“Not Tonight, Honey. I Have A Headache.”

We have all been there. Sometimes you are just not in the mood. Maybe you’ve had a particularly stressful day at work, with the children, real life problems, or are simply not feeling well. As a result, you want nothing more than to relax a bit, then go to bed and sleep ... undisturbed. The thought of making hot passionate love is so far at the back of your mind it would take a blow torch to warm you up.

Fortunately there are some excellent books out there on which I would personally put a "Blow Torch" heat rating.

But, let’s get real. If you’ve had a really, really, bad day and your significant other comes home and says, “Come here baby and give Big Daddy some lovin’,” Big Daddy better duck and run.

That’s exactly the point I’m at with my current book. Since the first of the year, my day job has been particularly hectic … closing out year end and setting up for 2006 along with attempting to keep up with my normal, daily work load. By the time I got home each evening, I was wiped out, my brain all but fried. Definitely a "Not tonight, honey. I have a headache," situation.

In short, for the past week, my poor hero and heroine have been left hanging ... in the middle of a passionate love scene … in an old fashioned claw foot bath tub no less.

What authors put their characters through is shocking.

I’ve managed to tie up the last of the year end loose ends at work. Things have returned to normal … at least as normal as it gets. This weekend, I intend to complete the love scene and allow my poor hero and heroine to achieve the relief and satisfaction they’ve been working toward for the past week. Otherwise, they’re likely to seek revenge by becoming uncooperative.

So, what about the authors who write those hot and steamy books that as readers you often escape into … books that often help create the mood for romance?

As an author, I find the love scenes the most difficult part of the book to write. Just like in real life where you have to be in a particular frame of mind and mood to do it … I need to be in the mood to write it. For me, those scenes are best written in the evening or night hours. I do my best work if I set the mood … a hot bubble bath to relax me, candles burning, my special romantic mood music playing, and maybe even a glass of wine. It also doesn't hurt to read something with a bit of sizzle.

For other authors out there, how about sharing what influences impact the love scenes you write? What, if anything, make them difficult or impossible to write? What do you do to set the mood?

Right Brain vs Left Brain

In my last post I mentioned the need to switch mental gears from my day job to enable me to focus on my writing. I see myself as a right brain person, while my day job requires primarily left brain applications. Below is a more detailed description of the applications and functions of both the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

Check them out and see if you are primarily a right brain or left brain person. I suspect there are those of you who are so well balanced that you do not lean heavier on one side or the other, or you function with both simultaneously. For me, I freely admit that balance in all aspects of my life is a constant struggle.


Right Brain Traits:

Intuitive: fllows hunches, or feelings, takes leaps of logic.
Nontemporal: having little or no awareness of time.
Random: arranges events and actions haphazardly.
Causal and Informal: deals with information on basis of need or interest at the time.
Concrete: relates to things as they are commonly known or understood.
Holistic: sees whole things all at one, overall patterns. Leading to divergent ideas.
Visual: uses imagery, responds to pictures, colors, shapes.
Nonverbal: responds to tones, music, body language, touch.
Visuo-spatial: uses intuition to estimate, perceives shapes.
Responsive: listens to music.
Originative: interest in ideas and theories imaginatively.
Emotional: suspicious judgment until it feels or seems right.
Learning: through exploration, creative, artistic

Left Brain Traits:

Methodical: organizes information, classifies, categorizes, structures.
Temporal: keeps track of time, thinks in terms of past, present, future.
Sequential: arranges events and actions in consecutive succession.
Linear: thinks in terms of sequence, one thought directly following another. Leads to convergent conclusions.
Factual: deals with details, items, the particulars, features of a thing.
Verbal: used words to name, describe, and define things.
Systematic and Formal: processes information methodically, in a well-planned way.
Learning: through systematic plans.