Pictures, Promotions, Defrosting and Romance

Good morning, fellow romance readers, RVers and Free Spirits




I had a comment on yesterday's blog "hinting" that I should post pictures of Montana. Rest assured, I've already posted several pictures of Montana and Glacier National Park. Those are the ones with the big "mountains" in them. I gotta tell ya I'm not sure if I'm going to be taking any new photographs at Glacier when I return to work there this year. It doesn't change that much. The mountains seem to stay the same--beautiful, lush, green, panoramic, but pretty much the same once the snow melts. However, if I finally...finally...finally get to see a grizzly bear or black bear or moose while I actually work at the park, I'll try to get a nice photo. I spent the entire summer there last year...five days a week at the park...and didn't get to see any of the bears or the moose that everyone else seemed to see. :-( . One day, a visitor asked me, "Will I see any bears?" I said "Well, if you're lucky." And lo and behold, the person said, "Oh look, there's a black bear crossing the road." "Where, where?" I shouted. Okay, I didn't shout, but by the time I turned my head the bear was gone. Gone, I tell you. Argh... I did see a lot of deer, early in the morning at work in the park. It was wonderful! One beautiful buck regally strutted across the empty highway, his breath steamed in the morning cold. I'll never forget that.




Promoting my books is taking its toll. It's a lot more work than I thought it was going to be, and it takes time from writing...a lot. But promoting itself is only half the struggle. It's the following up that'll kill you. Well, not you...me. I cannot believe I'm going to have to set up a "suspense system" to track my requests for interviews, news releases, promotion requests, etc. And you all thought writing romances would be...um...romantic! So did I! It's getting to be too much like a job! Yikes! There's really only one thing you can do to help me, and I know you hear the angst (= whine) in my voice. Everyone buy all my books and let me live a life of luxury on the royalties. I am not kidding!

I'm defrosting my little RV refrigerator/freezer while I write this. For those of you who don't live in a small tin can (wouldn't give it up for the world), you should know that the refrigerator is...oh...about six feet from the dining table which is where I do my writing and work. It takes only a second to stop writing and run to the fridge for a snack...while I'm thinking about the next romantic scene. I thought when we bought the RV and took off to see the United States like gypsies that I'd left housework behind. How dirty can one little tin can get anyway? But nooooo, dust still manages to find it's way into the RV. My spring cleaning plan is to hitch up the fifth wheel to the truck, open all the doors and windows and blow out all the dust on the highway (kind of like "blowing the carbon out of your car") as we sail 2500 miles northwest to Montana. If anyone sees good reason why I should not do this, speak now or forever hold your peace!

Romance novels have been getting a strange reputation these days. For the record, my kind of romance is the emotional kind, the stuff you can read and either laugh or cry over, but you won't be running to take a cold shower. I've been following a thread on a writing group I belong to, Sweeter Romantic Notions, wherein an author has come out and very bravely said she does not equate "hot sex" with "romance." She'd like to retire the word "hot." I'm with her there. First off, I think it's a word for the younger generation, you know--teens, college students. And next, I see "romance" as full of emotional passion, not the explicit description of physical love. I think that belongs in the "intimacy" of the bedroom, the word intimate suggesting "private." As defined by one dictionary: "very private; closely personal: one's intimate affairs." I'm not a prude and I'm not a zealot, but just a gal who likes my "private" private and my "romance" romantic.

So, if you pick up one of my books, you'll get sensual, but you won't get explicit! Be forewarned. Or maybe I should say: Yes, you're safe with me. I won't take you anywhere you don't want to go! :-)

Talk to you all soon.

Bess McBride, www.bessmcbride.com