We're NAFDA, post away, but warn.

Cool. Consider yourself warned, if you haven't seen "Chosen" then.

Roadside Roses (spoilery for Chosen)

He had left the schoolbus as everyone slept.

They were miles from where Sunnydale had once stood. So many memories, summer days, books smelling of the Library's mysterious alchemy and the green ichor that was the blood of demons; training with Buffy, researching with Willow. So young, so strong, so many.

He picked roses from the edge of the road, where they'd been planted as a windbreak for grapevines. In the chilly sublight just before morning, he scratched himself on thorns, twining the stems together, setting the wreath down.

"Goodbye, Joyce," he said quietly, and went back to the bus.

deborah - I just saw that on the journal. You made me cry.

I have to catch up with this thread. I am 122 posts behind, and it's my new favorite.

---

Here's my drabble -

Set After the BtVS finale, 7.22, Chosen

(warning - it's really, really, self-indulgent bad!fic - I was feeling sniffly)

“So… goodbye, huh? Catch up with the others. My folks are in Oxnard. I know where to find them,” chokes Xander.

“Xander. No. This is goodbye to the demons in our past. The good comes with us, into the future. That’s the point,” she says. She turns, crying. He doesn’t see.

“Okay,” he says, not believing, not understanding, not daring. Then, of course, he stumbles. The contents of his suitcase spill everywhere.

She rushes back to help, as he’s frantically stuffing his things back into his luggage. He doesn’t look up, until he hears Buffy ask, “Can I have you?”

P.M. Marcontell "Bitchy Fic: It Could Be Plot Bunnies" May 23, 2003 12:55:33 am EDT

Plei - I am still in love with the erasing - in love with it.

Susan - your turn at this was wonderful, too. I've never really written sex scenes. I don't know how. Yours had a natural flow.

It's funny, now that it's over, I am enjoying Spike/Buffy again, where before it ended, I couldn't bear the thought. I'd fill in that scene between the across-the-basement stare and the school bus, but the two of you have left me sated.

Plei - I am still in love with the erasing - in love with it.

I'm Oxy Clean!

(Says the girl who once described Xander as "the Oxy Clean of the Scoobs," and loves the stuff beyond reason.)

Sunday100 drabble:

He braced his hands against the slick, torn vinyl of the seats. The memory of her scent had drawn him here. Closing his eyes, his mind enveloped him in it... close, warm, sweet.

He could feel every hair on his body twitch, readying to grow, prickling just as the tears prickled his eyes.

The traces of scent that remained on the seat next to him were not the same.

He had heard what happened when he left her before, how much pain she’d felt. This time he knew it would make things better. This time he was leaving for her.

Susan - your turn at this was wonderful, too. I've never really written sex scenes. I don't know how. Yours had a natural flow.

Cindy, you have no idea how much I needed to hear that this morning. I had a friend from my writing group beta-read what I've done on my novel thus far for continuity and such, and she sent it back last night. The only section she edited extensively? The one sex scene that's in it so far. I knew damn well it needs some serious editing, and I liked the gist of her suggestions but not the execution. That was my intellectual reaction. My emotional one was "How come I can write everything but sex?" Which led to a stern self-talking-to about how I've been writing stories, off and on, since I was 8 or 9, but sex scenes only in the last couple of months, so of course I'm more of a master at the overall craft than this one specific topic. I mean, I've been telling stories for significantly longer than I've been HAVING sex, much less trying to write about it. But still. I really needed to hear that--thanks!

Susan, I have read, but don't as a rule usually read, stories with much erotica. Some of what I've read has been good (to me). I feel self-conscious when I try to write sex. I'm not sure why.

I'm new to both fic and feedback-giving, so I'm a little self-conscious about that as well, but let me tell you what I liked.

I liked that you were frank in the telling, without making the sex scene either clinical, or unromantic. I liked that the sex had meaning, but you didn't take yourself too seriously in the telling of it. The grin and the laughter made it for me.

t TMI I love when dh and I end up laughing during sex, as long as it isn't act-ending laughter, and even then... t /TMI

I liked that you told it from Buffy's POV (I may still be a little B/S sex gun-shy, I'm not sure, so it may be that having it told in from her POV makes it clear to me she's in it out of choice, not resignation). And I like what you told my from her POV. I liked that you had her thinking. I'm always thinking during sex - I mean the thoughts are usually act or emotion-centric, but, you gave more than just the 'his turgid manhood' stuff, which to me is just not good sex-scene writing.

The Joy of Writing Sex deals with writer discomfort/awkwardness in writing sex scenes. It's honest about the fact that most of us do have problems writing it, at least in part because if you think about it, sex is awfully silly when you try to describe it.

I write a fair amount of sex, and those are still the parts that take me the longest to get something approaching right.

I actually write almost no sex, because I tend to prefer it implied to described. I am as to writing sex as I am to choosing clothing: I think a hint of something hidden is a lot more enticing than the average J-Lo "Look! You can count my pubic hairs!" outfit.

But sometimes nothing will do but good hot porny porn.