A Male Romance Writer, Without Apologies

First, I'd like to thank our lovely and gracious hostess for having me here today. I'm scheduled on the 20th of each month here, so I'm really excited about this opportunity! (And praying that my first isn't also my last!)

I offer something for every taste!

When I first started writing sixteen years ago, I didn't think for one minute that I would ever get within fifty MILES of writing romance, erotic or otherwise. My speed was more urban fantasy/horror/suspense. If there happened to be an erotic or romantic overtone, wonderful, but that was never the ultimate aim.  I wrote "guy stuff:" Sex, violence, sex, rock and roll, sex, and did I happen to mention sex?

What changed my mind was, as with so many other writing tales, more or less an accident.

One little contest later, I got to thinking about trying my hand at romance in earnest. If I hadn't won that particular contest, who knows what I'd be doing now? I tabled the idea for a few months, because I was in a big push to finish my first novel, Shadowphoenix: Requiem. Once that was done, I waited for the next contest to start and riffed off my second entry.

That one split first with a story about a mermaid, and I started to get serious about the idea of writing romance on a regular basis. After all, winning two contests with erotic romance seemed to imply that I had a certain flair for the genre. But where to start?

Yeah. It looks EXACTLY like that...

I'm a voracious, insatiable devourer of books. If a book is lying in my field of vision for more than, say, three seconds, and I haven't already read it, I start to get symptoms reminiscent of nicotine withdrawal. (A subject I can speak on with a certain amount of authority, having now been a smoker longer than not. It's depressing  when you suddenly realize you're older than you thought you were!) I start to twitch, I get short of breath, and sooner or later, the only thing that's going to make the shakes and the darting eyes go away is getting my fix. Books or smokes, to me it's same/same: my body's addicted to nicotine, but my mind's addicted to books.

So I'd read a romance book or two (thousand!) in my time. The biggest problem I had with the genre was the fact that so many of them seemed to be the exact same story, rewritten with different names and set in different places and times, but same old same old same old. *Yawn*

How to say "Please Stomp My Grass" In Five Languages!

When I decided to turn my hand to erotic romance, I also decided to kick convention to the curb. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a "Keep Off The Grass" sign, because I read that as "Please Trample My Lawn." So all the "shalt-nots" of romance went into a big, scary wood chipper. The only convention that I kept was the obligatory Happily Ever After, because I like a happy ending as much as the next guy. Everything else became up for grabs. Why? Because I wanted to write romance stories that guys could read and appreciate just as much as women. Lots of violence, sex, thought-provoking plots, all of it overlain with an emotional context that men and women could both appreciate.
I'm a male romance writer, and I make no apologies for it. Because, hey, it seems to be working!

I promised that this wouldn't be a promo blog, so I'm not going to leave an excerpt or any of that today. If, however, you'd like to know more about me or my work, I'm also blogging at http://www.nobleauthors.blogspot.com today, as well as my own blog at www.jswayne.wordpress.com. I always appreciate fan mail, rants, or raves, and you can get a hold of me at jswayne702@yahoo.com.

Thanks for letting me come hang out with y'all today. It's been a lot of fun!

Until next time,

Best,

J.S. Wayne