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Remember how the Jason book was going great guns a few days, or weeks, back? Well, not any more. As always when I do big signings and travel, the book that was hot is now cold ashes. I did four pages one day this week. Sigh. It wasn’t unexpected that the book would suffer from the change in routine, but I had hoped with the tour being so short that it might not throw me off, nope, it did. Sigh, again.

I thought it was just my usual doldrums when the same scene had been two days under the computer with little progress. But I finally realized it was more than just a break in routine throwing me off. It was something else, something more. Sometimes the scene doesn’t work in this book, or the characters aren’t working in the scene, or the plot conflicts.

It’s the first sex scene of the book, and I’d done everything I usually do to try and make the scene run smoothly. I’d decided what we were doing on paper and choreographed it out. You leave a little room for spontaneity but when doing sex on paper you want to know what you are striving to describe. It really is very like a dance routine.

The foreplay went very well and worked great, but when push came to shove (pun intended) it just did not work. I tried writing the scene in long hand because sometimes when I’m stuck the physical act of writing on paper will help shake something loose. But not this time. It was the perfect day for writing, too. I had a patch of sunlight right across my desk where I was sitting. The room was bright and cheery, and usually would make me want to get to work, but not today. (For those of you who think I work in a dungeon or in the Addams family mansion, sorry, but I like light, air, and pale blue walls for my working environment. Lots of windows, too. I really like a view. It just seems to give scope for the imagination.) Today no amount of lovely weather helped with the writing.

I must have sounded really forlorn on the intercom because Jon came over and told me to close up shop for now. He thought I needed to get out of the house for a few minutes. He was right. I would have come to that conclusion on my own in maybe another half hour or so. We did a quick trip out to get lunch and somewhere on the drive out or back I realized what was wrong with the scene. Jason wasn’t happy.

I know a lot of people accuse me of putting my sexual fantasies on paper in my books, but actually I find that my imaginary friends have strong preferences in that area, and let’s face it they are the ones having the sex not me. I thought Jason was okay with the scenario in the scene, but turns out it was something I liked better than he did, and until it was sex the way he preferred it, it wasn’t going to work. I mean Jason is a good sport, but even he has his limits. I’d apparently crossed one of those limits without realizing it.