Grousing About Erotica, Again
So today I’m going to whine about the fact that erotica writers are kicking my butt. Dang! My publisher is going to town buying for the new Aphrodisia line while we traditional romance writers languish in the slush pile. Now, I would whine about not even liking to read erotica and there not being enough traditional romances out there, but the truth is that since I’ve started writing them, I’ve kind of stopped reading them. I mean, there’s only so much romance I can take before I want something completely different. I’m a promiscuous reader. One genre simply won’t do.
I’m revising a proposal that I’m hoping to have ready for my agent by the end of the week. She’s already read it once and told me that I need to seriously sex-up the meeting between my hero and heroine. It’s difficult because it feels so artificial. The meeting is extraordinary—he’s just been zapped back in time 1,000 years. You’d think the poor fellow would need to acclimate before he got all hot for the heroine. No dice. Apparently a real man would never let such a commonplace event get in the way of his libido.
Don’t get me wrong—I am unabashedly commercial in what I write, but I just can’t hop into bed with two people I barely know! I need to get acquainted with them, take them out for a few dinners, share a few laughs. I may be cheap (you should see my last advance) but I’m not easy!
In the meantime, I wonder why women are moving away from old-fashioned romance. I wonder if the pendulum will swing back. I wonder if I’ll ever sell another frigging book. I still have the women’s fiction piece, but I got frustrated and took a break, polishing this proposal up instead.
I have also consumed far too many Girl Scout cookies. I said it last year, but it bears repeating. Nothing causes me to face my own mortality like Girl Scout cookies. At Weight Watchers, during the holidays, they remind us that Christmas and Thanksgiving will come again. We do not have to gorge on holiday food, because we will have the chance to eat it again next year. This is reasonable. I can buy this. Then Girl Scout cookie time arrives, and I realize that I could leave the house and get hit by a bus, while back at home, a entire sleeve of Thin Mints lies neglected in the freezer.
Okay, I’m heading back to Anglo-Saxon England, but I’d better grab a few more Samoas to tide me over. It’s July there, and food supplies are low.
This is so funny Paula, today I've eaten half a sleeve of G.S. cookies on
an empty stomach and boy was that a mistake! I need some green tea to
settle the sugar high down.
I know where you are on this because my poetry editors are constantly
nagging me for more erotic, need i say almost pornographic, poetry. Now
aside from the fact that I'm just about to reach seventy the mental
gymnastics tire me out as much as actually
participating. The unfortunate thing is that sex and romance occupy very
little of my mental activity at this time and i have to be "horny" to write
horny. ha ha
JWL
A glimpse into the mind of a music teacher: I seriously read your title as
"Grousing about Eroica" and thought you were going to be talking about
Beethoven's 3rd symphony.
You guys are a great shot-in-the-arm. Alas, there's a market for sex-free
Christian romance, which is too bland for my taste, or hot-and-heavy
erotica. Not much in between. Don't worry, John, their meeting won't be
that sexed-up. My agent really was just asking for more sexual tension.
It was just hard because there's already a lot of garden-variety tension,
but I think I'll work it out. (And I prefer the fifth symphony.)
Me too, actually! The third's nice and all, but I'll take the fifth
any day. Genius.
Once again, the powers that be try to twist the artist's arm and dictate
what is and what isn't art. I think that if you stay true to yourself,
you'll find that your fanbase will grow and stick around longer than if you
follow "trends" and get bored with it and quit writing.
I don't know. Coming from a science fiction background, I would take the
time-travel schtick and use it as a way of modifying the character's
behavior, maybe making him temporarily more libidinous upon arrival to the
past.
Hmmm, I can do the hot and heavy stuff....the problem I'd have is with the
ubiquitous monogamous "happily ever after" ending.
You guys are all a hoot. These comments are almost as much fun as Paula's
post. LOL.
another nice post. make my day. very nice!