Chances are good that a lot of you out there have no idea who Shaun Hutson is. If you have heard his name before, though, chances are you know him from novels like Slugs, The Skull, or Progeny. The Godfather of Gore, among other names, Hutson has released a frankly staggering number of novels over his career. While some of them are greatly entertaining, and most of them have been the subject of controversy due to their lurid content, the author himself seems to ignore what people say both good and bad.
However, in an interview I saw with him recently, he said something that I feel a lot of writers out there need to hear... especially those who expect to make a living in this trade.
For those wondering which part of the interview I'm referring to, it's the quote around the 5-minute mark. "When somebody says, 'Here's an obscene amount of money, Shaun, would you like to go and write a book?' then the muse descends with incredible speed."
That, right there, is the most important piece of advice I've been giving to people at cons and Q&A's for years, and it's coming out of the mouth of someone far more successful than I am. As a writer, do not buy into your own bullshit... you've got a job to do, so knuckle down and get it done!
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"How Do You Get Into a Mood To Write a Sex Scene?"
About a decade ago I was primarily writing romance fiction for a small publisher as a way to earn a few royalties, and to make some connections in the industry. Even back then I'd learned the primary lesson every author needs to internalize, which is that you need to do as much of your own promotion as you possibly can if you expect to get the word out about your books. To that end I'd asked my publisher if they had any go-to reviewers or interviewers they could hook me up with to start getting the word out about some of my releases.
They did, and to this day I have never forgotten what was probably the most insulting question I've ever been asked by an interviewer.
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| "Who's a good little author?" Miss, please, can we keep this professional? |
I received an emailed list of questions, many of which were pretty straightforward. What's your story about, where can people find it, is it a standalone or part of a series, etc. About halfway into the questions, though, was this gem. Paraphrased, it was, "How do you get ready to write a really steamy love scene? Do you pour yourself some wine, have some chocolate, etc.?"
I re-read this question several times, processing it. It was, perhaps, the most blatant example I'd seen of the myth of writing writ large on the page right in front of me. It was like method acting applied to the written word, and the idea was so ludicrous that I had to laugh. It felt like someone who watched shows like Castle, or movies about really successful authors where they have ludicrous lives and massive bank accounts, but played totally straight. And the fact that this question was still present, in what looked like this reviewer's standard copy-and-paste questionnaire, meant I wasn't going to just let it slide.
While I contemplated putting out an elaborate, sarcastic routine that I went through in order to put myself in the proper frame of mind, I instead chose to be more honest, and less sexy. My response boiled down to, "I pop a top on a fresh can of cherry Coke, crack my knuckles, and write the scene. Same way I write intro prose, action scenes, and dialogue. Sex scenes aren't special, they're just another part of the story."
As Hutson says, sometimes the ideas don't flow freely. Sometimes you stare at a blank screen, trying to order your thoughts. Or you type a few sentences, delete them, and try again. But you don't sit around just waiting for inspiration to drop out of the sky like Newton's apple. You're a professional, and you've got a job to do.
The best thing you can do for yourself, and for your career, is to figure out wherever your switch is so that you can flip it on command. Because publishers have deadlines, and the reading public isn't going to wait around if your muse happens to have a club foot and a bad knee.
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That's all for this week's Business of Writing! If you'd like to see more of my work, take a look at my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my noir thriller Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife as well as my recent collection The Rejects!
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