Romance and Sisterhood

by Joanne Rock

I’m in San Diego this week at the Romance Writers of America conference. It’s always an exciting

event for me and many of the other writers who blog at Super Authors since we get to visit with each other, meet readers and chat with the incredibly talented people who work in our publishing house.

Last year's Harlequin Party-- Jules Bennett, Joanne Rock,
Danica Favorite and Super Author Dana Nussio

This week is a reward of sorts for all of us. Writing—while fun!—is an isolating sort of business. To be successful at it, a writer has to spend long hours alone with the computer, thinking and creating. Some days it’s fun and more days it’s incredibly difficult. Writing one book is a thrilling challenge. Making a career of this work means spending large chunks of time alone with no one to share the day to day challenges of storylines and characters that are unique to one writer’s brain. In other words, it’s tough to draw people into our strange little worlds! Readers won’t meet the characters we’re engaging with until long after we’re done with the hard work of penning their stories.

That’s where the reward comes in. Our yearly writing conference gives us all the chance to socialize. We celebrate our success, quietly mourn our setbacks, and share all the craziness of an otherwise lonely job. And feel fortunate for the outlet. I feel bad for writers of other genres who don’t have the outreach that Romance Writers of America has—we have a big network of support in one another.

Book #4 in Heartache, TN series

The romance community is bonded not just by the choice of books we choose to read and write. It’s also bound by a positive outlook that pervades our stories and—we hope—our lives. You see, authors of romance differ in many ways. But we are the same in our need to fight for a happy ending. I’ve wondered in the past how I got so lucky to know such a positive, uplifting group in my romance friends. But it’s occurred to me there’s a reason we’re all drawn to romance in the first place. We are the kind of people who hope that obstacles can be overcome with hard work, that relationships can be healed with care and effort, and that love is a beautiful driving force in the world.

Every year, I look forward to that kind of sisterhood—the embrace of a caring community that works to make the world a better place. And if that sounds like a romanticized view? It may just be. And that's precisely why I like it.

**Share the romance sisterhood with me today! If you need someone to lift your spirits, who do you call? Or who might you visit? Share with me today on the blog and I'll give one random commenter the prize pack pictured -- a copy of book #2 in my Heartache, TN series, plus a cute journal and a sign to hang on your happy place! Winner announced Monday, July 18th when I get back home and can mail it out :-).