Why you think the net was born?

Remember how I mentioned, last month, that I was writing science fiction erotica? This afternoon, "The Road of Excess" was accepted by Tales of the Talisman for publication in December 2006. For a number of reasons, I am very pleased.

First of all, this makes the second* piece of erotica I've ever written: there's desire in most of my stories, but rarely explicit sex. Secondly, I write science fiction even less often than I write erotica: I think my last attempt was in 2002, and it is unpublished. Thirdly, "The Road of Excess" was written—with the author's blessing—in the slight future in which Karen Anne Mitchell's The Usahar and Finding Words, about which I posted earlier this month, take place.** All in all, this isn't my usual work: although I'm informed that it still reads like a story of mine, which is important. And someone other than me thought it worth publishing.

So, yeah. Erotica. It even contains tentacles, although only in flashback. I'm pleased.

*The first was "Nights with Belilah," which was originally accepted by Mary Anne Mohanraj in 2003 for Blowing Kisses, an anthology of erotica that never seems to have materialized. If anyone knows of its whereabouts, I'd be very curious to hear. (It had an awesome cover, too. Damn.) As it was, the story was published in Singing Innocence and Experience this summer; still, I'm sorry.

**Thus creating something of a label dilemma: not fanfiction, not a collaboration, not shared-world. The characters are all mine; I didn't invent the universe. Confusion all round. We're now actively collaborating on a story about a character mentioned in "The Road of Excess," so at least we'll know what to call this one . . .