I have this whole sex thing going in my head right now. More specifically, this whole fade-to-black thing. I'm entirely bored with explicit sex scenes. Having written, what? Seventy-five of them? Something like that, anyhow, and I'm pretty sure by now I've said all I have to say about Tab A and Slot B and the various permutations thereof.

That's part of the problem with the DS story, you see. Why it's not moving faster.

In the past, I've always copped out, splashing pints of UST around to disguise the lack of an emotional landscape in my stories. (Or, you know, I just have the characters talk. And talk and talk and talk, until no one can tell if they've said anything or not.)

With this story I've decided (brace yourselves) to try something new!

(Yes, that's always a disaster in Anne's World O'Writing, but one must try to fly, even if it means jumping off a cliff a thousand times before you figure out how to flap.)

I haven't been talking about it up until now because I figured I've bored my friends enough with endless discussions of stories they'll never see, but I'm not feeling that kind today. (I've thought of turning that OaT opus into a PWP and just posting it. There are, I think enough decent lines in it to create a PWP from.)

(Also, I'm starving, it's two hours until lunch, and I'm desperately focusing on the fact that I'm on a diet and have no business diving into the barbecue-flavor potato chips in the kitchen.)

So. Anyhow. The Newest Impending Disaster in my writing career involves writing a story where the words, and the emotional connection between the characters are the ultimate focus, and not the anticipation of just when they're going to drop their britches. They will not, in fact, be dropping their britches at all.

This presents some interesting problems for the inexperienced writer. One cannot focus too intently on the physical attraction. One must, instead, concentrate on building an emotional connection. In the past I've always written about the sex and hoped my readers would provide their own emotional content. Can't do that this time. Have to decide what the connection is, what it seems like to each of them, and how to describe it either changing or them becoming aware of new facets.

Has anyone but me ever noticed that the more I think about what I'm doing, the less able I am to write? I haven't completed a decent story since the first moment I began to explore improving as a writer. As long as writing was a total right-brain sort of thing, there weren't enough hours in the day for the quantity of stuff (frequently junk, yes) I was churning out.

The purchase of my first "how-to-write" book and the development of my writer's block occurred almost simultaneously. I can't quite remember at this point if I felt myself slowing down and thought the book(s) would help, or if I thought as long as I was writing, I might as well try and do it well and was subsequently blocked and I'm not entirely certain that this sentence is grammatically correct up until this point but to put it more simply I have no idea if it was the chicken or the egg but I totally wanted an omelet and all I wound up with was a vague memory of hot wings and I don't like hot wings.

If I ever remember where I was going with that, we'll come back and I'll take another stab at it.

Let's move on.

So. Emotional development sans explicit physical passion.

That's what has me stymied at the moment. I know what the characters are supposed to do to fill the hours/days that the story covers, but that just takes me as far as creating an atmosphere that my actual story can exist in. I'm puzzling over how to present the necessary emotional plotline.

I don't want to descend to the literary immaturity of, "he was jealous." I don't like to be told what someone is thinking or feeling, I like to be shown and left to interpret it on my own.

I don't want to write some kind of "think piece" that just details a character's thoughts. I like to see two characters interact, not read about one character thinking about things, you know? (With apologies to those of us who like internal monologue stories. I'm not dissing them. It's just not what I want to write or prefer to read most of the time.) (Although if I get frustrated enough with this story, I'm not ruling out that as an approach.)

I'm using Fraser's POV, which isn't an easy voice for me, and that's another complication. I think it's pretty clear from watching the show that his thoughts are frequently very different than what he says aloud, or how he acts, so he's frequently acting in contrast to his internal impulses. That needs to be handled.

Above and beyond all that, I really need to pick just one of the two stories I have going, and focus on it, if I want to make any actual progress.

Yeah, I know. The discussion ends pretty abruptly, but I've eaten my lunch, my dessert, and my mid-afternoon snack in the past hour and now I'm too full to think and feeling too comfortable to care much. One thing you have to say about a diet, when you are allowed to eat, it sure does make the world a brighter place.