Romance Writing and Dating

When you think of romance novels, I’m sure the first thing that comes to mind is two (or more, I’m not judging. My latest novel is about a woman falling in love with three guys). Usually, though not always, these characters falling in love involves a romance relationship. So how do real life romantic relationships affect writing romance? 

Truthfully, I don’t have a ton of experience with this, but I do have a story. Once upon a time, I was dating a guy while I was very obsessive about my deadlines and working on a bunch of projects. And for those of you that know me, no, this was not last week. And even though I didn’t think that it would, I definitely noticed that my writing and my attitude towards it was affected by my relationship, through no fault of anyone involved. It was just simply that I had another thing to prioritize in my life, and that meant I had less time for my writing. 

A couple months into my relationship, I wasn’t writing nearly as much as I was before we started dating, and there’s a couple reasons for that. One, I was spending a lot of time with my partner when I wasn’t at work, so I had a lot less time to write. Two, I felt really weird writing while I was dating him. I got really in my head about what I was writing, because I was worried that people reading it would think that I was basing it off of something that had actually happened, and I didn’t want to include too many details about my real relationship, because I was worried that my partner wouldn’t be comfortable with that. And I wasn’t even sure how much of that I was comfortable sharing. As a result, I didn’t have a good mindset around my writing, and I stopped enjoying it as much as I used to. 

Honestly, losing my writing as much as I did made me really sad, both when I was with my partner, and after we had broken up. It felt like I was losing myself, and that terrified me. But at the same time, I wasn’t enjoying writing because I was second guessing myself, so I didn’t want to force myself to write something I wasn’t happy with. Getting my writing back, both after my partner and I broke up, and after I was sick, was one of the best feelings. I’ve described it as a hug, and feeling like I’ve come home after being away for a while. 

All of this is really sad, so I’m going to make it worse. Writing romance through heartbreak is also really challenging. You want your characters to be happy, but you’re actively writing about something you just lost. And, like I talked about a few weeks ago, if your character is even remotely inspired by the person you just lost, writing with that character feels really weird. Do you stop writing with that character because of the ties they have and rewrite your project? Or do you keep writing with them, and be constantly reminded of someone that hurt you? Truthfully, there isn’t a right answer here, at least for me. I think it really depends on the situation. And if you’re me, you’re going to write an ex boyfriend character that totally sucks, just to relish in the fact that someone’s ex is getting hated on, because who doesn’t like hating on a crappy ex boyfriend character?

What I have learned regarding this is that I need to continue to prioritize writing, and writing for me when I’m in a relationship. Writing the projects that I want to, with the content that I want, and not being worried about what other people are going to think about it. And if nothing else, my writing makes me feel like a whole person, and that’s incredibly important for any relationship to succeed.

That's all for now, folks!

-C

Why I've Only Written Romance

After a conversation with a friend, I got thinking about why I was drawn to romance, and why it was the only genre I’ve written in, especially because there are other genres I’m interested in. And because this is where I share most of my thoughts when it comes to writing, you get to hear about them. 

Honestly, I started reading romance because both of my grandmas and my mom read romance. I’ve read almost every Nicholas Sparks book, and though I don’t read his work anymore, it did definitely shape who I am, as a person and a writer. I also got really into teen romance when I was younger, specifically Kasie West. Again, I don’t read her anymore, but I think I learned a lot from both of those authors. Nowadays, I’m not reading a lot of romance, but Beth O’Leary is one of my favourite romance authors. I read one of her books, “The Flatshare”, at least once a year. And Mom, I know you’re reading this, and no, I haven’t read it yet this year. 

Because I consumed a lot of romance novels in my youth (and yes, saying that makes me sound significantly older than I am), it seemed natural to me that that was the genre I was going to write in. Technically speaking, my books are actually too long to be marketed as romance, since traditional romance novels run between 50,000-70,000 words, and I have no self control, so my novels are almost all over 100,000 words. And though I do say that I write romance, I also feel like a lot of my stories are coming of age, or what’s defined as women’s literature. Whatever you want to call it, I love writing characters falling in love, because I think that’s one of the most beautiful things we do as humans. 

I mentioned that there were other genres I was interested in, and I’m sure you’re wondering what they are. If you read my post about writing with distractions, I mentioned that I like listening to true crime podcasts. I bring this up because I would love to write a crime novel, and the reason I haven’t is because I don’t think I’ve read enough in the genre to do it well yet. For a very long time, I was scared of reading thrillers, because my brain would always get way too anxious reading them. Now, though, since I listen to true crime so much, I’ve started to appreciate the art form of them. Part of the reason that I want to write a crime novel is because of Agatha Christie, who is arguably the best mystery writer of all time. I wouldn’t expect a crime novel from me for a few years, but just know that’s lingering in the back of my brain. 

The other genre I want to write in is fantasy. And not to be shady, but not the smutty fantasy that’s blowing up on TikTok. I’m thinking more Tolkien-esque. If you’ve read one of my very first blog posts about the ghosts of past projects, you would know that I actually have a fully finished fantasy novel sitting on my computer at this very moment. You would also know that it will never see the light of day as it stands, but I do have some news regarding a fantasy project. I can’t promise anything, but I’m currently throwing around ideas of combining the various ideas I’ve had for fantasy novels in the past to create something epic. It would be full of queer characters and have deep lore and magic, which I think is an underappreciated subgenre of fantasy. 

Now, you might be asking yourself, why hasn’t she written fantasy if she’s clearly so interested in doing it? And the short answer is that I’m lazy. To expand on that, plotting a fantasy novel is a lot of work if you’re setting your novel in a fictional world, which I wanted to do. World building is a huge facet of fantasy, and to be honest, I haven’t come up with a story that I think is good enough to be worth all of that work. I might be onto something now, but we’ll see about that. 

The same reason goes for why I’ve never written a historical romance. I’ve read some of the more famous historical romances (looking at you, Jane Austen), but the research that would go into it hasn’t made it worth it for me. I would rather write a modern romance, and tell the best version of that story that I can, instead of getting bogged down in the details of the historical period I was writing in. However, writing about the prohibition and the 1920s would be incredible, since I’m deeply fascinated by that. 

I guess the moral of this story is that I want to write in other genres, and I will, but right now, romance has my heart, and she probably always will. 

That's all for now, folks!

-C

Making Content About Your Writing

This is really meta, since you are reading content I’m making about my writing, but this is a big part of what I do each month, and I thought I would give you all an insight into what I do to make content, both for my blog and my Instagram. If you aren’t following my Instagram, you really should. (https://www.instagram.com/c.hilts.books/ )

So, my main form of public promotion of my books is through Instagram, which is how I’m sure most of you have found my blog. Though my posting schedule has changed throughout the couple of years I’ve been posting, as of right now, I’m posting three reels a week, and two static posts a week. I always post a story when I’ve posted a new blog, and I sometimes throw in other stories such as novel updates or when I’ve found a funny editing mistake. 

But how do I find content to post about? Truthfully, I just read my chapters, and pull my favourite lines and scenes from them. I made the smart decision with “Healing x3 Part One” to pull content while I was editing. What that means is that from each chapter, I’m pulling one quote for a static post, and one scene for a short video. Sometimes I’m able to get more than that from a chapter, but that’s what I’m looking for. In the past, when I’ve been pulling highlights from my published novels, I have gone through each of my chapters to find content. Yes, it’s incredibly time consuming, which is why I’ve done it differently this time, but I felt like it was the best content to show you guys. 

I’ve also recently started using The Sims 4 to make content, which is one of my favourite games to play. What that looks like for my Instagram is making my characters and some of their outfits from the novel, building their houses and places they visit, and maybe one day, recreating my favourite scenes in the Sims. Don’t get your hopes up about that last point; I would need a lot of time on my hands to do that. 

As for my blog, I truthfully came up with a lot of the ideas for it one night when I was in the shower. I was taking a writing class at the time, and the teacher recommended having a blog, and the idea seemed incredibly exciting to me. I came up with probably a dozen ideas, and began writing them. Currently, I’ve been trying to write all of my posts for the month in one sitting, since I find it’s easier for me to focus on them that way, but I have done them week by week in the past. I have a specific theme for my posts in August, which you’ll get to learn more about later, but honestly, I usually just add new ideas to my calendar as they come up. And not to tease you or anything, but I have some really good ideas coming down the pipeline. 

I will admit, I’ve struggled to feel the passion behind making content, since I found it was hard for me to feel motivated to do something that I felt had little tangible benefit. However, since I’ve returned to the keyboard after being sick, I’ve kind of changed the way that I make content. 

First, there’s a lot more planning that goes into it. I have a notebook where I plot out all of my reels, as well as a document to hold onto the scenes until I’m ready to plot them. Second, I’ve figured out my posting schedule weeks in advance, since it takes the guesswork out of me trying to figure out what to post week to week. Third, I film a lot of reels in one sitting (today was ten) since it’s time consuming, and I would rather just get them over with. I film all of the videos, then go in and add the text to them. And I have to say, I’ve been having a lot of fun with the different shots recently. 

Now, this might not have been all that interesting to you, but I thought I would share another side of the writing process, one I feel isn’t talked about very much. 

That's all for now, folks!

-C

Real People Influencing Your Characters

If you’re an avid reader of my blog, first of all, hi and thank you, but secondly, you might remember a few weeks ago I talked about using real experiences in writing, and I said I would come back to when real people are influencing your characters. Well, here is that post. 

Before we get into the dramatics, I want to start with talking about how I, as a person, influence my own characters. All of my female main characters are an extension of me, to some degree. For example, Tessa in “Love Through Agony” is very similar to me, since I was writing about my experiences with endometriosis, and wanted that to feel as authentic as possible. Catherine in “I Hate My Roommate” loves video games, which is something that I’ve loved for years. You get the gist. I think adding pieces of myself to my characters makes them more real, and I have no intention to stop doing that any time soon. 

Something else I’ve been trying to focus on a lot more recently is making side characters inspired by my friends and family. Nora’s mom in “Healing x3” used to bake with her a lot as a kid, which is something I did with my mom. Finnley’s best friend in a novel that is very new to development is heavily inspired by my best friend. Not only do I think that using real people in my life to inspire side characters flushes them out more, but it also helps me feel more connected to the characters, since they’re extensions of my favourite people. And, side characters are incredibly important as they influence the main character, and my favourite people have heavily influenced me. 

Now, onto the dramatics: when a real person influences a love interest. Let me tell you before we get into this that the only love interest inspired by a real person is Jack, and I knew that going into it. Did it make my real emotions really complicated and confusing? Absolutely. But, I really loved the experience of writing “Cora” and the sequels to it, and I wouldn’t change that. But as I mentioned, it really complicates how you, as the writer, feel about the character, and the person that inspired it. They kind of blend together, and when you’re writing romance, it then feels like you’re writing out your fantasies. Which I have done, and I think is actually a key part of writing romance, however, it gets messy when the character is consistently the same real person. And, if you don’t have feelings for the person that inspired the character when you first started writing, it can get really confusing as to whether or not you’re falling for the character, or the real person. 

Don’t even get me started on when you stop talking to the person that inspired the character, but you’re still writing with the fictionalized version of them. Personally, it got to the point where I started missing and craving the character’s presence, and not the real person, which is a weird thing to work through. 

Now, this is not to say that you shouldn’t take elements from the personalities around you, because I absolutely do that and think it makes your characters better. What I am saying is that you should be careful how closely you tie a character to someone, because it can get messy. And if you do want to write a character closely inspired by someone, just be prepared to feel a lot of complicated emotions. 

That's all for now, folks!

-C

 

Writing With Distractions

As I’ve been writing a lot more, I find myself having changing levels of focus, which was to be expected. However, it got me thinking about the things I do when I need to focus, and I thought I would share some of my experiences with all of you. 

See, there are some things I can do that I can have a gaming stream on in the background, and truthfully, I really like working on things while listening to those. I get to support my comfort streamers while getting my work done, so it’s a win win. If I am putting a video on, I do prefer long form content, just so I can put one video on for four hours and not have to constantly be finding something else to have on in the background. As I’m writing this (and the rest of my blog posts for July) I’m listening to Shubble play Overwatch, if you are interested. 

Writing my chapters, however, is something that I don’t love doing while listening to a stream, because I get distracted too easily. As a result, I’ll listen to a podcast (usually true crime) or listen to music. I do have playlists for each of my projects, and you can find those playlists on my Spotify profile (https://open.spotify.com/user/31zl2i6ilheial5d2ydp6lysle3e), but I also like just putting an album on and going to town on my chapter. If you were curious, right now I’ve been mainly listening to “A Grey Area” by JP Saxe, “The Good Witch” by Maisie Peters, and “genre: sadboy” by mgk and Trippie Redd. 

When I really need to focus, specifically on editing, I go onto YouTube and find some kind of lofi or other study music, since I really need to be paying attention to what I’m doing when I do that. I tend not to listen to study music when I’m doing my other writing, just because I like having something a bit more stimulating to work to, but if I desperately need to finish something, that’s my go to. 

Speaking of desperately needing to finish something, I present to you the idea of writing sprints. And no, this is not running while you’re writing. It’s putting a timer on for a certain amount of time, and writing as much as you can in that period. I usually do thirty to sixty minute sprints, since I found after an hour and a half, my focus seriously declined, and I was usually able to make enough progress in the thirty to sixty minute range that I didn’t need to go past that. I don’t do writing sprints often, but when I’m running short on time for a deadline, or want to get a bunch of work done in a short amount of time, that’s what I do. 

Another aspect of writing with distractions is writing in public, which I am no stranger to. Honestly, I’m probably too comfortable with writing in public, but that’s a discussion for another day. I’ve written at work, at school, on the bus, at a grad party…you get the gist. It’s definitely not the easiest to focus when I’m writing at places that aren’t in my office, but sometimes, you just need to get some words on the page. I find headphones in and music on is the best way to focus when there’s a lot of external stimuli, but obviously, I can’t do that at work. I will say, what I usually end up doing when I’m writing at work is just making notes in my various writing notebooks, since that way I’m still working on my projects, but it doesn’t need a ton of focus. 

So, I’m quite used to writing with distractions, and depending on what I’m working on, sometimes that’s okay. 

That's all for now, folks!

-C