I've Gotta Stop Calling Myself a Women's Fiction Author

Full disclosure: I don't read women's fiction.

I might read it if every women's fiction book blurb didn't sound so depressing. I'm past the age where I want to wallow. Wallowing can be cathartic to a point, but then one realizes she just needs to get over herself. When I was younger and hormonal, I could read fiction about a women feeling sorry for herself and sink into that warm cocoon of self-pity. See? That character feels just like I do! 

I get it. Women's fiction readers either want to relate or to discover someone whose life is even more miserable than theirs. Drama! The more over the top drama, the better. The character's husband is a jerk. Because he can't see what she's feeling. He's self-involved; his expectations of marriage don't allow her any agency. She's his victim. But one day she'll get her revenge. She'll...well, she'll one day just pack up and leave. Discover the real her; live a new, authentic life.

Yawn.

I wonder if women read Gone Girl and see Amy as the heroine of the story.

I hated that movie. I didn't read the book because everyone told me I had to read the book. 

Now I understand why my ideal reader is an old(er) person. Because life doesn't consist of villains and victims. If we're victims, we're victims of ourselves. My husband was being completely unreasonable yesterday, over something minor that he caused but chose to blame me for. I was irritated. It happened right before we were going to sit down to watch the latest episode of the series we're bingeing. I was tempted to give him the cold shoulder, to let him know in no uncertain terms that I was pissed...and that it was all his fault. Then I asked myself what was in it for me to be miserable. So, I got over it. Maybe I should have packed up and left? 

I filled out my submission for the Indie Author Project contest yesterday, and when I got to the genre portion, I cringed. I'd already taken a look at the women's fiction novels in their "Select" collection, and their descriptions were all utterly depressing. 

"(character name redacted), forty-five-years decides it’s her time to rediscover the woman she used to be. As she starts out on this exciting and scary journey, she tries to navigate through the problems in her marriage..." 

"(character name redacted) has only wanted two things her entire life— a successful marriage and a family to call her own. When both are put to the test, she has to fight not to lose herself and everything she stands for."

"For too many years, (character name redacted has been numbing the pain in her life with random sexual encounters. Her marriage to cold, self-centered Nick is, not surprisingly, on the rocks."

That's not the company my novel wants to keep. Not that there's anything wrong with those stories, I'm sure. They found their way into the collection, so they're obviously better than mine. I'm not comparing quality. It's that writing those themes would not make me happy, and I want to be happy. 

So, I went with General/Contemporary Fiction, then Women's Fiction as a secondary genre. For the Minnesota IAP contest, there were broader choices, so I picked Adult Fiction, then Coming of Age, and finally, Women's Fiction. (Apparently in the world of book selling, the go-to category for any novel with a female protagonist is women's fiction, so I chose not to rebel completely.)

No, Running From Herself will never make it into the Select collection, but I wanted to at least give it a fighting chance. 

Since I'm told it's important for my author site to have a descriptive tag for visibility and click-through rate, I've now changed mine to "Writer of stories about women finally meeting themselves". Now I need to change my bio and whatever the hell else identifies me as a women's fiction author. Because I'm done with that label. Either I have to change the description of my writing or women's fiction needs to change, and that's not happening.

If anyone is choosing my novels for a chance to wallow or to exorcise their hormonal demons, they've picked the wrong gal. 

I'm too old for that bullshit.