Thanks, Margo, and all the Jaunty Quill ladies for the invitation to be here today! I haven’t blogged in a long time, and during the last couple of weeks I kept struggling with an idea for a topic – and then, in the most unlikely place, it came to me.

Two weekends ago I was in Phoenix to celebrate my father’s 70^th birthday, and at the party, before dinner, as about 15 family members were mingling over cocktails, my aunt asked me the typical questions we authors often get asked: Are you still writing romances? How’s the book business going? Do you still enjoy it after all these years? And of course my answers were the standard: Yes, sure, I’m still writing romances. The book business, as far as romance goes, is plugging along just fine. I enjoy it as much as anyone enjoys a really cool job. Yada, yada… My mistake, however, was adding this:

Me: “Sometimes I struggle to write love scenes after all these years, though. I mean, aside from different characters and places, sex is sex, and it’s never my favorite part to write in any of my books. Writing sex – for me – is hard.”

My aunt: “Well, why don’t you just stop writing the sex part? Can’t you just skim over that?”

Me: “Um, it’s kind of hard to do that. Actually, the love scenes are a very integral part of my stories. I just find them difficult to write. But intense love scenes are part of my books, and my readers love and expect them.”

Now, before you all decide this is a topic on writing sex, it’s not.  Though feel free to discuss that if you want! But my aunt’s response was the shocker. Here’s her reply, not kidding:

My aunt: “Well, I imagine most of the women who read romances are bored housewives and reading romance novels is how they get their jollies.”

Ugh.

Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who always thinks of a really good reply to an insult three days late. Of course my aunt wasn’t trying to be insulting; she’s just totally uninformed. I get that. And that’s the most difficult part – responding to an ignorant statement without sounding defensive and repeating the mantra, “I promise you romance is not about the sex! Smart women read romance! On the RWA website they have these statistics, and it says…” Blah, blah, blah.

So what was my genius reply?  My answer to my 64-year-old aunt at that moment was, “Well, that’s kind of a romance-reader cliché, actually. Most romance readers are educated women, and they don’t read them for the sex alone.”

Yeah. Okay. I’m sure that was convincing. Yes, basically, I just muttered the mantra, the standard RWA/respect-a-romance-reader/author defensive reply without thinking. I can’t remember if she just nodded or commented after that, but I was totally befuddled. I mean, I would have expected a comment about bored housewives from some guy on an airplane, but from a woman who’s lived through the sexual revolution and fought the stereotypes?

This whole exchange got under my skin. For years, romance readers and writers have been trying to gain more respect for a genre we love by appealing to the mainstream and trying to gain acceptance. Even RWA has tried its best to better educate the masses regarding who romances actually appeal to, and who is buying them. We’ve even got websites dedicated to denouncing the clichés and stereotypes (think Smart Bitches and AAR). But maybe we’re just going about it the wrong way? Maybe we’re trying too hard or wasting time? Maybe we’re beating a dead horse?

After this episode, I thought long and hard about my last decade in this business, and how I’ve tried to get not only my family to understand it, but how RWA and educated woman readers and writers have tried as well. The women in my family are all very educated. Even my grandmothers had advanced college degrees from the 1930s. My mother has a Ph.D. My sister, aunts, cousins… all educated. And not one of them reads romances as a genre of choice. Now, that’s not a fault or anything. They don’t look down on romance; it just doesn’t appeal to them.

My mom is a rabid mystery reader, so I know she’s not highbrow all the time. My sister teaches high school and doesn’t have time, frankly, to read much of anything for pleasure. Both, however, do read my books when a new one is released. Both say they enjoy them. Yay for me. My mom has asked me more than once why I don’t want to “branch out” into something else. She probably thinks mystery is a better genre because it’s her preferred choice. Who knows? But why should I, or anyone, try to change her mind about romance? Really, who cares what she thinks about the genre? My mom still recommended my last book to one of her bookclubs for their monthly read, and she recently told me she found me a “new fan” on a cruise by introducing my books to someone she met who reads romances regularly. I know my mom and sister are proud of me, my profession, and will buy and read my books. That’s about it. Will either of them pick up a Kathryn Smith or Terri Brisbin novel? No. And you know what? That’s fine. I’m sure Terri and Kate have family to make up for the lost readership of mine.

Here’s my point:  Why are we trying so hard to make people love us? Why are we, as romance readers and writers, trying so hard to get respect from people who don’t read romances regularly enough to know the difference between the clichéd and the awesome? Or, more precisely, between Barbara Cartland and Lisa Kleypas? Why do we give a rat’s puckered butt what the “mainstream” thinks of what we read and write? Maybe in my middle-age I’ve become jaded and tired of everybody in this business trying so damn hard, but seriously, who’s making the money here? Which genre is keeping the publishing biz afloat? Uh-huh. Exactly.

 I think we have some serious respect already, from the only people who matter. And if someone like my educated aunt can say she thinks romance novels are only being read by bored housewives, then well, it’s a shame she’s so uninformed. I think from now on we should all carry around one great book we love (or one of our own if we’re authors) in our purse or backpack or car to hand out to the ignorant, so that when that ill-informed individual on the plane or in Starbucks says, “Wow, you write/read trash?” we can snicker with a shake of the head, reach into our handbag, and offer them our little book gift as we say with feigned sadness, “You poor soul, you don’t have a clue, do you?” Or, if you’re less feisty, just a simple, “Try this book. You do not know what you’ve been missing!” I mean really, what else can we do but recommend a really good book? The worst that can happen is that Mr./Ms. Ignorant will pass it along, and it’ll eventually fall into the lap of someone who will love it.

We can’t make people enjoy romance when they’re mystery readers at heart; or respect us, our work, or our reading material if they don’t want to give it a college try because the stereotypes are tattooed on their brains. Why get defensive and try to convince them with stats? I say better to let them think we know something they, as poor ignorant souls, do not, than to keep begging for friggin’ respect. Enough already!

Finally, a really good, bestselling author friend (who shall not be named because she’s never given me permission to repeat this) has discussed this topic with me more than once, and her feeling is summed up this way: “I know what I write. I know what my readers what to read. If you want to compare it to literature, then sure, it’s fluff. So what? What’s wrong with fluff? Why is there no respect in fluff? Why do we always have to compare ourselves to great literature? I don’t write literature, I write fluff and my readers buy it, love it and want more. That doesn’t make me any less of a professional, and I don’t have to apologize for it.”

Fluff is good! So let’s stop beating that poor dead horse named “Respect Romance or Die” and just offer a book to the uninformed instead. It isn’t nearly as exhausting! Any comments?

Be sure to check out Adele’s newest book, My Darling Carline – and be on the lookout this summer for The Duke’s Captive.