A Poem in Retrospect

I have a poem that I think is great — almost. Except for the last line:

Deep Touch

He took me on a tour of the city –

tumbling water and greenbelts

and always, always the wind fluttering flags

in concrete forests. Over coffee at Timmy’s,

he said he craved deep touch,

choirboy eyes showing bleak around the edges.

I asked him how that worked,

nervously eyeing the billowy bed

which whispered raw suggestions in my mind.

He crawled onto the comforter,

A wild brilliant bird. He whispered,

“Wrap yourself around me.” So I did.

I buried my face in midnight hair, and pulled

my arms around his chest — warm, warm

with muscles steel potential under his skin.

He took my hand in his and placed it

over his heart. I felt wind fluttering flags

in a concrete forest inside me.

I dreamed the bird revealed himself in my arms –

A rising phoenix, poised for flaming flight,

melting the tall city buildings in the night.

Without the weight of concrete, I, too, could fly

with wings made up of flags and colorful banners,

with the song I had lost as a child.

Five or more years after I wrote it, I think the last line is disingenuous and a copout. Maybe even everything after “Melting the tall city buildings in the night” is disingenuous and a copout. I begin to think so. The poem is about noise and silence and don’t forget sex.

Let me know what you think

That Stuff

My confession

“I don’t write THAT stuff.”

I could hear the inflection in the writer’s voice, even though she had typed and not spoken the words.

What stuff was she talking about? Sweet (as opposed to sexual) romance books. This attitude is not uncommon with the romance writers I have encountered, to where I have left a group of writers because of words dripping with disdain.

I don’t write the opposite extreme — Christian romance — either. I want sexuality to be important to my characters, just not necessarily on the page.

I obviously haven’t found my tribe.

Here’s my confession: I don’t write sex scenes. No steam, no lemon, no insertion, no moaning, no dirty talk, no bodily fluids, no humping.

Black and white image of female buttocks on black bacground

Why don’t I write sex scenes?

If you have preconceived notions about me, these might contradict your thoughts:

I have a perverse sense of humor and an open mind.
I enjoy reading sex scenes, as long as they’re not over-the-top or badly written.
I’m fascinated by my characters and wonder how they’d react sexually.

Some data which might explain things but I doubt will:

I’m almost sixty, which probably means I’m slowing down. But nah …

Why I write fade to black, closed-door, no explicit sex romance/romantic fantasy:

I’ve seen too many sex scenes that have taken me out of the book, i.e. miles of orgasms, heroic stamina, characters whose prowess becomes their dominant character trait. I’d read that for humor, not for a straightforward love affair.
I don’t want to get distracted from the relationship piece. I want to focus on the beginning of enduring traits rather than the short-term lust.
I don’t want to feel voyeuristic. I know they’re imaginary characters, but I’ve formed a bond with them and I feel this sense of respect toward them.
I like to use my imagination and assume my readers like the same.

I stew about this

My dilemma about writing explicit sex scenes may go back to a distinction I ran into a couple weeks ago between escapist romance and literary romance. I want to write compelling fantasy-romances/romantic fantasies about complex people in a world not quite like the one they entered. To do that, I have to write the way I write and hope it catches on.

Comfort Zone

On my way out of my comfort zone

I have to come to realize that, if I am going to do my book justice, I am going to have to include a more explicit sex scene than I’m used to writing. And this is way out of my comfort zone.

Usually, I write on a two chili-pepper heat, according to this source. That means closed-door sex. But given the book I’m writing, which is a romance between a 40-something librarian and a prince of the fae. There’s going to be sex, especially as his lack of humanness is going to manifest as “live for today” and a certain amount of hedonism. Closed door will not work here.

Get over it.

I’m scared, because I’ve never written a sex scene before. And I want a sex scene that is neither “tab a into slot b” or over the top hilarious. Which is why I have always written closed door scenes. Now that I have to, I think I’m going to have to find that sex thesaurus someone recommended to me.

What I think I’m going to need to do is take myself seriously and be foolish at the same time. That’s the mood I want, a dalliance with lots of satisfaction; the feeling like it’s a one-night stand, and then — he’s back. And what will she do now?

So, time to get over the comfort zone and write.

Getting inside Josh

Because I can’t draw my character. Because I can’t post a male nude. Use your imagination here.

I’m still working on Gaia’s Hands, because I don’t have much else to do right now.

I’m trying to get into Josh Beaumont’s (male lead) head so I can develop and write him more fully. This is a challenge for me, because I’m not 1) male, 2) twenty years old, and 3) a mystic. No, scratch 3); I’ve had some nonstandard experiences in my life.

I want to be authentic with the character, especially with his sexuality, which is an important part of what is basically a romance novel at its heart. Josh is pretty normal in that category, except for the fact that the object of his affections is 25 years older. And he’s a virgin. As an older woman, I want to make sure this is realistic (other than the age thing, which happens sometimes) and not personal wish fulfillment.

This isn’t a total problem, because Josh is mature for his age (about 25 emotionally) and I think that comes from his being a mystic. Josh has visions that change the course of his life, and Jeanne has been the star of his visions lately.

So I want to paint Josh as a gentle soul, but with drive. Someone who sublimates drive into poetry. Someone who’s going to finally ask for what he wants when he can’t hold it back anymore.

He’s my project for today. Let’s see where I can go.

One of those sex scenes (warning: no sex. I’m a wimp.)

At that point I had heard too many horrible things: the deaths of several Travellers, Harold’s motives, Ian’s impending death. I started crying, horrible sobs. Ian gathered me into his arms as he murmured in my ear: “My dear Kat, all we can do is be and find meaning in the moment.”

I hiccuped trying to stop the tears. I wondered what he meant.

“I want to stretch this moment into timelessness. With you,” Ian breathed.

That I understood. It was a Traveller phrase, “stretching time”. There were few ways that Travellers could escape time, and sex was one of them.

“Yes,” I barely managed to speak. “I would like that very much.”

He took my hand and led me to my bedroom, and I remembered that he had been tutored under Berkeley, so he would know the layout of the house. I struggled to determine what year that would be. Then he backed me against the wall and kissed me, and math didn’t seem so urgent.

When we backed off from each other, panting, we stared at each other. “Are you going to back off again? It’s okay if you — “

“No, I want this.” And I dropped to my knees before him and began to undo his pants.

“No,” Ian said, squatting before me. “Not like that.”

“That’s the only way I know how to do it,” I sniffed. “If you don’t want to …”

Ian put his arms around me. “You’re no longer the girl who lived on the street. You have a say in this. You have a right to joy. The only thing is,” he sighed, “I have no idea how to do this.”

“You’re a virgin,” I guessed.

“I haven’t had much time to date,” he shrugged. “But it puts me at a disadvantage. What would you like me to do?”

I thought of what my Johns never did, things I’d only read about. “I want us to take our time and kiss a lot. And touch a lot. I don’t want things to be over right away.

“Let’s see what we can do about that,” Ian smiled. “I have a good imagination…”

As he laid me on the floor and slid on top of me, I had to agree.

Four Sex Scenes

I’ve finished the latest edit on Voyageurs, and it’s ready to go into dev edit as soon as I do one more thing.

Write four sex scenes.

After all, it’s a romance novel, or at least a soft SF novel with romantic elements. There are four places in the novel where they’re having sex, but I don’t go into detail. I suspect that romance publishers will need sex scenes.

I’m terrified.

I have nothing against sex — in fact, you can think of me as sex-positive. But I have seen so many bad sex scenes in my writing time that I fear that sex can’t be written well. There’s over-the-top tentacle sex . There’s overwrought adjective sex, where the men and the orgasms are bigger than life. There’s contractual obligation sex scenes and there’s tab A- slot B clinically detailed sex scenes.

I don’t want to write any of these. I want to write something emotionally fulfilling, heavy on relation and light on mechanics. I don’t know if I know how to do that.

If you hear me screaming today, know it’s because I have to write four sex scenes.

A Place I’ve Never Written About

I’ve been reading a lot about “incels” — men who call themselves involuntary celibates, but who have such a repulsive worldview of women that it’s understandable why they’re not finding partners. They look at unattainable women as bitches and women who enjoy sex as sluts and women who are involuntarily celibate as cows. In other words, they’ve dehumanized every possible woman they could have bedded. Naturally, they’ve taken to valorizing men who kill as many as these women as possible.

When I was younger and single, I had a lot of what would be called dry spells. I was appealing only to a select group of people, many of which were interested because “fat girls are easy”. (Note: we’re not.) I once even called myself celibate, until a sassy friend said, “There’s a difference between being celibate and not getting any.” So, as you see, I was in the same boat our incels were in.

I didn’t become a man-hater, although I’ve always been too much of a feminist to give in to “fat girls are easy” and too proud to gush over any guy who looked at me. So I took matters into my own hands.

I fantasized about a place of solace.

I named it the Brigadoon Sparrowhouse, “Sparrowhouse” for a place where free spirits, which I had nicknamed “sparrows”, lived, and “Brigadoon” for the play about a mysterious village that appeared only every seven years. In my mind, the Brigadoon Sparrowhouse popped up somewhere in the west central part of Urbana, the funky area where college professors and the occasional house full of poor, progressive students lived. I didn’t know where it would be, but it would appear when the light filtered just so through the trees as they shook droplets from their limbs. In my mind, in the moments I was most in need of human contact.

The door to Brigadoon Sparrowhouse was always open to me. I would walk in, and find myself standing in the middle of the living room, a slightly chaotic place with couches and chairs, all with their newness worn down by use. The living room wore dark paneling, an artifact of the era in which the room had first been remodeled. Pillows and an afghan brightened the room, and a woven wall hanging completed the look.

I would sit on the couch and cry, soaked from the rain and feeling like I would never get warm again. I would grab the afghan and curl up in it. I was alone; it was always a chance I took going there.

Soon, someone would show up, someone who was free and not currently connected with someone. Usually, it was Mark, who looked gloriously unlike the people I knew. He was tall and thin, with waves of auburn hair pulled back in a short ponytail. His face was narrow and pale and Irish; his eyes nearly the same color as his hair.

“You’re freezing,” he would say and wrap his arm around me, hugging me close.

“I got caught in the rain while I went walking,” I would stammer. “I didn’t know where I was going.” Often, I would think, I didn’t know where I was going.

“Something’s up, then,” Mark would say. “Tell me what’s up.”

I would tell him what was up — I felt like I was wrapped in a bubble and unable to talk to other people; I looked at the shining beauty of a friend and couldn’t reach them; I believed that nobody would ever love me.

“We love you,” Mark would say with his arm around me. We. The Sparrowhouse.

Sometimes Mark the sparrow and I would make love, up in his bedroom, a chaotic room with white walls, a mattress on the floor and a chest of drawers with sacred objects on its top — a stone with a hole, a cowrie shell, a bowl made of stone and a feather. Our union would grow out of a discussion, and tears, and solace. I felt the poignancy, because the sex was borne of agape, not eros or ludus — it was a gift, a reassurance that isolation would not be forever. It was not charity, but humanity answering humanity.

I did not fall in love with Mark, knowing that he was a figment of my imagination, just like the Sparrowhouse, which would disappear when I stepped out of it.

Josh and Jeanne: Telling their stories truthfully

As I re-re-edit Gaia’s hands in a number of ways for a number of reasons, I’ve learned a surprising lesson — it’s possible to be scared of your own writing.

There are some things about the book I’ve understated — too much, in fact — because I didn’t know how people would react to them. The biggest one, I guess, is the relationship between Jeanne Beaumont, a tenured professor and Josh Young, a student (but not one she’d ever have in class) at a midsized university. I looked at the rules at her university, and there is nothing in the conduct code that would present this, as he will never be her student.

Note how I try to justify myself already? If that first part didn’t startle you, they fall in love with each other, despite the difference in their ages and the differences in where they are in life. She’s settled in her faculty responsibilities yet starting a new venture in permaculture design. He’s at the beginning of his adulthood, but focused on getting a PhD in creative writing and a writing career. She tries to avoid problems while he tries to breeze past them, but they go toe-to-toe with each other because their relationship is too important to evade.

I’m not sure the above is even the most startling part — the most startling part may be that Jeanne and Josh are attracted to each other. This includes sexual attraction, even though he’s a slender 20-year-old and she’s a zaftig 50-year-old. In short, they are the two groups of people we regard as least sexy in the US — a young, small-boned Asian American man and a large, older woman. And the younger one, not the older one, is the pursuer. (There are, however, no explicit sex scenes in this book because I thought you should use your imaginations there.)

I created the characters like this on purpose — to challenge the reader, to expand societal notions of what is possible, to give a view different than our notions that Asian men are sexless and women of a certain age are desperate. My books are full of oddballs — perhaps because oddballs are my people — for better or worse. I could have put ordinary characters against the subtly extraordinary events of the book, but I was afraid they’d wash out. Jeanne and Josh are not ordinary.

If I myself cannot face my characters — good and bad — my writing loses power and coherence. It’s possible that this book will never get published because I believe an older woman/younger man relationship is not only possible, but believeable. There may be people out there who think a semi-sentient vine and a plant superpower are more believable than Jeanne’s and Josh’s relationship, but I will not try to erase them or their relationship from this story. The story deserves better, Josh and Jeanne deserve better, and I deserve better.