I've been enjoying the writing community discussions on Mastodon. They happen on a manageable scale in a friendly environment, with no advertising or algorithm-sewage turning it into a nightmare clown world like Twitter (also, strong antifa inclinations, which I find comforting).

Anyway, one discussion that came up (actually, I initiated it myself because I'd been thinking about it again) was how do different writers differentiate between romance and erotica. I'd been over this in the past with some Discord friends who helped me feel confident that Secrets of Sleipnir is what my instincts leaned towards anyway: romance, just with a high "steam" quotient. Mastodon respondents further affirmed this choice for me, but it got me thinking about what I *would* consider erotica.

I realised pretty quickly my version of "erotica" would probably be the contents of my mental spank bank. I toyed with the idea of writing a scenario out, but even framing it as a Celestial touch-telepathy organic holodeck simulation, or making a *third* pseudonym with absolutely no connection to anything and publishing under that, I found I just - really didn't want to do it. It felt too personal, too exposed.

That might sound wild given how explicit and frequent sex scenes are in my writing, but there's a separation there: my characters are not me, and while I understand and often (though *not* always) relate to their desires, their desires are not mine. I've always gotten uncomfortable when sex scenes feel like they've stopped portraying the characters' desires in favor of the writer's - which I fully admit is a very twisty and subjective thing! Turns out that discomfort extends to centering my *own* most private desires in a work of fiction.

I am frequently the most allosexual person I know in the little salon-style fandom spaces I stick to now, but I was profoundly struck by something one of my favorite asexual fanfic writers wrote in an author's note once: that they considered it downright unprofessional to write while horny, and thought it could never result in a writer's best work. I don't know if I would go *that* far, but I do think the perspective of at least partial detachment, not *over*-identifying with characters, allows those characters to be more vivid and distinct, and by extension improves the story they're telling/living through. (This is also why I would never, ever write a self-insert OC for longer than the space of a silly meme, and can't face Reader POV fanfic either.)

I have my niche, and that niche is romantic science fiction with lots of fun sexy bits and also lots of fun science nerdery. I am enjoying it very, very much, and have a lot of story left to tell in this niche.