GUILTY PLEASURES

by Jo Robertson

There’s a wonderful scene in the movie “Parenthood” where the wife of a very focused, rules-oriented man rebels against her husband’s structure by sneaking into the closet, opening a plastic box of goodies, and chomping down on a Hostess cream-filled cupcake.

She has this wonderfully defiant look on her face.

Guilty pleasures.

We all have them, right? Those things we adore, but feel a teensy bit guilty about doing? Let me share some of mine with you.

Guilty Pleasure Number One: When I was a young mother with seven kiddies ranging from 18 to 7, I often sneaked off to a movie by myself. I had a “movie purse,” just the right width and depth to fit an icy 7-11 Big Gulp, along with various snacks -- Skittles, M&M’s, maybe even a sandwich and chips. I loved the quiet, nearly empty matinee theater and the intriguing anonymity of sitting in a darkened movie by myself, chomping on my goodies.

Hint: a diaper bag like the one above works best! Oh, and be careful not to tip the bag!

I learned not to tell my friends of this penchant because, well, they thought only weirdos went to a movie alone. Ha! Not so. I’ve found that many people like to do this. Or only maybe people with large families who want to escape. By the way, I always saw lots of working-class men there, especially if the movie playing was an action flick.

Guilty Pleasure Number Two: Pepsis. See GP#1 above. Fully-loaded with sugar and caffeine, none of that diet stuff for me. Sigh. This is more an addition than a guilty pleasure. I wonder if they’ve invented a patch that would help me kick the habit?

Guilty Pleasure Number Three: Dexter. This wickedly funny and brilliantly witty and macabre drama show about a serial killer who targets only bad people aired on Showtime network. It's in its third season, but you can buy seasons one and two on DVD. The writing is superb!

Guilty Pleasure Number Four: Romance books with covers of sexy men. Damn it! Why should this be a “guilty” pleasure?

I read Anna Campbell’s Tempt the Devil on my recent trip to New York and felt compelled to hide the cover of this gorgeous man on the front. But I wanted to stand up in the aisle and shout, “Yes, I’m reading one of THOSE books and I LOVE the cover, damn you all!”

I didn’t. So those books remain my guilty pleasures.

Here are some fellows I'd love to see on the cover of a romance novel. I persuaded each of them to take his shirt off just for this photo session! Enjoy!

What about you?

What are your guilty pleasures?

Reading in a hot, scented bath with candles and your favorite book?

Shopping – can anyone spell S-H-O-E-S?

Sunbathing even though you know it’s bad, bad, bad for your skin?

Chocolate? Ice cream?

And don't forget today's the last day of the Bandita Invasion at RNTV. Join us there for lots of fun, good company, and a chance at prizes.

That's http://www.romancenovel.tv/wordpress/rntv/marias-blog/

Guilty Pleasures

by Susan Seyfarth

So something really extraordinary happened to me yesterday. I got fan mail. Sort of.

I'm what we call an AYU in this business: an As Yet Unpublished. This makes it tough to get fan mail. (It also makes it tough to get hate mail, so there's the silver lining, I guess.) Anyway, one of the women who judged my manuscript Money, Honey for this year's Golden Heart contest emailed to say she'd been pulling for it to final because she'd loved reading the partial so much. This just blew me away. First because, wow, what a nice thing to say. But second because nobody was ever supposed to love Money, Honey but me.

Without going into a lot of excruciating detail, let's just say that I wrote MH during a particularly difficult phase of my life & as a result, the book is a little...um...dark. It's not full of serial killers or child molesters or dog kickers or anything like that. Heaven forfend. It's just got a really broody, pessimistic, emotionally closed off hero with a well-deserved criminal record. He's hot as hell, yes, but good boyfriend material? Warm & fuzzy? Fully reformed & legitimately employed? Not so much. He's difficult. Prickly. Dangerous. And maybe not in a good way.

And the heroine? Well. I gave her a backstory so viciously complicated & emotionally scarring that even my amazingly supportive critique partner said, "She can't have lived through that & turned out even remotely normal."

Did I listen? Did I fix things? I did not. I wrote the damn book my own damn way & sent it off to the contest circuit where it got duly slaughtered. I shoved it under the bed where it belonged & figured I'd written the fabled Book of My Heart. You know the one that nobody will ever love but you, but you're somehow compelled to write anyway? The story you're longing to tell that has absolutely no commercial viability?

When Money, Honey hit the finals, I was stunned. It was like the universe had suddenly decided to reward me for indulging my quirks instead of sending the Rejection Express steaming through my mailbox every day. This was unprecedented. I ought to go nuts while the window of opportunity was open, right? So I started thinking about things I secretly enjoy that I don't widely publicize. I polled my friends about their guilty pleasures. I quizzed my family. Here (in no particular order & without attribution to protect the innocent) is what I discovered we love but won't necessarily admit to:

1) Smokin' hot anti-heros with a razor-sharp edge. Doesn't hurt if they're really, really rich & just the tiniest bit cruel. Remember James Spader from Pretty in Pink? Yummers. (Okay, I'll admit it. That one's mine.)

2) Wine Coolers. Hello, high school. And yet, on a really hot summer's evening? Admit it--a Bartles & Jaymes can go down pretty smooth.

3) Cheap Trick/Journey. This was a two way tie . I mean, come on. We all love these bands but nobody will own up to it. Sure, we all crank up the volume when we stumble across their songs on the radio, but who'll admit to having the CD in the car? (Okay, I will. I love me some Cheap Trick.)

4) Trash TV. A show called "Plastic Surgery: Before & After" seemed to come up in conversation a lot. Wife Swap came up pretty often, too. I haven't seen these ones, but I have a well publicized addiction to People magazine & Perez Hilton's celebrity gossip site, so I have no room to act superior. People also admitted to loving Las Vegas, various soap operas, 90210 & Dawson's Creek. (That last one was mine. I'm not ashamed. I loved Pacey.)

5) Insulting good food with cheap condiments. Tartar sauce on a $50 fish filet at a fancy restaurant. Mayo on fries. Ketchup on steak. I'll admit to a predilection for cheap ice cream. You can keep your Ben & Jerry's. Hang on to your Haagen Daaz. Scoop me up a big fat bowl of plain ol' vanilla from a $3 family sized tub. Squirt on the Hershey's & I'm there.

So how about you? If the universe really IS rewarding us this week for indulging our private quirks, now isn't the time to hold back! What do you love that you hide? And reading romance doesn't count. Not in the Lair. :-)