Weekly Round-Up: Reflections on the Romance Genre

So, this week I had to do a lot of work. I was in the middle of a substantive edit (also known as a line edit) when a publishing house asked me to edit a novel of theirs.

My substantive edit was for a client who writes really fun romances. Romance is one of my favorite genres to edit. Not just because of the love/sex aspects. There's a pleasing tone to them--perhaps it is the inevitably happy resolutions. The best of romances manage to be fundamentally optimistic while also psychologically insightful. The characters, while finding their ways to one another, often are working through sadness about the past. So the romance is not just about two people finding one another, but also about individuals healing within.

Actually, I find that that general arc is also a beautiful metaphor for the act of reading itself, as you make connections with characters and come to "heal within" partially through understanding the universality of emotional journeys.

I was already ahead of schedule with the fun romance and I ended up doing a around 20% more pages every day to meet the new deadline, necessary because of the new project. I cancelled some appointments, didn't go to zumba, and got it all done. Probably the worst life casualty is the messiness that arises when I feel like I can't pull away from a work.

Today, I started the next book. It's also a romance, and I like it quite a bit so far.