Reading Romance Out Loud

Can you believe that there are adults out there tittering over sex scenes in romance novels? Being goofy about sex (aside from being playful in the bedroom) is reserved for adolescents for whom the whole concept is till unfamiliar and uncomfortable. The problem with me is that I would point this out to people, like the guy who cornered a writer friend of mine at a party. Another friend’s sixteen-year-old son got cornered at sports practice by his buddies, who thought that he needed to hear the stuff his mother writes. Ouch. This is not a situation in which you can get back at the guys by telling them that they’re acting like puerile adolescents. For one thing, they ARE adolescents. For another, they won’t know what the word “puerile” means. My son, bless his heart, has never seemed embarrassed by what I write, but neither has he made any attempt to read it. Who can blame him? However, he has promoted my books to his female friends.

I’m certainly not embarrassed. My books aren’t about sex. They’re about relationships—falling in love, working out differences, overcoming obstacles. Sex is but one element. It’s very frustrating, as a writer, to know that some people reduce the whole content of novels like mine to the sex scenes. There are around 300 pages to my books, people. Three hundred pages of sex would be BORING! I should also mention that, by the time you’ve written, rewritten, rewritten, revised, edited, and proofread the galley proofs of a novel, you are completely certain that it sucks. Hearing any part of it read aloud can be traumatizing. (Oh, my God, did I actually write that ridiculous dialogue?)

As for folks who want to know whom characters are based upon, well, some have real-life models and some don’t. I’ll tell you flat out that the pompous, overbearing Puritan minister in INTO HIS ARMS (Rev. Owen Williams) is the governor of the state of Colorado (Gov. Bill Owens). As a teacher, I cannot stand his shortsighted and shallow grasp on the issues surrounding education, and I resent having to dance to his tune. Writing the end of that book was so cathartic! The sadistic, twisted stepmother in FOR HER LOVE? She is absolutely no one I know. I even apologized profusely to my real stepmother, who is a lovely person. I couldn’t fill the role with a male character, because a huge part of what created her was the powerlessness of women in the 17th century.

Then, there are the people who assume that writers make a lot of money. Have y’all noticed that I haven’t quit my day job? *Sigh*