GUEST BLOG: Lucy Felthouse

I am totally delighted to host a guest blog from the wonderful and generous Lucy Felthouse, who is always so supportive of other writers.  Lucy is a graduate of the University of Derby, where she studied Creative Writing. During her first year, she was dared to write an erotic story - so she did. It went down a storm and she's never looked back. Lucy has had stories published by Cleis Press, Constable and Robinson, House of Erotica, Noble Romance, Ravenous Romance, Resplendence Publishing, Summerhouse Publishing, Sweetmeats Press and Xcite Books. She is also the editor of Uniform Behaviour and Seducing the Myth. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Join her on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/gMQb9

Real Life and Erotic Romance by Lucy Felthouse

For this blog post, I was asked if I would write something about a story that was inspired by actual events or personal experience, and how this affected the process of the writing. I looked at my backlist of titles, and decided this was definitely doable – so here goes:

My erotic romance short story, Loose Ends, is based on actual events. It's about two people that met at University. There was always an attraction between them, but they never acted on it because they were both with other people throughout the time they were at Uni together, and were never single at the same time. Then when they graduated and went their separate ways, they got on with their lives and so their attraction was completely unrequited.

That is the part that's true – and it certainly made for three very interesting years!

That is where the similarity ends, however. Without giving too much away, in the story, there's a University reunion which the lead female character, Lauren, doesn't really want to go to. After being coerced into it by her friends, she goes and ends up bumping into Jonathan – 'the one that got away.' She's shocked, as she wasn't expecting him to be there as he works and lives abroad. However, her friends get involved again and make her go and talk to him, and the two of them discover a) that the old attraction is still there and b) that they're actually both single, so acting on their attraction is perfectly okay.

I really don't want to say any more because it'll give away the entire plot. But basically, within the story, the part after graduation and going their separate ways is completely fabricated. I've never been to a University reunion – I don't think there's even been one!

So, to answer the second part of the question about how the factual element affected my writing, I guess it did in lots of ways.

For starters, the characters didn't have to be 'made up' in my head – they were already fully-formed, and available for me to put down on the page. So descriptions, personalities, vocabulary etc was a doddle. All the background to the story, though not word for word how things actually happened was easy to write, and as for the parts I completely made up, they were basically a fun way for me to explore the 'what if?' of the whole situation. Also – it meant I got to have some totally tension-filled, hot reunion sex without leaving the comfort of my office chair!

So, although most of my writing is complete fabrication, I have written some stories that have had elements of truth thrown in, and this is probably the 'factual' story I've penned. I think most of us have 'the one that got away' so if you like to read these kinds of reunion erotic romance tales, I think you may enjoy Loose Ends – a yummy nostalgic tale even if I do say so myself! ;)

When Jonathan and Lauren met at University, it should have been the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Sadly, it wasn’t to be, and Jonathan became ‘the one that got away.’ Years later, at a University reunion, Jonathan shows up unexpectedly throwing Lauren into turmoil. The pair start talking, and soon all the old feelings come back. But will this time be different, or will their mutual affection continue to be unrequited?

More info, excerpt and buy links: http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/published-works/loose-ends/