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

I was volunteering at the RWA Registration Booth when a woman stopped by looking for credentials for a photographer. Her name was Heidi Benson, and she was from the SF Chronicle looking to write an article about the conference. She and I got to talking, and she told me she was so impressed with the conference, and having a good old time talking to everyone at RWA. In my estimation, she seemed like she was genuinely curious about the organization and the women who are writing and working within the genre, and didn’t seem to be starting from any specific assumption about romance novels, its writers, or the genre as a whole.

Thanks to Marta Acosta, I have a link to her article, which ran today (that’s a little late, no?) under the headline Romance-writing hopefuls discuss craft in S.F.:

Forget scones and Devonshire cream. Red meat is on the menu in the new generation of romance novels. According to fall book promotions, “the alpha male is back,” paired up this time with a “kick-butt heroine....”

...The genre couldn’t claim a 26.4 percent share of the book consumer market if it didn’t deftly reflect the times.

That vigor may be due, in part, to the member-supported Romance Writers Association, an authors’ advocacy group that cultivates talent. Regional chapters provide members with supportive communities and educational opportunities, while the annual conference offers face-to-face access to editors, agents and famous authors.

Benson’s article includes a quick examination of the subgenres in romance, and the manner in which authors market themselves online. It closes with a peek inside a workshop on writing the sex scene, and features Toni McGee Causey, CJ Lyons, and Roxanne St. Claire discussing the constructive use of a sex scene in a romance, as well as the construction of the scene itself.

Of course any media examination of romance novels will mention the sex, but this one seems a cut above, because it acknowledges the craft and the humor of the writers working that craft. The article did a better job than most I’ve read of revealing what RWA is: a whole mess of women mentoring one another in the process of creating romance fiction and potentially building a career out of that fiction.

Well played, Ms. Benson, well played.

In honor of this year’s Bulwer Lytton prize winners for 2008, it’s time, I think, for the worst first line in a romance novel competition. I know there is a “romance” category in the real Bulwer-Lytton, but given the depths (hur) of your creativity, there needed to be more.

You know the drill: give us your original works of horrid first line art, that you yourself wrote, as awful and excellent as possible please! Comments are open for 24 hours, so leave your first line of awesomeness there. I’ll be doing something different this time around, though: in the comments, we’ll take nominations for the finals. So if you see a first line there you like, nominate it for the finals, and I’ll post the final slate of top-nominated first lines for final voting.

First prize: $25 gift certificate for the bookstore of your choice (Powell’s or Amazon), plus Romance Novel Poetry Kit for your eternal amusement while you stand at the fridge wondering if you’re hungry or just wanted to feel a cool breeze.

Second prize: Something Awesome. I’m not at the Prize Suitcase right now but there’s awesome in there, I promise.

Third Prize: see above!

Why The Henley Bodice Prize? Because Virginia Henley wrote some marvelously bizarre and downright screeching first scenes for her novels, with some great first lines, particularly my favorite, Dream Lover:

As the perfectly formed, timeless shape of the rounded head emerged, still glistening with wetness, Emerald couldn’t take her eyes from it.

Bring it on!

I read this book in a marathon of reading in 1 day. Considering how many things I do in a day, that’s saying a lot. The informal grading rubric that I use sometimes involves whether I have to take the book out of my work bag and read it at home, when I’m not on the bus or waiting for the subway, whether I stop doing things to read more, whether I bring the book in the car with me to read at red lights. The number of places I bring a book outside of the seat on the bus or the seat on the train doesn’t necessarily lift the book’s grade, but knowing that I’m happily reading something truly compelling means that I question what it is and what the book is doing so well that hooks me and hooks me bad.

I totally got honked at at TWO green lights (impatient Jersey drivers) today because I wanted to finish this book. I toted it in the car, I read it at my desk, I followed this book around all day because I could not stop wanting to know what happened next. Scott sustains a lot of the emotional and external tension through the book in such a way that it had little ups and little downs, but was always escalating, to the point that I thought I was going to have to read while peeking through my fingers. I knew what was going to happen, sort of, but I hoped it didn’t, even though I knew it probably would, etc.

Dani is a thief. Her mom is a thief. Dani has never had another life except as backup, research assistant, con artist, and thief. Their preferred target is silver, and their modus is to hop from town to town, targeting the biggest houses and the shortest route possible to the silver. They fence it, go shopping, live well, then move on to the next town.

The New York Observer reports that two books have used the same stock image…

(I know, shocking!)

...of two bonobos having some whoot-whoot in the standard operating position.

Ha!

What makes it absolutely full of win? The same writer, Daphne Merkin, blurbed both books.

I hope you - and the bonobos - have a great weekend!

Thanks to Barb Ferrer for the link.

The New AuthorTalk video with Nora Roberts is a hoot. It was shot at RWA, if the very familiar hotel room is my gauge. Nice job ladies!