Make a writer less whiny. Buy their book...

So, the TV set is focaccia’d and off being repaired, under warranty, at the repairer dude’s place. “Fixed at the end of the week, mate,” he said. I replied, “No worries.” We’re simple souls in Aussie-land. Anyway, I took my simple-soul-self home and went to turn on the TV to watch the news and – oh hey – no TV. I’m smart like that. A big empty space is dead giveaway something’s missing – and if not that, the fact there's no button to press is the second clue. Yep, intelligence plus R US. 

Well then, I decided there’s only one solution. Read a book. I’ve got dozens and fortunately, if not for a lot of plane travel this year, I would have not read any. So, I settled into book 10 of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. I don’t get her problem. If it was me I would pick Jean Claude, the dark, sexy vampire over the sensitive, soulful werewolf Richard. Seriously, get with the Vamp, Anita. Yeah, he’s technically dead but no one’s perfect.  

Reading. It sorts the Vampires from the Werewolves. Get into it today. Make a writer less whiny. Buy their book.       

I don’t write BDSM sex….

I don’t even try to. I have no real understanding of it. It’s like a woman writer trying to write male-male sex how does she really know? Yes, by all means email me to dispute that if you want. Anyway, why I mention this is due to the fact I got a really good review for Cintra – click here -and the reviewer mentioned how good the BDSM scenes were etc. Thank you. I appreciate it. But – and there always is one that you have to cover or think about - while I understand people have an obsessive need to tag things with labels, why do we have to tag something as primal and raw and human as sex? It just is and it’s based on preference.

Yes, by all means warn the sex in a book is graphic and could offend but labeling a story BDSM when really it’s graphic generally gets me a bunch of emails from BDSM writers telling me things like “in true BDSM she would never have put her foot there” and “only the neo-fosby-flop-flugelheimer method of tying a woman’s hands to the bed is considered true BDSM and how dare you just tie them?”

Well, the thing is I do dare. I dare a lot. Sex is about daring. It’s about doing it because you want to how you want to with who you want to. And to label it? Well, no ones ever going to agree on labels so why bother?

Sex – do it because you want to. Read it because you accept the graphic rating and just enjoy the story. Labels? Stick 'em on parcels and send them in the mail.

Email – amarinda_jones@yahoo.com.au

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

He did what to her on page one?

I was blog hopping – checking out who was thinking what about various things. One blog, that I hadn’t read for a very long time made me think one thing straight away – and that was huh? The writer, who is a writer, was complaining about erotic romance books and how these books always have the hero and heroine having sex in the first couple of pages. Hmmm…while I’m a great believer on having an opinion, why would you set out to read an erotic romance knowing there’s a bloody good chance that sex is going to happen in the book and more that likely, from the erotica books I have read, in the first chapter or in some cases the first sentence?

This blogger then went on to criticize the fact that romance cannot come from sex, that these books were unrealistic, that the words authors use were ‘inappropriate’ and she would never read any of them again. First up, that’s absolutely her choice to not read erotica again. I respect that. But I gotta’ say that the whole thing about romance books, whether they are mainstream or erotica, is that they’re first and foremost romantic fantasy. That’s what people want to read. A book allows you a couple of hours to kickback and not think about all the crap going in your life or has the laundry been done or can I serve up cereal again tonight for dinner or do I pay the bill on the reminder notice or can I push it ‘til the final demand? Reading is a break from real life. Most readers recognize that. While they would like a hero, maybe wearing a kilt, to kick open a door, storm in, snatch them up in his arms and take them to some wildly exotic place and shag their brains out giving them repetitive mind blowing orgasms, I gotta tell ya’ it’s a pretty fair bet it ain’t gonna’ happen in real life. It’s fantasy. Readers know that.

As for the romance not evolving from sex, well here’s the thing, it can and it does and if it’s never happened to you then don’t declare it can’t happen. How do you know? Inappropriate language….really, what is inappropriate anymore? ‘Fuck’ is used constantly as is ‘cock’ and ‘pussy’ and ‘arse’ etc not only in books but on TV, music, film and in the street. If you find those words offensive then you have every right not to read an erotic romance. Those words, and much worse, are going to be in there and I would have assumed a writer, in the romance writing business, would understand how different genres work.

Yes, I respect her opinion. No, I don’t agree with her dismissal of an entire genre. That’s dismissing the readers who love it.

www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book