From Loretta:
I spend a lot of time, when I’m not actually writing, composing letters in my head. Every day, for instance, my brain produces a new letter to the editor of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, noting some egregious typo, such as--in a headline--Dcotor for Doctor. I’m thinking, Hey, you’re an actual newspaper. Don’t you have any actual proofreaders? Or have they gone out of fashion, along with putting real news on the front page, rather than a story about someone’s missing dog or cat or the strange case of the Vanishing Reservation Book. No, I'm not making that up. It was a front page story: A local restaurant’s reservation book disappeared, then reappeared with all the pages of reservations for Mother’s Day & college graduation weekends torn out. News, yes: Strange little crimes like this intrigue me, and it’s fun to ponder motives. But on the front page, when we’ve got wars all over the place &, you know, crazy stuff in Washington, DC to fill up that space? What's the Local Section for, anyway, then?
Then there’s the April issue of REAL SIMPLE magazine. On page 197 begins an article offering “26 easy ways you can help save the planet.”
Along with the usual tactics most of us know about--e.g., not letting the water run while you brush your teeth--they advise us not to wash clothes unless they stink... Um...eeew. But...O...K. I mean, this is the Earth Day issue, right?
Then on page 225, they offer their “road test” of cleaning wipes.
Let me see if I understand this. 
I should save water by wearing dirty clothes but it’s OK to clean my house with cloths made out of an artificial material impregnated with cleaning chemicals, which I’ll use once and throw away, to add to the mountains of garbage in landfills.
Not to badmouth wipes. My being environmentally aware does not mean all my consumer choices are ecologically virtuous.
It’s the contradiction that gets me. At least for the Earth Day issue, maybe someone could have found a product a bit more Earth-friendly to rate? Like, I dunno, brands of recycled paper or something.
So I compose a letter in my head. 
Which wouldn’t be my first to this magazine. I even write and mail some of them, like the one about how impossibly difficult and complicated and time-consuming I have found it, trying to get REAL SIMPLE to send me scent-free magazines. Or the hoops you have to jump through to register for the online version if you're not on AOL.
But most of the time I merely amuse myself with my witty observations about how someone is doing something wrong or foolish or dumb. I don’t actually write the letters. Who has time?
Which brings me to sex.
The New England Romance Writers conference was held this past weekend, and I joined some friends for our annual post-conference dinner. As often happens when women gather, the talk turned to sex. How much is necessary, how much is too much, when it works, when it doesn’t.
I mean sex in books. Romance writers, remember?
This got me thinking about my reading choices, and made me realize that I write letters in my head to book publishers, too. And so, very likely, did all the other women sitting at that table with me.
For instance: We’ve got nothing against sexy books, but it would be nice if the sex had something to do with the stories and the characters. And maybe could we up the sexual tension and reduce the Slot A into Slot B details?
But it isn’t just the sex. As comments here on the blog have made plain, some of us could write impassioned letters about bringing back the traditional Regency. Others long for denser and intenser historical novels, in wild and exotic settings. There are plots we want to see more of and some we want to see less of. Character types we loathe and types we love.
Some would write about what covers should or should not look like. Some would ask why we can’t have larger print--not as in LARGE PRINT edition, but as in not-so-teeny type. Some would ask if proofreaders are an extinct species. Some would object to character names or anachronisms or language misdemeanors.
What about you? Has something you’ve read lately made you want to write a letter--positive or negative--to a publisher? But maybe instead of writing or thinking about it, you ranted or raved about it to a friend? If you could influence a publisher with your message, what would you say?
