What's in a name?

Sometimes labels free you; they give you certain parameters to work within. The elimination of what you can’t do, helps you focus on what you *can*, and might stir your creativity to make the tried and true, unique.

But sometimes labels are confining. Sometimes you’re too busy checking things against that mental *can’t do* list, that creativity is stifled somewhat. Last week I mentioned to Cece that I had to stop thinking that I wrote ‘Romance’, because it was messing with my plotting process and expectations (subconsciously) of what I thought my wip should be accomplishing. So I changed my header a bit, it now says: for the yet to be published writer, instead of ‘aspiring romance writer’.

I believe a strong, passionate romance will always be at the nexus of anything I write, or, at the very least, one of the major subplots; but if I keep thinking I write romance, it’s like mentally boxing myself in. This is the same thing that happened when I attempted to write Romantica (erotic romances) I naturally write very sensual stories, so I thought Romantica would be no problem. Wrong. I felt hemmed in, and subtly pressured-by myself--to keep the sexual tension at the forefront. Suddenly it wasn’t feeling so natural.

Once I stopped thinking ‘I write romance’ it felt like a million and one things were possible. I could use whatever ‘coarseness’ of language I wanted, present situations at any graphically detailed level that I felt suited the work. Mix genres in any way I want to, have my characters be any race, shape, height, or size. I don’t care, I’ll serve the characters and the story, and hopefully the future readers; and I won’t be thinking about ‘parameters’, whether self-inflicted or assumed from years of reading 'romance oriented' message-boards, etc.