This week, with the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival in full swing in the City of Literature, David Loughrey attended Love in the Afternoon, a romance writer's workshop with New Zealand writer Daphne de Jong. He takes the learning imparted by de Jong (below, in bold) and begins to craft his own novel of ambition, sexual tension, hockey and body language.
Anastasia Clementine leant back in her chair, looked at her reflection in the office window, and felt a quiet, serene pleasure at the scene that presented itself.
Her study of English at the University of Otago had led, as she had always hoped, to a job in the creative department of a company that developed, built and exported words to countries that needed more English vocabulary.
Anastasia had worked hard to develop, and guide to manufacturing stage, the word `cranderith', which was tracking well in a niche market in northern Chile.
That hard work meant she was now deputy creative manager, and had been interviewed for the role of manager - a role she fully expected to get.
Anastasia looked with some pleasure at the reflection of her slim, yet voluptuous, yet athletic, yet Rubenesque body; her calves were particularly well defined, sprouting gently, as they did, from her tight black skirt.
Her eyes smouldered darkly.
Anastasia was just settling back to her desk with her bucket of scrabble pieces and thesaurus, when she noticed her faithful PA Jane, a lethargic hockey player, standing behind her.
''How long have you been standing there?'' Anastasia gasped.
''The boss wants to see you,'' Jane said flatly.
The boss - Orlando Crabb - was commercial operations team leader for Words and Phrases Importers and Exporters Ltd, and Anastasia knew this was the moment her future might be sealed.
She imagined the sign on the door of her new office: Anastasia Clementine - Creative Manager.
She leapt actively from her desk, performed a short but very active dance routine based on the flight of the household sparrow, and strode into Crabb's office.
You need a central source of tension. Use techniques like body language. - Daphne de Jong.
Anastasia blinked; her throat tightened, her mouth went dry and her hands nervously rolled and unrolled the hem of her dress.
Instead of her expected breakthrough from middle to upper management, she had been introduced to the man who was to be her boss - newly employed creative manager Roland Imperial-Leather.
''Centrally speaking,'' Anastasia said, ''this is a very obvious source of tension.''
The room went silent.
Crabb brushed a fleck of dust from his sleeve, and began obsessively turning the button on his cuff one way, then the other.
He folded his arms, then unfolded them, placed his hands on his desk, tapped twice with his thumbs, flicked his head back to the left, then the right, and made an unusual sound - much like the call of the paradise duck - using a cupped hand and his elbow.
Anastasia crossed her legs, placed her left hand behind her back and slapped her knee with her right. She squeezed her ear lobe, and swivelled the heel of her left shoe into the carpet.
Roland placed his right hand on his thigh, then removed it, and began rapidly rubbing his chest, before slapping his biceps rhythmically with the back of his hand and squinting into the distance.
Obviously you need sexual tension, which is different from sex. Inner conflict is more important that outer conflict. - Daphne de Jong.
It was at that moment Anastasia noticed Roland's lithe, yet powerful body, his hard square jaw, and his piercing blue eyes.
She suddenly felt a hard knot in her stomach, her body prickled with heat, and the tight bodice she was wearing creaked alarmingly as her full, creamy bosom heaved.
Anastasia initially misread those feelings for a light irritation brought on by boredom, then realised them for what they were, and pushed them deep, deep down to the bottom of her psyche.
''He's taken my job, but I have this terrible sexual tension, which is not really like sex at all,'' she said to Crabb.
''I like sex more, to be honest.
''If I had the choice, that is what I would be doing right now.
''But I have this ... this ... conflict,'' she said.
''It's inner, rather than outer, but my professional ambition could stand in the way of what could be my future happiness in the arms of this imperious but devastatingly handsome specimen.''
If (while writing your romance novel) your mind is having a blank, write down a word, any word, on the page. Write it, and they will come. - Daphne de Jong.
''Polymath!'' Anastasia screamed.
''It means a person of wide ranging knowledge and learning!''Constitution, endothermic, butter, leachate, Montana, posthypnotic, flare, damnify, David Bowie, aperture priority, extrafloral, resultant, tripthong, stress incontinence,'' she howled.
Romance is a story about two people who are sexually attracted, come to love each other, and overcome difficulties between and within themselves to commit to a future together. What you're looking for is emotional impact. - Daphne de Jong.
Anastasia's hand brushed the bulging package in the area of Roland Imperial-Leather's inner thigh by mistake as the pair left Crabb's room, and that magic moment of first touch ignited her whole body with ladylike lust.
Roland took her in his strong arms and kissed her with his full, plump, pink, wet, flaccid lips, ripe, moist, sticky and fecund with musky, manly passion.
''I've come to love you, and I have overcome the difficulties between us and within me, and I think I can commit to a future together,'' Anastasia said.
Roland gurgled happily, pulled her close and said: ''Darling, this is very, very, very emotional - intensely emotional.''
The End
