LJ Chat, Day Four, post one

Is there anything more sad than a writer sitting there, continually hitting F5, waiting for the book to go live?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

So, while we wait, let’s talk about sex. I know you’ve all be waiting for the sex. After all, this is Circlet. Why the heck have I kept you waiting?

For actual written sex, you’ll have to wait a little longer, until I put up the next part of The Ice Raven. Right now, we’re going to talk about writing sex.

Recently, I did an interview, and I was asked if sex scenes bothered. me. I think it’s kind of obvious that they don’t — if they did, I’d be in the wrong field! What they do is slow me down. When I write a sex scene, it is important to me that I get it RIGHT. There is nothing more annoying (to me, and I suspect to many of the readers of erotica) than a sex scene that doesn’t ring right. I have put books down (and in extreme cases, pitched them across the room), because of bad sex scenes.

I don’t want the books that I write to be pitched across the room. So I do research. Lots of research, since there are a number of things that I write about that I am not equipped to have practical experience with. Now, if you think that means that I get to look at lots of naughty pictures and questionable websites, you’ve got much to go on.  I also I read Fetlife, I check out gay-sex sites and various sex blogs, go through BDSM catalogs (I regularly drool over things at The Stockroom!), and I buy books that would make my mother blanch.

I do think that it pays off, but it also slows me down. So, I have a habit. When I hit a sex scene that requires research, and I’m on a roll and don’t want to slow down, I will write <SEXSEXSEXSEXSEX> in the manuscript, and keep on going with the scene. Which very often leads to me having a completely finished manuscript  with two or three sections of  <SEXSEXSEXSEXSEX>. So far, I haven’t handed a manuscript off to a beta reader or an editor with those sections in place. But if ever I do, it’s because I fell down on my research.