after the first, in April. I learned a lot from my first experience of self-publishing and this time I made sure that the book was perfect exactly as I wanted from the start, including commissioning a new cover from Danielle.

Although Brave Nude World was not a smash hit, it seems to have boosted my profile a little on Amazon and Best Friends…, which had begun to lose attention, really picked up following the publication of Brave Nude World. Both novels continued to well exceed my expectations for sales throughout the rest of the year, and as the year ends I have sold a few hundred and a lot of borrows through Kindle Unlimited too. I’m not sure if it is a lot or not, but I had told myself at the start of 2018 that if I sold 30 copies I would be happy, so I’m delighted that so many people are responding to and enjoying my fiction.

I only published one short story in 2018, much of the rest of my writing time has been given over to novels. It isn’t that I prefer one over the other, but I confess I’ve been a little short of ideas for shorter stories lately. The story, (NIP) Nina In Public, was written for a competition and although it didn’t place highly, it was fun to write.

Much of the rest of this year has been spent working on my next novel, Love Life of a Naked Girl, the sequel to Best Friends… I was fairly certain when I published Best Friends… that I would like to do a sequel, there seemed more of the girls’ story to tell. In particular, Best Friends… is mostly told from Lisa’s perspective; Love Life… goes into Becky’s character a lot more, as well as introducing some other characters to be more of an ensemble piece.

The other thing I have been doing throughout 2018 is working to promote my writing through social media (mostly Twitter and this blog). I’m not sure how effective my advertising is, but I quite enjoy doing it and I think if you are a self-published author, being active on social media is quite important. That said I am perhaps not as prolific a tweeter as others, my Twitter largely ignores both things happening in my life away from writing, and also politics, which are two big and popular things to tweet about. I just feel, as a thirtysomething male author, that the sort of people who read my books (which are usually about pretty young naked women) aren’t really going to be that interested in my life!

I do browse Twitter a lot though and one person I am a big fan of is the model, artist and self-described “Naked Person” LucyMuse. It is Lucy’s thoughts on the intersection between creative nudity, erotic nudity and non-sexual naturism, and where she places herself in that, that have inspired me to label my writing Naked Fiction this year. I feel that while my writing is undeniably erotic and therefore sex-positive, I try also to promote naturist values in terms of the enjoyment and empowering qualities of non-sexual nudity. While many naturists would probably be angry that I use naturism or a version of it in my fiction, I hope to be seen as a little different to many erotic writers in that I’m not seeking to sexualise naturism; instead I’m writing about naturists who also happen to have good, fun, interesting sex lives. So I would not call my writing “naturist fiction” but also I would not consider it purely “erotic fiction” either – hence, naked fiction.

So at the end of a busy 2018, what does the year ahead hold for me?

Well, in January 2019, probably around the anniversary of the publication of Best Friends… I will be publishing Love Life of a Naked Girl, which as I have said is the sequel to Best Friends… and follows the further adventures of Becky and Lisa.

I have already begun work on my next novel. I had planned to take a break from writing for a while in 2019, I have many other things in my personal life I would like to do that don’t involve sitting at a computer. But inspiration struck me and I found myself revisiting some story fragments and plotting a novel around them, which is already progressing well. So without wishing to set myself up for a fall, you can expect a fourth full-length A D Rowen novel at some point in 2019.

Beyond that, I would like to finally attempt to write a non-erotic work, one which explores naturism and nudity for the main character but without the sexualised element in my other books. I’m not sure this would find its target audience (I’d like to write it for Young Adults) but it could be a fun experiment.

I’d like to end by (once more) thanking everyone who has read one of my novels, checked out my short stories, followed and interacted with me on Twitter, read my blog, and especially those who have offered advice and encouragement and indulged my weird humour and tendency to over-philosophise.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a great and prosperous New Year.

Ten writing "rules"

My apologies for once again finding inspiration for a blog post from something that has been trending on Twitter! But over the past couple of days, fellow writers and others have been having a lot of fun with US novelist Jonathan Franzen's recent appearance in an article for LitHub, in which he offers his ten rules for aspiring authors.

As you would expect from someone who has been a successful and established literary author for some time, Franzen has a particular set of opinions which seem to be both largely divorced from the reality of experience for many people attempting to write novels, and also particular to his own experience and privilege. Where they aren't tin-eared to reality, his rules are nebulous and vague (what could "you have to love before you can be relentless" possibly actually mean, and who could this ever help?).

Author Twitter, of course, has had a field day making fun of Franzen's "rules", with many different writers offering their own takes on advice they would recommend fellow authors follow. Some is comedic, some genuinely attempting to be helpful, while others mix the two.

Although I doubt anyone needs it, here is my own list of ten rules I would suggest aspiring writers follow (tongue firmly in cheek, of course):

1. Don’t care about word count (unless you’re being paid by the word in which case, use as many as possible, even if it doesn’t make sense purple monkey dishwasher)
2. Don’t care about other people’s word count (even if it’s NaNoWriMo – it literally doesn’t matter)
3. If you aren’t enjoying it, stop and don’t go back until you enjoy it again. This might take a while but what is the point of writing if you hate it? It’s hard enough to make a living doing it if you like it!
4. Don’t be afraid to edit as you go, your first draft doesn’t have to be a stream-of-consciousness
5. Don’t worry if your first draft needs masses of work, that’s what editing is for
6. Write in the environment that works best for you, whether that’s naked in the dark in isolation or plugging away at a laptop in a busy coffee shop
7. Don’t write naked in a busy coffee shop, though
8. Do as much research as your work demands, whether at the library, via the internet, or by talking to people who can add something to your narrative
9. If you haven’t researched, keep things big and vague and you will probably get away with it unless you write historical fiction or something techy about planes or tanks, in which case, someone will tear you a new arse on the Amazon reviews for having a character use slightly the wrong type of teacup or fix their engine with the wrong spanner
10.  A bit of ego is fine but don’t go around lording it over other writers like you are God’s gift to literature. You aren’t Tolstoy (unless you’re Tolstoy, in which case congratulations on defeating death and discovering the internet). Your work might change someone’s life but more than likely it will just briefly entertain them, and that’s good enough

'Best Friends...' or 'Brave Nude World'?

I recently noticed a trend in sales of my two books on Amazon. For the past few months, I have sold exactly twice as many copies of Best Friends With a Naked Girl as I have Brave Nude World.

That's something I find interesting, as my experience as a customer on Amazon tells me that people who read one book by any author are usually encouraged by the site's advertising and algorithms to at least be made aware of, if not actually purchase, books by the same author.

I've no complaint at the way my sales are occurring. Every sale makes me happy, and I'm glad my readers are finding something to enjoy in my work. But it does have me wondering why someone might 'prefer' (or be drawn to) Best Friends... over Brave Nude World.

Firstly, I should say my own assumptions about the two books. I had believed that, of the two, Brave Nude World would have greater appeal.

For one, it was my second novel (although I wrote the majority of it before I turned the Best Friends... short stories into the Best Friends... novel, my experiences writing Best Friends... as a novel were invaluable in the editing and rewriting process that I went through before Brave Nude World finally saw publication). As a result, I tend to feel it is the stronger of the two in many ways.

Secondly, I believe that if you want to judge a book by its cover, Brave Nude World has the better one. I love the image that Danielle, my cover artist, created for me, and by this point I was myself more experienced in putting book covers together. My working relationship with Danielle was stronger too, such that they were able to make suggestions that I could use to improve my construction of the cover. I think Brave Nude World's cover looks more like a professional book cover, compared to Best Friends... which, although brilliantly illustrated, does look more like a self-published amateur work due to some decisions I made about the design and lettering before I knew better.

Lastly I assumed that Brave Nude World would have slightly more universal appeal. Best Friends... is a small-scale story of two teenage girls, one an exhibitionist/nudist, the other very much not but also haplessly falling in love with the first. Brave Nude World has an older protagonist, a mid-twenties woman, who lives in a (deliberately nameless) city in the USA and explores the social experience of public nudity as well as having the character experiment with, and accept, an exhibitionist side. I assumed more people would want to read about the latter than the former.

But those are my assumptions, and what is interesting is to look at how my work is selling and being received, and challenge those.

Best Friends... might have been my first novel, but that might be one reason why it enjoys such popularity. People who had been following my work have read the versions of the stories that appeared on short story websites and knew me for that particular work. As such, the fanbase I have built up definitely finds the ideas in Best Friends... appealing. Brave Nude World is a slightly different work, in setting, theme and characters, and it may be that some of my fans simply prefer Best Friends... with its British setting, teenage (18+) characters and themes of romance and coming-of-age sexual exploration.

The feedback I have received for Best Friends... indicates that even if readers bought it because of the nudity/exhibitionist angle, they found the relationship between Lisa and Becky to be compelling and likeable. At their heart, I think fans of that book are romantics, wanting a happy ending for the characters, and there are perhaps more people who read my fiction for those reasons than just the titillating elements.

Brave Nude World has less focus on romance; this is deliberate, Rachel is intended to be a rather typical millenial, with a typical millenial's attitude to dating. She's not a teenager in the flushes of first love; she is an adult woman navigating metropolitan life, making immediate choices rather than looking for a long-term and permanent partner. At the end of the book she has some sort of relationship, but whether that has a future is down to the reader's imagination. I stand by the choices I make for my character, but I accept they don't give the reader a relationship to root for the way that they might for Lisa and Becky's.

Cara Delevnigne's selfie
which inspired the cover of 
Best Friends With a Naked Girl

Simple things, like the cover, may also come into play here. Brave Nude World may have a striking cover image; Rachel standing nude on the subway platform surrounded by clothed commuters, nobody batting an eye. But the cover of Best Friends..., with the clothed Lisa and the naked Becky posing for some sort of Instagram-style selfie together, has a lot of pull too. It's arguably more overt in its display of nudity than Brave Nude World. To be sold on Amazon, I felt it best to make some minor censorship of Rachel's bare bottom on the retail version of the cover, whereas the image I had decided on for Best Friends... (inspired by a photo posted on Instagram by the model Cara Delevnigne) reveals about as much of Becky's body as it is possible to get on a book cover on Amazon without being banished forever to the depths of the naughtiness dungeon. So in terms of looking interesting and sexy, I suppose Best Friends... rather trumps Brave Nude World (the cover of the former is based on a titillating picture from one of the world's sexiest women, the latter takes its inspiration from a scene in a French comedy film).

I imagine it's possible that even the titles of the books have some effect on how they are being received. While both titles imply nudity, Best Friends... is rather more overt in what it suggests; the title assures the reader that whatever else they can expect in the book, there will be at least one Naked Girl. Brave Nude World, my clever/terrible play on the title of Aldous Huxley's most famous work (seriously, I can't believe I was the first person to publish a book with that title) might seem to me less clumsy, but it also tells the reader less about what the book might involve.

Ultimately I'm delighted with the recent sales of both my novels and I know I have a number of readers who have probably read and enjoyed both equally (even if for different reasons). But it's interesting (not to mention a little intimidating!) as I move into the final stages of writing the sequel to Best Friends... to try to imagine what it is that attracts people to that particular book and what they enjoy about it, to make sure that they enjoy the new one just as much.

Paperback Writer

I've published my two novels to date as e-books, available on Amazon exclusively (I like being able to offer them via Kindle Unlimited, erotica I feel does well from that, and KU requires brand exclusivity) but I recently decided to investigate one of the other options Amazon offers to self-published authors; selling paperback copies.

If you are a self-published author, getting your book into print as a physical copy can be a burdensome task, and it is for this reason that the rise in popularity of e-books has seen an accompanying rise in the number of self-published authors. It's easier now to self-publish and have access to a global marketplace for e-books; that's why I did it and that's why a lot of other people do it too. I write for a hobby, not out of a dream of being a full-time writer (I mean, it would be nice, but I'd probably have to diversify from writing about people getting naked); if it was at all difficult to actually get a book on sale, I wouldn't have done it. But Amazon and Smashwords and the like are pretty straightforward once you've gotten the hang of formatting your manuscript how they like them (they are not exactly the same!) and I found the publication side of things to be a breeze compared to writing and editing the damn things...

In the past, if I had wanted to actually get my book out in paper copies, I would have either needed to find a publisher to agree to publish it and pay me royalties out of what was left once their costs and profit had been subtracted, or found a 'vanity' publisher who I could pay to print the book and send me copies which I would then try to sell on. There are all sorts of reasons why booksellers would be reluctant to take on stock from a self-published author; my work being niche erotica would only add to those, so I'd never considered it an option.

But Amazon offers a slightly different model in several countries around the world. You upload your manuscript and book cover to them, and they offer it for sale as a paperback; but they only print as many copies as are ordered. They don't take any money from you upfront, the cost of printing the book is taken from the sale price. They take their bit of profit (seller's fee) off the top of what's left, and the rest is yours.

The difference in approach makes it a lot more appealing. Under a vanity publishing model, I might pay for 500 copies at £3 a copy. I could sell those myself for £7, making £4 per book, but I'd have to sell 375 of those 500 copies before I had made back what I'd spent on printing. And I'd have to do that through finding enough stores and individuals interested in my book to make that number of sales (more if you consider that book stores would take their own slice of that £7), all without any advertising or support from a publisher.

While I might think I have a great book, persuading enough people by myself to take a chance on that would probably only end in a financial loss and a box full of unsold books in my attic.

But with Amazon, if nobody ever buys a paperback copy of my book, I've lost nothing. I've spent £0 in printing costs, and nor have Amazon, because none have been printed. The only way a book gets printed is if someone wants to buy it, and Amazon only prints as many copies as there are customers. So there is no upfront financial cost to me, and no box of unsold books under the bed at the end of it all. And I haven't had to spend my days off lugging a suitcase full of novels around my local bookshops trying to persuade them to stock a novel with the words "Naked Girl" in the title.

(That's not to say you can't do that if you don't want to. Amazon offers authors the option to buy copies of their book at only the cost of printing, they are then free to sell these on if they wish, using the exact same model as the old vanity publishers; the difference is you don't have to do this).

It seems ideal, but it's not as revolutionary or beneficial as it might first appear.

Because these are in effect bespoke printings, the cost of printing is quite substantial. Publishing houses manage to keep overheads low by printing in large quantities; the more copies you print, the less per copy it costs (up to a point). I work in my 'real' job with print and editing so I know this; but it is true for all manufacturing I think; if you're setting up a printing press or any other type of large machine, it's more viable to set up the machine and make 5000 of the same thing than make one thing once, then reset the machine to make a completely different thing, 5000 times.

But Amazon is doing things differently. I don't know enough of their business model to know if they are literally printing one copy at a time, or printing a small number in batches and storing them in their warehouses, but I suspect if it's the latter it isn't a high number (perhaps 10 copies initially, replenishing or rising according to demand). So the cost per copy for printing is much higher.

That's not a problem for Amazon because it deducts that cost from each sale; but as you as the author set the sale price of your book, it becomes your responsibility to price accordingly. Amazon adds your print cost together with their selling fee; you can't charge less than the sum of those for your book. If you want to make any money per sale, you are looking at whatever you charge on top of that; and depending on what your book is, that sum is already quite high; perhaps even more than the cost of a book you would buy in a bookshop. Which means that you risk pricing yourself out of the market for people who might actually want to read your book, the end result being your book doesn't sell as many copies because people think it's too expensive next to books from publishers who are able to keep costs lower. To keep it priced competitively, you probably have to accept that your royalties per book will be quite slender; a more expensive book will net you greater royalties, but have less chance of selling many copies.

Also, one has to ask if there is really a huge demand for paperbacks in the field of niche erotica, especially compared to e-books? Many readers of erotica are likely to prefer e-books because they sit anonymously in Kindle libraries, and can be read anywhere without inviting embarrassing judgement for being someone who likes 'dirty books'. You can hide your erotic e-books from a partner who would perhaps be upset by your enjoyment of Planet of the Nubile Teenage Nude Space Vixens or from your parents, or your children. And they don't cost a lot, so you can delete them once you've read them and not feel like you've wasted a lot of money.

Meanwhile, a paperback has to come to you via post (your family might open the packaging, or at least ask you what you'd ordered) and is then a physical object that sits on a shelf or wherever you choose to keep it, ripe for discovery by people you'd rather not find it; but you wouldn't throw it out or give it away because you paid for it. Also it's not like you can sit and read a saucy paperback on the bus without getting at least some funny looks.

Self-publishing paperbacks through Amazon isn't likely to be a path to riches and fame. So why have I done it?

I think ultimately, it was because I thought I might have a few readers who might enjoy being able to own physically a copy of my books. Those less self-conscious about having a book with the words "naked" or "nude" in the title on their bookshelf. Those who like the book covers and want to enjoy them as more than just something to be glanced at (or skipped entirely) in black and white on their Kindle.

I don't demand my readers buy my books in any format, and I certainly don't expect those who have already paid to read my work on Kindle to buy a physical copy just because one now exists. But I like that I can have the option there for those who want it.


Best Friends With a Naked Girl (Kindle and paperback) and Brave Nude World (Kindle and paperback) are available now.

Naturist

Naturism is the practice of going nude alone or socially for reasons of comfort and/or physical and mental health benefits. Naturists believe that social stigmas about nakedness as sexual when it is between men and women are unnecessary as to simply be naked is not by itself a sexual act. Most naturists also believe in the importance of self-identifying as naturist (as opposed to just enjoying nakedness namelessly without categorisation).

I’m a naturist myself and naturism (or nudism - in fiction I tend to use this term) plays a big part in my writing. Becky in Best Friends With a Naked Girl identifies as a nudist, and Brave Nude World is about an alternate version of America where public nudity becomes a protected legal behaviour - those who take advantage of this new right are called nudists. In my short stories, the protagonist of What Was Found When Lost is nude because she is visiting a nudist retreat, and Roommate’s Revenge has a nudist co-habiting with a clothed girl.

I confess that as an author who is also a naturist, the idea that fellow naturists might enjoy my stories is very appealing.  Yet, I have to also acknowledge that for many naturists, there are aspects of my work that would be problematic.

For starters, my books and stories are unashamedly erotica. Although I think they are very much on the soft-core side of the adult market (while there are sex scenes and masturbation scenes they are fairly lightweight), they are definitely "adults only".

Many naturists would likely find little to approve of in stories which use naturism, or a version thereof, as the basis for sexual escapades. After all, real naturism isn’t particularly sexy, and for the most part it isn’t done for sexual reasons (adult swinger-type resorts aside). But we live in a world that sexualises all nudity, and so people who choose to be visibly naturist are often fighting against that perception in order to gain more social acceptability for their lifestyle. When it turns up in porn and other adult entertainment, naturism is often depicted in a very unrealistic way, with the sexual possibilities of people being uninhibitedly nude together brought to the forefront; all of which gives a very misleading impression of naturism to the wider world.

So how do I, as a naturist, justify writing books in which the practice of being naked is often sexualised, when the reality for me is that naturism is not a sexual experience?

I admit it is something I have pondered myself, and my justification comes from the fact that I believe that there remains a place for sexual nudity, and that practicing naturism is less about the complete eradication of sex and more about understanding that sexual and non-sexual nudity are both good, positive things.

To any naturists concerned about my work, I would send a message that despite the fact that my stories undoubtedly use nakedness to titillate the reader and create erotic tension, I am always careful to draw a line between sexual nudity and non-sexual naturism.

In Best Friends... Becky has a conversation with Lisa where she explains how she sees a distinction between her nudist lifestyle and the exhibitionism that she also enjoys:



In Brave Nude World, a much longer conversation takes place between main character Rachel and her friend Amber, exploring how shares nudity can be both a non-sexual experience but still naturally prompt sexual thoughts in certain situations, without the innocence of nudism being harmed:

I don’t think that naturism is sexual, but I think that while we understandably benefit from drawing a line between non-sexual naturism and sexualised nudity, it doesn’t follow that sexualised nudity is bad; and if we are to truly be able to treat nakedness as natural we need to acknowledge that both can exist simultaneously.

By that, I mean that I don’t stop finding my wife attractive and her body desirable just because we practice naturism together. Likewise, just because my characters are involved in some version of nudism does not mean they are not going to explore their own sexuality and embark upon various sexual adventures in my erotic fiction (many arising from the uninhibited moments created by that nudism).

Some naturists may find this unacceptable but for the time being I am going to continue writing about themes of nakedness in a way that interests me.

I'm no hero (!) and I'm certainly not perfect. In the past I have written stories which pander to some of the least-positive porn stereotypes about naturism (although I'm proud to say the tired old 'nudist camp orgy' scenario has never been used in any of my work), but I'm not ashamed to have explored more controversial areas in my fiction, even if it would get me exiled from the 'club' of online naturists who scream "NO PORN" at the top of their lungs on Twitter.

But I'm also interested in alternative perspectives. I've not encountered many authors who manage to marry naturism and fiction in a way that creates interesting and compelling stories without acknowledging sexuality, but I'm always open to suggestions and recommendations from fellow naturists and others who might have an idea of books that do it 'right' (and don't disappear up their own fundament of dullness).

I even have long-term plans to write my own: I've begun plotting out a non-erotic romantic comedy about naturism. For those readers who want to read about naturism but are put off by themes of exhibitionism and sex scenes in my published work to date, I hope this will be more their cup of tea.

New Story! NIP - Nina In Public

After a long break (I was working on my next novel, and then I was laid low with seasonal allergies that left me with little energy for writing), I've returned to where I started, and posted a new short story on Literotica.com, where anyone can read it for free.

This time I've actually done so to enter a contest the site is running in honour of National Nude Day, which is apparently a real thing and takes place on July 14th.  The contest requires authors to submit a story which is themed around nudity - suffice to say I had no difficulty there!

My latest story is called NIP - Nina In Public.  The title is a little pun - NIP usually stands for Naked/Nude In Public, which is certainly the premise of the story; but I called the main character Nina, so that works too. 

Nina is a camgirl/self-employed erotic model and she finds herself going off to fulfill the video request of a particular client with a fetish for public nudity; needless to say, things don't go according to plan, and when she has her bag with her clothes in stolen, Nina's left with no choice but to go out in public naked, no matter how embarrassing it gets.

You can read the story here.

Here's a few additional bits of information about the story, if you're interested (you may want to wait until after reading it in case these count as spoilers):

• Nina isn't based on anyone in particular but her perspective on sex work and the way she got into it are inspired by an old friend of mine who is an online sex worker and has been for several years now.  Girls who make porn are people and sex work is real work, I have nothing but respect and support for women who do that work through their own choice.  Be nice to camgirls, don't steal their vids or abuse them.  And don't look down on your friend who does it.
  
• This is the first time I have written a classic ENF (Embarrassed Nude Female) / forced public nudity story (the typical 'person gets naked outdoors, loses or is cut off from their clothes and ends up having to go naked in public view' tale).  I haven't done one of these before because it's hard to come up with interesting and original ways to have a person be naked and lose track of their clothes outdoors.  The all-time classic is the person whose clothes are stolen while skinnydipping, or the "locked out naked" scenario.  I have read some very good stories where the central character experiments with a little impromptu nudism or nude sunbathing and their clothes are taken then.  Or, a couple who get amorous and their clothes are taken while they're making love.  And that's about it.  So, Nina doing a sort of "dare" (for money) and filming it is a slightly different take on the scenario, which I haven't read elsewhere before.
  
• Often in these stories, exposure/humiliation seems to be a sort of karmic punishment for the woman as a result of them transgressing sexually (exploring nudity or sexuality).  I was trying to avoid that here, so of course Nina ends up having quite a good time and getting hella laid despite her initial embarrassment.  I wanted good things to happen to her, not bad.
  
• Originally the story was going to be a tale with a twist, I abandoned that as I couldn't make it work.  I figured in the end a more light-hearted story was better so I introduced Ryan and had him and Nina getting it on (because it is porn, at the end of the day!).  See if you can guess what the twist was going to be though!
  
• Although I don't say, the story takes place in July.  That's why Ryan is home, he's actually finished college for the summer, but Nina forgets this.
  
• Nobody has two computer chairs in their bedroom but I wanted the two of them sitting next to each other so that's what we ended up with.
  
• I've no plans for further stories with these characters, sorry!  Like most of my short stories this is a one-off.

'Brave Nude World' is now available

My second novel, Brave Nude World, is now available to buy as an e-book from Amazon (for Kindle).

Brave Nude World tells the story of an alternate near-future United States in which public nudity has become legalised, and protected as a right by law.  In the years following this legalisation, the practise of going nude in public rather than wearing clothes starts to become more commonplace, and a new nudist movement begins to grow and become more visible, especially in urban areas.  However, society is still catching up with legislation, and people are still adjusting to the idea of naked people in their midst, with old taboos only gradually being eroded.

The novel is told from the point of view of Rachel, a 24-year-old designer living in a big (unnamed) US city.  Rachel has never felt inclined towards being a nudist before, but in the world of the novel, where she sees naked people on the subway, in the park, on the street and in the workplace, she becomes more fascinated by and drawn toward going nude in public and, in experimenting with this, finds herself exploring new sides to herself, including a hitherto undiscovered exhibitionist streak.

My attempt in writing this story is to bridge a gap between my interest in writing about nudism/naturism, and my interest in writing erotic fiction in which exhibitionism and public nakedness figures prominently.  The world of the novel is a "realistic" nudist utopia - there are no barriers preventing people from going about their lives naked save some remaining social taboos (which are explored in the text).  However the main narrative is as much about Rachel's self-discovery and evolving sexuality as it is about her finding a place in this new and more permissive society.

I've read many stories of alternate worlds to our own in which going nude in public is permitted (and in some cases even enforced) but none which consider the gradual social changes that would need to accompany any legal changes before nudists could freely walk the streets unclad without a care.  Brave Nude World is my attempt to show a society in stages of transition, as it approaches the clothing-optional utopia imagined by some naturists, without being quite there just yet.

I hope the novel will be appreciated by naturist readers who will enjoy the premise and aren't uncomfortable with sex and sexuality (and who can understand and appreciate the discussions the central characters have about sexuality in a clothing-optional society) as well as my core audience who just like reading about girls going about in public with no clothes on.

You can get Brave Nude World here:
Amazon

Brave Nude World: A Preview

My next novel, Brave Nude World, is coming soon.

In the novel, public nudity is no longer a crime in the United States, and a new generation of nudists has begun to become visible in towns and cities around the country.  In this brave nude world we meet Rachel, a 24-year-old designer living in the big city.  Rachel has never considered nudism before but in a world where much more freedom is possible, she finds herself gradually and inexplicably drawn to the world of the nudists, and all the possibilities and problems it brings her.

Below is an extract from this forthcoming work.

----------

Summer, or at least the season’s earliest form, arrived in the city, and I began to take my lunch in the park.  I do the same every year – it’s pretty common for us office types to take an hour or so and catch some rays there, so it’s always fairly busy.  Some days I even wear a bikini under my work clothes, so I can work on my tan over lunch.  I’m not especially vain but I’m blonde and I think my skin looks better when I’ve caught a little sun.

Of course, this was the year of the nudie, and so for the first time I noticed that the sunbathing people in the park included some who had taken off all their clothes, and decided to sunbathe naked. It was probably only a half-dozen people – at the most, ten, although I didn’t sit and count them.  Some were in pairs or in a group together, some were solo.  Just laying or sitting on the grass, chilling out, minding their own business – men and women.  But all of them nude.

It was the most naked people I had seen in one place, but for some reason it was also the least surprising.  It made sense that if you were going to go nude in public, you would do it on a fine sunny day, in the middle of a green space like the park, to work on your tan.  The girls in the subway station or guys like Chris and Martin didn’t really make sense to me, but the people tanning in the park somehow did.

That’s probably one reason why, after not many more visits, I decided to join them.
I’d been to the park a few lunchtimes that week, and had been doing my usual trick of going to work in a sundress and bikini, and whipping the dress off for half an hour to tan, read and eat lunch before getting back to the office.  But that day, call it fate if you like, I’d accidentally dressed hurriedly, and had worn regular underwear rather than a bathing suit beneath my dress. No big deal though, I thought when I realised my mistake, I didn’t need to sunbathe every day.

But lunchtime came around, and as I headed to the park I noticed how it was particularly hot and sunny today, and it began to seem like a real shame that I wasn’t going to feel the sun on as much of my skin.  Then I reached a suitable spot, and my eyes spied nearby two blonde women, about my age or maybe a couple of years older, who as I watched removed all their clothing and lay down, naked, on the grass to tan.

I wondered to myself.  Dare I do it?

I knew the law was on my side. But here, in the park, it also seemed like culture was on my side.  While the vast majority of people visiting the park were clothed or (like I had planned to be) wearing swimwear, the two women weren’t the only nudies visible.  It felt, to me, like a place where to be naked would be considered not just legal, but within the limits of what was socially acceptable.  I decided, with a little smile to myself, to give it a try.

I’m not a prude about my body.  Get me in the bedroom with a good looking guy and I will fling myself around in sexy underwear or nude with complete abandon.  I’m never self-conscious in the women’s locker room and, hey, I live alone so sometimes I walk around naked in my apartment.  Who doesn’t do that?  But those were all one thing – taking my clothes off in a completely public place in the middle of the city is another thing entirely for me, and I felt flutters of nerves at my decision.

Not so much, though, to put me off doing it.  I decided to move nearer to where the other two nude women were – safety in numbers and all that.  I didn’t want to get too close, though, in case they thought I was coming on to them or something.

Satisfied that I was in a suitable spot – nearer to the nude women, farther from everyone else – I took a deep breath and pulled my dress off over my head.  I paused for a moment, looking round.  Then I reached behind my back, unhooked my bra and wiggled out of it.  Finally, I slipped my panties off and laid my clothes down on the grass.  I rolled over onto my stomach, using my dress as a blanket between the grass and my skin.

I looked around me, cautiously.  Absolutely nothing had changed.  No people were coming to attack me, or arrest me, or perv over me.  Nobody was really even looking in my specific direction.  They were all just busy engaging with their own lives, absorbed in their own worlds.

I was completely naked, in a park in the middle of the city, in sight of who knows how many people – and everything was fine.

I lay down and enjoyed basking in the sun for a while, feeling the warmth on my bare butt, before rolling over again on to my back.  I put my arms up behind my head.  I was totally exposed now.  I looked down the length of my body – the peaks of my breasts, nipples pointed at the sky.  My ribs, the flat curve of my stomach, dented with the well of my belly button, then leading down, a tiny, barely-visible trail of silky hairs connecting with the fine, patch of curly light brown hair on my mound.  I don’t shave my pubic hair but it grows fine and neat so it looks as though I spend a lot more time on personal grooming than I actually do.

The notion that I was nude in public was somewhat exhilarating.  I thought back to my only real previous experiences with nude sunbathing; specifically the first time I tried it – as a teenager, in the back yard of my parents’ house while everyone was out.  Then, I jumped and reached for my bikini at every noise, imagining mom, dad, my brother, the whole high school football team and the marching band about to come streaming through the gate and catch me tanning in my birthday suit to try and eradicate my white marks.  It had been such an anxious experience that I had not dared to repeat it more than a handful of times in my life, and when I moved to the city a series of apartments had meant I no longer had any sort of yard in which to tan.  The parks had become my yard instead, but I had never dreamed I would one day sunbathe not just fully nude in these public places, but with a confidence I’d never had at fifteen or so.  Who could ever have expected that?

After a while I realised that the other two women, whose examples I had followed, had slipped their outfits back on and left.  I alone in this area of the park was nude.  Yet I didn’t feel uncomfortable or worried.  I was no different to any other sunbather, other than that I had not even a bikini covering myself – but my experience had taught me that this was a safe place to lie almost-nude in the sun, why not fully nude?  Public nudity was allowed now, and it was only the social contract we observe – and my own sense of modesty – that discouraged it in me.  But here, with no friends, family or colleagues, only strangers minding their own business – here nakedness seemed a reasonable state to be in.

My lunchbreak over, I reached for my clothing.  I experienced a peculiar sense of disappointment as I dressed.

----------

Keep an eye on my Amazon author and Goodreads author page to see Brave Nude World when it is published.