Reflections on heroes, bound up in...our expectations?

I crave a hero who has principles, direction, desire and persistence. Those who come to me full-blown as men who have made their marks in business or other, and have little to do other than conquer the woman of their choice seem...meh.
Yet, I seem to find so many these days between the pages of fiction.
I want a man who needs to achieve something other than...well, taking a woman to bed.
Why do I see so many men in erotic fiction who seem to have nothing else going on but desire?
Are they all bound up in our own expectations of intense, erotic coupling that we have no need to see them with sensitivities, flaws and the ability to change and adapt to their chosen mates?
Do you see this? Or am I just in the middle of a bad patch where hopping into bed ain't all there is?

National Read a Road Map Day - Can You Find "LOVE"?

Happy National "Read A Road Map" Day! I thought I'd skip going into the boring details of checking road maps...don't you use a GPS system now?...and branch off to a different tangent on this.

Let's see...read a road map and find your way somewhere. Isn't the journey to LOVE kinda like that? Don't you have to follow a "path", go in a certain "direction", to find true love?

Romance books use a road map/path/directions to get their heroines to their heroes. It's called a PLOT...and it's never an easy journey. There are always bumps in the road, detours, obstacles, slowdowns, wrong turns...just as you might find if following a map to some unknown destination.

Usually, you manage to find your way...just as our heroines manage to find that "happily-ever-after" ending despite all the setbacks. Flat tire? Run out of gas? Or, Hero's ex-wife shows up to create havoc? Heroine thinks hero is cheating on her? All detours of some type. A road map may not be able to help sometimes, but a crafty plot written to guarantee happiness can set the hero and heroine back on course to romance and love. 

Why don't we send our heroes and heroines on a fantasy journey using a road map and find "LOVE"?

How many cities in the United States are called "Love"? I did some searching on the Internet and here's some that I found:

Love, AZ
Love, IL
Love, KY
Love, MS
Love, TX
Love, VA

Now, you can also find variations for the word "Love" in cities around the country:

Lovers Leap, CA (tragic idea!)                                                Lover, PA
Love Canal, NY  (not very appealing)                                      Loving, GA
Love Hill, AL                                                                          Loving, KY
Lovejoy, GA                                                                           Loving, NM
Loveladies, NJ                                                                        Loving, OK
Lovelady, NC                                                                         Loving, TX
Lovelady, TX                                                                          Loveland, CO
Love Lady, TN                                                                       Loveland, IA
Love Lake, MO                                                                     Loveland, OK
Lovely, KY                                                                            Loveland, WA
Loveless, AL (sad!)                                                                Loveland, OH
Love Point, MD                                                                      Loveland Park, OH
Loveville, MD                                                                         Loves Corner, IL
Loveville, TN                                                                          Loves Park, IL

Most of those sound like interesting places to check out...do they live up to their names? Does "LOVE" define each city and hold some type of special magic for those seeking romance? Maybe I should have checked "Romance" for city names. Or, things to do with love and romance.

I actually did find a couple that might interest you. How about Horneytown, NC? Or, Romance, AK? And then there's my favorite, Intercourse, PA.

I've actually been to Intercourse more than once. Quaint little Amish city...mostly a tourist spot. Will you put that on your list of places to visit? Check your road map (or let your GPS system find it for you!).

Story idea: What if I have my heroine visit cities with "Love" in their names, and looks for "Mr. Right"?

Hmm...sounds like a good idea!

Photos: Flickr: Andii, Amanda "Bake It Pretty", lorigami's photostreams.
Also: Mapquest: Intercourse, PA

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"Flawed but Majestic"

The flawed heroes we love.

If you were new to this planet and western culture in particular, you might be fooled into believing that humans seek perfection in their objects of desire both physically and in character. I assure you this is not the case. If those new arrivals to Earth invested a little time watching our favorite movies, reading our favorite books and most educational of all-if they took the time to actually fall in love with a human, they would see this mythic search for perfection doesn’t have a biological leg to stand on.

As a species, humans secretly love and embrace flaws. Simply said flaws are part of individuation, they make us who we are. Our flaws are often our strengths in disguise. They often represent unique qualities and something that cannot be erased. On a planet filled with nearly seven billion people, flaws help us stand out in a crowd.

One of my favorite flawed heroes is Edward Rochester from Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”. I fell for this guy big time. He’s dark, guarded, brooding, and slightly bow legged with a barrel chest. He’s a gallant liar, a tease and a trickster. At heart he’s basically a decent man who has been abused by life. His tragedies are epic but he does pause to do some good deeds along the way. He cannot outrun his fate and by the end of the story he has lost his ancestral home, his fortune, his right arm and his left eye but he gains Jane’s love and respect in the process and becomes one of fiction’s most memorably flawed heroes.

In movies Clint Eastwood has mastered the art of the flawed hero. The Harry Callahan character comes to mind. Clint plays a “loner” with such strong magnetism that the more he pushes people away the closer they come-often at their peril. We watch the inevitable drama unfold when Harry Callahan heroically makes a choice to go it alone and spare others his fate but because every body loves a hero, they tag along anyway and get hurt. Oh well, Harry warned them…

Did Rhett Butler’s character flaws stop any of you from dreaming about what it would feel like to be obsessively pursued by a dashing man who had that much charisma? Did Clark Gable’s sparkling green eyes and strapping frame scooping a woman off her feet and marching her up the staircase to be ravished-turn you off? I thought not. Rhett had some pretty difficult personal vices. He smoked, drank, gambled, lied, whored, took his daughter out of the country and generally showed bad co-parenting skills. Quite frankly, in real life I would give a damn. But Rhett’s flaws both in fiction and on the screen made him appear incredibly real as if we actually knew this man.

The bottom line: Flaws set us apart and make our virtues look all the more sweeter.

Who is your favorite flawed hero?

XXOO Katalina Leon.