Okay, everyone…I’ve been teasing you with this one for weeks!

Alison Tyler is something of a legend in the erotica world. She doesn’t seem to sleep, for one, as she’s always editing, blogging, tweeting, promoting others, and basically blowing everyone’s mind with how on top of it all she is. But she’s also been writing scintillating smut for decades. Her work is not only smokin’ hot, but smart. She leans toward heavy BDSM tales, but hers are not the commercialized, softly submissive and wide-eyed characters that have become so popular these days. Alison’s characters are fully fleshed out, real people, with desires ranging all over the place—top, bottom, dom, sub, rough, tender, heavy, light. Doesn’t matter. It’s all super hot!

This is a large part of why her current series is such a hit. Add to this that the story is semi-autobiographical, and you can understand why everyone is raving! Starting with Dark Secret Love, readers and reviewers cited the quality of writing and deliciousness of the tale. And then of course, there was the second book, aptly titled The Delicious Torment, which Alison is currently promoting across the blogsphere. This book is getting stellar reviews, too, leaving everyone deliciously tormented for book three. If you haven’t picked up this series, you best get right to it…

After you read on, that is—because I’ve got Alison Tyler here, sharing her thoughts on writer’s block and also a sultry excerpt from The Delicious Torment.

Take it away, Alison!

***

One Way to Cure Writer’s Block:

People ask me all the time for my recipe to avoid writer’s block. The truth is that I don’t. I don’t do anything because I don’t get blocked. I always—and I mean always—move onto something else. This isn’t to imply that my writing never hits a rough patch. What it means is that my “New Stories” folder currently has 213 items.

Some pieces have only a title. Some a few lines. Some several thousand words. But I have trained myself to write on command.

And yet, like any writer, that doesn’t mean all my words are golden…

So curing writer’s block? Here’s one possible way, as featured in my book The Delicious Torment:

Jack came home to find me in a true black frame of mind. He’d never seen me like this before. I hate to say that I’m a perpetual optimist. Rarely, do I fall into true funks. Even when I was depressed during the months it took for me to break-up with Byron, I managed to have happy days. Sweet moments.

            Jack observed me in silence as he had his first drink of the evening, watched me stomp around in my heavy blue Docs, grumbling to myself. I wasn’t late on the deadline. But I’d wasted a day. I hadn’t taken my own standard advice of pushing the work aside and moving to something else. I hadn’t tried my basic tricks of going for a run on the beach, or even on the rubberized gray treadmill at Jack’s gym. Instead, I’d fallen in deeper and deeper. And, fuck me, I was beyond rational thought by the time Jack entered my mood.

            He walked around me, catlike, avoiding me. I’d said hello when he entered. I wasn’t a total idiot. I didn’t need to spark his wrath. But I couldn’t put on a smiling face, couldn’t tie on a false frame of mind like a lace apron around my waist and play happy housewife.

            He let me be for over an hour, and then he called me into the bedroom. I’d been reading and re-reading my notes, growing even more despondent about the likelihood that I’d be able to make this thing work. And then what? Would I have to go back to the beginning? Would I have to scrap the concept completely?

            Oh…god…

            “Samantha—“ Jack called, and I sighed, not wanting to get up from the desk, and not wanting to spend another fucking second staring at the words I disliked so intensely. “Now—“ His voice had been warm, welcoming, even. But at my hesitation, the change was immediate and intense. I could feel the cool air all the way to the spare room. And like an animal aware of a predator, I realized what I’d done.

            During the day, Jack had called, and I had been curt. Bordering on rude, even. I’d told him the situation, but I hadn’t asked him about his day, hadn’t been able to shake myself out of my mood even for a moment. As I headed toward the bedroom, I felt myself coming back to the present. For the first time all day long, I was able to leave the worries of my work behind. Because the worries of what Jack was up to surpassed them.

            When I got to the bedroom, I felt my mouth go dry. There was Jack, waiting. Jack, ready. Jack was dressed in a black t-shirt, a pair of black leather pants, and black boots. He wasn’t dressed like that to stay in—I could tell. He looked imposing and menacing in a manner I rarely saw. More serious somehow because of the severity of the outfit.

            On the bed was his favorite of my school-girl skirts, so short that you could practically read the back of my day-of-the-week panties (if Jack allowed panties to be worn). He had chosen a plain white blouse and a black cardigan, and a pair of high-heeled patent leather Mary Janes with ankle straps. White fishnet thigh highs completed he look. There were no panties on the bed. But his belt was coiled up next to the school-girl uniform.

            “When we’re finished here, you’ll get dressed. I don’t want to be late.”

            “Finished—“ I echoed, feeling the dismal mood slowly draining out of me, replaced bit by bit with a fresh wave of fear.

            “You don’t think I’m going to let your behavior today go unnoticed.”

            I hung my head.

            “Not rewarded, of course,” he continued. I heard the dark smirk in his voice, yet I knew that had I looked up, his face would be stone.

            “No, Jack.”

            He didn’t tell me what to next. He took over, coming forward and placing me roughly against the wall, palms flat to keep myself steady. He worked the buttons on my fly before hauling my jeans and panties down for me, just past my knees. His belt was already off, and he had easy access, was able to grab it up, double the leather, and start without hesitation.

            Each stroke felt impossible to bear. I don’t know why or even how the pain can fluctuate—or maybe it’s my ability to take the pain—maybe it’s the mood that matters. But I was in that place, that bratty, mule-headed place, and I lost my head. I tried to turn, to tell him—what? To tell him No? That it wasn’t fair? That I hadn’t done anything specifically to him? I’d been in a funk because of my writing. That was all.

            But none of that counted. My mood had bled into Jack’s world. And that’s all that mattered to him. That and the fact that I tried to fight the punishment, which changed the situation in a flash.

            He was on me, now, dragging me over to the bed. And I fought him, not wanting to get away—not really. If I had been desperate, I would have acted differently. We both knew that by now. I would have groveled. Begged. Wept. Instead, I tested him, struggling, and he had to work to get cuffs on me, to pin me down the way he wanted, ripping my jeans and panties all the way off and going to work on my ass now, seriously, with the belt, blow after blow, until the struggling subsided and I was….

            What was I?

            I was…. Tamed?

            No. Never tamed.

            Broken?

            No, not that either. Jack didn’t want to break me. He liked me wild and spirited.

            Fixed.

***

Ohhhh yeah. You know you want to pick that one up, and you can do so right here. Did you miss Dark Secret Love? You can grab that one right here.

I’ll give you one guess what I’m about to go read. 😉

XX,
Jade

Alison Tyler is the author of more than 25 novels, including Dark Secret Love and The Delicious Torment (Cleis Press). She has been called “a hell of a writer” by erotic super-editor Violet Blue. Visit her at alisontyler.blogspot.com and follow her at twitter.com/alisontyler.