This Kiss

Happy Valentine’s Day! Cynicism about this holiday has become common, and many see February 14 as just another excuse to empty the pockets of consumers, who annually spend more than $16 billion on cards, flowers, chocolates, and other gifts. I’m still enough of a romantic to find the day a charming tradition, even though  my favorite valentines in 2011 are under 12. Still, the day has me thinking about kisses. Ever since I read a particular romance novel a few weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about a blog on osculation. What better time to consider kisses than a holiday that celebrates love and lovers?

 A kiss, of course, can mean many things from simple affection to bitter betrayal, but it is the romantic/erotic kiss that most fascinates. The ancients believed that in mouth-to-mouth kisses, lovers exchanged the breath of life and mingled souls. The Roman poet Catullus (84BC?- 54BC) inspired poets such as Robert Herrick, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Lord Byron with his explicit demand: "Kiss me now a thousand times and still a hundred more and then a hundred and a thousand more again till with so many hundred thousand kisses you and I lose count." Herrick’s “To Anthea (III)” utilizes Catullus’s math and adds a challenge:

Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.

Poets are not the only artists who find material in kisses. Rodin’s Kiss sculpture, inspired by Paolo and Francesca, the eternally entwined lovers in circle 2 of Dante’s Inferno, still attracts visitors to the Tate Gallery in London, and photographs of kissing couples in Paris and Times Square are internationally famous. Movie kisses have come in for their fair share of attention as well. Googling “best movie kisses” yields more than 8 million results, and “favorite movie kisses” is a favorite topic among romance fiction bloggers. My own favorites are from older movies such as those between Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life and between John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man.  Viewing several movie versions of Pride and Prejudice consecutively makes one aware of the distance between Jane Austen’s discreet description (“He [Darcy] expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man in violent love can be supposed to.) and the eight minutes of moonlit lip locks added to the U.S. version of the 2005 Keira Knightley/Matthew MacFadyen film.

I thought the kisses exchanged by Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty were pretty hot when I first saw Splendor in the Grass in 1961, but I didn’t know then that the first screen French kiss in that movie would lead to increasingly sensual screen kisses to the point that such scenes today more often seem to be about voyeurism than about romance. But then scholars tell us that the kisses art gives us are voyeuristic. Social convention leads us to avert our eyes from the intimacy if we happen to see a couple kissing in real life, but art encourages us to gaze at the osculatory exchange that can express both physical and emotional intimacy. I maintain that those who draw up lists of the best fictional kisses do a disservice to their audience by ignoring the kissing scenes in romance fiction. No other writers possess the awareness of all that a kiss can express that the authors of the best in romance fiction can claim. Here are my candidates for ten of the best kisses in Romancelandia (listed chronologically by publication date):

This is no less true of fiction than of the visual arts. Long before the no-holds-barred sex that can be found in both popular and literary fiction, the kiss was used as a metaphor for orgasm. In Portrait of a Lady, in a scene written from his heroine's point of view, Henry James wrote: "His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again . . . his presence, justified of its intense identity and made one with this act of possession." In June 2008, The Guardian published a list of ten of the best literary kisses. They ranged from the kiss shortly after first meeting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the invasive kiss endured by an unwilling bride in Ian McEwan’s 2007 novel On Chesil Beach.

1. Derek kisses Sara in the garden.
Dreaming of You (1994), Lisa Kleypas

The I’m-not-good-enough-but-I-can’t resist-her kiss:

“Without meaning to, he reached her in three strides and snatched her in his arms. Her joyous laugh tickled his ear as he lifted her off his feet. Urgently his mouth roved across her face with rough kisses that stung her cheek, her chin, her forehead.”

2. Jessica kisses Dain in the rain.

Lord of Scoundrels (1995), Loretta Chase

The hero-as-helpless-and-needy-kiss:

“He melted under that maidenly ardor as though it were rain and he a pillar of salt.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“He stood, helpless in the driving rain, unable to rule his needy mouth, his restless hands, while, within, his heart beat out the mortifying truth.
Ho bisogno di ti.
I need you.

3. Catherine kisses Michael after eight pages leading to consummation scene.

Shattered Rainbows (1996), Mary Jo Putney

The post-coital-bliss kiss:

“She gave him a kiss of aching sweetness, the silken fall of her hair gliding across his throat.”

4. Anna yields to Cam’s kiss.
Sea Swept (2001), Nora Roberts

The I-know-it’s-bad-for-me-but kiss:

“She gave into it, gave all to it, a moment’s madness where body ruled mind and blood roared over reason.”

5. Colin finally kisses Penelope (200+ pages into the novel).
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton (2002), Julia Quinn

The I-thought-it-would-never-happen kiss:

“He leaned forward and kissed her, slowly, reverently, no longer quite so surprised that this was happening, that he wanted her so badly.”

6. Diana and Rothgar share what they believe will be their last kiss.
Devilish (2005), Jo Beverley

The we-can-never-be-together kiss:

“Then she put her lips to his and asked for their familiar kiss. She was mistress of the art and he was her equal. It was long, and as satisfying as a favorite meal.”

7. Sydnam kisses Anne after the two have become totally vulnerable to each other.

Simply Love (2007), Mary Balogh

The tenderness-in-the-afterglow kiss:

“He kissed her temple and made sure the blanket was tucked all about her. He warmed her body with his own.”

8. Villiers gives Eleanor a promising—and public—kiss.
A Duke of Her Own (2009), Eloisa James

The I-promise-you-there’s-more kiss:

“He took her hand. Then without smiling at her, without saying a word, without doing anything other than meeting her eyes, he slowly peeled off her glove. It was utterly surprising—and scandalous.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Villiers’s kiss was slow and deliberate, giving everyone in the tent more than enough time to enjoy the spectacle.”

9. Julian and Lily share a first kiss.
Three Nights with a Scoundrel (2010), Tessa Dare

The this-is-the-real-us kiss:

“Because in that moment, neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed. They just . . . existed together. The tension melted away. And the kiss was still artless, still desperate—but only because it was real. The most honest, truthful moment they’d ever shared.”

10. Moncrieffe kisses Genevieve and finds himself in an unexpected role.
What I Did for a Duke (2011), Julie Anne Long

The I-got-more-than-I-bargained-for kiss:

“He hadn’t counted on a third option. Stealthily as a liqueur or an excellent drug, in much the same way she’d been doing for days now, Genevieve Eversea—her heat, her scent, her generosity and kindness, her devastating sensuality, entered his bloodstream. Beneath his hand, the lush, lithe give of her body just barely brushing against his chest, the hum of that passion she kept so tamped, burned through him. The invader becoming the invaded—that was the third option. He was hers now.”


What are your favorite kisses in visual art forms? In fiction, literary or genre? I'm sure there are hundreds of others that deserve to be recognized. I’ll have the Randomizer choose one commenter to receive a romance novel that’s sure to include the language of kisses.

Love Poems, Love Songs: Gifts for Valentine's Day

I’ll be back on Monday to post a special Valentine’s Day blog with a giveaway. Until then, here are five of my favorite love poems and five favorite love songs, a gift for each day from now through Valentine’s Day.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

by e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Time in a Bottle, Jim Croce

Wild Nights – Wild Nights! (249) by Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –

To a heart in port –

Done with the compass –

Done with the chart!

 Rowing in Eden –

 Ah, the sea!

 Might I moor – Tonight –

 In thee!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet 116)

by William Shakespeare


Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love ’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

Dan Fogelberg, Longer

The Kiss by Stephen Dunn

She pressed her lips to mind.
                      —a typo

How many years I must have yearned
for someone’s lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.
She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.

Nothing like a woman who knows
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she’s missed.
How had I ever settled for less?

I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek’s ear,
speaking sense. It’s the Good,

defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. We married as soon as we could.

Maybe I’m Amazed, Paul McCartney

San Antonio  by Naomi Shihab Nye

Tonight I lingered over your name,
the delicate assembly of vowels
a voice inside my head.
You were sleeping when I arrived.
I stood by your bed
and watched the sheets rise gently.
I knew what slant of light
would make you turn over.
It was then I felt
the highways slide out of my hands.
I remembered the old men
in the west side cafe,
dealing dominoes like magical charms.
It was then I knew,
like a woman looking backward,
I could not leave you,
or find anyone I loved more.

You Give Me Love, Martraca Berg (couldn't find a video for this one)

You turn around

Then you ask me behind tears of doubt
Just what do I see in you
Please don't cry
I know sometimes it seems we barely get by
But you don't see how much you do
To get me through

When the world is cold
And I need a friend to hold
You give me love ... you give me love

And when my hope is gone
And I feel I can't go on
You pick me up
You give me love ...you give me love

I apologize
If I never told you what you are in my eyes
Oh baby,let me tell you now
Everyday
Looks sweeter knowing you'll be there in every way
Now how can you say that's not enough

'Cause when the world is cold
And I need a friend to hold
You give me love ...you give me love

And when my hope is gone
And it's feels I can't go on
You pick me up
You give me love ...you give me

Everything my heart desires
Morning sun and midnight fires
Someone there to share my dreams
With you I have everything

When the world is cold
And I need a friend to hold
You give me love ...you give me love

And when my hope is gone
And I feel I can't go on
You pick me up
You give me love


What are your favorite love poems? Your favorite love songs?

The Good Mother: Not Exactly a Review of Susan Mallery's Already Home

I’ve heard other people complain about the lack of good mothers in romance novels, but until quite recently I’ve never thought that the number of bad or missing mothers was disproportionate. I’m speaking of mothers as secondary characters here. One would expect no less than splendid examples of motherhood from protagonists.

Certainly I was aware of nightmare mothers, but it always seemed to me that they were balanced by some pretty terrific mothers as well. Take the mothers in Nora Roberts’s books for example. There’s Maeve Concannon, mother of Maggie and Brianna in the Born in series, whose bitterness is a blight on her daughters’ lives, and the truly evil Gloria DeLauter of the Chesapeake Quartet, a selfish, sleazy bitch who sells her own son and later blackmails him. But Roberts also created characters like the delightful Nadia Stanislaski, beloved by husband, children, and grandchildren and Stella Quinn, whose presence in the lives of the three lost boys she and her husband Ray adopted remains vivid and influential years after her death. My favorite is Anna MacGregor, not only a loving mother and grandmother to the large MacGregor clan but also a strong and independent heroine in her own love story, For Now, Forever. Of course, I can’t forget Violet Bridgerton, mother of Julia Quinn’s alphabetically arranged Bridgertons. She is so beloved by romance readers that many of them have begged for her story, although they seem divided as to whether she should remain a widow devoted to her husband’s memory or have a second chance at love. As I said, the good mother/bad mother ratio seemed reasonable to me.


But that changed with my late 2010, early 2011 reading. Suddenly I seem to be reading an astonishing number of books with mothers who were dead, ineffectual, or self-centered. The mothers of the heroines in Robyn Carr’s Promise Canyon and Wild Man Creek, Eloisa James’s When Beauty Tamed the Beast, Rachel Gibson’s Any Man of Mine, and Sabrina Jeffries’s How to Woo a Reluctant Lady are dead. The mother of the heroine of Anne Mallory’s One Night Is Never Enough is weak and useless to her daughters. The heroines of My One and Only by Kristan Higgins and Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean were abandoned by their mothers. MacLean gives her hero a bad mother too, a cold woman who values name and blood more than her children. As balance, I had only the mother in Susan Wiggs’s Marrying Daisy Bellamy. Sophie and Daisy had their problems in other books, but in this one Sophie is a loving, supportive parent to Daisy and to the children of her second marriage. I read Marrying Daisy Bellamy early in the year, so by the time I finished Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart last week, I was getting desperate to find a book with a good mother.

That’s when I read Already Home by Susan Mallery (Mira, March 29, 2011), a romantic women’s fiction novel that has not one but two good mothers.

Jenna Stevens has returned to her Texas hometown to build a new life for herself after a divorce from a faithless husband has left her questioning everything about the woman she thought she was. The erosion of her confidence in her culinary gifts leads her to open a cooking store rather than seek employment as a sous chef. Jenna lacks retail experience, and she makes choices about her shop that threaten its continued existence. Fortunately, she hires an assistant who possesses a creative flair and the retail knowledge Jenna lacks. With the help of this assistant and the unfaltering support of her parents, who adopted Jenna shortly after her birth, Jenna turns things around. She’s beginning to feel pride in her shop, a friendship is developing between Jenna and her assistant, Violet, and Jenna’s mother is there encouraging her and helping out in the shop.

Then one day a couple who look like aging hippies appear in the store and introduce themselves as Jenna’s birth parents. Jenna has no need for another set of parents. She sees her birth mother as a threat to her adoptive mother and wants nothing to do with this fading flower child who offers vegan recipes, messages from the Universe, and a second family, including two brothers. It is only at the urging of her adoptive mother that Jenna is even polite to her birth mother. But as she comes to know her birth mother, she grows to appreciate her and to understand that both her mothers have given her gifts that shaped her into the woman she is becoming. It is only this new understanding that prepares her heart for the man who is all she has dreamed of. The secondary plot centers on Violet—her troubled past, her determination to become more than she once thought she could be, the friendship she shares with Jenna, and the two men who enter her life.

The book is about the journeys of these two young women, and an essential part of their journeys is the relationships they have with their mothers and the mother-figures in their lives. Beth Stevens, Jenna's adoptive mother, is a conventional mother, one who loves her child devotedly and worries about her. He husband accuses her of having refined worry to an art form. Violet thinks of Beth as “the kind of woman who took in strays of all kinds,” and Beth does literally take Violet in and nurture her in ways Violet’s mother failed to do. Serenity Johnson, Jenna's birth mother, is an unconventional free spirit with a loving heart and great regret over giving her daughter up for adoption. She reared her sons with love, freedom, and “just enough rules to keep them safe.” Neither woman is perfect. Beth is illogical and surprisingly insecure, and Serenity is impulsive and sometimes insensitive.  Despite their different lifestyles and personalities, they have some important things in common. They both fell in love at a young age, and they have built long, happy marriages with their first loves and created homes filled with “laughter and conversation.” They both love their children and want to see them happy.

One of the things that keeps me reading Susan Mallery books is that her characters, even those I don’t like, seem like people I might encounter in my world. They could be the guy across the street, my cousin’s cousin, or the couple at the next table in my favorite restaurant. I feel as if I know Beth and Serenity. Like Beth, my own mother was an accomplished worrier whose hugs “never let go too soon.” And I have a friend who raises organic vegetables, cooks vegan dishes, and gave her children unusual names, although not quite as strange as Wolf and Dragon. Life has taught me that good mothers abound and that they come in very different packaging. This book reminded me of that truth, not only through Beth and Serenity but also through two very minor characters, the mother and former mother-in-law of Jenna's love interest, who prove their devotion in practical ways.

Because Already Home is women’s fiction, Jenna’s relationships with her mothers and, to a lesser degree her fathers, and her friendship with Violet play a more prominent role in the story that would be true if the novel were a contemporary romance. But there are strong romantic elements, and the story concludes with the promise of an HEA. (Jenna’s guy was definitely a keeper, but it was her brother Dragon who captured my heart.) I found this book to have the same emotional appeal and layered characters that I’ve appreciated in Mallery’s romances for years. A satisfying blend of women’s fiction and romance, readers of romance novels and readers of women's fiction should find much to like in Already Home.  Mallery has written another winner--and those good mothers make it even better.

What good--and bad--mothers from romance/women's fiction novels do you remember most vividly? Do you read women's fiction, or do you read only romance?

 

The Right Words

I love words. I love the feel of them in my mouth, the sound of them falling on my ear, the look of them as they appear on the page. When I can’t sleep, instead of counting sheep, I count words I particularly love. My list always includes alacrity (ah-LAK-ri-tee), meaning: 1. cheerful willingness; eagerness. 2. speed or quickness; celerity. The sound of the word reflects its meaning. It just spills out of my mouth, leaving a smile behind. Another favorite is reverie (REV-ah-ree), meaning: 1. a state of abstracted musing; daydreaming. 2. a daydream. This one always reminds me of an Emily Dickinson poem:

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

Yet another favorite is halcyon (HAL-see-on), meaning: 1. calm and peaceful; tranquil. 2. prosperous; golden. Doesn’t the phrase “halcyon days” seem more evocative than “golden days”? Plus, “halcyon” brings to my mind a stanza from a favorite Mary Chapin Carpenter song “Jubilee”:

'Cause the people who love you are waiting,
And they'll wait just as long as need be.
When we look back and say those were halcyon days,
We're talking 'bout jubilee.

Many of my favorite words are uncommon words, but others are commonly used words like “love,” “grace,” and “tranquility.” I find it interesting that all those words appear on a list of the seventy most beautiful words in the English language according to a poll conducted several years ago by the British Council. I do admit to being puzzled that “banana,” “hiccup,” and “gum” also appear on the list. They are evidence, I suppose, that there truly is no accounting for taste. For the most part, I’m much more in tune with Robert Beard’s “The 100 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language.” I wholeheartedly concur with his choice of “dalliance,” “efflorescence,” and “gambol,” but I fear “quintessential” has become overused and “woebegone”—despite the spelling difference--too closely linked to Garrison Keillor.

It should come as no surprise that the misuse of words affects me like the sound of fingernails scratching across a chalkboard. I’m still groaning about a reference in something I read online recently to “Charles, the Prince of Whales.” Back in September of last year Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published a small book by the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries entitled 100 Words Almost Everyone Mixes Up or Mangles. The list includes homonyms, outright errors, and pairs that are similar in meaning, yet carry subtle, significant differences.

Do we know the differences in these pairs?

baleful and baneful

faze and phase

historic and historical

tenant and tenet

Should we write “slight of hand” or “sleight of hand”?

I think social media exchanges make us all mixers and manglers at times.

One of Mark Twain’s most often repeated bits of wisdom is “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” As readers and writers, we appreciate that both lightning and lightning bugs can be important. We just have to know the difference.

What are your favorite words? Are there confusing pairs that you have to check before using? Are there frequently misused words that make you cringe?

Back to Basics

Wendy … was just slightly disappointed when he admitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen to stories. “You see, I don’t know any stories. None of the lost boys knows any stories.”

“How perfectly awful,” Wendy said.

— J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan (1928)

Wendy’s right. Can you imagine how terrible a world without story would be? Can you even remember a time before story was a part of your world? I can’t. My earliest memories are of my mother reading to me from big books of Bible stories and fairy tales. I can remember following my grandmother through her house, begging her to tell me about “olden times” as she washed dishes, dusted, cooked lunch, and completed all the other seemingly endless tasks that were part of her daily routine. Stories of her girlhood as one of five motherless children on a farm were as fascinating as the stories my mother read to me. My grandfather’s stories were usually connected to photographs. My favorite involved my mother as a big-eyed infant in a long dress and bonnet in the arms of her schoolteacher grandmother.

I can still recall how excited I was when I could read stories on my own. I had an even greater sense of accomplishment when I wrote my first story with a fat, red pencil in a wide-lined tablet and “published” it by reading it aloud to my suitably impressed younger sister. It was all about Sue Brown who ran away to visit a big-city department store and rode the escalator and looked at evening gowns. The character’s name reflected my desire to have a monosyllabic, Anglo-Saxon name rather than the different name I possessed. Sue’s propensity to runaway seeking adventure was also autobiographical, although my own trips were limited to the mom-and-pop store across the highway, and Sue’s virtuous promise to henceforth always obey was far removed from my furious objection to being deprived of the candy I had purchased.

This week I’ve been working at recapturing the simple joy of storytelling. I can get so caught up in the crafting of the text, in the struggle to find the proper texture, the right weight, the exact colors for this tapestry of words I’m weaving that I forget story is the beginning and end of what I’m doing. I like what novelist Amy Tan said: “Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.”

"The Long Way Home," my completed romance novel, started with a single image of a young woman standing, gazing out a window as she wept. Then, there was a voice that said, ‘I’m Max and I can tell you why she’s crying.” I started writing to discover the answer to that why and to share my discovery with others. Alice Hoffman, author of Practical Magic and more than 20 other novels, speaks of the “inner and outer story.” “The outer story,” says Hoffman, “is what happens every day, the things that keep you turning the page to find out.” The “inner story” is the heart that is revealed as the writer moves through the writing process. Hoffman posits that it is the promise of discovering the core of the story that motivates the writer to write. Just yesterday I discovered that forgiveness lies at the heart of my three stories. All of my primary characters have to learn to forgive themselves as well as those who have hurt them.

That discovery thrilled me. The more I think about it, the more I like Hoffman’s idea of discovering the essence of the story. I think it connects in significant ways to Amy Tan’s claim that the stories we tell are first gifts to ourselves. That first story I wrote that filled me with such delight and pride was a gift to me before I shared it with anyone else. I want to get back to such moments.

Some have suggested that writers are either predominantly storytellers or wordsmiths, but I’m not persuaded. However enchanted a writer of fiction may be with words as tools, I think the story and the desire to share it come first. I want my prose to be lucid and lyrical. I want my voice to be fresh and distinctive. I want my plot to be tight, my setting vivid, and my characters compelling. But I want even more for the story to be powerful enough to pull the reader into the world I’ve created and find it as vital as a dream, as cherished as a memory. C. S. Lewis famously said, “We read to know we are not alone.” John Steinbeck suggested that we write for similar reasons: “We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say-and to feel- ‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’ You’re not as alone as you thought.” One of the best books I know about story is Barry Lopez’s Crow and Weasel, a tale of the journey of two young Sioux braves. In it, Lopez writes, “If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed.” See—there’s the double gift metaphor again, and through the giving comes the connection that reminds us we are not alone. For me, that’s basic, and I have recommitted to getting back to the basics.

What are the first stories you remember? If you are a writer, have you discovered the heart of your story? If you are a reader, what stories speak most powerfully to your heart?



What Are You Afraid Of?


No, I don’t have the song lyrics in mind when I pose that question. Although, come to think of it, Tony Bennett’s song would make a great theme for a romance novel: “Learn what love is made of. / What are you afraid of?” But that’s a topic for another day. Today I’m asking myself that question and another that is related. What am I afraid of? How are my fears affecting my writing?

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi

 According to one source, there are at least 500 words in the English language for specific fears that human beings harbor, ranging from A (the familiar Acrophobia- fear of heights and the lesser known Alliumphobia- fear of garlic) to Z (Zelophobia- fear of jealousy and Zoophobia- fear of animals). My own greatest fears fall in the A range: Atelophobia- fear of imperfection and Atychiphobia- fear of failure. Such fears can be paralyzing and ironically bring about the very thing I most want to avoid—falling on my face and looking foolish, proving myself a loser and imperfection an overwhelming reality.


I know I’m not perfect, and I really don’t want to be. I rather like knowing that I’m part of what Emily Dickinson called “freckled human nature.” But my writing—ah, that’s harder because, you see, the book in my head is perfect. It is polished and flawless and scintillating. The gap between the book in my head and the book on the page fills me with dismay and fear. If it’s imperfect, it can fail—and that leads to my other fear.

Psychologists say that fear of failure interferes with our analytical, cerebral thought process and pushes us toward “fight or flight,” instinctive responses connected to basic survival that are generated in the pre-rational part of our nervous system. Now these instinctive responses that result in tense muscles, pounding heart, and floods of adrenalin are useful if I’m confronting a woman-eating tiger in a jungle or a gun-toting neighbor who dislikes my choice of music, but they short-circuit the reasoning I need to move past the fear that tells me I can’t write fiction, that I’m wasting my time, that there are other things I should be doing.

The rational part of my brain can remind me that failure may be a necessary step in moving toward success. Thomas Edison failed to invent the light bulb 1,000 times before he succeeded. Babe Ruth is remembered for his 714 home runs, but he struck out nearly twice as many times as he homered. Stephen King’s first novel was rejected thirty times. It was 27 years between the time Anna Campbell completed her first manuscript and the sale of her debut novel Claiming the Courtesan. But I can’t remember all these anecdotes and draw inspiration from them if I’m all caught up in “fight,” meaning I claim all responsibility for the situation, or “flight,” meaning I assume no responsibility for the situation. I need that reasoning part of my brain to remind me that some things are out of my control. I can’t control market trends or agents’ lists or the state of publishing, even though any of these and doubtless a thousand other things equally beyond my control play a role in the rejections I have received/will receive. I am responsible for disciplining myself to write even on the days I’d rather do anything else, for producing the best work I can, for being professional in my actions and interactions, for recognizing that in writing, as in most things, to stop growing is to die.


Dr. David Perkins, author of The Eureka Effect: The Art and Logic of Breakout Thinking (W. W. Norton, 2001), believes that creativity is fostered as much by attitude as by talent. Believing in yourself and working in a disciplined fashion toward a goal frees the imagination to become more productive. I also take comfort in the studies that suggest age has its benefits in terms of creativity. The young use one side of the brain for creative problem solving, but beginning about 40, when overall cognitive abilities begin a slight decline, people begin using their entire brains to think even more creatively than when they were younger. Gene Cohen, M.D., author of The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain (Basic Books, 2006) compares it to “shifting from two-wheel drive to all-wheel drive.” Laura Ingalls Wilder was in her mid-60s when she published her first Little House book, and Grandma Moses, American primitive artist, was 76 when she began painting and 80 when she had her first one-woman show.

The difference between those who succeed and those who fail frequently has less to do with degrees of talent than with degrees of perseverance. My goal for 2011 is to conquer the paralytic fear of failure, to remember those things that will encourage me to persevere, and to keep writing. To that end, I copied and placed above my desk the advice of Kaki Warner, whose first two books in the Blood Rose trilogy (Pieces of Sky and Open Country) won high praise in 2010. (The third book, Chasing the Sun, has just been released.) In her interview on January 11 with PJ at The Romance Dish, Ms. Warner advised aspiring writers:

Never give up. Love your characters, because if you don’t, how can you expect an agent or editor to? Get all the feedback you can—discard half of it—use the rest. Keep it real (I know, in Romance that kinda defeats the purpose, but try anyway). And remember, no matter how much of yourself you put into your work, industry rejections are not personal. Finally, it’s your story, your voice, your plot—don’t write to please a critique group, an agent, an editor, or a market. Listen and consider…but in the end do it your way, as true and honest as you can make it. And did I say “never give up?” I mean it. Never. Ever.

I'm still afraid of failing, but I'm writing past the fear.

What are you afraid of? What advice are you set to follow in 2011?

Love Triangles and Daisy Bellamy

Caveat: Those of you who loathe spoilers may want to skip this post if you haven’t yet read but plan to read Jennifer Haymore’s Tristan Family books or Julia London’s Summer of Two Wishes. I’m not reviewing these books, but I do mention them in a spoilerish manner.

I am not a fan of love triangles; I usually avoid them. I dropped off the Stephanie Plum bandwagon long ago. I’m talking about true triangles now, books where the hero or heroine has to make a choice and is genuinely pulled in two directions. There are a lot of second-banana characters in romance novels, some endearing and some villainous, who are there to add conflict but who are never real threats to the hero or heroine. If Gone with the Wind were really a romance, Scarlett would have been smarter and she and Rhett would have had their HEA. I think of Eloisa James’s Mayne, one of my favorite characters ever, but there’s never any doubt that Helene and Rees are the H/H in Your Wicked Ways. The fun is seeing how James is going to bring them together. The same thing holds true for another favorite of mine, Sherry Thomas’s Private Arrangements. I adored Freddy, but I never questioned that Gigi and Camden would be reconciled. Of course, my affection for the two not-heroes I mentioned accounts for the fact that the books where they are the true heroes, Pleasure for Pleasure (James) and His at Night (Thomas) rank high among my list of favorites. Still, I maintain that the books where I first encountered Mayne and Freddy are not truly love triangle books.

However, I admit that I have read—and doubtless will continue to read—some novels that do feature true triangles. Sometimes I read them because they are by an autobuy author, and sometimes I read them because they generate a lot of buzz and I feel compelled to check them out. Julia London’s Summer of Two Wishes falls in the first group. I started reading London more than a decade before SOTW, and even though I knew it was a love triangle, I couldn’t pass on a book by a favorite author. (Only vampires and serial killers lead me to that decision.) Even though Summer of Two Wishes ended the way I hoped, I have still waited impatiently for well over a year to see Wyatt, the “loser” in that triangle, get his HEA. (The wait will be over on February 25 when A Light at Winter’s End is released.) Jennifer Haymore’s A Hint of Wicked had many of my friends talking, and I was curious. I ended up fascinated by the book, but Garrett broke my heart. Of course, I had the see him get his HEA in A Touch of Scandal.  In a different genre,  Inara Scott hooked me on her YA series, Delcroix Academy, with the first book, Delcroix Academy: The Candidates despite an ending that I knew would generate Team Cam and Team Jack. (I’m leaning toward the latter.) None of these “books I have enjoyed even though they feature love triangles” prepared me for the most recent I read in this category, Marrying Daisy Bellamy by Susan Wiggs.

Like a lot of Wiggs fans, I have read all the Lakeshore Chronicles and watched with fascination and sympathy as Daisy Bellamy grew from a young teen dealing with her parents’ divorce (Summer at Willow Lake) to a character faced with tough choices as a pregnant teenager (The Winter Lodge) to a young woman asserting her independence (Dockside) to a single mom struggling to balance college studies with other responsibilities (Snowfall at Willow Lake) to a photographer developing her skills (Fireside) to a working single mom (Lakeshore Christmas). Throughout all these books, Julian, the adrenalin junkie with a romantic soul, and Logan, the troubled, privileged kid turned sober, devoted father, have been part of Daisy’s story. I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader saying “Oh, please, no” when Wiggs ended Lakeshore Christmas with a Daisy-Julian-Logan cliffhanger proposal scene. Then, the next book was not Daisy’s book, but The Summer Hideaway with its focus on new characters. The Summer Hideaway was a good read, a four-star book for me, but ah, the agony of waiting until 2011 for Daisy’s book. Well, 2011 is here, and Marrying Daisy Bellamy (Mira) will be officially released on January 25.

Daisy Bellamy has grown up. A successful wedding photographer in Avalon, she has dreams of doing something bigger with her art. Her three-year-old son Charlie is a joy, the center of her life and her heart, but she still thinks about Julian Gastineaux, who has had a starring role in her dreams since she first met him. She’s pleased that Logan O’Donnell, an almost life-long friend and the father of her son, has settled in Avalon and become a hard-working businessman, a homeowner, and a father very much involved in Charlie’s life.

Julian Gastineaux is about to be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He has received his first assignment, one that will challenge him on all levels. He’s also set to propose to Daisy.

I hesitate to say more for fear of spoilers. I’ll just say that I had given the possibilities of Daisy’s HEA considerable thought before I read this book. The romantic in me hoped she and Julian would end up together. The pragmatist said, “But think how good it would be for Charlie for his mom and dad to be together, and there are different kinds of love.” The writer thought that a new man for Daisy, who would choose to leave both Julian and Logan as just important parts of her past, would be different. But I never once imagined what Wiggs does with this triangle. I was totally surprised and totally engaged. I will say if I didn’t have the habit of reading the end first, I might not have finished this book. But knowing the payoff, I could endure the emotional roller coaster.

From Summer at Willow Lake on, I have been captivated by the Bellamys, their extended family, their friends, and their neighbors and looked forward to the next book. One of the strengths of the series is Wiggs’s ability to create a world that seduces her readers to enter this idyllic community filled with interesting, likeable people who struggle with real world issues but who find healing and happiness in Avalon. Small wonder that most of us are so eager to return. In the case of MDM, that strength in creating a full world also led to my one dissatisfaction with the book. It answers readers’ questions about the earlier cliffhanger scene. It fills in the backgrounds of Julian and Logan, allowing readers to understand more fully the men they became. A number of old friends make appearances, and I for one hope Sonnet’s story will be further developed in future books. But all of these pieces of the Avalon world, and the triangle itself, mean that the H/H actually have little time for the two of them. I wanted to see them together more. Therefore, I give Book 8 in the Lakeshore Chronicles 4.5 stars. I did find it lacking in this one area, but it was a memorable, engrossing read. And maybe I’ll be more willing to consider the next love triangle romance that comes my way.

Are you a Lakeshores Chronicles fan? Who do you want Daisy’s hero to be? How do you feel about love triangles in fiction?