Embarking on a new writing project

10 Photographs, an erotic novel in black and white

Last week, I fantasized that Charles took ten really kinky photos of me and we sold them to make money. It’s a fun fantasy and he’s taken many great photos of me over the years. The fantasy inspired a potential novel.

The main character is a single queer woman in her twenties in a time before the internet. She could be a student or a factory worker, but she is struggling to make end’s meet. For reasons I do not know her name seems to be Andrea. Somehow she ends up making the acquaintance of a photographer, whose name, for reasons I do not know, is Linden. Linden’s gender is not entirely clear to me at this point. Linden works exclusively with film, black and white film.

While Andrea is wild, Linden is very straight-laced. Andrea needs money and wants Linden to take photos of her that will make her money. These photos will be wild, beautiful and also sexually exciting. The work will likely deal with the issues of the male gaze. I want it to be a D/s story, an erotic novel. I want to turn black and white film into a fetish. I want a queer photo appreciation society. I want a fetish of life off the grid as well. Long before the grid.

I don’t want to set it in an actual place because then I’d have to do research and care about historical accuracy. I imagine a city with culture, museums and libraries, record stores, cinemas and good neighbourhood pubs.

I have started to collect quotes about photography. I may mention the work of photographers I admire, Francesca Woodman, Diana Arbus, for example. I begin by collecting: quotes, photos.

I can see the structure of this novel: ten chapters, each one centred around one photo: how it came to be, what happened while it was taken, and the aftermath. Meanwhile the relationship between Andrea and Linden is also developing (forgive the pun). I think maybe Linden is submissive, being lured into a world of kink and desire. I want to explore gender fluidity in this work as well. I must also come up with a playlist of songs that evoke this novel for me, its atmosphere.

I have no idea when I will write this, but i love its idea. I will share the process with you as it happens.

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