Tag Archives: reading

Smutty Sunday 4/14/13

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It is Sunday again and here are a round up of books I like.

Science fiction/Fantasy winner this week is Piers Anthony’s Geodyssey series. These rock. If you’ve ever read Michener’s books and like how they are, you will like how these stories are told. Anthony starts in the way past and goes into the future. The timelines are awesome. Like a picture through time. He usually focuses on one subject and works it throughout the time period. These books delve in the why shit is the way it is and how we are screwing it up. They normally end at an apocalypse or right after. This series is not really like his other series. But they are great if you care about our world, want to think about why it is the way it is and have serious reservations about the eventual outcome of being the way we are.

Smut reading should be mandatory. I think it makes you smile. Or maybe I am the one that smiles. So this week, I have been rereading Jo Goodman. Her historicals are some of the best that I have ever read. They are spot on in historical details. And the stories are subtle and sublime. Careful word choices. Awesome characters. Vivid stories. What else could you want? I have favorites to be sure. But even still, my non favorites are still a recommend. Because they are just that good. My favorites are The Price of Desire and To Marry a Lawman.

I have been reading menage cause I have been writing menage. And Sophie Oak writes some of the best menage stories ever. There is a whole series of them in both her Bliss series and her Siren series. Just awesome really. Not many people portray menage realistically. Her books come darn close. The storylines are believable. And her characters are great. She doesn’t recycle heroines and heroes over and over again in her books. The people you met are fresh and different from the books before. It just works out that way cause she is a good writer.

For some nonfiction reading, might I recommend Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods? It is funny and wonderful storytelling even as it is nonfiction. And it is about the Appalachian Trail and hiking it. With Spring in the air, not only will the book make you laugh but it potentially could cause you to dig out your hiking shoes and see if you too can have an outdoor adventure that is both educational and hilarious. This book is laugh out loud funny. You will be giggling so much that people will stare at you if you read it in public. You have been warned.

Smutty Sunday

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So I thought I would start a regular feature. A wrap up of the week by giving some suggestions about reading material. Books I like. If you like them too, well there you go.

For my SF/F fans, I’ve been digging on Kate Elliot. I first read her Crown of Stars books a while back. They have stayed with me. She had such a nice pace in her works. I haven’t read her newest Spiritwalker books but I’m going to. Not a lot of sex in her books. Just great world building. Which takes no small amount of talent. She also has great pacing. When I read, there is in invisible metronome that ticks in my brain. Good books have a certain pace. Words are carefully chosen to make that come alive on the page. Like poetry almost.

I’ve been on a motorcycle kick lately. I don’t know which came first, my love of bad ass dudes on motorcycles or Kristen Ashley. Cause her books have a lot of them. I just finished her first Chaos series book and it ROCKED. As usual. Can’t wait for the next one. Her mountain man series had a motorcycle rider in one of them, Sweet Dreams. And then Motorcycle Man had the ultimate bad boy rider. AWESOMESAUCE. Her books are contemporary romances with a lot of drama. And now she has a whole series dedicated to badass boys on their toys! Shew, color me a happy happy girl.

For the people that like a little paranormal romance, I read and reread Nalini Singh’s Archangel books. It just has a whole lot of goodness in them. Lots of magical realism. Magical realism is concept that is being bandied about a lot in writerly circles. It just means that the world building in the book just accepts the supernatural elements regardless of what they are without question or explanation. Kind of like an alternate reality that just is the way it is no matter how much it looks like our reality in the here and now. So in her books, angels and vampires and hunters just are. Always have been, always will be. But her angels and vampires aren’t the sparkly kind- thank christ. They are just smokin’ hot alpha-y and the back stories ROCK.

To break in with a book about spirituality might be a little jarring. But I am going to do it anyway. Hey, a girl can’t live on smut alone. Ya know? So if it isn’t offensive to you, your god, your beliefs or whatever. Check out Ram Dass’s Paths to God. The book rocks. Lots of insights that aren’t particular to one kind of belief system. It is broad enough to touch on lots of different areas. Cause there are a multitude of paths. And really none of us know which is the right one. Besides, what if there is really more than one. It could happen.

Now on to my smut rec for the week. Been thinking a lot about Tymber Dalton’s Reluctant Dom book. Yes there is sex in it. Yes there is bdsm in it. Yes there is menage in it. A trifecta of goodness in my opinion. But there is also a sad story. A journey of discovery. And an evolution of character. Happiness comes to all of us when we can take such a journey with the characters in the book. And while there is kink in there, there is more than kink. Which to my mind is the best kind of kink book. Even a book that is about sex has to have more than just sex. Ya know?

Now that’s a wrap. Have a great week.

Sex in Books

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Yesterday  I posted a little something something on a writers’ forum about sex in books. Yup I said sex. The questions that was asked was who my reader was. I am reposting my answer below:

 

People who don’t think that sex should be excluded from every genre but erotica. And people who don’t think that just because people are sexing it up in a book, it is erotica. It can be erotica. But it can also be the adult version of sf/f, horror, mystery, etc. It amuses me that whole weirdness that exist by genre writers. Ummm, people in the old west had sex. It’s a western whether the sex is portrayed. But now all of a sudden because we put some sex into it, it’s an erotic western. Ummm, okay. I’m actually good with that. I can then choose those books that have adults writing them for other adults to read doing adult like things. Okay, I’ll confess I was a pervy teenager as well. I probably read those adult books back then. Okay, Okay. I did. Hmmm, maybe that’s why I like to write sex in all my fiction regardless of genre, well except those that are actually targeted for kids. Cause that would just be gross.

 

So I guess, I’m the target audience. Perverted adults that like to read about sex in all genres. lol

 

Now, there are a lot of things to talk about in that post. One, authors are weird. And so are the people that categorize books. Sex makes people feel all CRA-CRA in western culture. Well, in a lot of other cultures too. I promise, weirdness about sex is not limited to America or Japan. Lots of people in lots of different cultures have lots of weird hang ups about sex. In print and in real life. Genre fiction writers are as prone as everybody else in the whole my crap is better than your crap and I want to point that out so I can make myself feel like I am superior to you or make you, at least, feel inferior to me. Cause, they whisper, you write dirty things. I write in the great genre of mystery, sci-fi, etc. etc. etc. insert genre of your choice here. Just another form of discrimination peeps. That’s all it is. So move long. Yeah?

And two, not all books with sex in them are erotica. Seriously. Erotica to me is if sex is the main theme throughout the book. The genre is secondary. While genre books written for adults have whatever the genre is as primary with the sex as secondary. The sex happens in those books um, cause, um, there are adults in those books. And adults have sex. I promise it is true. Adults have sex. Including it in writings is just more honest. To me at least. Getting squicked out about sex in a book whether you are the writer or the reader is really juvenile. Seriously.

I mean how do you think we have kids in real life? Sex. How do you think little aliens can crop up in fiction? Sex. In every genre, to even have characters to talk about, there first was sex to make that character possible. And if there are adults in the books, they are probably having sex too. Cause it is a biological imperative. It really, really is. Food, shelter, sex. I promise there are lots of studies on the biological imperative of species continuation. So really, it’s not just erotica, it’s science. lol

Alrighty, talking about all this smex, smut, and borderline porn, as erotica is portrayed, is making me want to go write. Laters.

Rinse and Repeat

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So I was thinking about genre fiction and all the tropes, cliches and repeats that go on with it. There are so many stereotypes when it comes to books and writings.

Like Literary fiction is by smart peeps for smart peeps. And it is usually about nothing. Nothing happens. It’s just a telling.

In Romance, there are certain story lines that get used over and over again. Like secret babies or marriages of convenience or boss-secretary. There are certain things within the story line that gets reused like dish rag. Like virgins who are old enough not to be or motorcycle gang members who are really misunderstood heroes.

In SF/Fantasy, there is usually a quest. To find something or someone without which or without whom the world would end as they know it.

Nothing in fiction, or in real life for that matter, is new. It has been done a thousand times before. But for some reason, novels cycle these in great numbers. Like a thousand books about rock stars. Or a gazillion books about millionaires who fall in love with broke waitresses. Or orbs that must be found at the end of the quest.

I get that repeating verbatim, aka word for word, another person’s words is plagiarism. But what about all these recycled and repeated themes, tropes and story lines? No, I am not saying that using such is considered plagiarism. What I am saying that using such is a necessary part of writing fiction. I bet google searching will find your book has already been written. Your story has already been told. But, and this is a big but, I hope that you have written it better. That in your telling, something fresh and something new emerges. Even though it has been done a thousand times before. I also hope that your characters are the ones that are memorable. Fresh, new and defines that particular trope, cliche or theme.

I like reading genre fiction. I see the patterns in the writing. But I like it anyway. What I don’t like is laziness on the part of the writer, falling back on the trope and not making it theirs. Even if a theme has been written a thousand times, I appreciate that certain something that takes that trope and makes it their bitch. Now that’s talent. To take something old and make it new.

Carina Press Tweet Pitch

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I just ran across a phenomena. Something for which I am sure Twitter is responsible. I have been glued to my computer screen reading the author pitches being made on Twitter. Carina Press, a digital first epubisher, is taking pitches from both agented and unagented writers.

I am totally getting into the story pitches. There have been several that I as a reader want to read. Wish they were already available. Then there were a couple that I as a writer wished I had thought of. It had been completely gratifying to browse all the cool ideas being thrown out by all these creative types.

It is also a learning tool. I can see the difference between a good pitch, a bad pitch and the really great pitches. Awesomeness all rolled into one.

And yes, I opened a Twitter account just so I could vicariously live the life of an editor at a publishing house. lol Not really. But still, it has been an eye opening experience.

If you have a Twitter account and a completed manuscript, check out #carinapitch on Twitter. check it out even if you don’t because it is really fun and a good way to waste a few minutes of your day.

Me, I have wasted many minutes of my day. But it has also not been a waste because if I ever get a chance to pitch, I will have learned something from the carina pitch today.

Brain Fried

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You know, after you’ve written so many thousands of words when the word well has been fried all out. I need a few days to reset. I wrote almost 20K words in like three frickin’ days. Not only are my fingers tired but so is the rest of me. So I just cruised the internet yesterday. Set up a goodreads account. Well I’ve had a goodreads account for a while but it was mostly just blank. But I finally decided to do something with it. Sheesh. Who knew being all author-ly was so much more than getting words on a page.

Gonna try and get some words out today. Well see. What I really want to do is read somebody else’s stuff. Got a few books that just downloaded to my kindle. They are so burning a hole in the back of my eyeballs. I keep glancing over to it lying all innocently beside me. Enticing me by just quietly waiting until I can’t take it anymore and click the on button.

Getting lost in the words of other is a good thing. Plus, the authors I want to read are some of my favs. Kristen Ashley, Lauren Dane and Cynthia Eden. How can I resist all that goodness? I can’t. I am weak. Weak I tell you.

So I like Kristen’s work cause she writes the BEST heroes. All that alpha male yumminess makes me squirm. In a good way. They are all badass and sweet. I like the way they talk. I like the way they walk. I like the way they do just about everything. They don’t mess around. Once they’ve made up their minds to have the girl, they HAVE the girl. Mmmmm.

I like Lauren’s work because her heroines ROCK. Straight shooters the lot of them. No bullshit. They don’t give it. They don’t take it. And… this is a BIG and… they are not too stupid to live women. I get so tired of chicks in fiction being too frickin’ stupid to be anyone I want to know, admire or read about. Don’t get that in Ms. Dane’s books. Her heroines kick ass.

Cynthia writes awesome chicks and awesome dicks. lol Plus, her books are filled with things that go bump in the night. What’s not to love? I love me some werewolves, vampires and all sorts of paranormal peeps. Her writing is tight, her story lines tighter and there is ALWAYS great sex and a satisfying ending.

So that’s why my kindle is like crack to me. When I am not putting my words to page, I WANT and NEED to read other’s word on pages. I choose to pick authors that are GREAT at what they do and offer me characters that I want to read about.

Now, off to pick up the kindle crack.

Sick of Virgins

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Seriously, I have nothing against virgins. If you want to keep your virginity until you die, go for it. More power to you. But I am fucking tired, tired, tired (yes I thought if I said tired more than once, y’all would know just how tired I really was) of finding the heroines in my books being virgins in their twenties. And not only are they twenty-something virgins, they are twenty-something lawyer, doctor, scientist, CEO, etc. ad nauseum virgins. Really?

I don’t need a lot of realism in my books. They are fiction for a reason. I can put up with the too stupid to live women. I can put up with the too perfect to have ever lived men. I can put up with plot device after plot device with a little of deus ax machina thrown in. But I cannot nor will I ever be able to swallow a 26 year virgin medical doctor. EVER.

Look, if you were home-schooled on an island where there were only other women, I might buy that you could be a virgin into your late teens/early twenties. But then you are so fucked up on so many other levels that really the whole virgin thing is the LEAST of your problems. To have heroine after heroine show up in books today as opposed to be re-released from back in the eighties, as virgins well into their careers stretches the truth, my imagination and any modicum of common sense as to be beyond fiction all the way to la-la land. And yeah, maybe aliens will pick you up as they blow by our solar system, not to mention that swamp land I have to sell you.

The average age that an American women loses their virginity is 17.3 years old. Let’s try to reflect that in the fiction section. Cause even fiction should have a little veracity thrown in. In other words, just cause the STORY is a fairy tale doesn’t mean that the world that you draw upon in the story should all be lies as well. Plus, it places a premium on female virginity that I just find fucking offensive. Christ, that is just so regency period. Medieval in fact. I could probably wax poetic about all these older female virgins finding the man of their dreams who just happen to be their soul-mates being about the writer’s hang ups, being a reflection of a patriarchal society and several other sociological/psychological issues but I won’t. It would be BORING. Almost as boring as reading about fucking late twenty-something virgins.

So just stop it already. Just say no. And quit giving me female protagonists who don’t reflect the reality of being a women in America today.