Does Your Mother Know? by Terry Spear

You read about S-E-X?  Or what if you write about it?

Does she know you read about R-O-M-A-N-C-E?

How about H-O-T and S-E-X-Y   W-E-R-E-W-O-L-V-E-S?

Or J-A-G-U-A-R    S-H-I-F-T-E-R-S?

Or H-O-T   B-L-O-O-D-E-D   V-A-M-P-I-R-E-S?

Or B-R-A-W   H-I-G-H-L-A-N-D   W-A-R-R-I-O-R-S?

Does she?

I've read romance books since I was little--you know: Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Rapunzel, you name it. They were romances.

So when did romance become a bad thing? My mother read a lot of different genres, including horror by Stephen King, but when it came to romance, no way. And S-E-X, no, no, no. And the paranormal?

As long as it was horror, she loved it. She made me fall in love with Dracula. Way to go, Mom!

She read my books--the sexless ones, or I read them to her, skipping over the sexier parts. We brainstormed for a new vampire story--this one was for my Kiss of the Vampire which is about 4 vampire teens who take a cruise to get away from their league of vampires who are ready to terminate them.

So Mom says, "Vampires on a cruise would be great! They have all those passengers to suck blood from. They can throw the bodies overboard and no one will ever suspect."

Sweet romance, Mom. I'm not writing horror stories. And that's how it went. My werewolves would shift and eat people and then return to human form. Mom, romance. Not horror.

When she'd tell friends what I'd write, she'd wave her hand and say, "Oh, you know that far-out paranormal stuff."

She was also a Trekky. Got me hooked on Star Trek.

So it wasn't like she didn't like far-out stuff. :) She just didn't want to read about R-O-M-A-N-C-E and S-E-X.

Which brings me to wonder why women who abhor those two things were all agog about reading 50 Shades of Grey??? Even my daughter (so this is a reversal of does your mother know--does your daughter know what mother reads...or writes?)--picked up that book, but quickly discarded it. But I was still shaking my head because if you want to go to the extreme, that book is it.

My mother would have been aghast. I was aghast that my daughter had been reading it!

So...that brings me back to our enlightened mothers...or daughters...do yours not want to know?

I'm also here today talking about Self-Publishing or Indie Publishing.

Have a super Friday!!!

 Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality!"
www.terryspear.com  

Do Settings Make it Real? by Terry Spear

Whether you want to be or not???

So this is Hawaii...isn't it beautiful? Wouldn't you love to be there? What if I wrote that the hero and heroine looked out at the vista. What might they see? If I describe a little of that, you are there, with them. And you're happy. Because that's what storytelling does. It takes you off of your couch and lands you smack dab into paradise. And this is what we see. Palm fronds, lush green and red vegetation, the blue, blue sky melding with the darker blue ocean.

Now, that can be bad because what if the author plunges you into a dark underground tunnel, and maybe you're claustrophobic, and so is the character? Or what if you're now in Scotland in a drenching downpour about to lose control of your horse, or in a blinding snowstorm seeking shelter before every blood cell freezes?

That's the hazard of reading a book. You could be perfectly comfortable on your couch enjoying a great story, and the next thing you know, you could be fighting to survive. :)

It's NOT the author's fault. It's the characters' fault. You see, they have these goals. They want, they want, they want. And it's not easy. Giving them what they want. All the time.

Love. Romance. Revenge. Justice. Peace. Whatever. They want it and then somehow the author has to give it to them. They make all kinds of wrong choices. You tell them, no, don't go that way. And what do they do? Just like kids, they ignore you. And you say, I told you so. But now it's too late and you have to fix their mistakes.

So here you are as the reader, perfectly fine with them being at home, safe and sound, and they carry you into the wilds of the Amazon, or on a race for your life in the desert--with only a half of a canteen of water left, no oasis in sight, and you need six full canteens to survive.

Do you ever feel you are in the setting of a book? And is that good? Or do you want to get out of it and pronto???

 
  Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality!"
www.terryspear.com