Guest Post: Penelope Friday

I'm jolly pleased to be posting a guest blog from the wonderful erotica writer Penelope Friday. 

Penelope Friday has been writing for Xcite since its inception and was one of the writers commissioned for their new Secret Library line.  Her erotic fiction has been published worldwide.  Visit her website at http://penelopefriday.jigsy.com

I have a confession to make. I don't like chocolate.

Oh, don't get me wrong: I don't dislike chocolate. But I can take it or leave it (except white chocolate, which I'd definitely leave). No, I have a different vice, and my comfort food of choice is crisps.  Mmmmmmmmm, crisps.

But crisps have one disadvantage when compared to chocolate: they are Not Erotic. You've never read a scene where someone slowly and gently fed cheese and onion crisps into their lover's mouth, have you? There's been no story when 'She sprinkled little bits of hula hoops over his body and licked them off'. It just doesn't work. You can eat a mars bar in a sensual fashion, but somehow you can't do the same with a cheesey Wotsit.

This is extremely distressing to me, as you might imagine. It affects my writing – no, really, it does! When other writers sit down with their sexy snack and think “ooh, imagine Tall Dark James smothering Blond God Sebastian in gooey chocolate,” I'm there with my crisps doubting my entire profession on the basis of my choice of snack. Should I have chosen a different genre?

Come to that, what sort of writing would be appropriate for a crisp-lover? I don't really feel they're a fantasy writer's staple, and although there's something vaguely sci fi-ish about the packaging of crisps (vacuum packs are on the way, I'm sure), I'm not convinced by that, either. I think, on the whole, I'm going to have to take up gritty drama. “She sat on the front step of the terrace, watching the rubbish blow down the narrow street and chewing on a Nik Nak.”

Alas, it seems my career in erotica may be all but over – and it's all down to my love of crisps....