I’m sure you know that every romance author’s life is just as full of fluttering eyelashes, words of endearment, and sweet kisses as the the life of the heroines in her books.
On Vacation in Florida, June, 2016
Oh, wait. Wrong script.
What our lives are full of is conflict. How enthralled would you be by a story if two characters met, fell instantly and breathlessly in love, vowed their lives to each other, and rode off into the sunset with nary a harsh word or misunderstanding?
Yawn.
It’s conflict, also known as tension, that makes readers turn pages. And frankly, last week, it was conflict, also known as unpleasant circumstances, that made me want to turn the pages… and get through this chapter of life, already!
On Sunday, as I was cooking lunch, the power flickered once and went out. Cloudy outside, yes. Storm? No. I stared across the room at my wall-mounted computer and its blank screen. Would there be a surge when the electricity came back? Best not to chance it. I unplugged the machine, my husband’s laptop, and a few other electronic items. After lunch, I began to wonder what had caused the outage so logged into a local news Facebook page on my phone. A car accident had taken out a power pole, and the estimated time of repair was still many hours away.
I wasn’t worried about the manuscript I had been working on (other than the looming deadline!) as I know the program I use, Scrivener, saves constantly. I have the Scrivener app on my iPad but couldn’t sync it with the computer or Dropbox, so I opened the manuscript with the next deadline and wrote a chapter on that file. Power finally resumed about 10pm. I noted it and went happily to bed.
The next morning, I — first person, as my husband and son were both working out of town for a few days — had no water. We’re on a well out on the farm, and I was pretty sure that the pump had lost prime due to the power outage. “Someone” needed to prime it. That someone wasn’t going to be me but, after a couple of hours, my brother-in-law was able to come by. (Thank you, Dan!) All systems go.
See how mean I could be to a heroine? I’m saving this all up. But a good story has more than one kind of conflict.
On Tuesday, a friend phoned me to tell me her rheumatoid arthritis had flared badly with a rare reaction to a prescription drug. Her skin from head to toe was itchy, painful, and peeling, and she was in need of prayer and support.
I hate to admit I’ve given characters in stories equally terrible physical conditions. Sometimes I’ve even rubbed my hands in glee as I did so. But for a real-life person going through this real-life pain, it is not so amusing. (Please pray for Liz.)
You’d think that would be enough “tension” or “conflict” for one week, but… no. The next morning while I was in the shower, I heard the toilet burp and gurgle. Hmm. It’s not supposed to make that sound. Remember, hubby and son both working out of town this week. I phoned my father-in-law, a retired plumber/gasfitter. Was this nasty burp the result of the item on my to-do list that I kept not doing? The one entitled: get the septic tank pumped? Dad affirmed that it could, indeed, be that… although it could also be something like a bird stuck in the sewer vent, or possibly a clog in the line between the house and the septic tank. Oh, good. (That was sarcasm, if you missed it…)
First things first. Called the septic tank pumper guy. He came and did his thing, which needed doing, but didn’t solve the problem. A few test flushes later, and the toilet was full, thankfully of clean water. I went outside to write a check for the guy and think about my next plan of action (making sure the holiday trailer had water and power, so I could use those facilities), came back in, and discovered several gallons of water on the bathroom floor… and out into the porch. Clean water, thankfully. Turned off the toilet valve as apparently it had sprung a leak. Mopped up the floor.
And I thought about all the ways I could make my characters’ lives way more miserable than I ever had before. Three comparatively little things (power, water in, water out) and one big thing (health) that I have not used to full advantage in my novels yet. Hmm.
Meanwhile, my wondeful husband arrived home from several long days at his physically demanding job and snaked out the sewer line. All systems are go. Again. And I have to tell you that, having been married 36 years (on August 30), I’ll take power, water in, and water out over simpering looks any day of the week. Real-life love tackles real-life problems and finds solutions.
Now I’m ready to start a new story and see what havoc I can wreak! Look out, characters!
Sadly (?), I had a whole different list of conflicts and tensions in mind when I wrote Butterflies on Breezes, the second Urban Farm Fresh Romance, which currently on pre-order. Here’s a bit about that story:
Love rarely lands where it’s expected.
Working for her dad’s landscaping business stifles Linnea Ranta. When she’s invited to design and build a community garden with an intriguing master carpenter, she seizes the chance to unfurl her wings, but at what expense to her heart?
Logan Dermott eases back his flirting when he senses Linnea’s fragility, but she has more backbone than he suspected. As they work together, Logan finds he’s falling for her, but it may be too late to win her love.
Will Linnea break free of her chrysalis and fly away before Logan realizes what he almost had?
Tell me about some real-life problems you’ve had that would make fodder for story conflicts, especially if it’s not a conflict you’ve seen in a romance novel! I’m offering two commenters a digital copy of Butterflies on Breezes. Winner to be announced in the August 28 Sunday Edition.
Valerie Comer is a USA Today bestselling author and a two-time Word Award winner who writes where food meets faith and fiction. She injects experience laced with humor into her green clean romances. Her life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily-ever-afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.
Love that thought about real life love tackling real life problems and finding solutions. Hmm, problems (or just crazy moments)…backpack not done up properly during the night so food eaten by wombats; possums attempting to invade tent to get food (I had to beat them off with my hairbrush!); losing sense of direction when hiking in the wilderness (so glad for hubby’s map reading skills!), cracking ankle while playing touch football… as I write these I am actually being reminded of great adventures:)
“Real-life love tackles real-life problems and finds solutions” I loved this line, Val. That’s such a great picture of you and your husband.
Hi Valerie! Sorry to hear about your eventful week. When it rains, it pours! Life is full of problems and I have had my share of them, but with God’s grace and strength have muddled my way through. I am familiar with power outages not due to storms, because somebody hit a power pole or a transformer blew.
One of the most stressful years in my life was 1997 – 1998. Just before midnight on July 5, 1997 the church parsonage had a devastating fire. We lost everything after 24 years of marriage. Our three sons ages 19, 16, and 7. For three days I searched the house and the woods for our new kitten Smokey, which we only had for a month. We finally found him in the woods. He was’t happy that it took us so long. Fortunately somebody at church had a house for us. Their father had just moved to a retirement home. The house was semi-furnitures. Through the help of friends, parishioners, and family we started to rebuild. On August 1, we had to put down our 12 year old Sheltie, who had started to deteriorate before the fire. This was hard on the kids. Then the end of August my dad had a major stroke and was hospitalized for three weeks. With barely a chance to recover or process what had happened school started. I am a high school teacher and this was my first year working full time, plus teaching two nights at the community college. Living in Michigan, every season was a challenge. To this day I hate shopping, because it was a year of shopping – first back to school clothes, then winter gear, then spring things, in addition to replacing household items. The house we were renting was 1,000 square feet smaller than what we were accustomed to with boys over six feet tall. Winter was trying as the living room and kitchen were tiny, especially Christmas. I put up a small tree, but our middle son is very sentimental and he begged for the full sized tree to be put up. The big tree took up almost the entire living room. Since the kids had been through so much – lost all their clothes, toys, wrestling gear, electronics; I relented and put up the big tree. Then in April 1998 we moved into the newly rebuilt parsonage with all new furniture, which had required many a shopping trip. Unfortunately for the next year we felt like we lived in Better Homes and Gardens. This was not our home. We had always lived in older homes and had a mixture of old and new furnishings.
Now whenever I hear of a natural disaster – tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, or flooding my prayers go out. It was difficult enough to be the only family in the area going through a disaster, but we had a support system because our families homes, our friends homes, the school, the neighborhood was still standing. I can’t imagine having the entire community destroyed.
Just south of our area, Sunday night northern Indiana received 8 – 10 inches of rain in just 6 hours, that is what our area usually receives all summer. The area is flooded. School, businesses, and the grocery story is closed. The zoo keeper went during the rain to check the animals at the Potawatomi Zoo and rescued a deer just before it drowned. Everything in that area is still closed today.
Val, don’t want to take more space. If you need more tension, stress, conflict; send me an email. I have more! LOL – that is what 66 years of living does.
Does having a snake slithering around the hall just before bedtime count! We have also had a couple of snakes in the bathroom and one inside the washing machine, thankfully my brother doesn’t mind removing them because that’s not high on my favourites list.;)
I can just imagine a scene involving the Heroine with a snake and she’s going to need someone to rescue her, now who could we give the job to….
I’m sorry to hear about your week. Unfortunately we all can relate. A couple of weeks after moving into our new apartment in a big city, my husband and I were awaked at night by pouring rain that sounded too close to be good. Indeed, our bathroom had water everywhere and we got there just in time to stop spreading through ther hallway, but not too long after we discovered leaks in the second bedroom, living room, and laundry room. We’re on the top floor of a small building, so until all the tenants agreed to actually fix the roof took months (because the many attempts my husband did to fix this, with the help of my dad, were not close enough). I still wake up in the middle of the night when it rains and wonder if I need to get buckets spread around the house to collect water. We were not fully unpacked, so not much harm done I thought, but wasn’t I completely wrong? Two days after the first incident I realized something was wrong with my knee. Many doctors appointments and exams later, I was going into knee surgery to remove part of my meniscus. Not fun. (After almost a year of physical therapy, I still feel some discomfort, though my knee is fully functional again.)
Some minor issues since then was running out of water in the middle of my morning shower one day because the building manager forgot to let us know he had maintenance scheduled, and not having hot water in the winter for about a week (this time apparently only in our apartment) until my husband managed to fix it.
Yay for butterflies on breezes! :) and for conquering what life threw at you.
Thank you for reminding me of all that I have. I will never complain again. Well, never is too strong a word, but you have indeed shown me I have many blessings. And yes, I take many of them for granted. I also know things can change in a heartbeat. Because of bad storms in our area, two readers posted on my timeline this morning, telling me they were concerned for our family. Life has issues and problems–from the minor annoyances to the full-fledged catastrophes at times. And yes, we plow through them and adapt or find solutions. But God’s got it all, and I always cling to His promises. Happy anniversary to you and Jim later this month! Blessings.
A few years ago we had a bolt of lightning hit out house. God protected us from fire, but it ruined quite a few electronics and our AC/heat system. It was months before everything was back to normal.
Hugs, Valerie! That truly IS what love is about. Real life.
I think your heroines had better be afraid of what you might throw at them. Very afraid!
I know this isn’t unusual, and probably is extremely common, but we recently moved and since then have had more clogged and overflowing toilets than in the 10 previous years of marriage. I cannot handle plunging toilets. The sound and action completely turn my stomach and make me nauseous, so we’ve had many days of my husband returning home from work late at night only to have to plunge 1-2 toilets.
Great post, Valerie! Here’s a short conflict: Imagine it’s late, you’re very tired, and finally finish the day’s chores and head to bed. All scrubbed and ready for sleep, you pull back the covers–and there’s a big, black spider! I still check every night before I crawl into bed.
I love how the adversity makes you think of great adventures!
Neither of us are photogenic enough to have a lot of romantic photos, but I do like this one a lot!
What a traumatic time with the house fire! We had a fire in our home when I was a child. A curtain caught fire from touching an electric heater. Thankfully it was caught and put out before the whole home went up in flames, and damage was limited to the one room.
Yes, the flooding in several parts of the USA is devastating right now. My problems last week are so miniscule they barely count in comparison.
There are lots of reasons I live where I live, Lientjie! I detest snakes so passionately I wouldn’t be able to live anywhere where they are common, especially deadly ones. Around here I’m (un)lucky to see a garter snake once a decade. Even that stops my heart a few seconds. I think I’ll leave writing this story to someone else!
Wow, I can’t imagine living in an apartment building where everyone had to agree to share the cost of a roof repair. Around here that would fall squarely on the owner’s shoulders, and if the building were co-op owned, people wouldn’t have a choice to vote against it. Water can cause a LOT of damage!
Thanks!
Remembering our blessings is ALWAYS a good idea! And yes, in the grand scheme of things, last week was simply a string of annoyances. No one’s life was threatened. There is so much flooding going on right now in parts of the US that I feel guilty for complaining about my wee problems. I’m glad your family is safe from the deluge.
A few weeks ago (last time we were camping) lightning struck the farm. It hit our son’s place harder than ours and he lost several electronics. I could have added that to my litany but it wasn’t the same week and didn’t affect my life as directly. Depending on the time of year, losing AC/heat as you did can be a very large adversity!
Apparently I’ve been too easy on them all these years! Mwahaha!
Yuck! Any time I’ve had to, the line has cleared. If you’re on a septic system, it sounds like your outflowing line has a problem. I’m now an expert! LOL
Most of the time I have no trouble killing spiders. Not sure I’d want a large one’s guts spread across my sheets, though! I have a big, manly brother-in-law who is terrified of spiders. Ah, now that would be a fun phobia to give a hero someday!
Great post. Sounds like it has been quite a week!
It was a wee tad crazy!
While we haven’t had things happen one right after another like you have in such a short span, we had a time of “Truth is stranger than fiction” back in 2005. Well, it actually started in late 2004…
My husband came home, I think, it was on a Wednesday, mid-to-late November 2004, upset about work. He’d been dealing with questionable ethics there as it was, but that day was the straw that broke the camel’s back (pardon the cliche). The boss had ranted at himfor 15 minutes before Gordon finally figured out what was happening, and when he came home and relayed the whole story to me, I told him it was time for him to leave that job, to quit. He spoke to his dad and to our pastor, both of whom said the same thing: Quit. He was out of work from then until late March, I believe it was. During December, Jamuary, and the first part of February, he and a good friend redid our 2 bathrooms.
At this time our daughter was dealing with some health issues. She was in her 3rd year of college an hour away, and was seeing a therapist (we shared a therapist who was very good at keeping our issues separate! :) ) for PTSD (from memories of an old boyfriend when they were in high school) and was on an antidepressant. She was being prayed for, but still wasn’t doing that great. She was ready to change her minor from Art History to Art Therapy (her major was Studio Art) when something huge happened: She had a baby. Yep. Didn’t know she was pregnant (there’s a long story to it, but I won’t get into it here), but stopped school for the Spring semester, brought Paige home to our house, and returned to college that Fall.
Paige was born February 17th., (BTW, her dad and our daughter got married in October 2006, and they also have 2 sons. Coming up on their 10th wedding anniversary! God-fearing family, and both our daughter and her husband DID graduate from college the same day. It was a tough time, but we survived.)
I was told in March that, because I was low in seniority, I would lose my job at the end of the school year (I was the Teacher Assistant in the primary school library). That was on my birthday. (We were living on my salary because my husband was still out of work, but my in-laws helped out tremendously.) The superintendent told me she would try to let me know by the time school let out if I would have a job for the next year, but that didn’t happen and she apologized for it on the last day of school.
In July we decided to have a yard sale, and one Friday night we were bringing stuff down 2 flights of stairs, from the attic to outside. Our son (who was also in college–had just finished his 1st year–same school as his sister) was in the attic, and our daughter and I were outside, setting things up, when we heard a crash. She raced inside to find her brother at the bottom of the attic steps (they have a weird turn to them, and something caught against the plaster wall, causing him to stumble, and he has big feet, too). Hubby took him to the ER Saturday morning, to find out that he had broken at least one bone in his lower leg and would have surgery the following Wednesday. (Up to that point, neither of our kids had broken a bone OR had to have surgery–unless you count daughter’s FIVE wisdom teeth being pulled just a few days after her high school graduation…)
Our daughter returned to working at a local vet hospital (she’d worked there during high school) AND commuted 2 days a week to college an hour away, while I babysat our granddaughter.
There might have been more that year, but it was enough to make me want a padded room! I spent a lot of time in tears, feeling guilty for so many of the feelings that coursed through me…
Sorry for the long post! Wow, I didn’t realize it would be this long…
And pleasepleasePLEASE toss my name into the hat to win a digital copy of the book! I haven’t read your new ones yet, and I am suffering from Valerie withdrawal. :)
Hugs,
Melanie
Wow, that is so SO much more devastating than my week! I was merely inconvenienced, really… God has his ways of working in our lives.
I’ve had the same problem as Lientjie. A snake slithering through the front hall. Good news. Three hunkie fireman came to the house and got rid of him.
LOL!!!!! You made me seriously laugh. Hope that’s in one of your books. What a meeting between heroine and hero!
This week my problems have centered around deliveries. My husband and I bought a house and this week we were all set to get our whole house full of appliances delivered (kitchen and laundry room). The morning of the delivery we got an email detailing what was to be delivered– except it did not have our stove on the list. A call to the delivery center said the stove was out of stock and we would have to call our local store to get more details. Well later that day the delivery driver showed up an hour earlier than the 3 hour window we had been given. So he called my husband, a bit disgruntled, and I went over to the house to meet the driver. I got the other 5 appliances into the house. They did not get installed because the cabinets aren’t ready yet, but they were at least on sight. So I called the store to inquire about the stove. Person that answers looks and sees it is in stock and offers to deliver the following day. I wonder why it wasn’t delivered with the others, but agree to delivery 2 days later when my husband can meet the driver. I talk to him after that delivery arrives, and find out that we are missing the “installation kits” for the washer, dishwasher, and stove. So I have to go back to the store and get the installation kits we already paid for. This is all in addition to the pet food we have on auto-delivery getting stuck halfway across the country for a week and having to make multiple trips to the pet store to get the food that should have arrived right on our porch. How does it lrave Illinois on the 10th and not arrive in Maryland until the 17th? But we now have a bunch of appliances in boxes and some cat food in a box and I think we are good for awhile …
Wow, one aggravation after another! Hopefully it all worked out, and your kitties are happy.
We’ve had lots of things happen over the years. We’ve been married 36 years also. Our youngest just graduated college and got married.
When she was supposed to be starting her freshman year of college my husband had a stroke 4 days before we were to move her to college. I was in the hospital with my husband, our daughter was away on a missions trip, and our older children lived out of state. I was trying to figure out how I could take my daughter to college with my husband in the hospital. She was returning from her missions trip in time to go to college. My son called and said he was flying home and would help move Becky to college! My husband was released in time to ride with us, but felt badly,that he couldn’t help . We told him we were thankful he was with us! ! The Lord healed him from all stroke symptoms over several months. Today he walks, talks and has full use of his arm and hand!
Wow, what a story! I’m glad he recovered. Again, timing, right?
Our first week of marriage had some curve balls. To start us off, my husband had been working night shift so to switch to days for our wedding and honeymoon messed him up. Then, once we got on our honeymoon, I felt horrible one day and we had to basically hang around the hotel room. Then, my husband, who is a type 1 diabetic on a pump, ran out of pump supplies. He had brought the amount of supplies that he would usually use in a month but things kept going wrong and he used them all. On top of that he got sick (which either exacerbated the blood sugar problem, or the blood sugar caused the sickness….it’s a vicious cycle). So there we were, a thousand miles from home, trying to get syringes so he could keep his blood sugar manageable (pump supplies are only available mail order – and the insulin used is different) and spending way more time at Walmart or driving to and from Walmart than anyone should on their honeymoon.
The most exciting part (sarcastically) was the drive back – since he was sick and had high blood sugar, driving was not an option. So I had to drive. You have to understand that I’m from small town Kansas. At that point I had driven on the highway through cities like St. Louis and Atlanta on my commute to college, but I was always driving straight through, I’d been on those drives lots of times and knew where I was going, and we almost always managed to avoid rush hour (and I was usually driving a clunker, not a fancy rental). To me, Wichita is a big city (about 400,000 in the metro area) and I don’t like cities. We were honeymooning in Northern California in the redwoods and flying out of Oakland. We, of course, hit the Bay Area at rush hour. We didn’t have GPS or a good map and were relying on printed directions. It was nuts. We did make it out alive, but I’m pretty sure the first argument of our marriage happened on that drive. =)
Then, to top it all off, we found out my husband’s first day back at work that he was going to be laid off.
Believe it or not though, with all of that, we still had an awesome time on our honeymoon and came back with some great memories. And God definitely provided in the job situation.
Wow. And more wow. Honeymoons shouldn’t have so much trauma on them! I feel for you on city driving. Yikes. And it was just plain mean of them to lay him off straight from his honeymoon!
Yep. I was a little bitter about that timing then, but looking back, the timing was good. God definitely knew what He was doing. =)
He does. For sure.
My heart goes out to Katy on her honeymoon. Praise God for getting her through the difficult situations and giving her some good memories.
The only conflict my husband and I had on our honeymoon was keeping the Census person away from our rental house. In March 2000, we were honeymooning in the Smoky Mountains for 5 days. In that time we had seven visits from Census takers! We explained to the first three takers that we were from another state, using a rental unit, and on our “honeymoon;” plus we gave them the rental companies information to contact to get information on the home’s owner. After that we had one taker who visited early in the morning (7AM) and who had the audacity to go around the house and peep in the windows and knock on them! We finally had to call the local authorities and ask them to request the Census organizers restrain their workers. The last thing honeymooners want or need is a “Peeping Tom.” Thankfully the remaining takers visited while we were out of the house and only left the information. To add to that we took a trip in 2010 and had another encounter with a Census taker; thankfully that one was very polite and we had no other visits. Looking back, my husband and I can laugh at the unusual Census shenanigans, but we have decided that we may stay home for the 2020 census!
I’m sure your story wasn’t nearly as funny while it happened as it sounds now! Yikes, that’s a lot of visits and a lot of audacity. Staying home during census week seems like a good idea. We had ours this spring in Canada.
You can’t be married for almost 20 years & not have some kind of conflict! But you know, I can’t really pin down any one incident. Maybe because I’ve chosen to overlook those times as lessons learned and growing pains in marriage. God always worked whatever out for our benefit & I believe it’s made us a stronger couple. Of course in the middle of the conflict it wasn’t so fun or easy, but that’s when we’ve had to learn to persevere :-)
I definitely wouldn’t want to do LIFE with anyone else by my side!
Amen, Trixi!
We’ve had all kinds of conflict in life this year. Multiple appliance repairs (by hubby, thankfully! including dryer, range, dishwasher, septic pump, fancy schmancy thermostat), vehicle needs new bearings again, flooring is water damaged, kids keep writing on and banging up walls, exterior light fixture needs replaced again, found tons of mold in our air handler in the basement, then my father-in-law had a stroke (7 weeks in hospital rehab, he’s home now), my husband was also moved to night shift BUT Praise the Lord, he still has a job and we have been able to pay all these unexpected expenses, He provides!
Wow, that’s a lot! But your last comment is so true. God DOES provide.