I’m tired of boxes, tired of mechanical things not doing their jobs, and tired of having lots of reasons not to write.
On the upside, I found a treasure trove of notebooks I scribbled in about three years ago! Lots of notes on my first writings. Lots of notes to myself. Now I need many uninterrupted hours to work my way through them. Oh well, at least I know where they are now!
I spent the last couple of hours writing. No, not the reverse harem. Why? Because I’m not alone in my house and I can’t write sex with my kids peering over my shoulder. I write in the living room. Yes, you read that right. Normally, in the summer, I write from about eleven at night to about three in the morning. In previous years the kids have been young enough that I’ve had them well and gone to bed by ten. Not this year.
When anyone in my real life finds out I write a type of romance novel they immediately want to know if there are dirty parts. This is an interesting question for me. Because of where I work, I’m cautious with what I share. Currently, there are two women there that know about my blog. Neither of them has read anything I’ve written except an odd email. Also, I don’t talk about sex nearly as much in real life as I do here. I want to laugh at that, but it kinda bums me out too. I’m depressingly age appropriate in real life.
But I digress, what people want to know is how, how do I sit down and write a sex scene. So, for fun, here is my recipe.
First, find a deserted room. Preferably a whole house, but a single empty room is acceptable. Not to be creepy, but it helps if there’s a nice comfy bed in there.
Second, good earphones that will block all the noise except whatever you’ve plugged in to listen to. I like my son’s big, black Skull Candy headphones. I love the puffy ear covers. I can’t hear a thing once my music is going. I just have to trust someone will come to get me if the fire alarm goes off.
Thirdly, a door that locks. I know, I see the problems. It is what it is.
Fourthly, my laptop.
Once I have my stage set, I like to go to YouTube and watch some of my favorite comedians. Sometimes I’ll queue up Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, just let it run in the background. Then I’ll open my page and type the girl’s name. The girl comes first, possibly a couple of times. My first rule for writing sex. I’m equally passionate about it in real life. Wink.
This is where my real life and my writing part ways. Once, when I lived in Pittsburgh, I asked a therapist if something was wrong with me because I spent so much time in my own head. He said it’s a fine coping skill. I wondered if I should admit how much time I spent in my head. He said I had a family, a house, a life; I was doing fine. I left it alone.
So, I get comfortable, lay down, stare up at the ceiling, and think about my girl.
How to get the ball rolling? Let’s experiment a bit with my new girl, Charley.
Charley lives on an island in the southeastern United States. She lives in a modern-rustic home with three other men. None are related to her, we discover in the prologue. Here’s what happens in my head….
Three men, that’s exhausting just thinking about it. Let’s assume it’s not every night. Let’s give her a room they can’t bug her in. Okay, that’s good, she has her own space where she is off-limits. The guys are, what did I name them? (grab my notebook) Okay, there’s Rob, the Texas Oilman. Sam, a very big man. Mike, we don’t know a lot about yet. There’s also Nick, a former ATF, gruff, bearded, older. Also, there is a Cowboy up and coming. So she lives with three, soon to be four, possibly five. I might need a bigger house. Rob had his turn in the Prologue, Sam was there so next we take a trip to the hot springs. What do we know about Mike? What do we know about Mike? What was he doing last night when everyone else at the house was screwing around in a bedroom with the door open. No TV, no phones, what else. Cooking, he must have had an iron in the fire. Grilling? possibly. Something he couldn’t leave, brewing? That’s a very good possibility. Ok, he was brewing. (scribble note about how to brew) Ok, Charley, how do we make people believe that you like Mike just as much as you like Rob and Sam? Back to the laptop.
The rough straight from my head to the page.
Charley watched Mike hobble his horse. She’d staked out her usual spot in the river. Scalding water bubbled a few feet away from her its steaming water warming the rocks in the cold river. She leaned her cheek on her knees, her long hair tickling her calves in the current. He straightened, a little stiffly, and glanced over, pulling off his grey North Face beanie. He was 6’5″, heavy shoulders sprinkled liberally with freckles. Long muscled arms, long, long legs, he managed a crew for Nick, spent his days keeping the town running. A jack of all trades, he could fix anything. He kept his crew hopping keeping water pipes, electrical wiring, refrigeration and sewer up and running. At home, he was quiet, loved his vegetable garden and brought water grilling to an unbelievable level. People brought their beef from miles away to have him prepare it. Charley had tasked Nick with finding a Husky puppy for Mike, so convinced it would be love at first sight.
“You’re taking your sweet time.”
He tucked his beanie in his back pocket. “Is there something you need, Mistress?”
Charley’s toes curled in the pebbles. “How do you do that, with that ridiculous title?”
Mike grins, he’d shaved today. No more scraggly goatee. A smile teased Charley’s lips, she wondered what else he’d shaved as he grabbed the hem of his t-shirt.
And that’s how it starts.
My last book has two words that I can’t even remember how it got there. “maroon head” or “maroon tip” I can’t remember now. But I do remember how it came about. I decided to write certain sex scenes AFTER the book was completed. That way, there was no pressure. Two scenes had been written the way I always write them, in order the way the story progresses for me. But nope, this scene was different. I added it after the whole story was done and by then, I was panicking and somehow, I wrote maroon tip (or head) and saw it in the paperback and went, WHAT?
Not that I haven’t seen a maroon “tip” but somehow, it didn’t jive with my style of writing, one that I tell myself is more poetic LOL. It did jive with my panicked style of writing, one where my mind says, just put whatever in there. So… maroon.
I also wasn’t listening to my go-to for sex scenes – the original movie score of Fifty Shades of Grey. I was also probably writing it while the kid and the hubby were walking around me in the kitchen where I’ve now been writing all my books so that I can keep an eye on the kid in the living room and the front and back doors all year round.
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Lmao! I noticed that word and wondered what made you choose it! But it wasn’t jarring, just unusual, lol. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that color, myself…🤔 I think my experience is lacking!
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Probably one of those late night writing sprints and I opened a thesaurus and saw the word maroon for red and thought, EUREKA!
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Late night will get you!
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yup. But that’s the only time the house is quiet.
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I hear you!!
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First comment concerns the experience lacking… and this one is to suggest that in a quiet house in the wee hours of the morning—how can you hear Liz??
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In the past, we’ve chatted as we wrote into the wee (3am-ish) hours of the morning😉
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Obviously! lol
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I don’t know how I feel about you agreeing with me so exuberantly!😳 Going to my zen place to meditate on it😌
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Ah, the ‘found footage’ yep I’ve got a bag full. Emptied a big old filing cabinet (the idea was to just shred all my old work stuff, a small rain forest full) but there’s tons of scraps of paper, note books and A4 pads full of stories I’d forgotten, chapters for Death/Sparrows/ Mr J/The Tailor, bloody reams of it!
I took a photo, but I’m not adapt enough with this stuff to add 🙄
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That’s a pretty awesome find!! I hope we’ll be reading some benefit of it in the near future?
I wish there was an easy way to digitize it so I could study it while I’m waiting in my car outside various venues for children… I should just resign myself to a satchel for the rest of my life.
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Adept!!!!!!
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Lol, I got it
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I hate that I have to check, I thought that’s what ‘spell check’ was for. Grrrrrrr🤨
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I’ve been sending Solitude through Grammarly…Oi the mistakes are embarrassing! But I need to get it dusted and back online so I can keep moving in a forwardly direction.
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That would be amazing, typing it up is so laborious, such a long job, seriously off putting. Trouble is some of it is written in pencil (I know, practically stone age stuff!) and its faded!
But looks like we all need to get our fingers out…
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SAME!! What was I thinking writing in pencil?
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SAME! I can’t believe I would write in pencil ! What was I thinking??
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Just used to be loads laying about the place, kids leftovers. Never tried Grammarly, probably should. I remember when Alex was doing his uni stuff, it had to go through a thing to check for plagiarism, ah the things you learn from your kids 😎
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I corrected one of my girls about journaling with pencils, just the other day! Now I should tell them about Grammarly…
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Oh, I would. Being aware of grammar is the first step. Some of the stuff you see is hilarious. My very own street has had me mildly irritated for nearly 40 years. It’s Gideon’s, but the street sign says Gideons, every so often I get the urge to sneak out in the middle of the night, armed only with my trusty indelible marker. There’s only 5 signs, wouldn’t take me long🤗
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Oh man….please make sure Helen’s in town to bail you out🤓!
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Bail me out? She’d be my lookout!
Hmmmm, reminds me that there has been precious little mischief in my life recently…but there’s always time😉
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Facepalm……of course! What was I thinking? I need a passport.
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Now, how many times have I told you about my spare rooms?
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Not enough to deter me?
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Come see me, darling x
Enough of an invite petal?
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Lol, you know I was never waiting for one!! I’ll get there when you least expect it😉
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I’ll hold you to that, pet x
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I will too😉
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I’ll change the bed and get a haggis in the freezer!
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I’ll bring something to wash it down with!
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I have got to find time to reignite my writing, both my fantasy fiction novel and erotic fiction. I love how you showed us your stream of consciousness. Great advice!
Thanks for inspiring me to get after it again.
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It is like a little fire 🔥 and it goes out from time to time depending on life. I guess that’s the part full-time writers have mastered.
I was reading it again this morning, it’s still a bit whitewashed☺️ but I’m getting better at sharing. It’s scary being all out there in a thought process.
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Naughty thoughts about the shaving young lady…maybe he got waxed too.😛Here’s my new blog (still rebuilding images and internal links but mostly intact) https://dionysianexperience.com
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I think wax makes him nervous or he likes the feel of the blade?
Thank you for the link, finally😘!
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You left this reply as a new comment…sorry I missed it.☺️ He will grow to love the sensation of hot wax…🔥
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Perhaps of interest: https://crimereads.com/why-is-sex-so-much-harder-to-write-than-violence/
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Hey and I totally loved your post. I just started a new blog and if your interested come check it out. It’s a bit bold, sexy and fun. A page for women to read some short erotica stories I wrote. Let me know what you think if you check it out it’s new and a bit different. Thanks 💕
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Thank you! I’ll swing by and do a little reading.
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