chick-lit vs dick-lit

As much as women amaze me, i’m pleased to say that sometimes men amaze me too.

Take the novel, A Million Miles from Normal, for example. It’s unashamed chick-lit. It’s a romantic comedy. It’s the equivalent of a movie with Sandra Bullock or Jenifer Anniston in it. Most of the time you have to drag your guy in to see one of those, right? Or offer a blow job or some other such bribe to get him to take you. And then God help you if there’s a Jason Bourne movie showing in the next door theatre at the same time.

So I’ve been amazed at how open some guys have been to checking the book out.

There’s a guy who sits behind me in the studio at work. He’s a tough guy, he drinks with the boys, has tattoos all over, has broken the odd heart. He’s a guy’s guy. A boy’s boy. A man’s man. He’s been known to say things like ‘Boytjie’, and go for a tjop and a dop, travel commando, you get the vibe.

We have strict rules here in our studio, where boys reign. They’re only allowed to take certain magazines to the toilet with them. None of the beautiful design or advertising annuals off our desks are allowed into the boy’s toilet, only the boy mags – the GQ’s and The Sports Illustrated’s and the other ‘lad rags’. And then the magazines the boys take in there are not allowed to be returned to our desk afterwards. Yuck. Boys can be gross. Who knows what they get up to in there. And why they’re so proud of it.

But wait, I’m going off point. Sitting back to back with me in our small studio space this guy hasn’t had much of a choice and he’s closely followed the trials and tribulations of getting the book published.

He teased me about the sex scenes when I was originally writing it, celebrated with me when I got the offer from Penguin South Africa, endured the wrath of my bad moods and sharp tongue when we were just days away from going to print and we still hadn’t cracked the cover and i was a raging mess.

And then, the biggest surprise of all, he actually went out and bought the thing when it was published, and then an even bigger surprise, he read the entire book, from cover to cover.

The morning after he finished reading it he looked at me sheepishly:

HIM: It’s a bit of a chick’s book, isn’t it?
ME: Yes dude, it’s a lot of a chick’s book, I told you. I can’t believe you read the whole thing.
HIM: It was cool, I dug it.

And he’s not the only one. Men have been surprising me non-stop ever since the book came out. Meet Deems. Deems is an awesome blogger, we’ve never met, but somehow stumbled across each other in the virtual world. His blog, Deems Weblog, is ‘A software developers ramblings’, but it’s not all techie stuff, there’s some funny and interesting too. He posts a Video of the Week, check out this one – shark vs. octopus, it’s damn cool (but a little gruesome – consider yourself warned).

Anyway Deems was one of those cool guys who went out and bought my book and then read it, and even wrote a review of it, which you can find by clicking here.

Mr Smarty Pants is another. He bought the book, and from what i can gather he enjoyed it.

Great friend Dummy also bought it, as did one of the young men i met on the online dating website, Animal. And both loved it (or at least that’s what they tell me).

So you see, even the toughest, manliest, techiest, smartest, hottest, dudest player in town can still have a feminine side. Forget Chick-lit, i’m going to start calling it Dick-lit too.

Nice one boys, I love your work.

And thanks again for taking the time to read it and report back Deems.