Damned Scribbling Women

Golden Heart Finalist

2011-05-29T16:32:00.001-07:00

We haven't been updating regularly, but this news is too exciting to forget to share. THE SOLDIER, my paranormal Viking warrior romance, is a 2011 Golden Heart [tm] finalist in the paranormal category. I've had a wild ride buying makeup (I truly had nothing but a couple lipsticks and ten-year old mascara in the drawer), getting a PR photo, and working on my first website. So, introducing the made-up, airbrushed, dressed-up me:

You can read an excerpt from THE SOLDIER at the first version of my website, annarichland.com. Pretty soon it will have a cool customized background showing a bunch of my heroine Theresa's desk junk. I'm also active on Facebook as Anna Richland - please join me there for more frequent updates and lots of pictures.

Winners of the Golden Heart will be announced Friday night, July 1, 2011 at Romance Writers of America's national conference in New York City. I'm looking forward to sharing the excitement with Mr. Richland. I don't think he can imagine what a ballroom filled with almost 3,000 romance writers is like. Even Stars on Ice had more men in the audience. Win or not, being a finalist has certainly bumped me up to the next level of career excitement (not to mention forced me to revise the middle of my manuscript!).

Slow, But Not Stopped

2011-01-31T16:55:00.000-08:00

We haven't been posting regularly.

I'm sure you've noticed.

Why the change in speed? Well, the four of us are each at different points in our respective writing careers. Some of us need more time to promote specific projects. Some of us need more time to finish our projects. All of us are wondering how this blog fits with our overall career plans.

We aren't ready to give up on Damned Scribbling Women yet. We are not, however, sure how we wish to move forward. We're taking the first part of 2011 to reflect on the future of this blog. How can we find a healthy balance between writing and publicity? How can we generate more traffic on this blog? Or should we disband and pursue individual promotional projects?

When we know more, dear readers, so will you.

In the mean time, you can expect to see the occasional random post. And if you have any thoughts to share, please do so.

Happy New Year, and take care!

A List for Last Year

2011-01-03T13:35:00.001-08:00

Farewell 2010 - a very fine year, even though I passed through another decade. Here's a short list, no particular order, of some favorites from last year:

Favorite "Vintage" Romance I Read for the First Time: Harvard's Education by Suzanne Brockmann (originally 1998 but reissued in a two-novel collection this year).

Memorable Spam Offer: Encourage Your Winky.

Fave Romantic Suspense: Body Heat by Brenda Novak.

2010 Winter Olympic Event I loved more than expected: Curling!

Fave Cake from Mr. Richland: the Lego Articulated Bus.

Don't-Miss-Regencies of 2010: Soldier's Lady by Susanna Fraser (Carina Press) and In For a Penny by Rose Lerner.

Best concert with children: Great Big Sea at Woodland Park Zoo. Try a little Canadian Celtic rock with Excursion Around the Bay. You'll want to hoist a fizzing drink and jump around, remembering sticky floors you stomped sometime in the '80s (me) or '90s (Kate). Concert without children: Pink Martini at Chateau St. Michelle. Try Dosvedanya Mio Bombino from Hey Eugene! or the two-song piece from Splendor in the Grass. Her version of the breakup is And Then You're Gone. He sings But Now I'm Back. There's a romance novel in six and a half minutes. And I have no idea how to add song links to Blogger so find them yourself.

Most extreme contrast between my real life and my writing life: the "Dirty Laundry" miniseries at Carina Press. Plenty of that in my basement except ... well, you don't have to be over 18 to tackle my pile of socks and towels.

Share your favorites from 2010 or comment on mine. Here's hoping more great books, music and cake come our ways in 2011. (Um, and an agent and book deal too, please).

Oldies but Goodies

2010-12-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

Last night, my ears were assaulted by an abomination: an a cappella version of "White Christmas" in four-part harmony.

Don't get me wrong. It was a perfectly lovely rendition of the song and I'm sure the band worked hard to make it so. Then why, do you ask, was it an abomination? Because it wasn't the Bing Crosby version, of course!

I believe that certain things have been done so well that they should never be redone. For me, Bing's version of "White Christmas" is one of them. It should be put on the "do not touch list" and enjoyed in its original glory forever.

Oh, sure. I'm all about innovation and re-imagining. I know that there are only 13 plots (or something like that) out there in the world. You could argue that anything I do as a writer has been done before. You'd probably be right.

However, there are lines. And artists of any kind--be they musicians, actors, writers, what have you--should not cross those lines. Some lines are personal. Some lines have been drawn in the collective sand. This is why the movie-loving world cringed as one over rumors that Ben Affleck and J-Lo were going to remake Casablanca.

Again, lovely people... but you shouldn't mess with a classic.

We are all influenced by what we love. We find ways to bring elements of our favorites into the fresh worlds we create. I know exactly why I want to write a longtime-friends-to-lovers romance. It has everything to do with the favorite books of my childhood.

But writing a story about friends falling in love is totally different than writing about a redheaded Canadian orphan falling for her best guy pal. If I ever cross that line, I'll have gone to the dark side. And I'll probably be sued.

Let's face it: Anne and Gilbert, like so many things, have already been done to perfection.

So: how do you re-imagine favorite stories or songs without crossing the line? What movie, song, book, or TV show is on your "do not touch" list? (And if anyone wants to turn this into a rant about remaking Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Joss Whedon, do feel free.)

Grinchitude

2010-12-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

Do you have a favorite holiday movie? Me, I'm a sucker for the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Christmas Carol (any version, but my Scrooge of choice is Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol). I love all holiday movies, but for some reason those stories are the most irresistible to me.

Maybe it's the fact that they take place on Christmas Eve - a time I've always associated with magic ever since I realized Santa was going to need some mad space-time-continuum-bending-skills to complete his route. Maybe it's the songs (Kermie's Only One More Sleep Til Christmas is my personal anthem). But I think the main reason is the idea of love redeeming even the most curmudgeonly on Christmas.

I'm one of those people who doesn't view villains as "evil". That is one of my pet peeves in reading a villain's POV - I think it's very hard to do it right because in my opinion No one thinks of himself as evil. And if you aren't "evil" then you aren't beyond redemption. And I love that little flicker of hope. You may have been hardened by life and the poor choices you made. You may have realigned your moral compass so "merciless" becomes a mercy in itself (deprivation of coal is teaching Cratchett toughness, you know). You may have built up walls to protect yourself from the very love you want so badly, but it's never too late.

I love that message.

When Carina press contacted me and asked me to write a paranormal Christmas story, I knew I wanted to play with the idea of going through hell to learn to open your heart. It was an homage to my favorite Christmas awakening stories. But No Angel didn't end up having three spirits or Cindy Lou Who. It has angels, demons, Hollywood celebs, and Lucifer himself - but most importantly to me, it has a character who, though she loves Christmas and never thinks of herself as Grinchy, needs to learn to let herself love and be loved. And if a Christmas Eve trip to the Underworld can't convince her, nothing will.

What's your favorite Christmas/Holiday story? Do you have certain ones that you watch or read every year as part of your holiday traditions?

Excuses, Excuses

2010-12-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. There's been a shocking lack of new posts around here. If you must know, I got distracted by my day job (something you've never heard here before...) The bad news is that I had an epic load of grading, remnants of which are still haunting my desk area. That's right. Nothing says "fun" like a stack of Animal Farm journals still waiting for my attention...

The good news? (Yes, there's a "good news" reason I've been remiss on this blog.) I passed National Boards!

Now, for those of you not in the teaching world, this is a rigorous process that involves a year or more of endless navel-gazing. We tape ourselves teaching, we watch the videos ad nauseam, we send our reflections out for other teachers to evaluate, and we take tests in our subject area. During this time, candidates are hard to live with. We're also not the world's best teachers.

Go figure.

There's all kinds of hooplah around What This Means. But let's set aside the official scoop and take a trip in Kate Land, shall we? Passing my Boards means that I have a valid certificate for the next ten years. I have a decade off from certification hoop-jumping! Hurray! Perhaps that will give me more time to write... assuming, of course, that I can force myself to stop celebrating and hunker back down with my manuscript.

So. There are some of my excuses for (a) not blogging and (b) not working on my novel.

What are some of your favorite excuses for slacking off on your writing and PR?

First Round with my New Mentor

2010-11-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog week since I had the awesome huge news that THE SOLDIER won romantic suspense writer Brenda Novak's mentoring contest. She's published forty novels - many, many bestsellers - and she's going to read mine, three chapters at a time, and guide me through the fixes. Last night Miss Bossy Boots and I read stories with fairy godmother-equivalents from Germany, China, and Russia. It seems like I've found a real one from Sacramento.

I've had one wonderful phone call already and received Brenda's initial feedback to incorporate into my Golden Heart entry. For lots of people Thanksgiving means turkey, cranberry and relatives. For unpublished romance writers, it also means hurry and mail that entry to Texas. Run to Kinko's, check the collating of each packet, put on those clippies, count everything one more time, and then hit the FedEx desk.

Brenda suggested including more internal thought, especially from my hero, which is extremely hard for me. I'm not a very introspective person in my own life, so pulling thoughts out of the deep hearts of my characters is a big reach. Also, she hopes for a stronger sense of place because I've nailed the Army stuff but I should pump up the Afghanistan setting. On rereading my pages, I completely agree. Fifty pages with one reference to heat, two to mountains, and one to dust. Realistically dust should be on every page. Dust should fall out of the manuscript into readers' laps, Afghanistan as a 4-D Imax movie. But I'll look for a happy medium with respect to sand and dust. Third, Brenda suggested I be more specific about the passage of time between or during scenes. Right again. The challenge for me is to add specificity without constantly writing "Three hours later" or "The next day." When I have a challenge like that, I randomly pull a bunch of books off the shelf and look at chapter and scene transitions and try to learn from the greats.

I can do this. I am doing this, last night and tonight as soon as I finish this blog. (Legal stuff: Photo of Marines in Afghanistan by Lance Cpl Brian D. Jones. See more great photos at this Flickr photostream.) Side note: It is snowing in Seattle! Right now, out my window. Talk about distraction!

Let It Ride

2010-11-16T02:15:00.000-08:00

Do you like to gamble? Do you live your life from one Vegas vacation to the next? I confess, I’m not much of a gambler. I know how to play all the games, I know the odds (I’m a math nerd, it’s in my DNA), but when it comes time to throw your money on the table and let it ride… I just don’t. It’s not that I’m afraid to. It’s just that I like being in control. I like taking risks in ways where the resulting success or failure depends on my skill or, more often, on my skill and luck.

Pinochle, hearts, poker – those are my kinds of games. But those are all the games where you are pitting your skill (and luck) against someone else’s rather than against The Fates.

I feel like the appeal of craps and roulette and those games which depend entirely on the roll of dice or the plunking of a little ball is in throwing yourself into the hands of the Universe and letting it do what it will with you. I haven’t ever done that, but maybe I’m missing out.

(Is anyone else humming Luck Be a Lady to yourself right now or is that just me?)

In my new release, The Naked Detective, my heroine Ciara has been cautious for years, never taking a chance. Then she takes one and it works out for her so… well, she throws herself into the hands of the Universe and lets it ride. Ciara becomes an instant gambling junky, high on the thrill of her first win. And when she keeps on winning…. Oh yeah, we know how dangerous that is. She spins right out of control, but is that so terrible when the last thing you want is caution?

It’s an adventure to give up control of your life, throw yourself into the hands of Fate and let go – and if you aren’t feeling quite that daring yourself, you can live vicariously through Ciara. ;)

Are you a risk taker? Does gambling make your heart race or your stomach drop? What’s your favorite way to throw caution to the wind?

Finally... a Series!

2010-11-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

This just in, from Julia Quinn's website:

The Smythe-Smith girls finally get their heroes.

Look for Book #1 in the Smythe-Smith Quartet
early summer 2011.

Is anyone else RIDICULOUSLY thrilled by this news? I still remember mowing through the Bridgerton series one rainy weekend in college. My gal pal and I were reading different books in the series, but we kept laughing in tandem over the Smith-Smythe musicales. Always something to look forward to, those musicales...

One can only hope that Lady Danbury makes a triumphant return in the quartet. LOVE that sassy old dame!

Facing Our Fears

2010-10-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, readers!

'Tis the season for carving pumpkins, eating massive amounts of candy, an scary each other silly. In keeping with this particular holiday spirit, I thought I'd write a little bit about my fears.

Does anyone else experience any crippling, soul-crushing fears about their writing? I'm sure the answer is "yes." After all, we are creative people. We have vivid imaginations. And this is a good thing... usually. But when it comes to our innermost fears? Not so much.

I've recently come to the conclusion that I'm not afraid of failure with my writing. Nope. I'm afraid of success. It might sound weird, but I know I'm not alone in this. I'm afraid that if I finish one book, I'll never have another good idea. I'm afraid that it will get published... but that no one will buy it. I'm afraid that I'll blow a book contract because I can't discipline myself to write on a schedule. I'm afraid that writing will become my full-time job... and then I won't love it anymore. I'm afraid that I'll spend my writing time missing teaching. I'm afraid that I won't have health insurance anymore. I'm afraid that my income will lessen. I'm afraid that I'll be a mid-lister forever. I'm afraid that I won't be very good at being a novelist. I'm afraid that I'll become a New York Times bestseller, but then I'll try to take my career in another direction and my fans will hate me. I'm afraid I'll be sued by ex-boyfriends and ex-bosses I put in to books. I'm afraid that I'll never be able to get what's in my head out onto the page (it never quite translates, does it?) I'm afraid that my books will never be made into movies. I'm afraid Hollywood will make terrible movie versions of my books. I'm afraid that I've been inadvertently cruel and/or unprofessional, and hideous stories about my evildoing will come to light as soon as I'm published.

Weird and stupid, I know (because, really, I should be so lucky). But there it is.

Does anyone else have extreme writing fears? What are they? How do you get over them and/or push through them?

Islands of Possibility

2010-10-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

Inspiration can come when you least expect it. I’m traveling at the moment, and whenever I tell people what I do for a living, they always want to know if I’m on a research trip. I say no, but the truth is that when you’re a writer every trip is a research trip… even a trip to the grocery store.

I didn’t come to Fiji with the intention of setting a book there or learning about the culture so I could integrate some Fijian characteristics into my next hero. (Though the fire dancers? Definite hero material!) But I wasn’t here long before story ideas began popping into my head. How can they not when I’m surrounded by natural beauty and over a hundred uninhabited islands right on the border between civilization and the primal?

No, I didn’t come here for research or inspiration, but how can you help being inspired by the unwritten potential on those islands?

It’s better than a writing prompt. Anything could have happened on those islands. Anything could happen yet. A murder mystery? A secret paranormal society? Gilligan’s Island the Sequel? Which direction would you go if you were spinning stories about those islands of possibility?

(For more on my travels, you can visit my blog at http://viviandrews.blogspot.com)

Where Have I Been?

2010-10-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

Kate's been remarkably restrained and didn't hassle me about skipping my blogging week. Thank you! Where have I been since I last showed up here? I'm at the podium, moderating the Editor & Agent Panel at the Emerald City Writers' Conference.
Check out Barbara Vey's blog Beyond Her Book at Publisher's Weekly (you have to go back to October 2d through 5th to see both photos in their original context). She visited the our conference and gave our Sunday keynote - an amazing story about how romance novels transformed her from an agoraphobic, depressed shut-in to the globe-trotting reporter she is today.

Most of the 250 conference attendees are aspiring (me), or published (Amanda Forester and Susanna Fraser) or best-selling (Cherry Adair and Brenda Novak) writers. We read a lot, but most of us write more. Since I started writing seriously, I've read less and read differently. More targeted, more analytical. I can't silence my inner editor or my awareness of "the industry" as I read. Barbara captured the difference at one point in her speech. As a reader, she heard someone was from PW and nodded uh-huh, and kept talking. And writers and agents stared open-mouthed ... Publisher's Weekly ... Writers think differently from readers.

Barbara Vey is a reader who devours romance, and who isn't embarrassed or ashamed to say it, say it loud, and say it to anyone who will listen. I needed to hear her. She made me spend a week reading whole-heartedly again like I used to. It felt great! Thank you, Barbara Vey! (Here I am with the rest of the ECWC Committee - in the green sweater, front row. )

Daring... and Winning?

2010-10-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been rereading Bob Mayer's absolutely fabulous book, Who Dares Wins: The Green Beret Way to Conquer Fear and Succeed. If you don't already own this book, do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy!

Right now, I'm focusing on the goal section of Mayer's book. It gives the common sense (but newsflash for me) advice that we have to set up our goals in conjunction with one another. If you're not looking at the total picture, you may create conflicts. In short, you're setting yourself up to fail.

So... my efforts to work my day job 60 hours a week, write 5 pages a day, exercise regularly, feed my husband gourmet meals each night, and engage fully with my family and friends on a regular basis?

Yeah, not so much.

I've been sabotaging myself. I knowingly overload myself and then wallow in the guilt when I can't accomplish everything. It's no good. I need to change! I want to be able to enjoy my life... savoring moments, not hanging on by one stray fingernail! I also want to put my dreams (including writing) first, instead of saving them for a later that never comes. (Why is it we spend so much of our time on "have tos" instead of "want tos"?)

I'm looking forward to setting more reasonable goals, via Mayer's methods. I'll be sharing those in a later post (or perhaps in the comments section of this one).

But if you have something that works for you, or you'd like to share your own goal/to-do list, please don't hesitate to share! I'd love to have some company on the road to a more balanced life.

Third Times the What?

2010-09-24T00:15:00.000-07:00

Revision is a necessary skill for any writer. Sometimes, no matter how carefully we plot and plan, the character dynamics just don't work out the way we planned them. It can be hard to know when you're going off the rails in the middle of a first draft, but if you're lucky, you can spot the trouble areas and fix them before you get all the way to The End.

Last week Serengeti Lightning, the third novella of my lion shapeshifter series, came out. Three is really the number of this book. I actually started writing it three different times before I finally hit on the right heroine to match the youngest Minor brother.

I knew from the start that I wanted her to be older than her heroic counterpart, but in her first iteration Mara was a tough, independent outsider introduced to the pride for the first time. She wore leather and rode a motorcycle. She would eat a sensitive (albeit muscle-bound and manly) guy like Michael Minor for lunch. In a short novella, I didn't have the pages to bring her into the world and crack the shell she'd constructed around herself. But the kiss of death was that even though I had invented her expressly for Michael, I just couldn't see them together.

Then came Mara 2.0. She was already a pride member, and while still older, she was a softer, gentler woman. This heroine was defined by longing. She wanted intensely to be loved, to have a family, to find the One. But when I tried to draw her into a relationship with Michael, I realized I couldn't figure out how I could get Mara to consider dating a guy she wouldn't take seriously as mate material. It had to begin as a fling, but in only 23,000 words, did I have the space to start a fling, have it grow into love, and then deal with the emotional fall-out of reconciling that love with the longing?

Enter Mara Ver3.0 (the keeper!). Already in the midst of a no-strings fling with Michael, Mara believes he isn't the settling down kind and decides to break it off with him in order to go after the life she really wants (with the picket fence and two point two kids). But Michael won't give her up so easily. This Mara is the pragmatic one of the relationship. The goal setter. The organized thinker. These traits contrast Michael as the emotional core of their twosome - and provide plenty of conflict. And in the end, they balanced one another perfectly, providing a match we can believe is going to go the distance.

I'm very happy with the way this pairing turned out, but it was definitely a longer road than I had anticipated to find Michael his perfect mate.

Have you ever changed a hero or heroine mid-stream to adjust the plot or relationship dynamics? Do you ever think a hero or heroine in a book you are reading would really be better matched with someone other than their author-designated significant other?

Alpha Hound Dog: the Puckster

2010-09-16T17:12:00.001-07:00

It is not surprising that I love Glee. And I am about to share that love, along with a whole boatload of season one spoilers.

As a teenager, I was a theater nerd. Now, I'm a high school teacher. Show tunes and sarcasm? Yes, please! I was hooked from Glee's very first moment, which featured Jane Lynch screaming belligerently into a bullhorn. I felt as if the show had been written just for me.

Yet much as I love Glee, I'm a little surprised by how hard I've fallen for Puck.

Don't get me wrong. I hated guys like him in high school and, frankly, they're still a challenge to have in class. Puck is an extreme Alpha male, flaunting his muscles and Mohawk. A bully and a jock, he throws kids in the Dumpster. He goes through girls and women like Kleenex. He expects the world to fall in line for him--and frankly, it often does. That's so frustrating! He doesn't earn his success: he manipulates or intimidates his way into it. None of these things are qualities I admire. Puck doesn't exactly scream "hero material." Frankly, he's a pig.

So why do I adore him on TV?

Because he's an entertaining pig.

I officially fell in love during the football episode, when Puck trash-talked a kid across the scrimmage line: "I slept with your mom. No really. I cleaned your pool, and then we had sex in your bed. Nice Star Wars sheets."

And therein lies Puck's greatness: he's both blunt and confident, in a way that I've never been. He doesn't think five steps ahead (will this kid try to beat me up after the game?) He says what he thinks and he does what he wants. I find that both totally alien and incredibly riveting.

Yes, Puck is consistently and unabashedly awful. But this is what makes his glimmers of vulnerability so poignant. For instance: he impregnated his best friend's girl--and yet somehow I ended up feeling bad for him. After all, the girl tells Puck to his face that he's a loser who'll never get out of town, and rejects all his offers of help. (And yes, he then goes back to man-whoring.)

He's very selfish in his love/sex life, but as a friend he's loyal. His bark might be bad, and he might mock the other Glee club members, but he bites the outsiders who threaten to hurt them. I like that, and I like Puck. There's no way in hell I'd ever want to date someone like him, but I sure love watching him on TV!

So... what's the take-away message for romance writers? Yes, there is some relevance to this post. It wasn't just a fan rant. Puck is my introductory lesson in Alpha hero boundaries and opportunities. (I tend to write beta.) Perhaps we readers/viewers can forgive a lot of belligerence so long as...

(1) The Alpha character is entertaining
(2) his actions are sometimes admirable
(3) his choices create fascinating conflict (see 1)
(4) Readers/viewers understand his motivation
(5) We occasionally see vulnerability and/or sensitivity
(6) He's smokin' hot (shallow but true...)

Hurray! I've now justified this long look at TV.

Any other Glee fans out there? I'd love to hear about your favorite characters, episodes, lines... or, even better, any writing lessons learned from this delightful show! Any thoughts you have on Alpha heroes would also be much appreciated.

Good Things and eBooks

2010-08-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a great thing I discovered today: TUL pens. Try one.

Here's another awesome thing: My fellow Greater Seattle RWA writer, Susanna Fraser, released her debut historical through Carina Press last week. The Sergeant's Lady is a twist on the usual Napoleonic-era lovers: a common-born sergeant and a high-born lady. No secret dukes or heirs switched at birth. (Please check out the website Mr. Fraser built for his wife. Exceedingly not-cheesey). Carina Press gives novels like this, novels that break genre conventions, a chance to find readers. Hey ... I know a writer in Seattle with a palindromic first name who has a time-travel Western romance. Hmm...

Several blog readers have never read an ebook. (Hello, Mom). If you want to try a novel from Carina - whether it's The Sergeant's Lady or Talk Dirty to Me (do I have to explain that plot?) - you DO NOT need a Kindle or any of those other readers. I read on my laptop. It's not as fancy or as lightweight, but a computer totally works for ebooks. No one tells you that, do they? If you have a recent copy of Adobe software, you can install "Digital Bookshelf" in seconds, free, from Carina, Samhain (where Vivi publishes ), or most public library ebook catalogs. Yes, public libraries are in the free ebook business. In Seattle you can check out (download) up to twenty ebooks at a time for twenty-one days before they expire. For free. This is amazing for romance readers because our paperbacks are rarely cataloged and the bindings self-destruct after only a few borrowers, but digital copies circulate forever.

And a third good thing: Pink Martini plays at Chateau St. Michelle tonight, 7 pm. Mr. Richland advised me to take a slicker but I'm totally ready to sing Dosvedanya, Mio Bombino in the rain.

Mommy, Where Do Ideas Come From?

2010-08-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was asked that question all writers just love to hear above all others. Where do you get your ideas? (Yep, that was sarcasm.) And I gave my usual explanation - that ideas come from everything I see and smell and taste and touch. That I am surrounded by ideas and it is just a question of wanting to hear them.

I like to remind people of the opening scenes of Shakespeare in Love when I have this conversation. Young Will is roaming the streets of London, picking up little snippets of dialogue from everyone around him - the guy on his soap box screaming about the vileness of theatres becomes the piece de resistance in Romeo & Juliet with "A pox on both your houses!" Little moments, little fragments of life, sneak their way into your brain and come out in your stories. That, I think, is what is meant by 'write what you know.' Write the authenticity of those little moments.

But the fact of the matter is, even though the Shakespeare in Love anecdote is completely true and I trot it out on a semi-regular basis, there is still a certain degree of bullshit in that answer.

There's a line in the opening of Stephen King's On Writing where he's talking about the joys of being in the company of writers. One of the things he mentions as being the best part is that you know none of them are going to ask you where your ideas come from, because they all already know the answer. We don't know. That's the no-bullshit version.

You want the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I don't have a clue why I'm wired the way I am. If you don't understand where my ideas come from, I am equally puzzled by you and the fact that you don't have a dozen or more book ideas floating around in your head.

I realized, this most recent time, as I was shilling my usual Shakespeare in Love B.S. that the truth was I didn't get ideas. I had them. They had always belonged to me. There is a seemingly endless store of ideas in my subconscious, waiting to get out. I never feel like books come from someplace outside me. It isn't about finding them, it's about unlocking them.

Ideas are the most internal thing imaginable and that, I think, is the inherent fallacy in the question where do you get your ideas? Because there isn't an idea store we go to when we need to stock up. "Getting" ideas isn't about looking under your desk for one that might have slipped down there; it's about finding ways to listen to yourself, that internal voice. (Try calling them the voices in your head and watch the questioner back away slowly.) It always feels like I'm uncovering something that has always been there, always a part of me, even before I knew it existed.

But maybe I'm an anomaly. Where do your ideas come from? Do you get them or have you always had them? Do you have a certain method of unlocking them?

Where is the Joy?

2010-08-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

I turned 30 on August 10th. Yes, apparently it's milestone birthday season here at DSW!

My gift to myself was an epiphany: I miss my childhood attitude towards writing.

I've been writing ever since I can remember. Before I knew how to actually write, my mother would type while I dictated. It was one of my favorite playtime activities. Fast forward to 5th grade, when I started my first novel. In 8th grade, I finished my first novel. It was a wretched Sweet Valley Twins rip-off, less of a story and more of an extended musing on (a) how much I wanted a boyfriend and (b) how little I liked sharing a bathroom with my brother. But you know what? I loved writing that thing. My parents had to force me to get off the computer and go play outside. My best friend, bless her, was always happy to hear the latest chapter.

As I've grown older--and more serious about publication--things have changed. Thankfully, I'm a better writer than I was at age 13. And thankfully, I'm no longer lavishing pages of description on my heroine's "rad" stirrup pants.

But maturing as a writer has a down side, too. My inner critic has grown stronger, and she loves to rain on my creativity parade. I've also discovered a need to procrastinate on my novel. As a bonus, I've invented clever ways to criticize myself while doing so. (Excel word count spreadsheets = an excellent time-waster. Now I've outsourced my guilt to Microsoft!)

Is there any escape from the down side? I don't want to give up my hard-won improvement as a writer. At the same time, however, I don't want to lose my sense of fun. It is, after all, why I got into this whole writing gig. So I'm asking your advice: how do you balance professionalism with pure love of writing? And how do you ignore your inner critic until it's time to revise?

Celebrate Good Times - Come On

2010-08-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

Can I make the title song stick in your head? If I add singing dogs?

Many celebrations this week in the Pacific Northwest. It's SeaFair in Seattle. We've had several days of Blue Angels fly-bys. While SeaFair happens every year, this doesn't: I turned 4-0! My mother thinks it's crazy, and so do I, but regular readers know that I am too old to have read the Babysitter book series and old enough to be a mega-Springsteen fan, so 40 is about right. As per the marital settlement, Mr. Richland made a lovely cake. His other masterpieces are here and here.

I spent much of my birthday with a Guide to Literary Agents list, crossing off the already querieds, questionable reputations and/or dead ends. A bit of desperation mixed with my productivity. The night before, Mr. Richland and I saw "Salt" and I had an extended self-doubt moment. The Soldier will never be that taut and thrilling, I can't write action, I can't write romance, why would anyone want my stuff when things like this are out there, boo hoo. Usually good plots inspire me to say "I want to do that too," but something about the combination of a birthday, edits, and queries led to a "what am I thinking" moment. I emoted to Mr. Richland while drinking champagne cocktails (can't feel too sorry for myself, reading that). He listened, and left me to work undisturbed the next day, and voila, mojo back.

It's Monday and I'm thinking Rosie the Riveter. We Can Do It! By Friday night, I'm going to send 5 more queries, finish synopsis revisions, and enter the Golden Pen contest. That's a birthday present I can give myself. Post your week goal, writing or otherwise, in the comments. I'll report Friday on mine.

The Power of RWA

2010-08-03T00:54:00.000-07:00

I was in a writing slump recently. Bogged down by real life, the writing I'd always loved had begun to feel like work. *shudder* But now, virtually overnight, I'm back in the zone again, charged up and psyched about being an author of romancey goodness.

How'd that happen? Well, it just so happens the Romance Writers of America national conference was last week. Was I there? Nope. But reading the online "live from" updates and post-conference accounts from people who were was almost as good. Their excitement spilled over into me and I remembered that conference energy, the feeling of simpatico with other authors and romance lovers. I cheered when I read the twitter feed with the RITA & Golden Heart results and I've been getting a contact high reading my emails from recently returned conference attendees.

That's the magic of conference, the power of a community of writers - they can energize you up from a thousand miles away. I'm already making plans for RWA 2011 in New York and I'm more excited than ever about my new WIP.

What about you? What gets you going again when your enthusiasm for writing starts to slip? Are you fired up by the company of writers? Already booking your tickets to NYC in 2011?

Fanny Price... and fisticuffs

2010-07-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am often late to the party when it comes to hilarious YouTube videos. However, on the off chance that you're an Austen fan who hasn't seen this yet... enjoy.

Alaskan Adventure: the Cover Vote

2010-07-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

You long-term readers of the blog will note that I have a group of friends from college who occasionally go on "Super Special" adventures. This is where we meet up for an event that involves travel and hijinks. For those of you former Baby-Sitters Club fans, we totally stole the "Super Special" idea from them.

For a history on my college friends (and why we're called the GISP) you can visit this previous post. (Bonus! The post shows me in my wedding dress, because my nuptials were Super Special #1.) In the post, I also promised to share pictures from Super Special #2: Alaskan Adventure. Fool that I am, I promised to share those pictures in a timely fashion.

Clearly, that hasn't happened... nor is it going to this moment.

Rather, I need your vote. I have two potential Super Special covers (because yes, we like to pretend that our vacations are books). I also have one gratuitously posed picture. Yes! You can click on them to make them bigger.

Which do you think would make an excellent Super Special cover? And while we're on the subject of covers... anyone have a cover you love, or a cover you love to hate? All the better if it's a BSC book!

#1: Gratuitous Posing

#2 Copper River
#3 Rafting Near Glaciers

Going Way Back

2010-07-11T21:35:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I returned to Seattle after visiting my past. I took Big Boy and Miss Bossy Boots to Cincinnati's Kings Island Amusement Park where I worked in the summer of 1990. I hadn't been there in twenty years, and the day transported me like a vintage Michael J. Fox movie. Miss Boots took this picture of me posed in front of the mirrored windows of the "fancy" park restaurant where I once waitressed. In the picture I'm trying to explain to a four-year old how long ago "twenty" is.

Many books or authors evoke a general time for me, the eighties or college or my California years, but some make me think of a specific point in my life. West with the Night by Beryl Markham resonated for me in 1993 after I jumped from the East to West Coast.

A recent plea for help identifying a book by a few plot elements at the Smart Bitches website led to a long thread about various way-old romances and someone mentioned Jennifer Blake. BOOM I was back in the mid-eighties in Ohio in my light grey bedroom with geometric black and red accents (red rubberized picture frames, I kid you not), reading Royal Seduction. Does anyone else remember Rolfe, Prince of Ruthenia, and Angeline? Perhaps you recall the feather scene? Or the back cover text, "Angeline, awakened to sensuality, was not entirely unwilling to be his captive!" Well, yearn no more - it's being reissued by Sourcebooks on August 3. Now I can shed twenty years for $7.99 instead of the price of a plane ticket to Ohio. (Mr. Richland, if you are reading this, you have an idea for a birthday present.)

Anything outrageous - songs, music, a food, a Wa-dog with cheese - that takes you back in time?

Independence Day

2010-07-05T23:20:00.000-07:00

Happy belated Independence Day, American readers of DSW!

How did you spend your holiday?

I always feel slightly torn about the 4th of July. I have two aunts (one on each side of the family) who both throw killer shindigs. I can't be in two places at once... and often I am out of town altogether (my friend group is definitely in the wedding stage of life). What to do? What to do? I just want to see everyone and do everything.

When we were little, this wasn't a problem. We'd always drive to my paternal grandparents and spend a day shooting off all kinds of fireworks. Really, it's a wonder my cousins and I survived with all of our appendages in tact. My grandmother used to have to come to the back field with her dish tub full of water, admonishing, "Stop setting the anthill on fire! This is the last time I'm coming up here!" All of the "old people" would sit on the porch, drinking beer and reminiscing while we kids made the air blue with firecracker smoke. There would be tons of food and classic country music. At night, after almost everyone left, we cousins would set up our sleeping bags in the piano room. While Grandpa watched a Western outside the door, Grandma would read to us from the same book she always did (a collection of fairy tales with great illustrations and old-book smell).

This was my grandfather's favorite holiday, and it was a Big Deal in our family. I sometimes wonder why there aren't more Fourth of July romance novels... is it just me, or does Christmas really get all the seasonal book attention? Someone with marketing knowledge, please explain this to me! (I'm sure the reasoning is incredibly obvious, or perhaps there's a whole 4th of July sub-genre out there that I don't even know about.)

And yes. You may have noticed that this post really has nothing to do with writing. So true... but I'm going to go to a critique group at the end of July, so I hope to have exciting, craft-related information at that time! Stay tuned...

Determination

2010-06-28T08:14:00.001-07:00

Over eleven hours. One-hundred-eighty-three games. Two relentlessly determined athletes. One match the broke record after record. It was the longest match ever in hours, days & games, had the most aces ever recorded in a single match, and for me, the most admirable display of perseverance ever. Last week at Wimbledon, John Isner & Nicolas Mahut put in their bid to steal some of the limelight away from the World Cup action and write their own names in the sports history books.

A writer can learn a lot from a match like that. It was an eleven hours struggle spread out over three days (called on account of darkness twice, but never called off for the sheer exhaustion of the players). Each player had winners and missed opportunities. And every time they fell behind, they battled back to even ground - again, and again, and again.

Anna's suitcase story, of the author bringing hundreds of rejections to that RWA workshop, puts me in mind of this kind of struggle. Spread out over years and countless manuscripts, we submit and submit and submit. Contests, query letters, partials, fulls. There are ups and downs. Moments of validation and frustration. But we keep going. We believe in our ability to win and we push ourselves past the rough patches with nothing more than faith and hope.

And then, after all of that, hopefully one day we get here:

And it's all worth it.

Query Tally

2010-06-22T08:06:00.001-07:00

If you've noticed my previous blog references to querying agents with The Soldier, you might wonder how that's going. I loved it when Vivi's other blog, the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood, did a "By The Numbers" Golden Heart post, so I'll share my stats here with a little analysis.

Queries sent since October 2009: 15

No Reply as of June 22: 5 (33%) (Pending since Dec. 29, 2009, April 29, 2010, May 30, June 18 and June 20)
Form Rejection: 5 (33%)

Personalized Rejection from Queries that Included Pages: 1 (7%) (I like this number.)

Partials Requested by Agent: 3 (20%) (I like this number better.)

Full Requested by Agent: 1! (7%) (I like this number best.)

Offers of representation: 0 (Is that 0% offers or 100% rejected? Which sounds better?)

Two years ago at National RWA in San Francisco, one of the luncheon speakers wheeled a rolling suitcase to the podium and dumped hundreds - thousands? - of rejections on the floor. I can't remember who she was - it's that suitcase that stuck with me - but her motivational speech worked. My fifteen rejections do not compare with a suitcase. I can track these queries, narrative comments included, in a three-page document. I'll keep going, constantly having five pending queries, until I darn well find an agent that clicks.

If you're a writer and want specifics about agents I've queried, feel free to email me off the blog and I'll share the nitty-gritties. I have notes. Many. If you want to know more about queries, go to The Query Shark. She bites, but it's all for your own good. If you want a grown-up merit badge like this one, you need The Merit Badger!

Crazy Week

2010-06-14T07:35:00.001-07:00

Hot on the heels of Chassily's time management article (scroll down), I must confess that poor time management skills last week kept me from blogging, querying agents or writing. My week was completely routed by a bad case of the romance heroine syndrome TSTL. And what, you ask, is TSTL?

Too Stupid To Live.

You know the heroine who goes into the basement rather than locking the door? TSTL. The one who leaves the car and decides to walk alone along the deserted road? TSTL. Or the classic Pacific Northwest TSTL heroine - the one who leaves her car sunroof open overnight.

It rained. I opened the car door Wednesday morning to an inch of water in the cup holder. I had to leave my coffee on the front porch while I drove Big Boy and Miss Bossy Boots to school.

Right, that would be merely a head-pounding dumb mistake, except that it was the second time this particular heroine has done that with this particular Subaru. In Seattle we have auto-detailers who specialize in dry-outs. I am now a valued repeat customer. (Readers, the real test of a hero: not whether he knows your morning coffee, but how he reacts when you call and say you left the sunroof open ... again. Mr. Richland was very polite, rather like a classic Amanda Quick or Julia Quinn hero. Perhaps he left his office and pounded a villain to a pulp before catching his bus home, but he was a prince about this.).

Do I have any TSTL sisters out there, real or fictional? Please help me feel better and offer a story to share with Mr. Richland, who kindly let me drive his convertible for the past five days. So bring on the dumb mistakes, the TSTL sisterhood, the "how could I?" moments. Thanks!

Time Management How-To

2010-06-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Chassily Wakefield, a local author, has a great article up at 1st Turning Point. It's all about time management for the unpublished author. If you've never checked out this website, you really should. It's authors sharing tips on promotion. Good times! And Chassily's article is fabulous. (My favorite line: "Map out a 24-hour day and a 7-day week. Sorry, that’s all you get.")

Check it out! And let me know what you think.

Epub Questions?

2010-06-04T11:08:00.001-07:00

Today I'm hosting a Q&A over at the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood blog about epublishing options for aspiring authors. Got a burning question? Curious about what the whole epublishing rigamarole is? Want to share your epub expertise? Swing on by at http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/rss/index.php/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-e-pubs-but-were-afraid-to-ask/ and join the discussion.

Stylish

2010-06-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

What makes a book a keeper for you? What puts an author on your Auto-Buy list? For me, the answer is one word: style. Writing style, to be exact. If I like the way you tell your story, there is very little I won't put up with.

Unlikeable characters? Far-fetched plots? Utterly ridiculous leaps of logic? Senseless misunderstandings? No worries. For me, whether or not I really love a book is a case of it ain't what you do it's the way that you do it.

For the truly stylish author, I could read their shopping lists and be enthralled. Jennifer Crusie does that for me. Eloisa James and Julia Quinn knock it out of the park every time. And don't even get me started on Christopher Moore and Laurell K. Hamilton.

Of course, conversely, I am likely to be very critical if your style doesn't engage me. You can have the world's most likeable characters, most unique plot, beautifully thought out, but if your style is wooden, I won't make it past the first chapter.

That author's voice is intangible, hard to pin down and impossible to duplicate. And whether or not an author's voice will resonate with a reader is impossible to predict - so editors looking for the next stylish author have their work cut out for them, don't they?

My question for you - what do you look for in a book? A storyline or theme you like? A character you can relate to? Or, like me, are you a sucker for style? What makes an author hit your auto-buy list?

My Reading Drought is Over

2010-05-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

I'm at the bookstore, purchasing two long awaited novels.

Married by Morning (Lisa Kleypas)
Ten Things I Love About You (Julia Quinn)

Where are you? What are you reading?

Real Romance

2010-05-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

This morning, I lolled in bed until a seriously late hour. When I could finally be bothered to kick back the covers, my husband was just coming home from running errands. And what did he have in his hands? A Starbucks latte just for me!

"This is the kind you like, right?" he asked, handing over the perfect cup 'o designer Joe. I was impressed, for several reasons: (1) My drink order is embarrassingly complicated. (2) My drink order has changed since we started dating. (3) Normally I get Starbucks on the way to work, when I'm alone and cranky.

His powers of observation regarding such a little thing made me feel so loved... and so well-known. And, really, the two go hand in hand!

To me, this is real romance. I don't need an emotionally wounded vampire. I wouldn't know what to do with a wealthy alpha oil tycoon. In my daily life, I get my romantic kicks off of little things like this. I'm so glad to be married to even-keeled Mr. Marvelous, who know how to do the laundry and doesn't complain when we eat Cheerios for dinner. What a guy!

I want to know about your real-life romance! What are the little things your hero (or heroine) does to inspire you? Alternatively, who are some real life romance couples you know--and what makes them so great? (Yes, I imagine I'll go on and on about my parents in the comments section.)

I feel just so very up.

2010-05-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

Catch the filler words in the title? Guess what I'm doing again? I thought I had finished revisions to the nth power of nine, revisions as far as the final digit of pi, revisions that, if turned into frequent flier miles, would take all of the Richlands to New Zealand and back, first class. But no. Last week an agent rejected my full manuscript: "I just didn't feel the rest of the chapters were as strong as the first five." After I moped for twenty-four hours, I agreed. My first five chapters rocked enough for her to request a full and read it a week after submission, but the rest of The Soldier rocks like a chair, not an amplifier.

How do I know? Because finding and replacing the words "feel" and "felt" in the manuscript took me two hours. I didn't have a chance to tackle the third word on my list, "seem," and the list continues with then, just, few, some, even, still, only, up, down, against, back, look(ing), and sound. Last year I judged a writing contest entry that used the word "just" 43 times. In twenty-five pages. Sometimes Control-F is a better friend than coffee, and that is from a Seattle-ite.

I also like Joanne Bourne's technical advice on words to check. It reminded me to look not only for filler words like those above, but also for overused descriptions. Eyes and hands and fingers, oh my. I suspect I'll cringe when I read through the frequent hand/finger references in The Soldier.

(By the way, Joanna Bourne is a wonderfully gracious person - I sat next to her twice at 2008 RWA Nationals - and The Spymaster's Lady is a superb Regency. Please put it on your To Be Read list.)

Here's another word I spread far and wide through my writing - adjust. I tried to layer body language into the manuscript. Instead I created fidgeters. It makes me wonder how the saintly Mr. Richland tunes out my own constant "adjusting" of glasses, hair, bra straps and sleeves.

What words do you know you over use? And how many times do you use just or feel/felt? Can you be more atrocious than two hours of feeling removal? Let me know so we can wave our fingers and grip our hands together.

Writers Giving Back

2010-05-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

When I was in college, my friends and I used to joke about whether we would choose to use our powers for good or evil. Essentially it was an "are you a hero or a villain" type discussion. I never really thought of myself as particularly heroic, nor terribly villainous. A lot of the things in our lives fall into that ambiguous grey area - neither good nor bad. They just are. But sometimes we get the chance to do something good. Maybe the heroes are just the ones who take those chances?

One of the amazing things about the various Romance Writers of America chapters I've been involved with is the way they get involved in good causes. The Greater Seattle RWA does a goods drive every Christmas for a women's shelter. The book signing at the RWA National convention always benefits literacy. Each May (right now!) Brenda Novak hosts an auction raising thousands upon thousands of dollars for Diabetes Research. Hundreds of writers participate in these and other philanthropies every year, raising funds and awareness for good causes.

I'm taking a page out of their book for my current one. The heroine of my current ebook release, The Sexorcist, is a survivor of a serious congenital heart condition. She triumphed over adversity and deserves every bit of her happily ever after. In honor of real-life heroines like Brittany, I've launched the Have a Heart promo, benefiting the Children's Heart Foundation.

Here's how it works: If you buy The Sexorcist in ebook, and email a copy of your receipt to heart@viviandrews.com before July 31, 2010, I will donate 10% of my royalties for that sale to the Children's Heart Foundation. If you would like to learn more about this organization which funds research for congenital heart defect treatment, or if you would prefer to cut out the middleman and donate directly, you can visit their website at: www.childrensheartfoundation.org.

How often do you get to read a book and get warm fuzzies for helping a good cause at the same time? Well, luckily, with the efforts of the romance writers giving back, pretty often.

Don't forget to check out the Brenda Novak auction! (And keep an eye out for my Tickle My Fantasy Alaskan Gift Basket while you're there.)

The Big Bad Block

2010-04-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

Curses upon ye, writer's block!

This is the problem with a long hiatus from creative writing. I feel like I've forgotten how to write anything fun. Give me a work report or some painful professional navel-gazing and I'm your girl. I can analyze my teaching six ways to Sunday and throw in the words "intentional" and "differentiated" every other sentence.

But writing a scene full of witty banter? Re-plotting my novel to fix the dragging middle? Suddenly, I'm paralyzed. I'm worried that I won't do it well, or that I won't be able to sustain any sort of creative effort. I tell myself that I'm too busy or too exhausted. If I'm going to fail anyway, I might as well go clean the kitchen or write some curriculum because that's what's really important... and that's the only place I can actually succeed.

Obviously this is not a healthy attitude. I've had writer's block before, and I've tried a number of methods to deal with it. Though I've always managed to get back to work, I haven't sustained a healthy routine. These methods have always been about perpetuating self-loathing (as opposed to self-care). For instance, I tell myself I'll sit at the computer for an hour. And when I do, I'm humming "you can't do this" in my head. Yes, there's a winning mental refrain! Alternatively, I tell myself "the creative well has run temporarily dry. You need to abandon your project entirely." Then I set aside my writing routines so that I can eat fried food, read other people's romance novels, and worry that I'll never finish my own.

Shockingly enough, neither of those strategies really works.

I knew I was in deep trouble when it took me all week to write this post. (Yes, I actually started on Monday and now it's Saturday... sad, huh?) I think it's time to dust off my copy of The Artist's Way and put myself through a 12-week writers' recovery program.

Anyone else have any other ideas? Do share: how do you bust your block?

Sassy Gay Vikings?

2010-04-11T10:29:00.001-07:00

Wherefore art thou, my immortal Viking hero? Hast thou received a make-over from the Sassy Gay Friend? "Friday Videos" at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books turned me on to this set of Othello, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet alternate endings.

Last week I struggled to edit the scene where my hero and heroine visit a museum to "borrow" a valuable relic. If he appeared as a Special Forces dude, I doubted the museum director would help, so I originally disguised Wulf as a documentary film maker in black glasses and a New York accent. Result: a scene no better than packing peanuts. Then I met the Sassy Gay Friend, and voila:

"An appointment would permit me to prepare." The white-haired gentleman who met them in the Danish National Museum's Great Hall stared over his reading glasses. "The snow delayed my staff. I am alone today."
"We are so so sorry. Our funding came through forty-eight hours ago and we had scads to pack." Wulf tilted his head as he held out his hand. "To save money, the donor used frequent flier miles, can you believe?"
"I see." The Director of Danish Prehistory nodded his understanding of donor peccadilloes. "Do you have a camera person?"
"His flight was delayed in Paris, so completely unfair." Wulf pressed one hand to his cheek and pulled his shoulders forward. "I looove Par-ee."
"We plan our shots in advance." Theresa stepped between him and the director. "For this segment we're interested in sword hilts of approximately 500 A.D." Behind her back she wiggled her fingers at Wulf.
Tone it down? She glared over her shoulder and Wulf blew a kiss. Not a chance, baby. I want to see you laugh.

Sassy Gay Friend, meet Wulf, the immortal Viking warrior. Readers, go forth and flip your glitter scarves. I'm spending the week finding every tiny mistake, every "just" and "still" and "stood up" and "sat down" that sneaked through previous edits of The Soldier. [Yes, I know the right side of the video is chopped off. Lots of things get chopped off in my book, so I'm not going to deal with this. Click through to youtube or SmartBitchesTrashyBooks if you need the whole thing.]

Writer, Promote Thyself!

2010-04-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

I hate trying to sell people things. Especially when the things I'm trying to sell are me and my books. I am not a natural born salesman. Asking people to buy things gives me hives. Why can't people just magically find out about me and my awesomeness? Why do I feel like a little beggar girl or a door-to-door missionary? Am I doing this whole promotion thing wrong?

I heard some Big Deal Authors lately talking about book signings and the way people tend to shy away from the person behind the table, refusing to meet your eyes. The theory (quite a good one, I think) was that they don't want to have to reject you in front of you. In a bookstore, they can wander through the aisles picking up and putting down dozens of books before they find one that interests them, but they never feel guilty for putting one down. With you sitting there, the author adds the guilt factor.

I get that, but how do you counter it? With chocolate? (Bribes!) With excerpts? That way, you can hand them a chapter, they can wander over to grab a latte and a scone, read your chapter in line, decide they love you, and come back to get a signed copy to take the register. I like that approach.

But what about online promo? Why are people skittish to participate there? I'm having a blog party all this month with daily prizes. (http://viviandrews.blogspot.com) Looking at my website tracking info, I'm getting a lot more hits than I am comments - but only the commenters can win. So are my lurkers shy? Are they not interested in the prizes? (A free book? Who turns down a free book?!) They are under no obligation to buy my books or the books of my guest bloggers. All they have to do is comment, possibly win, possibly discover a new author they love or win a book they can give to a reader-friend who loves that genre if they don't.

I feel weird because I'm running around trying to drum up traffic for this blog party and I feel like it should be easier than this. These are awesome prizes! There is virtually no effort involved in winning them! The big prize this month is a brand new ereader! All you have to do to enter is sleuth around my website to answer five questions (one about each of my books) and send me an email with your answers. Is an ereader not worth a few clicks?

I'm puzzled. And I feel like a realtor. See, I went to the parade of homes with my family a few weeks ago. There were a lot of realtors with a lot of different styles. Some gave away goodie bags or cookies or donuts. One actually followed us through every room of the house commenting on our comments to one another (so irritating!). But the one thing they had in common was that they were representing gorgeous homes. These houses were gems, that's why they were included in the parade of homes. But there were still gimmicks and raffles and staging to make them attractive to buyers.

So even if you write a great book (see, I really was going somewhere with the metaphor!), you still have to make it attractive to readers. (Without stalking them through every room telling them why they should buy it.)

And that is the part where I feel completely out of my depth. Oh, to be famous and rich and hire someone to be my book realtor!

Am I looking at this the wrong way? What makes you buy a book? Word of mouth? An ad you saw? A review?

Tomorrow at my blog I'm giving away a signed copy of my new book Shifting Dreams. All this month I'm giving away an ereader. No purchase necessary. Just a little fun. Come on by and play... or come on by and lurk if you want to feed my neurosis. ;)

Cross Your Fingers

2010-03-26T17:04:00.001-07:00

My Countdown Countdown

Auditory Flashback

2010-03-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

Sort of Haunted House--undergraduate a capella group version, sung by the Brown Derbies.

I haven't listened to this song in 12 years. Yet, as my National Boards deadline approaches, it's dominating my I-Pod. And every time hear it, I have a flashback to freshman year of college.

I was a bookworm, double-majoring in English and history. My roommate was an athlete, double-majoring in hockey and beer. We were the most mismatched pair in our hall. Everyone predicted we'd kill each other before Christmas. Not so!

That girl saved my sanity. Repeatedly.

Whenever I started stress-spiraling, my roommate would force me to put my book down. She'd cue the Derbies song on our CD player and start doing this ridiculous bouncy dance. It was my job to bounce--yes, ridiculously--next to her for the duration of the song. And if I still had that crazy look in my eye after it was over? Hello, repeat button. It never failed. I was always laughing by the end of our routine.

Obviously, my life has changed since then. I'm no longer sleeping on an extra-long twin mattress (thank goodness). My former roommate is now a Facebook friend, not a daily presence. I've traded in work-study poverty and terminal single status for a husband, a steady income, a cat, and a mortgage...

... And yet so much is still the same! I'm still a wacked-out stress case. I still push myself up against deadlines and then waste time berating myself for it. I still eat mass quantities of popcorn whenever I pull an all-nighter. And apparently, I still listen to Sort of Haunted House whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed.

You couldn't pay me to be a teenager again. Seriously. Yet for the past few weeks, I've enjoyed revisiting this part of my 18-year-old self. (Now excuse me while I go do the bouncy dance.)

What song connects you back to a specific memory? And what do you listen to when you're up against a deadline?

Crazy Painted Man Proposes

2010-03-14T17:56:00.001-07:00

I searched on our blog title and re-discovered Prerogative of Harlots, a blog musing about one of my 2009 posts (the one on archaeologists vs paleontologists in romance novels). It's safe to view at work, by the way - Harlots is a blog about museum life, not a Julia Roberts character. I regard being the catalyst for a line like "His heart racing, he tore the fossil from the dirt with his bare hands," as an honor akin to winning the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest. I'm excited that I sparked a near-dissertation on all the possible ways paleontology is not the stuff of romantic leads.

Although not as excited as I would be if I were the skip of the Canadian women's curling team and received this proposal. I sincerely hope none of my Canadian readers can identify him. I saw lots of proposal signs at the Olympics - Canadians must have been feeling the love - but this was the best. Depending, of course, on your definition of good.

And don't forget to watch some of the far-too-scant TV coverage of the 2010 Paralympics! If you have on-demand, the Opening Ceremony was an amazing showcase of talent. My children asked questions about why the heavy-metal singer didn't have an arm and a leg, why several athletes didn't have legs, why some athletes used wheelchairs and others used crutches. It was a rocking, exciting, moving show - far, far better at explaining the differences and similarities between people than the telethons of our childhood.

I'm sure the Paralympians will get their share of crazy painted man proposals this week too. NBC will be showing excerpts at random times, so be on the look-out.

What Does Funny Look Like?

2010-03-11T02:08:00.000-08:00

I've been gazing at the cover for my April release, The Sexorcist, (because those are some highly gaze-able abs, baby). It's got me wondering: What does my cover say to you? (Hopefully it says Pick me up and take me home with you! but besides that...) Light/dark? Playful/sensual? Paranormal? What do you think the story is about?

I've been pondering the mysterious art of romance covers. I feel I should preface this by saying I have the utmost respect for cover artists and I profess to know nothing of what sells on the front of a book. I'm just a reader and a writer. Marketing ain't my thing. I once heard Sue Grimshaw (of Borders True Romance fame) talking about cover art and my mind boggled at all the ways her definition of a great cover differed from my own.

You see, I want something that captures the feel of the book. Something that gives me a sense of tone. Playful book, playful cover. Serious dark story, serious dark cover. Sensual, body-parts-a-flyin' book, well then lets see some body parts a-flyin' on that cover!

But, from what Sue Grimshaw said, I'm not so sure others share my cover preferences. So I'm asking: What do you look for in a romance cover? Sexy manflesh? Something demure that won't embarrass you at the checkout line? A couple in a torrid embrace? An iconic image like a flower or a high heel? What catches your eye when you're browsing your bookseller of choice?

My cover has manflesh in abundance, and there is many a manflesh cover out there that would lend credence to the idea that manflesh sells... but would you believe me if I said The Sexorcist was a paranormal romantic comedy? Does it look funny?

I've been thinking about what humor looks like on the front of a book and I'm curious about what others see when they look at covers. I've grabbed eight books of similar genre to my own from the last few years and slapped their covers down below here. Judging these books purely by their covers: Which one looks funniest to you? Which one would make you pick it up and flip to read more? And (perhaps most importantly) which one would you be most likely to shell out your hard earned cash for?

Ready? Here are the candidates!
#1:
#2:

#3:

#4:

#5:

#6:

#7:

#8:

What say you, romance readers? Let the social experiment begin!

What A Beautiful Mess I'm In

2010-03-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

National Boards. Ye, gods.

The expression "biting of more than I can chew" comes instantly to mind.

For those of you not in the teaching biz, National Boards is a process akin to "super certification," a sign that the teacher in question's at the top of her game. To become an NBCT, teachers must meet rigorous standards--mostly through intensive study of their own classrooms. It involves videoing oneself (and one's students), analyzing those videos through a series of essays, and then submitting it all for peer review.

It's great professional development, but it's also incredibly nerve-wracking. There's only so much navel-gazing I can handle before I turn into an epic freak show. I'm so worried that my evaluators will confirm my worst fear: that I'm actually a horrible teacher. (Bonus worry: they'll be so distracted by my terrible taste in clothes that they won't be able to grade my videos.)

What's been really fun is having my teaching insecurities bump up against my writing insecurities. I've put off writing my essays because I fear showing them to anybody--much like the latest draft of my novel. This has made for some extreme stress!

Most candidates put in 200 to 400 hours of work in the course of their candidacy year... on top of full-time teaching responsibilities. Not to sound like a kid making homework excuses, but... this is why I haven't been working on my novel. This is why I've been a non-presence in the blogosphere.

And this is why I'm so looking forward to March 31st.

Yes, the end is in sight. Come hell or high water, my National Boards portfolio must be postmarked by midnight on March 31st. If you see a crazy lady at Kinko's/Fed Ex that night, it's probably me.

I'll be working down to the wire on this one. It's definitely time to stockpile the coffee and hunker down. Wish me luck! And while you're at it, do the same for Erin Eisenberg. She's a fellow romance writer and teacher, also suffering through the last weeks of National Boards.

Ten Things I Love About You

2010-02-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

There's an official release date for the next Julia Quinn!

There's also a book cover.

I know what I'll be doing on May 25th! What about you? And is there anything else that should be on my reading radar?

Saucy versus Serious

2010-02-20T22:32:00.000-08:00

Amanda Forester, a friend from our Seattle chapter of Romance Writers of America, has two fun book trailers for The Highlander's Sword on her website. She made both (with help from two real life heroes - her husband and his bagpiping buddy). One's saucy, one's serious. Vote for your favorite and you could win a FREE BOOK.

Amanda's videos rock like Canadian curlers. I watched them and thought ... when I sell a book I'm going to have to learn how to do that? And my mother thought romances would rot my mind!

I [Heart] The Olympics

2010-02-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

I misplaced the Valentine I vaguely remember buying at the grocery store for my husband and haven't bothered to look for it. My husband gave me a card at breakfast Monday. Our romantic dinner February 14th consisted of potstickers and onion cakes shared with our children off styrofoam plates. Lunch was hot dogs and Klondike bars. That added up to the absolutely best Valentine's Day ever. Ever ever ever.

This week isn't about hearts, flowers, or chocolate in the Richland household. It's about - and I need to yell this at the top of my lungs - the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics! We spent Valentine's Day in Vancouver sitting on a metal bench watching USA vs. China women's hockey. True love, Olympic-fan style.

I believe winter sports and romance go hand in hand. Did you see the kiss between Canada's Alex Bilodeau and his girlfriend when he won Canada's first goal medal of the games? Or the amazing skating of husband and wife Chinese pair Shen and Zhao? She supposedly laid down the law, "no wedding, no Olympics." And while we're okay skipping cards and flowers here, I admit Mr. Richland's romance prospects would not be improved if he rhapsodized over my "quadzilla thighs" like cross-country skier Sara Renner does over her alpine skier husband.

For those few still missing the connection between the fleece and goretex-clad crowd and romance, I present my final evidence: Rob Fagan, Canadian Olympic snowboarder, age 33. He competes today (Feb 15) so watch and cheer. You can see several of his teammates here. Well worth a cheer.

Over the years we've taken our children ice-skating, skiing, tubing, sledding and curling. Watching Big Boy make a slow wedge turn on skis, watching my husband skate backwards in a crouch while pulling Miss Bossy Boots, watching both kids play street hockey with full-size sticks twice their height, watching them act out curling matches with Playmobil toys, this all fills me with love. And that's so much more Valentine's Day than some dorky grocery store greeting card I can't find anyway.

Does anyone else love the Winter Olympics like I do? Or have any Olympic-themed romances they can share? Post a comment and then go cheer for Lindsey Jacobellis in Women's Snowboard Cross on Tuesday, Feb. 16. She's looking for a second chance, like so many romance characters. Here's to her happy ending!

Unslump!

2010-02-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Another rejection. A less than stellar review. Disappointing numbers. Difficult feedback.

My shoulders sag, my stomach winds into knots. Chocolate cake screams my name. My pajamas become my uniform and I won’t even start on my sudden aversion to showering .

Been there, done that?

Exactly. As much as I love the joys that come from creating a compelling story, the high of dreaming of future success, pain along the way is inevitable. But, at times, the pain immobilizes my progress. I hit a slump. I stop writing. I postpone those dreams. To snap out of it, I've learned this trick: I grab a journal, a pen, and I ask myself the following questions:

1. Can I imagine being as happy or happier doing anything else in the whole wide world?

2. If I set it all down and walked away today, how would I feel?

3. Am I worrying about what people think rather than about what I want?

4. What is not (writing, promoting, querying, submitting) doing for me? What do I get out of it?

5. What can I learn from this (rejection, review, critique, etc.) ?

Here are some of my answers:

1. Yes, damn it. I could become a make-up artist. I could meet Adrian Grenier and have a torrid romance. Okay...maybe. I could find a way to get paid to read all day. I could land a job at a chocolate factory. Or...no! Not at all. I’m a writer. And I love it. Even the hard parts.

2. I would feel empty. Sad. Bored.

3. Maybe. That reviewer wasn’t exactly nice. And form letters suck. And I just know my sister’s going to ask how it went and I’ll have to tell her and she’ll say she’s sorry but I’ll imagine a hint of joy in her voice. Except, what other people think is none of my business! (I then proceed to chant this several times until all the “but, what about _____?’s” are gone.)

4. Ah, yes. The tough one. Being honest with myself is always the most difficult step but it is also the most freeing. Not writing allows me to keep the dream alive. Because if I do nothing, I’m not failing. If I fail and fail, eventually, I’ll lose my dream! Or, at least, it seems that way. Sitting around moping in my chocolate smeared pajamas does please my inner child and supports my inner tortured artist, the one I pretend doesn’t exist. Doing nothing keeps me safe because I’m not opening myself to further rejection or ridicule or embarrassment. But it also is keeping me from my biggest pleasure, writing something someone might love. Outside of my adventures in motherhood, there is no better feeling in this life than connecting with a reader. It feels like when someone laughs at your joke or loves that song, too, or cried at the same silly commercial.

5. I can learn to write better, to relax and not be so hard on myself. To have more fun.

By this point, I am able to step away from the cake. The knots untie. The shower beckons. I then decide how long my pity party gets to last. One more hour, one more day? I stick to it. And often, I find those pesky doubting party guests leave early and on their own. I find myself back at the keyboard, back onto the road of my own hero’s journey. Thrilled anew.

What motivation tricks have you learned along your writing way?

:}Amber Scott

www.AmberScottProject.com

The Burn

2010-02-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

I think in every writer's career there will come a time when you are demoralized and disheartened. Rejection compounds with disappointment over a lack of marketability or a sense of helplessness in the face of all these variables that need to align to create a long term career in this business. There may come a time when you are thinking of calling it quits, hanging up your spurs and heading off to find your bliss in some other pursuit.

Should you? I can't tell you that. I can't give you the pep talk and say, "Absolutely not! Keep going, no matter what!" Because it isn't about how good you are, it's about you. Your passion. Your "burn" as Roxanne St. Claire puts it in this EXCELLENT blog post about a writing friend of hers making the decision to hang it up.

Last September, in this blog, Josh Olson (screenwriter of A History of Violence) says "You cannot discourage a writer. If someone can talk you out of being a writer, you're not a writer. If I can talk you out of being a writer, I've done you a favor, because now you'll be free to pursue your real talent, whatever that may be. And, for the record, everybody has one. The lucky ones figure out what that is."

I agree mostly, but I don't think it's necessarily about talent. My feeling is that it is more in keeping with Roxanne St. Claire's burn. It's passion. (Of course, that doesn't mean it has to be a raging inferno inside you, sometimes passion is so deeply imbedded it comes out in quiet moments - Jane Austen style.)

Here's my little personal anecdote about finding your bliss:

About a gazillion years ago, for about fifteen seconds, I worked in the film industry. I love movies. Love them. Always have. You can ask my parents. I wore out our Beta player as a kid. In college, I began to get involved in film - the production side. For a while there, film editing felt like my calling and I was good at it. I landed an internship with an independent film company in New York and went to get my first inside look at the biz.

It didn't last long. It wasn't that I realized I wasn't good at editing - I am. It wasn't that I realized I didn't love editing - I still do. What happened was I came to the realization that I didn't love editing enough to make it worth the uncertainty inherent in working on movies. Those projects don't last forever and then you're out of the job, struggling to find your next paycheck. I didn't have the burn, the passion. At least not enough to make it worth it to me. So I left and I've never looked back. Never had a coulda-shoulda-woulda moment. Not for one second.

And, yes, I recognize the perverse irony that I left that career path only to pursue one with just as much flux and instability. But with writing, no matter the uncertainty attached, I have the burn. I've never considered quitting. And if I ever did, I know it wouldn't stick.

So my question to you is: have you ever considered hanging it up? What stopped you? What keeps you going? Have you been lucky enough to find your "real talent", as Josh Olson calls it?

Sunfire Romances

2010-01-31T12:40:00.000-08:00

Last week, I wrote about my love for Jayhawk. This week, I want to talk about Sunfire Romances.

Do you remember these? Scholastic put them out in the '80s. It was a line of (sweet) young adult historical romances. Each book featured a different era of American history and a teenage protagonist who had to choose between two men. (Check out the Smart Bitches take on Sunfire covers as spoiler art.)

These were already out of print by the time I discovered them in my middle school library. (Yes, I distinctly remember my 7th grade self checking out Amanda to enjoy and Great Expectations to impress people.) Sadly, I did not get a chance to read them all--but I certainly sampled a representative variety.

As with all romance novel series, the quality of books definitely varied. Of the ones I read, my favorite romances had to be (in chronological order):

Marilee (Jamestown: Mary Francis Shura)
Amanda (Oregon Trail: Candice F. Ransom)
Caroline (Gold Rush: Willow Davis Roberts)
Susannah (Civil War: Candice F. Ransom)

There are several reasons these books had such an impact on me. First, they encouraged my love of history. Second, they influenced my writing. Even now, I use my favorites as excellent craft examples. Amanda changed dramatically (but convincingly) over the course of her story. Marilee fought against compelling conflict on every page--and all of the villains were satisfyingly punished. Ransom pulled out all the emotional stops in Susannah, and I remember bawling every time she raised the emotional stakes. Finally, Roberts gave a classic device new and interesting life in Caroline (heroine disguised as boy = most excellent!)

I have actually promised myself that, once I finally finish my National Boards portfolio, I'm going to reward myself by tracking down a few of those Sunfires I never read.

Did you ever read any Sunfire books? If so, which were your favorites--and why?

And the Mountains Bore Witness To Their Love

2010-01-24T13:02:00.000-08:00

Recently, I wrote about children reading romance (how parents should handle it, etc). This made me think about the path I took to becoming a romance reader, and I suspect the subject will preoccupy me for awhile!

My first official romance novel was Jayhawk, by Dorothy Keddington. My friend Tara loaned it to me in 7th grade. I remember reading it behind my pre-algebra book while she watched, grinning, occasionally giving the thumbs up sign and passing notes to ask what part I was at.

I also remember being a bit disappointed by the end. I spent the whole book waiting for them to "do it." There were several frustrating scenes where the hero and heroine would start making out, but right when things got good they'd break it off to have a conversation about waiting until marriage. Then they finally did get married and went on their honeymoon, and all I got was one sentence... the mountains bore witness to their love. So sad!

Where, oh where, was the detailed steaminess?

Not in this sub-genre, of course. At age 12, I didn't realize that there were different lines marketed towards different audiences. I didn't even know that I was reading a Christian romance (specifically marketed towards LDS readers).

I've got to say, though, that the romance between the hero and heroine was fairly hot. Even if they weren't acting on it physically you could just feel them oozing desire for each other. (The murder mystery and death threats for the B-story certainly helped escalate the tension!) And I still find the hero sexy, even if he is a victim of the '70s (the poor man gets married in maroon velour).

As a writer, that's a lesson to me--character chemistry requires something more than a detailed description of how often they exchange bodily fluids. (And, also, I should be sparing/vague in my description of clothing.)

That's one of the reasons I keep returning to Jayhawk. As a reader, I just love revisiting it. But as a writer, I have much to learn from Keddington's tight pacing. After all, she can keep me turning pages... even after 17 years of familiarity with the book.

I want to know... what are your favorite books to reread, and why? And what is the sexiest non-sexual book you've ever read?

Now We Are Four ... and Forty Behind.

2010-01-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

The holidays passed at our house without any Christmas kittens or stockings meowing by the chimney. Then January brought birthday butterfly ballerina cupcakes. Like the "dark moment" of the heroine's journey, bad things happened to those ballerinas, namely, the four-year olds celebrating with Miss Bossy Boots.

The cupcakes* to celebrate Miss Bossy Boots' big day started off fabulously arranged, as many parts of life do, and ended up resembling the current version of Chapter 19 in The Soldier. As part of the Cherry Adair "Finish the Damn Book" Challenge, I scheduled myself to spit-shine fifty pages a week so I can start my new 2010 book in February. Last week I spun pages 199 - 210 over and over without progress. Saturday I took a printed version with me to Summit Central at Snoqualmie Pass. After sending Big Boy and Miss Bossy Boots off with their teeny-tiny skis and instructors, I sat down and lined up my pages on a long table in the lodge. I could see the whole thing, and it is indeed ugly.

I only managed part of Chapter 19 before retrieving Miss Boots from her lesson, which is barely longer than her skis. Here is a photo of my edited pages (taken at home, not at the lodge).

Revisions. Fixing. Fine-tuning. No matter what I call it, it feels like it takes more time to polish ten pages than to write them.

Can you make out the yellow highlights? I mark the first sentence of each scene to figure out if it reads like a rock dropped on the reader's foot or a smooth transition. I ask myself if the first sentence or two answers the questions: 1) whose point of view? 2) time of day and time elapsed, if any, since previous scene? 3) place or setting? Because I want to jump in to what I see happening, those two sentences are hard for me to craft. I also highlight the last word of each paragraph and look at them, and only them, on the page. Each one should be interesting enough to make the reader jump to the next paragraph. On one page I had: nicotine, van, attention, soon, organizations and watch. I immediately eliminated the boring word soon as a paragraph ending. Organizations - dull - will have to change but I believe nicotine, van and attention are keepers.

Unfortunately I didn't finish last week's fifty pages of revisions and darned if I don't have another fifty scheduled this week. I called this post "forty (pages) behind" but it feels like ninety right now. By the end of Monday I will finish revising Chapter 19! I'm committed because I want to start the next book but I can't until The Soldier is a lot shinier. I could use motivation (or cupcake stories) as I check back in with the blog.

* Cupcakes courtesy of the household birthday baker, "Mr. Richland."

Getting Better All the Time

2010-01-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

There are times when being a writer can feel a bit like being Sisyphus. No matter how many times you roll that rock up that mountain, there is always another mountain. At least that's what it feels like to me when I'm staring down revisions on an old book I've already revised a dozen times over.

The good news is I'm getting better at this. Every revision brings something new that I've learned as a writer to the manuscript and so every revision is a little better than the last.

The same can also be said of my new projects. Not that each one is better than the last, necessarily (such a subjective question!), but rather that with each new manuscript I bring something new as a writer.

Tomorrow I have a new ebook release. Serengeti Storm is the second in my lion-shifter series and when I sat down to write it, I was simultaneously trying to please those who had loved the first story and bring something new to the table. The newness turned out to be a new understanding I had of writing deeper emotions - the conflicts based in our family lives and long-term lovers. There is a power in those emotions that the love-at-first-sight affairs in most romances can't compete with. I found the act of writing this story helped me grow profoundly as a writer.

Those leaps as a writer can happen when you least expect them. Sometimes it's a class or a book about writing that triggers a shift in your writing. Sometimes it's a critique or a compliment. And sometimes, it's just slogging through another draft, trying to see what you've seen a million times with new eyes, pushing that rock up that mountain one more time.

What has helped you grow the most as a writer?

This week, to celebrate Serengeti Storm's release, I would like to give away a copy of Janet Evanovich's How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author. Just comment on this post by Friday at noon (Pacific) and you are automatically entered to win.

New Year, New Books

2010-01-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

I am not making any resolutions this year, for the simple reason that I need less stress in my life. Rather than resolutions, I have a hope: a hope that I spend more of my time doing what will make me happy, instead of what I think will make other people happy. (Teaching: a dangerous day job for anyone with martyr-complex tendencies.)

Well, one of the things that makes me happy is reading, and some of my favorite authors have books coming out this year. It's also a chance to catch up on my TBR pile. So, without further ado, here's my TBR list for the year!

I'd also love to know which books you're looking forward to reading in 2010, and if any of you are brave enough to make resolutions. Finally, if you have any reading recommendations for September, November, or December I would love to hear them!

* * * * *

January: Knight of Pleasure (Margaret Mallory)
I love me some medieval romance novels. And Ms. Mallory is a member of my local RWA--bonus!

February: Pleasure of a Dark Prince (Kresley Cole)
I've been waiting a long time for Garreth and Lucia's story. Cole's werewolves are so hot--all alpha-male, lusty, and elemental. Yes, please!

March: Wild Ride (Bob Mayer and Jennifer Crusie)

April: Prep: A Novel (Curtis Sittenfeld)

May: Chasing Perfect (Susan Mallery)
Book 1 Fools Gold series

June: Ten Things I Love About You (Julia Quinn)

July: I Kissed an Earl (Julie Anne Long)
Fourth book in the Pennyroyal Green series.

August: Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (David Kennedy)
Okay, a big departure from my genre reading... but this behemoth Pulitzer-Prize winner has been in my TBR pile since 2002, and I can never get past the Hoover presidency...

September: ???

October: You Again (Jennifer Crusie)
Emmeline takes a job caring for two orphans in the middle of nowhere (also known as Southern Ohio) at the behest of her ex-husband, and ends up with a houseful of delinquents, ex-in-laws, and ghosts. Plus there’s a haunted couch. Trouble ensues.

November: ???

December: ???

Total Eclipse of a Mullet with Headlights

2009-12-30T12:57:00.000-08:00

Recently, I begged my school librarian to do some research for me regarding book trailers. This is all part and parcel of my "work smarter, not harder" campaign. I figured I could have my students compose book trailers as a final project. Through teaching them, I would learn how to do it on my own for later promotional purposes. Day job, dream career--two birds, one stone.

Lovely, isn't it?

I have yet to implement book trailers in my classroom. Happily, however, my librarian went on a hilarious research tangent that I simply must share with you all. Have you heard of literal videos? It's where someone changes the lyrics of a song so that they describe what's happening in the (ridiculous) video.

This has to be my favorite literal video. Do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing! Let me know what you think.

Meowy Christmas to All

2009-12-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

By this point in December we've covered all the holiday topics - cooking, writing while busy, gifts for readers and writers. What's left for me?

One thing only - Christmas Kittens!

Several of my fellow romance writers - including members of this blog - have claimed to be unfamiliar with one of my absolute all-time favorite romance sub-genres. What? Truly you do not know of Christmas Kitten books?

I pulled four Christmas anthologies from the scary-basement book bins. To my shock, only one cover prominently featured felines, Winter Kittens (1999). From the back blurbs: "Having lost his wager, his intended bride, and his favorite horse, Lord Carrington is in no mood to be enchanted by the sweet kitten that tumbles down his chimney." Or "Every afternoon, the cat that belongs to Lord Stonehill's sister disappears, only to return with a new toy or a bright ribbon." I could rhapsodize about the rest, but doesn't the cover tell you everything you need to know?

Despite having feline-free titles, kittens lurk in my other Christmas anthologies ready to pounce. From Boxing Day (1997, Jill Barnett) in A Stockingful of Joy: "She sat in the middle of her convenient bed, surrounded by mangy cats with the bright Christmas bows." From Christmas Wish List (1999, Barbara Metzger) in A Regency Christmas Present: "They went up to the nursery together, the kitten complaining at being in the basket so long. Gerry spoke softly: 'Hush, Mistletoe. It's not every cat that gets to be a Christmas wish come true.' "

For a dash of happiness with fur, search Amazon for "romance kittens". My 581 results began with Mistletoe Kittens, and proceeded through Bewitching Kittens, Christmas Eve Kittens, Valentine Kittens, Wedding Day Kittens, and Snowflake Kittens before stumbling over Stocking Stuffers.

Before you begin a quest to read hundreds of holiday kitten anthologies, let me alert you to the dark side of the genre. Yes. A dirty secret about kitten anthologies. Many books are reprints with new cover art. For instance A Stockingful of Joy from 1997 was reissued in 2005. Other anthologies will mix a popular old kitten story with a couple new ones as a "new" book. I'm sure the publisher does not intend to trick a reader into buying something she's read before, and it's wonderful that the authors continue to receive royalties, but savvy kitten-readers check copyright dates inside the front cover.

The genre did not end with the '90s. It transcends treacle. It is not limited to Regencies. Nalini Singh (of the Psy/Changeling series) and Lora Leigh wrote novellas Stroke of Enticement and Christmas Heat, respectively, in The Magical Christmas Cat (2008). I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that the author of the Breed series and the Nauti Boys books has a Christmas kitten story.

Why? Why do some people, like me, love kitten romance anthologies? How have others never noticed them? Are we romance readers blind to sub-genres we don't read? Do we not see cars when we cross the street? At this time of year Christmas kittens are everywhere, like lit-up plastic candy canes, like icicle lights, like red-kettles and bell-ringers. Enjoy one with cookies and good cheer.

Me-owy Christmas to all our readers.

Writing Through Holiday Mayhem

2009-12-14T01:42:00.000-08:00

For most people, calling the holiday season chaotic is an understatement - regardless of which religious/traditional celebrations you keep. For me Christmas is all about family, but the to-do list still seems to get longer every year.

Picking out, wrapping and mailing presents. Getting the tree, lighting and decorating it. Cookies, carols, elementary school holiday pageants. Snowball fights, sledding, and snowmen with the niece & nephews. Free time is a forgotten luxury this time of year.

Which can be particularly stressful for writers whose "free" time is actually writing time.

So how do you keep your writing mojo strong during the chaotic holidays? Do you vow to write every day - even if you can only spare the time for jotting down one sentence? Do you take a hiatus from the writing grind and come back to it refreshed after the holidays are over? However you do it, odds are you're going to have to find some method that works for you, some way of keeping the writing fires burning as bright as the yule log.

I like to take into account holiday madness when I'm making out my writing schedule. This year, I have an added obstacle. One of my very best friends is getting married, in St. Thomas, the week before Christmas (this week!). The bridal party is sailing down together - away from email and cell phones for a real vacation! I don't have any writing goals for the next two weeks (cruise & Christmas), but I'm taking my computer with me. I may not write much on the ship, but I would go through withdrawals if I couldn't write for ten days. And who knows what inspiration will strike me on the high seas? Maybe this vacation from schedules and goals will be just what my writing needs to be reinvigorated.

What are your writing plans for the holiday season? A holiday from the demands of the pen or a diligent continuation of your usual good habits? (I'm giving you the benefit of believing we all have good habits. If not, that's what New Year's resolutions are for, right?)

Happy Holidays and Happy Writing!

P.S. I have a free holiday story now available at the Samhellion - mistletoe and mischief, shape-shifter style. Enjoy!

Titillation for the Tiny Tot

2009-11-28T14:18:00.000-08:00

Check it out! My niece has already ditched the G-rated books in favor of steamier romance reading. And she's not even 2 years old yet... I'm so proud!

My brother and I couldn't stop cracking up when his daughter made a beeline for the bodice-rippers. It made me wonder when she'll actually start reading romance... a question that already has my sister-in-law nervous.

I am not a parent yet. As both a high school English teacher and an aspiring novelist, I'm a big fan of free speech. I'm against censorship. I was also a pretty lucky kid with a truly awesome mom who never told me I wasn't allowed to read something. Consequently, I always felt comfortable telling her what I was reading. I wasn't forced to hide my romance novels under the bed. I never thought of them as soft-core porn or something shameful.

And yet... I'm not sure how I'd feel if I had a precocious 9-year-old daughter who wanted to read erotica.

So I want to know... what was your first romance novel? What are your favorite books to reread, and why? And if any of you are parents, how do you feel about your own children potentially reading romance someday?

A Pert Turkey Recipe

2009-11-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

Before I share my turkey recipe, I must first admit to (1) never having cooked a Thanksgiving turkey and (2) co-opting this recipe from my husband's Aunt Diane, who is not an American, does not live in America, and will not be cooking a turkey this week. Decide for yourself whether you want to risk this turkey. It will wake up your guests and bring the men-folks in from the television, but I'm not sure if you can serve it to relatives with heart conditions.

To delay the denouement, why have I never cooked a turkey? Because I am lucky to be a potluck goer and side-dish bringer, not a potluck hostess and turkey maker. Our families live far to the east so for many years the Dear Canadian and I have turned off our lights and gone to neighbors' homes or the community center. A college friend moved up near the Canadian border, and now they host Thanksgiving and we gladly drive. This year I will be making potatoes two ways, pumpkin pie, a test run of Christmas cookies, green beans amandine, homemade chunky apple sauce, and probably some sort of roasted squash, barley, hearty greens salad. While my sweet spouse loves to cook, this week he's painting our living room so I'm on the hook for the food. I'll be stirring with one hand and polishing TWO Golden Heart entries to be mailed Sunday night with the other. Yes, I work best when I'm crazy.

What's your Thanksgiving style? Are you a pot luck goer or a hostess? A side dish bringer, a beverage bringer, or a turkey roaster? What's your favorite dish and what can you skip?

Without further delay: one whole turkey, the largest lemon you can find, and a stick (or two) of butter. Cut lemon in half. Carefully, carefully, with a knife and your fingers, lift the skin of the turkey breast gently away from the meat and slip each lemon half under, peel facing away from the meat so the juice seeps into the turkey. Put about half a stick of butter in little pats under the skin. Rub the rest all over the outside of the skin, generously salt and pepper. Put in preheated oven and roast according to weight of turkey, etc. Baste every 15 - 20 minutes until done. It should look as perky as this bird:

Harlequin Brouhaha

2009-11-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

If you follow many romance industry blogs, you're probably sick to death of hearing about Harlequin Horizons by now. It seems the denizens of Romancelandia have been talking of little else this week.

If you haven't heard, here's a quick primer: Harlequin Enterprises opened a new line called Harlequin Horizons. Unlike their other lines, like Harlequin Presents or Harlequin Blaze, this new line is a pay-to-play vanity publisher - instead of the publisher paying you for the right to publish your work, you are paying them to put it into print (just don't expect it to be stocked in bookstores).

Several aspects of this new enterprise caused a kerfuffle in the writing community. Brand dilution, preying on uneducated aspiring writers to monetize their slush pile, and the misleading verbiage on their sales pitch were all brought up as concerns by writers far and wide. (The thread at Smart Bitches was one epicenter of the discussion if you'd like to see various arguments re: HqHo. They were creeping up on 600 comments when I posted this.)

Romance Writers of America responded by announcing Harlequin was no longer considered an "eligible" publisher according to their definition of such, Mystery Writers of America threatened sanctions & Science Fiction Writers of America jumped into the fray with a statement of their own. Harlequin has now announced that they will be changing the name of Harlequin Horizons (perhaps because there is already a Horizons line in France?) to something less closely tied to their brand.

I'm sure there are still many developments to come and I predict that when everything shakes out, the effect of Horizons will not be as drastic as it originally seemed. Or maybe it'll be more drastic. What do I know?

My question for you is this: if you were a writer interested in publishing with a Harlequin line and you received a rejection letter which included a referral to a Harlequin vanity-publishing company asking you to pay hundreds of dollars to have your book printed, how would you feel? Would you be tempted? Insulted? Would it impact your willingness to submit to Harlequin again in the future? As a writer being targeted by what some are calling predatory business practices, would you feel preyed upon? How do you think Harlequin Horizons will impact Harlequin's reputation in the long run, if at all? Anyone care to speculate?

The Tortoise & the Hare

2009-11-17T12:38:00.001-08:00

With NaNo going strong and aspiring writers making that last push before sending in their Golden Heart entries, I've heard a lot of people talking about and comparing word count productivity this month. If that motivates you, awesome! If not, never fear. Writing doesn't have to be a sprint.

I've got a lot to do this week, writing-wise. What's "a lot" you may ask? Well, here's the thing. I could tell you exactly what I have to do, but that wouldn't mean anything because you wouldn't have the context of what I normally achieve in a week. No two writers are going to have the same goals, because no two writers are going to write at exacty the same rate. So the vagueness of "a lot" means more than the specificity of "first draft 20,000 words, final edits 23,000 words, revise 25,000 words, tighten synopsis, compose query letter & hit send".

It is easy to fall prey to comparing ourselves with other writers. How long does it take them to write a book, how many times do they have to revise, how many people give them feedback on their work? As writers, we often compare notes on our processes, but I think it is invaluable to remember that your process isn't a competition. Whether you write slow or fast, draft once or seventy times, you have to do what works for you.

I've heard people say, unapologetically, that they write slow, but it was a real revelation to me when I heard someone say, with the same unapologetic air, that she wrote fast. No bragging. Just a flat "I can't do it any other way."

Me too!

I write fast. I have to. I need the momentum and I need the pressure of a looming deadline. And if I don't go fast, I get stuck rewriting every word I've written and I never get to The End. Others need time for deliberation and thought, but if I'm not writing from the gut, I won't finish. Is my way better than anyone else's? Hell no! But it's my way. I have to be me.

Are you a tortoise or a hare? Do you write like the wind, or does slow and steady win the race? Whatever your speed of choice, odds are you have a writing-rate comfort zone. Whether you're a thoughtful plodder or a neck-or-nothing speed-racer, I'm here today to say: Embrace it!

Find your pace. And if you want to challenge yourself, don't worry about competing with someone with a different pace. Try setting your own goals for 10% higher than your usual productivity. But whether you're a tortoise or a hare, the important thing is crossing the finish line, whenever you get there.

Writerly Gift-Giving

2009-11-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

The holidays are coming up, which means that we're probably all scrambling to buy gifts for our loved ones. There is nothing more delightful than giving or receiving the perfect gift, the one that says "I know you like no other, and here's something that will improve your life/make you smile/fit perfectly with your style."

Now, I don't know about you... but I always feel guilty when I'm forced to give the generic gift. You know, the "oh, crap it's almost Christmas and I'm obligated to get you something but have no idea what you want." Depending on gender, I usually give the generic someone a Best Buy gift card or set of vanilla-scented bath products. I feel like what I'm really giving them is a big sign that says "Hi, I didn't really make the effort" or "I guess I don't know you all that well."

Does anyone else have this problem?

As I grow older, I'm becoming less enamored of gift clutter--both the giving and the receiving. I'd rather spend time than money. Goodness knows, Mr. Marvelous doesn't need yet another electronic gadget (whatever it is, he'll buy it for himself whenever the whim strikes him). Instead, I usually gift him with some sort of vacation or super-extravagant date... something I know he'll enjoy, something that won't collect dust in our home.

He, in turn, honors my specific starving artists qualities. In order to support my writing, he hired a maid service for a year. He also gave me a Patricia Kay writing class. Receiving these gifts made me so glad--which may sound obnoxiously materialistic, but it was more than that. It was the fact that Mr. Marvelous so clearly knows me, loves me, and wants to support my dream.

So, here's my question: what's a good writerly (or readerly) gift that you've received in the past? Alternatively, what's a gift you're excited to give this year?

Writerly Book Rec

2009-11-07T21:18:00.000-08:00

Tonight I finished Bob Mayer's book, Who Dares Wins. It was an excellent, eye-opening read... and I strongly recommend it to all writers out there.

This isn't a book about craft. It won't tell you how to write a break-out novel or edit more tension into your scenes. Instead, it will help you to clarify your vision. To improve your habits of mind. To force you to confront some of your blind spots and flaws and recognize what it will take to change them. Big undertaking, no?

As Mayer states, reading the book is "most likely the equivalent of trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant." (183) No kidding! I get the feeling I'm going to be re-reading this constantly in the years to come.

This book helped me narrow down my goals and consider the fact that they have to align. Yeah, maybe this sounds like a no-brainer to the rest of you, but I'm the girl who once tried to finish up a semester's worth of grading, write two chapters, and make a three-course meal from scratch... all in one night. (Hey, Kate! There's this really cool place called reality. You should try living there sometime.)

So, I've looked at aligning my goals for the rest of 2009. I'm leaving my day job every day at 5pm and resisting the urge to bring grading home. I'm going to eat dinner at the table with my husband every night. And I'm going to write (or at least stare frustratedly at my Word document) for one hour every weekday.

Check that out! Alignment! I rule.

I'm sure in the weeks to come I'll have updates (confessionals?) about my progress or lack thereof. And don't worry--I'm still hard at work on the promo/writing separation experiment. More soon!

For now, I'd love your input. What are your favorite writing books? What's one goal you hope to achieve before the end of 2009?

Bruce Springsteen, Romance Novelist

2009-10-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

You laugh at my love for The Boss? I was a teenager in 1984, unlike my fellow DSWs, and that pair of faded jeans and the white t-shirt ... that inspired me.* I'm here to share my belief that my favorite musician is also a closet romance novelist under his guitar. Or could be.

Take the first song on Springsteen's latest Working on a Dream. Like a twenty-year old Kathleen E. Woodiwiss novel you find at a used book store, printed when publishers trusted readers to have sufficient attention spans, Outlaw Pete is a ballad by a man who trusts his listeners to stick with him through a full eight minutes of music. Eight minutes, one song. Remind anyone of Diana Gabaldon? He's penned one of the classic Western romance plots: Very Bad Dude reforms, falls in love (with a Navajo maiden, no less) and starts a family. Then a bounty hunter shows up to remind him that a fresh start's not that easy. Bruce Springsteen, historical romance writer.

Queen of the Supermarket could be a perfect category romance if a publisher retitled it The Billionaire's Secret Checkout Clerk.

I take my place in the checkout line.
For one moment her eyes meet mine ...
I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket.
Though a company cap covers her hair
Nothing can hide the beauty waiting there.

You think The Boss can't tackle paranormal despite the night elements on the album cover? Try This Life. "Chained to this earth we go on and on and on ... This life, this life and then the next. I finger the hem of your dress, my universe at rest." No undead vampire lover ever said it better.

What musicians or songs remind you of romance novels? Post your own favorites in the comments. I'll reply after I finish cruising around with the car radio cranked to 28 (shocks the Dear Canadian when he has to drive my car; makes the kids yell at me.).

* Born in the USA cover. Seven Top Ten singles back when Casey Kasem mattered.

Identity Crisis

2009-10-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

It's T-minus three days until the e-release of The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story. I'm psyched, folks. It's my first book-length release from Samhain.

I like writing in a variety of different lengths - novella, novel, and epic novel - and each one is a little different. One thing I enjoy about the longer formats is the ability to delve a little deeper into the characters.

The Ghost Exterminator was fun for me because I got to really get to know my heroine, Jo Banks. She isn't your average romance heroine.

Though is there really an average romance heroine? We all want our characters to be unique and memorable, but at the same time easy for readers relate to.

Jo is definitely unique. She sees ghosts and exterminates them for a living. She dyes her blonde hair black and dresses up like a punkette, but she has the body of a Playmate and the disposition of a snarky cheerleader.

Jo is a mish-mash of styles and she's very defensive of her status as a rebel, but what really makes her real to me, what makes me love her, is the fact that through all her experimental phases, she's just trying to figure out where she fits in the world. She isn't sure who she wants to be - and it just might turn out that rebel-ghost-girl Jo Banks is really a soccer-mom waiting to happen. This story, and her relationship with her polar-opposite Wyatt Haines, give Jo the chance to figure out who she really wants to be. Whoever that is.

What makes your heroine unique? What do you love most & hope readers will love most about her?

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Oscar Wilde: "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

The Dating Game of Publishing

2009-10-20T07:38:00.000-07:00

Rejection. The Big "R". It's a part of every writer's life. Even Shakespeare got booed a time or two. There are beaucoup articles and blogs out there on the interwebz (like this one) telling you how to cope with rejection, from sources much more credible than lil ole me, so I'm not gonna do that. Instead, I'd like to talk about not just coping, but finding the good in the rejections.

Sometimes the good is in the critique - like five big agents all telling you in unison that your Knights-templar-time-traveling-space-opera-romantic-comedy-cozy-mystery-with-serial-killers-from-Mars idea might be a little difficult to market until you narrow your focus a bit more. When they're all saying the same thing, there's a learning opportunity.

I can, on occasion, be a bit of a Pollyanna. I tend to think things will turn out for the best. So I take each rejection as a "something better to come" notification, rather than a "you suck and should stop writing right this instant to save humanity from your crappiness."

Lately, I've been seeing a trend in rejection letters. This one sentence keeps popping up. "I liked X, Y, and Z, but I just didn't love it as much as I wanted to." I'm pretty sure this is just the kiss-off du jour, but I've been thinking about that phrase and it has me thinking about dating. (Stay with me, this is a good analogy, I promise.)

Let's say you date three guys. Bachelor #1: You meet, sparks fly. Zing, baby. It's all chemistry, all over the place. You're climbing on one another like a hero and heroine in a romance novel. But then, as you get to know one another, you realize you aren't compatible outside the bedroom. You're opera, he's punk rock. And opposites may attract, but what are you going to talk about? Eventually, the passion fizzles and you go your separate ways.

Bachelor #2: After the debacle with Bachelor #1, you let your mom set you up with a "nice boy". He's sweet. He's charming. He's educated. He cooks, he cleans, he wants three kids just like you and he already has your dream vacation in Bora Bora planned as a honeymoon getaway. He's perfect. But where's the zing? When you look at him, you feel nothing. Nada. Zilch. Kissing him is about as appealing as making out with an iguana. You like him. You really like him. Maybe you even love him a little... as a friend. Eventually, you have to pull Bachelor #2 aside and have The Talk. I'm sorry, darling. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. Can we still be friends?

Then comes Bachelor #3: He's the trifecta. Chemistry, companionship, and love. There's zing. There's conversation. And he makes your little heart go pitter pat. You're so glad you didn't cling to your zing with Bachelor #1. You're so glad you didn't settle for the stable friendliness of Bachelor #2. Bachelor #3 may not be perfect. He may leave the toilet seat up or track mud all over the house with his manly boots, but he's The One. You can see your fiftieth anniversary in his eyes. This one is a keeper.

So what does this have to do with rejection? Bachelor #1: An editor may love your voice, love your story, love you to pieces, but if he/she can't fit you into the market somewhere, that love is going to fizzle in a hurry. This is a business and don't you forget it.

Bachelor #2: All the elements are there. You have solid writing, you have a somewhat marketable premise, and it might actually sell a few books, but the zing, the passion, it's missing. The editor may like you, but the editor is also smart. They know Bachelor #3 may be right around the corner.

You know why I love this analogy? Because one woman's Bachelor #1 is another woman's Bachelor #3, and vice versa. We're attracted by different things and willing to compromise on different things. The same is true of editors & agents.

You keep getting rejection letters? Good for you! You're putting yourself out there. You're dating! You can't meet Bachelor #3 if you aren't on the market. I know it sucks to go through all those people who aren't the right fit, but the right one is out there. Keep submitting.

Your happily ever after may be just an email away.

Partied Out

2009-10-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I was planning to do a recap of the Emerald City Writers' Conference. Clearly that didn't happen! Apparently you have to recover from a conference before you blog about it.

All week long, I've been in slug mode: lots of laying around, reading my new books (the swag was awesome this year!) There was also all that family stuff that fell by the wayside while finishing up my conference committee obligations. Today's been the week for calling back cousins and actually making dinner for my husband. (That's right. Mr. Marvelous subsisted on Cheerios and did ALL of the housework for two weeks--without complaining! I felt he deserved some super suppers in thanks.)

Happily, I am all rested up now and the husband has been duly fed. So, here is my belated recap!

The best part of conference is always the people: reconnecting with old friends (Shelli Stevens, Anna Richland) and making new ones (Chassily Wakefield). We were lucky to have some excellent agents and editors this year, and I enjoyed conversing with them. I also had my first conversation with the fabulous Cherry Adair, which was an unexpected treat. In addition to being talented and generous, she's also incredibly funny!

I was behind a desk for most of Saturday, but I did get to attend "Warrior Writer" with Bob Mayer... and now that I've sufficiently recovered from conference, I think I need to put some of those workshop ideas into practice. Details later--for now, I've got to get off Blogger and finish reading his book!

In closing, thanks to everyone who made it such a great conference. As a committee chair this year, I really appreciated all the support! As an attendee, I appreciated the fun. And as a shameless fan of kareoke, I appreciate the discretion regarding my rendition of "We've Only Just Begun." More and more, I'm coming to realize that I'm a social being in a solitary field. Going to conference always recharges my writing batteries, and this year was no exception.

Question: what inspires you to write? Alternatively, what is the most inspiring memory you have of a writing conference?

Promo or Procrastination?

2009-10-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

It's Anneliese's week to post. For all you Ms. Kelly fans out there, I'm sorry to report that she won't actually be posting--I have bribed her and stolen her promo time! (The deal was that I'd take over her blogging duties while she completed a major editing request from me. Since I didn't give her nearly enough advanced notice for the editing, it seemed like the least I could do!)

This actually brings me to my topic for the day: the clashing hats we wear as writers. Lately I've been really good about wearing that promo hat. But it's been stuck on my head so long, I'm wondering if it's really about procrastination. After all, if I'm promoting myself then I'm doing legitimate "writing work"... all without actually having to write!

As she so often does, Debbie Ridpath captured this dilemma perfectly (click on the picture for a bigger view):
There have been several great articles out there about social networking for writers. I don't mean to knock any of them. And I certainly believe the excellent advice over at 1st Turning Point: in today's marketing climate, writers have to establish their identity before they're even published!

But the same people who've encouraged me to promote myself are also the same people who'd remind me that social networking is no substitute for actually writing. Nobody can buy your book if you're not writing. And nobody will buy your second book if your first book was a phone-in flop. In short, we must balance promotion with output!

I've been doing an okay job, but I feel that I could definitely improve. And so it is that, even as I take over for Anneliese this week, I'll be looking for ways to wear my writing hat more often. Here are some of the experiments I'll be trying this week:

(1) Keep off the internet during my writing time! I will set a timer. While the minutes are ticking down, I can only be working in Microsoft Word.

(2) Provide mental separation between writing and promo. I heard about this trick from a friend who worked at home! He was feeling incredibly unproductive and someone suggested to him that he get up every morning at a set time and then prepare as if he were actually going to an office (shower, pre-make lunch, pack a briefcase, etc). He'd do this, and then he'd leave the house, walk around the block, and come inside. It was no longer his home... it was, for the duration of his work day, the office. I'm going to try something similar in my attempts to draw that line between writing and promo. I'll let you know how it goes!

(3) Limit promo time. I'm going to bust out the timer again. Maybe I'll set goals for my promo (as many people do for their writing). That way, I won't be working over or under my goal... in theory, at least!

My experiment starts today. I'd love your support! Please post an encouraging word or two. Also, I'd love to hear how you manage your writing/promo time.

Cake Time! Train Cakes!

2009-09-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

Last week was my Big Boy's sixth birthday and we walked him to school with cookies shaped like the number six. It's great his teacher allows kindergarteners to bring class treats and greater that my sweet husband made them all, as well as this knock-me-over cake designed after LINK, Seattle's new light rail.

Perhaps my domestic bliss is why I don't read "mommy lit." I'm not interested in reading about the work vs. stay home conflict, having made and lived with my choices with open eyes. Lots of the other perceived staples of mommy-lit (self-sabotaging women old enough to know better, tooth and nail competition over stupid stuff, carpool angst, doofus spouses) have zero appeal to me as plot points. What's your opinion of "Mommy Lit"?

This week I found the first mommy-lit-light book I'm enjoying, Saving Face, a free on-line serial at Slate Magazine by my favorite writing lawyer, Dahlia Lithwick. Read past the first chapter (school pickup angst - almost stopped me reading. I hate the "I can't do anything right anymore because I've become a flabby loser with kids boo hoo" whine). After the first chapter it gallups into grown-up friendship, how easily the internet can dominate your life, and the lure of being snarky with strangers. These I like to read about. (Full Disclosure: I too am a former lawyer who misplaced her black suit - but it wasn't Armani - and I can't get my post-baby feet into my amazing red suede hiiiigh heels.).

In Saving Face Dahlia Lithwick harnessed her loyal readers' efforts for chores like naming characters, one of the the hardest parts of writing. In my first novel I named characters after San Francisco BART train stations because names are soooo hard. For my current book I used the social security database to find popular names in certain decades - workable but boring for given names. But surnames? If you write, how do you decide on those?

Dahlia poses reader questions at the end of each chapter and incorporates answers into her writing, letting her fans do the research. Amazing collaboration and yet the work is her voice. Read it and come back and tell me what you think. Want to help with Warrior's Hilt? Even though it's "finished" I have a few less-than-inspired names for secondary characters and I need a New Jersey suburb location, among other things. If you're interested drop a comment and I'll post more details.

Insider Tips on the Golden Heart!

2009-09-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

The 2010 RWA® Golden Heart Contest opens for entries TODAY! Are you unpublished with a completed romance manuscript just itching for industry recognition? This is the contest of contests in the romance writing world. Are you one of next year's big winners? Get ready for Nashville, y'all. GH2010 is here! Click here for contest details.

And if you're interested in getting a jump on the competition with some insider info from those who've been there before, the 2009 Golden Heart class, The Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood, is launching a blog today at http://www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com/. All during this month there will be daily giveaways - from mugs to manuscript critiques. Join the Ruby Sisters as we navigate the lions and tigers and bears of the romance writing industry and its biggest contest.

Fan-Tastic Procrastination

2009-09-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed to survive the first week of school. Goodness! I'd forgotten how exhausting it can be to run herd on 150 teenagers every day. Then there's the grading, the planning, and the interaction with colleagues and parents...

In short, a teacher's work is never done. And neither is a writer's. I was staring at my calendar for the upcoming school year, trying to figure out how I was going to meet all of my obligations for two demanding careers. Oh, and then there's that whole "friends and family" thing. My husband probably needs to spend time with me, not just looking at the back of my head!

Needless to say, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. Happily, however, a friend sent me a lovely means of distracting myself. (Thanks, Martha!) I now know what I would look like if I went to Hogwarts (oh, and had impossibly long legs).

Here's the picture of Kate Diamond, at work and at play in J.K. Rowling's fabulous universe:

You should visit the website yourself! I'd love to see your own Doll Divine, whether you're dressing up as a Hogwarts student or trying on some warrior babe chic. Give us a link! And perhaps this is a dangerous request... but I'm going to go there anyway. What's your favorite website to visit when you're procrastinating and/or unwinding?

I hope you enjoy Doll Divine! Of course, those of us with dirty minds just might use the site to live out our prurient Potions fantasies...

Heroines & Life Lessons

2009-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

First off, I’d really like to thank the Damned Scribbling Women for having me today. I love stopping by this blog for a laugh or a thoughtful blog post and am thrilled to be here today.

When I was getting my MFA in creative writing, my fiction professors always told me that a good short story or novel must make its readers think. It must have a message and characters that transcend time and race and culture and creed. It must be real. These are, of course, many of the same professors who scoffed at me when I told them I wanted to write romances. The same ones who told me writing genre fiction was a waste of my talent—little did they know how little their advice was going to end up meaning to me.

Well, here I am a number of years later, writing romance novels and loving every second of it. And while their advice about romance novels was complete idiocy (I’ve been reading love stories since I was in fifth grade and I certainly have no plans to stop anytime soon) a lot of what they taught me has stuck with me—including the fact that a reader should be able to learn something about the human condition from the books she reads.

Now, I write two very different types of books—erotic suspense and family oriented contemporaries, both of which will soon be joined by paranormals when my first novel of dragon shapeshifters hits the shelves next year. And though my books lend themselves to very different plotlines, language and heat levels, one of the things I’ve found has remained the same between my NAL Heats and my Harlequin Superromances, is my characters—and what I (and hopefully my readers) learn from them. Whether I’m writing a kick-butt police detective (my September 2009 release Tie Me Down) or a surrogate mother on the brink of emotional collapse (my June 2009 release From Friend to Father) I tend to gravitate to the same kind of heroines—strong, smart and self-assured. Heroines I can respect and heroines I can learn something from. So, with no further ado, here’s a quick look at some of the life lessons I’ve learned from the women I’ve written in the last year.

Genevieve Delacroix (Tie Me Down—September 2009) A tough-as-nails homicide detective, Genevieve survives the violence of New Orleans’s streets by staying in control at all times. But when she meets her hero, Cole Adams, she learns that some of the most important things in life—friendship, passion, love—can’t be controlled. Genevieve has taught me the value of spontaneity and that coloring outside of the lines is often more rewarding than doing the same old thing.

Sarah Martin (Heroine of From Friend to Father—June 2009): Mother of twin boys and surrogate mother for her best friend’s baby, Sarah has taught me the importance of hanging on to my sense of humor. No matter what life throws at her—from overflowing toilets to a deadbeat husband to falling in love for a second, scarier time, Sarah never forgets to laugh.

Serena Macafee (Full Exposure—January 2009) Serena’s been through the emotional wringer—when she was seventeen, she survived the brutal attack that ended up killing her twin sister. Ten years later, her sister’s murderer—and her own assailant—is being released early from prison and Serena must deal with the emotional and actual fall-out. With her past, she is scared to death of being vulnerable—to anyone, including her lover, Kevin Riley. But as the book unfolds, Serena realizes that being strong doesn’t mean doing everything alone. So from her, I’ve learned the importance of standing on my own two feet—and of asking for help when I need it.

Vivian Wentworth (A Christmas Present—December 2009) Vivian reminded me of the importance of keeping an open mind. An attorney who’s spent her career fighting for women who can’t fight for themselves, Vivian is shocked and upset when she ends up defending a seventeen-year-old boy accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend. But things aren’t what they seem in the case and Vivian must work with her client’s mentor and guardian to keep an innocent boy out of jail, even after he’s given up on justice and himself.

So, have you learned anything from a romance heroine—one you’ve written or one you’ve just liked reading about? Leave a comment and be entered to win a copy of my June release, From Friend to Father.

The winner will be announced on Friday, September 18th, so be sure to check back!

What Makes A Good Book Good?

2009-09-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I was having a hardcore wallow over the uninspired pap I was scribbling all over my WIP. I knew I needed the jolt of eagerness and excitement over the written word that I can only get from a Really Good Book.

My RGB of choice was Dogs & Goddesses by the divine Jennifer Crusie, deific Anne Stuart, and transcendent Lani Diane Rich. And it worked. Whammo! Popped me right out of my funk. I'm writing great gobs of goodness into my WIP and life is good again.

But then I got to thinking. What makes a RGB so good?

We could dissect it. Break it down into pieces and examine the parts, but a book autopsy only works on dead items and Really Good Books are alive to me. Please, let's not kill them. They are so pretty as a whole, must we suck the life out of them and hack them apart? Does it have to be the dialogue or the characterization or the plot arc? Could it possibly be some kind of magical alchemy? An X-factor that takes a good book with all those dry ingredients and adds a juicy slug of wow to the pages.

I don't think a truly excellent work of literary fiction is any more quantifiable than popular/genre fiction. Can you describe to me exactly what makes Dickens more enduring than his contemporaries? What separates Steinbeck or Alcott from theirs? Entire literary theses are written in the attempt, but those theses tell us as much about the reader and what they bring to the work as they do about the work itself.

In one of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books (RGBs!) - I think it was The Well of Lost Plots, but I can't be sure - he talks about how much work a reader does, what percentage of the book experience is fueled by the reader versus the words themselves. Words are just words. The reader is the one who makes them worlds and people and ideas.

I was lucky enough to see Jennifer Crusie speak while I was in Ohio a couple months ago. One of the things she mentioned was leaving enough room in the manuscript for the reader to get inside and make themselves at home. This really got me thinking about the accessibility of books. Some are thick and dense, with not a lot of wiggle room, and not terribly cozy for a reader to crawl inside. But sometimes those difficult reading experiences can be just as, or even far more, rewarding than the easy ones which throw out the welcome mat.

I'm kind of in love with that metaphor now - the book as a living space. I'm picturing some of the difficult ones as being cramped and having major electrical problems, so you're pressed up against the wall and get periodic shocks as the book jolts you into opening up a part of your brain you hadn't accessed before. Electro-shock-reading!

To me, a RGB is not any particular kind of book, but rather a reading experience. I love classic literature. (Well, some of it. My hatred for James Joyce is a living, breathing thing.) But I also read copious amounts of genre fiction. I tend to think that genre fiction exists to take you out of yourself (those wide open doors of the accessible book) whereas lit fic exists to put you back in and make you take a hard look around (and maybe shock open a few new neural pathways). And both are valuable.

You cannot force someone to love electro-shock-reading any more than you can force them to respect the "easy" read. In this article at Smart Bitches, Candy talks about mandatory reading lists and the cold war between lit snobs and genre slobs. Can't we all just get along? Why does one have to be better than the other?

Eloisa James told a story at the National Conference about the difficulties of being a genre writer in a family of literary snobs. She kept being asked when she was going to write a "real" book. (If you've never read Eloisa James, do it now. Those books are real. And utterly brilliant.)

I can understand her frustration, but (don't hate me!) I can also see the other side. I love romance. I love writing romance. But I want to write a Big Book someday that examines and impacts society in a way a happily-ever-after could not do. So I can't take offense when people ask me when I'm going to write something real. Yeah, it sucks that they don't respect what I'm doing now, but I understand that to them a RGB has to be electro-shocky and romance just ain't. One man's RGB is another man's uninspired pap (or James Joyce).

And now I'm off topic... does anyone remember what I set out to say when I sat down to write this post? Something about Really Good Books? And what makes them good?

My verdict: Magic. And a place for the reader to climb inside. Really, it's all up to the reader. Not to diminish the work writers do, but without the reader's imagination, where would we be?

Your thoughts?

Squeee!

2009-09-02T06:46:00.001-07:00

Our own Kate Diamond is a DOUBLE FINALIST in the Emerald City Opener Contest!!! Congratulations, Kate, and loads of luck in the final round for both fantastic manuscripts!

Here's to your success!

Nerves, Nerves, Nerves

2009-09-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got an email pointing me to a great review for The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant. Do you know what my first thought was as I read the heady praise being heaped on my undeserving head?

Oh, no.

Yep. No jumping for joy here. I actually thought Oh, no, she liked it. Quickly followed by: She's gonna hate the next one... (which hits the ebook stores October 27th) and really hate the one after that (which I am in the middle of writing).

Yeah. Way to think positive, Vivi.

I've been a nervous wreck for a few days now. On Wednesday I hit that point (that awful, awful point) in my WIP where the rosy glow wore off and I became convinced the entire thing sucked. It wasn't funny. It wasn't romantic. It was a big, sloppy, disjointed mess. My characters were inconsistent and unlikeable. My plot was plodding and unbelievable. In short, junk. All of it, junk.

It doesn't help matters that I'm in submission-waiting limbo on another manuscript and will-readers-like-it-waiting limbo on the October release. Stress piled up on stress and turned me into a walking basketcase. I'm visiting some friends at the moment and I actually gave one of them instructions to throw water in my face if I look like I'm stressing myself out about the writing crap. So far I've narrowly dodged a couple dousings.

I know I need to plod on through on the WIP. I need to push past my current welter of insecurities and get to the finish line. I can make it funny in revisions. I can make it romantic in revisions. I can make it good. Later. Right now, I just need to get to THE END.

Nerves suck. But they are part of being a writer. I worry that I won't be good enough to get published. I worry that once I'm published, no one will like my book. And I worry that even if they loved that one, they will hate this one. There is always fresh worry baking in the Andrews household.

My question for you: How do you get past your own insecurities and fears? How do you convince yourself that your current project (writing or otherwise) is worth completing? How do you silence that nasty doubting voice telling you it isn't good enough?

Sunshine Delay

2009-08-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to post my final dialog comments today but I ran off to the circus (well, the Evergreen State Fair) with Big Boy, Miss Busy Boots, two all-you-can-ride wrist bands and a pony ride punch card. The rule in my household: you must tour all the animal barns, at least one hokey show (clap for those All-Alaskan Racing Pigs, especially Harry Porker), milk the fake cow and admire the 4-H displays before any midway rides. Am I a grinch or what?

In lieu of much here, please visit Amanda Forester's fabulous website that went live last week. She's a fellow Greater Seattle RWA member with her first book due soon and she dares to undress the knight in shining armor.

He said, she shrugged, I rewrote.

2009-08-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Today's technical advice for polishing raw dialog is a long post but I hope you come away with something for your own writing or follow the links to fun free reading stuff.

I had an ah-ha moment at Elizabeth Hoyt's Writing Between the Lines workshop at 2008 RWA Nationals. She emphasized that a reader can only separate the identities of two speakers for four exchanges - only four lines - before needing a tag or beat to keep from getting lost. Think about that. We've all lost track of the speaker before and had to count "that's him, that's her, him, her, him, so this line is her." I shared this revelation with a friend who thought she was the only person who counted lines and blamed it on her dyslexia. Don't make your reader doubt her own brain! After four exchanges, tag or beat it. (I wish I could cue a little music but maybe I'll make it play in your head ... their words are really clear, so beat it, just beat it...)

What are tags and beats? Tags are "he said" or "so-and-so inquired." Like a scrap of paper dangling from a shirt, they identify the maker (or in this case, the speaker). "Said" scans neutrally and is often preferable to words like "screamed" and all its synonyms. "Said" won't jar the reader out of the flow the way yelled, muttered and spit do.

Beats are things that happen in a section of dialog that identify the speaker. A beat might include movement or it might be internal thought. Examples from Chapter 2 of Elizabeth Hoyt's free online novella The Ice Princess are "Isaac cleared his throat" and "Isaac turned to Lord Howling and raised his eyebrows." The reader knows who says the next line so Hoyt doesn't have to add "Isaac said." A bit more:

Avoid the redundancy of using a tag and a beat such as "he said as he shut the door."
Movement is preferable to a tag. It emphasizes and shows emotion.
But - too much movement or internal thought chops up the dialog and distracts the reader. Hoyt suggests one short paragraph of internal thought per half page. One more thing to check in my edits.
If you must convey explanation or backstory through dialog, create interesting movement around the speakers. Hoyt described the hero shaving his face during an otherwise mundane conversation. In Save the Cat!, Blake Snyder called this principle "The Pope in the Pool" moment in screenwriting. You can tell the audience anything if their eyes are watching the Pope swim in a pool during the talking.

Terry McLaughlin shared a checklist of layers that turn dialog into an emotion-laden conversation worthy of publication:

Hands (no wringing, but do you know where they are? touching chin? in pockets?)
Props (twisting purse strap? earrings? stabbing food at a tense dinner?)
Facial Expressions (I am frequently guilty of adding high speed eyebrow movements that I must later edit away, but some are good.)
Body Language (leaning in, leaning out, turning toward, slumping, straightening?)
Movements (sitting or standing? walking away and turning over shoulder to talk?)

You can see Terry's multi-layered dialog in her free excerpt from A Small Town Homecoming. With all this in mind, and tweaking the earlier words so they fit Wulf and Theresa's characters, here's my second version of the snippet (apologies for blogger's paragraphing problems):

He put the box down carefully and she felt an unfamiliar urge to pout. A package was more important? Then he leaned closer and cupped her cheek in one hand. "Thank you."

"For what?" His palm was warm and calloused and she wanted to rub her face against it but they were standing in the middle of Macy's so she held still.

"For listening to me for once and staying safe. For going with Ivar."

Watching his lips move sent memories of their warmth shivering across her skin. She gripped the railing that separated them from the escalator well to stop from reaching for his head and pulling it down to her. Not here.

"I saw Ivar's rune and knew you were safe." His lips came closer as he leaned across the space. Even though his mouth filled her vision she could barely follow his words. "It took a day for me to reach Copenhagen, another before Mulla rigged my return."

"Wait --" she thrust her palm out to stop his advance. "Two days in Mulla's apartment and you didn't call?"

"I have this problem with telephones." He flashed that dimple, always so unexpected on her warrior.

She would not give in that easily. "Many men do. They still call."

"Figured I might as well make it here."

She rolled her eyes to no effect since he was staring at the box between their feet. Yeah, she already knew he had no sense of time passing. Who would after fifteen hundred years, really? "No friends on your flight, I hope?" She tried to keep her voice light but it would be a long time, if ever, before she could forget the chaos and fear of their flight to Copenhagen.

"Mulla crated and shipped me air cargo. Seemed like the easiest way to avoid a chatty seatmate."

Back to Me: Improved since Monday? Did you notice that I removed some of Wulf's pronouns and two repetitive lines of the exchange? I tried to make him more direct - he is a special forces soldier and immortal warrior, not a chatty bff. I added hands (she grips rail, holds palm up; he cradles her cheek) and a prop (the box - what's in it?). A question for you - does rolling eyes work when you read it on a page? His dimple shows he smiled. Should I end it with a period after dimple or does the "unexpected" phrase work?

I still need to up the emotion and tie it to the overall conclusion. This dialog feels hanging in space to me, even when I read it in its full context. Theresa is being remarkably cool - neither angry nor happy to see him - so either I have to develop a reason for that or I have to change her reaction.

Please tell me what you think! Anything that's not clear? That I should edit out? Any more to add? Friday I'll share the final version but until then keep writing.

Yadda Yadda ...

2009-08-24T08:45:00.000-07:00

Dialog. If you hear it in your head, you might consider being a writer. If your lips move while you drive, wash dishes or take a shower, you are a writer already even if you haven't put anything on paper.

Dialog. It's what I write first. I explained in a previous post how I organize to write a lot, quickly, with forward momentum. My system of writing dialog, a product of my trials and errors as well as classes with Elizabeth Hoyt and Terry McLaughlin, usually requires at least three visits to a scene. That breaks down nicely to a week of blogging, doesn't it?

First, I put down the words the characters say and nothing else. At the Emerald City Writer's Conference Terry McLaughlin said "get out of the way and let the characters talk." That's what I try to do. I don't bother with quotation marks because they interrupt and distract me by making me wonder about subsequent punctuation. I manage to capitalize where necessary because I'm a moderately fast touch typist, but if you're not, don't worry about caps either.

In this first hashing, I do NOT interrupt my writing with "he said" tags or action beats such as "the viscount shook his head." If I have more than two people, I might use the speaker's first initial here or there to keep things straight in my head, but nothing else. If I have a really important event that the characters must react to and I need a note to myself to recall how the scene blocks out, then I write [car rolls in ditch] and continue with the conversation. Here's a first draft of part of my last scene in Warrior's Hilt, the reunion that ends with happily ever after. Wulf and Theresa meet at the top of an escalator at Macy's in New York. She's been waiting at his brother's home for three days after they fled an explosion at an open-air historic village museum outside of Copenhagen:

Thank you.
For what?
For listening to me finally. For going with Ivar and staying safe so you would be here for me.
What took you so long?
His lips hovered over hers. I saw the rune in the snow and knew I could stop looking for you. He kissed her and didn't stop. [her feeling]. It was a day before I could make it to Copenhagen and another before Mulla had me fit for public.
And you didn't think to call?
I have this problem with telephones.
Many men do. They still call.
Lately they seem to be bugged.
Handy excuse.
I figured I might as well come home.
No repeats of our other flight?
Mulla checked me as air cargo. Seemed like the easiest way to avoid chatty seatmates.

Me again: So I have some problems making indent work in a blogger block quote. If you know how, please tell! How hard was it to follow which character, Wulf or Theresa, is speaking? If I did a bang-up job, each character's voice would come through in word choice and structure. The reader would know immediately what a man had said and what a woman had said without tags. I'm not that good on the first pass.

My thoughts: The first couple lines were unclear and need tags or action/movement beats to clarify speaker and add interest, but I hope readers feel that "you didn't think to call" and "many men do" were said by the heroine. This raw dialog could play various ways. Is Wulf penitent or unrepentant? Sorry or cocky? He's a bit wordy for an immortal Viking warrior turned Special Forces soldier, unless he's nervous (he is; he's about to propose). The heroine's terseness could indicate anger, frustration, sarcasm or maybe teasing, confidence or flirting, depending on her body language and emotions. I can see her face in my imagination but I need to translate that to paper.

Your Assignment, Should You Choose to Accept It: Write the dialog only leading to a marriage proposal and post it in the comments. As in my example, you can use two sentences for set-up. Wednesday we'll tackle the next phase - editing - and we can all work on any posted samples. Or you can comment on mine!

Favorite Foodie Romance?

2009-08-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

Every summer, I rediscover my love of cooking. I bike to the local farmers market. I pick blackberries. I make everything from scratch. In short, it's lovely, and it serves to remind me that food can be many things: calorie-laden comfort, a sign of affection, or the start of something sensual!

Not surprisingly, some of my favorite romance novelists seem to agree with me.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to appreciate Jennifer Crusie's food descriptions! Who could forget the chicken marsala in Bet Me--the "golden-brown fillets and huge braised mushrooms floating in luminous dark wine sauce" (44). And don't even get me started on Emilio's bread, or the Krispy-Kreme makeout scene...

Then we have Agnes and the Hitman, where food-loving takes a close second to Shane-loving. The food columns! The raspberry sauce! The trauma of evil fondant! And those fantastic breakfast scenes wherein suspicious individuals come together over buttery eggs, and the pancake syrup falls in sugary ropes... what's not to love?

Clearly, I am a fan of food in literature. I am hoping you have some recommendations for me. What are some other romance novels that get your taste buds tingling?

Love and Marriage

2009-08-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today is my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Four decades of marriage: pretty impressive, huh? Even more impressive when you consider that they're high school sweethearts. Yeah, they started dating back when my mother was 15 (or, as she likes to say, "we've been together since we were fetuses"). They've never been with anyone but each other!

Over the past few years, I've learned a little something from watching my parents. (Before that, I was a teenager and I knew everything.) I think one of the reasons they're still happy together is that they're not complacent about their marriage. It would probably be very easy to get lazy after so long. But they still do new things together--they vacation in new places or try new restaurants. They laugh together A LOT and still create their own personal in-jokes with admirable frequency. They're friends as well as spouses.

I hope, in 40 years, that Mr. Marvelous and I can say the same!

Their story would make for a terrible romance novel. They've never dealt with secret babies or arranged marriages. My father is not a vampire. My mother is not a plucky FBI agent. They don't fight crime and the state of their relationship has nothing to do with bringing about or averting the apocalypse.

And yet, they inspire me every day by the way they treat each other.

And so, to honor my parents, I ask the question: what real life romances inspire you? Maybe they inform your writing. Or maybe they inform your life. Either way, I want to hear about them!

Must Read Romance

2009-08-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

In my quest to locate the definitive list of Must Read Romances to test the true romance devotee, I found a variety of lists, but none of them reflected my romance preferences (and were therefore inferior, ha).

I found This List, from the Romance Reader, but it seemed to be more "Old Skool" romance and I was disappointed by the absence of the New Guard. Nary a Lani Diane Rich or a Kresley Cole in sight. And paranormal was woefully underrepresented.

A couple weeks back, the Smart Bitches were in People Magazine, plugging Bosoms and romance novels as a whole. They sent along to the people of People a list of their favorite romances and the people of People distilled that list down to these five:

1. Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie

2. The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale

3. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

4. Magnate's Make-Believe Mistress by Bronwyn Jameson

5. Naked in Death by J.D. Robb

I have to say, this is a nice list. Diverse, high quality stuff. But it isn't my list. I doubt you're ever going to get romance readers to agree on a top five (or even a top fifty), but that's part of the beauty of this business. There is marvelous variety and plenty of readers who love every inch of the romantic spectrum.

(And if you're interested in Candy from SBTB's Favs you can find that list HERE.)

Anyway, here's my nit-picking of the SBTB list, along with a list of my very own:

1. Bet Me is not my favorite Crusie. Not by a long shot. (Though of course, I still love it, because it's still brilliant.) I also wouldn't say it's the most universal. I would definitely have a Crusie on my list (no question about that), but mine would have to be Welcome to Temptation. The book that popped my Crusie cherry, so to speak.

2. What? No paranormal? No vamps? No shifters? Say it ain't so! My #2 slot has to have a paranormal slant. Shana Abe? Kresley Cole? This is a hard one to choose, but I think I'm gonna go with Jacquelyn Frank's Nightwalkers. Jacob.

3. Okay, I like Loretta Chase and all, but if I only have to pick one historical, of all the historicals out there, it's gotta be Julia or Eloisa. Quinn or James? How to choose? There is a glut of Regencies, so I'm going to go Georgian on this one. Desperate Duchesses, baby

4. Honestly, I am not a big fan of category romances. I just don't have one of these on my list. I'm afraid I'm going to fill this slot with, ahem, the rather hot side of the spectrum. My favorite naughty romance would have to be an Emma Holly guilty pleasure: Prince of Ice.

5. J.D. Robb. It wouldn't be a romance list without a listing from Dame Nora, eh? I did really like Naked in Death, but as romantic suspense go, not really my fav. I tend to veer more toward the action edge than the darker side. I like my romance fluffy, thank you very much. So my list is going to showcase the lighter, adventure-ier edge of the rom-suspense genre: Roxanne St. Claire & her Bullet Catchers. Kill Me Twice.

What would be on your top five? Which books would you give to a genre-newbie to try to turn them into a lifelong card-carrying romance-reading addict?

100 (or so) Books

2009-08-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, a list put forth by the BBC made the blog rounds. 100 Books. The BBC estimated that the average person would have read only 6 books off this list.

Now, I’ve read substantially more than six (and I have a feeling the more literarily inclined DSW will have read far more than I), but I still found myself with a discomfiting number of "Oh, I should have read that!" moments.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:
1) Look at the list and bold the ones you have read.
2) Put an ‘X’ after ones you’ve started but not finished.
3) Italicize the ones you LOVE with a passion that cannot be described.
4) Star (**) those you plan on reading.
5) Tally your total and post it in a comment here. (You do not get partial points for wanting to read or having read part of… that’s just to keep you honest.)

And now, without further ado, THE LIST:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (Oh, Jane, how do I love thee…)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien XX (I read the Hobbit & the whole Fellowship, but I just couldn't get any farther.)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (Someone needed to give the Bronte sisters some happy pills. Of course, think of the literature lost if they lived in the days of Prozac.)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (What is with lumping the series all together? There are clearly more than 100 books here.)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (yes, the whole thing, and I'm not even religious)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (Can I smack Catherine & Heathcliff over the head with something heavy?)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (I am such a sucker for dystopian literature.)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I think I spent as much time arguing with my friend Leslie about whether or not this was a crap series as I did actually reading it. I was not a fan. She was vehemently in favor.)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (See Wuthering Heights above for smacking of Pip & Estella)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy **
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (Amazing book. Beyond brilliant)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I'm counting this one even though I missed two of the histories. No one has read King John. I defy you to find one person who has actually read that play. One!)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier**
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (Never even heard of it. Ignorant me.)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (I find I love this one in spite of the fact that it made me cry buckets and was irritatingly fatalistic. Can't wait for the movie.)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot**
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens**
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy** (This one was assigned reading in college and I skipped it. It's been eating away at my soul ever since...)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh** (Shut up, Brian. I’ll get to it.)
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky** (See War & Peace and eating away at my soul...)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (I’ve got a weird thing for Steinbeck. He flips my switch. Don’t ask me why.)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (Weird. Seriously weird.)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy**
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens **
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Dude, Item 33? The Chronicles? I protest the redundancy. I’ve read the whole series but I am appalled by the BBC’s lack of precision.)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (Crap book. Absolutely hated it. If you liked it, you are wrong. Email me if you'd like an in depth argument of all the ways it sucks.)
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden** (I'll probably read this just because someone gave me a copy.)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown** (I'll get around to it. I have to work myself up to Dan Brown lest I dent my walls chucking them across the room. I had a small problem with the jumping out of a helicopter without a parachute part of Angels & Demons. I bitched about that for days on end.)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (In Spanish! Take that! I am a literary mogul!)
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (And after I saw the movie I have no urge to ever read this. Blech.)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel**
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens**
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon**
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov**
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac** (Must read, if only because I have a freakish need to travel constantly.)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie**
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (Yeah, the whole thing.)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (Never never never. I had to read Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. After that Joyce never gets another second of my life.)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath X
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (I’ve never heard of this book… but the title sounds kinda dirty… I find myself intrigued)
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt**
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Read this? Only every single Christmas!)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert**
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton (Again, never heard of it. I’z so unedumacated.)
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole**
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute (And yet again, never heard of it. *sigh*)
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (And is there a reason this isn’t included in Complete Works above?)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (And I love the play, too.)

My number is 47. I’ve read not-quite-half of them. I’d say that’s not too shaming. Although, I have to say, I’m not too keen on the BBC’s list. There’s an odd mix of popular and classic which leads me to wonder how they picked these 100.

How do you come up with a list that lines Douglas Adams up right next to Shakespeare? And I love Jane Austen, but why everything she ever wrote and no Mark Twain? No Ayn Rand? No Robert Heinlein? No Vonnegut or D.H. Lawrence? Narnia is on there twice but no Mary Shelley? Faulkner? O’Hara? Robert Penn Warren? Who made this list? I guess these are the 100 books you should read growing up British.

My questions for you: How many have you read? (If you've read them all, I will be suitably awed, amazed, and ashamed of myself.) What books should be on this list but aren’t? What books do you think should be required reading for everyone?

And later this week... a list of must-read romance novels to test your smut-o-meter.

Savor a Rake, Win Some Cash

2009-08-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

The second book in Delilah Marvelle's School of Gallantry series comes out on August 4th! To celebrate, the author is running a very cool contest over at her website.

You can wander over there for contest details, but we have them here. Email Ms. Marvelle (Delilah at DelilahMarvelle dot com). Send her the School's quote from Lesson 27, and you will be entered to win one of three $50 Visa Cards. Winners will be contacted via e-mail by September 10th.

And don't forget to buy Lord of Pleasure, on sale August 4th!

Why Not Wednesday?

2009-07-31T08:36:00.001-07:00

On Monday I promised both a Wednesday and a Friday post. Why didn't I post Wednesday? Because I have a schedule I prioritize over blogging. I have a weekly page count for Warrior's Hilt, my paranormal romance in progress. I weighed my commitment to blogging against my writing schedule and I chose to write my novel.

Writing a whole book - 95,000 words, 300 plus pages - is that simple. You choose writing over other things. That might be instead of sleeping in or replying to email or cleaning a closet. Maybe you send the husband to the zoo with the kids and decide to skip it this time because after all you went to the playground yesterday and hey you can write three more pages while they're all out. I'm by no means a motivation or planning expert, but after fourteen years tinkering with Shooting Stars, I started writing Warrior's Hilt in January 2009 and today, July 31, I have 290 pages. I am on track to be finished September 1 and polished in time to enter the Golden Heart. Here's what I've learned.

Plan your writing realistically in weekly chunks. I use a 3-column Word document with three months of Wednesday and Saturday dates on the left. The middle column contains blank lines for pages achieved each date and a pre-printed weekly page goal. On the right I note expected events (my week to blog, vacation, camping) that add or subtract writing time. I vary my page goals based on the week. On the road for vacation, 5 pages. A so-called regular week, 15 pages. Both kids at camp 9 am to noon for a whole week, 30 pages (didn't quite make that but it was a great goal).

Print the plan and put it on the fridge. Forget weight loss, I want to write. I track pages achieved on the fridge instead of wasting computer time opening the chart. Not only does seeing my goals all the time keep me aware, I'm accountable to anyone who looks at the fridge.
I've had failures. The week my laptop died I wrote nothing and I'm still catching up. I grew distracted the whole month of May and let my writing priorities drift. They slipped so far I had to revise my accountability chart from an August 1 deadline to September 1, and that's why I ended up with a 30 page goal one week and waaay too many 20 page weeks. But now I'm past the hump (see Monday's entry for the rhino). That's how normal slow people run marathons and that's how you raise kids and that's how you mow the grass. You keep going.

Write anything, even crap. This is Cherry Adair's view of writing and I believe in it. You can edit the crap out of anything but a blank page. If I can't figure out a transition from a chunk of dialog to the next action sequence, I [add transition here] and move forward. Brackets and speed are my friends.

In this system, do not under any circumstances agonize over phrasing. Maybe spend time choosing one word, but you can put a [boring word] in brackets and come back later to jazz it up. When I write what I know to be a cliche, I add [cl] after it to remind me to freshen during editing.

Two months ago I described three scenes in Warrior's Hilt as [go to his tuscan castle - dinner - bad guys invade]. I wanted to move to the morning after the fight scene, which I could see clearly at that moment, but I think moving linearly is important to character development and manuscript integrity.

By this week I was one hundred pages past that point, stuck at the final part of a snow mobile chase. I couldn't tackle that frigid mess in Seattle's hundred degree heat, so I flipped back to my Tuscan castle brackets and it all flowed, the fight scene with tipped over candles lighting a tapestry on fire, the dining room's historic weapon collection, the hero's anger that the heroine didn't follow his commands.

In sum: make a realistic accountability calendar, print and post it visibly, write fast and sloppy to move forward. You will have a rough draft faster than you imagine and you will be able to edit, polish, tweak and fiddle as necessary - with a new calendar or you'll be at it fourteen years like I was.

Do you have a different system that works for you to get your writing done? I'm always interested in tips and tricks to squeeze more writing out of a day, so please post here. And I promise to post my dialog editing comments when I get my page count back to green-light status.

Shelli's Great Contest

2009-07-28T13:41:00.001-07:00

Since I hope most of our readers believe in HEAs (it took me six months to realize that stood for Happily Ever After on blogs), please humor my announcement that today is my eighth wedding anniversary. I forgot to buy a card for my Favorite Canadian, but that's okay. At least this year I know how many years it is. Hey, I'm a romance writer, not a romantic. I did make him a fancy dessert one night last week when it wasn't raging hot and suggested he count it as an early deposit on today.

It's over 90 here in Seattle and no one has A/C, so I can't possibly think of anything witty or interesting and I have to get moving with the kids to the Mariners' game. Luckily Shelli Stevens, the amazing chapter president of Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America, is running a fabulous contest to celebrate her new Aphrodisia book. Go to her website and do it. In the heat.

An Editing Exercise

2009-07-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

How many of our readers are also writers, published or trying? I hope my posts this week offer inspiration and advice for those who are writing and insight into how it works for the rest of you. Here's my plan for the week - a short exercise, a medium-long insight and final tips about dialog. Stick with me.

To use one of the tips from Margie Lawson's Deep Edits class, print a scene you want to improve. Before you begin other edits, highlight the last word in every paragraph. Is it a powerful word that drags you to the start of the next paragraph? A word with emotion, force, strength, meaning or imagery? Or is it a be-verb, a pronoun, an -ing ending (Kate would call that a gerund), a downbeat that drops the reader? If you're focusing on a paragraph, do the same with the last word of every sentence (that also catches repetition).

Darn. Look at my first paragraph. I used trying, you, dialog, me. Two pronouns and a gerund out of four words. Not compelling.

I'd love it if someone tried this on random pages of a book you couldn't put down and one you never finished, and posted a list for us to compare. If you have a tough hide, be brave and do it to your own work - a scene you think is strong and also one that you doubt. Tell us how it works. And come back for my other tips Wednesday and at the end of the week. Now go read, write and drink coffee. (FYI I took this photo at The Wilds, a conservation park near Zanesville, Ohio. If you're traveling I-70, it's a great stop.)

I'd Love to Taste You. No, Really.

2009-07-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

I'm going to continue my line of thought for this week.

Enjoy the video! And feel free to post your thoughts on Twilight. Edward Cullen: sweet, or stalker?

Courting vs. Stalking

2009-07-23T01:40:00.000-07:00

"Would you forgive me, love, if I boiled your rabbit?"

Yes, I had a friend in high school who once modified some Alanis Morissette lyrics. It was all part of a general conversation regarding the difference between courting and stalking.

It started after a viewing of Say Anything. There was a heated debate about Lloyd Dobler's boom-box move: sketchy, or sexy?

This seems like an easy question to answer, but we never actually reached a conclusion. Let's be honest. Pet death and property destruction aside, it can sometimes be a tough call. After all, one woman's deranged psycho is another woman's hot emo vampire.

My own perspective: I admire a certain amount of persistence in the pursuit of romance. This should be obvious, given my choice of reading/writing material. If there's not an obstacle, it's not interesting! Imbalance of interest/commitment makes for good conflict.

And yet sometimes, I get a little whiplash from my beloved romance novels. The "persistent" hero seems like a stalker. Or the "over-protective" hero seems controlling and emotionally abusive. But I've yet to come up with a good list of tricks/traits that definitively tip the scales.

I put it to you, dear reader: what squicks you out in a hero? I'm looking for the stuff that makes you say, "Wow. If that happened in real life, I'd probably call the cops." All the better if you can give us examples from novels, TV, and/or movies!

Our Own Vivi Wins Big!

2009-07-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

Whee! Congratulations! Last night Vivi won the Golden Heart award for best unpublished contemporary single title romance at the 2009 Romance Writers of America Convention. The winners are listed at the RWA National website. You can go to Vivi's blog and read her thoughts on winning and the conference. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The Armchair Traveller

2009-07-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Marg at Reading Adventures, I found this cool map feature that let's you plot all the countries you've "visited"-- in real life or through the pages of a book. I like seeing where my reading has taken me (and where I need to read more), as I take off on another real-life trip. Looks like South America could be next up for me--in life and literature! Why don't you do your own?

create your own visited country map

London is for Lovers!

2009-07-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

As July slips away into August (and takes with it my hopes for a productive summer), I'm doing the only sensible thing-- getting out of this NYC heat and heading to the UK with my beloved.

My first visit back to England in a decade (after spending a year living in the Midlands) is doing triple duty. I'll be presenting a paper on one of my research interests at an academic conference. I'll be celebrating two years of marriage with a nice vacation. And I'll be jotting down notes on Regency architecture and style and London street layouts for my novel-writing.

Of course, a London trip calls for some London-centric reading. I've got David Copperfield and Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies on hand to provide some nineteenth- and twentieth-century London flavor. But what about the twenty-first? Any of our readers up for a possibly impossible task?

Which London-set romance novel should I bring with me on this decidedly lit-geeky trip? The novel should be set primarily or exclusively in London. And ideally the city would feature prominently as an essential element of the book--a few references to Almacks here and Covent Garden there won't cut it. (This, clearly, negates most of Julia Quinn's Bridgerton books from the running. Sadly, my own London-set Then Comes Marriage doesn't fit the bill either).

Expect some lovely London shots after I get back.

Super Special Travel Plans!

2009-07-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

When I was an undergrad, I completed a Group Independent Study Project (GISP) on children's literature. What does this mean?

(a) I got college credit for reading Harry Potter
(b) I wrote literary analysis on Mary Anne Spier and Logan Bruno
(c) At age 20, I had a sleepover party and played the Sweet Valley High board game
(d) I made some excellent lifelong friends
(e) All of the above, and then some!

It was one of my best college experiences, mostly because I've stayed in touch with the other women in the GISP. After graduation, we continued to have semi-regular reunions. But then people started moving away from the Providence area. Now, we are spread throughout Boston, New York, Washington, and Alaska. So when we want to get together, we have to have a Super Special.

How many of you read Ann M. Martin's Baby-sitter's Club books? If you've got any sort of familiarity with the BSC, then you must know the term "Super Special." They were the thick white books chronicling the club's group vacations.

The GISP had our first Super Special last year, when everyone flew out for my wedding. Starting tomorrow, we're on our next Super Special: GISP Alaskan Adventure! I can't wait. Everyone's been joking that, if our vacation runs true to the BSC model, we will care for adorable toddlers (and meet equally adorable men with accents) on our trip.

I am more than happy to do without both kinds of adorable. I am just excited to hang out with my friends and see Alaska!

I'm sure I'll have all kinds of pictures and stories when I return. For now, though, I'd love to hear about the best gal-pal vacation you ever took. (And former BSC readers: who was your favorite/least favorite baby-sitter, and why?)

A-Number-One, Top of the Heap

2009-07-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks I have been obsessed (and I do not use that word lightly) with top ten lists. My latest ebook release, Serengeti Heat, a sexy shape-shifter novella, released just thirteen short days ago. And ever since that fateful Tuesday, I have been haunting my publisher's sales site (and a handful of other ebook retailers) looking for any clues as to how my little shifter story might be doing.

Were people reading it? Were they liking it? The agony of not knowing had me in a frenzy. I latched onto anything that might give me some hint how my baby was being received.

And then it happened. The Top Ten List Obsession. Serengeti Heat hit number one on the My Bookstore & More Best Sellers List. Then (gasp!) it crawled up to be the number two bestselling shape-shifter ebook on the All Romance eBooks site. When it became the All Romance eBooks top reader rated shape-shapeshifter story... well, that's when the obsession really spiraled out of control.

I web-stalked those sites, visiting them constantly (even though I knew they didn't update their information more than once a day), waiting with dread in my poor lil heart for the time when my sales would plummet and Serengeti Heat would fall from its precarious perch atop those lists. (Which it did, of course, in epubbing that first week phenomenon is quickly replaced by next week's first week phenomenon.)

Do these lists mean anything? Honestly? It just means that I sold at least one book more than the person at number two over a rolling seven day period. It's all relative. That could mean I only sold a half dozen books, or it could mean a thousand. Who knows? But one thing's for sure: the New York Times list it ain't. Buying my own private island will have to wait a couple more years. Still, in my little minnow pond, it's pretty fun to be the big fish for a week or two.

And now that I'm done bragging... I give you the result of my Top Ten List obsession:

The Top Ten Coolest Things About Being a Writer (according to me).

10. Going to writing conferences, meeting your favorite authors, basking in their genius and being given free books. LOTS of free books.
9. Meeting other people who use phrases like "fully-actualized character arc" and "jarring POV shift" in everyday conversation.
8. Visiting blogs, social networking sites & yahoo loops all count as "name-building" and "promo time".
7. Reading is research.
6. Movies, TV shows, plays, anything with a plot, or just sitting in a park people-watching - ALL RESEARCH.
5. Taking vengeance on people who annoy you by putting them in your books. The obnoxious girl who gets murdered in the second act? Total authorial catharsis, baby.
4. Talking in public about ways to murder people, blow things up or perform battlefield triage after the undead apocalypse = totally acceptable. (Though no guarantees that the civilians around you won't give you very strange looks while you're discussing the relative symptoms of arsenic vs. cyanide.)
3. You are God (or at the very least a god) of your own stories. You control the universe and everything always turns out exactly as you wanted it to.
2. Working in your pajamas.
1. Getting an email from someone you've never met, totally out of the blue, telling you that they loved your story and thanking you for writing it. (Yep, I cried. I'm just a big ole softie.)

That's my list. So what are the top ten most kick-ass things about your job? What's on your Top Ten List?

Comeuppance

2009-06-29T14:59:00.000-07:00

Last month I followed Kate and Vivi's advice and bought a copy of Beyond Heaving Bosoms, Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan's book based on the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog. On vacation last week I managed to sneak away and indulge a few chapters. Reading their analysis of Old Skool romances such as Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's The Flame and the Flower, I had one of those "I can do that" moments familiar to both crafters and aspiring authors. I resolved to go to the scary basement, unearth the bin of books from under the Christmas lights, and find The Wolf and the Dove, a Woodiwiss book I read twenty times during high school but not since. I remembered a Saxon maiden chained to the hearth by the Norman warrior who pillages her home. That would fit Sarah and Candy's description:

[I]t was well-nigh de rigeur for the heroine to be raped by the hero in those novels. The rape would be justified in any number of ways with the framework of the story ... Sometimes, the heroine was the spoils of war, so clearly, it was acceptable to rape her. Other times, the hero would assume the heroine was sexually experienced, and as we all know, rape counts only if the rapist knows the victim is a virgin.

I decided to blog using the Smart Bitches' methodology to analyze this old favorite, racking points for every "forced kiss - and she likes it" scene. I planned to ask you, Dear Reader, to play this parlor game with me. We would all be snarky New Skool romance fans together, bemoaning chained to the bed/hearth/ship's wheel/dirigible scenes, competing to rewrite overly modified sentences and rework similes beaten into "limp exhaustion," pointing out spears of manhood and other sexual euphemisms for our intellectual titillation.

I found the book box easily. The 1974 copyright date and $2.25 cover price dovetailed with my expectations. Filled with smugness and caffeine, I began to read and take notes, eager to line up this stereotypical Old Skool romance with the Beyond Heaving Bosoms flowchart.

I stumbled. Some bad guy named Ragnor, not the hero Wulfgar, is the one who rapes her (although, Candy and Sarah were correct in that Kathleen Woodiwiss contrived to have Aislinn and the villain consume sleeping herbs so in fact no actual bad guy rape occurred, thus the heroine was a technical albeit unaware virgin for the hero).

Sure, I found several forced kisses, such as page 40 where she slaps him, in front of his men, for mocking her and his retribution is ... "Without word or warning Wulfgar's hands were upon her like slaves' armlets." May I say, that is powerful writing? Read it out loud. Not an extra modifier lurking in that line. The repeated "w" sounds like a whip, doesn't it? Oh, the rhythm. It takes me hours to write like that.

Oops, it was her Saxon fiance chained to the hearth for trying to stab Wulfgar, who spares the poor guy and eventually elevates him to Sheriff. That's kind of progressive in 1066, isn't it? I am totally failing at snarkiness and remembering why I loved this book twenty years ago.

The Smart Bitches claim "most of these Old Skool romances were written solely or mostly from the heroine's viewpoint." But Woodiwiss does a fair amount of head-hopping, regularly giving Wulfgar his own point of view, such as this man-angst:

Was this to be his lot? To find her ever close at hand yet never know again the privacy with her that had been before. Was this marriage? To have a babe more oft between them than finding a moment to share long suffering passions? He sighed and turned his stare to the fire. Winter comes, he thought. And the nights are long.

Who among us is married with children and doesn't feel that? Woodiwiss wrote the thesis for Michael Lewis' new book Home Game when that dude still had baby teeth. The Wolf and the Dove is thirty-five years old, but it stills rocks and I feel ashamed at my pathetic intent.

I must apologize to the spirit of Kathleen E. Woodiwiss for assuming I could dismiss and mock a book that was already in its thirty-second printing twenty years ago, and remains in print and even ebook. I must apologize to my sixteen, seventeen and eighteen-year old selves for doubting their taste and judgment in reading material. And I must apologize for thinking I could convince you to play along with a petty game.

Let's try something nicer instead. I liked that paragraph from Wulf's point of view. Can you post a pre-1986 or so hero POV scene that you like? Something from the '70s or early '80s that reminds us all why we like those books (despite the arm-gripping). Brave your own scary basement, find a hero you've lugged around for longer than your favorite jeans, and put it up here.

The Procrastination Station

2009-06-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

If you're not familiar with Will Write For Chocolate, I recommend checking it out. Debbie Ridpath Ohi knows the writing life well. Sometimes I don't know whether to wince or laugh when I recognize myself in her comics.

I posted this particular comic because I am in the grips of some killer procrastination. First there was the hustle and bustle of wrapping up my day job. Another school year ended on Monday. I took a day or two to rest on my laurels. There was lots of sleeping, and a Bones DVD-fest.

Today, I should be tackling Revising Mr. Right. Instead, I cleaned the kitchen. Yeah, that's right. Nothing added to my word count. My latest WIP languishes, ignored, on my computer. But at least my cupboards are beautifully organized.

How do you procrastinate from writing? And how do you force yourself back to the desk?

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

2009-06-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

I was inspired by Zeek's Supernatural post awhile back. In it, she mentions the show's reference to the wide world of slash fiction. If you're not familiar, slash fiction is fan fiction that depicts romantic or sexual relationships between characters of the same-sex. In other words, stories depicting Captain Kirk and Spock making sweet, sweet love on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Now, one of the best academic discussions I've ever seen of slash fiction happened in the Bitch magazine article "Fan/tastic Voyage." Check it out if you want a truly thoughtful exploration of the implications of slash. (Slash writers = predominantly straight women. Slash audience = mostly other women. So why the focus on male/male romantic relationships? This is what the article explores.)

While I admire the article, I do not aspire to such lofty heights of feminist analysis here. I honestly just wanted to give you the recut Top Gun trailer. If you can't view the video at the top of this post, you can always follow the link here.

I don't know about you, but I thought the recut trailer was hilarious. If nothing else, it reminded me about the importance of editing! My, my... how it shapes a story...

What did you think? Did anyone else do a spit-take with their coffee?

Plot Happens in Vegas...

2009-06-17T08:16:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I promised to write about the Get-Drunk-and-Wake-Up-Married storyline, or as I call it, the Vegas Plot.

My new WIP is set primarily in Vegas, and for the longest time I didn't connect my love of cheesy strangers-getting-married-plots to my need to set the book there. After all, my hero and heroine already know each other before traveling to Sin City (they don't like each other, but they know each other). Given their reasons for visiting Vegas, I doubt they'll be hitting the craps tables and winding up at an all-night wedding chapel. And yet...

And yet, when you want to take two all-business characters and force them to get a little freaky, there's no better spot to set your story than Vegas. And not just in books or movies, as the perennial appearance of flicks like What Happens in Vegas or The Hangover prove. This year's summer pop hit (Katy Perry's "That's What you Get For Waking up in Vegas") bears a striking resemblance to last year's summer pop hit (Carrie Underwood's "I Don't Even Know His Last Name").

To bring things back to the realm of literature, Vegas operates in our cultural mythology like the forest in a Shakespearean comedy. In plays like As You Like It and (most notably) A Midsummer Night's Dream, characters leave the city and enter the forest, where they don disguises and alternate identities, where they experiment with different lovers and try on new relationships, where they reorder their place in world. It's an experience at turns jarring, confusing, exhilerating, freeing, and confining. When the characters leave the forest--after one long night or several long years--they return to their accustomed places in society and resume their usual relationships. But they bring something of their experience in the forest with them--a sense of the possibilities for anarchy and change that exist even in the most ossified institutions and rigid identities.

Doesn't that sound just like Vegas in 21st-century America? A confined and separate place where constrained and contained people can give free rein to the elements of themselves unallowable in their ordinary lives. A place where the promise that "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" allows for the kind of role playing the hero or heroine of a Shakespearean comedy would recognize as his or her birthright.

Of course, for contemporary writers, the real interest comes not with the loosening of morals in the secret, sacred space of Vegas. We can see unrestrained ids on display every night of the week on reality tv. For us, the more interesting question is, "What Happens When Vegas Doesn't Stay Put?" When the Forest of Arden invades the court? Or when you wake up married in Vegas and have to go back to work in Cincinnati?

And then there's the biggest benefit of all to the Vegas-set story: Research trips!

If you're a writer-- what locations inspire you most? And since we're all readers-- do you love stories set on cruises? In European locations? In small towns? What kind of setting grabs you...and why?

Yums and Yucks (and Guilty Pleasures)

2009-06-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

Every reader of romance has her (or his!) mental list of yums and yucks. Mine look something like this:

Anneliese's Yums

Second-time-around Stories
Getting-to-Know-You Banter
Hate Sex
Heroines with Shady Pasts
Super Angsty Heroes

Anneliese's Yucks

Virgin Widows
Forced Sex
Too-Stupid-to-Live "Plucky" Heroines
Super Asshole-y Heroes
Vampires (I know, I'm not a red-blooded American woman or something)

In addition to these guaranteed pick-me-ups and throw-me-aways, I've got another list. Super-cliched romance plot devices that I KNOW are ridiculous, but can't help loving. It boils down to two items.

Anneliese's Guilty Pleasures

Secret Babies
People Getting Drunk and Waking Up Married

Yup, if you're wondering who's buying all those Harlequin Presents titles about secretaries who get knocked up after a night with the boss and hide the resulting child for six years, it's me. If you can't understand why another movie about two drunk idiots tying the knot in Vegas just got greenlit, look my way.

I'll be posting in a few days about the lure of the Vegas plot and why I think it grabs readers/writers/audiences, so let me take a moment now to tease out my motivations for loving the secret babies.

I think it's all about control, gaining it and losing it. The mother's position of dominance as holder of the secret probably lies at the back of it. And then there's the moment when the father realizes the truth about his child's paternity. They're always angry, and shocked, and excited, and nervous, and sad, and happy. They're thrown out of their element, even if they act all lordly and commanding. They're reminded that they don't really control the women in their lives, even when they think they do (and they usually think they do, at least in historicals). Damn, that's so hot!

If the enjoyment of fiction requires the willing suspension of disbelief, I'm willing to take my disbelief, tie a forty-pound weight to it, and drop it out a twelve-story window for the sake of a secret baby or a drunk Vegas wedding.

How about you? What are your Yucks and Yums and Guilty Pleasures? Is there any plot that gets you every time, no matter how ridiculously unbelievable? And most important...why do you love them?

Kate's Kitty

2009-06-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

Last week's cat picture inspired me. I would like to introduce you all to my cat, Tigger.

Now, those of you that know me will be the first to say that I have never been a feline fan. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool dog lover. However, Mr. Marvelous and I kept Tigger for his parents while they went on a vacation. It turned into a slow but effective incident of pet theft.

Tigger has become my muse. Don't ask me why. He may be the most annoying cat on Earth. There are the 3 a.m. meowing marathons, the gluttonous requests for food, and the nights he decides to walk on my face. Of course, he does this because he knows he can get away with it. Why? We're sickeningly indulgent because he's just so cute and cuddly!

You know the cute cat face that Puss in Boots makes on Shrek? Yeah, he's got it down.

He's also truly a writer's kitty. He loves office supplies. He would much rather play with a pen than a cat toy. And he loves it when I'm writing--my desk is right by the door, which means that he can go in and out at his leisure. I can open the door for him without ever leaving my chair--a chair, by the way, in which he loves to lay. You can always tell when I've been writing because my butt is covered in orange cat hair.

Tell me about your own pets. What do the animals in your life reveal about you?

Say Our Names II

2009-06-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

The damned scribbling women all have pseudonyms, for much the same reason. Anneliese wrote about our rationale awhile ago. As she said, "both Kate and I are involved in education and literary studies. While we feel that writing romance only adds to our credentials as proud feminists, not all our current and potential bosses/teachers and coworkers/fellow students will agree. Additionally, the parents of the little darlings we instruct may not want to associate Junior's English teacher with lusty Regency dukes or shag sessions in lakeside cabins."

Though we're not all teachers, the DSW do have daytime identities they need to keep separate from the writing life. Hence, pen names. And since picking a nom de plume such a big decision for a writer to make, I thought I'd share how I picked mine.

Factors to consider in picking a pen name:

Is it easy to spell? (Think of the future Google searches!)
Is it easy to sign? (Imagine your autograph sessions!)
Will it shelve well? (Will readers have to get out a ladder or lay on the floor in order to find your book?)

Surprisingly, I hit on the perfect name pretty quickly. "Kate" is a diminutive of my given name, and it's what my loved ones call me when I'm at my feistiest (think Taming of the Shrew). "Diamond" is my maternal grandmother's maiden name. It's also a precious stone associated with riches and romance. (Yes please!) I liked the way the two names sounded together. It was easy to write, spell, and remember. Pretty simple!

And that's how my alter-ego was born.

What about you? Fellow writers/bloggers, how did you select your nom de plume? We'd love to hear your story!

My Husband, My Hero

2009-06-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. In the "Meet Kate" post I already told you a bit about my husband, Mr. Marvelous. But I couldn't resist sharing some more about my good fortune. Having this guy in my life is great.

Writing romance has been a lot easier since he came into my life. For one thing, he's gorgeous. I know that makes me sound shallow, but seriously! It's somewhat inspiring to be married to a tall, dark and handsome dreamboat.

More importantly, though, he fully supports my writing career. Mr. Marvelous has offered to shoulder our financial burdens if I want to quit my day job and pursue writing full time (which is awesome, but also terrifying in this economy... I think I'll wait on that one!)

For Christmas, he got me an online writing course with Patricia Kay. This has been one of the best professional development opportunities I've ever experienced, and one which I highly recommend to you all!

Last but not least, he's got his priorities in order. Last winter we discussed the fact that we'd rather spend our free time pursuing our hobbies (his), ambitions (mine), or the fine art of being ooey-gooey married people (us). This seems much more important than scouring tile scum. So guess what Mr. Marvelous did? He did research and hired us a maid service! They come two times a month, and it's been great thus far. It's easier to be inspired in a clean environment--especially if I didn't have to clean it!

I realize I'm incredibly lucky. So feel free to congratulate or heckle me (as the spirit moves you). Better yet, tell us a bit about your own romantic hero/heroine!

The Sex & the City Effect

2009-06-03T01:08:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was channel-surfing as folded laundry and I landed on E! Entertainment Television. (I'm allowed to watch whatever I want while folding my knickers. Don't judge me.) It was a pseudo-documentary about the making of Sex and the City. The E! show claimed Sex and the City was the first show to unflinchingly reveal how women really talked about men. Then I ran across this article in which the show's creator indicates that the show was less about showing women as they actually are and more about "turning the stereotype on its head," objectifying men instead of women and playing against type.

I'm guessing the truth is somewhere in the middle, that women didn't talk like that nearly as much before Sex and the City gave them permission to be blunt and selfish and sex-obsessed, but that doesn't mean they weren't already thinking that way. And once we got permission... woo, baby, just watch us run with it. Now the Sex and the City version of femininity has wedged itself firmly into our culture. And into the culture of contemporary romance novels.

Hex and the City, Sex and the Immortal Bad Boy, and the similarities don't end with plays on the title. The modern day romance heroine may not even be looking for love unending (though in my favorite romances that's what she ends up with). Nope, in the current generation of romance novels, the heroine is just as likely to start out looking for Mr. Right Now as Mr. Right. Cocktails and confidence, the new romance heroine is a different breed than her virginal predecessors. Did Sex and the City do that?

And what about the increased level of sensuality and sexual frankness? Sex scenes, baby. In recent years, romance novels have been steaming it up. Now that the bedroom door has been thrown wide by Sex and the City, readers seem to be looking for more heat. Metaphors and euphemisms are falling away as the savvy start calling things by their Sex approved names.

Is this a good thing? (Yay, honesty & freedom in sexuality!) A bad thing? (Everyone is just so darned superficial these days! There's more to life than Manolos and Cosmos!) Are we heading toward some Sex & the City-instigated cultural apocalypse or is this just the natural progression of women's lib? Equality or licentiousness? Liberation or just a new method of devaluing emotion in favor of blunt sexuality? What's your take?