Many a time I've talked about the challenges of writing erotic romance when you are simply not in the mood. It's no different then when your significant other gets that look in his eye and you just don't think you can comply tonight. (Fortunately, your computer will not be as disappointed as your significant other.) Having written several dozen spicy stories and novellas, I about a year ago I found myself very happy to be writing in a genre that didn't require me to find a way to work in a sex scene on a regular basis.

Okay, so I finished that book, Bloodchained, last August, and was delighted with it. I set it up to allow a sequel, and the response to the book made it clear I should write one. I started writing BC2, got 25,000 words in, and just wasn't in the mood. I like those chapters, don't get me wrong. I like the plot I've sketched out for the rest of the book. But I was stymied. For one of the few times in my life I was suffering from writer's block in the worst way. It was starting to make me unhappy in other areas of life. I was a little ornery, a little off my feed, and not nearly as amorous as a romance author ought to be.

I had no idea what to do to fix myself. Friends and fellow writers and my family all told me, don't push it, you can't force the creative process. That's all well and good, but since I was in grade school I've been a writer and writers are not happy when they can't write.

Then one day it suddenly hit me. Well, to give credit where credit is due, my muse hit me. "Hey, dork!" he said, "how about you try writing what you're supposed to be writing right now? You know, some hot short stories. Here's an idea, why not try that good old Soulful Sex stuff of yours again?"

And suddenly I was in the mood. In every sense of the term.

It was crazy. I hadn't been in the mood for a very long time, but suddenly I was. I let my muse dictate what I should do next and his urgent suggestion was to give some free rein to my more secret and sublimated self. A sort of darker side of Soulful Sex. The first story poured out in record time with the second one hot on its heels. I feel like the third one would start to appear, like a triplet trying to take skips in the birth canal, were I to let it.

I remember not so long ago really needing to take a break from writing so much about sex. Now I find it really refreshing to be, of all things, writing about sex! The idea of spending the next six to nine months creating stories, maybe even a poem or two, about sex is really exhilarating to me. What a smart muse I have! Well, and my family and friends were on the right track too.

The whole experience hopefully taught me a little lesson. If you're not in the mood to do something, it could help to ask yourself what you are in the mood to do. If you really ask the question, the results can be surprising.

Of course, now I'm hoping that once I've wrapped up this new thing, someday I'll be just dying to get back to BC2. My muse isn't saying, but I'll check back with him later.

Diana Laurence is the author of the Soulful Sex anthologies of erotic romance fiction, and released her last book Bloodchained in September 2007 (www.bloodchained.com). Diana's works are published by Living Beyond Reality Press (www.livingbeyondreality.com.)
Visit her at www.dianalaurence.com or enjoy her blog at www.eroticawithsoul.blogspot.com.