Here’s the third question that helps us understand how readers and writers connect.  Earlier we looked at the connecting power of humor and laughter, as well as a common concern by readers and writers for characters in pain.

Now we come to poison and dying, and at a time like this I wish I were a mystery writer.  Agatha Christie loved to kick off her mysteries with a good old-fashioned poisoning.  Her 80 mystery novels have sold about four billion copies in 45 languages. They say that everybody loves a good mystery, and apparently everybody also loves a good poisoning.

Here’s a second question that helps us understand how readers and writers connect. Last week we looked at the connecting power of humor and laughter (“if you tickle us, do we not laugh?”). Now it’s time to share a little pain.

If you tickle us, do we not laugh? This is the first of several questions I want to begin to explore, with the goal of understanding how readers and writers connect. The tickle question comes from Shylock’s speech in Act 3, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice.

Maureen O’Connell asked me a few questions about romance and Valentine’s Day for an article in this Sunday’s Honolulu Advertiser. Yes, I write romantic comedy, but I don’t pretend to be an expert on romance. I may be a bit less confused than when I began writing about romantic entanglements, but, like most guys, I still feel somewhat clueless and clumsy when it comes to questions of romance.

One of the questions Maureen asked me was to name my most romantic character. Excellent question, and for this one I had the answer in about two seconds. Donna Cooper, the title character in my first novel, Queen of the Rodeo, seeks true love and romance for herself throughout that story. Then, in the prequel, Chasing Cowboys, she’s a 19-year old who plays a supporting role as one of the two narrators.

At last!  The Winter Olympics are almost here. Opening ceremonies take place this Friday.  Once every four years we are treated to a festival of the world’s best athletes on snow and ice. I know we had the Summer Olympics in Beijing two years ago, but I’m one of those people who enjoy the Winter Olympics more.

It’s smaller and cozier, and it has all that snow and ice, cool stuff we don’t see living in Hawaii. Before the show begins this week in Vancouver, I’m feeling nostalgic for the 2006 Winter Olympics from Turin. Here’s what I wrote then about some of the nice-on-ice highlights, including some lessons for writers.

Richie’s wife, Noelle, was the one who began asking a series of questions about the Colts and their no-huddle offense, and while Richie was patiently explaining to her how it works, and why Peyton Manning was dancing around before the play and shouting things and gesturing to his teammates like crazy, that’s when I got this brilliant idea that writers can have their own no-huddle approach to writing. At least I think it might be brilliant, although I haven’t told anyone about it. Until now.

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl. Ah yes, the old Hollywood formula. But what if it’s 1948, and you have Howard Hawks to produce and direct the movie, and John Wayne and Montgomery Clift and Joanne Dru to light up the big screen, and Borden Chase and Charles Schnee to write a powerful screenplay, and … since the story is about the first great cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail, let’s get a few thousand head of cattle to stir up the dust and challenge the cowboys, who aren’t boys at all but men, real men, tough men.

And let’s make the women strong and brave, and ready to face the hard life of the Wild West and the hard heads of the cowboys they love. Then let’s call it Red River, and make a classic that will take its place with Stagecoach and High Noon and Shane and Lonesome Dove and the very best examples of that great American invention, the Western.

There’s a short scene in Fargo that nobody talks about much. It’s not one of the big scenes that everyone who sees the 1996 Coen brothers film remembers. Not one of the action scenes, like the kidnapping of the car salesman’s wife, or the sporadic bumbling violence of the two hired kidnappers, or the woodchipper scene and chase on the ice near the end of the film.

More voices on the page, or on the computer screen of this blog, continue to echo into the first hours of a new year. Here are some more of the voices that brightened “A Little Romance” in 2009.

Ghislaine Chock, whose poems “The Phone” and “The Office” appear in the new Bamboo Ridge collection … I asked Ghislaine to comment on the creation of these two poems and the inspiration for them:

The creation of these poems came naturally. I learned from Eric that even if you are not a poet one can express feelings, moments, emotions, etc. through poetry. I am more than fortunate to live with a poet. Poets are able to make you understand and see the world through their keen eyes with exquisite sensitivity. That is their function.

Voices on the page, or on the computer screen of this blog, echo down the last days of 2009. Here are some of the voices that have brightened “A Little Romance” this year:

Local writer and teacher Cami Nihipali: There are discussions in literary circles about whetherTwilight is ‘good’ literature. I know my colleagues and I have had this discussion numerous times. The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter. Like the Harry Potter phenomenon, which became embroiled in a religious argument several years ago, Twilight and its subsequent books have gotten kids reading, and excited about reading nonetheless. As for romance, Meyer hits the nail on the head. Whether the reader likes Edward or Jacob, everyone can find that flutter of first love in this story.