by Charlene Teglia | Apr 15, 2005 | Uncategorized
Up until now, my office has been the dining room/entryway. No door. This worked out all right when Alex was smaller, but she keeps getting taller and able to reach more things. Last night we decided the time had come to move my desk to a room with a door (!) so now the husband and I are sharing the third bedroom as an office.
This means Alex will no longer have a bedroom to herself when Baby 2.0 arrives, but having a door to close off computers from toddlers takes precedence! It also means I will be able to work free from interruptions, due to the ability to close said door when the dh is here. Hurrah! Really, having a door is a milestone. This is the coolest.
In other news, I’m donating a critique to benefit Jaime Denton. Go to the Jaime’s Fund site and follow the easy instructions there to buy $40 worth of wisdom. ; ) It’s for a good cause.
by Charlene Teglia | Apr 15, 2005 | Uncategorized
Originally published in Satire quarterly, forget which issue. Reprinted here for your enjoyment!
23rd Psalm for April 15th
The CPA is my counselor; I shall not want.
He maketh me to invest in tax shelters;
He leadeth me through the new loopholes.
He restoreth my refund;
He leadeth me in the paths of IRAs for my tax bracket’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Of the Internal Revenue Service, I will fear no audit
For he is with me.
His calculator and itemization schedules comfort me.
He preparest a deduction before me in the presence of inflation;
He annointeth my mortgage with depreciation;
My cup runneth over.
Surely tax-free dollars and high profit margins shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the good graces of Uncle Sam forever.
by Charlene Teglia | Apr 14, 2005 | Uncategorized
Less than 2 weeks now to the release of Dangerous Games. Hop over to the Home or Books page to see Drake in all his muscle-bound glory! And no, he’s not dumb enough to actually ride without proper protective gear. The cover is just hotter with him in a vest. If you want to see the Big Picture, click on the excerpt and then click on the image inside to see it enlarged. YUM. Almost as good as a Krispy Kreme donut! (I’m still on a donut binge. I may not get over it until after the baby’s born.)
State of the blog; it’s been a bit dull lately, hasn’t it? Lots of review stuff in the past posts. Whenever Alex is teething my time at the keyboard goes down, so that’s part of it. Also, I had a bunch of reviews come in on top of each other, so I posted info on ’em. Because I wouldn’t want anybody to miss out on knowing what a fabulous read Love and Rockets is!
Smut: Samantha Winston thinks Romantica is porn and we should all just admit it. (She doesn’t mean this in a derogatory sense, btw, more a “and what’s wrong with that?” way.) Many members of RWA seem to feel the same way and I’ll just take this blog-ortunity to state my opinion. Because as my husband could tell you, I have a lot of opinions. Which is probably why he’s been urging me to blog for the last three years. A familiar phrase around our house is, “Don’t you need to go write?”
First off, the RWA erotic romance to categorize or not to categorize bit. There are sound arguments both ways, I agree. Yes, an erotic romance might also be romantic suspense or short contemporary or long contemporary or historical or romantic comedy or a mix. This same argument came up when the Inspirational category was created. But it was determined that Inspirational had a specific element not found in other romances that made them different enough to warrant creating a separate category and I believe the same is true of erotic romance.
No, these books are not all about sex and shouldn’t be dismissed or labelled that way so that people who want “real” books can avoid them. They have plot, setting, character development, dialog, theme, all the ingredients of any fiction novel and all the ingredients of a romance (the hero and heroine, true love, happily ever after) but they do have a different element and that’s the level of sensuality.
There is a different standard in the sensual element in Romantica. There’s graphic language, which some traditional romance readers will prefer to avoid. The sensual element has more freedom and more possible situations than a traditional romance. And the importance of the physical relationship between the hero and heroine is explored more deeply.
There’s a wide range within Romantica, so I fully understand the hesitation to categorize it separately. Some of the books published by Brava or Ellora’s Cave are about the same level of sensuality you would expect to find in a Harlequin Blaze or Avon romance. And others have elements that some romance readers will simply not want to encounter. They’re not all alike by any means. On one end of the spectrum there’s nothing terribly shocking that would particularly stand out to a reader, only longer and more creative love scenes. On the other far end of the spectrum, you have fetishes and same-sex encounters incorporated into the storyline.
It’s this range of possibilities and the overall greater focus on the sensual in erotic romances that make them different. I seek out Romantica before a traditional romance because of that difference. There’s a great deal of freedom in the stories that break them far, far out of the category mold and push the boundaries of the genre in all directions. There’s a reason why Ellora’s Cave came up with the term Romantica in the first place; because these books really are different. They’re not erotica. They’re way too romantic and happy ending-ish and have far too much story to sex scenes for that. But they’re not exactly like other romances, either.
Beyond the sensual element, Romantica is different in another way I find really difficult to pinpoint but it’s part of why I love to read and write them. The stories are bigger, more complex. It’s much more than boy-meets-girl. There’s a sense that you have absolute freedom to tell any story, any story at all, without limits.
Dangerous Games would have been shot down anyplace else, and it’s not because of the sex. It’s because it’s a romance with science fiction, suspense, humor, Godzilla, the book of Genesis, everything including the kitchen sink and I can just imagine a traditional romance editor reading this. The response would read just like all the rejection letters I have in my file cabinet. “This is really terrific, you’re a really great writer, I love your voice. But this is just outside of what we can publish. Can you write something else that doesn’t have all that weird stuff in it?”
No, I can’t. It’s all that weird stuff that makes the story, and that makes it my story. If the story didn’t need all the things I put in it, they wouldn’t BE there.
Romantica is not porn. Many of us read and write it for reasons beyond the steam. (Although the steam is a great side benefit, IMO.) In fact, I will admit that some of the books engage and entertain me thoroughly without ever pushing any of my hot lust buttons, so to say that the only reason to read “those books” is for the erotic thrill they convey is dead wrong. That’s far, far too simplistic and dare I say narrow-minded a view.
That would imply that the entire novel has only one mood and conveys only one emotional response. That it’s nothing more than a series of sex scenes designed to titillate. It is so, so, so much more. I have yet to read any book by Ellora’s Cave or any Brava that did not express a range of feeling and I have yet to write a book that didn’t cover the spectrum of emotion, either. These are stories about human beings and as fully-rounded, fully realized characters they do not exist merely to have an orgasm or go from one sexual adventure to the next. They have hopes and fears, they have bad days, they have goals beyond the desire to find true love and great sex for the rest of their lives. They experience the entire range of human emotion.
When I write a funny scene, I nearly fall out of my chair laughing. I want the reader to laugh, too. When I write the big black moment, I feel the anguish and I want the reader to immediately turn the page, heart racing, thinking, “oh, no, this can’t be how they leave it…” When I write a touching scene, I sniffle. I want the reader to feel a tug at their heartstrings, too. And yes, when it comes to the love scenes, I want the reader to feel the passion in the pages. If each scene doesn’t move the reader, I’ve failed as a writer.
Romantica is NOT porn. But it’s also not exactly like other romances, which is why I think it deserves a category of its own. In the meantime, regardless of how other people label it or what they think of it or if they ever think of it at all, I am going to keep right on reading it and writing it and loving every minute. Because it IS my bag, baby.
by Charlene Teglia | Apr 13, 2005 | Uncategorized
We get a lot of cable interruptions living out in the boonies, but that’s the longest it’s stayed out. Usually they get it back up pretty quickly. Since it’s our primary mode of communication with the outside world, we feel pitifully cut off without it! Also, the toddler didn’t understand why the Disney channel was giving her the blue screen of death instead of her buddies Jojo and Goliath. (Because cable TV went down after the cable modem. Aiieee!)
by Charlene Teglia | Apr 12, 2005 | Uncategorized
Two more outstanding reviews for Love and Rockets from Enchanted in Romance. Here’s a quote from reviewer Lyonene: “Love and Rockets is a fantastic story filled with humor and hot sex. The building relationship between Anna and Jay was in turns funny and intense. Charlene Teglia has brought into being a fantastic romance that grabbed me from the first and didn’t release me in the end…I can see the beginnings of another story that I can’t wait to read. I wonder if the next one is with the meeting and fireworks between Michael and Jane? I highly recommend this highly amusing and hot book!!”
Now, would it be spoilers to answer that question?
In other news, our cable modem is mysteriously kaput after we changed our service from digital to just plain high speed and regular cable. The cable company swears this is a coincidence and that the modem is active and we should be online, yet here I am using Word Press via dial-up. At least the TV part is working fine, because without the Disney channel in the morning we could have a toddler riot on our hands.
Off to do the Write Thing.
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