i am thinking

about writing a romance novel. this probably reflects a very unkind lack of respect for romance novelists, since i've only written a few things and they've all been short. probably there's a lot to writing a whole romance novel, and i'm fooling myself that i have the stick-to-itiveness. msg has written novels out the wazzoo, and he tells me all it takes is deciding to sit down and write at least a little every single day. but then he also says things like, of course, nobody's first novel is all that good, and i'm like, whoa, you want me to write a little every single day and then in the end it won't even be any good? and then he's like, no, you said you wanted to do it, and i'm just telling you what to expect. parts of it will be good, he says, and i'll love it because i love you, but you've got to be realistic.

and i'm like, dude, did you hear me when i said i was thinking about writing a romance novel? when did romance novels and "realistic" ever go together?

anyway, i'm thinking about doing it.

why romance? honestly, i don't read the stuff, on account of i have all the romance in my real life that i need.

but ... a whole lotta the things i write are romantic, right? and when i look at the stuff i'm really proud of, that i really think works, it's almost always the romantic bits. (okay, some of the sexy bits too, but i hear lots of these romance books have sexy bits, so that works out, i think.)

so i'm thinking about it. i may not even start it. i probably won't finish it. it will probably be a disaster if i do finish it.

but it will give me and msg another something to talk about (not that there's any problem around our house if you run out of conversation material ... alternative activities always await), and more importantly, it will let me get a better feeling for something he does that's really important to him.

we'll see ...