I'd like to share some info with you about my current WIP, titled Queen of Hearts. It's a Female/Female erotic romance, and it's the first one I've ever written without a male hero. It's been... interesting.
Here's a little about the book:
Maya is a Gemini. She exhibits the classic Gemini traits: She is adaptable, affectionate, versatile, witty, intellectual, tense, cunning, and holds a deep-seated fear of commitment. Which means she's a perfect match for Aquarius Erica.
Erica, also true to her astrological sign is friendly, a humanitarian, honest, loyal, original, inventive, fiercely independent, intellectual, contrary, unpredictable, unemotional, and detached. She is also a serial monogamist who nit-picks everything.
Astrology says they're compatible, but neither woman can be sure.
So it's a holiday book, kind of like Spicy with a Side of Cranberry Sauce, which will be out in just under two weeks, but it's different holiday.
These characters, like so many others, just kind of came to me, and I used a new astrology chart character building exercise I had worked out in order to really craft the basis for these characters. This will be a novella and should be out in January, just in time to be enjoyed before Valentine's Day!
Here's a little snippet from the scenes I wrote last night:
Erica woke to the most delicious
smell. Bacon, eggs, and something else. She sniffed, trying to identify the
smell. Strawberries. She rolled her neck and opened her eyes to the brightly
lit room. Maya stood in the doorway wearing nothing but Erica’s Kiss the Cook apron, carrying a tray
full of food.
“Oh, my God!”
Erica couldn’t believe it.
Breakfast in bed? She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done something
so sweet for her. She waited for the rush of thoughts telling her the negatives
of such a sweet move, but nothing came.
“Morning,” Maya said, coming into
the room and sliding the door closed with her foot. Erica sat up in bed,
letting the blankets pool in her lap and Maya stopped for a second, admiring
the view. “Let me revise. Good
morning.”
So I've been having a few issues writing with an all-female cast here, specifically in love scenes. I never realized how often I use pronouns in love scenes and how important it is to say, she licked his thigh, and how much it has to change when it's two ladies. Because she licked her thigh could mean that my character is licking her own thigh and not her bed partners. Any other same-sex romance authors out there have issues with this sort of thing? How do you fix them?
I hope you enjoyed your little taste of my WIP and will check back soon for more details.
~ Rach
I've had that problem with male/male scenes (Above The Law, Aloha Man, Blade Dance)-- as well as male/male/female (Above the Law) and male/female/male (A Strength of Arms, Blade Dance). I try to mix proper names judiciously with actions, keeping the he-he and him-him to a minimum. It's a tough job. I've read stories that the reader really DID need a score card to determine which character was doing what to whom. When there are more than two people and less than two sexes, the fine tuning comes into play. Good luck with that!
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