Romance Writing Critique Group
I’m having a contest over on my own blog, Romance in Writing. Come on over and tell me a Love Story. I want to hear how you met your sweetheart. Were you friends first? Or did you fall madly in love and learn that friendship is what makes it last?
I’m going to draw one lucky winner of a GOODIE BAG from those who post a comment. 
Have a great week!
Enjoy the spring.
~Penny/Bethanne
I’m the oddball in this country filled with wifi users. I don’t have it at my home. So this morning when I wanted to update my Nook, I headed to McDs, got a soft drink and sat with my baby for about half an hour. Also bought a book, which btw is a really good reason NOT to have wifi! LOL How easy it is to click ‘buy’ when you’re sitting there with nothing better to do and the book world at your fingertips!
I did try to buy The Bourne Identity for my Nook. It was not available! And that got me to thinking. How do books ‘get’ available for epublishing? Through the B&N website I was able to click a link that somehow [or another] told the publisher that I wanted this book in eprint. So the question would be, how many clicks does it take to get a book digitalized? Do they have to go back to the original ms and put it through the magical formatting hat? Vwalah! E Ink.
No answers yet, but I will keep my eyes open and see what I can find out.
We all have them.
The Keepers.
The books we will read again and again, the ones we guard with our lives, will never lend out and the ones we want to take to the grave with us.
But how to define a keeper?
What makes a book a keeper?
Is it the story? The characters? The writing style?
Sometimes one of them, sometimes all of them.
Personally, I fall in love with heroes. I’m sure most of us do. Sometimes I love the spunky heroine. Sometimes the storyline is one that grabs me and doesn’t let go.
It’s personal taste.
I have unlikely keepers, too.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg, is one of my keepers.
So is my collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe.
Pest Control, by Bill Fitzhugh, is one of those unlikely keepers. I absolutely adore that book, because it makes me laugh out loud.
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, is one I can read over and over.
However, my romance keepers… change.
They change, because I evolve, just like the genre evolves.
I used to gobble up anything by Johanna Lindsay, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and Jude Deveraux. I swore they were all keepers.
My entire collection is boxed up and in the loft. I haven’t read one in years.
Actually, that’s not true.
I tried to read one. I got as far as a quarter of the book and put it down, wondering how I could ever have deemed it a keeper. The writing seemed stale. The storyline unbelievable and contrived. The heroine… let’s not go there. The hero was an overbearing rapist.
We change. Our tastes change.
Unfortunately, most of our keepers don’t stand the test of time and can’t cope with the change. (Some do, though.)
I remember Shanna (Kathleen E. Woodiwiss) with absolute fondness, because it was the first romance I read. I’ve never read the English version. (I read it in German.)
I have other Woodiwiss books in English, and I even peeked into one recently. I put it away, because… well… the writing was just… horrible. The language, the style… God. I just couldn’t bear it.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love those books. I have fond memories of the characters and the story. I just don’t want to read it again, because it would taint that memory.
I doubt I’m the only one who feels this way.
So what are the keepers you can’t bear to read again, but won’t let go of anyway?
Do you keep them out, or do you box them up?
Do you try to read them again?
Do you get put off, because the style that seemed so great when you first read it, is just not what you would read now?
I know I do.
And I keep the books anyway, would never part with them.
To me, they are like old friends you haven’t seen in a long time. But now you can see all their irritating habits, and prefer to know them from a distance. 
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