First, thank you so much for having me back! This is a very fun place for writers to hang out.

Creating a rich backstory for our characters is one of the first things we do as writers in working on a book. In the title of this post, I’m referring to a very particular sort of past, the sort referenced in the“a woman with a past” (funny we don’t talk about “a man with a past”—the old double standard at work). Part of developing characters is thinking through their sexual and romantic history. This is perhaps particularly important in a love story. The characters’ previous experiences will inform their attitudes toward love and sex and relationships. They will influence how the characters interact with each other, even if they are consciously trying to do things differently this time. In the case of characters with a checkered past, their pasts will also affect their position in society (much more so for the women than the men thanks again to double standards) and perhaps threaten their prospect of a happy ending (think of the Camille/La Traviata).

There are a host of questions to consider, from the simplest and most obvious “have they ever had sex?” “have they ever been in love?” to the more complex “do they think sex and love have anything to do with each other? “do they believe romantic relationships can last?” And of course “what experiences underlie these beliefs?” Often your plot will dictate elements of your characters’ pasts. When I began developing Charles and Mélanie Fraser in my current series (Daughter of the Game/Secrets of a Lady and Beneath a Silent Moon so far), I knew from the initial premise that Mélanie would be a sexually experienced heroine. It’s all tied up in the secrets that are the core of the first book. Mélanie was a teen-aged prostitute after she was left an orphan on the streets during the Peninsular War. Later, she was a spy, and at times slept with men for information.

I thought for a bit of giving Charles a rakish past of his own. But as I thought through the story more, I decided I wanted him to be more of a contrast to Mélanie. Mélanie has a quite pragmatic attitude toward sex. Charles takes sex a lot more seriously. He’s much more inclined to romanticize it and at the same time much less comfortable with desire. As Mélanie says in Beneath a Silent Moon, “Lovemaking doesn’t always have to mean more than an exchange of pleasure. Surely there’s no harm if the pleasure is mutual.”

To which Charles replies, “That reduces us to rutting animals.

And Mélanie says, “Perhaps animals have the right idea. They don’t try to think about everything so much.”

Charles is inclined to think about everything, which is one of the things I love about him. He can’t separate sex from its emotional resonances, which is why he’s constitutionally incapable of being a libertine. As he thinks in Secrets of a Lady, “Intimacy was difficult enough for him. He could never bring himself to pay for the substitute.”

Working out why your characters have the attitudes they do toward sex and love often means looking back even before their first love affairs. To explain how Charles developed his attitudes, I gave him parents who were the sort of late 18th century aristocrats depicted in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Charles’s reaction to the environment he grew up in was to be quite the opposite.

Another decision I made early on was not to make Mélanie an experienced woman who’s romantically untouched until she meets her true love. She was in love with her spymaster up to when she met Charles and overlapping with her falling in love (against her better judgment) with her husband. I knew that very early in my planning of the book, before I had all the elements of the Charles/Melanie/Raoul triangle worked out. I hadn’t thought of it until I started writing on this topic, but I wonder now if I was subconsciously reacted against the archetype of the experienced heroine whose heart remains untouched until she meets the hero. Mélanie’s past with Raoul in turn drove some of the plot twists.

It’s hard for me, looking back now, to think I even considered making Charles a rake. His and Mélanie’s different pasts and different attitudes toward love and sex continue to create interesting tensions and complications between them as the series continues. Their pasts are so much a part of who they both are now that I can’t imagine them any other way.

At what point in working developing a story do you think about your characters’ sexual and romantic pasts? Do you find your characters’ pasts inform their attitudes toward love and sex or do you consciously give them a past history that would lead to the attitudes you need for your story?

As happens often when authors gather, I fell into a discussion on GMC last week – for those who haven’t heard this term, it stands for Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, which collectively form the basis of all successful storytelling. The discussion was timely since I’m again wrestling with the conflict in my own story.

My characters’ internal conflicts usually involve trust issues. This tendency is so ubiquitous that you can define the theme of my entire body of work as trust. I’ve always believed that a successful relationship between any two people – parent/child, siblings, friends, lovers, spouses – has to be based on trust. Distrust makes one or both parties secretive, jealous, and aloof as each hides his/her real self behind thick walls, fearing to reveal vulnerability and open their cores to pain.

Which is why resolving a conflict based on a lack of trust is so tricky. How does one prove that he/she is trustworthy? How does a lifelong rake convince a heroine that he will remain a monogamous, supportive spouse who harbors no remorse over the loss of his former activities? Our culture is full of sayings like leopards don’t change their spots. How does the character who disappeared without a word, leaving his/her betrothed standing alone at the altar, prove that he/she won’t do it again? After all, there was no hint of impending doom the first time around. How can the unrestrained gamester convince anyone he has changed? Or the drunkard, addict, abuser, or any other character with a serious flaw?

Yet authors are expected to create characters with just such flaws, then help those characters resolve their problems over the course of the book. The other characters must ultimately accept that these changes are real and permanent, letting them lock the former bad behavior into the past, never to be remembered again. The author’s problem is finding a way to make this believable to readers because, frankly, few of us would accept such changes as more than an act if we faced them in real life. How many times does the abuser apologize, cry, and swear it will never happen again? How many times does the shopaholic vow to adhere to a budget? Most people who live in the modern world are cynical about the ability of people to actually follow through on such resolutions. Anyone intimate with the ones who try remains constantly alert for any sign of backsliding. In other words, trust doesn’t return easily. Promises mean nothing unless trust already exists.

I’ve done the impossible before, of course. To get 28 titles in print, I’ve had to. I even had one book in which I deliberately set out to see how bad I could make the hero and still redeem him. Devall’s Angel was lauded in many quarters, winning several awards. But I admit that I cheated just a bit. Once the heroine dug through the thick screen of social ostracism and lurid rumor, Devall’s goals were laudable and his motivation heroic, so she only had to divert his execution onto more acceptable paths.

My current dilemma is not so easy, though the hero’s public image is nowhere near as bad as Devall’s was. But the current hero broke trust with the heroine by disappearing without a trace, leaving her in an untenable position. She has come about in the intervening decade, rebuilding her life and developing new goals and motivations. His sudden reappearance is thus a problem on many levels. His presence resurrects feelings she no longer wants. His disappearance might be understandable in lieu of new information, but the callous way he handled that old situation remains unacceptable. So why should she trust him? It isn’t only herself that she must worry about this time around. She has two young children who depend on her to protect and support them. How can she expose them to potential harm by allowing the hero back into her heart? It is easier to take chances when the only potential victim is oneself, but a heroine mother must always put her children’s interests first.

Which brings me back to MY dilemma – how can he prove that he is trustworthy? What test must he pass before she can tear down the wall surrounding her heart? So far, all my ideas are clichéd or trite, which I refuse to consider. Eventually she will tell me how to resolve this dilemma. I just wish she’d get on with it…

April: With the current kerfuffle over at RWA about the non inclusiveness of RWA’s current leadership, there’s been a lot of discussion about whether epubbed authors should be more fairly represented and considered when making decisions. Of course, there’s a ton of back and forth going around about President Pershing’s June RWR report. There’s Deidre Knights awe-inspiring and very succinct response (with President Pershing’s jaw-droppingly… ahem… interesting (?) comment) and finally Angela James’ response from the publishing perspective (excellent, well-thought out… moved Samhain publishing to the top of the heap in my books).

As you can tell, I side with  a lot of epubs simply because I’ve seen so many of these authors and their work. I don’t care what you think of some of the epublishers out there but I know some authors for the better known publishers that work very hard. They produce good to excellent stuff and they don’t deserve to be treated as a red-headed step-child.

Yes, there are epubs out there who publish junk. Yes, a few epubs are unethical and some have disappeared overnight. But we should be working to help writers avoid those fly by nights and get contract negotiations in their favor.

Kendal: This epub thing is a hornets nest, so let me grab my stick and poke away. As a published author in epub format I may have a bit different of an outlook. I am currently published with Freya’s Bower and soon to be with Red Rose Publishing. The reason I have choosen the epub road is because until recently I have only written shorter pieces that did not have a print home. I think that there are good epublishers and there are bad ones, and it is okay for RWA to have a standard to meet. Vanity publishers should definitely not be included.

But who decides? I really am a little too new into this world to have a strong opinion if that folks running RWA have the right to pick and choose at random or if they have a set system that is actually fair. If as an author I can sell a piece and receive a certain level of royalty for it, than yes I believe wholeheartedly I should be a recognized author in the eyes of RWA. My story didn’t take any less skill to write, it just had a home in epublishing. Or at least that is my opinion on the subject. 

I believe that I would stronger, as would others, benefit from some constructive help and guidance from RWA. I think you nailed that one on the head, April.

April: Excellent points Kendal. As an epubbed author, you do deserve recognition. And we could (as we are prone to do here on Tuesday Smackdown) jump into the fray but I wanted to move to something much more constructive, especially with all the talk of change going on in RWA.

So here’s what we’d like to devote this Tuesday Smackdown too… EPUBBED AUTHORS. (yeaaaahhh… whooohooo)

In a perfect world, what changes would epubbed authors like industry-wide to make the industry more professional and equitable toward writers?

I’ve already heard on the boards that contest inclusion of epubbed authors is a must. That restraints shouldn’t be made just because the only way they can get to print is through POD.

There’s also inclusion of epublishing workshops at RWA conference.

But what about minimum royalties? Standards for inclusion for epub authors in Pan or PRO? Contract musts and contract minefields?

What standards should be in place for epubs to be included on RWA’s list of pubs?

And at what point does an organization draw the line between a group like Lulu.com or some online vanity press vs a “legit” for profit romance epublisher?

Jump in and let us know what you’d like to see!!!!

I would like to thank everyone for the lovely comments on my last posting regarding Nationals. After my 3 a.m. confession, I took a break from reading any comments for a few days because I felt strange and nervous and, well, exposed for having been so honest about something I struggle with that seems so darn silly. Blogging itself is strange. Putting yourself out there in front of innumerable people, sort of privately enclosed in your own world, sort of totally… open. Vulnerable. You can chose not to be, of course, and that is fine too, but it’s sort of nice to be able to share — say what you will about “tell all” blogging. The need to confess can’t have sprung from no place inside of Augustine (roughly 1700 years ago, if memory serves). I think it’s part of being human and being social. Humans needing other humans to be human and all that — perhaps the most fundamental aspect of romance. But that’s quite enough of *that*. Back to the regularly scheduled blog…

… by way of yoga. Last Friday I went to a yoga workshop and actually had to leave because the room was so crowded (an inch between each mat — no joke) and the instructor had us pair up to do something after only an uttanasana and a prasarita padottanasana. I knew as soon as I heard “find a friend, go to the wall, and…” that I would be leaving not to return. Pairing up is helpful, I see how, but… but… having a stranger’s hands on me seems the exact opposite of any iteration of a good yoga practice. So invasive. The teacher whose class I usually take on Friday nights happens to never make us partner up in addition to being a brilliant teacher, and in that I am very blessed. I skipped his class to attend the workshop, and as upset as I was about having to leave, I couldn’t be there any longer. It wasn’t my yoga. Writing it out makes it seem so ridiculous, but it’s something very real inside of me. I left thinking of Nationals, and how I don’t want to find myself on the train headed toward home when the conference was just beginning. I want to be part of romance writing, and I think I think I have a place there somewhere, though maybe not today; I’m not certain I have any place in American yoga. 

But… I have another reason to go to Nationals now. I was first in a waiting list for a volunteer slot, and that slot has opened! Yes, I’m terrified, but I am so pleased to be able to be there at least with a few hours of purpose. From 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning, I’m registration help. Over the next couple of weeks I will be looking for just the right thing to wear on my first day of a very big deal in my aspiring romance writing career. And I will still be practicing, “so, tell me about what you write” in front of the mirror (and praying I don’t say that to, like, Lisa Kleypas, or, Lord forbid, Nora Roberts, or anyone of that magnitude — hopefully I will be so on the fringes that I won’t even be able to rub the elbow of those rubbing elbows with the big names, so I won’t have to worry about it at all).

Okay, so this wasn’t the regularly scheduled blog at all. I had a handwritten blog about poetry and voice. (Not that I have any astute observations or methods to share, but I was thoroughly prepared to gush over my favorite voices.) Well, not prepared, exactly, or else it would have popped up at 2 a.m. Eastern Time this morning on the blog. It’s only written out by hand in a notebook as of now. Next time, perhaps.

My love to everyone, especially those I’ve been MIA to these past few weeks. And happiest of reading and writing to all.

Kendal: I just finished my first ever 1st pov story! I loved writing it. I got to have deep pov and really get into Melody’s head. I found it easier to write sarcasm and humor (or at least what I hope is perceived as humor!). I felt that during the emotional conflicting moments I was able to really dive into her hurt and pain. Once I got into the story, it really poured out. The negative, or hurtle if you will, that I found I needed to get over was not being able to get into the hero’s head. There were a few key scenes where I would have loved to have his insight.

Looking back now that I am done, the final product turned into a self-discovery journey for Melody. Since I was knee deep into her head, I was able to show her growing as a person and learning life lessons without having it come off as preachy. But without being in Drew’s pov, I felt distant from him from the get go. I liked the guy, but he was a bit harder for me to get a handle on then her. I guess you could say he feels like a secondary character instead of a lead. Maybe that is how all 1st pov stories are though. I’m thinking back to the first books I ever read in 1st pov. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum’s series. I hardly got to know or care about her on/again off/again boyfriend, Joe (that could also be because she was lusting after Ranger for the past 10 books). Still using Ms. Evanovich’s books as an example, they are the first time I really had a good belly laugh at a character and enjoyed humor in a novel. Maybe I’m not reading enough, but I associate snarky with 1st pov because that’s been my experience. Overall though, I much prefer to read in 3rd, and I think this is because I am a true daydreamer and I want to fall in love with the hero. For me to do that, I want to feel his struggles and experience his growth and love for the heroine, and I enjoy that most in his pov. April, do you write in 1st pov or 3rd? Which do you prefer to read?

 April: I usually don’t like to read first POV; however, I’m a huge fan of Twilight so I can see where it would be incredibly useful. For me the decision on whether something should be first or third really is a personal choice and dependent on what you want to do with your story. For instance, I’m attempting a first person novella right now. I chose first person because there actually is very little that happens externally in the book. It’s more about her working through her own emotional issues and making decisions and going after something she wants. The action really happens in the last quarter of the book. I did have to add a epilogue in third person which I”m not sure will fly since the rest of the book is first but there’s no other good way to do it.

Honestly, first person really restricts your ability to tell the story because you’re stuck there in that one head.
 
Yet, Harry Potter could have (with the exception of the first chapter of a few of the books) been written in first POV… and JK managed to do a heck of a lot with building suspense and so forth without showing you anything else other than Harry’s viewpoint. Of course, she also had magic on her side and a huge cast of characters to relay information that Harry wouldn’t have directly seen which helps tremendously.
 
As a writer though… first POV is HARD. OMG. is it hard. I keep double and triple checking my stuff to see if it makes sense. It just feels weird to write. When the writing is flowing, it’s fun… but then when you start analyzing it, you have to wonder if it’s just complete junk (maybe that’s just me).
 
I think the problem is that first POV removes the distance from the writing that as a writer I prefer to have. Reviewing a story that looks and reads more as an expose of myself is harder to critique and find fault with. I get all caught up in … well… me!
 
First POV is perfect for some genre’s like young adult but writing a love scene in the first person is weird. It’s really a tough choice. This is an interesting topic… what brought it up?
 
Kendal: I am starting my 2nd full length YA novel. I really wrestled with 1st or 3rd and have finally decided to go with 3rd. Not because the market can handle either way, or because I just wrote a 1st, but because the first character to ‘come to me’ to speak to me and whisper in my ear, was Karson. I just don’t want to not give the reader the chance to see things from his perspective. My challenge this book will be to infuse humor, wit and sarcasm into the pages without having it seem like I’m telling instead of showing. Wish me luck!
 
So what do you write/read in? Share your thoughts on this subject.

Yes, this is a desperation post because I almost forgot it was my day to blog. *Laughs* Today I’m taking the lazy road.  Instead of a regular blog I’m doing a give-away.

To win:

Simply post a comment below. I will randomly select a winner a week from today (next Saturday). The winner will be notified by email.

Good luck to all!

About ‘Brought to Life’:

Megan Hurst’s life has taken some unexpected turns: First she loses her heart to the dashing hero of a novel. And then she meets an amnesia victim who seems just like him.

Megan’s romantic feelings and her bizarre suspicions bring her to an impossible question… Has she dreamed the Duke to life?

Bear with me. This is an impromptu blog. I’ve had another one of those crazy weeks. Last week my cat became ill with a bladder infection and to add to all the craziness, my mother broke her foot. Then over the weekend, my cat’s illness worsened and morphed into an outrageously priced emergency visit. At least he’s on the road to recovery. Wish I could say the same about my bank account.

But on top of the craziness, I’ve found that I’ve become addicted. No not caffeine. No not chocolate. I’ve become assimilated by that crazy social networking site known as Twitter. How cool is it to know what my favorite author is listening to in her iPod. How cool is it to get mentioned by that same author. I can now die and go to heaven.

Social networking is an excellent way for an author to build their reader base. It puts your name out there. It shows you care for your fans. I think the thing that appeals to me about Twitter is that the updates are in realtime. You don’t have to visit a profile page to see updates of those people you follow. So it’s a great place to network and keep up with trends as well as keeping your fans up to date. But there are drawbacks. The world sees EVERYTHING you tweet, so you need to be careful what flits out of your little fingers. I’ve come up with a few suggestions to make your twittering experience a pleasant one.

1. Think before you type. If you are hemming and hawing whether or not to post an update, then sit on it a bit. Your updates are available to the entire world, including that potential agent or editor you have your eye on.
2. Do not tweet your bodily functions. Seriously, no one wants to know that you just… well let’s not go there.
3. Don’t diss your peers. Respect your fellow authors. They’re trying to make a living just like you.
4. Eat all your vegetables… What? how did that get in here?
5. Be careful of the words you use when you tweet. Strange people will follow. Although I’m still trying to figure out where the hemorrhoids followers came from. I will admit the MLB baseball followers were kind of neat.
6. Most importantly. Have fun

Catch you in Tweetsville! Follow on twitter at www.twitter.com/arianna_skye and Facebook at www.facebook.com/ariannaskye

Cheers!
Arianna

Here I go again, writing myself into a hole. One of the problems I’ve always had is that, while I write books marketed as romance, they always contain a secondary plot that is either mystery or suspense. Sometimes both. Unfortunately, that secondary plot too often tries to take over the story to the detriment of the romance plot. This has never bothered me, of course. I love romantic suspense. I love suspense with secondary romance plots. I love mysteries with romance arcs spanning the series. I love pretty much anything that has a romance in it, however minor. I rarely worry about the number of pages devoted to the romance versus the number devoted to the rest of the story. After all, I cut my teeth on gothics in which you frequently couldn’t tell the hero from the villain until near the end of the tale.

My editors, however, always object strongly when the romance plot is not THE MAJOR ELEMENT OF THE STORY!!!! Sometimes I think they would be just as happy to lock the hero and heroine in a room and let them resolve their personal conflicts with no intrusion from the outside world. So I’m in the hole again. My characters are happily chasing after a thief, entirely focused on figuring out where he is likely to strike next. Their cooperation is drawing them closer emotionally, but I know from experience it won’t satisfy a New York editor since their idea of balance is tilted strongly toward the romance thread.

That is one of the more frustrating parts of today’s market. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s (nothing like revealing my age…), bookstores sold three categories of merchandise – fiction, non-fiction, and magazines. Non-fiction got shelved by topic, category romance was shelved with the magazines, but fiction was organized solely by author name. So (using today’s genre designations) my favorite romantic suspense, gothic, mystery, historical fiction, etc authors were jumbled together with westerns, science fiction, literary fiction, classics, etc, etc. The system made it easy to find the latest book by a particular author. It exposed browsers to a wide variety of fiction types. It meant that the only criteria for selling a manuscript was to write a gripping tale. But for readers looking for a particular type of story, it could be frustrating.

Which is one of the reasons bookstores don’t do that anymore. But shelving books by genre means you need specific parameters that define each genre so readers know what to expect when they pick up a romance, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, western, etc. It means books that don’t easily fit into a specific genre are hard to shelve and thus hard to sell – so hard that many bookstores don’t even try. Over time, it has pushed publishers into paying more attention to genre expectations than to story. Other changes in the business have accelerated this trend to genre-oriented marketing. Editors wanting more best-sellers encourage authors to write books like (fill in the latest NYT title). Publishers are now divisions of international conglomerates who demand higher profits than publishing has historically produced, reducing risk-taking at all levels of the publishing industry and killing any idea of building an author slowly over time. Computers put sales numbers at everyone’s fingertips, accelerating this trend. Distributor consolidation makes it difficult to tailor title selection to different regional/neighborhood taste, increasing the emphasis on genre. Etc, etc.

The result is a fragmentation of the market into discrete little boxes that rarely overlap. As long as a manuscript fits neatly into one of these boxes, it has a decent chance of selling. Otherwise sales are much harder to come by – if it doesn’t have an easily understood handle, sales reps won’t push it, stores won’t know where to shelve it, and thus potential buyers won’t find it. Every few years, a fabulous tale comes along that is so good and so gripping that an editor will buy it despite that it doesn’t fit. With strong publisher support and an enthusiastic sales force pushing it to account buyers, it could zoom onto the bestseller lists, thus establishing a new genre. But that doesn’t happen very often, so most of us have to keep genre parameters firmly in mind. It’s no longer enough just to write a really good story. Pushing the box too far can kill potential sales.

All of which means, I have to restore the balance in my wip by deflecting my characters’ attention away from the thief and back to each other…

Tuesday Smackdown: Genre Skipping- Sudden Death of a Career or Just Good Business Sense

April: When a new writer sits down to write the great American (British, Italian, Intercontinental…) romance, the last thing they’re probably thinking about is what genre they want to base their career on. In fact, most are just too excited to get started and begin writing in whatever genre comes out.

But when you start looking towards publication and building a fanbase and a career, it’s time to get serious. What genre’s will you be known for? Will you stick with just contemporary or branch out into other genre’s like paranormal, romantic suspense, romantic comedy, historicals… ?

And should you even skip genre’s or just focus on one particular one?

It’s an interesting question. You want a wide fanbase so that even if one genre is going out, you can pick up in another genre but at the same time you want your readers to know what to expect when they pick up a book with your name on it.

So what do you do?

Genre skipping can leave many of your readers confused and a bit angry. They expect a certain type of story in a specific genre. Genre moves will lose those readers. But at the same time, you may pick up other readers that are more rabid than the first. Genre skipping also allows you to shift and move with the interests of the reading public. It allows you a flexibility (and backlist) that other authors just shifing won’t have.

Kendal, do you have any thoughts? Do you think genre skipping in the ebook world is different than print?

Kendal: Well this is a very interesting topic for me because I have skipped genres. I have been published under Kendal Corbitt for my steamy, erotica writing and have recently contracted under Kendal Ashby for an Adult Sweet contemporary. I will be writing YA under Kendal Ashby. It was an easy choice for me. I did not want to have fans of KC put something up and it be an YA, or heaven forbid the other way around! Yikes!

So when I decided to write YA, I knew I wanted another name. I’m thrilled with the decision to jump into YA, and feel I might have found my home. I really enjoy cutting loose and just having a place to go to write sexy adult stories, and I may never give that up. But for the time being YA and Kendal Ashby will be my priority.

If.,,no, when, that magic day comes when I get an agent/editor/big contract deal for an YA book, I plan to focus solely on Kendal Ashby’s name and books. Why? Because I believe it is vital for an author to build themselves up with a fanbase but also it is equally (or more so) important to be able to supply your agent/editor with new, fresh work regularly. When I get contracted, I plan to deliver as many books per year as I can complete for my agent (My aim would be 3 full YA lenghts of 55K approx). I attended a great workshop last September where a new breakout author said she will have 6 novels on the bookstore shelf within 2 years. That’s awesome!

So back to your question. I do jump genres, but now that I have found a comfy place with YA I think I’ll stay there for a long, long time.

Anyway you slice it, it’s a tough question for me. I happen to love contemporaries and paranormals. I love writing them too… I also have a burning desire to work on some young adult AND middle grade books, simply for the pleasure of creating something for my children.

Time is limited though. So I have to prioritize. Right now, I’m finishing a project and my next priority starting in July is that book I’ve promised myself I’d write for my son. Why? It probably isn’t a great career decision. I may never sell it. But I’m writing it because right now, I have no other obligations. I don’t have a contract or publisher screaming down my neck. Right now, I’m still doing it just for me.

As for my career, right now I’m sticking with contemporaries. Everything else is just for fun.

What about you? Any advice? Have you done some genre skipping? What’s worked and what hasn’t for you?