Who Wrote the Book of Love?

My husband was singing in the shower this morning. I couldn't make out the words - or the tune, either for that matter as he often forgets to put that part in. I came into the picture when he just said some words out loud. Who wrote the book of love? I heard. I, being lost in serious contemplation, thought the question was directed at me, and, in all seriousness, answered it. God. I said.

And then I actually came up for air and heard a replay of what had just taken place. My husband had been singing a Monotone's oldie. I'd been so lost in the voices in my head, the chapter that I had to write today, that I hadn't been present in my real life romance.

God, my husband repeats. Well, then, that pretty much ends that song right there, doesn't it? Takes away all the mystery.

Sorry, Monotones, didn't mean to dispel any magic from your oldie but goodie.

My husband laughed. Teased me. And by the time he was shaving I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. And a heart overflowing with love.

And I started to think about that, too. How could sharing something so everyday mundane as a song in the shower mixed with a healthy dose of preoccupation fill me with such magical peace and joy? Who really wrote the book of love?

All of us here write books of love. Many of us do it full time. Eight hours a day. Five days a week. (Or the equivalent thereof.) Many of us work overtime writing books of love. And so many times, when we go out into the world to have dinner with friends, or to the dentist's office, to give a workshop or do a booksigning, we're asked time and again, where do we get our ideas? Who wrote the book of love?

My first Everlasting Love book, The Night We Met, an April, '07 release, was a book of love. I computered the words, but the book, the story came from my parents. I changed things, fictionalized the circumstances, but the love - that was straight from the source. The final scene in that book was almost pure fact. Except that I wasn't the heroine in real life. I was one of the kids standing at the end of the bed. The Night We Met. A book of love. But did I write it?

And the book I'm working on now. I'm putting words down as the voices in my head tell me to do so, but am I making up the feelings that will somehow lift up off the pages and touch a reader's heart? I can't possibly be. I can string words together. I cannot invent warmth that emanates from the inside out.

Over the years of my career I've had countless people come up to me and say something like, 'you write books? I've never met a writer!' There are many variations, but the words are always along that vein and accompanied by a tone of near awe. And every single time I'm left feeling awkward, inadequate, fake. I don't do anything but type the voices in my head. I relay circumstances, I don't create them. I don't write the books. I merely tell the stories.

So who writes the book of love?

I'll tell you who. We all do. You do. Every single reader who reads them does. Every human being on this earth who allows themselves to feel, who opens their hearts to the universal power of connection and charity, who lives, writes the book of love. As authors, we merely tell your stoies. Our stories.

Where do our ideas come from? Ask ten authors you might get ten answers. And yet, in reality there's only one. We get them from all of us. From the living that goes on around us. In some fashion or other, we view the world around us and write what we see.

And this next year, I get to write the ultimate book of love. Harlequin Everlasting Love has just contracted me to write my real life love story. It's going to be pure fact - other than the fictionalized parts! - a true story. I'll be changing things that deal with others in our lives, but the relationship part, the love that survives all, the personal circumstances that love survived, will all be completely as we lived them. And as we're living them.

Because, after all, we wrote the book of love.

Tara Taylor Quinn