Today dear readers I’m humbled and thrilled to welcome on the blog Emma Scott!

She is one of my top most favorite authors. The one who makes me cry, swoon, sigh and smile.

I’m in the middle of her last book In Harmony due to be released in three days and let me tell you that I’m smitten with her writing once more.

But how does she do it? Romance me every time?

Well in today’s post Emma chose to write about what love is to her and why it’s inextricably intertwined with art.

If you follow her and have read Full Tilt you will recognize the graphic I chose to illustrate her post here below. So question for you: who created these blown glass beauties?

A huge thank you to you Emma as I know you are drowning in work right now!

Enjoy!

Love and Art

Love always wins. It’s my official, unofficial motto. I have it on my book marks, my banners. It’s part of my branding as a romance author. My catchphrase. But it’s also the guiding philosophy behind every book I write.  It could be argued that it’s the guiding philosophy behind every romance novel—love triumphing over the adversity thrown in the characters’ path, to reach that Happily Ever After.

But when I’m writing, the notion that love always wins is my guiding compass. It doesn’t mean that there will be an HEA at the end of a story because the form of a romance book tells us they will. I use it in the sense that I believe every person deserves love. That it is the ultimate healer of all wounds, and that no one should be excluded from a shot at happiness. No matter their mistakes, no matter their own guilt or regret, no matter how much time they have left on this earth.

That love always wins is my guiding compass, and art is the vehicle by which I travel.  

Every one of my characters is an artist. Dancer, musician, writer, poet, tattooist, graphic novelist, glass blower… To me, art is our purest connection to ourselves and the shared energy of the universe. It is the expression of love to one another. A giving of the artist to the listener, or the audience member, or the reader.  The artist is sharing a piece of their soul in this collective humanity we call life. It is love.

And without the listener, or audience member sitting in a darkened theater, or the reader to turn the pages, there is no art. They are equally valuable in the equation. Without them, the painting goes unviewed, the music unheard and the book is just words on a page. Uta Hagen, a pioneering actor and artist, was once asked what happens in a play. She said, “The audience happens.”  The shared response to art is what breathes life in to it. It’s love returned.  

When I set out to write a love story, I take my characters through some dark places, and it is their art, their continual drive to make a connection with someone else that gives them hope and relief. The connection they feel to their partner is strengthened and alive in the sharing of their art. Art is love, and so I cannot imagine trying to tell a story any other way. It is me, through my chosen art form, expressing my love to my readers. And it’s okay if it misses the mark, or strikes a wrong chord. I try again.

That’s my journey. My goal. To tell a story that may feel heavy or dark, but that is, in the end, uplifting and full of hope. One in which the underlying message, no matter how dire things seem, is that love always wins.

Always.

Xoxo

Emma

You can find Emma:

Facebook -> https://www.facebook.com/EmmaScottwrites/

Blog -> http://emmascottblog.blogspot.be/

Goodreads -> https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10405165.Emma_Scott

What does art mean for you? Do you sigh and swoon when admiring a painting or listening to music or..?

Thanks for reading and Happy Saturday!

Sophie