Writing, Whether It's Inspirationals or Erotic Romance

At my local RWA chapter meeting yesterday, our morning speaker, Pamela Osback, spoke about writing Inspirationals and the Inspirational market. While I write the opposite end of the romance spectrum from Inspirationals, what she had to say was still very relevant.

Submit. Everywhere. Always have a proposal out; always have something submitted.

Write every day if you can. Give yourself a word or page goal, rather than a timed goal. (I can sit in front of the computer for 2 hours and write 10 words. If my goal is to write for 2 hours, technically I've made my goal, even if I only wrote those measly 10 words.)

You won't be published if you don't finish the book. (Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out, but we sometimes need to be reminded.) Writing is 20% writing, and 80% re-writing. (In other words, give yourself permission to write crap. Hmm. Where have I heard that before?)

Make yourself write even when you're tired. If you want to someday be able to support yourself as a full-time writer, you can't do it--you won't do it--if you only write when you feel like it.


In the afternoon, Cheyenne McCray and Mackenzie McKade (both of Ellora's Cave) spoke. Yep. We had an Inspirational author in the morning, and Erotic Romance authors in the afternoon. And everyone enjoyed the talks of all three.

Perhaps one of the most important things that Cheyenne and MacKenzie had to say was this: When you're writing the sex scene, build up to the consummation scene very, very slowly. Both authors said that the consummation between the hero and heroine takes place a full 1/3 or 1/2 way through the book. (In other words, throw the standard "the characters must have sex by chapter 3" out of the window.)

You want the reader so hot and bothered that the anticipation is about to kill them, and they're ready to strangle you, the author, because they want the characters to finally get on with it. (Or is that "get it on"?) When you do get to the consummation scene, draw it out. Use all the senses (sight, touch, smell, sound and taste). And, once you've written the sex scene, go back and add more touch, more scent, more sound, etc.

Another interesting thing -- both Cheyenne and Mackenzie said that their sex scenes (consummation) are anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 words. Because, once they've built up all that tension, they cannot cheat the readers. They have to give them what they've been waiting for.

As always, I came away from the meeting feeling energized and psyched up to write. When I got home, I did a few small chores (looked through snail mail and emails, commented on a few blogs, ate a couple of cookies... oh, wait, that's not really a chore. Eating cookies is important, but not really work.) and then pulled up my NaNo project and wrote just over 1,400 words (and stopped in the middle of a sex scene so I'll have something, um, interesting to start with tomorrow).

I love my RWA groups. All of 'em.