AUTHOR'S CORNER;

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Guessing that tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and that one ought to pick up on one's pace and pluck up one's courage and engage in a let's say - more romantic setting, frankly fills my heart with dread!

You see, as a writer I am very adapt in the language of love, I can set the scene for a delightful rendezvous that could put Romeo to shame!  I can conjure up all sorts of saucy romantic scenarios that could make a stripper blush!  Yes I have that power....on paper!

But I am only a writer; which means I am shy, awkward, quirky and rather insular in my ways.  My fiction is great; I can do anything in fiction, unfortunately though - not in real life! There is a reason that I write, and it's not just because I am absurdly talented, (though I am a little talented) but it's because in being fragile and self conscious by nature, shy and retreating in the real world, writing has heightened and developed to an acute skill; rather like a blind person having a strong sense of smell.  I hide behind my fiction because it enables me to say and do the things I would otherwise find horribly embarrassing.  But needs must and I have a husband and it is Valentine's Day and he needs pampering!

The problem is, I am not very good at expressing myself in the real world; not when it comes to chat up lines!  I tend to get tongue-tied.

And though I would attempt to practice in the privacy of my own study, and try to come up with witty lines, outside the word processor, my lines sound quite corny!

It is a sad truth, that in the past my chat up techniques are, shall we say... a little cheesy at best!

Often, my past attempts at chatting up my poor husband have tended to sound like a bad script from a corny eighties movie!  It's a wonder he actually married me!

But tomorrow is the day of love, and love must be practised on such a day; otherwise, all the card companies will go out of business!  And although I know and he knows that I am as good at this romance stuff as a wet dishcloth, I felt that I must give it my best shot and attempt to bring about that magical feeling of love in the air. So I started as I meant to go on; I cooked breakfast today as a pre-warmer to the big day!  That did not go as well as I had expected; breakfast was burned whilst I was attempting to apply my lipstick on and the fire alarm sounded like a crazed mother in-law throughout the house. This only served to agitate poor hubby, as he had an early meeting to get to!

I tried to rectify the mistake by putting on a romantic CD and hoped that he would hear it as he marched out of the door, late for his meeting and smelling like burned toast!  I smiled sweetly at him as he declined to kiss me goodbye and pretended that the music was random and not deliberate.

optimism still gripping my fragile soul, I phoned him up an hour later and accidentally interrupted his very important meeting; it didn't go down too well when he discovered that I was only phoning to say hi!

Determined not to be defeated I turned up at his work to see if we could go to dinner, that went down like a lorry load of bricks; he was in another meeting!

A half hearted attempt accompanied by one of my classic corny chat up lines on his return home was met with a long stare on his part and a grunt in my direction!

That's when I snapped and my two sides split apart; the writer broke away from the shying nerd and my vocabulary made a full recovery!

And it wasn't pretty! There was no romance, there was no love, there was a lot of spoken word!!! In fact I might have composed the best rap song in the history of time!!  He stared at me blankly and quietly asked what I was on about.  

 

I yelled and shouted and stamped my feet!  I cried and screamed and threw a tantrum!  I listed all my failed, ignored attempts at romance! And he said, 'I don't understand?'

I stopped in my tracks, thought back to the events of the day; in my corny, shy, introverted way, I had assumed he would read my mind and follow the script.  Not his fault, entirely mine!  For as a writer, I have to learn that the theme playing out in my mind is exactly that; in my mind!  I am fiction and fiction has no place in the real world.  I was trying to be fictional, elaborate, great, fantastic, like a character in a novel.  So I took a deep breath and an idea popped in my mind.

So I took a deep breath, stopped thinking corny thoughts, forgot about the fiction and the storyline and simply said 'I love you!'  His anger melted away as his expression softened.  'Oh Sam,' he said, 'I love you too!'

The moral of the story, as writers we don't need the great storyline, we don't need the grand gestures, we don't need the magical setting.  As writers, sometimes all we have to do for the people we love, is simply be ourselves!  Because after all, books are made out of paper and words, love is made out of pure emotions!

Happy Valentine's Day!