Being sexy and a mom

I just got off a cruise ship where I spent the week with my husband and son… and a bunch of other parents and their kids.  Kids were the main point of this particular cruise.  But considering the size of the staterooms, most parents were in “sexual timeout” all week, I imagine.  As I read my trashy romance novel on the verandah of our stateroom, I couldn’t help but wonder why more romance novels don’t feature parents.  Are we boring?  Not spontaneous?  Do kids really “cramp our style” that much?  Maybe, it is just that the world is a little uncomfortable with parents who are still romantic?  After 13 years of marriage and a messy pregnancy, I still hold my husband’s hand.  I like to do that.  It makes me feel like we are still dating.  Does it make people uncomfortable to think that the mommy and daddy at the next table are having wild, kinky sex?  Or any sex at all?  Maybe it reminds them that their parents had sex and gasp!!…. might still have sex?  Okay, that is a queasy thought.

But I want to think that it is okay for parents to be romantic…  What do you think?

What makes a great hero?

I have been thinking about what makes a great hero in a book….

He has to be handsome, but not a pretty boy.

He has to be alpha, but not a total prick.

He has to be in shape, but from real, manly work, not doing pilates or yoga.

He has to be sensitive enough that he wants to understand his woman, but not so sensitive that he really does understand.

He has to have friends, male friends, that like him and he hangs around with and does stuff.

He has to like and appreciate women but not be a slave to his mother.

He should be good at cooking on a grill.

He knows how to take care of himself – cooking, cleaning, laundry, and isn’t looking for a woman to do it.

He really wants to be a dad, but isn’t too damn sure he is going to like changing diapers.

He should be intelligent, but he doesn’t have to be book smart.

He shouldn’t have any more hair products in his bathroom than I do.

He should be awesome in bed, duh!

What do you think makes a great hero?

Not my mother’s romance novel

I was thinking how I got started in this genre….

I remember being a teenager and picking up my mother’s Harlequin romance novel and starting to read it.  I was hooked.   Not giving away my age or anything, but back then the heroine wasn’t a “woman”, she was a “girl”.  She was usually pretty young, often 19 or 20, and always, always, always a virgin.  The hero was a “man”.  He was older and oh so not a virgin.  He was usually kind of a prick too in the beginning and the heroine disliked him intensely because he treated her like a child – which of course she was.  No one had sex before marriage in these books.  If they were pre-marital, the only way the hero had a handful of breasts or thighs was if he was working his way through a bucket of chicken.  Looking back it was pretty innocent stuff.

Fast forward…

Heroines get to have sex and they get to enjoy it.  In fact, they can have a lot of it.  They can have kinky sex too and not feel guilty.  They can initiate sex, they can dominate the man, they can submit to the man, they can have sex without a man at all.  I love that women can express their sexuality now.  Sex is a part of life and a part that I personally like a lot.  Why should we pretend that we don’t like it, want it, or do it?  I want to write heroines that are strong and sexy.  Women that can take care of themselves and don’t apologize for doing it.  I want to write about the kind of woman who I strive to be and the kind of woman I would be friends with.

That Eye Roll

I got the eye roll recently.  It was my own fault really.  I should have known better but was caught unaware while digging through my purse for a credit card to pay for lunch.

“Any big plans for the weekend”, they asked me.

“No”, I said digging deeper into my wallet for my Visa, “Clean the house, do laundry, visit the gym, maybe write a little.”

Oh Damn!  Did I say that out loud.  Yep, I did.

Immediately the questions were fired right and left from my usually laid back lunch companions – What are you writing?  Can I read it?  Does your husband know you write?  Is it any good?

(Answers: a book, NO!, yes, I don’t know)

Sigh.

You see, I am writing an erotic romance novel.  So of course when I told them, I got the eye roll.  Because let’s face it… romance writers don’t get a whole lot of respect and erotic romance writers… heck we are one step above a carnival worker.   I love my friends but they think this is easy.  But it is not!  It is not easy to write a heroine that you really like but don’t hate because she is too freakin’ perfect.  And writing a hero that you can fall in love with, is manly, but not so manly that he grates on your nerves and makes you want to call Gloria Steinem or so wimpy and sensitive that he practically needs a tampon.  Go ahead, try it.  Not so damn easy.

But I continue to do it because I really love it.  Because it gives me a creative outlet at 2am when I cannot sleep.  Because I really do believe in Happily Ever After but heck can’t they have some nooky too?!?!

So, this blog is going to be about my journey to become an erotic romance writer.  It may branch off in to stuff about reading erotic romance, or working and writing, or being a mom and writing, or being a wife and writing.  But mostly it will be about my journey.  I hope you join me for this journey and share your own.  If anyone out there wants to read a partly finished manuscript…. well, let me know.  Sharing with a stranger is a heck of a lot easier than sharing with my lunch mates.