Sex Education or Fiction?

I was talking to a friend on the phone, and we were discussing using erotic romances to "instruct" girls young than 18 on sex.

As a writer of hot romances, my vote is, WHAT THE HELL??? Excuse me, but when I write my books, I'm thinking of women, not girls, reading them. They are FICTION, not real life and certainly not sex education.

Do I object to girls under 18 reading the books? It's not my call. That is why they have PARENTS. I don't think I get a vote. Period. If a parent says to me that they don't want their underage daughter reading my books because of sexual content, I'd respect that.

Now for a little side rant--I do think we have skewed priorities when parents freak out more over sex than violence, but that's just me.

My personal view of parenting is that kids should be taught to deal with life in slow increments as they grow. And they should be given the tools to make good decisions. And parents had better have the tools (parenting skills) to help their kids when they make bad decisions because they will. We all do. The mark of character is how a person deals with bad decisions, in my opinion.

But back to underage girls and sex. It's up to the parents, but I would in no way suggest that erotic romances will teach girls what they need to know. Because IT'S FICTION. Real life is much more complicated.

So what's your opinion?

Catching Up!

My book is done! Yay! I've mailed it off to my editor. It will probably need some revisions, but I am so glad to have this book finished.

And I have a title--EXTREMELY HOT.

This book is about two Jade statues that have an interesting legend claiming the statues uncover people's deepest lusts and increase sexual prowess. After the statues are stolen, Luke--a famous PI treasure hunter and ultimate bad boy--goes undercover in a radio station. He's convinced that Ivy--who has a radio show called the Economic Sex Hex that warns women against bad boys--is a master thief. But theft turns to murder and things really start to heat up.

I love the characters in this book! Luke and Ivy, and Ivy's mom Mallory. They all surprised me, which meant I got to do a LOT of rewriting to try and keep up with them. I just hope my editor likes it.

Letting Go

I'm trying to write the wrap up scene in my book. This scene always trips me up in every book. All the action is done, it's now time for the emotional resolution. It should be easy, I KNOW what has to happen.

But every scene I write sucks. It's hard to find a way to give everyone in the book the ending they deserve, but that's only half my problem. The other half is that once I finish this scene (or couple scenes), the book is pretty much done. I'll do one more straight edit, but the story is over. It's either good or it's not. I have to let it go, print it and mail it off.

Of course, my editor may have great suggestions (she's such a fabulous editor!) and I'll do revisions. And then book goes into production.

But right now, it's still mine. Just mine. And it's up to me to give the characters the story they deserve. And I never really know if I've done them justice.

I guess I'll just have to write the scene and let the book go.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Go Big, Go Bold, Go BOOM!

I wanted to tell you guys about a really exciting blog, BOOM! by Louise Knott Ahern, founder of The Working Writer Communications, a PR coaching service for storytellers of all kinds.

Louise says, "I have one goal with Boom! the blog, and that is to teach you all how to approach public relations with a storytelling zeal and to tap into the natural creativity that makes you writers. No more standard PR plans! I'm going to challenge you every day to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOOK, and to overcome your fear of self-promotion."

I urge anyone who wants to learn about Public Relations and Promotion to head over to BOOM! and check it out. This blog is geared toward authors, but the information contained in there is valuable and useful across the board,not just for authors.

Do Some Writers Deserve To Starve?

I snagged this image from Amazon. I came across the title of this book and cracked up. Has anyone read it? Is it any good?

And the big question--Do some writers deserve to starve?

Reviews: The Good, The Bad, The Unread...

Okay this is about self-control. Who knew I had any? Really! Of course, this is not my first day at the party of publishing. I've been around the block of a few times. For my first book, I ruthlessly hunted down and read reviews.

Even the bad ones. Then I went into a funk.

Okay so there's been a lot of really nice reviews of THE SEX ON THE BEACH BOOK CLUB. I'm actually surprised and pleased. Happy Days! Then I saw that the book was scheduled to be reviewed by a Notoriously Snarky Site that assigns a letter grade to the books.

Every day I checked the list to see if it had been reviewed. Every day, a voice in my head said, "It'll be a mean review, a low grade."

Finally I saw it. There it was and the book got a "D" All I had to do was click the link and read the review. Instead I clicked out of the site all together. It's been three days and I haven't been back. I haven't read the review.

Here's why--this site is known to be nasty. I can't see how that will help me. On the other hand, reviewers like Wendy Crutcher do very fair reviews. Wendy says what worked for her and what didn't. And she will state clearly if something falls under her pet peeves. That's useful to me. But nastiness with venom will just ruin my day without providing me anything useful to help me write a better book.

What about you all? Would you look?