Category Archives: fantasy

The Books Are Arriving

Commenters have commented here that they have received their books. (Thank you very much. It was good to know folks are getting them.)

I have now received my copies. Yes, they are beautiful. I might even read it. I read my very first two books when I got them. (They were short.) I read Compass Rose. I only got about halfway through Barbed Rose. So–given how many times I read Eternal Rose through the revision and re-revision and paring-down-to-size process, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get all the way through it. I might go back and re-read Barbed Rose again.

I have found that when I create characters and a story that I like, I still like them when I go back and look at them again, even if it’s just a fragment I came up with ages ago that has no business even thinking about publication. I usually pick apart the prose when I read back over the story, but I still like the characters and the story. Or at least the intent of the story. What I wanted the story to be…I might realize how the story ought to be better told.

This is kind of what I’m doing now with Thunder. I came up with the idea so, so long ago–but I still like the idea and the characters and the story. I just know more about story-telling now, so maybe I can do them all justice. I hope. I’ve done more research, and I’m having a little trouble reconciling the emotional numbing symptoms of a PTSD sufferer with my character’s need to locate her family…but an overprotectiveness of loved ones is also a symptom, so maybe I can balance it that way. There’s apparently a wide variation in behavior–and given that my character is not so very “post,” I think I can make it work. It’s some of the hardest writing I’ve ever done, though.

Oh, there’s a nice review of The Eternal Rose if you’re interested, and in response to the comment about the bit that left the reviewer scratching her head, let me just say: It’s a fantasy. And leave it at that. :)

Nice slow week this week. Not much experimenting in the kitchen (I made Mediterranean Salmon with white beans last week…pretty good, even if salmon isn’t a Mediterranean fish–is it?). The steaks were awesome though, and we had leftovers. Then I found some sweet corn in the fridge to have with the leftovers, so they were awesome twice.

No beach visits so far this week–my walks have been around the neighborhood–and I’m going to have to get up earlier and get out the door earlier to beat the heat. But if nothing else gets planned–and if it doesn’t rain–I think I want to at least go to the beach to swim for my birthday Saturday. (Dang, but I’m getting old.)

They did call me to interview for the part-time job I applied for, but that’s two weeks away. I think it will be an interesting job, and still leave me time to write. Which I need to get busy and do. I need to earn my charm for September. August turned out to be just impossible. I’m probably 6 pages up right now, but that leaves me with 18 to go. I’m having to do as much thinking and researching as writing though… Have a research book I need to go buy.
Better run…

Writing about Sex

I have a list of things I want to blog about someday. I write them down–the ones I can remember long enough to write down–so I don’t forget them. For instance, I do want to write about the TIME Magazine article “Who killed the love story?” But not today.

And the son, who is home from university this week, found my list and wrote on it: Monkeys in Outer Space bent on destroying zuwieroiyushamnn At least that’s what I think he wrote on it. And I may write a blog about monkeys in outer space bent on destroying…whatever… But not today.

Today, I’m going to blog about sex. Specifically, about writing about sex in novels. See, I got a note on my Shelfari Shelf from a friend who said that she was “unimpressed” by the One Rose books because she didn’t like books that “focus so completely around sex.”

Which took me totally aback, because I certainly didn’t think the books at all focused so completely around sex. I’ve read books that focus completely around sex, and believe me, they have a LOT more sex than the Rose books do.

The Compass Rose has only three fully consummated love scenes in it. It has a few more “sex by magic” (sorta like phone sex, only without the phone) scenes, and the characters talk about sex a lot. Because the books are about men and women who care about each other, who have a relationship–who are married to each other, to be more exact–and who have different understandings from each other about relationships and about sex and how the world works. And I firmly believe that to put people in that kind of situation and NOT address the sex issue would have been nothing less than a flat out lie.

(The Barbed Rose has more sex, as does The Eternal Rose, because in those books, the relationships are on-going and more fully developed. By the time The Eternal Rose begins, seven years have passed since the beginning of The Compass Rose. The characters have been married for that long. Sex is going to be a part of those relationships.)

All those books that have men and women traveling together on a quest for months to retrieve the Magic Hoohah and save the world–and the characters Never Even Think About Sex–are just plain lying, IMO.

People think about sex. They have sex. They screw up their lives because they try to ignore sex and they can’t. Or they screw up their lives because they have sex with anything that moves and never figure out why they’re lonely. Sex is a part of life. It’s a huge part of life, and I think that novelists–in whatever genre they write–should address it, if they’re comfortable with it.

In speculative fiction, like fantasy and science fiction, it’s possible to explore a greater range of “what ifs” than in novels set in contemporary or historical times, and exploration is a good thing, I think. If I’m ever able to write more books set in the One Rose universe, I can see Kallista’s children complaining that it’s hard enough to find one person willing to put up with your faults–

I do understand that sex is a private part of life and that some people are uncomfortable with a discussion, or even a portrayal of something so intensely private and intimate. I understand that some people have moral issues with reading about sex. Personal opinions are just that. Personal opinions. And everyone’s entitled to have them. Which is why I left the note up on my Shelfari page and didn’t delete it. Tanis has every right to not like books with much sex in them, and every right to express her opinion.

But I did want to explain why I wrote the books the way I did, and why I write about sex, and there’s not a way to respond to a note on one’s own page, and I didn’t want to stick a note on her page without any context, so I came here to share my philosophy of writing about sex with the world–or at least as much of the world as comes by to read my blog.

I’m still waiting for my copies of The Eternal Rose… Sigh.

Beyond Tired

Although I probably shouldn’t be by now. It’s Wednesday. I’ve been home (again) since Sunday evening. But I still feel like I’ve been dragged backwards through the bushes. And then maybe beat with a stick some.

I went to ArmadilloCon in Austin last weekend. It’s a science fiction/fantasy conference, was lots of fun, but dang, I’m really tired now. And it was hard attending when I hadn’t even been in the new house for a week. Still, I bet I’m the only one in a while who’s been put on both the sex- AND the religion-in-fantasy panels. We had a lot of fun doing the panels–laughed a Whole lot during the sex-in-fantasy panel–and I scored a necklace-and-earring set and a dragon print at the art auction. Both very cool and very lovely. (The jewelry is purple rock–and no, I don’t remember what kind it’s supposed to be–that will go very well with the purple rock earrings I already have.)

So, now the boy is down from college for the week. I need to go drag him out of bed so we can go to the washateria (all the laundromats around here seem to have that title) since we haven’t rented laundry equipment yet–and doing laundry in the garage is REALLY going to be not fun around here… The heat index has been in the 110s (43 C) the past few days–worse than in Houston because of the killer humidity.

We have had fresh boiled shrimp this week–bought at the grocery store, not a fish market, but still the freshest stuff I’ve had in a long time. Wonderful. My next goal for the week is to get out to the beach and get IN the water, sometime before the boy heads back to school. The grandboys are coming to visit next week (so the posts here will be sparse, I’m sure) and I plan to take them to the water several times, but their WunkaBob won’t be here then…

Cross your fingers that the books (The Eternal Rose) come in next week. The printer has promised them by then, but…

I’m trying to write, but not very hard. I got 4-1/2 pages done Monday, but there’s just too much to do. Went to Ikea to buy tables to set up for computer desks–and forgot to buy the second table. Sometime, when I’m back that way, I’ll have to get the second table. (sigh) That’s my project for today, though. To put the table on its legs. It’s bound to work better than the card table I’m using right now…

Printing

At this very moment, I am printing out the complete (and still pretty long) manuscript to New Blood to mail to the agent tomorrow. I like it, I like how it’s turned out–there are still things that could probably be cut, but it works for me, so…

This means that I mail it, and then I have to start doing not-fun stuff like packing boxes. I’m not going to take any books but the research books I’m using for Thunder, and a few of the TBRs–because if I don’t have books to read, I will buy books to read. I will probably buy books to read anyway, but…

Oh, and we may have someone to buy our house after all. Cross your fingers that everything works out. We’re still moving into the house with the big deck first weekend in August, but it’s exciting news. I don’t want to have this dragging on. I’m hoping I’ll be able to move ALL my books into the house, but…

Eww. Just occurred to me–it’s REALLY humid on the coast, which is not good for books. I’ll have to find a place for my comics in the house–or sell them all on e-Bay. I miss them, but don’t have time for them any more. Especially won’t if I have to get a dayjob, which is a possibility.

Next writing project, to be started in the new house/town–I’m going to revise the demon hunter book and see if I can get over the first barrier. Then I’m going to start the re-write on the urban fantasy Irish shaman/Navajo warrior princess story. Oh, and I’m still writing 25 pages a month on the WWII story, Thunder.

Um–I’ve finished the new Harry Potter book. I was out of town when the mail order package came in, but I read it. It was a satisfying ending to the story, I thought. I’ve also read an old Barbara Delinsky, Looking for Peyton Place, which I liked, and Liz Maverick’s launch of the Shomi line, Wired, which I think I liked, but it confused me a lot, so I’m not really sure. On the airplane coming back, I read Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep (liked it) and Soul Song by Marjorie M. Liu (liked it too). Need to sort my ABRs (already been read) into keepers, library donations and trade-ins. I haven’t lived near Waco in 8 years, but I’m still carting my trade-ins to Golden’s Books on Franklin street there–best used book store I’ve found so far. Maybe I’ll find a new one in the new place, but will wait and see.

Oh! I did get my domain up and running again. (It helps when you pay your bills on time. ) Now to update it. And then, to shift my plan. I have it on one that isn’t particularly idiot-friendly. I need something for the computerly ignorant.

And Summer Goes Slipping By…

I have been scolded for not getting a post up. It’s not my fault–or not so much. I’ve been away. And I’m about to go away again. But I’m here now and so I shall attempt to get up a quick post.

You may recall from earlier posts (like the one just previous) that I had the grandboys for a week plus. We had lots of fun, going to summer reading at the library and such. Spent more time that I liked hunting for a) video tapes borrowed from the library and/or b) the boxes said videos came in. I had to get out a left-behind golf club and fish one of the boxes out from under the TV stand. One of the boxes I still can’t find–but the nice ladies at the library said to bring it on back anyway. (the video, not the box, since I don’t know where the box is, so I can’t bring it back. But the orange video is sitting on the end table in the den.)

Then their granddaddy left town to go start his new job. (For some reason he thought that was important.) That wasn’t so bad, but then the son–the little boys’ daddy–didn’t make it to town till about a day later than we’d hoped. (Me and the little guys.) We did fine, but we sure were glad to see their daddy.

Then I took them all home, and drove down to Austin to see the parents and the sister & B-i-L who were down from the far northland to see my niece graduate from Air Force bootcamp. That was an adventure and a half, but we don’t want to make this blogpost too long. The picture here is of the niece getting her Coin the day before the official graduation. She was an honor grad, but I blurred most of those pictures. (sigh) Anyway, it was a lot of fun to get to go and see all the ceremony, where she lived, all that stuff, and to visit with the family.

I took Mama & Daddy home before the rest of them came back up, because they couldn’t keep up too well with all the “young folks.” We had a nice time shopping and “resting up.” Then it was time to go to Dallas for RWA.

That was an experience and a half. And I took Absolutely NO pictures while I was at conference. I don’t know why, except that I just didn’t feel like dragging the camera around. So I didn’t. I didn’t even get a picture of me with my Prism award.

Yeah, I won the Prism Award in the fantasy category, which is a pretty nifty and well-respected award for fantasy and paranormal (like vampires and stuff) romance, presented by the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of RWA, for The Barbed Rose.

The Prism is given each year for the best published novel in several fantasy/SF/etc. categories (of the books that are entered, anyway). The other two finalists in the fantasy category were also LUNA authors, and I honestly never expected to win, which meant that when I did, and they asked me to say a few words, I had to fumble to come up with something. I sincerely hope I didn’t make an idiot of myself. I was absolutely thrilled–I’ve wanted one of these babies since I got to rub the one Robin Owens won…in Reno, I think it was. The award is a beautiful crystal…prism. It’s a pyramid engraved with the award name, the category, and the book title and author (me!), and it turns all sorts of lovely glowy colors depending on what angle you look at it. It’s sitting right on top of my desk (in one of the cleared off spots.)

I’ll write more about conference when I recover a little more. I danced a lot at the Harlequin party, and I’m still sore from that. A few of us tried to teach all the Yankees about the Cotton-eyed Joe, but I’m not sure how well it worked. Oh well. And then there was all the REST of the dancing.

I intend to post at least one more blog before I head down to the island for the weekend to look at houses. We shall see if I make it. I’m trying to write 25 pages on the World War II novel (working title: Thunder in a Cloudless Sky–because that’s what artillery firing sounds like…) by Saturday this week, so I can earn this month’s charm. It’s 25 pages for the month, and I haven’t written anything at all so far this month. (First boys, then out of town.) It’s looking pretty good. I’m up to 16.5 so far. Of course, I haven’t done a THING toward moving… except unpack the suitcases and divvy up the give-away books from conference.

Okay, done. I’m ending this too-long blog. Really. Now. I’m quitting.

Shaking head sadly

So tonight I got a phone call from the boy. The one in college (who still doesn’t have a summer job–GRRRR). And he wants to know about insurance on his vehicle. With one of those queasy feelings growing in my gut, I ask–not-so-nonchalantly–Why do you want to know???

Seems a tree fell on his car. A whole freakin’ tree.

Well, actually, it was more like half a tree. The tree broke in half and fell on his car. And the car of one of his roommates. But mostly on his car.

He said the damage was mostly paint, and dents–it didn’t break any windows…yet. So I told him to take pictures, and then get the freakin’ tree off the freakin’ car. Actually, I didn’t say freakin’. I didn’t use any other bad words either. I was a good mom and didn’t shock the boy. What is the deal with trees in Waco? Not that many years ago, a tree at Cameron Park dropped a giant branch on a little girl and killed her. And the wind wasn’t even blowing, either time. You expect trees to break in high wind. And Waco gets a lot of high winds. I guess it weakened the trees, and then when you’re not looking…wham!

Anyway. Tree. Car. Smush.

Oh, The Eternal Rose got a nice mention at this website. Thanks, krisstarr! I do appreciate it.

I will be posting the first chapter of the book very soon. Like, as soon as I can manage to get the website altered and get the excerpt on the site and make links to attach it to everything. Of course, people who subscribe to my newsletter get a special “newsletter only” excerpt too. :)

But first I need to write 10.5 more pages of the WWII book so I can earn my charm for this month. North Texas RWA chapter is having a “Book In A Year” challenge for its members–of whom I am one (see, I can do grammar). If we write 25 pages a month, we get a charm bracelet over the space of a year. I’ve done 2 months. But I need my 10.5 more pages to get this month’s bracelet. And it’s a good break to let New Blood ferment before I plunge into revisions.

Second Draft – Complete!

I’m trying to make a list of things I’d like to blog about sometime, so that when I think of something that would make a good blog, I won’t forget what they are before I get round to blogging them. Mostly I just wait and see what I can come up with on the spur of the very last moment possible. Which is what you’re getting today.

I finished typing New Blood into the computer today. (Yayyyyyyyy!!!!!!! – again, picture Kermit the Frog running around in circles, waving his little spindly arms in the air, going Yayyy) As a second draft, it’s pretty minor. I don’t make a whole lot of changes during the typing of the manuscript. But I do make some, and once it’s all in the computer, I can print it out, and go at it with the weedwacker. And it’s IN THERE!!

It does need a weedwacker. And some makeup and disguises. Maybe some wholesale demo and rebuilding. I have made notes–mostly mental, but today I did write some stuff down on the back of an earlier revision paragraph page. And it’s mostly, sorta readable. And I need to do the vast majority of this fixing next week.

Because the Dallas grandboys are coming to visit (I hope) the week after that. And half-a-week after that, I’m heading off to the parents to visit the sister and b-i-l coming to visit from the mountains, and after a week at the parents, I’ll head up to Dallas for RWA–and then…well, it’s going to be time to go home and clean up my office to sell the Panhandle house, so we can see about getting our Beach house. I might have about a week for that. Maybe two. Yeah. It’s getting busy.

But the book is in the computer.

Talking about Show and Tell

Laura Shin said this on The Pink Ladies Blog: “Take “show and tell.” Some writers avoid narrative introspection because they’ve been told that’s telling. Yet, I would in most cases rather know what a character is thinking—her reaction—and not read generic physical actions that are supposed to show me how she’s affected.”

Sometimes I think this avoidance-of-narrative-introspection is a “guy writer” thing. Something that E. Hemingway started–and I blame him for a lot of stuff. For the stripped-down writing style that has been so popular, for one thing. And for the “girl-cooties” school of thought about “litrachure.” It’s not that I am fond of purple prose, but it does sometimes seem that all metaphors and adjectives are now considered suspect in certain circles. Ah well.

I tend to blame television and movies for the lack of internal reaction in novels today, not the “show vs. tell” issue. If we’re in deep POV, the thoughts and emotions are showing, though they can seem like telling, I suppose. These days, a lot of newbie authors, the ones I judge in contests, tend not to go on and on with backstory and what the characters are thinking– they’ve been trained out of that, I suppose. Lately, I’ve seen the pendulum swing too far the other way. They write prose that reads a lot like a screenplay, with dialog, action, and nothing else. Which means a lot of the characters’ motivations for their actions are completely missing.

If we don’t get what the character thinks about something, or how they feel about something– about who a person is, or what that person does, or about what they themselves do–then we don’t get to know who this character is, and we don’t know why they do what they do, and without knowing the character and understanding them, we don’t care what happens to them. We have to explain what’s going on inside a character’s head. It doesn’t take a whole lot. Just…enough.

Here’s an excerpt from the first of my Rose books, The Compass Rose, to demonstrate what I mean. (I’ll put the internal reaction in another color to make it easier to spot):

Torchay had changed out of his finery into old trousers, his tunic off against the heat as he worked through his bodyguard exercises.

“Don’t you usually do that earlier in the day?” Kallista tossed her pendant on the table beside the big bed and kicked off her shoes.

“I did.” He finished the flowing form he was doing and stopped. The faint sheen of sweat over his lean musculature tempted her eyes to look, to drink their fill. “I felt like doing it again. I didn’t expect to see you before dawn.”

“Yes, well…” She tugged her fingers free of the thin snug leather and pulled her gloves off, flexing her sweaty hands in the slightly cooler air. “Didn’t work out.”

Torchay walked toward the table. Kallista backed off. She couldn’t bear being so close to him. Not now. He poured water from the pitcher into a cup and drank it, then poured the rest into the basin and splashed it on his face. Kallista watched his every move.

When he had dried his face with the flimsy towel, he turned and saw Kallista watching. “Can I ask you somethi—? No.” He shook his head. “Never mind.” He hung the towel up and reached for his hair to release his queue.

“What?” Kallista loosened the laces of her dress tunic. “If you have a question, ask it. You know you can ask me anything.”

“Can I?”

She looked up and saw his gaze focused on her. The candlelight reflecting from his eyes made them glow with blue flame. She lost herself in them for a moment before she recalled he’d asked her a question. “Yes, of course. Anything.”

Once more he hesitated, seeming to look for something as he gazed at her, but what, Kallista didn’t know. [I put all this in a different color, because part of it is what K. thinks he’s doing.]

“All right,” he said finally. “I will.” He ran his fingers through his unbound hair and it fell in waves around his face, crimson in the candlelight. “When you have gone out hunting all these years—“ He paused for a deep breath, looking away only an instant. “When you have hunted a man, why did you never choose me?”

Kallista swayed, Torchay’s question touching unseen things deep inside her, drawing her tight, opening her up. Her nipples beaded beneath the brocade weave of her dress and she tucked her hands beneath her arms, more as a guard against unwanted magic than an attempt to hide her body’s reaction. [all of the previous is a physical reaction–with a teensy bit of explanation, but after is where we get the true emotional reaction.] Why did he have to ask her that question now? Now when she wanted him so much it made her mouth dry and other places all too wet?

“I— It’s not that—“ Goddess, what could she say that wouldn’t either insult him or encourage him?

Torchay waited, his face an impassive mask, candlelight licking over his sculpted form, tempting her to do the same. She curled her hands into fists against the urge to touch.

See? Most of it is action and dialogue. But the internal reaction is sprinkled in with it, and that’s all you need. Not a whole lot, but enough to expand on what is physically happening. You need both. The action and dialog AND the internal reaction–mental and emotional–to the action.

When I judge contests, I often feel like a psychoanalyst for the characters, given all the times I’m writing “Why?” or “And what does he feel about that?” Those things do need to be included. Not over pages and pages, but all the way through every bit of it.

Good food and good books

Because the fella is on this gluten-free diet, I get all excited when I find new stuff that he can eat that’s really good. I have probably a year’s worth of Southern Living magazines in the house–I read them, and then set them aside to go back through later and pull the good stuff out–and sometimes (most of the time) it takes me a while to go back through. I think this particular magazine was around a year old. Don’t think it was more. (I hope.) Anyway, the recipe was sort of Italian-Southern-Southwestern, because it was browned polenta slices topped with black-eyed peas heavily laced with fresh cilantro and tomato. Basically, you slice up one of those pre-packaged tubes of polenta, brown it in olive oil (they call for a non-stick skillet and cooking spray, but since I don’t have a non-stick skillet…). Then you cook a can of black-eyed peas and chopped onion, and a little salt and cayenne, till the liquid’s almost gone, add in some cilantro and tomato and top the polenta slices with it. Very simple. Very good stuff. I don’t know that anyone but a Southerner would have thought to put black-eyed peas with polenta–but hey, fried polenta is just a fancy name for a round, flat hushpuppy! Maybe it’s Texas cuisine, since it’s peas plus cilantro and tomato, which has a lot in common with “Texas caviar.” Anyway–good stuff.

I’ve been reading some good books lately too. Picked up DARK MOON DEFENDER by Sharon Shinn. I liked it better than THIRTEENTH HOUSE–which I liked, just not as much as DMD. This one takes place in the same universe, and is Justin’s story, about how he comes into his own, and falls in love. There are TWO happy endings in this story. Very good read, IMO.

I need to make maps for Eternal Rose. I have paper and everything, just haven’t done it yet. Going to Galveston and the beach for a day or two beginning tomorrow…don’t know as I’ll take the paper with me. I wonder if I need to use the legal-sized paper for the maps… I’ll ask. Also need to write a short bio. I hate writing bios. I want to sound cute and clever, and just can’t seem to do it. At least I don’t sound clever to myself. Maybe it sounds better to other people. I’d post two bios here and let y’all vote on which one sounds best–but that would require that I WRITE two bios. I don’t even want to write one. But I will do it! I am brave.

Okay–have to share this with you. When the boy was still at home and studying WWI history, they were doing some kind of project looking up the early efforts at propaganda, and he stumbled across a cache of French WWI war posters online, the “Loose Lips Sink Ships” sort. One of these posters showed a chicken sitting atop a pile of eggs and said in large print: “Je suis une brave poule de guerre!” Which translated means: “I am a brave war chicken!”

And now, every time I think “I am brave,” I also think “I am a brave war chicken!” Je suis une brave poule de guerre!

So there. :)

Sex in Fiction

I’m writing mostly fantasy now, but it’s romantic fantasy, and it could as easily go the other way, to fantasy/paranormal romance. I got my start in romance, writing Harlequin/ Silhouette/ Mills & Boon series books. Those of you who’ve read the Rose books know they have sex in them. I don’t think I’ve written anything without it–I know I haven’t published anything without it. Some of the books I’ve written have more than others. I was surprised when I got through New Blood and only had one sex scene in it–but that’s because of who my characters are. They have issues. A lot more issues than Kallista and her crew ever had.

I’ve found it interesting that most of the male-written fiction has a lot less sex in it than that written by females, despite the stereotype of the sex-crazed male, and the ones that have sex tend to do more “closing the bedroom door” than female authors. And while I haven’t done any real statistically significant studies (which seem to me to be impossible anyway, since quality of writing is a pretty subjective thing), most male writers don’t seem to write sex scenes as well as women writers. There are some who do. And most of them write romance. (Harold Lowry, who writes as Leigh Greenwood, and K.N. Casper are two good ones.)

I’m heading in a round-about way for my point. In a rather scholarly discussion of the romance genre begun by a Princeton University class in “American Best Sellers” on Romance by the Blog a couple of weeks ago, someone asked about romance and porn and the difference between them. And some of the respondents got into a discussion about whether romance gets labeled as porn because it is, at least in part, about women’s sexuality, which can be threatening to some people. One of the respondents (Robin) had this to say:

IMO the vast majority of women are conflicted *in some way* about our sexuality. I don’t know how much of this is a function of patriarchal assumptions about gender roles and how much of it is some kind of policing mechanism among women that is only *partially* informed by patriarchy (at what point do we take responsibility for our own agency as women?!), but I think the ambivalence emerges within Romance fiction … and I’d even go so far as to say that much of what shows up in Romance is some effort to grapple with this ambivalence, to put it out in the open and to work it out somehow.

I quoted this, because I couldn’t say it better myself. I do think a lot of the “policing” in romance fiction–and in other fiction by women–is done by women.

My Rose books are out of the mainstream when it comes to the relationships between the characters. They’ve had some pretty harsh reader reviews at Amazon because of that. (I haven’t read any of them since I saw the first one–why inflict them upon myself?) I won’t say the reviews were all by women, because I don’t know. But I’d wager most of them are. The men who’ve read my Rose books (guys tend to want more bashing and gore than most fantasy books have–though the Rose books have plenty of swordfights and such) have liked them. Still, given the current uproar in the romance-reading world over rape in romance, and the letters I’ve received on the sex in my books–all anecdotal evidence to be sure–I’d say that women are the quickest to react, and to condemn when a (female) writer steps outside the “zone” to explore these ambivalent areas that make us squirm.

I won’t be buying or reading the “rape” book (You’ll have to go elsewhere to find out what I’m referring to.) because it’s not one of my fantasies. Nor will I be reading any more books in the Silhouette Desire series because the heroes have gone too close to that abusive edge for my comfort even though my first published books were Desires, and I have a lot of good friends still writing for them. I hate that I won’t be able to support them any more, but I don’t buy books I don’t read, and I just can’t read those books any more. I hate that editorial/ marketing decisions have transformed what was once one of my favorite lines into something I just can’t handle. But this is a personal issue.

Just because I don’t like very “alpha” heroes doesn’t mean I think nobody should write them. Just because I don’t care for submissive-female erotica doesn’t mean I think they should be banned. Obviously more women prefer that sort of erotica than the other way round, because several of the erotica publishers won’t even look at stories with dominant women. And if someone wants to write rape-fantasy stories, I’m not going to say she shouldn’t. I’m not going to buy them, because I don’t like that kind of story, but I don’t like really scary romantic suspense either, and that’s certainly not going away.

I guess my point is exactly like the points made by lots of other people. If you don’t like whatever sexual episode might be in a story, don’t read it. If you do, and if you decide to post a review about it, try to be cogent in your reasons for disliking the story. But under the fiction umbrella–whether it be romance, fantasy, mystery or literary–an author should feel free to write about whatever kind of sex he/she wants to write. It’s a way to explore part of what makes us human, and the mixed-up feelings that go along with something so important.