Must Be Magic!

Abracadabra!

Today the fabulous Melissa Maygrove and I are switching blogs.
I'm over at her place and she's here.

Take it away, Melissa!

When Carol asked me to guest post, I had no clue what to write. (Fancy that—a writer who can’t fill a blank page on command.) Thankfully, she sent me a list of suggestions.

I thought about discussing my hobbies, but now that I’m serious about writing, my garden is dead and my sewing machine is gathering dust. I considered telling you about my day job (night job, actually), but I doubt you want to hear about fussy newborns and poopy diapers—even those of the premature variety. I could go on and on about my love of science and genetics, but that usually makes folks glassy eyed. And I could’ve launched into what made me a writer, but—despite the fact I’ve been drawn to it since I was a child—the catalyst that spurred me to write my first novel is scoffed at by some, so I’ll leave that to your imagination.

I finally settled on: the genre I write, the reason I chose it, and what I like to read.

When I read, I like to escape into another world and get away from life’s problems for a while. Conflict and action are fine, but in the end, I want ‘happily ever after.’ I want romance. Even in non-romance-genre books, I need a romantic element or I feel like I wasted my time.

My WIPs are all over the space-time continuum, but when I read, I gravitate toward historical romances set in early America. I’m one of those people who feel I was born a century too late; I love wholesome values and simpler times.

What do I love most about romance?  I love the tension between the leads, the gradual discovering of each other, and the inevitable falling for each other. I love the softening of the heroine toward her hero and his protectiveness and gentleness toward her. I even love the love scenes, but it’s more about how the leads’ behavior during those intimate times adds to them as characters than it is about the sex itself.

What ticks me off about books? Tops on my list is poor editing. If I find myself wanting to take a red pen to a published work, that’s not a good thing. Major plausibility issues, plot holes, and unrealistic reactions/behavior of the characters are way up there, too. I tend to give authors the benefit of the doubt, but if something really pulls me out of the story, well...

What makes me stop reading a book? The battery going dead on my Kindle. (Kidding. Sort of.) Besides the fact I’m a tad OCD, the desire to know what happens usually keeps me reading no matter what. The few novels I didn't finish had amateur writing and errors, and they lacked a compelling enough story to keep me reading in spite of it.

Thanks for having me, Carol. I hope I didn't drive your followers away.

Melissa Maygrove is a wife, a mother, a nurse, and a romance writer who hopes to be adding 'published author' to that list soon.

Blog: http://melissamaygrove.blogspot.com

Twitter: @MelissaMaygrove https://twitter.com/MelissaMaygrove

See you at Melissa's!