Hottie Friday – Halle – freaking – lujah!

I’ve heard that it’s finally spring, but yet it’s still freezing. What the heck!! Perhaps today’s hottie can warm me up…

Want to start by thanking Therese Gilardi for her guest blog on becoming a romance writer. VERY emotional and insightful. She’s got a delicious-looking romance coming out in a few weeks, I do hope you’ll check it out.

BIG, BIG release this week!! The final book in Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooter’s series is out in hardcover!! I have been jonesing for Izzy’s story for like a year now, so I am psyched that it’s finally out. I do not yet have a copy in my hot little hands though, so please don’t anybody tell me anything about it yet!!

AAAAAAAaaaaaand…we are only FOUR days away from Lover Unleashed by J.R. Ward – I am nearly trembling with antici….pation. I just know it’s gonna be awesome. Because I write vampires I stay away from other vampire stories by and large, but I can’t manage to stay away from the Brothers.

Okay – it’s been a long effing week, and I’m hoping this weekend to get caught up and back on track. We’ve got sort of a family emergency going on at Chez Staab right now, so for those of you who do so, please put in a good word with the deity of your choice, if you don’t mind.

Thanks, and see y’all next week!

Guest Blog: FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE By Therese Gilardi

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE

By Therese Gilardi

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to visit foreign territories and write about my discoveries.  As a girl I used to page slowly through my mother’s “TIME” magazines while waiting for Peter Jennings to report live from London in his khaki trench coat and silk pocket square, reassuring me that there were new lands, customs, cultures and foods waiting out there, somewhere, for me to devour. Until that day came, I decided I would entertain myself by composing stories about everything and everyone I encountered. I believed I had to imagine everything that wound up as part of my long, descriptive tales – I was certain, living in a semi-rural township with lousy weather and no sidewalks, that there was no drama around me, let alone in my life. I based my stories on people and settings I’d learned of as I read my way through the shelves of our small township library. When I wasn’t reading or writing, I suffered my way through school, never fitting in, never finding my stride, hoping I was one of those “late bloomers” talked about in my mother’s magazines.

I never realized, since I spoke with very few others – one doesn’t encounter a lot of companionship eating alone in the school bathroom – that everyone didn’t create dialogue and back stories all day long, or read every word they encounter,no matter how mundane.  (If you want to know the difference between the back of a bottle of Prell shampoo and Herbal Essence, I’m your woman.) With the exception of a few English teachers along the way, no one ever seemed to think I had any extraordinary ability – in fact,no one seemed to think I had any great aptitude at all.  “Does not live up to her potential” was the most frequent comment on my report cards.  I shared the sentiment; I harbored no illusion I could be like my heroine Dame Agatha Christie, who wrote mystery, other genres of fiction and an account of her life on expedition with her husband.  I had about as much chance as being a writer like Dame Agatha as I did of becoming the next Peter Jennings.  I was certain, since I wasn’t in some exotic locale, that I was having any adventures about which anyone would wish to read.

When I arrived at college, still unwilling to claim my identity as a writer, things improved.  Living with a fellow literature lover and studying English and French, I met others who saw reading as a privilege and shared my love of the written word.  Though a few of my professors tried to encourage me to write more creatively, I still wasn’t ready – creative writing was not for the likes of me. The closest I got to allowing myself to surrender to my secret desire to write was the submission of a few mediocre articles to the college newspaper.  (I must say, though, that I should give myself credit for the creative writing I did on my computer science final, in which I managed to convince my professor to give me a high grade after a blue book full of impassioned arguments about why I could not grasp the difference between various computer languages.)

I continued to drift aimlessly through early marriage and motherhood, happy but haunted by the fact something intangible was missing from my life. I stalked the library at every opportunity and bored my son stiff with his insistence that he listen just one more time to one of my impromptu made-up stories.  Until one afternoon, as I sat in my quiet little house in New England while my young daughter slept, surrounded by more gallons of homemade applesauce than we could eat in a year, I realized I would go mad if I did not find a creative outlet. I picked up one of those free hotel pens my husband had picked up on one of his many trips and began recording my impressions, frustrations and lamentations about anything and everything.  Accounts of my days, thoughts about motherhood … anything was fair game. No one else would see my lined canary pages of poetry, short stories and confessional essays not even my husband knew I stored in the bottom cupboard of my grandmother’s old maple china hutch.

At least that’s what I thought.  Until the day we moved house, and I came across my mover, hunched over in my rose-colored wing chair, my sheaf of yellow pages between his freckled fingers. When he looked up, I could see it looked like he’d been crying.  I remember being numb with shock that my writing could affect anyone like that.  For weeks afterward, I pictured him, his forehead furrowed, his shoulders shaking. I knew it was a sign – I was meant to be a writer, no matter that I still didn’t live anywhere exciting or lead a life that was anything other than pedestrian.

I purchased a copy of “Writer’s Market” as well as a thick book that contained encouraging essays by Frank McCourt and Maeve Binchy and a list of publishers willing to accept submissions from beginning writers. I polished a few personal essays and a short story, sent them off for submission to small magazines, and had the misfortune of achieving publication.  I’m kidding of course; I was elated that my words were appearing in print, and I could acknowledge to myself and others that I was indeed a writer, reporting on my life just like I was Peter Jennings. I am, though, serious when I say that immediate validation of my work gave me a gross misconception about the business of writing. I was certain, given the fact that I had never succeeded at anything else before, that I had found my niche, and that writing would be an easy gig.

I know you’re laughing right about now, and you should be. Obviously writing is not the high-stakes profession of the first responder, pilot, or ER doctor. But stringing words together until I can make you see, hear, taste, smell and feel what is in my heart is a lot more challenging than most people realize. Over the nine-plus years I’ve been writing for publication I’ve been surprised to find that the submissions I thought had no chance of publication have appeared in the pages of prestigious magazines, while essays and stories I’ve been certain had hit their mark have never  been invited to leave the cover of my top desk drawer.

I’ve found writing to be a funny, fickle business. Ironically, my personal life over the past decade and a half has also been surprising and unexpected.  Somehow Peter Jennings, rest his soul, must have tossed me some fairy dust across the universe as I followed in his footsteps, living for many years in Europe, where I worked and traveled among many foreign people whose lands,customs, cultures and food provided fodder for my writing. My experiences living abroad gave me a lot of material for my work, for which I am grateful.  However, the more I’ve left the comfort of home, the more I’ve realized that my early perceptions were wrong: with the exception of travel writers and restaurant reviewers, most writers need never leave the comfort of their armchairs in order to create charismatic characters, heart-stopping settings, and sensational stories.  Those of us old enough to read and write need only worry about applying what life has taught us – life itself is the great creator, the ultimate writer with the unforgettable tales.  It’s the job of the writer to act, like Peter Jennings, as life’s correspondent.

Therese Gilardi is a poet, essayist and novelist who lives in the hills above Los Angeles with her husband, children and numerous pets.  Therese’s poetry and short fiction can be found online at “Literary Mama”, “The 13th Warrior Review”, and “The Dirty Napkin”, as well as in numerous print publications and the books “Knowing Pains” and “So Far and Yet So Near: Stories of Americans Abroad”.  Therese’s paranormal romance “Matching Wits With Venus”, about a Hollywood matchmaker and the Roman god Cupid, will be released by Astraea Press in mid-April.

http://theresegilardi.com

http://astraeapress.com

Guest Blog: The “Unwilling Man” in Erotic Romance

Note from Elisabeth: This is a controversial topic, and one that I don’t see discussed very often. As a writer and also as a survivor of sexual assault, I find the subject fascinating – thanks so much to Laura for guest blogging and sharing her opinions today.

The “Unwilling Man” in Erotic Romance

By Laura Kaye

http://laurakayeauthor.blogspot.com

What’s more erotic than a battle of wills between two characters whose every interaction drips with sexual tension?  I love a dynamic wherein characters are sexually attracted to one another despite strong animosities or real good common sense reasons to stay the hell away.  I devour pages for the moment when such a couple gives into those basic, primal urges in utter disregard of all the reasons why their having sex is just a bad idea.  The giving in is always so carnally delicious…

But what makes that moment so delicious, what makes me cheer and groan in satisfied fulfillment, is that they desire the sex—in whatever form it occurs—and give in to that desire.

That seems to me to be altogether different from what I’ve seen in some recent works in progress and published stories, both m/f and m/m.  What I’m talking about is what I’ll call the “Unwilling Man” phenomenon.

The story often goes something like this:  Powerful alpha male warrior is captured by rival tribe/alien race/immortal enemies.  As a captive, he becomes a sexual slave or concubine.  Said slave needs to be trained or prepped to fulfill his new function.  The proud warrior/slave fights and resists, warranting humiliating punishments.  Then, a new trainer takes over and wears him down with an erotic array of sexual acts, words, threats, punishments, perhaps even favors, until he “gives in,” often developing affection or even love for that person in return.

I understand others might not agree, but I consider this type of characterization to be the definition of non-consensual.  For me, the non-consensual elements include:

1)      His status as a captive and a slave clearly deprive him of the full ability to non-consent and to enforce his non-consent

2)      His resistance constitutes an expression of non-consent, even if it isn’t verbalized

3)      The use of humiliation, punishment, favors, or other means of cajoling or forcing acquiescence prevent that acquiescence from equaling consent

4)      The captive having an erection is not evidence of consent; fear is also a powerful stimulant

5)      The possible outcome of the captive orgasming is also not evidence of consent or desire for the sex act to have occurred, nor does it prove the person enjoyed the act.

Nonetheless, these stories often receive a positive response.  Bringing the big strong alpha male to his knees has a certain appeal.  The idea of having our way with him does too.  Flipping it around, with a male aggressor and a female “victim,” rape fantasies or “make-‘em-like-it” fantasies are common—the journal Psychology Today released a study in May of 2008 indicating 37-51% of women have rape fantasies—a likely lowball figure.  But these fantasies are usually imagined within an existing relationship, where some expectation of safety exists within the fantasy, or with a stranger who helps the woman act out “wanton” behavior or indulge in repressed desires, making her sexuality “okay” because someone “forced” her to do it.

But if we go back to our newly enslaved alpha male, that’s not the framework being used with the Unwilling Male.  The Unwilling Male is not playing hard to get and not in an established relationship—and any relationship formed while the man is unfree hardly counts as safe.

An Ellora’s Cave story I read not too long ago had a different non-consensual set-up.  It was a m/m “gay for you” construct within the science fiction romance genre.  The two male characters had enormous sexual chemistry, despite the fact that one struggled with the realization that he had, for the first time in his life, sexual desire for another man.  His slow process of giving in was erotic as hell.  But then the author jumped the gun, as it were, and created a situation where the outwardly gay character (OGC) “had” to have sex with the GFY character in order to survive a crisis moment within the scifi worldbuilding (I realize this is probably making you scratch your head, but I hesitate to call out a specific author with clarifying details… Wuss?  Maybe. 😉 ).  The GFY character was telling OGC not to do it, that he didn’t want it like this or in this way, and then, in protest, the GFY character demanded—if OGC was going to do it against his will, GFY didn’t want him to use lubrication.  So, he didn’t.  And, of course, it hurt like hell, because, as well all know, our bodies don’t produce any natural lubrication back there.  [NOTE: Every time a romance author writes an anal sex scene without lubrication, a kitten dies.  Jus’ sayin’.] Now, at least the author gave the GFY character the dignity of breaking off the relationship and ending their former friendship…for a while.  Because, of course, they reconcile and live happily ever after in the end.

Um.

For me, some of these premises border on rape as titillation.  And leave me wondering, how would we react if the “victim” was female?  If it was a female who was turned into a submissive against her will?  If it was a female who was captured and torn away from everything she’d ever know, and then “trained” to be a sexual slave?  If it was a female who had to be fucked against her will to save the universe?  If it was a female whose family had sold her to someone to use as they pleased?  These are all premises I’ve seen in recent months—as contest entries I’ve judged, works in progress authors have blogged about, or published books I’ve read.

Often, when I read or hear of these stories, I can’t help thinking of one of my all-time favorite alpha male warrior characters:  Zsadist, from J.R. Ward’s Lover Awakened (Signet, 2006, Book 3 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series).  ZOMG.  Total, epic, don’t-you-even-think-of-wanting-him-for-yourself LOVE for Zsadist, the bad-ass vampire warrior literally and emotionally scarred from a century of being imprisoned as a sex slave to a female vampire and being forced to sate her sexual and nutritional needs with his body.  He hates that his body reacted to her against his will (often, literally—they used a herbal salve on the skin of his penis to force him to become erect).  He grew to hate “the thing” / “the it” between his legs.  He bears the humiliation of the thick tattooed slave bands on his neck and wrists.  Once freed by his brother, he is totally dysfunctional in almost every relationship in his life, but especially with women, whom he can only fuck from behind so he can be in control, dominant, and not have to see them.  He’s plagued by nightmares, sleeplessness, severe weight loss, and considered sociopathic even by those who love him.  The story of how he finally gives in and falls in love is thus incredibly compelling and sweet because he finally gets to choose.  To me, it’s all the difference in the world.

Clearly, because rape fantasies exist, the line is not as hard and fast in fiction as it might be in the courts (of course, even there it’s not as black and white as you’d think it would be).  But, at the least, authors writing on the edge of consent should make an effort to get other eyes on their work before considering it ready for public consumption.

How do others weigh in on this? Am I in the ballpark or totally being too sensitive?

Is It Wrong To Want A Happily Ever After?

Many thanks to Elizabeth Daniels for guest blogging! Today she is taking on the subject of society’s recent instance that the characters in fairy tales make for poor role models. For those of us who love romance, it takes a shot at the very heart of that whole Happily Ever After thing we love so much. Is it still okay to enjoy a good Cinderella story? Read on…

Like most lovers of paranormal romance, I grew up loving fairy tales, both in books and on the big screen.  Fairy tales were my first exposure to fantasy.  The thought of magic and the otherworldly, of mystical kingdoms and strange worlds fired my imagination as a child, and it’s a fire that never dimmed.  It’s why I write.  More importantly, it’s why I write what I write.

So imagine how I felt when I read that fairy tale princesses – and fairy tale heroines in general – are getting some bad press these days.

At the heart of the controversy, past the objections to crowns and pink and girly spangles, is a claim that strikes my heart as a livelong lover of fantasy:  that fairy tale heroines, Disney or otherwise, are poor role models for girls.  According to these people, we should not only discourage our daughters from reading any but the most PC and revised fairy tales, but also shun the classic fairy tales altogether.

As a paranormal writer and as a mother, I was hit with both barrels of this argument, as it were.  I’ve learned to shrug off criticisms of romance and erotica, but this disturbed me.  As a writer, I wondered if I was feeding a problem if I chose to use a fairy tale as inspiration for a story.  As a reader (and a mother), these claims made me worry I was inadvertently harming my daughter by sharing these much-loved tales and movies with her.

I decided I’d take an objective look at some of these claims and see if they really did have merit.

The good news was that my researches set my mind at ease.  The bad news was that a lot of the claims were based upon people who apparently believed that all fairy tales stopped and ended with Disney.  Very few seem to have also read the tales upon which the movies were based, or at least, if they did, they failed to mention it.

But hey.  I’ll give them a pass; not everyone cherished their copy of the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales (blood, guts, murdered mothers, cut off horse heads and all) as I did.  The language can be archaic.  And some fairy tales (Hans Christian Andersen’s in particular) are just downright depressing.

Yet even in the most mass-marketed Disney-ized fairy tales, the situation isn’t as dire as the naysayers would have us believe.  Just to prove the point, let’s analyze two of the most reviled Disney princesses and see what positive lessons we can draw from the stories.

1.  Cinderella.  Cindy is tops on the hit parade for the anti-fairy tale crowd – hit parade, as in, they’d like to put a hit out on her.  The chief objection is that Cinderella really does nothing more than sing sugary songs while she passively waits for her prince to come and give her the glass Manolo Blahnik slipper she lost.  Of course, he does and la-la, things are solved.

That’s their view.  Here’s mine.

Cinderella’s stuck in a bad family situation with stepsibs and a stepmother she doesn’t like who hate her in return.  She really hasn’t the resources to get out of that situation, either.

There’s few of us who can’t sympathize with some aspect of her predicament.  Even if we haven’t been cursed with the Stepfamily From Hell, we’ve probably been stuck in a job we couldn’t afford to quit with a boss and/or co-workers we hated.  So Cinderella’s situation is realistic and relevant.  Given the age of the original fairy tale, that’s pretty impressive.

How does Cinderella handle her situation?  She sticks it out.  She never quits, she never stops hoping, and she never stops believing in love.  The lesson?  That sometimes in life, you’re going to be stuck in a place you don’t want to be, a place you can’t change to suit yourself, no matter how much you might like to do so.  The trick is to stay true to yourself, keep going, and believe that good things still exist in the world – even if at the moment, you’re sure not getting any of them.

I’d call that a good lesson.

2.  Ariel.    The Little Mermaid star comes under fire because she has everything, yet she’s willing to throw away all she has and even change what she is for the chance to win the love of a prince she barely knows.  Her detractors claim it sends little girls the message that only the love of a man is worth having, and that winning one is more important than maintaining who they are.

At least nobody can claim Ariel’s passive!

My counterpoint:

As with Cinderella, most of us can relate to some aspect of Ariel’s situation.  How many of us have had to move to a strange place to take a job offer?  How about spouses of military personnel who choose to follow their spouses to obscure corners of the world?  How many of us have been attracted to someone with a completely different lifestyle than our own and wondered how to find common ground with them?

Ariel wants the prince, but what’s conveniently forgotten is that her curiosity about worlds outside her own existed before she met him.  He was just the impetus to get her to take action.  She has to take a giant leap of faith and do some things which are painful and even frightening in order to get what she wants.  In the end, however, her belief in her ability to accomplish her goal pays off.

The lessons learned?  That we should not be afraid to try something different.  We may have to leave behind those we love.  We may have to change in unexpected or even painful ways.  Yet with no risk, there is no reward.

While I disagree with the fairy tale detractors, I am glad their claims caused me to go back and re-examine the roots of my love for the paranormal.  Our fairy tale heroines give us life lessons, entertainment and a happily ever after.  And there’s nothing at all wrong about that.

— Elizabeth Daniels

Find out more at ElizabethDaniels.com

It’s Gone from Suck to Blow!

Okaaay, I am sort of burning the candle at both ends lately (I know – those of you who know me well are snickering: “Sort of?” “Lately?”). SO I guess I should say, worse than usual. Look, I’m a stress junkie, okay? I’m working to temper it, to make peace with it, but like an addiction, it may always be with me and it’s far more socially acceptable than passing out on my front lawn with a jug of Vanilla Mint Listerine nestled in the crook of my arm. But the gist is that I am feeling a little inside-out and upside-down today, hence this morning’s blog title. Sorry guys, I am not very lucid at the moment. Moving on… Beautiful Blue is finished!! I want to say how blown away I am by the response I got from this little experiment, so thanks to all of you who followed along. I wrote this story in a very different way than I usually work, and I was nervous that it would turn out to be a miserable failure, but I’m getting lots of great feedback from my Facebook and Twitter followers, and I have even been asked if I will repackage and sell it as a novella (maybe/probably) and if there will be a sequel/prequel (as soon as I have time to write one – those of you who are willing to provide free babysitting so that I may augment my writing hours, please leave a comment and references below). I was especially psyched one morning recently to stumble upon a blog by Mina Burrows (just for the record we are not related, and I didn’t bribe her in any way) who had written up a WONDERFUL review of Blue and also mentions King of Darkness, which I used to have an excerpt of posted on my main web site. I am finishing up work on King of Darkness this weekend!! Donations of caffeine are appreciated, btw. 😉 The manuscript has been shelved for the past few weeks in an effort to get a little perspective (meanwhile, working on the sequel, Prince of Power) but as I near my deadline I am shaking out the pages and knuckling down to work this baby over one more time. I have an AWESOME new critique buddy who has been wonderful and patient enough to slap me around and hold my feet to the fire, so that KofD can be at its best by the time I send it to my editor. Damon, by the way, is a terribly talented writer of gay romance and has a book coming out soon with Dreamspinner Press about love and the New York Fire Department (Hot in more ways than one! Come on, I had to say that…) and I encourage you to check him out. Happy Friday, folks!!