Getting Back to Innocence

I’ve mentioned how, a number of years ago, working in a particularly non-stressful day job, I had a lot of time to myself. I eagerly filled that time with reading and writing and with very little distraction at hand (I was cut off from the internet) I slipped inside a world that consisted almost entirely of fantasy. I learned a lot about myself during that time. Left alone, I could accomplish a tremendous amount of reading and writing in a short amount of time. I could hone my skills in ways I never imagined and I could find inspiration in the works of others that could be used to create an infinite number of stories. I was happy. Happiness, or at least the idea of happiness, is essential to the work of a romance novelist.

In a few of my previous blogs, I’ve suggested how helpful it can be to one’s inspiration and motivation when she stops watching the news. I’m especially speaking to those of you who’ve been suffering from writers’ block over the last year. Though we’ve been taught by our fellow writers that writers’ block “isn’t real,” I think many of us have learned in recent days that it very well can be real, when we’re distracted, distressed or can’t get into our fantasy zone for whatever our reason. Watching the news brings our stress to life. It amplifies our greatest fears, often causing us to worry about things that may never and probably will never come to pass. We all got a good dose of “reality” over the last year. And though I am tremendously blessed in so many ways, there is much of “reality” that I could do without, particularly the parts journalists and news media personnel thrive on. I’m talking about the “negative news.” Yes, the facts of what’s going on in the world are what they are but let’s face it – the news is made to look as negative as possible to get the highest ratings for the party reporting it and keep us coming back for more. How many people in the US do you know on either side of the political fence who are really happy about what’s “going on in the world” right now? The news media loves this! Me – makes me sick! Do you feel particularly inspired to slip into a fun, romantic fantasy after catching up on the latest headlines? I sure as heck don’t!

Switching gears a bit here. I’m not a reader who likes to abandon a book I’ve picked up. I’ve continued this practice with few exceptions and until recently, it’s served me pretty well. But getting married, changing addresses and settling into a new routine, I made the mistake of sticking with one particular book I wasn’t enjoying for way too long. I was stubborn, I liked the author and with a whole new life at my hands, I was finding it hard to make the time to read anyway, even in the midst of the pandemic. I struggled with that book for over a year, eventually picking up two more and finding I didn’t particularly like those stories any better. Maybe I didn’t like reading anymore–maybe I was outgrowing it. Bored with all three stories, I stuck with my writing, where I could control the story, make the events about what I found exciting. I finished 2 of the stories I was reading. And when at last I picked up another book (How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks, which I initially found corny and am now completely hooked on) I found something I thought was forever lost. My ability to fantasize, to lose myself in the work of another author, that feeling that I could hardly wait for bedtime so that I could read just one more chapter was restored. This, in combination with my recent “character crush” (Crushing on your Hero OR Villain: A Romance Novelist’s Secret Weapon to Writing a Great Story FAST! – February 17, 2021) got me so excited that I put my current works in progress aside in favor of writing a brand new series. I was back in my fantasy zone. And I could hardly wait to see where it would lead.

Speaking of where it took me, I followed my character crush, Supernatural‘s Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) to Gilmore Girls, which I was surprised to realize premiered in the year 2000 – 21 years ago! My, how time flies! Though I’ve never seen the show until recently, I was a senior in high school when it premiered. Like most things, the show got more interesting after its first few episodes and I’m enjoying these small-town, lighthearted adventures filled with young-drama, family, comedy and romance. In spite of how “long” ago this show was set (though it really doesn’t feel that way to me) I find it more “normal” than so much of what we see today, a world where everyone is just doing “normal things” (no masks, no constant worry) and though life has it’s trials and tribulations, everyone is basically happy. I long for the day when we as a world can get back to that kind of innocence. Until then, I’ll do what I can to keep getting back to that place in my mind so I can keep writing the stories that me and my readers love–always fantasy, never “reality!”