Writing erotica or porn for money

For some reason, writing porn or ‘adult erotica’ has become a thing in my life recently. I should stress that I am an open-minded atheist and as long as all parties involved, fictional or real, are into it and are consenting adults, I don’t give a shit what people get up to. I am not a prude. That is my philosophy on all sexual behaviour whether it’s real life, literature, films, whatever. Obviously my personal involvement is fussier.

I should also mention that I am not personally into erotic literature. I think it is much more popular with the ladies (there are several studies backing this up) but not exclusively.

So how did I start?

With the above in mind, about five years ago, I thought I would try to write dirty stories. I was going to use a pen name that could be male or female as female authors outsell males, but I didn’t want to be disingenuous. F.T. O’Toole was the name I chose while a bit beered up.

The next decision was to what kind of genre. This was not going to be Penthouse forum with an all-male readership, so I opted for a story that would appeal to a woman. It seemed weird to write about lusting after men so I went with a story about an insecure young woman living next to a mature and experienced older lady with whom she would eventually have an affair.

So there I was, a middle-aged man, writing lesbian erotica. Needless to say, I gave up after a page. This was mostly down to boredom and feeling generally sad and sordid about what I was doing.

Two things have changed recently, that have made me think differently about the whole thing.

One was listening to the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast. Which I highly recommend and is one of the funniest podcasts I have ever listened to. Seriously, check it out. It is on nearly every podcast app I have seen and is the cause of me laughing out loud in numerous scenarios. That is not a sponsored link but something I genuinely think is hilarious. Obviously the dad, the author of the porno doesn’t fare well in the podcast, but it is definitely worth checking out.

The other is a job I saw on a website, needing a writer to pen a porn book for a company that gives you the entire outline in advance. If you freelance as a writer you will probably come across people wanting to write books for an absolute fucking pittance. I will never do these because if it is a genre I like, then I would rather write under my own name and reap the benefits/pittance myself. Also, plotting and so on takes time.

However, if it’s not something I want my name attached to and everything is done in advance, then game on. I have done a lot of ghostwriting and this is no different.

This particular job gave the outline, so was going to be easy to write, and wasn’t in a genre I would care to write for in my own name. It was remarkably freeing and I found I could easily do 1000 words an hour, sometimes more.

So, to cut this story shorter – I am now writing porn. I don’t know how long for but it is paying bills and weirdly enjoyable as it is so easy. It is odd, especially if you are writing in a public space, but that adds to the thrills I guess.

A weird upshot of the whole experience is that I am now realising the value of writing to a plan. I generally write fiction with no plan – a ‘pantser’ if you will – and while it feels more fun and exciting, it leads to ludicrous amounts of rewrites and moments of doubt about where I wonder where the fuck I am going with the book. So, weirdly, porn is helping me in numerous ways.

I just thought I would share this whole experience in case you are a budding writer and thinking it is weird to go down that path. To confirm, it is. But it is also lucrative, oddly fun, and may help you out in other ways.