HelenKay Dimon

It’s that time of year.  The go-to-Vegas-and-spend-the-kids’-milk-money weekend.  Really, we don’t have kids and we’re paying someone to stay at the house to watch our four-legged critters, so no one need call Children Services or Animal Services or any other Services.  Don’t try to rob us either.  Our house sitter can kick your butt and we have ADT and we don’t own anything since I won’t let the hubby get the plasma TV he wants and we have the nosiest neighbors on the planet….just trust me when I say it’s a waste of your time. 

I love vacations that amount to little more than eating, sunning, spa-ing, eating, gambling and more eating.  All of this relaxation allows for a great deal of reading and lounging (look, I found more "ing" words).  Between the flight and all that pool time, there is plenty of time for reading by the pool, which also means less time for the the really fun stuff like, say, hanging out in the casino gym or exercising in any manner.  No, Vegas is for spending money, relaxing and reading.

The following books will be in my bag – and, yeah, I know I’m only there for 5 days – and ready for their turn off the TBR pile:

1.  Jamie by Lori Foster – It’s her last book in a series and I love to finish off a series.

2.  Bad Boys Down Under by Nancy Warren – My editor told me to drag this one off the pile and read it.  She could tell me to read Proust and I’d probably do it.  Or, I’d pretend I did and pay some high school kid for the notes.

3.  The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje – Tod and Wendy and my hubby and a bunch of others gave me crap on a blog entry some time back for not having read this book.  And, when I said I hated the movie, well, you would have thought I squashed a kitty or something.  Fine.  I live to make others happy.  Whether this thing will ever see the outside of my bag is a question, but it is going on a nice trip.

4.  Beach Blanket Bad Boys by L.L. Miller, A. Kent, J. Shalvis, S. Carr, L. Monroe and M. Leigh – Been waiting for this one.  Had to skip lunch to run out and buy it.  That’s a commitment.  Trust me.

5.  Just One Look by Harlan Coben – I always take one non-romance and The English Patient doesn’t really count since I’m reading it under protest and may just lie and say I did even though I know Tod will try to quiz me, so… I need something else.  Usually I dig into hubby’s stash of boring stuff.  The only thing I saw was The Kite Runner.  Frankly, he gave me a daily account of this book while he read it and I’ll slit my wrists if I try to read it on vacation or any other time.  The goal is relaxation, not weeping.

So, enjoy the holiday weekend.  I plan to.

I know this will disappoint Candy, but I’ve read every one of Linda Howard’s books.  Every.  Single.  One.  Loved ‘em too.  Yes, I did.  From Duncan’s Bride to After The Night, I couldn’t get enough.  When she wrote about the MacKenzie family, I wanted the parents to produce more kids so I could read their stories and, as if we’re cosmically connected,  she knew and manufactured an extra kid.  In case you’re wondering how you do this as an author, well,  you have your heroine in an early book find a kid on the side of the road, name him Chance -  ’cause that’s a good romance hero name for when you have him grow up and put him in his own book – and have said family adopt him.  To ensure a plentiful supply of future romance heroes should your publisher request more books, you have the family produce numerous testosterone-enhanced boys and one petite adorable girl.  She, of course, gets her own romance and there’s a horse in it.  The horse is not the hero, in case you’re wondering.

Bottom line:  I’m thinking Linda and I are growing apart.  I’d take responsibility for the chasm yawning between us but, honestly, I think it’s her.  No, really, it’s her.  First, she ventured deep into romantic suspense.  Can’t blame her.  There’s money and slightly more credibility in that.  Since I like suspense, that was okay, even though I did miss the strong romance theme.  Now we have her newest, Killing Time.  The one line blurb on B&N from LIBRARY JOURNAL says: 

After the theft of a time capsule supposedly sealed until 2085, various contributors start dying.

Hmmmm.  So, we’ve somehow moved from alpha cowboys to time capsule murders…..?  See why I think she’s the problem and not me?  Sure, my tastes have changed over time but this seems to be a case of a writer, at core, changing what she writes and asking her audience to follow her.  That’s fair.  Howard should get to move on and ask us to come along.  Julie Garwood, Tami Hoag, and Sandra Brown have all done the same thing rather successfully. 

But, this is about me.  I have money to spend and she wants it – that part is the same as always.  She’s changed and I’ve changed.  So, now what?  Well, uhh, nothing.  I’ll buy this book and the one after that.  Only difference is I’ll whine about it and long for the old days.  For Howard’s sake, I hope all of her readers take the same approach I do.  Imagine moving on and having no one follow you.

There is an ongoing debate, sometimes in public and sometimes in private whispers, about the quality of ebooks.  There appears to be a general sense that you only turn to epublishing if you’re not that good or if all the traditional publishing houses hate your stuff – which may be code for, you’re not good.

I’m not a big believer in sweeping statements that go something like:  I read 4 ebooks so I know they are all crap.  We can all agree that’s not fair.  The comments about ebooks not being any good – actually, there’s no reason to make it pretty, many people think ebooks truly suck – I’m thinking that’s not fair either.  Or, at least, I hope this is a wild overstatement.  Since I’ve read exactly 10 ebooks by 3 authors I am in no position to judge.  Frankly, if I read 100 ebooks I wouldn’t be in a position to give a yeah or nay to the entire ebook stock that’s out there.  My expertise would be limited to the authors I read. 

Many ebook folks have made the transition to traditional publishing.  Most of those seem to come out of Ellora’s Cave.  Some folks are successful at doing both and actively pursue both (see:  Sylvia Day) .  Some people have been writing ebooks for some time and getting great reviews (see:  Ellen Fisher then jump over and see how much Mrs. Giggles likes her stuff).  Some are new to epublishing and so excited about it, they get me excited (see:  Sasha White). 

So, in an attempt to educate myself on ebooks and the decide for myself what I think of the quality, I’m off to find ebooks to read.  In keeping with my general reading preferences, I likely will shy away from vampires and paranormal.  Anything with a non-human hero is out.  I’ve read some stuff on Smart Bitches about books where the hero has more than one penis.  While tempting and certainly interesting, umm, no.  One penis is fine, thanks.  If anyone has a recommendations – other than the multi-penis dude and the undead, let me know. 

Eloisa James (aka Mary Bly) is a NYT bestseller, a highly regarded romance writer and a Shakespeare scholar and professor.  She’s married to a professor.  She is  the daughter of an award-winning poet father and a literary writer mother.  When she originally wanted to expose her secret life and let her academic colleagues at Fordham University and the rest of the world know she wrote romance, in addition to all those really interesting academic papers, the head of her department begged her not to talk.

In her recent self-outing in the NYT Op-Ed page she lobbied for respect for the romance genre.  She won the gratitude of some and the ire of others.  Many folks were upset, and continue to be, of what they sensed was a feeling of shame hidden behind her words.  One strong voice in the ire camp is a fellow professor who now refuses to speak with her.  At the start of her career, her husband was embarrassed by her writing choice.  Even after she hit the NYT list, her mother told her she wrote trash.

Whether you like her work or not – hell, if you don’t like her as a person for some reason -  you have to admire her accomplishments and feel a twinge of sympathy for the barriers she’s had to jump over to get what she wants.  After hearing her speak – twice – over the weekend what is clear is that she isn’t perfect and doesn’t pretend to be.  She didn’t ask to be the poster child for romance.  She’s even comes off a bit shy and uncomfortable with her spotlight role the media have given her.

My new theory is this – let’s stop asking for respect or complaining about the lack of it.  Let’s just decide we’ve earned it, or should have by now, and move on.  Enough whining.  Enough of the "it’s not fair" mentality and anything that sounds like it.  Eloisa James somehow rose above all of this and is quite successful.  The rest of us can too.  Write the best book you can and ignore the rest.  And, for heaven’s sake, stop all the bitching or maybe, just maybe, we haven’t earned it after all.

The Jennifer in question is Jennifer Crusie.  Almost all romance writers seem to have a Jennifer story.  Many have heard her speak.  Try to find one who hasn’t read her books  – other than me.  But, in my defense, I’ve purchased several.  Just haven’t gotten to them yet.  They are June reads, I promise.  She’s from the academic world and is NYT bestselling author.  She’s also a frequent speaker, devotee of craft and genuine cheerleader for romance writing and writing in general.

She spoke at last weekend’s conference.  Twice, actually.  One time on revising and one time in tandem with Eloisa James where the topic was academia’s view of romance books (it’s not good, in case you’re wondering).  Jennifer has some general themes, and some specific, that are worth sharing:

1.  We need to resist RWA’s attempts to define romance.  Specifically, the President of RWA recently made a general statement that romance is between a man and a woman.  Jennifer disagrees.  Vehemently, or whatever other word means a whole lot.  She said romance and love are concepts not limited to the man/woman relationship and RWA shouldn’t ignore romance and love of every other type.

2.  Literary writing is about style and constructing beautiful sentences.  Romance writing is about the story – about true and believable stories.  Never sacrifice the story.  She also made a comment or two about how the academic literary establishment has made itself irrelevant with its constant bickering and negativity about any book that isn’t one of its own.

3.  Craft, craft, craft.  This is the part where she reminds all of us not to write crap and not to settle for writing crap.  Every word is important so make every single one the right one and necessary to move the story forward.

4. She starts a book with a character idea, usually the heroine, because for her the story should be about the heroine’s journey.  The message is about a strong woman who struggles and wins.

I will not pretend to be Jennifer Crusie but here are my basic thoughts, you know, on her thoughts.

hk’s 1.  Yeah, stop trying to define romance because this is one of those times where you just can’t make everyone happy.  And while we’re at it, please, by all that is holy, stop making up names for erotic romance.  We have enough, thank you, and none of them make a lick of sense or mean anything. 

hk’s 2.  There’s room at the table for everybody.  If you like literary, read literary.  If you like a little of everything, like me, read everything.  Just stop apologizing, defending and otherwise annoying the rest of us.  If you like to read something say so and tell anyone who disagrees to kiss your ass.

hk’s 3.  No one wants to write crap.  At least I hope that’s true. The issue is whether or not we recognize this problem in ourselves when we so clearly can see it in other people’s work.

hk’s 4.  Yeah, yeah, heroine’s journey.  The hero tends to be much more interesting to me.  That probably says something about me but I’m not sure what.

I spent the weekend in West Virginia at the Washington Romance Writers (WRW) Retreat.  Why this retreat is in West Virginia is more for historical reasons than anything else so don’t  pull out a map and try to explain how Washington DC and West Virginia are not the same place.  I get that.  The Retreat was fun and informative and all those things a get-together of writing folks should be.  And, my editor was there so I had the opportunity to work on stringing words together into coherent sentences in her presence.  After a few trips to the bar the words flowed freely. 

The Retreat also provided a great opportunity to meet published authors.  This one had quite a line-up.  Some were members – Nora Roberts, Patricia Gaffney, Mary Jo Putney, Rebecca York, Diane Whiteside, Glenda Garland, Donna Kauffman, and the list goes on.  The guest list wasn’t too shabby either – Lisa Kleypas, Eloisa James, Jennifer Crusie, Angela Knight, and on and on.

My favorite meet and greet:  Kathleen Gilles Seidel.  She was warm and funny and charming.  Honestly, she may be as excited as I am about my sale – okay, maybe not but she’s in the top five or acted like she was.  There is no question that I will now go buy all of her books.  She could write sci fi vampire girl-on-alien porn and I’ll be cheer for her.  I’ve since checked and found she is moving out of romance and her next book will be more in line with Women’s Fiction – a dinstinction, I must admit, that eludes me.

My least favorite meet and greet:  To protect the not-so-innocent, we’ll call her Nasty Wench.  So, Kathy introduced me to Nasty Wench and tells Nasty Wench my good book news.  Nasty Wench frowns – actually frowns – and says, "well, I just can’t talk about other people selling when I’m not."  Are you getting why I used the Nasty Wench title?  Are you wondering why I’m not using profane and vicious language?  Yeah, well, in private I am.  Trust me. 

Despite Nasty Wench and some other isolated incidents, the weekend was a success.  The news from NY continues to be a bit strange – inspirationals and hot romances are in.  Every publishing house seems to be launching an erotic romance line.  Avon is the newest to join the club.  If you write at either end of the spectrum, hit the keyboard ’cause now is your time.

So, I leave for a few days for a writer’s retreat and – BAMMM – I get "tagged" (whatever that is) by Wendy and the Smart Bitches.  Gee, ladies, thanks.  And, ummm, who started this thing?  I just want to know who should get the box of, err, chocolates.

Here we go….

Total Number of Books I Own:  About 1,000 more than I’d own if my hubby had his way.  Since I refuse to count – I’m way too old for that – I’d estimate that the number is somewhere in the 2,500 range.  Yeah, it hurts to write that down.  They’re spread out over 3 floors.  We have every subject and every genre, or damn close to it.  If you want to borrow something, let me know.

Last Book I Bought:  I am incapable of buying one at a time.  I believe books should be purchase in bunches, much like bananas.  A B&N order arrived in my absence on Saturday.  The group was:  Cooking Up A Storm by Emma Holly; Velvet Glove by Emma Holly; Take My Breath Away by Tina Donahue; and Dating Is Murder by Harley Jane Kozak. 

Last Book I Read:  The Ice Harvest by Scott Phillips.  I already read Cottonwood by Phillips and have Walkaway waiting in the wings.  I’m sure there is an order I was supposed to read these 3 books in, but they were great out of order too.  If you want to step outside romance and try something different, I highly recommend trying Cottonwood.

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:

1.  Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon.  I’ve read all of his books.  He’s received critical acclaim for this and certainly for others (see:  Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay).  This is the one that has always resonated with me for its honest and somewhat fearless storytelling.

2.  The Bride by Julie Garwood.  The absolute first romance I ever read.  Reading this book and a few others started me down the road I’ve taken – first as a reader and now as a writer.  I thank Garwood for this book but I owe her so much more.

3.  Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas.  This book had a profound influence on how I view people and global ideas such as character, integrity and justice.  It’s probably been more than fifteen years since I read this book and still continue to be moved by this true story of interlocking lives.

4.  Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.  Really, I think this author is brilliant.  That’s not a word I throw around lightly but it fits here.

5.  Darkness Visible: A Memoir Of Madness by William Styron.  A very brave and moving and, yeah, painful, memoir.  I’ve read it twice and both times thought: please, let this never be my life.

Tag Five People To Do This:  Okay, blame Wendy and the Smart Bitches and the person who started this – I’m still trying to figure out who that was.  I apologize in advance and if you’ve already been tagged.

Beverly

Gina

Caro

Sasha

Sybil

That was exhausting.  Thanks again, ladies.

So, you get the call and you celebrate.  You experience a huge rush relief and gratitude.  You have a moment or two of wallowing in your greatness until you remember, oh yeah, you’re not so great.  You plan where you’ll build your vacation house once you hit the NYT bestseller list which, of course, is destined to happen with book no. 2, that same book you haven’t actually sold yet.  You jump around like an idiot (that one might just be me).  And then…..you panic.  Big-time panic.  Like, haven’t been able to write a coherent thing in 11 days panic.  It’s the kind of mind-numbing emotion that starts with "maybe I should have gotten an agent first" and ends with "wait a minute, is that contract provision in English?"  Yeah, the contract is a wake-up call wrapped up in a Mike Tyson-sized fist unless you understand that the publishing co. is in the business of making money and wants to protect its interests. 

Now, I like to think I’m pretty smart – not that I am but that I like to think so – but the arrival of the contract, while thrilling, did make my heart pound, and not in the good romance writing kind of way.  More like in the I-need-a-stress-test kind of way.  If you start this process with a plan that includes an agent or some other warm body who goes out and pimps your manuscript, this first part of the publishing process might not be so daunting.  For the rest of us – it’s the subject of nightmares.

On my list of things to do to prevent Kensington Publishing from owning my house after some future lawsuit is over was:

1.  Made lawyer hubby, the contract specialist, read it.  Twice.

2. Emailed  Wendy and whined.  I do this every day so, really, this may not count as part of my prep work prior to signing the contract.  But, she did provide helpful information in her usual straightforward manner.  That was right before she started talking about bending over, vaseline and the need for an agent.

3.  Checked out Brenda Hiatt’s "Show Me The Money" to see if she had any insight into advances for first-time authors.  This is not the chart you want to look at if you are naive enough to think you can sell one book and quit your day job.

4.  Checked out the contract articles on the RWA website.  This is a series from 1998.  This being 2005 and all, this was not as helpful as you might think. 

5.  Zoomed around the internet looking for the "watch out for this contract clause" sites.

6.  Emailed fellow Brava author Sylvia and asked her some lame questions, all of which she answered with her usual charm and grace, but don’t email her with your questions because she has kids and a husband and books to write.  And, she’s my source for information so I want her to always have time for me.  The good news is that she didn’t say anything about vaseline but it may have been implied.

7.  Called a literary attorney and had the damn thing reviewed one last time.

I survived and in the end it wasn’t that bad and the folks at Kensington were professional and friendly.  But, my advice is : don’t ever just sign.  If you do, Wendy has a jar of vaseline she can send you.

Just when it appeared some romance writers had hit a low – well, look at that – they dug a little deeper.  Apparently the constant bickering between the authors of sexy books and the authors of tame books wasn’t enough to make us look small and kind of silly.  The idea of blackballing authors we don’t like or who we think have done us wrong wasn’t enough of a journey into childishness.  The yapping and complaining whenever anyone has the nerve to say anything negative at all about romance writing, well, isn’t it normal to attack anyone with a contrary opinion?  Now, this.  Hmmm, hair pulling on the playground at noon anyone? 

I don’t know Lori Devoti but from her blog entry I’d say she’s not impressed with this behavior.  I’m with her.  Jealousy is normal – not attractive – but so long as it doesn’t tiptoe across the line into complete pathology, it’s normal.  What Lori describes is something else.  Something juvenile and ridiculous.  Here’s the scoop straight from Lori.  I’d rephrase it but then I’d probably use profanity and engage in some serious name calling, so I’ll pass.  Lori took the high ground so I’ll go with that:

Some of my e-pubbed friends were dressed down in the elevator one year at RWA National. Told something like, “You know you aren’t as good as us. So why don’t you quit pretending?” not an exact quote, but you get the drift. On a loop last month an author pubbed by one of the smaller NY houses said that bigger houses looked down on authors pubbed by the smaller houses–she actually said they thought we reeked of dog doo.

Isn’t that attractive?  I’d ask how dumb we can be but the answer to that question is kind of obvious, isn’t it?  Pretty damn dumb.  Seems to me bad and boring writing knows no boundaries – large houses, small houses, literary, popular fiction, e-pubbeds – it’s an equal opportunity crap pile out there if you’re not any good.  The idea that some authors think they’re better than others just because they write for a certain publishing house versus another – well, isn’t that the kind of stuck-up nasty behavior romance writers accuse literary writers of?  I guess it’s okay when we do it.  At least some folks seem to think so. 

Every single day a new description pops up in an attempt to distinguish one group of hot and sexy books from another.  You need a scorecard, a dictionary and a brown paper book cover just to keep up.  I also need numerous explanations from Wendy, Candy and this poor woman, Stef, who answered some of my more insipid questions in the middle of a chat on the Smart Bitches’ website.  See, someone  – maybe Meljean – mentioned the term amourotica.  My brilliant response:  "Amourotica?  Are you making that one up?  If erotica has hot sex does amourotica actually require that a body part catch fire….oh, forget it. "  Really, that Candy doesn’t ban my IP address from her site and that Meljean refrains from calling me an idiot on a daily basis…well, let’s just say miracles do happen.

I was morbidly fascinated by the entire conversation and couldn’t let go since Arianna Huffington was mentioned – yeah, well, you try fitting Huffington and erotica into the same conversation.  Candy and Sarah are amazing women.  But, to be honest, I thought this new term was a joke, some bizarre perversion of the already annoying descriptions floating around out there on author blogs and publishing websites.  Somewhere along the line, someone or a bunch of someones took pity on my perplexed soul and explained that eXtasy Books (there’s nothing wrong with my spelling, I double checked on the publisher’s site) uses the term "amourotica" and Ellora’s Cave uses the term  "romantica" while others say erotica or erotic romance.  Those who hate the stuff call it porn or spawn of the devil.  From what I can tell, it’s all the same.  Except porn, please don’t write and tell me erotic romance and porn are not the same ’cause I get that.  Really, I don’t get much but I can tell the difference between Hustler and, say, something written by Jaid Black.  And, if you can’t – why are you visiting this site?  Go read Jaid Black.  Then read Hustler.  Then come back, but only if you see a distinction between the two.

My question – does any of this really matter?  If we dress it up and stick a hat on it some folks will still like it and others will call it repugnant.  Who cares?  What’s with all the labels that don’t seem to mean anything.  The general idea in this chat was that erotica has a bad connotation thanks to some of the poorly written crap out there under that definition.  Is that true?  If there’s a real distinction, I’d like to know because I’m thinking this is a case of having too many names for the same thing.  One of those times when we’re so busy slapping labels on our writing to actually sit back and just write without, you know, all the labels.