Love Story

I’m reading The Time Traveler’s Wife right now. I bought it on a whim during an impromptu trip to Barnes and Noble last week. I was feeling exceptionally romantic that day and was tired of reading Twilight.

I feel like I’m constantly trying to find that perfect love story. One that isn’t excessively melodramatic or too smutty {I really don’t enjoy gratuitous scenes of pornography in my reading material, thankyouverymuch}. I want something pure and sweet and maybe-not-so-believable. I want to read about a modern day Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, or Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. I don’t want Romeo and Juliet or Wuthering Heights, and definitely not The Notebook {I hate that book. Vehemently hate it}. I feel like even if love is there, I’m too distracted by the negative and the death and the tragedy to appreciate it. I suppose that for some, the tragedy is what intensifies the story, but that isn’t how I react to it.

I can't say that I am necessarily enjoying The Time Traveler's Wife as much as I thought I would. It's not the story that I was looking for; it's not the heartwrenching romance that I am so desperate to find. It's a good book, though I now know why everyone warned me that it gets slightly confusing, what with all the time travelling and being in two places at once and impregnating your wife as your younger self while your current self is sleeping in the bed next to her. Creepy? Absolutely.

I guess in part, that is what motivates me to write. I know that I'm never going to find the story that I'm looking for unless I write it myself. It doesn't matter if it's gets published or if anyone else reads it. All that matters is that I get it down on paper. Becuase if my story is written somewhere, that means it's real.

But it would be pretty awesome if I did get published. A few weeks ago, I impulsively entered a contest without really thinking about what it might lead to. It's for a full publishing package at a respectable self-publishing agency. In the first round, I had to fit a summary of my book into a tweet. 140 characters.

So I did, and last week I was notified that I am a finalist. On Friday, I sent in a 250 word synopsis. And now I wait. I wait to see if what I've been writing for the past year and a half has any potential at all.

Self-publishing isn't necessarily my preference for publishing my book. But I figure, if I win this thing, it's a start. I get to retain all the rights to my work, which means that eventually, down the line, if someone else decides that it's good enough, it can be published in a more reputable way.

I wanted to share with you my synopsis, and see what you all think. I know I've shared a lot with you about this book, so I just have to tell you how much your patience with me means.

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Jane Austen once wrote that “happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” While this antiquated notion of matrimony may not fit with the present requirement of love in marriage, it’s still a truth universally acknowledged in the small town of Selden, Kansas. To understand Selden requires abandoning the ideals of equality, love, and compassion, and replacing them with the simple fact that all young women must surely be in want of a husband.

To be clear, Kate Devlin did not initially condemn this fairy tale life that most young women in Selden dream of. Her want of a husband paralleled, if not exceeded, that of the other girls in the town. But when her beau of eight years was exposed as a philanderer, as the men of Selden were generally tolerated to be, she committed the unprecedented crime of refusing to forgive him and packed her bags for Los Angeles.

Her heartbreak still fresh in her mind, Kate plays it safe, accepting a date with an acceptably attractive accountant that drives a Honda. When he breaks her heart too, she is forced to realize that nothing is ever as it seems, and finds herself being swept up in a dangerously impractical romance with Jackson Traver, the world’s most celebrated young actor. It isn’t long before she is back in Selden for the wedding of her teenage sister, where she is once again confronted with what love means in this place, and fights to claim it for her own.

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Do any of you have suggestions for a good romance that I might enjoy?

xoxo,