Hmmm.
Still stuck in no-writing purgatory. Late with Sweet Charity stories, pretty much a loser all around at the moment.
I'd forgotten I'd friended that Loose Id LJ comm that updates with new releases. So I went over to the website and started looking at the gay titles, reading the synopses.
I mean, absolutely NO OFFENSE to anyone on the planet intended -- just that some of the synopses read really...cheesily. I admit, up front: Never been a big romance-novel reader. It has always created a sort of synaptic dissonance for me, that I have, in the past, written some fiction that really could not be called anything BUT romance, albeit the m/m kind, and yet I so rarely (if ever) READ anything that falls under the romance rubric. My fun reading is almost always science fiction or fantasy, unless it's (increasingly) non-fiction.
But right now I'm thinking, Why on earth NOT write something like this? Boys in love! What could be more fun??
(Let's just insert here a general disclaimer: casting no aspersions on the romance genre in general; not suggesting I'm a better writer than LI authors; by no means implying anything...untoward. I don't know that I am not actually acquainted with one or more of the LI authors and just don't know it. But I am not, by inclination, well acquainted with the romance genre -- in fact in terms of traditional [m/f] pairings, I can quite honestly say I have read maybe one or two romances in my LIFE. The genre doesn't appeal when it's m/f, for whatever reason -- slash girl here, yepper.)
So what do you think? Can a writer take on writing in a genre with which they are for all intents and purposes unaquainted? Or is it that we/I ARE/AM acquainted, only with a m/m pairing, and that publishers like Loose Id (yay!) are now providing a resource that was back in the day pretty much not widely available, and so one CAN be a romance writer, just a particular type of romance?
I just. Well. I feel a great sense of relief thinking, I could write SOMETHING ELSE. I could...write whatever I feel like! I can't explain well. Just...want to write, so desperately, but I feel lackluster about so many fannish topics in terms of writing (still reading them with all happiness), and I'm scrabbling around for ANYTHING that will tempt me. "Native Strangers" came the closest to being an original Western, GAY ROMANCE piece for me, and I loved it and still love it. SO MUCH FUN. But that kind of fun CAN BE HAD. You know what I'm saying? Give me a prompt! Got any sort of gay romantic ORIGINAL-CHARACTER piece you've always been dying to see in print? Got some screwball-or-serious idea? Something redonkulous you think would be hysterical and/or interesting to read? Or -- what the hell ever.
NOt just for me, by the way -- ANYONE. Do you ever feel this way? That it would truly be FUN to just...write something NEW, something...different for you? Aigh, I can't ARTICULATE this well. Help me out here. What am I trying and failing to say??
I'd forgotten I'd friended that Loose Id LJ comm that updates with new releases. So I went over to the website and started looking at the gay titles, reading the synopses.
I mean, absolutely NO OFFENSE to anyone on the planet intended -- just that some of the synopses read really...cheesily. I admit, up front: Never been a big romance-novel reader. It has always created a sort of synaptic dissonance for me, that I have, in the past, written some fiction that really could not be called anything BUT romance, albeit the m/m kind, and yet I so rarely (if ever) READ anything that falls under the romance rubric. My fun reading is almost always science fiction or fantasy, unless it's (increasingly) non-fiction.
But right now I'm thinking, Why on earth NOT write something like this? Boys in love! What could be more fun??
(Let's just insert here a general disclaimer: casting no aspersions on the romance genre in general; not suggesting I'm a better writer than LI authors; by no means implying anything...untoward. I don't know that I am not actually acquainted with one or more of the LI authors and just don't know it. But I am not, by inclination, well acquainted with the romance genre -- in fact in terms of traditional [m/f] pairings, I can quite honestly say I have read maybe one or two romances in my LIFE. The genre doesn't appeal when it's m/f, for whatever reason -- slash girl here, yepper.)
So what do you think? Can a writer take on writing in a genre with which they are for all intents and purposes unaquainted? Or is it that we/I ARE/AM acquainted, only with a m/m pairing, and that publishers like Loose Id (yay!) are now providing a resource that was back in the day pretty much not widely available, and so one CAN be a romance writer, just a particular type of romance?
I just. Well. I feel a great sense of relief thinking, I could write SOMETHING ELSE. I could...write whatever I feel like! I can't explain well. Just...want to write, so desperately, but I feel lackluster about so many fannish topics in terms of writing (still reading them with all happiness), and I'm scrabbling around for ANYTHING that will tempt me. "Native Strangers" came the closest to being an original Western, GAY ROMANCE piece for me, and I loved it and still love it. SO MUCH FUN. But that kind of fun CAN BE HAD. You know what I'm saying? Give me a prompt! Got any sort of gay romantic ORIGINAL-CHARACTER piece you've always been dying to see in print? Got some screwball-or-serious idea? Something redonkulous you think would be hysterical and/or interesting to read? Or -- what the hell ever.
NOt just for me, by the way -- ANYONE. Do you ever feel this way? That it would truly be FUN to just...write something NEW, something...different for you? Aigh, I can't ARTICULATE this well. Help me out here. What am I trying and failing to say??