Thursday, February 09, 2006

That's Amore!

Love is in the air, or so the song goes. February is the month when all the world celebrates love and romance. Valentine’s Day in the middle of the month brings it all to a peak with cards and flowers and gifts and romantic dates. But, heck, we’re romance writers--we celebrate love and romance every day of the year. Love flows through every part of our writing. Love is the most important element of the novels we write. We plan it, we feel it, and we allow our readers to experience the highs and lows of it in everything we create.

We know how important the relationship between men and women are. We build stories around, under and through relationships. We know how important it is to express our feelings of love. It those expressions and vows, or lack thereof, that give conflict and motivation to our characters. It is how we and our readers know that those characters are alive and worthy of a happy ending.

In February however, we allow ‘normal’ people to share in the wonderful world of love. During the rest of the year, we blend in (or try to!) with the rest of the world and tout the glories of being in love from behind the scenes. In February, we are no longer those somewhat strange outsiders who hear voices and see visions and write words that we are compelled to write by some internal force too strong to ignore - we are in the mainstream. Love is in the air for everyone and that includes us!

I urge to you sit back and enjoy this month because once it ends only writers of paranormal romance get to be ‘normal’ in March -- those who write of the ‘fae’ and ‘little people’ and ‘fairy circles’ will have their moment as we approach St. Patrick’s Day. For now, smile a bit smugly when someone wishes you a Happy Valentine’s Day because you know that they celebrate love and romance but once a year while romance writers enjoy it every day!

As in the past, romance authors have been asked for more interviews and invited to more events and activities during the two weeks leading up to Valentine's Day than any other time of the year and I'd like to mention two of
them for anyone interested. This Thursday, February 9, 6 romance authors will be serving as 'romance experts' in a Pitney Bowes event at Grand Central Terminal in NYC! Pitney Bowes is providing Valentine's Day greeting cards and the postage to send them to anyone in world at their exhibit about the importance of communication in Vanderbilt Hall. Please stop by and say hello if you're in the area between 7am and 12noon.

The second one is the CBS Sunday Morning Show on Sunday, February 12th from 9:00-10:30am -- the program is scheduled to be about the romance industry and will feature some of the events from last year's RWA Conference in Reno, NV as well as interviews and film about romance readers' groups and authors. Take a peek and see how it turns out-- hopefully it will help us to share our enthusiasm about happily-ever- after with the rest of the world.

Happy Valentine's Day - enjoy our day!

Terri Brisbin

2 comments:

Gail Dayton said...

The rest of the world needs to catch up. Love and relationships are important every day of the year and the happiest people around are those who recognize this little fact.

Colleen Thompson said...

Can't wait to see the show! Congratulations, Terri!