All Photos: ©Mary J. Dressel
It’s time I get back to the 52-Week Blog Challenge after a brief hiatus. I’ve been finalizing two books to come out this year, and I wrote the end to another book also coming out in 2019, but that has nothing to do with this blog hop other than I’ve been busy, busy, busy! ❤ #WritersLife
This week’s topic sounds like a similar topic from the last two years:
I can only answer for me and whether life exists outside of my writing world. This answer is twofold. Putting words to paper took the back burner for a lot of years while I grew from a child to a teen to a young adult to a wife. I raised a family and worked outside of the home. These were happy times, but the need to write was always there.
Through the years, I always scribbled down words be it a poem or a short story, and I knew one day I’d write books. It just wasn’t the right time back then because I had a life outside of writing. What I didn’t know was how important it would become one day. Or how much time it would take to keep up with the business side.
Moving forward many years when everything about my life changed. Kids live their own lives, but I still receive much joy from spending time with them. Retirement allowed me to write full time, so nowadays, creating stories is my life, and no, I don’t have much of a life outside of this career, but I do make sure to find a balance that works for me.
I still have friends that I had when I was young and raising a family, plus new friends. They know of my dreams. We still go out to walk together, take little day trips, socialize, and continue to talk about my writing and books. However, I don’t do as much with them as they’d like.
Family and most friends understand that this is how I roll these days. Still, they would prefer I had an equal balance of life and career. I do keep my heart and soul in harmony. If I won the lotto or sold hundreds of books a day, I’d be happy to give the same amount of time to work and life–maybe even more to LIFE.
What about other authors? Participants in this blog challenge will tell you by visiting the 52-Week Blog Challenge blog for links to their blogs.
I appreciate your visit today. Enjoy what’s left of summer. It goes by too fast.
And now, I’m going for one of those walks.
The BALANCE sign is made of metal and hangs on my refrigerator by magnets on the back. While shopping with my son and daughter-in-law, I purchased this at a quaint little store in a small town nearby. As soon as I saw it, I had to have it! ❤
Balancing rocks credit: Pixabay
TODAY I’M POSTING something completely different from a regular Friday post. Writing books—romance books—featuring mature couples because I have a book coming up with a mature heroine. I suggest pouring a beverage if you plan to stick around. This is long. I wrote this post at least a month ago to fill in for a Friday post. Today is the day.
If this was a 52-Week Blog Challenge post, the topic this week is: Bucket List Have or Have Not, so it’s a variation of a previous topic. I’ve posted my Bucket List in a previous year.
When I say “couple” as female and male in this post or on my blog, I do so because it is what I write so it fits my blog. We all know romance and falling in love can happen to anyone and everyone no matter who you love.
I’ve been researching the genre called Seasoned Romance. Here’s an example.
Some websites write that the characters in this genre/sub-genre are over forty and up. Some even say thirties.
If thirty is the case, all of my books are Seasoned Romances because none of my main characters have been under thirty except for Natale in Christmas at Love House, A Bittersweet Interlude.
She isn’t really a main character but an important secondary character because the story is partially about her too.
Now, at this point in my multiple series, the heroines and heroes are in their mid-thirties and beyond. My brand-new upcoming series hero in book one is forty. His sister is older than him by two years. There are three younger brothers.
In searching Amazon, numerous books came up under Seasoned Romance. I noticed some “sponsored products” or “advertised products” showed a short description specifying the main characters as forty in those books.
I guess I write seasoned romance. Who knew? Ha-ha.
I’m mentioning this because my upcoming heroine is in her sixty’s. That’s right Double Dutch Ranch readers. Through the progress of the series, Judy Carlson has slipped into a new decade and a few years beyond. She’s far from old. To avoid the idea that she may be lonely, she distracts herself with her grandkids, the horses, and the ranch because she still pines for her first love, Bill Carlson.
Nonetheless, Judy discovers much about herself while rediscovering what she’s missed for well over a decade. This lady is not beyond eyeing a hard body, or a worn ranch foreman’s strong arms from tossing bales of hay for a lifetime, or sexy eyes on a distinguished looking man with salt and pepper hair.
My goodness, she isn’t dead! Once accepting it, she’s thrilled about her new internal and external revelations.
My debacle is in questioning whether I can call this book a Seasoned Romance because my cowboys get a say throughout the story in their POVs.
I can’t write her story, this story, without letting her family talk and share their own thoughts, and they have many. It’s because of their ages and their role in the story, that made me think I couldn’t call this book a Seasoned Romance.
Research has told me it’s okay.
This one is about Judy as the main character, but they all have their own little stories with updates about their lives going on—in their words.
However, I don’t consider my other books to be Seasoned Romance and haven’t promoted them as such. Maybe I should.
A year ago or more, when I mentioned writing this book to a woman some years younger than me, but still a senior, she told me she could never read about an older couple and especially an older couple having sex, so she wouldn’t buy a book in my character’s age group—my sixty-some-year-old heroine. She’s an author of steamy romance, so she isn’t against reading or writing love scenes, but this thing called Seasoned Romance would not appeal to her. I bet she isn’t alone in her thinking.
Let me tell you…
Like Judy, I had become a dating senior woman with two men younger than me, and then I became a wife. Honey, I’m not dead or blind, either.
No, I didn’t date them at the same time! One relationship lasted for five years. The other one I married six months after meeting. I’ve lived through my own seasoned romances.
Regroup. Ah, there we go…
I can’t speak for all, but women in Judy’s age group and older, still crave passion and desire and have a lot to give in that department. Match that up with a lifetime of experience while still having the ability to keep on learning. I learned some new things. Whew! We’ll stop there.
I hope this leaves you–dear Double Dutch Ranch reader and new readers–curious as to how I handled sensuality in the book—referring to Judy, of course. I wondered how I’d write it too. Once I followed the characters wants and needs, I had no problem.
Her sons are still hot-blooded-sexy and their heroines are sexual and sensual even in their late thirties and forties. This doesn’t change in my upcoming book within their POVs. I can’t believe I said “even” in their late thirties and forties. To me, that age group is not…uh, um…for lack of a better word, senior.
I use the words steamy, sexy, sexual, and sensual, but I don’t write erotic romance.
To some, my books are more sensual than they’d like. To others, it isn’t enough. So, I write what is right for me and my characters.
Most of you following my blog don’t read romance, or my romance, I should say. For those of you who do read romance whether sweet, steamy, or anything in between, would you read a romance about a couple in their sixties and beyond? Maybe, like me, you wouldn’t know until you read one.
Any thoughts?
Yes, even though I do LOVE COWBOYS and the whole western environment, I’ll read other books. Most of my Kindle and iPad books are western unless I have purchased books by fellow author friends who write different genres of contemporary romance.
I, as a writer, still need to slip into other worlds now and then.
At the time I read those books, I never gave a thought to writing a seasoned romance until readers asked me to write about older couples. It wasn’t called seasoned then. Maybe mature romance? Unfortunately, in a search for mature romance, what came up wasn’t what I had expected. <eye roll>
You might find this website interesting. It features Author Nan Reinhardt. Is Seasoned Romance a Real Thing? Coincidentally, Jacquie Biggar, hosted Nan Reinhardt on her blog today.
I have read a couple of Nan Reinhardt’s books and thoroughly enjoyed them.
A couple of the authors at these links might be members of Marketing for Romance Writers group, but we’ve never corresponded. I came across these links while searching the topic of seasoned romance and recognized names, but I didn’t post the links because of recognizing them, but because it gave you a couple sites to take a peek at if you’re curious. Maybe you’ll take a chance on reading a seasoned romance with mature couples.
Maybe when Judy’s book comes out, you’ll take a chance on reading one of mine.
I have covers for my other two upcoming books coming in 2019, but I’m not revealing them yet. I don’t have a cover yet for Judy’s book.
Thanks for sitting through this. Enjoy your weekend. 💙
Images from Pixabay.
Learn more at Visit California.
It isn’t me in the picture above, but my Facebook Page image is at Burney Falls.
Sorry to have missed last Friday’s topic about planning a dream wedding. I was too busy planning a fictional wedding. ❤ I did write the post though so maybe one day I’ll post it anyway.
This really isn’t the topic for me though I’ve received the call of acceptance twice. Years ago, when publishing was soooo different, I turned down one call of acceptance. Yes, they actually called. Turns out, they wanted more money for editing than what they’d pay me. Yes, they made money on editing over publishing, though they called themselves a publisher.
LISTEN TO ME if you’re just starting… Stay away from them. They should pay you not the other way around. I’m glad I had enough smarts to walk away.
Another time, well, I can’t say I had a call of acceptance, but an editor at one of the biggest New York publishing companies had requested my complete manuscript. He suggested changes in the manuscript and then to send it back to him. That’s a big deal. It was a big deal!
The way my luck runs, I shouldn’t have been surprised. #WritersLife Hah! I had finished with all his suggestions, and my manuscript had been ready to go, but I learned that he had moved to a different publishing company. OMG. Lickity split. He’d left me. Ha-ha. It felt like he’d left me.
I still sent it to a different editor there and explained my plight, but two years later, after I had contacted them, they sent my manuscript back with a rejection. He or she, I don’t remember now, didn’t like my story as much as the first guy. Sigh.
In the interim of searching for an agent and a publisher, I had received many rejections, requests to read more of my manuscript, and more rejections.
Keyword here: I didn’t give up. Don’t give up.
However, I got another call some YEARS later and should have walked away then too. I didn’t, but it was my opening—my beginning, and how it changed my life. My new beginning wasn’t with them because later, I paid them to get my rights back to two books they’d published. I say it was my beginning because I left them to make my own dream come true.
Did you pay attention? To make my OWN dream come true. Kindle Direct Publishing came around at the perfect time for me. I didn’t know anything about publishing on my own.
Back then, and even now, some turn their noses up at self-published authors. Whether anyone wants to face it or not, it’s true.
So, yes, I’ve received the call a couple times but I don’t like to talk about those times because as I said above: I made my OWN dream come true.
Each of us has to do what works best for us. Me? I’m too old now to wait for others to make decisions about my writing career, and I’ll be even older on Saturday. 🎂
Thanks for stopping by to read another #MFRWauthor post in the blog hop. Find links to the other authors in the hop, HERE.
I’m excited over recent news– My November release has been edited and is with the proofreader now.
A brand-new heartwarming Christmas Novella moments ago came back from my editor and a cover is being made for it. Yay.
And two weeks ago, a frightening call-back to have a test redone freaked me out. It came back fine. How scary and stressful that previous week had been.
Last but not least, my daughter-in-law has been in town this week for work, and she took me out for a birthday dinner last night. How sweet! (They live out of state.)
November 2019
Late 2019
