I can't write corporate rich guys or sexy construction workers forever.

Um, I don't regularly strip total strangers of the male persuasion naked, but I feel qualified to report that one of these categories is notorious for tattoos, and the other is catching up fast. Do romance editors never go to the beach??

I mean, maybe you would draw the line at porny tattoos on construction workers, although the people who did work on my father's house when I was 10 did not.

Artists also -- tattoo city. Possibly also dreads, those giant enlarged-hole era-piercings, and tongue rings. Anyway, most of the artists I run into.

I know romances often take place in a "never mind the details" alternate reality, but sheesh.

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In other word, the publisher is a judgmental fogey and I bet the 18-34s would think your book FG.

Being 4 years outside that demographic, and only a handful of years behind the Baby Boomer women, I think that easily goes past the age 49.

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Okay...my bad. See why statistics get messed up sometimes. Anyway, the publisher can come in from 1964 now...he's probably just heard about the cigarettes the jazz musicians are smoking, too. So, it's hard to Cinderella with tattoo guy. Is that the only fantasy there is?

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Roamnce has all kinds of "rules". No sports guys, for one. Yet Susan Elizabeth Phillips wrote a couple of bestsellers with football players.

Musicians and actors are another no-no.

But this is why chick lit caught on, I think -- younger readers want a little more variety and realism. Romance heroines can never *ever* smoke a cigarette (the horror!), but chick lit heroines can, for instance.

Also, it's not so much my publisher as my editor who objected, and she also happens to be a very good friend. I love her to death, but her idea of sexy and mine aren't always the same. And I really feel like telling her that no matter what she thinks about a particular hero, readers aren't always going to share her squicks *or* her turn-ons.

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That's just lame, Amy.

t tries to convince plot bunnies to veer a little more toward the historical fiction hutch

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Though I have to admit that one failing of realism in my not-quite-a-WIP anymore is that Jack doesn't smoke. Very unrealistic for him not to. But my father just died of lung cancer, dammit. I just can't put a pipe in my hero's hand.

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No sports guys, for one.

That way lie groupies, is the thinking I bet. Which, yeah, fair cop. I suspect published romance is not a fan of groupies.

Romance heroines can never *ever* smoke a cigarette

In the annals of people who have never seen Now, Voyager (1942). Helloooo, nurse! Sexiest cigarette evar, and I haven't smoked a cigarette in my life.

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Romance has all kinds of "rules". No sports guys, for one. Yet Susan Elizabeth Phillips wrote a couple of bestsellers with football players.

Musicians and actors are another no-no.

That's whack. My fantasy guy would be a tattooed musician (and, in fact, my husband is one, though he also has a boring corporate job.)

This is probably why I don't read romance novels.

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My ex-husband is a public artist [link]

This means he gets to be all artist-y with drawing and making models and stuff, then all professional with appearing before city boards, then all buildy with climbing on structures and welding shit up with jeans and a t-shirt on. It was lots of fun hanging out in that world plus he was brilliant and fun (also fucked up, hence the no longer being married). It might give you more scope than the average architect or artist you would be stuck with.

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Roamnce has all kinds of "rules". No sports guys, for one. Yet Susan Elizabeth Phillips wrote a couple of bestsellers with football players.

I remember Betsy lending me one in which the hero was a professional hockey goalie with a horseshoe tattooed right above his pubic hair. I don't remember much else about the book, but the tat and the hockey descriptions made me happy as hell.

Musicians and actors are another no-no.

What the FUCKING fuck....?!??!?!?

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