angst

Elvira and the romance genre

Astray‘s release is getting closer, and with it comes a lot of emotions. Most of them positive, of course – I’m beyond thrilled about finishing this book and being able to focus on the sequel. But there’s also a bit of anxiety, that I suppose is inevitable when you’re about to share something you created.

As some of you might have noticed, I call myself a m/m fiction writer in my blog header. On my About page, I write that I write m/m fiction but with a touch of romance. This isn’t because I don’t want to be associated with the romance genre – on the contrary. I have so much respect for the genre and for romance writers, and I’m well aware that the genre has its rules. Rules that writers are expected to follow. There are so many writers out there who can write beautiful, heartwarming stories that are excellent examples of romantic fiction.

I’ve never been a feelgood person. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to write children’s fiction, only to realize after a while that my plots are much too dark and that they’d make kids traumatized for life. I don’t know why, but my favorite characters have always been villains and my storylines tend to have at least a few dark elements.

That said, romance is the core of all my stories. You might have to wait for the happy ending, and things might be quite awful for the MC on the way there, but there will be a happy ending. I adore my main pairings above everything else and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I don’t know what I want to say with this, really, but the thing is that I just don’t want to disappoint anyone. I know my kind of stories aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine. It’s just frustrating, as a writer, to know that you can’t please everyone.

Basically (and this might be a bit spoiler-y): Astray is the first part of a trilogy. It’s 1/3 of the story. And when I say that my MC’s will get a HEA, I mean it. That might not happen in the first book, though. Just thought I should let you know.

Whirl, whirl

I’m starting to realize Entertaining the Sombrevilles will actually be a published book soon. Slowly that realization is dawning on me and it’s lovely and scary at the same time. When I started working on the novel it was just a bit of a fun side project to pass the time – but I don’t think you can work on any story for this long without getting attached to it. I can’t imagine going trough life without characters inhabiting your mind, characters who often grow into imaginary friends. My focus is always the characters and their relationships, no matter which story I’m writing, and my characters mean everything to me. Letting them out into the real world is exciting, but also something I’m anxious about. What if people don’t like them? What if I’m the only one who can appreciate all those little things that make my babies so amazing?

There’s a lot of whirling thoughts right now, as you can tell. Mostly, though, I’m super excited that things are finally happening – things that I’ve dreamed of since childhood. No matter what the reviews will say (if there are any), I’ve come a long, long way since last year. And I have lots of things left to learn.

He’s waiting in the wings

I feel like time has been #1 on my wishlist for years now. It’s long since I wanted 48 hours instead of just 24 – now I want at least 72, so I could do all the things I want to do and get enough sleep. It’s the curse of having a creative mind, I guess, because you’re not satisfied with going to work, coming home, watching TV, going to bed. I have so many projects in my head and it’s depressing when you realise how long it will take to finish even one of them. I think too much about this and I should probably improve my mindfulness skills, because there really is no use focusing on an issue that is unsolvable for the time being. I can’t ask for part time right now for various reasons but I know it would make my situation so, so much better. Oh, well. I’m working as fast as I can with the editing and when I’m done with that, I’m at least a little bit closer to finishing that particular project.