Types of Sex Scenes and How to Write Them

If you're like me, sometimes writing that steamy scene flows like a river, and everything just clicks together. But other times, I literally sit and stare at what I've written and hit the backspace button because I'm just not buying it, and if i'm not convinced, well, then how can I expect my readers to be? Also, and I'd love to hear if this influences your writing too, but if I've read a particularly hot book, I find myself projecting some of that on my characters. Note to self: Do not read 50 Shades while writing, unless your genre is erotica, of course!

So, how do we keep a cool head while writing the nitty gritty about the down and dirty? I found this video entertaining and quite informative and it's helped me to kind of characterise which kind of writer of sex scenes I am.

I'm a 50-50, how about you?

What my first #Nano has taught me

By Zee Monodee

Hey beautiful people!

Amid all the Nano madness, it almost slipped by me that I was supposed to post here today, about my experience as a first-time Nano participant. So where do I start telling you what a journey it has been since November 1?

I regularly describe myself as the quintessential headless chicken. Mind, I am organized, but to someone other than me, I just might look like a hot mess. Bridget Jones has nothing on me where being a basket case is concerned (just ask my husband!).

Now add the need to write 50,000 words in one month and you get...a freak show!

I'm a stay-at-home-mum, and November is prolly the worst month ever for me because my son is on summer break and my stepson, too, will be haunting my house during those free days. There's still chauffeur duty (to gym, jujitsu, all that lovely hoopla), and I seem to be on call in the kitchen 24/7 because growing boys will eat everything and the kitchen sink in a single day. I'm also a housewife, meaning I have no helper or cook or sous-chef to lend a hand around (that creature known as the hubby is at work all day).
I also hold a 'day' job (yes, I can work in my pyjamas and on my own schedule), in that I'm an editor with clients and deadlines and needing to answer to a boss. Life/work doesn't come to a standstill in November, sadly.
Then, too, as proud as I am to say this - I'm a 2x cancer survivor - I also hate this tag because it means I am not exactly able to power on at 100% the way 'healthy' people are. Yes, I do feel fine, but it's been 9 years since I last heard "you're in perfect health" coming from the mouth of a doctor.

And yes, I'm getting to my point, bear with me, please.

So I am the quintessential headless chicken turned freak show...but guess what? Today is November 20, and I am 893 words short of crossing the 50K mark on my Nano story.

My point would be? This:

If you want it hard enough, you can get/do it. It isn't simpler than this.

They say half the battle of fighting cancer is in the positive attitude. That's hard to do when you're chucking everything but your guts for 72 hours straight after a chemo session. That's almost impossible when you find yourself burnt like a nuclear bomb survivor 2 weeks before your radiotherapy sessions are supposed to be over. And it's like moving mountains when the biopsy results return and you hear that evil, evil M word - malignant.

But people the world over battle cancer everyday; I'm proof of the pudding. And I've seen folks with better-on-paper results and prognoses than mine not make it, because they didn't have the rage to fight.

So 50,000 words in under one month? Fight for it! Nothing will come unless you make it come to you. Find the time. Better yet, make the time. If I could do it, you can, too.

They say that where there's a will, there's a way. Clicheed idiom, but it became a cliche for a good reason - because it's the truth.

Will I attempt Nano again next year? You bet.

Will I try to write 50K in under a month again throughout 2014? Never on my life! I've got just enough in me to manage the freak show for a month, and not longer!

Believe in yourself, and only then will you reach the stars....

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Doesn't it just warm your heart?

Harlequin has a brand new category line ... that’s right NEW. And if your voice fits, then this a great opportunity to become a new voice in heartwarming romantic fiction. Find out more at Harlequin Heartwarming!

Script Writing Masterclass

The Writers' Guild of South Africa is offering a screen writing workshop for Johannesburg-based writers on Saturday 27th August at AFDA Film School in Milpark.

You can find out more information at their Facebook site, and bookings can be made via email to admin@writersguildsa.org.

Transitions

I recently read the second installment of a series I'm really enjoying, but for the some reason the author used a different transistion between scenes in the second book that really threw me out of the story, over and over again. I'm not going to mention the name of the book, as I don't want to point fingers, but I thought this would make a good discussion on what works for some people and what doesn't.

The transistion of jumping ahead in the next scene, followed by a few catch-up sentences, is commonly used, but what jarred me this time was the leap into outer space instead of a gentle hop across the pond.

Here's an example of what I mean (disclosure... this example is completely made up on the spur of the moment, no actual books or scenes were harmed in the making of this post)

Cue on scene: Jim and Jane are sitting in a roadside diner just outside Orlando, a coffee stained map of Disneyland forgotten on the table as they argued over who'd forgotten to fill the petrol tank before the left home. They'd never make it in time now.

Usually, this would be an expected transition used for the next scene:
A loud bang rang in Jane's ears. She looked up to see a waterfall of colours explode the starry night sky.
Jim pulled her into his arms, almost unbalancing the ferris wheel car. "Isn't this romantic?"
Fireworks and ferris wheels... Jane smiled and snuggled deeper against his chest, perfectly content. Jim had come through at the last moment, throwing caution to the wind and ringing up a taxi to take them the last part of the journey. They'd made it. They'd met on this ferris wheel five years ago and returned every year, on the same night, to celebrate their anniversary.

Okay, now this is closer to the transistion used in this book:
A loud bang rang in Jane's ears. She looked up to see the smoke cloud mushroom above them, swallowing up the view of Pisa's city lights.
Jim pulled her into his arms, protecting her from flying debris as the Leaning Tower of Pisa crumbled to the ground around them. "This wasn't the kind of romantic I had in  mind."
Explosions and demolition... Jane groaned and snuggled deeper against his chest, horrified. Jim had come through at the last moment, throwing caution to the wind and declaring it was due time he showed her Italy, the country of his birth. They'd caught a bus from the diner to the nearest airport and here they were, twenty hours later, in Pisa. Just in time to witness the catastrophic event.

I'm sure you can guess at which moment I started hitting the Prev Page on my kindle, sure I'd missed something. The first time I came across this form of transistion, and after I'd gone back a couple of pages to check if I'd slept through something important, I actually chuckled and thought, "good one."
By the 10th time, I don't know if I was more angry at the author or myself. I knew what she was doing, but I still couldn't help paging back, just to make sure.

Some would say this transition method is ingenuous. It certainly keeps up the shock level and excitement factor. I'm not sure, though, that the author meant for the reader to be back-paging quite so often. But perhaps that is just me, I tend to be stubborn and once I've got an idea in my head that pages are missing, knowing this shock tatic is deliberately being used doesn't change my mind.

What do you think of this? Would skipping over huge chunks of boring transition this way make the book more enjoyable for you? Would you (or do you) employ this method?

New Voices for Mills & Boon

Once again Mills & Boon are looking for new voices to join their family of romance writers! This time the competition is up on a dedicated site. Click here for access to it and all relevant information regarding the new competition.

Remember - never give up! If you haven't succeeded yet just keep trying - this might just be your turn! And of course you have to enter to actually stand a chance of wining!

Good luck everyone.

A Rose by Any Other Name

For the knowledge junkies out there - including myself - I'm happy to announce that Judy has provided us with more of her fabulous insight into the world of writing. Her new article covers the topic of names and labels which we use to identify things! As usual she uses fabulous imagery to get to the heart of the matter.

Sigh ... if only we could have Judy hiding in a cupboard at home! You remember the fab TV ad about the Italian mama stored away in the kitchen cupboard. She's let out to help produce a fab meal ... that's exactly what I had in mind for Judy! LOL! Just don't tell her I said so!

I know you all love her articles so ... click here to go straight to her latest and enjoy!

If you'd like to suggest any topics for Judy's teachings please feel free to drop us a line. You can also click here to check out her own blog where she covers many more topics.

Head Space

Most writing courses, online writing sites and books on writing focus on teaching aspiring writers 'how to write'. From the basics of correct punctuation to more complex concepts such as narrative structure. These are important tools of the trade, but in the years since I started writing I've learned that there are other things that are just as important for aspiring writers to learn.

Before you can write, you need to get in the right head space.

Writing is a lot like sports psychology - you can train for the toughest race, but if your head isn't in the right place, you're not going to win.

The first lesson I've had to learn is to treat writing like a profession. One day, a couple of years ago, I made a conscious decision that this wasn't just a hobby any more. I was serious about writing and I began to take it seriously. In my head, I made the switch from being an amateur to being a pro. It didn't matter that I hadn't yet sold a manuscript, I saw myself as a professonal writer. So far, it's working pretty well for me. Since then, I've completed two full length novels and contracted a novella to Wild Rose Press.

The second lesson is to believe in yourself. Multi published writers will tell you that the crows of doubt never stop circling [just listen to Penny Jordan in this interview] but what separates the successful writers from those who never finish a book is that the successful writers don't let the doubts defeat them. Give yourself a pat on the back every now and then. You wrote a whole page, a whole chapter, a whole book ... celebrate your achievements. With each baby step your belief in yourself will grow. Only if you have faith in yourself, will you conquer those crows.

The third lesson is one I still struggle with. Discipline. Writing novels isn't a sporadic thing that you can do for an hour a week, or a week on and two weeks off. You can't wait for the muse to strike. You need to work at it every day and get into a writing routine. At the start of last year's Nanowrimo, I was writing about 800-900 words an hour. At the end of the month I was averaging 1,200 words an hour. I achieved that because I wrote for at least an hour every day. Then I let life intervene and the routine was broken. Right now I'm struggling to write 500 words an hour. My muse has deserted me because I haven't been giving her enough attention.

More recently, I've learned that sometimes life really does take precedence over everything else. We all have moments in our lives where there are other things we need to accomplish. We still need to sleep, to eat, to take care of our loved ones, to be sociable human beings, to earn a living. Don't beat yourself up because you didn't get a chance to write today. Get through the day, live life to the full, and when those other pressing needs have been taken care of, then sit down and start to write, with a clear head.

But in my experience, the most valuable lesson any writer can learn is this: don't ever give up. Take a break if you need it, but don't let it be a permanent one. After all, you have to be in it to win it.

Snagging an Agent

Unfortunately I don't have a 10 point flop proof guide - if there's one out there, I'll take two, thank you!

There is a plethora of excellent information out there with any number of excellent agent blogs. So many, in fact, that I've had to limit the blogs I frequent otherwise it all starts to get a bit mind boggling. My personal favourites are:
Bookends
Pub Rants
Nathan Bransford

USA agents are fantastic: they blog, they're accessible, they're fast on the turnaround and they mostly accept email submissions which makes it that much easier (and cheaper) for us to query widely.
UK agents are slower on the mark. Many of the agents still want snail mail submissions, they're quick to close their doors (with regards to my previous post, maybe this is a good thing rather than letting authors query with no chance because they're not currently looking) and their turnaround time is a lot slower - I've currently got a YA under consideration, and although it's gone from query to full request to full request via hard copy, it's been 6 months and counting - that's a long time in the land of agents.

Most agents accept submissions from anywhere in the world, that gives us two continents across which to query, query, query. There seems to be a quirky exception to this, and doesn't apply to all agents, but from my experience it seems like US agents are a a bit antsy about stories set in the UK, and vice versa.  But any other country setting and you're fine across the borders.

And now (finally, you might say) we come to the reason that triggered this post...

Firstly, it was a post of the wonderful Kristin Nelson's blog, Pub Rants.

In answering some questions, she had this to say about a question on how long to wait before re-quering an agent with a new project after a rejection:
Of course we all differ on what the answer would be. That’s why publishing is so maddening to writers. For me, I’d say wait 4 weeks, then query with new project. But here’s the kicker. DO NOT mention that you have queried the agency before. Act like this is the first query ever that you are sending us. We get 150 queries a day. Chances are very good we won’t remember your name (unless you have a really unique name that is!) Writers for some reason feel obligated to tell us their whole prior history of our rejecting their queries. Don’t be seduced!

And she had this to say about re-subbing a previously rejected but revised story:
My suggestion? Change the title to something new. Sometimes titles stand out and it will sound familiar. In terms of time span, if you submitted queries and have received mainly rejection responses, I’d revise significantly, wait about 3 weeks, then resend. What can an agent do? Track you down and chastise you for resubmitting? Grin. Be bold. Now if you are rejected numerous times by same agent. Move on. Lots of other agent fishes in the sea.

She is so honest and candid, and this advice can be applied when subbing to publishers as well. Our baby might be precious to us and chiselled into our brains, but to the agent/editor it's one of thousands and there's a good chance they won't remember. Good idea to change the title and maybe even character names - and hopefully it would have been revised to an extent where you have something more/different to offer in the query/partial - basically after revision you do have a new story, so why not re-submit? This is a particularly sensitive topic when it comes to M&B because, let's face it, if they reject your story, you don't have many other options left to place it. But M&B is brilliant about giving decent feedback, enough to show you what is wrong and how you could improve. I've never really understood why they then suggest you send in something new rather than the revised ms (and I'm talking about rejection letter feedback, not revision letter feedback).

And secondly, I'd like to point you to a brilliant site, Miss Snark's First Victim. Every month she hosts a Secret Agent contest, where you post the first page of your ms and the secret agent reviews all the posts, gives feedback on whether she'd request more or why she'd stop reading, etc and the secret agent also selects winners and runner ups and the prizes vary from a critique to requests. The secret agent is revealed and she's had some great agents there, like Ginger Clark and Nathan Bransford from Curtis Brown, Kirstin Nelson, to name a few. Each contest is usually limited to a selection of genres, and throughout the contests most genres are frequently covered.

For me, the benefit here is more for the agent feedback than actually winning (although that would be great too). If you've got a couple of hundred hours to spare, you can also read through the archive of previous contests, and see which agents had what to say about which submissions. It's a great way to get inside an agent's head and understand what they're looking for - and, once again, I think this applies to editors as well.