There’s a thing in writing. I call it a thing because I’m not entirely sure what to call it. It’s not a myth. It’s not a rule. It could be considered advice, but I’ve never taken it, and I don’t believe you have to. It’s just…a thing.

That writers should write the book they want to read.

I’ve never done this.

Until…

When I wrote my first book I wrote it in the vein, or so I thought, of Jackie Collins. She was, and still is, my author mentor and inspiration. But I never saw it as a book I wanted to read.

Neither was my second, my third, my fourth, or even the Porn Star Brothers, nor the novels that came after it, and there’s been a few. None of them were the type of book I wanted to read. None of my books, that I wrote, were the type of books I wanted to read in others. Because I wanted to read the glitzy glamourous Hollywood in Jackie Collins books, and the middle grade stories of my childhood in Nancy Drew.

Because all I wanted to do was read a good book, regardless of storyline, regardless of author. Because I didn’t know I should be writing that type of book. And because I just didn’t give a fat rat’s about what I was supposed to be doing when it came to writing.

But, as all things go, I realised earlier this year, that, in a way, I’m writing the type of character I want to read. The type of storyline and outcome I want to read.

I don’t write them to produce the type of story I want to read. I write them because it’s the type of character I want to read about.

The character who, to quote my mentor, Jackie Collins, kicks ass and doesn’t get her ass kicked.

That’s the type of character I’ve been writing, and didn’t even know it until it came up earlier this year. I don’t remember where, online or in real life, and possibly because of my editor’s thought’s on my emotional tone, that it started rolling into my brain as a concrete idea.

I write kick ass women who aren’t afraid to stand up to men. Who don’t cower, who don’t shrink away at the slightest sound or raised voice. Who kick ass and have fun doing it. The type of woman I want to read about. The type of women Jackie used to write, like Lucky Santangelo. A kick-ass woman.

I want my women to be like that, and many are from the get-go. I want my weak at the beginning of the book victims to grow tough and stand up for themselves when they’re given a hand up, not a hand out, to grow tough and strong by the end. I want my women to know who they are, and be settled in who they are and what they do, and what they want out of life and men.

I want my men hot and gorgeous and willing to stand up for the woman they love, not put them down and beat them to a pulp.

I want mature, sane adults in my novels, with the exception of stalkers and killers who absolutely get their comeuppance. I don’t want drunken bitches who fall apart at the drop of a hat because of some shit in their past they can’t move on from or let go of. Or drugged out bitches who’d rather pop pills with their alcohol instead of facing the truth and their life. I want mature strong women who kick ass.

So yes, looking back over all of the books I’ve written, I don’t write the type of books I want to read, because my taste is eclectic, but I do write the type of characters I want to read about. The type of characters I want to be. The type of adult storyline where the good guys get their rewards and the bad guys their death. That’s the type of story I want to read, regardless of anything else.