I was going to do a video clip on how I made one of my book covers in Canva because I had a few people asking how I created a cover like that when I posted Captivated by Her in an FB book cover feedback group. Many of the members were surprised I did the entire thing in Canva, so I said I would record what I did.

Unfortunately, when my son visited last weekend (he moved in with this dad a couple of weeks ago but spends weekends here) he also brought the flu he picked up at his new job. Wednesday I was down for the count, and I had to take Thursday and Friday off work. Because I write these early, I just didn’t feel good enough to play around with my QuickTime player and no one wants to hear my scratchy voice while I try to breathe because I can’t stop blowing my nose. I’m typing this up Friday afternoon and I am TIRED! Though I feel the worst is behind me, I’m achy and sore and frankly, beaten down.

I haven’t even felt good enough to keep editing on the last of my book I’m going to release in the fall, but while lying around, I have been thinking of a Christmas plot I could maybe write over the summer. I’ve looking at my release calendar for this year and next and there’s really no need for it, I just think it would be fun to write. I could use it as a break from all the editing and book production I’ve been doing, but it would be difficult to get into the mood in July. Haha. We’ll see what happens. I’m going to need to write something–I haven’t written for months!

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Write your fluffy book!

Wednesday afternoon definitely wasn’t a good time for me to see a tweet lamenting about how there are so few readers now who read “heavy” fiction books. This is a topic I get tired of quickly. Every writer wants to write the next great American novel, but the thing is, what even is that, exactly? One of my favorite classic books is Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. He may be lauded for his succinct language and his writing style, but do you know what the book is about? A man who was injured in a war, can’t get a hard on anymore and is hopelessly in love with a woman who sleeps around. At the end of the book, he realizes the type of woman she is (shallow) and that it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t been injured, they never would have had the kind of relationship he wanted them to have. It’s literally women’s fiction. And women’s fiction, the last I checked, is genre fiction. A book written about a topic like that today wouldn’t win any awards. Another great American novel is The Great Gatsby, and we know that’s another book about a man falling in love with a shallow woman. I get these are poor examples; we’re not talking War and Peace here, but you get the idea.

I don’t know any writer who doesn’t want their book to change the world, but why does your book have to be “heavy” in order to do that? Winning awards doesn’t mean your book will see any sales. It means someone thought well enough of your book that you won an award. Not all of us who write care about that. I don’t. You know what would mean more to me? If someone emailed me and said, “Your book got me through a tough day. Thank you.”

Life is hard right now, and I feel like a tweet like that is tone deaf to what’s going on in the world. This person was complaining people don’t want to read a heavy book when Ukraine is still under attack, women’s rights are threatened, women are scared by the formula shortage, and so much more. If your life is that great that you aren’t being affected by those things, and you have the audacity to complain about something so trivial, congratulations. I’m happy for you. Don’t ever step foot outside your bubble.

I, for one, am happy to write romances that don’t require a dictionary by a reader’s elbow. I’m happy to write romances where a reader can pour a glass of wine and be entertained. If you don’t like it, don’t read it, but don’t look down on a woman who finally got her baby to go to sleep and she just needs something that will make the shitty day she had go away. That, to me, is a greater gift than being shortlisted for any award.

There is room for all sorts of books, but you don’t make yourself feel better or look better when you insult someone else’s preferred genre–either the one they like to write or the one they like to read.

Now, I’m off to go edit my fluffy book that won’t make a difference in anyone’s life, that didn’t see me through my own hard time while I wrote it. If you don’t like it, stay away from me or I’ll cough on you.

Have a great week, everyone!