It’s amazing how sometimes heartbreak makes you want to curl up into a little ball in front of 27 Dresses or The Matrix, and sometimes it makes you want to write about fake people until you can’t type straight. For better or worse, I’ve been in stage two for a couple days. Five thousand words later, I feel pretty proud of myself. Maybe I still hurt, but if I can turn it into something beautiful, that’s what matters, right?
I hate to sound like a greeting card but there is just something so therapeutic about writing fantasy or paranormal books. It’s not about getting to write a perfect world where everything happens perfectly. No one wants to read that. If Cinderella was a rich kid with two cool parents and a steady boyfriend, Hans Christian Andersen would just be another random Swedish guy. Instead, we have the girl who gets kicked around by the stepmother, hates her life, and then gets a little magic help to make her own happy ending.
No one cares about the happy ending if it’s easy to get. You need Victoria hunting down your family ala Twilight. You need a bunch of demons and a dead twin sister luring your girl into danger--yeah I’m looking at you Constantine, and the oh-so-dreamy Keanu. Or maybe you’re Molly Ringwald and no one’s figured out how awesome you are yet. That’s what I love about romance stories, whether that’s the spotlight or they’re wrapped up in an awesome adventure story. Sometimes it’s hard to believe in truth and destiny and all those bigger-than-you things if you don’t have something just for you to keep you grounded.
Maybe the ending isn’t even happy. Maybe it’s just hopeful. In the very end of a series, you kind of want to see the heroine get what she deserves. The guy. The dream house. The snazzy job. But modern romance isn’t all about the happy ending. Maybe for this girl, everything around her is broken but she’s gotten so strong that you just know everything will eventually be okay. You know she’ll get her happy ending. She’ll make it happen. Cinderella was great, but today’s heroines know how to take matters into their own hands. They get the guy and save the world.
In all that practical news, the writing really is getting underway pretty far now. I’ve been working on it a crazy lot because it’s summer and that means real work, you know the kind currently making me money, is really slow. Thanks to my wonderful friends / editors, it shouldn’t be long before the first book is ready to see the world. Pretty soon, I’ll give you some excerpts. For now, I have to go work on giving Chloe her happy ending. Or just make her happy enough so she’ll stop yelling at me for not writing. ;)
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