my fairy blogmothers!
This is where I expect I am supposed to say the bit about "all errors are my own" so I'd better say it. Yes, and Jill's photo is with a real camera, not my phone, no need to rub it in. Bet Don Lucey snapped me & Jayne. But don't Suzanne & I look like we belong on an album cover of some cool rock group? Yes, she is the lead singer & I am back-up, but still!
Kat Martin, author, above left. Karin Stoecker, Editorial Director, Harlequin Mills & Boon and Jayne Hoogenberk, eHarlequin Community Manager, DTC above right. Debbie Macomber hard at work, right.
Do you think they find me...risible?
I wanted to share a few notes I had taken from a talk given by Susan Elizabeth Phillips on Librarian Day. Her points were so familiar, yet I still don't have the perfect response, and that frustrates me. Maybe I will have to come up with a series of questions for http://www.writeharlequin.com and just get everyone to send in their snappy answers and collect 'em!
She talked about how, while there is progress, romance fiction is still often seen by media and others as "bad" because it creates "unrealistic expectations." This is both irritating and profoundly depressing for a positivist such as myself.
Irritating in that it assumes readers of romance fiction are incapable of differentiating life from their entertainment reading (one can only assume the assumer is profoundly grateful that these brain-dead women are not spending their leisure hours watching, say, The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre and really cutting loose).
And depressing because while it may not be everyone's certain daily reality to find lifelong happiness, or one true love, I will not accept that it is UNREALISTIC to want to find happiness, to love and be loved, to win every once in a while. Surely we can allow that is a realistic goal, though not always an attainable one--or not always attained 24/7/365.
Though as Susan noted, commitment can mean you win by losing. The challenge is knowing when you are losing too much. That's why you need your friends...and a few good romance novels to see you through.
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