I was re-reading some of the romance novels that I used to read and it feels… tidy. I’ve not read the romance genre for a number of years and in that time, I guess my expectations for stories are different now. I want stories and characters I can relate to, plot lines that are in shades of grey instead of just black and white. I guess that’s what happens when you read different genres, you can’t be the same type of reader as when you started.

Cross-posted from my main blog.

Do you just sit there, staring at the blank page or screen, willing the words to flow?

Do you just let your stream of conciousness fill the page with inane thoughts and babbling?

Do you drink copious amounts of coffee, hoping the caffeine will jar something lose? Or that the frequent trips to the porcelain bowl will help you think?

Do you sit in the sun, letting the heat burn into you while you file away what you feel, to use in your writing?

Do you people watch and describe what they’re wearing, their actions and mannerisms in your head, and then create drabbles out of the different things you see?

Do you read a lot, and widely so as to find a writing style that resonates with you?

Do you scribble into notebooks, in illegible handwriting and hoping that when you come back to it on a later date you can still read it?

Do you ask yourself random questions and then writing the answers down, and then realise that you’ve actually filled up a good portion of the page?

What do you do?

When the bookstore shelves Mercedes Lackey’s Tales of the 500 Kingdoms series under romance? Sure, they’re published by LUNA, which is under Harlequin who publishes romance novels, but do most of us read the 500 Kingdoms for the romance? I know I don’t.

I read it because, like the Elemental Masters series, 500 Kingdoms was a retelling of the fairy tales. The romance was a bonus. I enjoyed it because of the magic and fantasy. I’m so used to finding all of Mercedes Lackey’s books under the fantasy section of Kinokuniya, so when I was looking for her latest book from the series and only to find it under romance, I was more than a little unhappy. It’s like filing Kelley Armstrong’s Womenof the Otherworld under romance, which is SO VERY WRONG.

So tell me, am I totally unreasonable for being angry at this mis-shelving of books?

Meet new people, fall in love.

Coffee, a gift from the gods.

Human biology, it’s all about sex.

She stabbed him and ran like hell.

I can’t write indoors. My urge to write on seems to come when I’m sitting out in the open, with the sun scorching down on me.

Must not drink all the coffee.