“So what's with the boxes out there?” I asked Spring [1]. Outside in the courtyard were a pile of boxes, blocking view of the gate.
“You'll have to read my LiveJournal [2] to find out,” she said.
“You can tell me,” I said. “I'll still read it.”
“I brought them in so we can keep them.”
“Boxes?”
“Yes,” she said.
“All those boxes?”
“There's only three,” she said.
I looked outside to the court yard. “There's more than three it looks like.”
“What?”
“Outside. In the court yard.”
“Oh, those. Those are boxes the Kids found; I'm not sure what they're there for.”
“Um … okay,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“The ones over there,” she said, pointing to the dining room. “The ones filled with books.”
“Oh.”
[3] Spring found a lot of books [4], three boxes worth of books. And an interesting collection too. In one box are books mostly dealing with history, generally European from 1500 onwards, with a specific viewpoint of Victorian England. The second box contains books about writing, with specific books on romance and mystery writing. The last box contains books about movie making, mostly the business side and script writing.
From looking at these books, and assuming they all come from the same person, one would think that the person was attempting to produce a movie about a romantic mystery set in Victorian England. Perhaps a movie version of Saucy Jack (Spinal Tap A to Zed: Saucy Jack) [5]?
The best of the lot though, has to be the Romance Writers' Phrase Book [6], a collection of over 3,000 “descriptive tags” to use in your romance novel. Stock phrases you can use to describe her body:
she was slender, dark, and fiery with eyes that glowed and pierced
a slim waist which flared into agilely rounded hips
her hose felt like sheaths of clammy cloth on her exceptionally pretty legs
Or a discription of him:
his well-groomed appearance was incongruous with his suntanned skin
he had an air of authority and the appearance of one who demanded instant obedience
his cold urbanity was only slightly disturbed [“I find your lack of urbanity … disturbing!”]
the tantalizing smell of his after-shave [Hai Karate!]
(Okay, sorry. But these are so asking for the MST3k (Mystery Science Theater 3000) treatment).
Then there are emotions of dispair!
she felt a wretchedness of mind she'd never known before
he spoke so viciously that she wondered how she could ever have thought him kind
her throat was raw with unuttered shouts and protests
And one must never forget the money shots:
he paused to kiss her, whispering his love for each part of her body
his lips traced a sensuous path to ecstasy
together they found the tempo that bound their bodies together
she lay drowned in a floodtide of the liberation of her mind and body [meanwhile, he had to clean up afterwards]
she exalted at the male strength, the cleanliness and beauty of him [Aren't you glad you used Dial [7]?]
Throw these phrases into something like my Quick and Dirty B-Movie Plot Generator [8] and man, I could crank out scores of romance novels.
Hmmm … might be a decent project for the next NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) [9].
[2] http://www.livejournal.com/users/springdew/
[3] /boston/2004/03/01/romance.writers.jpg
[4] http://www.livejournal.com/users/springdew/123068.html
[5] http://spinaltapfan.com/atozed/TAP00457.HTM
[6] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399510028/conmanlaborat-20
[7] http://www.dialcorp.com/index.cfm?page_id=60
![[3] /boston/2004/03/01/romance.writers.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2004/03/01/romance.writers.jpg){kind=link}