I only lie between the covers.
Never fear! I’m working on A Babe in Winter. I just had to adjust the story’s priority because honestly, I wasn’t too keen on telling Mouse’s story at all, much less wrapped up in a quest. And I didn’t want the quest to become a series of vignettes, side-quests, and other such clichés. But now that I have abandoned Mouse back to his own mind, I can pick up where I left off in Black as Knight. Read more
Fiction has many purposes. Entertainment, education, enlightenment, and learning empathy are the big four I can think of right now. Good fiction should do all these things, sometimes without your notice. As you learn and grow, the lessons may get more subtle. Maybe the book is just brain candy,1 meant solely to entertain, and author didn’t mean to do anything Read more
Genre romance gets a lot of shit: “lady porn,” “cliterature,”1 “beanflickers,” and garners complaints such as “porn for men is reviled because it’s visual while porn for women is celebrated because reading.” These epithets are applied liberally by men and women, no effort to differentiate subgenres is made, love stories are confused with genre romance,2 and to non-romance readers, romance is just code for erotica, even if there’s no sex in it at all.
While that is true, in general, women’s art is seen with some disdain regardless of what it is, how well it’s done, or in what cultural/societal conditions it’s made, I’ll save you the feminist rant. For now. You’re welcome. Read more
Okay, I’m about halfway through The Actor and the Housewife and things have started to become a little clearer.
The actor is clearly in love with the housewife; I don’t believe he is in denial about this, although he puts up a good act. Because he’s an actor. Heh. He’s a nice man.
The housewife is in complete and total denial. On purpose. She’s smart; she knows what’s up. She doesn’t want to deal with it because it’s gonna be nasty messy and painful. That is to say, she’s bored and she’s lonely and she’s completely unappreciated and she’s not getting much in the way of sexual healing from her husband. So handsome clever dude comes along and appreciates her as a woman, and of course it’s gonna go to her head. All the while she’s saying, “I have the perfect husband and I love him so much!” What she needs to do is wake up and tell her husband they need marriage counseling. I don’t excuse her actions. She’s lying to herself. IMO, that’s her biggest sin and she needs slapped. Read more
Romance novels are mocked all the time everywhere. That’s not news. What was surprising to me upon my reentry into reading and writing romance, which necessitated entering Romancelandia, the world of romance reader blogs, was that they’re also mocked by people who love romance novels.
Some books deserve it, but some that might seem to deserve it … don’t.
Those are books from the history of romance novels that are mocked for their fashions and specific song references and other tidbits of culture that date them and, quite often, the covers that were made for them at the time. In particular, very often the sweeping scope and larger-than-life characters and plots are mocked. The people doing the mocking, I find, are young and/or young to the romance genre. Read more
And I’m only 50 pages in.
Right now I’m reading The Actor and the Housewife, and I just don’t quite know what to think. Here’s the blurb: Read more
Labels are terribly useful to the majority of human beings. I find them useful insofar as I understand the definition of the label used, although this is usually a 50/50 proposition for me. As a method of efficient inventory control and meeting customer expectations, genre labels simply can’t be beat. The publisher knows which buyer to go to and the bookseller knows where to shelve it.
But lately, there’s been a lot of cross- and mis-labeling going on inside genre fiction, leading readers to scratch their heads and wonder, “This isn’t X. Why did they put it on X shelf?” Read more
… and the kick-ass heroine.
Came across an interesting article by Jennifer de Guzman about the female audience need for a female superhero. Well, you know, I followed the links to the XY asshole type who said, “No, you really don’t.” Then I went to Jezebel’s post. Read them all, then come back. Josh Tyler (who knows what women want) posts: Read more
My book doesn’t have a genre. It’s too many things, but two things it is are spiritual and erotic. Okay, so in my mind, I think, “spiritual erotica.” I like it.
Anyhoo, I would like to direct your attention to today’s Thmazing’s Thmusings post by Eric Jepson on “The Erotic in LDS Lit, Part I: Why?” Very thoughtful piece. Tyler of Chasing the Long White Cloud appears on the verge of addressing the subject himself. Then there’s The Visitors’ Center, which is a blog “celebrating Mormon sexuality,” and I’m wondering …
Is this serendipity that a whole bunch of us are coming up with this just in the last couple of years or so or has it been simmering on the back of the stove for a while and is now gathering steam and getting ready to blow?
I was over on Dear Author talking about Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, which I have not read. One commenter expressed disapproval of Meyer on the basis that she’s a Mormon mother and shouldn’t be writing stuff like that anyway. I will go so far as to guess this commenter was not Mormon because she spelled it “Morman.” Read more
My first full-on real-life romance novel was Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Naturally, it’s on my keeper shelf right next to The Wolf and the Dove. I have the ones with the original covers, though they are far from mint. The namby pamby covers on the ones with the links are meh. Unlike most of my contemporaries whose first (or close to it) romance experience was Woodiwiss, mine wasn’t with The Flame and the Flower or Ashes in the Wind, neither of which I cared for. Read more