Read Around the Rainbow | The First Story I Ever Wrote with an Eye Toward Publishing

ReadAroundTheRainbow

It’s Read Around the Rainbow time, and this month we’re talking about how we all got started, as in the first story we ever wrote with an eye toward publishing, if it got published, and if we would’ve done anything differently if we were to do it now.

I used to read a lot of MF smut. A lot. Some queer books too, but for the most part paranormal MF. I went through one monster at a time. Read everything vampire, then everything werewolf, then everything bear shifter, then everything alien, then everything magic user – you get the idea.

Then one day, I was sick of it all and picked up my laptop and started writing. I wrote a novel, I can’t remember much about it now, but a single mum with magic powers and a vampire. My sister loved it and is still talking about it now and then 😅

I wrote it in Swedish, and I sent it to one tiny Swedish publishing house and got a rejection letter saying they thought the title was stupid (not very professional) because no one titles their books with a man’s name. I’ve laughed at that many times since because have you any idea how many books there are out there, especially books in romance series, that have the same title as the main character’s name?

Loads.

I’m pretty sure they never looked at the manuscript at all since that was all the feedback I got, and a title is easy to change, but that’s fine. I was already writing on a new story by then.

It was somewhere around here that I became a member of Goodreads MM Romance Group and saw the Don’t Read in the Closet Event.

I never meant to write MM. That was never my plan. I figured I’d write paranormal MF stories for the fun of it. I had started to look into writing in English since Sweden is a small market, and I had been glancing at self-publishing but figured I had to write in English to do so (you don’t, but it was what I told myself). And while I was investigating, I realised I needed an editor, and editors are expensive. So when the DRitC event came up, and they had volunteer editors I wouldn’t have to pay for, I figured why not. Just to try.

I snagged a prompt (and wrote Knickers in a Twist) and the rest is history.

What would I have done differently? I’m still fantasising about an MF name, and once or twice a year, I’ll start writing on a story that I’ll then abandon since I have a deadline coming up LOL

I’m curious about what it would be like to have an MF name, but I’m reluctant to step outside of the safety of the queer community. You’re my people. And it’s scary to start over in the big out there.

Another thing I’d have done differently is to have a plan. As a newbie writer, I wrote whatever I wanted to write and I didn’t think anything about marketing, branding, or even what a potential reader would think about the story. I wrote for myself, and if someone liked it, then great.

But I think jumping genres made it hard for people to decide if they liked my stories or not. I’d write a contemporary romance, then a horror story, then a paranormal romance, then something sci-fi, then something steampunk. I’d mix low heat with no heat with pretty high heat, and while I love writing it like that, most people find one genre and sometimes even one trope and stick to it. They want more of the same, they don’t want to switch genres with every book coming out. So yeah, I’d have thought things through a little better.

And I did with Holly! I still write different subgenres, but all stories are MM romance. I have a brand, and people have an idea of what to expect when they pick up a Holly Day book. Holly is Ofelia 2.0 😊