Naked in Ten Photos – The Journey Begins

Image description: black and white photo of a plant, its stalk and leaves shadows against a white wall. Photo by Charles Earl

Rachel is in her twenties, working two jobs, one in a factory and the other as a waitress or bartender (haven’t decided yet). I originally named her Andrea, but now she’s Rachel. Why?

Grapheme synaesthesia (rabbit hole alert!) affects my decision about naming. Rachel is a smoky grey. I want her to have prematurely grey hair. Rabbit hole: apparently stress can turn hair grey: https://www.vogue.com/article/does-stress-cause-gray-hair#:~:text=%E2%80%9CStress%20can%20cause%20hair%20to,Hair%20Loss%20Program%20at%20the

Her parents died when she was in her teens. Car accident? Fire? She has had to learn to fend for herself and be resilient.

Linden is the photographer, gender fluid or gender nonconforming, hair a soft yellow blonde. Think of daffodils. I’m still searching for the right shade.  Rabbit hole: the blonde dictionary. I think of Linden as a dandy in a lovely suit, always impeccably dressed. I will use the pronoun they for Linden. I want them to be fashionable and gentle, intelligent and shy.

Working title of “Ten (Naked) Photos” is now “Naked in Ten Photos.” Hereafter referred to as NITP. I like the idea of exposing vulnerability through photography.

I want the camera and film to be fetishized. I have plans for the dark room 😊 Charles is a photographer and began his journey with film photography. We had a wonderful conversation today in Ten Toes about the dark room and the need to keep light away from film.

Any pre-digital world stuff will also be fetishized, such as records and record players, bookstores, cafés, basements in churches where community groups meet, clandestine meetings in secret places.

Rabbit hole: embodied writing

On Jeanette Ouellette’s Substack, Writing in the Dark, I read a term I hadn’t heard before, “embodied writing.”: “It’s writing with an awareness of our bodily experience of the world, with a heightened sense of the electric space between yourself and the physical energy of the world, that alive, cosmic exchange that’s constantly happening, whether or not we attend to it.”

I want this for NITP. I want the writing to be sensual, experiential, rather than reflective and internal.

I have a structure in mind. One photo per chapter: a description of the photo, how it happened, what resulted – did someone purchase it? Who was that person? Why did they want it? What was Rachel’s experience? How did both Linden and Rachel change as they had the experience of each photo.

Rachel is sexually adventurous while Linden is shy and not sure about their sexuality. I want R to lead L into a world of sensuality and to help them unleash themselves, find pleasure in the loss of control.

I have in mind Francesca Woodman’s photo of a woman standing naked in a forest, her hands slipped beneath the thin paper bark rings of a birch tree. I want Rachel to be tied in a forest while Linden takes the photo.

How do these photos get into the hands of those who want them? How do they find out about them? This is a non-digital world. Magazine advertisements? Newspaper lonely hearts type ads? A poster in the basement of a local queer group? Something intriguing.

A word on a writer’s social responsibility. I unsubscribed from a Substack recently where a writer was going on at length to describe her feelings that a writer shouldn’t have to do anything but write well. That she has no responsibility to her reader or the world at large. I don’t agree with this. In my writing, I will continue my practice of affirming and supporting those who have been systematically excluded from canons, those discriminated against and harmed. This means portraying characters in a way that doesn’t exploit individuals from such groups. This means doing my research, asking questions. This means respecting the time of others. This means reading and engaging with the work of underrepresented writers and artists. This is also a learning experience, which is something I adore.

I’m going to be asking a lot of questions of you, dear readers. I will share answers (with no names revealed if it is of an erotic nature). I want to know about communities of queer and kinky folk. I want to know about the photographs that you have seen that affected you. They don’t have to be sexual. You can send me a link to a photo of a flower. If it moved you.

I have written a lot of erotic texts. I want this novel to be erotic and sensual. Every erotic text I have written has been about characters who consented to whatever happened to them sexually. I love sexual coming of age stories. I am not interested in objectification or sex as an act of nonconsensual violence.

I am in no rush to publish in any traditional way. I am more excited about the possibilities of community and art, about sharing and exchanging and growing from that exchange.

I will share posts about this journey with all subscribers. I will share posts with draft excerpts with paid subscribers. I respect and will follow Substack’s content guidelines.

Any paid subscriber who wants can receive one of my stories, “Tea Kink Flowers, initially published on my blog, about a woman who finds a bookstore cum tearoom cum community of sensualists, power exchange enthusiasts, rope bondage experts and more. It is meant to be the first of a linked collection of short stories. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one to support the creation of “Naked in Ten Photos” and to receive private and exclusive excerpts from the work-in-progress. You can even offer suggestions for plot and character development, if that turns your crank. Send me a message and I’ll send you the story.

Also, if you have any ideas for songs for the playlist, please let me know!

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