I'm Dreaming of A paranormal Christmas

s we are all hopefully cozying up to a Christmas fire, hanging out with family and friends eating lots of delicious food, it seems a good time to think about divinity and the nature of the Divine in my beloved fantasy books. As a former serious student of theology (seven years in a seminary), I'm quite interested in the subject, specifically with respect to the relationship between God and humanity and how different religions and cultures express their beliefs.  I'm always interested in Genesis stories, as well as how a particular tradition experiences time--either as cyclical, including the concepts of karma and reincarnation, or linear, encompassing the notion of time moving forward toward a certain end--as in universal (or selective) salvation. What I find particularly noteworthy in most--but not all--of my paranormal and urban fantasy novels is that a concept of the Divine, with a capital D, is largely missing, which raises some complex questions about being created in God's image, self-referential entities, and what a lack of spirituality will do to creatures over the eons.

Now, I understand that George R. R. Martin is in a class by himself. I'm not sure anyone else has counted, but I have, and there are no fewer than seven religions described in the Game of Thrones series--so far (and yes, for all you purists out there, I am aware the series is formally called A Song of Ice and Fire, but that takes too long say).  Seven theologies, seven different descriptions of deities, rituals, beliefs, the man is amazing. And I don't expect that from anyone else. The only one who comes even a little close to good old George is one of my author crushes, JR Ward. In her highly developed world, the Scribe Virgin and her dark counterpart, the Omega, are god-like creatures, although reference is made to both of them being the offspring or creations of a single Deity who is never seen or heard from (except to impose strict balance in the world so that everything has a price so that symmetry is maintained.)

One of the things I appreciate about JR Ward's world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood is that the Brothers, and even the King, are not the ultimate arbiters of their own fates. Because of the existence of the Scribe Virgin, all the Brothers must serve someone or something greater than themselves. In contrast, some of my other all-time favorite characters are essentially self-referential--meaning there is no authority greater than themselves. In Thea Harrison's Elder Races world, there is reference to the original seven gods, although those references come later in the series. But Ms. Harrison suggests that  Dragos Cuelebre, the dragon of my dreams, is also one of the gods. This is never explored at any length, and Dragos is portrayed as not abusing his power, but you've got to wonder about his past, which is never drawn in any detail and what being regarded as, or actually being a god does to a creature.

And then there is my other favorite book boyfriend, Jericho Barrons. We never find out what Barrons is--I've read that Karen Marie Moning wanted to free Barrons and the Nine from the strictures of labels--but we know that he and his kind have been revered as gods. Not to mention the Fae princes in the same Fever series--they have certainly been worshiped as gods and no power can seem to impact them, and they are almost unanimously monstrous as a result. That's what you get when there's no higher authority to hold your feet to the fire of good behavior.

Without a concept of the Divine, or an absolute (or even relative) moral code, it's hard to imagine what keeps decorum decorous. Why aren't all of these immortal, powerful, dominant, demanding and controlling beings taking headers off the deep end on a regular basis?  Some of them are, of course. Nalini Singh suggests that it is love or the lack therefore that keeps quasi-omnipotent beings like Archangels on the straight and narrow. Lijuan, the archangel of China, is worshiped as a goddess and is out of her mind, totally mental, which is a problem when you control an army of the undead. Ms. Singh suggests that it is because Lijuan killed her mortal lover when she realized that her love for him would render her vulnerable, and therefore weak.  Raphael, on the other hand, has the love of Elena to keep him sane and steady. I've written about this elsewhere. But what I hadn't stopped to wonder until right this minute was where is God in this world of archangels? I thought they went hand in hand, but there is no allusion to the Divine at all in the Guild Hunter series.

And then there is the issue of humanity being created in God's image. In the same way that the potential existence of life beyond Earth poses some sticky wickets for Christian theologians, so too would the existence of shapeshifters, vampires, elves, faeries, and the occasional deities of mythology come to life. A few series examine these questions, such as Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series. In Sooie Stackhouse's world, the humans who have recently learned that they share the planet with the undead wonder about the state of the vampires' souls. But what about the whole God made flesh issue? If beings could transform between humanoid and animal, as so many of my beloved characters can, what does that say about the state of their souls or the image of God?  The mind reels.

I'm guessing that at this point I've lost many of you entirely. My apologies. But I do think about this stuff, and Christmas Eve seemed as good a time as any to vent some of my musings. I did warn you that this blog was about deep thoughts I've had while reading vampire porn, right?  OK, OK, less deep thoughts and more deep throat, I've got it. Until next time, dear readers, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in time for the New Year.

Opposites Attract

Do you remember the Paula Abdul song "Opposites Attract?"  Am I dating myself (as in giving away my age, not turning Japanese--quick--name that hit! Okay… I’m here all week… but you likely won’t be if I keep digressing.). Anyway... Today I'm contemplating the phenomenon that birds of a feather don't actually flock together; they look for birds with different plumage to marry. I certainly did. And most days that's a good thing.

I know from my beloved fantasy books that I'm in good company in my choice. In almost every book I can think of, the hero and heroine are virtually polar opposites. Take a few of my all-time favorite couples, including Pia and Dragos, Mac Lane and Barrons, and Raphael and Elena. Each of these pairings include individuals who could not be more different either in species or characteristics.

In Thea Harrison's Elder Races series, Dragos is an apex predator, a carnivore of the highest order, while Pia is a peace-loving herbivore.  Their relationship encounters numerous problems as a result of these and other differences. But because Pia’s most pressing need is safety, and an über alpha male like Dragos offers that, she makes it work. In the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning, Mac Lane is a frothy Southern Belle who's happy tending bar in her sleepy hometown in Georgia. Jericho Barrons is an ancient immortal being whose alter ego is a mindless beast. I'm not sure they could have less in common. But their love works--as they both evolve to meet each other  somewhere in the middle. In the Guild Hunter series, Raphael is an archangel of unimaginable power, whereas Elena is a twenty-something human with an acute sense of smell, qualifying her as a hunter of rogue vampires. Again, hard to see the connection at first, and any yenta would be disqualified for fixing these two up.

I've often said my husband and I would never have met if we'd relied on OK Cupid to bring us together. Fortunately for us, we met in the days before Match.Com and Tinder, so we were able to connect the old fashioned way—at a bar. And I'm not sure what would have happened if we'd had too much time to compare notes on our disparate backgrounds, interests or philosophies of life before the chemistry kicked in and we were hooked. Thankfully, by the time we found out he was the Oscar to my Felix, the Spock to my Captain Kirk, the Murtaugh to my Riggs, we were wildly in love and didn't give a shit.

There's a reason opposites attract. I have a friend of almost two decades who started as professional colleague. We really enjoyed working together as our styles were almost identical. In fact, we are so similar in personality that we used to joke that we were twins separated at birth.  Interestingly, we both married spouses who are very different from us, but very similar to each other. Our spouses balance out our intensity with stability and an even keel nature that helps both of us to come back down to earth if we begin to fly too close to the sun.

Balance is important. Yin and yang, light and dark, privilege and responsibility. Even in fantasy fiction, balance must be maintained and dues paid. As I've written about before, there's no such thing as a free lunch. So when become frustrated with our opposite mates, it's important to remember that we need to take the bad with the good. For example, my husband's equanimity in the face of my hyperbole is usually a welcome balm to my overheated emotions. Except when I want a big reaction from him--for a good reason, mind you. It makes me mental when something goes really wrong and his response is... Nothing. Makes me think of the recent movie, Bridge of Spies, when Tom Hanks asks the Soviet spy he's representing in an espionage trial if he's worried. The spy asks, "Would it help?"  And we know that spy guy is right… but…. Oh. My. God. I thought only Vulcans had so little blood in their veins.

But no, there are, apparently, many humans sporting pointed ears and bad eye makeup. I'm married to one of them. Just this weekend, we had a pretty intense fight (well, intense on my end; while I was awake for hours seething in another bed, my cold-as-ice husband was snoring soundly, sleeping like a baby. Which only fanned the flames of my outrage.)  The fight was about the relative merits of high ideals and standards versus letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Three guesses as to which side of that equation yours truly resides.

Sometimes it's hard to remember why opposites attract. Particularly when I want my beloved spouse to see things my way, do things my way, and just be more like me. But if I'd wanted that, I probably wouldn't have married him, and then where would I be?  Perhaps in a relationship with my other half, my doppelgänger, spontaneously combusting left, right and center as we clashed in a conflagration for the ages. Intensity met with intensity head-on, with nothing to temper the fires, and everything stoking them. It seems like burnout or scorched earth would be the likely result of that scenario. No, thanks.

So today I will take a page out of my beloved books and tolerate, along with Pia, Mac and Elena, the dark side of the moon until I come back again to the light. I'll endure the discomfort of my beloved being radically different from me and bask in the many benefits, like my favorite leading ladies of fantasy. Thanks for the support, my fictional friends.

Don't Fear the Reaper

I’m reading a book about a vampire with a blood phobia, which is amusing, as I recently wrote about commitment phobias here.  A Quick Bite, by Lynsay Sands, is a ton of fun and there are many additional books in the series—hallelujah! Other favorite authors, including Karen Marie Moning and Lilo J. Abernathy, have also written about fear. So, I've decided the Universe is asking me to look at fear in general and my fear in particular, which may or may not interest you, but which will give you a little insight into the way my brain works (I'm all about the burning bush). There was a time when I was afraid of everything. It was paralyzing. I was raised by a fearful mother, who passed her fear on to me. My mother taught me to be afraid of strangers, which I guess is understandable in New York City.  She also taught me to be afraid of nature, what little there is in NYC (I love nature; provided I’m safety protected from the realities of actual nature—like bugs and dirt and stuff). She taught me to be afraid of men, my body and other people's motives. She taught me to fear rejection. I was taught to fear people in authority, dark corners, what others really thought of me and what they said behind my back. I was taught to fear travel to distant places and trying new foods, styles and experiences. In the beginning, I learned well. As a child, I was so shy and fearful that I wouldn't come out from underneath the dining table when we had guests to dinner. Today, the child I was would have been shipped off for psychological testing and therapy, lots of therapy.  I was not normal (one could argue that this is still true, I know.)

hen, I hit puberty.  ‘Things’ shifted. A lot. I shed the skin of the nervous Nellie I had been and emerged as a more confident teenager. In fact, the transition was sufficiently profound that my academic aptitude scores (who remembers the ERBs?!) changed so radically, the school was convinced there was a mistake and I was retested. Twice. I think the reason behind my percentile jump was that I finally figured out that the only thing I really needed to fear was my mother.

I was definitely still scared of my mom back in those days. I was almost 18 years old before I finally asked the $64,000 question:  “What could she actually do to me?”  When I realized the answer was, "Not much, without risking shame and embarrassment for her," my world tilted on its axis— positively. But I became more confident in my cognitive capabilities, which translated into more general confidence. As I grew more accomplished academically and intellectually, I became less fearful; for me, knowledge and analytical skills translated into power and control, which helped me feel less afraid.

But I was still an insecure wreck when it came to men and romance. Insecurity is just another word for fear. I was afraid men wouldn't like me once they really knew me.  So I hid my authentic self.  I was afraid men wouldn't find me attractive if they saw me without makeup. So I never went without.  I was afraid that if I didn't flaunt my body, no one would want it. I remember one particularly awful episode when I spent an entire night calling around looking for my boyfriend at the time, only to discover he'd spent the night with another woman. When I finally got him on the phone, at 4:00 AM, after his other girlfriend picked up and handed him the phone —"Oh, sure. He's right next to me; let me give him the phone…"— I apologized for bothering him because I was so scared he'd leave me.

I'm happy to report that I'm not that bad anymore. Fear is still my companion - I used Find My Phone last night to locate my husband, who is traveling, because he hadn't texted after dinner and I was afraid he was dead. I know, I know, silly—he thought so too, but my sainted husband is quite used to my paranoia about his safety. But mostly— mostly—I can face my fears and put them to rest. I don't let fear run my life (how I wish I could go back in time and give that no-good, cheating rat bastard a piece of my mind—except I just found out that he died last month, so that won't work).

Today, I can act as if I’m not afraid. I fly. I endure boats. I tell people things they need to hear even if I'm terrified they will shun me as a result. I no longer fear discomfort. I don't love it, but I can tolerate it. Because it turns out that many of the things we fear are mostly just unpleasant, and we like to avoid discomfort. But life is full of unpleasant realities, and facing these unpleasantries (including dirt and bugs in the wilds of my own back yard) is what makes life worth living.

Facing our fears and doing it anyway, whatever ‘it’ is, is the secret sauce of life. It can be letting go of a bad relationship (like the rat bastard), or a bad job, or a friendship that no longer serves. Fear of letting go is a big one, I've found. Almost as big as fear of holding on. 

So I appreciate the opportunity to see how the other half—the paranormal one—lives and deals with fear. I'll continue to enjoy Lissianna Argeneau in A Quick Bite, and wait to see how she overcomes her fear of blood (‘cause I suspect she does). And I'll continue to think about how I can face fear and prevent it from running— or ruining— my life as it did for my poor, misguided, fearful ‘Mommie Dearest’. The good news is, she's not afraid anymore, and neither am I.  I get to enjoy life at the table rather than under it.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

I am a decisive person. I do not dither, nor do I waste time second-guessing myself. I have very little patience for those who can't make up their minds about what to order for dinner, which movie to see and which outfit to wear for a date. I'm equally intolerant even when the dithering is about a weighty decision. I understand that (hopefully) we'll only buy one wedding dress in this lifetime, but that doesn't justify spending three months trying on 300 dresses to make the decision. There is just no need to try on 300 of anything. Or to look at 1100 paint samples for the kitchen walls, or to take days to determine whether acting or sculpture is our elective choice. As I've written about before, there is no such thing as a perfect choice. We do the best we can with the information at hand; it’s an imperfect system that results in imperfect choices. But it's the best we can do.

hy am I contemplating decisions today?  Well, I'm finishing up an installment in Karen Marie Moning's Highlander series. I must say that I find it almost inconceivable (I associate the slightly slobbery voice of Wallace Shawn in the Princess Bride with this word) that the mind that brought forth Jerricho Barrons and Mac Lane also wrote these tales of time travel. Not that the Highlander books aren't good—they are. But they are not nearly as complex and deep as the Fever series, which includes some of the best fantasy ever written, IMHO.

Anyhoo, in The Highlander's Touch, the heroine, Lisa, has to make a big decision—whether to stay in the 14th century with her Highlander love, or return to the 21st century to be with her dying mother. Tough choice. I'm pretty sure I know what I'd do, but then, I wasn't a huge fan of my maternal DNA donor, as you know. But Lisa is completely flummoxed by the choice, so much so that she risks incurring the wrath of the Faerie Queen as she vacillates between the 14th and 21st centuries. How to choose?  How do we know which is the right choice?

While I posit that few of us are faced with the kind of decision that Lisa had to make, most of us deal with difficult choices all the time. I'm always astounded when I stop to think about how many decisions I make in a day – let alone in a week, a month or a year. Decisions about what to eat and what to cook; what to wear and what to buy to wear; what to say to our kids when they transgress and what to say when they are heartbroken. We make decisions about which books to read, which people to date, which jobs to take, which hobbies to pursue, and with whom we spend our free time. We choose between political parties and among various causes and initiatives to support.  We choose whether to reproduce or to adopt or to forgo kids altogether. We choose where to live and whether to use paper or plastic, cash or credit, gas or diesel.

We make hundreds of choices without giving any of them too much thought, and then we agonize over other decisions.  Choice is a privilege, and it's often one we take for granted. Some of us have the luxury of time to weigh each decision carefully, but it's not clear that those who take longer make better choices. I’ve seen those wedding pictures—and trust that you have also wondered how the winner triumphed over the other 299 choices.

How do we know we've made a good decision?  Well, I can’t decide—just kidding. I'm a big believer in the Biblical concept that, ‘by their fruits you will know them’. A good choice will bear good fruits—serenity, peace, and a sense of well-being. A bad choice is a lot like a bad meal—it might feel all right going down, but then it repeats itself ad nauseam (pun intended) after the fact.  A good choice is one where we don't spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror at what might have been.  We make the choice and then move on, secure in the knowledge that it was a good – or even just a good enough— move.

Sometimes the fruits are not apparent for a long time after the decision is made. When it was time to choose a high school for our boys, my husband and I looked at it from every angle. Did we choose well?  Talk to me in about three years and I'll let you know. It feels mostly good now, but we'll see whether our sons grow up to be the kind of men with whom we want to associate – or even associate with us. I hope so with every fiber of my being, but I won't know for a while still. Thank heavens for the fruits of the grape vine while we “enjoy” the journey.

Choices and decisions are hard. But what would be harder would be not to have any say at all about our destiny. The biggest thing about the choices we make is that they are ours. We make them and we own them. And like Lisa, we live with the consequences of our decisions, big and small. Without the time travel, of course, but with the same surety of a path well chosen.

When Dreams Die

I've been dreaming lately. Daydreaming, eyes becoming unfocused and the world softening around the edges. It's a pleasant way to spend some time on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Often, I find myself thinking and dreaming about the characters in my favorite books. Today, though, I'm thinking about the nature of dreams themselves. We talk about daring to dream, and I think that is an accurate depiction of the risks involved in making an emotional investment in desiring a certain outcome. When we admit to wanting something, we also subject ourselves to the possibility of disappointment, which leads inevitably to pain. Because most of us avoid pain and even discomfort at all costs, assuming the necessary burden of vulnerability isn't the path of least resistance that most of us prefer to travel. The ability to dream is the engine of great achievement and advances. Dreams inspire and motivate us to work hard and make sacrifices on the altar of delayed gratification. Dreams are the manifestation of our hope. 

And all of that is well and good when our dreams come true and we get what we want, or perhaps even more than we imagined possible. It's even good right up until the time when we are forced to admit that it's just not gonna happen. That is the downside of dreaming, the part where we have to either acknowledge that a train we were desperate to board has left the station without us, or contort into Twister positions to convince ourselves (erroneously) that we might still make it. Because not all dreams come true, despite what we've been told by well-meaning parents, teachers and Walt Disney. There are no magic wands waving to any discernible effect in this plane of reality. And we can't always get what we want, more's the pity.

I'm talking about when we need to acknowledge the mortality of our deepest desires, which, coincidentally, coincides with the mortality of our bodies as they march toward death. For those of us leaving middle age in our dusty wake, there are dreams that we've been forced to abandon, whether we like it or not. Only the most cognitively challenged among us could persist in denying that the dream of everlasting love dies with divorce, or even early death. Some of us must give up dreams of parenthood or athletic achievement as the inevitability of biology robs us of opportunities open only to the young.

When I think about my beloved immortals and the "fact" that they need not attend to the physical indignities of growing older, it occurs to me that they are not immune to other effects of dying dreams. In Mate Claimed, by Jennifer Ashley, part of the Shifter Unbound series, Eric must acknowledge the death of his dreams of a single mating when he falls in love with Iona. Sookie Stackhouse of True Blood fame, while not immortal, mourns her status as a one-man woman when she takes a second lover.  And it is so sad when Mac Lane must acknowledge the demise of her dreams of getting married in her small southern town, raising her children alongside her beloved sister and growing old together because her sister was murdered.

Laurell K. Hamilton offers one of the best-written depictions of this phenomenon in the Anita Blake series. Over the course of almost 20 books, Anita grows and evolves and we see her hold onto and then begin to let go of a specific self image, which is the dream we all share, and which most of us must abandon sooner or later. For Anita, she must grieve the woman she thought she was and wanted to be, someone who would marry and live in a nice house and maybe raise a few kids. Yes, she might raise a few zombies while she was at it, but hey, she saw herself in as conventional a role as possible, given her status as a necromancer.

But Anita, like many of us, saw that dream die. It was hard for her as it is for all of us, and paranormal fantasy works best when it reflects our shared reality (and then adds a little something extra). I've had to let go of many dreams.  I've had to acknowledge the death of my dreams of a beautiful pregnancy and my visions of being a carefree young mother, happily attached to her baby, bonding and seeing the world through new eyes, etc., etc. That particular dream was incredibly well developed, as I'd had many years of infertility to hone its edges to a killing point. And when that dream dissipated like so much steam over a pot of boiling water, the sharpness of the blade just about killed me. That particular dream died very, very hard. And it left scars, much in the same way that the death of a loved one leaves marks on our soul to remind us of our love and our loss.

Perhaps my daydreams are a little weird. That's OK, I'm proud to fly my freak flag high, as I've told you before. Hopefully my rumination on the ruins of my dreams will help others bury their own dead and embrace the reality that lives. All my favorite paranormal characters do it, and so can we. 

Words Matter

I remember being seventeen and listening to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a leader of the early feminist movement, talk about the vocabulary we use and the differences it makes. I don't remember the whole lecture, but what stuck with me was her observation that the word "history" was a meshing of two words, "his" and "story."  “What about ‘her’ story,” Pogrebin asked. Being the self-absorbed teenager I was I hadn't given that a lot (or any) thought, but she brought me up short, and began my contemplation of words and how we use them. Words are powerful. Words matter. What you say and how you say it are the stock in trade of all writers, of course, and a profound love of words, phrases, analogies and thoughts expressed as lines on a page is one of the reasons I write—and read. But words can be misinterpreted—either the meaning or the intent.

I was reminded of this truth when a friend recently sent me a HuffPost article on "The Most Ridiculous Sexual Phrases from Romance Novels."  The article had lists of "hilarious" euphemisms for the penis, vagina and sex. I think the author missed the point entirely. Words matter. Particularly when reading sex scenes in my favorite paranormal fantasy books.

Sticks and stone may break my bones... But words can always get me hot. And bothered. I've written before about what women want, and what they want is erotica that isn't crude, rude and in-your-face pornographic. While I have nothing against dirty talk—there is definitely a time and place where such language and suggestions are titillating rather than offensive and off-putting—I usually don't want to read about it in my romance novels. I love the euphemistic language that describes love in paranormal fantasy and romance books. I love the soft focus lens that such vocabulary imparts on the images described in these novels. If you really think about it, sex is an awkward, messy business that is wonderful when you're doing it, but can seem tawdry and a little sad when it's a spectator sport. To me, the rounded edges that the more suggestive language offers is more evocative than more explicit descriptions would be.

There must be something to this, because the romance genre is booming. Historical, contemporary and paranormal romances are all the rage. It's also been suggested that the advent of the electronic reader has given a boost to the chick lit market and made the classic "bodice-ripper" more acceptable fare than before we could hide the exact nature of our reading choices from curious eyes on the bus, train, plane or park bench. I've told the story before about my straight-laced boss sitting on a plane next to me, grabbing the latest Meredith Gentry novel out of my hands to read the back cover. Awkward!! These days, no one knows what I'm reading unless I tell them-- although, of course, I'm done with being embarrassed about my reading choices and have used this blog to announce my love of smut to the world.

Except it isn't smut, is it?  Sex in romance books, including the paranormal variety, is so far from smutty that it's like calling a unicorn a horse. It's not. It's an entirely different animal. These characters aren't rutting mindlessly. They are making mad, passionate love after a well-written build-up of will they/won't they. They are soul mates, bonded couples, lovers for life—and if it's a paranormal book, that life could be hundreds, if not thousands of years long. Talk about commitment! But the sex these fictional folks are having is idealized for women--written by women, for women and, usually, from the female perspective. Let’s just say here that nice guys finish last, and they are all nice guys in these books--our heroines wouldn’t have it any other way.

So how these wonderful authors communicate all of this powerful emotion and intense physical and spiritual connection counts. I can't imagine it's easy to write an effective sex scene in romance literature. So my hat is off to those authors who do it well. Not too long ago, I was privileged to be asked to be a beta reader for one of the indie authors I follow. The book was very good, but I did have a number of suggestions (many of which were incorporated into the final version, I'm delighted to say). One question the author asked was whether we, the beta readers, liked the sex scenes and specifically whether we agreed with the vocabulary she used. Perspicacious question.  In the event, I didn't like the specific terms she'd used. I felt they were too clinical. On the other hand, I also dislike Penthouse Forum-type language that tends to focus attention on only the physical aspects of the event and highlight the more salacious perspectives, which always makes me feel like a slightly pervy voyeur. 

Instead, I love the well-written sex scenes that allow me to feel like I'm in the scene itself. I want to imagine myself as the woman within the pages, experiencing the transcendence of the moment. Because, in fact, that transcendent element is exactly what separates the good sex scenes from the cringe-worthy ones, and the pornographic from the erotic and romantic. l love the scenes where the two partners are taken out of themselves and are so into each other that the rest of the world melts away.   And, yes, there are the Laurell Hamilton sex scenes that involve more than two partners, but Laurell is in a class by herself and she can make scenes that can only be described as hard-core pornography work from an erotic/romantic/loving perspective—but she is the only one I've read who can do that. And then, of course, there is the inimitable Kresley Cole who writes in three different genres, including adult erotica. Those books are smoking hot—and could also be characterized as more traditionally- focused pornography, but again, she makes it work from a woman's perspective. One of the things I love about Kresley Cole, and which I've written about before here, is that she celebrates women's healthy and enthusiastic sexuality. Which is awesome. Women like sex as much as men do. The difference is that women like good sex. Men just like sex. 

So, please, all of your writers who are my rock stars (Mick Jagger has nothing on Kresly Cole, Laurell K. Hamilton, JR Ward, Thea Harrison, Nalini Singh, Karen Marie Moning, Charlaine Harris, etc.), please keep watching your language and conveying your descriptions artfully and beautifully.  Women want sex to be beautiful, and that includes the words used to describe every, single, minute detail.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I'm so excited to tell you about Lilo Abernathy's new offering in the Bluebell Kildare series, The Light Who Binds. You all know how much I loved The Light Who Shines, and how much food for thought that book inspired. Book 2 is no different, with a great mystery and lots of answers to questions raised in the first book (I have a pet peeve when an author makes us wait for multiple books to advance the story arc--and I love it when we get answers that make sense and lead us to want even more, as Lilo's books do--but back to the subject at hand). Today, I'm evolving my thoughts about hope and fear, which I've written about before, complements of the fabulous Fever series by Karen Marie Moning and Lilo Abernathy. According to Ms. Moning, and I agree with her, hope strengthens, fear kills. Hope is a major theme that Lilo Abernathy explores in her novels and The Light Who Binds has further illuminated the subject for me.  What happens when what we fear is hope?  In my last post on this subject, I cited the poet James Richardson who wrote that a pessimist fears hope while an optimist fears fear. What does it mean to fear hope and what the hell should we do about it? 

In The Light Who Binds, there are a lot of opportunities for hope. Blue hopes that Jack will become deconflicted and admit that he has romantic feelings toward her. Jack hopes that Blue will be able to forgive him when she finds out what he's been keeping from her all this time. Daylight Vampires (the good guys) hope that Blue will turn out to be the savior of their race so that they can avoid being damned to the Plane of Fire. Gifted humans (those with magical abilities) hope that Norms (non-magical humans) will stop persecuting them and learn to live in peace. Blue hopes that she will be able to meet everyone else's hopes. There is a lot of hope being bandied about. But no one is particularly happy about it. 

So it seems I'm going to contradict myself, for those of you keeping score in a less than generous mood. If you are more charitably inclined, I'm going to refine my arguments (of course, few of us are allowed to refine or change our minds these days--if we said something or did something--anything--that was recorded for posterity no matter how long ago, we are now forever being held to that position or belief in perpetuity. God forbid our thinking should be allowed to develop without our being accused of being a total hypocrite—(but I think I've strayed fairly far afield again, sorry). Hope strengthens, fear kills, except when fear of hope is justified and letting go of hope--without falling into despair--is sometimes the thing to do.

Are you baffled yet, 'cause I'm making my own head spin. Let's take this one step at a time. I think what I'm saying is that like love, we can sometimes unclench the fist we've wrapped around our hope and let it fly away. If it comes back, it's ours forever. If it doesn't, it never was. For example, Blue loves Jack. But she's gotten her hopes up so many times, only to have them dashed against the cliffs of Jack's ambivalence and unwillingness to commit his feelings one way or the other, that she is afraid to hope that things might change. Such hope is painful and sets up a roller coaster of feelings that could leave anyone feeling weak and nauseated. But rather than falling into despair, Blue charts a different, more effective course (if efficacy is measured in terms of whether she gets what she wants with the least amount of drama and extremes of emotion). Blue decides, or is somehow able, to accept that circumstances are not what she'd prefer in the moment, and she's not going to invest a lot of energy in future expectations that may not be met, but she will be content to let the potential unfold the way it will. This approach is much like I imagine Zen to be (I'm not much of a Zen girl, although I do aspire to a more balanced and even-keeled existence--except when I prefer to pay the price of ridiculous highs with the counterweight of abysmal lows--I'll keep you posted on how that all works out for me; I know you're waiting with baited breath).

So Blue is neither hopeful nor fearful. And she’s not in despair. She's taking it as it comes. I think I know what that feels like, maybe. I have a brother. He's my only sibling. We were extremely close growing up. We have been estranged for the past twenty years, and had a complete break two years ago when my mother died. For twenty years, I hoped that we could repair our relationship. But every time I reached out to him, it ended badly, with my heart a little more broken by him than it was before. But I refused to let go of my hope that things would improve. I was terrified by that hope; however, because like Pavlov's dog, I had become conditioned to believe that any hope associated with my brother would inevitably lead to excruciating pain shortly thereafter. I'd gotten burned so often I was a hot mess (to paraphrase one of Lilo’s particularly awesome sentences).

How does this story end?  I think I've finally gotten to where Blue hangs out; I accept that the situation is what it is. I have no expectations that the relationship with my brother will improve. On the other hand, if I were convinced that something had fundamentally changed, I could be persuaded to open the door to hope once again and invite it to come in and take a load off.

The lesson here, I think, is that if we can divorce hope from expectation, then we can hold onto hope--which strengthens--and let go of fear--which kills. When we get to the place where we fear that which strengthens us, we need to look at the nature of our hope and question whether it has morphed into expectation, which is just a short hop from making demands. In my experience, demands are rarely met with joyful compliance on the other end. I try to avoid making demands, as success is usually specious, engendering resentment and resistance that inevitably come back to make us regret the whole endeavor.

Have I come full circle?  Can I still say hope strengthens and fear kills?  And can I also say that maybe hope isn't such a schizophrenic bitch, but that expectation masquerading as hope is?  Does this formula work for you?  Do I need to contemplate this subject some more? Perhaps I'll have to wait for the next books in the Fever and Bluebell Kildare series to say for sure. In the meantime, I'll hope to avoid false hope and to embrace its more authentic expression. I'll eschew fear in all its forms to the best of my ability and have faith that I'll be able to recognize all these variations when I encounter them. I’ll choose the audacity of hope and remember that courage is fear that has said its prayers. 

Moves Like Jagger

I saw the Rolling Stones in concert last night in Raleigh, North Carolina. The tickets and the trip were a 50th birthday gift from my beloved husband, who knows how much I love the Stones and Mick Jagger in particular. And let me just say this right up front: I will be eternally grateful that Mick still has great hair and not an ounce of fat on him. He may not be moving like he did when I was seventeen and saw him for the first time at Madison Square Garden, but then again, neither am I. If I'm in half as good shape as he is when I hit my seventies, I will be a happy girl. But I've digressed before I've even started. Toward the end of the concert, Mick told the audience (which was composed of people as old or older than me, some of whom brought their grown children) that when the Stones played Raleigh for the first time, it was FIFTY YEARS ago. Basically before I was born. And that got me to thinking about the nature of longevity and deification, because the Stones have been treated like gods for a very long time now. The Rolling Stones are one of the few bands that have A) lived this long; B) stayed together; and C) are still performing in packed stadiums to screaming, adoring crowds. To me, they offer a lesson in what it must be like to be one of the immortal alpha males of my beloved fantasy novels. I've written about the burden of immortality before here. My thoughts have evolved as a result of seeing actual humans whose lives approximate, in a small way,  characters such as Karen Marie Moning's Barrons, Thea Harrison's Dragos,  and Nalini Singh's Raphael —if these characters actually existed (I think about them like they are real, but I am aware that they are fictional projections created by brilliant authors—no matter how realistic my fantasies may seem—but I’m wandering off the reservation again, aren’t I?).  These [fictional] creatures have lived for thousands of years, were worshiped as gods, and possessed remarkable powers. Kind of like Mick and the boys—with fewer years behind them, of course. Is it possible to come out the other end of that kind of time, power and consistent adulation with any amount of perspective or humility?  Seems like it wouldn't be, doesn't it?

In Ancient Rome,  general celebrated a military triumph with a procession through Rome, the populace stood on the side of the road cheering uproariously.  Amid all of this glorification, however, there was a guy standing just behind that general, whispering in his ear, "Remember thou art mortal."  Talk about raining on someone's parade! But the wet washcloth routine was carefully designed by the same folks who thought of feathers and vomitoriums--you know, so you can have your cake and eat it too-- to ensure that these military superheroes didn't go off the narcissistic deep end. Mostly, they did anyway (can you say "Caligula?"-even though he was an emperor, I know, but Julius Caesar was pretty full of himself too). One has to ask, could anyone stay sane and even a little humble under such circumstances?

There might be a way--a safety valve, if you will. I'm thinking that even when life comes in the extra-large size, both in terms of length and attributes, it also throws enough curve balls at us so that if we have a modicum of common sense, we are forced, sooner or later, to understand that the vicissitudes of fate do not spare the rich, the powerful or the beautiful. Life bites us in the ass every time. The longer we live, the more opportunity for dentition in the region of our backsides.

I'm not saying life isn't grand. For me, right now, it certainly is. I am savoring the sweetness of being in love, being on vacation, having adventures and extraordinary experiences (my husband and I have agreed that the best gifts at this point in our lives are activities not stuff). But the point of this appreciation is that it isn't always like this. Life is often hard, even for the likes of Mick Jagger, who is certainly living an extraordinary existence by any measure. But even Mick is not immune to suffering; he lost his partner to suicide not too long ago, which had to bring him up short. For the likes of Barrons, Dragos and Raphael, the reversals of fortune multiplied in direct proportion to the number of years on this plane. As I've written about before, the deathwatch list for them must be interminable. Such realities keep us humble.  Mostly.

But, as we know from reading misses Moning, Harrison and Singh, not all immortal powerhouses got the humility memo. Many just lose their marbles and become sociopathic nightmares. But hey, that happens to us mortals, too, especially the ones who are lulled into a specious sense of self-importance because they have achieved some measure of success, fame, or influence. They forget that we are given our gifts to use for the higher good, not to inspire the likes of Carly Simon to write songs about our outsized vanity.

I'm thinking the Romans got it right, although maybe not about the group bulimia thing. Remembering thou art mortal, even when it's not true, like for my paranormal alpha gods, is good advice. It's good advice me, and it's good advice for Mick Jagger too, because while he has held up remarkably well, his strut is a little more subdued and his voice has a little less projection than it once did.  He’s got to be feeling the burden of his years, and the inexorable march of time makes everyone humble, even the giants.  Still, I'd give a lot to have the moves like Jagger, for however long his longevity lasts.

The Two Faces of Hope

Like the three faces of Eve (for all you old movie buffs), hope is a schizophrenic bitch. On the one hand, as Karen Marie Moning will attest, hope strengthens (and fear kills, as I've written about here). On the other, hope can be the tie that binds, and cuts, and hurts more than any other pain possibly could, as Lilo Abernathy tells us in her Bluebell Kildare series. And, as I am endlessly curious about such things, how can the same feeling elicit such divergent responses from us?  Under which conditions does hope strengthen? When does it hurt?

I thought the answer in this instance, like so many others, might lie in truth. True hope gives us strength. Strength to go on, to endure, to persevere. False hope, by contrast, is a harbinger of death; it creates unrealistic expectations that, when disappointed, crush us under the weight of being dropped from a high place. Upon further reflection, though, I don't think I'm right, and it took JR Ward to show me the error of my ways.

I'm reading Book 13 in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. And boy, oh boy, are these books good. And rich, and complex and real as words on a page (or screen) can possibly be. I could probably write blogs for months based on inspiration from this series alone. And I likely will. In fact, while I'm reading The Shadows, I'm listening to Book 1, Dark Lover, on Audible in the car and while I'm in my kitchen (hey, I need something fun to distract me from the drudgery that is cooking and preparing food!). So it's a double dose of BDB goodness for me. Yippee. But back to why Ms. Ward is relevant to this post. In the most recent book, one of the male characters, Trez, is in love with Selena. Selena is sick, dying from a rare and terrible disease. She and Trez have only a little time together, and they want to make it count. He is determined to give her whatever he can. And he concludes that the most important and valuable gift he can give her is hope. Right up until the last minute, he can act like they have forever. Even if they don’t.

So even if it may be false, it appears that hope is productive, not destructive. This basically shreds the truth and fiction theory of hope. And in fact, one cannot know if hope is well-founded or misplaced until one is looking in the rearview mirror on the situation in question. I remember clearly when my husband and I were going through fertility treatments, desperately trying to get pregnant. The hope of success was the only thing that kept me going during the roller coaster ride of emotions the process generated. It was so hard. And I clung to the hope that I had, but, as time and procedures and drug therapy continued, my hope became a threadbare thing, with weak spots in imminent danger of ripping entirely. Until one day, when an urgent situation on Thanksgiving Day caused me to see a new doctor who happened to be on call. He spent two hours with me. And he told me I would be successful. Straight up, “you will get pregnant,” he said. And renewed hope bloomed in my heart. It was the most amazing experience. It felt like I had been thrown a lifeline. I held on. I had renewed motivation. Just when I needed it the most, hope strengthened. And he was right. I was ready to give up. The gift of hope made all the difference. And it was well-founded, but I didn’t know that till I had two bouncing baby boys in my stroller.

In other situations, hope can be a cancer that eats away at our good sense. Like for Blue, with Jack Tanner in Lilo Abernathy's series. Blue fights the hope she feels that Jack will eventually soften toward her and acknowledge their mutual feelings. She has experienced the yo-yo of his emotions for so long, she eschews hope as a portent of crushing disappointment and unfulfilled expectations.  Nothing hurts more than when you hope beyond hope it will happen, or you will get it and it doesn't and you don't. It's better to abandon hope, all ye who enter such situations. 

So, clearly the distinction isn't truth. Or maybe it is, because hope is true until it isn't. And sometimes hope is something we force ourselves to sacrifice because having it hurts more than letting go. So, if we give up before the miracle happens and consciously uncouple from the hope in our hearts, was the hope false in its failure, or did we merely create a self-fulfilling prophesy of failure when we let go prematurely?  Makes my head spin. Maybe hope strengthens until it doesn’t, when the scales finally tip, and the camel’s back finally breaks, at which point success would be pyrrhic anyway.

I don't know. It is said that where there is life there is hope. And sometimes that is both a blessing and a curse. Maybe it is a function of perspective. A pessimist fears her hope, while an optimist fears her fear, according to the poet James Richardson. Maybe hope isn’t a schizophrenic bitch, but I am.  I hope not.   

The Sands of Time

Time.  In the end it’s all we have and what we lose when the final grain of sand slips from the hourglass of our lives. In my favorite quote of all time (and that’s saying a lot), J.R.R. Tolkien tells us that, “All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that we have.”  I believe it. I live by carpe diem.  I am appalled and terrified about the rate at which time is speeding up as I get older, whizzing by at an ever-increasing velocity by virtue of physical laws I neither understand nor wish to acknowledge.  But time doesn’t care.  It just keeps slip sliding away, and we are all one day closer to death. Wow, I’m seriously harshing my mellow right now. I’m still immersed in the Fever world of Karen Marie Moning.  I know, it’s been a while, but I’m not rushing the experience.  I’m enjoying it too much.  I’m choosing to spend my precious time with her compelling characters in a world I wouldn’t want to live in, but that I love visiting.  The book I’m currently reading, Iced, is focused on Dani, the 14-year old super-smart, super-strong, super-fast, superhero who says “dude” and “like” enough to set my teeth on edge.  But she is so alive, so vibrant, so full of…everything. She is making every single minute count.  She abhors wasted time.  I agree with her.

Time is a funny thing.  In our language we pass it, kill it, make it, do it, have it, fill it, use it, squander it.  I’ve never understood the concept of killing time.  Why the hell would we want to do that?  It’s killing us, dude! And we need to turn the other cheek, not retaliate, because that’s just another way that time kills us. On the other hand, I’ve always approved of the colloquialism of ‘doing time.’  Because that’s exactly what we demand of those who transgress the laws of our society—we extract that which is most precious to them, their time and the freedom to spend it as they choose. There is nothing more valuable we can take away. I know for a fact that I would never survive prison. The thought of all of that useless, lost time would weigh on me to the point where I’d lose my mind.

Many of us focus on stretching our years, months, weeks and minutes for as long as possible. We don’t seem to worry as much about quality as we do about quantity.  I couldn’t disagree more.  It’s all about the quality of the time that we spend. I hope I won’t have to put this speculation to the test, but I think I would choose an earlier death instead of living longer in the state of pain, fatigue and sickness that characterizes the hideous choices we offer to cancer patients and others suffering from chronic, fatal illness.  And I strenuously disagree with the American practice of spending the majority of our healthcare dollars on the last weeks and months of life. To what end?  The answer is, paradoxically, to the end.  For no discernable reason, as far as I can see.  I am forever grateful that neither of my parents lingered for any length of time before they passed.  They would have hated it, and it would have been an exercise in futility.  Which is, by definition, futile, and therefore incomprehensible at some level.

And then there is the fact that many of us aren’t even spending the time that we have.  We are living so far from the present moment that we’re not experiencing life as we live it.  We’re thinking about yesterday—either about how horrible it was and how the world, our parents, the big boss, the school bully, etc. has done us wrong and needs to pay.  Or we’re thinking about the glory days that are now in the rearview mirror, and the best we can do is take a walk down memory lane and relieve the good times. Or, we’re projecting into the future, my preferred time killer here.  As Dani would say, gah!!  No matter how many wise people tell us about the power of now, so few of us choose to hang out there.  Partially because it’s hard to do, especially in a society that is so full of distractions from the now.  But also because we are constantly thinking about how much better it could be, or should be, or would be or will be.  I say again, gah!

And even though we are so concerned about longevity over peak experiences, so few of us are willing to do what it takes to add years to our lives and life to our years.  Have you worked out today?  Nah, me either.  Did you enjoy the Big Mac you just scarfed down?  I wouldn’t touch that crap, but I’m certainly not above enjoying my wine and chocolate beyond what could be considered true moderation.  I know I should move more frequently and eat extra greens, but I only do so occasionally.  Why?  Because we seem to think that sloth and gluttony are more fun than work and abstinence.  Go figure.

But it’s true.  For me, the repeated engagement in less-than-healthy behavior, physical and emotional, is something I tell myself enhances the quality of my life and counts as a worthy use of my time.  But that’s just my denial talking here.  I tell myself I don’t have time, and I have no choices, even when I know that’s total bullshit.  And then I hear about someone my age dropping dead of a heart attack, or I realize that I have fewer years ahead of me than there are behind me and I start to panic big time.  And I berate myself for the paucity of good choices I’m making with whatever time I have.  Tolkien would be very disappointed with me.  And I promise myself that I will make every second count.  And then I do, until the second comes that isn’t quite as perfect as I’d hoped or expected, and then I’m back to wanting to pass this moment, kill this minute, and get to the next one as fast as I can. Which at the rate I’m going, will be faster than Dani when she’s moving at super speed.

We don’t need to rush tomorrow.  It will come.  And it will go.  And so will we.  So, we need to ask ourselves, are we making good decisions with the time that we have? Am I?  Are you?

Apathetic Passion

So, I just finished the Fever bundle, by Karen Marie Moning, and I'm beginning to work my way through Iced in anticipation of reading Burned. I'm fairly certain it's going to be a quasi-religious experience for me. In the interim, I can't stop thinking about Mac and Barrons and the Unseelie King. I'm thinking about passion, joy, lust for life and an infinite amount of desire. I’m thinking about the objects of those desires, and what happens when desire is destructive rather than generative.  And I'm thinking about what it means when those feelings are missing. For me, the world seems divided—into those who know what their passion is and those who don’t have one. And I’m really only talking about passions that are contributory.  I’d much rather see passionate people like Mac who care about the world and the fate of humanity rather than the kind of lust for life that characterizes Barrons.  I love the guy, but he’s somewhat selfish. Which is a little like saying Kanye West is somewhat self-absorbed.

What do we lust for? Is our passion worthy?  What if what we are passionate about is the pursuit of pleasure? What if it turns out that what we care about, what we’re passionate about, is ourselves, and not really anyone else?  I feel like I see a lot of that out there. Obviously, there are those whose passion is for helping others—and we read about them in magazines and hear about them on the news.  But I have a nagging suspicion that we hear and read about these people because they are the exception, and not the rule. That there are more people for whom a lust for life looks more like eating a bowl of potato chips while watching the Superbowl than joining Doctors without Borders.

What happens when desire is thwarted?  What happens to those of us who find out that what we thought we wanted wasn’t? The Unseelie King pondered this problem for an eternity, but it’s not clear he came up with any answers. How many people do you know who spent years in school studying one thing, thinking they loved it, only to discover that they really weren’t that enamored after all? What if our purported passion doesn't feel like we thought it would?  What if it doesn't feel like passion, but instead feels like ashes? What happens when our desire turns into apathy? What happens when nothing inspires our desire?  Look around you. There are more people than not who just don't give a damn. Rhett Butler is all around us, and we don’t care about that, either.

What does all this mean? It means we live in a world where a lot of us either care passionately about only that which promotes our own agendas, or they don’t care at all.  Rock and a hard place, for sure. There is so much apathy in the world.  As well as misplaced passion. Which leads me to ask, how can we inspire engagement in those who have disengaged, and redirect those whose passions are turned inward? Again, I don’t have a lot of answers, just a lot of questions. For Mac and Barrons, there is purpose in rebuilding the world and passion flows from purpose.  So there is one answer—purpose produces passion. So does curiosity. And authentic connection. And gratitude. I guess I had some answers after all.

We need the good kind of passion.  Without it, we are lost, and when the Fae apocalypse occurs (I prefer it to the Zombie apocalypse, so we’ll go with that) we’ll be hard pressed to rouse ourselves from our food comas, rampant consumerism and prurient voyeurism to give a shit.  And this is an issue, because, as my favorite philosopher, Dr. Seuss, tells us, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.”  We need to give a shit. And we need to do it with passion. Let's get on that, shall we?

About Last Night

Among the many blessings in my life, I have amazing friends. In fact, I could write an entire post about the joys of friendship, and I probably will, but for today, I want to mention a friend of mine who hosts salons. Not the kind where you get your hair cut and your nails painted, but the kind where intellectually-minded folks gather (the original meaning of salon) in someone’s living room to discuss the issues of the day or other erudite topics for the sheer joy of exercising their brains. How cool is that? I’ve long admired her commitment to furthering the cerebral pursuits of her friends and acquaintances. Anyway, before I go too far afield, the reason I’m telling you about this is because the speaker at yesterday’s salon was none other than yours truly!  And the reason I want to tell you about my experience speaking to a group of folks who don’t read paranormal and urban fantasy (except for our host, my friend, who is an avid fan), is because the experience intensified my mission to spread the word about our favorite genre to as many people as possible. 

The format of this salon involves a speaker, me, in this case, pontificating for about 30 minutes or so, and then engaging in a group discussion about the subject at hand.  I began my talk with an abbreviated curriculum vitae—just to assure everyone that I could hold my own among the incredibly accomplished company attending this event in Washington DC.  Once I had established my bona fides, I told them about my deep happiness in reading fantasy and I explained why it was so compelling for me.  There was skepticism, for sure.  But I think I was able to win a number of them over to the dark side by explaining all the intellectual reasons to read these books (if you need a reason beyond hot, steamy vampire sex—boo-yah!),

My first hook, so to speak, was the concept of world building.  World building interests me for many reasons. The quality of the world building is usually indicative of the quality of the writing.  A fertile imagination can conjure complex and fascinating rules for whether vampires can come out at night, or reproduce, or eat food, or have bodily functions.  World building may also involve the description of exotic, paranormal locales, such as the pockets of Otherland in Thea Harrison’s Elder Races series (Thea is a master of finding beautiful pictures and photos that could be Otherworld locations that she posts on her Facebook page, which are amazing).  World building includes descriptions of the creatures that inhabit these worlds as well as the details of their societies, customs, habits, etc., such as the social mores of shifter cultures, for example, or the anthropological evolution of the opposing courts of the Fae.  Authors who construct worlds get to write their own creation stories, which appeals to the theologian in me.

But the most amazing aspect of world building in fantasy novels is the analogy to our normal, as opposed to paranormal, lives, where, if we are both lucky and good, we are able to build our own worlds and, at a minimum, co-create our own lives.  We are all the authors of our destinies, and the worlds that are built in my beloved books remind me that I am the author of my own creation. It pays to be reminded of that.

Another aspect of paranormal fiction that I discussed at some length at this salon was the trope involving illusion and glamour that is so common in these books.  I’ve written about this before here, and I’m intrigued by the concept of illusion and the ability to see through it—or even the desire to see through it. Not everyone is interested in seeing what is true.  A lot of us prefer to have our truths adorned with lies to make them more palatable.  Mac, in the Fever world of Karen Marie Moning, claims she would rather live a hard life of fact than a sweet life of lies, but I think she’s the exception that proves the rule.  Most of us like our illusions because they feed our denial—another topic I’ve explored in this space here.  And there is nothing that holds a mirror up to our own predilection for deceit than a fantasy world where nothing is as it seems and everyone is peddling their own self-serving versions of the truth.  In many cases, truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

But the most compelling aspect of these books for me, and for my audience last night as well, is the exploration of mortality that the world of immortals allows us to access.  I have found it nothing short of mind blowing to read about the consequences of immortality—none of which are pleasant or desirable—that help me to value the poignancy of our own mortal coil.  In one of my favorite songs, Queen asks, “Who wants to live forever?”  And the answer, especially after reading enough paranormal fiction in which immortal beings become jaded beyond apathy, cruel with the continual need to up the ante, or simply insane as a result of the passage of eons, is not me.  If time is of no consequence, there is no urgency to do anything, and nothing has value because for those who cannot die, tomorrow is always another day.  For the rest of us, we could have an appointment with Death that no one bothered to pencil into our calendars.  The uncertainty and fragility of existence, the inexorable progress toward the end of life as we know it, is and should be the flame under our asses motivating us to pack as much as we can into our brief sojourn as possible. We aren’t going to live forever, and therefore we have an absolute imperative to seize the day. For all of these reasons, I urged my audience last night to check out my “Favorites” page and take a dive into the deep end of these remarkable books.  Because vampire porn is fun and educational.  And not just to learn better technique from those who’ve been perfecting theirs for millennia. After all, everything I know I learned from reading smut.  And you can too.

With Great Power

Life is good.  I’m still reading the Fever series bundle in anticipation of the release of Burned on January 20 (tomorrow!!).  I’ve determined that Karen Marie Moning is a genius and I want to be her when I grow up.  Oops, I am grown up and I haven’t been able to come up with anything like what she’s created.  I’m burning with envy that the Muse hasn’t visited me the way it’s inhabited Karen Moning.  There is so much in these books to think about it’s a bit overwhelming. It’s a whole philosophical system/unique worldview rolled up into a compelling story with characters who literally invade my dreams.  I almost don’t know where to start. So, I’m just going to jump in with a thought train that left the station as I read Mac’s story. One of the coolest things about these books is that they raise a number of interesting questions to ponder—and then they don’t give you answers tied up into a neat bow.  I know I said that I liked that—and I do in my paranormal and urban fantasy sometimes—but in this case, because she has inspired so much furious thinking on my part, I’ll forgive Ms. Moning her trespasses, as I’ll hope she’ll forgive any I make in writing about her work. The dilemma du jour is about obligation and responsibility.  I’ve come across this question before, in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse character. The question is, just because you can do something, are you required to do it?  Does capability engender obligation? In the world of the Fever series, Mac struggles with the issue of whether her special sidhe powers—powers that might mean saving the world—necessitate that she has to use them to do so, even at the expense of her own life and joy.  Sookie ponders whether it is selfish and wrong of her to hide her ability to identify accident survivors after a catastrophe, or not to use her telepathy to solve crimes—knowing that if she doesn’t, innocent people will be hurt and guilty ones will go free.  Tough stuff, for sure.  Makes me happy that I can’t read minds or sense Fae objects of power—I would have the same dilemma as Mac and Sookie.  But wait—I already do—and so do you, actually.  We all have something we can do that would make at least someone else’s life better than it is.  Does that mean we have to do it? What does it make us if we don’t?

This leads to other, maybe even thornier questions. Do we need to always give money to beggars on the street? Must we help out a friend—every friend? Every time? Lend our talents to the military, the intelligence community, the police, first responders? Help a colleague? Do we do what's in front of us to do or do we go looking for people to save and help? What is our moral obligation? To ourselves? To others?

How do we square the circle at the intersection of “not my job” and the concept that with great power comes great responsibility?  I have no idea.  Do we behave like Sookie and go back to our lives, rather than sacrifice ourselves to the greater good?  Or do we do like Mac and decide to go all in, despite the risks and potential sacrifices?  This is a very personal decision and it goes beyond the question of whether to save the world just because you can.  How much should we sacrifice for others?  Should Bill Gates give all his money away, or just much of it, as he does? Should doctors treat patients for free in all circumstances?  There is a line, somewhere between Ayn Rand and Karl Marx, but hell if I know exactly where it is.  There is an art to saying no, of course, but for me, there is an even bigger art to avoiding the guilt that comes afterward.  I know, rationally, that I probably can’t save the world, although I do have a postcard above my desk that reads, "I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world."

But I can’t always help.  At least not without giving something up that I don’t want to give, including my time, my energy, my money and my reputation. And I’ve learned to say no and to live with it somewhat comfortably, at least much of the time.  But damn, it’s hard.  I used to believe that when someone asked me for something, the request itself created an obligation for me to fulfill it.  Even worse, I had a bad case of “if I spot it, I got it,” and I don’t the idea of seeing our own character defects in others and being all high and mighty about it (OMG—did you see how catty she is? I ask my BFF—in a decidedly feline manner).  What I mean is that if I saw something that I knew I could make better—even if no one else recognized this reality—something in my brain made me want to take up the cause and volunteer (in the military they teach you not to do that, ever). And then subsequently, when I was slaving away at midnight or later, seething with resentment, I had no one to blame but myself.

So, I don’t pretend to have the answers here, but I know these are important questions to ask, and I’m grateful to Ms. Moning and Ms. Harris for sparking my thoughts in this direction. There may be no right answer for everyone, and the answer may change with the situation and the time in one’s life, or even whether we’re just feeling generous or stingy that day—but now I’ve gone and given myself away, with my niggling suspicion that if I don’t do absolutely everything there is to do to help humanity and improve the world, I’m a selfish bitch. I’m thinking that’s not true, but I guess I need to work on my internal dialogue a bit.  I’ll need to switch off between Sookie and Mac and try to find some balance in my life. Wish me luck.

A Day Like Any Other

It's that time. I'm returning to the scene of the crime, the place where it all began. The latest installment of Karen Marie Moning's Fever series will be released on January 20, and I've started to reread the whole series in anticipation. These books, particularly Shadowfever, the last in the Mac and Barrons story thus far, fundamentally changed the way I read paranormal fantasy and how I think of these books and how they affect my life. And while I didn't know it at the time, these extraordinary books held the seeds of my blog and, hopefully, my soon-to-be-written book between their magical pages. It was with the Fever series that I began to see the truth and wisdom that is offered by paranormal and urban fantasy. And just like that, I realized that these works were inspiring deep and meaningful thoughts about life, love and how to do it all with as much truth and integrity as possible.

And so, because these books mark a demarcation line between Before the Fever series and After, today's post is a reflection on how quickly life can change from one moment to the next, much in the same way that MacKayla's life changes when she learns of her sister's death in the beginning of the first book in the series, Darkfever. Mac thinks of the phone call that upended her world and her life as a "line of demarcation" and so it was. She also observes that "it began as most things begin, not on a dark and stormy night... It began small and innocuously, as most catastrophes do."  All of this hit me hard with the truth of what she said. An extraordinary day can begin as a day like any other.

Life can turn on a dime, and it often does. I think back to almost every specific day when I received unexpected news (usually bad, but this would apply to good news as well) or when I realized something important had occurred and my life might be unalterably changed as a result. Days, or really moments, like this are always preserved in my memory with incredible clarity and detail. And in those moments I always have the thought that, wow, there was absolutely nothing in this day that could possibly be interpreted as a portent of the bad thing (or good thing) to come. It seemed like such an ordinary day, during an ordinary week, embedded in an ordinary month. Have you ever experienced this?  This phenomenon has always intrigued me.

I was also intrigued by the time warp aspect of MacKayla's experience. A detail of the story involves her dropping her cellphone into the pool several days before she learns of her sister's death from the authorities in Dublin. When she finally gets a new one and listens to her messages, there's one from her sister, Alina, who is highly distraught. Alina dies very soon afterward and MacKayla realizes that while Alina was being killed and then lay dead for two days in an alley, Mac was sunning herself and swimming in her pool and chillaxing her days away. I don't know why it is always such a shock to find out that something awful happened and in the time between the event and our learning of it, life goes on as it was.

I experienced a similar situation upon the deaths of both my parents. They died, or, more accurately, suffered soon-to-be-fatal heart attacks, while I was unreachable for a time. So, while they were dying, I was getting on with my life as if nothing were amiss. Because, of course, ignorance is bliss. What we don't know won't hurt us. It is only later that we realize that the universe had shifted and we hadn’t known. I’ve always thought that when something bad happens to someone I love and am connected to, I would know it.  There are some people who claim that they do, but I’m not one of these.  I’ve experienced no premonitions of doom—or joy, in fact. I had no idea, for example, on the day I met my husband on a blind date that was supposed to be with someone else that such a lovely event would occur.  Nor did I have any clue, many years later that he’d been in an accident on his bike on a day where I actually wasn’t worried about that happening (ironic, I know). Lines of demarcation, before and after.

Occasionally, life-changing events occur and we aren’t aware.  Like when I went to see one of the deans at my college to try to sort out some academic issues and he ended up helping me avoid failing out of school, a fact I didn’t discern until the crisis had already passed.  Or when we look back at our lives and see, in hindsight, that an event or situation was a line of demarcation, as Mac calls it.  I think that there may be more of these than we think, but that it’s often easier to identify them in hindsight than when we are living through it, because life-changing events can overwhelm us very quickly.  Of course, an unexpected (or even an expected) death is usually a very clear line of demarcation. But, as I know Mac will discover as she progresses through the story of the Fever series, there are others, and sometimes they come very fast, while at other times, these lines make themselves known more slowly.  And how we handle the accrual of these lines within our own world determines how we’ll live our lives.

These lines of demarcation can become prison bars, and keep us stuck in one place.  Or they can become the markings on the road we continue to travel, providing guidance and direction. It’s up to us how we respond to life-changing events.  We can cling to the past and wish it weren’t so.  Or we can embrace the new reality and adjust ourselves to it. As Barrons would remind us, it’s our choice.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

When I was young, I was fairly lost.  I was lost in the sense that I didn’t really know who I was or what I liked or even what I cared about.  I was lost insofar as I had no real ability to stand up for myself except with friends who were even more lost than I was, and those relationships look fairly abusive and manipulative in hindsight.  Not pretty.  In my defense, no one ever told me how to find myself, nor was that an activity encouraged by my highly controlling mother.

But there are degrees of lost, and in retrospect, the place where I lost myself the most completely was in my romantic relationships.  Seemed like I couldn’t wait to hand over my personality and all of my free will to the man of the hour who I made my Svengali as I happily assumed the role of Galatea.  The theme of the dominant alpha male is one I continue to reexamine.  It intrigues me.  One question that I ponder with regularly is how to maintain my own identity in the context of a relationship in which I feel inferior in some way.  This is one of my favorite themes in paranormal fantasy, where the alpha males are often exaggerated and the women who love them need to figure out how to keep from being sucked into that event horizon.

Three of my very favorite books/series explore this theme with mastery (there are many others as well), but the ones that come immediately to mind are Thea Harrison’s Dragon Bound (Dragos and Pia), Nalini Singh’s Angel’s Blood (Raphael and Elena) and the Fever Books by Karen Marie Moning (Barrons And Mac).  I love, love, love these books, and I think the main reason is because these women succeed beautifully in maintaining themselves in relationships with men (beings, really- none of them are actually men) who are much, much older, more powerful and very used to the world accommodating itself to their desires and needs.  In each case, part of the attraction for the male is that their chosen woman does not back down in the face of their displeasure or even wrath.   And it takes some huge, brass, hairy stones to do that.  The fact that this sort of courage and intelligence comes in a beautiful, feminine package is a revelation for each of these males.

So let’s explore that “reality” further: that which attracts these males who exist at the very top of the food chain is that these women are most definitely not falling over themselves to people please or to give the big man everything he demands.  They have the intestinal fortitude to be who they are and stand their ground without succumbing to the pressure of acquiescing to everything their stranger, more powerful partner wants.

I absolutely love reading about women who embrace these relationships and then go on to thrive within them.  I can’t say I’ve seen a ton of that in real life, however.  It is such a difficult feat to stand in our own power without aggression or defiance or the need to try to dominate others ourselves.  But to be who we are and let the other be who he (or she) is and to negotiate a path where we can both stand together—together—that is quite the rare achievement.

And their achievement is a fluid one—a slippery little sucker as Julia Roberts described her escargot in Pretty Woman.  To stand together in mutual power while each maintains his or her own personal power over time is even more difficult.  It takes consciousness, respect, tolerance, patience, compassion, and strength.  And to be successful, both partners need to embody these superior personality characteristics and avoid the temptation to be petty, or controlling, or demeaning, or demanding, or inappropriately needy or aloof.  Oh my God, I’m exhausted just writing about the myriad requirements of a healthy, vibrant relationship. 

But, I adore reading about them because it provides me with some guidance, direction, and inspiration to achieve the same in my own life and relationships.

The dance of dominance in any relationship involves some fancy footwork for sure.  I know that in my own marriage we work very hard to compromise where we can, but to stand firm when an issue touches on a fundamental philosophy.  Of course, one hopes that when choosing a life partner we not only seek to look deeply into each other’s eyes, but that we are also looking for a partner who is looking out into the world in a similar fashion.  Holding complimentary world views is an important element of successful partnership.

Another important element is the ability—and the willingness—to learn from each other and to defer to each other’s strengths.  These are particularly poignant characteristics of the relationships depicted between my favorite fictional characters by Thea Harrison, Nalini Singh, and Karen Marie Moning.  Each of these amazing authors’ uber alpha males are willing to learn from their females and to be changed by their love.  And witnessing that evolution is the very best aspect of these amazing books.  I am able to come back to my marriage (and other relationships) enriched by the experience of spending time with these magnificent make believe characters.  And all of this reading is way cheaper than marriage counseling or psychotherapy, so I feel inspired and clever at the same time.