Happy V Day!

Happy Read-a-Romance Day!

Crossposted from Silk & Shadows

Currently working on: The final push
Mood: Uphill

I don’t get very excited about Valentine’s Day.

I hope I don’t get my romance writing card revoked for saying that, but it’s true. For me, it’s hard to get excited about Valentine’s Day because:

1. Only the cheap chocolate is on sale.

2. The roses never have any scent.

3. Only the cheap chocolate is on sale.

I think I’m spoiled. Being a reader and writer of romance novels has ruined me for cheap sentiment, not to mention cheap chocolate. Those chalky candy hearts with half of a misspelled romantic saying stamped crookedly in pink just don’t rouse me.

I want impassioned shouts flung across a stormy sky in heart’s-blood crimson. Maybe with a lightning bolt. Out-of-breath whispers of longing are good too. But no halfway measures soaked in high fructose corn syrup.

Oh, I realize “real life” probably can’t sustain 24/7/365 of raging romance. Day jobs, laundry, and blog posts would no doubt suffer as we swooned and seduced our beloveds. But if we’re going to dedicate one day to love and romance and name it after various martyred Christian saints (even though the whole connection between the word “Valentine” and romantic love was apparently invented out of thin air and a goose quill by some hack author named Chaucer in the 14th century) seems to me that day should have MEANING.

Which is why I think, instead of trading those thin, little Valentine’s card like we did in grade school, we should swap our favorite romance novels. Way more pages in them, and way bigger love.

I already traded my Valentines love stories with a writer friend. I swapped her a Nalini Singh in exchange for a Kresley Cole. (We were both aghast that the other hadn’t read our respective favorites.) So, if you were going to share your love of romance with your Valentine, which story would it be?

Romance writers do it for love

Crossposted from Silk And Shadows

Currently working on: The big bad
Mood: Teeth gritting

 

Happy almost Valentine’s Day!

What better time of the year to talk about writing sex scenes than Valentine’s Day? Er, not that Valentine’s Day is all about sex, but it does tend to go there, doesn’t it? If it’s done right, of course

I’ll be honest here (and honesty is a useful tool for Valentine’s Day AND writing sex scenes); I often skim sex scenes when I’m reading. Not because I’m a vaguely repressed romance writer working out her problems in cheap self-therapy on the page, but because – like a long-term comfortable relationship where maybe the fires have dimmed a little – sex scenes can sometimes feel rote and perfunctory. We’ve all heard the tease about romance novels where you crack the spine at the halfway point and, whoopsie, fell into bed and had sex.

Even with whips and whipping cream – even with prehensile tentacles if you read the farther-out-there stuff – the sex has to MEAN something. I want my sex scenes to work harder, to get down and dirty, and go deeper…

Read the rest and post a comment at Silk And Shadows for your chance to win a copy of SJ Day’s EVE OF DARKNESS, the first in her new Marked series.