Leveling Up at Midlife: Learning to Write a Romance Novel

When people learn I’m a writer, they nearly always comment on how difficult the challenge must be. I tell them that yes, some of it can be challenging, but if you break it down into chunks, you can get through it. 

Also, experience helps. I’ve written nearly a dozen and half novels and an unknown number of short stories. Truth be told, Novel #1—now published as Treason at Hanford—was a challenge. I had never written a long work of fiction. But I knew how to write a history thesis so I applied that logic to the novel and got through it. 

Hanford is a historical mystery/thriller and the vast majority of my written content to date has leaned into the type of genre fiction where the roadmaps are, more or less, the same. For my historical material, be they westerns or World War II-era stuff, I know much of the history and I know the general way to write mysteries. Even when I moved up the setting of a mystery to the present day and threw in Christmas, the story kind of just wrote itself.

Last summer when I wrote the eleven meet-cute romance short stories, those proved to be my first foray into romance fiction. But I had it kind of easy. It was only the meet-cute part. It all centered on early energy, and all I needed to do was get the two main characters to kiss (or not to kiss, depending on the story).

But a novel-length story that didn’t have the framework of a mystery, western, or thriller? Not that easy. I’ve already had experience with something like that. 

Mid-Lives is my yet-to-be published novel about four guys, all around the age of fifty, as they go through seasons of their lives. I started it in 2019 and put it aside numerous times. Then, on New Year’s Day 2025, I picked it back up again with an eye to finish by 1 April. That stretched to 27 June. While I found that story quite rewarding, it ended up being the second most challenging novel I had ever written since Treason at Hanford in 2005.

That’s when my current project shoved its beer in my hand and told me to hold it.

One of the story prompts from last year’s meet-cute collection involved a woman who, after a divorce, moves into an apartment and, through the thin walls, hears her neighbor playing music. They exchange post-it notes for a while until they meet at an open mic night. As soon as I saw that idea, two things ran together in my brain: I love the concept and it needed to be a novel.

That’s what I’m writing this year. A novel-length romance. It’s been, arguably, the most challenging thing I’ve ever written. 

I’ve never written one of those. How in the world do I do it? The natural tendency is to downshift into known tropes you see in movies or read in other romance novels. Easier said than done. In movies, you don’t get a lot of internal thoughts. It’s all action the majority of the time. When it comes to romance novels, well, now you have the space for a lot of internal thoughts but how in the world do you make them believable?

My book shifts points of view from the leading lady to the leading man. I’m a guy so I can write from a guy’s POV but a woman’s? I’ve already read some of the passages to the various women I know and, to date, have received good marks. 

But there are moments during my 5am writing sessions when I’m maybe a little tired and the words just don’t flow. Forget flow: the faucet’s just off. This has been a huge surprise for me. I’m a writer who can regularly write at least a thousand words per hour that I have to write. In fact, yesterday, 27 February, was the 58th day of the year. By my past writing speeds, I should already be up to 58,000 words. As it is, I’m just over 51,000. Great progress, true, but off the pace of what I used to do.

Yet that’s where things hang up. You see, what I used to do (and likely will again in the future) was write fast-paced stories all designed to entertain and excite. With this romance featuring two divorced people who have to learn how to trust again while managing all the other aspects of their lives, it’s a whole new thing. This tale is deliberately slower. Actually, I’m writing a slow-burn romance and the nuances required are brand-new to me.

And I find it incredibly exciting. 

I ran this by some folks, the idea of this being a harder book to write, and they asked me if I was enjoying the process. Absolutely, I said. The response I got back was equally fascinating. I was told I was evolving, leveling-up even. I’ll leave that up to readers, but as a writer, I am definitely leveling up. 

When I talked about the themes this book contains and the ideas of what kind of book I started on New Year’s Day versus the book that now sits at 51,000, I also received some interesting feedback: I’m becoming a writer more interested in reinvention at midlife, interior thoughts and feelings, and human connection. Romance just happens to be the vehicle.

Whatever is going on in my writer’s brain, it’s surprising and new. I know the nuts and bolts of how to write a book and have done it more than once. But like everything in this life, curiosity wins out and I’m learning a brand new thing. 

And I couldn’t be happier.