Hello!  Happy Monday!

I don’t know if anyone is actually curious about this, but I feel like it’s an interesting topic, and one that you don’t see a lot of writers talk about or do.  Mainly, why do I write in so many different genres and styles?

Well, honestly, I don’t think they’re all that different, but here’s what I’ve got so far.  Monster stuff is a big one, and then contemporary romance is the next.  I recently finished my paranormal romance series(Soulless, Heartless, Hopeless), which was fun.  I’ve also got some fairytale stuff, too.  Historical, romantic comedy, noir detective mystery, urban fantasy, and a few more things that probably fit into one of the above but are a bit different, too.

All of these have erotic content, though, so I guess that’s the thread that binds them?  I don’t know if that’s a good reason and I don’t really accept it, myself, but it’s there.

Anyways!  I write them because I like that.  That sounds kind of like a cop out answer, I guess, but it’s just fun to me.  I enjoy exploring new genres and taking my own spin on them.  I think that’s what this boils down to, really.

If I’m being perfectly honest, I prefer medieval fantasy-style stuff.  Or I used to prefer it, anyways.  I don’t think that’s a good mindset to get into with this kind of thing.  I mean, hey, if I just wrote medieval fantasy all the time, I’d have a lot of that, and that’d be great, but… then what?  I know authors who do this and have read more than my fair share of books from authors who basically never branched out from any one genre.  It honestly gets stale and you can tell in their writing.

One random example–and I’m only using her as one because I honestly really love her writing, so it was kind of a love/hate thing, but I’ve got tons of respect for her–is Elizabeth Haydon.  The first three stories in her Symphony of Ages series were WONDERFUL.  I absolutely adored them and I would suggest them to everyone and read them over and over again(and I think I have).  They’re kind of fantasy romance with adventure and action and all of that.  After the first three, though, it started going downhill.  I believe I enjoyed the 4th, but the 5th was kind of lacking, and I can’t say I enjoyed the 6th at all.

After she “finished” that series(because honestly it just kind of stopped, and I’m not sure it ever really fully concluded anything), she started up a YA series set in the same world.  I haven’t read those, but I think that’s an interesting thing to do.  Mostly, the other books were VERY adult, with sex and violence and all of those kinds of adult things.  I have no idea how her YA fantasy books are, but I’m sure they’re nice because she has a wonderful style and tells a good story.

That’s really the thing, though.  She got herself stuck in the Symphony of Ages books and I think it showed.  By the end of the 6 book series, I don’t think she was as into it as the first three books.  It feels like she wrote more because she felt like she NEEDED to write more, and not because she wanted to.  Sometimes this can work out, but I think a lot of times it leads to burn out and disappointment.

I’d still read her books if she continued with the series, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea on her part.

In the same kind of genre, Jacqueline Carey does an excellent job of writing the same but switching it up, too.  Her Kushiel’s Legacy books start with three wonderful books, then continue on with three more great ones(my favorites of hers actually), and there’s three more after that.  They’re all in the same world, but each set of three switches the main character, and so provides a new and interesting fresh look at her world of Terre d’Ange.  Though, to be honest, I’m not sure the last three worked out so well with that, but they -were- interesting, just not really my favorites.  Or, I’ve only read the first on of there(the seventh overall), so maybe I’ll change my mind when I get to the last two?  I don’t know.

And even still, she has other books that are great, too.  Her more traditional epic fantasy books kind of fit with the Kushiel’s ones, and then she completely throws you for a loop with some urban fantasy/paranormal stuff later on.  I think this is great and a good idea.

So that’s where I stand, really.  For my own writing, I want to write interesting things and continue writing them.  If I’m really into an idea, I think I’ll tell a better story than otherwise.  I want you, as a reader, to love what I’m writing as much as I do.  I do “force” myself to write things, also, but I try not to push it too far.  I try to explore new genres and test out ideas because I want to.  It’s more of a “forcing myself to do this because I want to” instead of a “forcing myself to do this and I hate it,” which I think is a key difference.

And, honestly?  I think it’s turned out well.  I never liked contemporary stuff much before, so I rarely wrote it, but I wanted to try one.  My best friend isn’t really into reading anything fantasy and she sticks to just contemporary stuff when she reads(which isn’t a ton, but she does read a few books a year), so I wanted to do it for that reason, too.  I wanted to write something that she would want to read, so I wrote my Billionaire’s Ultimatum series.

I didn’t really like it at first, truthfully.  I didn’t like it because it was HARD for me.  But, on that same note, I think it became a much better story because of that.  It made me think and decide on different things and try out new ideas and a new style of writing.  I never liked first person point of view much before writing that, either, but I thought I’d try that out, also.

Now?  I like contemporary.  I think The Billionaire’s Ultimatum is a fun story and I’ve received a lot of good feedback on it, so I think I probably did a good job writing it, too.  I didn’t like how hard it was for me to write it at first, but I got better with practice and I really loved the idea of the story itself, so I kept up with it.  It’s different, it tested me, and overall it was fun and a good experience.

The same with the Soulless series, too.  The same with most of my stuff, honestly.  The only thing I can’t really get too into is the gay shifter story I wrote, because it was just kind of difficult to really get a handle on the idea, but I think it turned out well.  I’d like to write another gay male story in the future, or at least maybe bi-curious or something.

Anyways!  I write in these different genres and styles because I like them and I want to try them.  I don’t think any of my stuff is so far out there that you’ll be absolutely appalled if you see it in my catalogue along with something you’ve liked, either.  I mean, some of it seems pretty far out there, but it’s still me writing it.  I have standards and a general style and I promise to try to never disappoint any of my readers with sub-par, worthless junk.

Sometimes you just want to try something new, you know?  Sometimes it’s easier to get eased into that new thing, though.  If you like my writing, you’ll know generally how I write, and so it’s a nicer process trying something different as opposed to having to find a completely different author that you’re unsure about, and then reading their stuff, too.  I know how much of a turn-off that can end up being, where you want to try, say, a science fiction book or something, but you end up finding the one that’s super confusing and weird and you have no idea what’s going on.  Then you think you hate science fiction!  And, honestly, I’m not actually a huge fan of science fiction, but I absolute love some of it.

It’s good to try new things sometimes.  And maybe to take slow, baby steps, so you don’t get overwhelmed.

That’s the reason I do what I do, at least.