As creative professionals living in a chaotic world, we can feel a lot of pressure to complete every project, accept every opportunity, and allow our personal and professional lives to cross over more than they should. Today, I’m telling you that I can’t do it all.
“A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.” ― Rollo May
There are a million things I love about Nashville and my partner and I finally have the chance to be on our own. No complaints at all about living here! But… I’m like, way closer to the kitchen.
As a fiction writer, working to develop fully rounded characters with quirks and personality traits that may never actually make it to the page, I find the question of what their favorite car might be, just as important as their favorite movie, book or sport. Perhaps more.
From the wilds of the Faroe Islands, to the rolling countrysides of Ancient Erin, Juliet’s tales have taken the fantastical and made it human, taken the human and made it fantastical.
The themes and lessons so to speak, that show up in my books are more a reflection of my own deep and fundamental values, things that I feel are important, beliefs that I have that I need my characters to share.
There is another, even more delightful element that comes along with the historical romance novels – beauty.
Most of my ‘real-world’ characters become amalgams of the people I know, faces and personalities, verbal ticks, cute quirks, a version of a real person that doesn’t exist in the real world.
If romance makes the changes that should have been made centuries ago, if romance opens its publishing houses and agencies and offers the same opportunity to authors of color as it does to white authors right now, we take away the excuse that it won’t work.
The discussion is ongoing, but the panel was insightful, educational and full of actionable steps that authors, readers, and industry professionals can take to further a fully inclusive, fully intersectional romance genre.
