C is for Crush

Ready? I’m going to admit something really embarrassing here.

I get crushes on guys SUPER easily.

Petyr Baelish/Aiden Gillen? Yep, serious crush

Yep. I always have, and likely I always will. But in my defense, now that I’m older and wiser, I think that my crushes are a brilliant and satisfying way to roll around ideas about character, attraction, and desirability in my mind. A way to pre-form engaging and likable heroes for my novels, if you will. Really concentrating on the things that attracts me to these guys hones my writer’s sense for what makes a great hero.

At least that’s how things are now. It wasn’t always that way, though.

Yeah, I’ll confess. I’ve been a total goober about the way I approach men in the past. I have had crushes, and they haven’t been pretty at all. I remember way, WAY back in third grade—right about the time I started writing, actually—when I had a mega-crush on a boy in my class, Michael G. I tell you, I had stars in my eyes for this boy. Believe it or not, he was my first kiss—at the ripe old age of eight. And it didn’t matter that he kissed me with closed, puckered lips for about a millisecond on a dare, I was hooked. So hooked, in fact, that I wrote a story for a creative writing assignment about a girl who befriended and fell in love with a wasp named Michael G. Okay, now, let’s just set aside the glaring psychological confusion about falling in love with a WASP, especially when I was and am more afraid of wasps than any other creature that walks the earth. The important thing to note here was that that was, in essence, my first romance novel.

The crushes continued all the way through elementary school and into high school and beyond. Of course they did. But I have had the world’s worst luck with men throughout my life. No, you don’t understand, it’s BAD. Real men either leave me or never give me the time of day in the first place. (Or take gross advantage of me, but let’s not go there) Yeah, it’s back to that wasp again, I’m afraid. But celebrity crushes? Ah! They’re perfect in every way.

Real life crush, Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, who I admire the heck out of for his vision, drive, and all-around nice guy-ness. And, like Petyr Baelish, he might just be pulling all the strings behind the scenes to take over the world!

Here’s the thing about Hollywood boyfriends. They’re perfect. They’re the ideal men. They’re usually handsome and charismatic, and since the odds of actually meeting them are less than the odds of being struck by lightning while being eaten by a shark, they’re safe. I can’t tell you how many celebrities I’ve had taped to my walls or clipped out of magazines to serve as bookmarks. Actually, I almost can, because several years ago, my friend-now-sister-in-law made “Merry’s Book of Men” for me as a Christmas gift. It’s a complete chronicle of all the men I had adored up until that point.

It’s also the seedbed for where I’ve come up with some of my most delicious and compelling characters. Because I don’t generally fall for the typical A-list Hollywood flavor of the day. Oh no. No Chris Hemsworth or Brad Pitt or Bradley Cooper for me (although I do think they’re all attractive). No, I fall hard for Aiden Gillen and Michael Emerson. I love the nerdy guys, the brilliant but shifty characters, the guys who have been wounded and choose to take that pain and do something about it. Vengeance, usually, but not always.

And yes, these are the guys who form the fabric of the heroes I love to write. I love me some flawed heroes who are capable of great darkness but are brought around by great light. Maybe it’s those wasps transformed into eagles by the power of love. Those are the men I love, the characters I write, and the end result of my crushes.

Sure, I’ve been crushed by crushes as much as the next girl (don’t get me started about Dan or Brent, and I could write a LOT about a certain Bill), but at the end of the day, each crush has produced far more good than harm. That’s what crushes are all about, after all. They’re fantasies, larks, daydreams. They are the stuff that dreams are made of.