Real Passion

It's been retro week on Facebook.

What, you didn't know??

We were to replace our profile pics with ones from when we were younger. My problem is, I haven't scanned in any of my old photos and the ones I used to have out are boxed up. Not from moving laziness, but on purpose. We like the clean walls of this house. And, with the way the views fill the rooms, it doesn't look right to have too much stuff inside competing.

So I was judicious in what I've hung up and put out. Those old family pics from when I was a kid? Eh. In the archives.

But one of my sorority sisters has been clever enough to scan in some of our old photos and sent me some.

So now I'm cruising on nostalgia. That guy in the photo was my Great Passion. Fantastic lover, stand-up comic and alcoholic. He broke my heart twice. I have a long-standing rule of never getting back together with someone after the break-up. I firmly believe that whatever caused you to break up in the first place will still be there. He's the only one I violated the rule for and, guess what?

I suppose sometimes you have to test your own rules, to verify the truth of them.

He's since fallen off the face of the earth. I sometimes wonder if he's self-destructed. There's another one I wonder about sometimes. Another passionate and dysfunctional relationship. Must be a theme.

I remember when a counselor told my mother "we seldom marry our great passions." Which I think is true. The men who give us the roller-coaster ride of passion are not usually the men who are good for the day-in/day-out routine of grocery shopping and alarm-setting.

While I know romance novels are about the fantasy, this aspect sometimes bothers me. When the relationship is SO turbulent, romantic and passionate, I sometimes get hung up on whether the happily-ever-after will stick. For me, I really need to believe in the reality of the story, to really enjoy the fantasy.

Funny -- when I started this post, I didn't intend to converge with Allison's post today, though I did read it while writing this, and while chatting with her on IM. Interesting how the mind works that way. Of course, she also had to point out that she was in 6th grade when this photo was taken. Which just means she was a snot-nosed brat when I was a sophisticated young woman.

That's the other thing I've learned from nostalgia: it's easy to look back and think how young and pretty I was then. Something I didn't know. I didn't think I was, at all. It's another way to bend what's real, our perceptions of ourselves. Now I just try to appreciate how I look, since I know I'll look back later and wonder why I worried that I was too fat or too pimply or what have you.

Maybe part of the trick is embracing reality for what it offers. David cooks dinner most nights and is a lover to me in a way only someone you've been with for almost twenty years can be. When I have early meetings, he brews Earl Grey for me and puts in in my favorite thermos.

It might not make for the stuff of novels, but it is truly romantic.

Houston, We Have a Plot

Yesterday's post left our heroine (that's me) fretting about whether her novel has a plot.

And yes, I know most writers out there would worry about this at some point before they, oh, say, finished it, polished and sent full manuscripts to agents and editors.

Hey, I follow my own path.

But here I am, coming up with a more conclusive ending at the behest of one agent and it started to niggle at me that maybe I didn't have an actual plot arc. So I started the online plotting class on Monday, as I mentioned in yesterday's post. Loglines first, now two-word descriptors and mottoes for the main characters. The latter was more fun than the former.

But I'm impatient.

I'm 70% through my revision and I have two more weeks at home before I enter a five-week cycle of business road-trip hell. I seldom get much in the way of writing done when I'm on the road. Which bites, but there it is.

I want this revision done done done before October 18. Mark your calendars.

Feeling this pressure, last night I went to Alexandra Sokoloff's blog. She's the very dramatic blond above. I met Alexandra at the RT Convention and caught the tail end of her workshop on The Index Card Method of viewing story structure. She's primarily a screenwriter, so she thinks in terms of scenes and movie structure. Which, particularly for genre, can be a really useful way of approaching a novel. I didn't see much of her workshop -- it was one of those deals where I figured I know how story structure worked (ah, those blissful days of ignorance) and I only popped in because the other session I was in ended early, and there she was, talking passionately and tacking up and tearing down index cards from the carpet wall, while the next session trickled in.

But what I did hear was fascinating and I gleaned enough to get that she has the whole thing up on her blog.

So, last night I worked her method.

The good news? I have a plot! Who knew??? At least my Act I, II and Midpoint climaxes happen very nearly at the exact pages she says they should. Apparently that Liberal Arts education of mine managed to shape my consciousness enough for story arc to sink in without my knowing it. (This is, by the way, based on story arcs as in plays developed in Ancient Greece.)

Oh, yeah -- the bad news? Well I have no discernible climax in Act III. Oops. And that agent, bless her heart, said I needed a more conclusive ending. Hmmm. How about an ACTUAL ending, Jeffe?

Alas.

But now I have a strategy. All this foreplay is now leading up to something.

Just wait -- you'll see.

(12 days and counting.)

Quite Continental

From Travelblog to Guestblog!

Welcome today to Candace Havens, member of FFP and author of the new release Dragons Prefer Blondes. Take it away, Candace!

One of the things I love most about romance novels is the happy endings. I like knowing that no matter how much hell the character goes through during the book, in the end he or she is going to get a happy ending.

I can guarantee you’ll get one of those with every book I write. It may not be the happy ending one might expect, but there will be one. (Smile). In my new book, Dragons Prefer Blondes, it doesn’t look like my heroine, Alex, has much chance for happiness. She’s in charge of keeping dragons from attacking Earth. It’s a tough job, but the wealthy club owner just looks at it like another day at the office.

She’s a woman who has most definitely given up on the concept of love and happily ever afters. She’s certain those things will never be a part of her life. Imagine her surprise when love smacks her upside the head and she realizes that she could possibly lose the one person who matters most to her.

Through the years I’ve had a chance to talk to Nicholas Sparks about his various books and films. While talking about “Nights in Rodanthe” I thought he explained his style very well. “I write Greek tragedies, and there are no happy endings in a Greek tragedy,” he said. “I give people a hopeful ending, but not necessarily a happy one.” As much as I adore him and his books, it hurts my heart every time I read them or watch the films.

So, while I can’t tell you the ending of Alex’s story, I can say that there is a resolution. And that while she may not get what she thought she wanted, she does end up happy. (Smile).

Don’t tell me the endings, but share some of your favorite books that had wonderful resolutions at the end.

Candace Havens

Let Me Count the Ways

"Do you love it?" they ask me.

Total strangers walk up to me in airports, at Starbucks, when they see me reading my Kindle. "Do you love it?" they all ask and I let them play with it.

Yeah, I do love it. My mom gave me a Kindle for Christmas, then was devastated that they couldn't ship it until February 24. But it turns out that they were waiting to complete production and ship the Kindle 2, so it was fine by me. David gave me a Blackberry Storm for Christmas (this was my techno-Christmas, apparently) and I was still trying to learn that. The lament of my age group -- we played Pong as kids; we used computers in high school, so it should NOT be this hard to keep up with technology. Everyone is fretting about twitter now. I tried to read a twitter page and nearly clawed my eyes out. One thing at a time, I figure.

Except the Kindle 2 was super-duper easy to get going. I had to read the user guide for a few things, but I found what I was looking for. I love that I can slip it in my purse, that I can pull it out, hit the slider and it opens to my page. Child of my era and my culture, I just love the instant gratification. I finished a book that left me craving more and instantly downloaded the next in the series. It's light, easy to read, easy to turn the pages.

I found I had to adjust my page-turn timing. As a long-time reader, I have a rhythm of starting to turn the page while finishing the last couple of lines at the bottom. If I hit the next page button on the Kindle at the same rhythm, the page replaces before I finish the last line. But I adjusted pretty quickly to that. I do miss the feel of "having" the book, of seeing the cover image as a prelude to settling in. I read a book on the Kindle that I ended up really loving: Jeaniene Frost's Halfway to the Grave. (It was her One Foot in the Grave that I immediately downloaded.) Reading her was like having paranormal romance steak after six months of nothing but Ho-Ho's. (A side note for those interested in such things: they classify her as urban fantasy, see? that means there's no happily ever after at the end.) Anyway, now that I feel all warm and fuzzy about Jeaniene's books, I want to HAVE them. Even though I already do. But I don't have the sexy cover and I didn't know this was the "Night Huntress" series until I recommended it to someone else. That part I miss. Is it important? We'll see. It looks like I'll get to meet Jeaniene at the RT convention -- I can hardly have her sign my Kindle. Something for Jeff Bezos to ponder.

So, if you see me in the airport or at Starbucks -- Yes, I love it. And of course you can play with it.

Swim Boys

10:00 am, the first Saturday of the month, so the mournful wail of the tornado sirens drifts over town. Dogs lift their heads to howl along. In the summer I'd be already outside in the garden. Instead, the January cold keeps us in. Wind gusting along the eaves. Only a test.

They were having a swim meet at the Rec Center this morning. Always a bad omen: yellow school buses in the parking lot. They cheerfully list the counties across Wyoming. Sweetwater. Fremont. Campbell. Former Governor Mike Sullivan called Wyoming a small town with very long streets. To have a sporting event, schools must compete against schools from across the state, not from across the city. Only a couple of towns have more than one high school. School buses in the parking lot mean kids swarming the weight machines, the walking/running track, traveling in packs to look cool on a visit to the "big city."

On Saturdays, the Rec Center opens at 8:00 am. We sleep in and head over there around eight o'clock. Saturdays is our treadmill workout. David and I like the side-by-side treadmills that overlook the pool through tall glass windows. During my twenty minute run, I watched the families assemble, settle into the bleachers and the steamy warmth. Not a bad place to be on a sere winter day.

Bleachers are the natural habitat of teenagers. While the adults perch uneasily on the hard plastic benches, the young men -- this meet seemed to be all young men -- sprawled. The accepted pose required at least three tiers: Feet on one, butt on the middle and elbows on the highest. An elegant laid-back pose, especially well adapted to being shirtless, which they all were. Little kings, they surveyed their territory with cocky athleticism, reclining so that all might admire them.

But I felt no admiration. I've never quite gotten the stories of the older woman and the teenage lover. These high school boys are no more attractive to me now than they were when I was in school myself. I think that for me it’s because attraction to a person is all about the personality and character, which are not yet formed in most of these guys. Sure we can talk about a man with nice hands or strong shoulders or intense eyes. But in the end, it’s about his presence. His manliness.

The romance authors talk about the alpha male. As the genre dabbles in other areas, growing and drifting into science fiction, mystery, thriller, even mainstream fiction, those who work in the field struggle to define the genre. One particular I see most often is there must be an alpha male. That and an “emotionally satisfying ending.” The Happily Ever After (HEA) is no longer a prerequisite. But the alpha male: a must.

Which is interesting because, biologically speaking, alpha males are the exception, not the rule. There is only one alpha male wolf in the pack. There is only one alpha stag in the herd. As females, is that our biological imperative – to seek out the alpha male and ignore all of the secondary bachelor males? Is that what romance is about, the animal drive and nothing else?

Perhaps there’s something else to look for in the man of our romantic dreams: someone between the unformed boy and the elusive alpha male. After all, in nature, the alpha leads for only a short time before he’s taken down by the young males waiting restlessly in the wings for their turn at the females.