Stuff in General

I hate the flu. I suppose I should be grateful that I don't have bronchitis or pneumonia agani, but the flu is bad enough thank you very much. Makes me feel so damned helpless and useless. I'm not getting anything done and time just keeps marching forward! UGH!

Cathy got me the version of Kate to go through. It's quite good I think. Of course, I can't truly appreciate it when I'm completely drugged out on flu medicine. Still, I'm very hopeful for it. I do think we need more of a sense of who she is right off the bat though. Through all the middle versions that got watered down a bit. She also changed a lot -- but that was absolutely necessary. See, the original story was straight action. No romance at all. Thus, it was OK to have her be a loner with difficult relationships and only one or two really strong friendships. She had a very "prickly" personality besides being strong. But while that makes for a very interesting action character, makes a love story impossible. So Katie softened up a little. Not a bad thing, but a change nonetheless. Truthfully, I've noticed in romance (don't shoot me guys, I'm just reporting what I've read of the competition -- which are bestsellers) that they SAY they want a "kick butt" heroine, but when the time comes, they definitely want her to be LESS kick butt than her hero. Its our traditional culturalization coming through. I could go on (and on and on) about the dichotomy, but I think it all boils down to the fact that most romance readers are women and we have been socialized that while it's important to be strong we're not supposed to SHOW it and in most places (although this is changing) we are definitely NOT supposed to outshine our men. Which, by the way, sucketh big pond scum covered rocks if you're really ambitious because if you're successful you're going to be shoved into trying to find someone even MORE successful when actually you might do better with a nice, supportive, house husband type.

Still, I don't see romance readers buying a book about the house husband. These are, after all, a form of fantasy, and theres nothing fantasy inducing about cleaning the toilets and scrubbing the floors.

OK, this post is going off in very weird directions. Blame it on the meds.

Later.

Cie