Back in December 2011, I joined in with the Curiosity Project – a blog swap project where your details and a list of your likes/dislikes are sent to another participating blogger and they send you a shoe box full of stuff they think you’ll like. In return, you do the same for another randomly allocated person.

The project has been on hold for a while, and although it’s due to restart soon, I miss getting exciting mail. So, in the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I got to thinking…

In March this year, Kristina Lloyd ran an excellent erotica workshop about how to spark up ideas for flash fiction pieces. Her suggestion? Nail polishes have cool names, so why not pick a colour name at random, brainstorm its associations and use it as the basis for a short story?

I keep meaning to give it a go, and then never quite getting round to it.

So, with kind permission from Kristina, here’s what I’m proposing:

If you’re a UK-based erotica writer (I would love to make this worldwide, but British postal regulations on nail polish are ridiculously tight) and you’d like some inspiration, I’m proposing a polish swap.

You send me your address and I match you randomly with another person. That person will send you a nail polish which you then use to inspire a piece of erotica/a blog post/–a short story in another genre. In return, you send out a polish to another participant.

Hopefully that makes sense, but to clarify:

The Rules…

(1) Email your name/pseudonym and full address, including a postcode, to sexblogofsorts@gmail.com before midnight on July 11th.
(2) Your name will be put into a hat and each participant will be drawn a secret recipient to send their nail polish to.
(3) You will receive an email with your recipients name and address on July 12th.
(4) You purchase a nail polish of your choice and send it to your recipient before July 18th. Because of the previously mentioned mailing regulations, please read this to make sure you’ve packaged/labelled your nail polish correctly.
(5) Please make sure the polish you choose has a name – it’s not much fun if someone gets a polish called ‘112.’ Good sources of relatively cheap polishes with good names are Maybelline and Rimmel 60 second.
(6) When you receive your nail polish, write a short piece of erotica/a blog post/a short story in another genre, inspired by its name. It’s up to you whether you share the story on your blog, but I will link to anyone who sends me details of their story once its written. There is no minimum/maximum work count for your story – it’s totally up to you.
(7) Hopefully it goes without saying, but this is open to both men and women.
(8) Your personal details will be forwarded only once to your secret project partner. Your information will not be shared with anyone else. If, however, someone does not receive a polish, I will send on the email address of their sender so that they can contact them and find out what happened to their parcel.
(9) This isn’t a competition – it’s just a bit of fun and an excuse to write something new. No winners, no prizes – sorry!

If I’ve missed anything, or you have questions, please let me know…

I’m excited!