Writing With My Hair On Fire

Well, Alex has been having his way with me now for about a week. I've been dancing around him, hiding, and he's found me. It's all because my story has been supressed too long because I've been traveling, and doing other things.

I was answering some emails for my Newsletter (are you a subscriber yet???) and something hit me. I fall in love several times a year with new characters. I mean I do have a mental affair with them. Full on. Yup. And when the book is done, they have left me.

I'm very sensitive about the leaving part because I'm not a quitter. I hate people who quit. Sometimes I should do more of it, but I've been mourning the death of my last hero, and Alex has been bringing me flowers (mentally) and coming to bed with me in my dreams and dang it. SO THAT'S WHAT'S BEEN WRONG WITH ME.

I picked up this book about an erotic journal written that the heroine reads, and she is pulled into the journal-owner's story, until it abruptly ends. I'm not going to tell you the name of the book, because I can't recommend it - but I bought it because I have a story with some similar elements, Be With Me. It's about a woman who works in an antique bookstore and has an increasingly real encounter with a 19th Century British explorer. Oh those scenes at the Waterwheel Inn in Kenwood are so damned real, he comes to me, with his handlebar moustache, when I'm swimming nekked in the steamy pool at midnight.

And then it hit me. There is this character sneaking up on me, stalking me, and trying to get hold of my heart, and I've been shutting him out.

I love my rich fantasy life, because it's better than real life sometimes. I go there whenever I can. I like creating the stories as much as reading others, but since I'm a slow reader and a fast writer, it works better for me to make up my own stories.

So now I've got this Alex guy hanging around my desk, whispering in my ear, laughing at how manic I become sometimes. He has told me he'll help me get over the last hero who left me. Because that's what goes on in the heart and brain of this crazy writer. I fall in love, and they ALWAYS leave me.

But now I've discovered the cure: find another fantasy lover. And just like my original Date with Daniel some 6 years ago (an exercise to help me fall back in love with my first hero when I'd fallen for the bad guy), my time with Alex is promising. He's an adrenaline junkie. He likes strong coffee, loves to sky dive. Loves demolition derbys and loves working in the garden with me. In fact, we picked out two tomato plants, some broccoli, kale and some sweet peas. And he made me order Sweet Potatoes from the catalog along with red "sugar" cherry tomato seeds.

I'm listening to romantic Italian music from the 1930's and who knows, maybe I'll go back to that ship in India and go visit the Captain when he stops by the Waterwheel Inn to check on his journal. And then I hear the gypsy music in Prague and I'm all about the vampires again. Oh, what's a girl to do?

LOVE AND LUST: Becoming Your Own Courtesan

Not to worry. This will be very PG in words, but hopefully a little X in the fantasy of our minds. I'm a collector of ideas, especially about love and lust. Partly it's my job, and partly it's because it interests me more now than at any other time in my life. I used to wonder what it would feel like (and yes, I might have dreaded it a bit) being over a certain age (a lady never reveals her age but she will get nekked with the right guy). I distinctly remember being in my twenties and knowing my life would be over at 29. Anything after that didn't look interesting to me at all. And boy was I wrong.

In fact, I think love, romance, sex, lust and all things in between, either practiced, dreamt about, read or listened to is even more important the more mature we become. Nice thing that happens and a little secret to aging: we don't get old. We just enjoy all those fantasies in our head more than the reality of what's really going on as we climb the ladder of life.

I've read a lot of Sarah Ban Breathnach and find her writing touches me deeply. Her discussion of the word Casanova, that mythical great lover every woman wants to meet, literally means new house. She suggests a woman cannot be in love with herself or life if she is living in the wrong place. I think men are the same way.

I have Romancing The Ordinary by my bed and often read a chapter before I fall asleep. Here's a little quote: 'The true courtesan was traditionally more than a beautiful prostitute. Many of the most successful courtesans in history were cultured and sophisticated, enjoying considerable power and prestige. Courtesans were accomplished women of great beauty and intelligence. Highly sought companions of royalty, prime ministers, and wealthy gentlemen, they were expertly skilled in the elegant arts, which, besides lovemaking, included conversing, flirtation, entertaining, music, poetry, art, sports, politics and intrigue. The courtesan might seem at first to represent the antithesis of love, but in many ways her history is spectacularly romantic...These women often commanded intense love and prompted great works of art.'

Is there anything more exciting than sharing our passion?

She also talks about falling in love with love, how, she smiles more, expects to see her lover, whether real or fantasy, around every corner. She possesses more of the 2 extra senses SB says woman have: knowing and a sense of curiosity and exploration. Food tastes better. Drinking wine is a sensual ancient act. Shower gel and bubble baths are more important. Intimate tucked away places and soft music, tuscan orange hand lotion and bright fabric clothes and smooth Egyptian Cotton sheets that are way more expensive than we can afford -- all these things come into our lives.

Why do we do these things? Does our lover make us do them? No. We do them because we want to enhance our own lives, because it feels good to be in love, especially to love intensely, deeply. She calls it the practice of the sacred self-nurture. We listen to or write poetry, paint, sew, garden, listen to music, AND WE READ LOVE STORIES!

In short, we become the courtesan of our own bodies, our thoughts and dreams. We seek to create the environment where love is not only something that feels good, it sustains us, and alters everything around us.

SB calls it the place of belonging. And isn't the state of love, bliss, lust and excitement where we all belong? Is there any wonder why so many men and women read/write and enjoy romance? As I've said before, when we love deeply our truest, most generous and miraculous selves are revealed, unfolded like the shedding of our clothes. When there isn't anything separating us.

Nothing at all.

Z is for Zone

Welcome back to the last day of the A-Z Blog Challenge. This April has been the Letters of Gratitude. Some of you have stopped by every day. I owe you a badge! Others are new friends we have picked up along the way. Very excited to have all of you, both old and new friends.

Z is for zone, as in writing in the zone.

There are many things that put me in the mood. I subscribe to a number of travel blogs. I love looking at the gorgeous pictures, and fantasizing about a story that would take place there. Especially a steamy romance. Something created where the odds were not in the couple's favor, but survived and thrived in spite of the odds. Almost seems like it should be illegal, I'm having so much fun.

Right now I'm listening to Green Meadow by pianist Denise Young. Music puts me in the mood. With my Dr. Dre headsets, I can write just about anywhere. Tomorrow, as I travel home, I will be spending about 3 hours in airports on layovers.

I've spent the last 3 days in an intense class, learning about one aspect of the Real Estate market I wasn't versed in.

The gentleman I took the class from has a unique perspective on family. He grew up in an orphanage run by Catholic Nuns. He had an older brother who was in a different section of the orphanage. On occasion, his mother would come visit him for a weekend, he says when her conscience got the better of her. So, even in the pecking order of the orphanage, he wasn't a "true" orphan, because he had a mother. She just didn't want to visit very often. So, the better socks and clothes went to the "true" orphans, the ones who had no one.

He became a successful man, worked hard and didn't expect he'd ever have a family because he had no concept of what that was about. But then he met Her, and without any training, without anyone to model after, without the loving guidance of a sister, or mother or grandmother, he fell in love with this young woman. And his life has been enriched beyond his wildest dreams.

His story touched me yesterday when he told me about it. Today, at the end of the day he teared up, as we were preparing to go. He spoke of how lucky he was to have found her. 


"Whatever does she see in me after all these 50 years? I will never be able to figure that out, Sharon."

I thought about this. Looked him in the eyes, and said, "Your heart. You have a heart of gold, and always have. That's what she sees."

I find inspiration for love stories in unlikely places, from unlikely people, doing unlikely things. For, as powerful or successful as we all are in our lives, I still think the greatest thing is to love and be loved in return. My favorite line from Moulin Rouge.

I'm grateful for the gentle guidance others have given me, not only in how to make a financial success in this world, but how they share their love stories.

F is for Falling In Love

F is for Falling In Love!

Welcome to Day 6 of the A-Z Blog Challenge. I'm talking about a month of gratitude.

Where would we be without love? Do you remember that fuzzy feeling in your belly when you've just met that "special" person? You can't sleep. You don't want to eat. You run into things and say words you have never said before. You do things you never thought you would do, like go skydiving, go hot tubbing in the nude, wear a string bikini or don Mickey Mouse ears at Disneyland. You open the sunroof at night to watch the stars with the heater on full blast. You take more walks, hold hands, go see more movies. You smile a lot more.

In writing romance, I absolutely live for the scene when the hero and heroine meet. If I get that right, the whole book stands up and demands to be written. I mean, take no prisoners. Shout it from the highest hill. It makes me sing along to music in Safeway and do handstands on my shopping cart. I feel like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.



Romance is defined by two things:
     1. The woman always wins
     2. There is always a happily ever after.

Fact is, I think reading romance novels is actually good for your health. We live in a world of harsh reality. What's wrong with a little fantasy now and then? I've heard it said that great sex is between the ears. Do you doubt this in your own life?

You can call it animal attraction, or a divine gift from a father who only wants what is good and healthy for us. But falling in love, although invisible, can be measured by the actions it produces. I leave it up to your imagination.

Hey, it's spring. Did you think all my posts on gratitude would be heavy? Let's all get the heck knocked out of us by love. And feel grateful we can feel, we can love, we can have hope for a bright future with someone from our dreams.

Falling In Love With What You Do

All of us do things every day we don't enjoy. I like some things about living in the country. There are also days when I covet a high-rise in San Francisco with not a spot of yard or chickens to lock up at night. No pens to clean out (which is definitely my least favorite job).

It's like that with writing, too. Editing seems to get me down sometimes, until I turn the corner, and then fall in love with my story again, after I've eviscerated it. I don't want this lovely piece to become Frankenfiction, after all. But my second and third drafts can look kinda like that. Until I buff out the seams. Hopefully.

So the key for me is the falling in love part. And, as a romance novelist, why wouldn't it be? It came to me in a blinding flash of the obvious last night as I listened to my friend. When we are passionate about our work, we excel. When we trudge through it, not so inspired.

So maybe I need to clean up my relationship with editing. Make my amends, and decide to fall in love with it. I know lots of sane writers who do. They love it even more than getting down the new words. Diana Gabaldon says it's "polishing, finding all the jewels in the story." She says she gets excited when she edits.

In my sales career, there were parts of the business I wouldn't trade for anything. There were also some pretty dark times. What gave me great success and serious fortune was that I loved solving problems, putting people's minds at ease. "Always be the calming one in the transaction," a good friend taught me.

It even worked with raising kids and getting along with my husband.

So back to my edits. Another trainer of mine said, "people need you, and if you don't do your job, they have to suffer with using someone else."

There are millions of great writers out there. I will never get to meet or read them all. But even if there are a handful of people who want to read my books, by George, I'm going to make sure I do my part.
I'm going to write the best book, edit the best book I can.

And that means falling in love with the process of writing, as much as the words. What about you?