March 22: Why I Believe In Love by Jo Leigh

I was always the least romantic person I knew. Even as a little girl, I preferred playing war to playing house. As a teenager, I did have one major crush, but I think I was more attracted to the drama of unrequited crushiness than actual love. In fact, there was only one man I ever loved. I was just 20, we met in a bar. Not so remarkable. A week later, when he called to ask me out, I was sick with a terrible cold. He came by with hot chicken soup. Remarkable, indeed.

We went out for a few years, and even lived together for awhile. Then, my true love dumped me. On my birthday. For another woman.

And that was the end of my relationship with love.

Years went by without any thought to this whole love business. Until I got sick. So sick, I had to abandon my career in the movie business and try to find some way of working at home. My father (yes, father) had always read romance novels. I was one of those horrible people who dismissed the books as trash without ever having read one. I was always buying my father 'real' books, trying to break him of his nasty habit. But when I got sick, I figured a lot of people read those silly books, so I could probably whip one out over the weekend, and that would do nicely to bring in income.

HA!

Um, what I mean is, it took a lot longer than planned to not only physically write the book, but to understand what a romance novel was, what kind of story it required and how to not sound like an insufferable jerk while writing it. I took a class, got a critique group (including Susan Mallery and Theresa Southwick!) and stuck to it, despite the fact that I still didn't believe in love.

Yes, yes, everyone I know in the business warns that it's imperative to love the genre if you want to write romance. I swear I didn't know that when I started.

Anyway, I ended up selling a book. Then a couple. Then a whole lot. To my astonishment, I enjoyed the process. Not just the challenge of writing (which has never gotten easier, darn it) but the people. My critique group was my rock - thankfully, they did love romance novels and believed in love, and when I went into cynical bitch mode, they were there to slap me to my senses. I adored going to romance classes and conferences. And inch by slow inch, the ice crystal that was my heart started to thaw.

It took a long while for me to even approach the notion that love wasn't a Hollywood construct. That real people did fall in love, and that love could be real. I even entertained the thought that perhaps, just perhaps, it could happen to me.

I'm convinced that as my belief in love itself transformed, so did my novels. It didn't feel as though I was writing science fiction any longer. I identified more and more with the heroines of my books. I had lost a great deal of my early cynicism and was a much, much happier person for it.

About six years ago, I got an email. It was from that guy, you know, the one I loved? The one who'd dumped me like yesterday's paper? Yeah, him. He'd found my email address through my books. He wrote. I wrote back. We spoke on the phone, and there was still something there. Okay, there was still a lot there. Especially after her apologized. After he admitted that letting me go had been the biggest mistake of his life.

I'm convinced that he came back into my life because I was finally ready for the real deal. I had a heart that beat, a concept of love that wasn't just happy endings, but included hard work. I could trust again, not just him, but myself.

We got married at the RWA conference in Reno.

I know, for me personally, that I now believe in love. But only because love believed in me.

Thanks,
Jo

About Jo Leigh:

Award-winning author and screenwriter Jo Leigh began her career in 1975 as a reader in the Comedy Development department for 20th-Century Fox. She left Fox in 1977 to go on location with The Deer Hunter. She then worked as an auditor, associate producer, and producer on such projects as When She Says No for CBS, Beulah Land for NBC, Great American Traffic Jam for NBC and Clan of the Cave Bear for Jozak Productions. In 1987 she became head of development for the McCarron Film Corp., overseeing a roster of 12 feature films.

Jo currently writes for Harlequin American, Harlequin Blaze, Harlequin Intrigue, and Harlequin special series. She lives in Nevada with her three enormous cats, Zeke, Coco, and Molly.