Life does tend to get in the way

I was going to post something about the intimacy of the net and how it's a mixed blessing. In the writing world if your favorite author (or even a few you read now and then) maintains a blog, the opportunities for conversation are more immediate than they ever have been. Pre the www, if you liked an author, you might write a fan letter via their publisher. Nowadays you can find their blog and chat away about all and sundry.

And then there are the review sites and commentary sites and bloggers who don't hold back about what they think. Over at All About Romance there's a summary of the great flame wars over the past few years.

I'm not sure what I think about all this. Part of me finds it distasteful and trivial and another part is highly entertained by it all. I also put my oar in every now and then.

But on the whole I'd rather read then participate. I like that romance takes itself seriously but occasionally it takes itself too seriously.

And in the end there are other matters that occupy my time. Last night I had dinner with friends and of the three of us, two had fathers in hospital, one's mother had just come out of hospital and the partner of one was overseas visiting her father in intensive care.

We are all at an age when the mortality of parents looms large. Tends to put things in perspective.

On a lighter note, for a writer of erotica and erotic romance my blog is very dull. So I thought I'd post an image of one of those sexy vintage ladies. They are so much more alluring than the plastic barbie dolls of today.