Guest blogger, Brix McDonald

On of my favorite bloggers, Brix McDonald, is a member of my critique group. She can write anything with great skill, but she mainly focuses on MG or YA themes. Below is the meat of her Valentine's post so that you'd get to know her. When you visit her blog you'll want to follow her not only because of her writing skills but because she has the sign up in the upper left exactly where you'd go to start reading. I must investigate blogger to see iof I can set my blog up that way. Her blog address is http://brixmcd13.com/




So without further ado, here's Brix:


I love you, Writing. You are the outlet for this well of creativity in me. I have friends – cooking, entertaining, sewing, training my dog, to name a few of my posse, but it’s not the same. There’s friendship and then there’s love. And you, Writing, are the love of my life.



I waited so long to find you. I had to try others out – pantomime, acting, puppetry and directing children’s theater. They were easy to break up with and I’ve never missed them.



I should have know, as a child, that you were The One. I used to make up titles and create characters. But I couldn’t string a story together. I wasn’t ready.



So I spent time with those would-be loves and hung out with your cousin, Reading. That was the best thing I could have done. Reading encouraged me in my pursuit of you.



You are not the easiest love, Writing. We often have a love-hate relationship. You make me doubt when that first, incredible hook of a sentence fails to appear. You make me write queries and synopses. You keep me waiting for replies from agents. You force me into critique groups and writing conferences. And after all that, you break my heart over and over with rejections.

I want to be good enough for you, Writing. Don’t give up on me. I promise I will never quit on you. I’m as serious as I can be about you. I’m committed. I want only the best for you. I hope you want the same for me.



Writing, I give you my heart. Try not to stomp it into mush.

I love you.

Are you being followed by a moonshadow?

If you not being followed by a moonshadow, I highly recommend getting one, they're free and it will follow you.

That's the beauty of song. Each person takes away his own meaning. Less so for the novel and even less so for the novelist. In the novelist's world in which clarity is god, the respite comes in writing a message to yourself in-between the lines.

I was in a group of friends when one declared that being madly in love takes away physical pain.
You've heard the expressions:
head over heels.
feelin' no pain.
They're in another world.
crazy in love.
it's obvious they love each other.
drunk on love.
she has a special glow (beaming).
Yes, they say love hurts, but isn't that when your love isn't with you?

It's true that you don't notice the pain so much when you are engrossed in something interesting. It's true: when that special someone comes into view you lose your sense of self, but is it true that being in love takes away physical pain for a long time? Emotional pain is another subject—the edge between ecstasy and pain when in a romance is a two edged blade. And would any of us have it any other way?

Cat Stevens, Moonshadow, 1971

For those of you who don't know, my valentine's gift for you is waiting at Amazon/Kindle for the remainder of this day, 1/15/15. Double Happiness is free.

Writing the cowboy/rancher/farmer

When the male hero is a cowboy/rancher/farmer, women melt, probably because it's a fantasy. In real life, most women don't run toward the country. When writing a mom and apple pie character one should give him dimension and when writing about the country, it needs to be shown through the eyes of anyone who would be captured by its charm even if it's the small/medium sized town nearby or the swam in the lake.

The producers of The Bachelor haven't shown enough as yet of Chris Soules' character to break down this prejudice. Chris is a very successful businessman with a great heart and he handles himself well with the women. However at this point the show is open to spoofing because the audience is just not buying that all these women want to move to the country just because he's a hunk.

Saturday Night Live satirized this problem with Blake Shelton playing Chris. Don't let your romance turn into a comedy unless you want it to. I believe Chris will acquit himself well and get his happily-ever-after, but maybe I'm an incurable romantic.

FARM HUNK

I'm toying with the idea of collecting my blog posts here on the male POV and making it into a "how to write male characters" book. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Please do serve two masters

I watched a Hallmark romance last night in which the alpha hero assumed the heroine would want to move out of state. So he accepted a position without consulting her. She in the mean time was accepted at Stanford for residency as a doctor. His lack of communication ruined their engagement.

The younger the couple the more their financial future is uncertain and so then are their choices. Some work long hours, seek advancement and assume they have the support of their spouse. In this process, many relationships are lost.

Is all this time away from the home for the health of the family or one's own dreams of success (or both)?

In the Hallmark movie, the fiancé is confronted by the maid of honor.
He says, "I'm trying to secure our financial well being."
She counters with, "What about her emotional well being?"

Man is driven to improve the world and love. Some alphas are egocentric and don't see the wrong they've committed. Before I got married, I told my wife to be that as a chess master I would play in no more than one two-day tournament a month as a condition of getting married. She accepted and over time I know she didn't like it too much, but we're fine. Dialogue is critical.

Some alphas don't want marriage or romance and some heroines set out to fell the self-contained man. This is not to say this type of egocentrism isn't found in other types, both male and female. It, IMO, is more pronounced in alpha males.

Perhaps the success of Fifty Shades of Grey can be attributed to how the hero was honest in what drove him, rather than lie to get what he wanted. He didn't believe in romance. He was driven by success. She had a goal.

Here's the trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey.