Today I'm going to put up something short and then tomorrow, the Fang Marked Office will be closed for three days because I need a vacation. Who am I kidding? I'll probably post something. A day without writing is a day of staring at the walls and wondering what I'm supposed to be doing instead.

I've talked about characters a lot this week. That's because without good characters, you have nothing. Sure, the plot is important, but the best plot can be killed by horrible characters. Character development is so important that I'll probably touch on it again at a later date. I also picked up a copy of How Not To Write A Novel at the library a couple days ago, so I'll be re-learning some things and putting them up here too.

Today I'm talking about uncomfortable scenes (hence the title and here's an example of a mistake. I'm repeating myself). What are uncomfortable scenes you ask? They can be anything from sex scenes to scenes of horrific violence to scenes with male characters buying underwear in Victoria's Secret. Uncomfortable scenes are basically scenes you as the writer don't want to write.

My personal uncomfortable scene is a sex scene. I can't do it. I feel stupid when I try to do it, and I have tried to do it. I can't use words like manhood to describe the male genitalia. I just can't. It's a total invasion of my characters' privacy. I tried to write a sex scene for Forbidden and as soon as I typed the word nipples, I was done. I had to start over. So don't feel bad if you can't make yourself write a scene that you are uncomfortable with.

The best advice I can give you in this situation is if you don't like writing it, then don't. I won't write a sex scene that's not what it should be. I'd rather it not be there or have it alluded to. If the characters have sex, you'll know they did, but you don't need a play by play. If you don't like writing a scene where someone's head explodes, don't. If you can't handle a male character running his hands over a pink satin thong, don't do it.

That's it for me this week (maybe. I'll probably be back Saturday if not tomorrow). I'll be writing at home tomorrow because I'm on deadline and it's not where I want it to be yet. Awakening needs to be done by November 1st and Forbidden is going to be published by then. I hate deadlines, especially when I don't have my data recovered yet from my hard drive. Oh well. Time to go back to my Charlaine Harris novel and lose myself in vampire mystery. If you haven't written your three pages, then you know what you have to do. If you have, go get a novel and enjoy some reading for pleasure.