unfair wrote: ↑Sat Nov 09, 2019 12:07 pmDo you guys with more experience writing erotic stories, go back and read your own stories for enjoyment?
I mean, one would
hope! ...right?
Girlspns wrote: ↑Sat Nov 09, 2019 8:47 pmHowever, there are times when particular stories of mine do excite me
<-snip-> And, of course, they have to be part of my best stories.
The way I see it, presumably most/all of us write with the goal of playing to our unique, idiosyncratic "hot buttons" and personal proclivities, hmmm...? Even when some of our writing is audience-driven, according to what (we think) "the crowd" wants and/or personal requests by individual readers, I would suspect authors nonetheless remain within their own "wheelhouse" and cater toward their personal muses and unique kinks/fetishes, giving one's stories at least the very strong potential to please that very same writer! From there, I would guess it's largely a "numbers game" because the more stories an author crafts, the greater probability that some percentage of those will land in a subjective "best stories" category, in the sense of the writer getting excited by their own works...
Humilatron wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2019 10:15 amWell I only ever write for myself. I don't write for others. If I enjoy it then it's enough for me to share it with people and if they enjoy it too that's great.
I would say that the above is mostly true of myself, as well, except that I might be relatively more preoccupied with reader response(s) -- in the sense, that is, of a "effort vs. reward" relationship between personal motivation and audience feedback. Other than that, however, I am in full agreement, and I always tell my fellow authors that, if the task of story-craft is to be enjoyable, then you should make it a priority to cater to yourself!
I mean, as far as I know, we're not getting paid for any of this, are we? If not monetary compensation, then something else must take the place of that, so as to make our creative efforts worth the time and energy invested; otherwise, what should be a pleasurable leisure-time activity becomes, rather, a burdensome chore. Admittedly, I do personally believe we all write "for others," albeit to greater vs. lesser degrees, but even a reader-driven tale must nonetheless remain true to the author's own creative voice and erotic sensibility.
Back to the main discussion topic, however, I also have a handful of stories from my "corpus," to which I frequently return for enjoyment and pleasure!
Not only because of the writing quality, something I value highly and strive to excel at, but also because those stories represented my personal efforts to cater to my own unique tastes and proclivities -- in a manner which other content I'd consumed, from all over the web, had yet failed to achieve. In the ENM genre, especially, one of my very most memorable tales -- from all the way back in April 2021, three years prior -- was inspired by a very similar story which I'd frequently since at least the mid-2010s: The older story, from a different writer, had touched upon several narrative themes/elements which (broadly and generally) appealed, yet in the actual execution, I ultimately found it disappointingly "tame" and underwhelming...
...but thankfully, disappointment turned into motivation, and I let it fuel a creative fire most satisfying indeed!
Ultimately, when everything is "said and done," it's all about pleasing yourself! (Tee hee hee... )