Uh wow

So I haven't written anything since August. That's crazy.

Fairly certain the depressive episodes that have colored the last few months have something to do with it.

But I'm not here to discuss depression (today).

And although Batman Arkham Knight has owned me the last several weeks, I'm not here to talk about that, either. I'll post a review later this week that will be a love letter to Jason Todd and what I would love to see from another installment.

Today, we're going to talk about a special breed of imposter syndrome.

A couple years ago I wrote a book approximately 10 people have read about a romance author who hasn't had a relationship in a long ass time. Claire is probably the closest to me I've actually put in a book (though she's not me and there's a difference) because I, too, am a romance author who hasn't had a relationship in a long ass time because of lasting emotional trauma that's gonna require more therapy than I have time for to deal with. And like Claire, I kinda wonder if that fact makes me less of a romance writer. I'm actually quite jaded where 99.999% of romance-related things are involved. I'm a mega-shipper of Olicity and I enjoy a good HEA, though I think happily for now is far more realistic.

So with my books, and even romantic subplots, I tend to err more on the side of realism (btw, I had to add "err" to my phone's dictionary just now, but it knows words that don't actually exist). And I realize that Jaded Romantic isn't a huge sub-genre of the community. But I'm here. And I write what I want to read. Stories that are emotionally messy. People whose worst enemies are most definitely themselves. In fact, I'm working on a project that involves a severely depressed/suicidal heroine because mentally ill people are under-represented. I know this, for I am a mentally ill person and have yet to read anything where the heroine makes me go HOLY SHIT THAT'S ME. It's why I always liked science fiction--those are some fucked up people, but it's ok because they're doing science. In fact, one of the saddest love stories for me is Mr. Fries and Nora, his wife, who (depending on the retcon) suffers from Huntington's chorea, and her husband has cryogenically frozen her to buy time until he can find a cure. Again, not really here or there.

Ok, back to this whole imposter thing. I'd love some feedback on this, btw. But my question is, does a romance author need to be in a relationship to write romance effectively? And more than that, would you as a reader feel a little gipped if you read a book and the author was someone like me with a partner and kids effectively missing from the bio? Do you think I'm just stuck too far in my head? Let me know below.