Writing Wrongs

April 30, 2006

First, rain, rain, go away! The kids are climbing the walls. We�ve had nothing but constant downpour since Friday. It�s. Getting. Old. Bob isn�t feeling well, and I have a play to see with my mom today, so I�m thinking maybe the drop-off babysitting place for a few hours. Uh, for them. Not me. Although that indoor slide is really cool.

This torqued me off over at Romancing the Blog. Actually, it was this particular part here (emphasis mine):

Maybe it�s easier to paint men this way � Alison Kent�s fabulous SG-5 series features heroes who have gritty, uncomfortable pasts, such as the military. Of course, women aren�t eligible for combat. And in thrillers, all of the women spies I�ve encountered are villains.

No, she�s correct in that women are not eligible for certain military occupations, but last time I checked, that frontline was a bit of a blur. But D, bless her, had my back. You can read the comments if you�re curious. I did break down and finally put in my two cents.

Let�s see, what else? There�s a group at a writing site I frequent that�s trying to write a marketable novel (first draft) in 120 days. But! You have to follow all the rules. And no one has yet defined what marketable is. As long as you haven�t made up your own language or are writing every other word backward, I�m hard-pressed to say what isn�t marketable.

I remember way back in the dark ages when I first joined this site there was one gal, who knew all about the market, who tore into another gal�s story. Why? Because it was a gothic, and those were dead, never to be seen again, ever, in the romance market.

Was it last year or the year before an RWA gothic chapter was established? And I believe in their first contest, the editor judge put in a blanket request for all the historical gothic finalists sight unseen.

Marketable, anyone? Trends come and go. You couldn�t give away paranormal a few years ago and today, no one can get enough. So if the people who get paid $$$ to figure out this trend and marketing stuff are more often wrong than not, why do we listen to other writers closed off in their own little worlds.

Write the book. Worry about marketing later.

And in the meantime, could someone get this rain to go away?

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 11:04 a.m.

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