Let’s talk about sex

It’s Tuesday evening, past 11, and my friend and I are still discussing the topic I brought up. She looks at me over a half full glass of Bellini and says, “You could still copy EL James… Take each third word, no one will point fingers at you for copycatting and it would still be a good sex scene.”

We are, of course, talking about writing sex scenes in my books.

I find writing those difficult, but I want to have them in for two reasons. Firstly, if I am reading a love story, sooner or later I want the characters  to make love to each other. Secondly, sex sells. If written well, it attracts a lot of readers.

But writing sex scenes, in my opinion, is really difficult. Why?

1. The writing process is slow, but one‘s mind when one thinks of a scene, is fast. So when I want to write about sex, I am slowed down by my own writing process. By the time I feel the scene lasts for about 2 hours, I realize I’ve only written half a page.
2. As in every decent romantic sex scene in a movie, it needs to be choreographed, and there needs to be a bit of voyeurism in the writer (eg. me), as normally one doesn’t think about it when performing it live.
3. Finding the appropriate words and terms is, I find ,quite difficult, because again it needs to be erotic, and not vulgar.
4. And lastly – it’s a bit embarrassing, because I am obviously choreographing sexual scene from my own fantasies and my own life. This means everyone who will be reading it, will be aware of  this. And usually, these things stay hidden in one‘s own mind. No one knows about them. So writing about it feels like walking naked in the middle of  a busy street. Difficult, you see? 🙂

I have been writing and deleting my sex scenes over and over again.

A friend told me I shouldn’t have deleted them. I should have kept them to make a “Deleted scenes” book.

It might actually sell better than my book ♯1 😉

Anyhow, the scene is in, and unless my beta-readers decide it sucks, you will be reading it in few months time.