Learning Which Wings To Spread

Writing is something that has stuck with me all of my life. It started with reading books way out of my grade level. I would take home books from the school library with over 300 pages while other kids my age took home book that were short and comic like Captain Underpants or books that were clearly too kiddish for them to be reading just so the teacher wouldn’t complain about them not picking out a book to read. To them it was just part of the class assessments every week. But, for me I actually took a liking to the adventures I and dramatic stories I could have play out in my head like a hidden movie only for your brain. I used to think I was weird for taking such a liking until a teacher told me it was a great thing, and to not stop reaching higher limits.

Eventually, I was like “I can do this myself. I can write my own stories for people like me to enjoy!” So, by the time I was in the fourth grade I tried writing my first horrible biography of my little short life. Of course I didn’t think it was horrible when I first wrote it. I was proud as hell! Anyways, let me not go too far deep into the part that doesn’t really matter...

One thing I’ve noticed upon checking my stats on Vocal is that my highest readings are from my erotic and intense short stories on here. ‘A Woman’s Scorn’ being the one with the most reads, which is not a very sexual story, but involves a very intense ending I can tell a lot of people enjoyed reading even from having friends and family read it(don’t be afraid to check it out on my page).

I would write other things that wouldn’t get much attention like poems or advice articles, and I would think about how I could get readers to love the short stories I create like ‘A Woman’s Scorn’? What else am I good at writing? And that is erotic or sexual stories that I know can make people feel good. You know...get a little horny mood in them.

Like I said earlier, I was very advanced in my reading. I would have nothing to read during the summer and would read up all of my books I had gotten from school. My mother would throw books onto my bed with no words or explanations, and I read them with no hesitation. Most of them being urban literature books. That’s where I was introduced to a lot of sexual content (and, NO I wasn’t a fourth grader reading books like that, this was years after to keep that clear). Even books that weren’t urban literature I read had many sex scenes and sexual talk in them. Someone was always having a sexual experience male or female. They would never make sex sound like a good thing either. In a story I read long back I remember the main character’s sister getting pregnant by her coworker in the circus industry. He didn’t want to have a child with her, especially with still being young. So, while they were swinging in their well practiced routine high in the air with a full crowd, he did not catch her as she went to grab his hands. She ended up falling over ten feet from the ground in front of an entire crowd and her own sister...who would want to have sex after that?! Especially unprotected sex!

I kind of got ashamed of reading books with that kind of content knowing others around me didn’t, so I would never talk about them. I felt wrong for reading about things I clearly wasn’t experiencing for myself, and it’s not like I was reading the stories to read about sex. One minute a woman would be heartbroken after her man cheated on her, and next would be having sex with the same man in the next chapter forgiving him. An intriguing story always including sex—never failed.

With that said, I never wrote any stories with sexual things in them when I started to expand my journey with writing stories. Instead, I would be romantic or very dramatic with younger characters so that sexual talk wouldn’t even be considered in my stories. It wasn’t until I was twenty years old, ready to publish my second short story on Vocal that I decided for it to be an erotic one.

‘Ready For The Final Step’ is a warm up to part two, which I published right after. Now part two is very explicit and I describe the events very clear for the reader to feel. It is also one of my highest readings in my Vocal stats. Pushing myself out of the little comforts zone I had, I wrote it and said to myself “fuck it, what is there to be ashamed of?” I was comfortable in writing what I was used to reading—and now almost 21 with two children and husband—used to experiencing. I was more at ease with writing about something that I actually knew about rather than trying to pretend like I knew just to be acknowledged.

This platform has helped me exercise my strengths and find out my weaknesses. I realized that when you write not be afraid to open your mind and let it out on the paper, tablet, keyboard, etc. If you are good at one genre more than the other, don’t be afraid to write work you are afraid people will look at you differently for. Maybe it’s time for them to see who you really are and what you’re really good at. I don’t think that my story was read frequently because of the genre it was put in. I think it has to do with my ability to flow into a character and manifest something from within myself. Something that is apart of myself in a way. On the outside world, I am not looked at as a sexual being. You won’t hear me talking about sex, you won’t see me being very sexual, or being very open about my sexuality and encounters. But in my stories, I can let my hair down and let my creativity flow the way I want it to. Before publishing on Vocal, I probably wouldn’t have dared trying to show anyone else an erotic story written from me. I’m glad this platform has shown me that it’s okay to spread my wings and allow me to make people feel a certain way inside. In a good way **wink wink**

I realized you can’t try to contain yourself in writing. Your readers will pick up on it quickly and no longer be interested in reading your work because they don’t feel it’s authentic no matter the genre. If you feel you are capable of making great content in something you haven’t before THEN GO FOR IT. I am not very popular on this platform, but I am grateful and thankful for the learning experience it has become for me. I plan on writing long term novels with hundreds of pages that I enjoy reading myself, so anything that will help me become a great storyteller and an amazing novelist I will take for surely!

**If you are interested please don’t hesitate to read my work, or even reach out to me on my IG page @thejayyroom_! I would love to get feedback and advice from anyone.

**If you are also feeling generous don’t be afraid to leave a tip and a heart showing love! Thank you.