A Question!

Okay, first, you all still have to congratulate me on finishing my book, still, and go read my FAR interview linked in the below post. Because I'm afraid I sound like an idiot. So stroke, stroke, stroke my little ego please. (You don't really have to, of course.)

I ripped out one scene and rewrote it last night, and I think it works much better--it advances the plot now, yay! And I'm about 1k words into the big 6k section replacement, so that's good too. I don't know if it will end up being as many words, but the book is long enough, I know I'll add in editing, and less is sometimes more.

So.

I was wondering, how has erotica as a genre treated you, DQ? Do authors find it difficult to get out, once they're in? Or are you happy enough that you never want to break out into the "respectable" (society's opinion, not mine) genres?


It's actually so funny this question came up now, because my just-finished book is NOT an erotic romance. Oh, there's some sexy bits, of course. There's a sex scene I'm immensely proud of and a hero who I think is pretty damn hot. But the book isn't exactly a romance--there's a sort of "happy for now" ending which, if the book goes somewhere (pleasepleasepleaseplease) will continue on in the sequels--I have the whole arc of the relationship planned, and it'll get pretty interesting, believe me.

Anyway, the book is an urban fantasy. It's the first book I've ever written with a Happy Enough ending. It's the first book I've ever written entirely from the heroine's POV (with a couple of exceptions, but no major character in the book gets a POV except Heroine.) (It's still 3rd person, though, not first. I don't think I could write a sex scene in first.)

And now, I'm dreaming of writing an erotic romance again. My CP and I have been working on ideas--we're eager to collaborate again, just like the French (oh come on, it's a joke I couldn't resist)--and I can't wait to get going on it. I love writing romance, especially erotic romance. I love the total emotional satisfaction of writing two different people who find love and happiness together. I also love writing them doing wonderfully nasty things to each other. It's fun.

It isn't all I ever want to write, though. As much as I love erotic romance, and I do, I admit I get a little bored after writing three or four in a row. I want to branch out. I want to write more action, less sex. It's really the sex. I find after writing a few books in a row my sex scenes get very flowery or very stark. Either I shy away from the physical description, or it sounds like something old men in porno theatres whisper while the movie plays.

Ideally, I'd love to do both. I don't think it's difficult, necessarily, for a writer to "break out" of erotic romance--if they want to. Most of the ones I know don't seem to. They love what they do, and want to stay there. Me, I like to move around a little. My medieval (releasing tomorrow) isn't an erotic romance, although there's definitely some hot scenes in there--I never close the bedroom door on my readers. My January book is erotic, and intensely so. I love writing paranormals, but I can't wait to do another historical too.

My ideal career, in my wildest dreams, is to produce one or two mass-markets a year in the series whose first book I just finished (pleasepleasepleaseplease). Then one or two erotic romances per year as well, possibly staying with ebooks and small press for those. There's no advances, but the idea of decent monthly paychecks for those is very appealing (although most of them pay quarterly as well, EC doesn't.)

Because the new series (pleasepleaseplease) is sexy, and contains sex, but I don't want it to go down the road a certain author went down when she turned her books into nothing but sex, I want to keep writing erotic romance to get it out of my system. Because I get burned out writing nothing but sex, I want to have something else I do. The readership will hopefully cross over, but if they don't, they don't--I figure probably 60% or so will. Because I can write an erotic faster than the book I just wrote--it took me 4 months, basically, but my eroroms average about 2--and because I get antsy if I'm not working on anything for more than a couple of weeks at the most, I think I can build up a good list in a few years. (I hope, anyway. keep in mind this is all my fantasy career.)

It's not, emphatically not, a matter of "respectability". I've never bought that "romance is crap" stuff and I've never felt the need to justify what I write to anyone. If they don't like it, or want to look down on me for it, I don't give a shit. Romance is just as good as any other genre, or anything non-genre. I love it, and I love writing it. My desire to do something else is just because I like other stuff just as much as I like romance, and nothing more. If people don't think I'm any good because my work is "just" romance, that's their small-minded problem, not mine, and they can, as we said in childhood, go jump in a lake.

I think the trick to breaking out of a genre is pen names. Seriously. If the series sells, it won't come out under DQ (unless the publisher [pleasepleaseplease] wants it too, of course). I'd come up with a new name for it, but not hide it either. So people know my DQ books are erotic romance, but my Other Name books are urban fantasy.

Did that answer your question, or did I just blather on?

Basically, I think the only thing holding writers back from "breaking out" of a genre is themselves--either because they don't want to, or because they aren't willing to do the work it would take in order to. Which isn't to say any one genre is worse than any other, it just means they don't take the time to explore their writing and the conventions of where they are and where they want to go. And I hope that doesn't sound shitty, because I don't mean it to at all. I just mean it's hard to unlearn things. I had to struggle on a few occasions with this book to keep some emotional things ambiguous. I had to struggle to make sure my characters didn't suddenly start behaving the way they would in a romance--big "I love you"s etc., because they really weren't ready. It was me who wanted that, automatically, because that's what my endings usually are.

Will it work? let's cross our fingers. But I think we can do whatever we want, if we work hard enough.

Quickie Update!

The book is DONE!! 94,509 words. Wheeeeeee!

Also, my FAR interview is up, here.

Is it Ethical?

So...

My WIP crossed 91k this morning. I've just finished writing the climax and am starting on the whole aftermath wrap-up.

But. There's a section in the middle--about 5500 words--that needs to go and be replaced. I actually left a chapter unfinished because it was so not working.

So, when I write "The End"...I know it isn't really the end. Not just because there's editing to do, there always is. But because there is actually an unfinished section in the book. The end of the book might be done, but the book won't be done. Not even in a "Read my first draft" kind of a way.

So can I still say it's done?

Also. I'm thinking of sending my query to Mr. Evil. Partly for fun, partly to see what kind of response it gets, and partly as payback for all the queries I've had so much fun with.

But I'd love to sub to the COM as well. So what do I do? Is it ethical to sub to both? Doesn't that feel a little like overkill?

But then, I probably won't get picked for the COM either.

I thought I had another ethical question to ask everyone, but I don't remember now what it was.

The Black Dragon releases in a couple of days. I'm pretty excited. I'll be chatting at Fallen Angel Reviews all day Saturday, on the Yahoo loop.

And I guess that's it. I thought I had some interesting things to say. I guess I was wrong. Sigh. I'm so wrapped up in writing this last chapter or so, everything else is just gone from my wee head.

Tell me about something you consider unethical. Not in a stealing kind of way, but something you've seen that felt a little...wrong.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

I've been seeing sentiments of this sort a lot lately, in various writers' groups and blogs. The idea that it's somehow shameful and wrong to be jealous of another's success in any area, that we should all feel nothing but joy when someone else does well, seems a permanent fixture these days.

Well...

While I agree that we should be happy for our friends when they do well--and I have no trouble being so--the fact is, if you're a writer, and you think people shouldn't feel envy, despair, anger, or sadness when other people make it in the world, I wonder about your actual writing.

The fact is, people are, well, basically shitty. We try to be good people. Most of us succeed. But how many people have you ever met whom you honestly and truly believe have never felt envy or anger? Who've never watched a TV show about the homes of rich people and felt that little pang of jealousy or dissatisfaction with their own lives? Or seen a friend of their get promoted and, even under the true happiness they undoubtedly hold for that friend, still think, "Why couldn't it be me?"

That's human nature. It is human nature to envy, to covet. It wouldn't be in the ten commandments as something we all shouldn't do if it was something people didn't do to begin with. You don't feel the need to warn people, for example, to eat food if they want to live. Because they do it anyway. They feel hungry and they want to eat. Hunger isn't something most people can control (they can ignore it, sure, but not control it). Neither are our more negative emotions.

And if you want to be a writer, if you want to create realistic characters, you need to accept and acknowledge that people can be nasty little creatures. Even the best of us can't be good all the time. And even if we behave well, we still feel it. Those negative emotions seethe and writhe beneath the surface of our cheerful smiles. "Congratulations" comes out of our mouths through gritted teeth. Not all the time, no. But a character who, like Melanie Wilkes, only ever truly feels joy and pride in the accomplishments of others either has no ambitions in life at all, or is a Mary Sue. A spineless, dull, loathesome sort of cypher swirling through the pages of our books.

People don't identify with such characters. Okay, some people might, but I worry about their mental health. It's the flaws of our characters, as much as their strengths, that make them interesting to us and our readers. Their false pride, their arrogance, their jealousy, their lust and anger. These are universal emotions just as much as happiness and love.

If you only show the good side of humanity, and ignore the bad, you're not creating humans. You're creating bland space-fillers.

People feel badly about things sometimes. Let them feel it--whether it's people on a message board or people in your books.

Whose characters are they, anyway?

Seems I've heard a bit about this topic again, lately. Which led me to re-read Thomas Harris's Hannibal Which works because he's got a new Lecter book coming out soon, although I don't know that I'll bother to get it in hardback.

Everyone familiar with Silence of the Lambs? The book, or the movie?

See, here's the thing. When Hannibal came out, ten years or so ago now, there was this big uproar from a lot of people because of the ending. I don't know how to do that nifty invisible writing thing in case there's someone out there who hasn't read it, but honestly? It's been ten years. If you were going to read it, you would have, right?

So in the ending of Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter and Clairce Starling end up together. As in, together, like a romantic, sexual relationship.

Personally, I thought it was a great ending. I thought it was perfect. I thought the signs were all there in Silence and in Hannibal. It was a perfect progression of character.

But it seemd a lot of people thought it was terrible. Jodie Foster, for example. She refused to do the movie of Hannibal because of the ending. Then the producers of the film changed the ending, anyway. Why? Because Jodie didn't think Clarice would "do that".

Ummm...Jodie? Clarice isn't yours. You didn't invent her. You interpreted someone else's words. You interpreted what Thomas Harris chose to reveal about his character.

The only person in the world, the only existing person, who truly knows what Clarice Starling would and would not do is Thomas Harris. Clarice belongs to him.

No, we can't make our characters do things they don't want to do. We can try, but it feels forced. It reads wrong. We don't invent people and take them through their little imaginary paces, hitting points A and B as the story dictates. They grow and change on their own.

But the fact is, they're ours. We know those little characters better than anyone else in the world. Sometimes we hold things back from the reader, because they don't need to know it, but we know it. I know the heroine in my current WIP once had a guy in high school pretend he really liked her, and she knew it was a lie, but she went along with it for a while simply because she wanted to see what it was like to actually have people talk to her like she was a person and not a freak. Maybe I'll decide to let the readers know. Maybe it won't come up. But I know it. She told me, and now I keep her secret, and if later she sees one of those kids and decides to have her bodyguards beat the hell out of him--well, some might say it's out of character for her.

But I know some cuts don't ever stop bleeding.

What secrets have your characters told you? And what do you think about people who claim some characters "wouldn't do that"?

Juvenalia

So, first, thanks to everyone. I didn't reply to any comments personally, mainly because I would have sounded like a flight attendant ("Thank you...thanks...thank you...how kind of you, thanks...")

I am feeling much better now. Back to my old bitchy little self, thanks in large part to you guys, in part to a good laugh on EE yesterday, in part to having one of the Smart Bitches laugh at one of my dumb jokes, and in part to a particularly irritating hour or so spent with one of, in my opinion, the world's worst magazines...

Rolling Stone.

It isn't just the criminally biased opinion pieces masquerading as journalism, or the complete and utter lack of imagination in its coverage. Although all of those things bother me. (Hey, Rolling Stone--I read your magazine on occasion in the 80's. Don't try to pretend to me you guys were all into Minor Threat and Bad Brains. I know you weren't.) Now they'll act like punk was all their idea, but at the time they were doing cover stories on Glass Tiger. (I'm not knocking Glass Tiger--does anyone but me and maybe one or two of my Canadian friends still remember them? But they weren't exactly on the cutting edge. Which is fine. Nothing is wrong with being a catchy, enjoyable pop band.)

No, what bother me the most about Rolling Stone is how fucking juvenile it is. What a little boy's club of thirteen-year-olds the staff writers are.

Take, for example, one of the most pointless and stupid things I have ever seen anyone speculate about: the meaning of the euphemism "London Bridge" in some song by that woman from the Black-Eyed Peas (who, sorry, don't get them at all.) I've never heard the song, but I know the line: How come every time you come around/My London, London Bridge wanna go down.

Why, it's as mysterious and fascinating as The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam! What could she mean? Does she mean something--giggle, snicker--dirty? Like sex? Tee-hee! When she says it, I feel like I do when Mrs. Science Teacher says "ovaries"!

I am not joking here. I have now read two consecutive issues of Rolling Stone where speculation on the meaning of a somewhat clever piece of doggerel is given as much weight and page space as stories on...well, okay. Stories on other useless wastes of time and energy. It's Rolling Stone, after all, not US News and World Report. But even then! Even then, the obsession with the meaning of this stupid lyric--which, even if most of us can't look at the line, get an idea of what it means, and move on with our lives, is fairly unimportant. (Gee, what did Duran Duran mean by "night is a wire"? But, what does it meeean, man?)

Last month (my husband, for some reason, buys this last bastion of shit monthly), not only did they also wonder just how dirty the lyric actually is, and giggle about it with the same enthusiasm with which Regency fops would snicker about seeing a girl's ankles, but they wrote a review of some movie directed by the guy who directed Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Which was not really a bad film, but the underlying premise was so stupid it ruined it for me. (Nutshell-Hedwig is a transsexual--he was forced to be to escape East Germany. Anyway, Hedwig has always wanted to be a rock star. In the film, she is chasing after this guy who now is a rock star, who stole her songs to get to the top. Okay...but as the movie unfolds, we see that lots and lots of people knew she wrote the songs, and saw her perform them with this guy. So why on earth has she not been able to mount a successful lawsuit, with that many witnesses? Come on!)

So the movie is a sex movie. Literally. Apparently it's a large, filmed orgy. Rolling Stone says it's an amazing film, because it lets us see what sex really is, how it encompasses the human experience, and so teaches us something about ourselves. I've noticed this sort of thing a lot lately, with people doing extremely graphic films and claiming it's because they have something profound to say about sex. Like there's something profound to be said about sex that any grown-up doesn;t already know.

Okay, dude? If you need a movie to show you how sex can show us as we truly are, or how we can run a gamut of emotions before, during, and after it...you haven't really been having good sex, have you?

Or you're simply an emotionally stunted third-grader. So, yeah, a Rolling Stone writer.

(Yes, I write very graphic stuff. But you know what? I'm not pretending it's supposed to show you anything about yourself. It's supposed to turn you on. It's supposed to give you a good reading experience, by letting you get two know two people who fall in love and have adventures, and it's supposed to turn you on while doing so! Point blank. The day I start talking about sex as the "universal human experience" as though I've come up with some profound new idea, shoot me.)

Okay, I've ranted enough now. But I'm happy.

Bleh and Grrr

You know, I'm in a bad mood.

Actually, I've been in a bad mood, off and on, for a few weeks now.

Ever have those times where it just feels like you can't do anything right? Like everyone hates you? I hate that.

No, this isn't a whiny whine. I'm just venting and being grumpy.

The other night we had dinner with some lovely new friends. Great food, great company, great...wine. Too much wine. I spent all day Sunday barely able to move, and I really hate it when that happens. It isn't just feeling physically bad that bothers me, it's the mental bad. The "I am soooo irresponsible and a horrible person, what is the matter with me, how could I do that to myself" mental bad. And worse, even, is the suspicion that most normal proper adults don't ever drink too much and get hung over, or if they do, they just feel bad and maybe beat themsleves up for drinking too much, but don't spend the next week cursing themselves for being assholes and wondering why they can't be like everyone else. I suspect they just say, "Yeah, oops!" and sort of giggle and get on with it.

It seems, also, that I am constantly offending people these days without meaning to. I made a jokey comment on another blog a couple of days ago which apparently some people took personally, and I feel horrible about it, really really awful. It (the comment) wasn't really that bad, I guess, but I feel like a complete ass and like everyone is talking about me. I tried to clarify but have no idea if anyone read it.

Hubby's back at work. The days are long and dark and cold.

Is this just a fall malaise/Mercury retrograde thing?

Of course, all the spam I've been getting lately might be the answer. Apparently if I am "tired with weak penis" there's a pill out there just for me! Generally, if I'm tired, weak is the way I want the penis to be. Maybe that's just me, though.

Then there's the amazing, mile-long spam message I got on the blog yesterday, or the day before. I wasn't online much Sunday or yesterday so I don't know for sure which day it came in. But it was seriously the longest bit of nonsense I've ever seen. Why do I keep getting this anonymous spam? There's no freaky, fun links to check out. I get anonymous Bible verses, or that idiot who told me my back hurting was punishment for exposing myself to children or whatever the hell semi-literate shit they'd gotten in their pea-sized brains, or yesterday. Which was this enormous, nonsensical diatribe about vengeful gods and the US being a blight and Artificial Intelligence or some shit like that, written in a literary style so turgid it almost gave me cyctitis.

So there you go. I'm sure I'll be back to my happy little self tomorrow. The good news is, hubs and I have gotten back into watching The Dead Zone--we're only on Season 2--which is awesome. Such a good show, and we're having a really good time. We love the movie, too. "The ice...is gonna break!"

It's Recommend-a-book day!

Okay, technically, any day could be recommend-a-book day, and usually is, since I never shut up about books. But I decided to have one again here, and I decided to do it today.

So. I have two recommendations today. First is specially for Bernita, because of her post the other day about sppoky stories set in the woods. I'm just over halfway done with The Farm, by Scott Nicholson, and it's pretty good and definitely rural. There's some ghostly stuff happening, some old-time religion (read: blood sacrifice), man-eating goats, and all sorts of other things. It's a little slow--I've heard it picks up in the second half, and we'll see, of course, since lots of horror novels let me down in the home stretch, but so far I'm enjoying it.

My other recommendation today is Night Woman by Nancy Price. Ms. Price wrote Sleeping with the Enemy, which I never read, but that unfortunately seems to have relegated her to the "chick book" section of the store, with people buying her work because Julia Roberts was in that movie, wasn't she, and gee, she's so sweet, so sure this will be good (the Amazon reviews will give you some indication of what I mean). This totally ignores the beautiful writing, the drama of the story, the clean calm of Price's words.

Honestly, of the two books, I can't say which is more the real horror story--Nicholson's bloodthirsty livestock or Price's woman trapped into hiding her own talents. Her protagonist, Mary Quinn Elliot, is the wife of a famous novelist, Randall Elliot. Randall, a literary genius, "writes in a trance". Unfortunately, what Randall writes in his trance is a bunch of scribbles. Mary writes the novels sold with his name on the covers, but to save her husband's sanity (what little there is left of it) and her children's opinion of their father, she's been lying for years--telling Randall he dictated the books to her.
When Randall dies, Mary tries to come forward, only to be told by her husband's agent that she should stay quiet. She meets a new man, a devoted Randall Elliot fan, and falls in love with him--not just because of who he is, but because he loves the books--her books--so much.
I won't reveal the ending (and ignore the dumb lines in the Amazon description), but suffice it to say that if you are a writer, or dream of being one, this book speaks on a whole different level. I think it's a must-read for writers, I really do.

So go read it.

Now...recommend a book to me! I've recommended two books that are scary in different ways, so recommend a scary book! Tell me what you read when you want a little horror or suspense.

One Year

Wow.

One year ago today, our plane had just landed at Heathrow. We were on our big adventure--moving to England!

We had an enormous amount of luggage (4 people, 2 suitcases [large suitcases] and a carryon per person). We had to get it all out of the airport, onto the train to Paddington station, then onto the train to Devon, then off the train and into 2 minivan cabs to our friends' house. It's still a blur.

But we did it! Within two weeks we'd finalized the sale of our house in Florida, found a place to live, bought some furniture and new mattresses for the beds...oh, man, I never want to do anything like that again.

More importantly, this time last year I'd written two novels and sold three short stories. As of today, I've written almost eight novels (finished four on my own, cowrote one, halfway through one, over 2/3 of the way through another), and have sold three (including the cowritten one). One is waiting on submission still. One comes out next month, the other the following month. No date on the cowritten yet. I anticipate finishing my UF by the end of the month. I've also got some scraps--a few thousand words of this project or that, including another historical, and a very loose outline (but with scenes already taking shape) for a sequel to the vampire book on submission now, because if it sells (please!) I'd like to be able to get in with the proposal for the sequel right away, and I miss that world.

So not a bad progress report. My older daughter can read and write now (she's one of the best readers in her class!) My little one walks and talks and is as demanding and grumpy as Napoleon.

I wouldn't say life is perfect--England is outrageously expensive. Nothing is ever open when you need it to be, and even if they are they probably don't have what you need. If someone offered me a Wendy's hamburger or some of those frozen appetizers from Target I used to love I'd probably give them a pint of my blood in exchange, and I really miss Mountain Dew. And, of course, my family.

Also, my best friend had a baby last night and I'm not there, which hurts. A lot.

But overall...it's been a good year.

What have you accomplished this year? What changes have you made? Yes, I know this is just like a New Year's Eve post, but I'm getting it in early. :-)

Also, what do you think you've learned?

Urban Fantasy Thoughts

First, does anyone know any urban fantasy novels not written in first person? I really enjoy UF, (of course, since I'm working on one now), but man, I am sick of first person. I don't like first person sex scenes. I'm tired of the automatic sense of selfishness first person narrative brings to the story.

I don't mean selfishness in terms of the heroines being selfish--although, let's be honest. As I have yet to read an urban fantasy without a "kick-ass" heroine, most of them are monstrously self-centered, to the point that they miss valuable information because they're so busy pulling out their weapons (remember when that was the hero's job? Heh heh) or casting spells or telling everyone else they're wrong, wrong, and Our Heroine is the right one because...well, because she is.

What I find interesting is the contrast between today's Urban Fantasy and yesterday's Gothics. In both, the heroine was in jeopardy from a Bad Guy whose identity was unclear. In both she couldn't be sure who she could trust and who she couldn't. But while the Gothic heroine used her wits, and maybe didn't discover the truth until it was almost too late, the UF heroine just hurts people physically. And if she learns the truth a little late, we get mad, because she's been presented to us as this all-powerful ass-kicker, so we expect her to know what's happening at all times.

I enjoy violence as much as the next girl. (Actually, I probably enjoy violence a lot more than the next girl, as evinced by my love of John Woo films.) But I also like characters who use their brains as well as their weapons.

And something else bothers me about UF, too. We never seem to see the world being created. We're always stepping into an already-done world, and we have to play catch-up. There's always a line in there somewhere like, "After the Tremor (or the Turn, or the change in laws, or whatever), hunters/psionics/supernaturals came out of the closet" or whatever. I want to read about what happened during that Turn! I want to read about the people who first realized there was a whole 'nother world they didn't know about!

It's one reason why I so enjoy Kelley Armstrong's books. Yes, they are in first person, but they're set in a separate world within our world. I don't have to memorize a whole bunch of new terms or picture myself on the set of Blade Runner in order to get into them. (And what a bleak view of the future it always is, eh? We never see a world where the presence of supernatural beings has aided humanity instead of feeding off them and turning cities into cesspits.)

Like I said, I really do enjoy the genre. But they're starting to feel same-y to me. The heroines are all terrifically powerful and tough. The heroes...well, they're not as tough as the heroines, which you all know is an issue for me.

And this is why I wonder about the first person. So many of these voices sound just the same. When most of what the MC thinks about are weapons and maybe the Friend Who Died And The MC Feels Responsible, it's hard to make me feel like I'm not in a book by a different author I just read, you know? Or the one before that, or the one before that.

What do you think? Of UF, or first person, or futuristics, or whatever?

Happily Ever After?

So my hubby has this great new job, and we're thrilled about it. Me especially, since the compnay throws a big fancy Xmas party every year at a beachfront hotel for employees and their "partners". They've reserved us a room for the night, and I get to buy a new dress, and it's all very exciting (It would be even more exciting if I wasn't dieting like a fiend now to try and look good in said dress. I've got 15-20 pounds to lose. I won't get there, but if I can get close I'd be happy. Anyway.)

So of course, hub's new boss asked if his "partner" would be going. And I think hubby just said yes, instead of what he would have liked to say which is, "No, but my wife will be."

See, I find this immensely irritating, this British habit of calling everyone "partners". The reasoning being, they don't want to assume people dd something so declasse as get married, so rather than insult the unmarried, we'll just say "partner". Won't everyone be happy then?

No. Everyone will not be happy then. We didn't spend $10,000 on a wedding so we could be treated like an unmarried couple, thank you very much. He is not my "partner". We didn't sit down one day and decide to form a corporation. We got married and started a family, and I really resent the implication that I don't deserve any respect for that but instead should be demoted from my legal and social status as a wife to some loose, we-can-get-out-anytime relationship.

It occured to me last night, though, as I was stewing over this, that very few romances have a "Happily Ever After" where the H/h decide to just move in together. They get married. (Unless they are married, in which case they're very happy to be married.) Or at least they get engaged. Or, even, sometimes in paranormals someone has a psychic vision of them later in life, married with kiddies.

I find this a really interesting dichotomy. If romance novels can be said to be the true, secret fantasies of women, and the overwhelming majority of Happily Ever After endings include, marriage...then how many women out there really, truly don't ever want to get married? In other words, while "partner" is all well and good, it seems to me I'm not the only woman who would rather be called "wife".

This may be a bit of a stretch, saying romance novels are fantasies. But really, honestly, how would you feel is you read a romance and the ending was, "Baby, we don't need a piece of paper, let's just live together, okay?" Bit of an anticlimax, wouldn't it be? (Besides, if it's "just a piece of paper", what's the big deal about getting it? I never understood that.)

Marriage is commitment, and we want our H/hs to commit. We don't want them to live together for a while and hope it works, we want them to commit. We want to know they've looked at each other and said, "You're really the one, and I want everyone to know it", not "Hey, I really like you but I'm not entirely certain this if forever so let's try it and see" or "I love you but I need my space" or even "I love you, but I love my alimony too".

So if we won't accept less in romance novels, why are so many women accepting less in real life? Has something really changed, and women no longer want to get married, or are they being told their fantasies and desires are silly or foolish, and they should grow up and accept that just living together is as good as marriage? After all, aren't romance novels foolish and silly? Isn't it a good thing to make fun of them and their readers, as women stupid enough to believe that there really is someone for everyone, and that they can get that happy ending? That they deserve that happy ending, with someone who'll do whatever he has to do to make that happy ending happen for her? (Now I'm repeating "happy ending" so many times it sounds like I work at a cheap massage parlor.)

Maybe this is on my mind a lot too because for the first time, my WIP does not have a HEA. It has a "we'll see", because it's planned as the first in a series. So it's a little wierd to think of wrapping up a book and not having that final kiss and fadeout.

But I really believe women today are being encouraged, are being forced, to settle for less than they want. And I think that's horrible. And that's why, although my current book may not end with a wedding, you can bet if the series pickes up there will be one at some point--even if it isn't with this book's hero. (I know what will happen, of course, but I'm so not telling.)

What do you think? Are romance HEAs weddings because it's what women want, or is it to cater to more conservative elements of the readership? Can it be a truly satisfying and believable HEA without marriage? And how do you feel about "partner"s?

Yuck!

So the other night, little Miss Faery decided at about 2 am that she'd had enough sleep and she wanted to get up and play. So I ended up on the couch with her until about 5:30.

There's not much on TV in the middle of the night, but I did find something--a fascinating show about food and germs. I don't remember what it was called, but man! I was stunned.

Not by the amount of bacteria etc. you may find in your food--believe me, I'm so paranoid about that I used to wash out my Thanksgiving turkeys with a very, very weak bleach solution before cooking (followed by gallons of clean water). I'm so paranoid, apparently, that when I told hubs about the show, he said, "I know you don't do that--you treat raw chicken in the kitchen like toxic waste, and every time someone comes in the room you shout, 'Don't touch that! It hasn't been washed!'"

Which is true. I do obsess about it. I practically wear a Haz-Mat suit. It's true that I make careful note of what I've touched with raw chicken hands, and even wash the sink taps as I wash my hands. It's true that it's not unusual for me to do so five or six times before I put the chicken in the oven, because I can't touch the refrigerator handle or the cupboard handles until my hands are clean. There's a reason I keep a super-intense moisturizer by the kitchen sink.

But the people on this show...first we have the raw chicken woman. She didn't even rinse her hands after touching the chicken, but went straight to the ham to slice it. She touched her kids and handed them cookies. She touched loaves of bread. She touched her husband's suit. She touched plates and dish towels and cabinets and pens and...*shudder*. It was horrifying. Especially when they used a blue light to show all the places she'd touched glowing with salmonella.

Far worse, though, was the woman who didn't wash her hands after using the bathroom, then started setting out cookies for her friends.

But the ultimate, and by this I mean the ultimate in "Are you insane?", was the guy who ordered take-out, ate half of it, then fell asleep on the couch--and in the moning finished the take-out. Which had been sitting on his coffee table all night. Who does that? Who among us, having reached the age where we have our own homes, really thinks it's okay to eat food that's been sitting out all night? Did that even look appetizing, or taste good? The curry sauce had a grimy skin on it! Who eats that?

Who is dumb enough to take home the wedding buffet food that's been sitting out for ten hours? I'm not talking about tortilla chips or anything, which would be stale but edible if you were really hungry. I'm talking about pork pies, or chicken breasts.

What's the yuckiest food thing you ever heard?

(BTW--Blogger's refusal to allow me to post yesterday means I missedmy chance to dance around and celebrate the Cards' World Series win. But YAY! I grew up in St. Louis, I remember their '82 win soooo well, and it was very exciting to see them finally win again!)

(BTW again--tomorrow evening I will list the answers to any unsolved quotes in the movie quote game below, so get your guesses in!)

Because Everybody Else is Doing It

Okay, it's this quiz thingie going around, where you pick your sixteen favorite movies, and choose a quote from each one, and now you guys have to guess the movie from the quote and I'll write your name next to it when you guess it. When I see that you've guessed it, anyway, and if Blogger cooperates, which it hasn't been. (And still isn't--I'm having to make three or four publish attempts every edit.)

Most of these I've tried to pick slightly-more-obscure lines from minor characters. But a few, like the first, would have been virtually unguessable had I done so, so I've gone with the one you'll know.

1. "To crush your enemies, to see them fall before you, and to hear the lamentations of the women." Conan the Barbarian--Jenn

2. "I could be home right now, drinking this monster eggnog my brother makes with lighter fluid!" Better Off Dead--Cherie

3. "I wrote my phone number on it, in case you feel like dockin' at my moonbase some night!" Free Enterprise

4. "And I'm Gary Cooper. But not the Gary Cooper that's dead!" The Sure Thing

5. "Is being an idiot like being high all the time?" The Machmaker--Cherie

6. "They took the little ones..." Lord of the Rings (this is from Fellowship but I love all three films equally)--Robyn

7. "I'm gonna need two dragons." Starsky & Hutch

8. "She's not keen on him! She's only keen on me!" About A Boy--Isabella

9. "You don't whack guys! Look in your heaaart!" Miller's Crossing--Evil Editor

10. "I'm talkin about working for a living! I'm talkin' about sharkin'!" Jaws--Robyn

11. "We neither of us perform well for strangers." Pride & Prejudice--the good Colin Firth version, not that Keira Knightley travesty

12. "I apologize. I always thought you were a cold, calculating sort of officer. But you're really...quite emotional, aren't you?" The Dirty Dozen. It was even #12 to give you a hint!

13. "It's Christmas. It's the time of miracles." Die Hard

14. "I've known loan sharks more forgiving than you." The Ref--Cherie

15. "Well, that's the big trick, isn't it?" Star Wars. You should all be ashamed of yourselves for not getting this one.

16. "Are you sure? Because it looks like he's...leaning." While You Were Sleeping--Robyn

So there you go. Guess away.

We're going to Cardiff tomorrow, so hopefully I will have a couple of pictures to post on the blog. If we remember the camera. And if we don't get up in the morning and decide we don't feel like it after all.

WIP currently at 58k. October has been the most wasted of wasted months as far as work has gone. Between the laptop/juice thing, and the hubby's job interviews, and my friends expecting me to, like, actually talk to them and stuff...ugh. :-)

And I so have my fingers crossed that my hometown team wins the World Series...but I'm not talking about it because I don't want to jinx anything...please don't let them choke *again*.

Hysterical

The video for Wierd Al's "White and Nerdy".

Okay, guys? This is freaking funny. It's his best since "Amish Paradise", which was his best since "Eat It". In fact, I think it may actually be his best EVER.

My husband is a big Wierd Al fan. I'm not so much, but the above is genius. Pure genius, especially if you relate to any of it. Which I do. And I'll bet most of you guys do too. Just a guess. :-)

Also, that's Seth Green slapping his cute little ass in front of the action figures, and Donny Osmond dancing like a loon. I really like Donny Osmond. I'm not what you'd call a fan of Donny Osmond--I think my list of favorite bands tells you he's not my thing, musically--but the guy is always willing to make a fool of himself, laugh at himself and his image, which is rare, and always seems like a genuinely nice person too. So I like the Donster. Plus, of course, he's part of my childhood. Didn't we all watch Donny and Marie? And weren't most of us so young we totally missed the "brother and sister" thing and thought they were married?

Apparently the video's at number one on the VH1 request show thing. I wouldn't know, because we don't get cool VH1 over here. We missed "I Love the 80s Strikes Back" last year and haven't seen any of those specials since--they don't air them here. I miss them so!

I believe final edits for TBD are complete...I sexed up the sex scenes, I think pretty strongly. They're still not super-explicit, because it isn't erotic romance so the language must be tempered, which is really a shame because the loss of high-impact words takes a bite, it really does. I used "erection" a couple of times but that's as far as it went. However, I think they pack a pretty heavy emotional punch.

Can't wait to hear your opinions!

Oh, also...

Ihave thee (count 'em, three) releases to promote in December and January. I'm doing a contest in both months, but I'm not sure what to give as prizes, so any suggestions are welcome. Help a lady out, eh?

Oh My

So I Googled myself today, like you do, and on the first page...

this popped up.

I don't actually see a reference to myself on the page...but I was too chicken to click on the links.

It made me wonder, though. I write a lot of sex, and yet I'm not eager to look at online porn. Or, to be honest, any porn. The closest I come are those horrible movies they show late nights on the Sci-Fi Channel..."Femalien" and the like.

I think part of the problem is porn itself. Porn is not romantic. I've seen Debbie Does Dallas, I've seen Deep Throat--before I knew Linda Lovelace's story, and I will never watch it again. I've seen a few other porno movies whose titles I can't recall, even one that tried--and succeeded--to be amusing.

But I haven't seen any porno movies, true porn, that's romantic. None. I suppose it's possible that I simply haven't watched the right ones, but I make no apology for the fact that I refuse to start actively shopping for porn on a regular basis unil I find romantic porn.

It's always been my contention, though, that if someone made a truly romantic porno film--based, let's just say, on one of my books, maybe?--women would be much more likely to wach it. Imagine. Your husband (or boyfriend, or whatever) wants to watch porn wth you. You say no. He then pulls out a romantic film, a love story, but with graphic sex scenes instead of soft-focus fade-outs. Perhaps it's a medieval romance or one set in ancient Rome. Would you watch? I would!

Because heres how this relates to writing, and especially writing erotic romance. I think the reader needs to be emotionally invested in the characters, even a little, in order to enjoy the sex scenes fully. Otherwise, it's just clinical description. This is one reason why erotic romance presents such a different set of challenges to writing "regular" romance. One isn't easier or harder than the other, they're just different.

How do you think most authors do at providing both sexual heat and emotional intensity?

In doing edits for The Black Dragon, I was stunned to see how frankly lame the original sex scene I'd written was. Well, "lame" is rather harsh. It wasn't lame, it just wasn't very explicit by any stretch. Compared to what I do now, the physical detail was lacking. There was lots of emotional stuff, lots of thoughts and feelings, but very little turn-you-on detail. I added some, but I'm thinking in the second round of edits I'm going to add more. I want those sex scenes to leap off the page, espeically since there are only three of them. In some of my erotic works I've done the "short" scene--where they fall together and lose themselves, or whatever, and that's all that's said, simply because the scene follows another, graphic scene, or because a long scene would break the story's momentum. In TBD, though, where there are only three sex scenes in the whole book, I want to show off. :-) Plus, because that first scene occurs about halfway through the book, the reader is (I hope) quite emotionally invested. They deserve their big payoff.

What do you think? Do you think the longer you have to wait, the better it is, no matter what?

A Conversation at Madonna's Place

Scene: Madonna and Guy Ritchie are having breakfast and watching E! Entertainment Television on the Skye Satellite. Madonna is leaning forward, her brow furrowed. Guy is blowing bubbles. The children are, of course, nowhere to be seen.

MADONNA (turning off TV): Guy, we need to get one of those babies.

GUY: They're out with the nanny, I think.

MADONNA: No, not one of the children we already have, you idiot. They're too old to be any use anymore. I need a new baby. An adopted one.

GUY: Adopted?

MADONNA: Yes. Look how well it's working for that Jolie person. She's got two of them.

GUY: Wow...two adopted babies. Can I name them? Can they sleep in my bed with me?

MADONNA: Don't be stupid, you talentless fop. They'll sleep in the East Wing with those other kids we have.

GUY: Okay, who do we call?

MADONNA: Anyone who'll take our check.

GUY: I might know somebody, you know. I'm street.

MADONNA: If you're street, I'm a talented writer. Your stepfather was a lord. I keep trying to tell you that. Besides, I don't want some cheap-ass English baby. Anyone can have one of those.

GUY: Chinese?

MADONNA: What is the matter with you? Asian babies are so three years ago. I want to buy a black one.

GUY: But why not just get an English one, I mean, kids in England need homes and families, too.

MADONNA: This is why nobody lets you direct movies anymore, dipshit. I don't care about the kid. Somebody else is going to do that part. I just want to adopt one, so people will know what a great person I am and how much I care. I can't let Angelina Jolie eclipse me, for fuck's sake. My albums aren't doing well, I need all the exposure I can get. As long as there's lots of Vaseline on the lens, anyway.

GUY: We could get one of those English babies with special needs, like an autistic one or something, who really needs the help we could give. That would impress people.

MADONNA: That's not photogenic. God, no wonder your career's in the toilet. I need an attractive black baby, must look good and be healthy and normal, pronto. Make the calls. (She gets up.) I'm going to go screw the gardener, then I'm going shopping, and there better be a black baby waiting for me when I get back.

GUY: Okay. You're such a sweet person, such a good Mommie.

MADONNA (smiles): That's right. They can all call me...Mommie Dearest.

End scene

BTW...

There are new excerpts of The Black Dragon up at my site. So go check those out. (Don't forget to click on "Read More"!)

But still respond to the offical post below. This is just a note.

I Hurt My Back

I hurt myself!

I was picking up the Faery to put her in her high chair, and somehow I twisted my back or something but it hurts. I don't think the time I've been spendng at the computer in the cheap typists' chair we bought a couple of months ago has been helping it either.

But I'm pleased to say my WIP is currently at just over 53k words! I'm over halfway done, yay! And quite pleased with the progress so far. The other day I printed it out. Since I ended up taking just over a week off from it, through no fault of my own, I'd lost the flow of it a little and had started to feel like I was just writing a list of events. Does anyone else ever get that?

Anyway. I typed it out so I could read through it, make some notes, and get a sense of it as a whole, was it cohesive, etc. And guess what? I really think it's pretty good!

Of course, my CP has bee telling me this all along.

And oh, gee, speaking of her...her first EC novel was released a couple of days ago. You should all rush over to the EC site and buy Enchanted by Anna J Evans. Do it now. I'll still be here when you're done.

Aside from that there isn't much to report. The Princess was ill and it's getting cold. Our heater isn't working, either. We have radiators, and I guess it all works from the water heater. But our water heater fo som reason isn't as full as it should be. It wasn't a big deal when it was just the radiators, because although the temperature is dropping it's generally warm enough inside (plus we have a gas fire in the living room, which I hate. I mean, I love fires. I just don't like fake fires. So many homes here have them, and I don't get it. Although far worse are the old houses, with big huge fireplaces, and in the middle of them is a little metal box for a real fire. WHY? There's like a dozen square feet of empty space and this little one-by-one tray to build your fire on, and it's connected to the chmney so you couldn't build a bigger fire if you wanted to. I don't get it at all. I understand not necessarily wanting to fill the enitre fireplace with wood and having a bonfire in your living room [although I love fire so part of me thinks that would be really cool] but if you're going to build a separate thing for the logs, why not make it at least a little bigger? Say, three-by-three, big enough for more than one log at a time? It's one of the many things about homes in Englad that I just don't understand, right up there with why there are no electric outlets in bathrooms or why there aren't screens on the windows. Or air conditioning. But I digress.)

Anyway, today our water heater started refusing to heat water either. We switched on the backup one upstairs in the airing cupboard, so there seems to be hot water again, but I'm afraid to take a shower because I think the water will go all cold on me while I still have conditioner in my hair. And especially with a sore back, that would not be good.

So now you know. I'm filthy, my back hurts, and it's cold. What a fantastic post I've done today!

You know what's a lot more interesting than reading about my sad, hot-water-free existence, though?

Anna J Evans' book 'Enchanted'!

New Black Dragon Trailer!

Final version...I really miss the music, but this music is, I think, excellent too...it's actually from the soundtrack to a Star Trek fanfic movie called "Dark Armada", by a company called Edgen Animation. They had quite a few songs up on a free sharing site, listed as royalty free, and all of the songs were awesome.




This new verison is about 8 seconds shorter, too. I think shorter is better, though, personally. I just hope it tells enough about the book.


And speaking of books, I got word last night that my story "The Ice House from my book Torrid Teasers Volume One was one of the ten stories picked to be in the "Best of Torrid Teasers" anthology that Whiskey Creek Press-Torrid will be releasing in January!

So I now have two books releasing in January from WCP-Torrid! And to make it even more exciting, my beloved and talented pals Anna J Evans, Sherrill Quinn, and Kate Lang will be in the antho too!

I promise I will get back on track with the posts shortly, I know they've been alittle...dull?...lately. But I have more ranting to do, more heroes to sigh over, more books to talk about, a world of fun just waiting for you!

Okay...

Let's see what you guys think...






I will very likely change the music, but that song is so evocative of the book to me (it's what I listened to when writing, because it "is" Gruffydd) I wanted to at least share it this way first.

Be honest...is it terrible?