How I Jumped into Nonfiction: The Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Guide

# 2 in the FWSG Series

Where does nonfiction fit into a writing career? I received many tidbits of wisdom, but the one that stuck was that a nonfiction book was like a business card. It is a calling card that highlights your wares. The idea wiggled around in my head, and after Darryl Bollinger’s comments on helping authors write about sex, I started working on mine, with its last title, The Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Guide: Sex—It’s More Than a Scene.

Where the Nonfiction Writing Process Began.

Early in my writing career, I met Judith Briles of The Book Shepherd. We met at a Florida Writers Association Annual Conference in 2018, where she spoke. There, we realized we were kindred spirits. She is the person who shared the business card analogy.

I worked for a year with her Friday morning author coaching group. She is a powerhouse of inspiration and a wealth of publishing information. She brought many writing experts who provided how-tos and discussed products and organizations.

Judith also interviewed me for her podcast. It was the first time that she talked about writing sex and erotica on air.

One of Judith’s guests was Dan Janal, who wrote How to Write Your Book in a Flash. His book helped me organize and lay out the structure for The Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Guide. Within his book, he has worksheets to help you write every step of the way. They helped me a lot.

My Nonfiction Structure

Dan suggested taking something you know about your hobbies or a familiar topic and converting it into chapter titles. That idea resonated with integrating all my sex therapy and education into fiction writing. So, I stayed in the therapy mode. I created the structure of my book to resemble my therapy structure: Overview, Intake Session, Sessions 1-13, Final Session, a detailed example with an annotated story, and a set of worksheets. This in place made organizing my thinking about the content easy.

Through the writing and publishing process, you learn. Many people said to have a separate workbook. Still, after Ingram Spark wouldn’t distribute my journal, Purple Sex & Love Beyond Your Dreams- A Women’s Guided Journal to Explore Your Sexual Self, because they identified it as “low content,” I chose another route. Amazon deemed it a “high content” journal. I had to think strategically because of how book distributors see content differently. For these reasons, I added the worksheets to this book and also allowed readers to have a complete fillable PDF set.

It Takes a Team to Put NonFiction Together

Along my path, I’ve been collecting information like little pebbles or stones. I held on to them to see if my nonfiction idea would come to fruition. On this writing journey, I’ve been fortunate to meet so many authors who have been helpful and supportive.

Between Darryl pushing me and Judith bringing ways to get the idea forward, I met Alessandra Torre for lunch around the same time. She brought me one of the most excellent pieces of info to help me get this idea further down the creation road. When I heard her story of how she began to write and just went for it, I knew I could do this. That lunch is one of my favorite memories of my writing journey.

Next week, I’ll explain who The Fiction Writer’s Sexuality Guide is for and some of the essential foundation pieces. Continue to FWSG Blog Post #3 or read the first blog post in this series. Excited to hear your questions.