Aug 11, 2007
My oldest, very pregnant daughter recently showed me an ultrasound snapshot of her own daughter’s vagina.
The absolute wonders of science. Of course, she said, “Look at her hoo hoo,” my husband’s childhood word for female anatomy. In my family, it was called a “quincy,” which certainly gave me pause when I was forced to learn the presidents in chronological order and I got to John Quincy Adams. My Viennese mother called my backside a “po-po.” I have no idea if that’s traditional in Austria or not, but it’s sweeter than ass or butt or badonkadonk. When I raised my own children, I tried to be clinical and scientific…except, apparently, for hoo hoo, which I believe the Smart Bitches refer to as the
Magic Hoo Hoo.
There are lists devoted to euphemisms regarding male and female private parts and the myriad activities associated with them. Check out www.lacydanes.com/historicalsexfacts.php for some eye-opening research. And there’s continued controversy as to what words offend in literature. Ultimately it’s a matter of your crudity comfort zone. I have no objection to cock, but I’m not sure about the “c” word that’s sometimes applied to females.
What words turn you on and off? Any childhood nicknames you’d care to share? What words make you laugh out loud or throw the book across the room? You can post anonymously and be as sexplicit and silly as you want!
In the words of Trace Atkins: That’s it, right there boys, that’s why we do what we do—It ain’t for the money, it ain’t for the glory, it ain’t for the free whiskey—It’s for the badonkadonk.
Chapter Two of Third-Rate Romance is now posted! Don’t forget Romance Novel TV’s month of writing tips!
Aug 8, 2007
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about heroes and villains, and the combination thereof. I like darkish heroes, although most of my own guys (in fact and fiction) are a little breezy, more fun than fierce. I wonder about characters’ personal demons…and my own, which I just can’t shake. A little suffering is good for the soul and creativity, I think, but sometimes I feel like I have a gigantic dragon clutching my shoulder with his scaly claws, breathing smoke on my computer screen, obfuscating (I’ve always wanted to use that word) any temporary brilliance with some leavening gray reality. Writing is hard. Writing well is even harder. Publication is problematic.
But back to bad boys and annoying alliteration. I recently read An Unladylike Offer by Christine Merrill—written VERY well— which features the redemption of a character from an earlier book I hadn’t read (The Inconvenient Duchess, which I immediately ordered from Amazon and finished in one sitting. Ms. Merrill is now on my auto-buy list. She’d better keep cranking out more books, because I’m a fast reader.). Just when I thought I figured out why the hero was so reluctant, Ms. Merrill added another luscious layer to St. John Radwell. Buy this book. It’s wonderful.
I fell hard for Jo Beverley’s decent, determined Dare in To Rescue a Rogue, who fought opium addiction, and Loretta Chase’s lust-inducing, lying Comte d’Esmond in Secrets of the Night, another reclamation project. My new crush is Candice Hern’s devilish yet delicious Rochdale in her latest Merry Widow book, Lady Be Bad (another gorgeous cover!). While in real life my motto is “Everything in moderation,” I am a sucker for imaginary men who at one time were mad, bad and dangerous to know. I’m gleeful as they become Boy Scouts in their buttoned-up breeches by the last chapter, faithful to their wives and families. Improbable, but not impossible.
Who is your favorite reformed rake/rapscallion? Or do you like those breezy boys who think torture is a cool Scrabble seven-letter Bingo word?
Why do you think bad boys look so good…or do they bother you?
What smoke signals is your dragon sending you?
Congratulations go out to PJ!! Please send your snail-mail address to maggierobinson8@yahoo.com and your August prizes will go out by Dragon Express!
Aug 1, 2007
I’ve been making faces at myself in the mirror, trying to replicate “The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.” I know what that means in Romance Land Shorthand, but what the hell does it look like? Upon careful experimentation, I still can’t tell you, but I made myself laugh out loud. Jack Nicholson and his maniacal grin may have something to worry about.
We come across inevitable, intriguing, and inexorable phrases/concepts often used in romance novels. What’s your favorite cliché—plot, word, sentence or scene? You can cite one of the ones below if you wish (I’m crazy about the hero always being scared of his valet). Here’s the opening of Third-Rate Romance, my recently completed and languishing romance novel spoof. I haven’t counted, but there are a clutch of clichés for your reading pleasure. One lucky commenter will win August’s prizes—a brand-new copy of Stephanie Laurens’ first-rate, non-clichéd All About Passion, some fabulous Maine bookmarks and other surprises. Look for the winner and new post on August 8.
“I don’t know why my father has to be an impoverished earl who lost the family fortune at one turn of the cards,” complained Lady Eleanor Buxton, her auburn eyebrows knotted in adorable frustration. “It’s such a cliché. Why didn’t she make him a ship’s captain so I could have sailed around the world and had an adventure or two? I might be wearing skintight breeches fighting Barbary pirates this very minute instead of lounging about Lady Caterham’s dull old drawing room.” She gave a fringed ottoman a vicious kick.
“Do think for a moment, Ellie. You know you’d only have to be captured quite early on and sold into slavery,” replied Lionel Hamilton, fourth Duke of Cleves, sixth Earl of Wynton, ninth Viscount Stacy and thirteenth Baron Gussington. “But that,” he added, pausing, “might be rather amusing.”
A long tapered finger tapped his chin and his dark eyes took on a faraway look. “Hmm. Imagine Ali Bey or some such villain looming above you, your helpless ivory limbs tied with silken ropes as he has his wicked way with you.” The duke brushed an imaginary tuft of lint off his well-toned thigh. “I confess that image quite piques my interest.” The bulge in his perfectly form-fitting inexpressibles confirmed his opinion.
“Rape is never amusing! It goes against every tenet of the romance genre since the 1970s,” Eleanor informed him, her green eyes flashing the obligatory daggers. “You know you’d have to save me before it ever came to that, and very likely you’d be imprisoned and tortured. And then she’d make me save you by some clever trick or other! Not that you’d deserve it!”
“Now, now,” Lionel said mildly, “you know we are meant for each other. You hated me on sight and have misconstrued my every action since the beginning.” He took a discreet pinch of snuff and leaned idly against a marble Corinthian column stolen from an ancient grave site.
“Disgusting habit! And lower that damned eyebrow. I cannot endure it!”
Lionel smiled his crooked smile instead and picked at an invisible thread on the sleeve of his immaculate Weston coat. How he lived to torment the little baggage. It was simply too simple. “I can see you in the harem now, my love. Your riot of copper curls might sway the sultan initially, but I doubt he’d be fond of you long once you turned your fiery temper upon him. And you know,” he drawled, “you’d inevitably get fat. All the sugared dates, goat cheese and whatnot. I believe more pulchritude is the standard of beauty in the East.”
He cast an assessing black glance at her piquant little face. “Plus, you’d be veiled. It seems a damn shame to cover up that pert little nose, faintly freckled and twitching in anger.”
Eleanor threw herself down on the striped Sheraton sofa. “This book is insupportable! I’ll probably be doomed to act like a widgeon almost up until the end! Then you’ll settle my father’s debts anonymously and pave your way. You think you’re so darned noble.”
“Is it really such an arduous task to love me, Ellie? I’m considered quite a catch, you know. The matchmaking mamas have set their sights on me for an age,” Lionel said, somewhat hurt.
Eleanor snorted in a most unladylike fashion. “Oh, I know your artfully disarranged black hair is all the rage. Your eyes are as black as spades and twice as sharp. How you are so tan in the middle of a rainy English spring after an endless English winter is a mystery, but I’ll go along with it.” She smoothed the folds of her bottle-green riding habit. “Why am I wearing this? It’s all wrong for an afternoon visit to Lady Caterham’s drawing room,” she mumbled to herself. “She doesn’t know the difference between sarcenet and dampened muslin, I wager. Lionel,” Eleanor implored, “please hold me!”
Lionel swiftly ensconced himself on the sofa, doing his grim duty. He was unusually tall for a nineteenth century Englishman and did not find himself at all comfortable; nevertheless, he enveloped the petite trembling form of Lady Eleanor as she ruined his lapels with salty tears. His valet would no doubt give him hell.
I’m going to go practice my smirk now, right after I quirk an eyebrow or two. For more of TRR, all of Chapter 1 is posted to the left. Don’t forget Romance Novel TV’s writers’ workshop this month, so you can avoid cliché-city!
Jul 28, 2007
My daughter went on a buying trip with her old boss a couple of months ago. She’s switched jobs, but he still trusts her taste for gifts for his store, and she found me the perfect gift. I now have a little ceramic sign on my bulletin board which says, “Put on a little lipstick. You’ll be fine.” This is a bit of a joke with the three Robinson girls. All their lives I’ve encouraged them to wear lipstick. They do not. Oh, they’ll slap on some chapstick once in a while. But it’s the rare occasion they wear lipstick, whereas I do not even put the trash out without some Revlon on my lips.
I grew up when you wore a lot of make-up to look “natural.” I’m down to blush, mascara and lipstick now, but there was a time when I was gluing on fake lashes and liquid-lining my eyes. Think Cleopatra, with an ass instead of an asp. Fashions change, and now even make-up is going “green,” with all natural ingredients and animal-free testing. While we’re not rubbing beet juice on our cheeks like they did in the 1800s, we’re not killing ourselves or the bunnies, either.
Three thousand years B.C., the Egyptians were wearing green eye-show and lining their eyes with kohl. Persian women put henna on their faces and bodies to “summon the majesty of the earth.” In the Middle Ages, women would bleed themselves so they could look fashionably pale. Lead, mercury and arsenic were common make-up ingredients, and I don’t even want to tell you what they did with cat dung and mouse skin. Rouge was all the rage in the Regency. Victorians put a stop to all that fun and frivolity, and it was the bare face that reigned until the 1920s, when mass-market make-up made it possible for everyone to be as glamorous as the new movie stars.
It is always a jolt to see Hollywood’s version of history. It takes a brave actress to go natural in front of the camera, but I’m pleased to see most period dramas today eschew the eye make-up and lipstick of the past.
How about you? Are you a sucker for the “free gift with purchase” at the Clinique counter? Are your heroines natural beauties or are they dusting their face with rice powder and rouging their nipples?
A woman without paint is like food without salt. ~Plautus (254-184 B.C.)
Come back soon for the MRMR August contest! And don’t forget to check out Romance Novel TV’s Start Your Book Month beginning August 1. Lots of authors will share their expertise and energy!
Jul 19, 2007
For a stretch in the 90s, my family was like Walton’s Mountain without the mountain. We had all our four kids at home, a Danish foreign exchange student who was addicted to Internet porn, my father, who was a double amputee, and my husband’s mother, who had senile dementia. We built a huge house with a wheelchair ramp and grab bars in the shower, went shopping at BJ’s Warehouse and stocked up on cases of adult diapers and Ensure. I used to love opening my pantry door to see rows and rows of canned goods and paper towels. I was pretty much prepared for any emergency—maybe even the Apocalypse—or at least prepared for dinner. We all pitched in and I’ll always be grateful to my children who gave their time so unselfishly to their grandparents. They tell me they’ll take care of me too when the time comes, but I’ve already told them to just set me off on the ice floe. Maybe with my laptop if I can get a wireless connection.
Now when I open my cupboards, I’m not sure we could survive till the weekend. I hate to grocery shop. The only things I want to stock up on are words. When I wake up in the middle of the night with a crazy idea, I jot it down. Sometimes I can even read what I wrote in the morning. I have many, many fragments of things that will never make it onto a bookshelf near you. I wish I’d started earlier, but as you’ve read above, I was kind of busy.
I started “sort of” writing a few summers ago, so happy anniversary to me! When I reread the novellas I wrote, I’m struck with both the grace and gross stupidity of them. I’d fix them, but I’ve moved on to a cuter boyfriend. But there are a few things I’ve plagiarized from myself, one of which is Mrs. Brown’s Pantheon of Pleasure, appearing originally in my very first unnamed novella (the one with the amnesiac bluestocking,* snort*) and now featured prominently in the full-length current WIP, Paradise. Yes, folks, it is a bawdy house. The best, most bootylicious bawdy house in London. Each of the girls bears the name of a Greek or Roman goddess.
As Iris Brown says right on page 121, “Did you not know? All my girls assume a new name and identity when they come to me. My benefactor considered himself to be a scholar of the classics. It was his fancy to install Greek and Roman goddesses right here in the heart of ton instead of Mt. Olympus or some looted temple. And drive his toplofty neighbors mad in the bargain.”
Just to let you all know I was into courtesans before reading Anna Campbell!
Do you have recurring themes in your writing? If you’re a reader, does a particular plot resonate with you? What are you storing in your bank?
Psyche Opening the Golden Box-Waterhouse
