Dear Lori

I mourn for my state.

281 people killed over 6 states. 195 of them were in Alabama. The count is still climbing.

Whenever I see or hear people pontificating or acting like the lords of creation, I'll remember this. Nature can slap you down right quick and then grind you into the ground just to be sure you get the idea. Modern technology, human intelligence, human pride - none of them can control Mother Nature.

Makes our little internet disputes seem less than nothing, doesn't it.

Dear Lori

To get the real scoop on what I'm about to say, you need to check out the Bitches, where it's all laid out with links and everything. We all know links and I cannot coexist. :-)

It seems there's a teacher in PA, an English teacher. Been teaching for 25 years, is considered an excellent teacher, and is well loved by most of her students.

Ouyt of the blue, she became an exposé on the local TV station. A group of parents (there were 4 in the group I saw) feel that she shouldn't be teaching their naïve, innocent teenagers, because - get this - the lady writes erotic romance for Ellora's Cave under the pen name of Judy Mays.

She'd never announced this. She'd never assigned any of her books in the classroom. It was her private life and she kept it completely apart from her day job.

Suddenly she's on the fast track to be a pariah. One of the group of women even intimated that she might be a pedophile, abusing children because of her nasty habits. Teachers are not allowed a private life, evidently, and like the women of Salem they must be pure as the driven snow, with no lustful thoughts and most certainly no sechs. To write it down? To put lust and sechs into a meaningful relationship, where the characters learn and grow and earn their HEA? Anathema! (Did I spell that right?)

Anyway, there's a little corollary to this stupid story of Puritans run amuck. Of course, the Romance community gathered 'round in support. Some were buying her books so she could pay her lawyer, should she decide to sue.

I don't post much on other sites, but I could sure show my support by buying a book. The title of one in particular caught my eye-Rednecks 'n Roses and I hied myself to Amazon to pick it up.

I'd forgotten I'd heard somewhere that Ellora Cave prices were rather high. Ms Mays books run from $6.99 to $9.99. The book that caught my eye is $6.99.

Can I get it? Huh? Huh? And if I do, will you read it? Huh? Huh? (it has a vampire ...)

Okay, I've made an executive decision. I'm getting the damn book, even though I seldom read erotica. I support Ms Mays and her right to write. She got a damn raw deal, for no reason at all, because the 'reporter' never bothered to get t'other side, so it was a damn unbalanced story.

I hope her community and her school will support her rights as an American.

And as a human being.

Dear Carolyn,

Thank you for thinking of me when you bought that Jill Mansell book, Miranda's Big Mistake. It was the sort of book I love: women's lit with a revenge story line. What a shame the book sucked so badly.

Oh Gawd, the women in this book were such gits. Miranda was ridiculous. First she meets Greg who just happens to be married (separated) from his pregnant wife. They fall madly in love in like... no time at all. Then she meets his wife and gets engaged to him and then finds out the truth and they trick him and it was a yawn.

Then she meets another man. It's twue wuv and after a week of twue wuv he dies in a car accident.

Then she ends up with the guy she should have been with in the first place.

Every other woman in the book meets the perfect man and it's all twue wuv. Seriously though Carol, these women were absolute gits.

The pregnant woman is a complete doormat and even though she's shown as growing (and meets her twue wuv too) at no time does she kick her ex hub's ass as he deserves. She doesn't really do anything honestly. None of the women do really. They get treated badly by men, they get treated badly by other women and well, they're just gits.

Seriously, any man falling in love with these gits gets what he deserves.

Dear Carolyn,

It's hating on the women time.

So some literary fiction author won a Pulitzer and then put down chick-lit which turned into a free for all with those who love genre fiction being upset and those who don't being snobs and no matter which way you turn it's all the same: hating on the women.

I swear to God, if you have a vagina someone wants you to feel guilty. You like romance? Guilty! You have a dirty mind? Guilty! I'd be afraid to admit that doing laundry give me pleasure. I might be thrown into jail, for heavens sake!

I just read a rant that a woman wrote and she had the gall to suggest that chick-lit is a term embraced by those readers and authors of the genre (I thought we were calling it women's fiction these days). Then the writer trashed Jennifer Weiner something awful because she has the gall to write well, not be embarassed by what she writes and having a name that the author in a third grade attempt of juvenile petulance, mocked.

Carolyn dear, feminism is dead. And it was killed by women.

I'm glad whoever it was won the Pulitzer. I really am. But I wish she hadn't put down other women. It feels like she's all excited to get into the boy's club and now she wants to put down the women who weren't allowed in.

And I'll tell you something else. I love chick-lit/women's lit more than I love literary fiction nowadays. And it isn't for the escapism value. I love it because it's a blend of humor, drama and romance wrapped up in an adult voice that I can relate to. I like it because I like it. And I don't need some pretentious wonk telling me to aim higher. If I aimed any higher I'd probably stick an arrow in God's eye.

Sheesh!

Dear Lori

Got the galley for Lady Bea last night, and right off the bat I found an error in the damn blurb!!

Now I really have to squinch my eyes and read the damn story - in detail - again. I think I hate Bea and I really don't care anymore if she gets her HEA, lol.

July can't come soon enough. It'll be time to shed Bea and get it on with TL. At least TL thinks she's funny. ;-)

Dear Lori

Just a small note to say thank you.

Because of you, I'm in a very good place. A place I would never have tried to achieve on my own.

I'm being published. (Que noise makers and pop the champagne!)

Now, this is the way I look at it.

Some people may sneer and say 'Ah, but you're not New Yawk published. It doesn't count'. To that I reply, well hell, there's lots of folks that aren't New York published but by damn, there's lots of folks that aren't published at all. Period. So that's a check in my column, right?

And you know what they say about the internet; stuff put there never quite goes away, so now, in my own small way, I have a bit of immortality,

I don't want to be a little fish in a big pond. I don't want to be a big fish in a little pond. I'm grateful to be swimming in any pond at all.

I'm not sure I'd still be writing if not for you. You challenge me, you get me excited over storylines and such, and when that doesn't work, you nag. You encourage me by listening when I get caught up in the process and you slap me down when I need it.

There's a fine line between being a hack and writing what's in your heart and you pushed me over it. We're not alike except in one thing, okay two. We value honesty and we like to talk the talk about the writing process.

So thank you. ♥

Dear Carolyn,

Oh what a mess.

I work with a woman who has written a book. And she's decided to self publish. Well, actually she's going through a vanity press who's told her all sorts of bullshit about how easy it'll be for her to get bookstores to sell her book and arrange book signings.

I asked her if she's done any research into the self-publishing choices and she said she hadn't. I tried to open her eyes a little and gave her a number of websites to check out.

But she won't, Carolyn. She thinks that a book in her voice with editing done by her friends and a cover done by a vanity press and no web page or previous publications is going to be easy and make her a success.

My heart aches for her. It really does. She's so excited about finishing her book and I want to encourage her but who encourages people they like to jump off a cliff?

If there's one thing you and I have learned it's to do our homework. And we know never to go into things blind. We might make mistakes but they were chances we understood.

Oh well.

I'll be there to tell her that publishing is a hard business when her dreams aren't realized. And maybe if she wants to try for book number two, she'll research a little before.