Veritas

Lyrics to the song I'm working on:

Veritas

In this I see

All that you could be

In turn I find

All that I can’t bind

Behind your eyes

Lives innocence and lies

Sometimes you hide

All there is inside

To show yourself

To me and no one else

I bleed to be

Everything you need

From me to you

Lies all I want to do

You pull away

I can’t make you stay

You pull me back

Mercy you don’t lack

And still I see

So much looks like me

The lie you sigh

The truth lives in your eyes

You run to hide

But always by my side

And still I see

Such much looks like me

Now trust I knew

We both now know the truth

Chorus:

I don’t know you

I’ve always know you

I don’t know you

How could I ever know you

How could I not know you

Shriven

That angry scowl on your face

That bitter touch in your embrace

That dismissive air of mild disgust

The inherent joy in your newfound lust

The smell of me you now must hide

My broken face, your obvious pride

These prison walls that once was a home

Filled with the sounds of your whore’s moan

Denied my dignity, stripped of my heart

Expected to be a robot, feelings that stop and start

Blamed for the rage, blamed for the pain

Everything wrong was laced with my name

Never defended myself from the planned coup

I was still too busy fighting for you

So you hated my love surviving the rend

So you needed to show me a hell without end

Take this love and throw it away

Put it down it has no place here today

You silly girl and foolish child

No one loves and my care was mild

You stupid girl and wasteful burden

You were never someone I would defend

You lack of charm and a woman’s grace

Just a boy with a girl’s face

Your company is lacking and your appeal is false

Leaving you was no real loss

Behind the words lived the truth

Never deserved the love that soothed

Fear was to know true joy

Not worthy of a love that was without ploy

Run away before I take from you

All that makes your love so true

I’ll strip your heart, wreck your soul

And then you’ll join me in the cold

Take your smile and laugh away

Nothing worthy here to make you stay

On this pedestal I’ll preserve your grace

No man again will mar the beauty of this face

Trapped in silver, encased in ice

Only she feels the true sacrifice

Away from harm, away from pain

Away from fear, penalty, and blame

On her tower oh so high, she knows no touch, standing apart

Only comfort offered by the waning glow of her dying heart

Far from anything that could reignite the flame

The parts that die out shatter to not even leave pain

An island to herself, so he may atone

She suffers the cold death of being alone

The pedestal of care, built in praise

Will see her hurried to her end of days

Skin like ice, soul slipping away infused with the lie

Knowing the whole time, without the touch of love even the warmest heart will die

I Weep While He Sings

Written April 12th 2010

People care for possessions better than they care for people

They hold close and obsess until their hearts are full

What is the state of the world when you'll tell a machine what you mean

The core of consciousness that says disregard keep words lean

Just because it's a machine, doesn't make the thought less

Even through these circuits the alarm sounds yelling confess

This is when he lies to me I told myself in tandem

This is when he pretends that it was never even him

This is when he lies to us both that there was no reason

This is when he pretends that this is just the wrong season

People care more for things than they do for souls

They covet that which can be bound, covered up in bowls

What does it mean that we can't speak clearly to one another

The core of logic that claims that this can go no further

I felt the burn of the sin in my eyes as they read those lines

Felt the wash of shame at the need to explain showing all the signs

This is when he lies to me I hate seeing it so clearly

This is when he pretends that he doesn't just fear me

This is when he lies to us both make a whole new truth

This is when he pretends this is just a product of youth

I tore apart my tower of despair

Ripped up the cord of passing fair

Not another day in the shadow of a lie

Not one more pass resulting in goodbye

I saw him so plain in the light of day

Blazing his path daring me to play

He plays with lies as he plays with hearts

It's all a game as he weaves and darts

He plays with fire he plays with things

Over and under I weep while he sings

He sees no difference in people and possessions

No forward progress only regressions

I hold my head my reality is real

I hold my heart, its ok to feel

I hold my tongue don't yell it out

I hold my soul it's too soon to doubt

I hold my course there has to be a way

I hold my faith more than he can say

Over and under I weep while he sings

Another time another girl

Another place another ring

Over and under I weep while he sings

Around the corner around the bend

More pain to bring

Over and under I weep while he sings

Desperate heart desperate soul

To both I must cling

Over and under I weep while he sings

No lie to small

My ears do ring

Over and under I weep while he sings

More Minorities, Is That Really The Case?

In the past week or so there has been tons of articles about the racial make-up in America changing.  I don't know what other stories have had such a wide array of coverage by such a wide array of media outlets.  When I see things like this I think of how ridiculous it all is.  This is for a number of reasons.  The ones most pertinent are race is strictly a social concept, people will eventually evolve to being the color their environment dictates, personality notwithstanding, and why on earth is the one drop rule still applying.

Breakdown

Race is strictly a social concept, and it’s a bad one.  One that was developed for the purpose of creating a subservient class in what was perceived as the most efficient fashion.  It is a pattern that has historically always shown up because of our seeming inability to associate people that have even the minuet amount of difference from us as people like us.  Ask any blonde, brunette, or redhead.  Stereotypes exist for everything from eye color, height to shoe size. It is no shock that skin color is no different. 

Thought Lynch was a coincidence?

The biggest issue with this however is the end characterization of people with different skin colors.  No one believes that blondes are lazy and more prone to crime.  No one has lovingly instilled that brunette's are dirty and should not be trusted with meaningful careers or power. These damning assumptions are cast on skin color and persist because we as adults won't take responsibility for being part of the problem and teaching our children, peers, and family otherwise by our own actions.  Instead we laugh at racist jokes that aren't funny.  We agree with family by not bringing that person of another race home to meet.  We let the inaction in our lives carry racism into new generations so that the lessons of Willie Lynch are never forgotten. (Willie Lynch Speech) While it has been proven that the accounts of said Lynch are fictitious, the parable for American life is relatively valid when trying to understand the mentality that still persists in America. If you don't know the story, I don't have the time to tell you.  You should start your change into an active participant of the future of this society by looking him up and understanding the basis of this characterization, acknowledging the aspects of it that still exist.

The truth is in a few hundred years all generations in this continent would began to assume another shade anyway.  Its called evolution and for the religious zealots that can't understand that it exists and life isn't unchanging religious magic I ask that you recite the Serenity prayer to yourself and excuse yourself from this blog. Pay special attention to the part that asks God to let you accept the things you cannot change.  Evolution is a thing that cannot change because it IS change. 

Babies Don't See It

I find it amazing that because of the Bible it seems that some people cannot get around certain ideas.  I find it ironic because that strikes me as love of a false idol.  Bear with me for a moment.  No one has ever promised us anything in life accept growth, change, and death.  That is all.  Yet people need to believe so very much in a text that claims to recite the word of God, sometimes in spite of what life is showing them.

I feel like I have a very evolved relationship with God.  I do believe which is why I believe that the complexity of life cannot be summed up in a book.  I think this book gives us tales of other human beings and how they fell due to lust, vanity, envy, pride and many other human vices.  I consider these stories warnings and parables for what life could put us through penned by people who wanted to make sure that we as the next phase of humanity could learn from their mistakes.  And through this the wisest of us may develop a hint of an understanding of what God's plan is for us.  If you ask a theologian, and I have, they will relate something similar. 

So Many Religions

As a woman of mixed religious thoughts and ideas I have searched this earth for even a hint of what the Father needs and wants of me.  I have researched ancient religions and modern ones.  I have studied the tenets of Buddhism, the Tao, Shinto, the Koran, the Torah. I have read every book of the Bible as best I could, searched for lost versions, original translations from the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, Calvinism, Puritans, even the Shakers.  I have tried to decipher ancient Egyptian, Sumerian.  I have delved into Shamanism, witchcraft and just about everything else short of Satanism.  And I see the same pattern in them all.  One book, one set of rules that all claim the same thing.  We have all the answers.  This tells me plain as day, no one does.  But as humans we must have faith in something and everyone has the right to believe what they believe.  What they don't have the right to do is try to make everyone else believe it too.

In light of this I propose another alternative.  I propose a deity that is capable of such advanced thought that evolution was always a part of the design. I propose that our sight is so limited that we cannot phantom what magnetism, gravity, the primordial forces of this Universe are actually capable of or what they even are. That we cannot see the big picture no matter how hard we look.  We have functions in our bodies that only the highest of evolved earthbound entities have found a way to master.  The rest of us accept our involuntary responses and our weakness as simple, limited, finite beasts.  And that is the only true honor any of us can give the glory of God, living the life He gave us as He leads us.  Dropping arrogance, judgment, and cruelty.  What Christians claim as being of that faith to embody.

Stepping off my religious soapbox I confront the silliest of the whole thing.  Its' this idea that the race of being white is somehow defaulted to impurity if a single other 'race' is mixed with it.  It’s this idea that as soon as a 'nonwhite' gene pool is introduced to a white one all of a sudden the person resulting cannot in any form or fashion be considered white.  I find this the stupidest because I can't tell you how many times a 'white' person has looked at me and claimed to be (insert fraction here) of Cherokee, or Navajo, or some other none European culture YET still claims to be white. Because by aforementioned rules, they should not be. However, if the mixture is with an exceedingly undesirable (read not ostracized from the American Dream in a reservation fashion) race such as Latino, Chicano, Hispanic, Black, Caribbean (tropical black), Aboriginal (Australian black), or (insert various Polynesian, Asian mixes here including Maori and Inuit), then they are then 'spoiled' and apart of that undesirable race grouping.  If white were so damned superior you would think it would trump the other, yet not so much. 

So. . .

The truth is children from these unions are actually both because they carry the genes of BOTH parents.  One is not superior in DNA matching.  DNA just sees dominant and recessive strands and it matches them together to create new and more amazing patterns.  The more you give it to work with the more amazing pattern it creates.  Another marvel of creation we are not evolved enough to understand.  The simple fact is this; God has already done the math.  There is a reason why you don't see certain crossbreeds out in the world.  Think about it.  You really believe God would be so forgetful as to not put one in place for us if certain creatures shouldn't exist.  The last I checked, creatures that shouldn't exist. . .DON'T!  It is the sincerest form of heresy and blasphemy to damn what God has deemed to live.

So that's my say.  Please pick up one of my lovely multicultural, multiracial, usually interracial romance novels and celebrate love.  If we all do it together maybe we can get the world ready to accept some of these amazing new patterns God is creating in America.

Babies Don't See it Courtesy of http://dailyhurricane.com/assets_c/2009/08/racial-tolerance-thumb-560x411-146.jpg

Breakdown Courtesy of http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/17/article-2145687-13220938000005DC-904_634x746.jpg

So. . . . Courtesy of http://www.trbimg.com/img-4fbbd225/turbine/bs-ed-horsey-birthrate-20120522/600

So Many Religions Courtesy of http://www.reikiwebstore.com/ProductImages/ProductImages/GridSymbols500.jpg

Thought Lynch was a Coincidence? Courtesy of http://www.finalcall.com/artman/uploads/1/willie-lynch_gr1_1.jpg

Happy Valentine's Day

Single male looking for the right lady . . .click. I know how to show a lady a good time . . . click. Looking for a sweet down to earth girl. . . .click. Look no further I’m . . .click. Nice guy with a . . . .click. Looking for . . . click. All you need. . . .click. Take a look. . . .click. I am all . . . click. I need. . .click. I want . . . click. I desire. . . click I. . . click. I. . .click. I. . . .click.

“Shut up!!!” she finally yelled at the screen blinking back at her. With a sense of growing despair she threw her head into her hands. “There is nothing attractive about beginning with what you want.” Now empowered by rage, and not caring who knew it, she penned the online ad that she would like to read.

Opening line, she thought to herself, and then her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Just in case. . .”

Body : “You are tired of every other ad talking about what the man wants. . . I’m going to ask . . .what do you want?

“Let’s be honest. Who cares if I have a six pack, am dashingly good looking in that soap opera way? Who cares if I have a well paying job and a car, house, boat, insert whatever random possessions here that make you feel good? Who cares if I like walks in the rain, snuggling with the right girl? Who cares if I always root for the underdog and stand up for my female friends? Who cares if I fall in love quickly, passionately, deeply, and won’t be shy about admitting it? Who cares that when I am in that state all I see is how beautiful you are? And who cares that I fell for you for who you are, and not what I think you can do for me, my reputation or my appearance? And who cares that this means that no matter what, I will always love you?

I don’t, because it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if you aren’t there to show me the depth of you. I don’t, if you aren’t around to show me what I am capable of. I don’t, if your strength isn’t there to push me. If your femininity isn’t there to make me desire to be more. Challenging me with every vibrant breath you take, every passionate declaration and naïve expectation. I don’t, if your eyes aren’t on me loving me because of me, despite me. What on earth does my opinion of myself matter if I am the only one that believes it? I know self-esteem is necessary, but how can you find who would stand beside you, outside of you, if you never look outside of yourself?

I’m sorry that we’ve missed the point for so long now. Always wondering what to give, what present, what thought, what trinket or comment to temporarily sedate you into staying. When all this time all you have ever wanted is all of who we are. Good or bad, whether for this moment or always. As much as we are willing to give. And foolishly, without fail, we meet the one woman we can give all to and run away before memories can even be made. Forgive our weakness and accept this one man upon the alter of your mercy. For I will sacrifice all of who I am to one woman for the sake of us all.”

She took a long deep breath and reread her words. Once, twice. . . a few times more and imagined what this man would look like. Then she knew that it didn’t matter. This creature was a creation, merely an artifice of her own vivid imagination. Something that she would have to let go of if she ever wanted to allow an actual man in her life. She knew what men were. Not a one of them could reproduce what she had just penned.

With a sigh she headed back to the dating ads and realized that while she had been writing her own ad, someone had tried to contact her. The title of the message was, “In case you were wondering.” She blinked hard at the screen and clicked it open.

“I didn’t write you to tell you how much your profile sounds like everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m writing you to say that I haven’t ever specified or even known what I’ve wanted in a woman. I just know that if I ever had, it would most likely be you. Whoever it is I find on the other end of those words. In just a conversation, I might give all of me to all of you. What a tragically odd realization to have about a stranger.”

Tears pricked her eyes as she read the message. She clicked respond and typed. “Not exactly right, but close enough that I’m listening.”

With a sense of wonder, a hair of disbelief and an inkling that the Almighty was trying to teach her a lesson she was still stubborn about learning, she clicked send.

Why Men Lose Interest? What a Woman Can Do To Keep a Man!

I believe all of our social problems can be laid at the feet of this compound sentence and title. Within this statement is the bane of our social existence.  How can I make the lack of societal responsibility on the part of the first the fault of the second?

The fallacy of this statement is not lost on me. The problem is that I believe it is lost on most people.  Somehow the world of print media, advertising, and all else have laid the blame for a woman not being attractive to men at the feet of the woman.  Somehow women must strive to satisfy male needs without any concept or care for themselves and who they are.  I suppose this wouldn't be so upsetting if it were 1912 as opposed to 2012.  Yet with the coming of the new year it is obvious that some things still haven't changed.

Man plan

When a woman, namely myself, reads these types of articles that encourage women to dress a certain way, style their hair a certain way, and insist that they don't nag, I become a bit offended.  Ironically not nearly as offended as I become when reading the ones that encourage devious and deceptive behavior as the best way to make yourself 'bait' in a man catching trap. And always if you are not being pursued then there must be something wrong with you as the woman.  The ones that tell you how to alter your behavior so that you 'appear' to be the perfect girl for the guy you have decided you want are the worst offenders of this type of social masking.  Somehow the 'surface' fixes offered by some sites are not nearly as gamey as the personality overrides that more sophisticated networks are offering.

As if

The most popular top 10 lists don’t talk about looks, they talk about behaviors that they feel women need to break in order to be more appealing to a man.  They focus on making sure that you are that bit of fluff in his life that expects little from him and requires little maintenance, yet somehow always has time for him. Only have fun conversations with him and don’t be so negative.  What guy wants to deal with any problems other than his own? So with this in mind, try not to ever have any.  And if you do have the decency to not bring them up to him.  You really need to figure out how be less. . . . human when with a man.  That’s all.  You can’t really be friends anyway because of the sex thing and the fact that you have nothing in common so keep things simple. Should be a quick and easy fix to go from a fully layered functioning person to a constant Budweiser commercial.

While the woman is busy making herself the idea girl, where is the work for the guy?  What is he doing?  Surely he can't be bothered to be making sure that he is the right guy for the kind of girl he has decided he deserves.  Ahh but he is.

So somewhere else in the mass media haze men are being told how they need to act to get that one woman that all men must want because if you want a different kind of woman you are somehow less of a man. She must be this paradigm of womanhood that manages to stay beautiful, sexy, by being painfully self-centered, materialistic, and occasionally asinine. Because if she’s not like that she must be playing you or there is something wrong with her because all girls worth being with are like that. 

So you have to be well dressed, have a well paying job, and pretend to listen to her on occasion.  God knows she isn’t talking about anything but her clothes and hair.  Because as a man all you can offer her is what you are worth in the world.  You make the call, sit and decide what type of woman you want and then be ready to snatch that idea woman up when she presents herself. 

Perfect Man (Female Perspective)

I’m sure she’ll manage to seem loving when she needs to be, if not, buy her treats, she’ll come to heel right quick; have you on your back licking your face.  Remember be manly, don’t let her have her way too much and don’t let her completely rule you through sex.  Which is the only thing she has that is of value to you.  Well along with cooking and cleaning, but women love to do that all the time so you’re doing her a favor by eating her food and making a mess. ( Notice how the male perspective of a perfect man and the woman's perspective of a perfect man don't even resemble each other)

A to B

Yes in a perfect storm the two happen to meet, but how? Because usually the girl he is building himself for is not the one that is building for him. They would be together if they were pursuing the same goal. If he is busy being the man that he thinks woman A wants and woman B is busy being the woman that she thinks man A wants while there is a man B trying to be the man for woman B.  You get the pickle this puts them all in. In that case, when will these two people, who are probably good for each other but are otherwise engaged in being someone they are not. . . meet?

The other end of the spectrum is of course the men and women who are the idea so they don't have to work quite so hard to attract and capture a mate.  (I’m using the word capture in a metaphorical sense because it is usually how the dating, mating thing is referenced) They merely have to pick and choose who will be worthy enough to be with them. 

Basically all of us mutts are dressing up as thoroughbreds hoping the real deal doesn't notice long enough to get them hooked on us.  And we wonder why divorce rates are so damned high.  In the end it doesn't matter what you have coated yourself in, if you're a mutt, you will eventually be revealed as a mutt.  Why play the game when you know the inevitable outcome?

By the way, there isn't anything wrong with mutts.  So it is this value system that seems to pose the biggest threat to relationships between men and women.  Always we go to media and let it determine what is of value in our world and what is not.  I know people believe that the media has no effect on how they determine who to date or why.  I pose the argument that it does. When you compare and contrast definitions of beauty in other cultures and other countries and how the media backs this up it is obvious that we are affected by it because they are often not reflected universally.  For beauty to be a given it would have to have a more universal appeal.  People who are more symmetrical are more attractive across the boards.  However not everyone prefers blondes.

I love those relationships where the couple finds themselves hopelessly and madly in love for very inexplicable reasons.  You see those great loves didn't start under perfect or even convenient circumstances.  The couple usually had a rough road as they had to deal with who they really are in full view of the other person as opposed to who they wanted to be seen as.  This is a crossroad moment.  The relationship either grows or dies in this instant.

First Date

In laymen's terms, I think most relationships are Adam and Eve all over again.  You are naked and blissful, unaware of who you are and that you should be ashamed, then whammy you eat the wrong thing, all is revealed and you just want to run and hide before the other person sees too much. Before they see you're insecure, your confidence can be broken from time to time, you're not perfect, but flawed.  Before they see the parts of you that make you human. This is when the strength of the relationship is really tested.  When you have to drop all of your bullshit fantasies and look at the mess you got yourself in.  All kicked out of Eden and shit.

If a couple survives that terrifying moment of looking each other in the eye and knowing that you are naked before them then they have a shot at it. But they don't have a shot unless they have that moment. Because the same holds true for all things, nothing worth having is easy.  Nothing that is easy is worth having.  Only in the face of separation do we finally realize where we truly want to be.

In the end we are whoever it is we happen to be.  Trust is lost in relationships when it becomes painfully apparent that one of you, or worse yet both of you, is lying in what you told that other person was an important part of your life.  Anyone who has ever had a passion for anything knows you don’t risk an important part of your life on affairs, lack of time spent with it, or lies to yourself about it. 

The brave dive in and deal with it.  They take risks and chances to make sure it is IN their life.  If you don’t have that, you never had that person’s interest. You were a convenience and not a necessity. You should treat the relationship the same way.  Eventually you’ll find that person that won’t flinch and will boldly stand naked before you as you do the same before them.

A to B Courtesy of 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7155/6511287891_b02a035a8c.jpg

Man Plan Courtesy of

http://www.hiltonsamuel.com/wp-content/themes/thesis/images/header.jpg

Perfect Woman Courtesy of

http://sehihash.livejournal.com/35773.html

Perfect Man Courtesy of

http://humor.beecy.net/menwomen/the-perfect-man/perfect-guy-4.jpg

First Date Courtesy of

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/ggm080426l.jpg

The Stages of Woman - An Excerpt from Perilous Flight

Our mothers they teach us to be who they are and as penance we lose our first love

Our friends beseech us to act as they desire and for this we lose our next love

Our loneliness forces us to discover that we can only be what we are and within find our last love

As we stop craving the love of those that crave only our pain.  As we stop seeking that for which only wants to give us our fondest desire of being destroyed. Fascination with being put out of our misery begins to fade.

As we finally look within for what cannot be found without. As we finally look within to the cradle of the truest deception.  The whispers are clear and ever growing louder as we face what all have tried to hide.

Who said that I was flawed, who claimed that I was without. 

So hard to believe that they didn't deserve you, much easier to believe that you are the problem.

You only get back what you put out.

Have I, all this time been the maker of my own pain.  Have I, just now begun to realize that I am worth so much more than they say. worth so much more than I say.

so much more than they say, so much more than I say, more than they say, more than I say, than they say, than I say, they say, I say

I say,  I am a woman, I say I am worth so much more than you will ever know, I say that I hold all of who I am, while you hold none. I am strong enough to yield and fierce enough to give, I am hardy so I will stand and I am confident so I will rise to any challenge. 

I am. . . .power. .  I am. . . .joy . . . . .peace. . . . . I am. . weakness  I am. . .undeniable . . boundless . .  I am force. . truth. .  submission . . .decadence. .  I am . . .malleable . . .distraction. . I am  absolution . . mystery. . . .I am. . . .temptation . . . . .rejuvenation . . .exaltation . .  I . . .loyalty . . . .am. . . .reckless. . . .imperfect. . . .I . . . . love . . . . human . . . am. . destruction  . . .rebirth .  . .life. . . .
I     am    flawed.

Perilous Flight from Barnes & Noble
Perilous Flight from Amazon

Not Another Bodice Ripper - The Case for Serious Romance Part Two

THE ANSWER

Love is a personal endeavor no matter how universal television commercials would like it to seem. The nature of it is idealized for some, and wide open for others. The truth is when writing about something as profoundly intimate as love, it is really bad form to try and relate love in another voice or fashion other than your own. The truth and charm to a story comes from that bit of truth that is included. That bit of truth is the relatable aspect of any story. This is the core of your own voice as a writer. Regardless of how many people 'understand' your character's plight or not, the truth of the situation will ring forth and give the story just the push it needs to really fly.

With that in mind it is very bad form for generalists to assume that a certain plotline or story premise is in line with any pre-described social agenda. The liberation of women was just that, liberation. Liberation is the right to make choices. A woman can decide if she would like to be a public figure or a private one. A woman can choose to vote, bare children, and get married or not. The claim that the creation of or reading of romance somehow 'tricks' women into believing in self destructive rhetoric is almost more offensive than any other misogynic claim as it actually feeds into the myth that women are incapable of processing thought beyond what they know to be a fictitious account.

In laymen's terms, the claim in essence says that a grown woman is not capable of separating fantasy from reality. This is a claim usually attached to mental illness, and honestly makes light of conditions suffered by those who have legitimate hormonal imbalances, injuries or birth defects that are associated with mental illness. Reading romance is not an illness. Also it no more detracts from feminist prose as it would add to it. With that being said, no romance is the same. Like all forms of entertainment and media there are levels of content. No two books actually read the same.

The romance formula is very easy to follow. Usually two people, and in recent entries sometimes more, have a great potential for a romantic relationship. They must confront each other and often times the results are not initially positive. That is because of individuality. This is an aspect of romance that is explored more than it is in some of its traditional fiction contemporaries. You have the dichotomy of a relationship as opposed to the relationship being a side car to the dichotomy of the story. In the end the essence of the story is to confront relationship boundaries and expose them. This is a very emotional plane of existence that can sometimes hold the same trauma as a tragedy. And it should. Love is a life changing event. Seeking to experience it, and be bound to another person for all time is also a life changing event. As far as I know not a single life changing event has ever gone quietly and without lessons in humility and shame. These are human emotions that bear the weight in most situations. Yet in love they are the core of what this entanglement is about.

The way a writer creates this is wide open. This sense of growing affection and intimacy is developed from one thing and one thing only, seeing the person for who they are and loving them because or despite it. This is a truth that romance novelists understand that is rarely examined in most contemporary literature where relationships seem to be of convenience and not of necessity. Others are forced attachments where the characters are bound by seemingly invisible tendrils of emotion that are strong enough to bond yet not strong enough to carry the story.

To some degree the emergence of more acceptable contemporary popular fiction, and the need to be perceived a certain way by others has taken the blush from the rose as far as sweeping love relationships are concerned. Romance novels have long been the butt of literary jokes and recently in a twisted parody of art imitating life some have even endeavored to live up to this reputation of being incomprehensible smut with bad punctuation and grammar. But what are the far reaching consequences to this? This seeming end to fairytale as it were that now blocks the heart from even seeking some idealized contentment. Is it this lack of 'romance' being taken seriously in day to day life that has enabled a lack of respect for sex, marriage, and all romantic relationships? Has the 'replaceable' mate taken the place of the 'irreplaceable' mate?

Today more than ever in a world of revolving doorlike changes we need the purity of actual romance.