Over at Ravencraft's Romance Realm today

http://ravencraftrealm.blogspot.com/2013/07/romance-heals.html

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.

L is for Love

Welcome to day 12 of the A-Z Blog Challenge, and my theme of Letters of Gratitude. I think I can safely say I have been addicted to love. Hardly been a time in my life when someone else wasn't at my side. How strange that now that I have had all these years in a long term relationship, that I could actually see that I don't NEED it, but WANT it. Instead of fixing it, tweaking it to become perfect, I can LET IT BE. And, if I had to, I could live without it.

I'm not talking about losing love, or reminiscing on lost love. I'm realizing that I choose to love another the way they are, the way we are: lumps, warts and all. That life is perfect just the way it is.


Another lesson I've learned this year is to Let It Be. I admit to being a drama queen. We've had some family drama in the past couple of days. The Big Kahuna of Drama with the capital D concerning one of my kids. But family is all important to me. My writing, my blogging, my other friendships outside of my family are also important, but they take second to my family. I can't fix everything in their lives like I'd tried to do as they were growing up. I have to love them, warts and all, the way they are.

I think when you love someone with pure motives, the very best in yourself comes out. It's one of the themes in my writing: Love Heals In The Gardens of the Heart. It is what drew me to romance writing in the first place. I enjoy living in the hearts of my characters as they discover the "other" and the effect they have on their lives. In the claiming, the connection, comes the miracles and the freedom to feel limitless. There is trust, faith, hope. It is almost a spiritual experience.

Another thing that Love isn't is doing things. I've been a "gotta do more" type of gal. If packing for a volleyball tournament is important, I adopt the fill-my-Suburban-so-full-that-there's-no-room-for-my-daughter kind of mindset. When she stood there in the parking lot, looking up to me and asked, "Mom, there's no room for me here," I couldn't believe I had been so focused on the "things" for our week-long tournament, and not my daughter, who I was doing it for.

If you can this weekend, go rent Love Actually. The movie explores several couples and their struggles with love, and love lost. What character do you see yourself as? What actor/actress would you trade places with for just a few minutes? I'll bet you can guess who I'd be.

The Case For Love (Not that it needed it)

A close family member had been grieving at the loss of a relationship. He asked me, "How do you find another partner? How do you find someone to love?"

I told him, "It's like catching a butterfly."

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"You go out in the yard and wait for one to land on you."

I was serious. Used to do that as a small child. With head back and arms outstretched to the sides, standing in the sunlight with my eyes closed, butterflies would come and land on my fingers, or on my head. I made myself a beacon for those beautiful winged creatures in my mother's flower garden.

Love isn't about trying to find anything. It finds you. You can't hold onto it, you receive it. Open hand to receive, not clutching in a fist. My relative was trying too hard. Wanted desperately to fill the big God-shaped hole in his chest.

I used that theme when I wrote Heavenly Lover. I liked the image of Guardian Angels dispatching their duties to save humans from throwing away their souls. And then the Guardians get snagged by love unexpectedly. All of a sudden, they notice the gap in their own chest. If love is universal, possessing great healing powers, why wouldn't an angel stumble upon this, not knowing before that he/she needed it? Meeting the "other" changes their angelic lives, for the good.

One of the most wonderful things about being a romance writer is living in the possibility of love 24/7. Okay, maybe that was a lie. Not always 24/7, but enough of my waking day as possible.

Because living in the possibility is where all the miracles are located.

I hope this Valentine's Day is filled with miracles and the possibility of miracles. And know that you are loved beyond what you can manage to believe.