It may surprise you.

I don’t mind the cheesiness of Hallmark movies. I can handle the comfortable, predictable plots. As a writer, I understand genre conventions and their place in gaining viewers’ or readers’ trust. So I’m fine with that. As a viewer, I appreciate that these are nice, sweet movies to watch with wine and big bowl of popocorn and not have to pay attention every second for fear of missing a crucial plot point.

What bugs me more times than not are the male love interests. What a bunch of vanilla cookie cutters! Give me some defining characteristic to latch onto. Some supposed “flaw,” which is actually just cute and unique. Something in place of or in addition to squinty eyes and a perfectly chiseled jawline.

On the other hand, these plots and actors are designed to appeal to the widest possible audience, so maybe that’s the reason for the generic parade of men. They give viewers basically an attractive blank slate to overlay whatever ideals viewers have for the perfect man.

Things to Bring

This past weekend, I participated in an Author Showcase presented by The Threshold, an organization in Wisconsin that provides job opportunities and assistance for individuals with cognitive disabilities. It’s a great cause, and the people running the event were all very welcoming, friendly, and game for everything (even face painting!).

Each of the thirty authors donated $25 to The Threshold to have a table at the event where we could meet potential readers and sell our books for a few hours on a Saturday.

Two of my writer friends, Malinda Andrews and M.K. Wiseman, participated last year and had only good things to say about the event, so I figured, why not? I’d have three new books in a series to sell. Well, if you’ve been following me on social media, you know that it ended up only being two since my third book is somehow way more intimidating and harder to finish than the first two, but that turned out not to be a bad thing either.