I’ll admit I have a fondness for writing short stories. I’m an author who enjoys a challenge. Calls for submissions for erotic collections offer me an outlet for my competitive spirit. I’m known as a novelist of erotic romance—not so known in the erotica world. So when I receive acceptance for a short erotic work I feel validated as a writer.

I’ve been lucky to appear in the following collections so far: Zane’s Purple Panties, Black Lace’s Sexy Little Numbers, Cleis Press’s Lesbian Cowboys, and Harlequin Spice’s Naughty Bits.

I also will appear in the following Cleis collections this year: Girl Crush, Fairy Tale Lust, and Lesbian Lust.

Something I’ve done in the past with my local RWA chapter and with the Rose’s Colored Glasses loop, when I find a call that interests me, is offer a challenge to other writers to write a short for that collection. We share ideas and critiques. Writing the shorts can offer an experienced writer a quick-win and sharpen flabby skills. For the unpublished author, it provides a supervised challenge to improve budding skills.

Why should authors consider writing shorts? For one thing they don’t require a huge investment of time so you can work on a short story on the side while writing the bigger book. In addition, writing short requires an author to choose every word carefully and make every one count. It sharpens your skills.

It’s been a while since I chimed in with a challenge to my writer’s groups, but looking at the calls for submission on the ERWA website has me stoked. The site lists many cool, different sorts of projects to dive into. I am going to challenge myself to write a story for four different calls. (Egads! Now you’ll be able to track how often I get rejected! :confused:)

I’d love some company while I write these. If you are an erotica or erotic romance writer, or have thought about taking the plunge, this is a cool way to try it out. If you’d like to join me, let me know. I’d love a partner or five. We could bounce ideas off each other and critique each other’s work. We might not sell, but the effort is never wasted. What you produce could be the start of a longer book, or something you could offer as a sample of your writing for free on your website.

These are the calls I’m interested in:

Due 6/1/10: Big Book of Quickies – No more than 1200 words
Due 6/1/10: Carnal Machines – Steampunk Erotica – 1500-4500 words
Due 7/15/10: Dream Lover: Erotic Paranormal Romance – 2000-4500 words
Due 8/1/10: Lesbian Cops – 2500-6000 words