Archive
My Apologies for Neglecting my first writing blog, Where I’ve Been, AI art of characters of indie novels, “Monogamy Sucks,” and “Relationships Suck,” Future plans…
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In the spring of 2010, I launched this blog to share and promote my novel, “Monogamy Sucks.” It was the first time I had publicly shared chapters from my first novel I had started writing in March 1998. My novel was eventually traditionally published in December 2010.
I also later featured on this blog my novel’s indie publishing launch, the indie publication of the sequel, “Relationships Sucks,” and my other indie erotica novels, “Young, Horny & Mormon,” “Swinging with the Supernatural,” and “Dear Hef.”
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Sadly, I also abandoned this blog in recent years. My apologies for this.
Where have I been all this time?
For the past two years, I have been spending a lot of time promoting my 16 indie books on TikTok and learning how to market my work via video for the Booktok audience, the platform’s community devoted to books. You can check out my account here if you are interested. I am proud of the 500-plus videos I have created for the site, which also includes some intriguing videos promoting my erotica novels.
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It has been a rewarding experience overall on Booktok, but it frankly hasn’t lived up to the media hype that drew me to the site in the first place. I am spending more time back on Twitter (No, I will never call it X) to promote my indie books. You can find me there at @gpwriter. I may eventually start a Bluesky account. I will keep you updated.
You can check out my indie books on my Amazon author page.
Also in the past year, I have been learning about AI art and have worked with AI platforms OpenAI, ChatGPT-4, and Midjourney, among others, to create some fascinating developmental art images for my indie books. I have used the art mostly in my Booktok videos. I think AI art has brought a whole new dimension to the visual side of my work.
Below are some images I created for my “Monogamy Sucks” and “Relationships Suck” novels. They are the characters in my novels – Jake Dalmas, Juliette, Simone, and Shana.
I also created images of the individual scenes in my novels. See below.
These are only some of the many AI images I have created for my erotica novels. I am hoping to share more soon on this blog.
I’ve also started to explore AI video in depicting the scenes and characters using the platforms Runway and Pika. I have shared some of these videos on Tiktok as well.
Although I support AI technology and embrace its possibilities, let me stress that I will never use AI to write my indie books. The writing in my indie books should always come from me, my experiences, and my imagination.
I promise not to abandon this blog again as I have many more stories, images, and videos to share about my erotica novels. I also have plans to eventually relaunch them on Amazon with new edits and covers in ebook, paperback, and hardcover versions.
I may eventually explore writing a third book in my Monogamy Sucks series and possibly other erotica novels.
So stay tuned as always…as my writing journey is far from done.
GP
Naughty E-Male Adventures: The Dark Side of Internet Hook-Ups Meets Playboy Cool in Provocative Novel DEAR HEF Available on Amazon and Smashwords
Although it seems lost to the annals of history these days, Playboy Magazine inspired my youthful fantasies and dreams more than I can describe.
Since I had my first Playboy Magazine subscription in my late teens, I was fascinated with the Playboy mystique and the interesting and unconventional life of late publisher Hugh Hefner. Hef and his magazine represented for me (and many others) a peek into a sexy, wonderful, hedonistic and classy world. It was a hint of adult pleasures that later informed my attitudes about sex and life.
I explored this in my provocative, sexy and hilarious erotic fiction novel entitled DEAR HEF where the dark side of Internet hook-ups meets the Playboy cool, available on Amazon and Smashwords.
DEAR HEF was originally released by my former publisher a decade ago, but I have completely revised and updated the novel for indie publication.
DEAR HEF is still as funny and naughty as ever. DEAR HEF explores my long-time admiration for Hefner through the e-mails of a fan, the book’s main protagonist, a 28-year old Long Beach man named Jimmy Rausch. Essentially, Jimmy wants to be like Hef, but he’s clueless, and is nothing like the iconic publisher, which only adds to the book’s humor.
However, Jimmy has a simple plan: to use the Internet in an attempt to transform himself into a playboy worthy of his hero Hef. The entire book is told through a series of e-mails between Jimmy and his lovers, and online correspondence Jimmy sends to Hef to keep him updated with the progress of what he calls his “Playboy training.”
What Jimmy fails to realize is that his naughty adventures with women he meets online truly border on the ridiculous and the absurd, and hardly live up to Playboy’s sexy and cool tradition. Yet by the novel’s close, Jimmy continues to hope for a coveted invitation to the Playboy Mansion from Hef himself.
My inspiration for my novel is actually a literary one — iconic author Ring Lardner’s dark and comedic short story “Haircut.” Haircut’s story is told by a barber who is giving a haircut to a customer. The barber relates a series of shocking anecdotes revealing that he is closed-minded, uptight and intolerant, and condones the harassment of those who don’t fit into the strict community standards of the town he resides in. However, the barber remains oblivious to how he appears to the reader as he tells his troubling and ugly tales.
I have admired Lardner’s story since I first read it in my high school English class and later when I read it again in college at California State University, Long Beach. I thought it might be interesting to create a character that shared his wild tales of erotic desperation with Hef via the modern convenience of e-mail. Jimmy is pretty much as clueless as the barber in Lardner’s story in that he doesn’t realize how embarrassing and pathetic he looks in comparison to Hef’s cool example and lifestyle.
Jimmy’s female lovers are also given a voice in this novel as their e-mails are forwarded to Hef and hence shared with the readers. Yet the highlight of the book remains Jimmy’s hilarious e-mails to his hero Hef. That is the core of my novel and what makes it unique.
DEAR HEF does have some similarities with my novels MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK in that it is another unflinching peek into the male sexual mind.
The novel’s character Jimmy is more naive, younger and oblivious than Jake Dalmas, the protagonist of MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK. Unlike Jake, it is debatable whether Jimmy learns anything by the end of Dear Hef, which has a much darker and hilarious ending than MONOGAMY SUCKS or its sequel.
Jimmy does share some of Jake’s sarcastic wit and humor in describing his sexual foibles and his encounters with the women he meets. I once again leave nothing out or hold anything back in addressing sexual and controversial topics.
I wanted to honestly explore the good, bad and ugly of Internet sex and dating as I did with the swinging lifestyle in MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK. I was curious to find out if the Internet would make finding sex and lovers easier, but I have discovered as Jimmy does that online life is no different from off-line life. The same principles apply. Sex and dating are never so simple. There are consequences to all you do.
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DEAR HEF also focuses exclusively on the subject of Internet sex hook-ups and casual sex and doesn’t explore the swinging lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of explicit sex depicted in DEAR HEF, but it doesn’t exist outside the realm of conventional one on one sex. People of all ages are engaging in some form of Internet sex or dating these days so the phenomenon of Internet hook-ups is common and widespread these days.
If you enjoyed the raw, frank, funny erotica of my other naughty novels, including YOUNG, HORNY & MORMON, SWINGING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL in addition to the previously mentioned MONOGAMY SUCKS and RELATIONSHIPS SUCK, you will appreciate DEAR HEF. It’s another dose of my real-life erotica. I have no doubt you find many of the books’ depictions of online sex encounters true to life and quite humorous and well worth the time exploring.
You can also find out more about my provocative novels, short story, and poetry collections on my Amazon authors page and on my Goodreads profile, which features past book reviews.
Look for many more of my indie books to come.
GP
A Look Back 10 Years Later: Novel Monogamy Sucks Featured in The Orange County Register
Ten years ago, this past week, my novel MONOGAMY SUCKS was featured in the Orange County Register in an article by columnist Barbara Venezia.
It proved the highlight of my more than two-year public relations and media campaign for the novel, which led to more than 100 articles, mostly book blogs, podcasts, and radio interviews.
Below I have posted an image of the original print article.
The impact of the OC Register article was almost immediate as it helped my novel crack the Top 100 Kindle sales rankings for erotica novels on all of Amazon for a short time.
Venezia captured not only the uniqueness of my novel but also effectively described my writing journey and the emerging promise of ebooks and indie publishing.
Later that year, Venezia posted a follow-up story about me in her column and included details about the impressive response to MONOGAMY SUCKS following her article and the subsequent release of my novel DEAR HEF in September 2011.
I apologize that both stories are hidden behind paywalls. A sad commentary on the current status of the news media.
Also, the links to both MONOGAMY SUCKS and DEAR HEF included in the stories no longer exist as they were taken down by my previous publisher. Such is the bane of traditional publishing. I have provided links above to the indie versions of the books.
Looking back – it seems like a lifetime ago – I have learned some hard lessons about the financial limitations of the ebook industry, and of being an author, and the importance of local, regional media coverage in driving interest in a book launch. I had relied too much on the book and literary blogs during my initial PR campaign for the MONOGAMY SUCKS. It ended up being an echo chamber of like-minded authors but didn’t do much for building an audience among mainstream readers.
Also, in the subsequent years, reading for pleasure has fallen out of favor among younger people and the ebook industry no longer has the same intriguing allure for the media as the next big thing as it did 10 years ago.
However, I am as much convinced as ever of the viability of indie publishing and it is the only way I would share my books now. And on a personal note, I love reading on my Kindle, and still support it as a revolutionary way to feature and explore books now as I ever did.
A year or so, after the OC Register article, I learned another tough lesson when I had to return to full-time work in public relations and put off my dream of being a full-time author. Unfortunately, I nearly abandoned my dream of being an author for several years until I woke up and embraced indie publishing and I have never looked back.
Yet for one shining moment in summer 2011, I thought my dreams of being a full-time author were almost within reach.
Still, I have no regrets.
Since then, I have published 14 indie books, including an updated version of MONOGAMY SUCKS, the book’s sequel RELATIONSHIPS SUCKS, a new version of DEAR HEF, returned to my first love of science fiction, shared my short stories, poetry, and lyrics, and now I am writing about the hellish experiences of my long-time public relations career.
The writing and the joy that it brings me is always what matters most in the end. It took me a long time to realize this.
Stay tuned as always.
You can also find out more about my provocative novels, short story, and poetry collections on my Amazon authors page and on my Goodreads profile, which features past book reviews.
Look for many more of my indie books to come.
GP
Take a Naughty Journey into Internet Sex and Dating: YOUNG, HORNY & MORMON, An Updated Version of my Provocative First Novel LETTERS FROM CYBERSPACE, is available on Amazon and Smashwords
Embark on a naughty journey into Internet sex and dating in YOUNG, HORNY & MORMON, an updated version of my provocative first novel LETTERS FROM CYBERSPACE, available on Amazon and Smashwords.
My debut novel, which I launched myself in 2001 when online publishing was still in its infancy, was based in part on my emails and those of a close female friend. It was an experiment to see if I could finish a novel, even though I had already started writing my novel MONOGAMY SUCKS in early 1998.
This new version with a different title is completely revised, updated, and re-edited for a more contemporary erotic audience. However, I kept much of the essence and spirit of the original book and was pleasantly surprised that a lot of the content and writing in the novel still held up.
The novel focuses on the erotic awakening of 23-year-old Christine Jacobsen and is told from her point of view through her email correspondence with her lovers, and in prose that provides further background and describes her naughty encounters.
The story’s basic synopsis is as follows: Long before it was her new home, Los Angeles was a destination that lived ominously in Christine’s fertile imagination. It was a place that represented a forbidden secular world far from her strict Mormon upbringing and Provo, Utah birthplace.
Little did she know that moving to L.A. several months before with her husband Hank Jefferies, a university student, would change her life in unexpected ways. The move further West had sparked sexual feelings in her that she didn’t yet understand.
Young, horny, and Mormon, but stuck in an unsatisfying marriage, Christine turned to the Internet to reinvent herself as the uninhibited Noelle. After posting a salacious online ad, she embarked on an erotic journey of self-discovery meeting several single and married men for hotel trysts. She later meets the love of her life, an actor from Beverly Hills named Robert, and is torn with the implications of their deepening connection.
So, enjoy Noelle’s humorous, erotic tales of her naughty education in LaLa Land. It is well worth a look.
Stay tuned as always.
You can also find out more about my provocative novels, short story, and poetry collections on my Amazon authors page and on my Goodreads profile, which features past book reviews.
Look for many more of my indie books to come.
GP
SWINGING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL is a sexy, funny, naughty supernatural erotica novel that explores what happens when a swinger, a Vampire, and a shapeshifter meet at a Carnival like no other….
What happens when a swinger, a lady sword swallower, and a lady midget sword swallower meet?
This intriguing scenario is explored in my sexy, funny, naughty supernatural novel SWINGING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL available on Amazon and Smashwords as a digital book.
It is like nothing I have written before or since.
This is an updated and expanded version of the short story that was originally included in my former publisher Lazy Day Publishing’s INDULGENCE, a digital and print anthology published in 2011.
While I kept much of the original story, I added some background, and revised some scenes, and created a new carnival troupe — Cirque Mystérieuse. However, the naughty, irreverent, funny, and sexy elements of my first stab at supernatural paranormal erotica have also been retained.
SWINGING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL focuses on swinger Willy Roamer’s unusual and sexy trip to the carnival to watch a performance from the traveling carnival troupe Cirque Mystérieuse. During his adventure, Willy meets a lady sword swallower and a lady midget sword swallower and discovers some supernatural secrets possessed by the Cirque Mystérieuse.
It’s a very sexy and different kind of story written in the same frank and unflinching manner as the readers of my other erotica novels have come to know. I wanted to combine my brand of real-life erotic fiction with a supernatural story, including vampires and shapeshifters. I’ve even added some new interesting wrinkles to these familiar mythic creatures, too.
Even though I haven’t shared my writing in the supernatural realm before this story, I have been deeply influenced as a writer and reader by Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and other fantasy and paranormal authors that are too numerous to name.
This story was a true departure for me, but I enjoyed writing in the genre of paranormal erotica as it reminded me of the Science Fiction and Fantasy stories I had written as a youth and published in my other recent novels and short stories.
That being said, I have no plans for the further supernatural erotic adventures of Willy Roamer at this time, but you never know. The possibilities for continuing his story are intriguing as you’ll find out at the end of this novel, dear reader.
Stay tuned as always.
You can also find out more about my provocative novels, short story, and poetry collections on my Amazon authors page and on my Goodreads profile, which features past book reviews.
Enjoy and look for many more of my indie books to come.
GP
Relationships still suck…follow Jake Dalmas’ continuing erotic adventure in the novel RELATIONSHIPS SUCK, the sequel to MONOGAMY SUCKS
Well, at least for me, relationships have always sucked…even open ones.
I am much happier single these days.
I explored these feelings in my novel RELATIONSHIPS SUCK, the sequel 2 MONOGAMYSUCKS. I had just come out of yet another horrible and heartbreaking relationship while writing my book.
In RELATIONSHIPS SUCK, which is available as a digital book on Amazon and Smashwords, Jake poses a provocative question to open the book – “Do relationships suck too?”
My novel continues MONOGAMY SUCKS’ protagonist Jake Dalmas’ naughty and hilarious swinging and casual sex adventures while also depicting his issues and frustrations with relationships, particularly open arrangements.
Jake is not alone. Recent surveys and studies indicate that all is not well with the world of relationships. A study presented at the American Psychological Association’s Annual Convention found that being single could be more fulfilling, due to greater personal growth and development.
A Pew Research Center study about the state of romance in America indicated that “most young singles in America do not describe themselves as actively looking for romantic partners. Even those who are seeking relationships are not dating frequently. About half (49%) had been on no more than one date in the previous three months.”
The state of relationships only seems to have grown worse during the recent pandemic. A significant wave of pandemic break-ups is predicted. We shall see.
Relationships suck for me and Jake regardless.
So many struggle with relationships and yet we keep seeking happiness just as Jake does. Even with an open relationship, Jake encounters the same difficulties. I believe this book is funny and intriguing like my novel, MONOGAMY SUCKS, and even sexier and naughtier in parts. RELATIONSHIPS SUCK moves Jake’s story forward in cool and sexy ways.
Juliette, Jake’s sexy Asian artist girlfriend, returns for the sequel, as do a couple of other nefarious characters from the first novel. The sequel introduces a new character named Simone, a beautiful African American art gallery manager and a friend of Juliette.
Jake, Juliette, and Simone explore some scintillating erotic intercolor encounters together that are among the novel’s naughtiest scenes and some of the hottest and sexiest writing I have ever done.
As Jake finally begins to discover the tantalizing adventures of his wild fantasies – threesomes, orgies, wild couplings with beautiful, uninhibited exotic sexy women of every size, shape, and background – he continues to question whether he should be in a relationship at all.
Can his open love with Juliette survive the temptations of the swinging world?
Will jealousy and possessiveness break their daring bond?
This next chapter of Jake’s naughty diary promises the frank humor and naughty swinging adventure that characterized the original novel, but also provides a clear-eyed view of swinging lifestyle and relationships and the limits of each for him.
I continue to be pleased with how my sequel to MONOGAMY SUCKS turned out. I have recaptured Jake’s sardonic, humorous voice from the original novel while also showing how he has grown as a person through his experiences.
I have no plans for a third novel continuing Jake’s experiences at this time, but you never know what the future will hold.
Stay tuned as always.
You can also find out more about my provocative novels, short story, and poetry collections on my Amazon authors page and on my Goodreads profile, which features past book reviews.
Enjoy and look for many more of my indie books to come.
GP
Reminiscing about the wild swinging 1990s, the joys of casual sex and erotic adventure, and my indie novel MONOGAMY SUCKS…
I am not one for nostalgia, but the 1990s were truly a wild time for sexual and erotic adventure, much like I had heard about the 1970s.
It seems like science fiction to me now — another lifetime — but I remember in the 1990s when sex was considered fun, naughty, exciting, mysterious, and controversial, and I did my best to capture it in all its beauty and ugliness in my indie novel MONOGAMY SUCKS, available as a digital book on Amazon and Smashwords.
For those who are unfamiliar with the long journey of my novel to publication, my former publisher, Lazy Day Publishing, which later was acquired by Blushing Books, published Monogamy Sucks in December 2010 after seeing chapters I had posted on this blog. I had sat on my book for 12 years out of fear before finally sharing it through social media.
After former publisher Blushing Books later gave me back the publishing rights, I relaunched Jake’s tales in 2016 in a newly edited version that is much closer to the original novel I began working on in March 1998.
I restored key scenes to my novel deleted by my original publisher, including more of Jake’s sexual past and background in the opening chapter, Jake’s additional thoughts about the people he meets and the provocative world he explores, and an entire chapter about internet censorship from a once-popular internet service.
Although my novel has been updated, the core of the story, my frank, explicit and honest prose, and most notably Jake’s sardonic humor as he searches for sexual peace of mind, remains the same. Jake’s stories will make you laugh, may turn you on, but it is also my hope my novel will you think more openly about conventional societal norms such as monogamy, relationships, and marriage, and still taboo subjects, including swinging, alternative and casual sex, and open relationships. The book is not intended to preach or tell anyone how to live, but only to honestly present an alternative view in a humorous and entertaining manner.
Additionally, now I sadly realize my novel MONOGAMY SUCKS explores a time that no longer seems to exist in this current world of social media and the surprising rise of sexual prudishness despite convenient access to the depiction of every kind of explicit sexual act instantly at our fingertips.
A real mystery and sense of fun about sex seem to have disappeared these days.
Still, I feel there is a place for Jake’s wild honest voice and his always funny, shocking, and intriguing tales on the dark side of sex, life, and erotica.
Maybe post-Covid there will be a revival of interest in sex, erotic exploration, and erotica.
One can only hope so. Seems an empty world to me without the possibility of wild sex and pleasure.
Jake may be a man from a different time, but as an ethical hedonist, he is needed more than ever in this current world state of fear, hatred, intolerance, and divisiveness.
I don’t believe swinging, wild sex, and erotic adventure are dead…yet.
You can also follow Jake’s continuing adventures in my indie sequel to MONOGAMY SUCKS, RELATIONSHIPS SUCK, also available on Amazon and Smashwords.
You can also find out more about my provocative novels, short story, and poetry collections on my Amazon authors page and on my Goodreads profile, which features past book reviews.
Enjoy and look for many more of my indie books to come.
GP
2017: My Year of Indie Publishing Liberation
This past year I have never felt more liberated as an author and writer. In 2017, I not only regained my passion for writing, but I discovered the liberating potential and possibilities of indie publishing.
Since late 2016, I have launched a total of seven books including novels MONOGAMY SUCKS, the sequel RELATIONSHIPS SUCK, DEAR HEF, YOUNG, HORNY & MORMON, SWINGING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL, and poetry collections BACKYARD POETRY and THE HOLLYWOOD HOMELESS.
I completely updated and revised versions of my previously published novels MONOGAMY SUCKS and DEAR HEF, launched the long-awaited MONOGAMY SUCKS sequel, RELATIONSHIPS SUCK, reshaped my first novel LETTERS FROM CYBERSPACE into new version titled YOUNG, HORNY & MORMON, expanded previously published short story SWINGING WITH THE SUPERNATURAL into a novella, finally put out my first poetry collection BACKYARD POETRY, based on poems I had written going back to the late 1990’s, and revised my lyrics into poems in THE HOLLYWOOD HOMELESS, a collection that also dates back to the late 1990s.
However, my indie publishing inspiration didn’t stop there. I also completed five drafts of my Science Fiction novella based on a short story I had written in my youth in the early 1980s. I am currently working on the sixth and final draft with plans to launch the book in early 2018.
Additionally, I created the first draft of my short story collection, also based on stories created in my youth. I am working the second draft with plans to bring it out in 2019. Also, I am working on another poetry collection focusing on poems about relationships, sex, and love, and yet another poetry book based on my lyrics I am looking to bring out in 2018 as well.
I also recently updated my upcoming books list and have 23 potential works I plan on bringing out in the next six years and maybe more if time permits.
The sky seems the limit now for my writing dreams and pursuits. The best thing about indie publishing is that it is my vision out there as a writer, not some editor’s or publisher’s revision of my work.
Fear or more to the point, fear of rejection, is no longer a factor or an enemy in my writing life.
Only time is the real enemy of achieving my writing dreams as I now realize all the years I wasted in fear of sharing my work.
I will also be creating a new blog soon to showcase my science fiction and non-erotica literary writing.
Happy New Year everyone, especially you writers. Remember your writing dreams are waiting…don’t waste any more time dreaming. Everything starts with getting the words down…and sticking with it through the doubts, struggles, haters, and constant pursuit for inspiration.
Stay tuned as always for more intriguing news about me and my books in 2018 and beyond.
GP