If you’re a regular Chintz visitor, you’ll know that I was lucky enough to win one of three Xcite-sponsored tickets to Eroticon 2013, which was held in London last weekend. The conference ran for two full days and featured what can only be described as a truly mighty line-up of speakers, all there to encourage us, whatever our medium – blog or book – to write sex right.

I was so excited to be able to attend, although I must admit I was a little nervous about walking into a crowd of people I’d never met in person before. The very lovely Emma over at Dirty Little Whispers, who I speak to a fair bit online (and who also won a sponsored ticket) thankfully agreed to meet up with me during the initial registration session so I’d be a little less ‘island in the ocean’. However, while I was waiting for her to arrive, I happened to go and stand next to a woman who was busy perusing the weekend’s schedule. We got to chatting and what do you know? Her name was Tamsin Flowers and she was the winner of the third Xcite sponsorship. So in a room full of people, we’d somehow managed to gravitate towards each other. Spooky! (Is there such a thing as Xcite vibes?)

After listening to Ruby Kiddell’s lovely welcome and Rebecca Findlay’s talk about the XES: We Can’t Go Backwards campaign (did you know that on 1 April 2013 contraception and STI services will no longer be provided by the NHS but your local council?!) I said farewell to Tamsin, and Emma and I headed off to the first of many fabulous seminars, Molly Moore’s Myth Busting: the Submissive Woman.

I’m a regular visitor to Molly’s blog, Molly’s Daily Kiss, so was really looking forward to hearing her talk in person. And oh, boy, did she ever live up to her online persona. Molly is such a dynamic, engaging speaker and I could easily have listened to her for hours. She validated so many thoughts I, personally, have about submission and what it is and isn’t, but the thing I liked best was the word graph that she shared with us as the session drew to a close. Molly had asked other submissive women to provide her with a word that they felt best described what submission, as a concept, meant to them. The biggest and boldest words indicated those that were used most frequently. And what were they? Well, I’ll give you three of the largest ones: Trust, Love and Freedom.

Molly’s session set the standard for the rest of the day and each lecture I walked into had me scribbling furiously in my notebook.

Indigo Moore’s Blogging Basics proved that my obsession with love of Pinterest isn’t such a bad thing; Hazel Cushion’s Pitching to Publishers gave me some serious food for thought regarding the rise of serials (I’ve been writing one on Chintz for over six months now; woohoo! for the first time ever, I’m on trend!); and M.K. Elliot’s Self Publishing 1 introduced me to the wonders of AutoCrit.

I can’t really end my summary of Day One, however, without talking a little bit about Remittance Girl’s Creative Writing, which was both entertaining and just all-round awesome. There’s no way I can accurately describe or recount her lecture (too much good stuff came out of her mouth) but I did manage to jot down some rather lovely quotes, which I think outline the flavour and intent of what was an extremely insightful session:

‘Push the limits’

‘Fiction is the best place to put those dark sides of ourselves’

‘The most interesting sexual experiences are the ones that aren’t structured quite right’

‘Erotica must do more than arouse – it’s not just about f*ckers.’

Her words even spawned His Holy Eroticness, @HuggyPope. (If you’re not following the robed one yet, you need to be.)

Day Two began with a truckload of coffee (I’d gotten to bed late after attending the previous night’s Aural Sex readings – thank you to Harper Eliot for organising such a great evening) and a rather large bacon sandwich. But the caffeine and grease soon did their work and before I knew it, I was back into the fray, writing down everything I could with an increasingly blunt pencil.

Tamsin and I attended the Anthologies Panel first thing (Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Yes, Sir and Please, Sir are personal favourites of mine, so I was particularly keen to hear her speak), and then it was off to Molly’s Top Ten Tips For Writing a Sex Blog. Conclusion? I really need to spend some time making Behind the Chintz Curtain easier to navigate.

Given my dysfunctional relationship with Google Analytics, I thought that Michael Knight’s SEO Love would be a great session for me to attend (it was), and it also enabled me to find out a bit more about ‘no follow’ links, which, prior to Ruby Kiddell’s closing plenary on Day One, I had no idea existed. I also learned a catchy new chant: ‘Don’t be a numbers whore!’

My favourite Sunday sessions? The last two: BDSM Tools of the Trade and Self Publishing 2: Sell eBooks and Make Money. The former had what I can categorically say is the most exciting table of items I have ever seen at a conference, and Michael and Molly’s frank and open dialogue with everyone in the audience – and amazing flogging demonstration – elevated the session from excellent to pretty damn terrific. Harper Eliot did a great job (once again!) of live tweeting it, too, so if you’d like to know more about what was covered, go on Twitter and search for the #ToolsBDSMTrade hashtag. I must admit, I may have become a bit enamoured with a little implement that popped up in Tools. Ever heard of a Misery Stick? No? Well, I now own one! And guess what? It makes me very happy!

Self Publishing 2 was a continuation of a session I’d attended on Day One, and a wonderful way to close what was an exceptional weekend. Both M.K. Elliott and Guy New York were a pleasure to listen to – Guy Skyped into the session from across the pond – and, together, they made me feel a lot less nervous about the idea of self publishing, something that I’ve been considering doing for a while now.

In short, Eroticon 2013 was everything I hoped it would be: I met some lovely, lovely people (particularly enthusiastic waving to Tamsin, Emily Rose, Heather, Molly, Emma, and Indigo) and now have about a billion thoughts and ideas buzzing around in my head. A huge and heartfelt ‘thank you’ to Hazel of Xcite Books for giving me the opportunity to attend, everyone who took the time to answer questions I had, particularly Molly, and, of course, to Ruby Kiddell for organising such a brilliant event.

The post My Eroticon: hug a pope, get happy, get published appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.

Who Said It: The Pope or Fifty Shades of Grey?
Source: Hollywood (Beta)

Who knew that Pope Benedict XVI and E.L. James had so much in common? As Aly Semigran points out in this article, the former’s new sixty-two page digital scrapbook features names and passages that are spookily similar to the great grey monolith.

We jokingly speculated during Remittance Girl’s Eroticon 2013 Creative Writing seminar that our conference was the final straw for the Pope, our debauchery the reason for him quitting his post (the chatter even spawned the awesome @HuggyPope Twitter account). But I’m beginning to think we were onto something. Except perhaps he’s, you know, really left to pursue his burgeoning erotic writing career under the pen name ‘E.L. James’ …

Amazon Wants to Sell Used Ebooks: Everyone is Confused
Source: EContent

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an article in Publishers Weekly announcing that Amazon has been awarded a patent to sell ‘used’ digital content. I re-read the piece three of four times, trying to get my head around the concept of something that’s digital (and therefore ‘non-physical’) ever being able to be labelled as ‘used’. Because, to state the obvious, unlike a book you hold in your hand, an eBook never degrades. It doesn’t ‘wear’, develop dog-ears, a broken spine, or a crazed cover.

Turns out, I’m not the only one struggling with the concept and this article by Peggy Hageman gives an excellent overview of what Amazon are trying to do. Poignantly, she asks:

‘is there really such a thing as a “used” bit of code?’

I love buying second-hand goods – mainly because I don’t like to see perfectly good (physical) objects go to waste. Books in particular. But this concept makes me feel really nervous. The proposition is undoubtedly good for Amazon (they wouldn’t be doing it otherwise) but I suspect that, for publishers and authors, this business model will have some pretty significant repercussions.

TSA guys hard on sex toys
Source: New York Post

This short article made me feel slightly ill. Airport security is a necessity. I get that. I understand that staff must routinely go through passengers’ bags to ensure the safety of fellow travellers. However, it is NOT OKAY for those in positions of authority to go through people’s luggage for the purposes of sexual gratification or amusement. That is an invasion of privacy and a blatant abuse of power.

The idea of some strange man or woman handling one of my sex toys just for the heck of it makes my skin crawl. And I suspect that a lot of people don’t complain about this kind of carry on (assuming they are aware of it) either because they’re too embarrassed to admit that they had a vibrator, dildo, or whatever in their bag in the first place.

Is this behaviour widespread? Well, reading this article seems to suggest it may be quite common (and if you recall, I posted a similar Alert Me article about the two men whose dildo came out on the baggage carousel a few months ago.) So, Chintz readers, a question:

Have you ever taken sex toys on a plane? And, if you have, were they (to your knowledge) ‘examined’ by airport security?

*Please note that this poll is anonymous, so you can participate without fear of sex toy ‘outage’.

The post Alert Me: E.L. James a pseudonym for the Pope(?), ‘used’ ebooks, and sex toys in airports appeared first on Behind the Chintz Curtain.