I'll Write What I Want, Thanks

To Those Whom It Definitely Doesn't Concern, But Who Still Think They Get An Opinion...

Bugger off.

Get bent, butt out, go away, take a hike, get lost, shut up, put a sock in it. Go take a long walk of a short pier. Tell it to someone who actually cares what you thing, because that person is not me.

I've been writing since I was a young child. I set my goal on becoming an author when I was thirteen and won a prize for creative writing, my very first academic achievement, ever.

Everyone seems to have different ideas of what that should look like, even though I don't recall asking any of them.

Some people insist that I should only write based off my own experience. Research is a thing that exists, thank you, even if it is becoming a dying art in the age of TikTok Hot Takes and 1,000+ streamers acting like they're the first person to discover something than fandom figured out years ago and has been arguing about ever since.

Others claim I should write whatever popular trend is currently comprising the bestseller list. I rarely write to deadlines, and some of my Works In Progress were started decades ago, or only just progressed to an outline from a concept in the back of my mind at o'dark thirty on Monday Morning. On top of that, I don't want to write a story I don't believe in, just because the theme is popular.

I want to write the stories I wanted to read, but could never find in stores. The tropes that don't fit "everyone's" fantasy, but that might make one person smile because finally, they feel seen in a way that Mainstream Media just doesn't offer.

I want the noblewoman who weighs Duty against a Youthful Infatuation, chooses Duty, and gains love anyway because she put in the work to build a relationship with a stranger. I want kindness to save the day. I want hard choices and painful consequences because the alternative is to stop caring and give up, and that's even more unthinkable.

I want to write jokes into the text for no other reason than that they make me cackle at three in the morning when I definitely shouldn't still be awake. I want to write best friends having adventures without someone whining that there's no way they're just best friends, and I'm homophobic for not making them a queer romance.

B**ch, I was writing queer storylines before Mainstream media expanded beyong killing off the Sassy Gay Friend, on the rare occasion they admitted Gay wasn't shorthand for Villain! Sometimes Friends become Lovers in due time. Sometimes, best friends are just best friends, and you don't get to dictate their ending to me.

My own characters already do that far more often than I'd like, as it is...

You know the best thing about having a Pseudonym for my 18+ Content? It means that if I ever get caught between writing a Young Adult Story, or a Short-And-Smutty version, I can just write both and claim it was a collaboration that didn't work out, resulting in two books with similar plot and character names. It wouldn't be the first time...

I wrote most of a Superhero Trilogy and a bunch of side stories, then had an idea for another side story playing with the Sex Pollen trope that definitely wasn't fit for the audience of my main series.

The same thing happened with a story that I wanted to be a deliberate twist on the Romance Tropes popular in the 90s and early 00s, and the time I decided to go ahead and write a male main character and have a go at the Destined Prince trope. Now I'm doing it again, revisiting what started as a microfiction, and then became an idea for a larger story.

"Larger" may be a relative term here, because the Smutty version will probably top out between 10,000 and 13,000 words, while the YA version will be a good bit longer.

I'm still debating whether or not to post snippets and links on Vocal or not.

I don't care if teenagers are lying about their age on the internet to read smutty fanfiction. Nor am I influenced by certain authors who think it's fine to add explicit scenes to books marketed to high schoolers. As far as I'm concerned 18+ means 18+, and I'll do my best to keep to that restriction.

Yes, I'm aware that makes me a hypocrite, since I was reading Mills and Boon novels in second hand bookstores well before my 18th birthday. It's not my fault no-one looked at the cover and redirected me.

Something I rarely see much of in Historical or Historical-Inspired romances is just how common it was for a war to end with a peace treaty and a political marriage. Likewise, England does not hold the monopoly for having to import an heir whose ancestress married into a different kingdom, and now the Ministers are digging through the collateral lines to find a suitable heir. (The UK just complains the loudest whenever it happens.)

So, I'm currently writing about a princess who is about to become Queen of another country, because the old king outlived all his heirs, and her mother was the old king's only daughter. Just as soon as she marries one of her feuding suitors, who have inferior claims to the throne but at least aren't foreigners like she is. She definitely has a preference, but the most important thing is to bring stability to a country on the edge of Civil War.

Perhaps no-one but me will enjoy it. Or perhaps some medival history enthusiast will wake up their siblings or room-mates by shrieking "Yes! That's accuracy right there! Finally!" in the wee hours after they were supposed to turn the lights out.

Either way, I'll write it how I want to write it, and anyone who prefers a storyline where she runs away to marry her crush, plunging at least two kingdoms into bloody hostilities, can go write their own novel.

With all sincerity

Natasja Rose, Independant Author