Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Several, and I mean several, Bitchery members have written to give me the heads up about his buxom fabiosity, Fabio, appearing on America’s Next Top Model this Sunday night. And yes, I have asked the DVR to save me that special hour of Fabio so I can enjoy it and share it with you. I’ll be honest with you: I love Fabio. I’d love to buy him a beer and interview him. He cracks me up. He is a romance novel cover model who attracted a margin of fame, and is now pretty much a caricature of himself - yet he doesn’t take himself seriously at all. The Butter Romance website? The old-man-Fabio in the gondola? The over-the-top hot air balloon party to advertise a margarine spray? Cracks me up every time. But then, I find men who don’t take themselves too seriously incredibly interesting.

So when Kylara sent me this link showing the assignment for the models, I had to take a look. Note: the comments are fractious and cranky.

Seems the show, which I don’t watch so I don’t know the first thing about it, asked the contestants to design and shoot a romance novel cover with Fabio. The results are really poor. Snark-worthy, even, save for one.

I’ll be curious to watch and see how much of a snide beating the romance industry gets from the hosts or the contestants. But yet, I will be watching reality tv, which is among my least favorite things, so at least admire my fortitude.

Wired magazine asks several authors to write six-word stories, including people like Margaret Atwood, Orson Scott Card, Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, David Brin, Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, Michael Moorcock and Vernor Vinge. You can read the wonderful results here.

My favorites:

Check out this succinct diatribe against what is wrong with book publishing from Gawker, usually a site that focuses on other elements of media brou-haha.  My favorite part of the whole rant: “Books are important.” Hell, yeah. I raise my mug of “Haterade” in salute to that.

So while Gawker and I were pondering editors, each in our own corner of the internet, I had to stop and ponder something a Bitchery member said in a comment thread, and with my Swiss cheese memory I can’t remember when or who so please let me know if I need to attribute the following to your illustrious self. To wit: it’s not so much an author we should be glomming, but an editor’s work. The editor you follow as a fangirl should consistently deliver the kinds of stories you enjoy, because most likely, they are the kinds of stories h/she enjoys.

I was recently added to the Avon ARC list, and hello, there’s now a bag of books once a month on my porch. A satchel of romance, as it were. Most of the ARCs are introduced on the back cover with a letter from the editor, and I’ve noticed that of late, I’ve been enjoying the various books edited by Erika Tsang - many different authors, but one editor in common. (So of course, like the giant dork I am, I wrote her an email and told her so.)

Until Aaron Sorkin gets tired of behind-the-scenes dramedies of television shows and starts working on a behind-the-scenes story of a romance publishing house (with Fabio, if I get any vote in the casting!), I’m guessing the work of the editor will remain somewhat mysterious to the average reader. It never occurred to me until I got additional publication education courtesy of the Bitchery (thanks, Y’all) that editors, among the unsung heroes of romance, would need some deserving attention.

So - do you follow an editor as well as an author? Do you buy regularly the works that come from a specific editor’s office? And if you’re a writer, what editor would you “I’ll-send-her-a-muffin-basket” love love love to work with?

You’re working on edits to your manuscript, or maybe you’re locked in your office, in your favorite sweats with a cold glass of carbonation and some cookies. Maybe you’ve washed your hair. Maybe...not. You struggle with yet another euphamism for the clitoris and as your fingers type the words ‘love nubbin,’ you realize… you smell.

But what do you smell like?

If you’re a romance author, I bet you smell like Danielle. Danielle who?

Danielle Steel, of course.

Click the page of her manuscript that floats gently in midair, and you’re invited, after you install Flash, to sign up for a free sample. I know I did. I’ll let you know how it smells.

But if the Bitchery takes time out from the nonstop reading of the Journal of Feminist Esoteric Studies for a short break with People magazine, and don’t lie because I know some of y’all do, you’ll see an ad for this lovely parfum featuring Danielle herself deftly avoiding papercuts as manuscript pages float around her. You can sample the floral madness right there in the gossip pages.

Take a look.

If only the internet had smell-o-vision - you’d get the full Danielle experience.

Now, this ad does beg the question: are writers the next celebrities to jump on the fragrance gravy train? Will there be Eau de James Patterson? Savage by Cassie Edwards?

And - most importantly - what does Nora, by Nora Roberts, smell like?

Bitchery reader Eggs sent me a link with the subject line, “You’re a man, baby!”

Seems there’s a Gender Genie online (of course there is) that uses an algorithm to identify words which betray gender. Developed by professors at Bar-Ilan U. and Illinois Institute of Technology, the Genie analyzes texts and scores them according to weights given to “Masculine keywords” and “Feminine keywords.”

Eggs was kind enough to score two pieces of my writing from SBTB, and sure enough, I’m a dude.

The Genie prefers a sample of over 500 words, so I’m going to plug in

Now, writing from my personal blog scores a significantly female verdict. But my writing on SBTB, which is more analytical and often much more cranky, is decidedly male. What’s up with that?

More curious is the sample of words used to develop the algorithm. “Not,” “where,” and “with” are high-scoring feminine keywords, along with “should” and “her,"while “around,” “are,” and “What” are more masculine. Since when did dudes co-opt the conjugations of the verb “to be?” Interesting that the algorithm thinks that men are more declarative in writing while women are more suggestive and hesitant.

The idea of forensic linguistics drives me into fits of wiki-googling, but some of the generalizations in the New York Times article don’t ring entirely true either.

I have to wonder, much like eggs asked in her email, what’s the “Gender Genie” gender of my favorite authors? And, more to the point, can one write something that’s 100% male or 100% female?

Here’s the kicker for me - I just fed this text into the Genie: by a score of 758 to 379, I’m so totally a dude. 

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Cassie Edwards Articles

• A centralized document of the Cassie Edwards texts (Rev. E, 2/21/2008, Tracks 22 Books, Added a Table of Contents)

One Big-Ass Bastard

• Bill Napoli, who’s a real sexist ass-hat
• Engaging in some friendly Googlebombing
• Another Napoli Update
• Smart Bitch Endorsed Art Auction
• WE WIN AT THE INTERNET