It’s that time of year when I can feel the pressure mounting because neighbours are already flashing their festive lights, supermarkets are displaying hulking great hams and pyramids of chocolates, and my much more organised friends have that slightly pitying look on their faces when they tell me they’ve already done their Christmas shopping, and I admit I have done NOTHING, nothing whatsoever towards getting our Christmas showboat on the road…
This is that joyful time of year when I’m supposed to be full of cheer — Hark! Hark! — and I swan into school (yes, frantic paddling beneath the surface) pantomiming to all and sundry that my horde of new students (thanks Jumpstart and the Australian educational system) whose names I have yet to master (just topping up the challenge of keeping teenagers from unravelling and my frayed nerves from frazzling) are in safe hands, when in reality, my knees are buckling, my eyelids twitching and I probably more closely resemble a plucked turkey than a properly functioning adult. Ho! Ho! Ho!
So dear readers, how are you travelling at this moment in time…? Would you care to join me on my Titanic cruise???
But seriously…
November has been busy BUSY. It has been and gone in a blink. And despite feeling the odds are stacked against me, I have not only got some writing done, I’ve also met up with lots of writing friends (see some photos from the Romance Writers of Victoria, Australia above and local Writers’ Clink Kris Kringle below) and planted the seeds for an incredibly exciting new project collaborating with a dozen other awesome romcom authors and the worst thing is…I can tell you nothing about it. Not yet, anyhow. It’s not happening until next year. But be patient.
It will be AWE. SOME. AND. THEN. SOME with mistletoe on top!
I hope you’re feeling more sane and organised than me right now, but if you’ve done your Christmas shopping and put up your tree and baked your cake - I obviously do NOT want to hear from you. If you are as hopeless as me, please get in touch so I don’t feel quite so abnormal.
In the meantime, there are some great bookish ideas and offers at the end of this newsletter to make your life a little easier, and in an effort to keep things on a even keel, and before I sink the ship with too many dreadnought malapropped metaphors, let me introduced this month’s super talented, super friendly and super duper smart author: Dr Jodi McfabulousAlister!
Author in the Spotlight
What is it about love that fascinated you enough to make it the focus of your study while at university?
It wasn’t love that grabbed my attention so much at first – it was romance fiction! I became fascinated with it: in particular, with its representations of women, their approaches to desire, and the way that played into the happy ending.
From there, though, my fascination with romantic love blossomed. It became obvious to me just how pervasive love is in all forms of popular media, how often we tend to think of it as universal and timeless when ways of doing love are profoundly historically and culturally contingent, and how often we tend to read our own (love) lives against the milestones of romance narratives.
If it’s not too simplistic a question, could you summarise in a few sentences how female virginity loss is most commonly represented in popular romance fiction this century?
My monograph, The Consummate Virgin, answers this in 100,000 words, but if I’m going really try and summarise: discourses of romantic love and discourses of female virginity are entangled in all sorts of popular media (including romance fiction). At some point in the mid- to late-twentieth century, as we moved away from marriage as the culturally approved “right” time for women to lose their virginity, “love” took its place, and the idea that a “good” virginity loss experience for women is one where they are in love with their partner crystallised.
Why do you think the romance genre gets such bad press?
Sexism.
Like, that’s it, that’s the answer.
I do think, however, that the intensity of the bad press is letting up a bit, and that reading romance is no longer as pathologised in media as once it was.
What do you think makes writing romance a worthwhile pursuit? What do you love most about being a romance author?
I am fascinated – fascinated – by the way romantic love is at once so widespread and mainstream and yet so intimate and individual and personal. Most people would probably say they want to be in love, most of our media involves romantic love, and yet love, at its core, takes place between two (mostly, anyway!) people.
The phrase “I love you” is an excellent example of this tension between the pervasive and the intimate. This phrase is citational. Whenever you say it, it’s always a quotation. But when the right person says it to the other right person, it feels like the first time it’s been said.
That’s my favourite thing about romance writing. You’re always writing love stories, but your characters are not interchangeable. Making sure the right people find each other, and that “I love you” always feels like it’s being said for the first time… there’s some magic in that.
What is it about reality game shows that makes them such a popular and effective framework on which to build a romance story?
Reality dating shows are intriguing to me for a number of reasons, but one of the big ones is because they explore a tension between story and time. Something like The Bachelor – which I mimicked in the show Marry Me, Juliet in my books – will run through as many romantic milestones as possible (meeting, liking, dating, kissing, declaring love, meeting families, etc) but in a very short period of time. It’s essentially an experiment in whether you can speed up the process of falling in love!
(The real life success rates are not high… although they’re not zero.)
That said, for the purposes of my books, the first thing I knew was that a romance between the Bachelor and a contestant he picked would be the least interesting kind of story for the purposes of a book – where’s the conflict? Therefore, I dreamed up the three juiciest, conflict-filled romantic dyads I could think of: Bachelor + first night eliminee (Dylan JM and Cece of Here For The Right Reasons), frontrunner contestant + frontrunner contestant (Amanda and Dylan G of Can I Steal You For A Second?), and villain + producer (Lily Fireball and Murray of Not Here To Make Friends).
What do you think about the BookTok phenomenon? What is your favorite BookTok trend?
I don’t know if I have a favourite BookTok trend per se, but the thing I find most interesting about BookTok is the very real way in which it’s shifted reading practices, and – perhaps even moreso – bookselling practices. Bookshops which once might never have dreamt of having a romance section will now have one, and that has been almost entirely driven by BookTok.
This is a hunch rather than a claim I’ve thoroughly tested, but my feeling is now that many more non-romance readers could now name a romance novel, if pushed – and this is due to the changes wrought by BookTok.
Why do you think reality TV shows make such compelling viewing?
If we limit this to reality dating shows (the appeal of, for example, social strategy shows like Survivor is different), I don’t think it’s terribly complicated – we’re fascinated by the idea that we could really, truly watch two people fall in love!
This is not to say that this is the priority of many reality dating shows, which prioritise “drama” (ie. conflict and scandal) above all else. However, that initial spark of interest is quite simple, I think, even though many of us are media literate enough to understand how constructed the shows are. What if, this time, it’s real?
If you were to be on a reality TV show such as Marry Me, Juliet which of the leading men would you find most appealing and which woman would you hate to share a room with?
If I were going to be on a show like Marry Me, Juliet, it would almost certainly be as a consultant rather than a contestant. (Indeed, I would love to consult on a reality dating show!)
Because of that, of the heroes I’ve written, I think Murray of Not Here To Make Friends would be my favourite, purely so I could ask him a bunch of questions about how he, as a producer, thinks about constructing love stories and what kind of things trigger his various decisions (we could have some fascinating conversations!).
I think I’d least like to share a room with Amanda of Can I Steal You For A Second?. She’s lovely – a perfect angel, in fact – but she does cry the most frequently of the women I’ve written, and I’d imagine that would keep me awake!
What are you currently working on?
I can’t say too much about it yet, but I’m just about to turn in the manuscript for my next book. It’s another rom-com, but we’re moving away from the world of reality TV… into another world I know extremely well, wink wink.
What book is top of your Christmas shopping list?
The books I’ll be giving other people are the gorgeous Simon & Schuster reissues of some of Anita Heiss’s books – Not Meeting Mr Right, Avoiding Mr Right, Manhattan Dreaming and Paris Dreaming.
The book I’ll be buying myself (well, preordering, as it’s a January release) is Love, Just In by Natalie Murray (Allen & Unwin), which I can’t wait to read. I’ve been delighted by the new investment from traditional publishers into Australian rom-com, and I’ll be supporting it all the way!
Reading freebies and deals!
Check them out here or by click on the image!
https://books.bookfunnel.com/illustrated-cover-romance/pxb4sos1pu
Grab some KU books for your Kindle here! Or by clicking on the image above.
More reading and shopping ideas…
I’m thinking these two little books look like perfect gifts for the readers and writers in your life!
The Reality of Us: A spicy small town, opposites attract romance (The Wattle Junction Series Book 1)
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
That’s a life lesson Alice Aspinall, a reality TV starlet trapped in a fake marriage, has learnt the hard way. When her carefully curated life explodes, she flees to the small town of Wattle Junction. Trying to reinvent herself—again—while learning to stand on her own two feet is complicated and so are her feelings for her hot, new lawyer.
Owen James is a helper, despite what people say about his serious personality. He’s recently moved home to set up his law firm with a focus on making sure everyone who needs legal advice gets it. Think of him as Legal Aid … but with better biceps, two mortgages and a conscience that keeps him up at night. Another thing stealing his sleep? The sparkly, pretty newcomer who drives him up the wall while constantly surprising him.
As Alice and Owen’s attraction heats up and they get to know each other—and themselves—will they be able to see the reality right in front of them? Or will they remain blind to the truth?
Write Around the Year: 365 Writing Prompts to Inspire and Ignite Creativity
Written by multi-award winning author, Rebecca Fraser, the prompts are designed to help generate new story ideas, unleash imagination, and ignite inspiration for new characters and stories.
Write Around the Year is a practical creative resource for writers of every age and ability. Whether you’re a complete beginner, an emerging writer, or an established author, you’ll find inspiration on every page as you discover new plot ideas, create fresh characters, explore new literary devices, or throw off a case of writer’s block.
That’s it for this month troopers. I’m right royally plucked and not doing a whole lot of kicking, but this madhouse to yours, happy frolicking festive madness! Mwah!
Anna
xx