The Phantom Librarian

I've gotten a pretty nice handful of illustrations in the last couple of months, and I can't resist jumping up and down and saying, "Look at the pretty pictures!!!" (My reactions to art are just so sophisticated, really... ;))

Anyway, I've kept up an Illustrators' Gallery at Vader's Mask for quite a long time, and I thought I should open one up at HB, to say thanks to the people who have really made my day with art. So, here's the HB Illustrators' Gallery, with pictures from sannalim, marycontraria, and uraneia (so far; I'm still waiting for okays from a couple of other people).

Just for a lark, I went over to the Harlequin website. And I'm thinking... low hanging fruit. They want a couple of characters falling in love. In one line (Silhouette Romance), I could even stick with my predilection of waiting for marriage before consummation (one of the other lines, I don't remember which, specified at least two "fully consummated love scenes"). In the Intrigue line, I could even have a suspenseful plot, as long as the characters plan to bang each other at some point.

I really couldn't write something that I wouldn't respect myself for. But could I treat a genre I've always despised respectfully enough to write something worth reading? It would certainly be a total break from everything I've been writing, and I was saying I needed to make such a break.

But...

Harlequin?

Could I really write for a company that's synonymous with "mass-produced drivel"?

I guess the answer's no. If for no other reason that I wouldn't disrespect potential readers by saying, "Well, at least it would be money."