Yeah, two posts--one day, guess I just need to vent

...so I was over at my kid's school, picking her up. Waiting, like I always do with the windows rolled, because--yeah, right--it's hot right now and I had the A/C cranking. And this woman comes up to me and knocks on my window. So...school...safety. I wasn't thinking psycho attack, you feel me? And I open the door thinking it's a teacher or some kind of counselor wanting to vent on me about my kid.

And this woman sticks her whole body into my front seat, hands on my upholstery and starts laughing at me. And I go, "huh?" So she says, "Oh my God, you're a ROMANCE writer?!!! I thought NObody read romances anymore." And she keeps laughing and I keep sitting there with this totally pole-axed look on my face because this is coming totally out of nowhere. Quick back space here--I have a bumper sticker on my car, small, white, got flowers--from the last RWA conference in GA. It says, "romance writers bring love to life". Which I figured was better than my old bumper sticker, "grow your own dope, plant a man."

And I'm thinking, okay--be nice--do a little education, so I told her about RWA, and she just kept laughing, louder now--like she was going to choke.

She almost had a heart attack, I was so damned funny.

So she says, "I'm a writer, I write fiction," and at that point, I said, "would you get out of the way, my daughter wants to get in." Because I was seeing red. Like being a ROMANCE writer makes me a lower life form? I don't go around saying, "oh...you write in first person?" We're all writers. I mean--I was thinking of hitting the local Nano group again this year. I dropped out last year (LOVE the forums), because when they asked what I wrote and I said "romance", everyone laughed. Honest to God. Even the bookseller. And then they all ignored me, so I never went back.

I've been feeling the need for some writerly company. But--not these people. Judgemental and bigoted isn't just for racists. So I'm a separate sub-species? No wonder those Harlequin authors started RWA. It must have been worse back in the eighties. I think I'm gonna head on back to my local chapter. At least no one laughs.