Top Posts of 2013

I'm taking a leaf out of the delightful Kathy Hamilton's book and doing a breakdown of the most popular posts of last year.

So here we go:  The Most Popular Posts of Exploits of a Chick Lit Aficionado in 2013:

Sex for Sex's Sake

Back in March, one of my first posts was a discussion about sex in novels.  I am continually frustrated by people who delegate books with sex in to the trash pile, almost as much as I do those who continually perpetuate myths about chick lit.

Then again, look at the title of the post - I think it's pretty clear why it was my most read post last year...

The Unexpected Wedding Guest, or How to Write a Perfectly Flawed Heroine

August brought with it my first review copies of Modern Tempted, and therein began a love affair that continues to this day.  my review of Aimee Carson's first book of The Wedding Season Quartet ended up having a bigger impact than I expected.

Not only did Matt Gardner as one of the first Mills & Boon boys make a bigger impact than could ever have been expected, but the quartet itself sparked an idea that's now developed in a paper at this year's IASPR conference!

If You Can't Stand the Heat, or Why Delayed HEA are M&B's Answer to Nietzsche

Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher (mainly because wow the guy can write:  "In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge.").

I'm particularly fond of his idea that it is only by identifying what something is not, that we can truly understand what it is.

And in some ways, that's what delaying a Happy Ever After does - just as in Joss Wood's If You Can't Stand the Heat...

Girl Least Likely to Marry, or Geek Chic Romance

Amy Andrews continually writes books that has me questioning what I expect from romance novels.  I love this, and it was great to see this in Girl Least Likely to Marry where Turk is way more aware of his feelings than Cassie.

Plus there are stars, great sex scenes and a smattering of delicious moments.  Yum.

Rugby Players: The Perfect Alpha Male?

Rugby is my favourite sport.  In part due to the tight sportswear (all hail the scrum!) and in part due to the fact that it's an awesome game.

The past year has raised questions about England's ability to play, as well as why more rugby players should dance (oh Ben Cohen, how we miss you) but most importantly, it has cemented why I think more rugby players should be heroes in romance novels.

Plus I'm prepping for 2015.  Road trip to Twickenham!! #RugbyWorldCup2015

On Being a Modern Tempted Girl

RIVA returned this year in the form of Modern Tempted.

There is very little to say that I have not already said - although any men of my acquaintance who fancy offering themselves up as sacraficial Mills & Boon boys, drop me a line... :) 

Dabbling with Erotica...

And my writing.  I don't talk about my creative writing very much on here - mainly because this is where all my journalistic tendencies lie - but occasionally it rears it's head.  And I like to think that writing the occasional sex scene's essentially flexing my writing muscle.  So yeah.  This seemed popular too.

And there y'all have it.  What posts/books/writing exploits are you most proud of from 2013?

Dabbling with Erotica...

There's something about  honey; sweet and sticky and altogether too cloying for anything but sex.  Nothing will do but long lazy hours of love-making - no frantic fucking that dissipates as soon as it begins - but arching bodies that melt into each other as ice cream in the sun.  It's the deliberate drizzling of nectar across one breast, the taut moment as it's licked off - tongue darting out in tiny butterfly-like caresses - and the puckering of the nipple as it's released from the warm mouth.  There's nothing deliberating about fucking, but the very compound nature of love-making implies dedication, craftsmanship and the creation of an end product to be marvelled at.

FlashFiction: Busking

So I am joining Matt (found over at http://interstellarlovechild.com/) in writing Flash Fiction, especially in the build up to my big surprise unveiling!!  However, mine are more romantic dabblings rather than something of actual literary merit.  Either way, so much fun!  Enjoy.  :)

   London Tubes are no place for conversation.  Commuters, flat-packed into carriages with barely room to breathe, rarely strike up conversation with the person whose armpit they're currently occupying.  It's just not done.  So Abbie was surprised when the buskers stepped on to the train.

  She'd spent most of the journey attempting to read - no mean feat when her kindle was tilted so far upright that she practically had to contort herself to read it.  There'd been a brief respite once they'd reached Victoria, but upon stopping at Sloane Square an entire band of buskers - complete with fiddle, banjo and tambourine - had taken up the remaining space.

  The violinist started first.  Some jaunty tune that wound itself up in Abbie's head until she found herself tapping along to it.  The banjo and tambourine joined in and it was all she could do to stop herself from reverting to her five-year-old self and twirl around on the spot.  Looking up, she noticed people looking up from their newspapers, and pulling headphones from their ears, smiling at each other and even - horror of all horrors - speaking!  And then she looked at him.

  Blue eyes darting beneath that mop of dark corkscrew curls and fiddle tucked beneath his chin, he didn't see her.  Fingers darted up the neck of his instrument as the bow danced across the strings as if it were dancing a jig of its own.  Just as she was about to look back down and resubmerge herself in her novel, his eyes met hers.  He smiled.  She smiled back and in that moment, those thirty seconds, Abbie spoke more to the busker on the underground than she had to anyone else that week.

  South Kensington.  The train stopped.  The band left, taking their music and the fiddler's merry smile with them.  And Abbie went to work.

Poetry Corner

I don't usually post any poetry, but I quite like this one. It was inspired after reading a novel where the heroine learns to love again after her first love. (The book's called Deeper, by Megan Hart, for those who are interested.)

It's been many years since I gave a
damn
about someone other than
he.
It surprised me;
the beating of my
stone-cold
heart.
The last thing I
expected was to feel
blood in my veins -
not bile.
I close my eyes
and the darkness dances.
No stifling.
And it's been
far too long since I was
alive.

"Oh no no no! I 'ave been burnt by you before!"

For the last couple of weeks, I've been stuck on the development of the main female character in my novel.  Why is it that she seems so stuck?  How can I get her to develop?  Why is it that she seems to be distrusting her instincts and emotions?

Today, however, I had a breakthrough!

All of Sara's issues arise from the fact that her previous relationship didn't work, that she was betrayed in it.  That's why even though I've really romantic and sweet things planned for later on, I couldn't quite work out how she'd react to them.  Her experience of past relationships is having an adverse affect on her current one.  She's going to need reassurance from Jack as their relationship progresses - sex is key, but it's not everything.

I think every girl needs reassurance sometimes and as strong and manly as we like our man, it's so important to be able to communicate and talk about our feelings with each other.

So relieved to finally have got rid of that block!  :D

Why not write a 'proper' book?

I have been working on my novel - solidly working that is - for the last couple of weeks, and most people's reaction to it is the same:

Wow!  That's so cool!  What kind of book are you writing?

And  then, invariably:

Oh, that sounds...interesting.  But you're so intelligent!  Why don't you write a proper book?

And there my patience ends.

It's not that I don't get what they're saying.  I've a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Shakespeare - I love highbrow pretentious literature.  I just don't enjoy writing it.

Prose writing for me is escapism, pure and simple.  If I want to be deeply profound or pretend to be clever, I write poetry.  But prose, prose is fun!  It gives me the opportunity to focus solely on words and phrases and get them as luscious and mellowly precise as they can be.  I like making people smile and laugh more than anything else, and so each chapter gets sent out in a flurry of emails, letting my friends sigh over alpha heroes in exotic settings.

And besides, who says they're not proper books?!  In a romance novel character development has to be detailed, characters have to be loveable but flawed, and sex must drive the action forward without becoming a standard plot point.  Mills & Boon publish around 100 new titles in e-book format every month.

So yeah.  To those who ask me why I don't write a 'proper' novel - I am.

Love from Beyond the Grave - A Love Letter to my Grandparents

As children, there are some people is whose eyes you can do nothing wrong - invariably, our grandparents.  I have been lucky enough to know three of mine - Nanna and Nonno (my mum's parents) and Gran (my dad's mum).

Nanna died back in 2009, about a month after my undergraduate graduation.  It was her birthday on Friday and my mum and Nonno, as usually, went to mass and then to the cemetery.  Today, the Sunday that traditionally was kept for wine, obscene amounts of food and many birthday wishes, was a more sedate affair.  But I sat with Nonno for about an hour before the meal, and we had a chance to really sit and talk.

My grandfather is 86.  He's had a pretty difficult life: born into a large but poor Italian family, he won a university scholarship that he had to give up when war broke out, and became part of the partisan resistance.  After the war he left Italy, travelling Europe to make money to send home, at one point getting trapped in a mine for nearly eight hours in Belguim, until he settled in England.  More recently, he had open heart surgery and a pacemaker fitted.  He is diabetic, nearly blind, and still has the wickedest sense of humour.

And he loved - loves - my Nanna.

He loves her so much that he visits her grave every single week.  He loves her so much that he watches every single soap on television - all the ones he used to complain about nearly every day when she was alive - because they remind him of her.  He loves her so much, that he sings her favourite song to her picture every morning when he gets up and every night when he goes to sleep.

And I can hardly blame him.  She was incredible.  Full of life, vibrant, sassy and took no nonsense from anyone - even Nonno.  Especially Nonno!  She was loyal beyond belief and when I moved out properly for the first time this year, I was moved to tears when I opened my box.  (She created a box when each of her grandchildren were born, filled with cutlery, crockery, linen - everything anyone could possibly need for their first place).  It was so unbelievably thoughtful of her, reminding me of how she had insisted, as she got closer to the end, that we remembered our boxes.  That they would remind us of her later.

My dad's mum is an incredibly strong woman too.  Unwaveringly supportive to all of us, whenever we need it, she's generous unto a fault.  She'd give the shirt off her back for her children and grandchildren if we asked for it, and in return we adore her!  She's the best person to go shopping with (Gran manages to practically whistle up bargains out of thin air) and loves nothing better than to debate politics.  I think she thinks I'm practically a bolshevik for reading The Guardian.  She brought up her three kids so wonderfully well, and without much help from anyone.  And I get my love of books from her.  When I was tiny, she'd sing Irish nursery rhymes to me until I fell asleep.  I've always been blessed with the best female role models.

I know that I'm so very lucky to have such wonderful grandparents, to have been enveloped by such love.  I can only hope that they know that.

CLA

On Revisiting Teenage Scribblings

Whilst ruthlessly culling my book collection in anticipation for the move home this week, I came across an old notebook filled with musings, angsty poetry and my first attempts at romance writing.

Looking back, I'd forgotten how voraciously my small group of friends wrote every week, churning out 'ficlets' (our mini-versions of novellas) like others churned out last minute homework assignments.

I perfected - or so I thought - the art of the page-long short story.  A friend and I even embarked upon what we considered to be a literary masterpiece named: Love Can Give You Wings.  A forty page love story starring one of our best friends, it took weeks of preparation and to this day remains one of the best birthday presents I've ever produced.

Nevertheless, however rose-tinted my reminiscings, one can't help but be bemused by delightfully cheesy passages such as:

  As well as having a bar, Ali soon found out, Haru’s club had a broom cupboard.

  From the other side of the locked door, she heard Haru and Sarah both dispute this fact loudly; Haru in particular seemed almost insulted at the thought of a broom cupboard in one of his clubs – it was, he claimed, a closet.  But they were wrong, Ali had decided, it was far too big to be a closet, and was therefore a broom cupboard.  Besides, it had a broom in it.

  It also had a Tyson in it.

It makes me wonder, though, where all that youthful enthusiasm went.  Off I went to university and I spent more time writing about Shakespeare (not that I don't approve of academic essays - I'm a massive Shakespeare geek) than being creative.  It took the revival of an old friendship and regular visits to The Poetry Cafe's Poetry Unplugged night in Covent Garden nearly a year after graduation before I started to write again.

It seems ironic, and more than a little exciting that now - seven years after I left sixth form college - I'm finally matching that pinnacle of past writing fervor.  Long may it last.

Mills&Boon Erotica Workshop Review

So last night I trekked halfway across London to attend Mills&Boon's erotica writing workshop at Willesden Green Library.  Being a fairly big fan of their current SPICE series, as well as currently working on my own romance manuscript, any help with writing that all important sex scene seemed like a good plan.

And the evening certainly did not disappoint!

Mills & Boon digital erotica sales have increased by 2000% over the last few years.

The panel stated off by inviting the audience to define erotica.  Now erotica has a habit of crossing over with more contemporary romances - particularly those don't leave bedroom exploits behind a closed door - so I was particularly intrigued to see how the M&B editors see it.

Erotica, though escapism blended with fantasy, is effective precisely because it immerses us in an exploration of a different aspect of ourselves.

And erotica, just like any other genre, has numerous subgenres such as short stories (such as M&B's 12 Stories of Surrender), BDSM (Tiffany Reisz's incredible Original Sinners Series), emotional dilemmas (Megan Hart), historical (Portia Da Costa's Into the Flesh - 50 Shades meets Mr Darcy), and magical (The Harlot).


After the opening panel, the group split into three and then went to separate rooms to discuss some contrasting excerpts.  I found it particularly interesting to see how different people reacted to the different excerpts - especially getting a male perspective.

The final section of the evening was devoted to putting all the things we'd discussed into practice.  Anything can be sensual if you try...  So we were given three options (a glass of water, a shoe and chocolate) and tld to pick one.  Check out a snippet from my attempt at making a shoe sexy:

His eyes lingered on her ankle and she deliberately hesitated, inviting his gaze to settle as she slowly wound the ribbons of her shoe round her soft skin.

Overall, a highly entertaining evening, really helpful, and even though I ended up getting to Durham at 3 in the morning, I'll definitely attend another!

The M&B Guide to Writing Erotica:

• Start with your characters
• Tell a god story - sex alone is not enough
• Motivate and contextualise your sex scenes
• Sex...without the cliches
• Delve into the specificity of the particular character's experience
• Use the five senses to explain and express the uniqueness of your character's response to sex
• Above all, don't be embarrassed - if you're uncomfortable writing your sex scenes, your audience will be uncomfortable reading it

Things to consider:

• What flaws do your characters have?
• What emotional and internal barriers are preventing your characters from being together?
• Why is the sex scene the next inevitable step?
• Sex must drive the action forward
• What shift is there after sex happens?
• What are the consequences of sex?