Why I Love Writing

Thank you to everyone who bought, or even just viewed, Speed Dating last week. It's already received a stellar review on Goodreads. I had no idea I'd put all that subtext in there! My goal is to tell an entertaining story in the best way I possibly can. The reactions I get in the upcoming months will tell me how I did.

Meanwhile, life, and writing, goes on. I'm thinking about attempting NaNoWriMo yet again. Maybe this time I'll last more than two or three days. I'm also thinking about stretching my writing muscles into something outside the romance genre. I've written in other genres before, but this would be all new territory. I'm hoping it inspires me enough to stick with it for the whole thirty days. If I get stuck, I do have another M/M I could switch over to so I can keep going. After all, the rules don't say the 50K words have to be used on only one story. As long as you write 50,000 words in a month, it's all good. No excuses!

Outside of NaNoWriMo, I'm working on another paranormal/shapeshifter M/M romance. This one's also a stretch for me, as it's my first attempt at a BDSM story. I've already run into a snag. The sub is a horse shifter, and he likes to be disciplined in his horse form. Which made me realize: does this count as animal abuse? It shouldn't, because he's a sentient being and he gives consent beforehand, but outsiders wouldn't know that. They'd just see some big guy beating on a tied-up horse. What's the sub going to do? Change shape? Reveal himself to a human? Shifters get killed for things like that in these books. The poor little horsie just wants to be whipped, and he's found someone who'll do that for him. Neither of them should be judged for it.

But what about the readers? Will readers stand still for a horse getting whipped, even if I make it clear the horse requested it? It's not like his Dom is drawing blood or tearing off strips of hide or anything. The horse draws the line at that. But people who'll happily read about women getting tied up and beaten (but only if she consented) might throw fits if it's an animal getting the BDSM treatment. I'm going to have to figure something out. I may even have to talk to my publisher.

This is why I love writing. Tell me one other job in the world where things like this come up. Every day is a whole new adventure. You wake up in the morning looking forward to it. What kind of challenge will I face today? How will I meet it? How will others respond? Like the time I had to ask an editor the difference between "come" and "cum." There's something you never have to deal with in a secretarial job. If you do, get the heck out of there. Trust me.

There's never a dull moment in writing, and there'd better not be any on the page. It's the best job ever, although ... I do wish it paid a little faster. I won't be getting a check from my publisher for another three months, and payment from secondary markets like Amazon won't come in for over three months after that. Time to start looking for "pay on acceptance" markets, I suppose.