I can’t read romance, I can’t write romance.
It’s not for the lack of trying. Sometimes I would love to read a story about two people who overcome great obstacles and end up together, happy and in love. Sometimes I think my own stories would benefit from a little romance and a HEA thrown in here and there. But whenever I try to write it, it turns into this or this or this.
The truth is, the unconscious part of my mind that comes up with story ideas doesn’t believe in happy endings. I don’t know why – I’m not a particularly morose grouch in real life. However, my writing brain is bored with attainable love, and studies it from a great distance with a faint, cynical smile. In almost every story I’ve ever written, the characters yearn for something they cannot get, and even if they somehow triumph in the end, it’s always tainted with a touch of melancholy, the realization that life never quite turns out as we expect it to.
My latest published story, Heart of My Heart, Soul of My Soul started as an exploration of the ways in which grief alters our perception. I made it deliberately vague, open to the readers’ interpretations. And I’ve made a conscious effort to allow at least one of those interpretations to lean towards a happy ending. I hope you will find it enjoyable.
Jelena Dunato 