I can't say for sure when I started writing Mindgames. I have a definite recollection of staying after work in the late 1980's and writing on an electric typewriter there. (I stayed so late that my boss inquired whether I was living in the office.) But I think there may have been an even earlier beginning in a spiral notebook.
When I started writing, it was supposed to be an interim project. I wanted to create the next Middle Earth or Oz. But as I waited for my imagination to come up with a fantasy world where the heroes were noble, the villains obvious, and the sex non-existent, I honed my writing skills on my actual fantasy -- a dystopia full of naked and abused sex slaves in a country called Riviera.
The story was a romance about a slavegirl named Mariah. She was brave and strong and obnoxious and would prefer death to continued servitude. She trusted no one and believed that friendship was weakness.
The hero was a healer named Gabriel. He arrived in Riviera on a mission of mercy for which he had traveled by horseback hundreds of miles across uninhabited land. Of course he was horrified by the decadence of Riviera. And of course he could see past Mariah's hard facade into her true self.
And so my central conflicts were set up. Could Mariah ever find the courage to trust Gabriel? Would Gabriel's unwillingness to relax his principles destroy him?
As I was writing, I was busy living my life. I was a fulltime graduate student who was also working a halftime job. Then I was working in the corporate world. Then I was married (to someone who had no interest in reading Mindgames), and had kids, and was working fulltime. Then I was divorced and a single mom and working fulltime. There were years when I didn't have time to work on Mindgames at all. When I did work on it, it was in stolen 30 minute increments.
In the meantime the internet had come into being. And on the internet other people published stories for the whole world to see that were like Mindgames. Well, sort of like Mindgames -- they were dirty stories, but I never found anything quite like what I was writing.
After a few years of lurking on erotic story sites I started to publish the early chapters of Mindgames. To my amazement people loved it. It was one of the most popular and highest rated stories on the biggest BDSM story site. If the counter was correct, it had millions of views.
I continued to plug away in 30 minute increments, publishing chapter by chapter. Mindgames kept growing. At its heart it was still a smutty romance, but this was no 250 page Harlequin. Minor characters became
major. I explored the entire society. After all, why shouldn't I? The internet was a new world. I could do what I wanted on it.
I started to think of the book as a Trojan horse. People came to read a dirty story but ended up with something a little deeper, a tale about speaking truth to power. The tag line became, "How one person can change the world, or be destroyed by it."
Then, slowly, the site where I was publishing fell apart. Before I finished the book. the site stopped publishing new chapters. Readers would send me emails begging to know how it ended.
It was for them that I first decided to self-publish Mindgames. It took another couple of years to revise and revise again. And then several months (in half hour increments) to figure out the cover art and get the formatting right.
Finally, this summer, I presented Mindgames to the world, in the form of a self-published novel on Amazon. It was a wrapped gift of my truest self. I couldn't wait to share it.
Oops.
Yeah, I've sold some copies. I know how to market. Dan Savage published my letter to him with a link to the book. Jezebel published my comment with my link to the book. A few romance book review blogs provided some publicity, for which I am very grateful. All of those led to some sales.
And then I came to a dead end.
Like I said, I know how to market. But I can't activate my professional or, for the most part, personal, networks and reveal my secret identity as a writer of not just smut but smut that includes sex slaves. A lot of my guerilla marketing ideas are stymied by not wanting to accidentally expose kids to the book -- so, for example, I'm not about to put copies in little free libraries.
Now I post to my Twitter account, and mention my book to the occasional cashier who I get into a conversation with. I've printed some postcards of the book cover that I really don't know what to do with. Mostly I hope for the best.
Interested? Here's a link to Mindgames. (If you're outside the US, use this link.) Buy it. Read it. Tell your friends about it. Post links about it on social media. Repost this blog post on social media. Post reviews on Amazon or on Goodreads. Help a girl out.
Jasmine Gold
