Friends in New Places by Diane Perkins

It seems like I write a lot about friendship on this blog. That is because the WNP ladies are wonderful friends and I cannot say enough about how wonderful they are! The best gift writing Romance has done for me is to give me a world of friends, but it sure leads me in directions I never expected.

One of my Washington Romance Writer friends, Patty Suchy, told me on her Novel Explorations tour that I simply must rent the DVD of Phantom of the Opera. I (perish the thought) had never gone to see it in the movie theatre. I didn’t heed her advice but when it came on HBO I watched it. Oh ho! Well, you can read my prevous WNP blog or my Warner Women blog, both of January 20, to hear how I became obsessed. And why.

It wasn’t long before I was visiting gerardbutler.net to learn more about Gerry Butler. This is an incredible website, not just because of the subject matter, but at the sheer wealth of it. Tamara, the site designer, it turns out lives near me in Virginia. We share a mutual friend - Karen Anders who writes for Blaze. If you like Gerard Butler in any movie, you should visit this site. You might see stuff like this on it:

Coincidentally, one of the fan members, Tarts they are called, “Catmac” to be specific, emailed me that she’d read my Warner Women blog about the Phantom and had started a forum discussion on it on gerardbutler.net. So naturally I peeked in and joined the discussion and a couple of others. One discussion was about Scottish Romances that the Tarts were reading and I took the opportunity to recommend Sandy’s books A Man in a Kilt and A Rogue in a Kilt. This was turning into great fun. I read lots of postings on a variety of the many forums. Perused the Gallery. Watched the videos. Read messages from Gerry’s family and others who participated in the Gerard Butler Conference in Glasgow a few weeks ago.

So I joined and became an official Tart. Romance Author Tart. Why? Because it is frivolous fun, a happy place, and there are such nice people there. Devoted fans, intelligent, vibrant people leading busy lives like me, but who are all willing to jump into that world of fantasy that I love. What do I expect to find there?

Friends.

I leave you this month with a quote from Gerard Butler: “We are all at heart romantic and passionate and there is nothing like a dark romance to stir us up, no matter what age you are.”

Cheers!
Diane aka Romance Author Tart

posted by Diane Gaston @ 1:31 AM