I wanted to write a character with a sex addiction… but I didn’t want to write about sex addiction because it’s taboo. For some reason, our society would rather talk about drug addiction and alcoholism than the guy who runs up his cable bill with pay-per-view porn and spends the rest of his money on sex theaters. (I can just imagine the spam comments I’m going to get now. I hope my spam filter had its coffee.) Plus, my mom reads this. It’s kind of hard to go there when you know your mom is reading.

I threw out a tweet the other day and got a pretty equal mix of responses.

http://twitter.com/cardiff_flyer/status/222336745256132609

http://twitter.com/BJDowd/status/222337803239956480

http://twitter.com/BJDowd/status/222338102260277248

I’m not saying I wouldn’t write or publish something just because my mom might see it — because I’m all growed up and can write what I want — but it turns out that I’m not the only one who wonders about it. At the end of the day, it’s fiction, but I’m really curious as to how this week’s issue will be received (and whether people will mistake it for erotica the way my short story “How Lon Got Screwed by a Terrorist” is always being mistaken).

I think promiscuity and other sexual activities are coping methods for stress, and in SF #4, I tried to portray that in Victor. I wanted to try something new for a character for a change; I’ve written characters with alcohol problems and other issues, but never a sex addict. I also wanted to tackle it in as classy a way as possible (if there is such a thing in this case). He’s a difficult character to write. I had a really hard time getting into his head while writing the first drafts of #1-12. Hell, I couldn’t even decide whether I liked him — and I’ve never disliked one of my own characters. (They’re like children; I love them no matter what they do, but don’t always love what they do.) He’s really grown on me since he first strolled onto the page, especially while rewriting this week’s issue.

I’ve been trying to give each of my characters their own motives, and in this series, those motives are all driving the story. It’s been a simultaneously more difficult and easier writing process.

How do you cope with stress? I tend to smoke more, sleep less, and snap at everyone (even my cat). I also babble. And eventually, I cry. It’s a pretty predictable cycle at this point.