Dirty Words

Found a Sequel to College Girls!

2011-08-18T01:41:00.000+01:00

Rummaging through an old computer the other day, I found the beginning of a sequel to one of my erotic novels, College Girls.

I was astonished - didn't even remember writing it.

I've been tinkering with it, anyway, so maybe I'll post some up later. Or polish it up and get it published.

Spanking, CP, you name it, you know me. Lovely saucy stuff.

Off to play with it right now, in fact. The sequel, that is.

Chick Chat & Erotica Guests

2011-06-22T14:06:00.001+01:00

I've noticed that some other erotica authors post short hot fiction on their blogs. Others, like me, tend to post on their blogs in a less explicit way.

So which is best? Diary or breast?

If you'd like to see some fiction here, please leave a comment and let me know what turns you on. Perhaps I could write micro-fiction and just post up some very short stories of a few hundred words on a few chosen themes.

I'd also like some guest erotica bloggers!

Any takers, please leave a comment letting me know how to contact you. You should be published, ideally, and already have a following or readership at your own blog. That can be epub or paper publishing, by the way.

Erotic Twitter Hashtags

2011-06-20T12:43:00.001+01:00

So tell me, which are the best Twitter hashtags to be using for erotica writing?

I've just sent this out on Twitter (@catscarlett1):

Looking for like-minded folk to follow #fetish #BDSM #spanking #erotica #eroticwriting #dominatrix #sub

Hoping that may net me a bit of interest, as I'm still pretty much a newbie on Twitter.

But I've noticed that most of those hashtag searches bring up professionals dealing in those areas. What I'd really like to find on Twitter are the grass-roots level readers, the enthusiasts and amateur toe-dippers who might like to chat and maybe later entertain themselves for an hour or two with one of my novels.

All suggestions received gratefully. Thanks!

Cat x

How Does Nancy Friday Get Away With Bestiality ... But Erotica Writers Can't?

2011-06-18T22:08:00.004+01:00

One thing that makes little sense for me in the world of erotica writing is the discrepancy between non-fiction sex and fictionalised sex.

Specifically, I'm thinking of Nancy Friday's fantastic, ground-breaking books on sexual fantasies, which started appearing in the late 70s, I believe.

Friday's brave and intelligent non-fiction explorations of these fantasies really blew the lid off female sexuality. Until Nancy Friday's books, I suspect many people thought very few women masturbated, or if they did, it was to gentle, non-threatening, straight-sex fantasies about celebrity figures or the local tennis coach.

The Nancy Friday books were an eye-opener for women as well as men. They gave us permission to think of ourselves as kinky sexual creatures in our own right, not as victims of male perversion. We read those fantasies with a sense of shock but also fascinated prurience. And got horny at the same time.

But some of them were quite challenging too. Hey, wait a minute, women fantasising about violent sex? This can't be right. And imagining sex with other women, or their brothers, or even their fathers? The most shocking of all had to be the idea of women fantasising about having sex with animals. And men fantasising about their wives and girlfriends having sex with animals instead of themselves.

No wonder one of those collections of fantasies was called WOMEN ON TOP. The candour and liberated sexuality of those women empowered the rest of us to fully enjoy what we were doing in bed ... with or without a partner.

The key factor in these animal fantasies seemed to be penis size. Having sex with an animal wasn't about the cuddliness and companionable nature of animals compared to the impersonal functionality of a dildo. It was all about substance, and unashamedly so. (Not to mention not having to wake up next to them in the morning or consider having their children.)

We're talking big dogs - German Shepherds, Boxers, Irish Wolfhounds - and then the obvious horses, ponies, donkeys - we all know the old saying, 'Hung like a donkey', don't we? - and even in one memorable fantasy, albeit from a man, a tiger.

And some of those 'fantasies' purported to be true stories of sexual activity, of acts lovingly remembered in lavish detail rather than dreamt up as a masturbatory aid.

Yet even today, several decades after Nancy Friday's MY SECRET GARDEN was published, a no-animals-barred book of women's sexual fantasies, most mainstream erotic publishers still refuse to publish fiction that involves sex with animals of any description.

This reticence is clearly about censorship and the old fear of falling foul of obscenity laws. Publishers don't want to get their wrists slapped and their books pulped by an over-zealous government watchdog, I guess. (Though maybe that depends on the size of the watchdog!)

But what I can't grasp is why it's okay to publish these forbidden tales of taboo sexual activity in a book of adult 'fantasies', but not in a work of adult fiction aimed at the same readership.

Gritty Erotica, edited by Sommer Marsden

2011-06-16T20:51:00.003+01:00

Here's a down 'n' dirty recommendation for you. Just downloaded it onto my Kindle and it looks great so far. Hope to get it reviewed soon. If I can stop reading long enough, that is ...

Stories by: Quinn Gabriel * Willsin Rowe * Rita Winchester * Alison Tyler * Sommer Marsden * Aisling Weaver * Heidi Champa * Shanna Germain * Parker Ford * Justine Elyot

Grab this hot 2011 anthology at All Romance.

Now on Twitter!

2011-06-16T12:13:00.001+01:00

I've finally bowed to pressure from techie friends and have a Twitter account.

If you're interested in erotica writing, or just in writing full-stop, you can now follow me at:
http://twitter.com/#!/CatScarlett1

Love to see you there and chat!

Cx

Bestselling Lesbian Erotica

2011-06-13T18:49:00.000+01:00

Rather marvellous to see today that "WHAT SUKI WANTS" is currently Number 35 on the UK Amazon Bestseller list for lesbian erotica.

Here's the full list.

Need more detail on Kindle books

2011-06-10T14:29:00.000+01:00

One of my greatest frustrations is buying an interesting-looking erotic novel or collection of erotic stories on Kindle, and discovering after download that it's either too short, very poorly written, or not quite what I was looking for.

I don't know why more detail on book length can't be given before buying.

Being able to download a sample is brilliant. But it isn't always representative. Sometimes most of the sample pages are taken up with pre-story business, and you hardly get a taste of what you're buying. And the best story in a collection often comes first, so you buy the whole thing and find the rest were not up to scratch, or else it finished ten pages later.

And what's with the 10% thing instead of page numbers?

Come on, Amazon, sort out the system so we have a better idea what we're buying, and can enjoy the product more easily once it's been downloaded.

Cat x
P.S. Most of my backlist is now available on Kindle. All titles guaranteed long, strong, and highly erotic!

Goodreads

2011-06-09T14:46:00.006+01:00

Cat Scarlett is on Goodreads.

If you've read one of my full-length erotic novels, like my latest LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX, do please rate it and leave a review at Goodreads.

'CAT SCARLETT SHOULD BE YOUR PLEASURE': FORUM MAGAZINE

Thanks!

Cat x

Randomly Exciting

2011-06-07T20:50:00.009+01:00

You can find all my novels, including both paperback editions and digital downloads, available to buy at the Random House website.

THE ANIMAL HOUSE: "This is a dark book by an English writer, almost grim at times, unlike many of those in its genre. Not an introduction to erotica. Recommended only for experienced readers who want something different and striking." Amazon.com review

Buy THE ANIMAL HOUSE on Kindle Amazon (US).

'Stylish SM fiction' : Forum

'Classy brand of CP-oriented literature' : Desire Direct

Have fun, and please, remember it's just fiction. Don't take it too seriously!

Cx

Cat Scarlett on Kindle: Miaow!

2011-06-06T12:33:00.004+01:00

This year, Cat Scarlett hit Kindle.

To download my most popular book to date, the deeply atmospheric WHAT SUKI WANTS, nip over to Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com and download the novel in a few seconds onto your Kindle.

If you don't have a Kindle device, you can still download my book straight onto your computer or laptop using Kindle software for PC or Mac.

Simple!

LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX: out now!

2007-05-19T10:19:00.000+01:00

My latest novel LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX is out now and already selling fast on Amazon and at the Nexus (Virgin Books) site. I've been busy writing some delicious short stories and a smattering of erotic poems recently, some of them for the US market, so haven't been able to start work yet on a new book. Any ideas for themes or interesting characters, do please leave a comment below.

LOVE SONG OF THE DOMNINATRIX, as you might be able to guess from the title, is about ladies who like to take charge. With a whip or a spanking hand sometimes, or just with the power of their voice. I love this idea of women getting the upper hand, especially since LOVE SONG is a bold departure from my earlier books where the ladies were submissive and the men very much in control. But it would be boring if I just wrote the same old scenario in every Cat Scarlett book, and I'm sure that LOVE SONG will more than please fans of the Dominatrix everywhere.

For lovers of lesbian erotica, my heroine Dinah is also a very hot and dirty-thinking bisexual, preferring the soft and gentle hands of a woman in her own bed, though she does also indulge in heterosexual play in the heat of a strong scene. Threesomes are even better for her, especially if she's on top!

So we get the lady who barks orders at submissive and humiliated men, and the woman who also likes to rough it up with another girl, the softer-lipped and sexier the better. Her particular paramour in LOVE SONG is a flame-haired hotel receptionist called Grace, the sort who wears very conventional clothes with white panties underneath at the beginning of their sexual encounters. By the time Dinah has trained Grace up to be a sub-dom pretty, she's slipping into tight black latex and metal buckles with shiny vicious heels that could reduce the strongest man to a quivering wreck beneath her female authority.

So that's my latest book! If any of this has whetted your appetite, check out LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX on Amazon and please do let me know what you think of it by leaving a comment below or writing to me courtesy of Nexus at Virgin Books.

LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX:
Dinah is a tough-talking bisexual dominatrix with a weakness for redheads. So when she meets Grace, a beautiful hotel receptionist looking for excitement, she can't resist converting her to a life of lesbian submission. But Grace is forced to overcome her timidity and take up the whip herself when ex-boyfriend Aidan finds out about their relationship and decides to teach Mistress Dinah a lesson.

New Year Resolutions?

2007-01-15T01:34:00.004Z

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to write more lesbian erotica this year! Luckily for me, as some of my regular readers already know, my next novel with Nexus is in fact a story of lesbian attraction between a dominatrix, Mistress Dinah, and her young submissive-in-training, Grace.

Here's a short extract from LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX:

Grace knew she was being half-hearted, allowing Dinah to push her so easily onto the bed again. Naked, she felt the cool silk of the girl’s kimono against her skin and shivered. Perhaps it was only a dream but she was half-awake, poised on the edge of consciousness.

She closed her eyes for a moment, letting herself go, and reopened them to find that reality had not shifted. It was no fantasy. The other girl was lying across her and they were kissing. Their thighs sprawled together and apart, warm and restless, tangling on top of the sheets. Soon there was a tantalising smell of pussy that seemed to drift right inside Grace’s body, teasing and arousing her just as it had done during the long night, the damp musk of another woman’s sex pressed against her cheek and lips.

Cat x

Nearly there, nearly there ...

2006-09-26T16:27:00.001+01:00

Not long now until LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX is finished. Just a few more weeks and I can start thinking about future endeavours. Or should that be adventures?

I've just seen the proposed cover for this new novel and it is HOT, HOT, HOT! The two models in the cover photograph look incredible, especially in such excruciatingly high heels, black leather fetish outfits -- and with one holding a crop. Now that's what I call a classy BDSM cover.

Cat x

Hot Stories

2006-09-16T00:04:00.002+01:00

It's been well over a month since my last confession, so I hope you're still checking back every now and then to see how I am, what I'm doing etc. And what I'm doing this month is finishing up my latest erotic novel for Nexus, entitled LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX.

It's a story of lesbian passion and punishment, with male subs and plenty of fetish gear and partying thrown in. Just the sort of thing Pete from Big Brother would enjoy ... well, that's what I hear, anyway!

Cat. x

Wait a minute, Mr Postman!

2006-08-05T16:55:00.000+01:00

If you have read any of my novels and would like to get in touch - preferably because you enjoyed what you read, not in order to tell me what a bad girl I am! - do please leave a comment below or write to me c/o Nexus, Virgin Books, in London (see inside the cover of any Nexus or Black Lace novel for the address or visit their website - link in the side column).

It's always a marvellous thing to be contacted by readers and makes a writer like me feel appreciated and also more aware of my responsibilities to the reading public. Making it hot is simply not enough anymore. It needs to be hot and tight and ... well, I'm sure you get the general idea. I'm talking about my prose, of course.

Besides, sitting alone day after day at the keyboard can be a rather lonely existence. Especially when what you're writing leaves you good and steamed-up!

Cat x

How are you all doing in this scorching weather?

2006-06-25T18:02:00.002+01:00

Hi guys, how are you all doing? I've been loving this June heatwave ... just lying about in the long grass, which is deliciously naughty for me, sunbathing instead of writing. In other words, I've been a very lazy Cat indeed!

So I've promised myself sternly that from this week onwards I'm going to stay indoors more often, even when it's sunny, and write me some hot, hot, hot erotica instead, get another few chapters of LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX under my belt.
Cat x

My Old 'Live Journal' Days

2006-06-17T10:06:00.000+01:00

I just remembered about my old Live Journal site, in the bad old days before I discovered the loveliness and convenience of Blogger.

To read some of my old entries (!), click on Cat Scarlett's Old Live Journal.

Ah, bless ...

Mitzi Szereto at Foyles Bookshop

2006-05-29T17:20:00.000+01:00

Thought you might be interested in this London event.

Cat xxxx

On Wednesday evening 14 June, join critically acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto at Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross for a discussion about the writing and publishing of erotic fiction. Topics to include censorship, the reaction of the media and buying public to erotica by women, a discussion of good sex writing versus bad sex writing, plus information on the major imprints in the erotic market. Mitzi will be joined by Emily Dubberley of Scarlet, a sex magazine for women which currently attracts 40,000 readers per month. The event is sponsored by Women in Publishing, a non-profit organisation devoted to promoting the status of women in publishing.

Date: Wednesday 14 June 2006
Time: 6.30 for 7 p.m.
Venue: The Boardroom (3rd Floor, off the music section), Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB
Nearest Tube: Tottenham Court Road
Admission: free to members; £3.00 non-members

Mitzi Szereto has more than a dozen books to her credit, including the critically acclaimed Erotic Fairy Tales: A Romp Through the Classics; The World’s Best Sex Writing 2005 (non-fiction); Dying For It: Tales of Sex & Death; Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers; and the Erotic Travel Tales anthology series. She’s also penned several best-selling erotic novels as M. S. Valentine. Mitzi is the pioneer of the erotic writing workshop in the UK and Europe, teaching them from the prestigious Cheltenham Festival of Literature to the Greek islands. She’s been featured in publications ranging from the Sunday Telegraph (London), Independent (London), Toronto Star, Family Circle, Writing Magazine, Scarlet, and Forum to Bravo UK Television, Telecinco TV 5 (Madrid), and BBC Radio. Her outspoken views on the erotic literary scene have made her 'the author and editor who has put the "literature" back into erotica.' Her work as an anthology editor has earned her the American Society of Authors and Writers’ Meritorious Achievement Award. Originally from the USA, she now lives in England.

For further details, contact: publicity@wipub.org.uk
www.wipub.org.uk

How Did My Words Get So Dirty?

2006-05-08T23:50:00.001+01:00

I was recently asked to talk about my working methods, so I thought it would be a nice idea to share some of my responses with you on this blog and add a few extra comments that I thought of afterwards!

Q: Do you have a set writing routine, Cat?

A: I have quite a busy life, with many different demands, so each day is different. What I tend to do is set aside a particular time each day for writing - I usually decide when that will be on getting up and looking at my schedule, or sometimes the night before if I've got an early start - and then try hard to stick to that time. If I don't, it's too easy to let things slide and not get any work done at all. Which would definitely mean a spanking was in order!

Q: I've been dying to ask ... is there a man (or woman) in your life who keeps you on the straight and narrow?

A: I don't know about the straight and narrow! But I do have a partner - very firmly male! - who supports me in everything I do, both career-wise and in my personal life. I did have a girlfriend for a few years before I met my current partner and she was very supportive of my writing too, though I hadn't started writing erotica at that time. I've been lucky, somehow always finding the right people to share my life with. During the short periods when I've been without a partner, I've found it quite difficult to work. I don't know whether it's the companionship and support, or the sex on tap that does it for me, but I'm really much better at everything when I'm sharing my bed with someone special!

Q: Some of the relationships described in your books, easpecially the early books, are very intense. The men in particular seem highly dominant and even cruel at times, sort of anti-heroes, behaving in a very sadistic way towards your female characters. That's a standard line in SM fiction, of course, but I was wondering whether you were drawn towards that kind of extreme fetish behaviour because it paralleled something in your own life?

A: You mean, am I an eager submissive who gets wet at the thought of dominant males with broad leather straps and canes? Not really, no. I've explored that sort of sexual territory in the past, sure, and found it hugely exciting at the time. How else could I write about it so frequently in my novels and in so much closely-observed detail?

But sadomasochism is just one of many interesting places I've visited mentally and physically and emotionally in my life. It's not a fetish for me, if you define a fetish as something which someone actively needs in order to get off, in order to get aroused and achieve orgasm. I often think about such scenarios initially, to 'get me going', and I'm certainly still exploring SM behaviour and power games in my books.

Q: Your new book, the one you're working on right now, that's about female domination, isn't it?

A: It's called LOVE SONG OF A DOMINATRIX, yes.

Q: And how are you researching that?

A: (Laughing) Mainly by slapping impudent reporters like yourself!

Q: Okay, I'll change the subject! We were talking about working methods. Do you work the old-fashioned way with paper and pen or with a laptop?

A: Both, actually. I love writing in cafes and other public spaces where you can watch the world go by while you work, so I often slip out of the house to be alone and work on my laptop with a coffee - and a cigarette in the past, but I've given up now! Sometimes I've forgotten to charge the laptop or it's inconvenient to take it, so I use the old-fashioned stand-by of a notepad and pen. The same applies to those sudden flashes of inspiration you get while you're out shopping or whatever, and you just need to jot down a line or an idea before it fades. At home, I use my main computer, which is a Mac. I love Macs!

Q: How long does it take you to write a Nexus novel?

A: Nexus fiction is usually about 70-75,000 words long. I write about 1000 words a day on average. So some days I can write a blue streak and manage nearly 3000. Other days I roll over and go back to sleep. I dislike routines so I prefer to run my writing life in a very flexible way. I try to achieve between seven and ten thousand words a week. How I get there is left up to chance and inclination. When I fall behind, I beat my naked back severely with tied-together stalks of nettles and strap myself to my computer desk without even so much as a toilet break for five hours or until the work is done. Seriously though, I do beat myself up about a low weekly word count if it goes on too long.

The word-count is everything. Although I love writing erotica, I don't believe in the inspiration of the muse, I believe in the inspiration of the gas bill. You write enough pages, you have a chapter. You write enough chapters, you have a book. It's as simple as that. Though much more fun than it sounds, especially when you're writing an erotic novel!

Q: You only write one or two novels for Nexus a year now. Would you call yourself a professional writer?

A: Absolutely.

Q: Well, that's brilliant. Thanks for talking to me, Cat.

A: Not at all. Perhaps we could talk more off the record now about my research into being a dominatrix ....

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS YOU'D LIKE TO ASK ME, LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW.

WHAT SUKI WANTS on sale April 5th

2006-03-20T22:25:00.000Z

ANOTHER EXCERPT FROM 'WHAT SUKI WANTS' on sale in the UK in April, or you can pre-order from Amazon by clicking here.

The heels he had given her were so painfully high, her calves were aching just from standing there.

She walked carefully to the trunk and knelt down beside it, knees soon hurting on the hard floorboards. Peering inside Magdalen’s trunk was like looking at a snapshot of her sex life: jumbled red and silver bolts of silk from the exotic outfits she used to make herself; vibrators, the slim gold ones and the fat plastic ones with clit ticklers; handcuffs; her thigh-high white patent leather boots with zips and slashes up the side; a rubber-covered paddle for punishment; the long dressage whip she had stolen from a riding stable while on holiday in Devon; and feather boas tangled in amongst dresses and tiny skirts in shimmering fabrics and glossy black PVC.

‘These,’ she said at last, lifting out the handcuffs, ‘and this.’

He threw the handcuffs on the bed and took the rubber-covered paddle from her without comment, testing it on the air with a loud whoosh. There was a dildo buried under one of the pink feather boas. Suki stopped, right on the verge of getting to her feet, and reached in to finger the shiny latex shaft.

‘You won’t need that,’ he said. ‘Not this time.’

There was nothing more she wanted from the trunk; she closed the lid and stood up. Turned back to face him, the light from the overhead bulb burning starkly into her eyes. She lowered her head, waiting in silence like a dumb animal.

‘Ready?’

She nodded, still not trusting herself to speak.

He came closer. She could not look him in the face, so looked at his feet instead, planted squarely apart on the dark floorboards. His hairy ankles and calves, strong and well-developed. Her gaze travelled slowly up past his knees to the firm muscular thighs, quite unlike a woman’s. To the penis, erect now, the purplish fruit of its head smooth and swollen. Then he moved, shifting slightly under the light, and the penis moved with him. Swung like a pendulum, heavy and insistent, keeping time with his body.

The paddle exploded across one side of her thigh, a searing white-hot pain that took her by surprise. She staggered a little in the high black plastic heels, looked down at herself in wonder, felt her legs weaken and nearly give way.

‘Again.’

It was her own hoarse voice that had spoken yet his penis jerked, a thick muscle reacting involuntarily to the sound.

He twisted and struck her again, this time on the other thigh, and just below the hem of the black PVC dress a thousand burning ants crawled under her flesh as its impact peaked and began to ebb away.

‘Again, please.’

Danny hesitated, clearly unwilling, then gave her what she needed. But after the next blow of the paddle, he lifted the dress and put his hand directly between her legs. Almost like examining a brood mare, she thought, swaying on her ludicrous heels. She was wet there, more than ready for him. Her eyes hurt in the light and she closed them. She had been ready for years.

LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX

2006-02-26T13:37:00.000Z

I'm delighted to tell you that my editor at Nexus has just okayed my proposal for another erotic novel provisionally entitled LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX. It's a big step away from the sort of work I was doing before - mainly female submissives enjoying life with an assortment of male dominants - because it's about a female dominant and her relationships with both submissive males and females. It's been fun putting the proposal and 10,000 word sample together and I can hardly wait to crack on with the rest of the novel, now that the storyline's been agreed and my contract is on its way!

To give you an idea of what lies in store for you early in 2007, this is how the basic story goes:

'Dinah is a tough-talking bisexual dominatrix. When she meets the beautiful Grace, a hotel receptionist looking for excitement, she decides to convert the girl to a life of lesbian submission. But Grace is forced to take up the whip herself when her ex-boyfriend Aidan finds out about their relationship and becomes obsessed with teaching Mistress Dinah a lesson.'

Now here's a brief excerpt from LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX, taken from early in the first chapter. The scene takes place in an almost deserted train compartment late at night, where Dinah steps in to rescue Grace from a stranger who has tried to assault her.

Dinah had him off-balance now; fertile territory, just confused enough to be open to suggestion. Her tongue ran wetly along her lipstick and her gaze slipped to his crotch, to the coat pulled so protectively across it. ‘Come on, you showed it to her, you can show it to me.’ Her voice dropped as well, intimate, mocking. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got under there.’

The stranger swore crudely and she laughed, feeling the light buzz of excitement under her skin, almost a ringing in her ears, the rush of adrenalin.

‘What’s the matter? Has it gone soft?’ Her smile was deliberately malicious, calculated to enrage and humiliate him. ‘Don’t worry, that can happen to anyone. We’ll soon get that back.’

‘You going to suck it for me, are you?”

‘Maybe.’

He was torn between fury and lust now, looking at her properly, maybe even sobering up a little, his gaze on her bare legs under the short camel-coloured skirt. She looked respectable except for the heels, her too-high black metal-tipped heels; in his book, they could only belong to a slut, to a woman up to no good, up to her waist in the mire. Dinah could see what he was thinking - the sweet dirty flash of it like a spark flying off the rails in a tunnel - and her body clenched with excitement again, buzzing, buzzing.

‘Is that how you get your kicks? Sucking off strangers on trains?’

There was a self-righteous contempt in his voice. He had her down, pigeon-holed; clean enough on the outside, but a slut underneath, only too eager to kneel and worship at the shrine of his cock. With her mouth too, by the sound of it.

His eyes gleamed when she didn’t answer and she loved the irony of it, wished she could have more time with him, make a proper session of it. ‘Pull your skirt up then,’ he said, trying his luck. ‘Let’s see your knickers.’

‘I haven’t seen your cock yet,’ Dinah reminded him gently.

After a momentary hesitation, still not quite certain about this new development, the man shrugged and jerked the coat aside to reveal his penis; larger than she had expected, and already stiffening again at the prospect of two women instead of one.

Not bad for a random drunk. Pity he would have to be punished for his insolence. Pity for him, of course, not her.

WHAT SUKI WANTS: a sneak preview

2006-02-13T18:32:00.000Z

Here, as promised, if a little belated, is the cover for WHAT SUKI WANTS, my latest erotic novel due out this spring. It strikes just the right note with these two scantily-clad girls on the cover, WHAT SUKI WANTS being a tale of lesbianism, promiscuity and intrigue, set very firmly in contemporary Britain.

Suki is a young waitress in a Midlands transport cafe, living in a camper van and haunted by the memory of her girlfriend, the beautiful, promiscuous and thoroughly amoral Magdalen, an artist’s model from the States who died under tragic and mysterious circumstances.

When Suki decides to journey up north on a nostalgic tour of their old haunts, it soon emerges that Magdalen had a secret other life - not to mention a husband! - and Suki finds her feelings for Magdalen, and her own sexuality, beginning to change.

Now here’s a brief excerpt from WHAT SUKI WANTS to whet your appetite ...

It was nearly five o’clock by the time Suki finished work at the cafe and strolled back to the camper, deliberately wetting her shoes in each puddle to see the reflection of the sky shiver. The car park was almost empty because the cafe always closed at four on a Friday afternoon. There was a lorry parked up beside her camper but the blinds had been pulled down in the driver’s cab so she guessed he was probably asleep.

Suki climbed in through the side door, kicked off her flat black work shoes and poured herself a small glass of vodka. It was dark inside the camper with the curtains drawn so she lit a few candles, including the new scented ones she had bought in town, and arranged them in a semi-circle on the table.

She wriggled out of her uniform and slipped into a lime-green dressing gown instead, left behind by Magdalen and made of a cool silky material that brushed deliciously against her skin.

It made her feel nostalgic, wearing something that had belonged to Magdalen. Like the American girl was still part of her life, due home any minute so they could curl up together on the bed and make love. But that was just a fantasy. The pitter-patter of rain on the roof and windows told her it had started to rain again. She glanced up at the roof, wondering if she ought to fetch a saucepan for any drips, but the rain didn’t seem strong enough to be leaking through.

Suki sat down in front of her writing pad, chose a good ink pen from her wooden box and started to write a letter.

My darling Magdalen

I missed you so much today, it was like an aching deep in my bones. But you would have been proud of me. Do you remember how we used to talk about men? How you said I needed to start fucking them, to find out what men were like before deciding whether I preferred women to men? Well, I finally did it! Not fucked a man, exactly, but halfway there. I let him wank over me while I masturbated, right here in the camper. It was really dirty, I haven’t come like that since we were together.

I cheated a bit though. I kept thinking of you while he was doing it. Wishing it was you standing between my legs, that his cock was a strap-on. Like the one you used to push into me. Do you remember? The black latex one with those little spikes that pressed right into my cunt whenever we fucked. His cock was big, but nothing like that dildo.

If you’d been there, I’d have spread my legs for you all afternoon and let them sack me for it. Though we wouldn’t have needed a dildo, would we? You always knew how to make me come just with your tongue and fingers. So clever, so beautiful. I wish we were still together.

I know you said if we ever split, or if anything ever happened to you, I should carry on and forget about you. And I’ve tried hard to forget, I really have. But it’s impossible. You were the best lover I ever had, Magdalen. I think about you every second of every day, your mouth, your tongue, your sweet naked body against mine, the way we used to touch each other in bed.

I will adore you forever, my darling Magdalen. You know I’m not clever at finding the right words, like you always could, but I know how good we were together. Come back to me, I can’t bear life without you.

Love Suki

I may well post up more - and hotter - excerpts from WHAT SUKI WANTS as the publication date approaches, so don’t forget to keep checking back. WHAT SUKI WANTS is on sale from early April in the UK, and May in the States, published by Virgin Books. See links for the Virgin Books website. British buyers, you can click here to buy an advance copy of WHAT SUKI WANTS from Amazon UK. Alternatively, Amazon USA can be reached here.

Indecent Proposal

2006-02-09T19:20:00.001Z

You'll be glad to hear, I'm sure, that I've finally finished putting together that proposal for Nexus and posted it off today to my editor at Virgin Books.

This new novel is provisionally entitled LOVE SONG OF THE DOMINATRIX - though that may change if it doesn't sound as good by the time it goes to print - and, as the title suggests, it's the story of a dominatrix who falls in love. Naturally, the love song of a dominatrix is harsh and fierce; more like the love song of an amazon, I suspect, than that of your average woman.

I am waiting to hear back from my editor, but hopefully he will approve the story more or less in its current form. Fingers, toes and other interesting parts of my anatomy crossed. I'll let you know.

Cat x

back to work at last ...

2006-01-23T23:37:00.001Z

I've finally got back to work, knuckled down to it, on my latest erotic novel. Since I write 'other things', it's not all been lolling about in bed since my last one was finished, but I have been waiting until my brain was firing on all erotic cylinders before I decided to put finger to keyboard!

Seriously though, I'm just writing the first few chapters and a proposal for my publisher at Virgin Books, to make sure he approves the storyline and characters, and once he's tipped me the wink, I'll start in on the book in earnest.

Since I've been doing a lot of lesbian erotica in recent months, I've decided to stay with that theme for this latest novel ... only with a twist! This will be the story of a lesbian dominatrix. A love story, no less. But not the mushy sentimental sort. Just as you'd expect from a dominatrix, this woman breaks the rules and her lovers too.

Cat x

Lesbian Erotica

2006-01-07T20:18:00.001Z

I heard today that a US anthology of erotica in which one of my naughtier stories is due to appear will not now be launched until 2007. Disappointing news, since I had been expecting it - and my fee! - to arrive later this spring. But better late than never, I guess. It's a good story too, a lesbian story - a topic I've been increasingly dealing with in my work - with some strong feisty characters: sort of a female Philip Marlowe crossed with ... I don't know, Indiana Jones (i.e. in the last crusade rather than in the temple of doom)?

I'm not sure her character came across as quite that compelling in the end, but it's a fine piece of self-propaganda and a readable story. I look forward to that anthology.

Cx

Happy New Year 2006!

2006-01-01T17:59:00.001Z

A Happy New Year to anyone browsing this blog - which I admittedly don't post to often enough. Sorry! But hey, some good news for any erotica fans out there, especially those who may have enjoyed my work in the past ... I'm just starting to write a new erotic novel, though I can't say much about the plot or characters at this stage as it's too early for secrets like that to be spilled.

I've had a few more stories accepted by anthologies in the States over the past few months, so I'm looking forward to those cheques - and to seeing the stories in print, naturellement - while I scrape away at the surface of this new novel. I say 'scrape away' at it because Michelangelo believed that his statues were 'inside' the marble and that when he worked the stone, he was releasing the statue underneath, or uncovering it, rather than actually chiselling his statues from a formless lump of marble.

I do think that all the best stories are ones that get teased out of the writer, that are already 'inside' them and just waiting to get written. So I'm in no hurry with this new book, just writing it as the spirit moves me.

Many kisses and good wishes to go with them, for 2006.

Cat xxx

Just got the new cover for WHAT SUKI WANTS

2005-11-18T19:02:00.001Z

WHAT SUKI WANTS is finished - in fact, it's at proof stage already - and I've been playing with a new idea for an erotic novel but I'm not quite sure how to progress with it. I think one of the problems is that I feel as though I broke new ground with WHAT SUKI WANTS and can't go back to the sort of erotica I was writing before. Yet to go much further forward might mean leaving the genre altogether. A thorny problem.

Well, let me tell you a little bit more about WHAT SUKI WANTS instead, because at least I'm on solid ground there.

I got the cover art recently for WHAT SUKI WANTS. It's a great shot of a slim scantily-clad blonde in white lace hipster knickers and bodice-style bra kneeling in front of another girl in lurid pink panties, which are half pulled down, the inference being that the blonde is about to taste the other girl's ... well, you get the idea! I'll get it scanned in soon and show you a sneak preview. Anyway, it's a provocative cover, with the photography attributed to Shackled Maidens.

WHAT SUKI WANTS
Suki is 21 years old and drifting; a waitress in a Midlands transport cafe, she lives alone in a motorhome and likes to sleep with women. Haunted by the memory of her dead girlfriend, a bisexual American called Magdalen with depraved SM tastes, she gives up waitressing and takes to the road again, heading north to Holy Island in Northumberland where they first met. Whilst in the wilds of that rugged countryside, Suki is drawn back into the seductive decadence of her old life, meeting an old flame of Magdalen's who likes to paint his girlfriends in the nude - preferably chained up - and soon begins to experience what she's been secretly missing for years.

WHAT SUKI WANTS will be published in April 2006. If you can't wait until then to get your hands on Cat Scarlett, you can find me quite easily on the UK amazon site or the US amazon site. Just type in Cat Scarlett and hit Search.

tune in, turn on

2005-10-16T15:20:00.000+01:00

Working on an idea for a new novel this weekend, I've been listening to these tracks, in random order:

I Didn't Mean To Turn You On -- Robert Palmer
Strange Fruit -- Billie Holiday
Lay Lady Lay -- Bob Dylan
Black Coffee -- kd lang
Night Nurse -- Simply Red
Hounds of Winter -- Sting
Animal Nitrate -- Suede
Hotel California -- The Eagles
Roxanne -- George Michael version
Cool -- Gwen Stefani
Geisha Boys & Temple Girls -- Heaven 17
Nobody does it better -- Carly Simon
Pale Shelter -- Tears for Fears
Golden Brown -- The Stranglers

what suki wants

2005-10-07T19:12:00.000+01:00

Nearly finished my latest novel, entitled What Suki Wants. It’s now down to the last few pages when you really don’t want to leave the characters and everything’s moving too rapidly for comfort. But like all good things, my story does have to end. After many erotic adventures and hard choices, Suki has finally discovered what it is she wants and is making sure she gets it. Repeatedly.

Luckily, the next novel is already here at the forefront of my mind, with new characters asking to be explored, new intriguing possibilities beginning to take shape. Onward and inward ...

scarlet vice

2005-09-28T22:32:00.000+01:00

I haven't posted on this blog for a few days because I've been writing steadily in an attempt not to miss my delivery deadline at the end of the month. A forlorn hope, alas. I'm going to overshoot by at least a week. But it's a good novel and better not hurried. All the same, my free time is getting tighter and tighter as the days pass. I'm looking forward to posting this one off and staying in bed for a few days.

I see one of my favourite erotica writers, Aishling Morgan, had a new novel out in August called Scarlet Vice. I look forward to reading it when I've finally typed THE END on my own book.

I'm rather flattered that he wanted my name on the cover ...

under the whip

2005-09-23T21:31:00.000+01:00

I'm under the whip these days, fast approaching the deadline for my latest novel. Things are becoming a little tense here. You always think it's going to work out okay, that even if you miss your word quota some days, you can catch up later when you're flying. But I haven't been flying for some days now, and I only have two weeks left. This weekend, then. That's when I'm going to get to grips with these last few chapters and really blow the dust off the keys. I tend to work better at weekends than during the week, for various reasons, even though I'm now a full-time writer. Perhaps I'm more relaxed at weekends and the words come easier to my mind.

One of the problems with the last stages of a novel is that you never want to finish it. Your practical brain wants to finish it, of course, and move on to your next novel, to the next fascinating character who's been creeping into your head for the past few months, trying to distract you from the task in hand. But there's also a part of you that fears completion, that doesn't want to type THE END and package it all off. Too late then for any changes of heart, for any last minute adjustments to the story or the text itself. It's finished and it has to stand alone from now on. At least until the copy-editor spots a glaring error - like the sexy brunette in chapter 3 who is suddenly a blonde in chapter 7!

So the last stage of a novel can be pretty fraught, not just because you have to prise your fingers off the baby you've nursed from page one to the end, but also because a writer needs to comb through the text as closely as possible to spot typos and grammatical mistakes and continuity errors. Luckily, thanks to a father who was a copy-editor, I rarely make spelling mistakes. But that doesn't make me immune to some of the other embarrassing errors that need to be corrected before a novel arrives on the editor's desk, spanking clean and ready to read.

When you begin a novel, you have an end in sight. And it's a tangible end, something you can point to, talk about, quantify in real terms. Most writers know from page one, deep down in their gut, what this novel is going to be like, who the characters are, how the book will feel for the reader. But of course that's what you're aiming at. It's not necessarily what you achieve. By the time you reach the last few chapters, you begin to have a fairly shrewd idea whether or not you have realised your initial vision for the book.

With my own last page on the horizon, I'll keep you posted on that ...

bluer than the ocean

2005-09-19T22:36:00.000+01:00

It occurred to me today that I have never set any of my erotic novels near the sea, even though I've lived within sight of the sea for most of my adult life. Perhaps that's because I moved inland a few years ago and it's no longer part of my daily life. Though it must still be living inside me, I think, at some subliminal level. I just haven't connected my erotic writing to my own past yet, that's all. To the sea and the salt on the tongue and the bluish-grey light in the mornings and the way the body relaxes as it comes within sight of the water. Maybe it's time I did ...

how to hold a cue ...

2005-09-17T19:02:00.000+01:00

'I've got a proposition to put to you. A very special deal ... and one you shouldn't turn down without thinking about it.'

'I only do deals when it's to do with pool,' Roz told him.

'Well, that's perfect. Because this is to do with pool. An all-female pool tour to be accurate, girls like yourself who play exhibition matches for wealthy private clients. I've only got seven players at the moment and I need eight for a full tournament. One of our best players dropped out last month and it's been hell trying to find a replacement in time for the new season. Most of the girls I've interviewed don't have the first idea how to hold a cue, let alone play a decent game of pool.' Carter smiled, still watching her face as he tried to gauge her reaction. 'But here you are ... and you're sexy too, which helps.'

Roz frowned, but she was curious. 'What's being sexy got to do with it?'

'Part of this particular deal is that you have sex after every match,' he said. 'With the men in the audience.'

The Player is published by Nexus, an imprint of Virgin Books. You can buy a copy by secure mail order here in the UK or here in the States.

separating the light from the darkness

2005-09-17T13:51:00.000+01:00

From Plate 21 of William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell

It’s never easy to start work in the mornings. For anyone, not just writers. But with most occupations, somebody is usually there, watching you, expecting you to keep to a schedule, to be seen to be actively doing something. Writing is a solitary occupation - unless you’re a script writer and have to suffer the indignity of working in a team where your ideas are picked over by a roomful of strangers and the creative impulse is constantly opened up to scrutiny. As a novelist, you work alone on a piece of fiction and the only motivation is either an ongoing fascination with the characters or a simple need to keep up the mortgage payments. Even then, it’s still a chore to drag yourself to the keyboard each day and start laying down words. One after the other, words and sentences and paragraphs and scenes and chapters, like proverbial pennies making up pounds.

The odd thing is, rather like forcing yourself to go jogging or do an aerobics class, you may loathe starting to write, yet still walk away after one or two thousand words glowing with satisfaction. Perhaps the discipline of writing, like physical exercise, releases endorphins that keep writers coming back for more punishment, day after day. Some writers become addicted to the process. Penny Birch writes her novels in the space of a few weeks - or less! - at a white-hot pace. Anthony Trollope wrote some forty-seven novels, at the rate of about 17 per year, as well as vast quantities of other fiction and prose. Personally, I’m more of a plodder than a flier. But I do try to write something every single day, however little that may be, to keep the characters humming in my head.

Of course, writing erotica brings other, more interesting complications. Like getting turned on while you’re writing. Though I used to get turned on by my writing before I began writing erotica - I’m not sure whether that’s just an individual response or common to all writers - so perhaps getting turned on is nothing to do with content, or language, or even the mind leaping ahead to what the reader may feel when he/she reads the published book, but something to do with the act of writing itself. Was God turned on when he created the world?

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, darkness covered the face of the deep and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Genesis 1, 1 - 4

At least God was able to see at once that what he'd created was good. There is something deeply satisfying about reading through what you have written each day and seeing that it is ‘good’. Assuming that it is good, of course. Some days are better than others; some scenes write themselves, others struggle to be born or die soon afterwards and require strenuous editing or, sadly, the last rites. As a novelist - especially as a novelist writing, like me, under a pseudonym - you have little or no contact with the reader. You can only imagine the effect your work may have on the public. Even sales figures don’t necessarily reflect that. After all, they buy your book before they read it. Not after.

So when you start work in the mornings, you need some sort of routine to get you going. Like untying a rope on a barge and shoving off. But when you find yourself intent on cleaning the keyboard or suddenly desperate to check your email - as I was this morning! - you know you need to re-focus your mind on the story, on the characters you've created. They are what keep the story afloat, after all. You use the characters to create order out of the chaos in your mind, to separate the light from the darkness.

what she wants

2005-09-15T21:36:00.000+01:00

Some days I find it hard to get inside my main character's head. Not because I don't know what she's thinking or what she's planning to do next, but because she doesn't know.

If you write about someone who's suffering an identity crisis, perhaps you begin to suffer it with them. But I set out to write a novel where the characters rather than the words themselves do the hard work for you - i.e., drawing the reader into their world - and this sense of dislocation may be an effect of that. In any novel, words are a struggle. Finding the right ones, I mean. Not just good words, acceptable words, but the most accurate, the most apposite. In an erotic novel though, words begin to strain against the fabric of language. They can no longer hold their integrity, they become over-used, debased, tired. So in an attempt to combat that sense of fatigue I wanted to write a book where the actual characterisation is doing the work of the language.

Putting it another way, though not necessarily meaning exactly the same thing, I wanted the work to be inherently erotic rather than have the erotica layered over it afterwards by the language, the choice of words - hot, wet, panting, thick, rigid, slippery, erect - like a sheen, a glossy patina, distracting the reader from what's going on underneath the text. So the erotic element needs to come from somewhere other than the language. Which only leaves characterisation and the tension between characters, those gaps in the text where a reader's imagination leaps across like electricity, making connections between people. Physical connections, in this case.

I'm well into the last third of the novel now; the end is in sight. I wrote three and half thousand words yesterday. Today, none. That's the way it's been with this novel, all the way through. Either a feast-day or a famine. My usual method is to decide on a daily word count - say, one thousand - and stick to it regardless. But this novel is stubborn, it's recalcitrant, it's not sure that it wants to be finished. My bank account is sure but the novel isn't. Like the main character, it's not really sure what it wants at all.

the butcher & the pumpkins

2005-09-14T23:43:00.000+01:00

A friend recently sent me a copy of Alina Reyes' erotic novella The Butcher. It is indeed beautifully written, on the whole, but there are moments when it seems to stray too far outside the erotic and into a territory all its own. Take this moment, for instance, just one of many in a sea of bizarre and apparently unconnected utterances:

Have you ever been struck by the mysterious presence of huge pumpkins in the middle of a kitchen garden? There they are, calm and luminous as Buddhas, as heavy as you are, and suddenly, before this strange creation of the earth, you are seized by doubt, you topple over outside of reality, you look at your own body in astonishment and you fumble around like a blind person. The garden remains impassive, it continues to hang its shiny tomatoes and peas in their pods, to cloak itself with sweet-smelling parsley and open-headed lettuce. And quietly, you go away, a stranger.

Well, yes. Her description of pumpkins is wonderfully precise. The rest of the passage, however, merits a place of honour in Pseud's Corner. And it seems curiously out of place in an erotic story. Personally, I can't recall ever fumbling about like a blind person after looking at a pumpkin. But that's the French for you.

Don't let me put you off reading it though; there's still much to be admired in The Butcher, and you can never go wrong with an erotic story where the words meat and flesh occur so often.

a warm dish of stewed bondage

2005-09-12T18:30:00.000+01:00

The Book of Punishment came out last month and since then, I've been hard at work on my next novel.

I've noticed though, since being on a strict diet for the past few weeks, that I'm making my characters eat for me. I wonder if that's common with dieting writers, creating elaborate meals in their novels to psychologically fill the hole in their own stomach. Or writers on the wagon, putting drinks in their scenes. Or ... you fill in the blanks.

I suppose, as a writer of erotica, I should give up sex in that case.

Today's scene was a meal of leftover lamb, served cold in slices, with a simmering dish of dahl - curried lentils, in other words. For those who think that sounds tasty, here's a recipe for red lentil dahl.

Followed by a warm dish of stewed bondage and sex.

book of punishment

2005-09-10T22:53:00.000+01:00

The Book of Punishment was published last month by Virgin Books. It's the story of Indigo, an antiquarian bookseller in search of a rare eighteenth century work of sadomasochism called The Book of Punishment. Her father first found the book in 1959 but lost his chance to acquire it; it became his livelong obsession, which he passed on to Indigo when he died. Indigo is thwarted in her search, however, by a dungeon-master on the London scene, Dervil Badon, who wants the book for his private collection of antiquarian erotica. The two clash in a violent and highly sensual series of confrontations as the trail of this elusive book crosses Western Europe.

Those interested can purchase the Book of Punishment online here in the UK or here in the States.

a dark & lightning afternoon

2005-09-10T20:33:00.000+01:00

It's been a dark and lightning afternoon; the view from my window as I write has been all darkness creeping over the fields and a sense of storm closing in even as early as four o'clock. Autumn is already here, in spite of the sun we've had and the summer-feel to the light in the mornings. I managed seventeen hundred words today. A difficult scene to handle, dark and light, echoing the weather here. Maybe tomorrow will be easier.