I write romance. I don’t just write romance, I write erotic romance. I write the really dirty kind of romance.
Um, yeah. Tell that to your mother.
Well, actually…my mom thinks it’s cool, but the rest of my family thinks the things I write about should be strictly confined to the bedroom, not the chapters of a book. Everything in its place, as it were.
So how do you talk to people about this? I mean, complete strangers know more about what I write than my family does, because they really don’t want to know. I’ve heard of (*source from the mysterious THEY*) one romance novelist who had two print books out and still hadn’t told her husband she wrote. Let’s not go in to how messed up that relationship must be, and focus instead on the taboo of what we write. Romance is seen alternately as sweet and slut, depending on what people have read or think they know about the genre.
When asked, I tell people I write romance. No need to elaborate on what kind. I keep my kink in the closet with strangers. However, my family knows. I told them knowing I’d get the reaction I got. Why? Because they may not approve of what I write, but I would never want them to be blindsided by it by one of the complete strangers who knows about my writing. I keep my picture on my website. Yes, that photo really is of me. Some nice-yet-kinky lady who’s met me and goes to my aunt’s church stumbles across my website. Sees my picture. Reports back in next Sunday that auntie’s niece writes PORN. It isn’t true, I write romance, but it humiliates my aunt because she has no prior knowledge and can’t defend herself or me.
See? This is the nightmare scenario that gets me uninvited to Christmas. And Easter. And Memorial Day. So, I told the family what I felt they needed to know. Kept it to short sentences and no real details, but some church chick comes up to my aunt and she knows what’s up.
Tell me…does your family know? Your friends? How much or little do they know, if they know?
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Haven’t we had this conversation? I have a pen name for my erotic romance that my mother will never know. Never. She knows I write it and I got the whole “You should think about the influence you want to have with your writing” speil. Now that’s funny. Because having been one of those women who likes erotic romance because of the hot sex with the HEA, I think it fills a “need”.
My husband knows. Everyone who lives with me knows. The rest of the world? Nah.
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:57 pm
My mom is dead. I figure she probably knows. My step-mom used to act all cool about it then last time I saw her she said, “So do you have to write a certain number of sex scenes or something?” with an “I just ate icky lima beans” face (no offense to any lima bean lovers) so she knows what she can do with it.
Dad and I have this dont ask/don’t tell sort of relationship–we’re not close anyway so it’s cool.
I had to tell my kid–that was fun =) (I dont think he cared near as much as I did LOL)
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:25 am
Let’s see….my husband knows, my kids are too young to know…my mom will NEVER know. When I decide to write some “tamer” stuff…she’ll know about that. Oh, and all of my close girlfriends know.
October 4th, 2006 at 6:34 am
My mother knows. She’s bought, like, everything I’ve written. Including the non-con erotica stuff. *sigh* I think she prefers my less risque work (IE: more plot than sex) but she’s never said I shouldn’t write that, etc.
Dad, on the other hand… well. I actually don’t know if he knows what I write. I believe he read Waking the Shadows, and Mom asked about the two releases I have upcoming. I told her that Twilight takes place with the same characters, so it should be ok for him to read… but not to let him anywhere near Passion, cause, uh, well, um, yeah.
Rest of the family? I have no bloody clue.
October 4th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
My DH, obviously, knows what I write. He doesn’t read it, and as far as I know, he doesn’t go off bragging about having a wife who writes romance, but he knows and supports me.
My mother knows too. She recently asked me if I’d ever thought about writing “real literature”. She didn’t mean it in a bad way, but ouch, thanks mom.
And I have lots of writing friends who know what I write and tease me about it fondly.
October 10th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
“stumbles across my website”
*sigh* Oh hypocracy. Whatever was she doing on that “porn writer”’s website?
October 10th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
In real professional life, I can’t have anyone know that I write erotic romance. At first, I wasn’t planning on telling anyone other then DH. But after I signed my first book contract (just this week with Loose Id!) I had to tell my mom. Who promptly told my dad. And both surprisingly accepted it as a business decision, since I write in various genres.