Sex from the Start

The Pens are thrilled to have Kristin Miller visiting us today!

Kristin Miller has had a passion for language and literature her whole life. Born and raised in Small Town USA, she often made up stories about faraway places and edge-of-your-seat adventures.

After graduating from Humboldt State University with a degree in psychology, Kristin realized there is no scarier place than the warped human psyche. Wanting to combine her love of writing with her desire to paint twisted villains, Kristin wound up in the unlikeliest of places—the classroom. She taught high school and middle school English before giving in to the desire to create her own world, where villains can be sympathetic and heroes can be devilishly good.



When I first wrote the beginning of Intervamption, my paranormal romance novel with Avon Impulse, I started at the moment I thought would best capture readers’ interest—the moment when Dylan, a vampire rehabilitation specialist, witnesses a young vampire’s suicide. From there, Dylan’s world and the beliefs of those in it, spiral out of control. The novel turned out dark and gritty and perfect…or so I thought.

I sent out queries. One agent emailed right away, stating he was interested in representing my work, but only if I could vamp up the beginning. “Your strengths are steamy scenes and action,” he wrote. “Start with a combination of those from page one, paragraph one, line one…if you can.”

The last part was a dig. A challenge. If you can? Didn’t he know he was talking to the most competitive girl on the planet? It was the best thing he could’ve said at the time. Had I been told to write a steamy scene from the get-go, I probably would’ve turned down the suggestion. But in the face of possible representation, there was no way I could not make it happen.

The more I thought about the angles from which I should write, the more I doubted if I could really make a sex scene work in the beginning of my novel. My hero, a dangerously sexy shapeshifting assassin, is charged with shifting into a vampire to make his final, and most critical mark. My heroine is a work-a-holic and CEO of her own rehabilitation center, ReVamp. The two leads don’t even meet until the Newborn Vampire Induction meeting in Chapter Four.

How the hell could I start Intervamption with a sex scene? There was only one answer: my hero would have to sleep with another woman. Yikes, right?

This first section is what came out:

Slade didn’t think twice about slamming the blonde against his closed apartment door. She gasped as her head snapped back, hitting the wood with a resounding thud.

“You son of a bitch,” she seethed, meeting his stare head on. “You think you can just push me around like I’m a fuckin’ doll?”

“Yeah, I do.” He pressed against her, the wide span of his chest dwarfing her petite frame. His mouth hovered so close to hers, he could taste the cranberry from the Cosmopolitan on her breath. “Tonight you’ll do what I want, when I want, how I want.”


It flew off my fingers, practically writing itself. The challenge was not writing the sex. In fact, that was the easy (and super fun!) part. The challenge was making the sex smoking hot, without letting the reader care about the woman in my hero’s arms. Yet, if I swung the writing too much that direction, making the woman cheap and easy, I risked my hero looking like a womanizing asshole. I wanted my readers salivating over Slade, not thinking he was a player. When he met his heroine, readers needed to feel that their chemistry was genuine. They needed to trust Slade’s feelings. How could readers do that, I wondered, if he slept with another woman not fifty pages before?

I walked a really fine line…

Once the writing was massaged into shape, that one scene ended up showing more about my shapeshifting world and my hero’s character than I could’ve imagined. It showed how much Slade despised what he’d become. How trapped he felt. How ready he was for something new—for Dylan, his one true love.

The opening worked because sex scenes are more than sex. They’re glimpses into the internal conflict of the characters involved. They break down walls and maybe build new ones up. They reveal insecurities and deepest, darkest desires.

What better way to start a book than by exposing the most vulnerable part of your hero or heroine? I can’t think of one. I challenge you to give it a shot. Rewrite the first scene of your novel using a sex scene to propel the story forward…if you can.

And if, after all this build up, you’re interested in reading Intervamption’s steamy first chapter, Amazon is offering it for free.

http://www.amazon.com/Intervamption-Kristin-Miller/dp/0062115731/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312499788&sr=8-1

Sexy Cancer Hair and a Bit of Angst

Pop quiz: Do you recognize me?

by Gigi

As many of you know, I've been absent from the blog for the past month because I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Since I'm a health nut in my 30s with a gym in the garage, this news was not at all expected!

But I'm fortunate in so many ways. In addition to having caught it early and being treated by a fantastic team of doctors, I've learned that I've got the most amazing friends in the world and the greatest husband on earth.

And to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to seizing the day, while I've been recovering from surgery I've been having FUN (in between all the extra sleeping and resting, of course).

I'm enjoying reading alchemy books as research for my next novel. But the real fun has been experimenting with new hair looks I'll need due to chemo.

Oh yes, I'm going to have sexy cancer hair. 

I've had the exact same hairstyle for the past 20 years. (Nope, I'm not joking.) It's nice hair, so I'm not complaining, but my curly long hair always refused to be styled in any way. But it worked for me. Therefore I went with it and kept the same hair I had in high school. I liked it well enough, so I never had the guts to cut it short to try something new.

But now that I have no choice about cutting my hair short, I'm free.

Last week, I cut off my hair. (It's what they recommend you do before chemo -- less stress on the hair follicles and also less traumatic if you do lose your hair.) Here are a few photos below. I was shocked to find that it's actually rather cute!

Even more fun was another recent expedition -- the Pens took me wig shopping! Photos are below.

If I do lose my hair temporarily, hell yeah I'm going to do it in style. I've got to keep up with the rest of the Pens, after all.

The last time I posted, I wrote about starting a part-time sabbatical this summer to dive into extra art and writing projects. Instead, I'm postponing my sabbatical for one year.

This year I'll be taking care of myself and getting well. But since I'll also have more time than usual at home when I'm not working or at Kaiser, I'll fit in some creative projects as well.

I've previously lamented my lack of angst and wondered if it would keep me from creating depth in my writing. So in addition to getting myself some sexy hair this year, I'm also hoping this experience will have some positive effects on my writing.

Since I have to go through this, I might as well get something out of it!

I already have reason to believe this will be the case. Normally I'm a huge plotter, and character depth is what I find most challenging. But as I've been brainstorming this alchemist novel, I'm all about the characters and their haunting secrets. As for the plot... Well, I'm hoping plotting is like riding a bike and that it'll come back to me once I start writing.

p.s. Thanks to guest bloggers Lisa Alder and Cecilia Gray for filling in for me on the blog last month!

Martha's Favorite Sexy Recipe

My absolute favorite use of the word sexy comes from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

Here is his salad, copied directly from his website with my comments in brackets.

I love this salad. Apart from being a great combination, it always seems unbelievably effortless, which is the kind of recipe I like. The constant success of this is due to the common-sense marriage [marriage! see how he talks about food? like its PEOPLE] of salty Parma ham, milky buffalo mozzarella and sweet figs, which obviously need to be of a good quality. The best figs to use are Italian and the best time to buy them is June to August when they are in season. Greek figs are a good second-best and are in season from September to November. The best figs always seem to be those that are about to split their skins. Use green or black figs - it doesn't really matter.

One thing I do is to criss-cross the figs but not quite to the bottom - 1 fig per person is always a good start. [I often screw up and hit bottom. Nothing to cry about.] Then, using your thumbs and forefingers, squeeze the base of the fig to expose the inside. At this point you'll think, 'Oooh, that looks nice, I think I'm quite clever ...' or at least I do. [Also sexy? A sense of humor. Check this guy out!] More importantly, it allows your dressing to get right into the middle of the fig. All these little things really help to make a salad special. Simply place the figs in a dish, weave around 1 slice [or three] of Parma ham or prosciutto per fig, throw in some slices of buffalo mozzarella and rip over some green or purple basil. Mix 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, a tablespoon of good honey and some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper together in a bowl and drizzle everything with this dressing. As far as salads go, it's pretty damn sexy. [Agreed]

Finding the Entrance to the Secret Garden

by Lisa Hughey

This topic isn’t, as Dr. Peeler so eloquently said, about tab A in slot B. Most high schoolers understand the mechanics of sex. Writing about sex and being sexy has to be much more than about moves and positions.

But what is sexy? The truth is that every person has a different vision of sexy.

Sexy is about defining, for the heroine, the emotional component that allows the hero entry into her secret world. In the context of romance novels, whether closed door or fully described in intricate detail complete with naughty words, sex only packs a punch if the emotion is present and (almost always) amplified.

Engaging in sex is about vulnerability and trust. And the most intense sex scene is one that explores the trigger for allowing this other person into the character’s inner sanctum or as the title suggests, their secret garden.

A truly excellent scene is one that delves deeply into the character and what makes them vulnerable.

Sometimes it’s about longing for something they don’t have: family, love, protection, happiness. Sometimes it’s about power they want or power they hate. Sometimes it’s about fear. Fear of happiness, fear of being hurt again.

Sex frequently turns the story just as it turns the relationship. The physical dance of intimacy, that first tentative foray into an emotional connection, the withdrawal back to the ordinary world which no longer fits quite right, and the glide back together again, is the foundation on which the successful romance story rests.

I love reading about people finding the person they find sexy. Even more, I love writing about characters who find their own version of sexy. The evolution of that initial attraction to a deep and enduring love is the most interesting and fun of all.

Lisa

ps. Yes, that is a Bruce Springsteen reference. I love this song.

Stretching the Topic...Peaches & Tango

L.G.C. Smith

There can be many reasons for including sexy scenes in any novel, but the most important one is simple: Sex reveals emotion and aspects of character that are integral to story, and which are best conveyed through sex. Sex is a real and interesting part of life. The potential for drama and conflict is inherent. Physical intimacy is sexy. Add emotional connection of pretty much any flavor plus decent writing, and you get fire.

It’s worth repeating: We learn things about characters during sex that we would learn no other way.

That’s sexy.

Okay, on to some other fun stuff. I’m going to hark back to one of our past topics, celebrity, because I finally met a celebrity! A real one! My celebrity meet is Chef Richard Blais, winner of Bravo’s Top Chef: All-Stars.


For my birthday, my sister, the organic farmer, gave me a VIP ticket to a special event, Peaches & Tango, at her farm, Frog Hollow Farm, home of what are arguably the best peaches grown in North America. Jeffrey Steingarten once made that claim, at any rate, and he’s a fairly rigorous critic. The event was a benefit for Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard, and Richard Blais was the chef. He and his wife have been Frog Hollow fans for a while. Lucky us! And lucky me to have a birthday the week he came to the farm. Otherwise, I’d have had to have done volunteer staff duty like the rest of the family.

I went early, and started taking pictures in the kitchen while the prep was going on. When I walked in, there were four cheffy volunteers making chutney, peeling cheese rinds, chopping, chopping, chopping, and dropping pearls of horseradish cream into a big plastic bucket of liquid nitrogen. All of a sudden, Richard Blais popped through the swinging doors from the reefer and went to work. Eeeeek! He looked just like he did on TV!

I took pictures and stayed out of the way. I didn’t introduce myself. Too chicken. Whatever. I talked to the helpers, who seemed tickled to be there. They explained what they were doing and smiled a lot. Private chef, Andrea Boje, told me what had gluten in it and what had fish sauce (shellfish allergy--bah), and went about the business of calmly solving every problem that arose. That kind of competence is sexy.

Blais’s sous chef, Spencer, worked with focused calm. Also sexy. Blais circulated from station to station, tasting, checking, directing. Then he’d hop on the turf truck and trundle down to the outdoor kitchen being set up south of the packing shed. One time he took a load of oysters on ice. The turf truck isn’t so sexy, but Blais seemed to really like it. Then back to the kitchen he’d come to keep everyone on task.

After the staff meal, everything from the kitchen was loaded into vans and carted over to the outdoor kitchen. Once there, trays of oysters were dressed with a mango salsa and readied to receive their horseradish pearls. The toasted pimento cheese sandwiches with gentleman’s relish were precisely cut into golden brown bite-sized squares. Chef Andrea balanced the beet tartare on spoons topped with candied wasabi.

When the guests arrived, they’d take one look at Blais and start grinning. One couple, among the first to arrive, were so excited to be there they repeated the story of finding out about the event sixteen times in four minutes. They glowed. They fizzed. The man videotaped Blais. They were darling. Blais was utterly sweet to them. Then a group of four beautiful young women, dressed to kill, and in five-inch heels (in an orchard?!), stopped as one the instant they clapped eyes on Blais. Their jaws dropped. They gasped in unison. One of them whispered reverently, “There he is!”

Blais was unstintingly gracious, charming, and kind to the guests. He kept everything moving as he shepherded his delicious, elegant courses onto plates and into the servers’ hands. He demonstrated with the liquid nitrogen in two 600-gallon steel tanks. All the while he signed autographs, posed for pictures, and cooked.

Oh, he cooks sexy food. This is the chilled hiramasa with fried chicken, smoked aioli and pickled radishes. Raw fish isn’t one of my favorites. Radishes—meh. But in Blais’s hands? Crisp, clean, smoky, sweet, tart, salty, creamy yumminess. Sean Seufert of Terra Bella Farms said it put him in mind of the best BBQ potato chip imaginable. I thought it was considerably more refined than a chip, but that sprinkle of fried chicken skin and the smoky aioli definitely evoked some of those flavors. The textures of the dish were perfectly balanced—firm but tender fish with a slightly crisp, moreish bite. Balance is sexy.

Up next was the cutlet of petrale with cherry tomatoes and anchovy raisin butter. I think there’s also a dab of browned butter foam under the fresh herbs. I couldn’t eat this one because the fish sauce was in the dressing on the tomatoes, but I tasted the anchovy raisin paste and nibbled the fish and the butter foam. Delicious. For all the pretty presentation, Blais’s dishes suited the ambience of the orchard setting. They were particular without being fussy. Totally sexy.

At the end of the evening, I gathered up some menus that guests had left behind and asked Blais to sign them for my sisters and their friends who had helped all day and served all evening (and me). His eyes drooped and his shoulders weren’t quite as straight as they had been, but he turned on his smile and I didn’t feel like a dork for keeping him from getting back to his family for five more minutes.


The sexiest thing all day, however, came in one of those behind the scenes moments when Blais’s wife and little girls arrived. Not once did either of my sisters or I see Blais look at anyone with anything other than professional courtesy, meticulous attention to detail, and polite interest. When he saw his family, though, he lit up. “My girls!” he exclaimed, and in the time he spent with them this bright, kind, talented chef was the sexiest guy in the world.

Sexy Bodexy

--Adrienne Miller

That’s what I’m currently calling my WIP. Yeah, it’s a little awkward but it gets the point across. It’s a sexy, sexy story. At least that’s how I’m hoping it will turn out.

A while back, I got the most brilliant rejection letter that anyone has ever received. Pages long and insightful, I agreed with almost every note this agent made. Pacing problems, narrative problems, character problems, she dealt with them all with a fabulous mixture of “I know you can take this” honesty and “Buck up, lil’ camper, you’ll scale that mountain yet” confidence building. This thing was as wonderful as any letter informing you that your dreams are going to be delayed a bit longer could ever be.

So when she wrote that it seemed like I was uncomfortable writing love scenes, I took notice. Really? I thought. Uncomfortable? Isn’t everyone when faced with writing a graphic sexual encounter? Throw in the very real possibility that every living relative of yours might have access to this thing at some point, and it was amazing to me that anyone was willing to write about sex at all. Ever.

It appeared that my Prude Pants were showing. Except I wasn’t a prude. Was I? 

I like sexy things. I’ve read romance novels over half of my life. I practically turn into a puddle of melted butter every time I sit down for an episode of True Blood. I’ve watched the movie Troy close to a bazillion times, and not because I’m enthralled with the story line.

Figuring that couldn’t possibly be the problem, I dove right into writing another book. When I got to the first love scene, I took of note of how I dealt with it. And sure enough, the scene came out flat and awkward, like I was typing out the literary equivalent of lying back and thinking of England. 

Damn. What was wrong? Maybe I wasn’t loose enough, I figured. So I deleted the whole thing and started again, this time trying the Rachael Herron method of pounding down a glass of Laphroaig before starting over. It didn’t help. Now it was just flat and sloppy.

The next morning I woke up with deadly cottonmouth and an idea. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been exposed to enough sexy things. I was really good at receiving sexy input. No, the problem was that I didn’t have any experience at sexy output. And I don’t just mean writing a sexy scene, but in thinking of sexy as being anything that was inside of me. 

I don’t think that you have to believe that you’re sexy to write hot love scenes any more than I think that you need to have homicidal tendencies to write mysteries. But we’ve all been angry; we know the seed of that particular fruit. As for me, it was painfully obvious that I had gotten too far away from my sexy seed.

So I’ve set off to reclaim it, not the easiest thing for a overweight mother of two. I decided to dive headlong into a new story. An erotic romance. Ah hell, since I’m already neck deep, let’s make it a BDSM shape-shifter erotic romance. Because if there is one thing I believe in, it’s that any thing worth doing is worth overdoing. 

Yeah...we’ll see how it goes. 

Sexy is as sexy does

So some time ago I went to a local S&M sex club to research a scene for a book. I know what you’re thinking: you suffer so for your art. It’s true. I do, I really do.

Weird thing about the visit was that, while it was mesmerizing, the phrase that would best describe my response was more “morbid fascination” rather than “sexy”.

Anyway, lest you all think I made the trip for other than artistic reasons (and because I’m under a book deadline and have no more original thoughts in my wee brain) I present you an excerpt from Arsenic and Old Paint, fourth in the Art Lover’s Mystery series (written under the pseudonym, Hailey Lind.)

Here’s the set up: Annie Kincaid goes to the Power Play looking for someone involved in a murder. She asks a few friends along to keep her company. The following is a fictionalized account of my actual experiences, from the moment the group approaches the front door…

“Costs more if you keep your pants on,” said the bored-looking man behind the counter.

Wesley had a coughing fit. Mary slapped him on the back. Bryan glared at the receptionist, his eyes cold and dangerous. I stepped in between them, afraid for the first time in my life that Bryan might be moved to physical violence.

“We’re good,” I said as I shelled out several twenties to pay for everyone. It was the least I could do. “They like their pants. Do you happen to know where Kyle Jones is tonight?”

The man’s eyes drifted over me, clearly seeing me naked and, no doubt, in an advanced Kama Sutra position reminiscent of a pretzel. My yoga hadn’t advanced that far and, I hoped, never would.

“He’s usually in the Dungeon, or the Pirate’s Lair. But you could check the Jail Cells, or the Coffin Room.”

Oh. Goodie.

Wesley paled. He would have left at that description, I felt sure, if Mary hadn’t been latched on to his arm as though he were the big, bad protector of a woman two inches taller, and no doubt much fitter, than he. Mary had been taking kickboxing for years, and wore serious boots.

“Where do you want to go first?” Mary asked. “It would be faster to split up, but I think we should stay together.”

“Oh, definitely,” I said.

“None of you are leaving my sight,” Bryan said, glowering at a clutch of young men entering the place behind us...

On the main floor there was an empty rec room with Ping-Pong tables, a pinball machine, and foosball games. Kind of like camp for grownups. Another, smaller room was decorated like the great hall of a castle, complete with an iron chandelier and a huge wooden table. I didn’t think much of the paint job, but the concept was kind of fun.

Moving on, we found the Jail Cells, only one of which was occupied by a hopeful-looking young man who had already thrust his hands into the chains on the wall. … A handful of men clad only in towels meandered through the rooms and hallways as though lost. Most of these were middle-aged and paunchy, giving the Power Play more an air of an executive locker room at the gym than a sex palace. …

We paused at the bottom of the stairs.…here there were at least nine men to every woman, and most were wandering the hall, which skirted a cyclone-fence encircled area, where racks, frames, and lots of ropes and chains were set up....

“Don’t touch anything,” Bryan told us in a fierce whisper. “Has everyone had their tetanus boosters?”

A man tottered by in white pumps, wearing a pink Jackie O-style suit, complete with pillbox hat, white gloves, and vintage white patent leather pocketbook. It’s not unusual to see transvestites here in San Francisco, but usually they were sexier and more feminine than half the women in town. This man, in contrast, had no makeup on, and had done nothing special with his short salt-and-pepper hair. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a glum expression on his unshaven face. It looked for all the world like Murray from Accounting had lost a bet.

A group of at least half a dozen silent, watchful young men started to trail us, duckling-like, as we moved down the hallway past a series of fantasy bedroom situations. I was trying to imagine being willing to lie down on one of those beds; all I could think of was that TV show where they bring special lights and cameras to uncover the invisible cooties on hotel bedspreads.

Mary grabbed my arm and leaned into me to say something. There was an audible gasp from the crowd. They circled around us.

“Back off, you freaks,” Mary said. “We’re not going to make out or anything. Ew.”

One of the young men opened his mouth to say something.

“I said back off!” Mary yelled, taking a step toward them.

Bryan glared at them, and they fell back. But when we continued walking, they followed at a respectful distance.

“We are in a sex club, Mare,” I whispered. “It’s not out of the question to assume we might be game.”

“Freaks,” she muttered, looking around malevolently.

.... I averted my eyes as we passed the rack and a masked man with a cat-o’-nine-tails. The burly masked man came over to stand just on the other side of the cyclone fence.

“Good evening,” he said as though he were a maitre d’, greeting us for lunch. “You ladies care for a turn? Giving or receiving, it’s all good.”

“Maybe later.”