Tuesday, September 14, 2010

If books weren't burned...

...you might have to live in a house built out of harlequin romances.


I knew a guy who paid his rent that way. Actually in the days of the PC XT computer, he made a program that would randomly tie together the elements common in most romance novels, and spew out 200 pages worth of the dreck. He'd read it through for continuity, then send it off for editing. After about a year he'd send in the weekly double-spaced manuscript, and they'd just cut him a check. You could say he now lives in a house that was partially built from Harlequin Romances. Pick a double dozen of the most ridiculous feminine pseudonyms. Chances are, a dozen of those belong to a computer program ultimately dubbed "The Literary Sybian".

It's kind of ironic that I knew two people who's lives were so intimately touched by the Harlequin Publishers.....

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