Friday, October 07, 2005
Feelings of Inadequacy
Anyone remember that show "Are You Hot?" I never watched it with any regularity - I just couldn't take more than one episode of that ass monkey Lorenzo Llamas pointing out contestant's flaws with a laser pointer.
But I digress. Morbidly fascinated though I am by it, this post is not about reality television.
Now that I've sold, I've been invited to join communities like this, and don't get me wrong, it's really, really cool. However as we all chat and get to know each other and talk about what we're writing about, I'm starting to wonder, am I really hot?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude, and my books contain plenty of sex. But it's straight up, 1 male, 1 female, both mortal humans hailing from the time periods to which they were originally born, often taking place in that most boring of all places, the bedroom. In general, the only things inserted are other body parts, and light bondage is about as kinky as I get. But as I read what other authors are writing and selling, I start to wonder, should I throw a vampire with an immortal hard-on, or perhaps a sex robot into the mix so readers don't get bored? A threesome maybe? But then that seems like so much work for at least one of the characters...
Suddenly I feel very sexually unimagintaive and intimidated.
You have to understand - it's only with my most recent novella that I could bring myself to use the female "c" word (and I wrote that when I was literally 9 months pregnant, which was interesting in its own right), so for me to be part of a new line that claims to be hotter than the publisher's original erotic romance line elicits a lot of anxiety about whether I'm up to the challenge.
But at the end of the day, I can only write what comes naturally to me. (huh huh, I said "comes") And if I let myself worry about what I think I should be writing, or try to force "hot," I know it will fall flat. So off to my office to think up yet another exquisitely titillating missionary scene...
But I digress. Morbidly fascinated though I am by it, this post is not about reality television.
Now that I've sold, I've been invited to join communities like this, and don't get me wrong, it's really, really cool. However as we all chat and get to know each other and talk about what we're writing about, I'm starting to wonder, am I really hot?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude, and my books contain plenty of sex. But it's straight up, 1 male, 1 female, both mortal humans hailing from the time periods to which they were originally born, often taking place in that most boring of all places, the bedroom. In general, the only things inserted are other body parts, and light bondage is about as kinky as I get. But as I read what other authors are writing and selling, I start to wonder, should I throw a vampire with an immortal hard-on, or perhaps a sex robot into the mix so readers don't get bored? A threesome maybe? But then that seems like so much work for at least one of the characters...
Suddenly I feel very sexually unimagintaive and intimidated.
You have to understand - it's only with my most recent novella that I could bring myself to use the female "c" word (and I wrote that when I was literally 9 months pregnant, which was interesting in its own right), so for me to be part of a new line that claims to be hotter than the publisher's original erotic romance line elicits a lot of anxiety about whether I'm up to the challenge.
But at the end of the day, I can only write what comes naturally to me. (huh huh, I said "comes") And if I let myself worry about what I think I should be writing, or try to force "hot," I know it will fall flat. So off to my office to think up yet another exquisitely titillating missionary scene...
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Gotta chime in too--I'm a one woman/one man kind of gal myself (well, except for the opening scene of What A Queen Wants, of course....which, in retrospect was quite a gas to write...)--and I agree with Jasmine. I think there's an audience out there for really hot "regular" sex just like there is for the kinkier stuff. What I get a kick out of, is that of the nine of us Red Hot Romance babes, we really cover the gamut. There's something for every reader. Gotta love that.
No go off and be your very cool self!
;-) Bella
No go off and be your very cool self!
;-) Bella
LOL...I think we all wonder that at times...for one thing, sex is subjective. What turns on one reader may run the gamut in others from disgust to boredom! I think it comes down to adding passion, emotion and explicit description, not of size and angle of thrust, per se, but what your character is experiencing. In my mind, what makes a scene sexy is when the reader can identify with the heroine (or hero, as the case may be) in such a way that the intimacy becomes more personal, and the way to make that happen is to engage all the senses. Sex in the missionary position in a four poster bed between a man and a woman can be the hottest thing ever written, so long as you bring the intimacy to the reader.
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