So I realized I used a particular bodily reaction in several of my books: fainting. Typically it’s the heroine who’s eyes roll up in her head, knees buckle and the light go out. There can also be a hero who’s fainted but only from pain and/or trauma. The reason why it came to mind was I was about to use it *again* as I am working on a new MS. And I had to pause and think about it.

Why so many faints? Why is it something I have used so many times? The only thing I can come up with is because I am a control freak—me Denise, the writer, me Denise the mom and wife, I do not like not being in total and absolute control. And (to my thinking) fainting is the complete opposite of that. The person who faints has zero control over what happens while they’re out, often can’t even control the fact they’re about to pass out. It doesn’t matter if they trust where they are or who their with, they HAVE NO CONTROL. That is/was the ultimate epitome of vulnerable.

Now I may or may not have admitted on here (but my close writer buddies know) I like to put some of my characters though major crap. At times, I like to heap a world of hurt upon them (and it’s a cathartic way to vent), they *may* be vulnerable, but they have options of how they can or won’t react. But something as simple as fainting then puts them at a mercy they may not even know they need to ask for. So scary!

Do you have something that, from your personal life, bleeds over to your writing? A foible that you may hate that you have, but you exploit in your characters? And what might you do to make your characters their most vulnerable?

This is a *totally unscientific* observation, but… Cowboys kick pirates and knights butts. I was bored yesterday so I started playing around on Amazon looking up books—I do this often to pass the time, have even found a couple of auto-buys this way. After a few minutes of perusing my normal books I simply typed in “Cowboys” under the romance genre and to my wondering delight a list of 2600+ came up. I started reading through the sub-subgenres and it got me curious as to how it stacked up against other books. (Hence the chart below. )

Naturally, I had to plug in Knights and Pirates—aren’t knights and pirates the very first thing you think of after Cowboys. Kind of like peanut butter and dill pickles (don’t knock it—it’s pretty good! )

The only one that really surprised me out of it all was the low romantic suspense list. I would have thought there were a lot more—and none of mine were listed and I have two or three that would/should fall under that so some of the numbers are skewed by how the books were uploaded/categorized in Amazon.

It was fun to see a few different sub-genres too, like the vampires (it’s cool when a book crosses over so many boundaries). I did look up a few others too but didn’t go down the line with them: Cops & Police = 1990; Sheriffs = 1008; FBI = 412; Black Ops & Military = 1468. Still, the cowboys have the strong lead there—not that any of us are surprised, right!?! We know the men in their tight jeans and hats hung low get our blood going.

I will say, going through everything, my TBR grew substantially! I love reading just about anything (though I will always gravitate reading and writing back to my cowboys—but truth be told, I tend to picture most men with at least a little cowboy in them, just like I look for the romance in just about every book I read!). Have you read any of the subgenres listed above with a cowboy in it? What’s the most interesting subgenre/crossover you ever came across? What subgenre/crossover do you want to see that hasn’t come out yet?