Romance books saved my life...

OKay maybe not literally though there are days when I wonder. The tragedy of losing our servicemen & women in the helicopter crash yesterday makes me remember exactly why I write romance. There's always a happy ending, the bad guy/gal is the only one to die & love conquers all. Why wouldn't I write & read romance considering the awful things going on in the world? Yes good things happen to, but you never hear about those things or people on the news.

So in my own warped manner I'm going to explain why romance novels, movies, games & music kick the crap out of every other genre in regards to sales, fans & uses.

Bad day? Pop in Pretty Woman, pick up Susan Elizabeth Phillips book, or listen to the beautiful voice of Adele. Three different aspects of one genre all leading to you feeling better or at least smiling every once in a while.

I think the thing I love most about romance is I don't have to brace myself for heartache and/or loss. My happy ending is coming, I know it & I depend of the author to give it to me. On the flip side I curse every writer who killed off the hero or heroine at the end of their book. HELLO??? So I cuss them out, throw the book against wall or in the case of an ebook jab my finger at it over and over again. It's one thing I will never never never understand. You go through so much trouble to create this character, to literally bring them to life with quirks, character traits & emotions. You and your reader become attached them BAM see ya Sam, so sorry you melted into a pile of blue ooze. Or shit out of luck, Sian, but you HAD to sacrifice yourself for the greater good or at least to save your love who will now live a half life, morning you and cursing themselves daily for being the cause of your death. Yeah, that sounds happily ever after to me...NOT!

Anyone remember where I started to go with this? Yeah me neither. The point is, if there is one, is romance should be the one safe solid 100% guaranteed happily ever after. We should start page one knowing without a doubt that somehow, someway the author will guide us through the frogs bombs, exploding turkeys, & cologne dunked shriveled dick exs to reach the rainbows, puppies & hot sweaty HEA sex. We deserve it, we've earned it & we want it!!

Now I have to go torture a few characters then lead them to their happy place filled with chocolate, Diet Coke w vanilla & the most mind blowing orgasms a person can imagine. But first they have to earn it :)

Now to figure out a way to make frogs into exploding landmines.....

Kudos,
Allie

I hate you...wanna be friends?

It's a small world, no really it is. The romance writers world is small. Word gets around. What else do you expect from a group of 3,000+ women & some men? No, I'm not trashing women. I'm saying I expect a certain amount of cattiness at every conference I go to. I'm catty to a certain extent. However, real bitchiness does more than make you look back in our little secular community, it'll drop you book sales, lose readers and alienate your publisher. Sounds dramatic doesn't it, but it's true. I've seen it happen with my own eyes and not through a friend of my neighbor's son's girlfriend's cousin dog walker.

In my pre-published days I went to my very first RWA National conference. Enjoyed myself until I saw and heard a NY writer trashing another writer. We're not talking catty "Oh did you see her knockoff LV bag?" Nope, I'm talking dip your head in the sewer type filth. The first writer trashed the other writer's characters, plot, covers then moved on to more personal topics like writer 2's looks, clothes, hair style and so on. Rarely am I without something to say, but this vomit of jealously left me speechless. Then I heard a soft sniff behind me and...yes you guessed it writer 2 was sitting on a couch behind these large fern plant things hearing everything the scanky two-bit writer had to say. The funny part of all this is I knew and read writer 2, love her work & still buy it to this day. She's a NY time best-seller now. It couldn't have happened to a nicer person.
Karma being the bitch she is took writer 1 down. Since the conference this writer was let go from her publishing house, dropped by her agent & is now lucky to publish one book a year from her backlist. Now, I'm not saying she deserved everything she go, but maybe this experience will make her think twice before opening her mouth again.

What's the point of all this? Easy there is none. People just have a tendency to tick me off with their self righteous, aren't I perfect crap. Well that and the over used plot of every other character is tortured and treated like crap by the world at large. Stick a diamond pin in me 'cause I'm done. Done with the tired line, the poor me look at my rough life plot. Where the heck are these people living because where I'm from we don't treat people like fashion accessories (I do, but I'm allowed... royalty and all) Yes, people suck & bad guys are all over the place. However good people are out there too. My previous EDJ sent me into the worst of the worst neighborhoods. I'm talking bad bad places where sometimes the cops didn't even go. Don't ask, I'm not that bright. So I'm in the 'hood or wherever bad people surrounding me when from nowhere good people rise up and correct the wrongs.
So please forgive me if I don't torture my characters with abusive childhoods, vengeful ex-lovers or murdered families. Reality sucks enough, why would I add it to my fiction? Granted my heros and heroines are a bit warped, have only a vague idea of sanity, but at least they don't live their imaginary lives beating themselves or the love of their life over past issues.
As you might be able to tell I'm not big on self-pity. It gets in the way of my ADD & obsession with all things shiny & sparkly.
Now I need to go torture my current WIP with some green Jello & super glue!

Kudos,
Allie