No Slap and Tickle Here

If you've been around my blogs long enough, you'll have heard this before: I don't write sex.  Flip open any of my books - even Fertile Ground - and you won't find more than the barest hint that anything sexual has occurred. 

And that's me.  It's a choice I made a long time ago.  It's not that I have anything against books with sex in them.  Personally, though, I can live without the down and dirty, nitty-gritty of sexual encounters.  When I'm reading, I scan through those scenes anyway. Oh, once upon a time, I read every word of them, so I get it.  I really do.  It's just that as I got older, I got bored with reading the sex scenes.  I craved the plot.  I wanted the characterizations.  I needed the scenery.  Sex scenes?  Yawn.

So when I began writing, I left the sex out.  I felt like it wasn't exactly germane to my books anyway.  I mean, when my characters are fighting for their lives, sex ain't exactly on their minds.  Fighting for their life, hunting down a killer, trying to solve a mystery...  Ain't got time for no game of slap and tickle.

I like to think I'm not the only reader who is happier without the sex scenes.  I like to think I'm providing a niche for those readers with my own books.  Quite possibly, I'm losing sales because there isn't any sex in my books. Oh well. I already know I'm losing sales because I am a hermit.  It's about choices.  Some people write books with sex, some people write books about sex, and I write books without sex.

I did try to turn one of my books into a romantic suspense.  It was flat and forced, and I deleted it.  The book was better without it.  In my opinion, of course.

I could probably do it.  I could sit down and write sex over and over until it came out natural and interesting.  But I don't want to.  I hope you'll understand.

I'm not apologizing.  I'm just explaining.  And hoping that, at some point, those no-sex niche readers will find my books and love them.  Okay, just one apology: If you were expecting Jo and Zeke to get hot and heavy at any point in the Once Upon a Djinn series, I'm sorry to disappoint you.  If at some point Jo and Zeke resume their romantic relationship, any intimate acts will be completed behind closed doors. 

Oh, and if you know someone like me who is looking for books without sex scenes in them, send them my way.  I promise they'll get all the other good parts of a story.  =o)