I’m finding blogging to be a chore these days. I really am.

I always swore to myself that I’d quit when blogging started feeling like hard work. It feels like hard work.

Even keeping up with other blogs feels like hard work these days. I’m reading fewer romance books than I ever have before and I have no interest in anything that’s going on in RomLand. In short, I just can’t be arsed.

This blog turned five in April, and somehow I managed to miss such a milestone. Or should that be millstone?

Of course work is crazy at the moment, but I also find that I want to spend more time actually being with TTG, rather than worrying about what to write on my blog. Also, it’s summer, which means that I should make hay while the sun shines.

I’m not going to quit blogging, but I sure feel like doing so. I wonder if I’m just having one of those days…

1. I’m far too hot to blog properly.

2. I haven’t read a book in two weeks.

3. I’m back on my annual holiday health kick and I managed to lose a whopping 9lbs this week, bikini here I come, whoop, whoop!

4. Derek Hough from Dancing With The Stars is a creative genius, and I think I have a slight crush on him.

5. Shemar Moore who plays Derek Morgan in Criminal Minds makes me want to squee like a girl.

6. TTG looks hot without his shirt on.

7. Why hasn’t Julia Spencer Fleming released her next Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne novel yet? I don’t want to wait until next bloody year!

8. My garden looks beautiful in this light.

9. I have some of the best female friends ever. Fact.

10. I have a new niece coming in September, and I’m so damned excited!

11. This weekend has been a feast of fun and it’s s shame it’s nearly over.

12. I have no idea what’s been going on in RomLand.

13. It’s the World Cup soon, yay!!! Come on England!!!

After reading Sharon Cullar’s latest post, I was very tempted to send her an email, urging her to get a new name, and to start writing romances featuring just white characters, because her books are obviously just not selling well.

It seems a bit drastic, but the fact is, money is an issue for her right now, so the question I think she needs to ask herself, is, is she happy writing the books of her heart, and not selling, or is she prepared to go the mercenary route and write where the money is.

I know that there are no guarantees, but the fact is, books featuring black or even inter-racial couples do not sell as well as books featuring all white couples.

Her ability to write is not in question here, I’ve read Sharon Cullar’s books, and she’s a fantastic author, however, with the way that books featuring black protags are constantly ignored by Jane Average Reader in RomLand, I think she’d be better off writing Carol Lynne-type books where the all-white protags shag at every given opportunity.

I think that we here in RomLand like to think that good plot development and good editing are essential to every reader, but if that were true, how do you account for people like Jamaica Layne apparently still selling? There are obviously people out there reading and enjoying what she writes.

I also considered perhaps advising Sharon to start writing ménage erotic romance, seeing as they seem to be as popular as ever.

I know that authors should really write what they love, but what if what they love doesn’t sell? It’s ok if money isn’t an issue for said author, but what if, as in Sharon’s case, it is? Should she really be expected to stick to her principles, and keep churning out inter-racial romances, that have a limited audience in the market place?

This email has been doing the rounds on the web of late:

Shame on you GREAT BRITAIN..we have children going to bed without eating..elderly going without needed medicines..mentally ill without treatment..troops without proper equipment..yet we donate millions to other countries before helping our own first..99% ppl wont have the guts to copy and repost this.!!!!!! WILL YOU ???

I’ve seen various versions of the same email, some that begin with “Shame on you AMERICA”, etc.

If I’m honest, I don’t get it.

I understand the concept of charity beginning at home, but it seems to me that people comparing poverty in the West, to poverty in third world countries are either off their heads or off their meds. Or both.

The fact is, poverty is relative. A poverty-stricken child in England just cannot be compared to a poverty-stricken child in Sudan.

(more…)

(gotta love Zazzle)

I’m a geek.

Not one of those really well educated geeks, I admit, but a geek nonetheless.

And this geek is always fascinated by how science is catching up to fantasy (no wonder we call it science fiction now )

For example, when reading Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series, I had some issues with Hostage to Pleasure because it posits that DNA manipulation would have effect within one generation. I’m all, “no way in hell, dammit!” and feeling pulled out of the story because, well, not possible.

(Yes, I know—I have trouble accepting that but I’m happily overlooking little impossibles such as, say, shapeshifting. So I’m inconsistent, sue me )

Anyway, the whole DNA manipulation part of the storyline bothered me—it seemed a bit like a cop out, frankly—and then I see this cool little article and wham! “Objection overruled, counselor.”

These little critters are a) stealing DNA and passing it on to their offspring, and b) stealing cellular structures into their own cells and using them successfully.

Looking at this, I’m suddenly much happier about Ashaya Aleine’s work

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Random PS: Who is your favorite geeky chick? Personally, I’m torn between Abby from NCIS and the amazing Kaylee from Firefly.

Some of you may have noticed that there haven’t been too many reviews posted to the blog recently. Yeah, the reading mojo has been on vacation for a while now. (more…)

AztecLady, confusing people since… well, pretty much since birth.

Here’s the thing that’s been going around and around in my head, not letting me sleep. (more…)

So, the other day on Twitter, I mentioned that I don’t see the point in MMF books. Interesting conversation ensued.

In the majority of MMF books that I’ve read, the women seem to be surplus to requirement.

If I’m honest, I don’t really get why a gay couple would decide that they need a female to complete them. I’m meant to believe that they aren’t into any other females, except that one special vagina, who helps make them whole? Really?

I think you can tell when an author has no interest in writing a book that includes female interaction, because all the emotional connection seems to be between the two males, yet the reader is expected to suspend disbelief, and buy that all three parties are in love? I struggle with that. I really do.

Every time I’ve read an MMF book, I’ve felt distinctly let down by the lack of connection with the female. I then go and check the author’s backlist, and lo and behold, they turn out to be predominantly MM writers.

I understand the need to branch out, but I’m a huge believer that authors shouldn’t write books that they don’t enjoy, and in my experience, some of these books have felt like more of an obligation than a labour of love, on the part of the author. Like they were trying to cater to the MF Reader dollar, if you like.

JMC mentioned a Lorelei James book that we’d both read. It was an MMF book, where the two penises had engaged in sexual activity, then one of the penises decided that he was in love with a vagina, and so then married the vagina. When the other penis eventually came back, he basically presented him to the vagina, and confessed to being in love with the penis.

Confused? Yeah, me too.

While the writing was fine, I’m afraid that I just didn’t buy the HEA for one minute. I know that we have to suspend disbelief in a lot in erotic romance, but for me, I couldn’t see anything but years of misery and heartache for all of the genitalia involved in that particular relationship.

Anyway, as it happens, LJ is one of the writers who doesn’t have a backlist full of MMs, but somehow – in my opinion – Rough, Raw and Ready managed to concentrate more on the emotional connection between the two penises, than the emotional connection between both the penises and the vagina. Actually, as I recall, I distinctly remember a lack of connection between Penis No. 2 and The Vagina.

For me, this seems to have been the story of my MMF reading life.

What say you?

Loose-ID-Watch: This week, 1 MMF, 2 MMs, 1 MF & 1 extra MM)

Must seriously chap one’s arse.

Sometimes it’s ok to say, yes I agree, or no, I don’t.

Why do some people find that so hard to do?

People who are reasonable all the times, sometimes make my teeth hurt as much as unreasonable people do.

Just sayin’.

Last weekend, on The Big Questions, Nicky Campbell and Co were discussing the subject of sex before marriage.

There were a couple of girls who were advocating waiting, on the show, and they made a lot of sense, but as a grown woman, there’s no way I would have wanted to do the deed on the night I got married. The nervous anticipation, and build-up, and ridiculously high expectations? Oh, no.

Losing my virginity was totally underwhelming anyway, so the thought of experiencing that same feeling on the happiest day of my life? I think not.

What say you? Would you guys have preferred to wait, if you could have a do-over?