Sadly, this is not about a sex marathon that I got to have.
I just finished a 5 page, over 2000 word sex scene for Mayhem (which now has a new tentative title that I'm not quite happy with: The Devil Priest of Arrak t'Thedra). I didn't shower, I didn't eat, I didn't do anything until I got this scene finished. I'm guesstimating that it took about 3 hours to write. Not because I type that slowly, but because it took some thinking. I don't know what people imagine writers do when they write sex scenes. I don't think I want to know what people imagine writers do when they write sex scenes. As much as I believe it's probably not what they think (I do not masturbate while I write, thank you!) it is one of those things that makes me feel exposed on the page. I have to really focus on not caring what people will think when they read it. If I did that, I would hide all the interesting bits under the covers and no one would get to experience the full intensity of what's happening. For that experience they can watch pillow talk on daytime soap operas. I expect more from the books I read and I expect more from myself when I write them.
I've had relationship subplots climax (literally and figuratively) in stories and books quite often, but this is the first time ever I've had the main plot pivot on an act of carnal lust. At times it wrote more like a fight scene than a love scene, and not because they were doing damage to each other. I guess you'll have to read it to see what I mean. One character wasn't human, which forced me to describe way more than I usually have to. Balancing description with action in a sex scene is like juggling oranges while driving. I have no idea if I wrecked the car and I can't find the oranges anywhere. I think they ended up inside someone's orifice. At least I appear to have survived the experience, and so did both characters.
Anyway, it was intense, putting so much sexual and story tension on the page. My brain hurt afterward. I thought that carrying that tension forward would be hard, but actually it's scary how easily those repercussions just made me grit my teeth in sympathy with the character. I wanted to write her the hell out of the situation right away so she could, if not live happily ever after, at least cope with what just happened. But by then I was starving and I needed to process enough of what I'd done to do the next scene justice. Part of me wants to say more about it, but I don't want to turn this post into a spoiler, especially since the book hasn't even come out.
I hope my first reader is blown away, but I don't expect it. Writers are lousy judges of their own writing. Still, M. has commented that I often rush through my story climaxes and offer little or no foreplay, resulting in me having to go back and be less like a nineteen year old boy in bed with someone way out of his league. When I started this scene I knew it was important, and I keep thinking as I wrote, "go deeper. Go to those places that are scary and personal." And deeper I went, and the characters went deeper, literally and figuratively ….
Done and done. I think. Now, if five pages isn't enough for M., either I'm a crappy writer, or I've got a way more demanding first reader than I've suspected.
A demanding first reader is far and away the preferable option. M. makes me a better writer, so I'm good with that even if it will make my eyes bug out if M. comes back with 'that was great, but I still want more on the page.' I almost expect it at this point. Because, now that I think about it, 2000 words isn't all that many. I could do more ….
Speaking of M., I hope my readers will take a moment and send good thoughts M.'s way. Health stuff is going on, serious health stuff. The docs won't let anything bad happen but I'm worried and M. didn't sound so good on the phone yesterday. Maybe I'll push the next several days and get this first draft done so I have something to offer for hospital recuperation time. It would take a lot to finish this book in the days rather than weeks timeframe, but it's doable. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it appears to be a firestorm of destruction and rebirth.
That final climax, though it won't involve sex, better blow M. away. I'd better start planning on writing a big, juicy end that will hopefully earn me a phone call right after M. finishes it. Maybe, if I work really, really hard, M. will say, "perfect. Except I really couldn't visualize the stairs."
There's always gotta be something.