How to Live/Write a Love Story

Taking inspiration from real life

Congratulations to ML Liebler, the winner of the May book giveaway! ML won No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies by Julian Aguon. The June book giveaway, for paid subscribers, will be The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau. If you’re not already a paid subscriber, become one and qualify to win!

Whenever I speak about WOMAN OF VALOR, I inevitably get a question about the amount of sex scenes in the book. It’s not erotica, but it IS intimate! And for an Orthodox main character - OH MY!

Most authors either write about what they wish their lives would be like or they take inspiration from their real lives - or a combination of the two. I’d say that’s true for all my books. And so if we’re talking about the passion between Sally and Barry in WOMAN OF VALOR, I’ll blushingly admit that I took inspiration from my real-life relationship with my wonderful husband, Dan.

You might remember that Dan is my second husband. I divorced my first in 2008 and met Dan a year and a half later. We married on June 4, 2011, and instantly became the parents of four kids between the ages of 5 and 9.

Since tomorrow is our 13th anniversary, I thought I’d share a bit about how to write a love story — inspired by my real-life love story.

I’ll start off by saying, I’m lucky. Damn lucky.

Dan and I met online and though I had all these rules for dating as a single mom of three kids ages 3, 5 and 7, I ignored them all when I met Dan.

It was something about how honest his profile was, focused on what he would do for someone he cared about at the end of a long week. Or his full-face smile in one of the pics he posted. After a few quick emails, I suggested we meet. Later, he told me he was surprised at how forward I was, and frankly, so was I.

We had two great dates at low-lit restaurant tables, talking above the din. And then he texted me with ideas for five different dates and I freaked out and blew him off.

Until, a month or so later, a woman I’d gone to camp with emailed me and said, “How do you know Dan Golodner?” We were the only friends-in-common on his Facebook page and she said she was dating him but offered to stop if I was dating him. Turns out, they’d gone out twice, but the jealousy kicked in and I texted him to say, “I’m sorry I’ve been MIA and if you don’t want to see me again, I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

His response: “The cookie hasn’t crumbled.”

Three months later, we took our daughters to a hockey game. They held hands at Joe Louis Arena and were immediate best friends. By spring, my youngest son, Shaya, professed his love for Dan and I thought, “This better last.” A year in, we got engaged on a trip to Mexico while the kids were with their other parents.

And the wedding was so much fun! An afternoon event in the backyard of one of my marketing clients, who lived on a lake, the hottest day of that summer, so hot that all the kids jumped into the lake after the ceremony, with their clothes on.

It hasn’t all been easy.

For the first five years, we were figuring out how to communicate, how to have our own relationship while raising four kids. How to step-parent. How to learn from our past mistakes. How to navigate conflict.

But all the way through, we had passion and connection.

I’ll be brave and admit, I love sex. What’s not to love? When it’s with the right person, and you know yourself, too, it’s powerful. And it’s from that deep well of knowing that I write.

I am so lucky to get a second chance at love. I guess that might’ve been a subtle inspiration for Sally, too. I mean, she was devastated when John broke her heart, which is what propels her into the religious Jewish community in Skokie in the first place. And then she meets Barry and has a deep and passionate love in her marriage—something I wanted to show in a community that most people associate with arranged marriage and men being separated from women.

When I speak about WOMAN OF VALOR, I say, “Why wouldn’t there be passion in Orthodox marriages? Look at how many kids they have!”

But honestly, the Jewish wedding contract or Ketubah, has a clause that mandates a husband must satisfy his wife—physically. If he doesn’t, it is actual grounds for divorce.

I’m not afraid to write about sex as long as it’s appropriately within the context of a story. It’s not sex for sex sake. It’s something that shows the characters, the relationship, the situation.

Why shouldn’t a female character embrace her sexuality?

In the real world that we live in, too many people want to control women’s bodies. I write strong female characters who are in charge of every part of their lives. That’s the ideal world I want to live in!

Thanks for reading the Rebel Author Newsletter! The June book giveaway will be The Heather Blazing by Colm Tobin. Become a paid subscriber and gain a chance to win!

All love and happy writing,

Lynne