Lisa's Thoughts on Knowing Yourself

Knowing Yourself - A Medieval Romance While Knowing Yourself is the second book I released from my library, it was the 8th one I wrote overall. Probably most importantly, it was written after I had had my Seeking The Truth realization that I simply was not writing novels sexual enough for major publishers to accept. Once I realized that, it was very freeing. It meant everything from start to finish about Knowing Yourself was exactly the way I wanted it without worrying at all about a review board. So I aimed for fun, dialogue-rich, and without worrying about injecting "artificially placed sex" just to please those critiquers.

A friend of mine loves the Bachelor / Bachelorette series and I watched one of the shows with her while visiting her. It struck me that this could be a fun topic for a romance novel. Often romance novels put women in a passive role, waiting around helplessly while their Knight in Shining Armor comes and does all the work for them. Instead, I could set it up so the heroine is the one with the power. The men are the ones trying to make an impression.

I have two sisters so it was great fun for me to add in a sister character and give them a loving relationship, one full of laughter and shared memories.

A substantial challenge with a "field of contenders" is that I wanted, as the storyteller, to gently lead the readers into falling in love with the "right man". It could be very frustrating for a reader to choose one of the suitors, to be cheering and hoping for him throughout the novel, and then to have him "voted off" at the end! They might end the book on a sour note, feeling as if the heroine made the wrong choice. So some readers say the book is "predictable" in that they knew who she would go for. This is definitely true, because I want to make sure the reader is connecting with him.

On the other hand, I didn't want golden rays of light shining on his head every time he walked into the room :) So I worked hard to maintain that balance.

Another challenge here was that I wanted the heroine to be flawed. I think readers can relate more readily to heroines who seem real. Kay was impulsive and reckless. I wanted to make sure she was still responsible and admirable, despite her tendency to leap before she looked.

I would love to hear your feedback on the story!

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