(Upset Hubby Alert - I can't remember where I read it!)<\/p>\n
Read somewhere (hence the hubby alert above) that some of the editors at the big publishing houses are\u00a0now looking for contemporary romances.\u00a0 Actually, I think I read in a couple of different places over the last week or two, news that\u00a0contemporaries may be the next hot thing.\u00a0 What do I say to that?<\/p>\n
THANK GOD, THE GREAT GREEN TOAD FROG AND ALL THE RE-FRIED CLAMS IN THE UNIVERSE!!!<\/p>\n
I like historicals and I write historicals, but there are times, many times, when only a contemporary will do.\u00a0 Some of my favs from that genre are folks like Diana Palmer<\/a>, Linda Howard<\/a>, Susan Elizabeth Phillips<\/a> and Jayne Anne Krentz<\/a>.\u00a0 I can curl up in a chair and watch hours pass like minutes while I read\u00a0one of theirs in paperback form, \u00a0or - as I add more to my Sony Reader<\/a> - in ebook form.\u00a0 I'm eyeballing a purchase of a Diana Palmer and a Brenda Jackson<\/a> Westmoreland anthology for my e-reader as we speak.\u00a0<\/p>\n I also love contemporaries.\u00a0 I also WRITE contemporaries.\u00a0 I previously published Email Enticement<\/a><\/em>, a contemporary set in my home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.\u00a0 I just published Griffin's Law<\/a><\/em>, a contemporary set\u00a0at the University of South Carolina's Law School in Columbia, SC.\u00a0 Both books take place at that interesting mental spot where love and the law intersect. So,\u00a0does my gratitude about the return of the contemporary contain some amount of self-interest?\u00a0 You bet'cha.<\/p>\n But, keep in mind, that I write contemporaries because I read contemporaries.\u00a0 I write contemporaries because I love contemporaries.\u00a0 I don't agree that you have to write what you know<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 I do agree that you have to write what you love<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Enthusiasm and joy and a page turning experience will never happen for a reader if they didn't first happen for the writer.\u00a0 Fun is contagious.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What does it mean that the contemporary is about to make\u00a0a comeback?\u00a0 I hope it's a sign that the economy and the job market are about to rebound.\u00a0 Many contemporaries\u00a0feature romances that kindle in the workplace - a boss and a secretary, a rancher and a cook, two lawyers or a lawyer and a paralegal or a client, a law professor and a student (Griffin's Law<\/a><\/em>).\u00a0 Almost all contemporaries contain some elements of the story that center around what the hero and heroine do for a living. \u00a0Over the last couple of years, too many talented folks have been unemployed or underemployed, so I don't think many readers wanted reminders of jobs and the workplace in the books they read.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, the recent rise and focus has been on the paranormal romance novels.\u00a0 America fell in love with Stephanie\u00a0Meyer's Twilight<\/a><\/em> novels.\u00a0 Yours truly even fell victim to the Vampire Virus when I watched the first Twilight movie because I was missing my away at college son who loves the series.\u00a0 My infection was brief - I never bought any of the books\u00a0 - but America\u00a0has\u00a0been suffering from the malady for a while - a long while.\u00a0 What caused the Vampire Virus?<\/p>\n Paranormals have been with us always and will surely continue to have their day.\u00a0 But paranormals used to be mainly the work of talented, highly creative souls who created other species and crafted a world for them to inhabit.\u00a0 Reading one of those books introduced us to another place, governed by other laws and inhabited by strange and exotic creatures.\u00a0 In those\u00a0worlds\u00a0we were the visitors.\u00a0 But the vampire virus plagued us right here on our home planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why?\u00a0 What caused the monster malady?\u00a0 And when will we be cured?\u00a0 I think the plague arrived when contemporary reality became too hard to take.\u00a0 Too many people either had no\u00a0workplace at all or had one\u00a0where they toiled at some job for which they were way overqualified.\u00a0 How could they imagine love in such a setting?\u00a0\u00a0When survival became a dream American women fell in love with monsters.\u00a0<\/p>\n I view the current rumors and rumbles about the revival of the contemporary as a sign that reality has begun to improve.\u00a0\u00a0It means that we can again see love in our world\u00a0as a possible dream.\u00a0 Out there, on the far horizon, we see a glimmer of light and it reminds us how good sunshine feels.\u00a0 America is a country born of hope and filled with fighters and dreamers.\u00a0 The glimmer of light is all we need to begin pushing forward,\u00a0to begin shoving the darkness behind us as we head for a world where love can bloom again.<\/p>\n Perhaps the vampires and the zombies served their purpose.\u00a0 Americans had to embrace something, even\u00a0if it was something dark and deadly.\u00a0 But\u00a0writers of vampire and zombie romances\u00a0still had to give their\u00a0monsters\u00a0redeeming qualities.\u00a0\u00a0Through its darkest hours, Americans still refused to embrace the worst qualities of those monsters. \u00a0And now, I hope that women are ready to put away the lovers\u00a0who dwell in darkness and embrace those who toil beside them on a sunny day.\u00a0<\/p>\n It's time for the vampires & zombies to exit stage right.\u00a0 The cowboys and the business tycoons are waiting in the wings, ready to take center stage.<\/p>\n Hurrah for the contemporary romance!!\u00a0 If you're in the mood for a taste of reality, flavored with some over the top fun, pick up Email Enticement<\/a><\/em> or my new one, Griffin's Law<\/a><\/em>, now available\u00a0in ebook<\/a> and paperback<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Upset Hubby Alert - I can't remember where I read it!) Read somewhere (hence the hubby alert above) that some of the editors at the big publishing houses are\u00a0now looking for contemporary romances.\u00a0 Actually, I think I read in a couple of different places over the last week or two, news that\u00a0contemporaries may be the ...continue reading \"Will Vampires & Zombies Exit Stage Right?\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":940,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}