Why Fun, Romantic Reading Should be Prescription Reading

By Jessica Clare

It’s 2022, and we’ve been through hell.

(That’s it. That’s the statement.)

Okay, but for real. In the last few years we’ve been through an absolute rollercoaster of things. We’ve had contentious elections. Bombings. Social movements. Beloved celebrities dying. War. Inflation. Housing crises. Supply crises. Everything crises. And a pandemic that’s given us all kinds of post-traumatic stress. 

(Does anyone else get unnerved when someone stands a little too close in the grocery store line? Just me?)

As a collective people, we’ve been through a lot. And I’m a firm believer in books as escapism. When I was a child, I absolutely loved books like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where these displaced children went to another world and became important and powerful. I loved The Secret Garden, where a displaced girl found a special home for herself that no one knew about. As a teenager, I loved Anne McCaffrey’s Pern Books, where people on a strange planet rode dragons and saved the world. I loved epic fantasy, too, where farm boys discovered they had special powers and rode off to adventure. I was never a huge fan of dark, angsty stories with terrible things happening to people. I hated a tragedy. 

There’s enough of that in the world right now.

So I think to unwind, it’s time we take some of the ‘fun’ back for ourselves. What better way to do that than to read some escapist, light, fluffy fiction where there are no bad guys and the biggest question is will they or won’t they?  What’s wrong with that?  We go through so much on a daily basis that when I ‘escape’ into a book (just like those kids escaped into Narnia) I want to be wildly entertained. I want to know what I’m reading is SAFE and HAPPY and will end in a way that makes me smile.

I don’t want to cry while I read. I don’t want to feel grief. I don’t want to be frightened out of my wits or horrified at another person’s actions.

I want to be wrapped in a fluffy, cozy blanket of feel-good that’s provided by the author. I want to awkwardly fake date Adam Carlsen (The Love Hypothesis). I want to go on my sister’s honeymoon with the annoying best man (The Unhoneymooners).  I want to have a sexy handyman help me get out of my comfort zone (Get a Life, Chloe Brown). I want to hire a sexy escort to help me navigate love (The Kiss Quotient).

I want to close a book with a sigh and a smile. I want a few hours of the day to be nothing but sheer joy. We need that right now. And if we’re feeling sad or stressed or lonely, we need to be able to turn off the news or the internet, and have a nice, cozy place to dive into that will envelop us in a warm hug and show us that people are good, bad dates can be funny, and occasionally you just might date a sexy boat captain that will build you a gazebo to show you how much he loves you (It Happened One Summer).

New York Times bestselling author Jessica Clare writes under three pen names. As Jessica Clare, she writes erotic contemporary romance. As Jessica Sims, she writes fun, sexy shifter paranormals. Finally, as Jill Myles, she writes a little bit of everything, from sexy, comedic urban fantasy to zombie fairy tales

Welcome to my FRED Talk

by Fredrick Soukup

In October of 2018 I received an email offering me my first book deal—something I’d dreamt about for a decade. But after rereading the email a dozen times, I was confused. Having, at that point in my career, received, give or take, a billion rejection letters, I thought, “Wow, that’s the strangest rejection letter I’ve ever received. It almost sounds like a yes.”

Needless to say, the road to publication is a long one. Now on the eve of the release of my second novel, Blood Up North (Vine Leaves Press), I’m aware I have much to learn about writing and publishing novels. Though, I’ve also learned much (I think). So at the risk of repeating suggestions you may have learned from more qualified instructors or compiled yourself, I’d like to impart the lessons I’ve learned. Fingers crossed, they can be of some service to you in your career.

Forget the butterfly.

At the beginning, a story isn’t a story. It’s a premise, a character, a situation, a setting, etc… A cocoon, at best. That’s fine. No, it’s better than fine—it’s a miracle! Someday that butterfly may land in your hands and spread its wings, and the two of you will marvel at its modest genesis. (A serviceable, if corny, metaphor: you see, the butterfly is a book!) But it’s important to remember—and I often have to remind myself of this—that the initial stage of writing a book is precarious. Writers tend to dream; that’s what makes them writers. But there’s a fine line between articulating in detail a path to that butterfly and merely falling in love with its ideal. Since nothing exists but what’s on the page, you may find yourself, in the latter case, exasperated when your repeated cracks at that opening chapter fail to capture all the glorious charisma of the literary classic you have in mind.

Forget the butterfly! It doesn’t exist and it never will. If it did, there would exist as many breathtakingly powerful novels as there have been breathtakingly powerful moments experienced by literate and ambitious individuals. What Austen had in mind when she first started Pride & Prejudice was probably just as brilliant as the finished product, but I sincerely doubt it was Pride & Prejudice.

Even she had to grind. Even she had doubts. Even she had to…

Rewrite (edit)

Or maybe she didn’t, I don’t know. Regardless, in my opinion, a draft is a draft is a draft. Writing one is super GD hard, and you should feel super GD proud of it. Keep in mind, however, that your work has most likely only just begun. For real. In my experience, the only thing more dismaying than looking back at an old draft and immediately noticing your mistakes—or having those mistakes pointed out to you by a peer reader to whom you sent your draft prematurely—is realizing that you’ve sent your project to agents and editors before it was ready. Maybe the ending is sloppy, the side characters are flat. Maybe the pacing in half a dozen chapters lags. Whatever it is, it’ll be difficult to spot in the days and weeks after you’ve finished that first run-through. Take time off (read other books, organize the miscellaneous drawer in your kitchen, rob a bank, whatever…), then get back to it.

While we’re on the subject of shame…

Embrace embarrassment

This story, regrettably, is true. Back in high school, I spent a summer emceeing lumberjack shows in northern Minnesota. In flannel, boots, and jeans, I pumped up the crowds (a hundred or so, mostly families), then provided commentary for two burly lumberjacks competing in axe-throwing, logrolling, handsawing, chainsawing, and pole-climbing. One day, the older lumberjack’s sore back prevented him from climbing the pole and the competitors tied 2-2. After huddling up, they informed me that the competition would be decided by one more toss of the axe. I then turned to the stands—again, mostly families—and, trusting in my quick-feet, said, “You folks are in for a real treat today. The lumberjacks are all knotted up, so it looks like we’re gonna have ourselves a good old-fashioned j*ck-off!”

I have never been more embarrassed. Or, I should say, I had never been more embarrassed. Little did I know that the day would arrive when I’d email an agent my latest masterpiece, mistakenly addressing my query to “Mr. Ann Smith” (I changed the name here, but you get the drift). Nor did my embarrassment abate when over the following months she and her mercurial cohort responded to my project with silence.

I urge you, as I urge myself: embrace embarrassment! Laugh it off, learn from it, let it harden you, explore your emotions and see if they can help you with the next story. Whatever works for you.

But no matter what…

Don’t stop ‘til you get enough (also, don’t ever get enough)

If you’re like me, a tad on the self-demanding side, please remember to give yourself credit for your achievements, however small: a kind review, the completion of another draft, even a nice rejection letter. For instance, did you see what I did there with my initials? Pretty clever.

Be kind to yourself. Disheartened writers write disheartening books about disheartening characters. If you aren’t careful, you may fall into the same vortex of despair in which I’ve spent much of the past twelve years. If you see me there, feel free to wave, but please do keep it down—I’m working.

Fredrick Soukup is the author of Bliss (Regal House Publishing, 2020) and Blood Up North (Vine Leaves Press, 2022)