Hello, Lou Sylvre here with some more ramblings, the opportunity for which I’m much obliged to Love Bytes. I’m going to wax on about motivations, and why I think it does, and doesn’t matter what they are.

Just about every time I’ve been interviewed as an author, I’m asked some version of this question:
Why do you write in the M/M romance genre?

Sometimes the question implies that a cause of social justice is involved in my choice, which implies that if equality were a reality, I would write something different. I wouldn’t. And although I champion the cause of equality for all kinds of reasons in a number of ways,

that isn’t why I write what I write.

I write these romances because I develop a love-annoyance (not hate) relationship with the characters. To clarify, a character pops up in my imagination and makes himself known, his counterpart follows forthwith. They knock around in my mind until I begin to understand them, their motivations, their fears, their humanity. Then they know they have me by hair, and they start in. They annoy me, demanding attention on the page, and measuring out little bits of their story into my days and my dreams. I love them, so I want to write their story and want to give them a happy ever after. And, they annoy the heck out of me, so I want to get it over with in the hopes that they’ll stop. (No, that never works.)

The really cool beans is that many times readers and reviewers have told me thay love my characters too! And if people love fictional gay men, that love will likely influence their lives and the lives of people around them. So I guess even though I don’t come to the stories carrying a protest sign, they fight inequality anyway.

I’ve been asked if homophobia was the issue I try to address in my stories.

No, that’s not why I write what I write.

I’ve also had people wonder why include marriage and homophobia in the same story. Well, let’s face it. GLBT-Q people may celebrate the one, but they are almost certain to be faced with the other, to one degree or another, more than once in their lives. And, I want the characters I love and put up with to celebrate the long-time-coming right to wed one another. But, I’d be presenting a falsehood (which fiction should never do) if I were to leave out the not so sweet side living while gay. So, even though it’s not why I write the stories with homophobia, I guess they do address it in a truthful way.

So there you have it. The reasons, and not-the-reasons, I write stories about gay men who love each other, and the way it doesn’t, and does, matter.

Thanks for reading! See you next month.