It’s that time of year: we’re t-minus one month away from Valentine’s Day, and it’s time once again for media outlets to start pestering the romance writers because certainly romance writers, they are More Romantic and Sexy than the rest of us mere mortals. Pass the feather boa, because I need one to finish this entry.
A brilliant author forwarded me the following request from the Washington Post, and it is so over the top, well, judge for yourself:
Dear Romance Writers,
For a Valentine’s Day story for the Washington Post Home Section, I’m
hoping to feature the bedrooms of a couple of local romance writers (who
better to create a romantic ambience [sic] than you creative ladies? And if
there is a man among you with a romantic bedroom, that would be totally
cool).I’d appreciate it if you could send my query to your Washington area
members to explain what I’m seeking:*A couple of digital pictures of your romantic boudoir, preferably in
daylight (even if it was designed to look fab in candlelight).* You should be in at least one of the photos, since if you’re chosen, you
will probably be in the picture. (Feel free to wrap yourself in a feather
boa or come-hither pegnoir).*Your bedroom certainly does not have to be “done” by a professional
designer or decorator, but it should look good (if you want to declutter a
bit before photographing the space, by all means, have at it).*The rooms do not have to be frilly/girly/pink, Victorian or any other
stereoptyical romance-writer look. They can be Zen, minimialist, historic,
Art Deco, Scottish tartan, country, shabby chic, cowgirl funky, whatever.
The room just has to telegraph Romance and Love.*Those of you who want to share your sanctum sanctorum should include a
couple of paragraphs about what is romantic about it (extra points given
for a heart shaped bed), and perhaps where some of your favorite things
came from (great granny, your first great love, Wal-Mart, Sotheby’s),* I’ll need your real name and your nom de plume, as well as a daytime
phone number so I can get in touch with you. Practically speaking, the
rooms we choose will probably have to be no further than 50 -75 miles from
downtown Washington so we can get a Post photographer there to shoot it.Ladies, this is your chance to spread a little Romance Writer Valentine
cheer to your readers and to ours. I do hope you’ll spread the word. I
need the images and little eassays [sic] in hand by Jan. 25 so we can shoot the
following week.Thanks in advance for all your help. I remain,
Breathlessly yours,
—-
Oh. Holy. Shit. I started to giggle at the pegnoir but by the time I got to “extra points for the heart shaped bed” I had tears running down my face. Oh holy crap in a crap-shaped bed. Scottish tartan! Cowgirl funky! Oh, sweet holy shit.
First, in case this reporter is looking for what a Smart Bitch bedroom looks like: picture a large room with a bed and the following items: 1.4 metric tons of cat (because somehow they become the size and weight of ponies when they snuggle into the foot of the bed and take up ALL THE ROOM WTF), 8 spit up rags for baby with reflux, tv, clicker, and laundry. Lots of laundry. Oh, how romantic. Especially the spit up rags.
Second, what the crapping crap is this? Right after assumption #1, that we romance readers are all dim and enjoy icing-frosted masturbatory fantasies so long as they’re sheikh-y or Lordly, here comes #2: the romance writers all live in a frilly, fantastically tartan-lace wonderland, and don’t buy beds that are comfortable. They buy beds that are heart shaped.
Question for the Sci-Fi writers: do people assume you have bathrooms outfitted to mimic a transporter platform, complete with silver toilet? And you Women’s Fiction writers, do you have boxes of tissues on every flat surface? And Fantasy writers wear tights and wings, right? Wait, as long as I’m riding the Magic Assumption Train into The Land of Overused Metaphor, let’s go for the subgenres! Paranormal romance writers – you get kinky with the vamp teeth and the furry suits, right? And you sleep in coffins or caves? Harlequin writers have bedrooms made up like harems or Roman temples or boardrooms (that cannot be comfortable) or obstetrics offices (there are a lot of babies after all) right? And historical writers, how’s that corset?
Hello? Bueller?
Either way, I absolutely cannot wait to see that article about the bedrooms of romance writers. Srsly.
Wow. Just… wow. As a fantasy/romance-ish aspiring author, they do NOT want to see my bedroom. First they’d have to brave the stacks of books I have no room for on my bookshelves. THen they see my wall of dorkdom (Snakes on a Plane Poster, a big collage of Final Fantasy 7 scenes and characters, a Legolas Poster, some random fantasy drawings, and a big huge Puss in Boots poster that just fell off my wall).
I have six betta fish in separate tanks (oooh, kinky), books all over the freaking place, cat hair everywhere, AND I have a multitude of candles.
At least I got that part right? Oh, and you can’t forget the big honkin’ sword on my dresser.
What I’m trying to say is I don’t think anybody wants to see that mess.
Yay! snarkhunter is my valentine! I’m SPECIAL, yo.
(Do you think Joyce Carol Oates has sexy groupies?)
If by “sexy” you mean “Toothless Hillbillies” (no offense to any toothless hillbillies and/or Joyce Carol Oates groupies).
Since I’m a Michael Chabon groupie, I’m voting that HE has the sexiest groupies of all. I do know that Serious Writer Dave Eggers has some surprisingly sexy groupies.
Ooh… do you think erotica writers have stripper poles and sex swings in their boudoirs? And entire rooms devoted to sex toys, of course.
“Breathlessly yours” ? GAH!
I initially thought it was written by a guy who was looking forward to some bedroom fetish fun for himself, but Poison Ivy says it’s a woman. So maybe it’s a gal looking for some bedroom fetish fun. Whatever. Either way, I’m thinking this person is going to be sorely disappointed.
Breathlessly yours?
Gag me with a spoon.
… you creative ladies … little eassays … WTF????
Jesus, I don’t know whether to be more upset with the pejorative tone or disappointed over the fact that a Washington Post reporter can’t spell. The outrage band, she just keeps playing.
Azteclady, I’m with you. There’s no more hair to pull out.
Um, I disagree. The problem is financial. My mom had a 30+ year journalism/editorial career with years at the LA Times and most recently the SF Chronicle. Two years ago, she opted to be bought out and went to law school. I can’t speak for all of them but The Chronicle’s floundering. They’re not making money, they’re not keeping the same circulation. As a result, they’re cutting corners, which only results in a crappier product, which then results in lost readers. Vicious cycle, hello!
“Breathlessly yours”? Someone pass her a paper bag.
No, wait, someone pass me a paper bag. I’m the one vomiting.
Boy, would they get scared when they saw my Saint Andrews Cross, the whips and chains and the sling.
I’ll show you Romance baby! Would you like rubber or plastic ball gag?
*rolls on the floor, laughing hystericall, kicking her heels up and down*
Oh, Gods, yes, yes, yes! I want to write erotica, too, can I please? Maybe it’s some sort of…if you write a book in X genre, you get a truckload of junk for your home in that genre!
And frankly, I’d rather have the stripper pole and toy room than frills and tartans *shudder*.
Someone needs to do a lolcat with “I R Seryus Awthur” on it. Srsly.
PS—Teddy Pig, I love you. Be a very special little valentine to all of us, yes? 🙂
Heh. My non-spaminator word is “not23”. Well, no, I’m not, but that “journalist” person might be…. At least I hope she is!
Thanks for the reply Nora – very entertaining. (So I’ll go on a limb and guess you wouldn’t be interested in helping me plan a romantic VD evening to save my relationship, eh?)
I enjoy reading Diana Gabaldon’s page for the tidbits she will sometimes include about the things readers/interviewers ask her. I find the mental leaps society often makes between writers/actors/etc and the people themselves fascinating.
Okay, maybe we’ve had enough fun. Maybe the poor gal was trying to be entertaining, and came up with the wrong tone. Maybe she felt intimidated by addressing women who actually get paid to write what they want. Maybe she really wants to write about ferrets.
Practically speaking, the rooms we choose will probably have to be no further than 50 -75 miles from downtown Washington so we can get a Post photographer there to shoot it.
Well, drat, that probably doesn’t apply to my bedroom. Such a pity, ‘cause it’s almost carnival over here so getting a feather boa in really bright colours would have been so easy. I could have even thrown some confetti to spread some cheer!
I’ll need your real name and your nom de plume
My nom de plume? To go with the feather boa, I assume?
Gosh, doesn’t this lurvely request make you wonder what the people at the Washington Post put into their tea?
Most peculiar, that e-mail. I, too, thought at first it must be a deliberate parody of, well, something.
To be nitpicky, ambience is the only correct spelling of that word in British English (we would not accept ‘ambiance’) and is also an acceptable variant in American English. The way peignoir was spelt would certainly be incorrect here, though – haven’t checked whether Americans are allowed to spell it that way.
The information about the physics of feline size/weight augmentation during the night explains a lot. I think.
You know, I live within range for the Post…wonder if my bedroom would work. My bed isn’t heart-shaped and there is no cowboy or Victorian or Gothic theme. Sometimes there are dirty socks on the floor or my husband’s underwear. And we all know, nothing says “Romance” like a man’s underpants.
But, oh, the publicity! Imagine the books I could sell! Hmm…decisions, decisions…. 😉
What a giant stereotype!
My first thought was where do you get sheets for a heart-shaped bed? (Ever the practical one).
As J Joyces ‘boudoir’, I’m seeing a dark cave of a room, a wooden chair and a cot. Tattered curtains hang from a drafty window. Bottles of whiskey are scattered across a bare wood floor. I’m so depressed now I need to lie down.
Re: Heart-shaped beds – not that I have any experience with them, mind you 😀 But if I had to guess, I’d say that to sleep, you and your beloved would have to have your heads about as far apart as possible and aim your feet towards the “point.” Cats, wookies, black-footed ferrets, et. al. could then snuggle up in the space between you. Obviously, this kind of bed encourages romance!
I see in some comments things like “spamword” or “verification word” followed by a bit of gibberish and usually a line of snark. Might someone care to enlighten the newbie, please? 🙂
Speaking of newbie, I’m also rather new-ish to romance. I went through a bit of a phase in the mid 80’s, reading a number of Bertrice Small’s books, a couple, I think, by Rebecca Brandewyne, and that was set in a fantasy world and written by an author who had obviously read many of the same fantasy books I had (in particular, “The Mists of Avalon.”) I say obviously because even though she didn’t copy direct passages, many of her descriptions, situations, ceremonies and plot elements came directly from these other books. And this wasn’t in the sense of how there are always going to be similarities between fantasy-based novels. This was the kind of thing where both books had young heroines taken away to a special island that required a certain ceremony to reach, both heroines were raised in woman-centric communities, both communities marked elevation to adulthood with a tattoo of a crescent moon on the forehead made with a natural blue dye that would have to be reapplied periodically or it would face out, and both heroines were presented with little sickle knives… yadda and so forth.
It’s kind of iron how serious borrowing drove me away from romance 20 years ago, and now I found this place because of the Cassie Edwards mess and find myself wanting to start reading again. LOL
At any rate – back to the bedrooms – the assumptions in that letter truly are insulting. If I were to decorate my room by the kinds of books I read the most, it’d be a pretty weird place, since my topics of choice tend to be Vikings, real-life scandals and spy stories, true crime, dark fantasy and more Vikings 🙂
Sorry to ramble on so much – nice to meet you all, and I hope to chat with you more!
It sounds like they are either trolling for Barbara Cartland clones or Elvira Mistress of the Dark in fishnet stockings.
Either way, I have to resist the gag reflex.
BTW, when I hear feather boa I don’t think romance I think of bloody ambushes. That’s because I come from the Harry Potter fandom and one straaaange acronym created on the Harry Potter for Grown Ups list serv was
F.E.A.T.H.E.R.B.O.A.S. (Foaming Enthusiasts of Ambush, Torture, and Hostility, Embracing Really Bloodthirsty Operations And Savagery)
Think of that when you stroke the feathers on your boa. BWAHAHAHAHA.
Here’s how Cat Physics works.
The weight of a feline on a bed is directly proportional to the rotation of the Earth on its axis. The further turned away from the sun your location on the Big Blue Marble is, the greater the gravity distortion in the feline’s direct vicinity, which mimics weight gain. As the sun rises, the gravity distortion rights itself.
Those String Cat Physics people, they still think it has something to do with yarn.
WOW! So that explains it! And here I thought my cat was just eating too many treats and licking too many tuna cans. You smart people are so cool!!
So does having a cat on the bed constitute a Romantic Bedroom? After all she is a…nope, I won’t say it. *snicker*
After getting over my first reaction, I think the SB ought to send the author a link to these comments, perhaps with a little breakdown on the demographics?
I’d enjoy reading about any potential comeuppance… from my heart-shaped bed.
I think journalism is being “dumbed down†because The Powers That Be think that’s what we want. We don’t want in-depth news coverage, we want pictures of romance novelists bedrooms!
This isn’t anything new, though. Have you seen this the photo of Rosemary Rogers, from 1981?
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6527/lolcatrer2lr2tf1.jpg
There ya go Kaite, the awthur on her bed. lol
I never imagined romance authors bedrooms as being romantic..I always assumed they’d have piles of books, papers ,empty redbull cans and some poor exhausted guinea pig male in there.
Joyce Carol Oates was my college graduation speaker. I’ve never read anything by her, but your description of what her bedroom “would” be like explains why her speech perhaps wasn’t perfectly suited for a very liberal women’s college.
That letter is hi-larious, and I think my boss would have fired me if I had written anything like that ever. I have one theory to explain why the author wrote this. She’s obviously hoping that this attempt at a story is so horrible that she’ll be canned before she has to write next month’s article on “The Scents of the D.C. Metro.”
Gah! That makes me want to yark, all over place.
That request was made by a writer for the Washington Freakin’ Post? Wanting to see into the *bedrooms*—not offices or studios or writing spaces—of writers? That’s effing twisted.
More than delusional, it’s voyeuristic, invasive, and presumptive. And it speaks volumes of that writer’s respect for romance writers,… and women in general.
Yeesh.
Hey, mister, throw me something.
Hee. Now I’m wondering what my favourite authors’ bedrooms would have looked like. Vonnegut’s all full of apathetic heroes and unused semicolons. Civilised Tolkein’s bedroom a riot of mythic swords and soused dwarves. Of course, Elizabeth Peter’s bedroom must be full of mummy cases.
I love those photos – especially the writers playing dressup. It makes them seem so human.
Lorelie wrote:
Fantastic point, Lorelie! I’m more familiar with the Gannett Corp. than the Wash. Post and boy, your comment describes Gannett very well. Our local Gannet-owned newspaper is obsessed with the money game and is producing, as you said, a crappy product. I can’t even bring myself to pick up the local paper because I get so mad at the shoddy reporting and vapid article topics. My friends keep urging me to write (freelance) for them again but then I’d have to read the awful thing and I just can’t do it. Gannett is killing the dailies and it’s disgusting.
And I’m grateful to be enlightened about the SF Chronicle. I’ve been wondering what’s happened to them since I used to adore their paper and now… eh. Still a good paper but nothing like it used to be. So sad.
Laura Vivanco wrote:
(Sorry for broken link.)
That’s partially my point but I didn’t explain it very well. This whole letter stinks of being from the 80’s and I just can’t believe that people are STILL buying into such old (and flat-out wrong) stereotypes. I thought the information age was supposed to break DOWN stereotypes, not build them up again.
The person who made that request must be confusing *lifestyle* with *livelihood*.
And it speaks volumes of that writer’s respect for romance writers and readers of romance.
wv “state12”—yeah, that’s the state of journalism today, with the maturity level of a 12 year old [no offense to *real* 12 year olds]
OMG, hilarious.
This is why I keep to myself. The amount of sheer and utterly gag-inducing idiocy in the world is simply baffling. It’s as if the whole world has become Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
I wonder if they’ll do a spread for readers?
So who’s going to fight me for the right to have the little black-footed ferrets frolicking across the heart-shaped bed? Because that is so going in my picture submission. Maybe with some pink, frilly curtains to keep it classy. And a unicorn (he can wear the mandated fuzzy boa).
I am so going to win.
I already have a ferret, so there!
Let me see what else…
dirty laundry: hmmm okay not too much of that, but enough to answer yes.
cat: actually, three of those.
books: on every available surface, yup.
computer: indeed.
unmade bed: naturalement.
I’m set, then this idjit over!
ugh… that last line? should be “SEND this idjit over”
That’s what I get for trying to be witty *off to my corner to indulge in some self pity*
Call Rosemary Rogers, she still looks fabulous and has been known to pose on her satin-draped bed for past interviews.
“..Either way, I’m thinking this person is going to be sorely disappointed…”
I agree with Nora – probably not. Who are we kidding – free publicity in the Post? Someone will jump.
But what will be interesting to see is if in the crime section there is an article about about a crazed author who sticks up a local “love” motel and makes off with a heartshape waterbed and lava lamp.
Now that would be a story.
PS – thanks for the debrief in cat physics – suddenly it all makes sense.
As an editor I have MY romantic retreat decorated with the bodies of writers who have missed their deadlines.
They’re hung on the walls in tasteful heart-shapped motifs.
That’ll teach ‘em.
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He must have given the unused ones to Diana Gabaldon. God knows I love her stuff and am beyond obsessed with the Outlander series, but the woman uses semicolons the way LKH uses commas: often incorrectly and with total abandon.
I sleep on an Aerobed since I traveled and moved so much the past few years (and plan to keep doing more of the same).
Think they’d want a picture of that? After all, nothing says HOT like a blow-up mattress! 😀
I swear…people really are idiots sometimes….
Snort, barf. I think my bedroom would qualify, let’s see clothes on the extra bed, floor, books everywhere, things I haven’t bothered to put away on the floor. Yup real sexy.
Where’s my pink hat with its flouncy feather…oh wait, I don’t OWN one.
Let alone a heart-shaped bed.
What this reporter should visit are a few home offices belonging to romance writers, to see how dedicated, sincere, and, erhh, NORMAL romance writers are.
Cuz we are, after all, writers.
Just like REPORTERS.
>>sheesh<<
If I were a betting type, I would bet some writer will do this, on the theory that any publicity is better than none. It won’t matter what their writing is like. No one will care. They’ll probably get on “Good Morning America” afterwards.
(I cannot believe how unprofessionally that pitch letter read! Perhaps it was assigned to an intern?)