greenschist

I hope my fellow Americans have recovered from Thanksgiving--at my house, there's still no end in sight to all the leftovers--and I hope we're all starting to feel a little of that holiday spirit.

Now, few questions for all of ya'll. :)

First, if you like romance novels, or if you're like me and you're not sure you like romance novels but you can't pass up a free book, Harlequin Books is celebrating their 60th anniversary by making 16 ebooks available for free download.

Second, have you seen this plot? *holds up milk carton with fanfic on the back* I'm looking for a story that revolves around one of the characters secretly writing romance novels. I know I've read it, and I think the character in question was either Severus, Remus, or Draco. It may have been slash, but then again, maybe it wasn't. I have a plot bunny, one that keeps nibbling at me and making me giggle inappropriately, and it sprang into my head so fully formed, I'm having a hard time believing I thought it up on my own.

Third, drcjsnider made a post about a yucky purple-headed, bulgy-veined penis description in a novel, and it has me wondering. How do you choose to write about the penis during a sex scene? Does the opening of a character's pants trigger a tasteful fade-to-black in your writing, or do you plunge right in *snerk* and go for the veiny, leaky, purpley mushroom head approach to penises? What words do you like? What words do you hate? As a reader, what really turns you off?

As for me, I'm conservative and rather prim in my word choices. I don't blink at erection, cock, or penis, but please spare me from "throbbing staff" or "cum-spouting fountain of love" (Yes. I've seen it, and now I can't ever un-see it...and neither can you.) On the other end of the spectrum, I don't particularly care for terms straight out of a textbook, such as "corpus spongiosum" or "epididymis," either. I know rarely write explicit sex scenes, but when I do, I think I focus more on the mechanics of sex than descriptions of anatomy, especially male anatomy, and I wonder if my writing suffers for it.