When I professed my love for my groom and said “I do” 16 years ago I never imagined myself battling through a messy divorce years later. The process was so incredibly destructive to my self-esteem and my self-image as a woman that when I would view my reflection in the mirror I didn’t even recognize myself. I felt as if I had been stripped of the essence that made me who I was – an incredible WOMAN with many gifts.
The two-year war I was beginning to take its toll. I lost 20 pounds (which actually was great but, trust me, you don’t want to lose weight that way!), depression was creeping into my pores and I had little-to-no strength to fight against it. The sensual woman and hopeless romantic inside of me was slipping away with each passing day. The “process” was slowly killing me and stripping me of my identity. It was bad enough that I would soon relinquish my title as “wife” and “Mrs.” but I refused to give up being a feeling, sensual, romantic WOMAN.
Once I’d made the decision to divorce and sought the help of a good therapist, I began to re-erect the pillars of my life – mind, body, and spirit – that had begun to crumble under the weight of the “process.” So, I decided to find my escape through my writing. I began writing inspirational essays for women like me who were facing the same types of issues and — I began writing erotica.
I realized that what I had been missing throughout the course of my marriage and especially throughout the “process” of the divorce was romance and ultimately intimacy. Writing erotic vignettes, short stories about a character that is professional, well traveled, stylish and sensual became a method of escape from the madness I’d been living with. It was an opportunity to engage my imagination in new and exciting ways.
As a self-proclaimed airline brat (both of my parents worked for the airlines as executives for decades), I approached my erotica writing from a different perspective. I wanted my characters to have depth and be worldly. I wanted the writing to figuratively take you there — to the destinations and into the boudoir. In my efforts to escape from my current misshaped world, I allowed my imagination to pack my bags and travel to far and exotic places once more via my main character — Zoe Masterson, and her “Mr. Right on Time;” where the beauty of the countries visited would be intimately described along with the intimate rendezvous of the characters.
Having visited these wonderfully sexy cities myself, I was able to craft sensual stories with these destinations as my backdrop for the tastefully written erotica that was detailed in each vignette. From the Caribbean to Europe and Asia as well as our Nation’s Capital, my characters took me around the globe and helped me not only revisit these places but also enabled me to escape the mayhem, if only for a few hours.
Writing erotica helped me get through my divorce, true, but it also helped me reconnect with and reignite the WOMAN that resides within – a woman full of dreams, hope, sensuality, and romance.
Read Laine Ward’s “100 Reasons Why I Filed For Divorce. 101 Reasons Why I’m Glad I Did!“
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