Love By Numbers
by Sara
Donovan
Anyway, I love the blurb of "Love By Numbers" and the sound of the story, so my
obvious question is:
I read a lot of non-fiction books about
neuroscience in my day job which led to a fascination with the ‘brain in love’.
I had a personal interest as well. I wanted to figure out how “trustable”
attraction was as when I looked back over my romantic history and those of my
friends, I could think of times we all got attracted to completely incompatible
people.
2 - Your Seven Easy Steps of "How to Fall in Love with (Almost)
Anyone" sound easy and scary. We want the truth ... made up or real
research? J
Research, believe it or not!
Experiencing peak emotional states,
laughing a lot, sharing novel experiences, lowering your inhibitions, touching,
eye-gazing and sharing secrets are listed as intimacy increasing activities by well-known
scientist Dr Robert Epstein in his article, ‘How Science Can Help You Fall in
Love’, (Psychology Today, 2010).
Dr Epstein was so sure there was a
technology to falling in love, that he put an ad in Psychology Today for a
woman who would be willing to date him exclusively and follow various intimacy
exercises for 6 to 12 months. He expected the experiment would end in marriage.
Dr Epstein didn’t marry the woman he
chose for the experiment, but he still stands by the theory that you can
influence romantic love significantly. As does renowned anthropologist Dr Helen
Fisher, whose book, ‘Why We Love? The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love,’ is
also one of the main inspirations for the Seven Steps and my book.
3 - A house full of kids (I've counted five!). What's the secret to
find the time to write a book?
Waiting
for them to grow up (my youngest was 17 when I started writing Love By Numbers),
having an addictive personality and having an unbelievably supportive husband
who cooked and cleaned and constantly answered my questions about what a ‘guy would
say if a woman said……?’
4 - Tell us a bit about your current WIP.
I
like exploring edgy relationship topics and hopefully making them fun and
romantic as well.
This
time round, I’m curious to write a story that explores degrees of monogamy –
from couples who are co-dependent, to couples who have close friends of the
opposite sex, to those who have covert emotional affairs, or even relationships
they believe support the primary one. I’m going to set the story among a group
of activists living in the bush for a year who are also serialising their
experiences as a documentary on the internet.
I’m
also contributing a chapter for a non-fiction book called ‘Born To Do This’.
It’s about the psychology of creativity.
Thanks so so much for the opportunity Iris! It’s been fun - An absolute delight to have had this small "science lesson in love" ! IB
Blurb:
What if there was a scientific
7-step formula that triggered the heart into feeling passion? Would you follow
it to have a hot and heavy romance with your available 'nice guy’ bestie?
https://twitter.com/sarasbooks
Purchase Links:
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/Srch/index.aspx?search=sara%20donovan
How to Fall in Love with (Almost)
Anyone in Seven Easy Steps.
Choose an available friend who doesn’t turn you off, and rewire your brains for a hot and heavy romance.
Set in the glittering lower north
shore of Sydney, Love by Numbers follows the story of April, a young successful
HR consultant who escapes the boredom of her serious man-drought by fantasising
more than she should about her uninterested office crush, Ryan. When April
finally gets Ryan to drinks after work one night and he falls for her
flirtatious house-mate, April decides to never again trust her
instinctual‘man-picker’. Her only solution is to rewire her brain and create
passion with the one guy she knows she can trust
This is a story about how far you
can go to control your heart's choices, and what happens when you try.
Author:
My dream job when I was fifteen
was scriptwriting for TV or film, only I was a writing wimp. A few bad marks
for English essays I thought were great and I pursued a career in science
instead of creative writing - determined to never again be evaluated on
anything subjective.
It took a few decades of writing
non fiction in my day job while living an accidental romantic comedy life
before I was willing to manage the uncertainty and give my creative writing
dream a go - and I'm so glad I did! Writing Love By Numbers was the most fun
I've ever had.
In my day job, I run a small and
busy Learning and Development Consultancy, where I write and teach
neuroscience, communication and congruent influence programs to very smart and
talented clients who constantly teach me.
My greatest blessing is my
wonderfully supportive and inspiring family - my personal superhero husband, my
two amazing children, three wonderful step children and my love-addicted dog.
https://www.facebook.com/saradonovanbookshttps://twitter.com/sarasbooks
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/Srch/index.aspx?search=sara%20donovan
Excerpt:
Choose an available friend who doesn’t turn you off, and rewire your brains for a hot and heavy romance.
1. Get emotional together while
watching a sad movie.
2. Share an adrenaline rush by
jumping out of a plane.
3. Show how competent you are at
something, but don’t make a big deal of it.
4. Have him bring home food from
the hunt — a good restaurant will do.
5. Eye gaze in bed without talking
until it doesn’t feel weird.
6. Role-play each other’s primal
fantasies within reason and without judgement.
7. Sleep together like stacked
spoons.
Repeat the above until love and
lust kick in. Then when they do, send your attraction into overdrive by not
seeing each other. That’s when things really get cooking.
Chapter 1
The trigger that made me do
something radical to fix my relationship problems happened a few weeks earlier
when I’d broken an unwritten company rule: the ‘don’t show emotion at work’
rule, which really means don’t show female emotions. You could swear, raise your
voice, even slam the occasional phone and you’d be seen as strong at Odyssey
IT. But get misty-eyed, and you’re a drama queen or worse, weak.
It wasn’t that I found hiding my
vulnerability at work difficult. I was great at it. But a couple of unwanted
coincidences and I was exposed. Raw. All because of the wrong kind of
synchronicity – the kind that orchestrates you away from what you want, instead
of the other way around.
