On Shoes

Note: This blog was originally published on my MySpace blog, January 23, 2008.

---

I have three pairs of shoes. A pair of loafers, a pair of sneakers with Yugioh shoelaces, and a pair of boots. The loafers are blue suede. For some reason I've owned at least one pair of blue suede shoes since I was twelve years old. I'm not sure why. I do not own the song. I've had the loafers so long that the suede across the top is two different colors because of the way the cuffs of my pants fall and block the sun.

Shoes are not something I contemplate often. I never thought this would be a problem.

But it so is, because I tend not to contemplate shoes in my stories, either. As a result, I sometimes forget to remove my characters' footwear when they undress for sex. Up until this week, I'd believed I'd done a good job of catching that lapse before sending the story out to the masses. A few near misses, but all dodged bullets.

Shyeah, right.

My treasured illusion was shattered this week, when I sat down to revise Warm Rush, my first novel. Two sex scenes—two!—where I totally forgot to remove Keith's shoes. I think the whole book only has three of them, so that's what? A 66% failure rate for undressing one of my main characters? What does that say about me as a writer? Do I get to blame it on my upbringing? After all, I'm half Korean, so all my life I've kicked off my shoes at the door. Maybe subconsciously I have all my characters do that same thing, and that's why in my head they're already shoeless by the time they're falling into bed, or onto the couch, or sprawled on the carpet…

{Ahem.} The point is that I was way embarrassed.

The good news is that I've got a second chance. I'm revising Warm Rush in the hopes of seeing it published again, because it's one of my favorite stories, and it's my first book, so it makes me sad that it's out of print. I've learned a lot since then, so revising it has actually been kind of fun, and I normally think that revising sucks toes. This time around, Keith got to kick off his shoes, and Jesse got to be seduced all over again. I visited old friends and realized they're even sexier than I remembered. That's a good feeling.

I could say that this experience has changed the way I look at shoes forever, but that would be a bald-faced lie. I seriously doubt I'll think of them much more than I do now, except to double check for clothing lapses when I'm revising. I will say that I thought about shoes like crazy this week.

Which is why I figured I'd write this blog—to give them their proper respect before I forget all about them again.