This is the main question I’ve been asking myself as I venture into a new adventure: self publishing! Let’s see if I can answer it. …

When I started writing novels once a year for National Novel Writing Month about six years ago, I didn’t have a specific vision. I would come up with a concept I found intriguing, flesh it out, write it down, and store the manuscripts away on Google Drive. But as they piled up, year after year, I realized I was writing a type of novel I haven’t come across very often.

While I’m drawn to many genres–horror, action, paranormal, sci-fi/fantasy–I always felt compelled to create some sort of subplot about nonmonogamous love. But I didn’t ever feel like making it the main or only plot line in my stories. Sex is an important element in my fiction, but I wasn’t interested in writing erotica. I guess I wanted polyamory to exist in my novels the way it exists in my life. It’s a huge formational part of who I am, but it’s nowhere near the most dominant part of my identity.

My life with my partners is incredibly important and satisfying, but we all have other things going on in our lives. Kids. Careers. Hobbies. Passions. Well, my protagonists have a lot more going on than that, but in a similar way, their love life is important but not their only driving force.