My take on paranormals

My all-time favorite TV show is The X-Files (for the first six or seven seasons, anyway), but I don't consider myself a fan of paranormals. Why? Well, what I loved about The X-Files was the sexual chemistry between Scully and Mulder, and the impeccable writing. NOT the aliens. I was such a die-hard fan that I watched even the alien conspiracy theory episodes just so I wouldn't have missed any plot lines when we returned to the wonderfully written stand-alone episodes.

In a similar way, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (not just ANY crappy old Star Wars movie, mind you, but specifically the first two that came out) are two of my favorite movies ever, but I don't consider myself a fan of science fiction. I love them because of the sexual chemistry between Han and Leia, and because George Lucas researched how to write a captivating story before he wrote these stories, and it worked.

What interests me in a story is the plotline itself, attention to writing, chemistry between the characters, a sense of humor PLEASE, and a happy ending THANK YOU. If you want to do that with vampires, that is okay with me. But I would never, EVER pick up a book BECAUSE it had a vampire in it, and I find that way of thinking very foreign.

So I guess it makes sense that my adult paranormal manuscript making the rounds in the publishing industry right now is romantic and funny. Whether it would pass muster with die-hard paranormal fans, I don't know. And maybe it won't find a publisher because of that.

I'm finding the current paranormal craze difficult to navigate. It is hard to go into a bookstore to sign your new release and have the bookseller tell you you're not on the featured table simply because your book doesn't have vampires in it.

But this too shall pass. In the 1990s when I was first trying to get a book published, Goosebumps were the craze, and the very limited YA sections of bookstores contained almost nothing else. (Today we probably wouldn't even consider Goosebumps YA--they would be Middle Grade.) I kept writing YA romance, and finally in 2005, the market and I met.

We will meet again.