Time Out

Early morning at the beach. Is there anything better? Well, maybe early Christmas morning with little rug rats racing down stairs, but it's close. Just thought I'd take time out to sigh wistfully and remember last week's quick break at North Beach Plantation.

I've been thinking about defending one's chosen genre. As writers, we get pigeon-holed regularly. I still remember being shocked when a David Morrell I picked up, Brotherhood of the Rose, wasn't a western. The title should have given me a clue, LOL, but I was just sure he was a western writer because of a superb one I'd read by him. My days as a western writer are pretty much closed (though I still have one I want to write), and I remember feeling as if I were a member of a dying, obsolete breed when I told people what I published. Western readers are still out there, but their pickins' are slim and mostly reprints of old stuff. People act as if I'm an old fogey for having written westerns.

Romance authors get their hackles up on a regular basis, with good reason. Those who don't read them sneer, with a look of disdain, if they find out you write them. So they're over 50% of the market? They're not real books right, just all that bodice-ripping rot.  Makes me want to whack people over the head when I get that superior attitude. Romances have dross and gold, just as in any other genre. The golden ones are absolutely superb. I have several on my keeper shelf (Laura Kinsale's books will have to be pried from my cold, dead hands).

Whether you write vampires, werewolves, punk, urban, scifi, horror, romance, or any other genre, you should never have to defend your chosen line of work. There're readers for them all, and many of them are discriminating and well educated. Some read them just for fun, for a quick escape into another world, and some just want to read a good, well-written story.

As they say on the warning signs to alert you to slow down for workers when a highway is being fixed, " Give 'em a break."