Anne Gracie -- The dreaded R-word

Wow, when I signed up for this date, I didn't realize Lilian Darcy was going to be on before me. Thanks Lilian, and I so agree with you about the importance of friends.

In fact I think one of the best things about being a romance author has been the friends I've made -- and keep making. It came as a surprise, actually -- I expected to be working totally alone, and that I'd miss the friends I'd made at my other workplace. Nut no -- I do work by myself in something of a cave but I'm never really alone. There is always a friend on the end of the email or the phone. And that's a real blessing.

But that's not what I planned to blog about today. It being nearly the end of the year, I thought I ought to write something about that little piece of insanity we all go through around New Year -- I'm taking about the dreaded R-word -- resolutions.

I don't do resolutions. They invariably make me feel like a failure, as very few of these bright shiny new intentions last. So I'm not making a resolution -- but maybe I have a Plan. ;)

A few months back I was feeling really stale. I was suffering from post book slump, and though I had a big to-be-read pile of brand new shiny books, for some reason nothing appealed. I picked them over listlessly and they slid to the floor. So then I looked at my bulging bookcases and decided it was time for a clear out. (Clear outs for me are much like resolutions -- a guaranteed failure! I'm such a pack rat.)

So I started with my keeper book case ... Yes, another spectacular failure, if you use the number of books cleared out as a marker.

But oh, what a time I had!

It started with Susan Elizabeth Phillip's Nobody's Baby But Mine. What a mistake. ;) There went the next few hours. Blissfully.

I opened keeper after keeper, just to check whether they still hit the mark, and got lost in each one. It was the beginning of a massive reading binge -- a rereading binge, actually.

Over the next week I became a complete glutton, filling up on the stories that had first caused me to become a romance writer; I fell in love with again heroes like Dominic le Sabre, with the Marquis of Dain, with Simon Augustus Blade, the Earl of Traherne and with some really hunky navy seals. I got my socks knocked off by Johanna Lindsay's warriors, and by Wolf Mackenzie and his gorgeous son. I sobbed at the end of Eva Ibbotson's Morning Gift and LaVyrle Spencer's Morning Glory, and I traveled the south of France with my ancient copy of Madam Will You Talk. I chuckled through the dinner party scene in Strange Bedpersons, and the Nemesis and old Horley conversation from Friday's Child and I went on a complete Heyer glom, loving the fiery courtship of Deb and Max, Phoebe and Sylvester, and the incomparable Damerel.

I had the most wonderful time. And in the process I fell in love all over again with my chosen genre. What a gift these books are, to make you laugh and cry and feel so satisfied at the end. And how lucky I feel to be writing in such a gorgeous genre.

So if the New Year madness comes upon me, and I find myself making a resolution, it won't be one I'm likely to break; it's to reread my old keepers, as well as new books.

So what are some of your favorite keepers, or beloved comfort reads?

Anne

http://www.annegracie.com/