The Smart Bitches on Tour--Part 1

I've been a Smart Bitches, Trashy Books fan girl for a number of years now, so it's a great pleasure to host them this week as they tour their fantabulous book BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels--on sale tomorrow! Now, I have to tell you, when I sent them my list of questions, I expected a handful of responses in return, maybe four or five... Well, despite their big NPR interview last week, the holiday weekend craziness and their blog-touring all over the Net, they EACH answered all ten of my questions with the openness and hilarity we've come to expect from them. So, I'm gonna post them all. Part 1 is today. Part 2 is coming up on Wednesday. Enjoy!!

Welcome, SB Sarah and SB Candy! Could you tell us a bit about the book and how it's organized?

Sarah: The book is a tongue-very-much-in-cheek guide to the romance genre from the perspective of two women who adore it, admit it's flaws, and love it all the more for each and every virginal, turgid one. It's organized with silly chapter names (Chapter Petticoat! Chapter Codpiece!) and each section examines a different aspect of romance novels, from the hero and the heroine, to bad sex and good sex, with special sections, such as how to defend your love of the genre with absolutely no shame.

One point I do want to make: it's not reprinted material from the website. Oh hell no. Fresh and original Bitcherating is in this here book.

Candy: The largest chunk of the book tackles the major elements of romance--the heroines, the heroes, rape, sex; in between the literary analysis wanking (and God knows we loves us some wanking), we have fun little sidebars, diversions and games, as well as our own mascot, Mavis, who's Everyromancereader. The last part of the book is dedicated to an assortment of fun stuff, like a Romance Maze, Mad Lib-style games, and a Choose Your Own Man-Titty adventure. (LOL! An activity section! This sounds awesome--just think of the car-trip entertainment possibilities, my friends...)

How did the book come into being? (I think I remember reading somewhere that you two were approached by your publisher...more to the story? Did your agent play a part in forming the idea for the guide?)

Sarah: Rose Hilliard at St. Martin's Press is all to blame. She suggested we think about writing a guide to the genre because, as she correctly pointed out, there wasn't one. At least, there wasn't an examination of the genre outside of academia that didn't approach the genre with prejudices firmly in place without any balance of pride. As honest and critical fans of the genre, she thought we'd have a curious and interesting perspective.

Along with Rose, our agent, Dan Lazar, coached us through the process, and we ended up with Touchstone/Fireside, a division of Simon and Schuster.

Candy: Editor Rose Hilliard was the person who approached us and asked, "Hey, have you thought about writing a book about romance novels?" Not only that, she introduced us to the personification of fabulous that is our agent, Dan. After the two of us picked ourselves off the floor and stopped squealing, we wrote up a proposal, and Dan shopped it around.

Have there been any surprising things you've learned about the publication process? How long have you been working on this project?

Candy: I was a technical writer for many years, and I'd heard about the process from various friends and acquaintances who are published, so a lot of the nitty-gritty of the publication process wasn't surprising.

Sarah: We started working on the book over a year ago, from instant message sessions where we said, "Hey, what if we do....?" and late-night email messages that were completely incoherent to outlines and drafts sent back and forth. The book gave us an opportunity to do things we couldn't do on a website, like coloring pages and puzzles and crazy adventure games - coming up with that part was total fun.

As far as things I've learned about the publication process? True story: Our contract was for a 90,000 word book. I figured, the more the better, right? I mean, we run a blog. We don't run out of room. If you've read our entries, we keep on going and going word-wise. So, hell, you want 90? We give you MORE than 90! Imagine my surprise when the response was, "Uh, you need to edit this down, k?"

Do either of you write fiction? Romance?

Sarah: I do. BADLY. I attempt to write romance every now and again not because I'm a frustrated fiction author, but because I like to remind myself that it is really, really, REALLY fucking hard to write romance fiction. Then I appreciate all the more the novels that work so well for me, because that is some tough art and craft right there.

Candy:I've dabbled with fiction every now and again; in fact, I started a Serial Novel on Smart Bitches a few years ago that, unfortunately, was abandoned because life became too crazybusy. I still think about it on a regular basis, but realistically, it's not going to see much attention from me until law school is over.

Influential novelists from childhood or later?

Candy: In terms of novelists from my childhood, Roald Dahl with his dark sense of humor definitely made an impact; Rudyard Kipling made a somewhat different impact with his beautiful prose and the way he wrote about nature and what it's like to straddle two worlds. The same man who wrote "White Man's Burden" also created Mowgli, which breaks my brain; I think it speaks to how even the most talented and insightful of us are blinkered by our cultural context. As an adult, individual books rather than authors tend to stand out as having a huge impact on me--books like Barry Unsworth's A Sacred Hunger, for example, or James Morrow's Towing Jehovah. In terms of romance, I think Laura Kinsale does the best job of capturing how messy and difficult and painful it can be, not just to fall in love, but to make that love work, while Patricia Gaffney and Loretta Chase consistently create some of the most compelling characters.

Sarah: Holy crap. The minute I get asked a question like this, my mind just dries up and goes blank. Growing up I adored Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume, and I loved re-reading and examining what specifically created the crack that was the writing of Kate Williams (ghostwriter for a LOT of the Sweet Valley High novels I read. There are a ton of us whose jump into romance was based in part on SVH). I also loved Roald Dahl, and Steven King. And when I finally achieved fluency enough to read in Spanish, which I have since lost, darn it, I was utterly in foodie-and-word-geek love with Laura Esquivel.

Oh, I love Patricia Gaffney! And Judy Blume was one of my favorites as a kid... Ladies, thank you so far! I cannot wait to read this book!!! Looking forward to posting the continuation on Wednesday :-).