I’m getting around.
No, no — this is not about the letter in RWR about how today’s heroines all talk and act like sluts (because that’s been done and discussed over and over and over and over and over.) But I do feel I should warn readers that a) my heroines aren’t likely to be virgins (although they could be), and b) they are going to be aware of their sexual needs, c) might not always have the healthiest sexual history, but they know it, and d) might say “fuck.”
What you won’t find in my books: a heroine who says, “What is that long, hard thing in your pants?” (Although, I guess Savi did say that to Colin, kind of.)
His hands enfolded one of hers, brought it down to his upper thigh. A hard, steel length lay beneath the fine wool of his trousers. “Not precisely what I’d like you to touch in that location, but it’s there if you want it.â€
A gun. Either loaded with tranquilizer darts made with hellhound venom, or bullets laced with the same.
I miss Colin sometimes. Sigh.
So, anyway! This was about me getting around. And I am! I’m over at Bam’s blog, writing the Best! Story! Ever! (AKA, the kind of stuff that comes out of me at 1am, and the caffeine isn’t working anymore.)
I’ve also sent a post to The Good, the Bad, & the Unread for their ValenDuckie event. It should show up today or tomorrow — it’s all about non-romantic movies, and the romances in them.
And tomorrow, I’ll be guest blogging at Simply Romance Reviews.
…did I mention that all of these posts have prizes attached? Like, um, a certain new release? Go forth!
ETA: Okay, considering where I’ve taken the comments, obviously this did become about that letter. I mentioned over and over, and here are the places the discussion has gone on before (just in recent memory — there were a few others (I think at JMC’s blog, and I’ll link if I can track them down)): Jeaniene Frost’s livejournal, and at the Smart Bitches. But although I remembered (and applauded) Jeaniene’s response last month, I didn’t realize until I stumbled across it again that it was in response to the same letter, printed in both the January RWR issue and the February issue. WTF? Is it an oversight, someone in editorial hoping for a reaction, or someone in editorial agreeing with the letter-writer’s viewpoint so they’re publishing it again?
Dang… did I miss a good letter again? I never pay enough attention to the RWR. :boggle:
I couldn’t call it a good letter
I don’t even get RWR — I have to read it through the online PDF. Mostly ‘cuz I’m too lazy to e-mail someone and tell them it’s not being mailed to me.
I just read it over at Bam’s… and of course I had to see the first one (shameless plug! talking to yourself! loving italics!)
Oh — and I forgot to mention — the word “pornography” was mentioned, along with writers having to “prostitute our integrity and good taste in order to be published” (because of the guidelines for hot reads.)
It’s really, really, really not the dislike of erotica in romance that I object to, because I understand that. Not everyone is going to be comfortable with the hotter reads. It’s the judgment that pisses me off, and the language used in passing it. I LOVE writing these types of stories, and I find them incredibly empowering.
But someone thinks that means I’m prostituting myself, that I lack integrity? I want her to tell that to my face. My knee-jerk response would be somewhere along the lines of “Go fuck yourself.”
But knee-jerk hasn’t served me so well lately, so I’ll hold off :joker:
In any case, it’s not like there isn’t a market for “warm” romances. I’d categorize Nora Roberts, for example, as on the warm side. Jenny Crusie. Many historicals (I thought The Spymaster’s Lady was chock-full of sensuality and emotional and sexual tension, but it was still on the warm side for the love scenes.) So if it’s not selling, it’s not JUST the sex (although undeniably, sex sells). If the story’s strong, compelling — no editor is going to ask for a gratuitous, explicit, out-of-place sex scene.
azteclady — lol! that video is just all sorts of silly, but it was fun to make.
No good editor, I mean.
Only you, Meljean, could do justice to The Rake and the Virgin Ninja. Also, only you could make me laugh about bamboo floors.
RWR has been just one big Piss-Me-Off-Fest lately. I’m going to rouse my lazy butt to e-mail someone and tell them not to send it to me. Its arrival causes even more irritability than that other monthly arrival.
“Go fuck yourself,” indeed. Hmm, maybe I’ll put that on calling cards and hand them out as applicable. A good quality card stock with crisp print is so much more civilized than the spoken word, don’t you agree?
Sorry you got a bad letter. That must be hard, no matter how thick skinned you are.
Plus, I can’t believe anybody would think your heroines are slutty! I loved how aware and straightforward Savi was about her sexual needs and what she likes. I felt like that made her not only *not* a slut, but a good role model.
Futhermore, your sex scenes totally advance the plot. Especially the very last one in MOON.
Oh oh! I should clarify — the letter wasn’t a reader letter to me. I’d never share that. It was a letter to the editor in the RWA’s Romance Writer’s Report, calling for the community to rethink the direction the romance genre was taking. I’m not sure if it was a published writer or not — but if they are a part of RWA, probably a writer.
And it’s not that I don’t get the frustration (just as I’m sure historical authors who aren’t writing Regencies are frustrated, or the sense I get from authors not writing paranormals.) But when the language paints those writers who do write hotter with shades of prostitution, it pisses me off. When she personalizes by asking if we’d treat our daughters and sisters like our heroines.
Frankly, if we remove characters from fiction and think of them in terms of real life, I’d LOVE to have someone like Savi or Charlie (I’m afraid of Lilith) as a best friend. That writer can feel free to call them sluts, and dismiss them in such a degrading fashion; she probably wouldn’t like to know me in person, either, because I sure as hell don’t live up to her ideal of real women.
At the RWA conference, I should stand up and say, “Hello, my name is Meljean. I talk and act like a slut.”
:joker:
You are such a slutty, slutty girl. I think of myself with my mind always in the gutter. Gutter girl, that’s me!
You’re sick a virgin widows also?
I miss colin, too.
and kerry, i’d like a few of those calling cards. mine will say,”fuck you very much.”
lisabea
The Chestmaster and the Ninja just about caused a tragic coffee/computer incident. So you know. The letter to the RWR, geez.
Maybe we ought to start a new RWA chapter: Smuttie Slutties. Only for those writers who “prostitute integrity” are allowed membership, of course.
I skimmed that letter, rolled my eyes and said “someone’s bitter they’re not getting published.”
“Maybe we ought to start a new RWA chapter: Smuttie Slutties. Only for those writers who “prostitute integrity†are allowed membership, of course.”
I am so there. Has to be an online chapter though – you know ,’cause that’s the latest evil den of iniquity.
Oh, sorry about the confusion. Your post wasn’t unclear, I think I got tripped up on the “too lazy to e-mail someone and tell them it’s not being mailed to me” comment later that made me think it was personal. And you know, I hate it when people respond to posts when they get the wrong. And here I did it!
Sincerely,
Slutty talker, thinker and doer, CJ
Hey now, I happen to be looking for an online chapter. Will there be dues, or shall we just submit photos of our integrity getting paid for sex to validate membership?
Lorelie,
Definitely online because it’s a Sekret Society.
Kerry Allen,
We’ll make Meljean head pimp
and she’ll be in charge of all the Smuttie Sluttie Sex Toys Collection. We’ll take a photograph of that and send it to that newspaper that the Smart Bitches posted about a few days ago–you know, the one that asked for a pic of the romance writer’s boudoir.
Oooh, that would get us a lot of attention, wouldn’t it? :joker:
And of course there will be dues. How else are we to pay for the Smuttie Sluttie Sex Toys?
Or you could always hye thyselves off to the SmartBitches and try to win your sex toys over there…
The letter writer kind of makes the argument for the opposite point of view right here:
***There are many writers and readers who are turned off (rather than on) by most romance books being published today…***
If “most romance books being published today” include the elements she finds so offensive and degrading, the portion of the buying public that are purchasing these OMG!sluttie heroines are in the majority. There may be “many” people offended, but there’s many more who aren’t.
Personally, I’m not so sure the whole “most” argument is correct anyway – there are so many sub-genres within Romance now, I can’t buy such a broad statement without some proof. Thus it comes off to me like just another one of those people complaining about how various expressions of sexuality are bringing forth The End of Civilized Society As We Know it Through Books. As a matter of curiosity, I wonder how many times this kind of argument is popping up in other places; I mean, is this just America’s Puritan roots showing themselves yet again? (Those Puritan roots are like kudzu to sexual equality: constantly growing forth and doing their best to choke the life out of and cover all things sexual over in a big, confining blanket of vines.)
While I appreciate there are people who can’t/won’t enjoy stories with certain sexual elements – and I say more power to them for reading the kind of stories they can/will enjoy – I resent the implication that because *they* don’t like them, I’m not supposed to like them, either.
So in conclusion, I guess all this is really saying I’m just some kind of slut. I’ll be looking for my membership card in the mail (hopefully including some clever acronym where S.L.U.T. stands for something cutting to people such as the letter writer) along with a big red XXX patch that I can proudly don.
A membership card? An acronym? Hmmm.
*puts her thinking cap on, and gets Photoshop ready*
I knew I can get Meljean to be Head Ho
Smuttie Slutties R Us.
H.U.S.S.Y. – Highbrow Union of Smuttie Sluttie Yonies (Or Yonis? I’m not sure what the plural of yoni is.)
I have to say this, even if I sound like the dorkiest fan-gurl: I loved your books, even read them out of order (which I DO NOT DO), and one of the reasons was the fact that Savi had had (paraphrased) “good sex before”.
Finally, a writer has an epiphany that a heroine doesn’t have to be 1) a virgin, 2) unknowledgeable about sex and 3) unable to have great/good/satisfying sex in the absence of the hero.
You rock. I love your books, and have even broken down and bought them (I
RStewie — Thank you! And, Yep. I understand why “only good sex with the hero” has kind of become shorthand for “obviously, this is true love.” And I do like it when there’s the sense that their feelings for each other make the sex different from sex they’ve had before (and in that sense, better) … but there’s really no reason for every single heroine to have only crappy (or no) sexual experience. If it fits her character/background, that’s one thing — but how can SO MANY women be virgins/have only had bad sex?
I do think there has been a shift away from that, especially in contemporary romance, which I’ve been very glad to see.