Comedy? Tonight.

Twenty years ago, my dad developed an aortic aneurism. Hopelessly devoted to Mom, he ignored the symptoms while he nursed her through pneumonia. By the time he went into surgery, it was a life or death situation.


From the moment my dad was diagnosed until he was back on his feet, my reading habits underwent a radical shift. Suddenly, I couldn't handle the cutting edge literary fiction or nervy thrillers. I read one writer and one writer only: Georgette Heyer. For weeks, I read nothing but books I'd read in high school--Faro's Daughter, False Colours, Sylvester, Behold Here's Poison, Footsteps in the Dark...


Fast forward to the last two weeks, when I was tending Mom during what proved to be her final illness. What was I reading as I rubbed her hand, pretending not to cry as she struggled for breath? Smoke and Ashes by Tanya Huff.


The two writers might seem miles apart, but the differences are all external. The same things that drew me to Heyer--snappy dialogue, solid worldbuilding, big-hearted humor, romance and the all-important happy ending--also shine in Huff's writing. The characters face challenges, danger and intrigue, but you know the people you care about most will come out okay. It's a series, after all. They have to!


Life doesn't give you those kind of assurances. In fact, it's a terminal condition. Unless there's more to the fantasies I write than I realize, none of us get out of here alive.


The deeper my understanding of that truth grows, the more I crave the magic of fantasy and romance. I remember how embarrassed I was when Dad got sick. I felt like such a fraud--a pretend grown-up hiding behind a kid's books. Real grown-ups read epics and important fiction where everybody dies.


I know better now.

With that in mind, I want to share my own version of a Samhain blessing to all our readers--and to my fellow bloggers slogging through all the muck real life throws at us. It's not a prayer, exactly. It's a quote from one of my all-time favorite characters, Pseudolus, the lying-est, sloppiest, cheating-est slave in all Rome. Hey, who better to know what's important as we race to another shiny new year?


No royal curse.


No Trojan Horse.


And there's a happy ending, of course.


Goodness and badness,


Man in his madness.


This time it all turns out all right.


Tragedy tomorrow.


Comedy.


Comedy?


Comedy tonight.*




*From "Comedy Tonight", A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, music and book by Stephen Sondheim