Somewhere Over the Sun

Fair warning to anyone out there who might be stalking me, I’ve been using a site traffic monitor ever since I put up this blog. I do this so that I can track how many people visit my site every day and what kind of posts are attracting attention, as well as whether or not the things I write are piquing your interest in me as a writer (i.e, if you read a post and then read on my “about the author” link, then the “book info” link, then the “buy the book” link). 

Over the last few months, as my posts have tapered off (I’ve been more focused on other projects, and have noticed that even at my most productive, my marketing efforts did not lead to significant results), so have, understandably, my site’s traffic numbers. 

Aside from people coming onto my site right after I post a new entry, would you like to know what’s driving the most amount of people to my site? I’ve been keeping track. And the answer, overwhelmingly, is these three words: “sex scene excerpt.” This screenshot tells the story.

This is a “keyword analysis” which indicates the search terms that people use to find my site. You’ll notice, first of all, that there aren’t that many visitors. And secondly, you’ll see that pretty much everyone who is directed to my site via search engine is finding me because they are looking for sex, and I once posted an excerpt from a sex scene in Somewhere Over the Sun. A few others have found me because I have a Calvin and Hobbes tattoo, a couple because I keep an extensive library of literary quotations, and four people were actually looking for me.

The lesson is obvious, kids. It’s one that marketers have been aware of for years, pretty much since marketing began. It is a cliche lesson, but only because it’s so true that people keep saying it over and over again. And here’s the evidence. Sex sells.

• She took comfort in the fact that she could write off a few terrible months with just a sentence or two. In the story that was her life, those long months could be skipped over, sent off to oblivion, deleted or never written. Or, equally as comforting, the thought that those few terrible months, not that much time in the scheme of things, would serve some greater purpose, would be the stepping stone to some tidily summed up life lesson, that this was her working past one of life’s rough patches, rough patches that everyone had to endure and that always ended, since all things ended, and that when it was over things would not only be good once again, but that she would be all the more appreciative because there had been something terrible before.

• She loved to come across things she’d once loved and then forgotten. Sometimes she watched a movie that she hadn’t seen in years, and she’d realize that she had taken a character’s name and put it in one of her stories. She’d realize that she’d actually shaped entire people—perhaps fictional, but people nonetheless—on some other fictional person, she’d created something based on someone else’s creation. Did God ever forget what had inspired him to create people? 

• Good books and good sex are similar. Sometimes forgettable, but it never feels that way during the act. Definitely doesn’t feel like that right after. You lay in bed, and you think, I’m going to remember exactly how this felt years and years from now, no matter how many books I read. 

It was bold and beautiful laying on her lap. Black wood she knew nothing of, strings she thought of only as fragile. It was strange to her that it could sing. An impulsive purchase, sure, but one she had no remorse over. A week earlier she had told herself, “I will accomplish something.” The guitar was a reaction to a simple sentence that flickered into her brain. She rarely set tangible goals for herself, and when the sentence flew around her head for an afternoon, she though it only one of her tiny moments of inconsequential inspiration. But this time she felt it was a command. Her static mind was pushing her to live just a little more. And when she saw the guitar, not quite glistening in the sun, yet surely bathing in sunlight, she knew it would be her accomplishment-to-be.

She wanted nothing as lofty as to become a rock star, or even a respectable musician. She doubted she’d even let many people hear her play. Instead, she aspired to familiarize herself with the instrument. She wanted to master it, whatever that meant. So, strumming it ever so slightly while laying in bed, she asked it all the typical questions potential lovers ask themselves on first dates. She explored the guitar with her fingers, fingers she had thought too delicate, too clumsy to ever be musical. But she would acquaint her hands with the guitar until its strings learned to love her fingers, and quiver at her touch. Affection strengthens over time, and the two lovebirds were destined to sing, she was sure of it.

Over the following months, she became so accustomed to feeling the guitar resting on her knee that sitting without it there felt odd, like a long-used ring which has been lost. Her lap felt naked when not clothed in six strings. The guitar held her hand so often that her fingers grew callused at the tips, its strings always hungry to feel her. The world became completely musical. Car accidents were power chords, and babies crying were bittersweet solos. Her speech became rhythmic, and she began harmonizing with those around her.

At night, she’d arrive home and call out to her sweetheart. First, just a strum across all six strings, nothing too musical, just an appreciation of what the guitar basically was. It was barely controllable anymore, the way her fingers caressed its neck. The guitar loved her plucking and strumming, her bending and tapping. She loved its moans of pleasure, and the pride of creating a beautiful sound. Their love making would last until the wee hours of the night, when she would slowly fall asleep playing a note every few minutes.

Alright, I promise I’ll give you guys a bit of book-related updates soon. News about the Kindle, Nook and iPad versions, as well as an upcoming review and interview over at Girls Just Reading.