The Lure of Everafter...

Nothing spells fairytale more than the idea of the perfect wedding. From the gown and the vows to the music and flowers it goes straight back to the famous happily everafters our mothers told us as little girls. From the time most of us could hold a book in our hands, love stories have enchanted, and when we grew up we all wanted to live the dream. We have either been a bride, wanted to be a bride or curse the day we were a bride. That one day and everything that went into it lingers, good or bad, funny or sad, for the rest of our lives.

Over the past few days I have been writing a wedding scene for my characters, Lily and Sean, from my Cursed by Blood Saga. I put the gown's description to my Street Team, and even then people of like mind who love the characters concerned drew lines as to what made the fairytale for them and what didn't.

We all know it's not just the gown or the party that follows that spells magic. It is the idea of Everafter.

So what exactly is the lure of Everafter? What makes us so enchanted with the idea of a grand love that endures all things for all time? Does it stem from a need  to banish loneliness? Is it just a chemical reaction? Or perhaps it's a man-made desire for a form of immortality where love exists between two people in an endless spring? Or is it simply a validation of worth?

I honestly don't know if there is one answer. Love, at least in my experience, is work. It's messy and happy, angry and joyful, giddy and sad. It's full of angst and worry and lighthearted moments and heavy hearts. It's bittersweet and its soulful. It's old and it's young. But most importantly, it's subjective.

If asked, I'm sure each one of us would give a different description of what love means in our life. Like white light passing through a full spectrum prism, love is a multifaceted gift as warm and beautiful and full of color as sunlight with just as much power to heal as it does harm.

Whatever your answer, whatever your description, my guess is we would all agree life is better, richer and more worth living with love in our lives than it could ever be without it.

Valentine's Day may be a man-made holiday, but it is still a celebration dedicated to the love in your life. My wish for you this February is that you look at the the friendships and relationships that fill you with emotion and appreciate them.

From me to each of you...Hail to the "V"... and Happy Valentine's Day!

Daggers and Ink

Daggers and Ink... 

The two often go well together, don'tcha think? Characters live and die, writer's bleed words on to the page. Conflict and resolution exist between the text of every story just waiting for a reader to delve in and discover it. It's almost magical...

A psychic once told me words were the way I channel magic - my way of bridging the ethereal gap between what is and what we want to be. Now, I don't know about that. But I do know books have always been my favorite way to escape. It's been that way for me since elementary school, and romance was the genre that captured my soul and gave it wings. I know many of you feel the same way. Reading makes the mundane elements of my life melt away, leaving me with a secret smile and a sense I'm privy to something others aren't. It's silly, I know. But a good story lingers in my head, almost allowing me to float through the have-to-do parts of my life. It doesn't matter if the book is Young Adult or Erotic or every romantic sub-genre in between...if the story is a good one, with strong characters, good conflict and a satisfying resolution...I'm a goner.

There's a quote from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series that I absolutely love. "Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it."  

There's no other way to say it. Words are powerful.

Those of you who know my work know when it comes to romance and sex nothing gets my creative juices flowing like throwing in a bit of paranormal. It's the what ifs that make it so titillating for me. WHAT and IF. These two syllables have more power than any to haunt you for the rest of your life. At times, I think they are even more powerful than the words I Love You, simply because if you fail to say the magical three when the time is right, then the cursed two will assuredly bite you in the ass...and vice versa...if you say it and don't mean it. Well, you know how that one goes.

What if. 

Those two syllables may have the power to haunt, but they are also the gateway to dreams. The incantation every romance writer invokes the moment they put their hands down to type. Magic comes from those two syllables, and hopefully finds its way onto the page for all of us.

Where do you find your magic?