Babble on....

“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish.”
Terry Southern

I got a comment from a friend who read a couple of my books – “Why do you have to complicate everything?” Huh? Well, apparently all my books are complicated. Hmmm…how so? “Why can’t they just fall in love and get married without all the hoop-la?” Well, yes of course they could but what would be the fun in that? And the sex is apparently an issue too. “You don’t do what you wrote about on page 32 do you?” Hmm…I cannot say as I prefer to remain a mystery.

This is how I see it - romance is complicated. Just in normal, everyday life, you have two people from two different worlds who meet and fall in love. They already have their own inbuilt ideas and feelings. Suddenly they are sharing thoughts with another person who may have similar or wildly different ideas to them but they soldier on despite differences as they want to be together. Okay – so that’s no big revelation to anyone. So – cut to romance novels – the love is there, the different ideas are there but then maybe add one of them as being a vampire, a demon, a blue person from Mystic Valley, a shapeshifter or maybe a heart surgeon-come-millionaire-rancher-come-jet airline pilot-in his spare time - that shagged his temp nurse-come-princess in disguise who has run away from an obscure kingdom to find herself - after too much sangria one night – and is now preggers. I tend to think things are going to get a tad complicated. While I am have yet to meet a vamp or a blue person or the millionaire/princess combo I have to think that could all be kind of difficult to sort out. The whole mortal meeting an immortal thing needs some time to adjust to and yes stuff could happen that normally does not happen. So yes, I like to complicate my books by throwing in weird things people have to deal with because we all deal with weird stuff every day and very few people have had perfectly easy romances. If you have and want to make a liar of out me, then tell us how easy your romance was.

As for the sex…people have sex in many different ways and they don’t have to be married…that’s all I’m saying…. and I can’t remember what was on page 32…

I read a blog today that was discussing ‘cougars’. No, not the animal. It was a good blog. I have no negatives about it so please do not think I do. What I do not like is the term ‘cougar’. I find it derogatory. How so you ask? I will tell you. As you all know a ‘cougar’ refers to an older woman dating a younger man. No big deal there. It happens all the time. And yeah, I know there are predatory women out there just as there are predator men who scope out a target and go for it. Good luck to them. As long as they hurt no one – who cares. What I don’t like is the term ‘cougar’ being used for any woman who dates a younger man. I don’t see this is an unusual. Most of the time it’s just people who meet, go out and maybe fall in love. The age difference is something they deal with or not. It’s up to them. What’s cougarish about that? I have mentioned this many times before and you’re no doubt sick of hearing it but why do we have to keep labelling people with dumb terms? We can’t we use the tried and tested ones of man, woman, child etc? I’m not into being ‘cool’ or with it or on the ‘in’ list by the way I speak. Cougars? They’re an animal. People are people. Labels are for jars, files and school books. It’s pretty simple.

There will be much screaming in the neighbourhood this evening. No, it’s not the bi -yearly drunken hell raise the lady down the road throws where she gets plastered and swears her arse off and sings at the top of her drunken lungs – I think we have another month to wait for that to happen again. No, it’s actually the last game of State of Origin. Yes, people will be screaming for Queensland to win a football game. Sometimes life is as simple as one bunch of men tackling another bunch of men in the pursuit of an oval ball.

So today…pretty boring…end of month accounting stuff to be done at work, sat through a 2 hour meeting contemplating my striped socks and running dialogue through my mind, ate two scones for dinner and got an obscure note from my doctor – who can read their handwriting for god sake – either asking me to up my thyroid meds or show my thighs to Roy…not sure but I will have to await her return from holidays. If you spend a gazillion years getting qualified as a doctor wouldn’t you think they would learn how to write properly?

I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about -- Oscar Wilde

www.amarindajones.com
Go ahead: Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?