Guest Author - Faye Hughes

Winner! Winner!

The winner of the autographed copy of Wild, Wicked & Wanton that Faye Hughes gave away is . . . Abigail Beat. Abigail, please contact me through my website - http://www.Christie-Craig.com - and give me your mailing address.

Thanks again to Faye for blogging this week!

CC

Hi, everyone,

I'm in Alabama this week visiting my daddy, so I asked my non-fiction writing partner Faye Hughes to step in and blog for me.

She's giving away a copy of our book Wild, Wicked and Wanton: 101 Ways to Love Like You're in a Romance Novel, so make sure you leave a comment. And I'll be back next week!

CC

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Thanks, Christie! A couple of years ago, Christie and I did a series of blogs entitled "Why Can't Life Be Like a Romance Novel" and I've pulled out one of mine that I'd like to share. Hope you enjoy!

Why Can’t Life Be Like a Romance Novel?

I have a confession to make.

It’s nothing dramatic, so don’t get too excited, but it is kind of telling about me as a person. So here it goes: When I was younger, I used to be ashamed to tell people I read romance novels. Now, I’ll admit that when I was in my twenties, I was all about impressing other people. Maybe that’s why I shoved those dog-eared paperbacks under the sofa cushions whenever anyone came over to visit. Maybe that’s also why I made sure I sprinkled my conversations with lots of references to Faulkner and Wilde. (The dead author I chose depended on who was visiting, naturally.) But all that changed when I hit my thirties.

That’s when I got serious about my writing and actually wrote a book and got it published. And guess what. It was a romance novel.

Only I never used the words, “romance novel” when I described my work to other people. Nope. I wrote fiction, damn it. When pressed to describe the kind of fiction I wrote, I mumble something about women’s fiction. Or, my personal favorite here, light-hearted escapist fiction for a female demographic. The thing is, I called it anything but what it was. Namely, romance.

Now, did I mention that I was an idiot when I was a lot younger?

Yeah, well, I was, or how else can I explain all those bad relationship choices? And now? Well, now I’m a few years older and I like to think, a whole lot wiser. Now,I can admit it. I read romance novels. Wanna know what else? I also write romance novels. And—oh, this is probably the best part—I’m here to tell you that a woman can learn a hell of a lot from reading a romance novel, too.

Five Things I’ve Learned From Reading Romance Novels:

1. Never go to the basement/attic/cemetery/abandoned warehouse after midnight. Trust me. Bad things happen to stupid people who break this rule.
2. Be very careful about foolish declarations that begin with “I will never…” Again, trust me on this one. When romance heroines make those “I will never . . .” statements in Chapter 1, it’s guaranteed she’ll end up eating those words over in Chapter 10.
3. If you get locked out of your hotel room with nothing on but a towel, it’s a given you’ll meet a hot guy. Okay, I actually know women who do this sort of thing just so they can meet hot guys!
4. If you suddenly find yourself becoming the object of desire by a lot of really hot guys—and that isn’t the kind of thing that usually happens to you—you’ve probably just inherited a fortune. That means it wasn’t that new perfume you picked up at Neiman-Marcus.
5. No matter how hopeless things may appear, you have to keep believing in that happy ending. Okay, fine. Call me an idealist. It’s okay—I learned that from reading romance novels, tool.

Faye