So all your life you have wanted to be an author and have millions of scenarios and story ideas littering your cupboards. Then one day, after reading tons of erotic romances, you say to yourself, “I can write one of these.”

Several months later, after lots of research on how to write and agonising over each and every word, you finish your story and submit it to a publisher. You wait on tenterhooks for the next few weeks, not really expecting anyone to accept your story and going about the day job and your normal life as you did before.

Then you get an email from the publisher you sent it to. Your heart beating rapidly you open it up. “We would be delighted to accept your story.” WHAT?! Had I read that correctly? You re-read it just to check. To your utter astonishment the publisher has accepted it. Oh my God! You punch the air, dance around the room in sheer delight and yell, “Yes! Yes! Yes! YES!”

Thankfully there is no-one else in the room to see your antics. But wait - you find you want someone with whom to share your fabulous news, but who can you tell? How can you admit to your friends, family and work colleagues that you have written a story, and not just any story, but one with several strong sex scenes in it that, according to the publisher’s criteria, has to be ‘red-hot using explicit adult sexual language leaving little or nothing to the imagination, with no flowery language’? Ahh – big problem. Your excitement gets a little deflated.

It isn’t easy. Some authors are never able to admit what they have written, to come out of the closet as it were, because they have young children to protect from bullies in the playground, a family that might be horrified or even a professional reputation outside of writing that they need to defend.

I was lucky to be able to be open and honest with everyone, but I still got lots of comments like, “You sly dog”, “You dark horse”, “I never would have thought it of you”. That’s after varying looks of amazement, incredulity, and even shock.

All of which makes me wonder if I had really seemed that staid beforehand? I also suspect some people thought I was having a mid-life crisis (particularly as this came after I had had some nude photos taken to celebrate turning fifty). I have certainly made people look at me in a different light, if nothing else!

So does that mean that Jennifer Denys is my real name? No, it is a pen name purely because I like to have a ‘writing’ identity – the fun side of me who gets great enjoyment out of writing erotic scenes.

Of course, there are times when I feel distinctly schizophrenic and forget it is me they are referring to when they call, “Jennifer.” Oh yes, that’s me, the erotic romance writer.

Writing Sex Scenes - An Evening with Jennifer Denys

Date: Saturday 17th March
Time: 5-6.30pm
Price: Free!
Venue: Sh! Women’s Erotic Emporium, 57 Hoxton Square. London N1 6PB
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Jennifer Denys is new to writing erotic romance, in fact she is new to writing (despite it being a life long dream to become an author). Her first ever book, Just Good Friends, was published by Siren Publishing in September. Since then they have accepted three more of Jennifer’s books for publication, much to her astonishment and great excitement.
In this talk Jennifer will cover

• why she chose erotic romance over any other genre (the surge of e-book publishers is part of the answer)
• what the reaction was when she finally told her family and friends exactly what she was writing - the words ‘mid life crisis’ were involved!
• how she went about writing the sex scenes - you’ll have to come to the talk to find out...
• how she came to choose her publisher and the different ways one can submit stories (and they vary)
• what the editor thought of her story when the first edits came back (she made all the usual new author mistakes!)
• ...and does one really want to read the reviews of your stories (it can be demoralising if they are bad).

There will be time for questions and answers at the end and she will happily answer all your questions including what sort of royalties you might receive if you want to become a writer yourself. If you don’t want to become a writer but just want to hear Jennifer’s trials and tribulations in becoming an author, feel free to come along.
If you want to know more about Jennifer visit her blog on www.jennifer-denys.blogspot.com