The Armchair Traveller

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!

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.

Plot Happens in Vegas...

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)

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?

*GASP*

Not five minutes ago, I sent e-mails to two editors at two of the big-name houses in romance publishing.

Gulp. Gasp. Heart attack.

All fall-out from the Princeton conference. Let me tell you, it is vastly easier to meet editors in an academic setting versus a wanna-be writers' convention. As one of them told me, "I don't have to worry here that if I mention I like Italy, I'll get 20,000 Italian-set mss in the mail."

They gave me their cards, and so I wrote. I don't feel ready. I'd like to rework Then Comes Marriage from top to bottom before showing it to anyone. I'd like to finish All the Things You Are, the new contemporary romance ms I started a few weeks ago, before reaching out to potential publishers.

But...fate puts opportunities in our paths. If I hesitate, I might lose momentum. If I dither for weeks, they could forget all about me.

It was easier to meet editors at an academic conference. We'll see if it's any easier to sell to them.

Gulp.

What Your Mama Told You

I'm back from the Romance Conference at Princeton--and wow, do I have a lot to report. It was a fascinating event, with some great papers and presenters...but I need time to process before I can give a full update. There was just too much to fit in my brain and spit it back out neatly.

As a teaser: a story and a question. Sarah Frantz, one of the academics in attendance, told a story in the context of her paper about reading her first BDSM romance--a relatively tame Harlequin that was handed to her by her mother with the remark "This one has bondage!" when she was fifteen.

I know a lot of women were introduced to the romance genre by their mothers (or sometimes older sisters). I'm in the awkward position of having introduced my mother to the genre. She picked up her first romances after she learned I was writing one and working at a romance-related corporation (my former, pre-grad school job).

I'm a long way off from having a teen or pre-teen daughter. Or son for that matter. But I'm not sure whether I will be comfortable sharing romance novels with her or him. I hope I will be! I hope I'll be a published author well before then and that romances will be like wallpaper to my kids--ordinary, taken for granted aspects of their environment. Nothing to feel embarrassed or ashamed about.

So, to the Damned Scribbling Women and friends: How did you start reading romance? How should mothers and children (daughters and sons) relate together over romance novels?

Sex and the Ivy League English Department

As an apprentice academic and unpublished romance novelist, I sometimes feel caught between two worlds. People consumed by literary theory and the status of "high" art frequently have a way of blithely dismissing the entire romance genre as melodramatic, sentimental, out-dated, and even socially harmful trash--without ever picking up a Julia Quinn, or Susan Elizabeth Phillips, or Laura Kinsale to test those assumptions out. I've seen it and I've heard it, more times than I can count. Romance readers and writers can be just as tetchy, thanks to years of dismissive comments.

I'll probably follow Eloisa James' lead when I eventually get published--keep it incognito until you're established enough as an academic that you can say "pphhhht" to any potential criticism.

But while I'm hewing to the status quo, a bunch of talented scholars, writers, and readers are coming together to help bring romance into the critical conversation. At Princeton, no less!

From April 23-24, the Princeton University English Department is hosting a conference called "Love as the Practice of Freedom: Romance Fiction and American Culture."

This isn't some bull session for critics outside the genre to cast their judgment on it from on high. Several scholar/romance writers are presenting-- including Mary Bly/Eloisa James and Gwendolyn Pough/Gwyneth Bolton. They've got longtime bestsellers Jenny Crusie and Beverly Jenkins on the list, members of the reading community like Sarah Wendell of the scribbling women's beloved Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and the President of RWA. And they have scholars doing trailblazing research on current romance fiction along with eminent scholars of romance in other periods, like Margaret Doody--whose work on Austen and Burney I turn to in my own research.

This looks like a great line-up! I'm lucky enough to be free on Thursdays and Fridays and to live close enough to Princeton to attend. I hope to see some other scribblers there. And I'll be sure to update everyone afterward on romance fiction's Ivy League debut.

Not-So Evil Dolls

Libba Bray is the fabulous, fantastic, fierce author of the Gemma Doyle trilogy-- some of the meatiest, funniest, creepiest, most inventive, best developed, and just gosh-darn greatest YA novels Kate D. and I have read in the last 5 years.

She has a live journal that is must-read material for anyone interested in the writing life, her phenomenal work, and generally funny stuff.

In February, she hosted a competition for fans of her fantasy series: create something that represents the trilogy, be it a song, skit, sketch, or story and win a role in her upcoming Vampire-focused ms. The winner has been chosen and crowned. And I implore everyone who loves the books, extremely condensed-retellings of long, complicated works, and doll humor to check it out:



If for some reason you can't play our embedded video, follow this link to the Doll Version of Gemma Doyle and Friends.

Meet Anneliese

Anneliese Kelly writes heartfelt romance charged with heat and spiced with humor.

Day Job: PhD student in Victorian and Romantic literature; college composition instructor.

Hails from: New York City

In your next life? Cabaret crooner on top of a piano in a slinky dress slit up to there.

Preferred Writing Snack: Cheese...any kind of cheese. And crackers. Any kind of cracker.

Best romantic moment(s) on film:

1. Dev's rescue of Alicia at the end of Hitchcock's Notorious. Cary Grant. Ingrid Bergman. Swoon.

2. The Kiss from season 1 of Veronica Mars. Veronica and Logan go from bitterest enemies to jumping each other's bones outside the Camelot Motel. Hot.

Who are your favorite heroines from romantic fiction?

1. Anne Elliot from Persuasion, the original second-chance romance by the incomparable Jane Austen. Watching forgotten, faded Anne bloom into love, beauty, and self-appreciation is an evergreen delight.

2. Valancy Stirling. The heroine of L. M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle is--like Anne Elliot--a little too old, a little too timid, and very over-looked. When she has a medical scare and decides to live for herself, she becomes a character you can relate to and admire.

3. Leda Etoile. My favorite Laua Kinsale heroine, from The Shadow and the Star. A regular girl with a backbone of steel.

Who are your favorite heroes from romantic fiction?

1. Frederick Wentworth. Anne's counterpart in Persuasion is wounded lover, hardened warrior, sarcastic ladies' man, and repententant returning suitor all at once. Plus, the man writes a damn fine letter (You pierce my soul, Frederick).

2. Barney Snaith. Valancy's husband in The Blue Castle is witty and funny and adventurous and every bit her free-spirited match. Both of these couples--Anne and Frederick, Valancy and Barney--are truly best friends, as well as lovers. So important in life, so rare in fiction.

3. Christian, Duke of Jervaulx. My favorite Kinsale hero, from Flowers from the Storm. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know, but always able to smile, even when his brilliant mind gives out and his body betrays him.

Who's your favorite real-life romance hero? My husband of almost two years, Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome. He walks the dog every morning, always moves the car on street-cleaning days, and never fails to pick up a bottle of Pellegrino just when we run out.

Publish or Perish

It's a common expression in academia--the idea that you've got to get your thoughts out there in published form or your career is toast. Implied in the phrase is the suggestion that the quality of work published may not even matter as much to one's career prospects as the fact of frequent publication. And it's a sentiment that certainly applies to the romance industry, in which a writer is only as successful as her last novel and in which top-selling authors struggle to put out two books a year.

Which brings me to my current progress in either of my two chosen fields: literary criticism and historical romance. I never realized when I went back to graduate school how difficult it would become juggling two careers (or the aspirations toward two careers) that take "publish or perish" as their motto. I had a system set out when I was working in (fittingly enough) publishing. I wrote nearly every night for an hour or two. I used my weekends to work on my fiction.

But now I struggle with the thought that extra time, such as it is, ought to be used for research, for academic writing, for additional reading. I've frequently felt in the last two-and-a-half years that I've short-changed both my careers. I haven't devoted myself to academic research with single-mindedness, and I haven't devoted myself to novel writing and publication seeking with any sort of mindedness at all.

New Years are times for expressions of new intentions. And so, of course, are inaugurations of new Presidents. Without turning a blog about writing and reading unduly political, I can acknowledge the inspiration I feel looking toward the next four (ideally eight) years of our country--and maybe take some of that optimism for myself and my individual professional goals.

I've written 30 pages of Oh Mistress Mine since Christmas. I just learned I was accepted into my first professional academic conference this summer in London, to give a talk on Frances Burney.

Maybe I will get the hang of this dual-writing career thing. Maybe I will get to publish before I perish.

The Unfeasibly Hilarious Harlequin Parody

As I drown in Victorian autobiographies and pedagogical theory, wondering whether I'll ever get poor Aimee and Gregory into the sack or will leave them stranded in perpetual sexual frustration for the rest of their fictional lives, I always make time for the important things in life: outrageously funny parodies of Harlequin Presents novels.

Those of you who have not had the pleasure of reading The Unfeasibly Tall Greek Billionaire's Blackmailed Martyr-Complex Mistress Bride on Tumperkin's blog are in for a treat. The rest of you who read it when it was written--round-robin style by several contributors--some months ago should give it another look. Jokes about the global hummus industry, Molly Ordinary's consternation-provoking nipple hardening, and lines like "You slut! Why didn't you tell me you were a virgin?" never go out of style.

I'll now be returning to my regularly scheduled rounds of reading, not writing enough, and freaking out about the election.

Many thanks to Kate D. for sprucing up the joint around here. Aren't the polka dots divine?

New School Year Resolutions

The new year really starts in September, doesn't it? That's when we reluctantly bundle ourselves back up and head back to school to begin again the endless cycle of classes and papers and reading and research. Resolutions seem much more appropriate for September than January--if you're a student (like me) or a teacher (like Kate D.) that's when you model your new clothes and new behaviors and get your brain ready for new experiences.

So, in honor of my first week of my PhD program at my new school, here are some resolutions:

1. I will limit internet surfing to no more than 1 hour per day.
2. I will read (academically) EVERY day, including weekends (even if only one article or part of a book).
3. I will write EVERY day, including weekends (even if only one paragraph)
4. I will join RWA's NYC chapter and begin attending meetings (starting this Saturday)
5. I will finish the first draft of O Mistress Mine by May.
6. I will create and implement a plan to actively pursue representation for my first novel.

This is an ambitious plan, but I'm hopeful that I'll succeed at something if I push myself to do more than I actually think I can. It all hinges on the internet usage--the synecdoche for my time-management failures.

I've woken up every morning for the last several months with scenes from O Mistress Mine running through my head, which gives me hope that the book isn't dead in the water. If I can just get my fingers against the keys, I trust it will turn out alright.

To monitor my progress, I'll post status updates at the end of each month.

Kate D.--care to state your New School Year Resolutions?

Summer Magic

I could use some. For starters, I could really use a re-watch of the classic Hayley Mills flick of the same name, which I haven't seen in a good 15 years but is nonetheless imprinted on my cerebral cortex. It's a musical, set in turn-of-the-century small-town America, featuring an impoverished widow and her plucky family, romantic mishaps, a bitchy cousin who turns out to be nice, an elaborate scheme to defraud a wealthy landowner of his house, and a game of croquet. Plus, one of the best, cheesy-romantic final lines of any movie, when Hayley Mills asks recently-defrauded and majorly hot said landowner, "What are you going to do to me?" and he answers, "Right now? I'm going to dance with you." And then they do. Fade out. Damn, that's a good movie.

I could also use some magic of the literal variety-- I have two weeks and one day in which to finish my 40-page MA thesis, finish studying for the comps, and take the exam. I keep telling myself I always finish my work, even when it seems impossible. But this time...it really seems impossible. And there's no margin for error, because I start my new PhD program 5 days later. So it all has to happen, and right quick.

My writing "career" (ha!) could definitely use some magic of the date-planner, scheduling, no-goofing-off, stick-to-your-routine variety. The academic work this summer precluded any real work on O Mistress Mine, but I'm determined to be better in the autumn, when I'm taking classes but no longer have to tutor, as I was for the past two years. And I'm determined to devote myself to finding a publisher for Then Comes Marriage. I'm really serious this time. Stop laughing.

Finally, I want to send the beloved Kate D. some very special summer magic for her wedding this Saturday. Except she doesn't really need any. Kate, it will be a beautiful, gorgeous, happy day. Have a wonderful time starting your marriage.

To console myself for not being able to attend the festivities on the other side of the continent, I want a list of our favorite fictional weddings, in print or on screen. Any takers?

And as a bonus, the croquet scene.

Odds and Ends

I'm done with the semester and on to the summer work--the last stretch before I finish my MA and start the PhD. Despite the hectic past few weeks of reading/writing I managed to get some romance reading in.

Oh, who am I kidding. I lost it about half-way through my Madame Bovary/Theodor Adorno paper and decided to go on a Susan Elizabeth Phillips binge. I read all my favorites. It Had to Be You, This Heart of Mine, Nobody's Baby But Mine, Dream a Little Dream, Kiss an Angel, and Ain't She Sweet-- all consumed in the space of two weeks. And I still managed to get two papers written. And (to gloat a little) got an A on one of 'em (the Persuasion paper; I'm less optimistic about the Flaubert).

Re-reading the SEPs reawakened my dormant urge to write a contemporary, and I woke this morning to a vivid half-sleeping dream in which the first scene and basic plot of a novel spooled through my head. In fact, lots of imaginary people have been talking to each other in my head since I started bookmooching authors' backlists like a fiend in January. There's also a new historical that I'm thisclose to starting.

Which brings me to my current writing problem: Oh Mistress Mine, why are thou sucking? I've been "working" on you for two years now, and you're not getting much better--or much longer. How much of this is grad school malaise and how much is a book that's not working? When do you decide to plow through and when to jump ship? (Forgive the mixing of agricultural and nautical metaphors, but writers block will drive one to it) I ditched one novel at about 40,000 words when I first started writing and don't regret it, but I sometimes wish I could have finished that book. I still like Aimée and Gregory, but they don't haunt my head like my new characters do. Just a case of grass-is-greener?

To close, before heading to the gym and trying to write a few pages (and reading some 18th-century treatises on smallpox inoculation for my thesis):

I finished my last Laura Kinsale this morning. I had saved Midsummer Moon for about four years, because I just wasn't ready to have none of her books left to look forward to. But to celebrate the end of the semester, I read it and loved it, and now I'm feeling satisfied and a little sad and more than a little tempted to go on a Kinsale binge...which I really can't afford after my last three days of leisure.

And finally, an excellent procastinatory tool. I haven't laughed so hard in quite some time. Anyone with a passion for correct punctuation and a healthy appreciation of the absurd will enjoy.

Going For Broke or An Unconventional Approach to Curing Writer's Block

Being an aspiring writer in New York City can be wonderful: inspiration in the air, the publishing industry easily accessible, fantastic research institutions nearby. It can also be debilitating: the constant sense of not writing enough, successfully enough, and quickly enough and the constant stream of distractions outside the writing room (or couch, in my small-apartment-style life) have done as much damage to my writing mojo as my grad school commitments.

But I will fear no longer, for I believe I have found a surefire way to block out the city's relentless thrills and rededicate myself to scholarly and literary pursuits--namely, my poverty. You see, my husband and I are the brand-new, not-even-truly-closed-upon-yet owners of a two bedroom apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and I will never be able to afford to do anything in this city again.

I do think this (exciting!) event will be beneficial to my writing. I'm leaving Manhattan and I'm going to have to cut down on my social life a bit, for financial reasons, but that will help me find additional writing time. We'll have a second room to use as an office, as least until we have kids in a few years. A dedicated writing/studying space should help me with my focus in both areas, something I've been struggling with mightily this last semester. I'm a person very much affected by my environment, and I can't help but think that having a home that's truly mine, that I can paint and love and make beautiful, will help me feel creative and productive.

Of course, all the time and energy it will take to move there won't help my writing this summer. Nor will the immense effort I need to put into writing my MA thesis and studying for my comps. But there's always something to keep you from writing. I've let that be my excuse for too long.

(Photo is the main sitting room in my pretty new apartment. Love the bay window and working fireplace just out of the shot).

Just Call Me Doctor

Interrupting our usual D Scrib fare for a bout of shameless self promotion:

I'm getting a PhD! (trumpet fanfare)

I just received my first acceptance from a doctoral program in English. Still waiting on a few others (and on the funding details for this one), so I can't say for certain where I'll be next year. But I can say that I'll be studying 18th and 19th century British literature.

I'm totally psyched to know I'll be working toward this degree that's been a dream for so long. I'm a little nervous about what this will mean for my already delayed writing career. But those doubts can wait...at least a day!

Just Sing (La, la, la, la)

I popped over to Julia Quinn's website the other day to check out what's on her agenda (new series drops in 'o8, woohoo!) and found this tempting nugget: soundtracks for each of her novels. I loved reading her insightful and entertaining reasons for picking each of these songs--songs she listened to while writing the books, songs that remind her of her own plots and characters, and even songs that inspired the writing of certain of her novels. To quote Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn't help but wonder what a soundtrack for my own works in progress would look like. JQ gets all high tech (and famous writer-y) and actually has iTunes lists to match her books. I am not so gifted. Nor do I even listen to music while writing (I prefer the sounds of the Second Avenue bus stopping outside my window, thank you very much). But in an effort at seeking inspiration wherever it may come, I decided to play dj for the night. The results follow.

Then Comes Marriage:

"Chapel of Love" My first (and...um...only) completed novel begins and opens with weddings, so I have to pick this old chestnut. I think it fits Calla at the beginning of the novel really well: simplistic, totally confident and optimistic, ready for a fall.

"Dancing in the Dark" The old jazz standard not the Bruce Springsteen song. Calla and Peter do dance in the dark, and I've thought about titling the book after the song. The line "Looking for a new love to brighten up the night" fits the book well.

"Heart of Life" (John Mayer) This song fits Calla's situation so well-- beaten down by losing her husband and the life she always thought she'd live, but restored by the "circle of her friends" and her new love for Peter. It's such a sweet, beautiful song with a touch of sadness. I think it fits the mood of the book.

"Something to Talk About" I like to think of Calla and Peter being down with this song by the novel's end. They're both ready to stop letting other people's opinions dictate their lives and just live already (and make a little mischief, too).

O, Mistress Mine:

I'm only 1/3 into the writing of this book, but I already have a few ideas:

"The Song is Ended" This is one of my very favorite songs (I'm a huge cabaret/Great American Songbook geek) and fits this story of a love affair cut short perfectly. Gregory and Aimee's memories of their affair are like a lingering melody for both of them, despite their different reasons for entering into it.

"No Matter What" (Badfinger) This is totally Gregory's song. He's ready to take on the world to be with Aimee at the beginning. I think once I reach the end its resonance will have changed-- more that he's ready to accept all the different parts of her, as different and confusing as they may be.

"Maxine" (John Legend). The song's about a cheating lady, but the refrain "She may not be you...but she looks just like you" exemplifies Gregory's confusion over Aimee/Genevieve's identity (which doesn't really go away, even when he figures out the truth behind her past). John Legend has such a great voice.

Finally: I'm absolutely determined to write a book based on the ridiculous, very entertaining song "Rhode Island is Famous for You" (as sung by the glorious Nancy LaMott). Any song with the lines "They know mink where they grow mink in Wyomin(k)" and "A camp chair in New Hamp(chair)" is a well-spring of inspiration. I can see it now...a driven doctor/knitter...a dashing naval pilot...a date with punny destiny!

Move over Potter

Looks like we're all YA all the time here at Damned Scribbling Women this week. While Kate awaits the delivery of her now two weeks late "advance" copy of The Sweet Far Thing, I can't spill too much about the book. Having finished the read at 3 am yesterday however, I am moved to give a little teaser about my thoughts and feelings (I was also moved to post a fawning fangirl note on Libba Bray's livejournal at 3 in the morning, but that's neither here nor there).

Anyone mourning the loss of Harry Potter needs to pick up this series now, because--much as I love the Pott--Libba Bray kicks JK Rowling's ass. This is how you finish a series. This is how you take all the amazing work on character/plot/mythology that you set up in previous books and ratchet it up a notch. I thought the conclusion to the Potter series was fine, but Bray's just a much braver writer than Rowling. Her concerns are so much larger, more significant, more meaningful, and the lessons her character learn or try to learn are much more painful and more important. Truly, I'm in awe over this series and wishing desperately I'd been the one to think of it.

This isn't meant to be a diss against J.K. Rowling. I think she's great and love her work. It's more a public service announcement about how unbelievably wonderful I think Libba Bray is.

More substantive comments (including my very few reservations) to follow in a dialog once Kate gets a chance to read the book.

Delicious Anticipation

With the hectic rush of Christmas/New Year's, travel, and grad school application filing, I managed to lose track of one of my most eagerly anticipated releases of 2007: the conclusion of Libba Bray's Realms trilogy. Hearty thanks to whichever good angel inspired me to check out her livejournal (a favorite writer's blog of mine) the day after the new book was released. I'm now a proud owner of The Sweet Far Thing.

But all things must come in their own time, etc, etc, etc. I had other books in the queue and order must be maintained. When one's working days are filled with 1,500 page 18th-century novels, one's holidays become rather excessively devoted to reading (and writing) romance.

Perhaps its for the best. I've waited this long to learn what will become of Gemma, Kartik, Felicity, Pippa, and the rest. I can wait a little longer. I know this book won't disappoint, so the expectation will only make it all the sweeter.

Expect my thoughts sometime next week...

Newest Production

No, not mine. I haven't been silent for the last few months because of pregnancy, but because of the end of the semester. But I wanted to introduce everyone to my new niece, Sophia Madelyn. Isn't she cute? You've now seen as much of her as I have, as she was born yesterday afternoon while my husband and I were winging our way from New York to Santa Fe to spend Christmas with my family. We can't wait to see her when we get back home on the 26th...a late Christmas present for us!

In other "baby" news, the semester is finally over, which means it's time to return to "Oh Mistress Mine." When last I left them, Gregory and Aimee were on the verge of a rather explosive confrontation. They've been waiting months now to have this chat. Will I remember them? Will I remember how to write sentences that don't begin with "Furthermore" or "As Burney clearly demonstrates"? Stay tuned...