Hmm.

[sabinetzin]

There is a question I have been wondering about for a long time, flist, because I am fascinated by how writers write, and also because I am a pervert.

Do you get turned on when you're writing?

Like, the subject of porny fanfic- specifically my reaction to it- kind of mystifies me. For, like, a really long time, I didn't even understand that people got off on NC-17 fanfic, even though I read, like, a billionty words of it. Yeah, idk either. It just... didn't occur to me that people did that. And I am given to understand that other people find the act of writing exciting, but I have no idea how that even works. I find it satisfying, but in a completely nonsexual way. I am friggin too distracted by trying to find the right words to get turned on. I don't even find stories that I've written hot most of the time, because I'm still distracted by word choices and stylistic things, etc. etc.

I have, however, made myself weep copiously. So idk. You'd think they were similar.

So I wonder, Flist. Your thoughts?

(Unrelated: Watching Lucy, Daughter of the Devil, and of course, because it's H. Jon Benjamin, I keep seeing Archer every time Satan speaks. However, it occurs to me that they're... oddly similar. And this pleases me.)

Comments

[dizmo]

When writing fic? Oh, God no. On those rare occasions I actually write porn, I'm too busy being hideously embarrassed and worrying that it sounds completely ridiculous to actually be remotely near turned on.

[cesare]

Sometimes. If I do a first draft that's closer to stream of consciousness, "this happens, and then this and then that and then this," coming up with the scenario, jotting down the choreography, blocking, sequence of events, everyone's ~feelings~ if applicable-- that part can be hot to plot/write. Once it's a matter of digging into it and really writing, though, it's basically like what you describe: getting the words right takes too much attention to get much of a charge from it.

Actually, I feel the same way about writing emotional scenes. Thinking through them initially, I can be affected, but once I'm doing the Lego-block-building work of writing, not so much. I feel like I'm putting too much work into building a cage to contain that feeling to indulge in paying attention to the feeling while I do it.

Fanfic, no matter how explicit, doesn't usually affect me that way. The enjoyment I get out of it is generally just emotional. I don't mean that in an 'above it all' way, I mean that in a "nifty.org and kink.com are for srs bsns" kind of way. What I look for in fic is that gutpunch of insight into how a character is feeling or what they're afraid to lose.

[thingswithwings]

Yup, I get turned on when I write porn. It's a really useful tool for me in the porn-writing process, helps me figure out where the scene goes next and what people are feeling and stuff.

[anatsuno]

This. Though I haven't written porn in so long (or anything else) that I should word it in the past tense, to be exact. :)

[schmerica]

Yeah, no, I don't get turned on while writing porn - the process of writing just takes too much awareness, I think. And I mean, coming up with the ideas, the images, can sometimes turn me on - there's more than one fic that I've written for that reason - but I actually start working on it, not so much with the fic itself.

[helens78]

Sometimes! TBH, though, I think getting turned on by what I'm writing is much, much more a factor of how inclined my body is to get turned on at that particular moment, and not so much about how hot the scene I'm writing (or cowriting) is. If I haven't gotten laid in a while and I WANT to get laid, then describing Erik reacting to copper can be PRETTY SEXY. If I'm just not in the mood, I can write the sex pollen fic to end all sex pollen fic and just be like, hmm, I want to try that new Doritos taco at Taco Bell.

Same thing goes for recording sex scenes in podfic and reading really really hot fic. I enjoy it no matter when I'm doing it, but I don't literally visit my bunk unless I was on my way there anyway.

And, uh, speaking of my bunk, therein idfic is found, and almost none of it ever gets written. So the reverse -- the stuff I think about while actually turned on -- I almost never write down. It's not like it's anything different than what I'm usually writing (although I don't exactly waste time on witty dialogue or working through narration), it just seems like it comes from a different part of the brain (which, when I think about it, I guess it does).

Going on a writing tear and finding it REALLY SATISFYING is kind of a different thing from being turned on, like others have said... I can get really high and giddy from it, but usually it's a different thing from being actively turned on. But if I've written four thousand words in an afternoon, I'm going to walk around in a way that society would probably often interpret as "someone who got laid really well", because it's very viscerally satisfying to pull that off.

PS: Oh, you mentioned crying! Up until recently I had never, ever written anything that made me cry, but that was before the Bound and Determined universe. I have cried a couple of times (maybe three?) while doing that. None of which have made it into anything we've posted yet, but I have no doubt they'll show up eventually. I am curious whether they'll make me cry when we fic them up! :D It's for science!

[shadowen]

Way too focused on words to get turned on while writing. Every once in a while, I'll read a fic that hits just the right buttons, but not terribly often.

[coffeesuperhero]

This is so fascinating! I've been wondering this myself for a long time, and as usual, as Sabine goes, so goes my house: I don't usually get turned on by writing or even reading. There are a handful of stories that I've read that push my buttons that way, but usually even though I can say, "Mmmm, delicious story," I can tab over and start reading the newspaper and not even think about it. I think of all the stories I've written maybe two have turned me on while writing them? And I can't be sure that it was the content of those stories that did it, even, because I'm pretty sure I wrote both of them while moderately intoxicated.

[valentinite]

Like many others -- I will get turned-on (or emotional -- happy, sad, whatever) while brainstorming ideas, but the actual writing is me going AUGH WORDS WHAT DO THEY MEAN pretty much without emotional content. So for me, the weeping and the ...this parallel sentence structure: no good can come from it... not-weeping, they are similar.

But I haven't been writing much lately except for RP, which is less-edited but also less emotionally heavy, since it's just in-character reactions to things rather than setting up an entire house of cards only to blow it up, in one sense or another.

[mific]

Yes. I get turned on reading fic as long as it's well written NC-17 stuff and especially if it hits my kinks. And even more so when writing it. Especially as then it's even more likely to hit my buttons, but also as I'm pretty visual so there's a lot of fantasy involved in envisaging the scene and then writing it. Writing the dialogue's a turn on as well of course - I guess for me it's kind of like role-play overall. I rework whatever I write several times, but that doesn't lessen the effect - repeating it just keeps the arousal going for longer. I get the same thing with sad scenes - they can make me cry while writing, not that I write much of that sort.

[forestgreen]

Sometimes. If the story I'm writing hits my kinks and if the time of the month is right. It mostly works with stories written by my id. I don't worry too much about style or grammar or whatever, just getting the scene down on paper and since I know that it'll never see daylight I don't have to bother about making it sound good. It's just writing down things that turn me on, and that's fun in and by itself.

There are some authors whose sex scenes turn me on, but that's rather the exception than the rule. I don't know, there's a particular mix between description of bodily parts in action, the emotions at play and the dialog that hits me just right. However, too much or too little of one element makes me lose interest and then it's just another sex scene among thousands I have read, esthetically pleasing and interesting but it just doesn't do it for me. I can count with the fingers of one hand the authors that manage to get that mix right.