Inspirations

I feel like I can't truly describe what inspired me to write romances until I talk about Megan Derr.

There was a time when I was in high school that I began to realize there was more gay romances out there than just fanfiction. This search led me to Fictionpress and eventually Megan Derr. At the time, she had posted a great many m/m sappy, lovely, sexy, fluffy romances. I read a great many of them, but my favorites were her Fairytales Slashed series.

Let me tell you, I have read those short stories so often that I can literally open this book to any page and just start reading and thoroughly enjoy myself. I don't need to be at the beginning of a story or even in any logical place, I have it memorized. Any one of Megan Derr's short stories or novels are my ultimate comfort read. When I want something light and romantic and a happy ending, I go to her.

Now I don't know the life story of Megan Derr, but I do know she eventually took down all her works on Fictionpress and moved some to her website and others she began to publish through Less Than Three Press. Since I couldn't get all my kicks for free, I began to purchase some of her novels/collections, especially the older works I knew so well.

(please don't judge some of the other books in frame. I judge myself every day for owning Twilight)

I still have plans to basically collect all of her works, but this is a good start.

So flash forward to a few years ago when I decided that I wanted to try getting published. I wanted to try to find small publishers that would be more likely to accept my work. Naturally, one of the first places I looked was Less Than Three. At the time they had submission calls out for more Fairytales Slashed stories and I decided to try and write a couple of original fairytales.

I've never known if this is super obvious, but I did write those stories as if I was Megan Derr. I tried to use her same style, same tropes, same fluffiness. And it worked! I got published for the first time!

(Admittedly, I do think my first couple of stories are a bit rough, but I blame that entirely on being inexperienced on the whole short story business)

I've branched out since then. I've tried different ideas and moved from short stories to novels, but I do think a bit of my Megan Derr inspiration is there in every romance I write. Or maybe I just think "would my high school self love to read this?" and I go from there.