I’m relatively new to romance reading, but have found that I really enjoy the genre. When I was growing up, my family really frowned on romance novels, so I never read them. In college, I studied English lit, and my program and classmates really frowned on any sort of genre fiction, it was literary fic or nothing for us.

I really enjoyed watching Bridgerton on Netflix and have slowly been working my way through Julia Quinn’s entire repertoire as it becomes available at my library. During wait times, I’ve been reading a small handful of kindle unlimited romances. Most of what I’ve read so far has been historical romance or time travel romance.

Prior to this year, I did read some books that I think straddled the lines of romance and literary fiction or other genres. I’ve read a lot of Austen, the Bronte sisters, and other literary fiction that some may consider the predecessors to romance. I’ve adored Outlander for a few years now. I fell in love with Helen Hoang’s books thanks to my local library. I also read the Twilight and 50 shades series when they were at the height of their popularity. Period dramas are also almost exclusively what I watch on TV.

I took a handful of creative writing classes in college and have lots of experience writing more business-geared topics, but I have never written a novel before. I have what I think is a good idea for a historical romance novel, but all the advice says to read a lot of romance before writing it and I feel like I’ve just barely scratched the surface. So, what does a lot mean in this context?