Into the Fire

. . . is what you like. None of us should have to apologize for what we like to read. Well . . . most of us anyway. Yes, we can indulge ourselves in guilty pleasures and admit the folly of our ways to our friends and fellow readers with all the pat and reasonable excuses for wasting our time with such novels. Or we can refuse to be ashamed of anything we read and dare anyone we tell to give us a raised eyebrow or a condescending smirk.

My guilty pleasure has been reduced to romance novels, which is very strange to regard them as such since I write them. However, my romance novels don’t fall into category romance, and I’m not sure I read many of those anymore. And, really, I don’t feel guilty for anything I read. Perhaps it would be more understandable to admit my new guilty pleasures are Vince Flynn’s books, but I’ve only read his latest and enjoyed it very much. No, I didn’t enjoy the f-bombs, but the story was a thrill, dynamic, patriotic, and entertaining. So there.

Within the genres I read I love variety—in everything. Voice, style, POVs, you name it. I applaud creativity and daring. I’m a rule breaker and when it’s done well, hurray for the author.

This leads me to a conflict I seem to have with certain editors. Not all by any stretch. Just the comments of a few indicate they adhere to their rules and assume their opinions of writing are irrefutable. Unbending. Their explanations for their opinions make sense of course, but their insistence that other methods are inferior just rubs me the wrong way.

So many different stories and approaches to writing them out there . . . So many opinions of what’s good and what isn’t. Variety is necessary. Formulaic is not attractive. I celebrate the differences in writers. If I don’t care for a novel, it doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it. After all, you like what you like. That’s all there is to it.

Father, help us to not pick each other apart. To be fair. To be kind. To be honest. I’m desperate for you, Lord. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.