When I write, I sometimes hit that amazing place called The Zone. The words flow, the fingers fly, and woe to the child who needs lunch. If something that needs to be on the page doesn’t flow, a xx gets dropped there and I move on. It’s easy to search for later as I have yet to use any other word with an xx.

Sex scenes get a lot of xx‘s in them. If I’m in the zone, I don’t want to stop and make sure everybody’s in the right position and that the hero wouldn’t have to be the star of Cirque du Soleil to be doing what he’s doing.

Jack: Not a chance. I’d die before wearing tights in public.

Shan: So do you wear them in private?

Anyway. I’m going through and embellishing my xx spots in The Widowmaker (the western), and it’s time to flesh out the scene in which Jack’s indulging in a little self-love. And doing a stroke of business, I must say. But he can’t perform the grand finale where he is, so he gets up and…

OMG, there’s no bathroom!

I’ve managed to keep two people trapped by a blizzard in a mountain cabin for months with no bathroom. You’d think one of them would have noticed if the other trudged through a blizzard to get to the outhouse. And one of them definitely would have noticed the other dropping trou over a bucket in the corner.

The things that get in the way of a story.