Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Struggling

Hi all,
Sorry for the late post! I’ve spent the last few days racing around preparing for my first Romantic Times Convention. For example, a mere hour of searching today and I finally found the silver pen so perfect for signing posters. Actually finding time to write is beginning to look like a luxury.

On top of that, my daughter had dental work done today. In my day (how ancient that sounds), I got a needle for the pain. I think. Now, dentists want to ensure the experience is as painless as can be and pretty much knock the kid out. It's been interesting to spend the day with a slightly belligerent, seemingly drunk five-year-old.

On top of that I’m struggling with the manuscript in progress. The parts of the book moving at a snail’s pace? The sex scenes. The reason for this is because these scenes must reveal my hero and heroine’s vulnerabilities and emotions. Not only that, this is my seventh erotic historical romance. I have to push as deeply as I can to make the lovemaking unique. I want to find new words to express different experiences. Once upon a time, I thought writing would become easier. It made sense—as I apprenticed in my craft, I would grow and learn.

I never expected that the doubts would grow. I never anticipated that I would be pacing around the kitchen, tearing my hair out, trying to understand how to describe the experience of oral sex in a way that is unique to my heroine. And try to figure out what my hero is "learning" from the experience. What is he discovering about his past and his emotional future? And the poor man just thought he was going to have fun!

Now it’s back to trial packing for the conference. And I have some good news to pass along. My book Sin is a finalist in Passionate Ink's Passionate Plume contest, in the historical category. Passionate Ink is the erotic romance chapter of Romance Writers of America. I was very thrilled to get the news.

4 comments:

Celia May Hart said...

Yay! Sharon!

And I hear ya on the writing aspect. This current WIP has just had its second rewrite and I'm barely into chapter three.

(I think I've got it right though.)

Pam Rosenthal said...

Sharon, congrats on finaling. And heartfelt sympathies on the writing. I know exactly what you mean about trying to make the lovemaking different from one's other books and germane to these characters and these characters only.

JRMullany said...

Big congrats on your final and have fun at RT.

I know exactly what you mean about the love scenes. I feel I'm improvising my characters at the beginning of the book, and it takes time to know them. Much later in the book I'll do some sort of questionnaire or reality check when I'm feeling more confident, but in the beginning it's all three of us fumbling around incompetently.

Unknown said...

Congratulations on the final!

And yes, characters and love scenes-like Jane, I have to get to know them and then I'm back re-writing dialogue and sex nearer the beginning of the book!