Sometimes I feel like if I hear the word “genre” one more time, my head will explode. I know it’s a legitimate word about a legitimate thing, but it’s so frustrating sometimes to try to figure out where my book fits. I’ve worked on my latest book for many months. During that time, I’ve tried my best to figure out what genre to put it in. Because, you know, you HAVE to. It has to go somewhere. So, is it… Horror? Paranormal? Paranormal romance? Thriller? Murder mystery? Supernatural thriller? Ack! I really hope my beta readers will be able to help me with this, because this is the first time I’ve never had a clue.

So now we segue into pen names and new directions…which also involves genre. I can’t get away from this word! Anyway, almost two years ago, I started what I was going to call a Christian Romance. And I was going to write this book under my real name instead of my pen name. I wanted something I could actually let my church friends read. I abandoned that idea after only writing about 15% of it because I was afraid it would take time away from my Lauralynn Elliott books. Today, I was thinking about a couple of things. First, I wonder if I should abandon the idea of writing Christian Romance and write “Sweet Romance”. I think there might be a bigger readership if that’s how I market it. I could get the Christian romance readers because they know there won’t be graphic sex in it, but also maybe get readers that don’t necessarily want to read books with the word Christian in them. I would have to rework a little bit in this book so it won’t sound so “judgy” in places. The second issue is the fact that it could push back publication of my other books. I’ve never been able to write two books at the same time. But I know others that do it, so it CAN be done. If I set aside certain times or certain days for each of the books, maybe I could pull it off. And it might be helpful if I’m stuck on one to be able to work on the other.

So what do you all think? How do you feel about genres? Have you ever had problems figuring out where your books fit? Do you write in different genres? Do you use more than one pen name?

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