Valentines Day

With Valentine's Day tomorrow, I thought it would be appropriate to ask - what's near and dear to your heart as a writer and a reader?
I'll go first -As a writer, I think the writing itself is IT, I mean no matter what the outside world gives you from publication to wonderful reviews to great royalties to a cool new cover, none of that is going to matter if you're not feeling the writing itself. And what part of writing makes the heart beat faster? For me it's writing words that feel RIGHT.
That you fall in love with. That are YOURS.As a reader, it's pretty much the same thing for me, it's the writing, baby. It's reading words that strike a sharp chord, that make muse-music. All the critical acclaim, all the fascinating subject matter in the world won't do it for me unless the words I'm reading makes me fall in love.
Now it can be any kind of fiction or non-fiction, it can be any point of view, any setting, any muse magic at all - there's no reason to the rhyme that grabs your heart, your soul, your mind. It just does. And once it does, you're in love.So - this Valentine's Day - I hope you'll write something you love and read something you love;
I hope someone will read you and love you, I hope you'll share something you've read that you love with someone else.Isn't that better than chocolates, flowers, jewelry?And while we're there on those traditional Valentine's gifts - I've always been a big fan of dark chocolate, but what is up with 98% cacao stuff anyway - too much of a good thing, no?
The bitter shouldn't really outweight the sweet, shold it? And have you heard about the six foot tall roses? they're all stem. Who wants more THORNS? I'll leave jewelry alone, but then I've never been very big on it. I focus on silver rings that I wear all the time, one for my kids, one for my wedding, one for my writing, one for luck. Diamonds for me are not forever but for losing in the gym.Happy Valentine's Day!!!