I’m not gone. I have been writing and I have been working–I just haven’t finished anything recently…

Current projects include The Sapience Convention, now the title holder for longest ongoing WIP; a historical novella that was supposed to be a short story but had other ideas; a sword and sorcery serial that needs a serious rewrite; and a romance trilogy.

Wait, romance?

Yes, romance.

You see, the first thing I self-published, way back in 2012, was a romance novelette: a Beauty and the Beast retelling. At the time, I thought it was erotica, because I hadn’t done my research. I mean, I had read a few romance novels, and I had had sex, but I had no earthly idea about the genre conventions. Still, the story did all right, and I added my take on Little Red Riding Hood, as well as Tam Lin, which is my favorite of the Child ballads. And you probably haven’t heard of the Child ballads, so let me reiterate that I didn’t do research for those works.

Or, rather, I didn’t do the right research. I read a great many fairy tale variations and I’m pretty dang annoyed with reviews that say, “this is just like the Disney movie”, because it’s not–it’s like the Charles Perrault version, and Disney also used the Perrault story as a source.

That’s a tangent, though, and what I mean to share is that this time I’m doing my research, and I’m doing it in the most obsessive academic way that I can manage to study a popular fiction genre that gets very little respect, academic or otherwise.

I’m doing an MFA in Romance. A DIY Romance MFA, because I already have that Master’s in Marine Affairs that I’m not using much, I don’t need the student debt, and there are literally like three creative writing MFA programs that accept popular romance, let alone genre writing. Oh, and I have a toddler now, so scheduling is hard but I can read and take notes on my smartphone.

I’ll be posting about the progress of my Romance MFA over at RomanceMFA.com but there will be increased activity over here on my personal blog too. And, for the record, I’ve always been on Twitter @bloshb but now you can see the gobs of romance related links flowing across my screen at @RomMFA too.