Heroines rarely do housework.

Not much dusting if you live here?

Following on from last week's post, I was thinking about the list of stuff that takes up time and what a heroine would make of it. Particularly the things lower down the list. Like housework. When was the last time, outside a period set saga, that you read about a heroine hanging out washing? They sometimes put it in the machine, or the drier. But what about folding it and putting it away, or heaven forbid, ironing it! All those heroes in crisp cotton shirts. Does she realise that when he sweeps her into his arms on the final page she is probably going to be the one who takes care of that from now on? And when did a heroine last lift a duster? Actually there is an an alternative to this, which really gets me going, It's the one where the heroine, who has just been dumped by the man of her dreams, fills her empty hours by cleaning her flat, baking a cake and sorting out 14 bags of clutter to take to the charity shop and then is looking around for something else to do, as it is only 11 am. She can come round and clean my place next. It usually takes me until 11 am to find the floor and the furniture under the books and papers, never mind dusting/vacuuming. That's the peril of being a writer. The books and papers reproduce themselves at night, when there is no one watching. I'm sure  of it.

On the whole, heroines don't do mundane stuff. And of course, that's why they are heroines. They are busy working too hard at some terribly high power job, or saving the world, or something. And really,if we are looking for entertainment and escapism we don't expect to watch Ms Heroine spending her morning defrosting the freezer. Not unless there are stolen diamonds in there, frozen in the ice tray.  (I defrosted mine before Christmas - I didn't find any diamonds.)

Unfortunately the creators of Ms Heroine and Mr Hero live in the real world and all this ordinary stuff gets in the way of creating the fabulous stuff.

It's not fair, you know. But that's life.