If you've enjoyed my fiction and come to this blog because erotica themed around exhibitionism, public nudity and nudism appeal to you, I have good news - you can now read my very first complete novel, available to buy on Amazon Kindle for the low, low price of $2.98 (about £2.21).
You'll find it on sale here:
'Best Friends with a Naked Girl' by A D Rowen on Amazon Kindle
If you'd told me at the start of 2017 that about 12 months into the future I would have an entire novel written and published (even self-published on Amazon Kindle), I would never have believed you.
I've tried before to write novels. Non-erotic ones, these, since I was maybe 16 years old. I've deliberately sat down at my computer, made lists of characters, plotted out what is going to happen, written a few hundred or even a few thousand words... then gotten bored, bored of filling in the necessary plot between the few scenes I had imagined in my head. My approach to writing long-form fiction was a little like making a film trailer from a film that didn't exist - everything looked very cool but there was nothing of substance behind it.
So how did it come to be easier to write an erotic novel?
Well for a start, my book is hardly an epic. At about 300 pages, it's the "right" length for a decent read, but it's hardly The Lord of the Rings. By curtailing my ambitions for something more achievable, I managed to overcome the sense of being daunted by how much there was still to do, which I always found put me right off the experience.
Also, I never deliberately set out to write a novel.
'Best Friends...', as I may have mentioned, began as my first ever sequence of short erotic stories, the 'Lisa & Becky' series. The idea had come to me to tell the story of an exhibitionist and her friend, who wasn't. I'd enjoyed stories about exhibitionism, public nudity, and the CFNF (clothed female/nude female) trope, but I wanted to put my own twist on those themes, and focus not on the exhibitionist herself, but tell her adventures through the eyes of a friend whom she had managed to rope into being a bit of an accomplice to her developing kink.
As the idea evolved it became apparent to me that things would be more amusing and fun to read if the two protagonists had some unresolved sexual tension, that was going to be exacerbated by the fact that Becky was always taking her clothes off in places where she shouldn't. So, in a way, it became both a story about exhibitionism, and also about a young woman developing a very real crush on her best friend, and all the emotional baggage that might entail.
I'd already got too much material for one story - I planned for the two girls to have a series of adventures - but I never envisaged it as a novel. Instead I was interested in publishing the stories on the website Literotica, and I favoured a model there where the stories can be read as individual ones, but are also part of an overall sequence.
So part one had Becky and Lisa going camping, part two had them doing other stuff (such as Becky stripping off in the cinema) and then I'd planned a part three where the two would meet up at university and more exhibitionist fun would ensue.
That was as far as I got. My ambition outstripped my ability and I quickly found it hard to feel enthusiasm for the characters, who seemed stuck in a bit of a loop and not a happy one. Part three never got published, and I'd no idea where they would go in part 4 and how long I wanted to drag this nonsense out for.
Flash forward a year. I'd written some other stories on Literotica, singular short stories about exhibitionism, public nudity and naughty nudists, which had been well received and which I had enjoyed writing. I decided to try and come up with a longer story, which as time went on, crossed the finish line first for novella and then full-length novel.
That novel was called... 'Brave Nude World', about a version of our world in which public nudity becomes legally permitted but is not yet fully socially-acceptable, and it will be out later in 2018!
But what of Becky and Lisa. Well, confidence given a boost by the feedback I'd been getting and by the fact that I'd actually managed to write something long enough to be called a novel, I decided to go back to my earliest work with renewed enthusiasm - and no small amount of changes I wanted to make.
Gone was Lisa's narration which, while fun, forced the action to take place only when she was around and with frequent and repetitive intrusions from her own psyche. Instead I opted for still telling the story from Lisa's point of view, but in third person, giving me chance to divert away to other things happening (such as the prologue chapter, which tells the story of an encounter with the girls from the point of view of a third party, or very late in the book, which relays an experience of public nakedness from Becky's point of view).
Gone too was the notion that Lisa was constantly embarrassed and/or exasperated with Becky. While that had been fine as an initial concept, in practice it just led to stories where the two were practically on the verge of falling out - especially because it made it seem as though Becky was always incredibly self-interested and oblivious to her friend's discomfort.
In this new version, Lisa actively encouraged Becky in many ways, only becoming doubtful when she feared their activities might have gone too far (and this was something Becky acknowledged too, making her more aware of how her exhibitionism might affect others).
Those two major changes helped inspire me to write a great deal more of the girls' adventures, now flowing together in a much more natural way and, before I knew it, I had a novel on my hands, and no difficulty taking it towards a natural conclusion.
So it seems that I might not be a great novelist on purpose, but I can accidentally at least come up with something I'm proud to put my (pen) name to and enjoyed creating!
