The Daily Breeze from Torrance, California • 40

The Daily Breeze Sunday November 8 1992 I Authors FROM PAGE D1 I 'SiV' -v Ife V-'- 4 jr what the characters are feeling wear- ing seeing and smelling You want to make sure the reader sees the world youre trying to create Story ideas on the other hand are no problem I get ideas from everyone I meet or see she says I literally have a couple years worth- of ideas waiting to be developed Seaman agrees The Torrance author who took up romance writing to escape an all-male work-day existence she was the only woman to serve as a ground crewman for the Goodyear blimp says she trips over ideas everywhere she goes They come up and bite me I open a book and they flutter out like moths I look at something or someone and think What if I have boxes and boxes and files and files of ideas The fact that their efforts are ignored by critics and regarded so poorly by readers in general is a constant source of frustration for most writers of the genre It saddens me that romance writers are so put down Czuleger says I read a lot of mainstream novels that arent as well-written grammatically correct or inventive as many romance novels I dont know why people wont look at romances for what they are theyre good solid love stories I dont see a lot of people reading literary works and I dont think' I could ever be a literary writer Im a commercial writer and I like writing fast-paced good stories that make people feel something I want to tell stories period Verna Palmer Linda Prine co-president of the Romance Writers of Americas Orange County Chapter whose membership stretches from Las Vegas to Bakersfield including most of the South Bay and Westside Harlequin pays some first-time authors as little as $2500 she says with the average running between $4000 and $6000 plus royalties Even worse as far as most writers are concerned is the publishing giants policy of requiring its authors to write under a pseudonym If the writer moves to another publishing house shes forced to leave her pseudonym and her following behind Its not fair Prine says but with a virtual monopoly Harlequin has almost 80 percent of the market its hard to fight Lucy Seaman of Torrance whose contemporary romance Walking on Air was published last year by Dell agrees Were artists trying to sell in a highly competitive cutthroat business Publishing companies arent out there to be nice to authors theyre out there to make money to buy low and sell high Lobb who spent 4'2 years writing and rewriting and who got 22 rejection notices before she hit pay dirt with The Villains Lady can attest to just how competitive it is Theres a saying out there that you have to write a million words of apprenticeship before you sell a single word and I wrote every one of them she says Still once she hit she hit big Lady will be released in January followed in quick succession by A Ghostly Affair in May That Haggerty Girl in September and an untitled Indiana Jones-type romance soon thereafter Not all writers agonize their way into print however Rebecca Czuleger a former advertising account supervisor with an MBA degree from Loyola Marymount University wrote her first romance after being dared to by a romance-loving colleague The 40-year-old West Los Angeles resident dashed off the maiden effort in just over a month writing nights after work and weekends I was floored when I got a letter back from Harlequin saying theyd love to publish it she says You have no idea the rush I got from that The rest is history I was bitten by the bug Czuleger who writes under the pen name Rebecca Forster since has published seven contemporary romances and has a contract for four more over the next 20 months Shes also written three mainstream glitz novels and has a fourth due out in July It surprised me how many people read these things she says My first book (a story about an assistant US attorney who prosecutes child pornography cases) sold 150000 copies and went to Japan Australia Italy Spain Norway France and Mexico In Italy they changed the title from Bed and Board to Please Come to My Hotel because they said the title was too suggestive Despite the flukey nature of her plunge into romance writing the mother of two whos married to LA Superior Court Judge Stephen Czule- BILL CAMIRONSTAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Author Charlotte Lobb received 22 rejection notices before hitting pay dirt have her heroines a fact that suits her publishers just fine Theyre looking for heroines that are in their late 20s to late 30s now she says When youre at that point in your life you have a whole different attitude because youve been through a number of different relationships and arent going to accept that life is simple and sweet and all that men have to do is look at you and you faint" The hardest thing about writing romances she says is resisting the impulse to just tell the story and not go back and fill in all the details In this genre you have to talk about ger says shes found her niche The dare got me into something I had never even considered doing but I love it more than anything I have ever done in my entire life She gets so caught up in her stories she says she once called her husband Scott the name of her hero in Open Channels the book she was working on at the time You step into this world youve created and its a very odd and wonderful feeling she says It doesnt happen all the time but when it does its very magical The identification is so strong Czuleger says that as she grows older so ill! CSTLVEEH iTI IX COVCH3 0 i LJ FROM PAGE D1 Romance uluLll i 1 Whats in a name? A whole lot if you know the code When it comes to series romances the title tells all from the number of pages and what the cover will look like to when the book will hit the shelves and how much sizzle there is between the sheets Heres a category-by-category guide from the genres biggest publisher: Harlequin Romances the genres original and longest-running series: young heroines and traditional stories that focus on sighs not sizzle Harlequin Presents the current top seller: strong passionate men and women dramatic stories exotic locales but no sex before marriage Harlequin Regency Romances: shy blushing tales from 1811-1820 England long on details dress custom and speech and short on sex Harlequin Temptation: sensuous bold and sometimes controversial fast-paced books that can be humorous topical adventurous or glitzy Harlequin Intrigue: a blend of contemporary romance and mystery suspense or adventure the romance can sizzle but always has to be subjugated to the plot Harlequin Historical Romances: set in North America England or France between 1700 and 1900 can be sweet or sensual Harlequin Superromance: longer contemporary stones dealing with controversial issues well-developed subplots and sensual love stories Harlequin American Romances: sensual sexy stories rich in details of North American lifestyles and mores Hot sellers in the fast growing Eastern European market 37-year-old law student says Here I am this supposedly educated person supposedly well-grounded in reality and I read these ridiculous books But its an escape from all the pressures of daily life from working going to school being a single parent its something I dont have to think or feel too deeply about Why then when other forms of popular fiction have earned a modicum of literary respect mysteries have Raymond Chandler westerns have Louis LAmour and science fiction has Ray Bradbury do romances still invite snickers? Easy says Smith: Theyre read by women written by women edited by women and suffering from the same contempt that our society has for anything thats an exclusive pursuit of the female gender Seaman has a different name for it: genre snobbery A lot of people will curl their lip at romances and turn around and buy a bunch of westerns mysteries science fiction or worse yet mens fiction The Executioner and that kind of stuff and think nothing of it she says Its all genre Theres good and bad in all genres But she believes romances will have their day Romances are the essence of life Theyre gallant heroes beautiful heroines exciting settings and the eternal possibility of something good happening between two people broadened the genres appeal with publication of The Flame and the Flower says Mary Ellen ONeill associate editor of Harlequin American books But it wasnt until the late 80s that they really took off When times are terribly bad like they are now people turn to escapist literature for hope and happy endings ONeill says During the Depression it was Horatio Algers up-by-the-bootstraps books that were all the rage today its romances New York literary agent Alice Orr puts it more simply: Romances are feel good books for feel-bad times she says But others dont see the genres appeal as quite so simple Classic romances are at their core stories that celebrate the renewal of life says Patricia Smith acquisitions editor for the University of Pennsylvania Press which published the scholarly Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance Romance novels celebrate female power intuition and the female world view that affirms life and expresses hope for the future Smith says Were all surrounded by death Every night on the news we hear about people being shot just six blocks away we see clips of people starving in Somalia and bodies lying in the streets of Bosnia Some of us have fathers who are dying sick husbands or children No one needs to have their capacity for despair enhanced but we all need our capacity for joy enhanced and romances do that Its also undeniable that romances are as addictive as potato chips They grab readers and keep them enthralled until the last page is turned as witness these opening lines from Catherine Coulters Secret Song: "Daria wished the heavy clouds overhead would freeze the snow She wanted the misery of freezing snow blowing into her face stinging her eyes mixing with the burning tears" Its that sense of immediate involvement that gets people hooked and keeps them hooked says author Louise OFlaherty a 72-year-old Rolling Hills resident with three gothic and five historical novels to her credit You can sit down and get engrossed in a romance in five minutes and not be able to put it down she says Thats what makes them so wonderful Whatever the reason there are no readers like romance readers Our average customer reads seven to 10 books a week says Lois Zweben whose Paperback Trader shop in Santa Monica carries between 7000 and 10000 romance titles Many of those readers spend hours sifting through the stores new and recycled love stories We have 25 or 30 people who buy 70 or 80 books a month Zweben says Its nothing for them to blow $100 a clip Some come from New York or up from Mexico and buy hundreds at a time people stationed outside the country like stewardesses and State Department employees Zwebens generally upscale clientele mirrors the genres average reader profile I have attorneys who come in and buy romances a couple of policewomen heads of marketing and PR people a national talk show host a couple of judges a scriptwriter for a major movie studio actresses a couple of models and the head of research for the Simon Wei-senthal Center Not that many housewives though she says Much of the genres broadened appeal is directly attributable to the emancipation of the long-suffering damsel in distress Back in the 70s and early 80s women (characters) were wimpy but you dont see that now says Linda Prine copresident of the 377-member Orange County Chapter of the Romance Writers of America Even in historicals the women are more feisty Theyre out there doing something not ashamed to be seen reading romances she says I would always hide the cover with my hand or lean it against my purse when I went into a restaurant for lunch It took me about two years to get over that Much of the stigma attached to romances is as much due to the genres lurid covers referred to as bodice rippers in the trade as to the purple prose that flows within Typical is the following passage from Sandra Browns Mirror Image: The kiss was carnal It had a dark soul It touched off elemental sparks that were as exciting to Avery as the first tongues of flame were to primal man It conveyed that much heat that much promise" That combination has created a vast underground reader-ship according to the Universi ty of Pennsylvanias Smith Millie Russell of Torrance is among them The 78-year-old Sunday School teacher who reads 10 mail-order romances a month says the whole thing reminds her of her childhood when her sister read True Romance magazines and hid them under the bed I dont do that with my romances but I dont broadcast it around that I read them either she admits I dont want people to think Im a frivolous person and I dont want them to think I read that steamy stuff A pat on the fanny is more than enough for me Eileen McGruder of Venice who has been reading Regency romances since she was a girl and by now has 400 to 500 of them stored away in boxes still hasnt come to terms with her favorite pastime I just think its stupid the waiting for a man to come along and fix everything Lucy Seaman of Torrance a 44-year-old author and artist agrees People who think that the old nurse romances of the 50s are all thats on the stands now the ancient Harlequins and the Barbara Cartland-style novels havent looked recently she says Its not the conventional ni-cey-nice goody-two-shoes genre that people think it is The new novels are funny risque intelligent and witty and that goes for the historicals as well as contemporaries The transformation was news to Diane Pershing who now writes romances as well as reads them An avowed feminist she had to be dragged kicking and screaming to her first love story and then agreed only because she had a friend who wrote them I really didnt want to read romances because I thought all the women in them were wus-sies she says They were constantly being taken against their will and loving it but my god how theyve changed! Most of them have their own businesses they have their own opinions their own independence I like that Still she didnt spread her new-found predilection around In the beginning I was In Vitro Fertilization Do you have an infertility problem and need In vitro fertilization? 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