SBD -- What comes first
Nov. 27th, 2006 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksCelebrate! 'Tis Monday! Smart Bitches Day! We have survived the holiday with our family and our loved ones (not necessarily the same thing, y'know), so rejoice!
I'm supposed to be doing work and studying for a final, so this is going to be quick. I'd say quick and dirty, but I have no smut in me at the moment. Maybe later, after my exam and the consumption of a couple of margaritas.
I watched the first episode of the original UK Queer as Folk. It was pretty good. The first episode of the US version is a total copy of it, lifted wholesale and plopped down in Pittsburgh. Except the names, of course. Stuart for Brian. Vince for Michael. Nathan for Justin. And I'm sure I'm going to enjoy the series. Except every time I look at the actor who plays Stuart (Aiden Gillen), instead of seeing the character, I see Carver Doone, a slimy character he played in an A&E/BBC production of Lorna Doone. It's distracting. Plus, I saw Brian Kinney first. I'm a creature of habit. Original versions of songs: Layla, Shameless, I Will Always Love You (The Cure, not Dolley Parton or Whitney Houston), etc. Original versions of movies. The original TV show, not the recent movie remake. Like I said, a creature of habit.
Anyhow, I'm thinking about romance readers and how we are influenced by what we read first, and again, are creatures of habit. For instance, a lot of readers are totally turned off of romance by the first dreck posing as a romance novel that they come across. Blech! they think. This is utter rubbish! It truly is trash and I'm not going to waste my time. Thus, they never know the brilliance of a Laura Kinsale or the humor of the early Bridgerton books or the futuristic NYC of Eve Dallas.
And often we foreclose types of stories or settings because they aren't to our taste. Some of us don't read contemporaries, or are leery of historicals (moi). Or despise paranormals.
Are we all sticks in the mud? I dunno.
I've written before that I started reading surreptitiously from Mommom's stash. I'm pretty sure that if I could find the books I started with, they'd be horrendous to me now. But the illicit thrill kept me reading, and eventually I stumbled across stuff that was good.
Did you fall in love with romance because you hit on a gold mine the first time out? Or was it perseverance and a search for something good that kept you in the romance reading pool? Are there settings that you refuse to read, no matter how good the author may be?
Just wondering.
I'm supposed to be doing work and studying for a final, so this is going to be quick. I'd say quick and dirty, but I have no smut in me at the moment. Maybe later, after my exam and the consumption of a couple of margaritas.
I watched the first episode of the original UK Queer as Folk. It was pretty good. The first episode of the US version is a total copy of it, lifted wholesale and plopped down in Pittsburgh. Except the names, of course. Stuart for Brian. Vince for Michael. Nathan for Justin. And I'm sure I'm going to enjoy the series. Except every time I look at the actor who plays Stuart (Aiden Gillen), instead of seeing the character, I see Carver Doone, a slimy character he played in an A&E/BBC production of Lorna Doone. It's distracting. Plus, I saw Brian Kinney first. I'm a creature of habit. Original versions of songs: Layla, Shameless, I Will Always Love You (The Cure, not Dolley Parton or Whitney Houston), etc. Original versions of movies. The original TV show, not the recent movie remake. Like I said, a creature of habit.
Anyhow, I'm thinking about romance readers and how we are influenced by what we read first, and again, are creatures of habit. For instance, a lot of readers are totally turned off of romance by the first dreck posing as a romance novel that they come across. Blech! they think. This is utter rubbish! It truly is trash and I'm not going to waste my time. Thus, they never know the brilliance of a Laura Kinsale or the humor of the early Bridgerton books or the futuristic NYC of Eve Dallas.
And often we foreclose types of stories or settings because they aren't to our taste. Some of us don't read contemporaries, or are leery of historicals (moi). Or despise paranormals.
Are we all sticks in the mud? I dunno.
I've written before that I started reading surreptitiously from Mommom's stash. I'm pretty sure that if I could find the books I started with, they'd be horrendous to me now. But the illicit thrill kept me reading, and eventually I stumbled across stuff that was good.
Did you fall in love with romance because you hit on a gold mine the first time out? Or was it perseverance and a search for something good that kept you in the romance reading pool? Are there settings that you refuse to read, no matter how good the author may be?
Just wondering.
Re: First romances
Date: 2006-11-29 09:07 pm (UTC)Re: First romances
Date: 2006-11-29 09:12 pm (UTC)