"Ode to Joy"

"Ode to Joy", was composed by Ludwig Von Beethoven. If you really listen to it, you can almost feel the picture or scenes he was playing in his mind. For me, it's a symphony that reflects the rapture and freedom in the music he could hear. Each note in his head, each note ringing a colorful picture. For me, that is how the stories that I write play in my mind. I get the idea or inspiration for a story-any kind of story-and I see the words like pictures in my mind and the hard part is putting them on paper. Heaven help us if they ever discover the technology that can take our mental images and put them to screen or paper. Diary of a Mad Woman might just be the next best seller then. Not all of my stories are ones that involve the macabre, although a lot of them are. I write alot of serious stuff too and general fiction. I get asked a lot, "Why romance? What is so nifty about that stuff?" Well for me, romance novels started out with the historical selections. I love history and historical romances just seemed to tell better stories. I'm not only hip to steamy love scenes-that's not wahat makes a great book or even romance novel. It's the relationships of the characters, the plot lines, the scenery, and the whole big picture. I have always been an avid reader. I read just about anything! Biographies, autobiographies, non fiction, and fiction of all genres. I'm not huge into war stories or westerns-that was my papow's deal not mine, but I have read them. I remember in school I picked the hardest books to read and do book reports on. I remember reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina when I was in the fourth grade. My teacher, Mrs.Patterson, was taken aback that I had chosen that book. I had gotten it from the public library as our school library didn't have that book. I followed with the works of Shakespere and the Bronte sisters. I loved Wurthering Heights and Jane Eyre and back then, my teacher pulled me aside and asked me why I was chosing such books. My only answer was that it was what interested me. I loved the challenge and I loved those stories. Later I caught the Stephen King buzz, and to this day I will never again read Pet Semetary again or Salem's Lot. I know, it's a vampire book and here I'm refusing to read it. That book as well as the movie gave me nightmares. In high school, I got Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice. I was sent to my school's social worker since my teacher thought I might be on the depressed side. It's laughable now but it wasn't then. I embrace my inner freak now, and those that know me have come to accept that part about me. I'm always going to be weird like that. Anyhow, I truly have a love for the written word and my only regret is that I didn't come to terms with it sooner! I feel like I have had all these stories locked away when I could have really been getting them out there, but I'm out there now! The fear of rejection has long since fled. No matter what I write, there is always some one out there that will want to read it-I just have to work and work hard! No author just put something without putting their blood, sweat, and tears all over it and got it published. Okay well there have been a few like Stephanie Meyers, but I'm not trying to be like Stephanie Meyers. God how I wish she'd write Midnight Sun already. Sucks to have your work infringed upon and just blown out there when you're just creating. I understand her reasons but I can't say as I would have let something like that crush me. I'm finding out that the publishing game is really not as easy as it sounds. One one hand you have the vanity press-self publishing and I won't knock it-but I'm like alot of people in search of the holy grail of being picked up by a legit publisher. That kind of prestige that comes along with having an editor say, "This is it! This is the next big thing! We can really market this author!" However, times are changing and alot of people like Denyse Bridger and alot others, are gaining a lot of steam with ebook publishing. I won't knock ebooks either. I think there is a market for both ebooks and traditional books. For me I like them both. I love having a book I can hold in my hand and I like the ease of ebooks. I want to be successful at both! I want to be able to sit and do book signings and readings. I want to one day be as famous as Kenyon,Rice, L.Adrian, Sands, and all those other diva's of the romance world. I want ppl to fall in love with my characters as much as I had creating them. So my "Ode to Joy" is what I can write and create and no one should be without their "Ode to Joy" reguardless if it's music, writing, acting, drawing, sculpting, painting, singing, or being happy with yourself!