Take a Chance--and WIN Death by Chocolate!

Ahhh, Valentine's Day, the one day a year we think about love. Or about not having it. Or about how we hate Valentine's Day.

I understand, I really do. Love is hard. It's work, and it often doesn't work out. I've been really lucky, though. Twenty-two years ago (sheesh, but I'm old), the hubby and I had just started dating (Jan. 19th was our first day, if you remember, the Eve of St. Agnes). Nearly a month later, we were going to a party together at a friend's house, and I spent a panicked week trying to figure out what to give him.

Flowers? I didn't know at that point that he liked flowers. Chocolates? What kind of chocolates did he prefer? I didn't know him well enough to know that, either. A stuffed animal? Surely not. (I was totally right about this one--stuffed animals are totally not his thing).

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So I gave him the only gift I could think of: a poem. Yup, I less than a month after we'd started dating, I wrote him a love sonnet. And not just any old sonnet. A sonnet that said I wanted to grow old with him, spend the rest of my life with him. You know the kind--the stalking sonnet that would scare any sane guy away in a heartbeat (or a quick read-thru, anyway).

I wrote it on parchment, using my calligraphy pens, rolled it up and tied it with a red ribbon. And, yes, I gave it to him.

"Woah!" you might exclaim, "and he married you?" Yup. He thought the poem was fantastic, and he showed it to everybody at the party. And some people were actually jealous. Nobody ran away. Pretty weird, huh? And AWESOME, too!

Now, before you say, with that sarcasm in your voice, "Oh, sure, we're just supposed to take that chance--but what if we get hurt?" don't think for a moment that I don't know the risk I took. In fact, before there was the hubby, I wrote several sonnets--more tentative ones, mind you--to another guy at college. Yup, that's right. This was already my MO.

That interaction didn't go so well. In December, the guy wrote me a nice card saying he was flattered by the poems, and he wished me the best, but please don't write again. I was crushed, but I respected his request and didn't write another poem for him. I took the chance, and I failed at it.

But so what? Love doesn't always work out. But I still have those sonnets--all of them--the ones I wrote the first guy, the MANY sonnets I wrote to the hubby. And, even better, I have the hubby. And it all started with that little Valentine's Day love sonnet, which he still keeps framed right next to his bed after 22 years.

So, in honor of Valentine's Day, I'm giving away a copy of the anthology Death by Chocolate, which contains 6 stories of love and chocolate, along with a box of chocolates for your enjoyment. You need to live in the U.S., since I don't want to pay through the nose to send this little package out (sorry!).

To enter, all you have to do is chime in below, telling me your own thoughts on love and taking chances. I'll draw a name out of a hat and announce the winner by FRIDAY (so comment before then!). Also, today I'm posting in THREE other places as part of the Death by Chocolate blog tour, and each post is different, so check 'em all out:

Patricia's Particularity

Authors by Authors

Ink Spot and Roses

All three give you another opportunity to win the book (and some chocolates), so feel free to comment everywhere, including at my post on today's Death by Chocolate blog. Remember to comment for your chance to win! And happy Valentine's Day!

A Great Review for Our Anthology

Hurray! Yesterday was the first day of our blog tour for the newly released Death by Chocolate anthology, and we've already received a VERY positive review! Gothic Angel Book Reviews blog even reviewed each story one by one, and she liked them all. Pretty sweet.

And here's another review, posted by Jo Cattell this morning on Dreams are What Make Writing Happen.

We're touring through a whole bunch of blogs over the next few weeks. Here's the schedule if you'd like to tour along with us. The book is now available all over, including right HERE.

Now that this is under way, I need to get working on my novel revision!

Miracles

I mentioned last month that my husband and I had been dating for twenty years... and it was 20 years ago that a quite miraculous thing happened. You'll understand when you hear the whole story.

Twenty years ago, Richard and I had been dating for right around three weeks. I was just about to play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and he was doing tech, which meant he was the person pulling me up in the balloon at the end of the play.

But that wasn't the miraculous part.

We were planning to exchange presents at a Valentine's Day party, and a day prior I still didn't have anything to give him. I'd thought about chocolates, about all the typical crap, but nothing felt right.

Finally, late into the night, I wrote him a poem. It was a pretty cheesy sonnet, and I won't make your eyes bleed by posting it here. But if I'd really read it then, I would never have given it to him. Three weeks in, I had written him a poem pretty much asking him to spend the rest of his life with me.

A scary thing to send a barely boyfriend who was still 18.

I wrote it in calligraphy on parchment, then rolled it up with a red ribbon, not telling my parents what I'd done so they could talk me out of it. I saved the poem in my coat, and then, when we were together, I handed it to him.

He opened it and read it while I waited, not breathing.

I know what he should have done. He should have shown me his deer-in-the-headlights look, folded it up, gulped, and said we needed to talk (or something like that).

But here's where the miracle happened.

He didn't run. He didn't get scared. His eyes got pretty glossy, though, and he didn't speak right away, but rolled up the parchment carefully and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then we reached the party, and not even five minutes later, he was showing the poem to everybody, bragging on me, telling everybody what a lucky guy he was. I saw several other guys get the deer-in-the-headlights look, but that didn't seem to phase him at all.

Not even three days later, I noticed the poem, carefully framed and glassed, in his dorm room right next to his bed. And it's still there today, on our nightstand, right next to where he sleeps.

The poem was prophetic on my part, but the grace with which he accepted his destiny--accepted me--will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Today, I am grateful for miracles.