Connie Brockway’s Challenge
Posted by CM under Writing on Fri 2 Mar 2007
he amazing Connie Brockway, in 2005, said the following:
“Sadly, I don’t think there is much of a market in historical romance these days for exploring things which aren’t easily explained in the context of a kiss or resolved with a declaration of love.”
There’s a lot of truth to this. A lot. There are a lot of things she says in that interview that make me a little sad, because I am afraid that the book I’m writing is completely unmarketable.
I also think that there’s a shocking amount of . . . similarity. The conglomeration of media–all levels of media–has shut out a lot of variation. And I think it’s made our culture poorer in a number of ways. I don’t think it will last; I don’t think it can last. I hope that it won’t.
That’s for both personally selfish and societally selfish reasons. I want to see people push the envelope because I love seeing the envelope pushed. And I want to push the envelope myself.
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Brenda Joyce wrote one hell of a commentary on why historical romance needed to break out its “ballroom Regency” restrictions, or something along those lines. It’s such an awesome article. It was on her website, hopefully it’s still there. I should have printed it out and tacked it up by my computer.
Anything is marketable if it’s well done. I believe that with all my heart.
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:33 am
Write what you want. What you have to. There is nothing sadder or more painful than trying to shoehorn your foot into somebody else’s glass slipper.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:33 am
Hmmm… that explains a few things. I don’t write ball room regencies. I write carriage regencies.
Alice
March 3rd, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. We’ll see what happens.