This is an answer: More Sex, definitely

Currently I am working on a new TV script, which I hope will be my entry for the next Red Planet Prize. After my epiphany late last year about how I’d been treading water for a while as a writer, I wanted to just focus on writing, above all else, for me. Writing about subjects that really interested me, in a way that really interested me. For me that has to be the juxtaposition of the very ordinary on the very extraordinary. I’m happy with how this idea has evolved but I had a problem in that it revolves around 3 couples and the impact that a fairground ride has on their life and love. The problem was finding a way to establish the relationship of the couples quickly. Then I read, the always-brilliant Lucy V Hay writing about wanting more sex – in spec scripts.

It seemed so obvious. Establish each relationship with a sex scene. So damned easy and yet I hadn’t thought about it. But I had thought about it. I’d thought about the couples sex lives and even made notes about it but as I’d played through the establishing scenes in my head I’d not chosen to use them. Strange really.

Thinking about it further I never have sex scenes in my scriptwriting but in my prose writing days I used to always have sex scenes to establish and reveal truths about relationships. So what’s happened? Have I become a prude in my more formative years? Well, no. Ask any of my friends and one of my favourite subjects, for general chit-chat, deep and meaningful conversations or just idle jokes, is sex.

Also sex is a prevalent theme in a lot of the recent scripts I’ve either been developing or writing. Last year I wrote a radio play about sisters discovering their father’s porn collection after his death. This then led me to develop a theatre play, Dirty to Me, which is about a sex therapy group. So I’m writing about sex constantly but not writing the sex it would seem.

So I'm answering Lucy’s call. My script is being re-written to include the sex scenes. In addition to that, an idea that’s been floating in the back of my head for a while about female friendships after the break-up of relationships is going in for an overhaul. Previously the sex lives of the four women were going to be a part of it but now it will be well and truly full-frontal. It’s working title is Rebound Shag Man.

I'm also a great believer in the mantra, the bad things in life make good writing, so it's good to know that on this subject I've already done the research and all those dreadful, funny, wierd and surreal sexual experiences can now be of value, in my writing.