My first blog, ever, and I’m still amazed. This morning in a highly scientific method I pulled two pieces of folded paper from the suggestion pile. “Regency novels and humor can make you live longer,” they read. As a writer of Regency romance some proper British English was called for, hence humour not humor was used, and I couldn’t have been more tickled.
I thought back to the first time I read Regency, an era 1811-1820 when the king of Great Britain was deemed unfit to rule and power was given to his son, the Prince Regent. It was the summer I turned fourteen. I literally did not move from my bed for three months and my poor mother, would hover in the doorway, asking if, ‘everything was all right?’
Of course it was.
I was in love! Day and night I’d read close to 2 romance books a day. Great novels from Johanna Lindsey, Julie Garwood, Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Mary Barlogh, oh, I could go on, had captivated me.
Now, what made these books so compelling? Strong characters, great plots, exciting places. Yes, yes, yes! But there was something more, something so engaging that I would laugh aloud, giggle late into the night underneath my bedcovers with a flashlight.
That was it!
They all made me laugh. The sparkling dialogue, wit, and charm made me feel so darn good reading them that I never wanted my hormonal teen body to leave my room. It was safer anyway.
I finally left my room, but I have been laughing ever since.
Especially now that I am a mother, why just the other day my 4 year old twins raced across the newly shampooed carpet with muddy shoes and…oh, wait, that wasn’t funny. How about when my 10 year old took the golf cart and smashed it through the fence…wait, I wasn’t laughing then either. I did, but later, much later with some really good friends who were sharing their ‘experiences’ as well.
And friends you can laugh with are worth their weight in chocolate.
So yes, personally, I do believe humour makes us live longer. I know it’s helped out my kids.
I hope you’ll join me again.
But don’t go before you share your own humorous experience.
Summer
Love*Laugh*Read
