*sniff* My baby starts kindergarten today. :cry:Â
Hey don’t forget about Picture It Monday! Gimme yer best flash fiction (200-500 word story) and post in the comment section of that entry. Winner gets a free copy of TALK DIRTY TO ME! So if you haven’t purchased it yet, now’s your chance to get it gratis. 🙂
I’ve also answered Paperback Writer’s challenge for the freebie download of a new story. You can now get Eorwulf available here FOR FREE. Just click the link at the right, download the PDF file, and enjoy! (Or, heck, just click the link I just provided you to get it for free. WOO!)
And another thing… before I get going. I’m blogging over at ShoeIQ these days. It’s everything you ever wanted to know about shoes! So be sure to check it out. My entry is currently up and I’ll be posting twice a week.
I think my cat hates the new Tidy Cat litter. Hey it’s not my fault they changed it to make it more scoopable and clumbable (are those words?). Anyway, he sort of made a grumble at me this evening when I got home. He’s picky enough about his litter box – he insists I scoop every single day. Go figure!
Good progress this weekend on Nice Girls Do. I’ve busted the 30,000 mark! WOOHOO! I am aiming to finish the book this week, even though my goal was this past weekend. I just got wrapped up in doing some computer maintenance so I didn’t get to write as much as I wanted. Which is okay, really. I’m this close to finishing. I’m headed toward the Black Moment and then the Climax and then the Resolution so I should be able to knock it out this week.
I’ve also started the third and final installment of the Coffee House Chronicles: Take Me I’m Yours. It’s off to a good start.
And now here’s what I really wanted to talk about today. Recently, I was asked an interesting question about my writing. Since I do write romance, and that includes steamy love scenes, someone said “Do you write about what you want or about what you like?”
Um. Wow. What a question. Here’s how I explained it. I said it’s not about me at all. It’s about the characters. THEY tell me where to take their story and how to write it and how hot their sex is. They dictate it to me, almost as though they were channeling through me. Which sounds totally weird and like I might need to be checked into a mental hospital. But it’s true. And then someone said, “But don’t you write just a little bit about yourself?”
Of course not! Never! Okay, maybe just a little. Yes, it’s true I bring my life experiences to my characters. There isn’t a writer alive that doesn’t. We have to have these life experiences to make our writing rich and our characters real. It’s how we breathe life into our stories. How we make the people in our stories seem as though you’ve known them all your life. It really has nothing to do with the sex (although, I have to admit, it’s been a while for me so I’m not exactly sure if I remember how it all works…was that TMI??) :hehe:
Writing romance has become like breathing to me. I want to see them fall in love and get their HEA (happily ever after) and that doesn’t necessarily include marriage and a baby carriage (K-I-S-S-I-N-G…okay…sorry). I want to see how hot their sex can be when they finally get together. I want it to be explosive and romantic and so spine-tingling that the reader needs a fan to cool off. And I’m not talking about a person standing up and cheering.
Okay this is getting silly. I want to hear from all you romance writers. Whether you’re just starting out or multi-published. Or even if romance isn’t your primary genre. When you write a scene in a book, how much of your life experience do you bring to the pen (or the keyboard, whichever the case may be)?
I switched over to Feline Pine scoopable. It’s nice and soft, organic, doesn’t smell. They like it. If I use Tidy Cats, they tip the pan over and scoop it all out, then use the empty pan instead.
I have a VERY non-adventurous, sheltered life…so in my case, it’s all MADE UP! 😳
I try to make everything up but sometimes your own life experiences just slip in. Hugs on the kindegarten starter!!
I’m so, so glad you brought up this subject, Michelle. Just the other day I started an essay/blog post about this very subject. Without writing the whole thing out in your comments section, though, here’s an abbreviated version of what went down.
I ran into an old friend. A platonic friend. A friend I’ve loved and trusted for years. We caught up and I let him know what I’m doing now. I pointed him to my website where he saw that I dabble in erotica. He apparently read a few stories and from that point on, our conversations took a turn. Never mind that he’s married now with kids. He was coming on to me in a major way. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t flattering. He was talking to me like… it was just nasty.
It was mind boggling to me. I didn’t know where all this was coming from. Then I realized he had visited my website and I guess from there he thought that was what I was “into.”
At one point he asked where I get my inspiration and I told him from everywhere. I might hear a conversation that’s interesting, be watching a situation unfold, I might embelish something that’s happened to me before, but under no circumstances to I write “blow-by-blow” what has happened to me in my own life. I just don’t. I know it sounds cliche, but it comes straight out of my head and, damn it, I’m creative!
He also made the comment that I must be “freaky.” I was thinking -but didn’t say- that I only wish I had experienced half the stuff my characters get to do. I am not what I write and I really resent him assuming so. He obviously felt that I was working out some pent up sexual frustrations and he was more than happy to “relieve” me.
:cuss: perv.
Sorry… but I had to vent that somewhere and didn’t really want to call him out on my own blog, since he’ll probably still visit there to get his rocks off, lol.
But, to answer your question… I agree with you that we sprinkle a little of ourselves into our writing. In my case, the story might be set in a place similar to where I live, or an apartment I visited. The characters may have some of my or a friend’s or an old lover’s characteristics. I don’t fictionalize personal experiences and call it a story. Well, okay, I did something very similar to that just recently… it’s the most autobigraphical thing I ever wrote, but it just had to be done. We’ll call it therapy, LOL.
Great entry on Shoe IQ also, Michelle… very funny!
I have a hyper-active imagination, so often something will happen to me (ie getting attacked) and I will imagine all sorts of ways I could have dealt with it (ie having a superpower and hunting them down…) and voila! Sometimes I get myself so worked up with my crazy imaginings I can’t sleep, and almost believe what I’ve made up is real! So I guess the answer to that would be: I bring my own experiences, mixed with the way I would imagine others dealing with the same problem and see which one fits my story.
Wow, what a question is right! I’m with you…the characters tell me how it is and I try to do it justice. My personal experiences/preferences don’t have any bearing on the steamy scenes. I know my life experiences flavor my stories but it’s a case of ‘a sprinkle of this’ or ‘a dash of that.’
Tenille – I am shocked and appalled! I mean, I’ve had some odd experiences too when I tell men I write romance, but nothing like this. Weird. And so sad (for him not you).
Thanks everyone for the responses! 🙂