I don't like to kiss and tell, but...

I wrote my first lesbian sex scene yesterday, on a plane flying from Cairns to Sydney.

I'm not sure what to make of the two parts of that sentence, to be honest. The sex scene was by far one of the hardest I've ever had to write. On the one hand, I'm not lesbian or bisexual myself. I've only ever made love with a man, so it makes sense that scenes are easier to write. On the other hand, I am a woman, and I know what I enjoy, so it also kind makes sense that maybe I'd have a better idea how to please another woman than a man. Or maybe not.

In order to write the scene, I had to put all those concerns behind me and inhabit the minds of the characters. Luckily, the POV character was as new to loving a woman as I am, so I was able to work on that, but still it's one of the harder things of being a writer, to have to go into a headspace you've never experienced and try to make that feel real.

I'm going to be interested to see what my beta readers think of it.

The other half of that sentence was writing it on a plane. I quite like writing on planes. The seats put you in a reasonable ergonomic position, and the tray table is generally at a good height. Also, it's quiet, and so there's nothing really to distract you (although the girl in front of me was watching The Hobbit and that caught my attention from time to time).

What was difficult to deal with was the fact I was sitting in an aisle seat, and there were a lot of families and young kids on the flight (Cairns is in the height of tourist season at the moment). Everytime a parent walked their toddler up to the toilet or back, I wondered what they would think if they happened to look at my computer screen and actually read what I was writing.

In the end, I finished the scene just as we began the descent into Sydney and I had to turn my computer off. I was really proud of myself, proving that I could write anything at anytime.

If you don't have the luxury of writing full time (which unfortunately I don't), then you have to make the most of the time you do have. You need to learn to be able to write at every opportunity given to you, and not let fears or worries eat away at that.

In total in the two plane flights (I wrote on the plane flight up on Thursday as well), I wrote more than 8000 words. The novella only has a few thousand more words to write. So you can see why I'm proud of myself. Even when I can't believe that I wrote my first lesbian sex scene at somewhere around 36000 feet while three year olds walked past me.