On Chance Encounters & Contemporary Romance

Photo by Matt Benson on Unsplash

I recently went on a ten-day vacation to the Bahamas to visit my mom's side of the family and to escape the winter in Canada for a bit (the timing was excellent; we got slammed by two back-to-back snowstorms while I was gone). While walking around the Atlantis resort, which we'd visited for the day, we bumped into a mom and her toddler son, Romeo, whom we'd crossed paths with twice before. 

​I remarked to my mom and sister that it was funny how you could be somewhere with hundreds or thousands of strangers and yet spot the same unfamiliar-familiar faces over and over again. Laughingly, I wondered why I couldn't have had some repeat chance encounters with any hot guys...and it sparked an idea in me for a story.​

​As the humid night air pressed upon us and carefully-curated jungle foliage hugged the curves of the coral-pink paths we walked down, I laid it all out to them, full of anticipatory glee: how my two main characters would both be reeling from heartbreak, how they would meet at the very resort we were visiting, how they would run out of single-person lazy river tubes and decide to share a two-person one.... On and on I went, imagining scenarios that didn't feel imagined so much as delivered in vivid colour to my mind's eye, giggling at the cliches and adventures I'd put them through.

I could feel it in my bones. This story was going to practically write itself.

Honestly, I never thought I'd be a contemporary romance writer considering I'm not even a contemporary romance reader; I tend to go more for historical and Regency romances, and that only recently. Maybe it's because contemporary romance has been on the brain? It's pretty popular lately--though I'm not sure 'lately' is the right word; it's definitely become more outspokenly enjoyed according to my TikTok and Reels browsing.

But maybe I just needed the right idea to get me into the genre; I firmly believe that no genre is boring, you just haven't found the book for you. (I say this as an avid disliker of self-help books, but I have actually found one or two that were great reads, so my point still stands!)

All this to say, I really like this fluffy little idea, and I think it'll be fun to write, especially while still firmly in the grips of a bleak winter. It'll be a nice break from the stress I've put myself under with my ~magnum opus~ and the other 284095 wips (works in progress) that I haven't actually progressed on. So...keep an eye on this space for more updates, I guess? God, I really do hope I actually write it...

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