For me, one of my favorite parts of writing books is getting some sort of a response from a reader.
Sure, it’s exciting to watch my book “climb the charts” and it’s even fun to find a good review of one of my books. But some of the e-mails I get from readers are just priceless!
I’d say a good majority are directly related to a specific book of mine they’ve read. But then there’s those others…
I’ve been asked everything from how in the world did you come up with that (fill in blank here: plot, word/term—most often ‘love musket’ shows up in this sentence, storyline, name, etc) to ‘I bet you have the sweetest most romantic husband to ever walk on the Earth’. Really? What would make you think this? Usually, the next line answer my unvoiced question: “You must, all your heroes are such sweethearts I could picture myself falling in love with!”
Ah. That explains it.
I guess this is true, too. I’ve read on a few reviews and I’ve had some e-mailers tell me how much they love my heros. Someone once told me they’ve never finished any of my five books and thought, “What a jerk! This just confirms I got the pick of the litter with my husband.” (I will acknowledge there have been a few who’ve openly said they were tempted several times over to slap Andrew upside his head, and were yelling at their Kindle for him to call the whole darn thing off…)
I had another reader who was a beta reader for one of my recent books who answered one of my questions with, “No, the question shouldn’t be why did Emma fall in love with and want to marry Marcus, why did either of us choose the husbands we did?!”
So in keeping in line with heroes and romance books, I’ve decided to do a series of blog posts over the next few days/weeks about what my life is really like, starting with my hero.
My husband likes to read my books. Yup. That’s right. Before I release them to the public, my husband reads them. And not only does he read them, he likes to make comments and suggestions. In the past, his comments have all been of the verbal variety. However, I recently bought an iPad 2 and showed him how to make notes within a book so he could highlight and note errors or make suggestions. Major faux pas on my part. Here are a few constructive criticisms he left throughout my upcoming novel, Her Secondhand Groom on bright green, computerized sticky notes:
- Need better adjective. (the words were ‘large and clunky’)
- How old is this girl? Surely if she can string more than six words together she wouldn’t stutter this much, even if she were afraid she was going to be tarred and feathered by a gang of banshees
- Why would a man put up with this? Fire the darn coachman.
- This sentence needs lots of commas (How helpful! Thanks, dear.)
- Delete this!!!
- ???
- I don’t imagine anyone had flawless teeth back then (He’s probably right, but who wants to imagine their hero/heroine with jumbled, yellow or missing teeth?! Not me.)
- DRAW THIS OUT!!!
- What’s ‘dinnerdinner’ just curious? (This was a typo that came about after a mishap with the search and replace function…I swear it!)
- This is a little much. No man’s mouth waters upon seeing a naked woman. And if it does, he wouldn’t admit it.
- Enough with the burning fingers, please! Every book I’ve read of yours so far as someone getting burned with someone else’s fingers.
- Ruins the moment! Delete. Delete. Delete.
- Perfect teeth? What happened to piano keys… ( I cannot explain this one, I’m sorry)
- You need better colors (called the yellow drawing room)
- Her ankles, really? I’m not sure a man would be overcome with the urge to ravish his new wife merely by glimpsing her ankles…
- Corny
- Ewwww
- This is way too much description. *shudders*
- Who?
- Do you have to talk about his seed so much? (This followed a conversation about how babies are conceived…)
- Really?!?! I cannot believe you had one of your characters suggest such a thing. Really, Mrs. Gordon, what has gotten into you!
- Use a different type of material. Gauze is for dressing a wound, not a sexy nightgown. Try filmy or sheer.
- Convulsing is what people do when they have a seizure…
- Her hands were WHERE?!
- Use something else, please
- What’s a cundum, don’t you mean condom?
- This line could be better
- Oh, for goodness’ sake, delete this.
Rose Unscripted 
ROFL your husband sounds a lot like mine, Rose! So funny. In fact, mine actually goes so far as to choreograph my fight scenes so I can forgive him for his pickiness. That was the cutest blog. Loved it.
My husband is something else. However, I’m jealous. I wish mine would help me choreograph my action scenes. I’ve only had a few books with any actual action beyond a punch or two, and he doesn’t help, he just reads it then comments: “Lame.” So then I rewrite it again and again until it passes his inspection. *sigh*
I did have one book, however, where he approved of the fight scene the first time he read it! I was so excited, I jumped up and down screaming, “Score!” (I’m a nut, I know.)
Oh my goodness that just made me laugh so hard and earning myself a stern rebuke since I had a serious movie on tv while reading this. I loved the one about ankles not making a guy want to ravish his wife. Oh this makes me really want to read this book.
Well, at least I piqued your interest, right? LOL These were really funny, but there was one that literally left me with a cramp in my side. But it was too inappropriate to post. I tried censoring it, but it lost it’s effect. LOL Glad I could make you laugh though!
Although I recognized why some of the comments were made I would love to know where the ones I couldn’t identify came from. Too funny! Has your husband every tried to recreate some of the more romantic moments from your books for you in real life?
Has your husband ever tried to recreate some of the more romantic moments from your books for you in real life?
I will actually post about his attempts next week… Oh dear.
In this line of thought though, where he works, someone has publicly pointed out that my husband should have the easiest “home life” because his wife writes down what she finds romantic in the books, all he should have to do is read them and voila, romance is in the air. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t work that way. Just because I write it, doesn’t mean I myself would find it romantic if MY husband did such a thing. (Does that make sense?)
The thing about the piano keys/teeth came from a description I had of the heroine where I likened her teeth to long, white piano keys. I later changed it, of course. All the comments I listed are in relation to the next book, and it should actually be very easy to identify most of them! LOL They go in order of the book…
If I were to do a series of posts about my husband, he’d be like, “Why are you telling everyone about me?” So I don’t dare post anything like this. However, it’s so cool your husband has enough humor to let you do it.
That all being said, I’d like to add to his list a bit:
“I don’t imagine anyone had flawless teeth back then.”
My thought: don’t forget bad breath.
•”This is a little much. No man’s mouth waters upon seeing a naked woman. And if it does, he wouldn’t admit it.”
My thought: No, they just drop their jaws and drool all over the place, and we can tell they’re doing it. *snickers*
“Her ankles, really? I’m not sure a man would be overcome with the urge to ravish his new wife merely by glimpsing her ankles…”
My thought: he would in a historical. The women didn’t go around in bikinis and miniskirts. Men used to watch women cross the street while they’d step up and show some ankle when they lifted up their dress, according to my historian friend. (What pervs!) ^-^
•”Convulsing is what people do when they have a seizure…”
My thought: or eat something that tastes nasty. Trust me. It happens.
Well, at least he didn’t say, “No one will ever take you seriously as an author if you keep this in the book.” 😉
Uh… my husband doesn’t know. Yet! LOL I imagine he wouldn’t be jumping up and down with excitement, but hey, if he didn’t want to be blogged about, he should be so interesting.
Bad breath…eek. No, thank you!
Exactly on the ankle bit in historicals. Needless to say, I didn’t change that part. LOL!!!
Men do drool over naked ladies, don’t they? And you’re right, we know it!
As for the convulsing, you didn’t help my cause on that score.
“No one will ever take you seriously as an author if you keep this in the book.” He’s made a few comments similar to this: ” This does not belong in a romance book, get rid of it before your fans revolt” LOL Men. What can you say?
I think Alex would have convulsed if he saw Olivia naked. He might have even gone blind. (I know that doesn’t help your cause either, but it just dawned on me that there is another reason to convulse.)
Thank you for that mental image. I’m not sure how I would have lived the rest of my life without thinking of that. Now I don’t have to. *shudders*
Oh that is not pretty mental picture. UGH. I think I’m going to have nightmare over that one. Thanks Ruth
This had me laughing pretty hard, both your husband’s comments about your book and the comments about his comments. The one that had me laughing the hardest was probably the comment about Olivia from Ruth Ann Nordin though and the response to that. Just trying to avoid imagining it, because yeah. That’s something.
I’m glad you found it funny. My response to Ruth was tongue-in-cheek because I already knew the entire world (or at least those who read Her Secondhand Groom) will get to glimpse Olivia in all of naked glory in that book. But only I (and Bob, I guess) knew that.