Had to share this one from my own life…
I went into the kitchen for a banana and my sweetie was standing there messing around with something on the counter. I poked her butt cheek with the tip of the banana as I was leaving. All she said was: “I bet you write m/m romance.”
“It’s an adrenaline surge rushing through your body. You have this spark of an idea that keeps threatening to burst into flames and you have to get the words out on paper to match this emotion or picture in your head. After this comes the work of cleaning up the mess that you made.”
–Janet West
Sending out a huge thank-you and congrats to the US voters of Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington! (see the voting results)
“When the history books are written, 2012 will be remembered as the year when LGBT Americans won decisively at the ballot box.” —Chad Griffin, head of Human Rights Campaign
Although I’m celebrating this wonderful news today, I know we still have a ways to go. Even with this win, any legal same-sex marriages are not yet equal.
“Yesterday, same-sex couples won respect and dignity, along with rights at the state level. And we finally won marriage at the ballot after losing all these years. But now they’re one of tens of thousands of legally married same-sex couples who are denied 1,138 federal rights and benefits because of DOMA. They also lose recognition when they cross from their state into any state that doesn’t allow same-sex couples to marry, or recognize those marriages.” –in an email from Rick Jacobs (Chair and Founder, Courage Campaign)
I’m keeping the hope going that the next four years will bring even more positive change.
On writing characters…
“It does not matter whether your intent is to portray someone real or someone heroic. To make either type matter to your readers, you need only find in your real human being what is strong, and in your strong human being what is real . . . How do you find the strong or human qualities in your protagonist? What will be most effective to portray? The answer to those lies in you, the author. What is forgivably human to you? What stirs your respect? That is where to start.”
Donald Maass, The Fire in Fiction
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.”
-Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey