April 23, 2009

Recently two blogs I follow got me thinking. One was Shayne's This and That where he talked about dreams we have when we are young and the other was Erotic Horizon's blog where she mentioned our changing reading habits over the years.

Some comments on E.H.'s blog reminded me that when I was a young girl even before I started reading romances I read Nancy Drew. I had forgotten that. I guess that is where my love of mysteries really came from and really even romance because Nancy had Ned. All perfectly innocent of course since they were children's books. I spent hours and hours engrossed in those novels. I don't remember now when I gave them up for other fare. First innocent but sweet Regency Romances and then books by Rosemary Rogers and Bertrice Small. I drifted from those eventually to Julie Garwood and Amanda Quick (and eventually Jayne Ann Krentz). I still read those two authors.

I've always liked variety though so I got into reading horror (Stephen King and Dean Koontz--still read King, haven't read Koontz in a while), the late Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series, Martha Grimes mysteries, and True-Crime non-fiction books. I still read horror when I can, unfortunately I've now read all the existing 87th Precinct books, no longer read the Grimes books because they began to change, and I still read True-Crime. For instance, I am completely and utterly fascinated by the Jack the Ripper murders.

I have even read all the Harry Potter novels and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Eventually I found ebooks and loved the instant gratification of having the book right there, right now. I read almost exclusively ebooks now which is helped enormously with my new Kindle. And of the books I read probably 85% are homoerotic romances. I've been reading those for several years now, well before I wrote them. I've sometimes thought if there is such thing as reincarnation I was once a gay man in another life. Strange disclosure probably.

What is the scariest book I've ever read? Without a doubt for me it is Stephen King's The Mist. The movie sucked. But the book was just breathtaking in it's terror. In just a few short pages King made me care about the main family, made me hold my breath as the mist started creeping toward them. It terrified me as well as breaking my heart. It was so intense at times I had to close the book and let my heartbeat and my mind return to normal. Even still when I think about some moments in that book, I get chills. Fantastic work, in my opinion.

What is my favorite book of all time? I couldn't say, really, I love so many, but I will say I absolutely love, love, love Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I think it is brilliant.

Anyway, thanks to E.H. for making me think about what I've read over the years. I've always loved to read. And I think my love of reading created the writer in me.

Shayne got me thinking about dreams. When I was a kid I always wanted to be a writer. I communicate better through writing than any other way. I'm pretty much a solitary person. I'm often called anti-social by the people who know me because I prefer to stay home over going out to party or whatever. Often when I am out, others most certainly dominate the conversation. My mind wanders to what stories I can create.

Even when I wanted to ask my parents for permission for something as a child I would ask in a note. I was famous for my notes. I always did well in creative writing. I thought what career can a writer have other than novels so I planned to be a journalist. It seemed to be the way to go but when college came around I ended up not going for it. For a long time I regretted that lost opportunity until I realized more recently that though I do wish I had gotten a college degree being a journalist was never my dream.

I thought my dream of being a romance writer would take me to the big New York pubs. Even had an agent for a while. I wrote four historical heterosexual romance novels, all of which have been published now by e-publishers. But oddly enough when I went to write more of these historical romances I'd be more interested in the men and what they thought of each other and what they wanted to be to each other. I had a series I had intended to be heterosexual medieval paranormal romances but I'm now thinking very seriously of letting them go where I seem to want them to, to homoerotic medieval paranormal romances. And I must say Ava March has been mercilessly encouraging me in that direction.

Anyhow, I realized I want to write gay romances more than I want to write other romances. I realize that isn't mainstream. Avon or Ballantine or Harlequin are not going to publish them. It's fine. I'm okay and even happy with where my dream has taken me. I have my days where I read a bad review or I think what I am writing is crap. But then I get a lovely email from a reader telling me how much they enjoyed my book and it's all worth it.

So yes, I have realized my dream to be a writer, though as a child I couldn't have imagined where I am now. I am quite happy with things though as they stand considering it will only be a year in June when my first Shawn Lane gay romance was published (The Squire).

And now I realize that this post is horribly long and no one will likely read it anyway, lol.

Song I'm Currently Hooked On: Lie to Me by Johnny Lang