Ginger Voight's Blog, page 3
August 18, 2019
Let’s Talk About… Michael Hutchence, INXS and Giovanni Carnevale
This post is part of an ongoing Blog Series on my Patreon page about all my crushes, celebrity and personal, that have contributed to all the Book Boyfriends you know and love. The celebrity crushes are free to read, but only patrons get to read the private tales (confessions.) Check it out! And if you want to read new, unpublished content weekly, think about subscribing to my patron page! Find out about book promotions, see all my new book covers, read about my upcoming projects... be a part of the process!
After 31 books and a score of romantic heroes, I think it’s safe to say that Giovanni Carnevale is my most popular and beloved Book Boyfriend. He is, after all, the guy who launched my career in 2012, after I published Rock Star, the second book in my Groupie Series.
Without him, there’d be no me. He is a very sexy cornerstone to the mansion of sex and inclusive romance I have painstakingly built one book at a time. And for many of my readers, it all circles back to Vanni. We all get excited whenever he pops up. He is, quite simply, larger than life.
I figure the reason for this is that he was brewing for a long, long time before he hit the page.
You could say that even though fictional Vanni was born December 21, 1978, the concept of Vanni was born around 1987, because that was where Ginger, The Groupie, was just hitting her stride.
Honestly, Vanni was an amalgamation of several crushes, and we’ll get to all of them eventually, but Michael Hutchence was definitely an important part of the Triad that brought this particular character to life. (Two celebrity and one personal.)
We'll start with Michael because he came first.
Technically, Vanni was first conceived when I saw Steve Perry sauntering down into the audience to sing for a swooning fan who didn’t know what to do with herself once a sexy rocker turned his attention her way. Labor and delivery, however, happened much later - during the MTV era, when I first saw the INXS video Need You Tonight,
I was older, arguably more experienced, and would have a little more idea what to do with a male admiration than I did when I was eleven, so it packed an even bigger punch. I suddenly wanted to be a part of it. When he was whispered, "Come over here," which I maintain is one of the sexiest things that can be whispered, I was a goner. And those EYES. My God. Those eyes. I was defenseless. When he sang, I *wanted* to sing back. I turned it into a call and response song all on my very own.
So slide over here
And give me a moment
Your moves are so raw
I've got to let you know
I've got to let you know KNOW WHAT?
You're one of my kind
I need you tonight WHY?
'Cause I'm not sleeping BUT WHY ME?
There's something about you girl
That makes me sweat
I was about 17 at the time, and still waiting for my MTV, watching the popular music video channel at any and every opportunity. Like any kid from my era, these came to affect how I listened to music. Gone were the days when I could interpret the song my way. Instead, I had a visual reference to enhance my listening experience.
Back in the 80s, it didn’t ALWAYS happen that way… some videos were… distracting. But for INXS and their sexy, enigmatic lead singer, Michael Hutchence, the medium was the perfect conduit to launch them into the stratosphere.
To be blunt, Michael was living, breathing, walking, talking sex. He took the smoldering intensity of Jim Morrison and turned it up to 11. He was wild. Untamable. And, like many other folks back in the day, I had a very primal reaction ride that wild stallion for all it was worth. I wanted to be the girl he sang about. He was larger than life, and all an invisible girl like me wanted was to be important enough to catch his eye.
Could I ever be that kind of girl? When you’re 17, and the whole world is in front of you, and all those questions are still unanswered… anything is possible. This fuels the Groupie dream.
And I had plenty of time to daydream about it, particularly in 1987. MTV gave me great fodder for my budding fantasies. When I found folks whose intensity seemed to match mine, I took attention... because when it comes down to it, THAT Is what attracts me, far more than any physical attribute.
I prefer someone whose soul is on fire, because THAT is the truest temptation.
Eventually that intensity took its toll on Michael, as did his wild rocker life. He exited this world amidst rumor and speculation, which only fed his larger than life persona. Once the debris settled, we know that he died a broken 37-year-old, whose excesses finally surpassed his pain.
That inspired Vanni as well.
When I set out to write Groupie, I wanted to keep it real. Real is grittier, but it's also more interesting to me. Like, way more. I get the whole fantasy part of romance, but, as a storyteller, I needed conflict to keep me going after they get together. I could write a super explicit sexcapade and that would scratch a specific itch, but it hardly motivates me to sit down at the computer and crank out 100K words. In fact, it left me wondering, where do we go from HERE? N' I'm all for scratching those itches, but stories demand buildup and payoff in equal measure.
Suddenly it occurred to me THAT is where the story really lay hidden, out of sight. Waiting.
I was raised on Moonlighting and Luke & Laura, remember. I knew that getting them together could risk the loss of dramatic tension – which is death to a storyteller. Rewriting the same sex scene over and over again would make for some kickass spank bank material, but a redundantly boring book, at least for me, Reader #1.
And I know this because I TRIED this, and the story that demanded to be told could not be denied.
Confession, and a spoiler if you haven’t yet read my Groupie trilogy, I struggled greatly over whether they should sleep together right away or not. It was something I deliberated, much like the ending to the first book.
Originally, I had planned for my heroine, Andy, to meet Vanni just as his star started to rise. They would have a crazy affair, driven from city to city, and the feelings would just organically grow and voila, end of book HEA.
My hand to God, that was my original intent.
I quickly grew bored of this concept, right around that first rendezvous in New York City. It was his birthday, she was in town, and finally they were going to act on this crazy flirtation/infatuation and do the deed. They were ready. *I* was ready. I planned for the whole night to be romantic and fulfilling.
Then, I sat down to write and... nothing. The closer they got to doing the deed, the more I wanted to delay it. I wanted to savor that moment when she was the only thing he wanted. I knew it was too good to last last. That's what makes it a fantasy. Because that’s not real. Not when you love a rock star. Especially when you’re some no-name nobody from Tennessee and he’s been thrust into a world of riches, excesses and instant fame. A booty call turning into some great love affair, especially with a noted manwhore who got to scratch his itch and satisfy his curiosity right out of the gate? Unrealistic. She had to give him something he wasn't expecting... something like kicking him out of bed.
Due to what I was going through personally at the time, I knew I couldn’t write it the way I originally wanted to, even though I really wanted to. I was in desperate need of my own fantasy fulfillment when I was writing the first book, which is how the concept ever took shape in the first place. But I knew down deep in my soul that if I had had a rendezvous with my own crush, real life would squash my gratification before I even had a chance to bask in the afterglow.
I wanted to postpone that as long as humanly possible.
It was then that the duplicity began to seep in. Loving someone you don’t know, that nobody knows, but everyone wants, is a tough gig. It’s real damned easy to fall in love with an image, like some bad boy of rock and roll.
But can you hang when the trappings of fantasy fall away and there’s nothing left but a mortal man who is flawed, selfish and imperfect, just like any other dude?
Can you withstand the rumor and speculation, the misleads required to keep his image marketable?
Can you sit on every single painful disappointment?
To me, this was where the story of Groupie was hidden. I knew what it was like to be the secret guys kept, having some experience with this as The Fat Girl, which I’ll go over in my personal Let’s Talk About.
There’s so much about loving a rocker that they don’t cover in a traditionally HEA. I set out to tell the truth, sorta, inadvertently if I had to. Because I had to. And I could do this because I had loved rock stars, broken, dirty, wild rock stars – men I had always wondered if I was woman enough to tame.
Apparently, it was a story that resonated.
And… it’s not done.
Stay tuned….
After 31 books and a score of romantic heroes, I think it’s safe to say that Giovanni Carnevale is my most popular and beloved Book Boyfriend. He is, after all, the guy who launched my career in 2012, after I published Rock Star, the second book in my Groupie Series.
Without him, there’d be no me. He is a very sexy cornerstone to the mansion of sex and inclusive romance I have painstakingly built one book at a time. And for many of my readers, it all circles back to Vanni. We all get excited whenever he pops up. He is, quite simply, larger than life.
I figure the reason for this is that he was brewing for a long, long time before he hit the page.
You could say that even though fictional Vanni was born December 21, 1978, the concept of Vanni was born around 1987, because that was where Ginger, The Groupie, was just hitting her stride.
Honestly, Vanni was an amalgamation of several crushes, and we’ll get to all of them eventually, but Michael Hutchence was definitely an important part of the Triad that brought this particular character to life. (Two celebrity and one personal.)
We'll start with Michael because he came first.
Technically, Vanni was first conceived when I saw Steve Perry sauntering down into the audience to sing for a swooning fan who didn’t know what to do with herself once a sexy rocker turned his attention her way. Labor and delivery, however, happened much later - during the MTV era, when I first saw the INXS video Need You Tonight,
I was older, arguably more experienced, and would have a little more idea what to do with a male admiration than I did when I was eleven, so it packed an even bigger punch. I suddenly wanted to be a part of it. When he was whispered, "Come over here," which I maintain is one of the sexiest things that can be whispered, I was a goner. And those EYES. My God. Those eyes. I was defenseless. When he sang, I *wanted* to sing back. I turned it into a call and response song all on my very own.
So slide over here
And give me a moment
Your moves are so raw
I've got to let you know
I've got to let you know KNOW WHAT?
You're one of my kind
I need you tonight WHY?
'Cause I'm not sleeping BUT WHY ME?
There's something about you girl
That makes me sweat
I was about 17 at the time, and still waiting for my MTV, watching the popular music video channel at any and every opportunity. Like any kid from my era, these came to affect how I listened to music. Gone were the days when I could interpret the song my way. Instead, I had a visual reference to enhance my listening experience.
Back in the 80s, it didn’t ALWAYS happen that way… some videos were… distracting. But for INXS and their sexy, enigmatic lead singer, Michael Hutchence, the medium was the perfect conduit to launch them into the stratosphere.
To be blunt, Michael was living, breathing, walking, talking sex. He took the smoldering intensity of Jim Morrison and turned it up to 11. He was wild. Untamable. And, like many other folks back in the day, I had a very primal reaction ride that wild stallion for all it was worth. I wanted to be the girl he sang about. He was larger than life, and all an invisible girl like me wanted was to be important enough to catch his eye.
Could I ever be that kind of girl? When you’re 17, and the whole world is in front of you, and all those questions are still unanswered… anything is possible. This fuels the Groupie dream.
And I had plenty of time to daydream about it, particularly in 1987. MTV gave me great fodder for my budding fantasies. When I found folks whose intensity seemed to match mine, I took attention... because when it comes down to it, THAT Is what attracts me, far more than any physical attribute.
I prefer someone whose soul is on fire, because THAT is the truest temptation.
Eventually that intensity took its toll on Michael, as did his wild rocker life. He exited this world amidst rumor and speculation, which only fed his larger than life persona. Once the debris settled, we know that he died a broken 37-year-old, whose excesses finally surpassed his pain.
That inspired Vanni as well.
When I set out to write Groupie, I wanted to keep it real. Real is grittier, but it's also more interesting to me. Like, way more. I get the whole fantasy part of romance, but, as a storyteller, I needed conflict to keep me going after they get together. I could write a super explicit sexcapade and that would scratch a specific itch, but it hardly motivates me to sit down at the computer and crank out 100K words. In fact, it left me wondering, where do we go from HERE? N' I'm all for scratching those itches, but stories demand buildup and payoff in equal measure.
Suddenly it occurred to me THAT is where the story really lay hidden, out of sight. Waiting.
I was raised on Moonlighting and Luke & Laura, remember. I knew that getting them together could risk the loss of dramatic tension – which is death to a storyteller. Rewriting the same sex scene over and over again would make for some kickass spank bank material, but a redundantly boring book, at least for me, Reader #1.
And I know this because I TRIED this, and the story that demanded to be told could not be denied.
Confession, and a spoiler if you haven’t yet read my Groupie trilogy, I struggled greatly over whether they should sleep together right away or not. It was something I deliberated, much like the ending to the first book.
Originally, I had planned for my heroine, Andy, to meet Vanni just as his star started to rise. They would have a crazy affair, driven from city to city, and the feelings would just organically grow and voila, end of book HEA.
My hand to God, that was my original intent.
I quickly grew bored of this concept, right around that first rendezvous in New York City. It was his birthday, she was in town, and finally they were going to act on this crazy flirtation/infatuation and do the deed. They were ready. *I* was ready. I planned for the whole night to be romantic and fulfilling.
Then, I sat down to write and... nothing. The closer they got to doing the deed, the more I wanted to delay it. I wanted to savor that moment when she was the only thing he wanted. I knew it was too good to last last. That's what makes it a fantasy. Because that’s not real. Not when you love a rock star. Especially when you’re some no-name nobody from Tennessee and he’s been thrust into a world of riches, excesses and instant fame. A booty call turning into some great love affair, especially with a noted manwhore who got to scratch his itch and satisfy his curiosity right out of the gate? Unrealistic. She had to give him something he wasn't expecting... something like kicking him out of bed.
Due to what I was going through personally at the time, I knew I couldn’t write it the way I originally wanted to, even though I really wanted to. I was in desperate need of my own fantasy fulfillment when I was writing the first book, which is how the concept ever took shape in the first place. But I knew down deep in my soul that if I had had a rendezvous with my own crush, real life would squash my gratification before I even had a chance to bask in the afterglow.
I wanted to postpone that as long as humanly possible.
It was then that the duplicity began to seep in. Loving someone you don’t know, that nobody knows, but everyone wants, is a tough gig. It’s real damned easy to fall in love with an image, like some bad boy of rock and roll.
But can you hang when the trappings of fantasy fall away and there’s nothing left but a mortal man who is flawed, selfish and imperfect, just like any other dude?
Can you withstand the rumor and speculation, the misleads required to keep his image marketable?
Can you sit on every single painful disappointment?
To me, this was where the story of Groupie was hidden. I knew what it was like to be the secret guys kept, having some experience with this as The Fat Girl, which I’ll go over in my personal Let’s Talk About.
There’s so much about loving a rocker that they don’t cover in a traditionally HEA. I set out to tell the truth, sorta, inadvertently if I had to. Because I had to. And I could do this because I had loved rock stars, broken, dirty, wild rock stars – men I had always wondered if I was woman enough to tame.
Apparently, it was a story that resonated.
And… it’s not done.
Stay tuned….
July 28, 2019
Let's Talk About... David Bowie.
This post is part of an ongoing Blog Series on my Patreon page about all my crushes, celebrity and personal, that have contributed to all the Book Boyfriends you know and love. The celebrity crushes are free to read, but only patrons get to read the private tales (confessions.) Check it out! And if you want to read new, unpublished content weekly, think about subscribing to my patron page! Find out about book promotions, see all my new book covers, read about my upcoming projects... be a part of the process!
It’s not uncommon for me to crush on characters more than the actors who portray them. For instance, my crush was Luke Spencer, not Tony Geary. (Sorry, Tony.) I’m into David Addison, not necessarily Bruce Willis. (Although he has made me crush on more than a few of his characters.) I crush on Captain Jack Sparrow, not necessary Johnny Depp, Jack Tripper, not necessarily John Ritter, Tony Stark instead of Robert Dow-.... no, no, no, bad example. (We'll get to him later...)
If an actor is really good, the character he plays becomes another person entirely, completely unique and appealing in their own way.
Such was the case with David Bowie, Jareth and the movie Labyrinth.
Like many kids of the 80s, I saw this Jim Henson-M.C. Escher-David Bowie acid trip back in the day. It was one of the handful of movies I actually got to see in the theater, for which I am eternally grateful - as it is one of my favorite movies of all time. I'm glad I was able to experience it in such a grand and pic way.
I was a BIG fan of the Muppets when I was a kid. Like, the bestie and I watched the Muppet Show religiously. (Beaker was our favorite.)
When I moved away from my bestie in 1982, and we were forced to do most of our communication through the written word, we used Muppet stationary to talk to each other.
I pay homage to that humble start here.
By 1986, I was 16 and a little more “grown-up,” so I was ready to tippy-toe down a road that incorporated sex, rock and romance into my head-trippy Muppet fascination.
It would be years and years later before Seth Macfarlane, Robot Chicken, Seth Rogan, et al, would take all of that a bit TOO far.
Back then, we had Ziggy Stardust to ferry us across the choppy waters of adolescent curiosity. We had the Thin White Duke. We had the Starman.
We had David Bowie.
David brought an otherworldly sexiness to the antagonistic role of Jareth, the Goblin King, right down to his infamous codpiece. There was the giant hair and the unapologetic use of makeup, both lipstick AND the eye shadow that showcased his piercing eyes, one brown and one blue, an anomaly I would later learned was the result of a fight. (His eye wasn't brown at all, but permanently dilated.) Which goes to show you, what someone else does to damage you might end up being the most fascinating quality you possess.
I needed to hear that at 16. And 21. And 32. And 49...
Bowie was simply cool.
But it was the way he played Jareth with smoldering obsession that left me breathless. Luke Spencer had already primed this particular pump, I was just waiting for someone to marry it with rock music.
Add to the androgyny that Prince had already introduced and I was a goner, so much so that had I been in Sarah’s shoes (the equally girlcrushworthy Jennifer Connelly,) I might have been like, “Toby, who?” and just traded boring teen life in for being Queen of the Goblins.
It wasn't like he was going to kill him FFS, he was just going to turn him into a goblin. Isn't it a bit creasturist to suggest this was a BAD thing?
Plus all of her friends were there anyway, and her parents seemed pretty content going out and living life child-free, which is what got everyone in such a pickle in the first place.
It just would have been hard to resist, s'all I'm sayin'.
My fascination with Jareth reminded me of why vampires scare me. They will be the death of you, but they are just so appealing, compelling and seductive, you kind of jump willingly right into the web, offering yourself on a platter, ready to self-destruct for the taste of one kiss.
So, when I finally got around to writing about vampires, I decided there was really only one prototype I could use as a reference.
Today, get MY IMMORTAL for free, and see how David Bowie, or, really, Jareth, dug himself down deep into my psyche about the kind of forbidden fruit that could cost you everything.
And thank you, David, for making my coming of age a little more cosmic.
It’s not uncommon for me to crush on characters more than the actors who portray them. For instance, my crush was Luke Spencer, not Tony Geary. (Sorry, Tony.) I’m into David Addison, not necessarily Bruce Willis. (Although he has made me crush on more than a few of his characters.) I crush on Captain Jack Sparrow, not necessary Johnny Depp, Jack Tripper, not necessarily John Ritter, Tony Stark instead of Robert Dow-.... no, no, no, bad example. (We'll get to him later...)
If an actor is really good, the character he plays becomes another person entirely, completely unique and appealing in their own way.
Such was the case with David Bowie, Jareth and the movie Labyrinth.
Like many kids of the 80s, I saw this Jim Henson-M.C. Escher-David Bowie acid trip back in the day. It was one of the handful of movies I actually got to see in the theater, for which I am eternally grateful - as it is one of my favorite movies of all time. I'm glad I was able to experience it in such a grand and pic way.
I was a BIG fan of the Muppets when I was a kid. Like, the bestie and I watched the Muppet Show religiously. (Beaker was our favorite.)
When I moved away from my bestie in 1982, and we were forced to do most of our communication through the written word, we used Muppet stationary to talk to each other.
I pay homage to that humble start here.
By 1986, I was 16 and a little more “grown-up,” so I was ready to tippy-toe down a road that incorporated sex, rock and romance into my head-trippy Muppet fascination.
It would be years and years later before Seth Macfarlane, Robot Chicken, Seth Rogan, et al, would take all of that a bit TOO far.
Back then, we had Ziggy Stardust to ferry us across the choppy waters of adolescent curiosity. We had the Thin White Duke. We had the Starman.
We had David Bowie.
David brought an otherworldly sexiness to the antagonistic role of Jareth, the Goblin King, right down to his infamous codpiece. There was the giant hair and the unapologetic use of makeup, both lipstick AND the eye shadow that showcased his piercing eyes, one brown and one blue, an anomaly I would later learned was the result of a fight. (His eye wasn't brown at all, but permanently dilated.) Which goes to show you, what someone else does to damage you might end up being the most fascinating quality you possess.
I needed to hear that at 16. And 21. And 32. And 49...
Bowie was simply cool.
But it was the way he played Jareth with smoldering obsession that left me breathless. Luke Spencer had already primed this particular pump, I was just waiting for someone to marry it with rock music.
Add to the androgyny that Prince had already introduced and I was a goner, so much so that had I been in Sarah’s shoes (the equally girlcrushworthy Jennifer Connelly,) I might have been like, “Toby, who?” and just traded boring teen life in for being Queen of the Goblins.
It wasn't like he was going to kill him FFS, he was just going to turn him into a goblin. Isn't it a bit creasturist to suggest this was a BAD thing?
Plus all of her friends were there anyway, and her parents seemed pretty content going out and living life child-free, which is what got everyone in such a pickle in the first place.
It just would have been hard to resist, s'all I'm sayin'.
My fascination with Jareth reminded me of why vampires scare me. They will be the death of you, but they are just so appealing, compelling and seductive, you kind of jump willingly right into the web, offering yourself on a platter, ready to self-destruct for the taste of one kiss.
So, when I finally got around to writing about vampires, I decided there was really only one prototype I could use as a reference.
Today, get MY IMMORTAL for free, and see how David Bowie, or, really, Jareth, dug himself down deep into my psyche about the kind of forbidden fruit that could cost you everything.
And thank you, David, for making my coming of age a little more cosmic.
July 21, 2019
Let's Talk About... Patrick Swayze (and a free ebook!)
This post is part of an ongoing Blog Series on my Patreon page about all my crushes, celebrity and personal, that have contributed to all the Book Boyfriends you know and love. The celebrity crushes are free to read, but only patrons get to read the private tales (confessions.) Check it out! And if you want to read new, unpublished content weekly, think about subscribing to my patron page! Find out about book promotions, see all my new book covers, read about my upcoming projects... be a part of the process!
David Addison wasn’t my only crush in 1985. It was also the year I was introduced to fellow Texan and future "Sexiest Man Alive" Patrick Swayze.
I boarded the Swayze train a couple of years before everyone else took notice of him in Dirty Dancing, and it was all because of my long-standing girl-crush on Genie Francis, who played Laura Vining Webber Baldwin Spencer Cassadine yadda yadda yadda.
By 1985, Genie had departed General Hospital and its fictional town of Port Charles, with Laura riding off into the sunset with Luke to live a whole new adventure as they began their family off-screen. Genie, however, kept busy working on other acting projects.
She was cast as Brett Main on the sweeping miniseries North & South, based on the books written by John Jakes. I hadn’t read the books, and I wasn’t especially fond of war movies, but if Genie was going to be a part of this 6-part television saga, that was good enough for me. #girlcrush
It wasn’t that much of a gamble. ABC pulled out all the stops bringing Jakes’s books to life, which included hiring many big stars to bring the story of a Civil War friendship to life. Johnny Cash, James Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly, Linda Evans, Peter O’Toole, Olivia De Haviland and yes, even Wayne Newton, all contributed to this miniseries to end all miniseries. Its music was scored by Bill Conti, the sets were lavish, using these amazing historical locations. (I read somewhere that all they had to do to prepare parts of Charleston was toss some dirt on the streets.) And the costumes, my God. Everything was stunning.
But, again, I didn’t care about any of that. I only cared to see Genie in her new role. I settled in to watch the first episodes with high hopes that were quickly dashed. I knew from my handy dandy TV Guide what part she played, but the very first episode had a very different actress in the role… as it was Brett when she was a child.
I didn’t even get to see Genie at all until Episode Three, but by then I had found other reasons to tune in to the show. One of those reasons was named Patrick Swayze.
I hadn’t seen the Outsiders or Red Dawn, so he was unknown to me. I got to know him first as Orry Main, a Southern Carolina planter whose life would drive most of the plot.
We pick up on Orry’s story in the summer of 1842, when Orry is headed off to West Point to become a soldier. He meets the beautiful Madeline Fabray (played by the beautiful Leslie-Ann Down) on the way to the train station. Once he reaches north, he meets a cocky yankee named George Hazard.
These two relationships would alter the course of Orry’s life and drive most of the saga. The engine of this particular locomotive was, of course, the Civil War.
Having been raised a southerner, there’s a deep and abiding uneasiness that comes with the subject matter. We’re both taught to be proud of where we come from and face the grueling and vexing realization that the things our countrymen fought and died for were wrong.
There’s a lot of shame in that. More than a few folks with deep roots to the south can pull up records of their ancestors who literally owned their fellow human beings. For those of us who have evolved enough to know there is never any reason or excuse for this, it’s a tough pill to swallow. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, and you can't really escape the horror of it as you grapple with what character you might identify with the most. Obviously I likened myself to those characters who took the risks involved to go against the grain.
In fact, I’d say of all the characters in North & South, the most challenging character was Virgilia Hazard, George’s abolitionist sister, brought to life brilliantly by Kirstie Alley.
Virgilia is on the side of right, but she’s cray. She was a smart, strong woman forced to find her place in a man's world, and didn't have much use for the social trappings that came with her lowly station as a female back in the 1800s. She constantly steps in it trying to do the right thing, much to her own detriment. But in her we see this resolute character who believes, rightly and unequivocally, slavery is an evil that needs to be destroyed, and she’s willing to risk EVERYTHING, and I do mean everything, to do that very thing.
It’s uncomfortable. The bad guys are deplorable, and play their parts so well I can't even WATCH them in anything else without holding a serious grudge. (Looking at you, Teri Garber and Phillip Casnoff.) The good folks suffer. Endlessly. The injustice of slavery slaps you right in the face as we get to see the brutality of it, both with overt violence and the watchful eye of passive indifference that posed as the cultural norm.
But it’s so damned engrossing I’ve watched both books and all 12 episodes twice a year since I bought the first VHS combo set. I truly love it, mostly because the bromance between Orry Main and George Hazard is irresistible, as they tried to hold onto friendship and honor in a time when it was nearly impossible to do either. These two friends on opposite sides of the battle lines have to find a way to maintain the close relationship they share, that started before the world started to change.
It gives you a sense of what it must have been like in that time, brother against brother. It was an unwinnable war, because we had to fight each other to do that very thing.
But if all that got too heavy, there was some 80s night-time TV drama, sex and eye candy to help salve the wound.
I noticed Patrick early on, because how could you not? It meant a lot to me that his character hated slavery and took a stand against brutality. (Not as much as Genie's character Brett, which makes me even prouder, as she befriended the people they used to enslave, she set them free and stepped up to do the work of her own plantation. She even put her life on the line to save her best friend Semiramis, who was once her slave, but became her sister of choice.)
But Orry had ethics and morals even as a pre-Civil War southerner, when his views were still slanted due to his upbringing. I remember when he returned from West Point and met Salem Jones, the new overseer his father had hired to get work out of the slaves. He found out Salem had been sleeping with (i.e., raping) Semiramis, and brutalizing her brother, Priam, whenever he naturally fought against it, and Orry was D.O.N.E. with that kind of thing. He took a stand against his very own father, who basically told him to remember his place, that he wasn’t running the plantation yet and had no business butting into it while he was off playing soldier. We saw how conflicted Orry became when he came face to face with his best friend, George, who had NO illusions how wrong slavery was. Orry felt compelled to defend the situation even when he himself didn’t agree with it… but he was forced to hold his tongue out of honoring his own father and his entire way of life. Seeing how he struggled with this and grappled with his own moral code and the traditions under which he was both raised and prospered, made him a good guy… or at least a good-er guy than people like Salem Jones or Justin Lamont, a neighbor of the Mains who is every bad thing you think of when you envision slave owners.
That Orry befriends a northerner at the dawn of his becoming a man of his own, then, becomes his saving grace, and you hang in there to see that change. You champion this friendship, this bromance, because you WANT to see him overcome. You want to see him legit turn into the “Good Guy.”
Patrick plays Orry with amazing depth. He isn’t just a purty face (though he is a purty face.) He plays the Southern Gentleman to a T, with poise, grace and elegance. (The outfits didn’t hurt. I was already primed from Prince to love a man in ruffles with long, luscious hair, and here Orry sported boots and capes and these beautiful silk vests. It was beautiful. HE was beautiful.)
In short, Orry made me give a damn about this character even though he fought on the wrong side. I understood him even if I didn't always agree with him, and it made all the "wins" that he had, where he DID come to terms with the changing world around him, that much more gratifying.
I loved Orry so much that it was hard for me to transition to Johnny Castle years later when I watched Dirty Dancing. Gone was the Southern Gentleman and in its place was a tough Northerner who danced to survive.
I got on board after one of THE sexiest scenes ever to be shot in any movie ANYWHERE.
I ended up paying homage to this scene in Beauty and the Bitch. Mine wasn’t as sexy as that, but it wasn’t written in any way to compete. I wouldn’t even dare.
By the end of Dirty Dancing, I was a Swayze fan. I went into Roadhouse a fan of both Patrick AND Sam Elliot, another crush that started in 1985 thanks to the movie Mask, because I mean, really....
I fell in love with bikers and gravelly voiced older men all in one fell swoop.
Roadhouse would go on to HEAVILY influence the first book I wrote, which has now become Chasing Thunder. Way back in 1989, I cast Patrick as Cooper “Snake” Scoggins, my romantic hero whose gravitas was equal to my badass heroine, M.J., who was in the unenviable position of trying to save her from herself (and Sam as her dad, who was one the main reasons she had both had to and refused to be saved.)
***
Yeah, I poured all of my love for Patrick in Cooper. My love for Patrick helped me fall in love with Vida Boheme in 1995, ten years after Orry, developing my first girlcrush on a boy dressed like a girl. He played a drag queen so convincingly it was a shock to see him as a man anywhere in that movie.
And I can’t EVEN with the movie Ghost anymore. I haven’t watched it since he died. So, it was my honor to pay homage to him in the only real way I can… through my own creative work.
You can get to know Snake in CHASING THUNDER. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read it as part of your subscription, but today it’s free for everybody.
Enjoy! I know I sure did. ;)
David Addison wasn’t my only crush in 1985. It was also the year I was introduced to fellow Texan and future "Sexiest Man Alive" Patrick Swayze.
I boarded the Swayze train a couple of years before everyone else took notice of him in Dirty Dancing, and it was all because of my long-standing girl-crush on Genie Francis, who played Laura Vining Webber Baldwin Spencer Cassadine yadda yadda yadda.
By 1985, Genie had departed General Hospital and its fictional town of Port Charles, with Laura riding off into the sunset with Luke to live a whole new adventure as they began their family off-screen. Genie, however, kept busy working on other acting projects.
She was cast as Brett Main on the sweeping miniseries North & South, based on the books written by John Jakes. I hadn’t read the books, and I wasn’t especially fond of war movies, but if Genie was going to be a part of this 6-part television saga, that was good enough for me. #girlcrush
It wasn’t that much of a gamble. ABC pulled out all the stops bringing Jakes’s books to life, which included hiring many big stars to bring the story of a Civil War friendship to life. Johnny Cash, James Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Kelly, Linda Evans, Peter O’Toole, Olivia De Haviland and yes, even Wayne Newton, all contributed to this miniseries to end all miniseries. Its music was scored by Bill Conti, the sets were lavish, using these amazing historical locations. (I read somewhere that all they had to do to prepare parts of Charleston was toss some dirt on the streets.) And the costumes, my God. Everything was stunning.
But, again, I didn’t care about any of that. I only cared to see Genie in her new role. I settled in to watch the first episodes with high hopes that were quickly dashed. I knew from my handy dandy TV Guide what part she played, but the very first episode had a very different actress in the role… as it was Brett when she was a child.
I didn’t even get to see Genie at all until Episode Three, but by then I had found other reasons to tune in to the show. One of those reasons was named Patrick Swayze.
I hadn’t seen the Outsiders or Red Dawn, so he was unknown to me. I got to know him first as Orry Main, a Southern Carolina planter whose life would drive most of the plot.
We pick up on Orry’s story in the summer of 1842, when Orry is headed off to West Point to become a soldier. He meets the beautiful Madeline Fabray (played by the beautiful Leslie-Ann Down) on the way to the train station. Once he reaches north, he meets a cocky yankee named George Hazard.
These two relationships would alter the course of Orry’s life and drive most of the saga. The engine of this particular locomotive was, of course, the Civil War.
Having been raised a southerner, there’s a deep and abiding uneasiness that comes with the subject matter. We’re both taught to be proud of where we come from and face the grueling and vexing realization that the things our countrymen fought and died for were wrong.
There’s a lot of shame in that. More than a few folks with deep roots to the south can pull up records of their ancestors who literally owned their fellow human beings. For those of us who have evolved enough to know there is never any reason or excuse for this, it’s a tough pill to swallow. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, and you can't really escape the horror of it as you grapple with what character you might identify with the most. Obviously I likened myself to those characters who took the risks involved to go against the grain.
In fact, I’d say of all the characters in North & South, the most challenging character was Virgilia Hazard, George’s abolitionist sister, brought to life brilliantly by Kirstie Alley.
Virgilia is on the side of right, but she’s cray. She was a smart, strong woman forced to find her place in a man's world, and didn't have much use for the social trappings that came with her lowly station as a female back in the 1800s. She constantly steps in it trying to do the right thing, much to her own detriment. But in her we see this resolute character who believes, rightly and unequivocally, slavery is an evil that needs to be destroyed, and she’s willing to risk EVERYTHING, and I do mean everything, to do that very thing.
It’s uncomfortable. The bad guys are deplorable, and play their parts so well I can't even WATCH them in anything else without holding a serious grudge. (Looking at you, Teri Garber and Phillip Casnoff.) The good folks suffer. Endlessly. The injustice of slavery slaps you right in the face as we get to see the brutality of it, both with overt violence and the watchful eye of passive indifference that posed as the cultural norm.
But it’s so damned engrossing I’ve watched both books and all 12 episodes twice a year since I bought the first VHS combo set. I truly love it, mostly because the bromance between Orry Main and George Hazard is irresistible, as they tried to hold onto friendship and honor in a time when it was nearly impossible to do either. These two friends on opposite sides of the battle lines have to find a way to maintain the close relationship they share, that started before the world started to change.
It gives you a sense of what it must have been like in that time, brother against brother. It was an unwinnable war, because we had to fight each other to do that very thing.
But if all that got too heavy, there was some 80s night-time TV drama, sex and eye candy to help salve the wound.
I noticed Patrick early on, because how could you not? It meant a lot to me that his character hated slavery and took a stand against brutality. (Not as much as Genie's character Brett, which makes me even prouder, as she befriended the people they used to enslave, she set them free and stepped up to do the work of her own plantation. She even put her life on the line to save her best friend Semiramis, who was once her slave, but became her sister of choice.)
But Orry had ethics and morals even as a pre-Civil War southerner, when his views were still slanted due to his upbringing. I remember when he returned from West Point and met Salem Jones, the new overseer his father had hired to get work out of the slaves. He found out Salem had been sleeping with (i.e., raping) Semiramis, and brutalizing her brother, Priam, whenever he naturally fought against it, and Orry was D.O.N.E. with that kind of thing. He took a stand against his very own father, who basically told him to remember his place, that he wasn’t running the plantation yet and had no business butting into it while he was off playing soldier. We saw how conflicted Orry became when he came face to face with his best friend, George, who had NO illusions how wrong slavery was. Orry felt compelled to defend the situation even when he himself didn’t agree with it… but he was forced to hold his tongue out of honoring his own father and his entire way of life. Seeing how he struggled with this and grappled with his own moral code and the traditions under which he was both raised and prospered, made him a good guy… or at least a good-er guy than people like Salem Jones or Justin Lamont, a neighbor of the Mains who is every bad thing you think of when you envision slave owners.
That Orry befriends a northerner at the dawn of his becoming a man of his own, then, becomes his saving grace, and you hang in there to see that change. You champion this friendship, this bromance, because you WANT to see him overcome. You want to see him legit turn into the “Good Guy.”
Patrick plays Orry with amazing depth. He isn’t just a purty face (though he is a purty face.) He plays the Southern Gentleman to a T, with poise, grace and elegance. (The outfits didn’t hurt. I was already primed from Prince to love a man in ruffles with long, luscious hair, and here Orry sported boots and capes and these beautiful silk vests. It was beautiful. HE was beautiful.)
In short, Orry made me give a damn about this character even though he fought on the wrong side. I understood him even if I didn't always agree with him, and it made all the "wins" that he had, where he DID come to terms with the changing world around him, that much more gratifying.
I loved Orry so much that it was hard for me to transition to Johnny Castle years later when I watched Dirty Dancing. Gone was the Southern Gentleman and in its place was a tough Northerner who danced to survive.
I got on board after one of THE sexiest scenes ever to be shot in any movie ANYWHERE.
I ended up paying homage to this scene in Beauty and the Bitch. Mine wasn’t as sexy as that, but it wasn’t written in any way to compete. I wouldn’t even dare.
By the end of Dirty Dancing, I was a Swayze fan. I went into Roadhouse a fan of both Patrick AND Sam Elliot, another crush that started in 1985 thanks to the movie Mask, because I mean, really....
I fell in love with bikers and gravelly voiced older men all in one fell swoop.
Roadhouse would go on to HEAVILY influence the first book I wrote, which has now become Chasing Thunder. Way back in 1989, I cast Patrick as Cooper “Snake” Scoggins, my romantic hero whose gravitas was equal to my badass heroine, M.J., who was in the unenviable position of trying to save her from herself (and Sam as her dad, who was one the main reasons she had both had to and refused to be saved.)
***
M.J. was as mad as a wet hornet when they finally pulled to a stop in the high desert of San Bernardino County. She flew off the bike and turned on Snake in a rage. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she shouted.***
“I was coming to your rescue,” he explained casually as he dismounted. “White knight,” he said, pointing to himself. “Noble steed,” he added, pointing to the bike.
“When did I ever ask you to save me?” she demanded.
“Darlin’, you were pole dancing in a seedy strip club. That’s not a cry for help. That’s a bloodcurdling scream.”
“I had it all under control,” she informed him coldly, and he held up a hand.
“Oh, I could tell. Only the best dancers get dragged off to a back room somewhere.”
She didn’t have time for this. She pulled out her phone. Snake was quick to grab it. “Gonna call your new partner in crime?” he asked as he held her phone out of reach. “Or should I say new partner in fighting crime? Since when do you work with cops, M.J.?” “Since never!” she spat as she jumped for the phone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Please,” he scoffed. “Bob from Scottsdale? Give me a fucking break. I nearly had to tie him down when that guy grabbed you. So who is he, M.J.?” Snake demanded in a softer tone, his eyes angry and hurt.
“Are you serious?” she exclaimed. “That’s what this is about? You’re jealous?”
“Fuck you,” he said in a cold voice. They had a brief staredown before she backed off. He was a bastard for forcing her hand like this. Time was of the essence now. She still had one very important thing to do and had to depend on a wiseass cop to do it. She’d cave a little, and make him pay later. “Fine. He’s a cop. But I only used him to get inside the building. He was nothing more than a convenient tool, emphasis on tool, to execute the plan. Can I have my phone back now?”
The phone rang as he held it. He powered it down and then tossed it out of view into the dark shadows.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said. She started to round the bike, but he grabbed her by both arms. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I know one thing I couldn’t have done,” he said. “I couldn’t have gone one more night without doing anything.”
She saw the holster inside his jacket. “Snake, no.” She tried to wrench away, but he pulled her back against his solid chest. He cupped her face in one hand, drawing her closer.
“Like I ever had a choice. Can’t you see what you do to me, M.J.?” Her eyes met his.
“Can’t you see that if you ever got hurt—” She couldn’t even finish the thought. She looked away, so he tipped her chin with his thumb.
“Hurt?” he repeated. “I never know if you’re okay or if you need help. If you’re alive and well or dead somewhere in a ditch after pissing off the wrong person. You get hurt, you don’t tell me. You’re in danger, you take off and say nothing. It’s like having you and losing you all at the same time. And I never know which is which until you show up on my front door. You don’t think that hurts?”
She swallowed hard. She needed him, every bit as much as she needed to protect him. She had been weak because she missed those big strong arms holding her together, and the familiar scruff of his beard against her face that made her feel at home no matter where they happened to be. When she felt unsure, she knew she could draw from his endless well of strength. She knew it was unfair. But he had never sent her away for good.
Maybe if he did they would both be better off.
But it was the last thing she wanted as he lifted her up against him. The shirt she was wearing fell open, and her breasts swayed free against the thin cotton of his shirt. He groaned as he carried her back to the bike.
He sat astride while she straddled his hips. His hands slipped into the open shirt, sliding behind her and cupping her ass as he pressed her closer, grinding her down onto his lap. He captured her bottom lip tenderly in his teeth as he ended a kiss, and their eyes locked and held. “You break my heart, M.J.,” he murmured as he pulled away. “And only you can put it together again.”
Yeah, I poured all of my love for Patrick in Cooper. My love for Patrick helped me fall in love with Vida Boheme in 1995, ten years after Orry, developing my first girlcrush on a boy dressed like a girl. He played a drag queen so convincingly it was a shock to see him as a man anywhere in that movie.
And I can’t EVEN with the movie Ghost anymore. I haven’t watched it since he died. So, it was my honor to pay homage to him in the only real way I can… through my own creative work.
You can get to know Snake in CHASING THUNDER. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read it as part of your subscription, but today it’s free for everybody.
Enjoy! I know I sure did. ;)
July 13, 2019
Let's Talk About... David Addison
This post is part of an ongoing Blog Series on my Patreon page about all my crushes, celebrity and personal, that have contributed to all the Book Boyfriends you know and love. The celebrity crushes are free to read, but only patrons get to read the private tales (confessions.) Check it out! And if you want to read new, unpublished content weekly, think about subscribing to my patron page! Find out about book promotions, see all my new book covers, read about my upcoming projects... be a part of the process!
If there’s anyone to thank for this particular blog series, it’s David Addison.
I *met* David in 1985, when “Moonlighting” first debuted. It was a genius show brought to us by Glenn Gordon Caron, which basically launched Bruce Willis’s career. It was witty, exciting, sexy and romantic – it was one of those shows that had a little something for everybody and the first few seasons had some of the finest writing ever seen on network TV. It was a series fueled by sexual chemistry, and every week we all tuned in to see “Will they or won’t they?”
They finally did, and some will tell you that was where the show jumped the proverbial shark.
Re-watching it, especially knowing what I know on the show business side of things, I don’t think it was the sex so much. (In fact, where David and Maddie finally get together remains one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen on TV.)
Basically Cybil Shephard, who played Maddie Hayes, got pregnant, which one could argue accelerated the timeline for the two characters consummating their relationship and led to a bunch of unfortunate storylines to write a pregnancy into plot.
It was like a giant game of hot potato, except we all got burned.
But for nearly three glorious seasons, I had an ongoing love affair with the wise-cracking David Addison, a well-meaning guy’s guy who could have had me by the pilot. I never understood Maddie’s reluctance to jump him at the first opportunity. I was a goner from the first smirk. He was sexy, he was funny – God, was he funny. When he slicked back his hair, donned those Wayfarers and started to sing for absolutely no reason at all, I was reduced to a teen puddle. He made life fun.
Maddie, on the other hand, often came across as a giant stick-in-the-mud. She didn’t care for any of the things that made me love the guy. In “My Fair David,” she even attempted an unfortunate makeover, to make him more responsible and serious. A “grownup.” Part of that? He couldn’t sing. Even just one "do-wap" and he'd have to fire a couple of their underworked employees. But David... without singing? You might as well tell the sun not to shine. And, of course, she had to bust his balls (gleefully) about it.
It was enough to make Agnes Dipesto, their eccentric but mild-mannered receptionist, turn against her beloved boss. “You de-Daved him,” she accused, telling Maddie that she really didn't think she liked her anymore.
Hell, it was one of the reasons I never really liked her ever. I mean... how could she not love him, every single do-wap and all?
Like Dipesto, I loved David exactly the way he was. Just when he would pop off with some sexist comment that made you want to smack him, he’d say or do something so sweet it would make you swoon. In “In God We Strongly Suspect,” we find out that it’s David, not Maddie, who believes in the Big Guy Upstairs.
He’s horrified to find out she doesn’t believe in God, so much so he puts in a good word for her himself.
It’s not every day you’ll find a guy like David, who both wants to get into your pants and pray for your eternal soul. And that SMIRK. My God. I still haven't developed a defense against it. (Mostly because I haven't wanted to.)
From the start, the writing on this show was absolute brilliance. They broke all sorts of rules, including breaking the fourth wall at every opportunity. That, I think, was what REALLY hooked me in. It was like David was looking at and talking to ME, some overweight, acne-ridden fifteen-year-old smack-dab in the middle of nowhere.
God, he was perfect. Then and now, David Addison might just be my Absolute Guy. He wasn't perfect, which is a key theme in the guys I seem to pick. Perfect men intimidate me. There's no competing with that. Flawed guys? Gimme, gimme, gimme. A fixer-upper? I got all the tools. Let me pop the hood and tinker around a bit. And I wouldn't De-Dave him like Maddie did. The Daviest parts about him were always my favorites.
David Addison has inspired every smirking smartass I have created, but I think if we're going to find his DEEPEST influence, it's Caz Bixby. In Masked in the Music, my hero Rudy meets Caz for the first time, but the echo of David Addison was *everywhere.*
If either David OR Caz were real men, I'd be in big trouble. I'm not Maddie, not by a long shot. I'd have jumped them practically from the time they said hello.
And because they're imperfect, not bound by conservative, traditional rules, they'd let me. But because they're good guys, deep at the core, I know I'd be safe.
And maybe that's the biggest appeal of all. Guys like this aren't out to protect us from ourselves. They can barely protect us from THEM. And it's what we all want anyway so... what's the problem? Let's give in to those temptations and have a little fun... cuz what else is living for if you're not singing, laughing... or feeling good?
Thank you, David Addison... for DECADES of feeling good.
If there’s anyone to thank for this particular blog series, it’s David Addison.
I *met* David in 1985, when “Moonlighting” first debuted. It was a genius show brought to us by Glenn Gordon Caron, which basically launched Bruce Willis’s career. It was witty, exciting, sexy and romantic – it was one of those shows that had a little something for everybody and the first few seasons had some of the finest writing ever seen on network TV. It was a series fueled by sexual chemistry, and every week we all tuned in to see “Will they or won’t they?”
They finally did, and some will tell you that was where the show jumped the proverbial shark.
Re-watching it, especially knowing what I know on the show business side of things, I don’t think it was the sex so much. (In fact, where David and Maddie finally get together remains one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen on TV.)
Basically Cybil Shephard, who played Maddie Hayes, got pregnant, which one could argue accelerated the timeline for the two characters consummating their relationship and led to a bunch of unfortunate storylines to write a pregnancy into plot.
It was like a giant game of hot potato, except we all got burned.
But for nearly three glorious seasons, I had an ongoing love affair with the wise-cracking David Addison, a well-meaning guy’s guy who could have had me by the pilot. I never understood Maddie’s reluctance to jump him at the first opportunity. I was a goner from the first smirk. He was sexy, he was funny – God, was he funny. When he slicked back his hair, donned those Wayfarers and started to sing for absolutely no reason at all, I was reduced to a teen puddle. He made life fun.
Maddie, on the other hand, often came across as a giant stick-in-the-mud. She didn’t care for any of the things that made me love the guy. In “My Fair David,” she even attempted an unfortunate makeover, to make him more responsible and serious. A “grownup.” Part of that? He couldn’t sing. Even just one "do-wap" and he'd have to fire a couple of their underworked employees. But David... without singing? You might as well tell the sun not to shine. And, of course, she had to bust his balls (gleefully) about it.
It was enough to make Agnes Dipesto, their eccentric but mild-mannered receptionist, turn against her beloved boss. “You de-Daved him,” she accused, telling Maddie that she really didn't think she liked her anymore.
Hell, it was one of the reasons I never really liked her ever. I mean... how could she not love him, every single do-wap and all?
Like Dipesto, I loved David exactly the way he was. Just when he would pop off with some sexist comment that made you want to smack him, he’d say or do something so sweet it would make you swoon. In “In God We Strongly Suspect,” we find out that it’s David, not Maddie, who believes in the Big Guy Upstairs.
He’s horrified to find out she doesn’t believe in God, so much so he puts in a good word for her himself.
It’s not every day you’ll find a guy like David, who both wants to get into your pants and pray for your eternal soul. And that SMIRK. My God. I still haven't developed a defense against it. (Mostly because I haven't wanted to.)
From the start, the writing on this show was absolute brilliance. They broke all sorts of rules, including breaking the fourth wall at every opportunity. That, I think, was what REALLY hooked me in. It was like David was looking at and talking to ME, some overweight, acne-ridden fifteen-year-old smack-dab in the middle of nowhere.
God, he was perfect. Then and now, David Addison might just be my Absolute Guy. He wasn't perfect, which is a key theme in the guys I seem to pick. Perfect men intimidate me. There's no competing with that. Flawed guys? Gimme, gimme, gimme. A fixer-upper? I got all the tools. Let me pop the hood and tinker around a bit. And I wouldn't De-Dave him like Maddie did. The Daviest parts about him were always my favorites.
David Addison has inspired every smirking smartass I have created, but I think if we're going to find his DEEPEST influence, it's Caz Bixby. In Masked in the Music, my hero Rudy meets Caz for the first time, but the echo of David Addison was *everywhere.*
“That was brutal.”
I shot to my feet and spun around, peering into the darkness just beyond the light’s edge. I saw the bright tip of a burning cigarette, though when the smell hit me, I knew it wasn’t an ordinary cigarette. The man stepped from the shadows, coming more into view. He sported a tux like nobody’s business, tall and beautiful, roughly around thirty, with sun-bleached sandy hair that flopped over one of his incredible amber eyes. He offered the joint.
I didn’t refuse it. When other people walked through the doors, he motioned for me to join him in the shadows, where we could partake in private.
Out of sheer curiosity, I followed. I gave him back the joint and he inhaled deeply. “God, I hate these things. Fucking boring as hell. That’s why I bring my own party favors,” he grinned before he exhaled a cloud of fragrant smoke.
“Then why do you come?” I asked as I took another hit of my own.
He shrugged. “It’s a good cause. Besides, wearing a tux, dancing with all the pretty girls and drinking from a full bar all night isn’t a bad way to make a living.”
I peered at him even closer in the low light. Why did he look so familiar?
He answered my unspoken question with an outstretched hand. “Caz Bixby. In case you’re wondering where you’ve seen me before.”
My eyes opened wide. His reputation had definitely preceded him. He was the one who had demolished an entire presidential campaign when he came out as the potential first lady’s boy toy for hire. He was probably the best known male escort on the planet, hence why he’d be working a party like this one.
I took his hand, which he held for just a beat longer than necessary. “And you are…?” he asked with one cocked eyebrow.
“Rudy Renfro,” I supplied. His smirk deepened.
“Please tell me you have a job worthy of such a celebrity name,” he teased.
“I play guitar in a band,” I dismissed easily.
“A rocker,” he surmised as he glanced me over. “Not what I would have guessed. Good for you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”
He chuckled again as he took one last hit, before he snubbed it out on the stone wall. “You’re not in love with that pretty girl, you know that much.”
“Yeah,” I muttered as I glanced back at the patio.
He clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Hey. Don’t beat yourself up. You can’t help it you’re gay.”
My eyes shot to his. Even in the shadows of the darkened gardens, I could see how they pierced through my armor to see right to the very heart of me. It was one thing for my sister to see it. She’d known me her entire life. It was another for Tony to see it, because he could see physically how I reacted to him. But a stranger I just met? I stammered as I tried to find my footing. “I’m not… I just… what?”
He pulled me into the crook of his arm. “Don’t panic, Rudy Renfro. Your secret is safe with me. And before you drive yourself crazy with the question, no. I don’t think everyone can tell. But it’s my job to see what people lack so that I can give it to them. And dude, your frustration is full-tilt.”
My gaze narrowed. “Is this where you give me your card and tell me to call you for a little alone time?”
With the flick of his wrist, he offered his card.
“Sorry,” I said as I pushed away. “I don’t think I can afford your rates.”
He chuckled as he followed me through the darkened garden. “You are probably right about that, young Rudy. I’ve never been in one but I’ve heard bar bands don’t pay for shit.”
I made a face he couldn’t see. He could read an awful lot for such a short acquaintance. “So I guess you’re just wasting your time.”
I could feel his shrug. “Maybe it’s the mood of the evening, but I’m feeling kind of charitable.”
I spun around to face him. “I’m not interested, okay?”
His grin deepened. “Is it the whole virgin thing, or are you just that tied up in knots over the guy who won’t return the favor?” I gaped at him. He stepped forward.
“So it is what’s behind Door #2. Again, your secret is safe with me.” He put his card into my breast pocket. “But if you ever need a friend, especially one who has many friends in the music biz, call me. No strings. No hourly rate.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You mean you’d fuck me for free?”
He chuckled as he stepped forward, till we were practically nose to nose. “I don’t give away freebies to men,” he assured as he bent closer, his mouth above mine. “But you remind me of someone I used to know. And I guess I kind of like you, baby.”
With that he kissed me. It wasn’t sexual—just a peck. It floored me all the same as he patted the pocket where his card now hid and left me alone in the darkness.
If either David OR Caz were real men, I'd be in big trouble. I'm not Maddie, not by a long shot. I'd have jumped them practically from the time they said hello.
And because they're imperfect, not bound by conservative, traditional rules, they'd let me. But because they're good guys, deep at the core, I know I'd be safe.
And maybe that's the biggest appeal of all. Guys like this aren't out to protect us from ourselves. They can barely protect us from THEM. And it's what we all want anyway so... what's the problem? Let's give in to those temptations and have a little fun... cuz what else is living for if you're not singing, laughing... or feeling good?
Thank you, David Addison... for DECADES of feeling good.
November 8, 2018
What's in a name? The Big Fat Bitch Controversy.
Big Fat Bitch.
Did you recoil?
Truth be told, you were supposed to. That title was chosen *because* that phrase is so jarring, especially for anyone who has actually had this insult hurled at them personally. It hits you smack in the face. Like a fist.
There are a couple of reasons I specifically wanted to title this story this harshly, reasons that seemed like a good idea the last two years I was circling the runway of Sofie and Fletcher's romance. I mean, I'm writing a story based on Beauty & the Beast, which has the underlying moral that only if we look underneath a beastly exterior can we find something worth loving.
Giving it such an unlovable title seemed a no-brainer.
Truth be told, I've had some second thoughts about that.
My trepidation began in earnest when I attempted to coordinate advertising for my story. Thanks to the "profanity," it limits where and how I can promote the book. This was prior to publication, which threw me into crisis control immediately. Do I recover? Do I re-title? Do I really want such a minor thing derailing what could possibly be the best book I've ever written in my life?
After some back and forth, I finally decided to stick with the name. The reasons I chose the name were still completely valid. Not only that, but I believed in the vision of the book AND trusted my audience to understand where I was coming from when I wrote it.
Still, sales did not match the quality of the book. And that might have had nothing to do with the title. People buy and read books for a variety of reasons. They might not have been turned on by the blurb. It certainly doesn't adhere to any popular trope or trend. There are no vampires to be found. No millionaire businessmen to whisk a newly minted young woman away on a sexual awakening. It's not The Next Whatever Book Made the Biggest Splash Last. There's no hot sex, just a slow burn romance that gives flawed people a chance to find their way to their happy ending. It's a re-imagining of the fairy tales we grew up with, enhanced by the real world around us, rather than a mere escape.
In fact, because I'm me, I peppered my fairy tale with painful truths. Like all my other books, this book dares to throw spotlight on ugly realities. One of my favorite reviews thus far had this to say:
Swoosh, dunk, amirite??
But yet, several reviews have stated that they had to work around the "unfortunate" title just to read the book. They ultimately gave the book 4 or 5 stars, and the book currently enjoys a 4.74 rating on Goodreads as well as a 5-star rating on Amazon and Netgalley.
What I had hoped would be that the first wave of brave readers would encourage others to look past the caustic title and get to the meat of this beautiful fairy tale. And it's still early in the game. That might happen the way I want it to eventually. The book is selling. People are reviewing. Slowly but surely people realize you can't get to the rose without suffering a few thorns.
It's a Ginger Voight book. Y'all know what to expect by NOW, right?
Still. I'm impatient. And for the first time EVER, I want EVERYONE to read this book. Normally, I know what I present isn't all shiny and perfect. I'm gonna piss people off, it's a given. But this book? This book is the best I can do. It's one of the most emotional books I've ever read, in the most beautifully painful ways. It's everything I love and I know in my heart you'll love it, too. I'm so certain of this, I'd be pushing this book all over the place even if someone else had written it. It's a book begging to be read. This means that on any given day I'm half-tempted to recover and re-title just because I really want you to read the book and I don't want there to be any excuses for you to miss it.
Do I trust my vision?
Do I trust you?
Do I fold and attempt a softer touch with a prettier, more forthcoming cover?
Decisions, decisions.
So far, I haven't folded. The reason for this is because I truly, truly believe in the statement I was trying to make with this book. The reason that it is titled so harshly is because this was an insult I've heard my whole life whenever I dared go against the grain, and nothing is more "against the grain" than flipping the script on familiar narratives. Suffice it to say, I've heard this insult more than once. It's an insult that is supposed to keep me in a box, an ugly box of someone else's choosing, and this book was my way of breaking the fuck out of it. They gave me an ugly moniker, thinking I deserved it, and this is what I decided to do with it. For a society that wants to use descriptors like "fat" and "bitch" as weapons against us, I wanted to deliver the most beautiful tale I could and wrap it up in the trappings society has given to me as one of the outliers to the feminine ideal. I'm not pretty. I'm not soft. I AM a big, fat bitch.... one big enough and badass enough to pull a diamond out of an ugly clump of coal.
There are people who think we give insults power by claiming them as identifiers. They don't find defiantly claiming words like slut or bitch or any other hateful slur an act of empowerment. I am not one of those people. When it comes down to it, these words are mere descriptors that only have as much power as the hearer gives them. And let me tell you something about my big fat bitch, Sofie Vincent. She doesn't give a rat's ass if you call her fat OR a bitch. It's her world, yo. We're just living in it. And it was a world she crafted by being in your face, not changing a damn thing you don't like about her and not playing nice about ANY of it.
If I fold to fear and change the title, Sofie HERSELF would come kick my ass. And rightfully so.
Here's the thing about writing a Beauty & the Beast type of story: You can't be fearful of the beast. I mean... he's a BEAST, FFS. He's not even all the way human. He has claws and fangs and fur, with a ferocious roar meant to keep everyone away. Yet lovely Belle is tasked with finding the beauty of him anyway, which is supposed to make her even lovelier. It was a testament to the strength of her character she could look beneath said fur, fangs and claws and see a vulnerable man worth loving. She had to do it every single incarnation of the B&B story, whether animated, live-action, or the 1990s goth romance TV show. Belle from Once Upon a Time had to look past Rumpelstiltskin and find the man inside.
At no point did ANYONE think to change anything around to "Beauty and the Difficult to Love Guy". At no point did anyone "pull back" to give this story a softer touch. No. He's a beast. The worse he is, the grander her love - the more miraculous the love story. His beastly exterior makes the whole thing more beautiful. Hence why there are romance novels titled with "douche" or "bastard," and nobody blinks an eye. And let's not even get started with "cocky."
You see where I'm going with this. The rules are different for heroes and heroines, and I'm totally not chill about that.
To me, the most feminist thing I can do is unflinchingly present to you the most beastly woman I can, on par with the beasts we've seen in this fairy tale. The whole reason I wrote the damn thing was because I was pissed off that (beautiful) women are continually tasked with taken broken, fixer-upper dudes with a ton-o-baggage and using their (beautiful) love to transform them into (beautiful) romantic heroes.
Granted, Belle isn't getting it on with the furry guy - she waits until he's human again. BUT, the love story started way before that, in all his scary imperfection.
Where, I wondered, were the romantic heroes that could look past a beastly FEMALE exterior and do the same?
Why is that story discouraged in our culture? Why is it SO unfathomable that we can tell the tale of a girl falling in love with a literal ANIMAL but we can't find a good guy to love a big fat bitch without her transforming FIRST to attract him?
I set out to prove that this kind of fairy tale was, indeed, possible. I braved Sofie's beastly bitchy exterior to rip a fairy tale right out of her frozen heart. I can do this, because I'm a big fat bitch myself. She doesn't scare me. If I was a reader and I saw this title, I would have been ALL OVER IT. I grew up in the 80s, y'all. Bitch was the standard. Who did you really want to be? Krystle Carrington? Or Alexis Colby?
If you want to be where the power is, you get used to the idea people are going to call you a bitch. You can either ignore it or embrace it. I think my choice in this matter is crystal clear.
I kinda had to for my own personal reasons. The die was cast in 1985, when I misplaced a book of poems I had written at school. It sucked hard losing them because this was before computers. I had no backups. Just a notebook full of earnest poems written by a hopelessly romantic teenager. And anyone picking up this book would have known exactly who that hopeless romantic teen was, because my name was on every page.
I finally got that notebook back before the end of the year. I think somehow it got circulated around to someone who was kind of a friend. She was more popular, but she was nice to me when the occasion called for it. And she liked my poems and knew what it meant to me to lose them.
I was so happy to get them back again, but of course the happiness was tainted by the fact "Big Fat Bitch" was written all OVER that book. Some anonymous dickwad decided to shit all over the work I had painstakingly created with hateful graffiti I couldn't help but miss.
It is because of this person I have not yet (and likely won't) re-title my book. It would take someone offering me a LOT of money to do so, and even then I'm likely to put up a fight.
It is not every day in one's life they can take an insult and transform it into a beautiful fairy tale, but that's exactly what I did. They will tell you that living well is the best revenge, but nuh uh. I'll take this ANY day. Talk about your mic drop.
There are plenty of reasons people won't read me, that's nothing new. I break the Rules often, with cheaters, cliffhangers, I even kill off people occasionally, putting the HEA right in the crosshairs if the story calls for it. I dare to talk about "real" things in escapist places, delving into issues like body image, fat shaming, food disorders, sexual abuse, cheating, trauma and violence. I've even written about a mass shooting at a L.A. area nightclub, long before that became a horrific reality. I have stated early and often that if you need a trigger warning to read a book, my books probably aren't for you. I go THERE, wherever "there" happens to be for the story I'm telling.
And I go there OFTEN.
Even in my beautiful fairy tale, there are some jagged edges as I tackle the #MeToo crisis on a Hollywood set.
I combine it all. I throw hope, love, despair, hatred, violence, sex, kindness, empathy, abuse into the blender and hit "frappe" on a regular basis. I talk about politics and religion in my books because NOTHING is as ripe and full of conflict. Besides, I've always liked to play with ALL the crayons in the box, and I always buy 64-count or higher because I want more options, not more limitations. You'll get it all in my books and I rarely ever apologize for any of it. Obviously I don't want to add to anyone's pain, so I'll warn you if I think you need it, and hug you in case it hurt. It hurts me too, so I understand.
Basically it's a blanket warning that covers everything I write, because I tend to write all the things I've been through. Let's just say my entire LIFE has needed a TW and leave it at that. If writers are tasked to "write what you know," I'm forced to remove my own bandages hair by painful hair. It's gonna suck.
But it's gonna get better. It all has a point, I swear.
Be comforted that you have a big fat bitch at the wheel. I'm used to slaying monsters on the regular. We may drive through some dark places but I'll get you to the other side safely. You have my word.
I guess all I'm really asking is that you take another look. See past the thorny exterior. The best fairy tales always ask us to look a little deeper, so why should my books be any different? Open the cover. Find the beauty inside.
It's there. I promise.
BELLE would read (and love) the book, as is. Just sayin'.
Towards that end, I have decided to enroll BFB in Kindle Unlimited so that if you're still on the fence, you can take a chance on it for free within the service. You don't have to risk your money on this. I'm perfectly prepared to earn it. And I'm 100% certain if you read this book, you'll "get" what I was doing with it.
Good luck my brave readers.
And if you have ever taken a chance on me, know how grateful I am that you saw all the thorns but held out hope for the rose anyway. Like I said, there are a LOT of reasons you might not want to read my books, and I've heard them all. That so many have read my books and championed my stories and all my imperfect characters gives me hope for the world in general. It is because of YOU that I knew I could release this book, even with this jarring title, and still create a fairy tale worth reading.
Enjoy BIG FAT BITCH and hang on tight.
SHATTERED, the Scar Trilogy is up next. N' you ain't seen NOTHIN' yet.
Until then... be my guest for the only fairy tale I could write.
Did you recoil?
Truth be told, you were supposed to. That title was chosen *because* that phrase is so jarring, especially for anyone who has actually had this insult hurled at them personally. It hits you smack in the face. Like a fist.
There are a couple of reasons I specifically wanted to title this story this harshly, reasons that seemed like a good idea the last two years I was circling the runway of Sofie and Fletcher's romance. I mean, I'm writing a story based on Beauty & the Beast, which has the underlying moral that only if we look underneath a beastly exterior can we find something worth loving.
Giving it such an unlovable title seemed a no-brainer.
Truth be told, I've had some second thoughts about that.
My trepidation began in earnest when I attempted to coordinate advertising for my story. Thanks to the "profanity," it limits where and how I can promote the book. This was prior to publication, which threw me into crisis control immediately. Do I recover? Do I re-title? Do I really want such a minor thing derailing what could possibly be the best book I've ever written in my life?
After some back and forth, I finally decided to stick with the name. The reasons I chose the name were still completely valid. Not only that, but I believed in the vision of the book AND trusted my audience to understand where I was coming from when I wrote it.
Still, sales did not match the quality of the book. And that might have had nothing to do with the title. People buy and read books for a variety of reasons. They might not have been turned on by the blurb. It certainly doesn't adhere to any popular trope or trend. There are no vampires to be found. No millionaire businessmen to whisk a newly minted young woman away on a sexual awakening. It's not The Next Whatever Book Made the Biggest Splash Last. There's no hot sex, just a slow burn romance that gives flawed people a chance to find their way to their happy ending. It's a re-imagining of the fairy tales we grew up with, enhanced by the real world around us, rather than a mere escape.
In fact, because I'm me, I peppered my fairy tale with painful truths. Like all my other books, this book dares to throw spotlight on ugly realities. One of my favorite reviews thus far had this to say:
"This powerful book completely surpasses the breaking of boundaries, smashes them to smithereens with a size 10 heel, sets fire to the debris and casually walks away as the pile of broken boundaries explodes behind." - Awkword Reviews
Swoosh, dunk, amirite??
But yet, several reviews have stated that they had to work around the "unfortunate" title just to read the book. They ultimately gave the book 4 or 5 stars, and the book currently enjoys a 4.74 rating on Goodreads as well as a 5-star rating on Amazon and Netgalley.
What I had hoped would be that the first wave of brave readers would encourage others to look past the caustic title and get to the meat of this beautiful fairy tale. And it's still early in the game. That might happen the way I want it to eventually. The book is selling. People are reviewing. Slowly but surely people realize you can't get to the rose without suffering a few thorns.
It's a Ginger Voight book. Y'all know what to expect by NOW, right?
"Controversial topics are the main theme focused on in this book, and Ginger Voight does it well. There’s racism, sexism, homophobia, sexual assault and drug addiction to name a few. The author is unapologetic in her narrative of the worst of human nature. However; this book isn’t full of resentment, it’s full of the joys of rising above bigotry, bullies and your own self-doubt." - Awkword Reviews
Still. I'm impatient. And for the first time EVER, I want EVERYONE to read this book. Normally, I know what I present isn't all shiny and perfect. I'm gonna piss people off, it's a given. But this book? This book is the best I can do. It's one of the most emotional books I've ever read, in the most beautifully painful ways. It's everything I love and I know in my heart you'll love it, too. I'm so certain of this, I'd be pushing this book all over the place even if someone else had written it. It's a book begging to be read. This means that on any given day I'm half-tempted to recover and re-title just because I really want you to read the book and I don't want there to be any excuses for you to miss it.
Do I trust my vision?
Do I trust you?
Do I fold and attempt a softer touch with a prettier, more forthcoming cover?
Decisions, decisions.
So far, I haven't folded. The reason for this is because I truly, truly believe in the statement I was trying to make with this book. The reason that it is titled so harshly is because this was an insult I've heard my whole life whenever I dared go against the grain, and nothing is more "against the grain" than flipping the script on familiar narratives. Suffice it to say, I've heard this insult more than once. It's an insult that is supposed to keep me in a box, an ugly box of someone else's choosing, and this book was my way of breaking the fuck out of it. They gave me an ugly moniker, thinking I deserved it, and this is what I decided to do with it. For a society that wants to use descriptors like "fat" and "bitch" as weapons against us, I wanted to deliver the most beautiful tale I could and wrap it up in the trappings society has given to me as one of the outliers to the feminine ideal. I'm not pretty. I'm not soft. I AM a big, fat bitch.... one big enough and badass enough to pull a diamond out of an ugly clump of coal.
There are people who think we give insults power by claiming them as identifiers. They don't find defiantly claiming words like slut or bitch or any other hateful slur an act of empowerment. I am not one of those people. When it comes down to it, these words are mere descriptors that only have as much power as the hearer gives them. And let me tell you something about my big fat bitch, Sofie Vincent. She doesn't give a rat's ass if you call her fat OR a bitch. It's her world, yo. We're just living in it. And it was a world she crafted by being in your face, not changing a damn thing you don't like about her and not playing nice about ANY of it.
If I fold to fear and change the title, Sofie HERSELF would come kick my ass. And rightfully so.
Here's the thing about writing a Beauty & the Beast type of story: You can't be fearful of the beast. I mean... he's a BEAST, FFS. He's not even all the way human. He has claws and fangs and fur, with a ferocious roar meant to keep everyone away. Yet lovely Belle is tasked with finding the beauty of him anyway, which is supposed to make her even lovelier. It was a testament to the strength of her character she could look beneath said fur, fangs and claws and see a vulnerable man worth loving. She had to do it every single incarnation of the B&B story, whether animated, live-action, or the 1990s goth romance TV show. Belle from Once Upon a Time had to look past Rumpelstiltskin and find the man inside.
At no point did ANYONE think to change anything around to "Beauty and the Difficult to Love Guy". At no point did anyone "pull back" to give this story a softer touch. No. He's a beast. The worse he is, the grander her love - the more miraculous the love story. His beastly exterior makes the whole thing more beautiful. Hence why there are romance novels titled with "douche" or "bastard," and nobody blinks an eye. And let's not even get started with "cocky."
You see where I'm going with this. The rules are different for heroes and heroines, and I'm totally not chill about that.
To me, the most feminist thing I can do is unflinchingly present to you the most beastly woman I can, on par with the beasts we've seen in this fairy tale. The whole reason I wrote the damn thing was because I was pissed off that (beautiful) women are continually tasked with taken broken, fixer-upper dudes with a ton-o-baggage and using their (beautiful) love to transform them into (beautiful) romantic heroes.
Granted, Belle isn't getting it on with the furry guy - she waits until he's human again. BUT, the love story started way before that, in all his scary imperfection.
Where, I wondered, were the romantic heroes that could look past a beastly FEMALE exterior and do the same?
Why is that story discouraged in our culture? Why is it SO unfathomable that we can tell the tale of a girl falling in love with a literal ANIMAL but we can't find a good guy to love a big fat bitch without her transforming FIRST to attract him?
I set out to prove that this kind of fairy tale was, indeed, possible. I braved Sofie's beastly bitchy exterior to rip a fairy tale right out of her frozen heart. I can do this, because I'm a big fat bitch myself. She doesn't scare me. If I was a reader and I saw this title, I would have been ALL OVER IT. I grew up in the 80s, y'all. Bitch was the standard. Who did you really want to be? Krystle Carrington? Or Alexis Colby?
If you want to be where the power is, you get used to the idea people are going to call you a bitch. You can either ignore it or embrace it. I think my choice in this matter is crystal clear.
I kinda had to for my own personal reasons. The die was cast in 1985, when I misplaced a book of poems I had written at school. It sucked hard losing them because this was before computers. I had no backups. Just a notebook full of earnest poems written by a hopelessly romantic teenager. And anyone picking up this book would have known exactly who that hopeless romantic teen was, because my name was on every page.
I finally got that notebook back before the end of the year. I think somehow it got circulated around to someone who was kind of a friend. She was more popular, but she was nice to me when the occasion called for it. And she liked my poems and knew what it meant to me to lose them.
I was so happy to get them back again, but of course the happiness was tainted by the fact "Big Fat Bitch" was written all OVER that book. Some anonymous dickwad decided to shit all over the work I had painstakingly created with hateful graffiti I couldn't help but miss.
It is because of this person I have not yet (and likely won't) re-title my book. It would take someone offering me a LOT of money to do so, and even then I'm likely to put up a fight.
It is not every day in one's life they can take an insult and transform it into a beautiful fairy tale, but that's exactly what I did. They will tell you that living well is the best revenge, but nuh uh. I'll take this ANY day. Talk about your mic drop.
There are plenty of reasons people won't read me, that's nothing new. I break the Rules often, with cheaters, cliffhangers, I even kill off people occasionally, putting the HEA right in the crosshairs if the story calls for it. I dare to talk about "real" things in escapist places, delving into issues like body image, fat shaming, food disorders, sexual abuse, cheating, trauma and violence. I've even written about a mass shooting at a L.A. area nightclub, long before that became a horrific reality. I have stated early and often that if you need a trigger warning to read a book, my books probably aren't for you. I go THERE, wherever "there" happens to be for the story I'm telling.
And I go there OFTEN.
Even in my beautiful fairy tale, there are some jagged edges as I tackle the #MeToo crisis on a Hollywood set.
I combine it all. I throw hope, love, despair, hatred, violence, sex, kindness, empathy, abuse into the blender and hit "frappe" on a regular basis. I talk about politics and religion in my books because NOTHING is as ripe and full of conflict. Besides, I've always liked to play with ALL the crayons in the box, and I always buy 64-count or higher because I want more options, not more limitations. You'll get it all in my books and I rarely ever apologize for any of it. Obviously I don't want to add to anyone's pain, so I'll warn you if I think you need it, and hug you in case it hurt. It hurts me too, so I understand.
Basically it's a blanket warning that covers everything I write, because I tend to write all the things I've been through. Let's just say my entire LIFE has needed a TW and leave it at that. If writers are tasked to "write what you know," I'm forced to remove my own bandages hair by painful hair. It's gonna suck.
But it's gonna get better. It all has a point, I swear.
Be comforted that you have a big fat bitch at the wheel. I'm used to slaying monsters on the regular. We may drive through some dark places but I'll get you to the other side safely. You have my word.
I guess all I'm really asking is that you take another look. See past the thorny exterior. The best fairy tales always ask us to look a little deeper, so why should my books be any different? Open the cover. Find the beauty inside.
It's there. I promise.
BELLE would read (and love) the book, as is. Just sayin'.
Towards that end, I have decided to enroll BFB in Kindle Unlimited so that if you're still on the fence, you can take a chance on it for free within the service. You don't have to risk your money on this. I'm perfectly prepared to earn it. And I'm 100% certain if you read this book, you'll "get" what I was doing with it.
Good luck my brave readers.
And if you have ever taken a chance on me, know how grateful I am that you saw all the thorns but held out hope for the rose anyway. Like I said, there are a LOT of reasons you might not want to read my books, and I've heard them all. That so many have read my books and championed my stories and all my imperfect characters gives me hope for the world in general. It is because of YOU that I knew I could release this book, even with this jarring title, and still create a fairy tale worth reading.
Enjoy BIG FAT BITCH and hang on tight.
SHATTERED, the Scar Trilogy is up next. N' you ain't seen NOTHIN' yet.
Until then... be my guest for the only fairy tale I could write.
October 30, 2018
Reading Order
Hello to all my new readers! Welcome to the party. :)
I've been working on building a book universe for eight years. It didn't start out with that grand scheme in mind. It just sort of... happened.
It began with what I call Easter Eggs, those little nuggets referring to other stories that fans will recognize as my little shout-out to them, recognizing and rewarding their loyalty to my books. I got the idea from Stephen King and just kind of rolled with it. Truthfully, I love it when characters from other books pop up in new stories. They surprise me often. I hope it works the same for you, just like it worked for me as a SK fan.
But, if you're new here because later books brought you into my universe, you might need a cheat sheet showing you the reading order. It's true that when it comes to the Groupieverse, you don't know the WHOLE story until you've read all the books, because I've sprinkled that fairy dust EVERYWHERE.
The safest bet is to read by order of publication because I'm a linear thinker. Some books that are out of genre, however, won't tie into the main through-line. That is not to say that your favorite characters won't still pop up from time to time (Chasing Thunder,) but here are the books that support and define my Groupieverse:
1. Love Plus One:
This standalone romance introduces us to Shannon, Dixie and Jorge, who pop up again in the Groupieverse in Mogul, which is Book Three of the original Groupie Saga. They also show up in the Fullerton Family Saga, starting in Book 2, Entangled. Jorge comes back often because I just love him.
2. Groupie -> Rock Star -> Mogul -> Vanni.
Here's where my most beloved character, Vanni Carnevale, makes his grand introduction. He has a prequel, Vanni, which you can read first if you'd like to get his perspective prior to going in. He's a bit of a douchebag at first, so if you need a reason to root for him, you can start with his story first. It was written to work either way, however.
3. Fierce -> Unstoppable -> Epic
For those who are disappointed by my "big girl" stories starring smaller sizes like 12-16, Fierce introduces Jordi Hemphill, a size 20+ young woman who moves to L.A. to take Tinsel Town by storm. She ends up on Vanni's radar, and is swept into the Groupieverse as a result. All your favorites pop up in this series.
4. The Undisciplined Bride
This is another standalone which introduces the Bravos into the Groupieverse. Both Graham and Jace (from the Fierce trilogy) pop up to help tell this Texas tale about a bridezilla from hell and the hot Latin cook who is about to turn her world upside down.
5. Enticed -> Entangled -> Enraptured
My Groupieverse shares the stage with my Fullerton Family Saga, which is most beloved by my readers. The Fullerton family blends well with the Groupieverse, starting with Book 2, Entangled. Vanni pops up, as does Graham, Shannon, Jorge, etc. Most importantly, it introduces Alex and Jonathan Fullerton, who will come into play in later books/series. Young Jonathan will get his own romance book one day. If you've read Big Fat Bitch, you've already met someone who will be very important to him in the near future.
6. The Leftover Club
This is another standalone that introduces a character who will enter our Groupieverse: Meghan Lawless. Expect her to shake some stuff up when I publish Rewound, the next book in the Groupieverse, coming in 2019.
7. Southern Rocker Boy -> Southern Rocker Chick -> Southern Rocker Showdown
My southern rockers start in Texas, but by the ends of both SRB and SRC, they end up heading for the Golden Coast of California, where everyone in the Groupieverse is waiting to help make their dreams come true. Technically speaking, Boy and Chick are the same story from two different perspectives. They are not, however, a retelling of the same book. Southern Rocker Chick is most like the Danielle Steel books I grew up reading. It's about Lacy Abernathy's life, getting her to her HEA/dream come true. Jonah Riley just happens to come along and mess up all her plans.
8. Masters for Hire -> Masters for Life -> Masters Forever
This series stars L.A.'s rich and powerful, so naturally they orbit in the same galaxy as my Groupie/Fullerton Family Saga characters. Graham Baxter and Alex Fullerton actually come into play in a BIG way in Book Three, but Graham was sprinkling his fairy dust long before that. (I love that man.) It also introduces Caz Bixby, whom I love even MORE. This man is now my copilot. You'll see him a LOT in upcoming books, including one just for him. (You've already met the woman who is going to rock his world, too.)
9. Glitter on the Web -> Masked in the Music -> FFF
This series wasn't really written as a series on purpose, but the characters insisted that they all be grouped together. It starts with Carly Reynolds meeting Caz Bixby, which opens the Groupieverse even more. Each of these TECHNICALLY work as standalones, because whether or not the couple in question get together is answered by the end of their specific book, but the world they're living in is the same - so they're linked as family. (And I like that.) If, however, M/M romance is not your cup of tea, or... if the reverse is true and M/F is not your cup of tea, you can skip the story. But FFF embraces both couples, so... it'll help keep you up to speed to read them all.
10. Big Fat Bitch
Likewise, BFB is a standalone, but we're setting the stage here for other books coming next year, listed below:
11. Rewound -> Rebound -> Renowned (coming in 2019)
Here we pick up with Andy, Vanni and Graham, as well as Carly and Eli, Rudy and Tony, and, of course, Caz Bixby. If you prefer your HEA from the original book rock solid, you may want to take a pass with these. I've had to pick up some pieces of what happened in FFF, and it will throw our favorites into chaos for a while. But that's the fun of it, am I right? When they're blown apart, we can see if their love is strong enough to bring them back together again. And believe me, there's nothing I like more than falling in love with Vanni all over again.
My next group of books will be a departure from my Groupieverse, but who knows? Maybe the characters there will find a way to interject themselves into new stories. They're minxes like that.
Watch for book 1 of the Scar Trilogy, Shattered, to publish *hopefully* by the end of this year.
That's it! I hope this list is helpful. It kinda helps me, too. The vines are growing longer with each passing year. But, just like my Barbieverse from the 1980s, these are stories and characters I love to revisit, so... I predict it will only continue to grow.
Thank you so much for reading my books and loving these characters as much as I do. Please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think. We writers kinda live for that sort of thing. I churn out book after book, hoping I can make a connection. When you all let me know I have done what I set out to do, that rewards me in ways mere words are too small to describe.
How can you thank someone for letting you live your dream? The only thing I can do is write even more books.
So, that's what I'm going to do.
Until next time, dream big... live large... BE FIERCE.
I've been working on building a book universe for eight years. It didn't start out with that grand scheme in mind. It just sort of... happened.
It began with what I call Easter Eggs, those little nuggets referring to other stories that fans will recognize as my little shout-out to them, recognizing and rewarding their loyalty to my books. I got the idea from Stephen King and just kind of rolled with it. Truthfully, I love it when characters from other books pop up in new stories. They surprise me often. I hope it works the same for you, just like it worked for me as a SK fan.
But, if you're new here because later books brought you into my universe, you might need a cheat sheet showing you the reading order. It's true that when it comes to the Groupieverse, you don't know the WHOLE story until you've read all the books, because I've sprinkled that fairy dust EVERYWHERE.
The safest bet is to read by order of publication because I'm a linear thinker. Some books that are out of genre, however, won't tie into the main through-line. That is not to say that your favorite characters won't still pop up from time to time (Chasing Thunder,) but here are the books that support and define my Groupieverse:
1. Love Plus One:
This standalone romance introduces us to Shannon, Dixie and Jorge, who pop up again in the Groupieverse in Mogul, which is Book Three of the original Groupie Saga. They also show up in the Fullerton Family Saga, starting in Book 2, Entangled. Jorge comes back often because I just love him.
2. Groupie -> Rock Star -> Mogul -> Vanni.
Here's where my most beloved character, Vanni Carnevale, makes his grand introduction. He has a prequel, Vanni, which you can read first if you'd like to get his perspective prior to going in. He's a bit of a douchebag at first, so if you need a reason to root for him, you can start with his story first. It was written to work either way, however.
3. Fierce -> Unstoppable -> Epic
For those who are disappointed by my "big girl" stories starring smaller sizes like 12-16, Fierce introduces Jordi Hemphill, a size 20+ young woman who moves to L.A. to take Tinsel Town by storm. She ends up on Vanni's radar, and is swept into the Groupieverse as a result. All your favorites pop up in this series.
4. The Undisciplined Bride
This is another standalone which introduces the Bravos into the Groupieverse. Both Graham and Jace (from the Fierce trilogy) pop up to help tell this Texas tale about a bridezilla from hell and the hot Latin cook who is about to turn her world upside down.
5. Enticed -> Entangled -> Enraptured
My Groupieverse shares the stage with my Fullerton Family Saga, which is most beloved by my readers. The Fullerton family blends well with the Groupieverse, starting with Book 2, Entangled. Vanni pops up, as does Graham, Shannon, Jorge, etc. Most importantly, it introduces Alex and Jonathan Fullerton, who will come into play in later books/series. Young Jonathan will get his own romance book one day. If you've read Big Fat Bitch, you've already met someone who will be very important to him in the near future.
6. The Leftover Club
This is another standalone that introduces a character who will enter our Groupieverse: Meghan Lawless. Expect her to shake some stuff up when I publish Rewound, the next book in the Groupieverse, coming in 2019.
7. Southern Rocker Boy -> Southern Rocker Chick -> Southern Rocker Showdown
My southern rockers start in Texas, but by the ends of both SRB and SRC, they end up heading for the Golden Coast of California, where everyone in the Groupieverse is waiting to help make their dreams come true. Technically speaking, Boy and Chick are the same story from two different perspectives. They are not, however, a retelling of the same book. Southern Rocker Chick is most like the Danielle Steel books I grew up reading. It's about Lacy Abernathy's life, getting her to her HEA/dream come true. Jonah Riley just happens to come along and mess up all her plans.
8. Masters for Hire -> Masters for Life -> Masters Forever
This series stars L.A.'s rich and powerful, so naturally they orbit in the same galaxy as my Groupie/Fullerton Family Saga characters. Graham Baxter and Alex Fullerton actually come into play in a BIG way in Book Three, but Graham was sprinkling his fairy dust long before that. (I love that man.) It also introduces Caz Bixby, whom I love even MORE. This man is now my copilot. You'll see him a LOT in upcoming books, including one just for him. (You've already met the woman who is going to rock his world, too.)
9. Glitter on the Web -> Masked in the Music -> FFF
This series wasn't really written as a series on purpose, but the characters insisted that they all be grouped together. It starts with Carly Reynolds meeting Caz Bixby, which opens the Groupieverse even more. Each of these TECHNICALLY work as standalones, because whether or not the couple in question get together is answered by the end of their specific book, but the world they're living in is the same - so they're linked as family. (And I like that.) If, however, M/M romance is not your cup of tea, or... if the reverse is true and M/F is not your cup of tea, you can skip the story. But FFF embraces both couples, so... it'll help keep you up to speed to read them all.
10. Big Fat Bitch
Likewise, BFB is a standalone, but we're setting the stage here for other books coming next year, listed below:
11. Rewound -> Rebound -> Renowned (coming in 2019)
Here we pick up with Andy, Vanni and Graham, as well as Carly and Eli, Rudy and Tony, and, of course, Caz Bixby. If you prefer your HEA from the original book rock solid, you may want to take a pass with these. I've had to pick up some pieces of what happened in FFF, and it will throw our favorites into chaos for a while. But that's the fun of it, am I right? When they're blown apart, we can see if their love is strong enough to bring them back together again. And believe me, there's nothing I like more than falling in love with Vanni all over again.
My next group of books will be a departure from my Groupieverse, but who knows? Maybe the characters there will find a way to interject themselves into new stories. They're minxes like that.
Watch for book 1 of the Scar Trilogy, Shattered, to publish *hopefully* by the end of this year.
That's it! I hope this list is helpful. It kinda helps me, too. The vines are growing longer with each passing year. But, just like my Barbieverse from the 1980s, these are stories and characters I love to revisit, so... I predict it will only continue to grow.
Thank you so much for reading my books and loving these characters as much as I do. Please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think. We writers kinda live for that sort of thing. I churn out book after book, hoping I can make a connection. When you all let me know I have done what I set out to do, that rewards me in ways mere words are too small to describe.
How can you thank someone for letting you live your dream? The only thing I can do is write even more books.
So, that's what I'm going to do.
Until next time, dream big... live large... BE FIERCE.
September 23, 2018
How Cogsworth changed everything.
One of the challenges of writing BIG FAT BITCH was finding a way to incorporate all the things I loved about Beauty and the Beast into a whole new story with a modern slant. I had the usual suspects, with a Beauty and a Beast, we've already talked about them. But the story of B&B itself is told primarily through and facilitated by the supporting characters.
Case in point, the main song itself was sung by Mrs. Potts, who stood as an observer to the action happening around her.
I knew I couldn't forsake any of them. I had to cast and write for them as diligently and respectfully as I wrote for my two leads, or else the whole thing just wouldn't work. Not the way I wanted it to, anyway.
The Mrs. Potts in my story was fairly easy to cast as a nurse who took care of the ailing Rose. She was her guardian and, if need be, her happy little elf moving pieces into their places in order to make a miracle happen before it was too late. This character sprang directly from my work with a hospice. A number of nurses went into developing her. In fact, she was named after one in particular.
Likewise, Lumiere was easy to cast. I needed someone flashy and dynamic, so naturally I reached into Sofie's job to find that person. She's the show runner of one of the hottest TV dramas, so there were plenty of actors and actresses vying for the part. Ultimately I gave it to a plus-sized diva, because it needed to be someone with a little extra pizazz.
Chip and Maurice sort of blended, doing double duty through Fletcher's 12-year-old daughter, Ava. Like Pudgie, she was an overweight preteen who had some obstacles to overcome, but endless optimism to do just that. That she has a supporting, doting dad only made her stronger. Ava is indeed one of my favorite new characters and you WILL see her again.
More importantly, Jonathan Fullerton will get to know her eventually. Keep an eye out for that tale.
The only character that was hard to find room for was Cogsworth. He was Lumiere's spoiler in B&B, and I really wasn't inspired by him because I didn't think that my story required such a character. I stayed stuck in the planning phase for this book for a long time because this was one stray piece I couldn't make fit. It had to be someone in Sofie's life, that much I knew. But what did Sofie need to fill in the blanks of her past?
In the recent live-action B&B, the supporting characters took care of the Beast because of the guilt that they felt. After his mother died, his cruel father basically drove any loving (and lovable) qualities out of his son, and they, as his guardians from birth, felt responsible that they let it happen. For that, they were all cursed.
So, I started to think about what that character might look like for my story. Finally, it dawned on me. I had been so hyper-focused on the relationship between Sofie and her mother, Rose, that I totally hadn't considered the role her father might have played.
Because my own father died when I was eleven, I'm much more familiar with the mother/daughter dynamic. And since this story is so personal to me, almost a love letter (and apology) to my own mother, I hadn't even considered making any room for a dad. It never even dawned on me UNTIL I realized that Cogsworth could be her own father.
Vincent Ducet was born in that thought, because I saw the entire meaning for his existence the second I made the connection. It struck me like a lightning bolt. I knew then the subplot wasn't just about Sofie's "curse,"... Vincent himself had some things to correct.
That meant my book would not only have ONE romance... BUT TWO.
It is that second love story that will touch you the most. Three betas came to me, telling me they were already tearing up by Chapter Six, and I couldn't even remember what I had written. I was so focused on Sofie and Fletcher and getting THEIR romance right, because that's kind of the spine of the story.
Yet, Vincent would not be denied.
He opened my story up in ways I couldn't imagine. He let me know almost from the beginning that he was a crazy Cajun living on a boat in the marina, close enough to his daughter that they could still see each other, but far enough away from the Big City to which he had never acclimated. This gave color and music to my story in a very Beauty-and-Beast kind of way. It also makes Sofie way more human, because there IS someone on the planet that she truly cares about - someone who likewise cares about her.
That helps us love her, too.
He is the thread that ties the stories together. He also gives this tale so much more heart than I ever expected. It may be the subplot, but to me, it's one of the more beautiful romances I have written. It ranks right up there with the B-romance in THE UNDISCIPLINED BRIDE. Y'all know me. I like to tell diverse love stories. You get more freedom to do that in supporting characters, who don't have to do the heavy lifting of making it to the end of the book, riding off in the sunset to a white-picket-fence existence.
In the subplots, you can tell love stories where a happy ending doesn't necessarily include a Happily Ever After. How do you find romance when there's only a few grains of sand left yet to fall?
You love like Vincent Ducet loves.
When I tell you that y'all ain't ready for this new book, this is the reason why. This story will break your heart. It sure as hell broke mine. But I am so, so grateful for it because this part of the story is what makes it everything I wanted my version of B&B to be. Why? Because there's nothing more hopeful than the promise of love... no matter when that particular bird lands on your shoulder.
I didn't just focus on the new couple. I literally aspired to give a HEA to a dying woman.
I can't wait for you to read this book. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm all the things you should be when you write something that means something to you. But that turned up to eleven the second Vincent tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey. I hear you're looking for a Cogsworth."
I turned around and saw one of the strongest, most romantic heroes I have had the privilege to write.
In my mental movie, he looks like this...
And he sounds like this...
And I just really, REALLY can't wait for you to meet him.
Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?
Case in point, the main song itself was sung by Mrs. Potts, who stood as an observer to the action happening around her.
I knew I couldn't forsake any of them. I had to cast and write for them as diligently and respectfully as I wrote for my two leads, or else the whole thing just wouldn't work. Not the way I wanted it to, anyway.
The Mrs. Potts in my story was fairly easy to cast as a nurse who took care of the ailing Rose. She was her guardian and, if need be, her happy little elf moving pieces into their places in order to make a miracle happen before it was too late. This character sprang directly from my work with a hospice. A number of nurses went into developing her. In fact, she was named after one in particular.
Likewise, Lumiere was easy to cast. I needed someone flashy and dynamic, so naturally I reached into Sofie's job to find that person. She's the show runner of one of the hottest TV dramas, so there were plenty of actors and actresses vying for the part. Ultimately I gave it to a plus-sized diva, because it needed to be someone with a little extra pizazz.
Chip and Maurice sort of blended, doing double duty through Fletcher's 12-year-old daughter, Ava. Like Pudgie, she was an overweight preteen who had some obstacles to overcome, but endless optimism to do just that. That she has a supporting, doting dad only made her stronger. Ava is indeed one of my favorite new characters and you WILL see her again.
More importantly, Jonathan Fullerton will get to know her eventually. Keep an eye out for that tale.
The only character that was hard to find room for was Cogsworth. He was Lumiere's spoiler in B&B, and I really wasn't inspired by him because I didn't think that my story required such a character. I stayed stuck in the planning phase for this book for a long time because this was one stray piece I couldn't make fit. It had to be someone in Sofie's life, that much I knew. But what did Sofie need to fill in the blanks of her past?
In the recent live-action B&B, the supporting characters took care of the Beast because of the guilt that they felt. After his mother died, his cruel father basically drove any loving (and lovable) qualities out of his son, and they, as his guardians from birth, felt responsible that they let it happen. For that, they were all cursed.
So, I started to think about what that character might look like for my story. Finally, it dawned on me. I had been so hyper-focused on the relationship between Sofie and her mother, Rose, that I totally hadn't considered the role her father might have played.
Because my own father died when I was eleven, I'm much more familiar with the mother/daughter dynamic. And since this story is so personal to me, almost a love letter (and apology) to my own mother, I hadn't even considered making any room for a dad. It never even dawned on me UNTIL I realized that Cogsworth could be her own father.
Vincent Ducet was born in that thought, because I saw the entire meaning for his existence the second I made the connection. It struck me like a lightning bolt. I knew then the subplot wasn't just about Sofie's "curse,"... Vincent himself had some things to correct.
That meant my book would not only have ONE romance... BUT TWO.
It is that second love story that will touch you the most. Three betas came to me, telling me they were already tearing up by Chapter Six, and I couldn't even remember what I had written. I was so focused on Sofie and Fletcher and getting THEIR romance right, because that's kind of the spine of the story.
Yet, Vincent would not be denied.
He opened my story up in ways I couldn't imagine. He let me know almost from the beginning that he was a crazy Cajun living on a boat in the marina, close enough to his daughter that they could still see each other, but far enough away from the Big City to which he had never acclimated. This gave color and music to my story in a very Beauty-and-Beast kind of way. It also makes Sofie way more human, because there IS someone on the planet that she truly cares about - someone who likewise cares about her.
That helps us love her, too.
He is the thread that ties the stories together. He also gives this tale so much more heart than I ever expected. It may be the subplot, but to me, it's one of the more beautiful romances I have written. It ranks right up there with the B-romance in THE UNDISCIPLINED BRIDE. Y'all know me. I like to tell diverse love stories. You get more freedom to do that in supporting characters, who don't have to do the heavy lifting of making it to the end of the book, riding off in the sunset to a white-picket-fence existence.
In the subplots, you can tell love stories where a happy ending doesn't necessarily include a Happily Ever After. How do you find romance when there's only a few grains of sand left yet to fall?
You love like Vincent Ducet loves.
Sofie boarded The Wilting Rose carrying dinner for two in a large paper bag. Vincent spotted the name of the restaurant printed on the side.
“Barbecue,” he said. “My favorite.”
She smiled. “How’s it going, Pop?”
He offered a noncommittal shrug. “Can’t complain.” She spotted one of her mother’s leather-bound journals sitting on the table next to his prized fiddle. As far as she knew, he hadn’t played that fiddle in a good twenty years. She knew better than to ask why he had dug it out now, so she said nothing. “How about you, Sugar?”
She pulled out the plates of brisket and all the southern fixings to go along with it, including the okra her father loved so much. “Can’t complain,” she said.
A month ago, this would have been normal conversation. Now it was just code for the things they couldn’t yet talk about. The silence was heavy between them as neither said much to the other as they ate, focusing more on the food instead.
Looking back, that had been a consistent pattern between them, starting when he moved out onto the boat when she was a teen.
Finally, Sofie pulled the trigger on substantial conversation. “Surprised to see Lougenia has joined us for the evening.”
He smiled absently at the worn instrument. “I dug her out a few days ago. She’s been calling for me.”
“For you or for Mom?”
Their eyes met. “Long time ago that was one in the same,” he commented casually.
She studied his face. She knew his recent visits to see her mother had taken it out of him and it broke her heart. “Why are you doing this to yourself, Pop?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” she challenged. “I’m a pretty smart cookie.”
“I know you are, Sugar,” he said softly, with love. “But this isn’t about you, or even about your mother. It’s about a man and a woman. This man,” he amended, pointing a finger at his chest. “And my woman.”
His possessive comment took her by surprise. She hadn’t heard him talk about her mother like that in decades. When she said as much to him, he smiled.
“I never stopped loving your mother, even when she made it impossible for me to love her. We stand in our own way of love sometimes. Because of pride. Because of fear. Ego,” he chuckled softly. “Hers. Mine.” He paused. “Your mother has kept me locked out of her heart for a long, long time. Now that door is open simply because she forgot where she put the key. I’ve got a second chance, Sugar. My last chance. I don’t intend on wasting it.”
“What’s the point? No matter what you do, you won’t have a fairytale ending. You can’t have happily ever after without the ever after, Dad.”
He chuckled. “Whether or not I get a happy ending depends on where I decide to end the fairy tale, doesn’t it? And I’m not ready to type The End just yet.”
When I tell you that y'all ain't ready for this new book, this is the reason why. This story will break your heart. It sure as hell broke mine. But I am so, so grateful for it because this part of the story is what makes it everything I wanted my version of B&B to be. Why? Because there's nothing more hopeful than the promise of love... no matter when that particular bird lands on your shoulder.
I didn't just focus on the new couple. I literally aspired to give a HEA to a dying woman.
I can't wait for you to read this book. I'm excited. I'm scared. I'm all the things you should be when you write something that means something to you. But that turned up to eleven the second Vincent tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey. I hear you're looking for a Cogsworth."
I turned around and saw one of the strongest, most romantic heroes I have had the privilege to write.
In my mental movie, he looks like this...
And he sounds like this...
And I just really, REALLY can't wait for you to meet him.
Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?
September 22, 2018
Get to know Sofie Vincent. (Spoiler alert: She's me.)
We're four days from the release of my new book, and of course, you can't have a Beauty & the Beast story without a Beast. As a twist, I made my heroine the Beast, rather than the hero. I wanted to see how a beautiful man might change the life of a woman considered beastly by our society. This is a story I know about firsthand, so I also knew that I didn't have to curse her with the outward appearance of a monster. I simply followed our cultural guidelines of what makes a woman truly monstrous: I made her fat.
She's not THE bitchiest heroine I've written. That honor goes to Peyton from The Undisciplined Bride, who had the special privilege of growing up as the kind of woman that society covets. She was beautiful, thin, rich. She was the very definition of privilege.
Sofie, on the other hand, is the product of steel grit and determination. Where Peyton was my stylish Porche, Sofie is a tank. She'll roll you over if she has to.
It's her world, we merely live in it.
That's not to say she isn't cursed, however. I meant to make her much meaner, but it just didn't work out that way. Unlike Peyton, who became a bitch out of entitlement, Sofie's bitch mentality comes from somewhere else entirely. In the end, I came to love her every bit as much as Fletcher. Not despite her so-called flaws... *because of them.*
How old is she when we meet her?
Thirty-eight. Because the wilting rose in my Beauty and the Beast is an actual person, this required my fairy tale focus on someone at a different point in her life, in this case a grown adult who is about to lose a parent. Also, her age supercharges her DGAF attitude. By the time a woman reaches her 40s, her People-Pleasing gene is worn out. She doesn't have time for your foolishness, basically.
What stands out most about him?
Sofie Vincent gets shit done. People underestimated her, but she created a TV empire from nothing but her steel spine alone. She took nothing from no one and forged her future out of sheer tenacity.
I like that. I get that. I've done it.
Nice gal or bitch?
She's not A bitch, she's THE bitch; and it's MS. BITCH to you.
Favorite moment with her?
Okay, so here's the thing. I had some key scenes in mind when I finally sat down to write the book. The one I most looked forward to was The Karaoke Scene. Lemme tell you why.
The root of Sofie's bitch behavior is that she was a laughingstock throughout her formative years. She tried so hard not just to fit in but to come out on top, but often fell flat on her face. Her mother, famed children's author Rose Thibodeau, wanted to help her daughter the only way she knew how: she put it all in her books. Every single failure was documented for the whole world to see. Rose always changed the ending where Sofie came out on top, but the very audience that book sold to was the group who knew Sofie best, her fellow classmates.
So, they knew the bitter truth behind these fairy tales. And, kids being kids, made her life a living hell as a result. This was why Sofie wanted no part of Pudgie, and had buried that identity as far into the ground as it could go. When you're already behind the eight ball, you don't want anyone to see any point of weakness. It's a vulnerability folks like us just can't afford.
My own childhood was filled to the brim with embarrassing experiences from which I could draw inspiration for the Pudgie books. One of the bigger ones involved an unfortunate audition for City Choir when I was in 8th grade.
I'm no Celine Dion by any stretch, but I love to sing. As someone with a moderate singing voice, of course I tried out for choir. That was one class I couldn't wait to take. When I learned that my range went all the way to the top of the scales, getting that validation gave me some encouragement to challenge myself even further. I decided to try out for City Choir, a group of students from all over town who were selected among their peers as the best of the best. I earned my right to audition and my teacher gave me a challenging piece of music (in another language no less,) that I rehearsed for WEEKS to get exactly right.
By the time I went for the official audition, I felt super prepared. I had performed the song daily in class around my other classmates until I knew it was as perfect as I was going to get it. I went to the off-sight campus to audition, where I and others like me performed in our own separate rooms, hidden behind a curtain for the judges.
So, there I am, completely prepared AND I didn't even have to look at the people who might be judging me. Sounds perfect, right?
Y'all... I choked. I opened up my mouth and all sound was strangled in my throat. I face-planted. HARD. It wasn't QUITE the public speaking scene from Life of the Party, but that's what it felt like. I have anxiety to begin with, and social anxiety on top of that. Air squeaked out of me like a balloon and I couldn't sing one fucking word.
After that, I never wanted to sing in public again.
Actually, that's not true. I wanted to, because I love to sing. Like, passionately love to sing. But I no longer could do it if I thought someone else might hear me.
If I'm belting out a song in my car and I ease up to a traffic light next to other people, I STOP SINGING. I don't even want people to KNOW I'm singing, even if they can't hear me.
In fact, this is why I don't dance. I don't do *anything* to draw attention to myself because I can never, ever be center stage like that again.
Oddly, public speaking isn't that difficult, but dancing or singing? Fuggetaboutit.
I realize what a stupid phobia this is, believe me. During a conversation about this very thing with my bestie, I said that if another friend of mine ever knew that this was one of my phobias, he would DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGG me to a karaoke bar and make me confront my fear.
Hence, the Karaoke Scene was born. I *knew* that if I had my hero do this for Sofie, it would be a pivotal moment in her life, virtually reclaiming a victory once snatched right out of her vulnerable, teenage hands.
If I did it right, it could also be a pivotal moment between the two lead characters.
To me, there's nothing sexier than power reversals in relationships. No one person can have all the power all the time, and it is in those moments of submission where we are vulnerable enough not only to love someone else, but to risk being loved in return.
For Sofie, she would have to trust him more than she feared failing. Speaking from personal experience I can tell you that both are equally terrifying. Needless to say, *I* haven't been to a karaoke club, and I made damned sure I never made a peep around any friend who might get the idea to drag me. The thought literally makes me hyperventilate. Balls out terror, y'all. I'm not even close to kidding.
So, I did what I always do. I put it in a book. As one of the Pudgie stories that Sofie loathes, she tried out for city choir in front of an audience and face planted just like I had. Her mother wrote it a little differently, of course, giving her a much needed happy ending. But her classmates knew the truth. Worse, Sofie knew the truth. And she hadn't yet recovered, just like I haven't. And Fletcher decided he was going to do something about it, to help her claim a victory of our own.
That being said, you'll have to read the book for that whole scene because the scene deserves everything leading up to it to be told properly. But here's a meaty teaser:
What do you love about her?
She's a prickly human, much more thorn than rose, but I like that about her. I get it, because that's how I am. When you've been hurt a lot, you put up a lot of walls. That line about the Fuck-Off sign is basically how I live my life. I repel people rather than risk them hurting me. But if you're one of the few people who actually get in, I will move heaven and earth to take care of you. That's Sofie in a nutshell.
What do you hate about her?
That she doesn't jump Fletcher sooner.
If you went out together, where would you go?
Well, it probably wouldn't be a karaoke bar.
Who inspired her?
You're lookin' at her, folks.
Who might play her in a movie?
There's really only one person I could cast in my mental movie for this role.
She's one of the few women of size in our industry for one, but that she makes the kinds of movies I would like to make just seals the deal. From Spy to Life of the Party, she's not afraid to tell Fat Female Positive stories in all their many shades.
It is my hope she'll work with me to make this one a reality. I plan to have a script in hand and pitching her prodco by the end of the year. If you read the book and you love it, and you love Melissa, do your girl Ginger a favor and slide her a copy. ;)
Do you have a special song that reminds you of her?
I mean... come on.
Any "Easter Eggs" planted with this character?
See the karaoke debacle above. Almost every single Pudgie story is a story from my past. Even the release date is a special date for me, because that was when I met my best friend in 1980 and my first husband in 1987. There is so much of me in this girl, it's a surprise her name isn't Ginger.
Where can we find her?
See you back here tomorrow, when we talk about my Cogsworth, who changed the whole story the minute I figured out which character he was going to be. It's a fascinating story. I hope you check it out.
She's not THE bitchiest heroine I've written. That honor goes to Peyton from The Undisciplined Bride, who had the special privilege of growing up as the kind of woman that society covets. She was beautiful, thin, rich. She was the very definition of privilege.
Sofie, on the other hand, is the product of steel grit and determination. Where Peyton was my stylish Porche, Sofie is a tank. She'll roll you over if she has to.
It's her world, we merely live in it.
That's not to say she isn't cursed, however. I meant to make her much meaner, but it just didn't work out that way. Unlike Peyton, who became a bitch out of entitlement, Sofie's bitch mentality comes from somewhere else entirely. In the end, I came to love her every bit as much as Fletcher. Not despite her so-called flaws... *because of them.*
How old is she when we meet her?
Thirty-eight. Because the wilting rose in my Beauty and the Beast is an actual person, this required my fairy tale focus on someone at a different point in her life, in this case a grown adult who is about to lose a parent. Also, her age supercharges her DGAF attitude. By the time a woman reaches her 40s, her People-Pleasing gene is worn out. She doesn't have time for your foolishness, basically.
What stands out most about him?
Sofie Vincent gets shit done. People underestimated her, but she created a TV empire from nothing but her steel spine alone. She took nothing from no one and forged her future out of sheer tenacity.
I like that. I get that. I've done it.
Nice gal or bitch?
She's not A bitch, she's THE bitch; and it's MS. BITCH to you.
Favorite moment with her?
Okay, so here's the thing. I had some key scenes in mind when I finally sat down to write the book. The one I most looked forward to was The Karaoke Scene. Lemme tell you why.
The root of Sofie's bitch behavior is that she was a laughingstock throughout her formative years. She tried so hard not just to fit in but to come out on top, but often fell flat on her face. Her mother, famed children's author Rose Thibodeau, wanted to help her daughter the only way she knew how: she put it all in her books. Every single failure was documented for the whole world to see. Rose always changed the ending where Sofie came out on top, but the very audience that book sold to was the group who knew Sofie best, her fellow classmates.
So, they knew the bitter truth behind these fairy tales. And, kids being kids, made her life a living hell as a result. This was why Sofie wanted no part of Pudgie, and had buried that identity as far into the ground as it could go. When you're already behind the eight ball, you don't want anyone to see any point of weakness. It's a vulnerability folks like us just can't afford.
My own childhood was filled to the brim with embarrassing experiences from which I could draw inspiration for the Pudgie books. One of the bigger ones involved an unfortunate audition for City Choir when I was in 8th grade.
I'm no Celine Dion by any stretch, but I love to sing. As someone with a moderate singing voice, of course I tried out for choir. That was one class I couldn't wait to take. When I learned that my range went all the way to the top of the scales, getting that validation gave me some encouragement to challenge myself even further. I decided to try out for City Choir, a group of students from all over town who were selected among their peers as the best of the best. I earned my right to audition and my teacher gave me a challenging piece of music (in another language no less,) that I rehearsed for WEEKS to get exactly right.
By the time I went for the official audition, I felt super prepared. I had performed the song daily in class around my other classmates until I knew it was as perfect as I was going to get it. I went to the off-sight campus to audition, where I and others like me performed in our own separate rooms, hidden behind a curtain for the judges.
So, there I am, completely prepared AND I didn't even have to look at the people who might be judging me. Sounds perfect, right?
Y'all... I choked. I opened up my mouth and all sound was strangled in my throat. I face-planted. HARD. It wasn't QUITE the public speaking scene from Life of the Party, but that's what it felt like. I have anxiety to begin with, and social anxiety on top of that. Air squeaked out of me like a balloon and I couldn't sing one fucking word.
After that, I never wanted to sing in public again.
Actually, that's not true. I wanted to, because I love to sing. Like, passionately love to sing. But I no longer could do it if I thought someone else might hear me.
If I'm belting out a song in my car and I ease up to a traffic light next to other people, I STOP SINGING. I don't even want people to KNOW I'm singing, even if they can't hear me.
In fact, this is why I don't dance. I don't do *anything* to draw attention to myself because I can never, ever be center stage like that again.
Oddly, public speaking isn't that difficult, but dancing or singing? Fuggetaboutit.
I realize what a stupid phobia this is, believe me. During a conversation about this very thing with my bestie, I said that if another friend of mine ever knew that this was one of my phobias, he would DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGG me to a karaoke bar and make me confront my fear.
Hence, the Karaoke Scene was born. I *knew* that if I had my hero do this for Sofie, it would be a pivotal moment in her life, virtually reclaiming a victory once snatched right out of her vulnerable, teenage hands.
If I did it right, it could also be a pivotal moment between the two lead characters.
To me, there's nothing sexier than power reversals in relationships. No one person can have all the power all the time, and it is in those moments of submission where we are vulnerable enough not only to love someone else, but to risk being loved in return.
For Sofie, she would have to trust him more than she feared failing. Speaking from personal experience I can tell you that both are equally terrifying. Needless to say, *I* haven't been to a karaoke club, and I made damned sure I never made a peep around any friend who might get the idea to drag me. The thought literally makes me hyperventilate. Balls out terror, y'all. I'm not even close to kidding.
So, I did what I always do. I put it in a book. As one of the Pudgie stories that Sofie loathes, she tried out for city choir in front of an audience and face planted just like I had. Her mother wrote it a little differently, of course, giving her a much needed happy ending. But her classmates knew the truth. Worse, Sofie knew the truth. And she hadn't yet recovered, just like I haven't. And Fletcher decided he was going to do something about it, to help her claim a victory of our own.
That being said, you'll have to read the book for that whole scene because the scene deserves everything leading up to it to be told properly. But here's a meaty teaser:
He kept her in the dark about where they were going all the way to Long Beach, where he finally pulled into the parking lot of a crowded karaoke bar. “Oh, no,” she said automatically. “No way.”
“Why not?”
“Um, hello? I don’t want to make a fool of myself. Again,” she added for emphasis.
“It’s a bar full of strangers. You’ve never seen them before and you’ll never see them again. What do you have to lose?”
“A little thing called social media. Ever hear of it?”
He laughed. “That’s some ego you have there, Ms. Vincent. You think the whole world is going to stop and watch what you’re doing?”
“Have you read Pudgie?” she countered.
“Have you?” he shot back. “What do you think Pudgie would do if she was in this car right now?”
Sofie rolled her eyes. “Knowing the way my mother wrote her, she’d probably race you to the front door. But Pudgie isn’t in this car right now.”
He leaned closer, capturing him in that gaze that invited no argument. “Isn’t she?” Sofie swallowed hard.
“When are you going to get it through your head? Pudgie doesn’t exist. You’re stuck with Sofie.”
“Yeah, well I got news for you. Sofie isn’t in this car right now. She’s stuck on that stage. Pudgie moved on. You didn’t. And you never will until you face your fears.”
She grew angrier by the minute. “I told you. I’m not scared of anything. You have no idea what I’ve had to face to get to where I am. This town is littered with the corpses of those who thought they were strong enough to take it but couldn’t stand up under the strain. I’m the one that persevered. I’m the one that made it through. Me. Sofie. Fearless, tenacious Sofie.”
“Hum,” he pondered. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
She knew he meant Pudgie. “Oh, my God. Just turn around and take me home. Better yet, get out so I can drive my own damned self.”
“Okay, Sofie,” he relented as he gave her the keys. “But I want you to think about something. You have done nothing but bitch and moan how Pudgie isn’t real. You tell me over and over again her stories were fairy tales. You want to blame Rose for that. But I blame you.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
“Face it. Rose wrote Pudgie to do the things you never had the courage to complete.”
“Fuck you,” she spat. “I created a career out of nothing, asshole. Do you know how hard that was for a woman? Much less a woman who looks like me? I broke down every door they tried to lock me out of. I made it on my terms and did every single thing they told me I couldn’t do.”
“And yet, a bar full of drunk strangers scares the piss right out of you.”
His logic was pissing her the hell off. “I don’t have anything to prove to you.”
“No. But you have something to prove to yourself. And until you do, you’ll never make peace with Pudgie.”
He got out of the car and walked towards the club. She sat in the passenger seat, practically frothing at the mouth. Who did Fletcher Sullivan think he was, anyway? If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have had two dimes to rub together. And he thought he could judge her?
Though she held the keys in her hand, she didn’t move one muscle towards the driver’s side. She sat and fumed, waiting for him to come back to the car so she could yell at him some more.
Only he never came. After about eight minutes (and 49 seconds,) she finally wrenched the car open and stalked towards the club.
The joint was packed. She surveyed the crowd until her eyes finally found the tall pain in the ass currently working as her assistant. He sat alone, but there were two beers in front of him. That arrogant jackass knew she’d come find him.
It only made her angrier as she approached. She opened her mouth to berate him, but he interrupted her calmly. “Oh, good. You’re here. We’re up in ten. After that drunk group of frat boys sing ‘I Want it That Way.’”
“I told you. I am not singing.”
He took a lazy sip of his beer. “You came all the way in here to tell me that?”
She glared at him. “What is wrong with you? I told you. I don’t want to humiliate myself in front of strangers.”
“And I keep telling you nobody cares about that as much as you do.” He pointed to the stage, where a couple attempted a duet very badly. “Nobody in this crowd is expecting Whitney Houston. They simply want to see people have a good time. Believe it or not, Sofie, people default to being on your side.”
She sat next to him. “That’s easy for you to say. Look at you. People want to get close to you. They want to know what you’re about. People have been running from me since I was a child.”
He shrugged as he took another sip. “Might have something to do with that giant, blinking neon ‘Fuck Off’ sign you wear like a goddamned tiara.”
“Because I don’t want to get close to anyone,” she growled in frustration.
“Then why do you care what they think of you?” he countered. She sputtered in response as the drunk frat boys took the stage. He pushed the beer towards her. “We’re next.”
What do you love about her?
She's a prickly human, much more thorn than rose, but I like that about her. I get it, because that's how I am. When you've been hurt a lot, you put up a lot of walls. That line about the Fuck-Off sign is basically how I live my life. I repel people rather than risk them hurting me. But if you're one of the few people who actually get in, I will move heaven and earth to take care of you. That's Sofie in a nutshell.
What do you hate about her?
That she doesn't jump Fletcher sooner.
If you went out together, where would you go?
Well, it probably wouldn't be a karaoke bar.
Who inspired her?
You're lookin' at her, folks.
Who might play her in a movie?
There's really only one person I could cast in my mental movie for this role.
She's one of the few women of size in our industry for one, but that she makes the kinds of movies I would like to make just seals the deal. From Spy to Life of the Party, she's not afraid to tell Fat Female Positive stories in all their many shades.
It is my hope she'll work with me to make this one a reality. I plan to have a script in hand and pitching her prodco by the end of the year. If you read the book and you love it, and you love Melissa, do your girl Ginger a favor and slide her a copy. ;)
Do you have a special song that reminds you of her?
I mean... come on.
Any "Easter Eggs" planted with this character?
See the karaoke debacle above. Almost every single Pudgie story is a story from my past. Even the release date is a special date for me, because that was when I met my best friend in 1980 and my first husband in 1987. There is so much of me in this girl, it's a surprise her name isn't Ginger.
Where can we find her?
See you back here tomorrow, when we talk about my Cogsworth, who changed the whole story the minute I figured out which character he was going to be. It's a fascinating story. I hope you check it out.
September 21, 2018
Get to know Fletcher Sullivan.
In just five days, you'll get to read my latest book, BIG FAT BITCH. Honestly, y'all. I'm super DUPER excited about it. It normally doesn't take me a long time to get a book done, as you all know, but this concept was so choice I really wanted to get it right. After percolating for nearly two years, I finally just planted my tush in the seat and wrote it. It feels like I did everything I set out to do, but only you'll know for sure once you read it.
I truly can't wait to hear what you think about it.
In the meantime, I thought I would introduce you to my wonderful cast of characters that have been taking up space inside my head for the last two years. I start, of course, with your next Book Boyfriend: Fletcher Sullivan.
How old is he when we meet him?
Mid-thirties.
What stands out most about him?
His humor. Despite his heavy duty job as a hospice nurse, he knows how to bring light into people's lives. He certainly brought it into mine.
Nice guy or douche?
Fletcher is the best of the best, but he also knows how to get things done. Don't discount THIS nice guy. He'll surprise you.
Favorite moment with him?
Oh, so many. SO, so many. He's got both a heart AND swagger, which is a pretty intoxicating combination. He's also a formidable gent. He has to be, because my heroine is a force of nature. Like the song Bitch says, it takes a strong man to take a woman the way she is in all her complexities. Yet, he never lets her run roughshod over her. Despite how beastly she roared, he had to stand strong. Every time he did, it just made me love him more.
What do you love about him?
He's a good man with a good heart, that much is a given. But it is the way he loves his 12-year-old daughter that endears him to me the most. Like Sofie says, he's pure light.
What do you hate about him?
Wow. Hard question. Right now I'm crushing pretty hard on him, so it's difficult to say. If anything, maybe that he's not real?
If you went on a date, where would you go?
On a sailboat, dancing under the moonlight.
Who inspired him?
Shamelessly, #1 on the laminated list inspired him, and inspired him HARD.
Who might play him in a movie?
I mean... come on.
Do you have a special song that reminds you of him?
Any "Easter Eggs" planted with this book boyfriend?
All OVER the place, but the one that deserves special recognition is the scene where Fletcher takes Sofie to a karaoke bar. Having been afflicted with horrific stage fright in the past, she is reluctant to take the stage. Fletcher doesn't understand this, because he embraces life in all its many colors. When he realizes that she's been locked up for years behind her irrational fear, he decides to liberate her from it. The scene is one of my favorites in the book, mostly because it was inspired by people outside of it. Aside from having someone in my life who WOULD force me to face my own stage fright, the following line came directly from my husband:
Where can we find him?
See you back here tomorrow, when we talk about my Big Fat Bitch, Sofie.
I truly can't wait to hear what you think about it.
In the meantime, I thought I would introduce you to my wonderful cast of characters that have been taking up space inside my head for the last two years. I start, of course, with your next Book Boyfriend: Fletcher Sullivan.
How old is he when we meet him?
Mid-thirties.
What stands out most about him?
His humor. Despite his heavy duty job as a hospice nurse, he knows how to bring light into people's lives. He certainly brought it into mine.
Nice guy or douche?
Fletcher is the best of the best, but he also knows how to get things done. Don't discount THIS nice guy. He'll surprise you.
Favorite moment with him?
Oh, so many. SO, so many. He's got both a heart AND swagger, which is a pretty intoxicating combination. He's also a formidable gent. He has to be, because my heroine is a force of nature. Like the song Bitch says, it takes a strong man to take a woman the way she is in all her complexities. Yet, he never lets her run roughshod over her. Despite how beastly she roared, he had to stand strong. Every time he did, it just made me love him more.
“Fletcher, I need to speak to you privately in my office.”
He and Meghan shared a glance before he nodded. He gestured the way. “After you, boss.”
She entered the office first, so he closed the door behind them. “I take it you’ve made up your mind how to handle Martina.”
“There’s nothing to handle,” she said. “She made her choices when she broke her contract.”
He gaped at her. “Seriously?”
She sat at her desk, her throne. Let him dare question the queen. “I appreciate that you are empathetic to her particular troubles, Fletcher, but I can’t afford to be. I have a show to run, and that gets a lot harder when people have no incentive to follow the rules.”
“She’s not some fuckup, Sofie. She’s sick.”
Sofie leaned forward, resting her arms on the desk and linking her fingers together. “She now has a free schedule to get better.”
He walked to the desk, placing his hands onto it before he leaned down to glare at her. “Do you realize that you have your cast so terrified of your bogus rules that they couldn’t even call 9-1-1 for someone who was overdosing? They were more scared shitless of what you would do.”
Her eyebrow arched. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“She could have died,” he growled.
“Her decision to overdose on drugs is regrettable,” Sofie agreed. “But that was her decision.”
He rose back into a standing position. “This isn’t about her at all, is it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s about me. And you. And showing me there’s a price for crossing you, which–thanks to the power you seem to wield–is everything.” She said nothing, so he needled more. “Seems like a pretty drastic reaction to me catching you in your robe.”
She flew out of the chair and rounded the desk. “I don’t know what you think you saw last night, but it changes nothing.”
He studied her for a moment before he stepped closer, closing the gap between them. “No?” he murmured.
It was everything she could do not to step away from him. “No,” she confirmed.
He leaned down. Their faces were inches apart. His dark gaze drilled into hers. “You sure?”
She tipped her chin, which ultimately brought their faces even closer. His gaze dropped to her mouth, which made her stomach clank to her feet. She fought every impulse to clear her throat, lick her lips, stammer or gasp. She would not give one inch. “Positive,” she gritted between clenched teeth.
His eyes met hers. “You really turned out to be a cold-hearted bitch, didn’t you, Pudgie?”
Her hand flew up to slap his face, but he easily caught her wrist. The strength in his hand as he held her took her breath away. She wasn’t used to anyone standing up to her. No one ever dared. But Fletcher Sullivan wasn’t just anybody. He had the ability to tear down everything she had built, and he knew it.
Damn him, he knew it.
Worse, those dark, hooded eyes kept searching for more.
“Sometimes I still see her in there,” he murmured. “That indefatigable little girl, fighting to find her happy.” His thumb absently stroked her skin as he lowered her hand to her side, ultimately bringing them closer. “Why are you so scared to let her free?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
He chuckled as he bent closer, his lips so close to hers that she couldn’t help but suck in a breath. It was such a small white flag, but those eyes missed nothing. He suppressed a smirk when he leaned closer still, planting a peck onto her nose so fast that her other hand swished empty air when she attempted another strike. He strode confidently towards the door. “You keep telling yourself that, Pudgie,” he said. “But I know all your secrets. You might want to think about that before you make that call to PING.”
She sputtered as she stared at him. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m just saying you have a choice. Certain choices come with certain consequences, right?”
His eyes were hard as he stared at her, every bit as unmovable as she was. Without another word, he slammed out of her office.
What do you love about him?
He's a good man with a good heart, that much is a given. But it is the way he loves his 12-year-old daughter that endears him to me the most. Like Sofie says, he's pure light.
What do you hate about him?
Wow. Hard question. Right now I'm crushing pretty hard on him, so it's difficult to say. If anything, maybe that he's not real?
If you went on a date, where would you go?
On a sailboat, dancing under the moonlight.
Who inspired him?
Shamelessly, #1 on the laminated list inspired him, and inspired him HARD.
Who might play him in a movie?
I mean... come on.
Do you have a special song that reminds you of him?
Any "Easter Eggs" planted with this book boyfriend?
All OVER the place, but the one that deserves special recognition is the scene where Fletcher takes Sofie to a karaoke bar. Having been afflicted with horrific stage fright in the past, she is reluctant to take the stage. Fletcher doesn't understand this, because he embraces life in all its many colors. When he realizes that she's been locked up for years behind her irrational fear, he decides to liberate her from it. The scene is one of my favorites in the book, mostly because it was inspired by people outside of it. Aside from having someone in my life who WOULD force me to face my own stage fright, the following line came directly from my husband:
He kept her in the dark about where they were going all the way to Long Beach, where he finally pulled into the parking lot of a crowded karaoke bar.
“Oh, no,” she said automatically. “No way.”
“Why not?”
“Um, hello? I don’t want to make a fool of myself. Again,” she added for emphasis.
“It’s a bar full of strangers. You’ve never seen them before and you’ll never see them again. What do you have to lose?”
Where can we find him?
See you back here tomorrow, when we talk about my Big Fat Bitch, Sofie.
September 9, 2018
The Bitch is Back, y'all.
When I was a teenager way back when, I uncovered the power of the word Bitch.
Every single girl has been called this at one point or another, whether to our faces (common,) or behind our backs (even more common.) It's an insult slung whenever a woman dares step out of her place, because for some strange reason they think that this particular word is offensive enough to hurt/shame us enough to force us to behave.
I think *technically* they're calling us dogs, or maybe they're reducing us right down to our primary reproductive function, either way: it's been a paintbrush they've used to color all women at some point, generally whenever we step anywhere out of line.
We're supposed to care about such things. We're supposed to WANT to be nice, docile, loving creatures.We're supposed to REJECT anything outside that narrow definition of femininity.
Needless to say, I've been saying, "Fuck that," since the 80s.
I learned very early on the true power of the word Bitch, particularly when used as an insult.
It's a feminist war cry.
Whenever a guy wants to tear down another guy, THIS IS STILL THE INSULT HE USES. Toxic men find guys doing anything that are at all *girly* (i.e. submissive/weak) every bit as threatening as a gal doing anything masculine - like claiming total power over herself. Therefore a toxic patriarchy uses it to diminish ANYONE who dares to defy the conventional male/female roles.
I'm a bitch because I'll never be your bitch, but he's a bitch, because - even though he's NOT a bitch - he can be controlled like you want to control all your bitches.
In your impotent rage, you spew the word like it's some kind of venom, but the only people it will work on are the people who are already under your feet.
For the rest of us it's a word all about male control that ONLY works if it controls us - and it so doesn't.
Hence, why you call us bitches.
Back when my kids were young and facing school bullies who would call them names, or worse - call their dead father names - I would tell them there was no sense getting upset over things that weren't true. "If they call you a banana, does that make you a banana?"
My son still remembers this to this day. He will tell you that because I reduced it down to its basic absurdity, he learned how much power he needed to give words. If they're not true, you can dismiss them. If they are true, you can dig deep and find the strength to embrace them.
If you ARE a banana, be damned proud to be a banana. Let that banana freak flag fly. It's you, and you're allowed to be you.
And no one can hurt you with a word you enthusiastically accept as an identifier.
Back in the 80s, girls like me embraced the word "bitch." Someone even created an acronym around it: Babe In Total Control of Herself. I believe I even had a pin.
If a bitch is simply a woman who cannot be controlled, there ain't no shame in that, my friends. No shame at all. That is my fucking objective. There is literally zero sting to the word. Instead, it pumps me up. I'm quite gratified that you noticed. That means I've done my job properly. I want the world to know that I don't WANT to be controlled, so y'all best recognize. I told you about my book of poems being stolen in the ninth grade, coming back to me with "Fat Bitch" (anonymously) written all over it like it was some devastating insult.
Meanwhile, me:
The 80s were a good time for Bitches. Jackie Collins wrote a book about it. Her sister Joan made a career out of it. The end of the decade witnessed the rise of Roseanne. Nuff said.
I really never considered it an insult. It bothered me more if they called me a slut, though that's changed over the years too.
Back when I was in my 20s, I bought a T-shirt that read, "I'm not A bitch, I'm THE bitch, and it's MS. BITCH to you." It was the kind of shirt, along with my "fuck off" personality and "get the hell away from me" size, that parted crowds in front of me like the Red Sea.
Needless to say, I wore the CRAP out of that shirt.
By the 1990s, we bitches even got our own theme song:
"So, take me as I am. This may mean you'll have to be a stronger man."
I embrace the word so whole-heartedly that you can't even offend my sons if you call them a son of a bitch. I told them a long time ago they are, and that was something to be proud of.
They've been taught it isn't a bad thing.
It both amuses me and surprises me that so many people still find it offensive. Many are repelled by the word. It still slaps people in the face a little.
I'm such a bitch, I use that to my advantage. When you're a writer, your weapons of war are your words. You think about what you're going to use and how you're going to use them for maximum effect.
It is no surprise that my book's title is a very abrasive and unapologetic BIG FAT BITCH. There are a couple of things I wanted to address, in a very ME sort of way. I'm tired of living in a society where women are demonized for coloring outside the lines.
There are certain things in this world we women are not allowed to be if we want to be fully embraced by society. We can't be fat. We cannot be a bitch. And we must not, under any circumstances, be a fat bitch. Polite society finds such things to be horrifying. (Hence why my anonymous bully way back when thought calling me such would be so humiliating.)
When I crafted my topsy turvy Beauty & the Beast retelling, it was a no-brainer to cast the "monster" in this story as a fat bitch. She's a size-14 that will tear your life to pieces if you dare cross her.
Sofie Vincent is so self-possessed that if you called her a bitch, she'd take it as a compliment.
So, why should I? I don't need to dance lightly around the subject. She's a bitch! That's what made her a whole lot of fun to write. She was empowering. She made a name for herself doing things her way, no matter what anyone else had to say about it.
If she was a man, she'd be president of the fucking United States.
For a female candidate, that's a liability. If you don't believe me, check out the comments for the YouTube vid for Elton John's "The Bitch is Back." MANY commenters made the oh so pithy observation that the song must be Hillary Clinton's theme song.
They skipped the irony of the situation entirely. Hillary is A bitch, but she's not THEIR bitch, and that's they hate her. Empowering that person with lyrics that say, "I can bitch, I can bitch cuz I'm better than you," turns the punchline of their "joke" around on them, frankly. Karma works so much faster when the targets in question are stupid.
Which makes it that much funnier for a bitch like me.
You gotta be willing to face the hate if you do the bitchy thang and speak up for, well, anything. I knew this when I named my book. I KNOW it's going to put some people off, which is a damn shame because the story itself can be universally read by anyone, even my own sons.
My biggest fan was my grandmother-in-law, who sadly passed before this book was conceived. She would have LOVED this novel, and - in fact - it wouldn't have existed without her. Like always, I take on some pretty deep issues despite the trappings of a fairy tale. This story simply wouldn't have existed without the experiences I had when Grandma was on hospice care, which plays to the Beauty and the Beast angle.
BFB's wilting Rose is a real person. And she's really dying, which sparks our whole fairy tale into motion.
This wasn't an easy subplot to write for me after the scary ass year I've had facing off with my OWN mortality. Still, because the tale is so important to me, I couldn't afford to step lightly. I faced, head-on, everything that scared me about it. That's kind of how I'm doing everything now, in a very skydiving, Rocky-Mountain-climbing, doing-2.7-seconds- on-a-bull-named-Fumanchu kind of way.
(Except I'm not doing any of THOSE things.)
On January 4, 2018, I was faced with the possibility that there wouldn't be enough time to tell this story or any of the other dozen stories I have lined up to tell. Once I emerged victorious from that battle, it would have been a slap in God's face to half-ass ANY of it.
I ain't half-assing anything anymore. If someone should call me a bitch because of it...
The very day I finished the book, I went to a local concert where the Bullet Boys sang their version of Elton's Bitchy anthem. I knew then the universe had recognized my boldness. I sang loud and proud, high-fiving God for the cosmic shout-out.
Why, yes I AM back, thank you very much for noticing. This story is full of the pure Ginger magic so many of you have come to love. This is my love letter to you, and my middle finger to anyone left who thought I couldn't pull it off.
That's the beauty of being a Bitch. You get to be full of interesting complexities like that.
And if you can get past the prickly thorns wrapped around the title (and its bitchy heroine,) you'll find the beauty of my fairy tale, I guarantee.
September 25 is only 16 days away. Soon you'll meet Sofie, my BFB, and Fletcher, the beautiful man who is brave enough, and strong enough, to reveal her beauty anyway.
It's the only fairy tale that a bitch like me could write. So, let's fall in love... *our* way.
PRE-ORDER PRICE ENDING SOON! GET YOUR COPY NOW!!
Every single girl has been called this at one point or another, whether to our faces (common,) or behind our backs (even more common.) It's an insult slung whenever a woman dares step out of her place, because for some strange reason they think that this particular word is offensive enough to hurt/shame us enough to force us to behave.
I think *technically* they're calling us dogs, or maybe they're reducing us right down to our primary reproductive function, either way: it's been a paintbrush they've used to color all women at some point, generally whenever we step anywhere out of line.
We're supposed to care about such things. We're supposed to WANT to be nice, docile, loving creatures.We're supposed to REJECT anything outside that narrow definition of femininity.
Needless to say, I've been saying, "Fuck that," since the 80s.
I learned very early on the true power of the word Bitch, particularly when used as an insult.
It's a feminist war cry.
Whenever a guy wants to tear down another guy, THIS IS STILL THE INSULT HE USES. Toxic men find guys doing anything that are at all *girly* (i.e. submissive/weak) every bit as threatening as a gal doing anything masculine - like claiming total power over herself. Therefore a toxic patriarchy uses it to diminish ANYONE who dares to defy the conventional male/female roles.
I'm a bitch because I'll never be your bitch, but he's a bitch, because - even though he's NOT a bitch - he can be controlled like you want to control all your bitches.
In your impotent rage, you spew the word like it's some kind of venom, but the only people it will work on are the people who are already under your feet.
For the rest of us it's a word all about male control that ONLY works if it controls us - and it so doesn't.
Hence, why you call us bitches.
Back when my kids were young and facing school bullies who would call them names, or worse - call their dead father names - I would tell them there was no sense getting upset over things that weren't true. "If they call you a banana, does that make you a banana?"
My son still remembers this to this day. He will tell you that because I reduced it down to its basic absurdity, he learned how much power he needed to give words. If they're not true, you can dismiss them. If they are true, you can dig deep and find the strength to embrace them.
If you ARE a banana, be damned proud to be a banana. Let that banana freak flag fly. It's you, and you're allowed to be you.
And no one can hurt you with a word you enthusiastically accept as an identifier.
Back in the 80s, girls like me embraced the word "bitch." Someone even created an acronym around it: Babe In Total Control of Herself. I believe I even had a pin.
If a bitch is simply a woman who cannot be controlled, there ain't no shame in that, my friends. No shame at all. That is my fucking objective. There is literally zero sting to the word. Instead, it pumps me up. I'm quite gratified that you noticed. That means I've done my job properly. I want the world to know that I don't WANT to be controlled, so y'all best recognize. I told you about my book of poems being stolen in the ninth grade, coming back to me with "Fat Bitch" (anonymously) written all over it like it was some devastating insult.
Meanwhile, me:
The 80s were a good time for Bitches. Jackie Collins wrote a book about it. Her sister Joan made a career out of it. The end of the decade witnessed the rise of Roseanne. Nuff said.
I really never considered it an insult. It bothered me more if they called me a slut, though that's changed over the years too.
Back when I was in my 20s, I bought a T-shirt that read, "I'm not A bitch, I'm THE bitch, and it's MS. BITCH to you." It was the kind of shirt, along with my "fuck off" personality and "get the hell away from me" size, that parted crowds in front of me like the Red Sea.
Needless to say, I wore the CRAP out of that shirt.
By the 1990s, we bitches even got our own theme song:
"So, take me as I am. This may mean you'll have to be a stronger man."
I embrace the word so whole-heartedly that you can't even offend my sons if you call them a son of a bitch. I told them a long time ago they are, and that was something to be proud of.
They've been taught it isn't a bad thing.
It both amuses me and surprises me that so many people still find it offensive. Many are repelled by the word. It still slaps people in the face a little.
I'm such a bitch, I use that to my advantage. When you're a writer, your weapons of war are your words. You think about what you're going to use and how you're going to use them for maximum effect.
It is no surprise that my book's title is a very abrasive and unapologetic BIG FAT BITCH. There are a couple of things I wanted to address, in a very ME sort of way. I'm tired of living in a society where women are demonized for coloring outside the lines.
There are certain things in this world we women are not allowed to be if we want to be fully embraced by society. We can't be fat. We cannot be a bitch. And we must not, under any circumstances, be a fat bitch. Polite society finds such things to be horrifying. (Hence why my anonymous bully way back when thought calling me such would be so humiliating.)
When I crafted my topsy turvy Beauty & the Beast retelling, it was a no-brainer to cast the "monster" in this story as a fat bitch. She's a size-14 that will tear your life to pieces if you dare cross her.
Sofie Vincent is so self-possessed that if you called her a bitch, she'd take it as a compliment.
Sofie passed Davina’s dressing room on the way out, so she paused to talk to her friend. “How’s it going?”Hell, she has it on her freaking license plate. Sofie Vincent gives NO fucks.
Davina gave her a rueful grin as she munched on crudités. “Not too bad. Just eating dinner.”
She leaned against the door jam. “Tell me you’re going to eat more than that.”
Davina shrugged. “You know I have to drop more weight.”
Sofie pursed her lips. She knew Davina’s doctor had told her to drop a hundred pounds. That had been over two years before, and she had lost about fifty so far. Since she was a little older, it was taking a little longer than she liked, but Sofie thought she was doing great.
Maybe a little too great.
Sofie had never planned on transforming her character into someone much thinner. She had hired Davina with a specific purpose: to put someone on TV who didn’t look like everyone else. Much to the surprise of many, her middle-aged diva had managed to steal the hearts of America despite being overweight and over 40.
Frankly, Davina’s losing weight would virtually blow what made their dynamic special. But Sofie could hardly hold a grudge, particularly since it meant so much to her. “How much is left?”
“Forty-seven pounds and two ounces,” she chuckled. So did Sofie.
“Shall I write it in? That you’re trying to lose weight to impress your wandering husband?”
Davina rolled her eyes. “Girl, please. I could weigh 99 pounds and he’d never agree to do a love scene with me. I am not his type.”
They shared a glance. “Thank God.”
Both women were older, had been around the industry a good long while. Men like Gregory Todd were a dime a dozen, and neither of them had the patience to pretend otherwise.
“Fine,” Sofie conceded with a sigh. “I’m gonna go get ice cream.”
She turned before Davina could throw a stick of celery at her. “You’re a bitch,” she announced, but in good humor. That was just the relationship they had. Sofie knew Davina would always keep it real.
“Don’t ever forget it,” Sofie called behind her before heading down the hall.
So, why should I? I don't need to dance lightly around the subject. She's a bitch! That's what made her a whole lot of fun to write. She was empowering. She made a name for herself doing things her way, no matter what anyone else had to say about it.
If she was a man, she'd be president of the fucking United States.
For a female candidate, that's a liability. If you don't believe me, check out the comments for the YouTube vid for Elton John's "The Bitch is Back." MANY commenters made the oh so pithy observation that the song must be Hillary Clinton's theme song.
They skipped the irony of the situation entirely. Hillary is A bitch, but she's not THEIR bitch, and that's they hate her. Empowering that person with lyrics that say, "I can bitch, I can bitch cuz I'm better than you," turns the punchline of their "joke" around on them, frankly. Karma works so much faster when the targets in question are stupid.
Which makes it that much funnier for a bitch like me.
You gotta be willing to face the hate if you do the bitchy thang and speak up for, well, anything. I knew this when I named my book. I KNOW it's going to put some people off, which is a damn shame because the story itself can be universally read by anyone, even my own sons.
My biggest fan was my grandmother-in-law, who sadly passed before this book was conceived. She would have LOVED this novel, and - in fact - it wouldn't have existed without her. Like always, I take on some pretty deep issues despite the trappings of a fairy tale. This story simply wouldn't have existed without the experiences I had when Grandma was on hospice care, which plays to the Beauty and the Beast angle.
BFB's wilting Rose is a real person. And she's really dying, which sparks our whole fairy tale into motion.
This wasn't an easy subplot to write for me after the scary ass year I've had facing off with my OWN mortality. Still, because the tale is so important to me, I couldn't afford to step lightly. I faced, head-on, everything that scared me about it. That's kind of how I'm doing everything now, in a very skydiving, Rocky-Mountain-climbing, doing-2.7-seconds- on-a-bull-named-Fumanchu kind of way.
(Except I'm not doing any of THOSE things.)
On January 4, 2018, I was faced with the possibility that there wouldn't be enough time to tell this story or any of the other dozen stories I have lined up to tell. Once I emerged victorious from that battle, it would have been a slap in God's face to half-ass ANY of it.
I ain't half-assing anything anymore. If someone should call me a bitch because of it...
The very day I finished the book, I went to a local concert where the Bullet Boys sang their version of Elton's Bitchy anthem. I knew then the universe had recognized my boldness. I sang loud and proud, high-fiving God for the cosmic shout-out.
Why, yes I AM back, thank you very much for noticing. This story is full of the pure Ginger magic so many of you have come to love. This is my love letter to you, and my middle finger to anyone left who thought I couldn't pull it off.
That's the beauty of being a Bitch. You get to be full of interesting complexities like that.
And if you can get past the prickly thorns wrapped around the title (and its bitchy heroine,) you'll find the beauty of my fairy tale, I guarantee.
September 25 is only 16 days away. Soon you'll meet Sofie, my BFB, and Fletcher, the beautiful man who is brave enough, and strong enough, to reveal her beauty anyway.
It's the only fairy tale that a bitch like me could write. So, let's fall in love... *our* way.
PRE-ORDER PRICE ENDING SOON! GET YOUR COPY NOW!!
