Thursday, March 15, 2012

Coffee, Books and...Lipstick...

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all   ---- Laura Ingalls Wilder



I'm Vastine Bondurant. Welcome to my place!

I put off launching my blog for a long time, waiting for the perfect subject. Something that would make me sound provocative, really interesting.

Truth is, I'm not extraordinary. I'm just a girly girl who's ready and excited to start writing---creating---one of her favorite worlds: guys and girls.

I'm a published author in the m/m genre, which I adore, but somehow the time just wasn't quite right to begin writing mainstream and m/f romance. Until now.

The characters in my head are like me. They ARE me. Basic, nothing fancy, but hopefully SO simple and human you'll relate to them, you'll recognize bits of yourself when you meet them.

My fictional boys aren't perfect. If you met them in real life, you'd knock them upside their heads. But you'd love them in spite of yourself. My gals aren't perfect either because they all carry little doses of me in them. Most of them are much bolder than me, and that's the fun part---painting dames who, even though they're imperfect, are what I'm not adventurous enough to be.

I crossed this painting by my favorite modern artist, Jack Vettriano, titled Back Where You Belong a while back and I knew...I just knew...I needed to write the feelings it inspired in me. Man, woman, love, anger, lust, sex, masculine, feminine, tears, stoicism. Romance.

Back Where You Belong by Jack Vettriano

And who IS Vastine Bondurant?

A simpleton, a romantic. A woman who can survive anything as long as she has the basics: coffee in the pantry, a working coffee pot, books and...most importantly...lipstick.



Yes, I am the Talullah Bankhead from the film Lifeboat. The woman who---even when her ship is sinking and she's stranded in the middle of the ocean on a lifeboat with a bevy comprised mostly of men (oh, the hardhips)---stops to put on her lipstick. The woman who even THOUGHT to rescue her lipstick from a sinking vessel. A woman who knows her priorities. Yes, that's Vastine.

Did you think I was joking about the lipstick on the lifeboat full of men? Would I joke about lipstick or men?

I'm a woman hopelessy lost in this decade, who would be hunky dory to be back in those other eras---the 20's, 30's, 40's. Times that were probably not all we've romanticized them to be, but are so vivid and exciting in my imagination.

I look forward to getting to know you. I'll always welcome your input on romance, on writing, on life.

Hope to see you again soon.