So, welcome to Romance and…Stuff, a newsletter by this middle-aged, tattoo’d, blue and purple-haired queerbo lezzie who grew up in a Bay Area restaurant, has lived in multiple countries, worked in tech for decades, and is writing the first romance novel she is 100% certain will be published—this year. (There were others, but they need wayyyyyy more work.)
Me on the right. My Butch on the Left. They like reading romance too.
What I’m hoping to build with this newsletter
Writing can be a lonely business. I used to be ashamed to tell people I loved reading romance, and writing romance was definitely someone I only told my closest folks. I’ll share why in another newsletter. But I definitely wasn’t sharing what I was writing. Over the last 10+ years, though, I have learned that there are people all around me who love reading romance (and erotica, etc) and many of them/you are also writing your own stories.
I am also finally in the blissful no-shit-giving era we all call perimenopause. Which I think just means that I have given away 90% of the shits I had. Maybe there’s a 1:1 ration of shits to give with viable eggs in our ovaries. A research question for another time and another person.
But back to me (and you): Now that I am not longer a full-time corporate director, I pretty much tell everyone I meet that I write romance (it’s not, like, the first thing I lead with, but it gets in there). I even tell my consulting clients when we get to talking.
It’s going to take some time to shed the various filters that decades in the corporate world have made me strain my language through, but I’m confident that if I surround myself with the right people, I will rediscover my sailor tongue. This is where you come in.
What I am missing is community— to write with (read: write next to, in a zoom room, or on facetime), talk about what we are writing, swap office pics with, share marketing ideas with, and to share our TBR lists.
If you’re here, maybe you might want to do some of these things with me? Hit reply / drop a comment about what’s on your TBR list or what your dream romance-writer huddle would look/sound/feel like. I want to know!
xo
Nova Brown
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