Mom Always Said to Wear Gloves

"Wear gloves," my mom always said, "when you garden."

Protecting your hands is actually great advice, and if I'd been a faithful follower of Mom's wisdom, I probably would've spared my hands their share of blisters, stinging thorns, and spider bites over the years. As I planted a sidewalk border of blooming succulents this week, I remembered Mom's directive, because I didn't wear gloves, and sure enough, I ended up with a few nicks and cuts on my hands to remind me of her words. There's just one problem with gloves, though. It's one Mom never mentioned. The problem is gloves may protect you, but they don't let you get your hands on the good stuff.

Throughout Mr. Christoff's entire military career, he and I pledged we'd grasp with both hands all the things we sometimes had to skip due to frequent moves or his deployments. After all, it's hard to plant a garden when you arrive at your newly assigned digs in January. Since he retired from active duty, however, we've been keen to put down roots. And, for me, gardening is a key part of that.

The satisfaction of working the soil, laying fingertips on the sweet vibrancy of new leaves, and harboring the hope I'll be around to see my green, growing things through every season are reflections of building a life with the people I love in a new house, in a new town, in a new phase of my personal journey. Of course, a new phase, a new town, and a new house come with growing pains just as digging new flowerbeds comes with aches and strains.

Still, I don't always wear gloves when I garden. Why? I'd gladly pass on the thorns, but if I wore gloves, I'd also miss the velvet of the rose. I'm not sure the rest of life works like that, but I'm willing to take the chance.

Comfort Reading

When was the last Saturday that you did nothing? I mean, nothing. You didn't grocery shop, do laundry, clean the bathroom, walk the neighbor's dog, shop for jeans at the mall or even get your nails done. In fact, when was the last day that the most strenuous thing you did was make a pot of coffee? That was me. Saturday.

For the last, I don't know, many months, my weekends haven't been my own. I've either gone down to Mom's to help out or I've gone away for a weekend with friends or I've run and done errands. The one thing I haven't done is sit still and do nothing but read, because the minute my sitting goes beyond an hour, the guilt hits and I have to Do Something Productive. Yes, yes, sure. I've got issues. It is right up there with my inability to remain in bed if I think anyone else is up in the house.  But it means my to be read pile is growing ever deeper and wider and now can be contained on three shelves and I don't know how many pages in my Kindle, and my DVR is filling to capacity...

I'm sure I've mentioned this before - the remembered joy of purchasing a favorite author's new book and spending the evening and night reading it. Savoring. Living that moment in that book. And getting up four hours later and going to work. I am older now. Wiser. Or at least less able to work a full day on so little sleep. And for whatever reason, it feels as though the older I get the less time there is in a day and the more items are piled into my not finished pile (and to be read books onto those shelves, etc etc).  But we need these days, I need these days, to read a good book and remember that I love words and stories.

In the last couple years, I've been introduced to the wonderful Regencies written by Carla Kelly. She is a lovely writer, emotional and affirming. Her characters are, well, normal and kind and broken and strong and emotional and self-deprecating and courageous. Many of her stories are about the rising middle class in Britain during and just after the Napoleonic War. Military men, surgeons and doctors, mill owners. Her original Signets sell for upwards of $15 or $20 on Amazon. Sometimes even more. But thank the good Lord for re-issues for the e-reader!

This week, I downloaded two, and on Saturday, I sat and read "Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind." It was like macaroni and cheese, stuffed hamburger, pecan pie and a gin and tonic all rolled into one. Comfort and joy and kindness. With cheese on it.  You know her characters have had pasts, that at some point, life was really difficult. Perhaps even gruesome.  But the hope that she gives in the romantic relationship of the hero and heroine affirms all that is good and can be right with the world. It is a world of acceptance, of warm water, of thick red cloaks given as gifts to downtrodden poor relations.

I have had a particularly shitty last year, and am so behind in everything. There are quilts to be sewn, clothes to be washed, taxes to be completed, furniture to be polished, bathrooms to clean, plants to be planted, the list just keeps getting longer. And the longer it grows, the less am I able to sit and read.  But I took this weekend to be kind to myself. And what better way than with Carla Kelly? Do you have a favorite author that you immerse yourself in as a particular treat? Why her (or him)? Is it the characters she creates or the vividness of her writing? The story itself? Please. Introduce me to your authors!

Sustainable Conflict and Believable Setbacks

I got a lot out of Michael Hauge’s two-day seminar last weekend. More than I’d gleaned four years ago when he visited WRW the first time. I think his presentation is better today than it was back in 2008. Well worth the money I spent. He’s refined his material and deepened the concepts.

One of the biggest points to hit home for me was that all story must elicit a positive emotional journey for the reader/viewer and that emotion flows out of conflict. If I think about the books I read and the movies I watch, this is definitely true. When I say positive, I don’t mean all happy-go-lucky. But a journey that strings me a long and draws me into sustainable conflicts and believable barriers and setbacks, as well as triumphs. I want to experience the highs and lows with the protagonist. And I want to experience her growth over the arc of the story.

Readers pick up books and movies for the emotional journey. They want to lose themselves in the stories of someone else for a little while. At the hands of skilled writers, we find ourselves laughing, cheering, cringing, and crying with the best of them. It’s the credible twists and turns, confrontations, conflict, and successes of a character that allow us to experience universal truths that resonate with us all and showcase what makes us human. In his book, Writing Screenplays That Sell, Hauge says: “People do not go to movies so they can see the characters on screen laugh, cry, get frightened, or get turned on. They go to have those experiences themselves.”

I’d argue this is why we see certain movies and why we read certain books--because we enjoy the emotional journey that particular genre gives us. The tropes or reader/viewer expectations of that particular genre draw us like a magnet and speak to us in a satisfying way. I read books across the spectrum of genre fiction and enjoy them, however, I adore romance novels. And romance novels are the novels I choose to write.

No matter what the characters go through in a story, no matter what their personal arc, in a romance I know I will not get a tragic ending. While I know the ending will be happy, it’s the believable setback or the point where all hope is lost that makes me worry that these two characters won’t get their happy ending. Will the character be courageous enough to push through that final setback to find their happy ending? Or will they revert to their old life, the status-quo where they live a desperate life of mediocrity trapped by their fears? Isn’t it the secret hope we all cling to in life? That we’ll make a difference and that when adversity strikes that we’ll rise to the challenge and push through to find triumph?

The importance of getting this final setback right in a story and pinpointing an emotional journey directed at a particular audience hit me hard twice in the past two days. First, as I sat watching The Proposal with my youngest son and then as I sat watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II with my middle son. At the point of the final setback where all hope is lost for the protagonist, in each case, I heard my son sniffling.

These are two totally different movies. Drastically different stories. However, in each case, that final setback spoke to that teenager. So much so that the setback moved them to tears. In The Proposal when Margaret realizes she’s forgotten what it means to be part of a family and then admits to a roomful of people that she blackmailed Andrew into marrying her and then she runs back to New York, she sets off a whole series of events that show the other characters how much she truly loves Andrew to give him up and give him the life she believes he deserves. The audience is rooting for them. We know they’re perfect for each other. And when all hope is lost, we worry for them.

In the recent Harry Potter movie, the final setback where all hope is lost is where Harry realizes he’s the eighth horcrux and he must sacrifice himself--he must die--at Voldemort’s hand. J. K. Rowling is masterful. She makes us truly believe that all hope is lost--that Harry dies and all is lost. When I read the book for the first time, I sobbed uncontrollably at this point. The author builds a credible setback that rips our hearts out and makes us believe that this teenaged boy will not triumph.

And it’s this mastery of sustainable conflict and believable setbacks that prove the hallmark of a great writer--a writer who provides a satisfying emotional journey for her readers/viewers.

So what stories have worked for you on that emotional level? And tell us the genre.

Romance Novels and Emotional Intelligence

"Anyone can become angry--that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way--that is not easy." Aristotle, The Nichomachean Ethics

Ever been on a bender where nothing else but the moment mattered? Where you wake up dehydrated, eyes glued together, and feeling older than dirt? I think we’ve all been there a time or two in our lives.

I’ve been on a bender. The best kind of bender possible--a reading bender. I’ve used every moment of my spare time over the last two weeks to read. Even working full-time, I can read a novel a day. Yes, so I’ve blown through a lot of contemporary romance titles over the past fourteen days. And it’s been pure bliss. I highly recommend it.

I’ve visited my favorite authors with new titles on the shelves, a few old faithful books I had to read again, and authors new to me suggested by friends. And out of fourteen choices, fourteen books--I only had one novel I put down and wouldn’t finish. Life is short. And when you’re on a purpose-driven bender to reconnect with the reason for writing the genre you’ve chosen, you can’t afford to “tolerate” a book or a character who just isn’t doing it for you, who doesn’t ring true.

I discovered three things during this reading binge. One: I love to read. I’ve always known this--since I was a teenager. But I remembered. Remembering what you love is important, at any age. Two: I love to read romance novels. Three: The best romance novels take hold of me and keep me in a vice grip until that final page because the author possesses emotional intelligence.

She gets the emotions right between her characters and she opens up a whole world where I, as the reader, can understand this fictional world, and, by extension, my own world and experience, because of what I learn through the emotional journey she’s taken me on. For an hour or a day, I’m a stranger in a new land learning a whole myriad of truths about what it means to be human.

It doesn’t matter how quirky the plot. Or if the community is composed of a small harbor town in Washington (Shilvas), a hockey team in Seattle (Gibson), a bar in Vegas (Stevens), a hero and heroine on a road trip from Montana to New York (Higgins), or a tornado-ravaged reclaimed village in the mountains of Georgia (Bond). If the author gets the emotions right, I’ll follow.

Why? It’s all about the emotional journey for me. The best romance authors nail the emotional ups and downs of their characters and take me along for the ride. Daniel Goleman in his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, says that the goal of his book is to “serve as a guide in a journey through scientific insights into the emotions, a voyage aimed at bringing greater understanding to some of the most perplexing moments in our own lives and in the world around us. The journey’s end is to understand what it means--and how--to bring intelligence to emotion.”

This is exactly what romance writers do for their readers. So why is Goleman heralded as a pioneer in his field and romance novels are relegated to the status of “trash”? It’s the genre with the highest sales. Readers of romance buy the books by the armfuls--yes, I was just in Borders yesterday, I can attest to it. Romance is a genre of empowerment written by women for women. Is it emotional? You betcha. The best ones are. Because we’re not robots, we’re human. We possess hearts and out of our heart comes life and meaning. Romance is a genre that helps women take conflict and adversity and turn it into something beautiful, meaningful, and lasting. It helps them find a happy ending or a happy for now ending. And that’s not bad.

So what does a good romance novelist do? The author makes me believe in love, causes me to worry about a happy ending, reminds me what it’s like to fall in love, and how passion and lust can make you weak in the knees and a little crazy. But what she also teaches me is that men and women who are adrift in life can find their soul mate and their purpose. They’re not alone. They can make old wrongs right. They can make choices and decisions that lead them toward their destiny and make them a better person or they can turn away and stay where they are--mired in whatever emotional quicksand that has sucked them to a standstill in their own lives.

Romance novels give us the human condition--men who want to be better men for their women and women who will face whatever obstacle in their lives they must to win the man they love. These men and women sacrifice. Care about fulfilling their partner’s needs. Do the hard work of building relationships despite the influences and conflicts found in a sometimes ugly, mixed up world.

And who knows? If men and more women read romance novels, maybe the world would be a little better place. Who couldn’t love that? The best romance writers are masters of their craft who understand the human condition and the need for community and love and hope. They write about emotion with intelligence and truth. I’ll take that any day over the alternative.

Why do you love romance novels? And tell us about your latest reading bender. I'm always looking for another good book to read.


Here’s my bender reading list:
Baby, Come Home - Stephanie Bond
Baby, Drive South - Stephanie Bond
Man Hunting - Jennifer Crusie (a re-read)
True Love and Other Disasters - Rachel Gibson
Nothing But Trouble - Rachel Gibson
Any Man of Mine - Rachel Gibson
My One and Only - Kristan Higgins (a re-read)
Match Me If You Can - Susan Elizabeth Phillips (a re-read)
Simply Irrestible - Jill Shalvis
The Sweetest Thing - Jill Shalvis
Yours to Keep - Stacey Shannon
Ever Night - Gena Showalter (novella in On The Hunt)
Negligee Behavior - Shelli Stevens
The First Love Cookie Club - Lori Wilde