Yesterday I finished the first draft of Summer Wind. This is the book that was giving me fits just a month ago when at the half-way point I hated the book so much I wanted to burn it. I figured out the problem, fixed it, and the words just started to flow. The muse was sitting on my lap, cracking a whip, urging “faster, faster!” That bossy bitch brought in the book a month ahead of schedule. So I actually have time to follow my own advice and put it away for two weeks before starting the revision process.
*Deep Breath*
So, I’ve decided to take those two weeks to work on a semi-silly project I’ve had on a back burner for quite some time: A romance novel. Yes, yes, I know you’re sneering. And yeah, I’ve said some catty shit about the genre as well, but in a world of declining readership, romance readers are HUNGRAAAY. How hungry? Let me hit you with some stats:
- Romance fiction generated $1.438 billion in sales in 2012.
- Romance was the top-performing category on the best-seller lists in 2012 (across the NYT, USA Today, and PW best-seller lists).
- Romance fiction sales are estimated at $1.350 billion for 2013.
- 74.8 million people read at least one romance novel in 2008.
What’s my book about? Well, the premise is that a corporate VP good-girl with a perfect-on-paper life meets a hot young stripper. She can’t be with a stripper, right? Because she went to college and she has a 401(k), but DAMN THOSE ABS.
You see where I’m going with this. Romance is nothing if not formulaic. So, formula and premise in hand, I will attempt to write a first draft of this book in just two weeks.
Now, if I can just find that muse…. oh, there it is
Trixieland 
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