The other day one of my co-workers asked me what I was reading. This is an every day occurrence. In fact, I’m asked several times a day what I’m reading. There aren’t a lot of people in my office who read; there’s only one other girl who has her nose stuck in a book on her lunch and breaks like me.
It seems people who read are an oddity in my office.
That’s okay, though. I don’t mind being an oddity. In fact, I revel in it. I have always been what I would call eccentric, always outside the norm. But it seems I’m even more outside the norm because I read romance. And I write it.
I love love love romance. I read tons of it. You write what you love to read, right? As a romance writer, I’m almost duty bound to read romances; I’m pretty sure it’s in my contract somewhere.
But people always get wierded out by the fact that I read romances for two reasons. I’m a guy and I’m gay. People assume that, since I’m a guy, I shouldn’t read romance and, since I’m gay, I wouldn’t want to read straight romances.
They’re wrong on both counts.
I love romances not just for the sex scenes, but for the story, for the characters. I don’t know what it is about romance but the characters always seem to be more alive, more real than in regular fiction. Plus you get passion, excitement, harrowing plotlines, danger and disaster at every turn, conflict galore AND a happy ending. What can be better than that?
If any kind of writing was popcorn or candy for the mind, romance would be it.
In the end, I love reading romances and I love writing them even more. For whatever reason, my characters always come alive more if they’re in one of my little romantic novellas.
I’m particularly proud of Valentine (available now from Cobblestone Press) and Finding Beauty (coming soon from Cobblestone Press). To me, they are some of my best pieces of writing that I’ve done.
Thankfully, there are always new stories to write and to read. I will forever be a romance writer and a romance junkie.
For more info on Valentine, check out the blog! www.valentineanovel.blogspot.com
And, while you’re at it, don’t forget to pick up your copy of Valentine by clicking here:http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/valentinejw
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