We’ve been having houseguests, very old and very dear friends who are extremely supportive of my writing. However, they do not have a romantic or sentimental bone in their bodies and think romance as a genre is… Well as one of them put it: “who reads that sh*t?”. Whereupon I climbed up on my soapbox and delivered a stern message about who exactly reads that sh*t (academics, lawyers, supposed literary types) and what the purpose of said sh*t is. Poor guy, after my lecture, he just shook his head and told me that he just didn’t get it. Fair enough. I don’t get people’s fascination with reading sports books. In his defence, he did proof a synopsis for me when I put in my very first partial and did not laugh or poke fun or anything like that. He proofed it well, asked me questions about it and took it seriously. So I forgive him.
Anyway, everyone else I know has thought the whole me writing romance thing fantastic. There has been no scorn poured, no mickey taken, no lip curling. I have had the odd ‘so are you going to write anything else?’ question but apart from that, the response has been great.
Anyone else had similiar experiences when asked what you write? Or have there been the odd person who has veiwed romance writing as similiar to admitting you like to pull the wings off flies now and then or you drown kittens in your spare time?
I can’t believe he said that Jackie! I think I’d still be up on my soap box 😉
I think everyone who knows what I’m doing are assuming I’ll only do it until I get a ‘real’ book published. I also get the assumption that it must be really easy (subtext being – so why haven’t you cracked it yet?)
I’ve found the same, Jackie. No lip-curling or anything. I’ve had the ‘so you’re writing soft porn’ line once but apart from that, nothing negative at all. In fact, everyone’s been really impressed. Most pleasing. (Mind you who knows what they’re saying behind my back!)
Lorraine, he only said that because he’s a very old friend and can get away with it. Though I did gave him hell about it, and also chapter and verse about how difficult it actually was to write a decent romance. Dunno if he believe it though.
Soft porn?? Yes, Lucy, we also had the discussion about euphemisms and ‘throbbing manhoods’. Everyone else laughed muchly about all the terrible ones that get used. One of my friends asked me what I called ‘it’. I told her she’d have to wait until she read my book. 🙂
Nobody’s ever openly sneered at my ambitions (as Lucy pointed out, who knows what goes on behind your back?). Apart from my ex, that is, who didn’t even like me reading, let alone trying to write (this is just one of the many reasons he now my ex).
A couple of women at a client’s office had been wondering just how explicit my love scenes might be. I told them they would need to buy my books – so if I’m ever published I have a ready market of two. Is that what they call marketing?
Sorry, I meant ‘that’s why he’S now my ex’. It’s been a long day.
🙂
That’s definitely marketing, Suzanne! My husband has been doing a lot of that on my behalf and he told me a couple of days ago that he had about 50 people all interested in my first book! Cool eh? Of course, they might not like it but hey, I’m not writing for people who don’t read romance.
Funny how one of the first questions you get is about the sex, though.