Hats

My mom used to put hats on me a lot when I was a little kid. She also had a penchant for sailor suits.

I hated them.

These days I'm back in hats. Since my numerous illnesses have thinned my once respectable head of hair, I had to cut it temporarily short. The meds I'm taking are causing it to thin quite significantly (again). The interesting thing about it is that I'm busily writing romance these days and only recently noticed how much romantic fiction focuses on hair.

I've written about hair in the past. One column directly addressed female hair loss
(view it here). I wrote about any number of body image issues for Ladybug Flights over the years. (Feel free to visit the archives.)


It's interesting to realize that romance really is very much about fantasy, even at its most honest and realistic. This doesn't make romance a dishonest art form. For me, it makes the genre more akin to poetry and visual art. We see love, beauty, and emotion in an ideal form. We celebrate romance by elevating its finest qualities and exalting them for pleasure and reflection.

Still... I may do a short story about a woman who struggles with hair issues. So many of us do. The great thing about being a fiction writer is we can honor real struggles with characters we come to love, and then give them happy endings.