Music is Power and Love

My sister recently made the acute discovery (or maybe it was more like the cute discovery) that pretty much every song you hear on the radio is about romantic love. Um, yeah. But it got me thinking. Books have all kinds of different genres, as do movies. And music, yes, has different types as well: rock, R&B, jazz, etc. And yet, most songs are about love in some respect. Interesting. And then something else occured to me. I'll admit it: most of the books I read would be classified as Romance. I love to read about love. But I have read many books that aren't in the genre. And it seems to me that there is always some underlying thread, some element of LOVE in every story. It's not always romantic love, but it often is, even in action, spy, suspense, sci-fi, whatever. The question is: why?

Because. It's what makes the world go round, that's why. We all crave it; we are all motivated by it. And so to have a story that has no mention of love would be a bit unrealistic and for the majority of us, would be difficult to connect to. Yes, of course I know there are exceptions. Can't think of any at the moment...

I write romantic stories. Some are Contemporary, some are Fantasy, some are Paranormal. All are Romance. I always assumed I needed peace and absolute quiet in order to write most effectively. Well, I recently made a wonderful discovery. Listening to music while writing made words pour out of me faster than they ever have. All those songs about love have always inspired me, giving me ideas about what to write about. But I decided to just write while plugged into my ipod, to see what would happen. It was like magic. I totally recommend it.

Do any of you do this? If so, what music do you listen to while writing? What inspires you most?

You can't make me refrain from judging a book by it's cover

Okay, yes, my dream of all dreams is to someday have a novel I wrote published. But honestly, before that happens, I'm tempted to start a crusade against the bad cover artists of this world. I really am not that picky. I really only have one complaint. Let's see if you can guess what it might be. Here are some covers that I love:

And here are some covers that I was tempted to rip right off (even though some were from the library):

I'm sure it's quite blatant what the difference is. I simply cannot be happy about a book cover with the character's face on it. WHY do they do this? Books are about using our imaginations, about escaping to a place where we want to be at that moment. And I truly believe that the very same book can create a different escape for each person that reads it. Even though we are reading the same story, we fill in our own blanks in order to make it ideal to us.

But when a face is plastered across the front of the book, the face of the character of which the entire story is centered, our imaginations are instantly limited. The cover tells us: This is how the protaganist looks. End of story. It's so frustrating to me because the picture never resembles what I might imagine in my head. But once I've seen the picture, it's very difficult to create my own ideal world as well as I would have.

I can only imagine that this has to be frustrating to the authors as well. To put your heart and soul into creating a character that you love, only to have a cover artist define that character in two dimensions.

Any work of art must first of all tell a story. — Robert Frost

Loafer Ladies is an oxymoron

Today was my monthly writers group meeting. We have been together for quite a while. Over three years if I am counting right. At our very first meeting we very cleverly named ourselves the Loafer Ladies. Not only does the name imitate the name of the street on which many of our members live, it also indicates the expectations we wanted to set from the beginning. Or rather, the lack therof. It's a no-pressure, relax and have-fun-socializing kind of group. Which is a really good place to be for someone like me.
However, I am actually the exception, instead of the rule. I am surrounded by motivated, succesful writers! Ironically, that is also a really good place to be for someone like me.
Today was a lot of fun. We made these completely awesome dry-erase charts for building structure in a storyline. It's just what I needed. Liquid Creativity needs a solid form to be poured into.

Yet another story

In my own humble opinion, I think my plot ideas are brilliant. The problem is getting the entire story down on the page before the next idea comes to me; effectively distracting me from finishing a single project. I currently have about five stories started in my writing folder. Yes, I think I have Writer's ADD.

My recent story does not yet have a title. Any ideas?