Connections by Diane Perkins

I love my life. One of the wonderful reasons I love my life--I mention once more--is the friends I have made. Case in point - the Wet Noodle Posse! But the friendships are starting to circle and connect in so many beautiful and unexpected ways!

I’ve also blogged about my new Gerald Butler obsession and the new friends I’ve made there. This past week a friend of my friend Mary Blayney (Poppy’s Coin in the JD Robb Anthology, Bump In The Night, April 2006) got in touch with me. Mary’s friend, too, had just “discovered” The Phantom of the Opera and wanted to correspond with a like-minded obsessed person--me! So we’ve been having wonderful emails back and forth, like I could not have had with anyone but a new GB fan, and even greater discussions about the phenomenon of this obsession of ours. I love to do that! I love to have fun with something, then also look at a more serious or intellectual side of the same experience. This is a great connection I’ve made! Thank you, OGA!

Also last week, I got together with another Noodler, Janet Mullany (Dedication, 2005) and my friend Julie to hear another Noodler speak at Maryland Romance Writers - Anna deStefano (The Runaway Daughter, 2006). Janet and Anna had joked online about getting to see in person my Phantom of the Opera watch, given to me by my friend Patty, who did the wonderful Novel Exploration tours (www.novelexplorations.com) to England that Julie and I went on, and who was the first person I introduced myself to at my first Washington Romance Writers meeting eleven years ago. Patty is the one who insisted I watch Phantom of the Opera but I didn’t until it came on cable. Now she says, “I told you so,” but she also rewarded me with this wonderful Phantom of the Opera watch, for...um...watching.

It was wonderful to have this mini-Noodler reunion with Anna and Janet, but also present at the MRW meeting and the dinner beforehand was new author, Diana Peterfreund (Secret Society Girl: An Ivy League Novel, due out July 2006), whom I’d met at Washington Romance Writers, connecting on the similarity of our names. Right before Anna’s talk began, Diana reached over and asked to see my Phantom of the Opera watch, which she had heard about from Colleen Gleason (The Rest Falls Away, Fall 2006), another Noodler who happens to be right now traveling to Paris to research her alternative Phantom story, her next project.

So about this time I am feeling like I’m caught in this lovely web, with silken strings connecting all of us, stretching out to make new exciting connections that I am to discover in the future. At the moment my connections seem tied to Phantom of the Opera and the Wet Noodle Posse, but all of them fundamentally originate in my decision to write Romance.

I love my life!

I know you are all dying to see this watch. Here it is!


And here (L to R) me, Anna, Janet at MRW


Quote of the day: "Remember, Frankie, We are all connected." The Stranger (Gerard Butler)in Dear Frankie.

Cheers!
Diane

posted by Diane Gaston @ 11:54 AM