Monday Miscellany: Romance, Stress, and Why I Love Greta van der Rol

Tomorrow is Valentine's, in case you forgot. I have already gotten my sweetheart his present and card; "he" has already gotten my gift, too. (I bought some dishes for the house and told him that's what he got me--yes, I really am that romantic.) The funny thing is that my husband is actually quite wonderful at romance and remembering special occasions and he puts up with my surly attitude toward those things.

Yes, it's true. I read romance novels and write romantic stories, but I am quite possibly the least romantic person I know. Shh. Don't tell anyone.

I try for him. I really do. It's just easier for me to be loving in little ways throughout the year. I leave notes for him on Post-Its in his wallet or on the car steering wheel, I try to make sure we never run out of his favorite drinks in the refrigerator, I learned to properly use spices in my cooking for him, I don't pitch a fit when he wants to have boys' nights out, I take care of things he doesn't like or doesn't have time to do. Like right now, I'm working on a spreadsheet for him that he needs for work. I have to input roughly 1500 pages of data, then email it to him. I do not miss my days of spreadsheet maintenance. But if I don't do it, he'd be stuck at the office until God-knows-when all week. He'd be grumpy, the kid would be grumpy (she likes him or something--I don't get it, either), and I'd rather have both of them happy. To me, this is true love. It's the daily grind, the bad days and the low points that melt away in the memories of the great days and the high points. It's hearing him walk through the door at the end of the day and feeling like everything is okay because we're together. It's knowing that I'm better off with him than without him.

Okay, so maybe I am a tiny bit romantic. Please don't tell.

I've been under a great deal of stress over the last few months and late last week, I had a "screw everything" moment. I'm clearly not going to finish One Good Cowboy if I keep pushing myself. I can make slow and steady progress, but if progress is what I want, I need to find it in other places, too. Places like drafting other stories, getting my books formatted for AllRomance, outlining my website redesign, revisiting The Guest, reading, taking on household projects I've been putting off. So when I sit down at night, I still open up One Good Cowboy and I still work on it. I got a page done last night and I'm hoping for another page tonight. But I'm trying not to stress out about it.

One thing that is stressing me out, in the best possible way, is Morgan's Choice. Ugh, it's so action-packed. But I'm going to take a moment here (again) to flail my arms and deteriorate into asdjfk. Archaeology. Archaeology in science fiction. Real archaeology done by a real academic. I keep having to take moments in order to flail my hands around for real. I mean, let's just completely ignore Ravindra and Morgan, let's ignore the politics and the technology. Let's just for a moment look at the fact that archaeology as a practice plays a significant role in this science fiction novel and let's for a moment completely geek out about that fact.

As if I needed another reason to love Ms. van der Rol. I cannot wait for her next book.

I have to go flail again.