When I first began my
live online writing experiment, my intention was to demonstrate, in real-time, just what it took to put a book together. I volunteered to expose my first draft (warts, typos, misspellings, dumb plot ideas and all), so that everyone could see just how much work it took to go from that initial rush of enthusiastic words to an acceptable manuscript.
Something else I wanted to show was how the scene you think you're going to write sometimes turns into something else entirely. Yesterday, I sat down to compose what I intended to be a fast, angry, spiteful sex scene. The heroine, Lauren, is pissed off at her husband, Seth, for walking out on her earlier that morning. She is also pissed off at herself, because she's pretty sure he was justified and she was the one at fault. She runs into Harry, a man she's been dealing with professionally - and rather acrimoniously - for years, and ends up going home with him.
The scene was supposed to be two people blindly taking out their frustrations and disappointments on each other. But, instead, it became (in my opinion), kind of... funny.
Sometimes, when a scene gets away from you, it sucks. You need to delete it and start all over again. (This past summer, I deleted two whole chapters when I decided that if they were boring for me to write, they'd be even more boring to read.) But, at other times, they take you in a direction you never expected. And it ends up being kind of cool.
So, since I promised not to hold anything back when it comes to the process of taming your manuscript, take a look for yourselves and let me know what you think....
She wondered if he were waiting for her to make the first move. He certainly hadn't seemed like the hesitant type back at the bar. Or any other time she'd ever dealt with him, for that matter. If they were here to negotiate a contract, Lauren had no doubt Harry would have started making demands long ago.
But they weren't here to negotiate a contract. They weren't here to negotiate anything. Well, save the pathetic remnants of Lauren’s sanity, but that ship had sailed a long time ago.
“I'm not drunk,” she told him abruptly.
“That’s good. I like my women conscious.”
“I know exactly what I'm doing.”
“Previous experience is also a plus.”
As if to prove her point, Lauren stepped forward and kissed Harry as hard and as provocatively as he had earlier. He responded just as spiritedly and, when Lauren made a grab for the buckle of his belt, responded in kind by sliding a hand up her thigh and under her skirt.
She allowed him that much but, when Harry’s next move was to reach around and start unzipping it from the back, Lauren pulled away.
He cocked his head, puzzled, his lips swollen and puffed from where Lauren had all but ground them to shreds. “What?”
“I'll do it myself,” she insisted.
“I've been doing this for a while,” Harry reassured. “I pretty much know my way around most forms of women’s apparel.”
“I will do it myself,” Lauren repeated, the edge in her voice suggesting she did not find their exchange amusing.
No matter how much Harry may have.
“Okay,” he agreed affably, plopping backwards onto the bed and just sitting there, legs outstretched, arms behind him, palms flat and supporting the bulk of his weight.
“you're just going to… watch?”
“You have an alternate suggestion in the meantime?”
“You could,” she waved her hand vaguely in the direction of what she'd glimpsed to be an en suite bathroom. “You could… get changed yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Harry dutifully rose to his feet. And proceeded to do exactly as she'd directed, unbuttoning his shirt and dropping it on a nearby chair.
“Here?” Lauren startled. This wasn't at all what she'd expected.
“We are going to have sex?” Harry double-checked.
“Yes,” Lauren sighed, sullen, as if the issue were out of her hands. Despite all her repeated claims to the contrary.
“Then I'm getting undressed and,” he stepped out of his pants, shoes, socks, and boxers, utterly unselfconscious, followed by pulling back the geometrically decorated duvet. “Getting into bed. Unless you had some other location in mind. I'm game.”
“Just… shut up,” Lauren said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lauren allowed her skirt to fall to the floor, then pulled her sweater off over her head.
“Hm,” Harry made a noise that might or might not have indicated approval once she was just left in her bra and panties, but Lauren didn't feel like lifting her eyes and actually finding out. It also crossed her mind that the last time she'd gotten naked in front of a new man she'd been twenty-five. And now she was forty-one. She suspected a lot of things had… shifted.
She also reminded herself she didn't give a damn. She was hardly here to impress Harry. Of course, what exactly she was here to do remained in the air.
There was still time to back out. She could still pick up her things and walk out of the Harrison house with, if not her dignity, at least her marital vows intact.
Instead, Lauren peeled off the remainder of her clothing, dropping the underwear next to the skirt and top, and approached Harry’s bed.
He smiled and raised the covers for her . She slid in next to him.
“Hello,” Harry said.
She kissed him again, this time lowering her hand and aiming for right below the (no longer there) belt, allowing herself, for the first time all night, to feel, along with the fading booze and the simultaneously rising, blinding anger, the equally undeniable erotic charge of, there was no polite way to put it, screwing two men at the same time.
Her plan had been to ride Harry fast and hard, to work out her tension in the classic tradition of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am (his repeated mocking of her using that particular word had both hurt - and helped - the cause), then get the hell out, preferably before her car’s engine had time to cool off.
But Harry, it seemed, had other ideas.
Read the entire scene (and what I have so far of the entire book) at:
http://alinaadamsmedia.com/live/
