On Fictionalizing My Truth

By Jade Melissande (Guest Blogger)

When I saw this week’s topic, I knew I had to write a guest post. The simple truth is, everything I write is autobiographical. Yes, the short stories I write and have published are called erotic “fiction” – and, strictly speaking, they are fiction – but at the core of every story is an actual, real-life event that happened to me.  If you look for it (and at times you don’t have to look very hard) you can find the real-life version of almost every story I have written right there in my blog.

I am mostly a sex and kink blogger that also writes a bit of short erotica. My blog is the explicit, genuine and very real account of my life as the kinky partner of two men.  Every time I write there I share the details of my sex and kink life, as well as the intricacies of multi-partner relationship dynamics: the good, the bad, the ugly…the hot, the sexy, and the sweet.

And then I use those episodes to write my short erotica.

The events really did happen. The sex that she is having, I have had.

But at the same time, I am not the “she” in the story. She has hopes and dreams and a life that is not mine; motivations that have nothing to do with my own; feelings and reactions and realities that are hers and hers alone.

I like that word, “realities.” About a fictional character. But that really is the way it feels for me, when I start to create this “her” that isn’t me. When I begin to separate her from me, to flesh out her story, to make her not “me.” This is both the challenge and the joy in being a writer that uses my own life story as source material – to find that separation between her and I, between our experiences, to find what makes her uniquely herself, and not me. To write her reality.

It is a joy because I love to build a character’s life, to imagine a life that isn’t my own. I love the fantasy and solving the puzzle of who she is and why she does these things she does.  Who is she, why is she there, why-oh-why would she do this??  And it is a challenge because, since my own story is at the heart of this, I have to make sure she is unique, and that she isn’t me. Because as interesting as I find my own life, I know everyone else may not be as enamored of it, at least enough to read about me in every short story I write. So I have to make sure she has her own life and her own voice.

But this is why I write. To experience those joys and challenges. To find ways to explain and expound upon my own experiences, via these other women whose stories I tell.

Jade Melisande writes about her life as the partner of two kinky men in her blog, Pieces of Jade. She has published short erotica in numerous anthologies, both in print and online. For a complete list, please see her blog at http://piecesofjade.wordpress.com.