It’s Monday. I’ve already been to staff meeting, fielded questions from my frustrated boss whom tech upgraded to Office 2007 a couple of weeks back (she now can’t find anything), zipped through my bloglines, posted my goals on Mission:Accountability, written a hundred words or so on the love scene that will drag on for a week (in my time, not in theirs), and I still have no inspiration for anything to write about.
On the useful and handy front, C.J. Redwine made an excellent post today at Romance University on how to write a hook in query letters. You should read it.
It’s a very focused week on goals for me. I’m not thinking about word count at all. My one and only goal is to get through with this love scene. It takes me days to write one that’s remotely decent. I hate writing them. So much that I briefly considered moving to urban fantasy to avoid it. But then I came to my senses and realized that I will always, always write about relationships. So I might as well figure out how to write sex. The good kind that advances the plot and truly means something to the hero and heroine. Sadly, I don’t read nearly enough of that these days. There still seems to be a plethora of books where the author was doing just fine until the love scene had to be put in. Then it’s all mechanical and boring. Insert Tab A into Slot B.
One of the things I’ve noticed (and frequently have to remind myself about) is that we have five senses. So often those scenes fall flat because we don’t use them. There are scents and tastes and sounds that go along with sex, and a well written love scene draws on that to pull the reader in. But not in a gross, pornographic kind of way that divorces what’s happening from the emotion that is (or should be) driving it. So those are my random two cents about love scenes. One thing I’ve found enormously helpful in this process is Stacia Kane’s blog post series “Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet”, which is excellent and honest and very very funny.
In the meantime I must muddle through the fact that my hero has now decided to take his bloody time. :headdesk:
3 thoughts on “Boredom, Thoughts On Writing Love Scenes, and Some Random Linkage”
I have the same issue with the hot and heavy scenes. Glad to know I’m not the only one! But that doesn’t make them less frustrating to write out. Just this past weekend I finally added in the last love scene to a novel manuscript that was otherwise completed last November!
Thanks for the great links too, I’m bookmarking both of them 🙂
And I found your blog via Soleil Noir’s (Beyond the Invisible) in case you were curious.
I have yet to meet anybody who says that writing sex is easy. And if they do, then…well I say they need their head examined and deserve a serious reality check. Anyway, thanks for visiting! It’s always nice to see new faces!
Thanks for linking to the article. 🙂 I’m glad you found it helpful. Good luck with everything you need to accomplish this week!