Intimate Interviews

Spicy Wisdom from @SeraDrake

We'd love to get to know you better. Can you tell us more about yourself? 

I'm a middle-aged writer of erotic literary fiction that centers love, kink, neurodivergence (I am autistic, and my autism informs my writing), queerness, and enthusiastic consent. I live with my husband and four children in the part of the United States that is flatteringly called the "heartland," less flatteringly known as "flyover country."

What made you take up the pen and start writing? 

I wrote my first book when I ran out of library books to read. I think I was four years old, maybe. It was a picture book about angels... Writing, like reading, is something I've just always done. I won't say everything I've ever written was worth reading. Most of my early work, in fact, was terrible. However, it was all worth writing.

What inspires you as an author? 

All of my writing is an act of love. I sometimes write in response to the works of authors that I've read. Other times, I write love letters to my husband, or to a paramour (we have an open, polyamorous marriage). If I have words and ideas burning inside me, there is only one way to let them out.

What inspired you to write your first steamy scene? Could you tell us more about that experience? Was it a slow buildup to a not-so-innocent kiss, or did your characters jump right into the action?

My first "steamy scenes" were sexual fantasies that I wrote into my love letters. Some of them eventually took the form of microfiction. It wasn't a very large leap from writing erotic microfiction to writing a novel.

Was writing "after dark" material something that occurred naturally to you, or was it a craft that you practiced till you perfected? 

Writing the rough draft of my debut novel, Ancilla, came more or less naturally. I jotted down my plot outline and its elements, waited until my children were in bed (at the time, they ranged in age from two and a half to ten), and started writing. The eleven years of editing that followed, however, were a matter of "practice until perfect."

Do you have any challenges that you face during writing, especially spicy or mature topics? And how do you overcome them? 

When what you write is literary erotica, rather than something a little more raunchy, the balance between style and smut is delicate. Very delicate. Because you have to write about sex in such a way that it wouldn't look completely out of place in a Norton Anthology, if one existed for erotica, but you also have to write about it in such a way that it manages to get a desired effect. Spice must burn, or it isn't spice.

Then there's the challenge of coming up with words for genitalia, states of arousal, etc. There are only so many words, and quite frankly, most of them sound either clinical or utterly ridiculous. Focusing on other details of plot and characterization helps with this a little. There may be only so many words for body parts and reactions, but there are any number of ways to focus on the emotions of the characters you write about, and emotions are often more arousing than descriptions of body parts are, anyway.

What is one thing about writing that no one told you about, or what is one piece of advice you would like to share with other writers especially when it comes to writing AfterDark material?

Write what you love. Don't even think about your audience - write for yourself, at least when you are writing the rough drafts. Erotic material does not work unless it is from the heart, from a place of passion. You have to love what you write about; you have to be turned on by it. The best way to make sure that happens is to write for yourself. You can polish your writing and get the feedback of alpha and beta readers later.