“We are all fools in love.”
— Jane Austen
HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY!!
And trust me — if ever there was a “fool” for love, it would be yours truly. From the moment I could read, I was a fool for romance, devouring the maximum ten books per bookmobile visit every two weeks. I used to laugh because my ten books were always romance, and my best friend’s ten books (she ended up being a doctor) were always science and mysteries.
And then I read Gone With the Wind at the tender age of 12, and BOOM! This “fool’s” romance-writing career began with a 150-single-spaced manuscript called When Tomorrow Comes, which eventually became my debut novel, A Passion Most Pure. Would you believe I still have that manuscript that I typed on a Remington Electric Typewriter? Yep, and it’s pretty sad looking, I’ll tell you, typed on thin paper that is now in tatters along the edges.
Obviously When Tomorrow Comes was about the O’Connors of Boston, and most of the characters’ names and love triangle were still the same (Faith, Patrick, Marcy; but Charity was Delatha, Mitch was Reed, and Collin was … wince … Bart, since I was a fan of the TV show Maverick back then!). The locales were the same as well, with the story playing out in both Boston and Dublin, Ireland. But … there was one VERY big difference between that initial manuscript and the final for A Passion Most Pure, and the first lines of each tell it all. Now please keep in mine that the first line for When Tomorrow Comes was written by a 12-year-old, so a little grace, please! 😉
When Tomorrow Comes:
Patrick O’Connor was dead.
Yet the sky hadn’t altered it’s azure hue
nor had the birds retired their chant
so familiar to the city in the spring.
A Passion Most Pure:
Sisters are overrated, she decided.
Not all of them, of course,
only the beautiful ones who never let you forget it.
I don’t know about you, but I am SURE glad I didn’t kill Patrick off on the first page, but that first line DID inspire his demise mid-book, so that helped give me the extra twist I was looking for. 🙂
So since this is April Fool’s Day, I guess I would have to agree with old Jane in some ways — “we are all fools in love.” Because real love makes us give of ourselves in ways we wouldn’t normally do, like I wrote about in my Seeker blog entitled “Stupid in Love” where I asked hubby one day why he puts up with me. “I don’t know,” he said with a quick kiss, “I guess I’m just stupid in love.”
But … I would disagree with Jane in one regard, and that is that true love is never foolish or stupid. It is giving of yourself until it hurts, like Jesus did for us. Loving us enough to die for us and teach us the true meaning of love — GOD! And let’s face it — love is the thing that every person on this planet is looking for, right? And if they aren’t? Who’s the fool?
Hugs and HAPPY FOOL’S DAY!
Julie
