Ottawa Romance Writers Association...

[fajrdrako]

I went to a meeting of the Ottawa Romance Writers Association today, because a friend of mine was speaking. We met first for lunch at Milestones on Baxter Road, and had a good time talking about Buffy and Torchwood and other important matters. I was in ORWA for years and was on their executive, but it was long enough ago that they've mostly forgotten me, or remember me as the friend of Jo Beverley's who was into Lord of the Rings. Which is cool, actually.

The talk was about conveying emotion in writing - how less is more, how metaphor and viewpoint can be used to create greater emotional impact on the reader than any kind of overemphasis will do. I was amused (but not surprised) that my friend's chosen selections for her print-outs involved three of my four favourite authors or sources: Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate, a Susan Elizabeth Phillips novel, and Casablanca. The other citation was from a Laura Kinsale novel I haven't read. And the poetry chosen? Two other favourites: "Ars Poetica" by Archibald McLeish and "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden.

When I think about it, this is not surprising. A friend is a friend because of shared taste, among other things.

As with all such meetings, it got me thinking about my own writing, and reflecting that I'd like to rejoin the group even if just for the psychological boost. They're holding a conference later on in September. I'd like to go; can't afford it. Next time.

Comments

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Re your friend's citations: I think they're good choices, too. I agree that shared tastes are certainly an important addition to friendship.

Go join the group! You'd enjoy it.

The conference looks cool, but too expensive for me, too. But Jo will be in town!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to seeing Jo.

Really, I need to spend time writing, rather than spending time at conferences.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Like minds, like energy. And your energy feels good when you are enjoying this sort of sympatico. Glad I called just as you got home! It was nice.

Sorry you cannot manage the September conference... there will be other conferences!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, your timing was good. I went up to maaseru's place shortly after we talked. Corn for supper. Nice corn, too. We've been having a difficult time finding corn that isn't "peaches'n'cream", which we tend to find inferior.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

I had corn on the cob for lunch at work today. Delicious. "Peaches and cream" -- a bicolor, huh? Around here, the best is butter-and-sugar. But for some weird reason (probably strongly grounded in that deviant neurotypical cognition!), almost overnight everyone started referring to it as "bread and butter" instead. Ee-ewww. Not an appetizing image for sweet corn.

I have not been able to find Cameo apples this summer. Maybe this fall they'll come out again?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The problem is that I find most corn on the cob too sweet. I want corn that isn't sweet. Bread and butter would appeal to me much more than butter and sugar. It's a vegetable, not a candy.

I will check out what apples we're getting next time I'm in a store.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

You should look for Bantam (a yellow variety) or Silver Queen (a white) at farmers' markets, then. These are the older varieties -- the newer ones seem to be bred to be very sweet. You can still buy Bantam seeds and grow your own (I have done this). So, how big is the flower bed outside your window?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I keep wanting to check out the Farmer's Markets (which have been more accessible and popular than ever this year), except I don't get to them, for obvious reasons.

The flower bed outside my window has flowers in it. No chance for corn.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

No chance for corn? Be a rebel! hee

Sorry you are unable to get to Farmers' Markets. I've found the one that's here in my town on Wednesdays and Saturdays (hm... song lyric... right: "Bookends" by Simon and Garfunkel) and love it. Finally found some round summer-squash.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I almost went to the Farmer's Market on Sunday, before I got working cleaning out closets. I think there are still a few weeks of it, so maybe I'll be able to go next weekend.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

It's always fun to bounce ideas around other writers!
Mind, I'm still kind of perplexed by your fondness for the genre romance world: for me, it seems so much bound up with perpetuating the myth of heterosexual monogamy as the source of all happiness/only way to be.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well... it's more that I love romance in all its patterns, and this is the only group of writers I know of who are into it. One doesn't have to write traditional romance to go to meetings or even (I believe) to their critiquing groups.

You know I don't like the stereotypes of heterosexual monogamy, but that isn't what these groups are about, either. (My friend, for example, cited a few gay examples of love to make psychological points yesterday.)

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

You know I don't like the stereotypes of heterosexual monogamy, but that isn't what these groups are about, either. (My friend, for example, cited a few gay examples of love to make psychological points yesterday.)

Sure! And I'm glad to hear that individual authors are more open. But I think it is the massive problem with the genre, in terms of its content/dominant ideology.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I used to have a bisexual friend who ranted against Walt Disney for perpetuating the same monosexual/monogamistic hype as 'happily ever after' and presenting to kids a warped view of life.

True, but I find it hard to object: I think romance has to get a broader basis, and I think it will, as people become more casual about alternate lifetyles. Which will cease to be alternate as attitudes change.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

I think it's more understandable (though I don't like it) in material aimed at children, who are generally not presented with a complicated world. But in material produced by and for adults, it's suggestive of a narrow world-view. Also – without the peculiar obsession with monogamy for straights as "the ultimate ideal", isn't it just fiction? Genres are limiting constructs.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Genres are limiting constructs.

I couldn't agree more! Limiting, arbitrary, and restrictive.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Yup. So, if one doesn't buy into the genre-defining obsession with monogamous straights… 'romance' is a redundant genre.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I suspect the marketers like the term. Which is why we have a lot of pink books.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

Indeed – because it's clearly not a redundant genre for the sad saps who see human relationships only through a prism of heterosexual monogamy. They can stay within their genre-rules, and their sexist stereotypes, and their improbable pairings. (I was amused once to read a Mills & Boon author saying off the record that in reality, she'd give none of the relationships in her books more than a few weeks, because there's nothing the characters have in common but lust!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I approve of the 'love story', it's only when you start applying stereotypes of monogamy/heterosexuality to the genre that I have a problem. And the genre, as with everything else in the book-publishing business, is driven by the marketplace. And don't let me start ranting what that does for artistic expression!