Why aren’t these books marketed as romance novels and why do so many stories have love-story plots or subplots but scoff at the ones that do so intentionally?
Category: Reading
Writing Lessons From Reading Romance
But despite all those things people tend to say about romance, reading it has made me a fundamentally better author, both in and out of the genre. These books are often escapist and fantastical, yes, but I have taken many important writing skills and themes away from them. Here are just a few.
A Year in Books: 2019
I was lucky enough to enjoy some wonderful books, and while I didn’t hit my Goodreads goal of 150 stories for the year, I’m still excited to look over all the great books I did read and see what I learned from them. Here’s my list for 2019.
More Than Strong (How Romance Highlights the Every Woman)
When I write strong female characters, I think of it more with the emphasis on strong character, creating heroines and female main characters that are strongly written, fleshed out and three dimensional. The character isn’t strong, necessarily, because of her physical abilities or emotional capacity. She is strong because the characterization is strong and complete.
A Writer? Anything But.
There was never a time in my life I wasn’t making up mad tales and then eventually putting them to paper, where my love for the idea turned into a love for the words themselves and then the craft and then combination of all three. What would I be if I wasn’t a writer? I have no idea.
Dukes, Seals, Scots, Oh My!
Over the course of my evolving love for the romance genre, and my need to read more to write more, I have discovered many genres that I would never have known I loved, had it not been by chance or happy accident. Here are just a few:
Art and Soul
I have learned languages, found lovers and love, failed and succeeded more times than I can count. And through all of that, through the ups and downs, the adventures, experiences, fears and joys, I have always, always been a writer.
