Short, sweet, and hot today, which is my way of telling you that I completed my first sex scene last night. By first, I mean first ever, despite years of trying. I am ridiculously pleased with myself.

Even in my sex-obsessed twenties I couldn’t write a sex scene. To be fair, my problem then was that I got a few words in and had to find my boyfriend (then husband) for “research.” After the “research,” I was too exhausted to write.

I love sex as much as anyone, but the words simply evaded me when I tried. Words are dry. Sex is juicy. They just didn’t connect for me.

I thought the problem might be that I needed to psychoanalyze myself and figure out what the blockage was. Was I a secret prude? Did I think my father would sneak in and read my naughty words? Could I have been weaned too early? Too late? Did I secretly hate sex? (No.) What was the problem? But here’s the thing, the problem only happened when I wrote. Otherwise sex was fantastic.

After years of trying, I gave up.

Last year I met a friend who is an expert in writing sex scenes. She gave me some advice on how to write good sex. So, I tried again. Failed again. Tried and failed. What was my problem?

Dean Wesley Smith says that when you are emotionally affected by a story or you are hooked by it and you can’t figure out why, what you must do is sit down and type it in. Get it into your fingers. It forces you to slow down and see what the author did.

That’s what I did. I took a very good sex scene from a steamy romance my friend recommended and typed it in. Then I wrote my own based on what I had typed in. I’ve found that this technique needs to be done in chunks of about 500 words. More than that and it becomes an exercise in typing rather than writing analysis. So I typed about 500 words. Then I wrote my own 500 words. Rinse. Repeat.

Viola! Sweet and Hot.

I hope your day is going well and that any research you need to do is sweet and hot. Or at least productive.

Be well, friends!