lazytequilaafternoons

Tell Me All Your Thoughts on Love

The blog writing hasn’t really taken off yet, but I’ll get there. For now, here’s the monthly WriYe Blog Circle post, at the very least!

Is romance necessary in all fiction? Why or why not?
Now, this is a very tricky topic for me, since 90% (or more!) of my own novels wouldn’t exist without romance, simply because that’s my “home” genre. So, for me? Yes. It is necessary. Is that to say I couldn’t write something without romance? Absolutely not. In fact, I’ve done it several times. But those pieces are rarely what come to mind when I think of my best works. And if it’s a book that I’m sitting down to read for enjoyment, I could go either way if there’s no “pairings” to speak of within the pages of the book.

But here’s the thing, I don’t think romance is limited to the romantic love (or, delving deeper into the genre and thinking about erotica, lust) that most people think of when they start to consider romance in fiction. There’s always platonic love between friends or familial love between siblings / parents and children / cousins / whatever. Or, and maybe my favorite, self-love — again, not the erotica version — wherein the main character really learns to love themselves and everything they have to offer their respective world. And when you start including all of those kinds of love into your consideration, I think you’ll be even more hard-pressed to find a book that doesn’t include at least one of them.

So, is it necessary? No, not entirely. But does it usually benefit the depth of your story and characters? Absolutely.

If you do have romance in your fiction, tell us about your favorite pairings. Why are they your favorite?
If we’re talking about tropes, I very much love a good girl / bad boy (or the reverse!) where each half of the couple is from an entirely different world and they bring each other into their own world and find their own, combined place to build their happiness somewhere in the middle. I am also a huge fan of long term friends slowly growing into lovers. It feels like it is among one of the more realistic ways to build a relationship to me and just generally makes me happy.

However, if we’re talking favorite ‘ships in our own writing, I also have two favorites in this category within my huge universe and cast of characters. One is Nick and Audrey. I adore them for a few reasons. One, they were the couple that started it all. Without them, my series wouldn’t even exist. So, for that reason alone, I feel like they will be my forever favorites. However, I also just love how pure their relationship is. The two of them are truly just two halves of the same whole and always have each other’s backs, no matter what.

My second favorite couple in my series was actually an accidental couple. Back when I used to consistently write and share short prompt-based pieces based in my universe with a Livejournal community called Runaway Tales, a whole new plot arc developed in my universe that sprung forth a new relationship between Colin and Erika in the coffee shop they both work for. They quickly became my favorite likely because they fit into both of my favorite tropes listed above and they’re both incredibly sarcastic people who really play off each other well.

What are your thoughts on romance in fiction?

New Beginnings

As goes the old cliche, a new year has brought forth a new beginning. In my life, that has manifested itself in several ways. Most notably, however, is the sudden resurgence in my focus on my budding writing career. Since I was a child, I’ve wanted to publish stories. About ten years ago, I started the process of researching the publication process and got all the way to the point where I felt comfortable sending out query letters and looking for an agent… But then, before I mustered up the courage to actually click send, I chickened out and went back to “just” writing.

Then The Great Writing Exodus of 2014 happened and I basically dropped off the face of the writing planet, disappeared into the abyss of full time job (and then full time career) having, and basically walked away from my unrealized goal.

It happens all the time; people move on and life happens to all of us. But there was something that always called me back to writing. As December was coming to an end, I knew that I was going to make this year my year to return to writing and decided to do so by going back to the first writing community that I ever loved: WriYe. And so… Now that we’re all up to speed, I’m here to deliver to you, the January WriYe Blog Circle post!

What’s your WriYe Word Count goal for 2019? Why did you choose it?
My WriYe Word Count goal for 2019 is 250,000 words. I broke each month up with a different goal, depending on how busy I expect my life to be at that particular time of year (since June / July is much easier to write a ton of words than October / November, for example), but overall, by the end of the year, I would like to have a total of 250,000 new words overall. I went with this goal because it was small enough to not be terrifying and overwhelming, but still large enough that I can’t slack so much that I stop halfway through the year because I’m not feeling challenged. It seemed like the perfect amount to keep me productive and ease myself back into the writing world.

What are your plans for the year? What do you want to accomplish with your writing?
The biggest plan I have for the year is part of the reason why this blog even exists — I’m on the road towards publication. I want to pinpoint which of the two completed novels would make a best first / breakout novel (currently leaning towards Sunshowers in Bluebell Fields), editing it to perfection, and then hopefully finding someone to represent it and love it in the same way I do.

Part of that relates to my other plans for the year, which is creating this blog / website, my official author Twitter and Facebook profiles, and just basically maintaining my professional writing life throughout the entire year and really honing in on my skills.

As for what I’d like to accomplish, it’s probably pretty easy to guess that traditional publishing is the route I’m pursuing and I’d like to continue to grow towards that goal all year long.

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