Writer's Group, Meeting Gena Showalter, Writing Romance

This past weekend was chock full of writerly goodness. I attended 2 writer group meetings. There is something so rejuvenating about hanging out with others who love the same things you do. If I've hit a bit of a slump, I always come away motivated to write. And there's always something new about the writing world that I learn.

The 1st meeting was my multi-genre group. The speaker, author William Bernhardt. He spoke about the business side of writing. Specifically, the trend toward self-publishing. Lots of charts showing the numbers between traditionally published writers and indie authors were passed around.

I have to say, indie publishing does seem to have control of the market for the most part. Though I still would prefer to start with traditional publishing, I'm definitely not opposed to eventually self-publishing my books. Maybe.

It seems for every 1 indie book I read that is amazing, I get hold of 5 that shouldn't have been published until they'd seen several more drafts. Writing takes loads of time and I feel like most indie authors are people who wanted to bi-pass some of that. Believe me, the impatience shows.

The 2nd meeting was for the Oklahoma Romance Writers meeting. One of my current projects is a paranormal romance(that's the fantasy section of romance for those unfamiliar), and I was excited to learn that one of my favorite paranormal romance authors, Gena Showalter, would be doing a Q&A session there this month.

I love to read paranormal and have several ideas for novels in the genre, but I've always hesitated. There is such a negative stigma with the romance genre in general as a writer and I was afraid of pinning myself into it and not being allowed to write anything else. Not being one who let's others opinions dictate my life, I've since decided that I'll write anything I please. Hence the paranormal romance work-in-progress and the RWA meeting.

Other people also feel this way, because Gena Showalter was asked to address how she handled the stigma. In the end, if you just cannot handle people raising their eyebrows at you for writing 'those trashy books' or the idea of writing a sex scene makes you writhe in embarrassment should anyone who knows you read them, then this probably isn't the genre for you.

It's a good point. I've gone a pretty graphic scene in my epic and I've let my grandma, the most important person in my life, read it. I guess I don't have the embarrassment problem. My Shine novella is an urban fantasy, my completed MS is an epic fantasy, one of my current WIPs is a paranormal romance, and I have a future idea for a women's lit piece. I've even written a literary vignette for a contest in which I made it to the top 14. I don't plan to be regulated into one genre.

Do you belong to a writing group? Do you have an idea for a romance, but are afraid to go there? What favorite famous author would you like to meet?