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

What really burns my toast - and that’s all I’m eating so don’t burn it, dammit - is that Williams then faces a question about the ever-awful term “Chick Lit.”

Q: Is it possible to get rid of the “chick lit” tab?

A: “Maybe if you write in such a way that is really difficult to read or you’re a woman author not writing about those kinds of issues. But this is not just the way we are perceived by readers, but the way you are marketed. It is not always a bad thing. At first I thought “yuk, chick lit” but as time goes past, if it sells a book and attracts certain readers, it’s not a bad thing.”

I abhor the term ‘chick lit.’ I think it’s pejorative and utterly stupid, and I’m glad I’m seeing less of it. But I’m not so pleased to see yet another author taking a swipe at romance as irrelevant and weightless. You’d think that someone who faces a genre label that dismisses the quality of the writing within it wouldn’t be so quick to toss judgment against another genre.

Any time there is a meal provided by RWA, if you are worried about your finances, go. For one thing, there’s food. For another, you meet people. The tables usually seat ten, and you can find a place to sit by pretending to be an extrovert and asking if a seat is taken. Small talk is your friend and you can pass one meal or five by introducing yourself, and asking the other people at the table who they are, where they’re from, and what they write.

Chances are, no one will be rude to your face, if that’s what your worried about. Now, few people are rude to a visibly enormous preggo lady, so this year when I’m traveling solo, my experience may be different. But no one was rude to me. I don’t think anyone was rude to Candy either.

There are certainly people who think we bloggers have no business being at RWA. I disagree heartily with those people. If you’ve registered to attend, then you have as much right to be there as anyone. I look at it this way: yes, RWA is a conference for romance writers. Thus the sessions and workshops are designed for aspiring and novice writers, and for those who already have careers based on romance writing. Those same sessions that discuss the craft and business of writing may be of interest to you as well, to say nothing of the sessions that instruct authors on publicity online and off. Maybe you’re secretly aspiring to write a romance. Maybe you’re not. But there is definitely some information for you in the workshops.

If you’re registered, among the best events are the spotlights on publishers, because you can hear from the editors what they’re looking for and what they do, and the signings, also hosted by publishers. The signings are marvelous - authors meet fans, sign books, and give them away. My tip: if you don’t want a signed book, or if you’re in line to meet the author and don’t want to take a book away from someone behind you in line, flip your nametag over so it’s not facing front. The authors are often on auto-pilot, and read the name off the tag and start personalizing the book before you can say, “Oh, no I just wanted to meet you.” I also went towards the end of a signing session to meet authors, simply because the lines were smaller. For the Nora Roberts signing and the signings for other prominent authors, the line will blow you away. People will queue up an hour beforehand. Wear comfy shoes.

Speaking of apparel, my rule of thumb: look professional, be comfortable. Remember that it is a professional conference, and other attendees are there to network, learn, network, meet with editors, agents, and fellow authors, and network. Lean towards business casual, especially if you are really, really bone deep nervous about how someone else may treat you.

And where does all that networking occur? The bar. RWA conference attendees will keep the bartenders hopping, so if you go to the bar, expect to see many, many people, and expect to have a bit of a wait for service. There are always people hanging out in the lounge areas and in the bar, especially after the RITA ceremony. You might end up in a conversation with someone who might be going to a party one evening, and may invite you along. You might end up talking to someone who ends up making your conference experience really freaking awesome. You never know. Last year I ended up being asked to tag along to a party in someone’s room, which was awesome, if a bit warm and crowded.

But even with all the bar and parties going on, the root of “network” is “work,” and RWA is a professional conference attended by authors trying to advance their own professional careers as writers. As with many a conference, business and the bar mix and mingle, so be aware and courteous. If a conversation looks like Serious Business, it probably isn’t the perfect moment to hit DEFCON-5 on the Squee-o-Meter and introduce yourself.

Bottom line: don’t be nervous. There are a few dozen other first time attendees there as well, and chances are anyone standing next to you is as nervous as you are.

There are a couple of tv shows, particularly the crime dramas, that I have lost patience with because the writers were relying on cheap and easy methods to demand an emotional response from the viewer, methods I could not tolerate because they were weak and easy, and because they, if I could indulge in a moment of presuming the writers’ motivations, demonstrated little respect for my intelligence, my sensitivity, and my ability to care about the plight of adults.

Of course, it’s tv, and generally the set in my living room doesn’t stand up when I sit down, proclaiming to one and all that I am to be presented with the finest in erudite entertainment. Unless, of course, I am watching Thirteen or my local PBS affiliate, because then it is usually “Game on, Bitch. Hope you brought your brain with you.” Most of the time, when I watch tv, I am hoping to engage in entertainment, not in having my heart handed to me by thoughtless and inappropriate pathos in the dramatic narrative.

That thoughtless pathos has made its way into romance of late, and I have to say: stop. Stop it. Stop it right fucking now.

Stop using the unresolved and shabbily revealed death, injury, and irrevocable harm of children for dramatic impact in your stories.

Knock it the hell off already.

Romance novels are not hour long television shows that can introduce a secondary story and forget to give it closure. I have higher expectations of romance than I do of most tv shows, which is why I am presuming to write an open letter to writers of romance to beg them to back away from the same cheap, easy, thoughtless pathos.

It is not entertaining nor enjoyable to read about horrible, hideous, dreadful things happening to children, particularly when that backstory is used as the slowly-developed basis for a rather grumpy or wounded character, but even more specifically when the big theraputic reveal of the reason behind the emotional wound is at the end of the goddam book.

For example, I could not review The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell no matter how many times I sat down to write it, even though it was a book I should have loved. It touched on all my favorite romance tropes: wounded hero! Secret passions! Hidden depths! Rar!

But (spoilers alert) what was the secret passion of Simon Blackwell? More like secret pain that was revealed in the last few pages of the book: his children and first wife were killed in a fire, and his last memories of his toddler son are of the boy crying for him because Simon had scolded him, then gone out to tend to the horses. While he was gone, the building his family was in caught fire, and his family died. I can’t even think about it without feeling ill. That final twisting of the emotional screw in the last pages completely dissolves the happy ending for me. Grief is not the feeling I want when finishing a romance.

This is not to say that hearty emotional damage has no place in romance. That’s not my point at all. What infuriates me is what I call The Cheap and Easy Hurt Child Pathos. Specifically, I hate the placement of that pathos in the backstory of a character, so that it is revealed in full in a big historically anachronistic therapy session so the character can get over it just in time for the happy ending - leaving me, the reader, just beginning to deal with the fallout of the mental image. No happy ending. Just grief.

It absolutely enrages me. Books hit the wall for this reason. I could love every other element of a book, but one dose of The Cheap and Easy Hurt Child Pathos drops a book any number of grade levels, and I feel more like warning people, “OMG, Prepare to have your heart thrown at you” than examining what worked, because what didn’t work left me feeling fucking terrible. I can’t review a book when it means giving away the ending and discussing how much it depressed me.

So please, consider this a plea from the sensitive reader: don’t think of the children. I know in historical times, children were kept in horrible conditions, and certainly there are numerous examples of how children in the backstory of a character helped craft the hero or heroine that readers loved, but the last-minute denouement of cheap and easy pathos to reveal and heal the character’s pain over a hurt or lost child comes at the expense of this reader’s happy ending. Please. Don’t think of the children.

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it, and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature beef.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

Sarah: If your book were a food, which one would it be?

Angie: If the book were a food, I’d have to say it’s like hot apple pie right out of the oven - sweet, warm and a bit flaky.

Sarah: In your initial email to me, you mentioned that you’d written three serious mysteries before you “relaxed and found your voice.” Nosy Sarah says, “Moar pls?”

Angie:  I spent a lot of years as a writer thinking that in order to connect with my readers or to say something with my books, I had to take things very seriously. I outlined (more than any one person should), I made charts, I filled out stacks of colored note cards. Basically, I took every bit of advice I’d ever heard on writing and incorporated them all. Because eighteen methods are better than one, right?

Well the result was that I wrote three mysteries that didn’t sell. A few of my rejections said the mysteries were “too funny,” so I was trying my darndest to be serious. At all costs. But my natural voice is lighter and I had to fight every instinct I had in order to make my stories ultra dark.

That kind of thing will wear you out after awhile. So I said the heck with it. I decided to write what I wanted to write. And one night, I started thinking about what would happen if a preschool teacher who wants nothing more than to be normal, learns she’s a demon slayer. And what if she has no idea how to fulfill her destiny and has to learn along the way? And what if, to escape the demons out to get her before she’s ready, she’s forced to run off with her long-lost Grandma’s gang of geriatric biker witches? It amused me. I’ve always been a sucker for a reluctant heroine (and I think I watched too many episodes of The Greatest American Hero as a kid).

I chucked the note cards, started writing, and the story unfolded from there. Instead of ending my writing sessions thinking, “I hope an editor will like this,” I ended them thinking. “No. I did not just write that. I did not just make my character defend herself with a toilet brush and a can of Purple Prairie Cover air freshener.” I couldn’t wait to get back to the keyboard every day and finished the book in just under five months. It felt right, natural. And before I had a chance to think about it too hard, The Accidental Demon Slayer sold (less than a week after I finished it). When I told my editor how much fun I had with the story, she said, “I can tell. That’s why I bought it.”

Even more important, I learned that you can indeed write a lighthearted book with a serious side. The Accidental Demon Slayer is about finding out who you really are. It’s about the strength you find when you have the courage to forgive. And most of all, it illustrates something that’s all too easy to forget - that while loving yourself (and your family) can take work, it’s worth every bit of the battle.

Sarah: What is this about biker dogs in your quest for research?

Angie: There is a gang of geriatric biker witches in my book, and I ended up doing research with a lot of real-life Harley riders. Then there’s also a dog character in the book, yet I had to get him on a Harley. I ended up meeting all kinds of Harleyriders who ride with their dogs. It’s the wildest thing. You should see how excited they get when they know they’re going to ride. It’s like doggie heaven - wind in your face all the time.

Before this, I thought research meant talking to experts, reading books or surfing the internet. I found myself on the back of a coal black Harley, behind a guy named Stone, with my helmet on backwards and an Irish Setter in tow. The dog’s name was Frankie and I can tell you right now, Frankie knew a lot more about motorcycles than I did.

It was my fault, really. When I sat down to write The Accidental Demon Slayer, I had no notes about dogs on motorcycles. But in the second chapter, when my heroine learns she’s a demon slayer and all hell is after her, she takes comfort in her dog. It was a sweet moment. And as I wrote it, I thought, ‘How do I throw her off?’

I made Pirate, the dog, say something to my heroine. Nothing big. After all, he’s only after the fettuccine from last week. And he knows exactly where she can find it (back of the fridge, to the left of the lettuce crisper, behind the mustard). It amused me, so I did it. Thanks to her unholy powers, Lizzie can now understand her smart-mouthed Jack Russell Terrier. I ended up having a ball with it, and I fell in love with Pirate the dog. Then I realized I was writing about motorcycle riding biker witches.

How do you get a dog on a motorcycle?

Well, I went online and learned that there is a nationwide club of Harley bikers who ride with their dogs. So my heroine could have her pink Harley, and her Jack Russell Terrier too.

And of course I had to meet these Harley riding dog lovers. I called up a few of the members of the Biker Dogs Motorcycle Club and the adventure began. They invited me into their homes, introduced me to their dogs and, like my heroine, the bikers hoisted me up on the back of a Harley, with a dog in tow.

Stone, the biker who spent the most time making sure I didn’t fall off his hog, showed me how to ride, invited me to some biker rallies (note to self: don’t wear pink next time), and helped make The Accidental Demon Slayer as real as it can be (for a book about a somewhat sheltered preschool teacher turned demon slayer).

So just when I thought I was writing fiction, it seemed my made-up characters from The Accidental Demon Slayer weren’t so imaginary after all. One of the bikers I met even has a wife who is a biker witch. I’m wondering if she, like my heroine’s biker witch grandma, wears a “kiss my asphalt” t-shirt and carries a carpet bag full of Smuckers jars filled with magic. I like to tell people that maybe I’ll find out on my next adventure

Has all this interviewing madness made you curious? I’ve got five copies of The Accidental Demon Slayer to give away. How to win? Leave a comment. And for extra more gooder fun, visit Angie’s website and find out your Your Biker Witch Name, and let us know what it is.

Mine, for the record, is Fast Frankie Pothole Jumper. But you can call me “PJ” for short.

But wait, there’s more! So long as your anointing yourself with a biker name, head on over to Angie’s site for a contest wherein, if you art the winner, you get a role in her next book, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

Weight is a tricky issue for the heroine, who must be a perfect embodiment of all that is perfect without pissing us readers off too much. Lately there have been more explorations into The Land of The Plus Size Heroine in all genres, but mostly it’s a matter of omission. As Robin Uncapher wrote back in 2006

Out-of-fashion beauty was one of the main problems our thin, wide-eyed heroines had to overcome. What these girls had to worry about was being too beautiful, so beautiful the randy heroes could not keep their hands to themselves.

More recently, though, something completely new has happened in the world of romance. A small number of romance writers have been writing women who look more like most of us, not just by being plain, but by feeling overweight. Books like Ruth Wind’s Beautiful Stranger, Justine Davis’ A Whole Lot of Love, and Suzanne Brockmann’s Get Lucky started popping up. 

Of course, as Robin points out, once you name a number as a size, a whole lotta women on either side of that number line up to argue about where the real “fat” line lies. Is it size 2? Is it size 14? Is it no size at all? Or is it every size, since so many women suffer under the idea that they are far, far too big for the ideal. Smart authors, if you ask me, leave it up to the reader and never name a number at all, leaving “plus size” in the mind’s eye of the beholder.

So are there plus size heroines that aren’t going to diet their way to happy endings, thereby reinforcing the damaging stereotype that only thin people deserve happiness? Are there heroines who remain their size and then move on to happiness? One Bitchery reader wrote:

I’m looking for romances that feature larger heroines.  I’m wondering if you can poll the readers for their recommendations.  I don’t care the sub-genre of romance, I just want to have a list of books that feature larger women.

The Rotund did a romance novel review in which the heroine was constantly bringing up her eating habits even though she was an okay size.

It got me thinking that I hadn’t read many and so I’ve gone looking and found some to order, but just want extra feedback.

Thanks to Barb Ferrer, I have read A Whole Lot of Love (among the worst titles ever, really) and it’s marvelous. The heroine, Layla Laraway, is a larger woman blessed with a hot-sex-on-chocolate-silk voice, and she’s a fundraising mastermind. When she meets The Hero, a hottie mchot executive named Ethan, he’s initially smitten with her voice, and has to adjust to the fact that his imagination of what she looked like doesn’t match reality (which he does quickly, thank heaven).

Her insecurities are real, but only part of the obstacles between them, and the heroine herself is marvy. In fact, Alzheimer’s Disease is often more of a focus in the narrative than Layla’s size. And, most importantly, her size is part of her character, not an obstacle to her happy ending - as in, she doesn’t have to make half of herself disappear to earn her future happiness.

So what other plus-size heroines have you read and liked? And which ones made you want to scream at the reinforcement of what The Rotund calls the “hegemony of Thin?”

ETA: While wandering around my house far, far from the reaches of the internet (it’s a scary place, that part of the house - there’s a mountain of laundry that never gets smaller) I realized that there are actually potentially two types of plus-size heroines. One: the kind for whom weight is a conscious issue but hopefully for the sake of a narrative not the only issue, and two: a plus size heroine whose size is a matter of fact element to the story, who doesn’t agonize over it at all.

It seems to me (and I haven’t caffeinated yet fully so I am happy to be disagreed with) that the place in which the openly imperfect heroine* most comfortably resides is historical romance. There are some historical heroines who aren’t visually perfect, for weight reasons or otherwise (note: examples blocked by lack of caffeine), but of course the hero, through the rose-colored lenses of her Magic Hoo Hoo, finds her fascinating. In contemporary romances, it might be more difficult to create an openly imperfect* heroine for weight reasons specifically because of the fatism that affects contemporary society, wherein if you’re fat you’re presumably lazy.

Are there heroines, in any time period, who are totally accepting of their size? Are there well-adjusted women of size in romance?

*Note: *I* for God’s sake do not think any amount of weight up or down is an imperfection. (My post partum ass, let me show you it. Next week.) I am referring to the standard of perfect imposed upon contemporary women, which currently seems to follow a “you should look as bony and square as a 10 year old boy” visual style. So when I say “Visually imperfect” it’s not from my perspective that I’m labeling imperfection. You look marvelous just the way you are. Really. 

Seriously. It shouldn’t be so amazing, but it truly is. Women in the thousands steer a business made of millions of dollars, and the conference is created and supported by women.

For the past five days, I’ve been surrounded by amazing ladies from ages ahead of and behind my own, at various stages of their careers, all of which are based on writing romance and reading it. Not one of those winners said, “I don’t read romance, but thanks for this award.” I’m in a rather strange position when I attend because I’m not a fiction writer (ergo not a competitor) and I’m not a publishing professional, and I’m not really press, but I am a long time member and volunteer for RWA. I’m sort of a random person who doesn’t quite fit, but does. To say I don’t like large crowds is a massive understatement, but I’d voluntarily walk into the hotel bar at an RWA Conference without hesitation. 

Barbara Caridad Ferrer (three names = very important) calls it “hanging out with our tribe.” Carrie Lofty said she felt like she was being welcomed home. And that’s true - where else are you going to find erudite, dedicated women who pay a monsterload of time and effort, plus some money, to go hang out with a few thousand romance readers, writers, and publishers? And in my always so very humble opinion, every woman that attends adds to the event, because that which is RWA National is truly, marvelously, and ass-kickingly extraordinary for so many, many reasons.

Big ups and mad props to the RWA staff and volunteers who put on such a great conference. See y’all next year.