 Nora's
Carolina
Moon Tour 2000
Sam's
San Diego, CA
Sunday, March 26
Tour Reports
Wym
|
Lynda
I seem to have lost my lovely gold bracelet from
Venice. Heart broken. Realized it right before the
radio interview. Ah well.
Other than that, a nice drive out to Sam's.
Gorgeous weather, flowers blooming on the side of
the highway. Nice crowd of happy people. Back to
the hotel for a drink with pals, then onto radio.
Where I was slightly less patient than usual
with idiotic, stupid, cliched romance questions. I
could feel myself becoming annoyed and decided,
quite deliberately, not to pass it off as I often
do. First they'd selected a love scene for me to
read. I would not, explained why. Producer argued
with me. I stuck and offered to select another. I
did, she caved. Male caller who'd read Daring to
Dream wanted to know how I justified the male
aggression and the hero's directing the heroine's
life. I corrected him, pointed out examples in the
book. He admitted, hmm, that was so and expressed
surprised that I remembered the storyline and
characters. I informed him that I remembered my own
books.
Interviewer wanted to know how I researched the
heroines' feelings and experiences and if they were
based on my own. Yawn. No, and so on. Said the
names in CM were so romantic and dramatic. I
explained why they were chosen for these particular
characters. Oh.
Who is my reader--obviously wanted a cliched
response. I didn't give her one as there IS no one
type of reader. Went into formula re romance, I
went into framework re genre fiction. Oh.
She asks how I managed to juggle working so much
with raising children. I ask if she has a child.
Yes, a seven month old baby. How, I ask, do you
juggle what you do with raising a baby? She looks
very disconcerted, and I go into how people manage
to have career and family all the time, and most of
us know children are priorities.
Asks if I'm a romantic. I say no. Blinks at me.
I say I'm not unromantic either. I'm jut normal.
And I write about normal people FOR normal people.
Ah.
Then, the topper for me. Is my husband
intimidated by what I write? Why should he be? I
toss back. Would you ask Sue Grafton if her husband
is intimidated because she writes such a strong
heroine in Kinsey Milhone?
Describe my usual day. I work, I say. I get up,
hope to work out a bit, then I work all day like
most other people, then I fix dinner. She doesn't
know what to say to that.
What ARE these people expecting? They hear
Romance and get the giggles or the groans without
having a clue. I ended by saying a lot of people
criticize romance without having read one, or
without having realized they have. If they read my
work and don't care for it, that's fine. But I
don't appreciate being criticized without being
read.
The entire interview, imo, was her coming from a
position of snobbery and hoping to make it all
sound gooey and foolish and cliched--though she'd
read the book and liked it quite a bit. In her
opinion, it wasn't really romance. Jeez.
Nora
ADWOFF > NORA'S
TOURS >
CAROLINA
MOON
TOUR > Sams in San
Diego
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