Tag Archives: Smut

Smut by the Sea! 28 May! Come Join the Filthy Fun!

I’m so excited! It’s time for Smut by the Sea again. Look out Scarborough, here I come! There’ll be great workshops, fabulous readings, a tombola, an erotic market. There’ll even be Dr. Scribbly with the fabulous Bea Noir performing. But most of all, it’s a great chance to catch up with some of my favourite Smutters, get seriously inspired, and just have a good time! I SO can’t wait! I hope you will come and join the fun. You’ll be glad you did.  Pick up your ticket at Eventbrite now.

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Smut by the Sea 2016 Author and Reader event Sponsored by Godemiche – Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

 

Smut Events are fun, safe, inclusive days out when our community of erotica writers, sex bloggers. talented performers, readers, geeks & those that love them get together to socialize, exchange ideas and inspire one another. Smut by the sea 2016 is the fourth event to be held at Scarborough Library and this year it is on Saturday 28th May from 10am -5pm.

 

On the day there will be a host of fun, smutty things to enjoy including interactive workshops, reading slams, a brand new incarnation known as Dr Scribbly and much, much more. You even get your buffet lunch thrown in for free!

 

In the erotic marketplace you’ll be able to meet event sponsors Godemiche and get to grips with their amazing handmade silicone dildos, have a go on the world famous erotic tombola and win sex toys galore, check out amazingo.co.uk and treat yourself or pick up a book from the book stall and get your copy signed by the attending authors.

 

Tickets are now available from just £12 (excluding paypal charges) and there are a few limited author and promo tickets left for those who want to bring their books and promotional items on the day. Pick up your ticket at Eventbrite now or if you’d like to arrange an alternative way to pay other than paypal contact Victoria Blisse at victoria @ victoriablisse. co. uk (no spaces). As Host with the most she will be able to answer all your questions too.

 

 

10:00am DOORS OPEN
10:15am Introduction from Victoria Blisse
Welcome to our fourth annual Smut by the Sea event!
10:20am Reading Slam #1
Featuring: Victoria BlisseAnna SkySlave NanoKev Blisse
11am Morning Break
11:15am Jennifer Denys presents “Sex in sci fi stories”
Jennifer Denys has written several sci-fi erotic romances and in the process had to research a weightless sex scene – have any astronauts ‘done it’? Come to Jen’s workshop and find out! The session will briefly cover the history of sexuality in sci-fi literature, look at modern depictions and you will get a chance to come up with your own ideas for sex scenes in the future (we want some really fun, innovative ideas!)
12noon LUNCH!!!
1pm Anna Sky from Sexy Little Pages presents “Shortcuts to Self-Publishing”
Anna will take you on a whistle-stop tour on how to get more out of your publishing. Find out how to reach more sales platforms with little extra effort, how to use free services to help readers find you more easily and tips and tricks for spreading your new releases further afield.
1:45pm Check out the Erotic Market Break
2pm Reading Slam #2
Featuring: K D GraceCharlie J ForrestDylan McEwanJennifer Denys
2:45pm Bing-Oh-Behave!
Eyes down on those lovely legs elevens for a game of purple prose bingo!
3pm Janine Ashbless presents “Writing Fantasy Erotica”
So you want to write a fantasy, fairy tale, SF or paranormal erotic story … but you don’t know where to start? You’re wondering where to find fresh ideas? This interactive workshop with Janine Ashbless focuses on where to find your inspiration, and how to turn centuries-old plots into startling new stories.
3:45pm Afternoon Tea Break
4pm Dr. Scribbly with performer Bea Noir
You get to watch amazing performances designed to inspire you on the spot. Then you have a certain amount of time to write something about the performance. Anything you like, a poem, a flash fiction, or even simply a description of what you saw. Its totally upto you, no boxes, no cages, just your words.

There will be fun competitions to take part in and opportunities to win fabulous prizes.

5pm So long, and thanks for all the Smut!
Another seaside adventure draws to a close, as we say our goodbyes for another year xxx
5:30pm DOORS CLOSE

Smut Manchester: Community Inspiring Creativity

IMG_3808If I had to describe Smut Manchester 2015 in three words, those words would be community inspiring creativity. Whether it was the laid back, cozy atmosphere of The Bangkok Bar and Restaurant or the delight of spending time with Brit Babe Street Team members – some of them we were meeting for the first time. Whether it was the open Dungeon and watching the lovely Cara Sutra spank Janine Ashbless or the joy of brainstorming with, listening to, and encouraging other writers; whether it was the workshops or the readings; whether it was the opportunity to make our own floggers with Kink Craft or the delightful evening at Dr. Sketchy’s drawing the lovely performers, who posed for us, I feel as though I have been totally immersed in creativity for the past thirty hours, and I’m still buzzing from it. It’ll be days before I can actually absorb all that happened this weekend, and the really stunning thing about Smut Manchester is that technically it began at 11:00 Saturday morning and was over by 8:30 Saturday IMG_3713night. How such a short time can be so crammed full of creativity, community, random acts of kindness, inspiration and shenanigans totally boggles.

Victoria and Kevin Blisse continue to astound me with their gentle, contagious, enthusiasm completely underpinned by more hard work and passion than a small army could muster. It’s a total delight to have been a part of Smut from the very first Smut event in Scarborough three years ago and to have watched it grow and evolve to the majorly exciting force for erotica and all things smutty. I would like to offer a huge and very heart-felt thank you to these two lovely, fearless people. Victoria, Kev, you are my heroes!

This Saturday has convinced me that we writers need to get out more! IMG_3698I know! I know! We’d all rather be holed up in our ivory towers tap tapping away on our laptops. BUT the pump has to be primed and sometimes we find the Muse in the strangest places; very often we find her in community. Sometimes she’s waiting with a pencil and a sketch pad, or with a mad attempt at a group selfie that ends is hysterical giggles, or the quiet chatting together crafting one’s very own, very beautiful flogger, or the incredibly thoughtful gift of a pumpkin pie totally made from scratch. Thank you Ian Haynes! Your name is spoken in hushed and reverent tones at Grace Manor! And yes, I did, indeed, practice delayed gratification and got said pie home to share with Hubby.

IMG_3677But, I digress. My point is that sometimes the things that inspire most have absolutely nothing to do with writing, and yet everything to do with story. Julia Cameron in her book, The Artists Way, suggests that creativity can be cultivated by having what she calls ‘Artist’s Dates’ on a weekly basis. These are little snippets of time in which we creative folks treat ourselves to a wander through a museum, to a play, to a movie, to a dance class, to a walk, to something, anything that will get us out of our usual headspace and cause us to see things differently. A writer’s date seems completely frivolous and a waste of precious writing time, BUT, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s neither a reward, nor a holiday, but an essential part of keeping ‘creatively fit.’ With that in mind, what can I say but that Smut Manchester was one big gigantic artist’s date. And, while we all know, few things can put IMG_3878you farther outside your comfort zone than a date, sometimes a date can be life-changing.

I spent a good deal of Saturday comfortably outside my comfort zone, in the company of other creative folks who were equally comfortably outside their comfort zone, with all of us encouraging each other. From being put on the spot by Kay Jaybee about what I would do with a tin of pears in heavy syrup out through the back door of the Sainsbury, to making my own flogger, to my very awkward attempts at drawing at Dr. Sketchy’s in the evening, I was always a little uncomfortable and always delighted by the Mr Sketchy winend results. Being outside my comfort zone inspired story ideas that I would have otherwise never managed. It’s not just the inspiration, but being gently forced outside my comfort zone seems to have left me feeling as though my whole creative self has had a relaxing, rejuvenating weekend at The Creativity Spa.

I won’t give you a blow by blow of the days events (though I do promise LOTS of piccies on Face Book over the next week or so) because even as I live them over in my own head and delight in them, I realize I would sound like an excited child telling her parents what she did on her first slumber party. What I do want to share with you, though, is what I took away — not in my head, but in those deeper, more visceral places where writers transform events into meaning and then into story.

I’m still reeling from the fact that I actually won one of the prizes at Dr Sketchy’s! (pretty sure it was a IMG_3861sympathy win. I was totally out of my element) I am now the very proud owner of a lovely pen and pencil artist kit that is so exquisite, I’m almost afraid to touch it. At the end of the allotted sketch time, with each awkward sketch I did, I scribbled a quick sentence underneath it of the story idea the sketch inspired. And while I sat making my flogger and IMG_3633watching other people make theirs, my mind was buzzing with a story. As for Kay Jaybee’s tin of pears in heavy syrup, well I reckon you’ll be seeing that in a story in the near future. Thanks, Kay!

The thing is, while most of our creative effort takes place in solitude, while we shape and refine our stories in isolation, what happens in community is a vibrant, fiery, mash-up that comes to us unexpectedly and out of nowhere from the shared experience. Sketching with a group of people, most of whom are no more comfortable with drawing than I am is commonality, and I can relax and let what happens happen because I’m not doing it alone. Doing crafty things with hands that are more comfortable on the keyboard of a laptop, while chatting and laughing and sharing the IMG_3775experience opens the creative floodgates in a very different way. It’s a much more gentle way, a way that doesn’t require the discipline and the focus that our day-in-day-out crafting of story does. Our encounters with the Muse in such circumstances are more playful, more laid back, and we toy with story and ideas in a way that we never can when we’re facing deadlines, when we have our heads down, still doing what we love, but so tunnel-visioned that we don’t look up to be inspired in the same way.

Smut Manchester was a beautiful chance to be inspired in playful easy ways. By being comfortably outside our comfort zone, we didn’t take ourselves so seriously and we were reminded in exquisite ways that creativity is a playful thing, and it often comes when we’re not looking for it. It often comes when we’re not looking for anything at all, actually.