How Can I Keep from Singing?

Recently, one of my co-workers and I were chatting. He's in a band and I was asking about what he did in it, did he sing? And eventually it came up that I used to sing. Quite true, I did. I used to sing a lot in fact. My family has always encouraged it, especially on my mother's side, and I was in choir in middle school, through high school and college. After starting in our basic level as a freshman in high school, I quickly moved to our audition-only madrigal and jazz choir, as well as our larger SATB group. I got my first solo as a sophomore, joined our sweet adeline quartet, sang a lead in our bi-annual musical. I eventually lead the jazz octet I co-founded at one of the state's most prestigious competitions at which we took fourth place; the only student-lead group competing. I won an award when I graduated for all I'd done in the department. I sang all eight semesters in a women's choir in the conservatory at Oberlin and sang in the symphonic choir both there and at Sonoma State University. I felt like a liar the entire time.

The F Word

In my personal life as well as in my writing, if I had to put my finger to one truth, its that sex is absolutely vital, and one of the most telling aspects of personality and mental state. Sexuality is an essential thing, yet how we choose to act sexually is influenced so very much by our gender, our class, our education, our mood, our luck, our love. I love to think about it, especially in the context of my characters, because it helps me know them and helps me explore my own biases, feelings and desires. That being said, writing a good sex scene is really hard!

This morning, I read through the top ten entries on The Guardian's annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction awards. I wanted to see "what not to do", and compare it to my own work, from my novel The Wide and Burning World, which is, in parts, a veritable treatise on writing about sex. Let's take a look, shall we?

The following article contains sexually explicit writing that's NSFW (no pictures, though) as well as triggering things like non-consensual sex, sexualized violence and rape. 

The Orphans of Blade and Rose

I got coerced into posting a sample chapter. I guess that fits. "I love you, is why," being the stated reason. Well, love and coercion feature prominently in my forthcoming fantasy novel, the first draft of which I finished last night (this morning?)

Here's tasty sample chapter. Hope you dig it!

Cream

It was time to go; it just was. Bevvi was going to pout about it. He was sort of a priss, anyway. Not that I usually minded. He wasn’t like anyone I knew… no, not really, and that saucy mouth of his was plenty of fun. But he wasn’t going to like it.