I'd never realized it until yesterday, but I've been\u00a0a literary segregationist.\u00a0 Oh I've never had a mental partition over race, or at least, I'm not aware of one, but yesterday I realized I had one over age.\u00a0 Books written\u00a0about high school kids are intended for that age\u00a0through college age kids, right?\u00a0\u00a0That means they're not meant for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So a while back Stephanie Meyer started releasing books in her Twilight series.\u00a0\u00a0 It's a romance series and I write romance.\u00a0 Lord\u00a0knows, I read romance and I've surely been a reader of the genre for much longer than I've\u00a0been a writer.\u00a0 And I heard good things about these books everywhere.\u00a0 But never once was I tempted to pick one up.\u00a0 They weren't written for me, now were they?\u00a0<\/p>\n
My eldest son read the books and he flat out loves them.\u00a0 Keep in mind, Zack doesn't read romance.\u00a0 The boy refuses to read anything I write and that's natural enough - him reading\u00a0my books would make me a wee bit antsy too.\u00a0 But my eldest won't even read this blog.\u00a0 I've given him fair warning that from time to time I write about him, but still, he won't read it.\u00a0 Where does he get such stubbornness from?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Okay, okay, maybe Zack and his Mom have a thing or two in common.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But I wish I'd been smarter, sooner and realized that these books could be another bridge between our worlds.\u00a0 Because\u00a0when Zack likes something, he really, really likes it.\u00a0 He owns hardcover editions of all the books and he takes them everywhere.\u00a0 They are big, bulky books\u00a0and the boy won't even take Amtrak home from college unless he packs the whole series.\u00a0 Needless to say, he's seen both of the movies, owns the original.\u00a0 He packed it and brought it home with him over Christmas.<\/p>\n
I guess Mr. Brick was too busy to bash me over the head at the time because the holiday came and went without the bonding moment that might have been.\u00a0 But Zack's been back in Orlando for the Spring Semester for a couple of weeks now and the \"Mommy misses her baby\" blues have kicked in.\u00a0 So, last night, when I was flipping through the guide, I saw that Showtime was premiering the Twilight movie.\u00a0 I decided to watch a few minutes of it before I switched to something else.\u00a0 That way, I could email Zack that his Mom saw a little bit of Twilight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So I turned on the move and\u00a0I soon forgot all about that few minutes.\u00a0 I did email Zack after about half an hour to demand that he tell me if the movie had a happy ending.\u00a0 My family knows\u00a0very well that I won't read, write or watch a romance that doesn't have a happy ending.\u00a0 Life is too short to be sad.\u00a0 Zack emailed back and said\u00a0as follows:\u00a0<\/p>\n
It does have a happy ending, don't worry- all the twilight books and movies do. Stephanie Meyer comes from the same school of romance you do. :)... (or a similar one, anyway. \ud83d\ude42 )<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The comment got me thinking - my boy is\u00a0as smart as they come.\u00a0 I realized he was right.\u00a0 About some really big things, he was right.\u00a0 My work\u00a0does share some similarities with that series.\u00a0 One of the biggest things my books have in common with Twilight is the element of fate, destiny,\u00a0of lovers who are meant to love.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It's not a slow, building attraction.\u00a0 It's not kindling a fire until it burns hot.\u00a0 It's spontaneous combustion.\u00a0You meet the one you were born to love and you have to overcome whatever separates you because you can't go one without them.\u00a0 You're no longer whole if you're alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That sort of force\u00a0makes you\u00a0overlook age differences (E-mail Enticement<\/a><\/em>), being raised as siblings (Brotherly Love<\/a><\/em>) or being a vampire or mortal (Twilight<\/a><\/em>).\u00a0 That sort of bond makes you\u00a0overcome past mistakes like real infidelity (A Faerie Fated Forever<\/a><\/em>), a separation plot disguised as infidelity (A Golden Forever<\/a><\/em>), or an engagement to another woman (A Sixth Sense Of Forever<\/a><\/em>).\u00a0 It creates the sort of desperate yearning for a union that'll keep me reading or writing all the way to the end.<\/p>\n
Lots of people like to read or write romances about building a relationship, building feelings slowly.\u00a0 I've read and enjoyed some of those books. But when I try to write one, the story refuses to come together for me.\u00a0 I find the blend of destiny and desire to be essential ingredients for a great romance.\u00a0 And yes, all of my preconceived prejudices aside, I found the Twilight story as told through the movie to be a great romance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But invariably, movies are restricted by time and the attention span of the audience.\u00a0 So now, I guess I'll have to buy the book to read the full story.\u00a0 Thank God for my new\u00a0e-reader.\u00a0 It means I won't have to lug\u00a0around that big book.\u00a0 It means that if I have my purse with me (and trust me, I do), that I've got the book with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So Ms. Meyer, I look forward to reading and experiencing your complete story.\u00a0 I give you mad props for doing such a good job of character crafting that you had me yearning for Edward to take a big bite of Bella.\u00a0 Yeah, just like Grey's of a few years ago had me rooting\u00a0for infidelity, Twilight had me cheering for the vampires.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Take destiny, add a hefty dose of desire and guarantee a happy ending.\u00a0 That recipe inspires me\u00a0as a\u00a0writer\u00a0and lures me as a reader.\u00a0Now\u00a0Ms. Meyer has shown me that the recipe, when crafted with\u00a0great writing, is timeless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I'd never realized it until yesterday, but I've been\u00a0a literary segregationist.\u00a0 Oh I've never had a mental partition over race, or at least, I'm not aware of one, but yesterday I realized I had one over age.\u00a0 Books written\u00a0about high school kids are intended for that age\u00a0through college age kids, right?\u00a0\u00a0That means they're not meant ...continue reading \"Fate – From Meyer’s Twilight To Me\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}