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by SB Sarah • Thursday, November 08, 2007 at 08:02 AM
Erotica author Anne Douglas sent me a link to a story that she discussed on her blog: a Jacksonville, FL, mom is up in arms because her 16 year old daughter brought home an erotica novel from the library.
Says the mother:
“This is just the kind of stuff we’re trying to protect our kids from in society today,” says Maddox. “And here she’s able to just grab it off the shelf at the library with no one there to keep it away from them.”
According to Douglas’ blog entry on the story, the book in question was by Zane. Further, this is Douglas’ local library:
On a personal note, this is not the only erotic romance on the shelf at Pablo Creek - I was pleasantly surprised to pick up Diane Whiteside’s Irish Devil (I think I saw one of the follow up stories too). Pablo Creek also has a separate children’s section—as in not even in the same main room, and also a separate wall of teen books in the fiction, along with a separate teen computer/meet&greet teen shelving room that is in a glassed off section from the main library. Teens and children are well catered for at this particular library.
My reaction: a hearty “Oh, for fuck’s sake, people. Literally.” It’s, of course, the library’s fault that a 16 year old can check out erotica from the local library. And I suppose we need some beefy security guards at the local bookstore, too, should any 16 year old want to buy such literature.
What a waste of an opportunity to have a thoughtful conversation about sexuality with a daughter. Instead that poor girl is going to be embarrassed for weeks.
by SB Sarah • Thursday, November 08, 2007 at 07:58 AM
Well, shiver me timbers. Bitchery reader Rachael sent me a heads up about an article in the October 2007 issue of Bird Talk magazine: Romancing the Parrot: Parrots Add Sizzle to Romance Novels. Seems parrots are being used more frequently as comic relief, or as a matchmaker for the protagonists: “Because of their ability to express themselves vocally, their longevity and their interesting personalities, romance writers are finding that parrots nicely fit their literary needs.”
So you think your romance is missing that extra something? That...sizzle? (By the way, is it me or is that choice of word a little… culinary? I keep picturing fried parrot. Ew.)
Add Parrot. You heard it here first. Well, unless you subscribe to Bird Talk magazine.
by SB Sarah • Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 03:00 PM
Last weekend I called up the Clinton Book Shop in scenic Clinton, NJ, and ordered five signed copies of Suzanne Brockmann’s new book All Through the Night
We Bitches, we are big supporters of the gay marriage rights. When I bought the books, I was trying to come up with a way to give them away beyond mere begging, though begging is fun. Advocating activism is great, but a lot of our readers are outside the US, and live in countries where gay marriage rights are protected under the law. As azteclady pointed out, that’s not fair. Discriminating against non-Americans in a contest designed to combat discrimination? Mmm. Tasty irony with a side of sweet buttery hypocrisy!
However, I do have books to give away, plus additional Brockmann material to add to the prize package. So: it’s Happy Ending Time! It’s time to craft some happy endings, Smart Bitch Style, for gay couples. Here’s the deal:
1. Write a 250-word happy ending (as in, happily ever after, y’all) for a gay romance, and email it to me. Deadline: 4:00 PM Pacific time, 8 November 2007 - that’s 24 hours from now.
2. Voting will commence as soon as I’ve got all the entries uploaded.
3. Top 5 winners will receive:
One Signed Copy of All Through the Night
Make your entry as funny, poignant, or goofy as you want. But! Here’s the catch. We’re not just writing about any old gay or lesbian couple here. Your entry has to be about one of these two couples:
by SB Sarah • Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 02:35 PM
New hero option for all your works in progress: Demon Flanders Mantitty. WOW. (Graceful Curtsy to Miri for the link.)
No less than four different readers forwarded me the best catalog discovery blog entry ever and I laughed so hard I literally fell sideways off a chair. AND I know what I’m getting Hubby for Hanukkah. SCORE!
From Bitchery Link Master Lucinda, we have >Free Rice - for every word you define correctly, rice is donated through the UN World Food Program with revenue generated by site advertisements.
And finally, my favorite bit of activism from a great source: Eric Selinger, who is brainy and awesome, sent me a link to his rabbi’s blog (and really, shouldn’t your rabbi have a blog?) where the good Rabbi writes about Panties for Peace, which targets Burma’s military regime by sending their embassies around the world envelopes filled with women’s underwear: The manoeuvre is a calculated insult to the junta and its leader, General Than Shwe. Superstitious junta members believe that any contact with female undergarments - clean or dirty - will sap them of their power, said Jackie Pollack, a member of the Lanna Action for Burma Committee. Here’s a list of embassies around the world should you find some panties and an envelope.
by Candy • Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 10:21 AM
My friends Colin and Jess are very dear to me--Jess, in particular, saw me through an incredibly difficult bit of my life. They’re brilliant and that rarest of things: a matched set. They’re not the same people, but their energies, core beliefs and approaches in life mesh together eerily well. When I hang out with them (which is not nearly as often as I’d like, as they live hundreds of miles away from me), I’m torn between the urge to hug them non-stop and punching them for being too goddamn cute for their own good.
So yesterday, Colin sent in this picture to Cute Overload.
And Jess sent this in reply.
I have the awesomest, dorkiest friends EVER. And I figured that a community with a fine appreciation for romance, happy endings, wedding proposals and general geekery would appreciate this.
Congrats, Jess and Colin. I love you guys, and I can’t wait to see you on Thanksgiving.
30 comments •
Categories: But...that's not really about romance novels
Categories: But...that's not really about romance novels
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by SB Sarah • Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 08:24 AM
Not only did four people forward me The News Story Of The Day To End All News Stories Ever, but a friend of mine texted me to tell me about George Clooney and Fabio getting into a shoving match at a NY restaurant.
According to the variety of sources carrying the story, Fabio and some lady friends were having dinner, when Clooney asked them to stop taking pictures - sources theorize that Clooney thought they were taking pictures of him.
Fabio got up and went over to George’s table — not to apologize, but to explain that the photos weren’t of George. “I thought you were a nice guy,” Fabio, 48, said to George, 46. “Stop being a diva.” Those were apparently fighting words, because George stood up and the two started arguing until George went to push Fabio.
“Stop Being a Diva!” might be the new battle cry of the Smart Bitches, certainly. At least, this one.
As Lizzie said in her email, “Who is famous-er? Whose manager talks more smack? Who assumes anyone with a camera out is pointing it at him? Who you calling a diva? Who will YOU root for in Fabio v. George Clooney?”
Good question! Who is your money on in a grudge match: Clooney or Fabio? I have to say, I like both men. I find Clooney fascinating because he’s talented and smart and has a sense of humor - but I have a soft spot for Fabio because he doesn’t take himself so seriously. Any man that can walk around with giant manboobs and shill for margarine is a man for me to have a beer with any time. But in terms of a fight? My money’s on Fabio.
by SB Sarah • Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 08:05 AM
The saddest three words known to us: “Lady Rhiann’s scanner.”
Sarah: That look of dawning horror on his face is due to the fact that he just realized the paddle is in his right hand. Which means it is not pressed against his hip as he originally thought. Tonight, it will be “her” flute of love that will be playing passion’s melody.
Candy: He’s holding the handle of that paddle awful tight and with intent. I can’t help but think that he has plans for that knobby end that involve him testing the depths of her, uh, love.
Sarah: A public service announcement from the lead singer of Nickelback: Your heart damn well better be made of iron if you don’t bother covering it with any protection during a joust. The more you know!
Candy: Psh! Who needs armor when you’re protected in a hard shell consisting of Aquanet, sunless tanning lotion and body spray? He might have something to worry about if somebody threw a lighted match at him, but pointy objects should bounce right off his shellacked exterior.
Sarah: Dawn of the Body Wax. Morning of the Emollient Cream. Noontime of the Overlarge Loincloth. Afternoon of the Headband. Evening of the Headbanger Hair.
Candy: Behold the dawn of a new species of man! A man of exceptional endurance and flexibility! A man who will be around for more generations than you can imagine! A man who comes fully endorsed by the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council! A man who meets both ANSI and ISO 9000 standards! We call him...Polyvinyl Chloride Man!
28 comments •
Categories: Covers Gone Wild! (Non-Snoop Dogg Edition)
Categories: Covers Gone Wild! (Non-Snoop Dogg Edition)
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by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 06, 2007 at 09:16 AM
Bitchery reader Lisa wants to commit a treasonous act of cruelty. So she asks our help. Duh.
I have long since been impressed with ability of the Bitchery to identify titles from the merest scraps of information. Now, I find myself in need of their encyclopedic knowledge.
Some backstory; every year, my best friend and I celebrate the anniversary of when ... well, when we became best friends. Part of this celebration includes sending each other a tasteful floral arrangement and the tackiest gift we can possibly find. I would like to give her a copy of one of the worst books I’ve ever read—not THE worst, because that would be a Cassie Edwards title, and the gift is supposed to be tacky, not cruel. Unfortunately, I can only remember certain plot elements of this book, few names, and of course, I have no idea who the author was or what it was called. It wasn’t even a proper romance, it was more along the lines of a ‘saga book’ in which there is a main family and multiple plot lines.
Here is what little I remember:
- I have a strong impression that it was part of a series
- I have a strong impression it took place on an island, possibly in the West Indies. I seem to remember sugar cane.
- The daughter of the main family was kidnapped during a slave revolt, and ended up living with an escaped slave. I believe her name was Melissa. She dies before the end of the book, but her son by the slave comes to see her family at the very end.
- The husband of that family has a slave mistress, who is pregnant at the same time the man’s wife is supposedly pregnant. After the mistress gives birth, the wife kills her and passes off the baby boy as her own (she was faking her pregnancy). Later on, for reasons I don’t remember (she may have had another son) she sells the boy into slavery.
- There was a recently widowed father, whose wife was half-African, the product of an impetuous daughter of the ruling house who took a slave for a lover. The daughter had two children who were ashamed of their mother’s heritage.
- There was a lot of sex, and a lot of violence, and it was truly a terribly written book
- I remember reading it in the mid-eighties, but I think it was a used copy my mom got from the used bookstore, so it’s likely older than that.If the Bitchery can help me discover the name of this awful book, I would be forever grateful. With any luck, I may be able to track it down, but if not, there’s always Cassie Edwards.
Man, just reading that description leaves me in despair. Yeesh. Poor friend.
by Candy • Tuesday, November 06, 2007 at 05:31 AM
A little while ago, in an entry entitled The Glittery HooHa, Jennifer Crusie talked about a slutty hero who sleeps with at least twelve women before he gets to the heroine. The question that immediately popped up in my mind was: What exactly did she mean by that? Twelve women at once? Twelve women in a day? Twelve women over the course of the story before he gets to the heroine? Or just twelve women total over the course of his life?
Because if she meant the last, the hero doesn’t seem to strike me as especially promiscuous. Shit, I outstripped the dozen (hell, I outstripped the baker’s dozen) a little while ago. Though it’s entirely possible this means I’m a slutbag of the highest order.
This brought up all sorts of interesting questions for me: where are our slut lines drawn? Are they different depending on gender? Is it determined solely by number, or the way in which the character engages in the sexual encounters? Is sluttiness morally charged? Is the morality different depending on gender as well?
The number thing was especially slippery for me. I don’t, as far as I know, consciously subscribe to sexual double standards, so I don’t view a woman who’s slept with 10 people as being sluttier than a man who’s slept with as many, though the implications are different for a historical romance vs. a contemporary--it was somewhat easier for a high-born dude to reach that number than a gently-reared woman, for one, which means the woman had to have been exceptionally powerful, or exceptionally enterprising, or both.
The manner in which the sex is conducted also affects somebody’s slut rating. Were they emotionally attached to all their sexual partners? In the strange space of My Head, this makes them serially monogamous, not slutty. Sluttiness, to me, means taking on lovers solely for the sake of sexual pleasure.
Keep in mind, sluttiness is not really a morally charged issue for me. I’m all for fictional (and non-fictional) characters enjoying the fizznuckin’ for its own sake, and I certainly don’t think having many sexual partners is indicative of some kind of moral turpitude, though after a certain number, the phrase “germ farm” does tend to crop up--and again, this is especially true of historical romances.
So how many partners before somebody is considered a slut, assuming it’s over the lifetime of a character before they meet their True Lurve? I finally settled on an entirely arbitrary number: 30. If you’ve slept with more than 30 people, you’re slutty in my book. Condoms and confetti for everybuddy!
What’s your slut number?
Edited to Add:
Piezocuttlefish came up with a pretty awesome mathematical formula in the comments. Check it:
So, it’s possibly to have been a slut but to no longer be one, so one must include some sort of partners during a rolling time period. Also, people below a certain age are difficult to conceive as sluts, regardless of how accurate the internal designation may be. In my concept, if you’re eleven years old, no matter how many people you’re boinking, you may well be a slut-in-making, but you’re not there yet. Also, there’s a concept of age at play. If someone in high school boinks five people in a year, he may just be an average, exploring teenager. If a 50 year old boinks five people in a year, he’s got some serious play going on. Somehow, we have to take all these into account.
The rolling period is as follows:
high school or earlier: three months
college: five months
higher education or under 30: nine months
30 - 49: one year
50+: two yearsSQ == Slut Quotient
n == total number of sex partners
nr == number of sex partners in the effective rolling period.
ea == effective age, which I’m defining as years of age minus eleven, raised to the two-thirds power.SQ(n,ea,nr) = n / (5 * ea) + nr / 10
If your SQ is >=1, you’re probably going to be seen as a slut.
My SQ, by the way, is approximately 1.26. Vive la sluttihood!
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 06, 2007 at 04:29 AM
I was forwarded a link to Gawker’s account of an author sending a pitch for her novel sent via “non-bcc’d email received today by almost every agent and editor currently working in book publishing.” OUCH. Non-BCC’d? That’s worth an extra all-beef cringe patty or two right there.
The double-cheese on my cringe burger is that I am stuck reading the villain in the pitch, Don Qui Hon, as “Don Quixote.” Damn him and his evil windmills.
by SB Sarah • Monday, November 05, 2007 at 02:19 PM
Here’s an odd request, but it occurred to me following our discussion as to why the BDB books are like the crack: what romances do you know and love that focus mostly on the hero’s story? On one hand, it can often make for weak heroines, or heroines that don’t live up to the worth and depth of the hero, but on the other hand, when it’s done right, a hero-centered romance with a well-written heroine can make for some damn delicious reading. So what are the best examples of romances that focus on the hero and his world, but roxxor your soxxors as a romance novel?
Bring it on!
by Candy • Monday, November 05, 2007 at 07:13 AM
I’ve been having issues lately with my leisure reading. Part of it is certainly lack of time--instead of immersing myself in high adventure, slick passages, throbbing stalks and Love Conquering All (and by “all,” I mean 350 pages of limp conflict and the hero’s ability to think with things other than his fiddly bits), I’ve been drowning in the endless procedural minutiae of the federal courts, which is just about as fun as it sounds, and also arguing whether New Jersey barring Philadelphia from shipping its garbage into its borders is constitutional, which is, weirdly enough, a great deal more fun than it sounds. (The term “gerbil jurisprudence” actually came up while discussing that particular issue, which is one of the many reasons why I enjoy my Constitutional Law class immoderately.)
So yes, law school is fun and challenging and HOLY FUCKMONKEYS a lot of work. But besides the paucity of reading time, I find myself feeling very restless and impatient with the fiction I picked up in recent months. What has been galling me, in particular, has been how distressingly predictable a lot of the stories have been.
I’m not complaining about overarching structure here, nor about genre requirements. Knowing there’s going to be a Happily Ever After at the end of a romance does not, and likely will never bother me. Neither is knowing that the mystery will be solved at the end of a detective novel, or that the hero will survive mostly intact (if not necessarily mostly sane or healthy) at the end of a thriller.
What I’m talking about is my current ability to see plot twists and character fates writ large on the wall. It’s sort of the equivalent of having a very large, very loud person walking up to a tree, poorly concealing himself behind it and yelling that he’s not really there, and there’s really no way I can ever guess his location, oh no, because he’s a clever one, he is.
I don’t mind a certain amount of predictability in my fiction, but when it comes down to it, I am most truly delighted when I have my expectations quite thoroughly fucked with. It especially fills me with glee when an author take some sort of shorthand that we’ve all taken for granted and turns it upside down or just molests it in unspeakable ways.
For instance: I am sick unto death of picking up a certain sort of genre work, encountering a male character in the military who has a wife at home who’s just had a kid, and knowing just from those facts that he’s a) a Good Guy, and b) going to make it through the book in one piece. Just once, I’d love to have that guy die painfully and pointlessly, or have him reveal some sort of genuinely horrific perversity--the Goebbels, for example, genuinely loved their children and killed them out of loyalty to Hitler and to spare them what they thought was an untenable future. In short, I am sick of many things, and one the biggest peeves I have right now is how being a good guy means loving kids and puppies and kittens, and being a bad guy means being child molesters and puppy kickers and kitten killers. Not that I can imagine a good guy being physically abusive towards the weak and vulinerable, but one can dislike something without acting violently to that dislike, just as one can love something soft and cuddly while being a thoroughly evil bastard.
We’ve talked before about how there’s a tendency for this sort of shorthand to stand in for actual characterization. Is your hero dark-haired and large? Odds are high you have an alpha on your hands, whee! Is your heroine redheaded? Then please choose from either the Awkward or Feisty variants. If there’s a psychotic killer on the loose, just look for the one character who gets significant airtime in the book who a) doesn’t have a sense of humor and/or b) is not especially attractive. If you’re the Other Woman? Expect to be older than the heroine, being fond of orgasms for their own sake and considerably more savvy about make-up and nail polish.
Certain plot conventions also tend to have shorthand resolutions. Have an impotent heroine? The hero’s super sperm will save the day and bless her with many bouncy bairns, guaranteed. Identical twins? The True Lurve is the one who can recognize the difference with no apparent effort. Is the hero surly and jealous, and is there a more easy-going male secondary character who becomes a good friend of the heroine’s? There will almost definitely be a blow-up in which the hero will accuse the heroine of being a dirty, dirrrty hoor.
I don’t like the implications of some of these standards, but mostly, I get really goodamn tired of them when they crop up over and over and over again. That’s not to say that talented authors can’t create convincing, nuanced iterations of these archetypes, but it’s so good when somebody takes the norm and deliberately, thoroughly flouts it. For example, when the protagonists don’t want children, as in a couple of Jennifer Crusie books, I just about keel over with glee. Loving And Desperately Wanting Children is such a marker of being a Good Person, and enjoying fucking without some sort of greater Family and White Picket Fence agenda lurking in a background is usually reserved so much for the villain that characters who are about to violate those particular conventions tend to get automatic props from me, if only because they don’t seem to rely on what seem to be somewhat lazy character-building methods.
In short: right now, I want something to surprise me, and surprise me good. I don’t want to read a book and be able to predict the character and story arcs for just about every damn thing within the first 50 pages or so. The enjoyment I get from being right is a poor substitute for being delightfully surprised or having my jaded expectations thoroughly fucked with.
by SB Sarah • Monday, November 05, 2007 at 01:12 AM
Last week the Gather.com First Chapters Romance Writing Competition winners were announced, and Meredith mentioned in the comments that my post about it, which I think was 2 days before the due date, inspired her to enter. So I had to ask her a few nosy questions - and behold, a rather inspiring Smart Bitch Interview.
1. You decided to enter based on my very-last-minute posting of the contest at SBTB, which I'd found out about a few days before the deadline. Did you have a manuscript already finished or did you churn out your winning entry with the fire of deadline in your pants (or under your chair, or wherever the fire of deadline likes to reside)?
Yes, the manuscript had been sitting around for a while -- on top of a stack of three others I'd written. I'd queried some agents about it, and found them to be distinctly unenthusiastic about the prospect of a historical set partly in India. (It was rather similar to the responses I'd gotten for the manuscript before it, in which I was informed that female thieves are not admirable enough to be heroines in contemporary romances. Fair enough!) Shortly after the final "No thank you" arrived, I went to India to study, and ran into a garrulous palm reader who told me out of the blue -- without asking for money or knowing anything about me -- that while I would "dabble" in writing, nothing would come of it.
Now, I'm not a believer in palmistry, but I was already feeling frustrated, and the prediction seemed both incredibly uncanny and deeply irksome. (I should add, a day after I found out I'd won this contest, it occurred to me to tell a friend, "Ha! The universe is telling me the palm reader was wrong!" -- To which my friend promptly replied, "No, the universe is telling you: Do not listen to palm readers, you dumbass!") At this point, my discouragement was starting to affect my writing, so I decided to take a break from trying to get published and focus on the part of the craft that I did love: namely, the practice of writing itself. And so I shelved The Shadow's Kiss and moved on. Forgot about it entirely, to be honest.
This August, my sister found the hard copy of the manuscript beneath a bed at my parents' house. She read it, loved it, and started urging me to submit it to slush piles at publishing houses (which I'd never tried). I ignored her, because I was just starting what I think is a very fun historical set in an entirely different time period. But at her behest, I did root around on my old computer, which is back at my parents' house, and make an electronic copy to take back with me to Chicago. Which is how I had it sitting on my hard drive on the night I surfed over here to Smart Bitches and found out a contest was under way. :)
by SB Sarah • Sunday, November 04, 2007 at 05:32 PM
Anne Douglas got busy with her Photoshop and I nearly passed out at this one.
Behold. For your enjoyment.
10 comments •
Categories: But...that's not really about romance novels
Categories: But...that's not really about romance novels
Tags: This entry has not been tagged yet.
by SB Sarah • Sunday, November 04, 2007 at 01:40 PM
Over at Galley Cat, there’s been an ongoing series of anonymous revelations about the hateration between agents, editors, publishing folks, and man, is it dishy and depressing.
First, on October 31 there’s the “sobering industry evaluation” that working in publishing blows, the system is way broken, and Galley Cat is way to freaking nice and rosy about everything.
But wait, there’s more: “Publishing is one of the few businesses that I know that does not promote the majority of its products,” an anonymous editor writes in, adding more to the pot du malaise in the industry.
Then the flail stick moves on to agents, who get a share of hateration on behalf of anonymous contributors who tell the backside of agent-editor relations, which continues with with more of the behind-the-scenes drama.
Dude. You could write a book about this stuff. Srsly.
