Write Like the French, Kiss Like the French

When done right, with measure and wit, humor and modesty, love letters are entertaining and inspiring. Sometimes gems of grammatical gymnastics too. I mean, you need to get your hands on a couple of lettres gallantes from 17th century Madame de Sévigné to appreciate the charm and irreverence that can go on a piece of paper. So, when written by someone who knew what they were doing, sure, love letters make my inner Chihuahua high-five her tail.

But mostly, love letters make me cringe.

I liken it to couples holding hands and looking deeeeeeeply into each others’ eyes over the restaurant table. I’ve never understood the need for that. As if the more they “shared” their love with the unwitting public, the deeper the feeling. To me, it’s like peanut butter, the less you fear you have, the more you spread it around...

There was this one time on a cruise ship a couple of years ago, I was sitting on one of those long chairs with the blanket (just like in the movies, man, I was impressed) and reading when wet sounds pulled me out of my story. I look around and see this couple (not teens, folks in their forties or something...adults) sitting by the pool feeding each other food from their respective plates then kissing. I’m talking the deep-throat exploration kind. Tongues like goddamn excavators. My first reaction was “Mfft!” and a snort of disbelief. Like, come ON! I don't think it was the public display that made me snort the most, but how they seemed to be playing this game where the one who showed his True Love the most would win something. Sex, is my bet, but I could be wrong. Or, maybe I'm just a cynic. Oh well, I'll live.

So to me, love letters are like that, just a weeeee bit over the top. I think they had an important role back when people had nothing else with which to communicate over long distances. I would’ve been just as happy as the next medieval gal to get a letter, any letter, from my man on the other side of the country/crusade/war/whatever.

Although I think that love letters are still with us, but have mutated, shortened. E-mails, Instant Messages, Text Messages...ever seen a bunch of IMs from teen lovers? Damn, they might use shorter words (or made-up words, for that matter), but the sentiments expressed are the same as those of Madame de Sévigné’s time.

Not for me, love letters. But I say to those who enjoy them, write, baby, write! And tell them you *heart* them!

Want to hear a bit of French reading from a great love story about a ménage—yes, a MÉNAGE—in 14th century Louvre (where the court used to be held before Versailles was built)?! Hell yeah!! It’s the story of a young woman of humble origins who appears at the court for the first time, catches the prince’s eye, who asks to marry her. She says, “WOODAM, like YAWHH!” Okay, she might have said “Oui, votre majesté” instead. Then enters the duke de Nemours, famed for his good looks and...er...big sword. He falls for her too. Falls hard. What’s a girl to do?! Take the two!

Click on this image to reach the French audio book, then once at the site, click where I've put the red arrow. Enjoy!

Love Beyond

I knew there was something I forgot to do Friday morning. Post this. Well, my excuse is a busy busy day of non-stop work and then an evening of SciFi channel. I love Battlestar Galactica! Really miss Stargate, but that's a different kind of post.

Here's the one for Friday and my apologies for not getting it posted on my real day. (G)

A lot has been written about love letters by my sista hussies which were most eloquent! But what about those love letters from beyond the grave?

There are countless stories of the eternity of love that even death cannot stop loved ones from communicating. I've had personal experiences that levae no doubt in my mind that Sam was right in the movie, GHOST, when he told Molly that you take the love with you. What a wonderful line that was.

My personal experiences have been through dreams and signs that were so profound and obvious anyone would have recognized. A phrase a loved one used that is repeated over and over every place I turn, on TV, radio, internet, in conversations with others.

The other side is trying to communicate with you, are you listening? Well, some might wonder how to listen. It's simple. You just become aware of everything around you and you can hear the whispers of loved ones.

Sometimes our loved ones manage to manifest in front of us for brief moments and actually give an audible message. This obviously requires a great expenditure of energy, so the appariation itself is a visible declaration of that love that goes beyond words.

You can read some real life documented cases of such contact here. Entire books have been written about such cases and many have witnesses to these personally delivered messages, but if you aren't so lucky to have an astral athelete in your group of loved ones who have passed on, then pay attention to their messages. Usually these are constant.

You may catch a whiff of cigar smoke when there is no one smoking and be reminded of your grandfather. A brief pungent scent of roses might fill your nostrils. A chill might shiver through you. A butterfly may flutter around your head reminding you of your mother's passion for painting them. Oftentimes these are called omens, but more appropriately they are cosmic love letters sent to remind you of that love Sam was talking about. We take it with us!

Gettin' Naughty - Not Gonna Write You A Love Letter

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love the to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach…
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Oh Puhlease! Let’s face it. If you got a wordy love letter like that you’d be rolling on the floor laughing.

Love letters are so not my style! Sure, I did write a few in the past, but grand, flowery declarations are just not me. Does anyone even write letters anymore? With all the wonderful means of instant communication available to us today, love letters seem to be a thing of the past. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t turn down a love letter is someone wanted to send me one, but true proof of love comes from actions and how someone makes you feel.

Here’s some things to think about before penning a love letter. Most people save their love letters and read them at different times in their lives. Whatever you put on that piece of paper is how the receiver (or anyone else who gets their hands on it) is going to remember you. Be careful of promises and professions. If you have the horrible handwriting of a doctor, consider typing the letter. This gives you the added bonus of being able to use spell checker. Don’t scratch things out or deliver an otherwise sloppy letter. And give a great deal of thought to what you’re saying, both literally as well as what could possibly be misconstrued between the lines. Remember that a declaration of love in writing can be preserved for a long time.

IMHO, it’s the little things that tug at the heart strings more than a gushy letter. An ex-boyfriend of mine knew what he was doing. He worked as a property appraiser. This meant he was constantly driving all over town and taking lots of pictures. He would stop by the building where I worked and leave me little notes in those old black 35mm film canisters with the gray lids. I’d leave work and find them tucked under the windshield wiper on my car. Inside would be a small scrap of paper with a hand-written note telling me he was thinking about me and couldn’t wait to see me. I loved getting those notes! Hmm…why did I get rid of him? Oh yeah, now I remember. Um…never mind. LOL!

The point is that there are millions of ways to express your feelings through actions, which do tend to speak louder than words. I mean really, what are you going to put more stock in, a love letter telling you what your SO thinks you want to hear or a sweet and simple unexpected reminder through actions?

I'm not gonna write you a love song
'cause you asked for it
'cause you need one, you see
I'm not gonna write you a love song
'cause you tell me it's
Make or breaking this
If you're on your way
I'm not gonna write you to stay
If all you have is leaving I'm gonna need a better
Reason to write you a love song today
(Sara Bareilles)

Book Talk

Yay, it's Wednesday and y'all know what that means—books! This is the final week Ellora's Cave Publishing will be releasing 10 yummy books. To make it even more speical The Posh in Pink Hussy and The Dude (aka Sahara Kelly and SL Carpenter) have a book out today! Coming Attractions is a hot, steamy, exotika story...yeah, baby!

Releasing Wednesday:



Coming Attractions, Sahara Kelly & S.L. Carpenter

Hand-dipped Pleasure, Leannan MacLlyr

A Lady In Waiting, Samantha Kane

Dangerous Boys and Their Toys, Shayla Black

Releasing Thursday:



Risking It All, Anna J. Evans

Built to Last, Sierra Dafoe

Releasing Friday:



Eternal Rapture, KyAnn Waters

Unbreakable, Amarinda Jones

Icefire, Lynne Connolly

In a Dark Embrace, Simone Bern

The Hussies would like to extend a warm welcome to new to Ellora's authors Leannan MacLlyr and Shayla Black. We wish you all the best!

Happy Reading!

Nic
So naughty it's scandalous!

The Power of Music

I graduated from high school in 1974. (You do the math.) All through high school, I listened to The Beatles, The Monkees, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Bread, Bobby Sherman. (I had SUCH a crush on Bobby Sherman!) Yep, I was a pop music junkie. While most of my friends had their radios tuned to country music, I bebopped around my bedroom to The Partridge Family.

I've always loved music. Any job became easier if I could listen to music. When I started writing, music naturally went along with it. The type of music depends on what I'm writing. Sometimes I want to bebop along with those great 70s tunes. Sometimes a movie soundtrack will put me in the exact mood I need. Classical, rock, soft vocals...it all depends on the scene and the characters.

Imagine a funky bubblegum song playing instead of the "da dum da dum" you expect when the shark is in the water. Doesn't work at all, does it? It's the same with writing. The music has to be right or the mood is broken.

I write erotic romance. I have to really concentrate when I write a love scene for I want it to be right. I want the reader to feel everything my characters are feeling. Listening to songs with lyrics distracts me during those crucial scenes, so I turn to New Age instrumentals. The strings, harps, and flutes all go along with the sexy mood I'm trying to convey. "Da dum da dum" definitely wouldn't work while writing a love scene.

Does music play an important part in your life? Tell me about it.

Lynn LaFleur

http://www.lynnlafleur.com/

A dying art?

This topic - this whole "love letter" thing - got me thinking. (Superficially, I'll admit, since I'm reporting in from the Hussy Washington Bureau this week, and the sight of the Capitol is a bit distracting.)

Is the entire notion of writing a letter, especially a love letter, a dying art?

I Googled "love letters". Got some interesting links too. And guess what? Most of the love letters history has deemed worth recording for posterity were written before the nineteen hundreds. Catherine of Aragon wrote a famous one in 1536, ending it with " Lastly, do I vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things." Nice turn of phrase there. Unfortunately she was on her deathbed when she wrote it.

In the seventeenth century, Ninon de L'Enclos penned a long and rather instructive love letter, advising him toward the end "At least, give my prescription a fair trial, and I will be answerable for the success." It is to be hoped the anonymous recipient took her advice.

The eighteen hundreds were the "hot years" for love letters, it seems. Everyone had a better chance of learning to write and avenues of physical communication were opening up enough to permit the delivery of letters across long distances. (Probably also bills, wanted posters and the occasional bit of century-appropriate SPAM.)

We have Byron and Bonaparte (not to each other as far as I know), Ludwig von Beethoven (wanna bet he wrote his on music sheets?), Charlotte Bronte - and of course the ever-popular Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her missives to Robert Browning still come close to the top of everyone's list of well-written love letters, including - as one does - the phrases " And now listen to me in turn. You have touched me more profoundly than I thought even you could have touched me - my heart was full when you came here today. Henceforward I am yours for everything....".

Can't beat that with a stick, folks.

So...what happened? After the early nineteen hundreds, there appears a scarcity of love letters worth recording. I'm sure there were many passionate epistles sent home from warriors fighting abroad during time of war. I'm sure there still are. But with the invention of the telephone, letters dwindled in importance, apparently. Today? Yep. It's all done via text or IM. And I will admit that "I luv u. C u l8er. LOL" doesn't really compare too well with "I am thine and shall be until the last star dies in the sky". Although they probably mean pretty much the same thing to the couples involved.

We're probably all guilty of "shorthanding" our emotions as much as we shorthand our mails these days. The pace of our lives has changed drastically over the intervening centuries, and finding a pen today is as much of a challenge as bringing in the crops was in 16-something-or-other. Try reading a Poe story. Or Dickens. Pages of literary description, florid and - yes - a bit overwhelming to a generation used to sixty second sound bites and fifteen second commercials. Yep, love letters have changed along with our lives.

That said, I'll just add that I believe they still mean every bit as much. No matter how it's phrased, or what media it uses, a sentiment to a loved one expressing passion still warms the heart and softens the soul. Whether it's a card on a bunch of flowers written by an unknown florist, or a quick IM text message from an airport gate, "I love you" still means exactly that. And in this crazy world of global warming, gas crises and endless wars, knowing someone loves you is priceless. Doesn't matter if you're a Shakespeare-wannabe or a Blackberry addict, the message is the same.

Go tell someone today you love them. IM them, text them, email them, or hire a sky writing airplane and spell it out across the sky. Who cares? It's all about the sentiment. The media doesn't matter, does it? It's what you're saying that counts!!

And if you happen to find a few classical words to toss in, so much the better. Although how you'd text "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" I'm not quite sure.(grin)

From the Nation's capital,
Hussy Sahara sending hugs and "I love you"'s to everyone!!!
(Lord knows we could use a few more love letters here in this particular spot!)

Plucking the heart strings

This week we're going to be sharing some of our ideas on writing love letters. I have to say that despite being a writer, composing a love letter has always been difficult. There's too much I want to say and not enough "right" words to say it with.

However, while I may not be able to compose a letter than conveys all I want to say - and have the meaning be as clear as I intend, I have discovered that music speaks the language of love in a way that mere words cannot. So, over the years I kept my ears open, waiting for that one song that said it all, that one song that when I'm gone, if he remains, my childen can play for him as an expression of love and gratitude for all he means to me and how he has blessed my life with his love.

Luckily I found that song. I can still remember the first time I listened to it with him. It was 5:45 am in June of 1996. It was a Wednesday. My honey and I were on our way to the gym for our usual early morning workout. Just as we pulled into the parking lot this song came on. I heard the first few notes and reached out to stay his hand as he went to turn off the car.

"I really need you to hear this."

We sat and listened, looking at each other. I cried. He reached over and put his hand on the side of my face and smiled. When the song finished I said "She wrote that for me. To say all of the things I don't have words for. And for all the things I want you to know."

He smiled again,kissed me and held me close. And my love letter, the only one I'll ever need was delivered.

While words may convey the message, music drives it home in a way that's powerful and moving. And so my love song is and always will be ....



So what's your love song?