Sunday Special: New Guest Blog Is Up for Author Gemma Juliana…

Folks, it’s Sunday. And as it’s the Sunday before Christmas — a holiday nearly everyone in the Western Hemisphere observes, whether in its breach or in its keeping — I have an extra-special treat for you.

Author Gemma Juliana and I got to know each other due to our participation in the Exquisite Christmas anthology. I have two stories there, both featuring shapeshifter (and woman of size) Marja and her lover, Tomas, a telepathic mountain Troll. But Gemma has me beat — she has three stories in the anthology!

(And all of them are great reads, too. You really must go and see.)

Anyway, I enjoyed chatting with Gemma so much via e-mail, she was the very first person I asked for a guest blog. And while her holiday schedule was full, she said I could guest for her — while she’ll guest for me after the New Year. (I can’t wait!)

My guest blog for Gemma discusses the differences between writing romance for teens/young adults and more mature adults, and I used my characters Bruno and Sarah as foils for Marja and Tomas. This is not the same blog you have already seen, either; I wrote a few iterations on this topic, and I actually wrote this one for Gemma first.

Anyway, here’s a wee bit from this guest blog:

…about the only thing Marja and Tomas have in common with my young Elfy protagonist Bruno and his mostly human teenage girlfriend, Sarah, is that despite the somewhat exotic subject matter, their romances feel genuine. We can empathize with them, because they have quirks and flaws, just as we all do.

Now, when you’re talking about teenagers and their first forays into romance, there obviously are some differences from writing about two settled adults such as Marja and Tomas. Bruno and Sarah are experiencing everything for the very first time – the first time they hold hands, the first time they kiss, is special. They don’t know what they’re doing, but they know they want to be doing it…and they know they’re going to do it “come the seventeen Hells or water over the levees,” as Bruno would say.

Then I used a few examples, one from A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE, and one from the second of my two stories in Exquisite Christmas, “To Hunt the Hunter.”

So please, do go take a look at this guest blog — then, if you would be so kind, check out the sample chapters of A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE if you haven’t yet read them. They may just intrigue you…or at least make you laugh.

And isn’t having a good laugh important at this time of year?