by Holland Rae | Jan 29, 2020 | Characters, Editing, Industry, Inspiration, Musings, My Books, Reading, Research
Easy reading is damn hard writing. – Nathaniel Hawthorne From the outside, writing doesn’t look too hard. After all, I spent eight to ten hours a day on my computer, doing the thing I love most in the world. What could be difficult about that? I get to...
by Holland Rae | Jan 22, 2020 | Characters, Heroines, Musings, My Books, Reading, Research, Romance Novels, RWA, Statistics, Women, Women's Rights
There are some pretty distinct rules that separate romance novels from every other genre, including genres with love stories. The most obvious of which is the HEA, The Happily Ever After, where the reader is left with a sense that, not only is everything okay right...
by Holland Rae | Jan 14, 2020 | Characters, Industry, Inspiration, Musings, My Books, Research, Romance Novels
I’m not going to take the necessary time to go over all the ways romance gets a bad rap. If you read or write the genre, you know that it’s up against a high level of misconception and condescension for myriad reasons. But despite all those things people tend to say...
by Holland Rae | Jan 11, 2020 | Editing, Industry, Inspiration, Musings, My Books, Research, Romance Novels
Throughout the course of our artistic careers, we will evolve and grow into different habits, styles, and approaches to telling stories. Some of us are outliners, some of us are completely insane and dive right in without a second thought. Each book or story will...
by Holland Rae | Jan 2, 2020 | Editing, Inspiration, Musings
It’s a new year and I’m already tired. As everyone is returning to their schedules and routines, we’re leaving to visit family tomorrow morning and we won’t be home for a week–a week where I’ll be working on the road. It’s been a lot of...
by Holland Rae | Dec 26, 2019 | Historical, Intersectional Feminism, Regency, Romance Novels, Series
I want to start by wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year! 2019 was a wild ride for me: I had two new books come out, spent time exploring my new city, taught writing classes, and did a lot of writing! I was also lucky enough to enjoy some wonderful books, and...
by Holland Rae | Dec 18, 2019 | Art, Beauty, Body Image, Romance Novels
I make a concerted effort to broaden my range of romance novels, (see my post about the size of the industry here) but it seems I keep finding myself back in the age of corsets, rakes, and scandal, in or around the Regency era. For many reasons, I love the Regency...
by Holland Rae | Dec 10, 2019 | Art, Beauty, Characters, Heroines, Humor, Musings, Regency, Romance Novels
I’m going to come right out and say it. I’m over alpha males who can’t string a sentence together. Shocker, I know. But seriously. I know our loins get all fluttery and we revert back to some real knuckle-dragger tendencies when it comes to the hot...
by Holland Rae | Dec 3, 2019 | Editing, Inspiration, Musings, My Books, National Novel Writing Month, Research, Romance Novels, Series
Happy December! It’s the holiday season, chilly weather and the best part of all — National Novel Writing Month is over. Over. This is officially my tenth successful year, of 11 attempted, and I’m surprisingly pleased with my final product. I completed the first book...
by Holland Rae | Nov 25, 2019 | Characters, Harry Potter, Industry, Inspiration, Musings, My Books, Reading, Romance Novels, Uncategorized, Women's Rights
With the rise of Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior, the literary world saw a shift, a call toward the strong female character, a heroine who could fight for herself and those she loved, someone who wouldn’t take it sitting down. I am all for the strong female...
