What happens in New York stays in New York...Unless there are photos

I'm home from the national conference of the Romance Writers of America, and I've gotta admit, barely functional. I feel like I could sleep for about three days straight and still not be caught up.

The experience was great though, and I'm glad I went. Rather than blathering on for pages and pages about what I saw and did, I'll show you a few of the highlights...

After 3.5 years of having Michelle Wolfson as my agent, I finally, FINALLY got to meet her in person. She was every bit as fabulous as you might imagine (plus she made me feel tall, which is tough to do since I'm not quite 5'4").

Wait, is she tweeting about me?

Taking a carriage ride in Central Park with authors Jeffe Kennedy (center) and Marcella Burnard. These were my two roommates for the week. They're very nice to snuggle with and don't even hog the covers.

I got to see Bert and Ernie in Central Park. Bert dropped his head, and Ernie (the sadistic bastard) just laughed.

After the carriage ride, I got to feed the horsey. Go ahead and make a crack about the provocative way I'm holding the carrot or how pleased I look to be doing so.

Just to prove we clean up OK (both food and in appearance) here's Michelle and me out on the town.

I got to meet lots of great author pals I'd previously only known online. (Left to right) Jeannie Moon, Patty Blount, Marcella Burnard, me, and Jeffe Kennedy.

Enjoying fruity drinks with author pals Cambria Dillon (left) and Karen Amanda Hooper.

Karen thoughtfully created this lovely promotional piece for me using a Making Waves bookmark and a tropical drink. I agree with her suggestion that everyone who buys a copy of the book should get one of these.

I also got to meet my editor, Deb Werksman, at the Sourcebooks author dinner. We were picked up in limousines and given copious amounts of great food, strong drinks, and praise for being brilliant authors.

Author Carolyn Brown's husband had the best outfit of all for the Sourcebooks author dinner.

In case you're picturing a couple of porn stars groping each other at the dinner table, this is author Carolyn Brown. Both she and her husband were two of the most delightful people I had the pleasure of meeting.

And speaking of delightful, how cool is it that Michelle and I ended up matching during the last day of the conference? This is us with the fabulous Bria Quinlan, another online author pal I was thrilled to meet in person.

I got to meet my idol, Jennifer Crusie, on a couple different occasions during the conference. When I wasn't delirious from swooning, I couldn't help but notice she was speaking beneath a light fixture that looks disturbingly like a giant, glowing butthole.

All dressed up for the RITA awards ceremony with Jeffe Kennedy and Laura Bickle.

So that's a pretty solid recap. I promise to be back to regularly scheduled blogging within the next couple days. Until then, have a wonderful Fourth of July holiday!

Why social media matters

As you read this, I’m probably landing in New York City after flying all night to attend the national conference of Romance Writers of America.

My two male housemates are at home plotting new ways to use my dog to pick up girls.

I’m expecting to be overscheduled, over-stimulated, and sleep deprived all week, so I may or may not be blogging.

But I did want to leave you with a thought. Well, a few of them, really, but they all tie the basic notion that social media makes a difference for authors. I can prove it.

I know a lot of us get overwhelmed by all the blogging and tweeting and Facebooking involved in building a platform and a career. It’s easy sometimes to beat your head on a wall and wonder if it even makes a difference.

Here’s how I know it does:

On Friday I told you I was attending a concert of one of my favorite performers, Marc Cohn. It was my seventh time seeing him, and the show was spectacular, as always.

Then he started to introduce the song “True Companion.”

“I saw a blog post today that said someone was considering throwing a brassiere at me,” he began.

I swear to you, my knees buckled.

He went on to talk a little more about the post, leaving no doubt whatsoever he was referring to my blog. At the end of the show, my hands were still shaking as I walked up to the table where he was signing autographs.

“That was my blog post you mentioned,” I stammered like an idiot. “The one about the bras and 'True Companion' and—” 

He stood up and gave me a giant hug. Marc Cohn – one of my favorite musicians on the planet – GAVE ME A HUG!

And then he smiled at me. “You’re an author, right?”

I did not French kiss him right then. I also didn’t hand him my bra or grope his ass, though I strongly considered doing all of those things.

Instead, I asked how he came to read my blog. “I have people who keep an eye on that sort of thing,” he said, which is probably a cryptic way of saying his publicist has Google alerts on his name to watch for potential stalkers like me.

Still, I’m dumbstruck. Sixteen months ago, nearly every single one of you reading this blog right now had never heard my name before.

Now Marc Freakin’ Cohn knows who I am?

That’s the power of social media.

And here’s a second piece of evidence. The morning after the concert, I woke to an email telling me I had a private message on Facebook. The message was from author Xandra James, and I asked her if I could share it with you here:

Hi - just wanted to say something without sounding really nuts... :)

Have been following you and your blog for some time now and was looking forward to your book release from the start. I clicked on your link today to pre-order at Amazon and suddenly realised something. I have no idea what the book was about! How dumb was that? lol.

I guess what the point of this message is (and there is a point, promise) is that the power of social networking and blogging is just as big as the experts (Kristen Lamb for one) say. I knew I'd purchase your book because I liked your quirkiness and fun personality that's apparent in everything I read about you and from you. It didn't matter what the book was about, I'd have bought it anyway. (note - I've read up on it now and it sounds great, LOL).

So congrats on the up and coming release and am looking forward to reading it.

Have a lovely day :) Xandra

In the sixteen months I’ve been blogging and tweeting, there have been moments I’ve wondered how much it matters. Will it make a dent in book sales? Will it really get my name out there?

Though I believed the answer was yes, I also knew that could never be what it was all about for me. If I didn’t come here every day because I genuinely love interacting with you guys, I would have burned out months ago.

But seeing now that it has made a difference – at least in small ways – well, that warms the cockles of my heart. 

So thank you from me and my cockles. 

And behave yourselves while I’m in New York.

On throwing my bra and changing my life

Tonight I’ll be attending a concert by one of my favorite artists on the planet, Marc Cohn.

I’m still mulling whether to toss my bra at him, and trying not to be offended he hasn’t thanked me for the previous six.

Though he won a Grammy in 1991 for best new artist and has produced a number of albums in the past 20 years, he’s known by most people for one of only two songs: “Walking in Memphis” (which I’ll admit I’m not terribly fond of) or “True Companion.”

If everyone who used the latter as part of a wedding ceremony had to pay Marc Cohn a dollar, I suspect he could retire tomorrow. It’s a lovely song Cohn wrote for a woman he was dating and eventually proposed to. They got married, had two children, and lived happily ever after, as the song suggests.

Only…well, they didn’t. Live happily ever after, that is, at least not with each other.

Like a lot of marriages, theirs ended in divorce. Before you shed too many tears for Marc Cohn, you should know he’s happily remarried to television journalist Elizabeth Vargas and they have two lovely children.

And yet, at every Marc Cohn concert I’ve attended (six, in total—just like the bras), audience members continue to shout requests for “True Companion.” You can’t blame them, and I’m as happy as the next person that he plays it at every show.

While introducing the song a few years ago, he made a comment I wish I’d written down, but it went something like this:

I’m so glad this song continues to have meaning for so many people long after it’s lost its original meaning for me.

I’ve thought about that a lot lately as reviewers say wonderfully kind things about Making Waves and as I work through edits on the other two books in my contract.

Though all three books have gone through oodles of rewrites, they were originally created while I was married. It’s probably not surprising to anyone that I can see traces of “married me” in the stories.

When things were still pretty raw a few months ago, I’ll admit that made it tough to get through edits. Now? I can read any of them with a sort of clinical detachment. It’s not that there’s no emotion in them for me, but just that it’s a different emotion now.

I suppose this is something all kinds of artists deal with throughout their careers. Even if whatever sparked the original idea isn’t there anymore, the work itself takes on a life of its own.

Does anyone besides me find that fascinating? Have any of you looked back on something you wrote at a totally different stage in your life and thought, “who the @#$% was I then?” Please share!

I’ll be looking at my bra collection thinking I’ll give Marc one last chance. Black lace, maybe?

Sex and the (big scary) city

I’m a pretty experienced traveler.

I’ve sailed along Australia's Great Barrier Reef, snorkeled with giant manta rays in Fiji , hiked through the Amazon jungle in Venezuela , climbed in the Swiss Alps, and ridden a camel into the Sahara at sunset to camp in the desert. I love seeing new places and racking up new experiences like notches on my bedpost.


So now I have to confess that I am completely, utterly terrified of traveling to New York City next week for the national convention of Romance Writers of America.

I’m not sure what’s got me so freaked out. Probably a combination of things ranging from my general social awkwardness (the sort that causes me to spit gristle in strangers' purses) to the fact that I have no idea what to wear to a dinner when the invitation includes the phrase, “the limo will pick you up at...”

My only visit to New York consisted of a night spent sleeping on the floor of the JFK Airport in a skirt while blazing with fever from a weird bug I’d just picked up in Morocco. While I’ve certainly spent time in larger cities, there’s something about the idea of this city that terrifies the holy living hell out of me.

Then there’s the fact that I’m a serious, serious introvert. People tend to assume introvert is a synonym for “shy,” which I can promise you is not the case. While I'm capable of being bubbly and outgoing in large groups of strangers, I get my energy from being alone. My fear is that after two days in New York, I’ll be so over-stimulated by human interaction that I’ll end up spending the rest of the week hiding under the bed with my hands over my ears humming Motley Crue's, “Home Sweet Home.”

Fortunately, I have a close girlfriend with a designer handbag boutique and a finely-tuned fashion sense that extends beyond knowing which yoga pants pair best with the mustard-stained t-shirt. I’m bribing her with wine to come over tonight and go through my closet so she can tell me what to wear, what not to wear, and what to burn in my backyard barbecue pit before anyone realizes I actually own something that ugly.

So that helps.

But I’m still freaked. I haven’t had time yet to research the logistics of finding my way from the Newark airport to the Marriott Marquis hotel at 5:30 on a Monday morning, nor have I explored options from getting from there to La Guardia when I head home Saturday.

Hell, for that matter, I’m not even sure how I’m getting from my house to the airport for my 1:30 departure on Sunday afternoon.

I know I need to just chill out. Everything will be fine. I will likely not get lost or mugged or overwhelmed with the sudden urge to climb topless onto a table at an awards banquet and do a finger puppet routine.

Actually, I make no promises on that last one.

But there are some things I’m REALLY looking forward to. For one, I’ll be rooming with uber-cool author pals Jeffe Kennedy (who I’ve never actually met in person but feel like I’ve known for years) and Marcella Bernard (who you may recall came to my rescue when I got a flat tire en route to a conference in Seattle last fall).

For another, I’ll finally, FINALLY get to meet my amazing agent in person. I’ve been represented by Michelle Wolfson for 3.5 years, so it’s about damn time I bought her a drink. Or twelve.

And then I’ll get to meet all the Sourcebooks people, including my editor, Deb Werksman, and all the cool publicity and production people and...

Holy crap. That's a lot of people. I think I need to lie down now.

For those of you who've been to New York (or those who've been to big-ass conferences like this) do you have any tips for me? For my fellow introverts, do you have any tricks for handling extended periods of being "on" in settings like this? Please share. I need all the help I can get!

Introducing the new man in my life

There’s something important I need to share with you. I’ve met someone.

A man, if you must know. I know it’s a little soon after announcing my divorce to be sharing this, but you really can't dictate when you're going to find someone special.

I met him yesterday when I took some skirts to my favorite seamstress to be hemmed. There he was, standing by the door like he'd been waiting for me my whole life.

I know it sounds cliché, but it was love at first sight for both of us. His name is Ewan, and he's the most amazing man I've ever met. Would you like to see a photo?

I'm sure it's easy to see why I'm smitten. Right after we met, I posted his photo on Facebook and Twitter so friends and family could share in my joy. I was delighted to discover not only were people supportive, but eager to point out the advantages to having a romantic relationship with someone like Ewan.

For example:

• Since he has no arms, Ewan will never hold me back.
• Without feet, Ewan is unlikely to run away or step out on me.
• Ewan will never whine, belch, fart, curse in front of my grandmother, or say anything insulting.
• Ewan is always hard. Always.
• I can be certain Ewan is unarmed. 

Admittedly, there are a few drawbacks to the relationship. As I'm sure you can see, Ewan isn't particularly well endowed. Then there's the fact that his knees don't bend, which will make air travel challenging. Of course, the two things probably cancel each other out, since his lack of endowment means I'm not eager to jet off to an exotic locale for a romantic getaway.

So what do you think of Ewan? Can you offer any additional commentary on the advantages of this new relationship? Please share!

Ewan and I will be over here gazing into each other's eyes while we hold hands.

Um, wait–

My dog the chick magnet

There are many things I like about having two single male housemates in their mid-twenties. Some of those things don’t even involve watching them repair their motorcycles shirtless in my driveway.

I’m fascinated by the inner-workings of the male mind, particularly when it comes to the most noble of male pursuits: meeting women. Since this theme factors prominently into the plot of most romance novels, I pay attention when the boys start talking.

The other night, Housemate 1 and Housemate 2 were gathered at my kitchen table eating mint Oreos and discussing the motorcycle rally Housemate 2 just attended. My dog Bindi lay adoringly at their feet, waiting for someone to either throw a ball or drop a cookie.

The conversation went something like this:

Housemate 2: Lotta guys at the rally had sidecars so their dogs could ride along.

Housemate 1: We should get one for Bindi. Can you imagine what a chick magnet she’d be riding in a sidecar wearing a pair of Doggles?

Housemate 2: Doggles?

Housemate 1: Goggles for dogs.

They both sat and pondered that for awhile, probably imagining a string of women lined up waiting to dive topless into the sidecar upon seeing my adorably attired canine.

Housemate 1: How hard do you think it would be to teach her to chase a ball in the park and then drop it at the feet of a good looking girl?

Housemate 2: Probably not too hard. She’s smart. There could be a special command so she knows which girls are hot.

Housemate 1: It’d be even better if we could convince girls she’s a puppy. Puppies are good chick magnets.

Housemate 2: She does look sort of like a German Shepherd puppy.

They both stared at my dog, still contemplating her chick magnet properties. Bindi whined and nudged her ball toward Housemate 2’s shoe.

Housemate 1: Or we could just throw the ball and accidentally hit the hot girl with it.

Housemate 2: Yeah, and then go apologize and let her pet the cute puppy.

Housemate 1: And offer to help wipe the dog slobber off where the ball hit her.

The conversation continued on like this for quite awhile, with the housemates contemplating several more strategies for using my dog to get girls.

Part of me wanted to ask if it had ever occurred to either of them to skip the gimmicks and just TALK to a girl.

Then again, what’s the fun in that? Isn’t there something flattering about being approached in a unique way? Not that getting smacked in the forehead with a slobbery tennis ball is a turn-on, but it’s certainly an attention-getter when someone makes a creative effort.

It’s true especially in romance novels, where you seldom have two characters get together without a meet cute. The hero and heroine in Making Waves meet in a Caribbean bar and end up posing as honeymooners to win money in a beachside Newlywed Game. The twosome in my second contracted novel meet when she mistakes him for an intruder in her mom’s psychic studio and threatens to brain him with a Budha statue.

Got any examples of a “meet cute” from your real life or your writing? What’s the most interesting way someone’s approached you or you’ve approached them? Please share.

I’ve got to get my dog ready for her debut as a chick magnet. Do you think she needs the pink Doggles or the red ones?

I have no nuts or bolts

Over the weekend, I made a startling discovery:

I am not a machine.

You would think this might have dawned on me at least once in 36 years. I inspect my parts routinely, and should have noticed there were no wires or bolts or screws.

OK, there have been screws. Maybe that’s what threw me.

Nevertheless, my new epiphany came as a big surprise. I had my weekend all plotted out. I would get home from the day job on Friday and work until 11 p.m. on the large-scale edits for the second book in my contract. On Saturday, I’d get up at 6 and work straight through on those edits until at least 11 p.m.

And if I finished round one by noon on Sunday, I could reward myself by spending a few hours with friends before diving back in and editing all evening and all day Monday.

The first sign that my plan might be overly ambitious came late Friday evening when I started to peter out around 9:30 p.m. It had been a long work week, and my attention span just wasn’t what it needed to be. I kept cranking slowly, but wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped to be.

On Saturday morning, I got up early and got busy with the manuscript. Though I moved more slowly than I would have liked, I was doing pretty well until I hit a section of the manuscript where my editor had requested some particularly big edits.

A machine could have done it.

But me? Well, I considered lying down on the floor, kicking my feet, and screaming, “I don’t wanna!”

I refrained from doing this, mostly because the floor was filthy. Instead, I leashed up the dog and took her for a long walk. By the time I got home, I had reached a point where I could grudgingly muscle through the scene.

Then came another one. A scene requiring even bigger edits that triggered another “don’t wanna” response. I tried hard to stay on task. I stared blankly at the screen and willed the words to come.

But I couldn’t seem to force myself to slash ruthlessly like I needed to, nor could I spark any brilliant ideas for replacing whatever I might slash.

So I stared at the screen some more, and that’s when the anxiety kicked in.

You’re never going to figure this out. Do you even want to? Maybe slashing the scene is a bad idea. Or maybe it’s a good idea, but you’ll do it so poorly that your editor will call you up and say, “um, that three book contract? We’re taking it back because you suck.”

Oh, and while you’re sitting here getting nothing done, your lawn needs mowed, your floors need swept, the cats need shots, you need to go grocery shopping, and oh, by the way, you leave for a week-long RWA conference in New York in one week and you have absolutely NOTHING TO WEAR.

A machine could have handled all that. A machine would have powered through and put words on the page and groceries in the fridge and a whole bunch of designer dresses in the closet with just a few clicks of some flashy buttons.

I got up and found my car keys. Then I drove to the store and bought a few groceries, tried on some shoes, and came home feeling…well, a little better.

And that’s where it’s frustrating. No matter how much you might want to, a writer can’t force machinelike productivity. Even if you’re careful and give your brain a break and do all the right things to relax and battle anxiety, you still can’t force it if it won’t come.

I’ll pause here to let you snicker at that last line.

I’d love to be able offer a bunch of wise tips for forcing productivity, but you know what? I can’t.

And one thing that makes me feel better about the fact that I can’t is this blog post by genius author Neil Gaiman. (Scroll down to the part that begins “Hi, Neil,” and take it from there.)

I bookmarked that post over a year ago to remind myself that even authors in the big leagues deal with these issues. This part, in particular, is something I’ve considered tattooing on my arm:

You don't choose what will work. You simply do the best you can each time. And you try to do what you can to increase the likelihood that good art will be created.

And sometimes, and it's as true of authors as it is of readers, you have a life. People in your world get sick or die. You fall in love, or out of love. You move house. Your aunt comes to stay. You agreed to give a talk half-way around the world five years ago, and suddenly you realise that that talk is due now. Your last book comes out and the critics vociferously hated it and now you simply don't feel like writing another. Your cat learns to levitate and the matter must be properly documented and investigated. There are deer in the apple orchard. A thunderstorm fries your hard disk and fries the backup drive as well...

And life is a good thing for a writer. It's where we get our raw material, for a start. We quite like to stop and watch it.

Amen, brother Neil. Amen.

Do you struggle with expecting machinelike productivity from yourself and getting frustrated when it doesn’t happen? How do you push through? Please share!

I’m thinking about the levitating cat thing now. I really need to check on that.

My real advice to new writers

I’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately. One question I answer frequently is what sort of advice I’d offer to new writers.

Since no one wants to see me blather for twelve paragraphs on a single response in a long Q&A, I generally offer something pithy and concise and only moderately useful.

You want the real answer?

I have to tell a story.

When I was 23, I went to Venezuela to teach English. It’s the sort of thing you do when you’re young and crazy with a freshly baked college degree and more wanderlust than money or common sense.

Hiking in the Andes mountains.

I was there for almost 5 months, and when I wasn’t in the classroom, I was traveling around the country. I backpacked through the Amazon. I climbed in the Andes. I swam in the Caribbean.

I was also robbed at gunpoint in a remote beach town. I contracted a weird intestinal parasite. I came this close to being bitten by a mapanare while hiking in a jungle so isolated it took several days to reach the spot on foot and in a dugout canoe. I was detained along the Colombian border in the middle of the night by two guards who ushered everyone off the bus except me and a friend, and then questioned us while holding machine guns inches from our heads.

Writing those things just now gave me goosebumps. At 36, I look back at my 23 year old self and shake my head at my own youthful naïveté.

Did I even have health insurance? Would I have made it home safely without the money stuffed secretly in my bra when I was robbed? If I’d been bitten by that snake, is there even a remote chance I would have survived with no medical care nearby and no way to phone for help?

The answer to all those things is “probably not.”

But I look back on those experiences now as some of the most exhilarating and educational moments of my life. I was hopeful. I was brave. I was too young and fearless to consider all the scary things that could happen.

Those are the same feelings I had when I started writing fiction. I believed success was just around the corner. I hadn’t yet experienced the sting of my first rejection letter or the niggling fear I might be writing a long damn time before I landed a book deal. I got to enjoy the exhilaration of spreading my wings without the knowledge that a strong wind or a powerline or a kid with a slingshot might knock me out of the sky.

What I want to say to new writers is this: slow down. Don’t fill your head with fears about querying agents or building a platform or the possibility you might die from an infected papercut obtained from your 2000^th rejection letter.

Enjoy your early efforts. Just write for the pleasure of writing, and know that you’ll have plenty of time later to fret about the things that might go wrong. Don’t worry that you don’t know enough about plotting or publishing or branding strategies. That comes later. For now, enjoy your own goofy, hopeful, deliriously dopey moments as a new writer.

I know I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

We have a winner! (Not to be confused with weiner. I do not have one of those)

Thank you to all the lovely readers who were kind enough to vote for your favorite reenactment of the Making Waves cover.

The polls have closed, and victory belongs to...

(drumroll, please?)

Jenna McCarthy!

Applause! Applause! Jenna, would you like to do a victory dance?

Speaking of Jenna and book covers, she let me have a sneak peek at the cover for her upcoming release (get ready for this title) If It Was Easy, They'd Call the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon: Living with and Loving the TV-Addicted, Sex-Obsessed, Not-So-Handy Man You Married.

It doesn't hit shelves 'til October, but you can bet your sweet bacon bits I've already pre-ordered that bad boy.

Congratulations to Jenna, and thank you to ALL OF YOU who submitted entries in the contest. I wish I had an advance reading copy of Making Waves to offer everyone, but alas, I do not.

I can offer a special Making Waves booty bag to everyone who submitted a photo reenactment of the cover. Send your snail mail address to tawnafenske at yahoo dot com and I'll hook you up.

Oh, and as promised, I picked one random commenter to also receive a booty bag. Well, I didn't actually pick. I wrote all the entries on little slips of paper, put them in a mixing bowl, and went upstairs to knock on the new housemate's door.

"Could I get you to pick a blog contest winner for me?" I called.

"A what?"

"A blog contest winner. You see, I have this blog..."

It dawned on me that if my housemates aren't already aware of this blog, perhaps it's best if I don't alert them. I held up the bowl and smiled.

"How about you just choose a piece of paper?"

So he chose. Congratulations to Crystal Posey! Send me your snail mail address and I'll make sure you get a booty bag as well.

Thanks again to everyone for playing!

Oh, and in case this post is a little too boring for your taste, stop by The Divining Wand where I guest blogged about how "Finding where you fit is harder than it looks." Over there, I politely refrained from making a sex joke about that title.

Here on this blog, however...

*snicker*

3 tips to set the mood for romance

You know how sometimes, you just aren’t in the mood for romance?

Yeah, me neither.

But I’ll admit there have been moments I’m not in the right zone to write love scenes. Since that’s a big part of what I do as a romance author – and since deadlines often force me to get in the mood RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT! – it can be a challenge to produce the desired results under less-than-ideal circumstances.

So what’s a struggling romance author to do?

Provoke your senses

We read it all the time in women’s magazines – the key to stimulating the libido is stimulating the senses. It’s not much different when it comes to prepping for love scenes. Is there a fragrance that tends to put you in the right mindset? I keep an array of candles in my office and try to pick the scent that’s likely to get me in the right mode for a certain scene. Ditto that for scented lotions and perfumes. Music? Check. I make iTunes playlists that tend to trigger certain moods.

Even what I’m wearing can have an impact on my writerly mojo. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve found myself churning out ho-hum dialogue and looked down to realize I’m dressed like a colorblind, homeless yoga instructor. That’s usually enough to send me marching upstairs to don something with a little more sex appeal. That doesn’t mean I sit here writing in stilettos and a sequined bustier, but if you’d wandered into my office yesterday afternoon, you would have found me in a short skirt and cute top. Hey, whatever works.

Learn your triggers

A lot of people believe romance authors work in a perpetual state of sexual arousal. OK, sometimes that’s true. But I’ve discovered there’s not necessarily a direct correlation between my mood and the tone of the scene. Many of my sexiest love scenes have been written when I’m in a more melancholy frame of mind. If there’s a thunderstorm outside, even better.

While I don’t necessarily need to be in a flirty mood to produce a playful love scene, I’ve learned never to attempt one when I’m angry. There’s something decidedly unsexy about two naked people bitching at each other as a form of foreplay.

Find a fluffer

Raise your hand if you know the term “fluffer.” For those of you less familiar with the pornographic arts, a fluffer is a hired member of an adult film crew whose job it is to sexually arouse the male performers prior to filming.

I’ll pause for a moment so you can go scrub your brain with sandpaper (or for those of you intrigued by the idea, so you can go google the phrase “fluffer job opportunities.”)

In all seriousness, there’s a lot to be said for this concept. Is there a scene in your favorite book or movie that leaves you feeling warm and tingly? Take advantage of that when you need it. Is there a person in your life who produces the same result with flirty words or a smoldering look? Put yourself in that person’s proximity when the need arises. Find a source you know consistently leaves you squirming, and keep that source handy for when you need to flip the switch.

With a little imagination, you can extend most of these tips to apply to just about any sort of scene you might need to write. Bottom line, it’s worth knowing what sort of mood you need to have to create the tone you’re aiming for. Once you’ve nailed that down, figure out what it takes to get yourself there.

How do you set the mood for specific types of writing? Please share!

And please let me know what you learn about those fluffer job openings. Hypothetically, of course.