By JetBoy
I’d like to bring up a subject that is very near and dear to my partners and me: your comments and feedback, and how crucially important it is to us — and this site.
We three have addressed this topic many times over in our various blog entries, comments, statements of purpose and story introductions — but always as an aside. Now, the time feels right to explain why the gift of your words and thoughts means so very much to us.
First, a few words about what goes into making Juicy Secrets what it is.
Without even asking, I can speak for Naughty Mommy, Cheryl and myself in saying that the running of this site is a genuine labor of love. Read our first-year anniversary blog post to get an inkling of the satisfaction and outright joy we’ve derived from planning Juicy Secrets, bringing it to life and watching it grow.
But when you click onto our link and navigate around the site, exploring its nooks and crannies, what you’re seeing is the result of work. A lot of work. Adding new posts and stories (which often includes considerable reformatting from the original source), hunting for thrilling images to accompany them, making necessary changes to the site pages to present and catalogue these posts, penning notes and comments for each other’s writing, doing the back-and-forth with our guest authors (even the ones that don’t make the cut), trawling through Leslita’s vast repository of lesbian fiction for stories to add to our archive, etc.
Not to mention writing our own stories, which requires a heaping helping of time in itself.
Finally, there’s the hours my partners and I spend hashing ideas, problems, planning and logistics between us. You might find this difficult to believe, but we exchange emails about what’s happening with the site almost every single day, holidays included.
Needless to say, we don’t make a cent doing this. Actually, it’s not even possible to make a living writing the kind of fiction that we do. I’d estimate that ninety-eight percent of our content consists of stories that no publisher (actual or virtual) would touch with a ten-foot pole — and the lion’s share of them wouldn’t be accepted by any of the big erotica sites, either.
Which brings us to the million-dollar question: why do we do this? Well, there’s the pride my cohorts and I feel at having created Juicy Secrets, and the security of having a safe space for our work. But there’s also the enormous pleasure of having that work noticed and acknowledged, particularly in the words of praise and the thoughtful comments that some of you are kind enough to leave after you read.
It’s hard to describe just how good it feels, that giddy surge of delight that we experience when a reader compliments our writing. It’s a friendly pat on the back, an assuring smile, a hug of encouragement that tells us our work has value — and all the time, effort and occasional frustration that went into it was worthwhile. The warm regard of an audience is a better high than any drug, no question.
On the other hand, it’s a major downer to pay a visit to a recently posted story, one that you put your heart and soul into, and find no more than a single comment, or nothing at all. I’ve known authors of erotic stories — good stories — who’ve simply abandoned their craft in defeat, convinced that barely anyone gives a damn about their work.
Don’t misunderstand, dear readers — your Boy Author is not throwing a woe-unto-us pity party here. Cheryl, Naughty Mommy and I derive a great deal of satisfaction from doing what we do. But your comments add so much to that satisfaction that I’m willing to put aside my pride — indeed, even my dignity! — to plead with you good people: spare a thought for us when you especially enjoy reading a Juicy Secrets story, and leave a comment.
It should be added here that, much as we crave your praise, it’s even more important that you leave comments for our guest authors. Doing so will increase the likelihood that they’ll continue to write — a winning situation for both Juicy Secrets and its readers!
One final point: we are not — emphatically not — asking anyone to offer praise for our work if we haven’t earned it. As the great comedian Flip Wilson once said, “If you didn’t intend to applaud, don’t applaud. Keep your damn hands to yourself!” On the other hand, if the story moved your soul, got you feeling warm and tingly all over, or spurred you into a “happy ending” of your own… why not take sixty seconds out of your life to tell us so? Thirty seconds, even. Hell, you can type “Great story!” in less than ten. And it honestly does mean the world to us.
Thanks for indulging my shameless pandering, and for being a part of this site’s extended family. (You must be, if you’ve read this far.) May the road always rise with you.
Love, JetBoy