Mom Writes Podcast

Today on MomWrites we welcome Michelle Hazen, romance novelist, KindleWorlds bestselling author, and Author Accelerator book coach. We're tasking Michelle with questions from our listeners AND ourselves today, covering everything from appropriate vocabulary to emotion to just plain… what do I write?! Michelle answers us with solid writing advice, so take a seat and prepare to take notes as we cover Sex Scenes 101.

One listener asks: what's the difference between porn and erotica? Answer: Romance is where the sex is included and it moves the relationship along and happens in the context of the relationship. “Erotica is just bangin'.”

Michelle notes that sex scenes in novels need to have a point and a purpose - it needs to move the relationship and story along to be important to the reader. Her second suggestion is to make every sex scene different - mix it up! Different locations, emotions, positions, etc etc. Variety is the spice of life. Sex scenes in books are metaphors and show what's going on in the story through the scene. Urgency, anger, love, nervousness - all of these things can be translated through sex scenes.

"Don't start with what's going to happen - start with what it means." - Michelle Hazen

Second question from a listener - Can sex scenes in romance vs erotica be graphic? Answer: Yes! They can range from fade-to-black scenes to pretty damn erotic! The downside of fade-to-black scenes is that you use the utility of the scene and you miss a chance to move the story forward, but it can be done and done well, it just depends on the context of the scene.

Mel asks: How do you get past the mental block of writing a sex scene? Abby agrees, especially as a former art major in college - drawing penises is one thing, writing about them is something else entirely! Michelle says that the voice of the critic (i.e. YOU) is the biggest challenge you've got to overcome. Make a commitment to writing ten+ sex scenes that you're never going to show anyone, and then keep going until you write something you think is hot. Like so many other things in writing, you've got to get out of your own way.

Welcome to our Halloween episode, regarding one of the scariest things for two awkward 30-something moms - WRITING SEX SCENES.

Abby and Mel talk about the horrifically sexy things Abby learned while thumbing though a confiscated high school freshman's notebook ("Erotic pen pals, oh no!") and what is common/expected in modern YA regarding sex. We agree that the comfort level with bodies and sex with the YA crowd is way higher now than we we were young, or when Abby was teaching high school eight years ago — and that can be a good thing! But also a really hard thing (no pun intended) to wrap your mind around if you're in Generation X/Y writing for Generation Z. 

And then there was that one time Abby accidentally bought a whole box set of Anne Rice porn.

Mel's still on the fence, while writing her adult novel, on whether or not her love interests are going to do the deed. How to you write something sexy but not outright erotica (unless that's what you're going for! In which case go for it!) and write it well, and still have it serve the story?

And Abby wonders how, as a mom, you write a kiss in a middle grades novel that's a) real and b) not TOO intense. 

All these questions and more are answered in next week's episode with Author Accelerator book coach and romance writer Michelle Hazen! Join us next week on Episode 69 (hehehe) as we try to tame our awkwardness as Michelle holds our hands through a magical journey of love, anatomy, and writing sex scenes that don't suck.

In this episode

Author intrusion and time looping… and middle school kissing!

“Newsflash. As your life goes, your writing goes.” —Jennie

 Abby had a hell of a few weeks, putting her house on the market. She basically sucked all the fun out of her family in preparation to sell their home, and she wouldn’t even let anyone sit on their bed. The house must not look lived in! The result was not only a major dose of #adulting in real life, but also #adultvoice in her middle grades novel.

Some of it was easy to fix. As Jennie points out, often times you just go in and erase those bits of author intrusion. (Because that’s exactly what happened in this case. Abby the Mom stepped in for Abby the Writer.) But it also created a big logic hole, which Jennie, Abby, and Mel pick apart. For the story to work, the characters needed to LIE TO A MOM. And Abby was like, “NOPE. Can’t encourage lying.” How to you write a realistic conversation about lying between two 13-year old characters while not necessarily endorsing the act itself? Jennie advises her to get creative about the lie while still acknowledging it. Sometimes acknowledging it is enough - readers know they shouldn't lie to their parents, but they also know what's going to happen in the story if they don't.

“Have the vultures be circling!” –Jennie

Time looping. It’s a super common problem. You’re in story present, and you loop back just a couple minutes or a couple beats back in time to explain something. Then you move forward again.

“It’s almost always, always, always something you are telling the reader that you should be showing the reader.” –Jennie Nash on time looping

It's fine to inject the information, but it needs to be in the context of story present. Time looping is something that's really easy to do, and really easy to miss. Regardless of how you choose to solve it, it has to make sense in the context of the story.

Today MomWrites welcomes the long-awaited Mae Respicio (https://www.maerespicio.com), author of The House That Lou Built. We've been referencing Mae since day one here on the podcast because Jennie's so fond of telling us how Mae literally sometimes wrote her book in 5 minute increments (which is AMAZING and what every parent writer wants to hear!).

Mae's found that her writing practice changes with how her parenting changes. When her kids were little, the only time she could find to write was when everyone else was asleep (even if a tiny person was sleeping in her arms). Now that her kids are older she can utilize her kids' homework time to get her own writing done, and everyone works at the kitchen table together. But when her kid were little and she was writing her first novel, she committed to spending time on her book every day - sometimes it looked like 5 minutes, sometimes she could get as much as an hour or two. Concrete, realistic, every day goals helped her to be more efficient with the time that she had.

"Even if I'm only writing a few minutes each day, my head stays in the story and I have somewhat of a flow - and little by little, it builds." - Mae Respicio

Mae also got creative with her tools, too - standing in line at the grocery store she'd read through her pages, keeping her story in her head until she could sit down later in the day and work on her scenes. Goals shifted and modified based on what was going on that day, and flexibility with those goals combatted the persistent mom/writer guilt we all feel from time to time.

The House That Lou Built is a middle grade novel that tells the story of Lou Bitao, a 12-year old girl who builds a tiny house over the course of a summer with the help of her family and friends. "If home is where your heart is, the my home is wherever I am" is an overarching theme as Lou learns what home really is - and it's not necessarily where you live, but the people around you. The House That Lou Built can be found at Amazon, IndieBound, and your local library.

Thanks, Mae!

In this episode of Mom Writes, Mel gets to be the sacrificial rabbit again when she learns that a mere 4 complimentary lines about a secondary character turns him from a nice guy into a love interest. Whoa.

How did that happen? According to Jennie, when you spend a long time (even four lines!) describing the way someone looks, that's what stands out to the reader - and the reader's brain says "That's what I need to remember about this! Look at those khaki pants and messy curls and a lopsided smile!" Mel merely intended to make him likable, but when writing descriptions--especially introductory ones--it's important to pay attention to what the reader is going to pick up on, and write your character's reaction with intention. In this case, Mel's protagonist needs to pick up on the fact that this secondary character really is a nice guy - a nice, platonically interesting guy.

"In YA, all the things about human nature (am I lovable, am I desirable, what's my relationship with my friends, my parents, what am I going to be) - all the big questions - are happening right now." - Jennie Nash

We also get into a discussion of what makes YA vs Adult. What's the difference? It can be hard to pin down. In YA, the themes we're paying attention to are things readers are going to care about up to ages 18, 19 - things that are different than what a 25 or 35 year old would be concerned about. Mel gets some great advice about weaving in the seriousness of her characters' situations and turning up the adult in her adult novel (and not necessarily in a sexy way!). As Jennie says, it's more about Mel needing to embrace the seriousness and the BIGness of her novel's implications. Embrace what you have going, and don't let your story or your characters off the hook.

In This Episode:

“If the reader is trying to figure out where they are in time and space, they aren't thinking about the story! Give them cues and clues.” - Alison Hammer (@ThisHammer), an attendee at the Women’s Fiction Writers Association conference, quoting Jennie Nash on Twitter! 

One of the things you're doing when you're writing fiction is moving people through time and space. Save your readers confusion, don't make them wonder where your characters are standing in a scene, how time is passing, or how they move from one place to another. Be mindful and conscious of it, OVER-explain it if you have to (you can always tweak it later if it feels too obvious), even if it feels ridiculous at the time. Often when we're writing we don't put down everything exactly the way we're seeing it in our head and a LOT can get lost in translation. Abby has questions around this via a chapter transition in her book, and we learn that sometimes we really DO have to fill in the gaps for our readers so they don't have to make mental leaps that take them out of the story. 

We also talk about Mel's flat chapter 9. Mel's dreaded rabbit scene comes back with a vengeance and she and Jennie figure out a way to make it work. Mel's been using the killing of the rabbits as a stand in that her antagonist is a horrible person, etc., but she's not bringing it home yet. We don't feel it. This would be true with any demonstrably dramatic thing, which we tend to put a lot of weight into, but the writer and the characters always have to make meaning of it - it can't just stand alone. It's the characters' interpretation of the events in the story that we're really here for.  

"This is the way it works - you lay [the first draft of something] it down like a track, a music track. How do we ramp it up, lock it down?" - Jennie Nash

Next week: ThE CaSe Of ThE KhAki PaNtS

In this episode:

Joining Jennie Nash and Abby Mathews today is Beth Ricanati, MD, author of the recently released Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs. Beth's book is a memoir/self-help mashup centering around a path to wellness. We talk about Beth's experiences in being a mom, doctor, and advocate of women's wellness and fully realizing the role of challah in transforming her outlook.

Beth is an internist specializing in women's health and wellness. About ten years ago she was completely stressed out, working long hours in the hospital all while having three young children. One year she was asked to make challah for the Jewish New Year. No way! she thought. But she did it anyway, and she realized something: she stopped. For twenty minutes, she just stopped in the rush of life and made bread. She did it the next weekend, and the next, and the next, and that was the beginning of the idea for her book.

Today, Beth invites people into her home to make bread with her. It can be a profound, meaningful process that is often done in the honor of someone or some event. Her book is not only about the Jewish tradition of challah and breadmaking itself, but about her journey as a physician and mother, and understanding real wellness.

We also talk about Beth's plan for writing her book, the process of publication, and what happened when things didn't work out with her original agent. Beth ended up going another route - hybrid publishing! She tells us what hybrid publishing is and what effect it has had on Braided's eventual successful publication.

How can you help Beth:

If you are interested in her book, buy it and review it! Reviewing it is key to helping Beth beat the Amazon algorithm and get her book in front of more potential readers.

You can also find her and connect on her Instagram page, House Calls for Wellness.

If you are interested in making bread with Beth, you can send her a message on Instagram. Or if you know someone who might be interested in hosting a Challah event with Beth, connect her!

Other Writers We Mentioned:

KJ Dell’Antonia

We also mentioned two other writers. One was KJ, who has been on the podcast before. KJ just released a fabulous, real, honest new parenting book (this is Mom Writes, after all). You can find KJ’s book all the places. (How To Be A Happier Parent) You can follow her on Twitter @KJDellAntonia. And you can check out her website, where she does a lovely newsletter which is, quite frankly, one of the very few newsletters I (Abby) even open these days. Bonus idea: if you are a room mother, like me, you can share some of her tips in your classroom newsletter. Or pass them on to the teacher to share. Or share them on your PTO FB page. Share the love! Oh, and don’t forget KJ’s podcast #AmWriting with Jess and KJ!

Dan Blank

All these same things apply to Dan, who joined us via the chat function on FB Live! Dan has also been on our podcast. Twice! Here and also here. There are so many ways you can get to know Dan better. He runs a mastermind for creatives, which is where I connected with KJ in the first place! Dan would also be tickled if you wanted to review his book, Be the Gateway.

Jennie Nash

Yes, don’t forget, Jennie! In the spirit of practicing what she preaches, she realized that she is also hesitant when it comes to asking for reviews. So she would like to gift a PDF version of her book, The Writer’s Guide to Agony and Defeat, to anyone willing to read and review it. Just click the title which will take you to a DropBox link where you can find the book.

You can find the links to all of the above on our Author Accelerator website’s show notes page for this episode.

How are writers like Olympic athletes? They make great stories! They make great comebacks! When we recorded this episode, the winter olympics were on TV, and both Jennie and Mel were obsessed. (Abby, eh, not so much.) But this week Mel relates to Shaun White, the American Olympic snowboarder. Not because she dazzled us with some sweet moves on her board, but because she recovered from illness and poor performance by making a comeback. Shaun White almost QUIT after a horrific accident months earlier (his poor face), but he stuck it out and kept training after his recovery.

“I knew I had it in me, I just had to lay it down.” -Shaun White

In this episode, Mel fixes the issues with her last submission. She says that she was disconnected with her story and her characters. We always talk about how stupid mistakes are surface stuff - you don't get into their heads and it's like puppets on a string. She also admits that she wrote a lot of stuff down, but nothing really happened. She credits taking another crack at those chapters (and night walks with rap music) for her fresh take on the pages that needed some serious help a couple episodes back.

A couple tips, if you find yourself stuck with a boring chapter (or two):

Don't leave your audience out of the action - show it!

We want to see your characters under pressure, to see what they're going to do - it's okay to make things hard for them!

Get us in your character's heads - what are they thinking? If they're struggling, how are they coping (or not?)

Remember: dialogue is about reactions - if done well, it's a great way to disseminate information without falling into an info dump.

Jennie also wrote about what writers can learn from athletes here on her Medium blog, No Blank Pages: https://medium.com/no-blank-pages/what-we-can-learn-about-competing-from-shaun-white-3e9dea246469

And for those of you who are interested, here is Shaun White's epic win, as mentioned by Jennie and Melanie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6NTcNFjVjE&feature=youtu.be

Jennie celebrates her youngest getting a job, Mel tries to save Abby's life, and Abby was in the throes of mold investigation (and letting go of a garage full of art supplies) this week on Mom Writes!

(And also some writing stuff.)

Abby decided that by letting go of her old art stuff she was able to accept that she's still creative, but a different way. It's okay to move on and release tools of creativity that you're not using - it doesn't mean that you don't have new tools to harness your creativity, and now Abby's using WORDS to express her creativity. A lot can be said for getting rid of stuff you're keeping around for one reason or another - guilt, or fear, or.

"The way I feel about writing is the same way I feel about photography, but here's the difference: the minute I have to sell something or there's money involved, photography becomes stressful for me. That hasn't been the case with writing at all. When you're writing a book, everyone is buying the same story." - Abby

We talk a lot about using your old teenage diaries to influence your writing voice (if you happen to be writing awkward middle schoolers, that is!). So dig through your old journals from high school if you want to flashback between the highest highs and lowest lows of those sweet teenage years.

We do some serious brainstorming on how to solve a logic problem in Abby's book - how the book characters actually get out of their novels and into real life. Sometimes you really do need to talk things out and get ideas from readers (or your fellow podcasters), that you can ultimately take or leave, but sometimes three brains are better than one!

Finally, Mel comes to terms with her reluctance to move to Scrivener - change is hard! (No really, it has some cool tools. You might want to check it out. No, they're not paying us.)

To iron or not to iron, that is the question. This week we talk about ironing. Well, it's just one of the many things we talked about. When we batch recorded this set of episodes last winter, Melanie and Abby were both sick. We sent Mel to urgent care, then soldiered on and recorded this episode without her. (Thankfully, because as it turned out, she had a bad case of the flu.) Of course, Skype was also sick, and it totally froze on us while sharing a screen. But, like, always, we make the best of it. 

In this episode:

"Sometimes the only change you need to make is the change inside your mind." - Abby

The Mathews are moving from Rhode Island to Florida! Abby has just a couple months to pack the house and make all the arrangements and do all the things, including finishing her book.

"I refuse to even put the book on pause while I sell the house - because I don't want to stop it. People may see the writing aspect of this as a chore, but the writing is stress relief. Why in a time of stress would I want to get rid of the thing that brings me joy? I can keep the momentum going while life is super chaotic because we did all that prep work in the beginning before I even started writing it. Now it's just putting words on the page." - Abby

Jennie points out that the mapping-out part of writing is the part most people resist, and a really detailed outline is different from what Jennie asked Abby and Mel to do. Having a picture in your mind, having the big why figured out does allow for creativity and flexibility while keeping your end goal in mind. 

Abby made a deal with herself to devote whatever time she has to write first thing in the morning, really prioritize it, and then spend the rest of her time getting things in order for the move. She admitted she needs to let go of the word count and focus on spending butt-in-chair time on the book - getting wrung up about word count goals while trying to move a thousand miles away isn't necessarily going to help her finish the book. 

Jennie cites something she read recently about a writer asking her readers what they would do if they only have 5 hours a day to do their job (like their day jobs, if you're not lucky enough to write full time - that's most of us!). What would you cut out if you only had x amount of time? How are you using or not using your time productively? If you really, truly had a time limit and things were down to the line, how would you streamline your time and make the most of it?

Abby and Jennie also spend some time talking about possible sequels for her book. Abby wonders how much to include in book one, and how do you know what to leave open for book two, three, etc? According to Jennie, book one has to stand on its own 110%. It must have a satisfactory resolution. Take some time to sketch out the whole universe - how is this going to play out in subsequent books? It's good to have a plan for storylines that help each book stand as a complete novel.

"Most writing isn't done on the keyboard - it's done in the shower, while you're driving, running errands. Give that mental real estate to yourself and let things come into your brain about your story - that's writing too." - Jennie 

After Skype freezes and we reconnect, Jennie goes on to tell Abby that she has inadvertently stumbled upon a really powerful story element that she needs to take advantage of. This is a big advantage of having a book coach-- someone who sees and points out a fabulous opportunity to grow your story according to your big WHY. They spend some time hashing out the logic behind what Abby has written. Abby's had the dad in her story disappear, and while she intended to bring him back fairly quickly, Jennie goes on to point out that by making his disappearance part of the struggle, it gives Abby the opportunity to deepen why it matters to the characters. Let the characters suffer!   

The father's disappearance also allows Abby the chance to pursue her story's budding romance in a way that is more meaningful than a simple girl-likes-boy. The characters can share a secret, be allies, reveal a side of each other than neither has shared before. But should they kiss? And when? 

As part of Abby's research, she quizzes a girlfriend's 6th-grader all about kissing. Would she read about kissing? Do 7th-grade girls even kiss boys? Like, what's the deal?! Jennie and Abby also talk about how things have changed since either of them was in school, and how female empowerment is much more the norm. Abby wants to write a book that definitely reflects girl power. And she wants to bake that into the budding romance. But the deep-level WHY has to be baked into all these details. The last 20 minutes of this conversation pretty much dissect a single kiss.