The Reluctant Romance Writer

How did I become a (reluctant) romance writer?

This is the question I've been asking myself since I signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press in October of 2023.

In my reflection, I've discovered the following:

All of my YA books and short stories have had a romantic relationship as the focal point. Not only that, but I've also always included "steamy" stuff with the romantic relationships. (Ugh, I cringe at using that word, yet it is the correct one!).

On the other hand, all of my work has been character-driven, with the spotlight on the development and changes of the characters within the story rather than on—to be very blunt—sex or romance. Yet intimate relationships have always been a theme, but not always romantically intimate. Friendships, family, and romantic partners are all significant features in just about every piece of fiction I've written.

In addition to the above, I've always been a sucker for a good romantic movie, yet also cringe—at times—while watching some of them. I consider Say Anything (yes, GenX-er here) one of the most romantic movies in my lifetime. For a more contemporary set of movies, I loved all of the Kissing Booth movies with Joey King (which made both my daughters (ages 20 and 16) cringe!). Yet sometimes, these types of movies make me want to hide my eyes behind my hands. For example, while I watched Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman kissing and then having sex in their new rom-com, I covered my face like it was a scary movie! And back when the Twilight movies were a thing, I couldn't watch (or read) more than the first one. I guess it depends: Sometimes romance makes me gag, and other times it makes me swoon. 

Speaking of swoon-worthy romance, I admit I devoured Maybe Someday (Colleen Hoover), Shug (Jenny Han), and A Court of Thorn and Roses (Sarah J. Mass). Yet, I also find the following books equally if not more swoon-worthy: Call Me By Your Name (André Aciman), Normal People (Sally Rooney), Me Before You (Jojo Moyes), My Heartbeat (Garret Weyr), and Detransition, Baby (Torrey Peters). The former are all classic contemporary romance novels, whereas the latter are not, right?  

Here is where I am downright confused. What actually makes a book a "romance novel"? I know that certain phrases and words are common in romance novels. I know there are certain tropes too. But those hallmarks can't be what defines a romance novel. At least not to me.

When I write, I don't consider genre. Starting with my first book, My Sister's Wedding, I didn't even know what genre it was until I sent out my first query. The agent wrote back, calling it "contemporary young adult fiction," and later, another labeled it a "YA romance." I didn't think much of any of these labels at the time. 

Genre has never been something I could easily put my writing into. It's been something I found that when I have thought about it too much, it will reduce me to a paralyzed mess and render me unable to put even one finger on the keyboard. Even now, if I keep "romance writer" at the forefront of my mind while tapping away at the current manuscript I'm working on, I can't write. I stop cold. I have to go do something else until my brain clears.

The label I feel most comfortable with is reluctant romance writer. Or quirky romance writer? Or non-traditional romance writer? Or, as we say in the mental health bizz—romance writer not otherwise specified (only therapists and mental health folks will get that joke).

So, how did I become a (reluctant) romance writer?

I have no idea! 

My new romance novel I Love That Girl will be published in early 2025!

The Burden of Expectation on the Creative Life

I’ve had writer’s block since November 22^nd 2012. It began after I finished an exuberant first run in NaNoWriMo, whereby I completed a manuscript—start to finish—in less than 21 days. A record for me.

I spent some time trying to write after I finished NaNoWriMo, not the manuscript I had completed during the NaNoWriMo month, but a different one. By the New Year, I was really depressed so I did something I have never done since I made the commitment to be a writer decades ago:

I gave up writing fiction. . . completely. Since that time I have been journaling in that messy, self-pitying/angry/ranting way that is ultimately very healthy but not good for creating a world, a story nor is it good for public consumption.

The good news is that after these 4 months of journaling, I have identified what’s up with me.

It’s so f-king simple that you are going to probably stop reading this blog right after you hear it.

Drum roll, please:

I expected that after 16 years of writing, submitting, receiving awards, and even achieving agented status, I would, by now, be further along in my writing career.

This is almost funny. I mean what writer trying to “make it” hasn’t had that feeling? What writer doesn’t expect, want, pray, hope for more? So the thing that blocks me now, that makes writing bone-crushingly painful is the burden of expectation.

***

Since childhood I’ve dreamed of being a writer. I’ve always had the dream. Not only that, but in all parts of my life, I am a dreamer. I believe, in my bones, that dreaming actualizes reality. I have lived that Truth; that is how I have made everything in my life happen. My books, my business, the literary anthology I founded, even my marriage, my children. . . all began with delicious, lovely dreams.

BUT

The dream of writer once felt lovely, empowering, and it drove me. Lately, though, my dreams to write fiction feel more like extra weight, like I put on about thirty pounds. My cadence has slowed. I’m lumbering. I’m pulled to closer to the earth. Why? Because what was once a dream, became—somewhere along the way—an expectation. Expectations are heavy. Dreams are not.  

***

I have tried to go back into my manuscripts, but I second-guess every stroke of the keyboard. I delete more than I write. The word-counts of each current WIP—healthy 60,000 plus—only burden rather than motivate me.  

I just keep questioning the big picture. It’s not just the specific book I am working on; it’s this path of being a writer that I am on.

I used to like to work hard just for the adrenaline-high of it. The burn of it, like a fast run outside. I was very committed to that feeling of nose-to-the-grindstone with my writing, revising until I felt sweaty and tired. Whether it was writing books or getting an MFA in writing, the process of hard work was enough for me. I was in love with the process of creating fiction. I enjoyed every single moment, losing myself deeply in each project.

But now the process of the hard work has felt bone-crushingly painful. Because what was once an airy, ethereal dream is now a feet firmly planted expectation.

And I really just don’t know what to do except, well. . . write about it.

*** 

My dreams as a writer are probably similar to yours. (I assume mainly writers are reading this, but you can apply it to any dream).

I dreamt that I would have a book deal by 25. Then when 25 hit and it didn’t happen, I just worked harder and dreamt it would be 30. Then, you guessed it, when 30 hit, I worked even harder and aimed for 35.

I turn 38 this year. You know what the new dream is?

To be able to sit down and write a book with ease, with joy, with a sense of fun.

  

My oldest daughter is the same age I was when I decided that when I grow up, I was going to be an author, like Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. My fourth grade teacher, although very surly and liked to knock down my over-confidence with remarks like “You are the second best reader in the class, not the first”, awarded me with a badge at the end of the year: “Ambition Is To Be An Author”. Not Best Writer. No, my “award” was for my ambition. Pretty telling.

My dreams and ambition fuel me and the burden of expectation kills the creative dream.

I need to go back to dreaming and let go of expectations.

REALITY BITES

Will I Ever Stop Avoiding My Reality?

Preface

The following items have caused me to write this blog entry:

1.  The Guest House

A poem that a student brought to my attention  yesterday. It describes the human as a house where feelings are guests that come and go, but no matter good or bad, we must “welcome and entertain” them. In fact, Rumi suggests that we: 

“Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”

2. “The realistic odds are that you’ll earn more working a regular job in an office than you will trying to invent fictional worlds and then invent new ways of selling them. There’s only one good reason to do that kind of thing: because it makes you sane and whole and happy.” -Cory Doctorow

A small tidbit from an article that my friend/mentor Tanya Whiton  posted on Facebook. It discusses the author’s experiences with the harsh reality of  book promotion (both as a mainstream affair and DIY).

Part A

On why these items linger with me

I came across the link from Tanya this morning whiling working on  SUCKER (my indie lit mag I started in May) and my own work (a WIP that needs revision and is the 4th in my failed-to-be-launched-by the mainstream YA series).

I think you might know where I’m about to go with all this…

I’ll start with the article: First of all, I’ve read stuff like this before. Hell, I have lived (my Maddie books) and do live (SUCKER) this. And second–I try not to read these articles because they hurt my head. I mean I already know this. Why beat that dead horse again? After all, it won’t make it come alive.

Which actually leads to The Guest House: I avoid inviting and entertaining those feelings around my reality with my writing. Yeah, sure I’ve talked about it in my blog ad nauseam. I’ve advised other writers and clients about the reality of promoting their DIY books. But I never have allowed myself to bring this Truth into my heart, into my core.

Part B

On The Pain of Reality

To avoid inviting these feelings in, I create an imaginary world where all my efforts with my Maddie books and SUCKER pays off. An agent says "yes" to my work, we fall in writer-agent love, and she sweeps me off my feet to a lunch in NYC, where we sign my contract. Then six months later there’s an auction between two huge houses and voila! I have not just a book deal but a five book, book deal! (the four Maddies and my short story collection).  This imaginary world looms large in my head on long bike rides to Starbucks, or as I fall asleep at night and want to avoid the voices in my head obsessing about my work, my children, and my husband. These images of my agent and me at lunch in the city hovers over my shoulder when my inbox is filled with rejections or sort of rejections (you know, “I love your voice but it just doesn’t come together for me, blah,blahblah).

Pain of rejection, of no, no, no, of work-myself-so-hard-at-my-writing-that-my-elbows-develop tendonitis, do every thing you’re supposed to (see my list here)...Oh I feel it all right, but the minute depression, anxiety, fear, and disappointment walk in, the burning in my heart starts, so I try to shut the door–

Part C

On The Pain of Avoidance

But the feelings–man!–they put their fingers on the door jam. So when I slam it, it f-ing hurts–because I’m slamming the door on myself. This results in to-the-bone bruising that lingers for a long time. And since I continue to try to shut the door over and over, I rebruise and eventually break those fingers.

Part D

On Using My Imaginings Wisely

To face these feelings, I’ve created another fantasy:

I stand in a dark room, my hand wraps around a doorknob. When I turn it, the hinges creak, and I peer out into a hallway where I see Depression, Anxiety, and Fear. I step out and gesture with my hand, “Come in.”

Epilogue

 “There’s only one good reason to do that kind of thing: because it makes you sane and whole and happy.”- Cory Doctorow

Writing is my light. It makes me happy. My focus needs to shift to that, but all the while entertaining and offering a cup of tea to my feelings. Because “each has been sent/ as a guide from beyond”.  Depression, Anxiety, Disappointment might just have something to say to me, and the only way I’ll ever hear it, is if I sit down and share that cup of tea.  

Part 3 of Post MFA Coma: The awakening...

Be sure to read part 2 first. 

March 14th

BE WHO YOU ARE

Recently I had coffee with the mother of a former student. She told me that her daughter was struggling at college; she doesn’t like to drink and party,  yet she goes to these parties, drinks a soda and tries to get into the spirit of drunkenness. The mother said to her about all this: you have to be who you are.

Man is that not just in college or high school. Be who you are.

Like right now, I need to just be who I am, because the trick is when you fight it or try to conform to something that you really aren’t, awful anxiety and fear takes over. Even though it seems scarier to risk being yourself because your self might be different, untraditional, or quirky.; it’s harder to be who you aren’t.

What does that mean?

It means that I'm revising the final Maddie book, looking into super low cost ways to edit and publish it AND, still, at the SAME TIME, try to find an agent for my new work.

I'm a Gemini. Can't help it.

March 15

I used to think if I worked hard enough, I could achieve and do anything. But writing my collection, crafting a query, doing research on agents, focusing 24-7 for so many months only to have the result be rejections…The theory that hard work pays off is bunk. I know some say I’m impatient… But the facts speak the truth:
MY SISTER'S WEDDING, submitted by my former agent for four years, resulted in nothing, and before that time period,  I submitted for four years– that’s eight years of waiting.  BIG FAT BROKEN HEARTS, I submitted to almost 30-something agents and have been rejected by almost all of them. I’m actually running out of people to submit to. Patience has nothing to do with where I’m at. And where I’m at is no agent. But it’s not due to a lack of patience.

MSD (the newest, unpublished Maddie novel)  will never find a home because none of the other Maddie books did.  BFBH (my collection of short stories)– I will wait it out for probably years; there’s no urgency.

March 16

When I really look at the trying to publish my books thing, I suddenly totally get it right now: no one is really spending any time thinking about whether or not I should self publish again.

March 17

I’m awake now.

Not that I have been asleep, but I think I was in a post MFA coma for the past few months.

Writing can be religious if I let it. It can be transformative.

I have redefined my expectations and what it means to be successful as a writer.

I can’t put it all into perfect words yet. But I know that it has to do with not shutting any mean or mode out in terms of sharing my work. Be it Blogging, self publishing, mainstream publishing–whatever. The expectation I have of myself as a writer is to share my most favorite and best work with as many people as possible. My other expectation is that I will have to be totally and fully responsible for that sharing. That I expect to not allow myself to let my manuscripts collect dust. That I will get them into book form–at least, for now, the Maddie books. That I will finish all the projects I have started before I’m….Okay, forty five. That’s the two Maddie books, which I have decided to combine into one big book. That’s also the brand new book I started and have 50 thou words for. That’s also the 80 pages of the adult novel that’s been sitting for almost ten years unfinished.

I know that no matter what happens with this publishing thing, I will write, continue to put myself out there and if I have to publish my stuff myself, so be it.

BE WHO YOU ARE

***

Current STATS: 18 out of 31 agents I've submitted my new collection to have rejected.  Rest haven't heard back from. Submitted also to SOUCREBOOKS (a publisher).

Working on combining book 4 and 5 of the Maddie series and aiming for publication late next year or beginning of the following. Hoping on the 1 year anniversary of the first Maddie book to reissue them into one volume.

A Writer's Prayer

A Writer’s Hope

I am hopeful
that today will be better than yesterday
that 35 will be my lucky year
that it’s not really over even if the fat lady has sung...several times

I am hopeful
that my words will come out
imperfectly perfect
that I will meet my soul mate agent
across a crowded room
and it will be like falling in love

I am hopeful
that my MFA will not be in vain
that I will teach, write, work, work, work
and it will all be worth it.

I am hopeful
that the deep ache in my arms,
will morph into a strength– a muscle– that
will ease the pain, the burden of bracing, carrying, and
typing.

I am hopeful that the best is truly yet to come,
that I will be a late bloomer
and it will be okay
that destiny is real
faith is alive
and cliches are actually useful because they usually are true.