For an erotic author, writer’s blocks can be a double whammy. Settling down at the keyboard (or notepad, I’m old-fashioned), characters shout out to be heard. A plot weaves its way across the pages. There’s a journey and a destination. Writing is productive and the word count great. Until, I hit the road block with that scene which has to be written. The sex, the spankings, whatever. I stare blankly at the screen, then rather like a goldfish with little concentration, I find an excuse to put on the kettle or fill the washing machine with a pile of unsoiled tea towels. I skip over these blocks and a some point, I’ll have to go back and fill them in.
Then, there is the opposite. I formulate, using plentiful creative juices (naughty words!), the sex scene. It pops into my head: a different kind of spanking, or a witty, sexy dialogue or some unusual toy jumps out at me and I’m off, raring to write something smutty. There’s absolutely no structure around this scene. It hangs in mid air and drops down onto the page from on high with a crash. After the buzz has gone, I’m left wondering what the heck I do with the darn thing. Turn it into a short story? Add to it, extend the prose and hope a novel wraps itself around it. Many of these are abandoned on the delete heap, because, well, they’re just a little too dark for publishing, at least in my opinion.
Naturally, the perfect scenario is both necessities for writing an erotic romance flow: the story and the sex scenes. The worst case… I’m left without either and it’s time to go for a long walk, plug in some music, read more or whatever it takes to clear that double block of writing.
I’m on a self-imposed hiatus at the moment. Simply because February has gotten ridiculously busy and I can’t start risk working on something when I’m expecting constant interruptions caused by other things. So, keeping my fingers crossed for March. My window of opportunity for writing and it better not be jettisoned by those damn writer’s blocks.
You have put into words, my thoughts exactly. A sex scene written at 3 am, after a couple of glasses of wine, can sound so hot that I am almost sliding off the chair. But in the cold light of day it sometimes sounds ridiculous, that I seriously doubt that I have any skill as a writer whatsoever. I can’t write into notebooks, however, or I would never finish a single book. I am so slow with a pen, but on my laptop I can zoom across the pages very fast. Then, the joy of re-reading it and making alterations is so easy on the computer, without the hassle of writing notes in the borders. But I do scribble into a notebook as I am writing, to act as an aide-memoirs, to save me having to go back to search for stuff. However you write your sex scenes, they come across very well, I can assure you. I sometimes read scenes from earlier books I have written, and it makes me cringe with embarrassment that I wrote it. But then, I expect many other writers say the same.
I’m re-editing one of my first self-published books, and cringe, I realise how far I’ve come in the last few years! I do like writing in a notebook sometimes, the flow of the pen on paper…
Blame the wine!
I know those blocks well! Good to hear I’m not alone. I find when those blocks come too often for one story, it may be time to move to another and said goodbye to all those words already written…
Smart to take a hiatus rather than going crazy with frustration with constant interruption.
The danger of blocks is they feed each other. I flit between different projects and none of them give me creative spark.
Love the cartoon Jaye and can definitely imagine the 3am thing. A hiatus sounds like a good idea, especially if you are going to have lots of interruptions. Here’s to no blocks when you do write again!
Hugs
Roz
Keeping my fingers crossed because April is a disaster for time too!
You’re a prolific writer, Jaye, so you definitely deserve a break whenever you want to take one. I often re-read things I’ve written and wonder whether I’d been drinking at the time I wrote them. At other times, however, I’m pleasantly surprised. But you can’t edit a blank page, so even having drek to revise is better than nothing.
I think I was seriously drunk for some of my earlier stuff! And yes, other books, when I re-read them I don’t believe I wrote them, they’re better than I remember.
‘Prolific’ in the winter, but I have to slow up in the summer when the kids are off.
I can relate. I had writer’s block this fall. What helped me was taking time to do non-writing things until my ‘muse’ returned. Good luck!
Good advice and it can help, but it’s frustrating when you lose all that writing time! Thanks for commenting 🙂