There are two ways of looking at the world. You’re either one of the people who disagrees that there are two ways of looking at the world, or you’re one of the people who agrees that there are two ways of looking at the world.
However, that’s not the point of this post.
At 2006 Saints & Sinners, Tim and I were on a panel discussing romance in fiction. We (half)jokingly said that, despite the times when love did us wrong, because I’m straight, I still believe in the possibility of gay romance and can write it. And because he’s gay, he still believes in the possibility of straight romance and can write it. Together, two of the least romantic people on the planet can deliver a plausible love story with a happy ending.
Yes, it’s true. Though I shouldn’t speak for him, Tim and I are of the “please don’t give me any surprises,” “I don’t want you to send me flowers,” “grand gestures make my stomach hurt,” “some people want to fill the world with silly love songs,” “wine? candlelight? you’re breaking up with me?” variety of people. And I think it’s BECAUSE of this that we like the challenge of writing romance. We want to see if our characters can seduce US into believing in curl-your-toes love and happy endings.
It’s not really that we want to convince the world that lovers can live happily ever after in a shiny place of joy and joyness where unicorns run free (with both kidneys intact). We’re all careening every day toward one ending, after all, and most of us don’t know when, as Mark G. Harris might say, the anvil’s going to hit us. But while we’re here, why’s it okay to believe that we COULD get that job, that house, that car, that promotion, that iPhone, that book deal, that recording contract, that Oscar, those BBQ Fritos, and yet somehow not okay to believe that we could get that friend, that lover, and that ONE MOMENT when love is real and we know, we KNOW, that no one’s ever felt this way before and it’ll last forever?
It’s not easy to write about romance in a snarky world. And maybe it’s foolhardy to write romance which is not all about sex, since “they say” sex sells. It’s not trendy to write stories in which friends and lovers don’t betray, belittle, and behead each other and bury the body under the koi pond.
But I can’t help myself. It’s not that I don’t see reality. I’m just one of the people who wants to sweeten my reality with–I believe it was Jeremy who said it to Adam in HE’S THE ONE–a spoonful of possibility.
