Attraction vs Love by Bonnie Le Hamilton

I was searching the web the other day for some topic or other, I was hoping to find something on writing, when I came across a headline insisting that scientists had proved love at first sight exists. Now, as a romance writer I was interested in what the article had to say, so I clicked on the link only to discover they weren’t talking about love, but rather attraction.

The whole thing was how people determine ATTRACTION a lot faster than most people think, as in milliseconds, but well, attraction isn’t love, so I’m going to have to beg to differ with them, big time.

I do agree that people determine attractiveness really fast, but attractiveness doesn’t mean love, because, let’s face it, physical attractiveness doesn’t equal a really nice guy who you can get along with for the rest of your life.

I have a line in one my unfinished stories where the heroine cautions herself saying, “Careful! Gaston was good looking too.”

And I’m right. Everyone reading this post, stop right now and think. Name someone you know of who is physically attractive but when you get to know that person they aren’t so nice down deep.

I’m stuck on Gaston because all the really good-looking guys I’ve known over the years, guys I was attracted to back in the day, they’re also nice men (some of them I’m friends with on Facebook) but well, in the long run, I don’t think I’d have been able to get along with them day in and day out. None of them have the patience Tom had, and I have to admit I’ve got a temper.

On top of that Tom wasn’t in league with the Gastons of the world. Average height, average build, light brown hair and brown eyes, nothing special in the looks department. In fact, when my roommates learned I was going to ask him out, all of them said, “Ew! Why would you want to date him?”

Number one, I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.

I invited him to dinner, because a mutual friend said he could use some cheering up, nothing more. I wasn’t planning more than just the one dinner. In fact, I was planning to be unavailable for any further dates for the week after that dinner, and to be leaving town when the week was over.

Things just didn’t turn out that way. Actually, the song “Frog Kissing” comes to mind when I think about those days. I kissed me a frog and got a prince!

In other words, I love Tom with all my heart, but he didn’t have anything to physically attract me to him, and I know the difference because I’ve had more than my fair share of crushes, including celebrity crushes, and attraction does not in any sense of the word equal love. It equals lust, but lust isn’t love! It never has been, and never will be.

So, while I have may have a hard time getting my characters to take their time and actually fall in love, I also know that they are moving too fast. I have to find the fine line between too fast and too slow in my stories, but I do realize they are going too fast evidenced in a discussion two of my characters have in one of my unfinished stories.

In that one, they are assigned to write a believable story that had them getting together the previous school year, and were now married and expecting, for their class and the two of them knew they could have teamed up for a duet in a band competition the year before so they went with that, but the heroine insisted that they absolutely could NOT kiss the first time they got together to practice because that would mean their relationship was purely physical and it was nothing to base a marriage on.

I wrote that, I know that. I just have trouble showing that on the page.

Actually, one of my stories, the one which is totally finished, I’ve had problems with critiques saying they fall in love too fast. None of those people ever seem to get the fact that my main characters aren’t human, and they pair up by forming a “connection”. I have it in the story where the hero tells his dad, “I love her,” and his dad replied, “Well, of course you do, with the connection you have no choice.”  

That’s an exact quote, yet people complain they fell in love too fast.

That’s not to say I don’t have a problem with them getting together too soon, falling in love too fast, I know I have that problem in my other stories, just not this one.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Manners Check by Konnie Enos

Do me a favor and just for a moment imagine, you, an altruistic person, are walking out of an office building and in front of you, aiming to go down the ramp placed there for ease of access is a young woman in a wheelchair. The only other people anywhere near you are the person you are with who is following you and another woman walking slightly in front of and to the side of the woman in the wheelchair.

The young woman in the wheelchair is self-propelling down the ramp. Yes it is a short ramp and as such you would roll down it quickly and into the road if you didn’t know what you were doing. The young woman is not in any way struggling.

What do you do?

Your choices are:

A)    Follow the young woman down the ramp while talking to your companion, possibly smile at the young woman and other woman as you move past them.

B)    Ask the young woman if she needs any help and give any assistance she says she’d be thankful for but graciously accept she doesn’t need any if she declines.

C)    Not say anything to her but grab the handles on her wheelchair to keep her from flying into the road.

Think about this for a minute. Which one would you do?

Is your answer C? Why?

Why on earth would you think it is acceptable to invade someone’s personal space without so much as a ‘by your leave’? I already said she was clearly steering herself without any problems. Why would you think she needed help?

If your answer is not C, thank you. You would not believe the number of people who think it’s okay to grab the handles on my daughter’s wheelchair, without even asking, just because they think they are helping her. Did she really look like she needed help? Just because she’s in a wheelchair?

This exact thing happened to my daughter as we were leaving a medical office building. I turned back to her to make sure she didn’t want my help and happened to notice two things. She was fine and some lady behind her was reaching for the handles on her wheelchair without letting my daughter even know she was there.

I said, “She’s fine and very independent.”

Fortunately that was enough to get the lady to back off. Though when I mentioned it to my daughter she complained about others grabbing her chair without her knowledge and consent. She pointed out others in her support groups, who are wheelchair users because of EDS or OI mentioned the issue too. Not only because it is annoying to have someone take your independence away but it had the potential to hurt them.

People with OI have fragile bone and can break them with the slightest movement. Your taking control of their chair while they are trying to steer it could break bones in their hands and arms. People with EDS can dislocate joints just as easily. The same thing applies to them.

Do you really want to hurt a complete stranger just because you THOUGT you could be helpful?

Though the one thing my daughter complained about the most was well meaning people pushing her right into walls and door jams she could have avoided on her own. If you don’t know how to safely push a wheelchair around an obstacle, then don’t! If you are a medical professional and it’s your job to push wheelchair users then I strongly suggest you learn how to steer better.

Also if you want to help someone in a wheelchair by holding a door for them, please do. It can be hard for them to open doors. But please pull the door by the handle and stand at that end, well out of the way, or your toes might get run over as the wheelchair user tries to steer into a doorway you are partially blocking by trying to push the door open near the hinge.

Yes, I have had to tell a well-meaning lady that I had the door for my daughter and to please move out of the doorway so my daughter could enter without running over her toes.

By the way, since she was clearly doing fine, B IS NOT the best answer. Only ask if they need help when it is clear they are having problems, like when they are struggling to open a door or get around another obstacle.

A is the answer. Smile, be friendly, but don’t invade their personal space.

You can read my daughter’s thoughts on this on her blog post of September 7^th on 

The Price of Genetics.

Mamma Bear rant over.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Pre-Nano Panic by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Yesterday morning while waiting for my ride, I spotted my first tree of the season turned to its fall splendor. That’s right folks, its fall. Meaning snow is on its way, Halloween is around the corner, then comes Thanksgiving and finally Christmas. They are not far away. And what is even closer than Thanksgiving and Christmas is the start of National Writers Month, and I’m not looking forward to it this year.

You heard me, I’m not looking forward to the writing challenge I enjoy and have aced all but twice in the years I’ve been doing it. But let’s face it, right now I have so many stories in my head I can’t figure out just one to work on.

And I haven’t managed to get much writing done in the last couple of weeks, since I’ve been having a hard time concentrating on writing, or more accurately I’m having trouble not obsessing over a plot hole in one of my stories – I can’t figure out how to fix it. And when I haven’t been pondering that problem I’ve been rereading some of my other stories and finding issues in them too.

Actually, all I have found is problems, and I have no idea how to fix them except in my sci-fi, but every time I open it, I don’t want to read it, I don’t want to work on it. I have an outline of the scenes I need to add to the middle of it; I know what I need write, but I’d rather try to get all these other stories playing in my head going, figure out the details I don’t have yet and get writing them. 

And the big issue is I really should add those scenes to the middle of what I already have on my sci-fi, so I can start writing what will be the next book of the series, preferably come November. And I have to make the changes those scenes make before I can continue with my story!

But there is that plot hole in the one I’ve been trying to rewrite for the last month or so, and those other stories I started before it, and dang, when will my mind stop coming up with new stories? I don’t think its anytime soon because I have four stories running though my mind as I try to write this post. Oh, the joys of being ADD. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, concentrating is not my strong suit.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened one manuscript or another this last couple of weeks (more often then not my sci-fi) then didn’t work on it. Okay, sometimes I spent it trying to work things out in my head, but other times I was a drawing a total blank.

A few times I opened some other story, just to distract myself, only to notice stuff needing fixed in it too. Its like nothing I have is working, all of it needs fixed in one way or another, and I’m overwhelmed.

Where do I start? Which one is most important? Do I decide by which one is the oldest? Or is it by the one which is the most done? And which one is that? For my sci-fi, I’m looking at a four-book series, but I pretty much have all of book one, except the missing scenes. One of the stories I found a problem with is totally complete, just needs editing, a major one at this point, but I have the end down.

Some of the others are barely started only a scene or two, others have way more, but still not finished. Decisions, decisions and I don’t know where to start! And does anybody know where I can get a house elf? Maybe I could get more done if I didn’t have to worry about doing my dishes, laundry, dusting, and cooking.

And Konnie is probably at this minute wondering what on earth I’m talking about, I live alone and she still has four kids at home and has all those pets. Her chores are almost never ending in her place, with the added duty of tending to their pets’ needs. When she doesn’t get any writing done, its because she’s been too busy chauffeuring her kids around town, or taking care of other household needs.

Actually, a house elf might not like being at my place – there isn’t enough to do. And they’d love being at Konnie’s place, where there is always something which needs done. Anyone else out there need a house elf?

Happy writing everyone!

Call me Grandma by Konnie Enos

Just a little bit of back story. I am an older mother. By the time my third child came along my husband’s youngest sister was already a grandmother. When I had our youngest child I was about the same age as my father had been when his first grandchild was born. I can remember taking my oldest child to a mother/daughter event at her school and figuring out I was the second oldest mother there. The oldest mother was with her youngest child. Each of the other mothers with their oldest child were younger than I’d been when I’d married their dad let alone had her.

By the time my three youngest were in middle school they were telling me about classmates, “And mom their grandparents are your age.”

It got to be a familiar phrase.

On at least two occasions I’ve had strangers assume I was the grandparent of one of my children. Once I was with my already adult middle child and that assumption was made. I know I gave the guy a scathing look because I really don’t think I look old enough to be the grandparent of an adult. Then again, people still mistake her for a middle schooler, so maybe? I do have visible gray.

Then last year my sister-in-law (my brother’s wife) called me and asked how I felt since I was now a great aunt. Please note the previously mentioned husband’s sister who has been a grandma since BEFORE our third child was born. “I hate to tell you this, but I’ve been a great aunt for years.” I did add that yes her grandchild was the first one on my side of the family, just not my first great niece or nephew. Of which I’d have to think a moment to count them all.

I’ve also got several cousins, all of them younger than I am (one of those by at least eight years) who have mentioned their grandchildren. One of my cousins, who was prolific in her own right, now has a whole passel of grandchildren. Her younger sister only had one child and she also has a grandchild already.

I know the issue is they, like so many other woman, started having their children by their early twenties and their children did the same so by the time they were in the forties they were already grandparents. (My one sister-in-law started as a teenager and so did her daughter so she was even younger.) So the fact that I was pushing thirty when I had my first child and had my other four children while I was in my thirties has always meant I would be an older grandparent.

I want to be a grandma. I’ve talked about it so much over the years to the point of eventually annoying my three daughters. Mind you, my oldest has only been married for a year and the other two aren’t dating. Neither son is dating either but then the youngest is still in high school and I think the oldest is dead set against any of us having anything to say about who he dates so he’s waiting until he moves out.

But really I’ve wanted grandchildren, and great-grandchildren since I was in my twenties. You see way back then my older sister had a baby and went to a family gathering where our mother, and her mother, and Grandma’s father were all present. Count it up, that’s five generations. Ever since I’ve wanted to be in a five generation picture.

Great-Grandpa died when I was twenty-seven. (I got married at twenty-eight.)

Mom died eleven years ago and Grandma five. Dad and his parents and grandparents are all dead now too. It’s not better on my husband’s side of the family.

The only way I’m going to be in a five generation picture is if I’m the great-great grandparent in it.

I don’t want just grandbabies here! Get a move on kids. I ain’t getting any younger.

At this rate we’ll be throwing a bash for my 100^th birthday before I get my picture.

Though I am apparently one step closer to my goal.

I can now officially add Grandma to my titles.

My lovely daughter and her wonderful husband are expecting baby number one in March!

They’re taking baby name suggestions and her being a Harry Potter fan went over well. I may well end up with a grandson named after the Wesley twins. (I am fine with this idea.)

And, no we don’t know the gender yet.

Can you tell I’m grinning?

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.