Fiona McGier, EroticRomance Author

   This month's Round Robin topic is:
 How can contemporary fiction cope with the rapid
 changes of today’s world?

 I write contemporary erotic fiction, so in a very real way, I'm always reflecting the issues of today in my work...at least as it pertains to the personal behavior of my characters. How so?

Back in the day, heroines were always virginal until marriage. In fact, there is a market for this kind of fiction still. Some readers do not want any sex with their romance. They prefer to imagine it, if they think about it at all. They want it to happen behind closed doors. This is called  Sweet, or Inspirational romance, in the world of romance. I don't have any bias against this kind of romance, it's just not what I want to read...or write.

I'm the daughter of a woman who talked like a feminist, but never had the courage to live like one. So I took her words to heart, and became a feminist. I believe that women belong in the working world, if they want to be, or must be, and that they deserve equal pay for equal work. I think there should be affordable, quality daycare for the young children of today's working families, since the economy has morphed into one that requires two salaried parents to afford the bills. And I believe that sex is a wonderful part of being alive, and that it shouldn't be regarded as dirty or for married couples only. So when I write about two people falling in love, of course they are going to want to have sex, and I'm going to write about it. A couple discovers through having sex together, whether or not they are compatible in the bedroom. If they aren't, that should be the death knell for their relationship. If one of them wants to have sex 3 times a day, and the other would be happy with once every two weeks (and I have met men and women both, whose sex drives are like both of my examples!), then they don't belong together, because neither of them will be happy or getting what they want from each other.

So I do believe that the inter-personal changes that come with living in today's modern society, can be written into fiction. But other current changes I prefer to leave out of my fiction. I'd never touch the third rail of politics in a book, because that's a sure way to lose a large portion of my readers, who may not agree with my politics coming out of a character's mouth. I did deal in my two vampire books, with the fear generated around the Mayan End of Time, that was supposed to be in the year 2012. For a while, it was all over the internet and newspapers, with people being told to get themselves ready for the end of time, that was supposed to accompany the dates on the Mayan calendar, which ended abruptly after the 20th tonne. That was the year I got the first book published. I was glad I got it done in time, because like anything else, it now appears dated. Usually I don't put dates of any kind in my books. These two books explain why...though I do plan on self-publishing them during the summer, because they are still good reads.

I think we need to be careful not to render our writing dated by having characters discuss things that are happening in a specific year. But that's just me. To find out what the other authors on this loop feel about this topic, please visit them. We all love it when you leave comments! I'll be checking out their sites myself soon. Meanwhile, check out my previous post, with news about my soon-to-be-released werewolf book.

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1OK
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

   I'm so excited! I haven't had a new book come out in almost 5 years! Publishers have closed on me, and I've got 9 books that exist now only in my laptop. I'll be working on self-publishing them over the summer.

But SOON, this book will be out! Saoirse McColl is a research biologist who keeps getting fired for not being willing to fake results the clients are paying for. Desperate, she applies for a job as a biology teacher at the Northwest Main Academy, a small, private high school in a very remote area. They will supply housing as well as salary, and she gets to redesign the aging lab facilities, as well as decide how to teach the subject so near and dear to her heart.

Diego Vargas is the principal, even though he has no teaching experience. But the pack leader had confidence in his abilities to connect with troubled teenagers, many of whom have to cope with having a wolf's voice in their heads, along with the angst of being a teen in today's world. When the old biology teacher retires, Diego has to figure out how to add a newcomer to the pack, knowing full well that it probably won't be another shifter. Plus he has no idea what kinds of questions to ask.

That become a moot point, when his wolf informs him that the woman across the desk from him smells nice...oh, and she's their mate. No pressure, but mate with her ASAP! How can he tell a non-shifter, once he gives her the job, that she's not to go running alone at night, without telling  her why? Oh, by the way, you're living in a compound of werewolves, but don't worry. You're not in any danger. Except from me and my wolf, who don't intend to ever let you go!

When I get a release date, I'll post it here. Come back often, or sign up to get updates whenever I post. Now I've got to get back to finishing the sequel, involving other romances in the compound.

With apologies to Kurt Vonnegut. If you don't get the reference, you need to read Cat's Cradle. Even if you get it, you should probably read it again! I'm about due for a reread myself. Great books are like that, right?

So with the sole exception of my December 27 post, why haven't I been on-line since early December? I had baking, shopping, wrapping, decorating, cooking, cards, etc. to do before Christmas. Then 3 of my 4 kids were here for Christmas Eve, along with husband's aging mom who has just been diagnosed with dementia, in addition to all of her physical problem. His one sister and her husband were here also. My brother and his wife came the night before for dinner. One son's girlfriend was here for a few days, so my house was crowded, even all night, since both of the guest rooms were in use. Then the day after Christmas is my birthday. One of my BFF's took me out to lunch, because she was in town from Tennessee for the same week that my daughter was staying with us, and there was NO other time we could see each other! Then one son and my daughter came along while I birthday-shopped. Then we went out for dinner. The next morning, we all set out, in 3 cars,  for Detroit, to return my daughter home (she'd flown in) and to visit with the other son who is married and has my two grandbabies. We spent a few days there.

Then it was New Year's Eve and day. Husband and I celebrated being newly-empty nesters, by binge-watching Witcher, on NetFlix. If you haven't seen it, it stars Henry Cavill, and there are only 8 episodes in the first season. We'll watch the last two tonight. It's interesting and odd...my favorite kind of show! The last show I was interested enough in to watch it was Penny Dreadful, which was cancelled after 3 seasons. I'm hoping they get to keep Witcher on for a while. We tuned into local TV in time for the end of a Marx Brothers movie, then the countdown, then another Marx Brothers movie. In previous years our sons had blasted very loud heavy metal at midnight, to turn us on to new bands, so this was a relatively quiet celebration for us. We both made it up until about 1am, before our energy flagged and we headed to bed.

Since then, I've been shopping, to use up the gift cards I received, going out to lunches with girlfriends that I rarely have time to see during the school year, and going to Jazzercise classes daily. I've been doing Jazzercise, which turned 50 last year, for about 25 years, taking off 10 years when I was home with multiple babies and couldn't afford it. Now it's my main physical outlet. I love to dance, and my husband doesn't. So he goes to the gym, and I go dancing...with my friends.

Monday school will resume. I've been subbing in various high school districts for 16 years. Originally I hoped to get hired as an English teacher, but despite interviews early on, they always hired the newbie with the ink not dry on her diploma yet. Sigh. So I sub almost every day, and tutor 2 nights a week, teaching younger kids how to read and write. This leaves me very little time to write, and even less to promote my books. Until the summer. Then I can do for 3 months what I wish I could do all year! Write all day, promote as needed. Stupid money! Stupid bills!

Lots of authors advise letting your readers know a little bit about you. This is actually more than I've ever put up about me, personally. I want you to enjoy my writing. I'm not as interesting as my characters, whose lives are so much wilder than mine! But at least now you know why there are lags in my posts. If you always want to know when I post, click on the RSS feed to the upper right of this, and you'll be in the know.  My new year's resolution is to try to carve more time out of my workweeks, to write...and to post...and to promote! And I'm looking into doing self-publishing on the 9 books that are out-of-print now, after the publishers closed, though that may have to wait until the summer.

Welcome to 2020, and hope this new year finds you healthy and happy.