When I first started writing, I never intended to write romance. I had an idea. I was set on it being a mystery. The happy-ever-after would eventually happen, but only when the mystery was revealed after being intricately woven into the plot. That’s not romance, right? I was wrong. The more I wrote, the more I zoned in on the relationship of the characters and how they interacted with one another. The mystery was still there, but it had now become secondary.
M A Stacie
The amusing thing was, my reading genre of choice was always romance. Mainly paranormal—vampires mostly, but it was predominantly romance. So wouldn’t it stand to reason that I’d write what I know? What I enjoyed? I wouldn’t hide what I wrote if I didn’t hide what I read, right?
Obviously not.
I didn’t like telling people I wrote romance. Even grew embarrassed when they realised I’d written many sexual scenes in the stories. It took me over two years before I said with pride that I was a romance writer.
You see, I worried what people thought of me after they read my words. They would know I was the one who’d written the sex scene in the bath, on the roof or the stairwell. I felt that even more, when I wrote my first menage novel. Two cowboys and one woman who loved them both. I was concerned the people I knew would think less of me. It was only over time that I analysed my thoughts on this. Did it really matter if they thought less of me? Were they really friends if they did? Romance makes the reader feel good. It makes the reader smile, and if written right, can make the reader feel elated that their favourite character got a happy ending.
I’m not saying I enjoy being ‘outted’ for ‘writing porn’. Because, truthfully, that statement does annoy me. I do, however enjoy the conversation that comes afterward. I’m not the most romantic of people in real life, I try hard when it comes to that, and my husband is far better at it than me. Yet, I have a million plot ideas on how to give someone the most perfect last page of a book. I love giving a character an emotional hill to climb, knowing it will be worth it by the end.
I like fixing things. So whatever plot point I start with is usually the black moment—the moment the relationship is at its worse. I then form an idea around that, fixing what was wrong in the first place. That gives me an immense amount of satisfaction, and hopefully gives the reader their ‘high’.
It may have taken me a long to time to get there, but now I embrace being a romance writer. It’s one of the first things I tell anyone new about me.
I’m proud to write stories which make people smile.
I’m proud to write romance.
M.A. Stacie Bio
M. A. Stacie is never without a book or her eReader. A voracious reader, with a love of sexy, yet angst ridden novels, she loves getting lost in new worlds. Her need to write did not grip her until after her second son was born, when her previous rambles became fully fledged stories. She describes herself as one huge contradiction, and though not the most conventional of hobbies, she counts getting new tattoos as one of hers. Along with running, knitting, and listening to loud music. However, she is yet to work out how to do them all at the same time. M. A. Stacie lives in the UK with her husband and three sons.
Website: https://mastaciewrites.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MAStacie/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MAStacie/