The Lusty Month of May!

There's a great song in the most romantic of classic musicals, CAMELOT, that extols the virtues of Spring as it impacts the romantic nature of men and women. "The Lusty Month of May" was great fun to sing when, as a Junior at Carle Place High School, I portrayed Guinevere in our Spring musical production.

I'll never forget how my overly romantic and melodramatic self became a walking, talking romantic fool. I was performing with a boy who had become my very first "ex" the Christmas immediately before. My Lancelot was a friend, with whom I "rehearsed" by practicing our kissing. But most romantic of all was the budding relationship that began during that show, with the fella who still reigns supreme in my heart as "the one that got away".

Umpteen years later, jaded with adulthood and cynical about the state of love in this cold, cruel REAL world, I find myself frequently reliving those youthful years because that is the sensation I strive for in writing my romance stories. The one that I think nearly every human has felt. That first heart-pounding, stammering, overwhelming experience of meeting someone's eyes across a room and feeling your entire soul swell with possibility.

I think that many (if not most) romance authors would agree - love in real life is NOT like it is in books - all those heart-warming acknowledgements to husbands and lovers notwithstanding. We're not the romantic heroes and heroines of our books - the larger than life people who always get a HEA, that happily ever after that everyone trodding the everyday path in this weary world would love to be guaranteeed.

But that is what makes a great romance so wonderful. Because it is something that takes us back, reminds us, of that swell of love, that indescribable sensation that is both physical and mental that utterly absorbs our every waking thought and emotion (and some sleeping ones, too). The giddy joy that is almost painful, the unbearable anticipation, the thrilling expectation, the sing-out-loud-at-the-top-of-your-lungs feeling that is unmatched by any other in the world.

Writing romance means that you have to be able to capture, and package, that emotion (and find the words to describe the indescribable) no matter what your life is like. Whether you are in a wonderful, nurturing relationship, or living a solitary existence with only your BFF - Fluffy the Cat. Despite work travails, personal responsibility, health problems, the onset of age and the day-to-day unpleasantness that no one is immune from, we must write great love stories where true love triumphs against all odds. Be they heroic adventures, supernatural couplings, or the madcap whirl of a contemporary category romance. They must have heroes that remind us of the love of our life. And heroines in whose shoes - and negliges - we can imagine ourselves. (Don't tell me readers don't imagine themselves to be the heroines of their favorite novels, just don't!).

Romance novelists, like any other author of fiction, face the usual problems of craft, writer's block, coming up with ideas, finding the time to write, business issues and fear of success.

But unlike other writers, we romance writers have our very own, singular problem. Bringing that sense of romance and love to all of our readers. Sweeping them into a world where love will conquer all. No matter what a reader's life is like, convincing them of the power of love. Whether they are a septugenarian in Saskatchewan or a twenty-something in Tulsa. A widow in Wasilla, a happily married Mom in Mackinaw or a spinster in San Francisco. That beating of the heart that pounds in your ears. That sigh of yearning and the secret smile. The touch, the tingle, the dreams and the desires. That is what our writing must generate. We want to leave our readers leaning back wearing that mysterious expression that says yes, they, too, have felt the pangs and the power of a love as great as any that has ever been.

And believe me. That AIN'T easy!