and I’m a romance author. I’ve wanted to be a romance author since I was twelve. Some people want to be lawyers or doctors or professors or president. I wanted to write romances.
Apparently, I should feel some shame for this. My step-mother (who is a sweet woman by the way) wishes I wrote “real books”. Two of my sisters-in-law are thrilled that I write romances and consider it a “dream career”, but one of them thinks I’m a hack and gives me that arched brow look that says, “How ridiculous.”
There’s something else. I don’t just write romance, I write romantica. On top of the stigma I get for writing “sex books”, I get stigmatized for writing “a lot of sex, sex books”. You think writing romance is bad, write romantica and even the romance writers look down on you. 
Here’s the deal: It’s hard work. Really hard.
Write “real” books? Excuse me? John Grisham puts no more effort into writing his bestsellers than I put into my novels. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not comparing my talent to John’s, I’m comparing the work involved.
I sat at my computer just like he did. I pounded my imagination out on a keyboard. I got carpal tunnel, bruised elbows from the arms of my desk chair, gained ten pounds, lost time with my family, cried, screamed, and banged my head into the screen just like John has surely done at some point in his writing career. (Okay. Maybe he didn’t gain ten pounds. *sigh* Men are just lucky that way.) Then I went through the process again. And again. And again. It’s never perfect, but I keep trying.
I read books on craft, I ask questions on listservs, I appeal to my friends who are established authors. I study, study, study. And I’m not alone. All good romance writers do this. They keep files of research and notes, they make phone calls and search the internet, they work far more hours than a person on a 9 to 5 schedule.
Writing is hard work! If anyone thinks writing romances or romantica is easier than writing any other genre, they’re sadly mistaken. Writing is a craft and it requires a level of skill, dedication, and knowledge to achieve a polished, finished product. Telling, passive voice, similar words used too close together, over-use of adverbs, poorly chosen paragraph breaks, improper comma use, bad grammar, too many dialogue tags, ending with a hook, plotting, characterization… Perhaps the average layman is unaware of the many facets required to write a story that comes alive for the reader. But trust me, as Nathanial Hawthorne once said, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
You may not like the story, but never doubt that the writing itself was a painstaking process. This is no different for a romance author than it is for authors writing in other genres.
Write “real” books? I do! And I’m proud of it. 
My name is Sylvia, and I’m a romance author.
Luckily, I haven’t run into this yet. But then again, my writing is still viewed as a hobby by most of the people who know about it. I guess that’s the trade. It’s sad, though, how so few people understand what really goes into writing a book — ANY kind of book. The research, the time, the headaches, the heartache, the emotion . . . . it’s all there. I can’t help but wonder what it would take to change people’s opinions.
on February 6th, 2005 at 10:26 pm