I was due to speak as part of a panel on Why I Write Romance at Exeter Literary Festival the other day, and knowing that my Sister Scribes post was due I thought I could write about speaking at such events. Unfortunately, chronic ill health meant I was unable to go and thus my intentions disappeared into the ether.

But all was not lost, jotting down my thoughts on why I write Romantic Comedy I inadvertently wrote an essay of over 3,000 words. Too many for here but I can at least share my number one reason for loving romance with you.

Simply put, I love the sheer humanity of romance. Romance is universal, most of us have a desire to find a partner, someone you can share your life with, grow old alongside. But the ability to be a calm, confident and capable individual in life is often lost when faced with someone you are attracted to, even if you didn’t realise you were attracted to them until you start stammering and the flush of your face is radiating like a beacon.

I’ve learnt that no matter how golden or blessed someone appears to be, they usually share this awkwardness, self-doubt is at its height when it comes to meeting a potential partner, self-sabotage often unwittingly kicks in and age does not always make us worry less.

Oh my god! Did I just say that? I said that out loud? Now I’m going to go home and worry for three days.

The adolescent fear – my face is covered in spots and my sibling did something mortifying in school – they’ll never fancy me now, I may as well never leave the house and just curl up in a corner and die.

The slightly older fret – how can anyone love me with a saggy tummy and too much grey hair, I’m nowhere near as attractive as I was when I was in my twenties (although I’d argue actually you’re heaps more attractive but that’s a tangent I’ll get lost in for hours) they’ll never fancy me now…and repeat.

Romance as a genre reminds us everyone feels like this and we are not alone. The playing field here is level. Romance is relatable. Really relatable.

I love a literary novel and am in awe of how those writers deal with topics of race, gender, class, poverty, abuse, justice and so on and when I read literary fiction I feel clever and worthy because that’s how attitudes over the years have conditioned me to feel but romance is what I want to read.

I want to read about the heroine battling with the mundane, the washing machine that’s broken just as she’s stained her best dress and is due to meet the person of her dreams for their first date. I want to read that the dog has just pinched the dinner our hero or heroine has spent hours slaving over and it is now being vomited up over the living room – these things make me feel less alone, make me feel comforted. They make me feel reassured (and thus able to giggle) about my own life which is largely spent in the house dealing with domestic catastrophes rather than my imagined-and-never-quite-realised life trekking across continents being glamourous.

Romantic comedy reminds me that we all have our insecurities, we all have our everyday tribulations, sometimes we can be our own worst enemy but we are all in this together, we all share these emotions but hopefully, like the protagonists of romantic comedy, each day we grow and with that earn our own personalised happy-ever-after.