A Day in The Life of A Muslim Romance Author

Original Post: Layla Writes Love

By Sara Allen

Every morning at around 10 a.m., I sit at my desk and prepare to create, to write those words that spill from my fingers. Some days, the words flow like butter off a hot knife. Other days, it’s like pulling teeth without the anesthetic. I take what I can get.

Compared to other authors, I haven’t been writing for what I would consider a good length of time. Although my desire to be an author was fostered many, many years before, I still pinch myself sometimes when I sit at my desk and realize that what I’m doing is fulfilling a dream. It can be a humbling realization.

One of the most difficult aspects of being an author, a fiction writer whose main content focuses on romance and relationships, was that being Muslim was almost a serious deterrent. I had to understand what the doctrine taught to me since reverting meant in light of my writing. For example, was it okay for me to write erotica, to go in-depth on scenes, where intimacy was central? How would Muslim readers react to the words, expressions and sexual scenes that I was conjuring into existence?

For a long time, these questions were one reason I avoided writing about love with any depth, preferring to skirt around the subject and take the reader to the bedroom door, only to leave them outside, unwillingly. The events that went on within the bedroom were private and not for the voyeur, which is a primary attraction for readers to the romance genre.

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