Paparazzi, Fame and Me

Another week, another blog. LOL!

Bet you’re wondering what I mean about the title…huh?

Well, while I know that I will never achieve the fame of Nora Roberts, I still harbor some insecurity about being in the limelight sometimes. And it doesn’t help that the media always gets something negative and shakes it till it cracks open, just like a dog with a bone. It doesn’t matter if what they say is true, it doesn’t matter if you want a break, when you least expect it they are in your face.

After this week’s onslaught of tabloid propaganda, which included Jon & Kate + 8, Miss California in a new scandal, Jessica Simpson poses for yet another magazine and Paula Abdul talking yet again about rehab and Idol, it makes me wonder if any of these media or entertainment people have a life. And here’s my take on it all: leave them alone, don’t care about the blonde bimbo, really don’t care about the blonde bimbo and Paula for goodness sake, please grow up. And you know it's really bad when I start calling blondes bimbos because I am a blonde. Sigh. Still, I know that if the public didn’t want it, the media wouldn’t be in everyone’s face.

Do any of you ever get tired of the crap that comes out of the media, particularly the entertainment field where authors are firmly entrenched? I sure do and it makes me wonder about what I really feel about my chosen profession. A lot. Sigh.

And don’t get me wrong. I do like attention at writer meetings, conferences and book signing. But most of the time, I can shrug it off and know it’s not my life. Not really. Sure, it’s a part of my life and writing is a lot of who I am BUT it isn’t everything. I don’t know about you, but I do other things besides writing and all it encompasses.

I’ve already had one fan creep me out years ago. This woman came up to me at a convention all gushy and told me she was my biggest fan. I’m thinking, honey, you’re my only fan as this was five years ago and I only had one book out. She oohed and ahed over everything I had on the table which I took in stride. I signed everything for her, gave her my business card and smiled a lot. When she walked away, I figured it was all good and went on my merry way.

Later in that same conference, she’d come up and start talking as if she knew me. Occasionally, she’d follow me into the bathroom and other places. After a while, it genuinely made me feel all weird as all I wanted to do was get away from this person who thought they knew me intimately. I had never had that type of attention…not even when I was an editor…and I’m not kidding there.

Between the weird fans and the in-your-face photographers and reporters, it makes me wonder sometimes what I was ever thinking. I feel like starting a petition asking for support in making a law against the ones who get right in your face forcing them to back off.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my fans for a variety of reasons. One being 99% of them realize that I’m a normal person with a normal life even though I do live in a strange little town in the southwest. Matter of fact, I would say I am downright lucky as my only negative fan experience has been the one I’ve described. I would say that one in 5 years is fantastic as I know a lot of my friends who have at least one a year. I have a fair share of exposure and have had genuinely good experiences.

This week, I just went on media overload and it makes me look at the big picture. It doesn’t matter if I’m a little fish in a big sea, when you see others getting bombarded day after day, there’s something that makes you want to shrink back into yourself.

Now, I know you’re wondering what brought this up really. Since I wrote last week’s blog, I’ve had a few things happen. Some good, some not so good. I’m definitely getting back on the promotion trail which is good. Things are finally falling into place with my writing and with deadlines in place, I am finally getting into my stride. The not so good thing was that a reporter friend, at least I thought he was until this week, finally got around to reading some of my stuff. Big mistake as he decided to get into my face to tell me why I was writing pornography and how wrong it was. I keep my cool and said that everyone was entitled to his opinion and that I respected his. But when he told me it was his right to get into my face to let me know he didn’t approve, I almost lost it. Bad.

His right? His right to get into my personal space and tell me I was a bad person? To try and force me to do things his way? I wanted to beat the man about his head and shoulders repeatedly with a bat. It didn’t matter what my rights were at all, all that counted were his. It really didn’t matter that the book in question came out last year. It didn’t matter if I wrote erotic romance because if I wrote about sex, it had to be bad.

I let him have his tirade as this happened in a semi-public place and watched him leave with an evil glare. The moment he was out of my sight, I called his boss whom I went to school with and asked him what was going on. He was as shocked as I was and vowed to keep this reporter away from me forever. I will never send a press release to this small Nevada paper again. Matter of fact, I’m not sure I will ever pick up a copy again.

What are your experiences regarding fans? Do you feel that the paparazzi sand reporters should be reigned in? Let me know as I would be interested if any of you have had similar experiences and feel the same. Thanks!

Till next time…

Lynn

Adding Steam to Your Love Scenes – Lesson #2

We’re in week #2 of our free workshop. In this one, we’ll be exploring just how you can use your own experiences to enhance any love scene. And since I told you last week to use visual stimulation, I thought I would add a little with some pictures I downloaded from istockphoto or canstockphoto.

Use your own experiences

I’m sure at this moment, you are wondering just what am I talking about. Your own personal experiences can’t be what people want to really see. Well, I’m here to tell you that they do. People must relate to your characters; they must find some common ground or your characters will be meaningless to them.

Have you ever caught yourself while reading a book saying some thing to the effect of, ‘I can see myself doing that’ and know you mean it?

And I don’t mean using the experiences literally…you all remember that blush first being in love…use it, use it to your best advantage because people like to read about other people. How many of you are sick of the heroine or hero always being perfect? I know that I am. Why? Because people are flawed, even the really great people have flaws. They put their pants on the same way we do. They wear underwear, they shower, they go to the bathroom and for heaven sakes’ most of them fart too.

But the point is that you know and can relate to all those things. Use what you know. There is an old saying ‘Write what you know’ and the reason is that if you write about what you are good at, it comes more naturally.

If you are writing romance, there are some things that only women know. Most women remember their ‘first time,’ so use it. You can remember what it was like seeing your spouse for the first time. I do. I thought he was crazy because it was freezing and he was wearing shorts. I also remembering me thinking he wasn’t bad looking and maybe I should get to know him. I’ve used different version of this again and again.

Another one, most women remember the first ‘real’ date they were on, so use it. My husband and I didn’t date at first, we gang dated meaning we went out with a group of people. And we always seemed to pair up differently. Sometimes I look at my husband and don’t know how I ended up married to him. But I do know I worked my butt off to get him. This is something I can use.

The same can be said for men. When I decided to write from a man’s point of view, I realized I was out of my depth. I don’t know what a man feels during sex. But I do know my husband and trust his judgment. When I’m writing from the male point of view, he reads everything. He tells me things like ‘a guy wouldn’t think that emotionally about this’ or ‘no way would a guy do that.’ To be accurate, you have to have resources you can fall back on.

You can use anything you have experienced to make your writing richer and fuller. Everything you do in this mode just makes it so a reader can more readily identify with your characters. If the reader can’t identify with your characters, they won’t finish the book or maybe they won’t even pick it up.

Exercise

1. List ten experiences that you can use in a novel, be it romance, erotic romance, sensual romance or just a regular book.
2. Take one of those experiences and write me a whole paragraph about one of your characters doing the same thing.
3. What did you get out of the experience? Can you apply this to your writing.
4. List one outside resource you can use when you need it. It can be a person, a book, a library or even a place on the internet. The point here is to get you thinking about how you can find out the information you really need.

You can post it here for everyone to see, or you can send it to me privately at lynncrain@cox.net. Please leave me a comment so I know you’ve been to visit. And have fun!

Until next week…

Lynn