Beauty is Backbone Deep

Today Mackenzie Crowne is visiting the Spell Room. She is a wonderful storyteller and I cannot wait to read her new story. 

Beauty is Backbone Deep

by 

Mackenzie Crowne

As a writer, I’m always on the lookout for that certain something that will give my characters depth. Consequently, I’m a voracious people watcher, but as a woman that isn’t always a comfortable thing. Take, for instance, those women who just seem to have it all together-all the time. You know who they are, the ones floating into the upscale stores at the mall, while you share a corn dog with your kids on a bench, spitting on a Kleenex to wipe the mustard off the four year-old’s t-shirt and barking at the eight year-old to get out of the fountain. You look with longing at those modern day princesses with their carefree schedules, stylishly streaked hair, model thin bodies, and perfectly made up faces belonging on magazine covers.

And you hiss with jealousy…or is that just me?

Okay, I’m taking artistic license here. I’m a grandmother now (a really young one. ;-)) My kids are grown and life has calmed down somewhat since those days at the mall. I admit, I can clean up nicely when I take the time, but I have lived the corn dog existence I just described, and those years weren’t pretty, believe me. They were, however, instructive and liberating. A weight dropped from my shoulders and my need for a perfect appearance became less important with my discovery that life is messy and learning to cope in the world of not-so-perfect not only builds character, it makes you strong.

My epiphany came in the middle of a women’s clothing department as I witnessed the horror of two women who had simultaneously lost track of their children. (If this has ever happened to you, you know how scary it can be. I’m still mad at my oldest for hiding in that rack of robes when he was four.)

One of the women that day wore jeans. Her hair was piled in a messy knot at the top of her head, her makeup non-existent. Alternately, the second woman, a modern day princess in linen, could have stepped off the pages of Vogue - except for the mascara running down her cheeks with her frantic tears.

Like a deer in the headlights, the princess fell apart, racing through the department and pleading for help at the top of her lungs. In contrast, Miss jeans calmly hushed the toddler at her side and opened her mouth. “Marco!” she called out. From the other side of the department a child’s voice called back. “Polo!”

It was a thing of beauty, I tell you, and I still chuckle at the memory.

Now, I’m not saying all princesses are helpless in an emergency, any more than I’m saying all Plain Jane’s are a force to be reckoned with, but as a writer, which woman do you think is more likely to live in my heroines?

Besides beauty and strength, what is a characteristic you found irresistible in your favorite heroine?

Mackenzie Crowne is a wife, mother, and grandmother. She and her husband live in Phoenix and were blessed with two rambunctious little boys they managed to raise into wonderful men without any disfiguring mishaps. Dirt bikes and ESPN are the order around their house, and life at the 'Testosterone Ranch' more closely resembles one of today’s wacky reality shows, than yesterday’s ‘Leave It To Beaver’. Mac’s love of books, specifically the romance genre, has been a lifelong affair. A bout with breast cancer sharpened her resolve to see her stories shared with others. As of today, she is a four-year survivor, living her dream. Her first title, Gift of the Realm will be released on 4/25/12 and her second, That Dating Thing, will follow this fall.

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