A got it for her birthday, and we played a rousing round. It was fun!

And now, full of pizza, cake and ice cream, I lug around the house.

 

I just received cover flats, and will probably give a couple of those away next week. And I have to say that in person, they look amazing! So vibrant, and very eye-catching!

It's funny, realizing just how long it's been since I had to remember to turn the TV on at a particular time, on a particular channel, because I wanted to watch something current.

I watch a lot of TV, but 99.9% of it is on DVD, after the season is over. Commercials annoy the snot out of me; I like being able to hit pause and wander off to get a drink; I like watching the show at my own pace (which is often "marathon"). But when my mother was here a few weeks ago, we watched So You Think You Can Dance, and -- gasp -- I've continued to watch it since then.

Here's why I like the show. (The dance thing, obviously, but there's more to it than that.)

For starters, they're doing a pretty good job of being open to all kinds of styles, from ballroom to ballet to street. Not only can you potentially get on the show whether you're swing or crunk, once you're there, they'll make you operate outside of your safety zone. So we get hip-hop guys doing the foxtrot, and ballerinas grunging it up, and some of them adapt spectacularly. (It also, as a corollary, means that the show has a higher degree of racial diversity than I've seen practically anywhere on TV. I predict that once this week's cuts are made, there won't be any white guys left -- and the only one remaining is a Hawaiian guy who looks like he has more than just Europeans in his ancestry.)

Also, until they get down to the last 10, the cuts are made by both popular and judge decision. That is, viewers vote, and then the bottom slice of contestants solo before the judges boot one guy and one girl. This guarantees that when you get to the final stages of the show, everybody left is actually good. You may have preferred someone who got cut, but the remaining dancers are at least worthy.

Which means that the later stages of the show are really friendly instead of vicious and cut-throat, at least as seen on TV. Tonight's episode was one big love-in, with the judges raving about what beautiful dancers all of them are; even when they criticize, they often do it apologetically, with references to all the other wonderful things the dancer is capable of, even if they failed at the current routine. And since the contestants have to dance in pairs, whatever sniping may go on backstage, you don't see it out front; trying to undercut your partner is about the stupidest move you could make. The best way to look good is to make the person you're with look good. There's no Donald Trump being an asshole at the contestants, no fake conflict generated to boost ratings.

So what you're left with is a lot of friendly people creating beautiful and diverse art.

For that, I remind myself to turn on the TV every Wednesday at 8 p.m. It's worth the effort.

I'm off to Conestoga Convention tomorrow.  If you're headed that way, you can find me on Friday wandering the halls, the bar, and in other meander-friendly places.  On Saturday I'll be at these panels and events:

  9:00  The Elusive Snark
10:00  First Book in a Series
  3:00  The business of Writing
  6:00  Author Speed Dating 

Hope to see you there!

REMINDER:  There are still a few free samplers left.  If you missed yesterday's journal entry, the sampler is an awesome collection of first chapters from Ace/Roc writers, and I'll mail one to *you* free!

Just send your mailing information to:

devon underscore monk AT yahoo (dot) com

Yesterday turned out to be happily and excessively social; I did lunch and shared writer angst at Bad Albert’s with Kat Richardson; and then I came home to do some work, but Ellen swung by with wine and cheese.*

Tomorrow I will once again join forces with my neighboring purveyor of goodies, and together we shall visit the Woodland Park Zoo. While we’re there, I intend to take many pictures and create a whole new slew of icons for my livejournal, since I’m sort of bored with my existing assortment.

For now, I’ve a kitchen that needs cleaning, a cat who needs Furminating, and a partial project with which I need to reacquaint myself, stat. Time to log off and be productive. Stay tuned for pictures, safari stories, and the hypothetical possibility of pink flamingos.

---

* To be honest, I wasn’t really feeling the “work” anyway. I was happy to have the company.

[Crossposted to/from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so either here or there.]

...use this response of mine to an anonymous comment on a previous blog entry as today's post since a) this blog is due for a post and b) I know exactly where that comment is coming from and is the kind of thing my much younger, much more self-righteous self might just as easily have declared. So in a way, this post is me talking to myself. (But then, the whole blog is more or less like that, so whatever.)

Also, it concerns something I do tend to think a lot about. There's a line in Ethan Canin's new book America, America about how every person who "jumps class" always carries two classes inside them: the one they were born into, and the one they live in now. It's a sharp observation.

I'm not going to say what the comment actually was, since I think it's evident enough from my answer. And whether or not the poster was a troll -- there is a troll personality who actually does leap to mind -- it's certainly not a unique viewpoint. Hence:


....As someone who actually did grow up in smalltown lowerish-middle-class, one generation removed from tough mining-town poverty, etc. & went through the crappy jobs, money worries, student debt, etc. before 'jumping class', it astonishes me when people think that money -- having it or not having it -- is what defines 'reality', or 'authenticity', or even just how fucked-up you are (or aren't).

In my life I've worked at Taco Bell and I've hung out at places like Villa and trust me when I say both places are 'real' -- one difference being, many of the people you sometimes find at Villa (including those who can afford the $5000,00-minimum tables) have or will have the power to affect the everyday lives of the kind of people I grew up with in both dramatic and subtle ways, whether it's the cultural messages being transmitted through entertainment or the paradigm-shifting innovations of technology (where do you think many of the dot.com success stories ended up? you think those still-young, now-rich thirtysomethings just stay in Palo Alto? you think they stay home on Saturday nights? you think they retired, are no longer forming new companies, or having new successes? and by the way, how do you think they're going to be educating their kids, given the wealth they now have and the intellectual power of the genetics they're passing on? you don't think that will have any impact on your kids or the society your kids will grow up in?) or the political power they court and attempt to shape through wealth, influence & connections.

Also, there are 'wolves', narcissists, whatever you want to call them, all through society, but a few of the wolves in my extremely competitive world tend to be -- in a way they tend not to be in smalltown Taco Bell environments -- brilliant, relentlessly driven, and coming into positions, now, of increasing wealth and power, which in turn only reinforces and enlarges their sense that normal rules don't apply to them, which means that their once-calculated risk-taking might become more and more reckless. You don't think that's 'real' or will have any kind of impact on what you do deem the 'real world'? How do you think Enron happens, and who, as a group, do you think suffers most?

By implying that the world of power & privilege is small enough and decadent ( Read more... )

Some of you may recall a ways back when I painted my kitchen and hallway. Not long after that, I bought paint to do my living room/office. I had great plans of cracking down and doing up that room too. Well, that was in January. In the subsequent months, certain weekends would get designated as paint weekends. And then...something would come up. Then again. And again.

Flash forward six months later, and my living room walls still looked like this:




Well, lolcatz and I designated this last weekend as a paint weekend, and it seemed it really was going to happen. Then...the last minute PNWA workshop popped up. Knowing that was going to occupy my afternoon for hours, I told him we'd have to nix the painting again. This time, he put his foot down and said he'd keep painting while I was gone and that this would be the weekend.

And so it was. I came home from the workshop and discovered a miracle had taken place:




The lighting's bad in this picture. It makes the paint look grayer than it really is. But, lo, my room is painted, and this is going to pave the way for me to finally put up other things I've been holding back from, like wooden bookshelves and, um, curtains. We still need to do a little touch-up, so my furniture's a bit askew right now. The cats don't seem to mind, though. They actually adapt quite well. Despite being freaked out by the painting initially, they soon became one with it and started sleeping on drop-cloth covered furniture.

Exciting stuff. Soon I'll have a real home.

We're watching Liberty's Kids.

There's a battle going on.

Eric just yelled, "Go Red Team!"

Um... Guess I need to explain that we're supposed to be pulling for the colonists and not the Redcoats? Even if the King's troops are wearing kiddo's favorite color? =)

Okay, you guys. According to my stats you're reading this series. LOTS of you are reading this series. How about throwing a girl a bone and leaving a comment, so I don't feel like I'm throwing my words into the void?

I just got back from a family trip to West Virginia, lodging on top of a mountain about a thousand feet above the Bluestone River, and am now both rested (from the location) and exhausted (from spending most of my time with my niece and two nephews, aged 5 to 9). I'm more than ready to jump back into Shenandoah, though I don't know how much writing I'll get done over the next few days as I hurt my left wrist two nights ago while playing Throw The Children Across The Swimming Pool. Next time I'll just have to be careful about how much I spin them in the air before hurling them over the water.

Speaking of Shenandoah, I was wrong about the lost 4000 words: I thought that I at least still had the old, unrewritten version along with a hard copy, but I didn't even have that since the deleted text block copy of the chapter was saved onto my backups before I realized the 4K was gone. However, I also realized while I was away that half of that 4K can be cut entirely, since it doesn't do anything for the story. Usually I have trouble with the "10% Rule", cutting at least 10% of whatever you write by the final draft...but I've learned that there's nothing to encourage cutting like having to retype everything.

Anyway, I took something like 380(!) pictures while I was at Pipestem State Park, of which I'll post a little under 10% here and in a subsequent entry. Most are scenery, with some family pictures thrown in (or both at once). I didn't get to do one big hike I was hoping for--a 5-mile round trip to a huge boulder overlooking the river from a few hundred feet up--but that was because I spent most of the time with the Kiddies, which was perfectly fine by me.

( All pictures posted behind the cut because Flickr is acting up and I know Photobucket messes with some folks' LJ layouts. )

The hot weather is forcing me to adjust my schedule. Normally I do errands in the early afternoon, but this morning I hit the library as soon as it opened, then got to the bank, a couple of shops and the grocery store in time to get home and exercise for an hour before lunch. Now I can focus on work the rest of the day.

I've just read yet another writing book that has stuff I may try to incorporate into my process. One of the weaknesses I've identified is that I don't handle emotions well or omit the emotional response from scenes that should be emotional (probably because I, myself, tend to go into totally calm robot mode in a crisis. That is my emotional response, but not every character reacts that way, and it's hard to convey that on paper without making it look like a lack of a response). So, I found a book called Emotional Structure by Peter Dunne on Amazon and thought I'd give it a try. This is a screenwriting book, and the structure mentioned in the book is specifically for feature film screenplays, which doesn't translate exactly to novel structure, but there were still some good concepts in the book that apply to novels.

For one thing, his premise is that plot is the events that happen, while story is the characters' emotional reactions to those events, which is what the movie (or book) is really about. The plot events force the characters to take an emotional journey. The events and emotion are intertwined. He gives a pretty good step-by-step process for developing a script (or book) with this in mind, illustrated with a script he's developing to show how the process works as he goes from a three-line summary to a three-page outline, to note cards, to one-liner outline to more extensive outline to a script.

On the down side, I wish he'd given more varied examples because while I think that a lot of these ideas could apply to just about any kind of story, he seems very focused on love stories or stories that have a strong romantic plot. Granted, most movies do have some kind of love story in them (and quite a number of books, too), but I think you can have emotion and emotional development without having romantic love. I was watching Lethal Weapon 2 on HBO this weekend while I was reading this book, and a lot of what the book says about how the middle of the movie is where the emotional stuff comes to the forefront actually fits that movie, but with the partnership/buddy love between the two main characters rather than with a romantic relationship. I think you could tell a similar story with love between family members, relationships between co-workers, etc. Even in a movie with a romance in it, the relationship that brings character growth may not be the romantic one. All the examples in the book, though, are of the romantic variety.

Meanwhile, I hope his sample script was really just a hypothetical to illustrate the steps in the book because I didn't think it was very good, and it was rather obvious. The romantic plot in it didn't ring true to me. It seemed like your typical, standard Hollywood "there's a man and a woman in this movie, so they have to fall in love with each other, and they really ought to come to their big emotional moment while they're in the shower together because we need some skin" relationship. He also dissed The Terminator in a way that made me think he hasn't actually seen it because he said that was the kind of movie that was all about destruction instead of emotion, and it didn't have the quieter, reflective scenes in between action scenes because what is the Terminator going to reflect on? But actually, that movie fits all his principles, since the main character is Sarah Connor, not the Terminator, and the middle is where the love story develops that affects the way the plot comes out. The first act ends with Kyle Reese telling her "Come with me if you want to live," and then the middle is mostly about their developing relationship as she first thinks he's crazy, then finds out he isn't, so that they're then working together, and she wants to learn more about him and about the person she's destined to become. They do have the quiet, reflective moments where they get to know each other in between action scenes, like under the bridge where he tells her about his world, and then in the motel after they make the bombs.

However, I've yet to find a writing book that I agree with 100 percent. What I do is find what works for me and then incorporate it into my Frankenstein's monster of a process.

I think I'm going to give the screenwriting process a try with The New Project, using his outlining method. That goes back to my big weakness, which is impatience. I'm in a rush to get things down on paper (well, virtually, as I try to be paperless), but then once things are written, they feel more set in stone, and it's harder to revise when a scene isn't working. Maybe if I go through all the outlining steps of developing a screenplay, down to writing a detailed outline, that will address my recent problem of not knowing what the book's about until I've written it, but without having to actually write it in book form. I can play with the content and structure of all the scenes before I commit them to actual narrative.

In other news, after my lament a few weeks ago about the disappearance of the Bermuda Triangle from pop culture, today's TV listings show that our local PBS station is showing something about the Bermuda Triangle tonight. Yay!

I just got something that wasn't a query at all. It was someone wanting to know if I would read their book and review it on my blog. How unexpected (to me anyway -- maybe I shouldn't be so surprised?). And somehow surreal. So, I had to write them back and tell them that I didn't really review books on my blog and the books I tended to promote were by my clients.

Meanwhile, blogging is likely to be a bit light over the next few weeks. Between conferences, I find myself juggling to a great degree, and it appears that blogging falls low on the triage list. And substantive blogging even lower (or perhaps that's a function of being too busy to hear myself think). I will try to keep up with at least the query wars. And I'll plan another Agent Manners session once things get a bit calmer. Thanks everyone for reading and hanging out here. I particularly appreciated all the comments on the right agent, the right author entry.

Feel free to let me know if there are other topics or features you want to see addressed when I have the opportunity to post entries with more depth.

after everyone's advice I changed up the first chapter. please let me know if you think it is better.

( Chapter 1 )

thanks

Busy day ahead, as always the day before leaving for a con. I am so SO excited, because there'll be a lot of people there I adore, plus even more people I barely met at RT and didn't have time to get to know on account of trying to be a social butterfly and hang out with all 1,200 people for five seconds each.

Real quick, here's my Conestoga schedule:

( Click if you care. )

I'll try to blog from the con, but I rarely get time, so I would recommend against holding your breath.

Wish me luck a better flight than last time!

----------------
Now playing: Tori Amos - Lust
via FoxyTunes

For the writers out there: Why do you write?

1,955 / 80,000 (2.0%)

Slowly.

Part of the problem was that I figured out the problem too late to finish correcting it today. My scenes alternate POVs between the two protags, and I was using his POV for two scenes in a row without realising it.

Day 2 of draft 14. 

I know, the posts, they are out of control! But this is my last for today. Probably.

Two things coming up:

CONESTOGA, Tulsa
July 25-28
This is going to be HUGE for urban fantasy fans, so if you're in the area, make your plans to drop in. Check out the guest list at their website (Go to Programming, then click on Program Participants). Wooooo!

And, locally, I will be signing on AUGUST 2 at the Barnes & Noble, Parks Mall, Arlington from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. If you need to pick up Stephenie Meyer's BREAKING DAWN that day, well, why not come on down to the Parks Mall, drop in, and say hello at my table on the way? Maybe even, y'know, buy a book. Or not. But I'd love to see you guys.

Okay, I'm out of chatter. Off to pile up word count. Woot!

-- R.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Tulsa Oklahoma, to either die in a twister or from the heat, I haven't decided. And all for the Conestoga 12 and Fangs, Fur and Fey Minicon. Here's my schedule, for those who'll be there and want to track me down.


Fri 02:00 PM - Executive Urban Fantasy: It's Not Just for Chicks
Sat 09:00 AM - Executive The Elusive Snark
Sat 11:00 AM - Signing
Sat 02:00 PM - Chairman Reading: Happy Hour/Road Trip of the Living Dead?
Sat 03:00 PM - Executive The Business of Being a Writer
Sun 10:00 AM - Executive Dark UF/Horror

Along with some speed dating, boozing it up and racing across the street for some Sonic!

Speaking of being there. Who's all going?

... to fly the flag of surrender.



The mission: Stand and deliver Book 8 of the Weather Warden, CAPE STORM, by August 1.

Status:




Yes, I'm working. I AM! As anyone currently at my Starbucks can attest.

-- R.

 If you subscribe to my newsletter, check your email, and if you belong to my proboard discussion group, check in today in the Pride thread, because yesterday I got permission to post the cover for Pride!

I'll post it here and on my website tomorrow, for those who don't get the newsletter or belong to the discussion group. But for now, it's a sneek peek, as promised!

Also, if you haven't entered this week's signed book giveaway, click here for details!

I leave tomorrow for Conestoga, but I plan to blog from Tulsa on Friday, and hopefully Monday I'll have a recap and pictures...

I'm in Chicago, and there are no delays! Beautiful weather! Life is good!

I hope I haven't just jinxed myself. Tonight's agenda includes dinner with a friend, Preview Night at the convention center, and long conversations with people I haven't seen in quite some time. I also need to try and get some writing done. HA! I have an hour left at O'Hare. Let's see if I can pull off a miracle.

Here's the view from where I'm sitting:

Yesterday, E got together with his two Harry Potter pals, M and B. M and B are both girls. According to E (and, I admit, my own observations), M and B do not get along all that well. They sort of both like to be in charge. Anyway, they do like to get together sometimes and play Harry Potter stuff.

On the drive over, I told E that if M & B started to fight argue, he should try not to take sides.

He said, "Don't worry, Mom. I'm not that kind of person."

He was quiet for a minute.

Then he said, "You know what? Sometimes it's lonely being neutral."

I know just what he means.

Today the almost-9-year-old and I are driving to NH to spend a few days with his cousins. I wish the sun would come out.

In book news, I finally finished reading Octavian Nothing: Volume IIand I thought it was incredible. I also thought the author's note at the end was one of the most moving notes I've ever read.

I've also started reading THE YEAR WE DISAPPEARED: A FATHER-DAUGHTER MEMOIR by Cylin Busby and her father John Busby. It is AMAZING. RIVETING. I wish I had a day to just sit and read. HIGHLY recommended. I'll say more when I finish. :-)

In Netflix news, E and I are addicted to AVATAR. Any other fans out there? We've just started season 3.


Have a great weekend, everyone!

~*~*~*~*~*~

halseanderson Daily 15 Keeping Myself Honest Check-In:
Yesterday: 290 words
Today: 515 words

***Insert generic disclaimer***


Mechanics: Foreshadowing your sexual language


So now we have some word ideas in mind. Maybe we’ve started thinking a bit more about what kind of hot-button (no pun intended) words we can use, what sort of tone we want to give our scenes? And how do we make sure that tone fits in with the rest of the book?

In some cases, your genre will assist you. I don’t have to worry quite so much about this when I’m writing for Ellora’s Cave simply because EC only publishes explicit, linguistically graphic sex. So if you’re specifically writing erotic romance you have a bit more leeway (although having said that, I’ve been disappointed a few times by “erotic” romances that really were no more graphic than “regular” romances. In one case the only difference I could find was the use of the word “pussy” [a word I dislike, btw. I use it, because there aren’t a lot of alternatives, but I avoid it whenever possible. There’s just something about it—the hissy s, the stupid shape your mouth makes when you say it—that bugs me. I actually much prefer “cunt”, but I know I’m weird in that respect. However, that brings up a very good point about reader tastes and expectations, which we will go into more at another time. I’m sure you know pretty much what I would say there anyway]. And believe me, just the word pussy does not eroticism make, at least not in my opinion.)

As we discussed on Friday, your hero and heroine need to react to and interact with each other. This is where the work of writing the sex scene begins, and this is where you start making language choices that will determine what sort of scene you’re going to write.

For example. Here is a snippet from the second chapter of Blood Will Tell, where Cecelia, already having noticed that Julian is sexy and attractive etc. etc., first has a real physical response to him:

Julian opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it again. His gaze was making her nervous.
Or was that nerves? It was more like…restless. Something in his eyes had changed as he looked at her, and without knowing why, her body suddenly ached for movement, her stomach filled with butterflies.
Not to mention the distinct damp sensation in her pants as her pussy came to life under his dark scrutiny. She squirmed slightly, uncomfortably certain that he knew he was turning her on. Certain too that infuriating as he was, she wanted him.
She never could resist a dare.


Here is the same moment—or the same type of moment anyway—from Personal Demons (this, by the way, is in Chapter Six—another important point):

Megan bit her lip and laid her fingertip on one of the little spikes. It was as dull as it looked. Without realizing it, she’d been expecting the spikes to feel slimy, alien. They did not. They felt like skin, no different from hers than anyone else’s.
Goosebumps appeared on his back. She ignored them. Ignored, too, the way her heartbeat quickened as she ran her fingertip all the way up his spine and back down. She repeated the motion with her palm. His skin was soft. The firm muscles beneath it seemed to ripple as she touched them. Heat gathered between her legs.
Drawing in a long, shaky breath, Megan forced herself back to earth. This was not a seduction. The very idea was laughable—to her, at least. She had no doubt Greyson would be willing. She suspected Greyson would somehow manage to put off the apocalypse if doing so would get him laid.


So here we see something of the difference. In Blood Will Tell, we’re thinking about sex less than two full chapters in—actually, she’s already thought of it a few times, I believe the first mention is on page four—and we’re thinking of it in graphic terms. Fun things are starting to happen in Cecelia’s pussy; whereas Megan feels hot between her legs.

There’s a few other differences as well, can you spot them? Cecelia is aching and squirming; she wants Julian and isn’t afraid to admit it to herself. Megan is more conflicted. She’s admitted earlier that she finds Greyson attractive but isn’t willing to make the final step into saying she wants him; she’s too guarded, and is convinced Greyson is simply a man-whore.

Now part of this is the women’s characters. But part of it is deliberate choices to let the reader know what’s coming. Someone finding Cecelia’s pussy in chapter two (yes, I know, just giggle and move on) knows that we will probably get to the sex fairly soon—male and female funparts are like guns; you shouldn’t take them out if you don’t intend to use them—and that it will be linguistically at least somewhat frank. Whereas the reader who’s made it to Chapter Six of Personal Demons knows that while there probably will be sex—even calling it “between her legs”, I have still metaphorically flashed Megan’s ladyparts at the readers—the language will probably not be as graphic.

This spreads to your whole book. The example I used previously was if the worst word in the book is “ass”, you can’t suddenly start throwing cunts and tits etc. around. Nor can you have two characters who have hot and graphic conversations or thoughts suddenly clam up or become flowery when it comes to actual sex. You need to keep the sexual tone consistent, right from the beginning (again, there are some exceptions; if your book is about a character’s sexual awakening you can get away with this sort of modest-to-open change, but in general, you can’t).

When your characters react to/interact with each other, their sexual thoughts and feelings must foreshadow the sex to come. If you use “pussy” (or whatever word) that first time, feel free to use it again; but if you never use it and suddenly do, your readers will be jarred by it, and the scene won’t work as well as it should.

It just doesn’t feel right, because whether you’re in first person or third the fact is that a narrator who thinks/says “Gosh golly” when she’s mad isn’t likely to become Annie Sprinkle when it’s time for sex. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with that sort of incongruity; you can, and to great effect (although I can’t help but think that would probably be a more humorous than erotic scene).

But your sex scene should not jar the reader; you’re trying to pull them in, to make them feel what the characters are feeling, and you can’t do that if your language choices are throwing them out.

Any questions? Or has that made it clear enough?


I’ve got a tad bit of space left in this post (I’m trying to keep them at around 1500 words each) so this seems like a good place to slip in discussion about terms for bodily fluids.

My personal feelings are as follows:

I dislike any phrase that begins with the name of the body part from which the fluid in question emerges. “Pussy/cunt cream” or “Cock cream”…ech. No thank you. I find them distasteful. Likewise jokey terms like “baby batter” (who thought that was sexy, seriously?) I’m not crazy about “cum” either as a noun or as a verb—it reminds me too much of ads in the back of Hustler magazine, with some empty-eyed barely-legal being triple-teamed and the words “I’ll make you cum” or something equally tacky above it. (Oh, the Google will be loving this post, sigh.) I don’t have a problem with “come”; I just don’t like the misspelling (frankly, any deliberate misspelling feels tacky to me.)(Oh, and btw. In most erotic works "cum" is the noun; "come" is the verb: "I'm going to come!" shouted Hero, and his cum spilled from him.)

So here’s what I use:
For women: Arousal cream fluids wetness “evidence/proof of her arousal/pleasure/orgasm”. I’ve seen “honey” used, and like it fine, but I’ve not used it myself.
For men: I have occasionally used “fluid”—for example, when describing pre-ejaculate—but generally I use “seed”. It has a touch of old-world feeling I like. It’s concise. It doesn’t make me feel like I need to wash my hands afterward.

Of course, these are simply my preferences. But this is, I believe, another slightly touchy area (much like cunt. No pun intended). Just as “cunt” can get you in trouble, so too can too-explicit descriptions of semen or too much graphic accuracy. Perhaps because pornography is so focused on getting that Money Shot? So that just “feels” porny, and thus turns some women off? Hmm. That’s a really interesting question, actually, but I digress. The point is, this is one area where I am very conservative because I feel it has the potential to really turn readers off. You are of course free to disagree and use whatever te