Hello my Freaky Darlings,

I’ve been working on the new book, The Incubus Project, and over the last few days I’ve been wrestling with a sex scene. I don’t know why, but I always find sex scenes difficult to write. Not because I’m uncomfortable with them, but because I think they’re the scenes that need to be written particularly well. It’s easy to write a bad, cliché ridden sex scene, but writing a sex scene that leaves the reader breathless, emotionally engaged, and horny as hell is a whole other story.

Sex scenes need to strike a delicate balance. It can’t be a blow by blow sort of thing. You have to get the right emotional and carnal aspects. And it can’t all just be about the cock. It also can’t just be passive. Lets face it there’s nothing quite as bad as passive sex. And while the brain is the biggest sex organ, it can’t all just be in the head. You also want to engage to readers own imagination, but you also have to lead the reader’s imagination. As a writer you can’t just hint at something and hope the reader gets it. You have to meet the reader at least half way. Then there’s the logistics involved. Do you even worry about where the legs and arms are? Or where the lips and tongues are? It can all go terribly wrong very quickly. But like with most sexual encounters whether on the page or in real life, once it’s finished it can be very satisfying – if it’s done right. So … what do you think about sex scenes in literature and how they should be written?

In other news: Killer Aphrodite reviewed Requiem in E Sharp and The World SF Blog interviewed me.