"Retiring"*

 For the past few years, about three or four times a year, I have debated quitting doing erotica for good. I never really took those feelings too seriously no matter how strongly I felt it at the time, because my mood on the subject flips back and forth regularly, and it was just part of my creative cycle to have down times in order to recuperate the energy for the up times. Every time I thought I was honest to god, for real, absolutely done with it, within a month or three, my muse would come back around to throw her empty booze bottles at my brain, and all of a sudden, a bunch of stories would burst forth, and I wondered why I ever thought I would actually quit.

By contrast, there’s been several times where I also came to the conclusion that erotica is clearly my destiny, that it’s what I’ll be writing forever, nothing else I try to do ever goes anywhere anyway, and I should just embrace it with full abandon. These are the times I had sudden big bursts of inspiration, did a lot of work over an extended time period, and really tried to push myself to take the “content creator” mindset. And every time, of course, I eventually flamed out, going back on hiatus and thinking that that was the last ride.
 
Rinse, repeat, year after year. But this time feels different.
 
It’s telling to me that a lot of my projects in the last couple years have been me wrapping up various series and finally knocking some long-overdue stories off the backlog. That I find myself more often than not in these recent stories including sex scenes more out of obligation than out of passion. That the biggest project I’ve worked on in this time became a vessel to help me process some sort of Writer’s Midlife Crisis.
 
I think something fundamental has faded within me, and as someone whose drive has primarily come from within, keeping going is like trying to force an engine to run without gas. Sometimes, a little trickle of fuel condenses in the tank just enough to spark the ignition, and allow me to sputter the car along for another few miles, but that’s as far as I seem to get before the engine dies again. I do feel like a few of my best stories have come out of these past couple years, and that I’ve been able to make some truly interesting work, even if it wasn’t very well polished. But I also have to admit that some of that work I really had to force myself to get out, to a level I’ve not had to before.
 
A variety of factors have contributed to this: repeated mental and physical health setbacks, general decline in libido as I get older, tapping the well dry after being at this for going on fifteen years (over twenty, actually, counting the stories I wrote before I took the Salamando name), my interests shifting over time, getting back into art as a creative outlet recently, having to relearn time and again that I’m not a “content creator” type, my attitudes on certain things shifting over time. It’s all really come to head this year, and I think, despite past experiences with the up-and-down cycle, I have crossed a threshold this time that I’m not coming back from.
 
Truthfully, I’ve been ready to move on for a while. I’ve just been afraid to. Afraid to let go of the one creative endeavor of mine that’s ever seen any real success. Afraid of letting go of the one truly “original” idea I ever came up with, when novelty is a dragon I’ve chased my entire creative life. I’m afraid of losing my audience. I’m afraid of losing the supplemental income (however small) that I could theoretically gain from potentially making more ebooks and games and art set in my worlds, some day, eventually, maybe. I said in my last announcement that I still had some erotica left in me, but while that isn’t untrue, part of that was me trying to forcibly hype myself back up, and it didn’t really work. No matter how much I wish I could keep it running, no amount of kicking and pushing and whipping the car is going to make up for an empty tank.
 
Some creators can genuinely work on one project their entire lives and never lose the passion for it, even if they suffer an occasional slump. The majority of creators tend to work in phases, where they might spend several years dedicated to a project, but eventually, they hit a stopping point, and it’s time to move on. I’m definitely in this latter camp. It’s been the same with my genre fiction projects; no matter how much they meant to me at the time, going by past measures, I think most of my creative projects have about a maximum ten year life span, usually far shorter, before I move onto something else. My erotica as a whole has lasted me much longer, but even within that, I did a lot of different series and settings and shifted across different mediums to keep things fresh. But starting new projects isn’t enough anymore.
 
So I think it’s time. I’m officially tendering my “Retirement”* from erotica.
 
Of course, I say that with quotation marks and an asterisk for a reason. Even now, when I’m feeling confident enough in my decision to actually post this announcement after letting it sit in my drafts folder for over a year, I still don’t want to claim that I will never write another erotica work ever again. Someday, I might get in the mood to write down another Little Scene or make another Comic. I might get an idea for another ebook that I decide is worth doing. I still have ideas every once in a while, it’s just that at this point, everything feels like tired retreads of what came before, or it’s ideas I actively dislike, and I don’t have the interest, energy, or enthusiasm to pursue them anymore.
 
Someday the spark might come back and burn just hot enough to get something new out, but all I can say is, don’t hold your breath, and don’t set your expectations too high. I’m saying “Retirement”* instead of “indefinite hiatus” for a reason, because I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m just biding time to build up to another comeback. I’m considering myself done, as far as my own expectations for myself go, and part of me genuinely wants to be done. But if down the road, the muse swings by and slips some fuel into my tank, I won’t be opposed to taking another spin for old time’s sake. Are you sick of the car metaphor yet? Good. If I have to suffer it, so do you! :V
 
Before I go, I want to thank all of you who’ve taken the time to read my work. I want to thank everyone who left a comment, whether it be praise, criticisms, questions, or suggestions. I want to thank everyone who bought a book or game or donated to my Patreon when it was active. I want to thank everyone who spread the word of my work and linked people back to my stories. I want to thank all the writers, artists, image captioners, voice actors, and roleplayers who ran with their own ideas on Sex Mages and spread the concept even further. Even if my primary motivator for writing is my own internal drivers, all of your support has made all this worth it, and helped me keep these stories coming for as long as they have. It feels a little silly to say that out of all my projects, my erotica has turned out to be my life’s work, but it’s true. It’s been a fun ride.
 
I have a few more decisions left to mull over regarding my work, but Sex Mages and Other Strangeness will stay online for as long as I’m able to facilitate it. In the still-non-zero chance Blogspot follows through on a future NSFW purge, I’ll find some other place to re-upload my stories, but I think we’ll be good for a while yet. My Smashwords and Itch.io pages will remain up as well, and as always, I very much appreciate your support. If you wish to contact me, you can always e-mail me at salamando_flames@yahoo.com.
 
Thanks again and take care of yourselves!