TMI alert!

One of the ways I try to keep my love scenes fresh and exciting is to keep a notebook of sexual fantasies and thoughts. Not just my own, but also ideas and experiences my friends share with me, or random ideas from the various media in my life.

I try not to judge or censor any of these, no matter how exotic or fantastical they may be. So I've got jottings about everything from tender heterosexual lovemaking by candlelight to tentacle sex to sex in outer space to.... Well, you get the idea. :)

Once people sense that you won't judge them for sexual thoughts, they can be remarkably forthcoming with ideas. Recently my husband and I struck up a general conversation with a gentleman in a restaurant's lounge . Once he found out I wrote romance, he suggested that the necklace our bartender wore would make a handy cock ring in a story.

Of course I wrote it down! I'm sure I'll use it somewhere.

So if you see me reaching for my purse during a conversation, keep talking!

Doing the nasty some more.

Love scenes are great fun to write as well as read. The difficult part isn't coming up with positions or locations.

Because like every other scene in the book, the love scenes need to move the plot forward, reveal something about the characters, as well as explore the emotions involved in such a deeply personal act.

So let's be specific. Let's say my heroine is looking at the hero.

He was gorgeous. Even the sick yellow sodium streetlight couldn’t erase his high cheekbones and navy blue eyes. His full lower lip summoned her to kiss and bite. His worn shirt framed his chest and rippled belly. Lost in a fog, she barely registered licking her lips when she saw a line of flesh above the waistband of his low-slung jeans. One long fingered hand touched the glass as he leaned in closer, his eyes locked on her.

The world shrunk. Those strong, scarred digits slid, lazy and slow, down the window. His thumb hooked through his belt loop. He cocked his hip in masculine invitation to look and appreciate. The grace of him sent an unfamiliar shudder through her breasts. Its power rocked her back on her heels. In all her long life, had she ever felt an erotic blow like this? Her body wanted to know how those fingers would feel.

What makes this snippet work or not isn't the description of his body, delightful as it is. It's what she feels, the emotion that the visual brings to her. Her desire, surprise, and yearning tell you that she's sexual, though she's not been intimate, not just physically but also emotionally, with someone for a very very long time.

My Band of Hooligans.

Today was a brainstorming and plotting day with my wonderful, amazing band of Hooligans. There are six of us, of varying ages, who all write different subgenres of romance. Everything from my sexy but dark paranormals to home/hearth to adventure to suspense.

I think every writer needs a 'family' of some sort. A group of people (or even just a person) who invest themselves in you, believe in you, and care passionately about your success.

We rarely critique each other's work, since we write such different things. After all, I'd be saying things like, "You know this scene where the heroine realizes there's no place like home? You need some Zombie Frogs in there."

And believe it or not, not everyone is into Zombie Frogs! Can you imagine???

Lack of ZF's not withstanding, together we take each other's plots to greater heights of courage and adventure.

Just like we do for each other. :)

The many gifts of sorrow, or Guess Who Reads Romance?

My maternal grandmother is in the hospital. Last week, I flew half-way across the continent to be with her, and things were not looking good.

So I decided to tell her that I was writing romance and not anything sweet, either. I had been worried she would disapprove.

She held my hand and said, in her tiny, halting voice, "I love you because you're you. I know there are lots of different books out there."

Cue huge crying jag here.

I am staying with my father who lives very close to that hospital. It's fair to say that he and I have had differences of opinion. I had feared telling him and my step-mother than I was writing romance.

My Dad is a PhD. in chemistry and my step-mom an MA in mathematics. I remember lots of very intellectual books in our house. So I was not going to let them know I was writing genre fiction.

Until I saw a Linda Howard title on the counter.

Which I found out they both were reading.

So I told them.

Now my parents are very busy giving me ideas for new novels!

In the middle of fear and worry, beauty and harmony can grow.