=SUM(Spreadsheets+Love)

Guest post written by Technically Yours author Denise Williams
Denise Williams wrote her first book in the 2nd grade. I Hate You and its sequel, I Still Hate You, featured a tough, funny heroine, a quirky hero, witty banter, and a dragon. Minus the dragons, these are still the books she likes to write. After penning those early works, she finished second grade and eventually earned a PhD. After growing up a military brat around the world and across the country, Denise now lives in Iowa with her husband, son, and two ornery shih-tzus who think they own the house. How to Fail at Flirting was her debut novel and she can usually be found reading, writing, or thinking about love stories.

In Technically Yours, it’s been seven years since two programmers fell in love but chose their careers over their hearts. Now, they’re stuck working together and trying to keep things professional.

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Technically Yours take place in the world of tech with character who love (or who are trying to love) coding. Though, I flirt with stats and some basic HTML, I’m a romance writer without experience in this area. But much like the sex scenes this this second-chance romance, my excel spreadsheets will mae you fan yourself.  My borders are formatted, pivot tables in-line, and the color coding—my God, the color cording. But the part that makes me want to twirl, the magic part, is in the formulas. And you wouldn’t guess so many romance novels connect with Excel formulas, but you’d be surprised.

I don’t remember my first time, that initial, sparkling jolt of accomplishment when =SUM opened doors to possibilities I couldn’t have imagined and my world was forever changed. The world outside my workbook is full of complicated problems, unresolvable errors, and questions without an answer, no matter how hard you look. But inside my workbook, inside my workbook I am the goddess of my domain, $A1 to $ZZinfinity and beyond—the world is mine and the world is a beautiful place.

Authors who tackle complex personal and public issues and deliver a sexy, happily ever after: Kennedy Ryan, Helen Hoang, and Allison Ashley

Concatenate. Isn’t that a great word? To link together in a chain. Cell A, B, and C become ABC. The individual pieces of my identity—Black, queer, fat, and woman so often are framed separately, divided into small pieces easily digestible for others, pieces that are so often cut to miss the meat at the intersections. But I type =concatenate and the simultaneity of my identities are in one cell—Black, queer, fat, woman.

Authors who write love stories with characters who live at the intersections: Georgina Kiersten, Alexis Daria, and Nisha Sharma

Alt-HOA/Alt-HOI. A few key strokes and there’s room for everyone the height and width are custom fitted—no one is made the shrink, keeping quiet with their arms pulled in, or made to linger in cavernous spaces fit for someone else. I release a contented breath every single time the cell width and height adjust —that satisfaction is God tier.

Authors writing fat characters to fall in love with: Olivia Dade, Rebekah Weatherspoon, and Jenny Howe

I don’t want to oversell it, but I could spend hours convincing you that IndexMatch is better than sex and puppies. I have spent hours having this exact conversation. But since we only have a few minutes, know the ability to merge data sets is now my superpower and, not to lean into hyperbole too far, but with this knowledge, I am unstoppable.

Authors bringing unlikely soul mates together: Nikki Payne, Janine Amesta, and Charish Reid

Sometimes a graph is so beautiful, the animation of the pivot chart so clean, it makes the answer clear. When someone tells me they’ll read my book when they don’t need to think, when they offhandedly imply my writing, my genre, is somehow less literary, less valuable because it centers love and very often centers love stories often ignore, it’s easy to feel that’s the whole picture. But those instances graphed against the thousands of readers who felt seen on the page, who felt safe in the story, who had tears in their eyes or hands balled into fists while reading, well, that graph, for me, is easy to read.

Authors who always deliver swoons and happy tears: Mariana Zapata, Nana Malone, and Adriana Herrera

Working in Microsoft Excel makes me feel lighter and joyful and experience a sense of delight others may not understand. But they don’t have to because it’s for me. I take messiness and make multidimensional, organized, powerful, magic much like the romance authors listed above. And if I’m lucky, I’ll get to add that data I’ve organized to a powerpoint presentation, and…*happy sigh* that’s honestly a love story I’m saving for my next romance novel.