When are you going to write a real book?
Whenever I hear that question, or see that look that slides into someone's eyes as they see the cover of one of my novels, this is how I feel:
I wonder, what do they consider a "real book"? Do they mean a hardcover? Trade paperback? Or maybe they're expecting something more "literary", believing that with my many years of higher education, I aspire to the cult of the literati.
Invariably, what it comes down to is, a "real book" is "something more". "Something better". What I write presumably being "something bad" because it involves the most horrible of elements -- a romance.
I wonder, why so much disdain for something that most people spend so much time searching for? Why is it so bad to write a story about two people who are lucky enough to find happiness?
I've been told that romances somehow make women develop unrealistic expectations. That they can't separate the fiction they read from the reality of life.
Whoa. Stop right there. A man can read James Bond and imagine himself as the suave super spy and we can all accept that this man will understand he's not a spy?
Why do we doubt that women are capable of the same thought process? Are women somehow lacking? Inevitably when I pose these questions, a chagrined look arises as there is no reasonable response.
Denigration of romance, IMHO, is inherently tied up with the chauvanistic concept that women are in some ways inferior and that anything of interest to a woman is therefore also somehow not worthwhile.
So what about women who ask me the same thing? Are they also "chauvinist" in their views? A slightly more complicated problem, isn't it? Are women afraid of allowing this side of them to emerge for fear of being seen as somehow "inferior" by enjoying romance? Possibly. Doesn't human nature tell us to move away from things that prompt a negative reaction?
Regardless, my reason for writing something other than a "real book" is always the same -- I write what I write because I enjoy writing it. My purpose in writing is to enlighten and entertain. To show women as being strong and determined while being capable of great emotion which in turn demonstrates that there is no weakness in being able to love.
If that isn't a "real book", I don't know what is.
I wonder, what do they consider a "real book"? Do they mean a hardcover? Trade paperback? Or maybe they're expecting something more "literary", believing that with my many years of higher education, I aspire to the cult of the literati.Invariably, what it comes down to is, a "real book" is "something more". "Something better". What I write presumably being "something bad" because it involves the most horrible of elements -- a romance.
I wonder, why so much disdain for something that most people spend so much time searching for? Why is it so bad to write a story about two people who are lucky enough to find happiness?
I've been told that romances somehow make women develop unrealistic expectations. That they can't separate the fiction they read from the reality of life.
Whoa. Stop right there. A man can read James Bond and imagine himself as the suave super spy and we can all accept that this man will understand he's not a spy?
Why do we doubt that women are capable of the same thought process? Are women somehow lacking? Inevitably when I pose these questions, a chagrined look arises as there is no reasonable response.
Denigration of romance, IMHO, is inherently tied up with the chauvanistic concept that women are in some ways inferior and that anything of interest to a woman is therefore also somehow not worthwhile.
So what about women who ask me the same thing? Are they also "chauvinist" in their views? A slightly more complicated problem, isn't it? Are women afraid of allowing this side of them to emerge for fear of being seen as somehow "inferior" by enjoying romance? Possibly. Doesn't human nature tell us to move away from things that prompt a negative reaction?
Regardless, my reason for writing something other than a "real book" is always the same -- I write what I write because I enjoy writing it. My purpose in writing is to enlighten and entertain. To show women as being strong and determined while being capable of great emotion which in turn demonstrates that there is no weakness in being able to love.
If that isn't a "real book", I don't know what is.
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