I write because I’m persistent, which is really just a nice way of saying I’m stubborn.

Writing, specifically writing with the goal of publication, is not for the faint of heart or the easily dissuaded. You must have a certain level of stubborn to persist in the face of rejections and bad reviews and to carry on despite those who tell you to give it up.

I’ve been querying agents lately. There have been a couple requests, several personalized rejections, and the dreaded form rejection. Every rejection is a bummer, of course, but it’s not the end of the world. I update my files and get back to work because I’m stubborn. There’s no guarantee those partial requests will turn into fulls or the possible fulls into offers of representation (never mind an actual publishing contract and positive reviews). Writing through the submission process, through the seemingly endless waiting, through a flop…all of this requires persistence.

I’m not giving up. If not this book, then the next.

Why do I Write? Part 3

Specifically, why do I write romance? (I also write fantasy, but that’s a post for another day)

I’ve been thinking about this lately. There are a number of reasons, but a recent review article in The New York Review of Books made me consider it more deeply.

The authors of the books under review (Peggy Orenstein, Girls and Sex; Nancy Jo Sales, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers) don’t have a great deal to say that’s positive about young women’s experiences of sex or the role of social media in sexual objectification. Social media aside (yes, I know it’s huge, but I’ve only been on FB for a year or so and still don’t have a smart phone, and it didn’t exist when I was in high school…so I can’t say much about it), what struck me in the article was Orenstein’s conclusion: [girls have been trained] “to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others’ pleasure…to perform rather than feel sensuality.” The reviewer paraphrases the rest: “As a result, they are eager to be desired, but largely clueless about what their own desires might be, or how to satisfy them; they go to elaborate lengths to attract male sexual interest, but regard sex itself as a social ritual, a chore, a way of propitiating men, rather than as a source of pleasure.” (Zoë Heller, “‘Hot’ Sex & Young Girls,” The New York Review of Books, August 18, 2016).

Their conclusions about what characterizes girls’ and young women’s experiences of sex, which focus on male pleasure (the review only addresses heterosexual relationships), and the role of social media in informing understandings of sex, sexual pleasure, and relationships made me think about what most influenced my own thoughts and choices as a teen and college student.

Of course I was influenced by peers, parents, and media, BUT my media consisted almost solely of books. I read widely and eclectically and thus discovered a variety of relationships: love triangles, adultery, abuse, unrequited love, grand but destructive passion, and steadfast love, to name a few. Then I read my first romance novel: Seduction by Amanda Quick. After that romance became a staple. Looking back, though, I can see how these novels influenced my thinking about sex, desire, and relationships.

I thought about my own desires. I thought in terms of selfish and generous, and I made a decision early in college that I was going to wait for intimacy, for someone who would care about me and not just his own pleasure, who would love me without putting a timetable on sex. Romance novels taught me that sex, love, and intimacy are not interchangeable, that sex can but doesn’t always lead to intimacy and not all intimate relationships involve sex, that the pleasure should be mutual, and perhaps most importantly in light of the two books in the review, that my worth was not my body. My body was part of me, but I was more than a body. It seems, at least based on Heller’s review, these are lessons most girls and young women aren’t learning. They certainly aren’t learning it from social media, and it appears they’re not learning it in sex ed, either (Orenstein found that “even the most comprehensive sex education classes…fail to mention the existence of the clitoris”).

Now, social media didn’t exist ‘in my day’ (which was when MTV actually showed music videos–shocking, I know), and my high school sex ed class didn’t even accurately explain how the menstrual cycle worked never mind actual intercourse. Romance novels filled that vacuum for me. So here’s my answer:

I write romance because it was the romance novel that taught me about sex. Not the mechanics of intercourse–my mom gave me a technical book on where babies come from full of precise anatomical terms, which is why I have to look up slang–but the relationship, the fun, that the pleasure was and should be mutual, that I had the “right to a thoughtful, respectful, loving, non-agressive relationship” (thanks to Eloisa James for saying that in an outtake from Love Between the Covers). Romance showed me that women could and should find pleasure in sexual relationships. Sex wasn’t something I had to endure for social acceptance but something to enjoy. I want to pay that forward.

I write romance in gratitude to the romance authors I read.

Why do I write (part 2)?

Why do I write?

I write because I love words. Words are magical and powerful. Think of all the things you can do with them: build up and tear down, create and destroy, make music, inspire, teach, preserve…and those are some of the positive things. Words can also make us uncomfortable, deceive us, threaten us, and devastate us. They can raise us high and bring us low. Such is their power.

Words reveal our past and connect us to those who came before us. Think of the words and phrases you use for certain life events and rituals–marriage, birth, death, worship, an oath of office or allegiance. Whether the words have been handed down through generations of your family or you have newly embraced them, those words and phrases connect you to a past larger than yourself. I’m a medieval historian in my day job, and the most powerful reminder of this was attending a High Latin mass in Charlemagne’s cathedral in Aachen, Germany. It wasn’t only about the mass; it was also about a connection to a shared past and a shared, admittedly Western (and that’s a topic for a future post) understanding of that past.

Words lead us toward the future. Without words to first express what we imagine, how can we speak of time travel, space travel, air travel. Without words, can we even imagine? It should come as no surprise at this point that the most interesting part of Orwell’s 1984 for me was the appendix on New Speak and the idea that limiting vocabulary would also limit freedom of  thought. Words have power.

Words, and a shared understanding of what those words represent, enable us to communicate with those around us. We use them to express our most basic needs and our most complex thoughts, to provide shades of meaning. Am I jogging, running, or sprinting (definitely not that latter)? Are you upset, appalled, or horrified? Words allow us to be specific. As my four year old would tell you, a parasol and an umbrella are not the same.

Words change. Words aren’t static. They change as we change. I can think of several slang terms from my high school years that are no longer in use and remember the horror when my mom and aunts said they needed to buy thongs instead of flip-flops. Obviously we create new words–Shakespeare, anyone?–for new ideas and things, and words fall out of disuse–try explaining a “party line” to young people who’ve never lived in a word without smart phones. When my grandmother says ‘stool’ she doesn’t mean the one you use to reach that top cupboard.

Meaning also evolves and varies from place to place, even places that speak the same language. Words can have multiple meanings, which vary based on time, place, and the individual. Meaning can be literal or figurative. How often do we mean someone physically stabbed another person in the back?

Words tell us who we are and where we’ve been. Do you say ‘soda’ or ‘pop’? Do you have a barbecue or do you grill-out? Do you go on vacation or holiday? Is your speech salty and laid back, or does profanity never cross your lips and do you use ‘who’ and ‘whom’ correctly? Do you have a drawl, a burr, a twang, a brogue? I’m amazed at how a few carefully chosen words can reveal a character.

I love words. I love the worlds and stories I can create with words. I do my best to remember and respect the power I wield.

Why do I write?

I write because I read. There is magic in immersing oneself in the story, in stepping through the wardrobe and into an undiscovered country. I discovered the magic in third grade. The book was Harriet the Spy. When Harriet lost her notebook…I had to know what would happen. This was the first time I read into the wee small hours of the night. It wasn’t the last by any means. Even now, twenty-plus years later, I’m sometimes found reading at 2AM or asleep with the book still in my hand. The magic hasn’t faded.

I write because I want to share that magic with others.

I’ve been meaning to write my first post, but I couldn’t decide what to write about. We all know about the business of everyday life, and you writers out there know about the terror of the blank page. Then this weekend I learned of the death of my high school English teacher. He was the man who taught me to write, to love words, their power and what a writer could do with them. Fittingly, a conversation we had this past summer has become the inspiration for a series of posts: Why do I write?