#MFRWAuthor 52-Week Challenge: Family

It's week 2 of Marketing for Romance Writers' 52-Week Blog Challenge. I love that we have topics. So much easier to write when someone else comes up with a topic.

HOW MY FAMILY SURVIVES MY WRITING.

When I first started writing over twenty years ago, I was embarrassed to tell my family. My kids were in high school, and I could feel them rolling their eyes if I told them I was writing a romance story. To my surprise, they thought it was great. Hubs thought it was a nice hobby until I told him I was serious about this, that I was writing to be published. This was my business.

He supported me when I said I wanted to take a class at our local library on starting a small business offered by the Michigan State University Extension Service. In fact, he’s supported me all along. While he prefers reading nonfiction, he will read my books. I’m not sure he realizes how interruptions can be very distracting. But every morning (my best time to write) he’ll go downstairs to his office, leaving me in peace. When I buried or on deadline (my own, since I’m self-published), he’ll make dinner. Now that’s support!

My kids, now grown with children of their own, say they’re proud of me. But it’s got to be uncomfortable for them to read the sex scenes knowing their mother wrote them.

When the 3 “Moms”—my mother, mother-in-law, and her sister—read my first book, Switched, that had some quite sensual scenes, it made me uncomfortable. They told me they skipped those parts. LOL Unfortunately, they passed away before my other books were published. I think they would have enjoyed my PI mysteries a lot better than the science fiction romances. My sisters enjoy the mysteries better, too.

My grandchildren are too young to read my books. But they write their own stories with me. I found this wonderful program, My StoryMaker, from the Carnegie Library at Pittsburgh. The kids choose the characters, setting, tools, etc. and tell me the story, which I type for them. At the end of the story, I print it out for them to show their parents. We’ve been doing this since before they started school. Five years later, their stories are now longer with more depth. It’s great combining something I love (writing) with fun time with the kiddies.

I am truly blessed by my family’s support.

Here's the link to the others participating in the challenge: http://mfrw.blogspot.com/2017/01/join-us-its-week-2-mfrwauthor-52-week.html