Full Steam Ahead!

Thank you, readers, for sticking with me. I have to admit that it’s been a horrorshow few weeks with some fairly dramatic changes in my home and work situation.

I’m not going to pretend that my life is anywhere normal again but at least I have some time to write with focus and attention for more than a minute or two each day.

As an aside, how good is that video? Google’s Veo 2, ladies and gentlemen.

Britni Pepper, a blonde 40 year old Australian woman, is typing on a laptop. She is sweating and steam is rising from the keyboard. A corner of her tongue pokes out of her mouth as she types with gleeful energy. A fluffy white cat looks on.

As noted, I‘m writing a book about how to write a fucking romance book, or more accurately, a romance book with lots of fucking.

Not as easy as one might think for anyone contemplating the long shelves of romance books at the library or the friendly local bookshop. Anybody can crank one of these things out and make a bundle, yeah?

There are rules to the game, there are sound psychological reasons why these books work, there are certain beats you have to hit.

You know how in a thriller the hero must at some stage be completely at the mercy of the villain? He’s strapped down, the buzzsaw is inching closer to his vital organs and yet somehow he manages to escape, turn the tables, and emerge triumphant.

With romance stories there’s a similar point. The two lovers meet on the first page, hit it off, everything is going just fine until suddenly it isn’t, things go bad, the two have broken up, and there is no chance of a happy ending.

Somehow the writer snatches victory from the jaws of despair, the two get back together and on the last page everything is rosy with the wedding invites being printed up.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on this. Some fun hours in an otherwise bleak and chaotic period.

The book is pretty much outlined, I’ve written material to cover the headings - mostly - and I reckon I’m on track to start handing out copies to beta-readers in a week or so.

This being a newsletter about writing erotica, I thought I’d give a sneak preview of some of the content.