Writing Wednesday: Reading Sex Scenes to Strangers

I write romance.

I write romance and adventure for both Young Adults and the young at heart. And yes, my adult books tend to contain sensuality and - you guessed it - sex.

So when I was asked to participate in a Valentine library program back in February, I signed right up. The title of the program was "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: Authors Talking Romance."

And then there was a blizzard.

So this past Monday night, the rescheduled program took place, without all the Valentine hype and advertising they'd had for the original program so the turnout wasn't the greatest, but most of the seats were still filled.

Eight authors, including myself, read from our published work on the general topic of "sex" and the stories ran the gamut of time periods and situations. We heard tentative first kisses between near strangers on a high school field trip in the 1970s, and a princess in ancient Egypt slicing off her brother's phallus to keep him from raping her.

The Egyptian scene actually kicked off the readings, and it was bloody and filled with explicit words and actions. If anyone in that audience didn't know what they were in for, they got the idea pretty quickly.

We heard scenes from contemporary political thrillers and 16th century courtships.  Two authors read from books that featured the pirate Sam Bellamy and his crew. This is Cape Cod, after all. Gotta have pirates.

One older gentleman had the audience in stitches with a tale of hot tub antics - not what you'd expect, but rather a humorous mishap with misplaced bubble bath. The actual sex scenes were alluded to behind closed doors, but he actually said "nipples" out loud without stumbling over the words.

I read a scene from MY KIND OF CRAZY, with kissing and touching and overwhelming feelings... everything leading up to but just shy of actual sex. I thought long and hard about what I would be comfortable reading out loud, and wasn't sure how far I wanted to go. Pun intended.

I read last, wrapping up the evening. By then, the audience and other authors had all relaxed and gotten over the shock of hearing the word "penis" read out loud in the library. But here's a secret - I'm a painfully shy public speaker.

So why did I sign up to read a sex scene out loud in front of a crowd? Actually, I figured if I could do this, it would go a long ways to helping me overcome my fears of public speaking. Which, you know, is a thing you need to do when you're an author and you want to connect with your readers. You need to actually go and talk with them.

What did I learn from the experience?

I can do this. The audience was receptive and engaged, and several stayed to chat with me afterward. It wasn't as awkward as I'd thought it might be - I mean, think about reading romance out loud to a group of strangers. The potential for discomfort is pretty high up there. But I'm really glad I participated. And now I know I can do it.

How have you challenged yourself lately? Authors, have you ever read one of your sex scenes out loud to a crowd?

Hooray for Children's Librarians!

Cape Cod Weather Today: Well, the sun is still trying to rise so it's unfair to call it overcast, but I'm afraid that's the direction we're heading. Temps up into the 60 and chance of rain later, but now it's a dull grey dawn, with glimmers of pink on the horizon...

Hooray for the children's librarian at my local public library! Because of her efforts, my daughter found three (3!) new series of books she enjoyed - devoured! - over the weekend. I am now tasked with finding more-of-the-same ! Except of course that due to town budget cuts, our library was closed Sunday and again today, Monday... but tomorrow I'll be right there!

To share: The first series - and my daughter read it first in one night - was Babymouse: Queen of the World, a graphic novel by Jennifer and Matthew Holm. I had my doubts about letting her even take it out, but she loved it. Who am I to argue with success

The second two series are more traditional chapter books: Judy Moody, by Megan McDonald, and Ivy & Bean, book 5 (the only one currently on the shelf), by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall.

Of the three books, my daughter likes Judy Moody the best. I think it's the closest she can get to her beloved Junie B. in a more age-appropriate book. I'm okay with that, except that when I went to Borders over the weekend, the only option for buying more was to buy a rather large boxed set. I choked on the price. She can just as happily take them out of the library.

There is something special about library books, beyond the stickers on the binding and the plastic dust covers. Something about taking extra care of it because you've borrowed it. Because it belongs to that nice lady at the library who smiles a lot and runs such fun craft classes on the weekends. Because my daughter gets to have a fancy "credit" card with her signature on it that lets her use the self-checkout laser beam thingee all by herself...

I haven't read any of these books, which also feels weird to me. With my first child, I read everything before he did (does anyone else do that?) I wanted to be able to understand when he talked about what he read. I don't have the same compulsion (obsession?) anymore, and know that I won't be able to read everything to preview it for her. I have to trust.

And luckily, I have a librarian on my side!

The Graveyard Book

Cape Cod Weather Today: Rain. Again. 'Nuff said.

I took my daughter to the library yesterday to try and finds a few new chapter books that will hold her interest. I don't know why she's so finicky, but she is. I went through this phase with both boys at some stage, but the answers were different for each kid. So I went to the expert. The children's librarian.

My daughter wanted something funny and fast-paced like her beloved Junie B. Jones books, but I wanted something a little more challenging to her third grade reading level. She's tried (and not enjoyed) the Magic Treehouse series, the Mermaid SOS series, the color fairy series, Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, the A to Z mysteries.... the list goes on of what she doesn't like. The librarian was able to steer us to a few new series choices that will *hopefully* work. We'll see.

But while we were sauntering down an aisle, I saw a poster for "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, reminding me of all the wonderful things I've read about it while trolling the internet when I'm supposed to be writing. And I remembered Elana's recent blog at "Mindless Musings" about reading someone else's work to take a writing break and clear your mind and all those other procrastination excuses...

I inquired, and was told the book resided in the teen section because of it's scary content. Since it starts with a triple homicide and all. (After reading it, I'm not really sure which section it ought to be in, but it certainly isn't gory-scary like some of the other fantasy stuff in that section. or in the middle grade section, even.)

I read the book last night, after the kids went to bed. 300 pages, including the illustrations, so finished it in about two hours. And the verdict?

I enjoyed it. It's very fresh and different. A premise I hadn't ever read or considered before. Plus, it seemed to bend and break a lot of what I thought were "rules" about writing, but did it all in a way that seemed okay. Definitely worth the time spent reading, and a good choice for summer reading lists.

One question I had after reading was - - if someone else wrote this book, would it have been published? If an unknown author broke this many rules, would an agent have been interested, or figured it was unpublishable?

I think my 11-year-old would enjoy this story a lot - quite a lot - but know my 13-year-old would not. He'd hate it. "YA" is such a wide range of ages and styles that it's hard to think of it as a single category. Theoretically, both sons fall into the YA category with their ages and reading abilities, but each has his own taste and opinions. The older loved the Twilight series, and the younger loved all the Scott Westerfeld books. The each have adult books they've enjoyed a lot, as well. (The older son read "Pillars of the Earth" at least twice so far, the younger ones "Jurassic Park.")

What is my point?

Write the book you want to write. There are so many readers out there that enjoy such an awesome variety of books. If the writing is good enough, your story will find an audience.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself ;-)