We all have had those sad jobs we did back in college to pay the bills. Mine was working as a lifeguard (long after I was so old that it wasn’t cool anymore, and it was actually just kind of sad and desperate-looking). And working in a Baskin-Robbins. And delivering magazines to gas stations for eleven hours a day. The humiliating, degrading, minimum-wage list goes on.
It wasn’t really for the money that I decided to write a trashy, beyond-smutty romance novel. It was more for the…oh hell, I don’t know. The experiment? The need to rebel? The fact that romance outsells every other genre by a huge margin? Wait, that would make it be for the money. Hmm.
Anyway, I did. I wrote a completely nasty, clothes-flying-off, chocolate-sauce-going-everywhere, people-tied-to-kitchen-tables kind of book. And it was well-received by everyone who read it and I wasn’t the least bit ashamed of myself.
And then my mom read it.
I think I’m supposed to say something profound about how it’s a new day, we can read and write whatever we want, the publishing revolution lets authors explore outside the confines of their genres…etc. No, instead, I feel like I opened a porn studio and hired my mom to swab the actors with Vaseline every time they start to chafe. She’ll be in good company, since I also now feel like I hired my second grade nun to hand them cups of water between takes.
Only, I think the joke is really on her because if her very short, very shocked email to me says what I think it says, it turns out that my mom buys these trashy books and reads them, only the rest of us think she’s reading high-brow literature and World War I-era biographies of lesser known generals. Her email kind of sounded like she didn’t realize that I was the same person as this romance author. Well played, Mom.
Lorca Damon 
My mom and I had some great discussions about the first book I let her read and we conveniently ignored all the sex scenes in our discussions. I don’t know who was doing the ignoring, I just left it alone. She like the book and understands what I do when I lock myself in my room for 8 hours a day on weekends. haha.
Surely you didn’t mean to leave out of your post the name and purchase information? Cause I want to know now what “beyond smutty” means to you.
I think I’m supposed to private message you that! Email me at lorcadamon@yahoo.com, and I’ll tell you!
OMG! And LOLOLOL! When I divorced the 2nd time, I decided to move to Sarasota, where my mother lived. I was 44. I worked out every day and looked pretty decent. I rode my bike a lot too and one I rode to the beach in shorts and a bikini top, which is not unusual attire in Florida. The next day my mother called me and said she heard I was riding a bicycle on St. Armand’s in a bikini. I felt like I was 12 . The next day, after seeing what I could tax-wise to purchase a second home ( I owned mama’s condo & rented my place) , I drove to Tampa and purchased a home that day. She drive me nuts, but she’s gone now and I miss her making me crazy. (she made so mad once that I told her I was done with her and was sitting shiva. We’re not Jewish and she didn’t understand, but it made me feel better– for a minute anyway).
Great post!
I’m sure one day this is going to happen to me. My mother doesn’t even know I’ve got a tattoo… 😉
I was TERRIFIED that my mother would find out about my tattoo while I was getting my epidural. I kept begging the nurse, “Please! You have to put the needle in before my mother gets here!” I was THIRTY at the time!
Yup, I’m 42, married 15 years, run my own business…and there are STILL things I don’t tell my mother. Ridiculous, isn’t it?! 😉
Oh my gosh, I can’t stop laughing. This is perfect. Sounds like something my mom would do.
Great. We should get them together for a 50 Shades of Grey book club meeting!
my..my…
Your mother doesn’t read random bodice-rippers, only those by her children. That would be like hanging porn from strangers on the refrigerator magnets.
–Dad
Um…bodice rippers are kinda chaste by comparison.
You make me giggle, dirty girl. 🙂
Yup. It happened. Someone found out about my book and called me a “dirty girl.” It’s really sad, because I was actually the one turning red and giggling while writing it.
LOL!