Thursday, November 17, 2011

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!!!



In August of this year, I woke up to a reality that said to me, “If you want it, you must do it.”  For as long as I can remember, all I have ever wanted was to be three things: a wife, a mother, and a writer.  I had achieved the first two so I realized that it was time to go for gold.  No more waiting.  No more worrying.  Just doing it. 

When I say that I woke up, I don’t mean that in the literal sense.  LOL. I mean that an epiphany struck from nowhere, stealing my breath and shaking me awake.  I didn’t want to spend my whole life not taking a chance on my dreams just to protect myself from the things that scared me.  It would be far worse to be the little old lady in a rocking chair on the front porch mumbling about the what-ifs.  Honestly, I was petrified.  This possible future scared me far more than taking the actual risk.

I don’t believe in regrets.  At all.  Nor do I believe in changing the past.  Life is a gift that we only get one shot at it.  It is for living – not in the past, but in the present.  After lots of soul searching, I accepted that this is the only thing that I knew for sure I would regret if I didn’t take the leap.  So, I jumped. 

Yesterday, I found out that my dreams are coming true.  My first story has been accepted for publication by Siren Publishing.  WOO-HOO!  (Sorry, I couldn't control myself.)  Right now, I have very few details because I have known for less than twenty-four hours, but I had to share the awesome news!  Hope everyone is having a good week.  I’m so excited for Thanksgiving.  It is shaping up to be the best holiday season ever!


-Mia

                        Just For Good Measure.  Wouldn't want you to miss out on a juicy picture.





Monday, November 14, 2011

Living A Love Story...

            In my blog today, I am going to deviate from the usual format.  No sarcasm.  No joking.  No whining, bitching, or moaning.  Today is about what I write about:  Love.  I will warn you right now that there is going to be sappiness and sentimentality in the following blog. 

            First, I think that I should give some background to my whole hopeless romanticism.  I am from a broken family.  My mother was ill for the first few years of my life, and my father was not supportive.  He didn’t do the things that a person should do for his/her partner.  He didn’t help her.  Or comfort her.  Or love her.  A year passed before my mother kicked him out of the house when he told her that he was going to work; but, in reality, he was visiting his mistress.  He ended up marrying that woman and having two children, but I didn’t see him anymore.  From the time he moved out until the day he died, I saw him less times than I could count on my hand.  But, I digress.

            My parent’s marriage had a profound effect on my views on love and marriage.  I had this one part of me that fantasized of falling in love, getting married, and having children.  I wanted the HEAs that I always read about.  But, and this is a big but, I didn’t believe that they existed.  All I knew was that marriages ended and kids got hurt.  Who would ever want to go through that?  This internal conflict was driving me insane.  My heart and my head couldn’t come to an agreement.  They were in constant discord.

            Then, I fell in love.  He snuck under my radar, never giving me a chance to realize what I was doing.  I didn’t think, I just felt.  Don’t misunderstand, it was a long, hard road.  After coming from what I did, I had anxiety attacks and mild freak outs.  I would attempt to push him away or cut myself off from him.  This came later, of course, when I realized that it was too late, and I had done the unthinkable.  Instead of giving me demands and ultimatums, he just gave me enough space to breath but never wavered.  He gave me what I needed even when I didn’t realize it.  To this day, he has an uncanny knack for reading me.  I don’t have to say a word or make a gesture.  He just knows.  He makes everything okay for me.  It is not that he fixes my problems or anything.  He is just there and that is all I need.

            His love transformed me in ways that I never knew existed.  For the first time, I wasn’t alone inside.  I wasn’t this person or that person.  I didn’t have to be what he wanted me to be because I was what he wanted.  Just like he was what I wanted.  Unconditional love is a beautiful thing.

After a decade together, I love him more than I thought was possible.  Our love grows every day.  Our friendship strengthens.  We grow together.  This is the kind of love I want to write about.  This is the kind of love that I want everyone to experience – whether in real life or in a book, movie, or song.  Obviously, I want people to have everlasting love in their daily lives.  But, if that isn’t working for them at the moment, I want them to experience it through any means necessary. 

To me, love is the most important thing in life.  The day I started breathing wasn’t the day I was born.  It was the moment that I realized I was in love.  I can remember every, single detail of that day.  That is how powerful it was for me. 

So, when I write, I don’t want my stories to be about mere lust or superficial love.  That isn’t something that interests me.  My stories are about people who fall in love – no matter the odds.  They aren’t perfect characters who lead perfect lives.  Love is messy.  Love is crazy.  Love is scary.  But, love is worth every damn thing.  One of my largest beliefs is that “Nothing worth anything in life comes easily.”  It just doesn’t.  Part of the whole business of love is bonding emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  If you face nothing but candy and roses, you aren’t going to connect on every level which is essential to everlasting love. 

My characters are flawed because we are all human.  There is no perfect person out there.  When you love, you love everything.  I don’t believe that a person who truly loves will say to themselves, “I love him/her unless _______.”  My hubby and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I wouldn’t change anything about him.  Ever.  He is the man I love and that is that.  My characters are the same way.  They accept the other person with their whole heart, not just the easy parts or the likable parts. 

I, also, write characters that don’t always pick the partner that would be expected of them.  My husband and I are polar opposites.  If someone had given me a pen and told me to write down what I wanted in a man, he wouldn’t have fit the picture on the surface.  Fundamentally, yes, we are a match.  But, I saw myself with someone very different, someone who had zero chance of making me happy.  He knows this and feels the exact same way.  It, in our opinions, makes our love that much more special.  Therefore, when I write, I let them follow their hearts.  When I first started writing, I talked and argued with them about who I thought they should be with.  In the end, one character really put the screws to me and made me see all kinds of things about the three characters that I never anticipated.  Now, I just don’t fight them.  I do question them so I can understand, but I do not waste my energy trying to force something that isn’t going to happen.  People don’t choose love.  Love chooses them.

The moral of this whole blog is that love is everything.  I can’t write a story that isn’t about love because I don’t want to be in a story like that.  I live a love story, and I hope you do.  Or will.  Or have.


-Mia

"True love is a wonder that has no end or beginning." - Unknown
"When we love, it isn't because the person's perfect, it's because we learn to see an imperfect person perfectly." - Unknown

“Love isn't blind, it just only sees what matters.” – Unknown

“Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.” – Albert Einstein





In Honor Of My Hubby....