I get a lot of responses when people meet me, but the biggest descriptor people use (at least to my face) is, “You’re so funny!”
Yup, it’s out. I’m funny. I am sarcastic, I’m self-deprecating, I think I’m pretty quick on the feet. I’ve also gotten more irreverent as I’ve gotten older, but hopefully not offensive too often. For my family (my poor, poor family) and friends, this is not news. But the reaction from readers or publishing professionals who have only “known” me through my work and my professional emails regarding that work, it sometimes comes as a shock.
“Why don’t you write funny books?” they ask, turning their heads sideways, as if I am now an exotic animal in a zoo.
My first answer is, I did write funny books, just under a different name. My second answer is that I think there is some humor in my books, especially in some of the verbal exchanges between my main characters. I don’t write rollicking, light romps by any means, but I do have moments of levity in most of my books.
But the main answer I have to the question is that I like dark, emotional books. I like reading them and I like writing them. One of the main themes I love to pursue is the idea of the healing power of love. So I like to write people who are somewhat broken. This doesn’t mean they’re weak, just that they’ve endured hardship of some kind and are changed by it. They may not believe in love or feel worthy of it.
Despite all that, I drop love in their laps. And the books are really about whether they will be brave enough to take it or whether they will let it pass them by and instead choose a life filled with regret.
To me, that journey is so worth telling because at its best, love makes us better people. Love gives us a chance when we didn’t think there were any chances left. Love rips us from our rutted comfort zone and forces us to change and grow. Love is fearful and terrifying, but well worth it once we surrender to it and all the power it has.
Love, to me, is the thing most worth being serious about.
So do you like dark, emotional romance or frothy romps? Or both?
