According to Wikipedia (Respiratory rate), the average adult breathes 12 to 20 times per minute. With one week to go before publication of Secrets of the Lotus, I’m determined to count a few of those breaths and make even more of them count for me.

I’ve been thinking about the relationship between writing, reading and editing. I know a lot of writers want a “first reader”, someone who can read through a rough draft and give impressions of what parts of the storyline do and don’t work. I had several good first readers for Secrets. (Thanks, guys!). My work-in-progress, however, is a different story. I am my own first reader for this one.

I really can’t believe how well this one is progressing right now. I’m at 64,000 words and I know what happens, where the characters want to end up. I’m a little surprised by the turn it’s taken, too. I thought the story would be the romance, but at least as important in this story are the main character’s relationships with the other female characters. Unfortunately, I actually fought that until I was three-fourths of the way through, so I’m going to have to do some heavy re-writing when I make my first pass through the manuscript. I really, really love the female characters in this story, which I guess is no real surprise. I’m lucky enough to have a lot of great, strong female characters in my real life, a fact for which I am grateful.

It’s funny, but I’ve been writing this story for so long, I have almost forgotten some of what I’ve written. I scan through it and am a little startled when I read something I really like — but I don’t remember writing it. It’s almost like somebody’s written half the story for me. Somebody has, in fact. Me from six months ago. Me from three months ago. Me from today.

So, as my own first reader this time, I have an idea what it’ll be like for anyone brave enough to read my book. Readers know only what’s on the cover of the book, not really what’s inside. To invest time and energy in the creation of a writer in the hopes of getting some small satisfaction is truly what I have always called a “leap of faith”. It’s a little humbling for me to hope that in one short week, at least a few readers will be willing to take that leap for what I have written.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t anticipate my first book coming out in an electronic format. Pretty difficult to give away signed copies of that, you know? I didn’t even own an ereader until two weeks ago.

However, I like to think I’ve got an open mind. After researching not only the future of epublishing but also my other options, I made what I hope was an informed decision and let my book go to a (primarily) electronic publisher with the hope that someday I will see it in print.

Of course, this isn’t my first foray into electronic publishing. Before I began writing a lot of words and stringing them together, I wrote a few words and strung them together. I’ve written short stories and flash fiction and even microfiction. And trust me when I say, the print markets for short fiction of any length are really, really, REALLY competitive. Like, if you’re not awesomely good at stringing those words together, forget it. I read the short stories in print publications and get goosebumps because they’re so freaking good. Print short story writers are da bomb. No kidding.

That said, most of my short fiction was published online. I managed to get a few into print pubs that weren’t really paying much attention on a particular day, but for the most part, I’m an online writer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (salute Seinfeld!). Online writing is pretty damn good, too. I’ve edited for online publications, and believe me, they get everything. While editing fiction for edifice WRECKED, which is sadly no more, I saw some stories that stunned me with their poetic beauty, stung me with their edginess or knocked me out flat because they were just so good! Same thing for my current gig at Dark Recesses. Believe me, you can find great writing online, too.

And so I’m now the proud owner of an iPad. The first book I’m reading on it? The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve actually got a nicely bound leather copy of it on my bookshelf, but it seldom comes down. I’m loving getting reacquainted with Mr. Holmes.

Want to see a really great example of online publishing? I can highly recommend the first issue of Stymie. If you flip through to page 30, you’ll find the one and only story I’ve ever written about golf: Her Only Rival. Plus, it’s just fun to flip the pages — almost as good as my iPad.

I write women’s fiction. Understand that I define women’s fiction as something a woman would read. If you want to check out some of my personal brand of women’s fiction, try: China, Family Table or Her Only Rival. (Okay, I threw in Her Only Rival just for fun. I think it’s important that we women not take ourselves too seriously.)

I’ve taken a couple of cuts about writing a romance. Hell, I was a horror writer for a while. I wrote about werewolves (I still LOVE my werewolf story), vampires and zombies. Where did the romance come from?

Answer: It was always there. I believe in happy endings. At least, I believe in writing about them. We need to believe in happy endings. We need our books and movies and songs to have them. If we don’t, what do we have to hope for? The news sure ain’t gonna fill that need.

I remember a pastor once asking me, why do we have faith? The answer: without faith, there is no hope.

Same thing with happy endings.

Nothing really to report. It’s after midnight, so there’s what? Twenty-two days to go to publication? Cool. Sorry if I seem underwhelmed, but today I saw my three-year-old in her first ever dance recital and was blown away by her sheer presence and beauty. My kids really get to me.

Anyway, I figured I’d better post something, so I looked back trying to find my least romantic story. It’s here at The Glut, if you dare: The Accident. The story actually arose from an actual news story, one of those too freaking weird to be true things. It remains one of my personal favorites of anything I’ve ever written, despite the ick factor.

Sorry to take so long between posts. Last time I posted it was forty days until publication of my book. Now it’s a mere twenty-eight and will probably be twenty-seven by the time I get this posted.

Twenty-eight days left until publication of my book. Four weeks. Four groups of seven days. One lunar month. Holy cow.

Okay, so it’s about time I addressed the subject I’ve been avoiding. Sex. There’s a sex scene in my book. There! I said it, it’s out there! Whew.

Sex was a really hard thing for me to write about. It’s a part of all our adult lives and a driving force behind our world, but it’s still taboo in polite adult conversation. I’ve never been one to believe in free love or anything like that, but I do believe that loving sex between committed adults is a wonderful and rewarding thing.

So how come it’s so difficult to write about?

Well, part of my hesitancy arose from who I suspected would read my book. My family, friends and fellow parents. The idea of the people I love reading a sex scene I wrote didn’t really appeal to me. With this in mind, I determined to gloss over the whole thing. I could write a modern, realistic romance and close the bedroom door when the time came, right?

Evidently not. One of my first readers complained to me that if I expected people to read 60,000 or so words, I needed to provide a payoff somewhere in there. Resigned, I started looking at ways to write sex without embarrassing myself.

I read multiple articles about how to write about sex. One of my favorites was coincidentally by one of my favorite authors, Steve Almond. His lighthearted approach to many a subject has made me laugh out loud, smile thoughtfully or nod in agreement. I’ll admit, this one made me blush a little, but the advice I gleaned from it was invaluable. You can read it here: Writing Sex by Steve Almond.

I found and read article after article about writing about that most important of our creative functions. Most all of them boiled down to two things. First, don’t be gratuitous. The sex should serve a purpose for the storyline. Evidently, sex can even reveal something about character. Yes, I thought, I can use the sex scene to develop my two main characters, to reveal something about them that the reader wouldn’t know if the scene took place behind a closed door. Working from that angle helped me loosen up. I was actually fascinated by how much the scene really did reveal in the end.

However, it was the second point many of the articles brought up that I clung to like a life preserver as I wrote my scenes. What was that point? Simply put, it’s not really advisable to try to get too creative with your descriptions of the actual act of sex, and it’s almost impossible to say anything original about it, anyway. In the end, it’s a pretty simple process most of your readers are probably going to be familiar with. Yes, I thought. My readers know what I’m talking about. It’s like when you describe a sunset in too much detail. A sentence or two of actual description is really too much. We’ve all seen sunsets. What’s important is what your characters do and feel when they see the sun set. Same as with sex. (As a side note, there actually is a description of a sunset in my book, so go figure.)

So how did I manage to write about sex and not embarrass myself? I’m not sure I did. The process was extremely difficult, and I wound up with a scene that probably won’t knock anybody’s socks off (and if it does, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know about it), but in my heart I know I remained true to myself and my characters. And as a writer, that’s what’s most important.

(Another important point: it’s now past midnight, so that means it’s actually 27 days until publication.)