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

You’d understand my confusion. Never in my life have I read a more confusing conference schedule, and I’ve been to popular culture conferences, composition conferences, fiction conferences.. you get the picture. Judging solely by the 2008 agenda, I can’t tell if this is a conference meant for writers, fans, readers, aspiring authors, or what. There’s sessions on how not to piss off your editor, and sessions all about this author or that author and I couldn’t tell you what the purpose of this gathering is just by looking at the schedule. Not to mention, the technicolor madness of the actual schedule is impossible to read unless one has ingested many, many tiny squares of funny paper.

Someone finally explained it to me: you know the sci fi conventions for sci fi fans, and the fantasy conferences for fantasy fans? This, it seems, is the romance equivalent. There’s costumes, parties, more parties, and sessions on all different things – and I suspect there’s a strong element of the “all romance fans are aspiring romance authors” attitude inherent in the selection of the sessions – but in essence, this is a four-day party all about romance. Romance fans get to meet up with other romance fans that they might only see once a year at RT. (Let me tell you – there was some squeeing in the elevator every time I was on it and long lost friends hugged it out at alternate floors.)

In prior years, I’m told, it was a party to celebrate romance, and now there’s a writer’s track, a reader’s track, booksellers track – and the layout of the program is like a migraine on paper.  But bottom line: it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. If I were a more party-oriented person, I’d be way into it. I might have even brought a formal gown – as it was, I was hideously underdressed for the Ellora’s Cave party this evening.

EC, while I’m discussing it, is a major player at this here partay. The EC men, and I believe there are 10 of them but I didn’t count, are everywhere. When I arrived, they were holding court to a line of countless people waiting to have them sign the EC calendar. Later, there was another line of women in formal gowns waiting to pay $10 to have their picture taken with them.

Between you and me? I felt kind of sorry for them. They were oozing charm (emphasis on ooze) but it was very much an act that was eagerly consumed by many of the women waiting in line for them. But every picture? Flex the muscles. Every spare moment greeting fans? Flex the muscles. These are not men who are given a second to relax and let the gut hang out. Every moment was flexed. I’d be exhausted – I’m tired just thinking about it.

The EC party (pictures coming as soon as I get them off the camera and see if they’re any good) was a whole other story. First the EC authors were escorted one by one across the stage to much cheering, each author led by one of the EC gentlemen, as usual without shirts on. Man, it is a tit nipply around here, if you catch my meaning.

Then, there was a show. Or a skit. Or something. Picture a throbbing sound system playing Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” while the individual Ellora men lip-synched a verse. No, really. Picture that in your mind. Now add 1000 lbs. of OMGWTFBBQ and you will have an approximation of the expression on my face. Beefcake with added patriotism! Cover models who were proud to be an Americans! I was not aware there was a Yay USA Track here but apparently so.

So first there was a guy in a construction vest, then a dude in dress whites who pulled off the military posture marvelously well… and then another gentleman in dress blues that were at least three sizes too big for him. Major demerits. And each time a new costumed man appears on stage, they lip sync another verse of the song, and salute, and pose, and more flexing, and the crowd goes wild. Seriously – I was absolutely sure I’d stumbled into a strange universe where there was not a single soul who could taste the absurd floating on the air. It was one of those moments that I suspect I’ll have more of: this is clearly for fans of romance, but I am not among the group who “gets it.”

Then I found a conference attendee in actual dress blues – an actual member of the military. Being the shameless nosy woman I am, I asked him a few questions, and he was kind enough to answer all my nebby questions.

Staff Sergeant W., who is in active duty and on leave presently from the 101st out of Ft. Campbell, currently stationed outside of Baghdad, is here with his wife Annie Marshall who writes for Dark Castle. SSG W. is home in the US for a little over a week or so, celebrating his daughter’s birthday, enjoying some leave time, and… attending Romantic Times. Now that is a hero right there: vacation from service in Iraq, and he’s drinking watered down mimosas at the EC party watching cover models pretend to be military personnel.

So I asked SSG W. what he thought about the men on stage saluting and posing as Navy and Army service men. He was the one who pointed out the exceptionally oversized dress blues, and he was rather irritated that they folded the American flag completely wrong – but then he said, “They don’t come to Iraq and tell me how to do my job, so I’m not going to tell them how to do theirs.”

He definitely didn’t know it, but he adjusted my attitude right quickly: this may not be how I choose to be a fan of romance, but this conference sure makes a huge number of people really, really, REALLY happy.

While I am definitely not the target audience for the models and the Mr. Romance (one of whom campaigned HARD for my vote until I had to tell him I couldn’t stay for the pageant) and the costumes and the formal gowns (I didn’t pack one – lame of me!), there are 1500+ people here who are still downstairs having a ball dancing at the EC party, and that party will go on until after midnight. It’s like a bar mitzvah only everyone is older than me instead of younger. It’s a hedonistic celebration of romance, and I don’t honestly understand a lot of it, though I can tell there are some people here who look forward to this all year.

Meeting SSG W., for me personally, was much more inspiring than any of the men on stage pretending to be military or lip synching to God Bless the USA, and the ten minutes I spent talking (ok shouting over the music) made the rest of the EC party totally worth it. That and watching this one woman’s endowments slip their surly bonds while she jump-danced to “Come On Eileen.”

And then came humor! And Cussing! While discussing the use of slang and characters who speak in a casual, slang-filled grammatically incorrect manner, Ward said that allowing characters to embrace that language is often difficult in the face of copy editors who try to correct slang usage in dialogue: “Copy editors are wonderful people but they eat, sleep, live, and breathe the Chicago manual of cocksucking style.”

Ward was so horrified that she said that aloud that she got up and put herself in the corner for a timeout, and turned bright, bright red.

Jessica Anderson, whose book based on Mayan mythology comes out this year, is Ward’s critique partner and she talked about the critique process with Ward, and her hatred of Ward’s heroines. She said she thinks they’re weak dishrags and she especially hated Marissa.

Seems when Ward sent Andersen the draft of Butch and Marissa’s book, Andersen’s response to Marissa was along the lines of “I hate her, I wanna kill her, she’s a dishrag.” So Ward took it back, and she says she worked and worked and resent it with a note that Marissa was much better and so much stronger. Andersen’s response, as she tells it? “I don’t see any difference.”

Ahem: BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA.

The upshot of the candid, hilarious session? Two authors, one with an established, dare I say rabid readership, and another who is brand spanking new, earned great feedback and prospective sales by charming and cracking up the audience of readers. Author rapport and humor, with cussing, makes a big difference around here, and charms the pants off people.

First, I don’t think you can properly appreciate or even understand the experience of the RT convention unless you’ve seen one and been there for the whole of it (which means my opinion means diddly since I had to leave early to go feast on the matzo this year). So to try to reveal the convention to outsiders, both to the convention itself and the genre on the whole, might backfire and invite more snide and demeaning comments about how silly, sexist, and sophomoric romance and its fans are, don’t you know.

I honestly don’t know that it’s possible to capture on film what makes RT the giant cluster of ?!! that it is, because underneath the costumes and the feathers and the contestants and the male beauty pageant and the balls and the matched sets of luggage that hold six foot chiffon wings are a dedicated posse of readers and fans of romance who live for that weekend. They save up all year and work for months on their costumes. It is impossible to overstate how much happiness the attendees squeeze out of the RT convention. They love it like I love donuts. I don’t know if it’s truly possible to capture that happiness beneath the costumes and festivities, which from the outside looking in miss ‘joyous and fun’ and might land squarely on ‘just plain weird.’ RT is a lot of, ‘You had to be there.’

Second, the degree to which the interviewees discuss Alpha Males in the trailer makes me pause. Phrases like, “We bring these women into the fantasy” and “We’re here for the ladies” give me the shudders because nothing says “silly empty-headed women” like the phrase “bringing into fantasy.” I didn’t think RT was so much about the Alpha Male, or the ever-present hero that embraces that archetype with his steely gaze and rock-hard abs. It’s certainly true that alpha maledom is a known element in the genre, but is that the avenue through which to introduce folks who aren’t familiar with romance to the genre? It’s not all Alpha males and wings, folks. Neither is it all women who “live in their books.”

Thirdly, I have to wonder about the way in which the RT Convention is being held up as indicative and representative of “Romance.” Given the “Romance is....” headers to each segment of the teaser, and the fact that the documentary revolves around the convention, the fans, and the authors, it would be easy for anyone who views the film to then presume that all romance readers are like those featured in the documentary. And if there’s anything I’ve learned in the three-plus years of running SBTB, it’s the simple fact that sometimes the only thing romance fans have in common is the romance novel itself.

My questions and reservations aside, I’d love to see this film, simply because RT and its surrounding Fiesta of Whoa are no doubt a ripe subject matter for documentary-style exploration. If you get a chance to go see the premiere, let me know how it is.

ETA - Thanks to Jane, here’s a link to the Daily Oklahoman coverage:

If a sub-sub-genre exists in romance, librarians were at our booth looking for it. They snapped up everything from inspirational to erotic romance, young adult, multicultural, romantic suspense, romantic comedy, romantic fantasy, historical, and paranormal romance. Most of the librarians I met were avid romance readers themselves, but they weren’t there to increase their own to-be-read stacks. They were there for the readers waiting for more romance to find its way onto their library’s shelves.

In addition to the PLA and the Slam Jam, Lewis attended BookExpo America, the Author’s Coalition, and obviously the RWA National Conference in San Francisco. Now, all that travel doesn’t make for fascinating documentary subject, but in a year’s time, Lewis has probably racked up some mega whopping frequent flyer miles, and has certainly done more to represent romance in a positive light than any other documentary works in progress I might mention. As she put it, “Every time I leave home, I’m reminded that RWA is about its members – the people who write romance and who make the world a better place because we do.” Well played and well traveled, Ms. Lewis. Well played.

So what else could a More Better Documentary on Romance feature? I bet the dynamic duo of RomanceNovel.TV could tell me – they’ve been unintentionally creating documentary footage of the genre for a few years now. Note to self – go bug them.

ETA: Serves me right for hitting “Submit” before I finished reading this month’s Romance Writer’s Report. On page 21 is an article by Michelle Monkou that profiles four authors as “Ambassadors of Romance Fiction.” Brenda Jackson, Mary Castillo, Jade Lee, and Beverly Jenkins discuss mentoring, barriers, inspiration, and what each author would do with Oprah’s philanthropic millions. Here’s four more reasons for someone to bust out the videocamera and make with the documentary-ness.