Writing the Awkward Stuff

“Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.”
~ Terry Pratchett

My writing friend Marianne has her short story, "Now That We’ve Found You," up at the Wild Rose Press. Go check it out!

So…um…(clears throat here) yesterday I…(feels herself blushing) wrote the first sex scene for my hero and heroine in Paradise, USA.

Actually, it was the first sex scene I’ve ever written.

See, I usually focus more on the emotional relationships in my novels. I like the hesitance of first touches and the fire of first kisses. But when I submitted this novel, for the heck of it, I thought I’d conform to what people seem to like most about reading romance.

And that’s the sex, right? Well, and the falling-in-love part too, I suppose. But I know readers love the sex. Look how popular erotica is, right?

Anyway, this scene was a lot harder to write than I thought it would be. Part of me kept thinking, Oh God, my family and my friends are probably going to read this at some point and WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF ME???

Does anyone else ever worry about that?

I mean sure, I think the scene was needed, and after it’s been tweaked about a hundred times, it might actually come across as believable and crucial to advancing the plot. But in the meantime, I feel like I’m going to be hemming and hawing around the keyboard the next few days, trying to get the words right and trying to banish the inner editor who, strangely enough, sounds a lot like my mother and one of my aunts.

Hmm. Anyone else have difficulty - or advice - when it comes to writing explicit love scenes? And how explicit do you get, anyway?