...But you look so normal?

Not too long ago I was at a friend's framing shop. I had stopped in to say hello and catch up, but seeing as she was busy, I told her I would come back another time. Needless to say, she asked me to stay, saying she'd only be a minute finishing up with a client that had come in from New York City to have some custom work done.

We all got chatting, and my friend mentioned that I was an author, and had been successful with recent book signings at a few local Barnes & Nobles. The look on the client's face was nothing short of incredulous. It wasn't because she had read my work and couldn't believe I had scored book signings at such a big chain, nor was it because I was a small pubbed author...it was because she couldn't believe I was an author at all. And her reason?

"But you look SO normal!

She simply couldn't wrap her head around the idea that someone with talent could walk around without being pierced, tattooed, or sporting mutli-colored neon hair.

"That's certainly not what we see walking around the city?" she said staring at me like I was some sort of anomoly. I half expected her to turn me round and ask me to open my mouth so she could examine my teeth.

I politely told her that while those things may very well be the "costume de rigueur" of people who consider themselves creative, true creativity lies in how one dresses the mind, not the body. And while fashion choices may be an outward show of a creative mind, it certainly ISN'T a pre-requisite for one.

Now I'm no stranger to the stranger types...I hold an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and have my fair share of friends who choose to dress as such, but that doesn't automatically make them more creative or talented than anyone else. Sadly, in my opinion, it almost makes them cliché, a stereotype of just the thing they are trying to rage against.

For Romance Writer's the stereotype is even sadder. When most people think of us, it's usually the image of a lonely woman sitting in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, conjuring lovers and adventure in her imagination. In other words, one step away from being the neighborhood cat lady. If that description just made you go "eeewww", then you get it. Thankfully, for most of us that image is far from accurate, and the same goes for the people who read our work.

On one of the Amazon forums, a woman once described what we write as 'white noise', what she reads to dumb down her mind after a busy day. While I don't mind the idea of our genre being escapist, I do mind the stereotype that it's somehow less than, and to say that it's something one reads to "dumb down a mind' is insulting to those of us who work so hard at our craft.

Stereotypes are hurtful and wrong... especially when they bleed into your personal space.

Marianne Morea

The Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. - Tom Clancy

More than once I've been told by an editor that no one would believe something I'd written had happened. The funniest thing about that comment is that, without exception, it's been on a situation I pulled from my life.

In "The Christmas Curse" I have a woman who has terrible things happen to her at Christmas with great regularity, one of which happened when she was just starting to mature: she got a training bra in her Christmas stocking, and opened it in front of her father and brothers.

Yeah... that really happened. I was mortified.

I was told that no one would believe an older woman (by "older" I mean mid-twenties) was still a virgin. I happen to know THREE women who are now in their late forties, who are not nuns, are not gay and are still virgins.

Most recently there was a significant number of frustrating misfortunes in my life -- to the point where I just sat around and waited for them to happen. And as they happened I said to myself, "If I wrote this in a story, no one would believe it."

Sometimes the adage "write what you know" may not be the best advice, because clearly what *I* know and experience isn't always believeable.

What are some things that you've experienced that no one would believe if they read it in a book?

Visit Marianne at her website or blog.

======================