Setting the Scene

Here's a good example of how to set the scene.  It's the beginning of Margery Allingham's very entertaining mystery/thriller "Coroner's Pidgin."  Note the presence of the dreaded description paragraph which is so loathed in erotic stories.  Anyone want to count the horrible writing sins that Margery got away with?

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The man and the woman carried the body cautiously up the stairs.  Although it was still early evening, the narrow way was grey and shadowy, and it was very cold, colder even than it had been outside amid the thin traffic of a war-time London. 

The two who were alive in that grim little group which writhed and breathed so hard in the gloom were both elderly people.  They were an unexpected couple in any situation; the man was a large blank-faced Cockney without any pretensions and the woman was out of place beside him, her delicate aristocratic grace accentuating both his clumsiness and the horror of her present task.

All they had in common was the job in hand and a sense of nightmare, and as they plodded upwards with the dead weight between them their feet trod the carpeted stairs without feeling them and they strained their muscles without noticing the strain.

Mr. Lugg, who was in his disreputable Civil Defence uniform, reflected that he had to hand it to the old girl even if she was a marchioness, she was showing very game.

'One more flight,' he muttered.

'Hush,' said Lady Carados, adding breathlessly: 'oh, can't we keep her feet off the ground?'

Discount Code for High-resolution Music Downloads from HDtracks.com

The nice people at Crutchfield.com sent a 15% off discount code for high-resolution music file downloads from the HDtracks.com music download website.  The code is CRUTCHFIELDHD15
and it is good until 9/29/14.  Be sure to click "Apply Discount Code" before checkout.

I've never purchased anything from HDtracks but Crutchfield supplied most of the audio and video equipment in my home.  Of course Crutchfield is most famous for their top-notch car audio equipment and superb installation instructions.

Alice in Wonderland music video from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Tom Petty has a new hit album out.  To celebrate, here's the classic music video from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with the Alice in Wonderland theme: Don't Come Around Here No More.

Beauty Out of Grief

Sommer Marsden’s husband is sick. Very, very, sick. She’s a writer, so she’s coping with it
by writing a serial on her blog. The story is free and well worth reading.

If you want to help Sommer, then buy the erotic fiction anthology that is a fundraiser for
her family. I did and it’s well worth the money.

Free erotic story - Practicing Lovecraft by Robert Buckley

Here is another classic free erotic story that we wish we'd written.

Practicing Lovecraft by ERWA author Robert Buckley

Tree of 40 Fruit

Artist Sam Van Aken got carried away with fruit-tree grafting.  It was the sort of mad-scientist experiment which normally ends in disaster.  The result, however, is beautiful art.  Check out the "Tree of Forty Fruit" picture of the tree in bloom.

How to be Popular

A reader asked, "How do you get people to read the blog?"

Well, the best way to get people to read an ordinary website is to provide content which is interesting and/or useful.  I believe the same is true for blogs.  Sommer Marsden primarily uses recipes and book excerpts.  Alison Tyler concentrates on writing contests and book excerpts.

The trick is to get a critical mass of people to find you.  Most recent calls for story submissions also request a short author bio, which can include a link to your writer's blog.

Writers who know each other link to each other's blogs, and also guest-post on each other's blogs. 

Some websites, such as Clean Sheets and ERWA, don't pay money for stories, but if they use a story that you sent them then they will post links to your blog or website.

My experience with my non-blog personal website is that it takes about a year to really get the ball rolling. By "get the ball rolling" I mean attracting 5000 unique vistors per month.