Redefining Taking Your Reading Medicine

I think most readers of this blog are likely aware that I live in the United States and this past weekend was a holiday weekend (today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day).  Certainly not all, but there are a number of schools and libraries closed for the day, my employer being one, and I decided to take advantage of the long holiday weekend.  After glomming through four Spice Briefs for this month's TBR Challenge, I hadn't picked up anything to read in about a week and I didn't want to lose my momentum.  So of course this would the moment where I end up DNF'ing my next two potential reads - one after 10%, one after 25%.  Both were books that I was hoping to enjoy, that had very intriguing, thought-provoking plots, and yet both failed to engage me or muster up enough enthusiasm in me to keep reading.

So I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.  In January 2018, incredibly depressed that I hadn't read a single 5-Star romance in all of 2017, I vowed to start 2018 reading through backlist titles by an author who consistently works for me - Molly O'Keefe.  So, I did that again, and I ended up inhaling Bad Neighbor and Baby Come Back (a duology) in less than 24 hours.  Were these 5-Star reads?  No.  They're good reads, problematic in a lot of ways, but compelling to the point where I could not put down my Kindle.  I had to keep reading until I got to the final sentence.  Something about O'Keefe's style, voice, whatever you want to call it, clicks with me.  I haven't loved all the books I've read by her, and yet I fall right into her worlds and come out the other side half-dazed and a little drunk.

But I'm not here to sing the praises of Molly O'Keefe.  No, I'm here to talk about reading, how our society treats it, how we teach it to our children, and how despite the fact that reading is magic we, in the United States at least, are determined to suck every last bit of joy out of it.

We teach our children, from cradle to grave, that reading is the equivalent of taking your medicine.  You feel like crud, it tastes really gross, and you just wish someone would smother you with a pillow to put you out of your misery.  Instead we force you to read a book that, chances are, you find boring and dull.  We tell kids, either flat-out or subliminally, that they should only read certain books.  Books that society has ingrained in us are "smart" books.  Comic books aren't smart.  Graphic novels aren't smart.  Romance is definitely not smart.  High drama of the soap opera variety isn't smart.  Mystery and Science Fiction can be smart but only this short list of prescribed authors.

We teach our children to pass tests because that's how it was decided schools should get their funding, which is how we end up with the same list of assigned authors and books we're teaching our kids today that I was forced to read 25 years ago.

Am I saying that kids shouldn't have required reading?  No. There's still value in teaching Shakespeare.  What I'm saying is that we should allow our kids freedom of choice.  That freedom to walk into a library, pick up any book they fancy, whether we as adults think it's "too easy" or "too hard" or "too low-brow" or "too whatever."  Here's the thing, kids know their own minds.  If a book is "too easy?"  They'll probably set it aside.  If a book is "too hard?"  They'll probably set it aside and look for something else.  Kids are smart enough to tell anybody willing to listen who their favorite superhero is and why, and yet adults seem to think they can't do that with books?  Why, exactly?  Well, I'll tell you why:

Because generation after generation has been taught that reading is smart, but only certain books and authors are smart, the rest is trash, and smart cannot equal fun.  Ergo if you're having fun while reading you're doing it wrong and/or reading the wrong books/authors.  And if you're not white, not male, and not rich - then it's automatically suspect.  Serialized novels during the Victorian era? Trash. Paperback format? Trash. Romance novels?  Oh man, the trashiest trash that ever trashed.

If 2016-2018 has taught us anything it's that life is short and people should take joy where they can find it.  You know where I find it?  In genre fiction.  A mystery novel will give me a sense of justice in a world where justice doesn't always prevail and a romance novel is going to be filled with love, light and a joyful happy ending in a world where endings aren't always happy.  Life is short and frankly, it can suck.  Why do I want to spend my short, sometimes sucky life, on reading something that isn't bringing me joy?  The answer is...I don't.

Find your joy.  There's a big wide world of publishing out there with a whole lot of people writing all sorts of stories.  Stories to get lost in.  Stories to reaffirm your soul.  Sample it like a Las Vegas buffet, find your joy, give yourself permission to stop reading books that aren't bringing you joy.  Stop apologizing, stop feeling guilty, stop feeling like you shouldn't like something as pure as a book, as a good story, grab hold of the brass ring and don't let go.

Medicine is supposed to make you feel better.

#RomBkLove: Day 13 Closed Door

#RomBkLove is a social media hashtag and brainchild of Ana Coqui.  Last year she hosted an entire month (all by herself!) of romance novel-related chatter on Twitter and I'm sure needed about a 2-month long nap afterward to recover.  So when she opted to host the month-long extravaganza again this year - she asked for help, with themes and with hosting.  So here were are, on Day #13 and my contribution: "closed door" romances.

People, I have a lot to say on this topic and will try not to slip into deep ranting mode, although it's going to be hard (ha!).  I truly believe that the only thing romance novels have to have, what they have to adhere to, is the happy-ever-after.  Our romantic couple needs to ride off into the sunset at the end.  This leaves a lot of shading in between for the author to write the story that they wanna tell.

This is paraphrased: There's a moment in the documentary, Love Between the Covers, where author Eloisa James asks an aspiring writer, "Are you selling this to the inspirational market?  Because if not, it has to have sex."

I'm beginning to think I'm the only one who was heavily annoyed by this "advice," because nobody else called it out (that I've seen anyway).  If anything, trolling through GoodReads only seems to enforce James' advice.  How many of us have seen the reviews: "This was a terrible book - it had NO sex scenes!"  So the book was "bad" because you didn't get to read a sex scene?  Really?!  Because this makes me question why you're reading romance.  If you're just "in it" for the sex - there's alternatives outside of the romance genre.  Just sayin'.

Now before anyone makes the erroneous assumption that I'm a prude who doesn't like the dirty words and smexy times - ha ha ha ha ha!  It is to laugh.  I'm one of what I'm beginning to think is a dying breed in romance readership.  The reader who will, literally, read across the entire sensuality spectrum.  Skanky hot sex scenes that would horrify my father?  Yep.  Sweet, just kisses that I'd be OK with my niece discovering on my bookshelf?  Yep.  I'll read it all.  I've loved it all - and Auntie Wendy is here to tell you why.

At the end of the day, it's about the story.  One thing romance readers and writers have been chaffing against since the dawn of time is this idea that romance is cookie-cutter.  It's one thing and one thing only.  Yes, it's the happy ending - but we're literally serving all sorts of cocktails (ha!) and I guarantee there's something on the menu for darn near every taste and preference.

Sex, like anything else in fiction writing, needs to be organic to the story.  Some stories need the hot and steamy sexy times - while in other stories such shenanigans would feel out of place.  There is nothing worse, in my opinion, than reading a very good story to only get to a love scene that feels shoe-horned in and "out of place" - like the author had to fill a quota.  Or the other side of the coin: a very good story that desperately needs a love scene that doesn't have one.  Yes, it can happen folks - I know this because I've read examples of both.

If you take nothing else away from Day 13, I hope it's this: Just because a book doesn't have sex scenes in it doesn't make it "bad."  Just because a book has wall-to-wall sexy shenanigans doesn't make it "bad."  At the end of the day, it's about the story.  What best serves the story?

Now, to get this party started, I'm going to mention a few of my favorite "Closed Door" romances.  I hope you'll have time to stop by Twitter today to follow along with all the discussion - which you can do without an account.  Just check out the #RomBkLove hashtag.

Some of Wendy's Favorite Closed Door Romances:

• Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist - People, this historical romance is magic. 

• Maid to Match by Deeanne Gist - set at the Biltmore mansion, a "downstairs" romance.

• Janice Kay Johnson - check out any of her SuperRomances.  When she does write sex, it tends to be G-rated and she writes some of the best darn conflict in the genre.  She's criminally under-appreciated.

• Karen Templeton - check out her Special Editions, including my favorite series, Guys and Daughters.  

• Someone more well-versed than I will have to pick up this mantle on Twitter - but seriously, SO MANY TRAD REGENCIES!

• The Harlequin Romance line is my comfort food.  When there's sex it's either behind closed doors or very PG-rated.  Favorite authors include Jessica Hart, Shirley Jump, Donna Alward, Liz Fielding, and Barbara Wallace.  There's also a whole crop of up-and-comers that I haven't gotten around to reading much of yet - like Jessica Gilmore, Jennifer Faye, Therese Beharrie and Bella Bucannon.  Seriously, trying to keep up with category romance is basically another full-time job for me.

Auntie Wendy's Unsolicited Advice To Romancelandia

Wow.  So it's been an interesting few days in Romancelandia, as those of you on Twitter and other social media platforms are most likely aware.  For those of you who aren't, here's what's been going on the past few days:

1) Accusations of catfishing by author Santino Hassell.  I'll be honest and say I'm still (at least) 85% confused by this entire story.  And the more I try to unravel it?  The more confused I get.  What I do know?  Even the scratching of the surface I've done, the whole thing is really skeevy - and that's all I feel comfortable saying without doing a major deep dive into the details.  This Goodreads thread is the least confusing of the accounts I've encountered.  I'm hesitant to hash it out in any more detail than that because see above.  I haven't done a deep dive into all the various threads, accusations and accounts.

2) Accusations have been made against Sarah Lyons and Riptide Publishing.  Lyons has resigned and Riptide has issued a statement.  I'm still processing this.  I've known Sarah for many years, we follow each other on Facebook and Twitter, and I routinely interact with her when I see her at conferences.  I have friends who have published with Riptide.  This one hits closer to home for me than the SH stuff and I'll be frank: I'm still processing.

Which leads me to this blog post.  Don't worry.  I'm not going to vomit my feelings all over this blog, but I have some things to say and I think maybe some of you may want to hear them.  If not?  No harm, no foul.

Even when fandoms support giant industries (romance publishing, comic/graphic novel publishing etc.), they're still insular.  Why?  Because fandoms, by their very nature, imply an Us Against The World mentality.  It's the Ride Or Die Philosophy.  The "normals" don't "get" me so I'm going to find a tribe of people who do "get" me and hang on by my fingernails.  Because of this, we expect to feel safe in our fandoms.  We don't want to believe that people within our fandoms could possibly suck.  And that's the rub...

Fandoms are full of people and people can suck.  And when you're blind-sided by sucky people within your tribe that you considered your safe space?  The betrayal cuts that much deeper.  It just does.

This blog post isn't about me taking sides.  What it is about is to say to everyone hurting right now, I hear you.  Romancelandia hears you.  So I want to give something back to my wee corner of the community.  That corner of the community that I glommed on to back when I started this blog back in 2003: the reviewers, readers and fellow bloggers.

Handling news like this is never easy.  However I want to share one thing I've learned in the 19 years I've been reviewing romance novels and the 15 years I've been blogging - and this is me, so yes, you know I'm going to phrase it in cliches:

What hill do you want to die on?

I've been around a long time folks.  I've seen all manner of kerfuffles.  From the minor, quaint ones  to the major, people are really hurt, this is really skeevy ones.  At the end of the day, you need to live with you.  No matter what you decide, some will think you're making the right decision and some will think you're beyond the pale.  And over the years?  I've had to make those choices for myself and how I decide to conduct the business of this blog.  I haven't always publicized these choices.  I read the stories, I saw the news, I made my decision(s) that best fit me and this blog.  Admittedly easier to do since this is my blog and I'm a one woman operation.

Is this blacklisting?  No.  Let's be brutally honest, my tiny blog is not going to bankrupt anybody just because I don't promo a certain author or book on it.  This blog also isn't much of a money-making venture.  I make some pennies on Amazon affiliate links but trust me when I say it barely fills up the gas tank in my car a few times a year.  No, these are choices I make so I can sleep at night.  Because I, personally, think it's the right thing to do.  And that, as a blogger, reader or reviewer, is what you need to do.  Find your line in the sand.

Now, the unpleasant reality: once you find your hill realize that some people will think you're not taking a hard enough stance and others will think you're making mountains out of mole-hills.  There will be those that will agree with your hill and those that will think your hill is garbage.  You may lose people you consider friends.  They'll stop reading your blog, following you on Twitter etc.  You may have to accept the fact that that author whose books you once loved?  Well, it's time to break up with them because you know things now that you didn't know then and OMG this is like the literal worst.  

It blows and it's not easy.  Which is why you find your line in the sand.  Take comfort in it and know you're making the right decision for you.  I've been lucky.  There's only been a few dust-ups in Romancelandia over the years that I felt compelled to look at my line in the sand and take stock.  There are authors I choose to not promote anymore.  Publishers I couldn't cough up free publicity for (no matter how minuscule my blog audience) because of business practices I found troublesome.  Blogs and bloggers I stopped following because a bridge crossed was one too far for me, personally.  Nobody is immune to this - yes, even me.  I'm sure there are folks out there that have muted, unfollowed me and think I'm full of more manure than a pig farm.  Of course I am sorry for that - but I was a hill they didn't want to die on.  And Romancelandia, for all the good and ill, needs to be a space where people can find their joy.  I've always hesitated to offer a unilateral explanation of WHY people love romance, but I think we can all agree that one very big reason is because they're deriving some sort of joy from it.  I mean, otherwise, why bother?

When upsetting news and revelations hit our community it's OK to take your time and process.  It's OK to process these things in your own way, on your own timeline and quietly make choices that are right for you, personally.  Some will abide them and some won't.  Not all decisions are easy (mores the pity).  As a reviewer, reader and/or blogger - you make the decision that you can live with.  You decide if this is a hill you want to die on.  And if it is?  Own it.

Little Miss Crabby Pants Talks About Weight Loss

I was a skinny kid and all the way up through my teen years.  I topped out at 5'9" by high school and probably weighed somewhere in the ballpark of 135 pounds.  I had no boobs, no hips and iron-deficiency anemia issues.  Then I went away to college, turned 19, hormones fully kicked in and viola! I somehow got hips overnight.  This was largely a good thing, since that iron-deficiency anemia was now a thing of the past.  But my weight has steadily crept up on me ever since, until last year I went to the doctor for a ridiculously overdue physical and got The Talk.

The talk essentially was "You're on the other side of 40, you have a family history of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease and you're over 200 pounds.  Get your weight under 200 pounds."

5'9" does hide more sins but I had crept up to a size 18.  Plus, as much as I hated to admit it, my stupid doctor was right.  I started to get better with exercise right then and there....only to fall off the wagon around April.  And I laid in that ditch for a while until August, when I kicked my butt back into gear.  I have since lost 25 pounds.  Why am I blogging about this now?  Because it dawned on me recently that when it comes to the cold, hard truth about weight loss, the romance genre has a pretty crappy track record.  Case in point, the book I'm reading now where the Southern Fried Heroine is still eating fried chicken and potato salad while guzzling sweet tea and drinking Coke - but has somehow magically lost a dress size simply because she's remodeling a house.

Not that I'm bitter.

So here it is.  The Highly Unvarnished Truth of How Little Miss Crabby Pants Lost 25 Pounds and Still Finds Time to Whine.

Disclaimer: I'd be remiss to not mention that there are very real socioeconomic factors when it comes to health, diet and weight loss.  A box of Kraft macaroni and cheese is a heck of a lot less expensive than fresh vegetables and lean cuts of meat.  Don't believe me?  Pay attention at the grocery store sometime.  Anyway, this is to say that I have disposable income and while I budget, I don't have to make hard choices between "eating healthy" and paying the rent.  Other folks can't say the same.

Step One: Find Motivation That Works for You.  

This started for me at the Montreal Romance Novel Meetup back in August.  We walked. A lot. The last time the lower half of my body felt like that was after I spent eight days in London in 2014.  I realized I had to get serious again and I bought a Fitbit (I have the Charge 2 model).

Having an "electronic nagger" has been great motivation for me.  It also made it really easy for me to start keeping a food journal - which I had always heard works, but I'm not going to lie - it's a total drag.  I started out by counting calories.  Mind you, I was still eating junk - I was just eating less of it and trying to up my activity levels.  And it worked.  I lost 15 pounds within a few months.

Step Two: Face Reality When You Hit Your Plateau

I was at 17 pounds lost when Thanksgiving hit and was able to maintain.  However, I was stuck there for a while and even gained back a couple of pounds at Christmas.  Yep, time to face cold, hard reality.  Counting calories had gotten me this far, but I now had to make some changes in how and what I was eating.  And let me tell you, if I thought counting calories was a drag?  Yeah.

Say farewell to carbs and sugar.  OK, so it's not like I've fallen off a cliff and gone to the extreme.  However I have limited my intake considerably.  Given that I'm hopelessly addicted to sugar, I've been surprised how much easier that has been to give up than carbs in general.  Dear Lord, I miss bread.  Pasta not so much, but gods I miss bread.  I'm not proud.  I'd run over anyone reading this for a croissant right about now.

Step Three: Make Your Peace With Exercising

You know those people who say they "feel better" after exercise?  That they get a "runner's high?"  Yeah, those people are nuts.  I dislike exercising.  Always have, always will.  But the whole high blood pressure and heart disease history in my family means I really need to be serious about cardio.  The trick is finding something you can marginally tolerate.

I'm lucky in that I live in a warmer climate.  I'm not trying to exercise through two feet of snow and freezing temperatures.  My exercise of choice is mainly walking/hiking.  I also have my own elliptical machine at home, but I tend to only use it during the work week, if I use it at all.  Since I moved to a new Bat Cave in early November, my average has been around 20 miles a week.  This includes your basic day-to-day walking around and more brisk exercise walking.  I mostly walk at a nearby park, but sometimes I just walk around my neighborhood.

Step Four: Things I'm Still Trying To Figure Out

People ask me if I feel better.  Um, not really?  I'm not noticing a huge difference, although you think I would after losing 10% of my body weight!  I chalk this up to missing bread and hating exercise.  Also, I have the knees of a 70-year-old woman and they're a bit achy today after a long weekend of walking (12 miles - I hurt).

What has been great?  The clothes shopping.  I finally broke down and bought new work slacks because the old ones made me look like a circus clown.  I went from an 18 to a 14.  That being said, it's hard to gauge your progress through the vagaries of women's clothing sizes which are seriously messed up on a good day.  To give you some idea?  I bought some nice dresses recently.  One is a size 14 (OK) and the other is a size 12.  A 12.  There's no way on any logical plane of existence that I'm a 12 right now.  But there you have it.

Step Five: Figure Out Where You Want To End Up

My goal is to hit the weight I was when I graduated college.  I feel like this is realistic and doable.  And then I'll need to shift my focus on to maintaining my weight loss.

Step Six: Don't Feel Like a Freak

The main reason I wanted to write this blog post is to assure anyone currently struggling with fitness and weight loss that you are not a freak.  Little Miss Crabby Pants is here to keep it real.  Keeping a food diary?  It sucks.  Counting carbs and sugar?  It sucks.  Exercise?  It sucks.  None of this is fun for me.  It's not always easy.  Frankly it's a drag.  But what's the alternative?  Ignoring my family medical history, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best?  So yeah.  Here we are.  No, it's not easy.   And take a moment to celebrate your successes, even if they're small ones.  Find a way to maintain an upbeat attitude and your sense of humor.

Talkin' 'Bout Bad Girls

I had a brief flirtation with romance in my teens, but didn't become a "serious" reader of the genre until I was in my early twenties.  1999 to be precise.  I was fresh out of library school and had landed a job with a collection development component to it - specifically, adult fiction.  Having spent the past six years buried in academia, reading for pleasure was not my poison of choice for unwinding.  I watched an inordinate amount of soap operas instead.  It was after landing this job that I realized I was going to be expected to select romance and outside of knowing who Jude Deveraux was, I was epically clueless.  So I started reading it and got hooked.

This was 1999 which doesn't seem that long ago, but trust me on this - it was almost 20 years ago.  I read a lot of books back then that I enjoyed, but the genre was still stuffed to the gills with virginal heroines who never had an orgasm until the hero came along.  If you were lucky enough to find a book with an "experienced" heroine as the lead, she had to be screwed up in some way.  Daddy didn't love her so that's why she had sex with other guys before meeting the hero and naturally the sex she had before the hero wasn't all that good.  It was like there had to be a self-loathing component to the heroine in order for her to NOT be a virgin.  I read these (and even enjoyed some) because I was, literally, that desperate.

Having lived away from home, having had the "college experience," and a wide swath of male and female friends - this sort of thing never rang true for me.  Even some of the earliest (marketed as) erotic romances still featured virginal heroines who designed sex toys for a living.  I think that's why I found Black Lace books so revolutionary at the time I discovered them.  The heroines had healthy sex lives, multiple partners, weren't written as villains, and weren't punished for it.  But Black Lace wasn't necessarily romance, although you could find books that featured what we now call HFN (Happy For Now) endings. Also, since they were published in the UK, they were pretty hard to find in the United States until the evil monolith that is Amazon came along (Black Lace is why I became an Amazon customer and no I'm not joking. At all.)

For readers who have just come to romance in, say, the last five years or so, the idea that 95% of all heroines being virgins is a foreign concept to them.  These days, at least the books I'm reading, I would say the norm is that most heroines aren't virgins - especially in contemporary romance.  But you know what?  They're all still predominantly "good girls."  Even in erotic romance where taboo is a teeny bit more acceptable.

For "reasons," I've spent the last several months sampling and listening to a lot of erotic romance on audio.  Call it professional development.  I like to expose myself (ha!) to authors I've never read before, check out books my library patrons are interested in, even if I don't finish everything I pick up - I at least have gotten a small plate tasting to give myself a good idea.  It's a way to keep my reader's advisory skills fresh.

I've just gone through, roughly, 25 different erotic romance audio books.  Some by authors I've heard of, some I haven't, pretty much all authors I've never read before.  And you know what?  If they weren't "good girls" they were "bad girls" who were looking to repent and/or be rescued.  Good Lord above, if I hit upon one Rescue Fantasy, I must have hit upon 20.  The hero swooping in to save the heroine.  The heroine being the "emotional salve" to "heal" the hero's damaged psyche.  The Alphahole Hero felled by the love of a good woman after he teaches her to be kinky in bed.

Honestly it's amazing I didn't give myself alcohol poisoning.

I hear what you're thinking.  Wendy, you're yucking on someone else's yum.  And you know what?  Yes.  Yes, I am.  You wanna know why?  Because I just slogged through 25+ audio books and 90% of them featured some variation on this.

It took me a while to figure this out, but slogging through those audio books, it was like the proverbial light bulb going off.  I glommed on to erotic romance the minute Kensington Brava was launched in 1999.  I was all in baby!  So why now is the sub genre failing to spark with me.  Have I changed?  Or has the sub genre changed?  And here's the answer: it's a little of both.

The Bodice Ripper Era gets a fair amount of grief from those who don't understand genre history because of how rape-y it was.  What naysayers don't take into account is the era in which those books were written.  "Good girls" weren't allowed to talk or think about sex, much less like it.  The concept that women could actually have sexual desires, needs and fantasies is something society still wrestles with today, never mind the 1970s and 1980s.  Authors were responding to society and addressing female sexuality with the means at their disposal.  There was a lot of cloak and dagger tap-dancing these authors were doing because that's what they had to do.  People talk about the 1960s as the "sexual revolution," but I have news for you - that revolution missed wide swaths of the population.

What romance has always told women is that it's OK for them to have sexual desires and fantasies - to own them.  Good girls can like sex and good girls can desire sex.  It's what makes the genre inherently subversive.  Where the genre needs to do more work is with "bad girls."

Human behavior, god bless, is predictable.  I don't care when or where you grew up, but we all knew who the "bad girls" were.  The ones who "got in trouble."  The ones who "let" boys go "all the way."  These were the girls we gossiped about, snubbed, and talked trash about.  Never mind that we knew nothing about their lives or, you know, the actual truth.  Never let the truth get in the way of "good gossip" no matter how appalling and misogynistic it is.

We've all done it.  We all need to own it.

But here's the thing: romance is still doing it.  Maybe not as blatantly as it used to - where the villainess was always The Other Woman who enjoys kinky sex - although yes, those still exist in today's genre.  But it's still a rare thing to have a bad girl heroine in the genre.  A true bad girl.  The one who has made mistakes, has a dubious moral and ethical code, and stays a bit bad even at the end of the book.  If I'm to believe in a "bad girl" I don't want her morphed into a pod person and joining the PTA at the end of the book.  Unless, of course, she's going to burn the PTA down to the ground.  Then I'm all in.

As romance readers we swallow a lot of over-the-top (secret babies, amnesia, evil twins) and ethically squishy (boss/secretary, criminal heroes) plot devices.  The hurdle we can't seem to cross is the ethically squishy heroine.  We'll buy it for the gander but it sure as heck is not good for the goose.  The goose needs to be above reproach.  And frankly?  That's SO boring.  I want a heroine who is allowed to be just as "bad" as the hero and is celebrated for it.  That's what I want.  And frankly, given that romance authors are predominantly female, I should be able to find more of it.  Yet, here I am, nattering away on my blog.  Is it the desire to be more marketable? (Probably).  Is it internalized misogyny? (Not out of the realm of possibilities).  All I know is I want more of it.  I truly want the girls to be on the same playing field as the boys because you know what?  Women don't get that in Real Life.  I'm not saying that all romance needs to be wish fulfillment but it should serve as a response to the social history around us.  If you love "bad boy" heroes - guess what?  It's time to let the "bad girl" heroines have their day in the sun.

Little Miss Crabby Pants Doubles Down on the New York Times

I think by now everybody in romance circles has seen the New York Times’ attempt to write about romance novels. I’d actually seen mention of the impending piece a few days before it went live and, in what I can only blame on a temporary moment of insanity, I was excited. Then the caffeine kicked in and I came to my senses.

I have largely stayed silent on the Robert Gottlieb piece (Seriously?! Robert Gottlieb?!) because I’m tired ya’ll. I mean how many ways can Little Miss Crabby Pants provide commentary on the latest “hot take” du jour written by writers who have done, like, zero research on the genre or its history. All these hot takes say the exact same thing in the exact same tired cliched manner. Oh there’s sex! *titter titter hee hee* Oh women really like to read this trash! *titter titter hee hee* Although you have to hand it to Gottlieb. He reached into the void and was not only condescending and snide but managed to throw in some racism with a side of fries.

“Oh, yes — Zoe and Carver are African-Americans, though except for some scattered references to racial matters, you’d never know it. (Well, you would from the cover.)”

Translation: Don’t worry white people! It’s OK for you to read Deadly Rumors by Cheris Hodges because you’ll never know it’s about black people!

I just…seriously? Racism is deeply embedded in this country’s fabric. It’s an open festering wound that can’t scab over. But the New York Times actually let that sentence fly out into the world. Think on that for a minute the next time your friends and family thump their chest over taking a knee and the NFL’s brand of faux patriotism.

Anyway, others stepped in to throw some shade on the Gottlieb piece, I resorted to my best side eye, and called it a day. I'm so old and frankly expect this sort of thing with the regularity of the sun rising that I couldn't muster up any fresh outrage. 

That is until the the New York Times decided to double down and managed to make the whole mess that much worse.

Radhika Jones, editorial director of the New York Times Books section, decided to write a response that basically encompasses a “Oh well we tried!” excuse and proceeds to school upset romance fans on what “criticism” is because we’ve obviously addled our brains by reading too much tripe to understand the concept.

No, Ms. Jones, as shocking as this may be to understand, romance fans do know and understand what criticism is. More importantly we also know what condescension and respect are. Gottlieb’s piece had a heaping helping of the first and none of the latter. Romance readers, bless our hearts, can smell snide like a fart in a car. I don’t think anybody has a problem with Gottlieb writing a piece for the New York Times on romance. What we do have a problem with is his utter lack of respect for the genre and the staggering racism that flew right past your editorial desk.

You know what romance readers want? What we really want? Fair treatment. I think many of us can agree that the late Roger Ebert was a talented and notable film critic. He loved some movies and he hated others. But never, during his entire career, in all my years of reading his work or watching him on TV, did I feel that Robert Ebert didn’t respect film. He greatly respected film. What I felt when I read that Gottlieb piece? He doesn’t respect romance. The genre, the books, the authors, the readers. That’s what we got our panties in a twist over. Not that Gottlieb isn’t a “fan.” It’s the disdain in that article. Like he lost a bet or dropped his pants during office happy hour one Friday evening and you assigned him this piece as punishment.

Romance readers are smarter than anybody ever gives them credit for. We know what criticism is. We don’t need you to school us on it. We understand that there are good books and bad books. We can talk about them intelligently, the authorial choices made, the “why” something works or doesn’t. Some of us are even nerds about genre history. We can speak to you eloquently about the bodice ripper era, the history of Harlequin, and the rise of erotic romance as a sub genre. We understand that you don’t have to like, hate, agree or disagree to write intelligently on a subject. We. Get. That. We don’t need you to educate those you perceive as the poor unwashed masses.

Look, romance readers are tired. Romance writers are tired. Librarians who are champions of the genre have been exhausted for at least the last 40 years. We get bombarded with pieces like Gottlieb’s on a regular basis (Lord save us from editors looking to fill column space in February!) but then you went, double downed, and made it worse. Look, this isn’t that hard. You cannot like romance, just as I cannot like science fiction or high fantasy. But some respect would nice, and frankly – that’s not too much to ask.

The truth of the matter is that romance doesn’t need the New York Times to write about us. We never have. We have flourished as a genre for decades while you’ve turned up your nose and looked the other way. And you know what? You do you. But honestly I think I speak for romance readers everywhere when I say that you simply ignoring us is preferable to the original piece and your response. Do it right or don’t do it at all.

Little Miss Crabby Pants Gets Squeaky Clean

She's back!  That's right kids, Little Miss Crabby Pants has once again broken her bonds of forced imprisonment to talk to you all about something that is starting to get on her last good nerve.  The current state of political affairs?  Her yearly hand-wringing over what next fiscal year's library budget is going to look like?  No.  It's much more troublesome than that.  Far worse.

I'm talking about authors who release "clean versions" and "sexy versions" of their books.  This little slice of insanity has been around for a while now but seems to be picking up steam - and yes, self-published writers, this will be a blog post where Little Miss Crabby Pants is going to "pick on you."  I see these sorts of shenanigans almost exclusively in self-published quarters.  Merry Farmer (who writes westerns) has turned it into a cottage industry.  Lauren Royal has taken books previous published by New York and done it.  And one of my personal favorite examples, an author named Elle Snow has released "clean versions" of stories with titles like Go Long and Pull Out.

Words. Fail.

Look, I get it.  All authors want to make a livable wage at their writing - which has gotten so increasingly difficult it'd probably be easier to wish upon a star and hope their fictional billionaire heroes come to life and fall hopelessly in love with them.  So yeah, I get it.  I really do.  The name of the game is output.  Backlist.  And trying to cast the widest net as humanly possibly to snag as many reader eyeballs as humanly possible.  Little Miss Crabby Pants is not unsympathetic. 

But, you're doing it wrong.

Sex, like all things in fiction needs to be organic to the story or really, what's the point?  There has to be a reason for it to be there.  It has to move the story forward.  It has to have meaning.  Otherwise you're inserting (ha!) filler that's taking up word count and frankly boring your reader.  This is probably the category romance reader in me - but it all has to mean something.  Which means if the author is doing their job, if every element of the story "means something" - then taking out the sex scenes should alter your core story.  It may not make it a hot mess on the level of a Category 5 hurricane, but it should at least make a mess say, like when your toddler gets a hold of your favorite tube of lipstick. 

Now lest you think that Big Meanie Little Miss Crabby Pants is just here to pick on poor defenseless self-published authors, remember - she's equal opportunity crabby.  Readers, this is probably 95% our fault.  For all those readers who whine on GoodReads, "Ewww, there's no sex in this story!  All romance novels MUST have sex in them!!!" or the readers who whine, "Ewwww, there's dirty naughty bits in this story!  Jeeves, where are my smelling salts?!?!'  Yeah, I'm looking at you.

The cold, hard (ha!) truth of the matter is this:  Not all romance novels need sex in them and not all romance novels should be rewritten to tailor to every reader's personal preference.  There will be some books you like and some books you won't and dear Lord above with all the romance that is pushed out into the marketplace Every. Single. Year. you're more than likely to find something that fits your personal tastes.  Nothing is perfect and yes, you'll need to spend time reading samples and reading books that turn out to be not your jam.  But nobody, anywhere, is entitled to spoon-feeding. Samples are free.  Read them.  And trust Little Miss Crabby Pants on this: a good story, is a good story.  Stories without sex in them CAN be good.  Stories with dirty, sexy, naughty times in them CAN be good.  I've read plenty of examples of both.

So authors, stop writing meaningless sex scenes that are only in the story because someone told you, "Oh dear, you HAVE to have a sex scene in here - it's a romance novel!"  No, no you don't.  If the book isn't calling for it, if it doesn't serve to advance the story - no, you don't need a sex scene.  And while I'm at it, stop listening to readers who whine on GoodReads or Amazon or have the gall to e-mail you berating you for the "smut" you're writing.  If the sex scenes are important to the story - they stay.  And readers who don't like it have a choice.  They can, you know, not read your book.  Or make the decision to not read your books if you write stories that call for hot, sexy times.  Yes, you've lost a reader.  But readers being readers, more than likely they'll forget the last paragraph I just wrote and buy your dirty, sexy books by the truckload.  We can't be all things to all people and the minute we all realize that the better off the genre will be.

Because, guess what?  If you're just writing sex for the sake of sex and it means so little to the story that you can simply take it out to release a "clean version?"  Yeah, you are just writing "lady porn."  Own it.

Little Miss Crabby Pants and the Blogging Reality Check

Yes, I am well aware Dearest Bat Cave Visitors and Honored Guests that we all need another "post about blogging" like we need a hole in the head - and yet, here we are.  These days, when it comes to Little Miss Crabby Pants breaking out of her self-imposed silence it's usually not over any one thing, rather a culmination of several things that end up swirling around in my brain for...well, a while.

It all started with the fairly recent phenomenon I've seen cropping up around social media - mostly on Facebook, but I think it's been floating around on blogs, web sites and Twitter as well.  The posts that go something like I'm An Author And This Is What You, Dear Reader, Can Do To Help Support Authors/Me - and then it devolves into a list of things like posting reviews on Amazon, putting books on your various GoodReads shelves yada yada yada.  And while it's not always boldly spelled out, it's implied that we're talking Squee-Worthy This Book Is Awesome Sauce chatter only.  If you desire to post a genuine not-so-hot or this-was-blah review just ignore the Author's/Publicist's/Publisher's pleas thankyouverymuch.

Then, BEA happened.  For those that aren't aware - BEA or BookExpo America is a Big Ol' Convention for Industry Professionals.  So publishers, booksellers, librarians and in the past several years more readers and bloggers have been attending the event.  BEA is a Book Orgy. Seriously.  All kinds of books.  All reading levels.  All genres.  Book. Orgy.  Ergo, there are a ton of ARCs and it usually takes 12 hours after the event ends for people to pop up on social media to gripe about "greedy bloggers selling ARCs."  Always bloggers.  Booksellers, librarians and publishing employees never seem to get accused #shockednotshocked

I'm going to state the obvious upfront: I'm old. I've been book blogging since 2003 and I started reviewing for The Romance Reader (RIP) in 1999.  Old.  This is going to sound very Damn Kids Get Off My Lawn, but blogging truly was more pure back then because it was easier to keep it pure.  As more and more people began blogging (which, yippeee!), the industry took notice.  They saw it as a way to harness that elusive marketing tool, "word of mouth" and relationships began forming.

Now lest you all think I'm going to talk about "corruption" and how Big Publishing Ruined Blogging - bloggers couldn't run fast enough through that open door that publishers were holding open for us.  Free books?!  OMG, I can get ARCs of coveted books I'm DYING to read?!?!  Sign me up!  So what publishers and authors got, essentially, was an extension of their PR departments and all they had to do was pay us in free books.  Granted those books aren't free to the publishers.  They need to produce them.  They need to mail them out (although now that we have digital I imagine postage costs are down).  But they're not paying bloggers a salary, benefits, putting money into our 401Ks yada yada yada.  So really, it's a bargain for them.

Subconsciously, even if we didn't acknowledge this, I think bloggers realized we were working for free.  So we monetized.  Getting "paid" in free books isn't going to cover things like web hosting, postage, not to mention time and labor.  Blogging is a hobby for a good many bloggers, but it can be an expensive one.  How much blogs monetized has varied wildly.  It ranges from the larger blogs joining multiple affiliate programs and selling ad space to quirky individual bloggers who have stayed relatively ad free.

This post is my way of issuing a reality check.  To publishers, to publicists, to authors and to bloggers.  I have monetized this blog, but like most things in my life I've done it kind of half-assed.  I earn money through my blogging two ways: 1) I'm a member of Amazon's Affiliate program and 2) I blog at Heroes & Heartbreakers.  The only expenses I have are my time and energy.  I've stayed on Blogger all these years (since 2003) because it's 1) easy and 2) free.  Would I have a larger reach if I paid for web hosting and spiffed up my blog?  Sure.  But 1) easy 2) free and 3) I'm from the Midwest and bleed frugality.

In 2015 my blogging, my online "presence" if you will, earned me $683.  Granted, $683 is $683.  It's nothing to sneeze at.  But what can one do with $683?  I don't have kids - so while it doesn't come close to covering one month's rent, it would cover my grocery bills for a while.  It covers RWA conference registration and a night in the hotel.  But I'm not going to live off this money.  It's "mad money."  It would pay my electric bill for several months, but it also means that if I didn't have another source of income (hello, Day Job!), my blogging (such as it is) isn't going to keep me financially afloat.  Not by a long shot.

I can only speak for me, and granted I've never made moves to take my blog "big time."  So what I earn?  That's been my choice.  I started doing what I do because I love the romance genre, I love reading, I love the community and I want to share that love with other people.  I didn't start this gig to Get Rich Or Die Tryin' and it's not why I've kept doing it all these years.  So please do not confuse my $683 with whining.  I'm not whining.  If I wanted to make more money off my blog I probably could.  I'm also not saying it's OK for people to sell ARCs online or in their bookstores or on the local street corner either.  I'm just saying - slow your roll and let's all have a reality check.

Bloggers do what we do because we love it and yes, we truly do want to support authors - and by extension publishing as a whole.  But this is a two-way street folks.  Telling us "how you can support authors" can often smack of What Have You Done For Me Lately?  And just as authors sometimes sit behind their computer monitors, feeling isolated, pondering "Why do I do this?"  Newsflash: bloggers think that to.  We're not doing it for the money, we're doing it for the love.  But even The Collective Blogging We can feel taken for granted, discouraged, and overlooked.  You know how great you feel when you get a gushing fan letter in your e-mail?  Nothing cranks my handle more than when somebody says, "I read this book based on Wendy's recommendation and OMG IT WAS SO GOOD THE BOOK AND I ARE PLANNING ON ELOPING!!!!" 

Am I suggesting we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya?  Ha!  No.  What I am saying is that every once in a while a reality check is in order.  Bloggers love getting ARCs, we love talking about books, none of that will change.  But....two way street.  It's terribly easy to sit behind your computer monitor and rant about the latest whatever that's going on - but somehow it's not quite as easy for us to express how much we appreciate each other.  For better or worse, this is a symbiotic relationship.  I think that's worth some reflection...at least until the next brouhaha blows up.

Little Miss Crabby Pants Comes Clean

Well that didn't take long.  Back from RT for a grand total of 24 hours and already our first controversy.  I tend to avoid addressing most post-con controversies but in this instance Little Miss Crabby Pants feels like she has something to say.  Because...of course she does.

The brouhaha involves a publisher that attended this year called Clean Reads (and no I'm not linking).  They handed out "Clean Reads" buttons at the Giant Book Fair and attendees wearing one had the opportunity to win cool free stuff - I believe Kindle Fires were involved.  So, naturally, many folks started walking around sporting those buttons.

What makes this problematic?  The fact that the publisher has very definite ideas on what constitutes a "clean read."  I'll direct you to this blog post by author Rick R. Reed, but in a nutshell?  "Clean" does not apply to LGBTQ.

There's a lot going on here, so let's start with the obvious.  The implication that if you're LGBTQ you are somehow "not clean" or "dirty" is....really not cool.  Also fairly obvious and problematic is the implication that all media (this includes books) that feature LGBTQ characters is somehow pedal-to-the-metal erotica (this is a long-standing pet peeve of mine).  Which...hello, it's not.  For me it's the exact same thing as when people think romance novels are all about sex and that all romance novels have sex in them.  Which we all know...isn't true either.

LGBTQ does not = "dirty" or "unclean"
LGBTQ does not automatically = erotica or erotic romance
Sex does not = "unclean" or "bad" or "wrong."

Hey, if we're all created in God's image I'm pretty sure the big guy upstairs is pretty OK with sex.  I mean, she'd have to be...right?

What I fear will get lost in this discussion, and what I fear will happen, is that readers who like reads that are sweet, gentle, non-explicit, whatever-the-heck-you-want-to-call-them, will get lumped into the fray as being "a problem."  Also, and this could just be the Twitter vacuum I live in, that somehow people who like non-explicit reads think erotic romance or erotica is the devil.  Some of them do, but guess what?  Some of them don't.  It's always been too easy and tempting by some parties to lump romance readers into "one thing."  Oh, you like LGBTQ?  You must hate Inspirational romances.  Oh, you like hot erotic romance?  You must want sex in ALL your books. 

It's true, some readers do like to stay in their lane and not veer off on to unfamiliar dirt roads to explore the countryside.  But, in my experience, I find this to not be the norm in Romancelandia.  I can only truly speak for myself, but I love erotic romance and erotica.  Love it!  But I also love plenty of authors who keep the bedroom door firmly shut and whose characters never utter a curse word.  I've even been known to read books on both ends of the spectrum back-to-back (two authors I really dig? Charlotte Stein and Deeanne Gist. They both do great tension, but that's the only similarity between the two....trust me).

The problem continues to be discoverability.  Just as I don't want readers shamed for loving erotic romance or erotica, I don't want them shamed for wanting the author to keep that bedroom door shut.  However we live in a society that cannot seem to function without labels and the book world is consumed by them.  The trick is how to identify those non-explicit reads for people who want them without resorting to a publishing model that endorses bigotry.  And I think if you asked people who liked non-explicit reads?  You'd find a great many of them aren't intolerant people.  They don't think LGBTQ somehow denotes "explicit" because, guess what?  It doesn't.  I also think you'd find many of them interested in non-explicit books that feature LGBTQ characters.  If nothing else, I'm interested! (hint, hint)

This, for me, is another example of a widening divide.  Non-explicit reads are getting lumped into inspirational by default which is a disservice for non-explicit readers who don't want Christian themes and for Christian readers actively looking for Christian themes.  But in a world where we're obsessed with labels?  Coming up with labels or various genre cues is tricky.  Words like "clean" and "wholesome" are judgmental.  "Sweet" can mean anything from "no sex" to "charming" to "cloyingly saccharine."  I like "gentle" but am really not in love with it.  "Non-Explicit" seems....awkward.  And yes, there is a difference between "chaste" and "closed door."

At this point I'm thinking authors writing non-explicit books need to resort to putting cats on their book covers.  Hey, it worked for cozy mysteries!  Even when the story in question doesn't have a cat in it!

This is an instance where I really don't have a good answer and it's a topic which, as a librarian, I struggle with constantly.  Just as there are folks who don't like action movies because they don't like to watch violence?  There are folks who like non-explicit reads - not because they are narrow-minded or bigoted - but because they don't want to read about sex, violence and/or curse words.  And you know what?  There's nothing wrong with that.  But there has to be a way to identify those books without excluding the LGBTQ community and implying that they, and sex in general, are "dirty" or "wrong."

Little Miss Crabby Pants Gets Smutty

I'm officially old.  It's the only way to explain my crankiness about certain phenomena in the romance community.  I get it, times they are a-changing, and yet?  I can't ignore the baggage that has been left on the tarmac.  So I pick up the bags, load them on a cart, and start trailing after the rest of Romancelandia begging them to "Just look at the bags!  Maybe these belong to you!"

Reading romance novels was once something done in secret.  Furtively.  Women walked into drugstores, grocery stores, bookstores, lurked over in the area where "those books" were, and then somehow found the guts to go to the cash register to pay for their purchases hoping like hell some snotty (usually male) clerk didn't provide backhanded commentary.  However, like most things, the Internet has changed that.  Romance readers have found each other, formed communities, and been able to slither out into the light.  Couple that with online retailers and digital reading - we've taken back the night, so to speak.  Case in point?  The use of the word "smut" to now, presumably, positively describe what we love to read.

This truly is because I'm old.  I get it.  Romance readers are embracing what they like to read.  They're "taking back the S word."  They want to stand tall and be unapologetic about what they read.  "Yes, this book has hot sex scenes and I love every minute of it!!!!"  And yet, here is Wendy storming off her front porch with her shotgun.  Sigh.  I'm so predictable.

I can't get past the history behind the word as it relates to being dismissive of the genre.  That romance novels are "porn for women."  That it fuels unrealistic expectations in women.  That we "escape" inside a romance novel because we're simple females whose poor feeble brains can't deal with "the real world."  Now git back in the kitchen woman and make me a sammich.

Then there are the writers who proudly proclaim they write smut.  I get it.  They're taking back the word much like readers are.  And yet?  I feel these writers are selling themselves short.  Hell, anyone can write smut.  I'm a god-awful writer and I guarantee you I could sit down at my computer and bang (ha!) out a completely smutty story in about 15 minutes.  It wouldn't be very good - but it would be smutty.  Writers who write quality erotic romance?  Yeah, it's a lot more than a bunch of smutty fetishes strung together.  There has to be that emotional component to make it work.  Otherwise you are just writing porn. 

What critics of the genre have never understood is that, when it's done right, it's not simply "smut" or "porn."  For the record, I'm not against either.  Smut and porn has it's place.  You'll never see me at an anti-pornography rally for example (that's probably TMI - but whatever....).  But if a romance writer is doing their job properly, they're not writing smut or porn.  Smut and porn, broadly speaking, aren't overly concerned with emotion.  They're interested in the sex act.  They're interested in the "feeling good" component of it.  And romance authors?  Emotion is pretty much the whole point of the thing.  If you're not writing emotion?  You're doing it wrong.  Which is why my favorite erotic writers (and even non-erotic writers) tend to concentrate on themes of "awakening."  Of "personal growth" of the characters.  The goal of the story?  Hero and heroine in better emotional spot at the end of the story than they were in the beginning.  Full stop.

The S word, the P word, these were (and still are) accusations hurled at readers to shame them.  To put us in our place.  So while it's admirable that some readers and writers want to take away the power of those words?  The use of them merely reinforces the negative connotations.  I find the S word, the P word dismissive.  They're belittling words, and words are powerful.  They have the power to harm, the power to heal, the power to change lives.  And the S word?  The P word?  While "taking them back" can be viewed as admirable - there's too much history standing in the way for it to work for me.

But then, I'm old.

Little Miss Crabby Pants Walks The Line

Oh Romancelandia, you make it so hard to like you sometimes.  And yet here I am, once again, stepping into the fray of the latest outrage du jour.  Will Little Miss Crabby Pants never learn? 

Apparently not.

Yesterday the bomb was dropped that Josh Lanyon is a chick.  For those of you who don't read m/m (male/male - as in, no vaginas to be found in the romance) - Josh Lanyon is a fairly prolific author who specializes in mysteries (as far as I can tell).  Over the years I've seen positive reviews and apparently there has been speculation (for many years now...) on whether or not Josh is male or female, gay or straight, whatever.  Speculation I totally missed because I'm not widely read in LGBT romance (I have nothing against it, have actually read some of it, but Little Miss Crabby Pants is not "widely read" ergo, she's no expert).

Some folks are not happy about this, for a variety of reasons.  The revelation in general.  How the revelation was made.  The use of a pen name to appropriate an identity or experiences you haven't actually lived.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Little Miss Crabby Pants cannot comment very intelligently on any of this since 1) she's never read Lanyon and 2) hasn't exactly been hanging around the Internet with bated breath reading everything Lanyon has ever said or written regarding her identity.  I don't have first hand knowledge of the history.  So I'm not about to say that people who are upset shouldn't be upset because hell if I know everything that has been said over the years on the subject up to this point.  So this latest kerfuffle was orbiting around the periphery for me and frankly I was staying out of it because honestly?  I don't care.

And then, it happened.

I made the mistake of going on Twitter. 

WHY?!  WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF LITTLE MISS CRABBY PANTS?!?!?!?

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you'll probably notice that my participation on the forum is pretty hit or miss.  I pop in for a little bit.  I pop out.  I go days without participating.  I lurk a lot.  Frankly I engage when I have time, and time is a precious commodity in short supply these days.  But hey, I had time so popped into Twitter which from here on out I'm just going to call The Outrage Machine.

Look, I get it.  Lanyon has managed to piss some folks off.  And honestly?  I'm fine with that.  Like I said, I don't have a pony in this race, plus I don't know the back history.  So if you're pissed, hey - more power to you.  I'm not going to tell you you're wrong.

What I am going to tell you however is to look in the mirror.  So much of the commentary I'm reading on this drama comes down to Little Miss Crabby Pants' favorite topic of the moment: Disclosure.

The irony is so rich here that I'm practically choking on it. 

Someone pass me more wine.

What exactly is Little Miss Crabby Pants implying?  The simple fact that if you're going to talk the talk you sure as shit better be walking the walk.  And certain corners of The Outrage Machine?  Yeah, go to the back of the line and sit the F down.  Or better yet, look in the mirror and start taking stock of your own baggage before wading into the fray.  Was Lanyon in the right or in the wrong?  In this instance it doesn't rightly matter much.  If your own house isn't in order, I'm not sure you're the best voice to be weighing in on the subject.

Little Miss Crabby Pants will end this missive with a tweet that speaks so much truth about the current state of Romancelandia that I'm thinking of cross-stitching it on a sampler.  An observation she wishes she had made, and I thank Kat so much for succinctly capturing my annoyance in less than 140 characters.

This Josh Lanyon thing reminds me how cliquey the (online) romance world is. It’s not a big deal if your friends are doing it.

— Kat (@BookThingo) September 20, 2015

::micdrop::

Little Miss Crabby Pants Talks Community

I’ve been stewing on this post idea for a while and as I told a fellow blogger in an e-mail exchange recently, “I’ll only write it once I can get past the use of swear words and keep the explanation points to a minimum.” I’ve finally seem to have landed in a perfect storm however – between recent brouhahas in RomLand, a workshop proposal I’m a part of for the upcoming RT Convention about “voice” and blogging (let’s see if it gets accepted) and various Twitter conversations I’ve been unabashedly eavesdropping on, but have not participated in.

I have definite feelings about how the romance community is operating these days. I’ve talked about it at a bare minimum for reasons – most of them involving beating dead horses and coming off like the cranky granny sitting on her front porch with a shotgun telling the damn kids to get off her lawn. When you’ve been around as long as I have you’re kind of in a quandary with stuff like this, plus I’ve never been one to believe my own hype. Call it Middle Child Syndrome. I still go to conferences these days and just assume that nobody knows who the heck I am. My blog is one tiny corner of the community and I’m more than aware that not everybody 1) reads it or 2) knows I exist. Even if I do have people around me who think I’m some sort of “influencer” in the world of romance novels. Wendy thinks that Wendy isn’t that important and my feet stink just like everybody else’s. Translation: Wendy is not a special snowflake.

I have strong opinions about things that have happened in my corner of the community over the last several years. The ones I react strongest to are the ones that have me asking, “How would I feel if someone else’s snafu sucked me up in its wake and reflected badly on me – when I really didn’t do anything wrong?” Online RomLand largely exists on the (mostly) unpaid talent of the fans. And when we are paid (like I am for my H&H posts), it’s kind of the equivalent of play money (I can support my book habit, maybe pay a conference registration fee – but I’m not feeding my family on it). Which begs the question of why do we do it? I can tell you why I do it, but it’s not necessarily why everybody else does it – and it’s up to the individual reader to determine, at the end of the day, what really matters to them.

When I started blogging I didn’t do it for fame or glory – which is probably a good thing since neither has found me. OK, RWA gave me that nice Librarian of the Year honor in 2011 and My Man does call it my “National Award” – but yeah. To be fair, I haven’t done any of the hard work one needs to do to gain fame or glory, but since it’s not why I started and not why I’m still doing it 12 years after the fact I’m obviously OK with this.

I started blogging because I love to talk about books, especially romance novels, and I had no way to scratch that itch outside of listservs (remember those?) back in 2003. I didn’t want to be one of those people who “took over” on the listserv so figured blogging was a good solution. All of the Wendy Narcissism All of the Time and people could decide for themselves if they really wanted to subject themselves to that. I’ve always operated the blog using my own moral compass, but as time has marched on, and things have changed (for one thing, authors and publishers noticed that blogs were easy and cheap marketing tools), I’ve had to be a bit more firm with disclosure. Why? Because I feel like I owe it to anyone who reads my blog. Yes, dear blog reader – I OWE it to you.

Here’s the thing about this gig. You’re only as good as your word. Yes, it’s the Internet and yes, seemingly everybody lies on the Internet. Trolling is practically an Olympic sport. It’s easy to point fingers and grab your popcorn when you’re hiding behind a keyboard. I strive to be pleasant to everybody. Even when I think you’ve left the figurative bathroom with your skirt tucked up in the back of your panties. The idea of a “cut direct?” I’m from the Midwest. I’m pretty sure my DNA makes me incapable. That doesn’t mean I think Everybody Should Love Everybody. Nobody is immune to being called out – even Little Miss Crabby Pants, and I’m sure I have been called out online and in public over the years. Hey, that’s OK. You can think I’m wrong. You can also choose to not read anything I have to say….anywhere. The Internet is a wide and vast place. I think everybody should spend their time at places where they want to be – not at sites or interacting with folks on Twitter that are the equivalent of having a root canal done.

At the end of the day you are your own barometer. How folks carry themselves online, how they run their blogs, how they run their sites, how they interact with publishers/authors/publicists? These are things you need to decide for yourself. If something bothers you – how are you going to proceed? Will you stop reading that blog or taking recommendations from that person on Twitter? Or will the benefits outweigh the squirkiness for you? You need to find your line in the sand. Over the years I’ve found mine – over and over again. I don’t publicly spout off what they are on this blog, because frankly I don’t think anyone really cares that much. Also there’s the very really perception that Wendy Is Just Blogging About This To Beat Dead Horses and Raise Blog Traffic. But for the sake of transparency, here are things I have done over the years:

1) I’ve stopped reading some blogs. As in, deleted out of my feed reader because I could not be bothered anymore. In most cases they were blogs I largely lurked at anyway so it wasn't a major bloodletting.

2) One author so offended me that I weeded every single one of her books that I owned. Both TBR and books in the keeper stash. I bought them all brand new, so she already got my money – but, done. I’m out. I donated them to a library. Hopefully the Friends of the Library raised some money for “good.”

3) There’s a certain publisher I won’t buy books from or promote on this blog. This sucks because I like some of the authors they publish. Oh well.

4) I still read some blogs (mostly because of specific features I like) but no longer link to them (hence, no promo from me) and no longer comment.

5) There are some folks I will not take book recommendations from any longer. If I was planning on reading the book anyway? Fine. Will they sway me to buy/try a book?  That ship has sailed.

At the end of the day does any of this really matter? No. I’m sure the blogs don’t miss me and to be perfectly frank – my sphere of influence is such that I can’t believe either the author or publisher are wringing their hands over me not being in their camp. But it does matter to me. It also matters to me that readers of this blog know what they’re going to get when they get here. This is why I have the disclosure page. This is why I disclose before some reviews by certain authors. You can make the argument I shouldn’t have formed some of these relationships to begin with – and that’s your right. But I like these relationships and I don’t want to quit them. This means – disclosure. And you, dear blog reader, with making up your own mind.

I don’t think we need personal manifestos of Who I Trust and What Blogs I Read, and that probably includes me writing this post. But at the end of the day you can only control you. Find your line in the sand and draw it. Some people will be on the other side of that line, and that’s OK. The Internet is a lot of things – big is one of them.

Look Within Yourself Little Miss Crabby Pants

It's getting to the point where Little Miss Crabby Pants can set her watch by the annual RWA conference.  The conference happens.  Sunshine, happiness, good vibes permeate for that week.  Everybody loves everybody.  Then we all get home and Romancelandia explodes with some new outrage.  This week's outrage is over a book that was nominated for not one, but two, RITA awards that is a story of a Jewish heroine in a concentration camp falling in love with an SS officer who rescues her believing that she's not Jewish because she has blonde hair and blue eyes.  I'll direct you to a letter that Sarah Wendell wrote to the RWA Board for more background.  Or just, you know, spend five minutes on Twitter.

To be abundantly clear, I think the outrage is justified.  I'm not going to argue the book's right to exist.  Look at the title of this blog.  I'm a librarian.  I'm a librarian with an extensive background in collection development.  I often tell librarians if you're not routinely buying books everyday that you'd rather drive nails up your arms than read/endorse/whatever than you're not doing your job.  I can't tell you the number of books I've bought for work over the years written by authors who are deplorable sacks of human garbage and books I find downright offensive. So while I personally find the idea of this book repugnant, I'm not going to say it needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth.  I'm not sure why this outrage waited to erupt into a firestorm post-RWA when the nominations came out in March - but whatever.  Here we are now.

How the book even got nominated is the question many people are asking and one I cannot answer. RWA has a special membership class for booksellers/librarians, and that's where I reside - which means I'm not eligible to judge the RITAs.  For the record, while this example is probably the most egregious WTF on the judging process, it's not like we haven't been down this road before.  People seem to have forgotten already, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past that books with "erotic content" had a hard time cracking into any of the categories.  Hence why I always supported an Erotic Romance category in the RITAs, while others argued that those books should be considered under their broader classifications (Contemporary, Historical, Paranormal etc.).  It was apparent that erotic romance was not going to get a fair-shake any other way.  Finally, no longer able to ignore the sub genre in a post-Fifty Shades (::shudder::) world, we got one.  Then there was 2014 when we had 30 bazillion nominees in Historical and Contemporary, but Inspirational saw two and Erotic Romance saw three.  Then you have the lack of inclusion of Authors Of Colors and LGBTQ writers.  So yeah, it's not like the RITA judging and nomination process has been infallible up to this point.

Here's the thing I keep coming back to.  While we're all outraged and upset over this particular book getting nominated in two categories (it didn't win either, praise Jeebus), everyone is happily ignoring the elephant in the room.  The elephant we shall call Power Dynamics.  When discussing this particular book everyone is, rightly so, bringing up the completely imbalanced power dynamic that smacks of Stockholm Syndrome.  The heroine falling in love with a "hero" who is essentially her captor.  A "hero" who is responsible for the slaughter of millions of people (Read up on the SS sometime and watch your hair curl. Seriously.)  So while we're happily pointing out that this book is repugnant because of that skewered power dynamic (among other issues) we are completely ignoring the fact that the genre has a pretty screwed up history with power dynamics in general, and how these imbalanced power dynamics are all over some of the most popular areas of this genre right now.  Yes. Right. Now.

Let's look at some of the darker edges floating around the genre, shall we?  Motorcycle clubs. A subculture traditionally not known for their forward thinking views on women.  Never mind the criminal activity.  The downtrodden, naive heroine who aligns herself with the powerful billionaire hero because she literally has no other options.  New Adult, where you can routinely find young, traumatized heroines falling for "bad boys" who aren't exactly pure as the driven snow.  "Dark Romance" which features stories like the "hero" kidnapping the "heroine" and raping her until she falls in love with him.

It's easy to point the finger when it's a book on the outside.  A book you may not read.  It's much harder to point a finger and analyze books you personally may have enjoyed and recognize that they are problematic as hell.  Dear members of the romance community, it's time to look within.  We can point the finger at Jewish heroines falling in love with SS officers who run concentration camps all day long.  In baseball terms, we call that a bloop single.  It's like shooting a target that's standing right in front of you.  It's much harder to view your own reading through the same lens.

And lest you think Little Miss Crabby Pants is putting herself above the fray?  I admittedly like Boss/Secretary stories.  If that isn't a big heaping pile of WTFBBQSAUCE Power Dynamic mess, well nothing is.  We hold ourselves above this fray and cloak it in ways we find more palatable.  This would be why we constantly hear "escapism" bandied about within the genre.

At the end of the day I think the genre (all genre fiction actually) is a representative of the time it was produced in.  Look no further than all those espionage novels that came out during the Cold War.  Romance is no different.  It's a genre that needs to be viewed through the lens of social history.  The Bodice Ripper Era tells you a lot about the 1970s/1980s for example.  The rise of the paranormal and dystopian romance in a post-9/11 world?  Someone start working on an academic paper on that subject.  Issues of consent.  Issues of power dynamics.  These have always existed in the genre.  They still exist today.  It's just we're starting to see them come into play a bit more in our brave new digital publishing world.  I'd argue these books are in a response to something in our broader culture.  What that is?  I have theories, but time will ultimately tell.

So yes, while this particular inspirational romance is messed up and Little Miss Crabby Pants is no way endorsing it and wondering how the hell it got nominated?  She also recognizes that the genre, and it's readers, as a whole should take a long hard look in the mirror.  Look within yourself and start admitting some hard truths.  I'll be over here doing the same.

Little Miss Crabby Pants Has A Come To Jesus Moment

There's no good way to write this post.  I've literally been debating it for weeks.  On one hand, I think it needs to be said.  On the other?  It's going to come off like Old Lady Wendy sitting in her front porch rocking chair with a shotgun across her lap and yelling at the damn kids to get off my lawn.  It's going to sound like I want reassurance, a pat on the back, or at the very worst?  Like a passive aggressive diatribe from a middle child constantly being overlooked.  But I've been doing this a long time.  I've been kicking around Online Romancelandia for 16 years and have been blogging for 12 of them.  Frankly at this stage in the game?  I'm Betty-frickin'-White.  The nice old lady who will bake you chocolate chip cookies then let loose with a string of F-Bombs because she's beyond caring what people think.  Pardon my French, but I think those 16 years have given me the right to say what I'm going to say.

The romance community as I knew it is on life support.

We are fractured.

We are broken.

Others have said this before.  Others began saying it years ago.  And I dismissed those others.  Because I felt as long as there was a gasp of breath in my body, the community would live on.  It would evolve, it would change, but the seeds that were planted would still exist.  As long as there was one blogger out there, as long as there was one lone voice typing out in the wilderness - the community would live on.  And then?  Lots of stuff happened.

Some will point to the widespread use of promo and ARCs as the problem.  Some will point to that the fractious political climate and social injustices in Real Life now spilling over into other areas that, in a perfect world, should be our safe havens.  Some will point to things like Katherine Hale, the entire debacle that is the Hugo Awards, and the complete eroding of trust that many have felt in the wake of the Ellora's Cave lawsuit and the handling of the Dear Author disclosure incident.

For me, personally, it's not one thing.  It's all those things piled on top of each other.  And then, you know, I've got a Real Life to live.  I'll be blunt.  I'm tired of feeling like the lone voice in the wilderness when nobody really seems to care anymore.  Now, to be fair, I think they do care.  I just think for the sake of sanity we've all burrowed into our personal bunkers with a stash of caffeine, a fair amount of chocolate and a stack of romance novels that, ironically, none of us feel like reading at the moment.  And that's the crux of it right there:

We don't feel like reading.  I know I'm not alone, I see you on Twitter.  We don't feel like reading.  All this stuff?  The what I see as an eroding of a community?  It has made us sad.  It has broken our desire, that one safe haven we could always go to - reading.  You know what I feel like doing right now - other than nothing?  Playing Candy Crush and watching Law & Order reruns.  That's what I have energy for.  Because when I look around the "community" as I see it today?  I feel spent.

I'm struggling.  Mightily.  I know this sounds completely pathetic.  We're talking about blogging.  We're talking about reading and discussing romance novels for cripes sake.  But there's no joy in Mudville.  I'm full up.  I'm tapped out.  I'm fully aware I'm not working on a cure for cancer, or taking care of terminally ill children, or finding my life force sucked away by working a seriously draining career like social work.  But when something you once took so much joy in is no longer bringing you joy - when you look around and all you feel is sadness and you think about what the word "community" should truly mean?

I'm a problem.

I need to get my head right.  I need to find the joy again.  I'm not sure how I'm going to do that. "Letting go" seems like the obvious answer - but it's hard to do that when you know you can't fix the problem by yourself.  The community as a whole has to want to fix it - and from where I'm sitting?  There are more than a few who seem perfectly content to wash their hands of it and traipse merrily along playing follow the leader.  I want to rail.  I want to point fingers.  I want to be angry.  I want to screech and yell and say to people, "WTF is wrong with you??!?!?!?!"

But.

Yeah.

That solves nothing.

And at this point I've been around too long and have invested too much of myself and possibly planted a teeny, tiny, modicum of joy into someone's life by keeping this blog going for 12 years even if it was only in the form of a smile, or a giggle, or making them pick up that really awesome western to read that they loved when hey, they didn't know they even liked westerns.

Is the community dead?  Not entirely.  I catch glimpses of it on Twitter.  I see echoes of it at Heroes & Heartbreakers (although, ironically, they are owned by a publisher - go figure).  I see All About Romance standing tall with some infused energy into the Old Gray Lady of our corner of the Internet.  Which means I can whine, be unhappy, be a cranky malcontent - and that solves what exactly?  Nothing.  All I can do is offer some advice.  To you, yes - but mostly this advice is for me.

Find your community.  Find your tribe.  Hold on to your Twitter friends, your Facebook group, or even better?  Start your own blog.  Find your voice.  Even if you think you've got nothing to say - trust me, you do.  You don't need to be Big Business.  You don't need to review or accept promo or take ARCs.  You can write silly little blog posts about the illogically thinking Greek Tycoon hero you read about last night, or the heroine who actually, bless her heart, saves herself instead of waiting for the Greek Tycoon to do it, or how crazy your cat acts when she's all high on catnip.  Yes, it's about what you say - but more importantly - it's the way you say it.

Find your tribe.  Hold on to them tightly.  And never, ever take them for granted.  Treat them with respect.  Value them.  Appreciate that they are taking the time to be a part of the hive.  And if the time comes when they need it?  Throw them a lifeline.  Because they would do the same for you.  Never use them.  Be professional.  Be respectful. And never devalue yourself or your community.

Find your joy again Romancelandia.  Find the love.  I'll be over here trying to find mine.