No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

                                               Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve always loved this quote. I learned that it’s not what someone calls you that matters, it’s what you answer to. When I was kid I was skinny (personally I prefer the term ‘slender’) and friends would call me Olive Oil and other such names in good fun. I didn’t mind it much in elementary school, but in middle school it was annoying and by high school the joke had run its course. By my mid-teens I’d filled out a bit and grown, but the name hadn’t. That’s usually what happens with labels, they stick. Fortunately, I didn’t let it. I ignored my name callers until they called me something else and they did--Party Girl…but that’s another story.

Unfortunately, Suzanne Rand, my heroine in WORDS OF
SEDUCTION, hasn’t been able to remove the label her small town put on her years ago. She left there a frumpy, divorced housewife with little prospect and returns a successful author with gorgeous clothes and a drop dead figure. However, the town won’t let her forget who she used to be and she struggles to break free from the label. But she learns that it’s not how they see her that matters, but how she sees herself. In time she learns to embrace her new status and accept love.

I really enjoyed writing this component into the premise because labels belong on soup cans not people. As individuals, we have to tell the world who we are, not the other way around.

So, are there any old labels you’ve erased? Would like to erase? I’ll send a random commenter an autographed copy of WORDS OF SEDUCTION.

http://www.daragirard.com