Meetin' Up with Beatriz

Forella scheduled for brunch with friend Evelyn, lunch with friend Paula, and dessert with friend Beatriz, then suddenly realized that all of them, like Fio, hold doctorates and are writers. In fact, the same is true of friends Jan, Janece, and Patricia.  Like attracts like.

Unfortunately, Paula had to cancel, which left Fio with an hour to kill before she met with Beatriz, an hour which Fiorella planned to use working on her current story. But instead, she started reading through one of her own books, which she'd tucked in her tote to give to Beatriz. To her surprise, she liked it. Maybe she should read more of her own stuff.

Beatriz writes mysteries, and Fio writes romances. Both genres deal with secrets, and both of them have happy endings--the mystery is solved, and romance overcomes all--which are total fiction. because, as we well know, not all enigmas are explainable, and love is not always enough to save the day. But Fio hopes our stories will inspire people to try.








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If you're wondering about fio's spanish langauge romantic comedy-drams telenovela, the matriarch, Idelma, is in the hospital agin, one of ther sons is tryng to take over the family from her anhas fought of death one ore time, but one of her son's Tulio, got her to sign something villainothe main characters, company vice-president Julieta and Dr. Robert/Juan Pablo, are back together, and she is working with a specialist to try to get pregnant again. Meanwhile, his older sister, Marisol, whose husband divorced her for a slutty blonde, is getting very chummy with Xavier, played by a popular Mexican  cantador. And Fiorella's favorites,  tomboy Daniela and filthy rich Gabriel are engaged, but his family has disowend him. Then there's Linda, Robert/Juan Pablo's, youngest sister, who has just discovered the the love of her life, Bruno, is the brother of Julieta, whom she hates. And has Fio mentioned that Robert/Juan Pablo's parents, Blancoand Euegenio are at odds? And that Julieta is trying to reconcile her mother and father?

And Robert/Juan Pablo's family all live together in a a middle-class apartment.  hey all live withn there's the family of Audifax's, family

A Good Evening Out

People invigorate Fiorella, even at a ladies' wine-tasting party at which Fiorella doesn't partake of the main course because she's never developed a taste for alcohol.

As Fio started out for vecina (neighbor) Kathy's casa (house) at  about four, her vecina up the street, Micky, joined her and they walked and talked the rest of the way together. At the party, Fio became acquainted or better acquainted with other vecinas. We talked about the vecindad (neighborhood)--the casa that is up for sale, current gentrification efforts, rattlesnake and coyote sightings--and we talked about our perros (dogs) and familias (families). Fio managed to get in a plug for Fernando's yardwork, and Kathy told everyone about the romances Fio writes, but the real thrill for Fio was when one of the vecinas, a native speaker of el espanol (Spanish), offered to help Fio with the language. Pobrecita (poor little one), she doesn't know how soon she's going to be called on.

Linda Howard Revisited

Fio had become so involved with writing romances lately that she hadn't been reading any, which was a mistake, one that is currently being rectified while she sweats out the retrieval of her accidentally-deleted work-in-progress. Her book of choice was a vintage Linda Howard, McKenzie's Mountain.  The story line involves love, suspense, action, and mystery, and, most important to Fiorella, the ending is happy. Fio strongly recommends it.

Rock Harvest

Fiorella and Husband went out to harvest their dry creek and ended up with eight rocks up on the road and one husband down in the creek. Luckily a neighbor came along and helped Fio pull him back up onto his feet.  Fio asked, and the woman said she likes to read romances so Fio retrieved a copy of WHAT THE HEART WANTS from the box she keeps in the trunk and gave it to her. The moral is that if you see people by the side of the road in need of assistance, stop and help--you never know what goodies they might have stored in their trunk.

Can't Help It

As she lay in bed half awake this morning, Fio contemplated her literary career. It started with a four-line rhyme Mrs. Rider assigned the class to write in the third grade.  All Fio can remember of her offering is one line, "feathered Vs across the sky," which was her description of a bird migration. Then, of course, there was Baylor Children's Theater, which introduced her to scripts and drama.

In junior high, she wrote more poetry, mainly adolescent angst, and discovered comedy. That was also when, inspired by her mother's collection of Book-of-the-Month romances, she wrote the first chapter of a novel (which disappeared when Mother went through her desk drawer).

In high school, Fio penned playlets for presentation by the Latin club and the English literary club, wrote mounds of poetry, and ventured into short stories.   She also represented her school in ready-writing contests and edited the school Latin publication one year and the state publication the next.

Fiorella continued writing poetry, short stories, and essays through her undergraduate years, then added a romance novel and a dissertation to her repertoire when she was in graduate school.

And here she is now with two published books under her belt, a blog overflowing with mini-essays, about twenty short stories hanging around that she wants to re-edit, Lord knows how many poems scattered about, and more to come.

The girl can't help it.

Sexplicitness

Friend Jeanell, who writes steamy romances, is beginning to feel like she's  actually writing "sweets," the genre code name for love stories that stop at the bedroom door.  It bothers her that a poorly-written book justifying BDSM is a multi-million dollar best-seller, that movies vie with each other in portraying "love" scenes more and more graphically, and that a long-running reality show is based on nothing but the sex lives of the female family.  Have we become a nation of voyeurs?

Call Fiorella a prude, but she'd prefer a little more censorship.  Or maybe it's called good taste.

Literary Responsibility

Fiorella spends way too much time on minutia when she's writing her romances.  The editor can deal with whether she writes "He did not" or "He didn't." What Fiorella has to do is come up with an engaging story and make every sentence sing.

Moving On

Fiorella's lives a life of "what ifs," most of which  have never materialized. Instead, good and bad have come at her out of the blue, especially the bad.

Every person has his/her own tragedies.  Every family has its tragedies.  All we can do is cope. And that's what Fiorella writes about in her romances--people who cope, who triumph over tragic events in their lives.

As she hopes she herself can do.  

Romance Pigeonholes

Once upon a time, a romance was just a romance, the story of a relationship between a male and a female that ended happily.  Now romances are categorized.  You can read about male-female relationships, female-female relationships, and male-male relationships.  Or you can read sweets and inspirationals.  Or you can read about threesomes and foursomes--even BDSMers.

Another dividing line is age, of readers and characters.  The ages of the readers are categorized into "young adult" (ages twelve to eighteen), "new adult" (ages eighteen through twenty-four), and adult (default).  Also, authors are expected to make their main characters' ages match up appropriately: a love story involving a forty-plus man and a nineteen-year-old girl such as  Georgette Heyer set up in her classic These Old Shades could not get published today.

But Fiorella isn't sure readers care about categorization.  A good story is still a good story.

Good News

Things are looking up.  Fiorella finished her revisions yesterday evening and will proofread today, with the goal of sending the ms off to the  divine Liza by Friday.  Also, Fio is beginning to get the hang of FB and has made contact with several old high school buddies who seem very interested in the fact that she is writing sexy romances.

Also, two of Son's submissions have been accepted in a local art show.  Also, he's survived both of his fall classes so far, despite the fact that he's been working an average of sixty hours a week. Also, most of his college loan creditors are off his back because he signed up for those two classes.   

And Husband's second-degree burns still hurt, but they're scabbing over nicely.

All is well.  All will be well. 

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.

HEA

Fiorella spent most of her work life leading an insular, anonymous life teaching at colleges and universities, when what she really wanted to do was get out in the world, make a big splash, and maybe even change things for the better. Which, she hopes, is what she's doing right now, but instead of gallivanting the globe, she's sitting in her den with a computer in her lap.

Yes, our Fio is a crusader at heart. Her books feature protagonists who overcome their pasts and themselves to end up happily ever after, role models for readers to identify with and garner hope from. Of course, the HEA in romances is marriage to a rich, handsome man who's good at sex, which is not going to happen for most women. But Fio sees the formulaic ending as more symbolic of success and happiness than a promise of reality. And one can always dream.