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Hello, my name is Sarah Grimm, and I’m an addict. I read my first romance when I was twelve years old. I don’t recall the title, you think I would with something that changed my life so dramatically, but I don’t. The title doesn’t really matter does it? Because it was just the beginning for me. That one book led to another, then another. Pretty soon I was devouring romances like my life depended on them. Somehow, I didn’t see anything strange about that.
One day my mother walked into my room without knocking and she caught me reading. I dropped that book so fast, tucking it under my thigh so she couldn’t see the cover! But I wasn’t fast enough. My mother knew what I was doing – reading romance in a ‘mystery’ house.
She kept an eye on me after that, locating all the paperback and hardcovers in my closet and under my bed. She told me I had a problem. I told her I couldn’t stop – even to make her happy. Instead, I lured her into my world. I gave her her first romance, then her second; her third. She is stronger than me – romance never took control of her the way it did me.
I began reading romance everywhere: curled in the corner of the couch while the family watched television, in the back of the classroom while the teacher talked biology. I didn’t need to learn biology, I had romance novels. I couldn’t get enough – the promise of happily-ever-after, of love being enough to heal all wounds.
In no time at all my addiction grew stronger. Just reading romances wasn’t enough. Suddenly I had this urge, this new and frightening, uncontrollable urge…to write. I wasn’t strong enough to resist. Who is? I began carrying a notebook with me everywhere I went. A notebook I filled with dialogue and partial chapters, story ideas and possible titles. Some days it got so bad that the world around me faded away. While my friends enjoyed the sun or the lake, I wrote.
It’s hard for some people to understand, this addiction to romance. I’ve endured the odd looks, the smirks, and even those that say “You’re poisoning your brain with that stuff.”
Well guess what? If stories that celebrate falling in love, emotion and commitment are poison, I don’t want the antidote. I love the stuttered heartbeats when the hero and heroine first meet, the gut punch of sexual awareness. My heart races with the sweetness of that first kiss, and the momentary panic over the realization they’ve fallen in love. I thrive on the idea how even at the worst of times, at those moments when you least expect it, two people can find love.
Yes my friends, I’m an addict, and happily-ever-after is my drug of choice.
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