Sex and The Uber-Writer: The Secret Ingredient

All is right with the world. Michelle Kwan is back on competitive ice. I have not watched a figure skating event all season (okay one, but it was dismal without the Kween).

Writers blog about their writing process. Their love for books. Their problems in relation to the art of creating scenes. I write about Michelle Kwan's return to the ice.

I've followed Michelle for fourteen years. Scary, isn't it? But there's something about her that embodies the essence inspiration. No other figure skater, or little artiste, has ever affected me this way, and I've been an avid fan of this sport for thirty years.

I watch her and I want to write ten pages. I watch her and I get a high, as if I've just read the best book ever. I watch her and she makes me cry just by floating on ice. Evidently, she has the same effect on many people, because in spite of making some mistakes and obviously skating sub-par, and despite the judges choosing Cohen as top dog, callers and on-liners voted her the winner of the Cheesefest 57 percent.

And you know what--that's what good romances do. In spite of Oprah's attitude toward it, the media's way of putting it down, and the general attitude of it being "smut for women," romance is the top selling genre. A good romance has that magic that catches the attention, transports the reader to a different place, and makes him/her feel with the characters. A fabulous romance book is, to me, like watching Michelle Kwan on ice ;-). She has the floating tension that I want in my writing and the intricacies in movement and technique with which I want to infuse in my characters.

It's a strange metaphor, I know, to compare writing to MK's uniqueness on the ice. That's why I can't give writing classes. I'll confuse a lot of people!

I posted about the Bad Sex Scene Award recently. In our genre, we've also come across certain romance books that have pages and pages of them, some of which leave us cold because the characters' defining moments seem to be nothing more than an exercise of slot A inserting into slot B. They seem to have forgotten about passion and tension as they mechanically move in and assume positions. You have read those books, right?

Do you find yourself skipping them, moving to the next scene? I don't want that to happen to me [some of my male readers, of course, insist that they never read those scenes anyway ;-)] so I work hard at capturing the emotional essence of the sex act. Some writers admit that they hate writing these scenes. Some have gotten bored with them because like one famous author said, how many different ways can you describe nipple? I don't have either problem--yet--and I hope to continue growing as a writer like Michelle does with her skating, always something different up her sleeve, even at her advance age of 25, and always, always, maintaining that exquisite tension.

Okay, back to your Sunday football, basketball, golfing and world poker tournaments. Yawn....

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