Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

So I write paranormal/romance, is that so wrong?

My friends get the biggest kick out of telling new people that I’m a writer. No, scratch that, that I’m a published author. Go onto Chapters online and there you’ll see my name, sharing space with Kaye Chambers, emblazoned across my soon-to-be-released book. Yep, I’m an author. People’s eyes light up, they get ready to be impressed and they ask the next question. “What do you write about?”

I hate that question. It’s akin to asking me ‘what do you teach?’ Well, I teach children, actually. And I write characters that won’t leave me alone, pestering me to tell their stories. Or I think of this really cool what if and play with that all night long when I should be sleeping. Or my emotions just get too much for me and I put them in someone else and watch how they would deal with things. But that doesn’t answer the question. What do I write? They want a genre, a section in the bookstore to go to and find my cover. So when I answer ‘Paranormal’ you can usually see the light dim in their eyes. It’s even worse if I say romance. I have what my friend Kaye calls ‘genre shame’.

I shouldn’t. It’s what I write. It is no different than the grade I teach. I still teach kids. I still must call parents, meet with administration, follow curriculum and hold a degree and a license to teach. The same goes for writing. I still must create an interesting, well-crafted story that holds readers’ attention. It must be intelligent and well-thought; it must have good description and be moving emotionally. It must be researched and realistic. It takes a huge chunk of my time that could be used to knit or learn belly dancing or a hundred other things that people would not look at me with that slightly suspicious look in their eyes that says ‘oh, you’re like that’ which I hate.

I don’t know if there is a cure for genre shame or if it is just something I have to learn to get over. But I still write, because I can’t not write and it still comes out. So all those critics out there who look down their noses at me and my kin for what we write, I wave my hand and say onto you ‘I write Paranormal and Romance.’

Maybe I should get it on a t-shirt?