The Blog of Sid Love is hosting a giveaway event for the readers and fans. This is your chance to win some ebooks for FREE – written by some well known M/M authors! The event began on 15th April, 2013 and is now in full swing. “S.L. Danielson”, “Sage Marlowe”, “Alex Carreras” and their books are featured for this purpose and this will go on till 30th April. The blog will feature not one, not two but 11 authors ready to make the month of April, quite amazing for you!

Sue Brown’s giveaway contest has ended. I wish to thank all those who took part in that giveaway and also, good luck to you! The winners of all the giveaways will be announced on May 1, 2013 and the books will be sent out to you by May 2! Till then, enjoy the on-going and upcoming giveaways…

Giveaway Contests that are still on:

S.L. DANIELSON: GIVEAWAY#3 (ENDS TODAY @ 11:59PM Central Time!)
SAGE MARLOWE: GIVEAWAY #4
ALEX CARRERAS: GIVEAWAY #5

NEPHYLIM is with us today, talking about LOVE. Not me, as in Mr. Love… although she does talk about me a bit – but well, what she is mainly talking about is THE LOVE! That one word that is always enough to get a writer inspired, to have a book written and to get a reader intrigued!

Read her interesting thoughts right here, right now!

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The Great Love Giveaway

– by Nephylim

As this giveaway is part of the Sid Love’s blog event I thought it might be nice to take the opportunity to talk about love.

It’s been raised to me on a number of occasions that characters fall in love far too quickly. So, should a couple in literature pronounce undying love for each other within the first chapter, or should love grow through the book, only to burst into flower right at the end, or not at all?

The formal definition of love is

Noun – an intense feeling of attraction

Verb – to feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.

In actual fact, it’s a lot more difficult to pin down a definition than that. Love can have so many different meaning, sometimes differing from person to person.

Does love at first sight exist? Or is it just lust, friendship, simple attraction. When does attraction turn to caring turn to love?

The Urban Dictionary says this:-

The most spectacular,indescribable, deep euphoric feeling for someone. 

Love is an incredibly powerful word. When you’re in love, you always want to be together, and when you’re not, you’re thinking about being together because you need that person and without them your life is incomplete.

This love is unconditional affection with no limits or conditions: completely loving someone. It’s when you trust the other with your life and when you would do anything for each other. When you love someone you want nothing more than for them to be truly happy no matter what it takes because that’s how much you care about them and because their needs come before your own. You hide nothing of yourself and can tell the other anything because you know they accept you just the way you are and vice versa.

It’s when they’re the last thing you think about before you go to sleep and when they’re the first thing you think of when you wake up, the feeling that warms your heart and leaves you overcome by a feeling of serenity. Love involves wanting to show your affection and/or devotion to each other. It’s the smile on your face you get when you’re thinking about them and miss them.

Love can make you do anything and sacrifice for what will be better in the end. Love is intense,and passionate. Everything seems brighter, happier and more wonderful when you’re in love. If you find it, don’t let it go.

But surely this can be said of attraction too. Isn’t this the way everyone, especially young people, feel in the throes of a new relationship? So is it really love, or just the excitement of being with someone new, someone you only think you love? If you think you love someone does that automatically mean that what you feel really is love?

It appears to me that trying to pin down a definition of love is like trying to cause the wind to blow in a different direction.

So what is my definition of love? To me, love is all the above and more. People say there are different kinds of love. The love you feel for your sexual partner. The love you feel for your child. The love you feel for your pets. The love you feel for yourself. I disagree. Love is love. It’s only the focus that differs. The unconditional affection, intense feelings of protectiveness and need to care and be cared for is the same. I think the key is the unconditional part that’s the key. The caring for and wanting to be with someone even when they’re irritating the hell out of you or making you feel so angry you could punch them. That’s the key to love.

So does love at first sight exist? Sometimes. Sometimes, you do find ‘that person’ and know right from the start you’re going to be together. However, I don’t think it’s possible to ‘know’ it’s love until it’s tested. Everyone thinks they’re in love right at the start but it’s only when there have been bad times, testing times, that you can really know.

Having said all that, I don’t think it’s relevant for the matter of writing. It doesn’t matter whether the characters really are in love, only that they think they are to the point of declaring it.

As previously stated, it’s one thing to be truly in love, and another thing to think you are. Right at the start, in the honeymoon period it’s easy to think you’re in love and to express undying love, even though that’s not what you’re feeling. Granted, it’s more likely for a girl to profess love, than a boy, as boys seem to be somewhat reticent in expressing love and saying the word, but this is not real life, this is literature. Many of the thing we write are rare in real life, but brought together and speeded up for the purpose of keeping the reader riveted through the pages right to the end.

So, my conclusion is that, whilst it’s unlikely the character will ‘know’ they’re in love in the first chapter, they are quite likely to ‘believe’ they are and possible they will ‘say’ they are.

My giveaway is “Enigma”, where love grows through experience and determination, and “The Unfairness of Life” where there is definitely love at first sight on one side while, on the other, love grows grudgingly being fought all the way.

           
(Click the images to read more about the books)

In order to win copies of both books readers need to answer the following question by way of a comment on this post.

“Love is….?”

Please be as creative as you can.

The winner will be chosen by an independent adjudicator and will be announced on this blog on the 1^st May. Please provide me with an email address to which I can send the books if you win.

For further information, excerpts, sales links etc of my books, check out my BLOG. Be sure to check out the free reads too.

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To win this contest and take home a free copy of Nephylim’s books, reply to this post in the following format:

Name*:
Email ID*:
Your Answer*:
Message to the author:

Feilds marked * are necessary

Please note that all the comments for this contest will be under moderation and hidden from public view till 23rd April, 2013.

Contest deadline: TUESDAY – 4/23/2013 – 11:59 PM Central Time

So HURRY!

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