A lot of people ask me why I "chose" to be a romance writer...erm, I didn't. Trust me, if I had my pick of professions to do for a living, I would've likely chosen Detective or Therapist (addicted to Forensic Files and fixing drama etc). Writing has been an obsessive passion of mine since I was given a #2. I started making up stories about aliens and best friends when I was five years old, and my mom kept them all. She called me her 'little writer' and encouraged it, visioning me to be a screenwriter or actress someday. I wrote, "directed" and starred in a play I wrote in the 4th grade about a slumber party. My teacher let me put it on in front of the whole class and their parents. I was pretty confident back then my stuff was the bomb.
My obsession with writing *romance* didn't really start until junior high. I spent two months with my dad in Kansas City during the summer. Every night I would write in a notebook (waaaay before I was blessed with a laptop!) a romance story about my best friend and her crush, and me and MY crush. It was suspense with comedy. It took up the entire notebook as well as most of my summer. When I got home and showed it to her, I remember her looking at me like I was coo-coo for cocoa cocoa puffs. I didn't care, it was my first masterpiece. LOL
Being a writer isn't your choice. You can't just turn it off and on whenever you please.
Writing has gotten me in trouble.
I remember very clearly the day I was in History Class with Mr. Muir and he was giving a lecture on some war, with overhead sheets. I was sitting right next to the projection. A scene between a hero and heroine had popped into my head out of nowhere and I had to write it down! So I started writing, pretending I was taking long, detailed notes.I had written a page and a half when I got caught. He ripped the paper from my hands, read some of it (to my humiliation), then crumbled it and tossed it in the trash. I'll never forget that.
In my junior year English class, we had to write a fictional short story. Of course I wrote a young adult romance. I was inspired by a Mariah Carey song called "Underneath the Stars." It was about a girl who met a boy while going on a camping trip. At the end, she slips into raging river and he saves her life, exclaiming "I believe in you!" as she reached for his hand...I was given a "redo," Mrs. Sullivan citing it was too dramatic. haha
What do I prefer to write? Contemporary. I'll take a stab at Paranormal but I don't think it's my best genre. I'd love to write Historical but I'm too lazy to research wardrobe and dialect. LOL One thing is for sure, I looove writing dark, tortured heroes. Or witty, sardonic, charismatic ones. I want to make my readers cry and stuff. And sigh. In any case, it has to be utterly dramatic and romantic, a little agonizing. Just like love is. Just like the French like it in their movies.
I wrote scenes or worked on a plot when I should've working. Many a time I've been caught writing a story in Word when I worked in office admin or reception. I was almost fired from a temp job I took one summer because the company had been monitoring my Word use. I remember my supervisor saying, "Are you writing...a novel?" LOL Did that stop me from writing during the slow hours? Haha, don't be silly. I just whipped out a notebook and wrote long hand. If that couldn't work, I wrote during my lunch and break times in the car. My obsession would not be denied.
And I feed it daily. I pet it, walk it, scold it, damn it, and love it all the same. Everyone has a passion for something, I just hope at some point in their lives, they go for it so they never have to regret. I'm doing it. It won't make me famous, rich, legendary, or change history, but it does make me frikkin happy. And like Forrest Gump would say, even I know you can't buy that at the market 'round the corner. :) Cheers.
