Sex and the Married Writer

Still going strong with the current piece, now into the home stretch on the first draft. (Well, draft and a half. Although I'm trying to break myself of the habit, I do some rewriting every time I open up the doc.)  I think I know how it ends, although I still could surprise myself. It looks like its going to be a rather short (2,000 - 3,000 words) short story, but definitely longer than a flash fiction piece. Not the best length for submission purposes, but it is, as the kids say, what it is.

It also includes a sex scene, and, oh yeah, another sex scene. In fact it's pretty much all about sex. And drugs. And alcohol. But mostly it's about death. I guess I can pretty much forget about being anthologized in the next 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' collection.

Thank goodness I attended Steve Almond's session on writing about sex at last year's Muse and the Marketplace. A couple of things he said -- and I'm paraphrasing here, sorry about that Steve -- stuck with me: 1) writing sex should be all about what's going on in the character's head, not what's going on in their bodies, unless you happen to be writing porn, and 2) if you're doing a good job writing about sex, you're probably going to be embarassed about doing it.

I guess I'm doing it right.