Stacia Kane

I was going to discuss those irritating “kick ass” heroines today, and I do plan to very soon. But I was thinking about a question someone else asked somewhere else (if I can be any vaguer than that, please tell me and I will try) and decided to discuss that instead. Mainly because I’m not feeling very ranty. I’m tired and a little pensive and my MIL arrives tomorrow for the weekend so I’m apprehensive about that.

So here’s what I was wondering. When you write a hero (or, if you are a man, when you write a heroine) do you fall in love with them?

I do, at least to some extent. I have to. I can’t write a hero effectively if he doesn’t have at least some qualities that I admire or am attracted to or, you know, obsessed with or whatever.

A while ago I had a story in mind. I had an opening scene. It was a pretty good scene. It was a pretty good story. But the hero…I just couldn’t get into him. He was too much of a crusader. He cared too much about the poor and unfortunate. I just don’t find that sexy.

Which makes me sound kind of shitty, I guess, but I can’t help it. It’s not that my heroes don’t care about stuff, but the way this guy kept coming off was like some sort of Francis of Assisi or something. The kind of guy who would follow those silly permission guidelines that some college (I keep wanting to say Oberlin; am I right?) instituted in the early 90′s. You remember, the one where anytime anyone wanted to touch anything or remove any clothing they had to ask first?

This isn’t yet another discussion of manly heroes, though. It’s more about what kinds of characters we write and why. I think there can tend to be an idea that if you’re writing romantic heroes that you’re in love with, you’re basically writing a Mary Sue heroines to go with them, a thin stand-in for yourself so you can have this fantasy relationship with your perfect hero. That a real writer doesn’t fall in love with their hero because they’re writing someone who is perfect for their heroine, not for themselves. (And this is just the way my thoughts ran, it certainly wasn’t suggested or implied by anyone at this other place.)

I don’t think that’s true, though, at all. Perhaps I’m just not talented enough, but to write a character really effectively I think I need to either love them or hate them. I need to feel strongly about them in order to convey them strongly on the page, if you know what I mean.

I fall in love with the heroines a little bit, too, though. Not in the same way, of course. But isn’t making a new friend a little like falling in love? First you’re interested in the other person, then you want to get to know them better, and you get together, and then maybe start talking on the phone, and at some point you do go through that same “falling in love” thing where they’re basically the only person you want to talk to because it’s so much fun to talk to them, as you learn all about them and they learn everything about you.

That’s how it is with the heroines. Some of the things they do might irritate me but generally I admire and like them. I want to hang out with them. And–and this is something I’ll go into another time–I get a little irritated when people say writers inject too much of themselves into a character. I’m a pretty complex kind of a lady. I have a lot of interests and a lot of opinions, and when you get right down to it, how many character traits are there out there that we don’t all possess in ourselves?

So in a very roundabout way I guess that’s the crux of the thing. When you write, how much of yourself are you investing? Do you have to love or hate your characters-does it make it more fun when you do?

And I almost forgot: a big huge Congratulations! to my great friend SW Vaughn, who sold a romantic suspense novel to Wild Child Publishing! No release date yet, but I’m very excited for her!

Today was my older daughter’s fifth birthday. I know I was supposed to do a real post but it will have to wait until tomorrow. The day totally got away from me.

1. The second chapter of my short story is up at Indulge. (Note: I neglected to mention there is a sex scene in this chapter. It’s relatively mild compared to some of my work, but still explicit. You may want to be sure your boss or child or whomever is not around when you read this one. Sorry for not saying it earlier.)

2. Looks like The Black Dragon, my medieval romance, will be released in December as an ebook. No word yet on wther or not it will also be released in print, or when. Fingers crossed!

3. I have a Library Thing now! Look under my links on the right!

I’ll do a real post later today or early tomorrow.

I had a little epiphany the other day. Someone posted a comment about romances on another blog and I said something like, “Oh, you’re judging all romances by one” or whatever. And I was actually a little irked. Not a lot irked, but a little irked.

Then I saw that article I linked to (which is turning up everywhere, btw.) And I started thinking about it. Cue epiphany.

Who cares?

Why do I care if someone thinks romances are crap? Why do I care of someone thinks they’re easy to write, or dull, or stupid, or Not Real Books?

In other words, why do the opinions of the rude and pretentious matter to me?

A lot of people I know were pleased with that article. They thought this might be a step towards getting romances somehow recognized as art or something. And you know, that’s fine. If it’s important to them, that’s fine. But for me it’s a little like being good in bed. As long as the person who shares that activity with me (that would be my husband) is pleased, I don’t care what people I’ve never slept with think about my performance.

And ultimately, I do believe all this “We’re serious artists” stuff is bad for romance. Why? Because, as I said the other day, romances should be fun.

I think there are a lot of people who are trying so hard to prove that romances are smart and well-written and Worthy of Serious Consideration, that they’ve forgotten to write fun stuff. I’ve read some dull-as-dishwater romances, believe me. And I really think this is the reason why.

Romances have gotten so politically correct. So safe. So bland! You rarely see, for example, heroines who throw china and heroes who punch holes in walls and people who scream at each other and then start kissing and have angry, tearful sex on jets flying to their private island, where they’ll connive to take over the corporation of some hapless fool who is the heroine’s real father but she doesn’t know it. Or whatever.

Part of this may be because such characters became a little cliche by about the early nineties (although one thing that does piss me off is when current writers pick on those 70′s romances. Those writers had it a lot harder than we do, writing on typewriters all day and not having communities or blogs or email. They were published authors in an age where a woman having a career that she cared about was still an anomaly. So quit talking about how much better you are than those hacks, okay? Or how dumb and cliche their books were. They paved the way for you, and you should have some respect.) Part of it may be simply that such stories aren’t fashionable at the moment-market trends do change. But I firmly believe there are a lot of women out there who are bored by the romances coming out now, who would jump all over something like that were it published now. Something big and blowsy and fun. Like The Crimson Petal and the White was touted as being before we all read it and realized it wasn’t that sexy at all, not was it especially fun, and the ending sucked.

I think this is why paranormals have become so big. Because vampires are allowed to be sort of smooth and sexist (mmmm). Werewolves are allowed to be rude alpha males (in fact, it’s pretty much a requirement, isn’t it?) Erotic romance is part of this, too. Lots of action, lots of sex, lots of excitement. Not page after page of the heroine’s crusade to help the poor, or whining about the man who left her when she got pregnant, or whatever.

The point is, I’m tired of hearing about and reading about and seeing articles about how romance writers should be taken seriously and look how good these books are and what modern topics they cover. I realize it’s necessary in some places to keep new readers coming into the fold. But the people who we seem to be trying so hard to impress are never going to care. They just won’t. A romance could win a Pulitzer and they’ll still say romance is crap. So why bother? Why not just say, “Yeah, and lots of people love reading my crap, so there.”

Let’s all try it, shall we? Let’s be proud to write fun stuff, to write books people enjoy reading.

It’s like that guy Miss Snark overheard talking about his Life of the Mind. Screw you, you pretentious weed. It’s probably easy to live a life of the mind when nobody wants to talk to you because your head is so far up your own ass you’re practically a gordian knot.

People like that aren’t worth my time, and they shouldn’t be worth yours.

So bring on Lady Sheba St. John and her mortal enemy, the handsome Lord Devlin, and their forbidden passion!

If the length of the title doesn’t clue you in, I have words, words, words all over the place. (“Because I was afraid of worms, Roxanne! Worms!”)

Ever have one of those days where it seems like you get a million story ideas, each one better than the last, so good you’re tempted to abandon your current WIP and the work you planned to start next and start on the new idea?

I’ve had two days like this now. Last night I couldn’t get to sleep I was so excited. Now I am literally bussing like a cokehead over a different idea. (Also maybe caffeine is involved.) Seriously. I was reading something and a random sentence jumped out at me and a whole book fell into my head.

It’s great. It’s also really, really bad and dangerous. You know why?

Reread that second paragraph. See the part where it says, “you’re tempted to abandon your current WIP and the work you planned to start next…”? Get it now?

I would be more excited about this burst of creativity, but part of me is convinced it’s that nasty little sneak, the Subconscious Fear of Failure, working in combination with Old Lazy. If I never finish another book, I’ll never sell another book, but I can keep writing newer and better ideas! The next one will surely be the one I finish, right? Of course! Why wouldn’t I finish a book with such fantastic potential, the book sure to rocket me to the top of the NYT bestseller list?

I’ll tell you why. Because halfway through that-once I’m through my clever opening and the story is really getting going, I’ll get a little bored because that first burst of excitement will fade, and I’ll decide it all sucks, and instead of working through it so I can get to the point where I know it doesn’t suck again, I’ll start something else! Something better! Something…shiny.

Plus…there’s The Shield on DVD to watch. I’m a much better writer after I’ve watched Vic Mackey kick some ass for a couple of hours, right? Or after a little snack. Or maybe a movie. Then a cigarette. Then they might show a good rerun of Frasier or something. And next thing you know…thassright. I’ve writte 200 words and wasted my whole evening.

So while part of me is way, way excited about this new story, I’m not going to hurry up and start writing it (except for as much of the plot I can get, written in longhand–which is how I always do my synopses before starting work) until it’s had some time to sit in my head and I can be sure it isn’t just my Sneaky Sub trying to distract me, magpie-like, with Shiny New Story Ideas.

Some Random Notes:

So excited! I almost hit 30 comments on my last post (and I haven’t forgotten about Part 2, or the Kick Ass Heroines, or any of the other stuff. It’s all written down where I won’t lose it, I promise, and besides, that shit’s in my head all the damn time anyway.) I know it’s actually more like 27 because I had that lame-ass spammer show up, but still. It’s more than I’ve ever had. Simple minds, simple pleasures, you know. That was a very cool simple pleasure for me.

And on that note, sometime in the next few days I plan to update my links (adding, not removing). SO if you want to link to me and would like me to link to you, let me know. It might be good to keep in mind that I do read the blogs I link to every day, and that generally they are the only blogs I read. I go through them one by one (although, as I say on the sidebar, in no particular order). If you’re not there, I probably won’t check yours, just because I either have to dig through comments every time or I have to bookmark you and I always forget to bookmark. So either comment or shoot me an email.

So, this article on MSN got me thinking. For those who are too cool to click, the article is titled “Can’t judge romance novel by its steamy cover”–Audience expanding as genre is no longer all about smut, shirtless heroes. (Thanks for the link, Sybil).

From the article: ATLANTA – Strong women and edgy plots about relationships are replacing the heated passion and ripped bodices of swooning damsels in distress traditionally associated with romance novels.

You know what? I like books about heated passion and ripped bodices. I like damsels in distress (granted, mine usually aren’t swooning, but still.) In fact, I just wrote an almost-genuine bodice ripping scene the other day, in which the hero tears the heroine’s dress off, and damn, I enjoyed that!

I miss romances like they were in the 70′s and 80′s (and if anyone ever wants to buy ol’ December a giftie, I collect 60s/70s gothic romances, the ones where the heroine is always wearing something diaphanous and running away from a large looming mansion with her hair flying in the wind behind her. I love those books.) I miss shirtless heroes and those luridly colored old clinch covers–I love those covers. I miss the huge, bloated, sex-filled romances I read when I was a young teen. (Many of those, btw, were my mother’s. I’m not THAT old, okay? I’m only almost 33.) The ones where the couples fight and fuck and have adventures across three continents, and there’s very little worry about how they’re growing as people.

This is one reason why I love Connie Mason’s books so damn much. So Connie isn’t the best writer in the world. So some of Connie’s dialogue passes the verge of ridiculous and plunks itself right down in the middle of stupid. So her characters are sometimes a little TSTL (Too Stupid To Live). So what? How can one resist prose like, “His mouth took hers once more as he spread her thighs and fondled her, his drugging kisses turning her to putty in his arms” or “Their bodies were all but glued together, and she felt his man part prodding ruthlessly against the secret place between her thighs.” Who doesn’t love that shit? C’m ON! Connie’s books are just sex scene after sex scene, and the spaces in between are filled with pretty people having dumb-ass arguments and doing dumb-ass things. But they’re good books. They’re FUN. Romance should be FUN.

Can I get an amen? Romance should be fun. I’m really rather tired of these romances that are all about social issues or how people learn to grow and change. They take themselves so seriously! If I want to read about people growing and changing, I’ll read literary fiction. I like literary fiction. I have quite a lot of it. But I read romance to escape and enjoy myself. I write it because I love writing it.

I’m not saying issues and romance don’t go together. Of course the people have to be real people (although this is one reason why I prefer historicals, both reading and writing–because I don’t have to hear about nuclear war or the environment or whatever in a medieval.) Of course they have to have their issues. You guys know I love heroes with dark secrets and all kinds of damage done to them. Nobody’s saying romance shouldn’t deal with people and their lives.

But I’m so tired of socially responsible romance. I want some hairy alpha males, attempted rapes, forced seductions, life-threatening danger, virgins wondering at the strange new sensations in their bodies and turning into sex slaves, all that good stuff. I want to feel like I’m really having FUN when reading a romance.

And I think the fun has kind of been forgotten as everyone tries so hard to prove that romances are Real Literature.

I’ll probably do a part 2 to this post. I’m planning to start blogging more often but with my sd here I’m not having much chance. She leaves end of the week so hopefully I’ll have more time then.)

As I mentioned before, Nancy Donahue from WCP (she also has her own art site, Cottage Magic) designed this, and I really do think it’s beautiful. I’m extremely pleased with it, and excited!

The book will be out in January in ebook and trade paperback!

Here’s the blurb:

They called him the Prince of Death…

Wa is coming, and Prince Cynwrig’s enemies the Cliothens will do anything to have victory. So when he finds Ayani Suntwister, a Cliothen warrior woman, lying beaten and near death in the road, he knows she’s dangerous. When he allows her to seduce him, suspecting there is more to her sudden appearance in his lands than meets the eye, he knows he’s risking his life.

What he doesn’t know is that the danger isn’t just to his body, but to his heart as well. Will the Prince of Death find a reason to live in the arms of a woman he cannot trust-but cannot resist?

I’m still in a good mood!

Even the latest RWA bullshit can’t dull my high spirits. In fact, I had actually planned to do a tiny amount of ranting about that, but I’m too cheerful. Besides, a lot of other people have already said what I would have said.

Well, okay, except this. The idea that gay people falling in love is somehow unromantic is fine. (No, it isn’t, of course, but stay with me.) But according to the same types of people who would say something like the above statement, sex doesn’t really belong in romance anyway. They prefer their romance squeaky-clean and sex free. These are generally the same people who remind us over and over that romance novels aren’t about sex, and the physical aspects of the relationship aren’t so important, it’s the people and their sweet kindness and the way they manage to find each other and blah blah blah anything that doesn’t involve cocks. Sex in romance is shameful! What sort of person wants to read about such things? They have loftier interests, they do. They’re interested in people’s souls, much like Satan waving those contracts around.

So that being the case, what difference does it make if the people falling in love are a men/woman combo, or man/man or woman/woman, or man/woman/man, or whatever? If the filthy little sexual aspects are unimportant and don’t belong in a romance novel, what difference does it make? Information about people’s dirty bits and how they fit together has no place in romance anyway, right, because somehow sex is not romantic. So why not just submit a novelization of Lethal Weapon or, my favorite, John Woo’s The Killer? If romance novels are basically just man/woman buddy movies, why not?

I’ll tell you why not. Because romance is for adults. If it wasn’t, we’d call it YA. It’s for grown-ups, and grown-ups not only have sex but sometimes like to read about or see other people having sex. (Remind me to rant about porn sometime, and how if the porn industry would film some erotic romance novels–not the books themselves, you understand, but scripts based on them–women would probably enjoy porn more. I’m not a fan of porn, but I’d sure watch it if it was costume porn, with knights and lots of ass-kicking in between the graphic sex scenes. Make that romantic graphic sex scenes, that is. Oops, guess I ranted about porn when I wasn’t paying attention. My rants have developed a life of their own.)

Anyway, romance novels are for grown-up people, by grown-up people and about grown-up people. If you want to read books where nobody has sex and only pretty ladies and squeaky-clean men fall in chaste love, read inspirational romance or shit written for teenagers, and get your nasty little hands off my sex scenes.

But, as I said, I’m not going to write about that. I’m too happy. Why?

Because I just saw the cover art for Prince of Death, and I am really, really, REALLY pleased with it. I love it. I think it’s beautiful, I think it’s romantic, I think it’s just a little sexy. The artist, Nancy Donahue, did a smashing job and was more than willing to fix my little nitpicks to make it perfect. I’m not allowed to post it until we get the okay from WCP’s EIC/Publisher, but the minute I do I will put it up. I really love it and hope you will too, and all is right with the world (except those damn RWA bitches and their pissy little letters. But screw them–I have a pretty cover!)

I’ve been ranting a lot lately, and I fear my righteous anger and propensity to use “fuck” a lot has perhaps concealed the true sunny goodness of my personality.

Nah, not really. But I would like to be a little light-hearted today, so I’m going to talk about something fun. (No, this isn’t the Snakes on a Plane post. That will come later. Can’t wait for Snakes on a Plane!)

Instead I’m going to talk about Reno 911! and Encyclopedia Brown.

How are the two connected? you may ask. I’ll tell you how they are connected, and in so doing will reveal the reason for this post, too.

Okay, first, I love Reno 911!. I think it’s hysterical, the kind of funny that, like Office Space or Free Enterprise, gets funnier every time you see it. I love the characters-Lt. Dangle and his shorts (so he can move like a Cheetah); Jonesy and his seemingly insatiable sexual appetite; Raeneshia who likes being a cop so she can push men around; Wiegel the racist idiot; Garcia the boob; Junior the white trash petty thief; and Clemmie the whore. (I know they added someone new to the show in Season Three, but being in England I haven’t seen it yet.) Every character is so perfect, and so perfectly funny. The show is a gem, and if you are a writer who likes to do comedy, you could do a lot worse than studying this show, because the humor is so character driven.

Where the show fits in with this blog is in one particular classic episode, I believe from Season 2. (I have the first two seasons on DVD but I’m too lazy to go hunt for it.)

The Sheriffs of Reno respond to a 911 call and arrive at the scene of a fire in an apartment building. A man is outside in his robe, begging them to let him go back in to rescue his manuscript. It’s his only copy of a novel he’s been working on for several years.

They ask him what it’s about, which is funny in itself. He tells them it’s about a man whose father died, and twenty years later he starts getting letters, and they’re from his Dad, and his Dad was murdered…

“Oh, it’s that movie,” says Dangle. The Sheriffs argue about whether it was Randy or Dennis Quaid in the film (Frequency) for a while, blah blah, all very funny. They tell the author it sounds derivative, it’s already been done. Then Lt. Junior shows up. The writer begs him to go get it. Junior starts to go but is called back by Dangle, who says, “Nononono, don’t bother. It sucks.”

The plot is explained to Junior, who insists that’s an Encyclopedia Brown story. Meanwhile the writer is freaking out.

The Fire Dept. arrives. The writer begs the fireman to go get his book. The sheriffs tell him not to. The fireman asks the writer what the book is about. The frustrated and upset writer mumbles some half-assed response. And, in one of the best moments ever, the fireman says:

“You know, if you can’t get excited about your work, how can you expect anyone else to?”

At which point I collapse into giggles and decide Reno 911! is one of the smartest, funniest, bestest shows ever.

Becuase it’s true. You need to be passionate about your work. You need to believe in it. Passion is a good thing. Loving your book is a good thing. If you can translate that passion onto the page, readers will feel it, and they’ll be passionate about it too. Love like that, excitement like that, is infectious, and translating it to the page is half the battle.

Personally, I tend to dislike my work until it’s done, as I’ve mentioned before. I’m about 15k into a new book at the moment that I’m really enjoying, but I know that I’m almost at the point where the whole thing will start to seem like useless drivel to me. I’ll push on, because I love to finish a book and I’m just a deicated kind of a girl, but when I finish it I’ll put it aside with a sigh of relief and a determination to never show it to anyone, that it sucks and blah blah blah.

Then I’ll go back and read it a week or two later and fall in love with it all over again.

I’m reaching a point where the only books I want to read are my own. Am I the only one who gets that way?

That episode reminded me of somethng else, though, too. How much I used to really like Encyclopedia Brown I loved those books! I loved trying to match wits with his enormous intellect. Just like those One-Minute Mysteries or Five-Minute Mysteries you used to be able to get. Can you still find Encyclopedia Brown books in the stores? Or has he been totally phased out by Girls Who Are Smart and Have Adventures While the Boys Bake Cookies or Feminist Retellings of Every Kid’s Book, Myth, or Legend You Ever Loved As A Child books?

That’s one of the things I love most about Harry Potter. The cast is largely male (with the exception of Hermione, who is more interesting now than she used to be but who I still wouldn’t care to spend a lot of time with.) It’s about boys doing boy things, and I love it.

End Notes

I am out of town again this weekend.

Are my posts too long?

Should I post more often?

reno 911

No, this post isn’t about that. It’s actually sort of an addendum to my earlier post about the to-do at Romancing the Blog.

There’s another little mess a-brewing. Some woman posted a negative review of Jennifer LaBrecque’s Blaze book, Highland Flings, on Amazon. So Jennifer, in a sweet, classy move, offered to refund the reviewer’s money at the RWA convention.

It should have ended there.

Of course, it didn’t. Why? Because the Everybody’s Special Especially Us Romance Writers Crew had to leap on in and start bitching. (I’m making these up, because I don’t want to quote anybody, so these are composites, if you will):

It takes a lot of talent to write a book. That reviewer doesn;t know what we go through. It’s hard work.

The value of the book lies in the work the author put into it, not in how good one person thinks it is.

Oh my GODS. Shut UP you miserable, whiny little soft-porn Pollyannas! Every time something says something bad about anyone or anything, you all have to leap in like a bunch of frigging Southern Baptists at a gay wedding and Put A Stop To All This Meanness Before Somebody’s Precious Feelings Get Hurt.

Instead of pulling out those dumb-assed platitudes about how special we all are, why not remember an even better, more valid life lesson, about how to be a good loser? About how not everyone is your friend (I’m sure as fuck not)? About how not everyone likes the same things?

See, the thing is, I know you bitches. I went to high school with you. We all went to high school with you. You insisted then that we all conform and like what you liked, and you’re still fucking doing it now. It’s shit like this that totally stifles intellectual debate, that makes it impossible for people to disagree but still appreciate the value of another person’s opinion. It’s shit like this that reinforces the stereotype that romance writers are a bunch of miserable, PMS-ridden morons who wear nothing but pink and teach their kids that if they get the answers wrong, they’ve still succeeded. Well no they haven’t, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you people turn the public image of romance writers into some simpering, babyish Niceness Monitors in fluffy pink cars, surrounded by hair-bow-wearing minions like the fucking Stepford Scribes or something.

Ladies (and I use the term loosely, because where I come from a lady allows other people to think independently), when we write a book we have to expect there will be people who don’t like it. More than that, if all we ever get from readers is “nice things” then we never know how to reach a bigger audience. This is how people actually learn. Do I expect that everyone will like my work? Fuck, no. Does it hurt when they don’t? Of course it does. But, as I have pointed out so many times before, my work is not me. Just because someone doesn’t like my voice or my story doesn’t mean they’ve said they don’t like me. And you know what? Fuck ‘em if they did.

I put my work out there. I hope people like it. If they don’t, I wonder why. But that’s as far as it goes. Frankly, I’m a little too busy to spend my days chasing them around cyberspace to tell them how mean they are. (Although I do agree that if you’re trying to get published, criticizing the work of the house you’re subbing to may not be the best idea.) And really, I don’t have the right to insist they keep their damn mouths shut if they don’t like it. Because once I put it out there, it’s not mine anymore. It becomes the property of the readers. (Yes, technically it’s mine, but you know what I mean.) They can use my book as toilet paper if they so desire and it’s none of my business.

It’s the arrogance of these people that stuns me. Once we start insisting that readers don’t review our books unless they’re going to be positive, where does it end? “And don’t read my book if you haven’t showered yet. Or if you’re…answering nature’s call (that’s as close to a toilet joke as you’re ever going to get from me, btw). Or if your hands are smudgy. Don’t read it if you don’t watch Nip/Tuck, because I like Nip/Tuck and you’d better like it to if you expect me to deign to allow you to read my precious words. If you are over 40, don’t read my book. If you are a manual laborer, you will likely not understand my book so I would prefer you not read it.” (That isn’t my opinion, just to clarify.)

Contempt for the readers and their opinions? Fuck you. The readers are why we’re here. If you don’t like it, why don’t you pick another career, you pussy? Why not take your own sage greeting-card advice and keep your mouth shut?

Jennifer LaBrecque has style. She took it on the chin and kept smiling. That’s the way we should all be.