{"id":123,"date":"2011-10-01T10:49:34","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T15:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=123"},"modified":"2025-08-24T11:43:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T16:43:52","slug":"writing-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/writing-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"The gatekeepers, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-17203\" src=\"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/20111001_venn.png\" alt=\"Venn diagram\" width=\"235\" height=\"155\">There\u2019s a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Set\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Venn<\/a> intersection of writing themes going around the blogs in the last couple of months or so that I find absolutely fascinating.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>A. The \u201cwrite from your heart\u201d blog roundup:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/smartbitchestrashybooks.com\/2008\/09\/want-some-visual-romance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Smart Bitches<\/a>: \u201cSo if you needed inspiration today, make art! Write something. Don\u2019t listen to anyone who tells you romance novels aren\u2019t art &#8211; they are to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indent\"><span class=\"blue\"><strong>I\u2019m going to paraphrase that from \u201cromance novels\u201d to \u201cromance that do not have anything in common with what\u2019s on the bookshelves.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>B. The write what will make you a living.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20081013151855\/https:\/\/dearauthor.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/09\/where-have-all-the-good-contemporary-authors-gone\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dear Author<\/a>: \u201cWhere have all the good contemporary romance authors gone?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well, you can read the thread and the answer to the question is: Midlist. There are a few names that keep cropping up, but those authors can only write so fast. The consensus seems to me to be that<\/p>\n<p class=\"center\"><strong><span class=\"big125\"><em>A<\/em>\u2229<em>B<\/em><\/span><br \/>\nWhat the readers will actually read.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The question going around the writing world (at least for the last 50 years) is: <strong><em>What do readers want?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is the wrong question.<\/p>\n<p>The right question is: <strong><em>What will readers read and like if presented with it?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Likewise, there\u2019s another Venn diagram of reading themes going around a few of the same blogs.<\/p>\n<div class=\"indent\">A. The \u201cI don\u2019t want to read about a character who does X.\u201d<br \/>\nB. The \u201cI want to read more of Y, but publishers aren\u2019t putting that out.\u201d<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong><span class=\"big125\"><em>A<\/em>\u2229<em>B<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a Venn intersection of writing themes going around the blogs in the last couple of months or so that I find absolutely fascinating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[525,532],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publishing","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18533,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/18533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}