I love footpath signs like this – you can go right, left, or straight on – and whichever path you chose, as you look back at the signpost, you have the same options from that side too – right, left, straight on. Or of course, back the way you came. It’s a rather overly complicated way (12 round badges need to be screwed to the wood) of showing you are at a cross roads; something that happens all the time on all types of journey, yet changing your mind, taking a new or unexpected path, can still be nerve-wracking.
Funnily enough, I chose this particular signpost as it has the most arrows on it, yet its four options are perhaps more useful than I realised in this metaphor that I am going to torture to death. One way, along the top of the ridge is easy going, shady, beautiful. Another leads literally to broad, sunlit uplands. A third plummets off the edge of the hill down steep steps where it’s easy to miss your footing. The final one moves from sun dappled woodland to dark pine plantations dotted with ancient yews, and where more than one person I know feels uneasy, the hair prickles on the back of your neck and even on a sunny day you want to hurry – and yet despite all that, I frequently choose this path.
All of which is an overly complicated way of saying that my aims and hopes as a writer have changed. Which sounds simple – so many writers change genres and evolve and try new voices – but it’s been thirty-odd years (I did start at school) that I’ve tried to write romance, and changing focus cannot help but feel a bit like defeat. I know it isn’t really, it’s my choice, I am still reading romance, I may come back to it. But it’s not where I will be focusing my efforts right now.
When rereading my most recent (if eighteen months can be called recent) posts I found that here I had mentioned how rejections often made me rethink my current projects – should I resurrect something old, strike off in a new direction, stick at that pet project I always promised myself I would write “one day.” I remember friends who wrote something just for fun, for themselves, with no idea of publication after one rejection too many – and those were the books that sold – so I’m not sure why this seems such a confession to make (apart from that 30 year dream business.)
What has been interesting (or do I mean head slappingly obvious?) in coming to terms with this, is how so many of the signs were there, especially in this blog. In the books I have most enjoyed reading and talking about, the places I’ve posted pictures of, my love of nature and history. The post where I realised I was far more interested in the heroine’s journey than my own hero’s.
I was lucky enough to receive a very detailed rejection – obviously I wish it hadn’t been a no, and it took a little while to find the positives – one aspect of which was that while my protagonists were likeable, the editor didn’t feel a connection or investment in them, possibly due to my over long sentences.
I can’t think what she meant.
Says the person who just wrote a paragraph long sentence. And yes, my first thought was to get my manuscript and go through it armed with full stops, breaking every existing sentence in two.
I didn’t though. And no, nor do I think romance readers are unable to cope with complicated sentence structure. If my writing style and voice are creating a barrier, that’s my problem, not the reader’s. I might have been quicker to write off the feedback if a few weeks earlier my partner hadn’t said something very similar. He has had to read more than his share of overlong emails and old fashioned letters from me (yes, our romance predates email, heck I feel old) and the academic in him has often pleaded for me try and use bullet points rather than rambling on.
Again, the person who named their blog Tangent Alley because of their ability to go off the stated topic randomly and at length can’t understand his point. Except I do. It’s hopefully amusing here, but less so when reading a book that’s trying to tell a coherent story.
He also wondered at the same time why I was trying to write romance rather than the other books he saw me reading and which I had just been praising to him – it was Circe in my hand, and Robert Graves’ Greek Myths on the bedside table. I think I made some comment along the lines of “that’s what I want to write” or “have been trying to write for so long,” but then just a few weeks later came the rejection by an editor of a work that I really really believed in and I did take a step back.
(I should add that there have been quite a few kerfuffles in romancelandia in the last eighteen months, the post below this about the ritas and RWA will seem quaint in view of the way the organisation almost destroyed itself earlier this year. Imprints and lines and publishers have ceased to exist, there have been questionable business decisions made, by publishers and indie authors, many of which have soured peoples’ views of romance publishing. I have seen established and aspiring authors alike saying they were rethinking their careers and options. None of that directly caused my change or direction but it can’t help but be part of the background.)
All of which is a typically rambling and circuitous way of say that my writing focus, and therefore this blog, will be moving away from romance and suspense – although there will still be romantic and suspenseful elements to whatever I write, they are too ingrained, too enjoyable. Historical fiction, specifically Ancient Greek history, is now my focus. And yes, I’m aware that I am rather late – both in realising (accepting?) this is where my interests have always been strongest, and in choosing a genre that is already extremely popular. I decided this over a year ago and in that time, a brief look at Amazon shows the number of books in this area have doubled; I may appear to be jumping on a bandwagon, or to have already missed the boat.
I’m also not sure which of the four pathways I described I am taking – it feels like jumping off a cliff, yet also like a familiar safe walk home to a first love. And being immersed in the world of Greek myths there are bound to be hair raising and monstrous moments, as well as blissful ambrosia-laced interludes. Here’s hoping anyway.