What draws us time and again to this trope? Hate-to-love is surprisingly tricky to write, and you have to be carefully toeing the line, but we keep coming back? Why? The tension. Ooh baby, we love that tension.
Category: Musings
Now and Then: Writing Contemporary and Historical Novels
Contemporary stories wiggled around in my head until I gave them life, and soon I found that I was writing in several genres, erotic and more traditional romance in both the historical and modern age. I wrote BDSM novellas and menage novels and pirates stories and everything in between. And along the way, I’ve come to favor certain elements of writing both then and now.
13 Stages of Writing a Novel
Be a writer, they said. It will be easy, they said.
So Much More Than Frenemies
Girl on girl hate has become a ubiquitous theme in romantic comedies, novels, television shows and nearly anything catering to the pre-teen, thus creating a never ending cycle of vicious gossip, bullying and tormenting. Modern romance fights that tide.
Why I DNF
As an author, I think it’s important to read books that aren’t perfect so we can perform more effectively in our own stories. That said, there are a few things that will make me put a book down.
Our Own Worst Enemy
I cannot say I’ve ever read a romance novel where the heroine sat around twiddling her thumbs waiting for a two-dimensional character with no name, (looking you, Prince Charming... ) to give her a new life.
A Panel on Intersectional Feminism in the Romance Novel
The discussion is ongoing, but the panel was insightful, educational and full of actionable steps that authors, readers, and industry professionals can take to further a fully inclusive, fully intersectional romance genre.
A Matter of Time
There is productivity belief that if you set the bar too high on a day’s project and don’t meet it, you will feel like a failure, thus making you less productive the following day. But if you set a small goal and reach it, you’ll feel like a success, which will then inspire you to complete the next goal and the next.
Eat Me
Food is an intrinsic part of human life and it feeds – in more ways than one – into who we are as people, physically and emotionally. It dictates our social lives, the way we feel about ourselves and so much more.
I Don’t Want to Write
Writing is wonderful. It’s like playing God, sculpting worlds, forming new people from nothing but your fingers against the keyboard, giving life to the two-dimensional creations of your own mind, weaving spells of love and pain and the whole spectrum of human emotion. I love being a writer, but that’s not why I do it.
Holland Rae, Writer 