Love, Luck, and Lollipops
Oct. 19th, 2005 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythThere are things in the universe I do not understand. Not that they are beyond understanding, I simply do not have said understanding. Romance is one of these things. As such, I can't write it. It's difficult for me to picture. I mean, I can write about single characters, no problem. And I can write about characters who're involved. Madly in love, or married for years, sure, no problem. Those are the easy clear areas. It's the grey areas, the borders, that trip me up. Oh, sure, it's in movies and TV and books, but most of that's bullshit. Very few people go along for years, then realize they're in love with somebody, express it, and have it returned in time for them to jump into bed together five minutes before the end. And even fewer have their love foiled by a series of amusing mishaps and a easily-hatable rival for slightly less than 90 minutes.
Maybe I'm thinking about it too hard. Maybe the point is there is no clear way to do it and everybody just stumbles through not knowing what they're doing. Perhaps the hinterlands of love are one of those lands whose contours defy all mapping, wilderness for all but the most experienced travelers, and even they are forced to improvise. You have your famous epic explorers such as Don Juan, who know most of the paths of love, or at least some resemblance thereof, but the vast majority of us venture in to tangled wilds armed only with the vaguest of third-hand maps, often drawn by drunken companions of unreliable narration.
Maybe that's all there is to love. Confused groping in the dark, in at least two senses, to try and find the way to the rumored promised lands of love. I don't, after all, believe in One Twu Wuv, or Wuv at First Sight, but both the poet and the scientist in me both swear there must be some key. Which leaves only the lock to quest for, should either of them find it.
But until then, when I'm writing, whenever romance comes up, I'm just going to have to fake it and hope nobody notices I'm making stuff up as I go along.
Maybe I'm thinking about it too hard. Maybe the point is there is no clear way to do it and everybody just stumbles through not knowing what they're doing. Perhaps the hinterlands of love are one of those lands whose contours defy all mapping, wilderness for all but the most experienced travelers, and even they are forced to improvise. You have your famous epic explorers such as Don Juan, who know most of the paths of love, or at least some resemblance thereof, but the vast majority of us venture in to tangled wilds armed only with the vaguest of third-hand maps, often drawn by drunken companions of unreliable narration.
Maybe that's all there is to love. Confused groping in the dark, in at least two senses, to try and find the way to the rumored promised lands of love. I don't, after all, believe in One Twu Wuv, or Wuv at First Sight, but both the poet and the scientist in me both swear there must be some key. Which leaves only the lock to quest for, should either of them find it.
But until then, when I'm writing, whenever romance comes up, I'm just going to have to fake it and hope nobody notices I'm making stuff up as I go along.
