My colleagues encouraged me to send something in for consideration, so I went and looked at everything I'd written over the last several years. I ended up weaving together bits and pieces of several fictional short stories. There is some of me in it, some of my thoughts, but it took on a life of its own. I ended up rewriting it four times over the next 18 months. For my first attempt it's not bad at all.
Darkness is an important part of sexuality.
Even though we're supposedly in a time where women are free to explore their sexuality, to be sexually healthy and express themselves joyfully, there is still a little bit of darkness in our culture that nobody wants to talk about. Maybe it's in the psyche of women, some women anyway, to desire some of that darkness and that danger. In my story, the main character is confused. She's not all there. She doesn't feel good about herself.