Do you all read Anna Cowan’s blog? She’s a soon-to-be-published (spring of 2013) Australian romance writer who grapples wonderfully with all kinds of meaty issues on her blog. (I’m working on a year-end list of favorite 2012 Romancelandia blog posts, and having trouble deciding which of hers to include.)
Anyway she’s currently hosting a series of guest posts from writers, bloggers, and readers whose thoughts interest her. She invited me to do a guest post, and I did.
I’ve talked to Anna over email about how I use “Go big or go home” as a mantra for prodding myself out onto a limb when writing sex scenes, and writing this post was definitely a GBoGH moment.
In other news, lots of people are coming out with year-end Best Books lists, and there’s been a lot of gratifying love for both Lady and Gentleman. When a few other things have slowed down, I’ll post links.
I liked this. It’s so easy to say that romance readers like to read ‘escapism’ – but the angst, it’s resolution and the middle finger to existential despair is perhaps actually the defining characteristic of a great romance.
So… um… you mentioned back in August that there might be a novella in the upcoming festive season…. (Sorry, I haven’t forgotten.) Any news on that?
Novella: not until next year.
I do want to say that this novella was a joy to write. There were periods of struggle with A Lady Awakened and A Gentleman Undone, and my summer 2013 book, A Woman Entangled, was a struggle akin to my first time giving birth. But the novella was just plain fun, start to finish, and I was naive enough to hope maybe my editor would say, “Why, I can’t think of a single thing to change about this! Hit that publish button as soon as you can!”
However, I made a point of hiring an editor who I knew would push and challenge me, and sure enough she pointed out places where motivations could be clearer, themes could be better developed, etc. So back to edits it goes.
Next time I write a novella it will be non-holiday-themed, so I can publish it when it’s done instead of having to tie it to that holiday-season window :)