Quick Snippets

Fiorella is in a tizzy trying to prepare for the Romance Writers of America conference in New York. First off, she has to find a nice dress for the Saturday night awards ceremony.  Yes, we all dress up like we're attending Cinderella's ball.  It's our own fantasy because we spend our real lives in jeans and T-shirts.
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Several people have explained various electronic gadgets to Fio, but she has to work with then herself to understand them.  Yes, this monkey can't just see--she has to do.  Daughter would label her a kinesthetic learner.
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Fio decided to check back through the revisions she'd made and nearly died. She'll have to revise the revisions.

Dark Romance

Fiorella writes romances because she likes happy endings.  Of course, happy endings depend on exactly when the action stops being reported.  Cinderella's story ended in happily-ever-after only because the original yarn-spinner cut the story short with her wedding and didn't reveal that a week later, Cindy discovered Charming never bathed and had a foot fetish.

Real life is tumultuous and does not have a happy ending (which is the reason Fio does not read biographies). In the real world, we contend with pain, disappointment, and betrayal on our steady march toward the ultimate tragedy of death.  That is the world Fio writes about, although, wienie that she is, her stories also end with happily-ever-after. Yeah, she's a fictional sort of a gal.

 

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Happy Endings

In a former incarnation, when Fiorella taught English literature, she used to tell her classes that a happy ending depended on where the author ended the story.  For instance, "Cinderella" has a happy ending if the story stops just after the wedding.  But what happens a week later when Cindy discovers Prince Charming has a foot fetish?

Quick switch to true life.  What happened to Princess Diana's HEA when learned that Charles had a longtime mistress he was devoted to?  What happens to our own lives, when disappointment or tragedy enfold us?

For the most part, we eventually pick ourselves up and start all over again, unless, of course, we're dead or the next thing to it.  That's why Fiorella never reads biographies, which, by their very nature, always end with the main character dying.  That's why she doesn't write tragedies, which start with HEA's and end with everything shot to hell--compare the confident, arrogant, happy Oedipus at the beginning of his eponymous (Fio loves using that word) drama to the wretched creature he is at the end of it.  Compare Othello in the first act of his own eponymous drama to Othello in the final act.

No, Fiorella writes romances, and she knows where to cut off the story.