Same Time Next Year

When I was a freshman in college, I subscribed to Cosmopolitan. It made sense. I was, after all, a small town girl who had traveled almost forty-five minutes to attend a state university in a rural area. If that doesn't scream 'cosmopolitan' I guess I don't know what does. Yep, I was a Cosmo Girl, all right. And not just because I slept with a lot of foreign exchange students. That's not really true. I didn't sleep with a lot of foreign exchange students till my first year of grad school - a year my roommate and I fondly referred to as 'Around the World in Eighty Lays'. That might not really be true, either. But it might. I don't know. There was a lot of tequila involved in my first year of grad school. But I've digressed.

Cosmopolitan. Ahem.

So I enjoyed my subscription for a year - learning how to please a man and new sex positions and recipes for seduction and stuff - stuff that would come in handy when I went to grad school. When my subscription came to an end, I renewed it. I figured there was probably a lot more to learn. I figured wrong. I found that the second year was very much just a rehash of the first. Same resolutions, same Valentine's Day secrets, same getting into bikini shape for summer... same, same same.

Tom had a subscription to Men's Health when I met him. That's right. When I met him, he was well on his way to rock hard abs and was privy to many secret ways to please a woman in the bedroom. Men's Health. Plus he had that helpful monthly reminder to 'Eat This, Not That' .

As I grew up and my interests shifted, I subscribed to many more publications and experienced very much the same phenomenon. Fun for a year - good ideas for a year - slight variations on the same ideas for the next year. I will still subscribe to a magazine when one comes along that looks interesting for whatever stage of my life I happen to be in, but I rarely - no - never extend them longer than a year.

I chalked it up to lazy journalism.

Until I passed the year mark on serious blogging. I find myself not only returning to the same seasonal themes, but sometimes even coming up with the same phrases I used a year ago and feeling like they're original thoughts until I read through the archives. Archives sounds stupid and a little pretentious. Past issues?

It's hard to avoid. Hard like Taylor Lautner's abs. Not that I've looked.

I promise that I shall endeavor to come up with fresh thoughts and ideas. When that fails, I might introduce a new feature: 'Drink This, Not That' - a monthly feature on which spirits will get you where you want to go and how fast. Perhaps throw in an article on how drinking till you puke can contribute to rock hard abs. Helpful phrases for seducing exchange students. I don't know. Stuff like that.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Last week I told you about a little present I bought myself for completing my first week of NaNoWriMo. This week I deserve (but probably can't afford to indulge in) a much bigger present than an old CD. Several milestones were hit this week. I passed the halfway point, according to NaNoWriMo standards, and I passed it two days early. Oh, don't bother! I'll go ahead and pat myself on the back as soon as my hands are free from tooting my own horn. But that wasn't my biggest accomplishment. Oh no. My biggest accomplishment occurred yesterday. I wrote my very first ever completely fictional sex scene.

I've told a few of you in private notes that the coolest part of this whole project for me has been that after a couple days, the characters sort of started leading me rather than me leading them. They let me know what they needed to do and I wrote the words that made them do it. I'd certainly heard about this phenomenon before, but I never thought it would happen to me. (Should that last sentence have been prefaced by: Dear Penthouse? It sort of seems like it should have...) Well, this week two of my characters started leading me down a path that most definitely needed to result in a roll in the hay for them (roll, roll, roll in ze hay). I told Tom Wednesday, "I think my characters are going to do it tomorrow." I put it like that because I didn't want to waste all my valuable word-smithin' on a conversation with my husband, who would probably be just as happy if I didn't talk at all. As the day went by and I got closer to my writing time, I started trying to think of ways to get out of it (and for my gentlemen readers - isn't that just like a woman?) Maybe they could just start to make out and then one of them could get a very important phone call. Maybe they could just start to make out and then he would stop things to reveal a congenital disorder that made sex impossible but he sure would like to cuddle all night. Maybe they could just start to make out and that would trigger her hormones and make her period start. It could happen. But no. None of those things were what my characters wanted to do. What they wanted to do was 'it'. I'd made the bed and now I was going to have to lie in it - or - um - let them get laid in it.

So yesterday morning I did it. Well, I wrote it, they did it. And I'll tell you what, folks, if actually having sex took as long as writing about having sex did, we'd all feel like we were married to Sting, if you know what I mean, and I suspect that you do. I labored over it. It was torturous. I wanted it to be hot without crossing the line into pornographic. This is hard! (that's what she said) I didn't want it to be raunchy, but I didn't want it to be sappy. I wanted a potential reader to be a little warm after reading it - maybe even to have broken a little sweat - but I didn't want them to feel like they needed a shower. I have no idea if I accomplished this or not. As of this moment I'm pleased with what I came up with. I am also certain beyond the shadow of any doubt that some would find it too tame and some would find it too wild. You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself. So to speak.

You may or may not have noticed that I was missing from my usual blog rounds yesterday. Writing this short passage took all of my alotted computer time and a little more. Plus, my brain was zapped. My writing is usually very 'stream of consciousness'. That scene was work.

Am I going to let you read it? Not anytime soon! It's not ready for the light of day. Besides, what would a post about sex be without a little tease?