Bonnie & Clyde were gunned down on a country road in Louisiana on this day in 1934, each of them dying from multiple armour-piercing rifle bullet wounds.  They were 23 and 25 years old respectively, and their careers as public enemies had included a series of petty thefts and needless murders of private citizens and public officials.

Other public enemies of the time were more effective operators.  John Dillinger, who was also infamous at this time, was extremely good looking, and held up major banks across the land, earning spectacular hauls for himself.  Pretty Boy Floyd also robbed major banks and had a very cool sounding name.

Neither of these two earned the amount of press and hysteria that Bonnie & Clyde achieved, yet Bonnie & Clyde were minor criminals, holding up gas stations for $28 at a time.  Their killings were senseless and at times accidental.

If Clyde Barrow’s gang had been just him and his brothers and friends, then the media coverage would have been a footnote in the mid-west locals.

Bonnie Parker made all the difference in the world.  She was cute, sassy and she and Clyde weren’t married.

And there were photos of her holding a gun and smoking a cigar that the press got hold of.  They dubbed Bonnie the cigar-smoking gun moll..instant story.

It was a story that didn’t die.  It went national and eventually global as Bonnie & Clyde shot, robbed and murdered their way into the history books.  Their spectacularly dramatic deaths ensured the story lived on for weeks longer and became folk legend.

Arthur Penn’s 1967 movie helped ensure that Bonnie & Clyde would be remembered for generations.

Sex sells.

______________________

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Drama on TV has become edgier and more absorbing by the minute these days.  They’re pushing the envelope every year in terms of storylines, and once you move beyond the big four Mom & Pop networks, anything goes in terms of content.

That’s not to say it’s gratuitous, but production companies use the lack of censorship they can find via the other channels and networks as freedom to tell far more involved and adult stories, with fully-rounded out characters and universes.

Series like True Blood, Game of Thrones, Rome, The Tudors, Lost Girl, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Band of Brothers, Nip/Tuck and more that are coming to our screens soon would lose so much in the telling if they’d had to sterilize and compress the sex and violence that thread through the characters and storylines.

Movies have an easier time of it because they can restrict audiences and slap warnings on their movies, and a good scandal or media furor over a heated scene or two will drive people into the cinemas, which is great for business.

But while these series are great at telling stories, they suck at telling romances.

Have you noticed?

Oh, don’t get me wrong.  They’re absolutely pitch-perfect practiced at doling out romantic storylines.  The women are always stunningly beautiful, and the heroes are always to die-for, and there is always a pulse-pausing moment or two, at least.  The actors are getting better and better at delivering those perfect looks that make your hearts leap and your adrenaline surge as your whole body urges them to kiss dammit!, but they never do.  Or they might, but there’s something standing in the way of full and total committment to each other.

In the more erotic series that I’ve quoted above, the couple may even end up in bed together, but they’re not truly committed to each other.  There’s something between them, unresolved.  Grit in the oil of the romance, rubbing away at both of them, irritating them into petty arguments and  mistunderstandings, even while the sex is clearly great.

And that’s another thing.  You see the set up of great sex, and the end result:  Blissfully happy couples.  But no series has ever left the bedroom door fully open (True Blood comes close, sometimes, and so does Lost Girl.

When the moment of total, 100% commitment finally arrives (often after being dangled forever), it lasts for one freakin’  scene.  That’s it.  That’s all you get.  After waiting sometimes for multi seasons.   The “I Love You” lasts for three flippin’ minutes, maybe, and it’s all over, cut to the next scene, or roll credits.

WTF?

I hate romance storylines on film because of this factor.  Hate it.  It’s like every TV and movie writer in the world gets a terminal case of worms and can’t wait to write past the scene and get the fuck out of there when they hit the “I love you” scene, because it’s dealing with those uncomfortable, yucky, make-you-squirm things called emotions.  Never mind that the entire balance of their scripts deal with every other emotion under the sun.  Love is too intense, too private, too feminine.  It’s what all those romance writers write about, behind the florid, embarrassing clinch covers, and the screenwriters will all curl up their toes and die than be considered a romance writer, so let’s just gloss over this little “I love you” scene here, because if I write it too well, people might start looking at me sideways, thinking I’m, well, one of them…a romance writer.

Can you tell it drives me bonkers?

Series will spend four seasons letting a romantic couple circle around each other, breathing heavily, and driving ratings through the ceiling.  For the sexy series, they’ll dream erotic dreams about each other, and the ratings will break ceiling tiles and punch out shingles on their way to ratings heavens.

But when the series hits the big pay off scene when the couple finally gets to say the three magic words and have real sex, or in some cases sex without their shields up, they always flub it.

I’ve never seen a pay-off scene played well.

Not the way a romance novel does it.

Even making allowances for the different mediums — where a romance novel gives the author the ability to show a character’s thoughts and feelings — I still have to stay romance authors are streets ahead of screenwriters when it comes to writing the “I love you” scene.  They know how to give the reader/audience what they want. They’ll let the hero and heroine speak of what’s really in their hearts, and when that moment comes — when the hero finally leaps and says the three words, the reader’s heart leaps, too, because the tension has been steadily winding up for pages, leading to that moment.

And the author doesn’t immediately stop the scene there.  She stays with it, letting the magic of the previous 200, 300 or 400 pages of tension and build-up play out for a few more pages, while the reader rolls around in the glory of that magical moment, savouring it, while the hero and heroine glow in the moment of realization that they really do love each other.  That is it real, and that nothing stands in their way.  Finally.  It’s pay-off time, and everyone gets to party:  The hero and heroine, the author and the reader.

Screenwriters have a visual medium to counter the lack of internal dialogue — beautiful people, scenery and swelling music to provide atmosphere.  But they still baulk at playing out the scene for all it’s worth.  One the three words have been spoken, sometimes followed up with a kiss, the scene is quickly closed.  End.  Finiti.  No party.  No savouring.  While you sit there thinking But I wanted to see him look at her one more time with those eyes! the episode has already moved on to the week’s villian or mystery and you have to shift your focus, cheated of the shining moment.

Part of the screenwriter’s limitation is time, pacing and audience:  They can’t linger lovingly for minutes on end while the hero and heroine deconstruct each misunderstanding and argument they’ve had in the past, the way some romance novels do.  TV episode have to fit a tight schedule, and every male member of a movie audience would get up and leave after two minutes of such a scene, simply unable to withstand the yucky stuff any longer.

But there are ways the screenwriter could get around these limitations and still not shortchange the romance relationship pay-off.  One way is to break up the pay-off scene into mini-scenes and insert other scenes in between, so the other storylines in the move/episode run concurrently with the romance pay-off, keeping non-romance-loving viewers satisfied while the longer pay-off scene played out.

Now, I’m not a professional screenwriter, and I came up with that one.  So there has to be other ways.

And look at Fringe, the TV series.  There’s another alternative.  They put the couple together early in the series, then the viewer gets to see them having a healthy, romantic relationship, week after week, and it’s great.  I love Peter and Olivia, and I love watching their relationship evolve.  I get to see them interacting, and their love growing stronger all the time.  That’s a super-pay-off, one that has lasted for two years so far, and doesn’t seem to be getting tired in the least.

In many ways, romances in novels are still far more satisfying to read than to watch on TV and in movies.

But damn, the heroes are good to watch, aren’t they?

_____________________

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5. Anne Boleyn – A Cautionary Tale The Tudor period, and King Henry’s wives have been the focus of a lot of novels, movies and TV lately — some of it terrific...

The Tudor period, and King Henry’s wives have been the focus of a lot of novels, movies and TV lately — some of it terrific stuff indeed. 

The Tudors was compulsive viewing, not just because of the costuming, in-your-face sex and titillation and the knife-edge lives those who dared played politics led in those days. The series was also historically spot on, and I really liked the way it portrayed Henry as a “modern” man for his age.  He was a forward thinker, interested in all sorts of cutting-edge subjects.  Science, philosophy, sociology.  Henry had a huge influence on the shaping of England for the next century or so, and his daughter, Elizabeth, inherited his attitude and drive, and further moulded the country and empire.

But Henry’s modern thinking didn’t seem to extend to his wives.

While The Tudors and most other books and shows try to explain why, in reasonable terms, he executed Anne — and it was a convoluted and complex set of reasons, to be sure — ultimately it all seems to boil down to Henry having a hissy-fit because he wasn’t getting his way.  Anne didn’t produce a son on demand.  Everything else stems from that.  He segregated the church of England from Rome so he could marry her after seven long years of courtship, and there were a lot of other church-and-state decisions he made that, broken down to their core, had very little to do with the organ sitting just under his skull.

Because Anne failed to give him the son and heir he wanted, Henry ordered Thomas Cromwell to find a way to get rid of her, as Henry had already moved on to Anne’s maid-in-waiting, Jane Seymour.  Cromwell trumped up charges of witchcraft and adultery which, for a queen, meant high treason.  High treason was an offence worthy of hanging, drawing and quartering.  The four witnesses Cromwell pulled into the courtroom included Anne’s own brother, so the charges also implied incest.  Three of the witness were high ranking peers, and therefore could not be tortured into giving a confession, and they adamantly insisted they were innnocent.  The fourth was a commoner, and was forced into a confession in the court.  It was a weak case against Anne, but it was upheld, and all four witnesses were found guilty and executed the day before Anne.

Henry rescinded the hanging, drawing and quartering, and ordered a “more merciful” beheading.  And rather than allow the commoner’s axe be used, he had a French swordsman brought to London to do the deed.  Under the circumstances, it seems a rather pathetic gesture, especially when Henry announced his engagement to Jane Seymour the same day Anne was executed.

Anne died 476 years ago today, on May 19, 1536.  Her remains were left lying where they fell, and she was buried in an unmarked grave in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Her skeleton was identified during renovations of the chapel in the reign of Queen Victoria and Anne’s resting place is now marked in the marble floor.

It wasn’t until much later – centuries later — that historians established that Anne was actually innocent and the true extent of her influence on Henry and England was measured.

______________

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We tend to let the name “Alexander the Great” roll off the tongue without thought, but there is a reason he earned his name.

Alexander III of Macedon died on this day in 323 BC, after building the greatest empire the world had ever seen up until then.  He was undefeated in battle his entire life, and modern military scholars still turn to his battle strategies as teaching aids.

He introduced Greek culture to most of the western world, and directly influenced the Byzantine culture that would rise in the centuries following his death.  Because of Alexander, Greek was the lingua franca used by most of the western world for centuries, in order to speak to each other, for commerce, education, medicine, and more, until the rise of Rome eclipsed the Greek influence.

At least five cities bore his name, including Alexandria in Egypt, which has held the name since it was endowed in Alexander’s time.

That’s an astonishing amount of influence and achievement for a man who was just short of his 33rd birthday when he died.

_______________

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Goodies I’ve found from chatting and cruising this week:

Interesting Sites

Indie Authors

Historical romance author Jennifer Blake is now self-publishing.

Various Romance genres.  Carolyn McCray – and you need to see her blog “Dating After 40″ – it’s a hoot.

YA Paranormal Romance.  Cameo Renae.

General Sites

Suspense Magazine

Looks very interesting.  If you’re into suspense and thrills, this might interest you.

Pixel of Ink

Reports on free and cheap books every week, in your genre.

99c Network

Reports and reviews books that are 99 cents.  Also has a section for books that cost a bit more than that — anything up to $2.99.

Blast From The Past (from my archives)

 7 Tailored Uses For Google Alerts

One for the writers this week.  But actually, of use to everyone.  Do you have a favourite genre or writer, or hobby?  You can use Alerts the same way…

_______________

  Have a great weekend!

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This is Part 2 of a series
Part 1: So Where Are The Thick Romance Heroines?
Part 2: Slender Is A Status Symbol
___

The Ultimate Decider.

I’ve been thinking rather hard about thick v’s thin.

There’s been images of “thick” women on Facebook that caught my attention, and I posted about them, here, and wondered why we still insist on the “perfect” image of thin heroines in our books and movies.

And there’s the fact that “thin” is bloody expensive to acquire these days, which I also wrote about.

Thick vs thin is a very personal debate.  Unlike smoking, it doesn’t affect anyone else but you, and the “you” we’re talking about is, alas, mostly women, who are the gender of the race that must use appearance as the primary tool to attract a mate (unlike peacocks, where it is the male that gets to preen for the female).  So for the sake of this discussion, I have to bring this post back to focus on me.  I can’t and won’t speak for anyone else.   I suspect my thinking and my decisions are unique, just like every woman’s should be.

One of the things I noticed about the “thick” woman being spread about Facebook was that male applause was in the distinct minority.  This isn’t actually a can of worms I want to open today, except to say that I noticed the lack of male approval.

I’m also a bit of a clothes horse, when I can afford it.  I love to sew, and I love colours, and I love new clothes.  I love and adore going to the Romantic Times Convention because it gives me the perfect excuse to dress up in outrageous dresses that I could never wear anywhere else.  I also have (had) an enormous closet of shoes.

At the moment, I don’t fit into most of my great clothes, and they’re all years old, anyway, because I won’t buy new ones while I’m carrying this extra weight.  Frankly, a lot of fashions look terrible on a thick body, and I feel self-conscious and uncomfortable wearing them.  So I don’t.

Then there’s sex.  I’m sorry, but a thick woman trying to look alluring in skimpy lingerie defies logic.  There’s nothing sexy about it at all – not to me (and remember, this is purely my perspective for right now).  Sexiness is far more about attitude, yes, but if you look in the mirror and what you see makes you feel ridiculous, trying to maintain your sexy mindset is a struggle.

I won’t go into too much detail about loss of flexibility, and how a thick body limits creativity and inventiveness in the bedroom.  If you’re curious, try reading an old post of mine, “How to Start Looking More Sexy – Body Appearance“, which will give you some more food for thought.

All of these items are superficial.  If I used them as an excuse to blow thousands of dollars of our limited household budget on a quest for a new slender me, then you would be quite right to call me selfish, vane and worse.

But there’s one winning argument why I should do this that out-ranks everything I’ve said so far:  My health.

There’s overwhelming data, undeniable mountains of it, proving that older overweight women are at risk for a long list of diseases.  Most of the diseases are fatal.  They start at heart attacks and end with higher odds of contracting a dozen different cancers.  The list of diseases in between are no picnic.  By losing weight, I eliminate or diminish the odds of these diseases to close to zero.

My vanity says “take the excuse and run.”  Logic says “I don’t want to die, why am I still debating this?”

So I’ve stopped debating.  This is my choice.  I’m voting for thin.

I’m going to motivate myself with all the vanity excuses, but I’m really doing it because I want to live.  I have no idea how I’m supposed to afford it, but I’ll figure it out.

What about you?

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I started late on Fringe.  As in, only a few weeks ago, and the show is already into Season 4.  But I’ve caught up already.  The hook bit deep, and dragged hard.

The most frustrating part of that is I’m not really sure why.

The show doesn’t deal with paranormal — or it says it doesn’t.  It deals with what it calls “fringe science” — a psychobabble, pseudo-technical way of explaining what often looks like paranormal and supernatural events as the work of mad scientists — literally.  Dr. Walter Bishop was locked up in a mental institution for 17 years, and most of the villians and events the Fringe Division of the FBI have to deal with are the outcome of his earlier experiments in the seventies and eighties, when he was really pushing the envelope.  Now he’s trying to defeat the bad guys with a sketchy memory and even shakier sanity.

He’s helped by his son, Peter, who starts off wildly reluctant to even be in the same room with him, and FBI agent Olivia Dunham, who uses Peter’s shady past as leverage to keep him in Boston, to control his father once she springs him from the institution.

That’s the basis for the beginning of the series.  Surprisingly, it’s one of those shows that sounds hugely unlikely and out there, but it has a high degree of humanity and emotional content in it.  And it doesn’t stay with the weird-experiment-of-the-week format for long.  By Season 2, there are alternative universes, time slips, dopplegangers, and storylines that are absorbing and complex.  This is not a series you can afford to start watching mid-season, or even mid-series.  You’ll be instantly lost.

Right out of the gate, I could see that Peter and Olivia were being lined up as a potential romantic pair.  Even Peter’s father, Walter, was making broad hints about how Peter should ask Olivia out – couched in his colourful idioms.  So right away my interest was piqued, because Peter (played by Joshua Jackson) is ever-so-easy on the eyes and his character is a sort-of reformed bad boy.  Hard to resist.

I figured the producers and writers would do what every series has done time out of mind: toyed with the audience.  Teased and dangled hope as they let the pair dance around each other endlessly, a la NCIS, which has managed to keep the potential romance bereft of even a decent kiss for six years…but is finally starting to piss off fans with the lack of romantic progress.

NCIS, on the other hand, has managed to supply the odd one or two almost combustible pulse pause moments, here and there.

Fringe is an oddity, which is why I can’t figure out why I like it so damned much.  It hasn’t done anything to order.

Peter and Olivia got together as a couple somewhere toward the end of the second season (I think — I watched all four seasons in a seriously compressed period of time — they ran together a lot).  There was no big sweeping romantic moment.  No daring rescue or whole episode devoted to will they/won’t they.  Yes, there were issues holding them back — well, mostly Olivia — but she worked it out, and they got together in a quietly sweet moment when she took Peter upstairs…run closing credits.

So this “Pulse pause” post is actually a bit of a misnomer, because there really hasn’t been any in their relationship.  Yet I can’t stop watching the goddamn show because the pair of them are compulsive viewing.  And I think, ultimately, it’s because their romance is so, well, adult.  They’re two grown-ups, having a grown-up relationship.  Everyone around them naturally assumed they’d get together.  Everyone likes the idea.  Everyone was thrilled when they finally committed to each other.  No one came gunning for one of them, bleeding with rectal envy.

Yes, they have problems from time to time.  They’re still sorting out crap that rears up from their pasts, and neither of their lives is a bowl of cherries, but they love each other, and they keep battling to stay together, to stay alive.  Considering the multi-universes and mega-potent bad guys running around this series, trying to melt down the Earth on a regular basis, or shoving one or other of them into another time, place or dimension, they have to work their dogs off just to be together.

So every clinch and every kiss is a precious one.

It’s such a nice change to see what happens after the “I love you” and see something hopeful and positive.  And really good looking. [sigh]

_____________

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This is Part 2 of a series
Part 1: So Where Are The Thick Romance Heroines?
___

Slender Is A Status Symbol

I’ve been thinking a lot about thick vs thin lately.  I spoke about this the other day – thanks to the new “thick girls” idea, it’s sitting at the front of my brain.

It’s a personal issue for me, as I carry my fair share of weight and always have.  A recent bout in hospital has added to my woes.  My recent hospital stay, though, uncovered an underlying cause for my lifetime struggle:  a cranky thyroid.  But that doesn’t take away the hard work involved in dropping, and then maintaining, my weight.

Of course, after a lifetime of struggling with weight control, I know a lot about the subject:  diet, exercise, nutrition, you name it, I can sit down and give you forty minutes of expert testimonial on it.  I have rotated through raw food – veganism – vegetarianism – and was forced back to eating meat just recently (hospital, again).

I also know how bloody expensive it all is.  In order to seriously lose weight, you need to spend six months to a year making weight loss a focus of your life, so that you don’t drop the ball and start gaining while you’re busy doing other things.

It means at least joining a gym, or buying equipment for working out at home.  Home workout DVD’s just don’t cut it.  But even the workout DVD’s cost money.  You can’t last a year doing just one workout.  Mental boredom or muscle stability would set in after two months doing the same thing over and over.

You’ll need exercise clothing – at the very least, a decent pair of runners or cross-trainer shoes.

Once you get into dieting and exercising, you’ll find yourself in the wonderful world of sports supplementation.  Protein powders are the very least of it.  And they’re not cheap.  Everyone, whether they’re dieting or not, should be taking a good multi-vitamin anyway.  But there’s others you might want to consider once you start working out heavily.  For women, a decent B-vitamin helps a lot.  Glutamine, too.

And then there’s the food.

Crap food is cheap.  A family of four can eat sausage meat, hamburgers, and spaghetti for next to nothing.

But as soon as you start trying to eat clean — chicken breasts, lean meat and salads and bottled water – your grocery bill skyrockets.

Getting to thin isn’t cheap.

I often read with amazement and some envy about Hollywood stars who check themselves into a spa for four weeks to drop twenty pounds.  Or how they are on a special diet supervised by a team of medical specialists, with the food prepared by their personal chef.  Or how they work out seven days a week for four hours a day in order to get in shape for an upcoming movie…or just because.

They eat not just salads every day, but organic, freshly-made, whole-food salads.  The chicken they eat is free-range, and as lean as possible and cooked to perfection.  Their meals are prepared, weighed and served just in time for them to eat so they never have to step inside a kitchen or peer inside a fridge or pantry and be tempted by sinful indulgences sitting next to their diet preparations.

And yes, this sort of pampered existence is for the very top of the A-list lifestyle.

Most people live far more realistic lives and still manage to maintain – or regain – slender silhouettes.  They may not be eating hand-fed-and-petted chicken breast a la chef my-own in order to drop their weight or maintain it, but they will certainly be eating better cuts of meat and lots of fresh vegetables…in other words, expensive stuff.   They may even spend money on a weight loss system that provides the food, and those are really expensive. They’ll also be spending money on working out and staying active in some form or fashion, and spending more money on taking care of their health in either preventative or restorative ways – health supplements, prescription medicine, physical check-ups, etc,

There is a price tag attached to being thin.  A thin body is expensive.  A thick body is far cheaper to maintain.

Slender is becoming a status symbol.

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5. Friday’s Mash Goodies I’ve found from chatting and cruising this week: Interesting Posts/Articles Thirty-Two Shades of Green!!! Erotic Romance writer Sahara Kelly’s reaction to Fifty Shades of...

Goodies I’ve found from chatting and cruising this week:

Interesting Posts/Articles

Thirty-Two Shades of Green!!!

Erotic Romance writer Sahara Kelly’s reaction to Fifty Shades of Grey

My Kitchen “Miracle” Cleaner!

For all the frugalists out there.

Top 1,000 Romance Novels of All Time 

Interesting in an intellectual way only.  I lost faith in the list when I saw Gone With The Wind listed at #5.  GWTW is not even remotely a romance novel.  It is romantic, yes, but it is not a romance in the traditional definition of the romance genre.  It doesn’t have a HEA, just to start.  And Mitchell wrote the book as a historical fiction, not a romance.  So…an interesting list, not a guide.

Indie Authors

Maree Anderson

Paranormal Romance Indie Author (and Kiwi)

Evolved Publishing

An Indie Authors publishing cooperative.  This is the first I’ve seen.  I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Do Authors Dream Of Electric Books?

A blog collective (they don’t publish on this blog — not quite the same thing).

Blast From The Past (from my archives)

How I Performed Hara Kiri on My Career

Have a great weekend!

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2. Friday’s Mash Goodies I’ve found from chatting and cruising this week:   Interesting Posts/Articles The changing definition of e-publishing A long essay about some startling developments in...
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VE Day – Victory in Europe Day – marks the end of the European hostilities of World War II.  The Japanese would take another three months to surrender.

While there are huge numbers of monuments dedicated to ensuring we never forget the wars and battles we have fought, it seems odd that we don’t celebrate the positives that emerge from those wars.  VE Day was a victory, yes, but it also signalled a homecoming for millions of soldiers, resistence fighters, and guerilla soldiers tucked away in forests, hills and mountains across Europe and into Asia.  Surely, that has to be the most positive outcome of any war?

Yet VE Day is not a national holiday anywhere.  Nor is VJ or VP day in the Pacific and the Americas.

It’s been proven by research and experimentation that humans tend to gravitate toward what the mind focuses upon.  Also, the mind doesn’t register negatives.  So, for instance, if you keep repeating to yourself over and over again “Don’t forget the milk, don’t forget the milk, don’t forget the milk…” your mind won’t register the negative don’t at all.  And it will do exactly what you’re telling it to do:  Forget the milk.

In the same way, a mind immersed in information that is nearly 100% about wars and battles, will tend to lean towards violence as a solution, and that is what the mind is focused upon.

So if our culture continually celebrates and remembers wars, battles, the death of great leaders, assassinations, bombings, and more, instead of births and birthdays, victory days, the anniversaries of great achievements — what are we as a society missing out on?

Food for thought…

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