In the writing community on social media, I have discovered that most author's use their book’s genre like a badge of honour.
Literally putting their writing styles out loud and proud in their bio’s for everyone to see.
“Time-travel advocate, Total internetaholic. Beer geek. Alien Communicator. SCI-FI writer”
“I see dead people. Zombie believer. Ghost chaser. #horrorwriter”
“How can you love somebody if you don’t even love yourself. Self-help guru and affirmation writer”.
And then there’s me…
Trying to decide if I am in the romance column or in the more erotic literature side.
If I ever submit my manuscript, that will make me a romance novelist…
Because my series is all about… emotions.
That's mostly due to the very heavily edited draft of my first book to remove a lot, (A LOT) of the more, hardcore scenes I had developed into the storyline.
Literally… pages.
Upon pages.
Evidently, I was very excited about the relationship that was happening between my two characters.
Even outside of the series, I have side-projects where I write about provocative scenarios with them, that won’t ever be in the books.
However, I have no (current) intention of submitting any of that material for publishing, so I can’t call myself a writer of erotic literature.
Yet for a romance novel, sometimes the entanglements can be considered a bit, naughty.
But I am quite comfortable envisioning that kind of intimate scene in relation to a love story.
And I find that as the relationship develops, so does my character's ability to lose their inhabitations together, which allows them to achieve another level of kinky desire.
BUT IT’S A LOVE STORY GUYS!!!
Ahahaha… awks.
No, seriously though… my first draft had no right having that amount of sex in it. But when I cut it back, it didn’t take from the story.
Which is how I know that…
I am a romance novelist.
A racy one, but… still considered a romance writer.
To be comfortable with the moniker, I thought about what authors I liked reading that had the same kind of racy, romantic feel to their books.
Obviously, I grew up reading my Mom’s Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins, (Wow! A twelve-year-old reading those books, that really explains a lot about my personality).
Ah, Jackie and Joan Collins.
They are like the Oracles of what way I write; scandalous and over-dramatic.
But then, I adore Adele Parks, Jenny Colgan and Marian Keyes’s writing style. That kind of girl-next-door on an adventure kind of story. Where usually, the protagonist is on a journey to find herself, and not looking for a man. But still fricking manages to find one along the way.
I like those books, they are usually heavy-handed with a feminist point of view.
There ain’t no damsel in distresses in those stories, and I feel like I carried that sentiment through mine.
The only difference between a good old classic romance book and mine, is that I take a great deal of inspiration from Anthony Bourdain’s body-of-work. Reading his insight into restaurants and kitchens, I just became obsessed with the idea of the underbelly of a high-end restaurant.
So, would that make my book… fiction?
General Fiction?
Women’s fiction?
IT’S NOT that I have an issue with putting the genre tag of Romance Novel on the book, but…
I would just be scared that some little old lady will pick it up, thinking that it is all about coy glances across a candle-lit table at a restaurant. But then five chapters in… she reads about some waitress being shagged stupid over the extradite counter after last orders, while the chef’s trousers are down around his ankles.
The story IS a risqué romance novel, but the label… (forgive me Jackie Collins), “Bonk-Buster”, makes my skin crawl.
It’s just so… 1980’s
I can see the shoulder-pads and backcombed hives just saying it.
Chick Lit, became more trendy with Fifty-shades of Grey, but as much as my targeted audience is towards women. Chick Lit just seems kind of… sexist.
Like a demotion.
It’s not proper literature, it’s CHICK LITERATURE.
(To be honest, I’d get Chick Lit tattooed on my forehead if I got a good publishing deal).
I once had a guy friend ask me how my ‘Mommy-porn’ was coming along.
Mommy-porn.
Now there’s a genre for you.
It makes me think of a thirty or forty something-year-old, sitting back on the couch when the kids are in bed, with a bar of chocolate, a big glass of wine, and my book.
AND THAT IS FRICKING AWESOME.
Hell yeah, I want to write Mommy-porn.
I’d happily be the spokesperson for Mommy-porn.
Because who doesn’t need a bit of escapism?
What mother (or anyone else! We are all-inclusive in this blog!) doesn’t want to switch off and get caught up in a love story.
Especially one where a woman can live her own life but yet finds a guy who cooks fancy food and holds her down onto the bed by her wrists?
MY story is definitely about infatuation, with an itch of sexual tension that is relieved by a prurient scratch of dirty words.
So yes.
Long story short,
I write romance novels.
Salaciously, dramatic relationships that are all about escapism.
Full of emotion, passion and covered in my humorous self-deprecation.
Maybe if I just wrote horror stories, I wouldn’t be so worried about an old granny picking up my book, looking for a good scare. But then five chapters in… she reads about someone being shagged stupid over a gravestone by a demon with his trousers around his ankles.
👻 👻 👻