Pardon me while I remove my romance author hat and don an artist’s beret...

My monthly Novelspot column explores the subject of erotica from the perspective of a romance writer, therefore it's usually going to be about writing. But let's face it, a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words. That's why, for example, any celebrity tribute website gets most of its hits to its photo gallery pages. Even a writer must confess there's more of a thrill to gazing into the eyes of Colin Firth than reading an essay on his best films.

Never underestimate the power of the visual.

My family can always tell when I'm obsessing on some celebrity or character because I end up drawing him. If you've ever attempted a portrait of someone with whom you're slightly infatuated, then you understand the experience: During the creative process, time stands still and the mind reaches a slightly altered state. In that state, a person can really connect with the beloved subject in a uniquely intense way.

Now let me immediately clarify that point: I do not mean to say you are communing with the real Colin Firth. I'm not a psycho stalker--really I'm not. I'm saying that the qualities that draw you to the subject of your portrait, the archetype he represents to you, seem to become all the more vivid and distinct as you focus on trying to capture his features with pencil, ink or paint. It can really be an exhilaratingly erotic experience, in the broader sense of that term (which is how I always use it).

So, having recently released my latest book (Soulful Sex Volume II: Erotic Tales of Fantasy and Romance), I found myself able to enjoy a little lull from the usual routine of writing and marketing. I was seized with a craving to draw three of my characters, specifically the three heroes of my Vernal Night Trilogy fantasy stories from Volume II.

If you yourself have ever written fiction, you know well the experience of creating characters. These people can be so vivid that they seem alive, even though of course they have no physical form and therefore are recognized by you more by their personality and "voice." That's not to say that you don't have a mental picture of them. But a mental picture differs a great deal from a physical picture.

And so, imagine what it was like as I put pencil to paper and drew my three beloved characters, Tibolt, Frayn and Arjent...and found I recognized them! Tibolt, referred to in the stories as the most classically handsome of the three, really was strikingly sexy. When Frayn took shape I almost dropped my pencil to see that sardonic face with my own eyes at last. And Arjent was fair and angelic--and held me with his soft blue eyes just as he had done with women in the stories.

It was damn spooky.

I put these portraits up on my website and now await the inevitable email from a reader saying, "That's not how I pictured them at all." No two readers will imagine these guys alike and they don't need to. Fortunately, women (unlike men) do not need visual stimulation to have an erotic experience. It's not how the Vernal Night heroes look that is the turn-on, it's who they are, and who they are is conveyed not by ink and colored pencil but by words and imagination.

I found the power in the drawings to lie in the fact that the physical appearance of the guys reinforces their personalities: Tibolt looks serious and alluringly withdrawn; Frayn has his dark, wickedly sexy thing going; and Arjent is sensuous but sweet. They're fairly hot I suppose, at least to me, but no one looking at my drawings is going to swoon with arousal.

The writing, however, is another story: I'd put money on that doing its job nicely.

Which means, I guess, that this column has come back around to writing. And although I admit to having more than a few Colin Firth photos saved on my hard drive, not one of them has impacted me as powerfully as Frayn's rainstorm seduction scene or Arjent's teaching his beloved the game of Ninety-Nine. I love it that I have some feeble drawing talent, but nothing would persuade me to trade in my ability to write erotic romance.

Seeing may be believing, but reading is the best of all.

Diana Laurence is the author of the Soulful Sex anthologies published by Living Beyond Reality Press (www.livingbeyondreality.com). Visit her at www.dianalaurence.com, and read her blog at www.eroticawithsoul.blogspot.com. Download her free fiction from the LBR Press READ FREE Project at www.livingbeyondreality.com/readfree.html.