Hi everyone– I want to thank all of you who came to see Milly! What a great visitor and congratulations to her winners!

I was listening to a discussion about literature the other day, and the lecturer said that fiction satisfies us because it structures and gives meaning to life. This makes sense of course. Life is made up of more random information than any single human can deal with. We try to order it, select it, and prescribe meaning to it so that life makes sense to us. When we read a book, we don’t have to do the work. Life is already worked out. Information is selected and meaning is given. As readers, we may “see” more in the book than the author ever intended because we read it with the glasses of our own experience. Still, it’s relaxing to not have to do all the work.

Romance fiction is ultimately relaxing. Not only is life ordered, but we know when we pick up the book that it will turn out in a highly satisfying way — just because it’s romance. It’s required to have a happy ending.

But what about us writers? We are doing the work. We are selecting the facts, details, meanings that will make up the tapestry of the book. What are we doing? Simple. Creating a better world. Had an unhappy childhood? Write a better one for your characters. Were you treated badly by men? Or by woman? Write those people the way you would want them to be if you ordered the world. And in your book, you do! We don’t do this consciously. It just turns out that way. The authors dreams, desires and values all sneak onto that page without our even knowing it.

I guess i’m being philosophical today because my new book that i’m currently writing, Snow Balls, is such a classic example of this. I started out to write a happy, simple holiday romance. It’s turned into a passionate story about the dangers of trying to be who you are and the joy of finally attaining it. This isn’t new for me. All my books turn out to be about authenticity, but this one, as the old saying goes, is a Doozy!

In my soon to be released book, Brush with Catastrophe, i’ve created a young witch who may have the power to change the world. We authors are so lucky. We already have that power. and we exercise it everyday. : )