No, I’m not going to sing, don’t worry.

There’s a lot of discussion going on in romanceland about respect, how romance writers and romance readers are viewed by those who don’t read romance.

Karen Scott was asking what would we do if we got this respect.  Some don’t think it’s all that important.  Others do.  The opinions run the gamut and I’m going to add my two cents for what it’s worth.

I’m not necessarily looking for respect from people who don’t know me, who don’t read romance, who have never written a day in their life and they have no desire to.  What I would like is for them to stop looking down their nose at me for my writing choices and my reading choices.

Romance isn’t about sex…but if it was… so what?  How many people out there turn up their nose at the thought of spending an incredible night with the person you love?  Not too many people out there over a certain age think eeeeewwww… groosssss… sex…..   and most of those who look down their nose at romance are over that age.  Whether or not they’ve had decent sex, who knows…

But again, romance isn’t about sex.  A romance book is a few hours away from worrying about dinner, away from worrying about paying bills, or how you’re going to put up with your boss for another day.  It’s a few hours away from loneliness if you don’t have a significant other and some good friends in your life.  It’s a few hours away from the MAMA, HE TOUCHED ME/MAMA, SHE IS LOOKING AT ME melodrama that so many of us moms have to hear hourly. 

It’s a happy ever after in a world where very few happy ever afters are guaranteed.  It’s a few hours where you know that the bad guys might do bad things, but in the end, the good guys are going to win and the bad guy will go to jail, get killed or some other variation of justice.  God knows we don’t see enough of that in real life, right?  Murderers getting off, child molestors serving a year or two and then getting back out the streets, drug dealers getting a slap on the wrist, rape victims getting the blame while the rapists get sympathy and people who are already rich robbing hard working, middle class people and they get nothing done to them.

You won’t find that in a romance. 

You won’t read about something so heartbreaking as a story told from the point of view of a murdered child as she watches from heaven to see her family falling apart after she’s gone. 

You’ll find ups and downs and you might even want to scream at the author, or smack her for what she did to her characters, but in the end, with a romance, you’re going to know that the heroine and the hero lived happily ever after, the bad guy got his just rewards, and it’s going to leave you with a smile on your face.  At least if you’re reading a good romance.

Would I like respect?  Ideally, yes.   I’d like everybody to know how hard I work.  I’d like everybody to know that it isn’t easy to pour these stories out onto paper and then turn them over for the public to see and either love it, hate it, or just not care.  It’s hard.  I’d like people to know that there is more to writing than just sitting down and plunking out a few words here and there, and viola… whaddya know… a book somehow appears.

Yeah, I’d like respect.  But I’d settle for some more acceptance. 

I’d settle for a bookseller not to give me that polite smile that looks more like a sneer as I introduce myself and say that I’m a romance writer. 

I’d settle for people not expecting me to be a stay at home, I mean, after all, I am home all the time now, right? and then they go goggle eyed when I explain, No, my kids have to go to a sitter four days a week.  I can’t work with them home.  (If they don’t understand why, then I point out, well, you can’t take your kids into the office with you, now can you?  Neither can I.)

I’d settle for people not to call it smut, especially when they’ve never read so much as three pages out of a romance.

I’d settle for people not to comment Oh, you work at home. How… nice…

I’d settle for people to understand that this is a job that you have to work hard at or you’re not going to make it. 

But yes, I’d like respect.  And when somebody comments about how nice it must be to not have to work, I’d like to tell them, You sit down at a computer and put together a 300 page book within 2-3 months and then tell me it isn’t work.

And when people make that snotty little comment about romance, I like to ask them what the last romance they read was.  When they just stare, I like to smile and say, Then obviously you’re really not ready to discuss their merits, are you?