There will be highs and lows in your life much like a roller coaster, however, it is how you endure them that makes the person that you are and who you can become.

I'm a romance writer and I believe in love. Yet, love isn't easy. There are highs and lows. The romantic in me believes that you can endure those high and lows with the right kind of commitment. I truly believe that when you meet the love of your life you know it -- even if it takes you awhile to figure out it is love. I can say this as for years I had the strongest feelings for one man. I never would have classified it as love, but all I knew is that he made my heart skip when he walked in a room. Years later after many highs and lows that man came back into my life. As we renewed friendship, those feelings were the same for me as they had been so many years ago. At this point in my life I thought I had been in love before, but it was never a lasting feeling, nor did it give me the courage to be the person I knew I could be.

When did I realize I was truly in love? When I heard four little words, words I wasn't expecting. "I love you, too." Love me too?? I wasn't in love, or was I? Knowing you're in love doesn't give you the realization of how love will effect your life. In fact, it was years into our marriage that I realized I truly didn't know how to love unconditionally. Unconditional love is choosing to love someone regardless of behavior. It's not getting mad and walking away, or withholding saying "I love you" because you are angry. It's a choice that you make to continue to love regardless of the hurt you maybe feeling.

Only that kind of love can withstand the roller coaster ride of life. If you find the one that loves you unconditionally as well, the roller coaster ride will only bring you closer. That kind of love grows through the storms that you weather together. And what if your love doesn't know how to love unconditionally? Do you walk away and write it off as a mistake? No, you continue with your choice of unconditional love. The love that life's ebbing tides can't wash away.

So have you found that person who you choose to love unconditionally, no matter what? That person who as you love them unconditionally, you realize the person you are and who you can be?

Has your hero ever failed you?

There are times as we are writing that our heroes miss the road we want them to go down and decide to take another route. Is that a failure in your writing or do you allow the character to take over and change the plot? In real life sometimes our heroes miss the road you want them to take. Is that a failure on that part or an expectation that is just too high to reach?

If you love your hero, whether on the pages or in real life, the unexpected turn won't throw you completely off track. On the pages, you will be able to run with it and continue the storyline -- sometimes a much better storyline that you had anticipated in the beginning. In real life, if you love that hero, you will continue to love them regardless of failed expectations.

On the pages of your story, you strive for the happily ever after. Do you strive for that with your hero in real life? The one thing I have learned over the past few years is that real love doesn't fail us. Regardless of life circumstances and failures of the people we love, we continue to love them unconditionally. The road may not take you where you had expected to go, and even if you don't feel it is a better storyline, you go with it. Regardless of the outcome, it will be a better storyline if your love is unconditional and true.

On the pages, you can correct that failure of your hero. In real life, when your hero fails you, continue to love them anyway.

Has your hero ever failed you?