| Top Five Reasons NOT To Buy A Book by Karen Hawkins:
- 5. Poorly performed dental surgery in ’97 left me with locked jaws and it hurts to laugh.
- 4. Raised by elderly aunts and taught from an early age that laughter causes embarrassing gas episodes.
- 3. Just joined Satanic Cult and reading a funny historical romance somehow seems inappropriate.
- 2. Already read one funny book this year
And . . . the Number One Reason NOT to buy a book by Karen Hawkins:
- 1. Inherited my mother’s mule braying laugh and don’t want my fiancé to hear it until after the wedding.
“Karen Hawkins cracks me up!”
– Evelyn Smith, Karen’s Mom
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A guide to the care and feeding of your favorite romance author of whom I hope I am one.
 Fans always want to know the intricate secrets of The Writing Life. So I thought I’d put this little guide together to answer your questions and give you a glimpse into the Inner Sanctum.
Let’s start with something easy. Something like . . .
IS ROMANCE WRITING A FUN CAREER?
I love to write. It’s a marvelous, magical, incredible journey—
Ok, that’s stretching things a bit. The truth is, I sort of like to write. It’s an honorable profession, one of great integrity and—
*sigh* All right, already! That’s not true, either. The plain, unadulterated fact is this: I hate it.
Like all romance authors, some days I sort of hate it. Some days I really hate it. And today, I hate it with every fiber of my being. Oh, it’s all fun and games thinking about sexy men and the women who love them. But then you have to get out of bed (I can’t stand that part), put on your clothes (AND shoes), and sit in front of a blank screen for eight hours trying to make those scenes come to life (all by yourself). Trust me on this, as much fun as it is to imagine the stories, it’s a pain in the butt having to get them on paper. All the “fun” goes right out the door.
Just imagine a job with no fellow workers, no water cooler gossip breaks, no structure and no . . . nothing. Just you, your luke-warm coffee, your pink muffy slippers and a computer. It’s not pretty.
HOW MANY BOOKS A YEAR CAN MY FAVORITE AUTHORS WRITE?
Most of your Favorite Romance Authors struggle to make themselves actually sit down and just Do The Deed. Some are more disciplined than others and are incredibly prolific and terrific writers. Some, and I won’t name names (Sherrilyn Kenyon), write so many books and with such talent and panache that they could easily be FOUR romance authors twined into one. And perhaps, after some sort of pact with The Dark Side, they actually are.
That, alas, is not me. I’m a two-book-a-year gal, maybe a little more if someone would hire a maid to do my housework and perhaps a personal masseuse to keep me all warmed up and limber. All in all, every writer has a different pace and they have to be true to that pace.
DO YOU LIKE GETTING FAN MAIL?
Yes, send it.
Yes, PLEASE send it.
I and all of my romance writing friends adore getting fan mail, even from prison (don’t ask). When I get bogged down in my writing or have A Very Bad Day, I go back and flip through my fan mail and re-read all of the letters and emails. It reminds me that SOME people have good taste. SOME people get my sense of humor. SOME people are wonderful and marvelous and funny and deserve to have very, very good lives, God bless them all.
 Of course, answering fan mail and getting fan mail are two different things. I TRY to answer all of my fan mail, but there are months I can’t. Work, personal life, kids, etc and etc all get in the way. But I savor each and every one of them and try my best to answer them all.
If you write an author and they don’t respond, give them some time. If they haven’t responded in a few months, try again. It may have been a mad, mad, mad time.
WHAT ARE SOME THINGS I SHOULDN’T SAY OR ASK MY FAVORITE ROMANCE AUTHOR?
- 1) How much money do you make?
You don’t ask this sort of personal question of the doctor who checks your ovaries, so why should it be okay to ask a romance author? Just assume they make hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of dollars and we’ll all be happy.
- 2) Are the sex scenes from your real life?
This question is usually asked by snickering radio djs and my ex-husband’s three brothers. The answer? Oh yes. I have a Sex Lab in the back of my house and I spend hours every day doing “research.” I “research,” “research,” “research” . . . except those two weeks in February when I threw out my back after falling out of the new Sex Sling Extraordinaire II. (It’s a great contraption, but the titanium buckles on the back leather strap are killers.)
- 3) “You should write about me! Did I ever tell you about the time my husband ran off with my sister who had cancer and left me with fourteen children and then I lost my job and my house burned down? Now that’s a story!”
I love you. I really, really do. I’m certain you have a great story worth telling – most people do. But I write fiction. I do so because I love the control it gives me. The power. The right to create entire people and make them dance to my maniacal desires! BWAHAHAHAHA!
 Oh. Uhm. Sorry. Got a little carried away. Frankly, though, ALL of your Favorite Romance Authors are complete Control Freaks. We write fiction because we are the little goddesses of light, life and love for a whole 400 pages. So move the heck over, Bat Boy, and stop trying to write my book for me or I will squash your tiny pin head until it’s flat, flat, flat, never again to breathe or think or—
Excuse me. What were we talking about? Oh yes . . . fiction writers and their reasonable desire to have control of things.
Frankly, I’ve only written about one real person – my then-husband’s girlfriend, the Hooter’s waitress, and that was just to kill her off in a very painful, horrible manner. If you want me to write about you – and you’re a Hooter’s waitress – just let me know how you want to die and I’ll see what I can do.
- 4) “I have some time this summer. I might write a book then.”
That’s the same as saying to your accountant, “I have a week off this summer. I may memorize the entire tax code just for kicks.” He may manage to keep his smile, but secretly he will hate you and you will probably be audited before the week is out after the IRS receives an “anonymous tip.”
It’s a bit insulting to suggest to someone that their entire job could be learned over your spring break. Writing takes time, talent, and an innate ability to tell a story. While there are a lot of people out there who could write books and you might well be one of them, it’s going to take some time and effort to learn plotting, story arc, characterization, the rules of voice, how to write believable dialogue, and more.
- 5) “Oh, I love smut books!”
And I love smacking your face, but I’m going to show some self control. Perhaps you should, too. I don’t write smut books; I write romance novels. Novels about men and women who meet, face huge obstacles, struggle to overcome those problems, and then realize they love each other. Yes, there will always be two, and perhaps (if you’re lucky and I’m feeling frisky) three sex scenes in my books. In one book (and I’m not telling you which – you’ll have to read them all to find out which), I have three and a half.
You know, Grisham has written a sex scene, but I’ve never heard anyone calling The Firm a “smut book.” So don’t call my books “smutty.” Sex is part of all good, healthy relationships. I’ve very, very fond of sex myself and cannot imagine going without it for more than oh, say, a day or two.
So, to summarize – “sex” and “smut” are not the same thing. If you don’t like sex, get therapy. If you love sex, feel free to re-read the love scenes over and over. That’s the beauty of a book; you can relive All The Good Parts over, and over, and over, and – well, you get the picture.
 6) “I loved your second book but the last eleven aren’t as good. When are you going to write a good book again?”
Well, sugar. Your first child is ok, but the other three . . . they’re just a little ugly.
Writing is a very personal process and telling someone you don’t like any of their work since the book they wrote twelve years ago is a little like having to hear your mother-in-law say, “You used to cook so well! What happened?”
Liking a book is just as subjective as liking a certain flavor of ice cream. Not everyone like chocolate – and yes, it’s true; I was shocked when I first discovered that myself. The truth is that your favorite book will not be the same as the person’s standing beside you in the check-out lane at Barnes and Noble. That’s the beauty of books – it’s all a matter of personal taste. To assume that some work is better than others without qualifying it with an “I think” is a grave injustice.
WHAT DO YOU FEED A ROMANCE WRITER?
Romance writers (all writers, in fact) – have to face The Battle of the Bulge. I’m not talking Little Big Horn here, but the actual fight to stay thin, trim and svelte. I have to work at this myself, which is why I run. It keeps me firm and fit and makes my life ever so much richer.
I mean, I hate exercising, but I LOVE having buns of . . . well, not steel exactly. More like very, very hard rubber.
Still, no matter how much I run, if I don’t watch what I eat, I could Get Chunky. So here are a few tricks to the proper care and feeding of your Favorite Romance Author:
- 1) Do not send your favorite author chocolate. Well . . . not unless you have a reason. Like a birthday. The release of a book. A good review. It’s Christmas, Easter, Hanukah, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, or Groundhog’s Day. Or, you know . . . you liked their last book. Romance writers are like fish. They’ll eat all the chocolate you toss into their office and then press their little noses against the glass and look sad, opening and closing their empty mouths until you feed them more.
- 2) All of your Favorite Romance Authors drink Diet Coke. The ones who do not drink Diet Coke are Fake Romance Authors. No, really. I’m serious. I surveyed all of my Romance Author Buddies and not a one of them drank anything else. Well, except Suzanne Enoch, who has thing for rum runners served in a Darth Vader helmet. And well . . . sometimes I’ll fix up a two liter of Captain Morgan’s but only mixed WITH Diet Coke, and only on special occasions like Wednesday. Other than that, we’re all straight Diet Coke drinkers.
- 3) Romance Authors love to “do lunch.” When you work all alone, all day long, all by yourself, the conversation can get a little stale. It’s really no fun to keep meeting myself at the water cooler (kitchen sink) and tell myself Funny Work Stories that I already know and have heard a thousand times. So when we get asked out for lunch, we’re like a fifteen pound bass striking a Big Daddy Lure – we jump up and down, clap our little fins, and gurgle with excitement. Deadlines fades and diets become a thing of the past.
If you want your favorite authors to stay trim and healthy, invite them to lunch, but don’t show up. That way they’ll get the precarious thrill of having an actual lunch date, but none of the calories.
DO YOU GET TO PICK THE COVERS OF YOUR BOOKS?
A fan one time wrote to tell me how much she loved the cover of one of my books and did I paint the picture or was it just a photo I took. I hate to be the one to tell you this (and I sometimes feel like the kid on the school bus who tells the younger ones the Truth About Santa), but authors usually have very little input on their covers.
 Shocking, isn’t it? Oh, we can make suggestions. But the ultimate decision is up to the marketing and art departments. What sells and what does not. Which is really fine with me; my hands are pretty full doing the writing part. And heaven knows I don’t know the ins and outs of the market in relation to covers. It’s just important that you realize that the authors don’t make the covers, the publishers do.
So if you see a cover you hate, or a title you abhor, write to the publisher and not the author.
WHAT SCARES A ROMANCE WRITER?
There are fans (like you) who are kind, good, and generous and . . . well, Mentally All There. And then there are fans who joyfully leap step over the boundaries of Good Behavior, straight into the arms of The Loony Bin. Those are the fans all romance authors whisper about at conferences, and are the reason many of us have to change our phone numbers every two years.
Whatever you do, do NOT show me your Super Duper Detective Skills in finding my home address, real name, social security number, and credit rating. This is not going to endear you to me. It will, however, make me name a character after you and kill them off in my next book. Heck, if you break into my house looking for my driver’s license number or baby pictures, I may have to kill you in real life. Don’t mess with Romance Authors from Tennessee. We mean business.
A FINAL WORD:
I hope this guide has given you some understanding of the care and feeding of your Favorite Romance Authors (and I hope I’m one of them!). The romance genre is bright, fun, full of incredible characters, fascinating life lessons, sexy men, strong women, and exotic places and times. What’s not to love about love and the women and men who write about it?
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