Who’s counting the days I will figure this out? You have to move on from moving on. I hate the term “moving on,” it sounds like a duty one must complete before people could begin to see you normal again. At this point in my life, a professional has to be one jump ahead from the rest of the competition. How I miss the days when writing was only a dream, something I could brag about because it was the only activity I did well and looked forward on improving. Now I must make it a career because this job in health insurance doesn’t hold my interest anymore. I don’t think it ever did hold my interest. Only writing has ever interest me. Other than books about romance, science fiction and anything that had to do with leaving the real world and entering a fantasy, my escape was to take these stories to heart and live vicariously through each of them.
At thirteen I discovered the power of the romance novel when I first stole my sister’s Harlequin Temptation book. I didn’t realize what kind of book it was at first. I was a curious child and read everything I could get my hands on, even dull books about company presentations my father would find at his job or Goosebumps novels I would only read for the hype. This novel, however, was a breakthrough for me. It was the first time I ever learned about kissing and the power of sex. Coming from an Evangelical Christian family, I had no one talk to me about my body or the intimacy between a man and a woman. This book spelled it out for me and I remember not being able to put it down. The details I found were incredible to me and never had I experienced such raw material about the human experience in sex and most of all in love. The emotions expressed by the main characters were enchanting in a way where the vivid portrayals were so clear in my head that I could almost sense the touch a person feels when love sparks.
Creating scenes like these when writing is what inspired me to write animated portrayals of the human condition. But this was only the first of many, where such novels helped me program a way to fashion up a technique that continues to improve my skill. When finishing this book I had hoped my sister would buy more. She did and I enthusiastically snatched one after another from her purse. It was a good thing she wasn’t much of a reader, which was sort of mind-boggling why she would continue to purchase these novels.
This isn’t something I am particularly proud of given the guilty pleasure that have stigmatized romance novels. My friends and family call me a hopeless romantic or sometimes nympho. It’s difficult to explain to them that even though some of these novels are considered risqué and ill-written, and some of them are, they are my fairy tales that helped get me through adolescence, college and now my day. These are reads that I can criticize and learn from in my own writing, what to write and what not to write, how to improve and such. This is my method with all the books I read including fantasy epics such as A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. I feel it is essential to have a great grasp on any and most literary genres to really know how and what to write about and for aspiring writers as myself each story read is one jump ahead.
Copyright credits to Harlequin romance and the epic Fabio.
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