Post-Hurricane Ian report: meh.
It could have gone super-bad but didn’t. I feel like the news tried to drive more panic than necessary, but I also can’t blame anyone, because some people won’t do squat if you don’t turn the panic level up to 11.
I like storms, so anything that doesn’t get too violent makes me feel pretty happy. Other places may have had or may be having horrible times with the storm, and I don’t mean to say that I approve of the damage. Just that, of the various types of weather that exist, I like storms. Up to a point.
I noted down some tweaks to make for supplies to keep on hand, but I think that was about it. If things go apocalyptic, there’s only so much preparation I can do on my own; at some point I just have to step out the door and offer/accept help. Short of that, I’ll try to stay off the roads, fill up the gas tank, and have water and flashlights, etc., stocked up.
Ate a lot of cheese and bagels and apples. Went to Waffle House last night for hot food–they were open! We got two of the reduced item menu to go. I offered to help bus tables for the solo waitress. She said she’d get in trouble if I did, so no but thanks. Everything was happily bathed in catsup or syrup and consumed.
Annoying: People have been carrying over trash from the apartment complex next door and dumping it outside the trash compactor, to the point where you can’t dump the trash in the (decidedly not full) trash compactor. WTF.
I did yoga and went out for walks every day; the timing on the bad parts of the storms left the mornings relatively clear and dry. I left the door open most of yesterday to catch fresh air, and this morning a lizard was hanging out on a sunny spot on our floor. Chased him out. The air was clean and fresh this morning, almost Colorado-autumnal levels of crispness.
The yoga and walk this morning were odd. Because my patio faces the street, I have a harder time getting into yoga here than at the AirBnB (I feel watched), but this morning I got lost in it, and the characters ended up coming out, more than one at a time, to help adjust poses. The different characters had different areas where they had better guidance, if that makes sense, and helped relax into poses.–The goth girl who was telling me “chin up, tits out” does great with upper back stretches, for example. “You’re tense here. You can let go.”
Out on the walk, the goob was trying to learn how to walk with better head posture. He dislikes teaching things but likes to learn them, so…I think that’s how he’s teaching me to do it? By the end of the walk, every time I got stuck in my head, I could feel the pressure of fingertips on the back of my head and neck where the tension was, so I could release it and move more freely. Now if I could just do that while typing!
I haven’t done a ton of yoga classes and whatnot, but when I have, there are two types of teachers, or rather two types of ways that the teachers I’ve had interact with me.
One way is to push and pull me. I’ve had them push on my back to try to “guide” me forward into a bend, try to push my shoulders down, take my fingers and try to pull me forward on a seated bend. I always end up resisting. I don’t know them! Why should I trust someone jerking me around?
The other way is when they just lay soft fingertips here or there, and go, “Do you feel this?” or something similar. Like they’re summoning attention to an area.
–There’s also the kind that tries to explain things in ways I can’t understand and glares at me without touching, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.
…
TMI warning (even for me): I’m going to talk about writing sex scenes from here on out! Please skip if you’re not up for it. I’m not going to get explicit.
So, as you may know, there are sex scenes in this romance/spies story I’m writing. I haven’t had any success in writing sex scenes in the past, because reasons. Anyway, it was bad. But I thought I’d give it a go on this book, because the sex scenes need to be there and it would involve a lot of twisting into knots to get around them. The scenes I’ve written so far are at least not horrible, but I’ll leave it to readers to judge in the end.
During the power outage, I read Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, a fun, witty romance novel that has a couple of sex scenes in it. I liked the book, but the sex scenes didn’t do it for me.–Kissing scenes yes, sex scenes no, which is pretty bog-standard for yours truly.
Blah blah blah, heavy breathing, artistic rendering of bodies, the camera zooms out, the scene gets emotional and misty–whether or not the climax is mentioned. (A lot of sex scenes in “erotic” novels just make me want to slap the writer for other reasons; the scenes can be like a grocery list of positions + grandstanding one-liners like, “I’ll make you feel good, baby, better than you’ve ever felt before.” Well, okay, baby, squelch me one more time!)
Whether sex scenes zoom in and get squelchy or zoom out and get atmospheric, they tend to turn the character into a reader insert, while keeping the other character(s) at arm’s length. Which pretty much kills it for me. It’s kind of creepy, watching one person’s wish fulfillment; it makes the rest of the characters seem like puppets and boy howdy does that not turn me on.
I have read some sex scenes that I like in romance novels, but they’re kind of rare.
One of the reasons that I’ve been enjoying web comics lately is that if you’re willing to cross the line into scanlations, you can get a lot of the more explicit ones from South Korea and other areas. And, to my mind, they do MUCH better sex scenes, although also not perfect. It’s like, the good ones are 100x better; the bad ones are just as bad if not worse (oh boy); on average, they’re more personally enjoyable.
Anyway, out of a mishmash of thoughts while considering my favorites, I came to some rules of thumb for my book:
1. Any given sex scene could only happen with these characters, in these circumstances, in this story. Even if it means alienating some readers.
2. Conflicts are essential but don’t have to involve stupid misunderstandings and forcing the relationship off the rails, but can result in characters increasing the complexity of the situation or digging up shit they didn’t want to remember (there’s a lot of PTSD in this book).
3. All characters have to have valid experiences during the sex scene; no single-sided wish fulfillment.
4. Handle details honestly but with sensitivity. The characters are going to do their thing the way they’re gonna do it (see #1), but I may choose to soften a few edges and make it less repetitive and more representative. I’m not really sure how to say this yet. I don’t want to make things misty and woo, but I’m fine with using a touch-up on some of the warts.
My writing speed drops to basically zero for long stretches of time, both because I feel awkward and because it’s hard to write anything healthy when I’ve lived with fucked-up shit for so long. It’s weird, too, that sometimes the characters make choices that aren’t to my tastes. I’m used to them picking out songs I don’t like, so I shouldn’t be surprised, yet here we are. AHHHHHHHHHHH you guys!
Anyway, the scenes so far can’t be removed or summed up without breaking the plot; the stuff the characters do is individual to the moment, characters, and story; nobody is inflicting Stupid Relationship Drama on anyone else. Past that, it’s up to the readers.