Kindle or kindle wood?

Ok, this is a little bit scary to be admitting this, particularly committing these words to paper (or the screen, I should say), but I am considering getting a kindle at some point in the not too murky future. Eek, I've said it. I say 'considering', because I really don't know if I've even come to terms with this 'consideration', let alone going out and buying one. But have a look at this graph above and you might see why I am in the process of considering the consideration of a kindle!! The yellow line represents physical books sold since 1996 and the red line shows the sales of Kindle books sold since 2008. This is utterly unprecedented. Kindle's have revolutionized the way we read and whilst I love, now forever and always the look, smell and feel of books, I have also got to acknowledge that people are reading very differently to how they were just ten years ago.

What does this mean for me and my novel? Actually, this could be exciting for me, because if nothing happens   when I go down the traditional publishing route, the good news is that I can publish an Amazon e-book for people to download on to their Kindle's. Anyone can do that, so the key to this is good marketing (aside from a darn good read). So I figured, the best way to get a feel for this market is to embrace it and that means getting a kindle. I chatted to a lady on the train not so long ago who was reading from a kindle and she told me she was the biggest die-hard book lover on the planet but is now a convert to the kindle. I have to say, I don't really want to be a 'convert', I just love physical books far too much. But what I do want to do is try to be a little more open-minded and embrace the digital revolution. It may well prove the only way for me to get my book out there.

Writing about sex!

Blimey. That was hard. I spent FAR more time than I'd intended this morning writing a sex scene in my novel. I had been an utter wimp when I originally wrote it, more a case of moving-swiftly-on and then suddenly it was the next morning - hmm, not very convincing. Thankfully, help was at hand exactly when I needed it in the form of an article in Mslexia by Monique Roffey (her sexually explit novel, above, came out earlier this year to great critical acclaim and a good dose of controversy) on how to write good sex scenes and one of the main things that I got out of it was that I have to kill the critic sitting on my shoulder. Don't think about what your mum might think or how I couldn't possibly write that or what on earth would so-and-so think if they knew I was writing this???!! But kill then, kill them all, brush them all off your shoulder and write that sex scene. Who put what where, who did what, and how. Yes, seriously!

Soooo....how did I fare? God, I had no idea what a prude I was, I guess I'm just not used to 'letting go' like this in my writing. I'm definitely not as liberated as Monique Roffey, but at least I've made a start. And I suppose that writing about sex, just like having it, takes practice. Tee hee.