Aroace thoughts/rants

Writing

The more and more I write my book and post about it in TikTok to get people interested and such, the closer I get to actually finishing the book and people are gonna read it. And part of me is so excited for No Regrets because there's barley any romance in it, like not even enough to be a subplot none of my 2 main characters have a love interest. Well...they're kinda each others love interest, but it's platonic.

The point is, there's such little romance in this book and a lot of platonic love I am so happy with it and I can't wait for other people like me who value platonic love on a deep level to read my book and hopefully other people who don't value platonic love as much read it and kinda realist important too. Like I'm so excited to impact people the way my favorite book and show impacted me because the reason I love them so much is platonic love. And even those had hints of romance in them, which is fine I'm not talking about that right now. But I wanna write a book that someone loves because it's not about romance. If someone reads my book, reviews it, and says "I love how it focused on platonic love instead of romance" or "the lack of romance was so interesting and there isn't a lot of that and I like that the author didn't just follow what everyone else was doing" like that is my goal as an author with No Regrets specifically. Kinda with all my books but No Regrets especially.

But then there's also that fear no one will read it because I'm saying upfront "there's not a lot of romance" and "it's platonic love" I'm scared people are gonna hate Rue because there's a few times she makes fun of romance, calls it silly and stupid basically. She says "sometimes I feel like I'm the only sane person because I'm not fooled by romance" im not trying to call people who like romance fools, and even if Rue is just a tiny bit, I don't want people to hate her character.

Im afraid people will ignore me saying it's not about romance or people who read my book without seeing any of my promotional stuff on TikTok will be mad they don't kiss or confess love (which they do say I love you but again it's platonic)

Im afraid people will ship the two main characters (I also see them shipping Rosalie, one of the villains and Rue. Bc enemies to lovers is so popular and Rosalie says something that can be interpreted as her liking Rue, but she doesn't like her. And I'm mainly scared of people shipping them bc I just really can't stand enemies to lovers. There's a difference between like enemies to lovers, they don't like each other and the banter but then fall in love, and like use to try and kill each other all the time and then fall in love ya know? Like I just...I don't like most tropes at all honestly and it's because most tropes are romance tropes and I don't like romance...) ANYWAYS im scared people won't like the book because of lack of romance.

Like lack of romance is the whole point.

I don't like wanna be canceled on booktok bc I paint romance in a bad light. Which...I mean maybe I do that but like my goal in writing No Regrets or any book I write is to not put romance above friendship.

In my WIP unwritten (this one's connected to my woodland mansion one 👀) there's a lesbian romance subplot (mostly for character development but also I like gay romance more than straight romance so most of my romance subplots are probably gay) and a gay romance sub plot BUT (I can't believe I'm giving you this exclusive information...I'll delete this part later probably...) BUT he had the chance to run off with his Prince Charming and he declines and stays with his best friend. But I don't mean to do that to put romance down, but it just wasn't In his character to leave his best friend like that. And like what if people get so mad about that? Or like they see it as sad? Like it's a little sad sure, it's bittersweet. Because as much as he loved his Prince Charming, he wouldn't take him over his best friend. And he hoped his love interest would stay so he could still be with him and his best friend but "Prince Charming" (he has a name I'm just not reveling it yet...it's not like a big secret or anything it's just not my main wip rn) wanted to go so yeah.

Anyways I feel like I lost my train of thought basically I am so excited to write my book for those who love platonic love but I hope people aren't disappointed in lack of romance or it doesn't do well because of the lack of romance. Because it kinda unsettles me/makes me mad that romance is so prioritized and it's everywhere and I just...I'll never get it. I try and see that other people love it so much because it does for them what platonic love does for me, but like everyone is wrong books/songs/whatever and there's always romance. Whether it be a subplot or main plot but even if it's a subplot it takes over and I'm afraid that even though I don't have a romantic subplot, people will just create one.

And I know I can't control people and they can think what they want and interpret my book how they want, one of my strongest opinions is interested art however you want. But like...I really don't want a romantic interpretation of my book. Because I just really want people not take away from the book, if they take away one thing at all, I want them to take away the beauty of platonic love. How it can't be just as special as romantic and not every story needs romance. Not every character needs a love interest. A character or story isn't incomplete if there's no romantic love interest.

I guess bottom line is, the most important thing to me in writing is my books touch the hearts of people who need to hear platonic love is incredibly powerful, beautiful, important, and special. And I don't want romance to force it's way into it and ruin it for the people who loved it because of the platonic love. (Totally not referring to what happened with my favorite show....totally not...)

So yeah. That's all. Thanks for listening and I'm wishing you all a great day/night. Take care 💚💜