I didn’t start writing romance because life felt romantic.
I started writing because I needed somewhere to put the version of me I was afraid I’d lost.
At the time, I was in a painful, abusive marriage, and I felt like I had been slowly erased. Not dramatically, not all at once, not in a way that came with a warning label and a soundtrack. More like one tiny piece at a time until I looked around and realized I didn’t feel like myself anymore.
I felt unwanted.
Unsexy.
Invisible.
Useless.
Which is such a charming little emotional cocktail, isn’t it? Very “please pair this with insomnia and a crisis of identity.”
But that was where I was.
And somewhere in the middle of all that darkness, I started writing romance.
Why I Write Romance
When people ask why I write romance books, I could give the fun answer.
Because I love banter.
Because emotionally unavailable men in suits are apparently one of my recurring personal problems.
Because fake dating makes my brain light up like it found a coupon and a scandal.
And all of that is true.
But the deeper truth is this: writing romance gave me a place to remember who I was.
It gave me somewhere to put the humor I thought I’d lost. The softness I had buried. The confidence I didn’t know how to access anymore. The desire, the imagination, the ridiculous little spark inside me that kept whispering, “Hey. You’re still in here.”
Writing didn’t magically fix everything.
I wish. That would have been wildly convenient and much cheaper than therapy.
But writing gave me a way back to myself. Page by page, scene by scene, I started finding pieces of me again.
Romance Helped Me Remember I Was Allowed to Want More
One of the things I love most about romance is that it insists people are worthy of love before they become some flawless, polished, socially acceptable version of themselves.
And honestly?
I needed that reminder.
I needed to remember I didn’t have to be a size two to be desirable.
I didn’t have to have perfect makeup. Or any makeup.
I didn’t have to look like I had my life together, because spoiler alert: I absolutely did not.
I didn’t have to shrink myself down, smooth every edge, or become easier to love.
Romance reminded me that messy women are still worthy. Tired women. Soft women. Women with stretch marks, complicated histories, bad days, loud laughs, and hearts that are still trying.
Writing romance helped me believe that again.
Not just for my characters.
For me.
My Romance Author Story Started in the Dark
This is part of my romance author story, and it is not the shiny part.
It is not the polished “Everly Summers author” version where everything looks pretty and branded and emotionally stable.
It is the part where I was hurting.
The part where I didn’t feel powerful.
The part where I didn’t feel like the main character in my own life.
So I wrote women who found their voices.
I wrote men who learned that love is not control.
I wrote tension, longing, healing, laughter, and characters who had to fight their way toward something better.
And somewhere along the way, I started fighting for something better too.
That is the strange, beautiful thing about healing through writing. You think you’re making up stories, and then one day you realize the stories have been quietly handing pieces of yourself back to you.
Rude of them, honestly.
Effective, but rude.
The Book That Helped Begin This Chapter
Pretending to Be His was one of the books that helped begin this author chapter for me.
On the surface, it has fake dating, billionaire tension, banter, and a man who falls harder than he planned.
All excellent life choices.
But underneath that, it carries so much of what I love about romance: a woman learning her own worth, a man who has to soften, and two people discovering that being seen by the right person can change everything.
That is why writing romance books still matters to me.
Because sometimes love stories are not just about finding someone else.
Sometimes they are about finding yourself again.
And for me, that mattered more than I can ever fully explain.
Start with Pretending to Be His — the book that helped begin this author chapter.
More from Everly Summers
Start with Pretending to Be His if you love fake dating billionaire romance.
Read Kiss a Villain if you want enemies-to-lovers with sharp banter.