Loose Change

I started writing romances because that was what I read.  I grew up with Woodiwiss and her imitators --  although even as a young teen I knew their writing could use some work. I was still totally enthralled.  That means I’ve spent roughly thirty years reading  and being enthralled by all kinds of romance.

Why romance?  I don’t know. I tried to write it when I was a teenager but I couldn’t really do it. As I got older, I hid my disgusting tendencies from my English Lit grad peers although at least it was all right to like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.  But by the time I was being analytical in English grad school, I wasn’t able to write romance at all. I still loved it, though.

I’m sure part of my enjoyment is because the stories are usually by and for women.  Yes, the hero is yummy but the romances I read and like tend to be ones where the heroine (or, nowadays, hero or hero and heroine) deserves and can match that yummy hero. Even when it’s written by and for a man, the original structure is female. Good romance knows what women want and need and love. So part of it is wish fulfillment – although I’m not sure I’d really want some of those guys for a HEA. 

I've also come to realize I read it  (warning: this will sound really mushy –for a romance writer, I really hate mushy) because love is an incredibly powerful thing.  If you don’t believe in it, see what happens when it goes wrong.  When it goes right…wow.  It’s well worth trying to figure out for the rest of your life.

Why erotic?  I don’t know that, either. A few years ago, I’d have said because I wanted to write any kind of romance and this type got me published. It didn’t even matter if it sold.  After all, I started writing erotic romance before people knew it sold, although everyone caught onto that idea pretty quickly.

But I don’t really believe that reason any more. I won’t say I couldn’t have tried  a number of different sub-genres of romance and probably written a decent story in most of them, but I’ve discovered I really like erotic romance.  It’s  powerful and fascinating. Love and lust?  Oh yeah! I like it because sex is a way to find out a lot about a character.  I like it because it creates amazing emotion in your reader when you do it right.  I even like it because it creates a community of authors who feel like they need to stick up for each other because no one else will.

But I am curious about the people who write what is sort of erotic romance but don’t seem to like it or understand it.  Is it for the money?  (I don’t think there is enough money in the world  to make you write something you don’t love. Writing is too difficult to do unless you love it and need to.) Or is it because they don’t get there are certain conventions in romance and erotica and how to mingle the two? These are bright people, after all.