A Tale of True Love

It hit me while driving home a couple of days ago after a very meaningful yakking session with Rina that for Nanowrimo, I should write about the love story that I am so familiar with.

The editor who gave me feedback did advise me to write something that I am well acquainted with.

And since I have a penchant to write love stories, and since I am quite a romantic at heart, and since I am particularly inspired thataway, I think that yes, I should really go for a romance novel. Real life wan. Don't play play.

The thing is, I am not sure if I could manage to spew out 50k words on a love story alone. I mean, how twisted can a love story saga be to justify that kinda magnitude of words? Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl hates boy initially. Some suspense thrown in. Girl likes boy eventually. Girl and boy gets together and lives happily ever after.

Hmmmm, maybe I can throw in some letters which are impossibly long hor? Or maybe write in some cheesy sonnets or two? Haiya, simple. I'll just interview the two of them again and again and squeeze the whole story out of them and add in my own sauce and pepper.

If you haven't guessed it already, I've decided to write about the love story of my parents. A love story that spans many years and many miles. A love story that is still being written.

Sometimes, I'd look at my folks and marvel at how they managed to brave through so much together and in spite of it (or maybe because of it), they still enjoy being each others' lifelong best buddies.

Ok, the story has yet to be outlined in detail, but I have the drafted acknowledgements already. Here goes: ahem

To the greatest parents a girl can ever have. I hope that this novel captures the essence of the amazing story of your love and tenacity in pursuing your dreams. Most importantly, I hope that by sharing your amazingly ordinary story to others, they may find hope, encouragement and strength in continuing in this journey called life, even through long and boring and tiring patches.

Thanks for teaching me lessons in tenacity and perseverance.

Yes, in the acknowledgments above, I mentioned that theirs is an amazingly ordinary love story. Which is why my would-be novel might not sizzle as classics like Romeo & Juliet or Abelard & Heloise.

Here's a good article which expounds further on the difference between Love and Infatuation. Here's an excerpt:

Ask anyone to name the world's greatest love stories and what you'll hear is a chronicle of unmitigated misery, of failed relationships, of death, of separation.

Naturally, people rarely focus on the tragic aspects of the stories. They only look at the love, the hopeless, glorious, impassioned love that is at the heart of the tale. They conveniently forget the endings.

Take "Romeo and Juliet." Their relationship is electrifying. But it doesn't last more than a few days and then they're dead.

Or "Somewhere in Time," that multi-hankie romance with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve. Their relationship was a little longer than Romeo and Juliet's, but does it do them any good? Hardly. They wind up stranded in different centuries.

And how about "Cyrano de Bergerac"? Its filled with some of the century's great love poetry, but in the end, that poetry makes Roxanne fall in love with the other guy.

So that's it? Those are the ideas we aspire to, the stuff we just can't get enough of? Are we masochists?

Maybe we're fools. Or maybe its just that everyday happiness - some would call it bliss - is neither newsworthy nor flashy enough to be fodder for novels or movies.

"We think that's love we're watching, but its not," says Joe Kort, a Michigan psychotherapist who hosts weekend-long relationship sessions for both single and married people.

"It's romantic love, which is something totally different. It's not real."

But it is, he admits, incredibly appealing. Almost addictive.

I am not sure if I'm going to post the novel in its entirety here publicly. Most likely, you guys will be able to see glimpses or excerpts of it.

Any ideas on how to expand the length of a novel such as this are most welcomed. I would also most probably throw in a fictitious tale or two about their children's love story to add to the length. Maybe it'll be like some kinda flash back style. Wah, quite keng hor? So it'll be half fiction and half true. Half the sizzle, half the spice.

Sounds like fun to me!