Yesterday, I sat down to write a transitional scene where my heroine goes to her apartment, changes clothes, pets the cat, etc. and then goes on about her day. What I wrote was an incredibly emotional scene where she basically has a sob-fest breakdown, which creates a Little Realization Moment about her life that helps with the later Big Realization Moment. I read it over when I finished and thought, “Whoa. Where did that come from?” The scene was wrenching and powerful. I didn’t even know I could write like that. Crazy.
I had a similar issue with the sex scenes. I mean, I’ve been reading romance since I was 11 years old. Needless to say, I’ve read a sex scene or two in my day. Sometimes I get so bored reading them, I just skip ahead. However, writing my own sex scenes or even almost-sex scenes was intensely embarrassing. I was pretty floored by how embarrassed I was. So, I wrote them and never read them again. My cousin had the onerous task of reading them for the first time and she said they were good. I read them. They were pretty hot. Again, I had to ask myself, “Where did that come from?” How on earth did I write this stuff? Oh well, at least I didn’t look at it and go “This is crap.” That’s good news, right? Right.
P.S. I caught the mouse and had to fetch my poor landlord up to get rid of it. I just couldn’t do it. Crystal = wimp. Let’s just accept that and move on.
