On/off switches: a poorly analysed and short blog post, ripe for demolition

I've been on-off pondering this post for a week or so, thinking about the character arc of romance heroines as compared to heroes. But despite incubating this for some time, I'll be speaking very much in generalities. Five minutes here on the bus, five minutes there walking down the road doesn't give rise to detailed evidence-based analysis.

So here's the nub of it: a very common (the most common?) romance hero journey is redemption. Not so for the heroine. Redemption just isn't what happens to most heroines. The nearest equivalent, I think, is something related, but different. It's about transformation, but not redemptive transformation. It's more about realisation of latent potential.

A few examples:

- heroines who abandon or overcome a disability of some sort through the agency of the hero (e.g. Sweet Everlasting in which the hero inspires the heroine to break her self-imposed mutism)

- heroines whose repressed sensuality is given expression through the agency of the hero (too many of examples to mention...)

- heroines who come into special powers through the direct or indirect agency of the hero (e.g. where the hero transforms the heroine into a paranormal being or teaches her a particular power)

This is obvious, isn't it? I'm stating the bleedin' obvious and someone's going to point out that this is chapter one in that Big Book of Romance Theory that I've not read yet. Either that or demonstrate in two devastating sentences that I'm completely wrong.

But assuming there's something in this, why should this be? Why should the transformative power of love as expressed in romance novels (generally) be directed at 'switching off' something in heroes but at 'switching on' something in heroines?

In which I muse on networking, form and substance

It's been a busy few weeks. I've been doing lots of speaking. Breakfast seminars, webinars, and then a conference. I'm all networked out.

Actually, I detest networking and am not the best at it. I'm more the technical sort of lawyer. Delivering a talk on something tricky? No problem. Distributing business cards after? *Shudders* It's not that I'm anti-social. It's just I can't do that ruthlessly effective thing of hunting down who you really need to speak to, discarding others on the way.

The conference I was at exemplifies this perfectly. I kept ending up talking to people who I had no prospect in getting any work from. Firstly a very nice American woman who'd been invited by the conference organisers to see how public sector lawyers do things here. No chance of any work coming from her but we had a great chat (me quizzing her on how the layers of government work in the US). Then a retired investigator (fascinating anecdotes re investigations vs public officials) then a retired chief exec (what is a 'good life' - getting deep and philosophical over the lunch buffet). This poor networking effort (but interesting day) culminated in me sitting next a woman at dinner who was hilariously unlikely to ever give my firm work - she was the ex wife of our chairman. But she was interesting and funny and dry and dinner ended up being great fun.

So do I count it a success or a failure? How would you view it?

I also network, I suppose, through the world of reader blogs. It's not, perhaps surprisingly, an entirely different proposition. And actually, thinking about it, I take a pretty similar approach, displaying a marked lack of talent at the activity, but having a whale of a time in the process. Other bloggers seem to do the networking thing so much better than me. I've sat here for five whole minutes wondering why. Maybe it's because I'm more fixated on the content of the conversation than on the participants?

But enough about me, what about you? Do you blog and comment for the discussion itself or for the contact with the participants? Or is a mixture of both?

This post was originally going to be about the a very specific type of happiness that feels like running towards something, and at its zenith, standing on the lip of something, ready to fall in. To that end, I embedded the wonderful song below by Stornoway who are my band of the moment. And I love it so much, I refuse to remove it despite its complete lack of relevance to what I've just been talking about. (If you like it, check out Zorbing too.)

How to not make a decision

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I've been feeling a bit like Alice lately. I've been in a strange sort of paralysis for a few weeks now - I had a few big things I needed to make decisions on, one to do with my younger son, another to do with my career.

Funnily enough, in the workplace I'm very decisive. But in my personal life I'm quite a prevaricator. And I've been prevaricating about this stuff for a while.

This weekend, I turned a corner. I was at a birthday party and got talking to another parent. She said something - nothing I hadn't thought of before - but it made the issue about my younger son seem suddenly obvious. And Mr T was pleased because it meant I agreed with him.

Having made that one decision, the others seemed to come much more easily. It was as though a blockage had been removed.

I'm not sure the weeks of paralysis were such a bad thing. Maybe they were part of the process? Maybe all the material I needed to consider was fermenting away in my brain the whole time, getting mashed down ready for analysis. Or maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to make big personal decisions 'til this weekend.

During those weeks, I used my reading matter quite consciously as a distraction. When I'd start feeling overwhelmed, I'd pick up my Kindle and within moments, I'd be ring-fenced from my worries. Escapism? Yes.

Not escapism from daily life, but escapism from a state of mind that was stressful. A distraction from a repetitive train of thought I was finding it difficult to reach any kind of conclusion on.

Is romance better escapism/distraction than other forms of literature? For me, yes, I think so. Something about the emotional content being more consuming perhaps. Something perhaps around precisely what it is being engaged, not merely the attention of the brain but emotional energy? I don't know precisely. It's difficult to articulate what it is about reading a romance novel that enables me to almost 'close off' an unproductive/ difficult train of thought and replace it with a new channel for my mental energy.

I don't use romance novels as distraction very often - I usually just read them cos I like them. But this last week or two, I absolutely have.

What about you? Do you ever need to escape, and if so, how do you achieve it? Between the pages of a book? If so, what is your ultimate escape read? I found Anne Stuart's Breathless highly effective...

High drama - do you laugh or cry?

Regular readers of this blog will know the answer to this question so far as I am concerned.

To say the least, I have a penchant for high drama, high conflict and perhaps unrealistical levels of angst. There's probably some fancy German word for this. Or French. Or Hebrew. Something not English. Something not phelgmatic and sensible.

It's a long time since I posted a Friday music post. But I won't let the fact it's Saturday dissuade me.

I Who Have Nothing is a ridiculously over the top song. In my view, it's teetering on the cliff top just above the Sea of Risible. In Mr Tumperkin's view, it's already swimming. But I love it. And this first version by Shirley Bassey of Tiger Bay (God, the romance of that name) with it's little Spanish flamenco flourishes and her snappish delivery is just divine.



And then we have Mr Jones. His version is purest Vegas. A man's version of the song. Equally heartfelt, oddly sincere, I feel. (Mr Tumperkin is laughing, he thinks it purest cheese).

You do realise, don't you, I'm going to bring this home? It's coming. Keep reading...




So what's all this got to do with romance?

You know what I think? It's something to do with sincerity. It's something to do with just throwing your despicable sense of cool to the winds and embracing something else, something better. Something very uncool and incredibly joyful.

Feel free to jeer. I care not.