When I think back to the first time I channeled my inner dirty girl I was in high school. Yeah, so I was a late bloomer. I remember reading Judy Blume’s Forever. If you never experienced this young adult romance, you missed some great reading. I had every sex scene ear marked so I could reread them at my leisure. I searched the shelves at my local bookstore looking for more of the same. I discovered Judy Blume was the pioneer of young adult soft erotica. That was my earliest memory of a book marketing strategy. The teenage girls in the United States deserved more young adult erotic romance novels. At least a hundred junior high girls read my copy of Forever. I was determined to graduate and become the next Judy Blume, it didn’t happen, but at least I’m a lot closer today than I was 25 years ago.

I wasn’t enlightened about the sexual act until I was twelve. A female cousin pulled me aside at a slumber party and said I was a total embarrassment; I had a ten-minute Cliff Notes version of The Joy of Sex. I can remember thinking it was the most disgusting thing I had ever heard. I turned thirteen two months later, and a miraculous change took place; I started to look at boys differently. Within a two month time frame boys changed from the biggest idiots on the planet, to something worth my time. Almost overnight, my view of an erection went from disgusting to entertaining. Now that’s progress.

As early as my adolescent years, I can remember channeling my inner dirty girl and writing sex scenes in my mind. I was always a well-behaved teenager, I wasn’t promiscuous, but I loved to flirt with the opposite sex. I was never a tease, but I always liked to leave all my male counter parts wanting a little more. That didn’t change when I got married. I admit I’ve channeled my dirty girl behind closed doors. I’ve swung on a few ceiling fans in my time, and played out a few role play fantasies. However, if compared with a few wenches aboard this ship, my escapades would pale in comparison. But we’ll leave that blog topic for another day.*g*

One of my favorite things in character development is developing their physical characteristics. It’s important to know your characters on an emotional level, but relating to and describing them well physically, can increase the sexual attraction of that character tenfold. It’s the subtle or differentiating characteristics that count the most. Use those to your advantage, throw in some vivid description and emotionally grounded characteristics and you have yourself a character that will stay with the reader long after the book is closed. When developing the physical appearances of your characters, ask yourself what physical characteristics appeal to you about a character when you read a book. Take your dirty girl for a walk, I guarantee she can help you create a hero that will leave a lasting impression.

Have you coined the term sexual dance? It’s the long drawn out foreplay before you get to the act. I have a naughty co-worker who has a wonderful relationship with her DH. They have a great sex life because they work at making it exciting. We were working on Monday morning when she received a phone call. Her husband had opened his brief case in a meeting that morning and discovered she had hidden a pair of her thong panties inside as a surprise. Now how’s that for beginning a sexual dance?

We write scenes everyday that introduces sexual tension between our characters. I use the five senses when creating a scene to build sexual tension. I always try to incorporate taste, touch, smell, sight, and feel in every scene. It makes it real, and pulls the reader into the scene with the characters. We build each scene like a puzzle until we are down to the final piece that bridges together the culmination of all the sexual tension. That scene more than likely includes a bed…or does it? Here’s where you can get your freak on. You can bypass the bed for the stairs, the shower, the kitchen counter…well you get my point. Let the dirty girl out to play and in the process take care of some sexual frustration of your own. We’ve often blogged about our writing being therapy. This is just one more way of using our personal character to personalize our fictional characters.

Even if we don’t include sex in our WIP, we still have to create physical attraction, and sexual chemistry. Maybe you don’t feel the need to channel anything to write the sexual dance between your characters, but a part of us has to contribute a sexual element to our writing voice.

Judy Blume celebrated her 70th birthday a few weeks ago. I would like to wish her a happy belated birthday. Thank you Judy for helping me discover my inner dirty girl. Forever rock on!