Word Wenches

Deadlines come and go

        From Loretta
      Coming in to you late from Deadline Hell.
      I don’t always call it that.  Deadline Dementia is one term.  Deadline Frenzy another.  It depends on how desperate I’m feeling.  But this week, as Friday (my extended due date) approached, Deadline Hell was the only word for it.  I woke up in a panic at 5am on Thursday and was still working at 10pm, formatting my deathless prose into a single document, and trying to make sure I kept the chapters and pages straight. when I was cross-eyed with exhaustion.  Please note:  I am not an early riser and no longer eighteen years old, so I tire more and earlier than I used to.  Five ante meridian to midnight in front of the computer is not something I do well.
      The formatting was necessary because I write my chapters as separate documents.  That way, if the file gets damaged by one of those inexplicable computer occurrences we all know so well, it’s only the one chapter, not the whole manuscript.  The last thing I want to do when racing toward deadline, brakes squealing, is have a 400-500 page opus implode before my bloodshot eyes.   I’ve got enough problems.  Like the refrigerator.  But I’ll get to that in a minute.
      I don’t know how it is for the other Wenches, but when I turn in my book the first time, it’s done but not finished, in the sense of polished.  I write incrementally, going back and forth, adding , subtracting, rearranging.  As a result, and depending on how smoothly or not the book has gone, I can get confused, or fail to notice contradictions or missing bits or various other writerly infelicities.  This is why the revision phase is one of my favorite parts of writing (the best part is the beginning, when it’s all potential, and one is not slamming one’s head against one’s limitations).  At revision time, the heavy lifting of creating something out of nothing is done.  One or more sets of editorial eyes have cast their gazes over the work, and noticed what I--being so deeply immersed in the process of world building and living inside imaginary peoples’ heads--did not.  I’ve been fortunate in the editorial eyes department:  Can’t think of a time when the objective viewpoint hasn’t helped make a better book.
      All of which is to say that, given the fact that this book is due to come out in May 2007, the revision phase is not going to be a leisurely one.  I’m seeing maybe one or more 5am to midnight days in the very near future.
      Meanwhile, my refrigerator croaked.
      And I ignored it, as I ignore so many things during the last month before the book Must Be Done.  We made do with a small office refrigerator and takeout.
      Meanwhile, a lot of other things happened, and I ignored them, too.  Cancelled appointments.  Forgot birthdays or had a gift shipped to me instead of to the intended recipient.  Ignoring the phone.  That kind of thing.  Everything goes to hell when I’m facing deadline.  About the only thing in my mind is the story.  It’s too bad my office isn’t a cargo container.  I could have it shipped to a desert island, then, and not even pretend to be having anything to do with the real world.  I have toyed with the idea of going away to finish a book but (a) we all know now that I could cook better on a laptop than I can write on one and (b) I need my library within reach.  So I stay home and let everything go to pieces around me.
      I’ll be spending the next month answering the emails I ignored, finishing the interviews I didn’t finish, finding various articles I’ve lost, putting away books and notebooks, and going through the stacks of papers that need to be filed.  I remember, back in the 80s, hearing predictions about the Paperless Office.  Remember that one?  It seemed so logical at the time.  I don’t know about anyone else, but my office has about three times as much paper as it did back in the days when my Wang Word Processor was the height of high tech.
      The office, in short, is a disaster.  The kitchen isn’t much better.
      And my blog is late because I was out for hours trying to find a refrigerator.
      Nope.  Didn’t find it.  I’m beginning to think that my husband will have better luck building a time machine than we will have finding the refrigerator we want.  Since I expect to be doing revisions at warp speed next week, today was THE day for buying appliances--or food, for that matter.
      I don’t care.  I love my job.  I love the book I just finished, even though I know I’m going to lose sleep and spend some blood, sweat, and tears making it better.  It’s all worth it to me.
      And this just in:  Time Machine Guy reports that he’s bought the refrigerator online.

Creative Process and Brainstorming

by Mary Jo 

There is no one right way to write.  Which is a real bummer—it would be so much easier if there were clear and distinct Right Ways and Wrong Ways.  But the more I hang out with writers, the more I realize how much our approaches vary. 

This was most graphically illustrated at a lovely Romantic Times conference in Beaver Creek, Colorado some years ago.  I was one of nine authors on a panel about characterization.  I prepared a short presentation, as did one of the other nine.  (She and I later became good friends, since we clearly shared certain compulsive traits. <G>) 

But after we two gave our presentations, the panel still had almost two hours to fill.  The program organizer had said all we had to do was answer questions.  For two hours?  Not likely! 

One of the panelists was Judith McNaught, already a superstar.  After a silence, someone asked her a question.  She answered.  More silence.  Someone asked her another question.

At which point, inspiration struck and I said, “Let’s have everyone answer every question!”  Since we were all a little desperate, we did—and it turned into a great, educational panel as it became clear that we had highly individual ways of working.

Some start with plot, others with character.  Some used critique groups, others abhorred the idea.  Some wrote swift first drafts, then edited; others wrote slowly, polishing as they went so the book was basically done when they got through once.  The audience was delighted, and I’m sure that many left happy to know that they weren’t “doing it wrong.” 

Most of us who have been writing for any length of time have figured out what our personal writing process is.  I’m inclined to think that whatever that process is, it’s hardwired into our brains and can’t be changed except in minor ways.  I’m a plodder, condemned to inchworm my way through my books one word at a time.  When it’s done, it’s done, except for minor tweaking.  Which is good, since I’m always slammed up against a deadline.  But I’m convinced that plungers have more fun!

I have a friend who hates deadlines, so she finishes her books months in advance and lets them mulch for a while, then edits them again before she hands them in.  I’ll bet her college papers were always done early, too,  but I like her anyway.  <g>  Another friend works on one book for a while.  Then when she feels stalled, she works on another.   Still another friend gets only one idea at a time—but when that idea shows up, it’s great. 

These differences in creative process are clearly on display when we do things like brainstorm.  Pat Rice mentioned earlier in the week that she, Susan Sarah, and I were having our annual brainstorming session at my house.  We’ve done this for several years now, and we all benefit. 

But we do work very differently even though we’re all historical writers.  One of us might use emotional turning points, another the hero’s journey, a third will advocate more historical research to create the skeleton of a plot. 

We’ve never really defined brainstorming rules, but it’s a given that we respect each other’s work.  The story belongs to the author who is tossing it out, and her judgment is ultimately the only one that counts.  I’m pretty much an intuitive writer, and analytic approaches generally roll off my back.  Yet I’ve gotten really valuable ideas from these brainstorming sessions over the years. 

This time, just a few minutes’ discussion helped me go from the merest wisp of a story idea to a solid sense of the book that I hope I’ll write next.  Last week, this story was the merest gleam in my eye; today I could sit down and write a synopsis.

We rotate through each other’s books, choosing what ever project the author who is up wants to work on.  After we’ve whacked one story around for a while, we move onto another.

Of course, we also need breaks.  We go out to lunch or dinner, walk a labyrinth or stroll in the park, maybe settle down and do some beadwork.  My cats, especially Grady, hang around and look intellectual.  After three days, we disperse back to our caves, well armed for the new projects. 

Ultimately, of course, what matters is not process but results.  Readers aren’t interested in whether a story went smoothly or if it fought tooth and nail.  Actually, writers can’t usually tell which books will work best for readers—we just string the words together and hope for the best.  And now and then, we yearn for a different process that will be better/easier/more fun than the one we have!

Of course, everyone uses creative process even if not a writer.  How do you come up with your ideas?  How do you bring your projects to completion?  And do you ever wish you could do it differently?!

Before I forget: I don’t believe I’ve given away a copy of Faery Magic, an anthology that includes me and Jo, along with Barbara Samuel and Karen Harbaugh.  Leave a comment for this post between now and midnight Sunday, PDT, and you may win a free copy!

Mary Jo, with a gray cat sitting by the keyboard, looking intellectual.

Audience Participation, Please!

From Susan/Miranda:

Susan/Sarah's away on much-needed family leave from the WordWenches today. In her place, we're inviting YOU to supply today's blog from the novel you're currently reading. We've done this before, and it's been quite entertaining -- and enlightening.

Since many of you said you preferred to check out a novel by sampling the middle, rather than the beginning, this time let's sample those middles. Please share with us the title, author, and the first sentence or two of CHAPTER EIGHT of your current read -- and let the discussions begin!

I'm willing to begin with a favorite "hero" here among the WordWenches. This is from "Flashman and the Mountain of Lights" by George MacDonald Fraser.

"If there was one thing worse than Jawaheer's murder, it was his funeral, when his wives and slave-girls were roasted alive along with his corpse, according to custom. Like much beastliness in the world, suttee is inspired by religion, which means there's no sense or reason to it -- I've yet to meet an Indian who could tell me why it's done, even, except that it's a hallowed ritual, like posting a sentry to mind the Duke of Wellington's horse fifty years after the old fellow had kicked the bucket."

You had to be there....

Sorry for missing last week. During my wandering travel I lost track of details such as days of the week. I'm also still a bit jetlagged, or just tired, so I'll be posting this late on Tuesday instead of on Wednesday. Since returning home I've been catching up on e-mail and paperwork and trying to regain control of the garden. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness sounds lovely, but harvest time is pears, apples, beans, tomatoes etc all demanding attention and the grape vine loaded down with future work.

But lets hope for future wine. Just a bit more warm weather, please.

But I was going to wlite about believability. Real events don't always make believable fiction. This is one of the strange factors we writers have to work with. Often writers, especially beginners, will protest that some incident is true -- that something like it really happened, to them, to their sister. That doesn't make it believable and so it doesn't work in the novel.

My sister recently recollected an incident from before my birth. During WWII, a charming your woman was popular with the forces people who spent time in our town. She was pleasant to all of them and would go to dances and other activities with them. After the war one of these young men turned up and declared they were to be married, and she married him. Apparently she didn't want to. She was seriously interested in another man and not particularly fond of this one, but by simple power of personality he got her to marry him. Alas, it didn't turn out well.

If I used that situation in a novel I doubt I could make it believable because our logic protests. Why couldn't she say no? Why didn't anyone else step in to protect her? What about her other young man? Why didn't he fight for her? I suspect, as the saying goes, you had to be there.

Take another fictional situation -- the disguise. A writer has to do more than tell me that a character is wearing a wig and different clothing to make me believe that a disguise works, especially with people who know him or her well. You know -- the hero wears a mask and somehow his wife doesn't recognize him? The writer needs to convince me that the disguised person has also altered walk, mannerisms, and voice to even begin to convince me.

Especially voice. Isn't it true that when we hear someone's voice, even just a few words, we can usually recognize them?

I remember seeing a TV movie made from a romance novel and involving disguise. The mousy heroine wore a wig and sexy clothing and the hero didn't recognize her. In that case it worked, because I saw the transformation, and it included a complete change in manner, movement, and way of speaking. Doing that on the page, however, is extremely difficult.

On the flip side, often we can write incidents in novels that are extremely unlikely to work that way in reality, but which are believable within fiction. How delightfully complicated it all is.

Do you have any suggestions of realities that wouldn't be believable in fiction? Or unbelievables that worked for you in a novel? I think we all have lots of them. For example, coincidence, which is quite common, is hard to believe in fiction. I'm not talking about paranormal elements such as werewolves and faeries, but human behavior examples that you know just wouldn't happen in reality, but are enjoyable anyway.

BTW, To Rescue A Rogue is doing very well, including making #12 on the Publishers Weekly mass market paperback list, which is one of those things that makes everyone happy.

Jo :)

Blog Plodding

Since I spend all day sitting at my computer writing, answering e-mail, researching, and doing promo work, I’m not much inclined to spend my evenings at my desk as well. It’s bad enough that my  e-mail often spills into my evenings, so the idea of staying in my office, surfing through the web, looking for juicy websites simply doesn’t occur to me when I’m done work for the day. All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I seldom read any blogs except the wenches or visit any website, including my own. <G>

Which means I’m fairly clueless as to what people look for in a blog or a website. I know when someone tells me to check out so-and-so’s site for a particular piece of information, I'll jump out of my chair if it blares music at me, and I go cross-eyed if flickering things start flying across my screen.  So I firmly voted with the other wenches not to have things that go bump in the night here, and I don’t have them on my own website.

That doesn’t mean I’m not aware that a lot of people like excitement from their online reading. I’m not entirely certain if they’re looking for TV entertainment, music to rock by, a constant stream of information, or chatter, but I catch enough gossip to know some sites are reader magnets. I assume some of the better ones are like a familiar reading group where one chats with friends about books or people they know or would like to know.  I would love to join communities of booklovers, but after a day at the computer, I’d rather join them in a nice lounge chair at the bookstore where I can see actual faces.

I dislike being selfish. I know hundreds of people stop by to visit us here from other blogs and websites.  I’d love to return the favor. I'm sure there are lots of sites out there that I’d enjoy visiting, but I can’t figure out where to find the time!  Right now I’m posting a draft of this message online because I’ll be flying out of here shortly for a brainstorming session with some of the other wenches. I’m hoping I’ll find a few minutes to get online and post by my Tuesday deadline, but I doubt that I’ll even have a chance to read our other postings until I return home.  (and I'm at Mary Jo's with Susan King right now as I hit Publish on this blog, before I rush downstairs to get to work, so no, I have no idea what's happening on the blog right now, and I won't have time to read comments for days.)

So tell me, please, how do you squeeze time out of your busy days to cruise the net for interesting sites?  What is the best way of finding them?  And what most catches your interest in the sites that you enjoy? And please, where do other bloggers steal pictures?   

Same Old or Tried & True?

From Susan/Miranda:

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to meet Philippa Gregory (most famously the author of the historical novel “The Other Boleyn Girl”), and hear her address a large group of fans and readers. While Philippa herself is a charming, intelligent woman, and her talk was both entertaining and informative, what really interested me about the evening was her audience.

Everyone had arrived early for the best seats, so there was plenty of time before the program started for the self-made introductions that readers do so well, the kind that always begin with “Have you read…?” This was a well-read bunch, too, with dozens of teachers and librarians in the mix, so there were many interesting conversations bubbling throughout the room.

Of course the most popular topics were Philippa’s books (after all, it WAS her night) and the “Boleyn Girl” movie currently in production on location in England, confirmed to be starring Scarlett Johnanson as Anne Boleyn, Natalie Portman as her sister, and Eric Banna as Henry VIII, and due for release next summer. (There you are, Hollywood scoop in the WordWenches!)

But then the conversations turned to other novels about Anne Boleyn. To my amazement, they never tired of Anne’s story, no matter how many times they’d read it. They all knew that in every book Anne would beguile Henry away from his wife, marry him, fail to produce a male heir, and have her head cut off. There weren’t going to be any real surprises, yet still they couldn’t wait for each re-telling.

“It’s like hearing the same gossip from different friends,” explained one woman. “I love the nuances of different perspectives.”

Now any writer who’s heard an editor/agent panel at a conference knows that those editors and editors will claim to all be seeking something fresh, something new, something we’ve never seen before. Yet here at the other end of the publishing food-chain were book-buying-readers saying they couldn’t get enough of exactly the same thing.

It doesn’t have to be Anne Boleyn, either. There’s also a new wave of Marie Antoinette books out now, and we all know how those will end, too. And no matter how many novels are set in the Civil War, or the Napoleonic Wars, or World War II, for the most part the same armies are going to keep winning those wars as well.

But it doesn’t have to be just a historical novel. In romance, readers and writers return again and again to the same kinds of stories. We all joke about the “secret-baby-in-jeopardy-masquerade-spy-runaway-bride” stories, and yet the classic plots continue to be reworked and retold by different authors.

Of course, romance by its very nature has a predetermined resolution. True love will triumph, and the girl will get the boy, or it’s not a romance. But between page one and the happy-ending there are –– and always will be –– endless variations.

I had one world-weary editor who claimed there was only one plot: “Take them up the tree, and get them down from the tree.” Loosely (very loosely) speaking, she’s right. Or, to trot out another aphorism, it’s not the destination that makes thejourney special, but the stops along the way. It’s those “stops” that help every good writer put her own spin on a classic plot, and make it fresh again to readers.

At least that’s what we try to do. :)

So what’s your take on tried-and-true plots? Would you rather read something new, fresh, unexpected, or do you reach for a secret-baby story every time?

Red Hot Covers for Red Hot Lovers - of romance?

If it's Sunday, it's Edith!

So, here's this cover for my new book, FOR THE LOVE OF A PIRATE, coming from Avon in November.

We were talking about explicit last Sunday, right? Only then I was yakking about how to describe "the" scene - the act of love.

Now, here comes this cover, which kinda sorta more than hints at it. Let's say, it sorta kinda puts it right out there. Except everyone's clothed, sorta.

And they might just be talking, or debating poitics, or he's trying to pin her down to the rock so the waves don't get her wet. And she's so carried away by his kind gesture that she's..... in raptures.

(Hey, but we know what's happening, and that's not just those of us with dirty minds. Right?)

Forget that the couple are precariously perched on a crag whilst the sea churns around them, and that in all probability, whatever they're doing, they'll be shark bait whilst doing it in a moment, as they are swept out to sea.

Which brings up a point. Has a shark ever eaten a couple while they were making love? Or are sharks shyer than that? Or more discreet?

I see a whole feature documentary on that on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel!

Meanwhile, what do you think of this cover? Too much or too little? They sure are handsome folks. But is what they are doing something that turns you on or off, buyer wise?

Mind, though I am often asked by readers, I will say it again: I have little to nothing to do with the covers on my books.

So, do you like it? Or would you, like a discreet shark, shy away from it?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Road Trip

From Loretta:

Coming to you from somewhere near Richmond VA. I don’t know where I am exactly, only that it’s way south of where I live by about ten hours’ drive time. My husband says it’s supposed to be nine hours. Or maybe eight. But that’s guy travel. Guys pride themselves on how far they can go without going. I need pit stops. Lots of them. Not only am I coming to you from a foreign country but I’m on a foreign computer—his lap top, which has everything in the wrong place, so getting from the beginning to the end of this blog may take as long as it took to drive here. And I am thinking, Why didn’t I think to ask one of the other Wenches to fill in for me? (I’m also wondering why I keep hitting the blooming “g” key or else two keys simultaneously and where are aLL those capital letters coming FROM? ) Well, it was a last minute decision. My POS is not quite done. So this is a big gamble. Yes, there are only a few pages left to write, but the way some books go, a few pages could take a few months. However, I Am thinking positively. Getting away will refresh those tired grey cells. Besides, we are here for an important family event, an 80th birthday party—AND those don’t come around SO OFTGEN. Plus, I get to watch him pacing around the car as I return from a pit stop, which is always fun. Also, there is the fun of amusing him during the drive.

The current entertainment is his quizzing me on birds of prey, i.e., can I tgell the difference between a buzzard and a hawk. No, I can’t, really, though he’s explained it A JILLION tgimes. But I’m always game. I write novels, after all. I don’t really know what I’m doing, butg I’m game, and I’ve managed to write 13 and 95/100ths full-length books so far. So, “What’s that up there?” he’ll say. And I’ll peer up through the windshield, and look at this black shape circling up there, riding the air currents, looking for something to eat from, like, a mile up in the sky. “Buzzard,” I say, thinking, Maybe it’s a hawk? “Right!” HE says. So I get a point. Or something. So faR, I Have correctly identified all the black things up there a mile up as buzzards. Hey, I’ve got a 50-50 chance of being right every time. Another fun quiz is identifying landscape featgures. We are crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge and he asks, What river is that down there? And I peer down through the window and think really hard and say, “the Delaware River”? And I get another point. Emboldened by my success with the buzzards and the river I say, “Ask me who’s buried in Grant’s tomb. Go on, ask me.” So he asks me and I get another point.

We also amuse ourselves by trying to identify singers we hear on the radio. With family in VA, he has traveled this road a lot, so he not only knows the route blindfolded but also where the cool public radio stations are. So we get to hear some very interesting music. On the better public radio stations, the variety is amazing. You never know what you’re going to get. Elvis Costello singing with Lucinda Williams, followed by a terrific folk singer I never heard of, then the Grateful Dead. And I thought how rare variety was getting to be in radio as well as television, and I thought about this interview I just did in a hurry for All About Romance (to be posted Monday or Tuesday, BTW). One of the questions was about the dearth of variety in historical romance. Traveling reminds me that this narrowing of choices applies elsewhere. Every shopping mall, wherever you are, seems to have the same stores.

On the positive side, I know I’ll find a Borders without much trouble. Which we do. And inside the Borders I can count on a strong romance section. And in this one, I find a bunch of my books. And I”m excited—not simply because they’re still on the shelves, despite not being recent releases (Lord of Scoundrels was there, for instance)—but because the thrill of seeing my books in a bookstore is not gone. Probably will never be gone. And it never stops feeling good when I find a manager and say, “I’m the author of these books. Would you like me to sign them?” In Borders one can pretty much count on getting an enthusiastic Yes. So let me say that variety is great but there’s something to be said, too, for finding the familiar in unfamiliar places.

I also want to say that gas is way cheaper down herfe than in Massachusettgs. $2.09 for regular. That’s all for now, folks. We’re heading out to the barbeque joint.

Riverboat cruising in Portugal

By Mary Jo:

I first read about riverboat cruising in a magazine several years ago, and promptly decided I wanted to give it a try.  I’ve done several ocean cruises, especially in the Caribbean, but rivers in Europe sounded different and fascinating.  The boats are much smaller, holding maybe 130 or so people, and the venues are fabulous. 

Much of European civilization developed along rivers, and traveling them would be a wonderful way of seeing Europe without a lot of packing and unpacking.  The boats park in the center of towns and cities, and one can seen a great deal of the countryside in peace and comfort.  The quintessential riverboat cruises follow the great rivers of northern and eastern Europe: the Rhine, the Elbe, the Danube, etc. 

There are three major riverboat cruising companies that specialize in English speaking passengers: Uniworld ( http://uniworld.com/ ), Viking, and Grand Circle, but only Uniworld cruises in Portugal.  Why did we choose Portugal?  I guess because it looked beautiful and off the beaten track.  Practically no one but Regency buffs has ever heard of the Douro River, which runs east to west across Northern Portugal and goes into Spain.  (One of Wellington’s nicknames was “Old Douro,” probably a pun on both the river and his famously dour disposition.)

Plus, the river runs through steep sided gorges covered with terraced vineyards in what is one of Europe’s oldest wine producing regions. What’s not to like?  <g>

Well, to be honest, I don’t much like port, which is the region’s most famous product.  I find it way too sweet.  But the history of port is quite interesting, and certainly part of the reason there has been a 400+ year alliance between England and Portugal.  The other reason is to stand against their mutual enemy, Spain, but the port is more convivial.  <g>  Some of the great Portuguese port houses bear British names.  Sandeman, where we toured, was founded by an 18th century Scot named George Sandeman.

Portugal is a small country on the far west of Europe, but it has a proud history.  In the Age of Discovery, the 16th century, its captains and navigators discovered the world.  Like Britain, this small country fathered a huge empire that included Brazil, Mozambique, and Angola as well as Goa in India and Macao in China. 

The various tours we cruisers took included a great deal of history.  Did you know that Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese princess who married Charles II of England, is the person who introduced tea to England?  A historic deed for sure!  Plus, her dowry included the city of Bombay in India, a prize that was part of the British empire till India achieved independence after WWII.

We all loved the Portuguese people we met, who were friendly without being overpowering.  They took very, very good care of us, and urged us to tell our friends to visit their country.  (That’s what I’m doing now. <g>) 

The country was beautifully clean and most of the cars and equipment I saw looked new and healthy, but it’s not a rich nation by any means.  People often go to other countries for jobs, sending part of their money back home, so it’s not surprising that they want to develop the tourism industry.  They have lots to work with—everyone I’ve met who has visited Portugal has loved the place.  Plus, as a socialist country, it’s less expensive to visit than most European countries. 

Portugal has a Mediterranean feel, though it’s not on the Mediterranean.  The language is derived from Latin and the written form looks similar to Spanish and Italian, but the accent is quite different.  One of the guides said the pronunciation is influenced by the Gaelic peoples who lived along the north coast of Portugal and Spain.

Beautiful, sunny Lisbon is built on seven hills, like Rome, and it sprawls across the Tagus, Portugal’s greatest river.  The whole country is hilly and 70% of the population lives near the Atlantic coasts.  This is why traveling in the north felt remote and peaceful. 

Our cruise started from Porto (also called Oporto), Portugal’s second city.  Because the Douro descends steeply from the Iberian plateau, our ship, the Douro Queen, traveled through great locks that were built into modern dams.  In several cases, we went from a lock to a bridge that was so low that the navigation array had to be tilted flat on the sun deck, along with the awning.  Never a dull moment!  But lots of peaceful ones.

The coach tours took us to cities and universities and ruined hilltop castles.  Our principal guide, Patricia, was delighted to find that I wrote historical novels, and she made a point of showing sites of particular interest.  (“Wellington and his army camped out at the foot of that hill.  That convent was turned into a hospital for wounded British soldiers after the battle.”)

Did all this beauty and history give me an idea for a book?  It sure did!  But I might have to learn to like port. <g> 

Mary Jo

Susan Sarah's Adventures in Research II

A while back I posted some of my Adventures in Research, so here's Parte le Deux! We all know that sitting down with a stack of books, notecards, pens, and sticky notes is only a portion of the research that writers do. Many, if not all, writers bring something more to their work than information gleaned from stacks of research books: either personal expertise, personal interest, or just plain curiosity to a subject leads the author there. I can research the heck out of anything in books--and then often I have to take that further and find out what the de'il the thing is really about.

Some of you have asked about the arrow-catching thing. That was definitely an instance where I had to go beyond conventional research--because I could find nothing written about this, and I didn't want to just make something up if wasn't even possible to catch an arrow the way I had in mind for my story. At the time, I was writing about a medieval hero, and a heroine too, who were both accomplished archers, for THE SWAN MAIDEN. Wanting something a little different than just launching out those arrows one after another, into trees, into straw targets, and into people (Baddies only of course!), I thought it would be very cool for the hero to catch an arrow that was sailing straight for the heroine, saving her life in the nick of time (since she had saved him a couple of times, it only seemed fair).

WOW, what a moment, I thought: I could just see it in my head...but I didn’t know if it could actually be done. I’ve done some archery myself, and I own and sometimes even operate a longbow, but the arrows only go in one direction: away from me. This is Good.

I told my husband about my arrow-catching idea one evening, and one of our sons (who is now a black belt) looked up from his homework and said, "Sensei can do that." Sensei was his karate instructor. What! Catch arrows! "Oh yeah, Sensei does that."  {shrug}

A quick phone call to the sensei, who promised to show me how to do it–-not demonstrate it to me, but teach me. What! Nah, I just want to see how you do this. Nope, said Sensei, you have to do it too. Well, my husband and a good friend weren't going to miss this, so they came along too.

Arrow catching is a lot harder than it looks. Trust me. And it’s definitely one of those Don’t Ever Try This At Home or Anywhere Else things. Seriously. Unless you have an expert teaching you how to do it (Disclaimer Alert!).

At first he had us catch a bo (a wooden staff), which he tossed to us. Then we progressed to hand-tossed arrows, and finally to blunt arrow shafts released from a bow a few feet away.

Oh hey, that’s not too bad, I thought. Even I, myopic with progressive lenses, and depth-perception issues, could do it. OK. I’m ready to write this book. Thanks, Sensei--

And then he got out the REAL bow, and the REAL arrows. And he backed up twenty feet.

There’s nothing quite like facing a ninth-degree black belt, a former Marine, a tower of a guy, while he raises a mean-looking bow nocked with a very sharp arrow, and aims it right at you.

And then he let the arrow go. It zoomed right past me, though I snatched out for it. He released another one. Zooooooopp. A blur went past before I could even get my hand out there. Another one. Zzzzzzip. Missed it, and yet another. Then I touched feathers!!  Zzzzzzzzzzzip.  Feathers again!

With the next one, I caught the shaft smack in the middle. Gotcha!! Once I had it, I had it for sure, and caught them very consistently after that. It’s timing, of course, but more than that, it's having all the senses on high alert, along with coordination and a little bit of courage, and it's also listening for the release as much as watching the thing.

Having thought this idea up for my book, I was then very fortunate to find just the right expert to show me what it was all about. This was a very big black belt guy, with a very big bow and a certain aim, and he knew what he was doing. So of course don’t try this at home or anywhere, unless you have a 9^th degree black belt (and they're hard to find) watching over you at all times.

I walked out of the dojo that day with a great bit of research knowledge, something I would never have found anywhere else--and even more importantly, I had a feeling of accomplishment that I hadn't counted on. And Sensei was so pleased (and found it so amusing, alas...) that he asked me to demonstrate this with him at the dojo holiday parties. Yes, folks, we took it on the road.

(Susan and Sensei at holiday party -- and yes, I caught that arrow too!)

One more detail that I suppose I should add, or I'll hear about it at home -– my husband caught the thing first try. Arghh! Whose arrow catching idea was it, anyway?! 

        ~Susan Sarah

Worldly Wench Returns!

By Mary Jo

The Worldly Wench is back from Europe!  With ragged hair, crossed eyes, and a suitcase full of dirty laundry, which is par for the course.

I’d actually planned on being home from Portugal on Sunday evening, giving me Monday to deal with aforesaid laundry and write a bloglet for today, since Pat and I had swapped days.  However, we missed connections in Munich when our flight from Porto was late (WARNING: when an airline says that a 40 minute connection time is adequate because flights are tied and it’s not a huge airport, they LIE!), and became guests of a Lufthansa at a nice little airport hotel in Munich and didn’t get home until Monday evening, with cascading domino effects on laundry and coherence.

It was a great trip, though, and not just because traveling in Portugal (and, briefly, Spain) stirred my imagination for Regency era stories.  Lovely country, lovely people, about which more anon.

But the traveling itself was interesting.  On our way over, we connected through the HUMONGOUS airport at Frankfurt, and I have distinct memories of how at an absurd hour of body time, a little electric cart carried our party of four through about ten kilometers of airport.  Our driver was a good-natured woman who looked like a fashion models (I am deeply envious of those German genes), and the party included my sister, always a dangerous combination with me.  As one member of the party imitated truck air horn honks, the driver called the German equivalent of “Out of the way, we’re coming through!”, my sister and I treated the airport to several choruses of “The Little Nash Rambler and the Cadillac,” and the fourth member of the party cowered on the back seat and tried to look as if she didn’t know us. <G>  Strange things happen when one is jetlagged.

In contrast, cruising the Douro River came closer to the rhythms of the past. Not all the way—we were on a motorized cruise boat and sophisticated locks built into dams meant we didn’t have to shoot the rapids to get casks of wine down the river to Porto.  But the pace was civilized, allowing us time to admire the terraced hills and quintas and little lonely stone buildings.  From jet age to the age of river travel.

Once water was the safest and smoothest way to travel.  No horrible ruts that could swallow wagons and carriages, less likelihood of getting bogged down in bad weather. It’s no accident that early civilization developed along waterways and coastlines.

In a sense, civilization is all about transport.  I live in an inner suburb of the Baltimore metro area.  If it’s not rush hour, I can hop on an interstate and be at the Inner Harbor in 15 or 20 minutes.  Yet in the late 18th century, this area was used for summer homes of the rich (higher and cooler than the area by the harbor), and it was an eight hour journey from the city to my neighborhood. Eight long, rutted, rocking hours by carriage, and pray your axles don’t break.  Horseback would presumably be faster, but still, it was once a formidable journey out here.

The late 18th and early 19th century created an explosion in transportation.  Canals were built all over England.  (See Loretta’s MISS WONDERFUL for what that looked like at the time.)  Toll roads were built, based on the sound presumption that people will pay for the privilege of traveling faster and more safely on a better road.  (IIRC, I recently read that at one point Britain had something like 7000 toll roads.)  A canny Scot named MacAdam figured out how to put gooey black stuff on roads to improve the surfaces.

And of course, the king of transportation came steaming in early in the 19th century, and suddenly there were steamboats and even better, railroads.  Trains made a huge difference in democratization, because average folk could travel with a fair amount of ease and affordability.  In Victorian times, this led to vacations at seaside resorts for working class people.  The world opened up.  No longer did traveling to the colonies mean you would never be able to return home to visit family. 

My great grandfather traveled to California by train and wagon train across the Great Plains.  His wife and daughters sailed to Panama, were carried over the mountains by sedan chair and picked up another ship to San Francisco, while the family furniture traveled around Cape Horn in a sailing ship.  Now I can fly to California to speak at a weekend conference.  (For a fun view of Victorian transport, find one of the filmed versions of Jules Verne’s AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS.  There’s a mini-series version with Pierce Brosnan, yum!) 

Now tourists can visit Europe for a week, and spend as long in the air as it used to take to travel by coach from the Baltimore harbor to a nearby village. We live in wonderful times.  On the other hand, my great grandfather didn’t have to worry about jetlag, so there are always trade-offs.  <g> 

On Friday, when my brain is less fried, I’ll write more about Portugal and river boat cruising and my tendency to keep whistling the theme music from the Sharpe TV movies about the Peninsular Wars.  In the meantime—no matter how great the trip, it’s good to be home!   

Mary Jo

Commercial Persuasion?

From Susan/Miranda:

Like most writers, I’m a compulsive reader, which of course makes me a book-buyer as well. I’m constitutionally unable to walk by a bookstore, always lured by the siren call of the latest releases. Well, maybe that’s putting a bit strongly (not to say luridly), but I do like to see what’s new on the shelves each week.

Like everyone else, I look for the names of authors I’ve enjoyed in the past. I pick up books with intriguing cover-art, and generally avoid those that depict bullet holes, shards of broken glass, or dead bodies, however artistically portrayed. Next I’ll skim the cover blurbs for a hint of the plot and setting. I don’t pay much attention to quotes from other authors, and figure that review quotes have been edited. But what convinces me finally to buy a book are the first few pages –– if the writer can convince me that I’ll want know more about her/his story and characters. Those first pages are like a first date: will this be only a passing acquaintance, or a long-term relationship?

But publishing is Big Business, and like every other Big Business, publishers are always trying new ways to sell books. As a jaded reader/consumer, I thought I’d seen everything in the way of special displays, discounts, readers’ guides, and membership clubs.

Yet there’s a just-launched promotion in both Borders and Barnes & Noble that’s absolutely made my jaw drop. I don’t know a thing about the book or the author it’s promoting, so I’m not going to mention the title, but if you’ve gone into either one of these stores this week, you know the novel I mean. There are lavish posters, huge displays of stacked books and books-on-CD, reading guides, and book club guides as soon as you step into the store. There’ve been special emails to store members, with all sorts of predictions about this book being an instant classic and future bestseller.

To this previously-unknown author, I wish endless congratulations for having her work so recognized and promoted, and much luck for a long and prosperous career. Forget playing the PowerBall numbers: she’s hit the author jackpot big-time. Over the course of our writing careers, each of us Wenches has been the beneficiary of publisher perks, and we all recognize how important store placements, dumps, and other kinds of point-of-purchase advertising can be to our sales.

But as a reader, I looked at this unprecedented example of expensive hooplah, and just went . . . huh. I’m an ornery consumer. I don’t like being told what to buy, or that I’ll miss out if I don’t. If this same book were sitting with the other new releases, I would have picked it up anyway on account of the promised connection to "Jane Eyre", and given it the first-page test. But seeing it set apart in solitary splendor like this made me suspicious and resistant, the same way that cats can sense there’s medicine buried in the choicest chunk of tuna.

It also made me wonder how many other readers feel the same way. Certainly publishers wouldn’t do this if it didn’t sell books, lots and lots of books. But I’ve overheard disgruntled readers returning big-push books, telling the clerk in no uncertain terms that they want their money back because a book didn’t live up to expectations (something I’d personally never dream of doing –– I just chalk up any turkeys to acceptable risk.) But I’ve also met readers who automatically buy all books that are favorably reviewed in People, or only buy ones that get five stars from Romantic Times.

Now you Wenches and Wenchlings are clearly a discerning bunch. Do you regard a big-splash book like this as a must-read? Do you race out to buy what Oprah or Kelly recommends? Or do you consider the messenger before you buy –– you’ll look for a book your sister recommends, but not one with the glowing review in Publishers Weekly and the biggest advertising budget?

Too hot to trot?

Edith here. I had a hot, er, I mean, hard, er, um, let's say, difficult week. I recently was stopped cold, mid-way through a book I was writing. Sort of like a centipede hustling along until it wondered which foot should come next.

It was a love scene. An ultimate, longed-for, much awaited sex scene, in fact.

And then it occured to me: How can I make this one different from any other I've written? How can I make it intense, without makiing it porn.

And I stopped writing. I was puzzled. After all, I've written many, many romances. How many ways can Part A fit into Slot B?

Lots of ways, I suppose, but I wasn't writing the Kama Sutra; I was writing a regency-set love story. No ropes and pulleys involved. I want to convey love and ecstacy, not physical fitness.

Ah, no, I don't think so...

In fact, I remembered one romance I read that set me giggling because the author definitely had accessed a sex manual. The gymnastics pullled me right out of the story.

Yikes! No no no!

I didn't want to emply euphemisms either, because they can sound childish. Nor did I want to use Latin terms. These are lovers, loving at last, not scholars.

"Wha? Layton doesn't think we're sexy?! Boo hiss!"

You can't do the asterisk anymore. Nor will a simple and heartfelt: "Reader, I married him," do. Forget about the fade-out after Rhett carried Scarlet up those stairs.

Modern readers want to be in on the love. They deserve to be, after all. They yearned through the story too, if you wrote it right.

But how to make the scene both loving and steamy, real and fulfilling for everyone, reader included? And how not to feel like a voyeur while doing it?

I stopped, and mulled.

And then, one morning as I was staring at the empty screen, it came to me.

I was the one thinking too much about the parts involved. That wasn't the point. As every character is different, and every love story is different, so then the perceptions of the characters is different. Just as sex is different for every person, and different every time for every person, so too, the act itself is always different.

The solution?
I went with the characters and their emotions. I wrote a love scene as I thought the characers felt it, and it was hot, although not too hot for the characters, and so it couldn't be for me, or for my readers.

Porn is simply Part A and Slot B.

Romance is love. Love between lovers shows itself in sex. In touches and kisses as well as parts. Let the characters find love, and let the parts fit where they may.

And they did!

But what about you, Gentle Reader?

Want more desciption? Less? In Latin terms? Euphemisms? *** Asterisks***?

Enquiring minds would like to know.

Back to school

       From Loretta:
      
      A year or two ago, maybe more, my junior high school science teacher died.  I am still close to my best friend from junior high school, and we grieved.  Some time later, my friend encountered a relative of the teacher, and told him how much this teacher had meant to us.  What it boils down to is, we worshipped her.
      By our fashion standards, she wasn’t that cool.  Her hair style and clothes came from an earlier era.  (She was in her 30s--practically ancient to us.)  But she was cool.  Our was a fairly tough junior high school--by no means the worst in the city, but definitely not for sissy teachers.  The students made some teachers cry.  Fights after school--girls as well as boys--were frequent.  It was a miniature version of West Side Story, a movie to which most of us would-be-hoodlums related all too well.
      But we were all little angels in Miss Butler’s class.  She’d enter the classroom and say, “Sit down and shut up” and we did.  I still don’t know how she did that.  There must have been at least 30 of us in the class but we all Obeyed.  Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer, would say she was a pack leader.  And I guess, in that school, the analogy fit perfectly.  Remember the Buffy episode “The Pack”?  http://www.buffyguide.com/episodes/pack/packsyn.shtml
      That was the student population at this junior high school--and none of us had stepped into any mystical circles, as far as I know.
      In Miss Butler’s class, we sat down, shut up, and paid attention.  We learned things, because she was a gifted teacher who made science fascinating to 7th, 8th, and 9th graders, a rare achievement.
      Then we’d leave her class and go down the hall and torture the French teacher.
      Miss Butler was one of the reasons I did not become a hoodlum.  She found a way to stimulate my intellectual competitive streak in an environment where it wasn’t at all cool for girls to be smart.  In later years, I did some backsliding (the college partying mentioned last week), but eventually I remembered her saying that one could party and get good grades; it simply meant not getting much sleep.  She’d pointed to the bags under her eyes as illustration.  So I learned to divide my time--which I guess makes her at least partly responsible for the nerd I am today.
       I got to thinking about teachers following last week’s discussion about our reading habits.  In the Comments, author Candice Hern talked about the high school curriculum and wondered if there was a Department of Gloom that selected the books.  I thought about Miss Butler, who had to teach from a textbook written by someone--or more likely a committee--trying to win the prize for Most Boring Science Textbook in the Known Universe.  Yet this teacher found a way to make the subject come alive.  She drew analogies between the topic of the day and our lives.  She even found a way to make many of us realize that learning stuff was cool.
      But she was a rarity.  I had another terrific teacher in high school but the majority were not memorable.  They were average teachers, not gifted.  And in typical Bell curve fashion, there were a couple who were simply dreadful.
      My English teachers fell into the Average category.
      In English class we read those gloomy books the same way we plugged away--or didn’t--at Latin and French and physics.  Because we had to.  It would have helped to have some books we could enjoy and really understand, despite our lack of life experience.
      I wonder, Why didn’t we read The Pickwick Papers instead of A Tale of Two Cities?  David Copperfield instead of Great Expectations?
      This is not to say I think PP or DC is superior to the other books.  But I think they’re easier for a younger person to digest.  And, since they were written before Dickens’s darker period, they don’t want as much life experience to appreciate.
      I’ve got some ideas about Shakespeare, too, and Thomas Hardy, and some modern authors.  But I’ve also got my own book to finish and no time at present to change the world.
      What about you?  Did you have a teacher who changed the world for you?  If you could be the teacher, and change the world for your students, how would you do it?  Would you change the books or the way they're taught?
     

Seri(es)ous Ruminations

While Mary Jo is lazily sailing the rivers of Portugal, we thought we'd fill her day with another dialogue from behind the scenes.  If you ever wondered what the wenches talk about in private e-mails, here's your chance---

From Pat Rice: I just read this article in the RWR about series where other authors claim that writing them makes life easier.  Will someone tell me how?  Yeah, sure, we have characters and a world already established, but that only makes my job harder as far as I can see.  It limits what I can do with people and places when they're already built in.  And it leaves me with half a dozen balls in the air that keep growing instead of decreasing as the series continues, until by the last book, I'm locked in and cornered and hard objects are falling on my head.  Screaaaammmm!


From Loretta:
Pat, you can probably hear me screaming with you at times.  I've got my Carsington family in Family Tree Maker, and I do spreadsheets for characters but I'm always having to calculate dates.  And I've had to kill a spouse.  Benedict the eldest started out with a wife, and was supposed to live happily ever after, but that couldn't happen when he got stuck in my brain and needed his own story.  Luckily, I didn't make too many decisions at the start of the series, so I had some leeway with the earlier books.  But now, with the youngest son, a great deal is settled--and I think this is part of what's made this story so tricky to write.

But there are benefits to having some part of the structure already built:  Like the parents, in my case--and the grandmother.  It's also lots of fun to look at characters from the different perspectives of different family members.  I like playing with the family identities--the Smart One, the Crazy One, etc.  I love exploring family dynamics, and this has been a joy in that way, absolutely.


FromSusan/Miranda:
Loretta, at least you were wise enough to begin with a family tree!  I wrote my Sparhawk Family series one by one, as the mood and character struck me.  I went backwards and forwards in time, through brothers and sisters, mothers and daughters. I was always getting confused.  I wrote them out of sequence, all over the place, through (I think) nine short stories and full books until, at last, I left the publisher and could finally put the Sparhawks behind me. 

But I really enjoyed it, too.  Writing that many books over so many years in history is almost like writing one enormous family saga.  Since most romances take place over a relatively short span of time -- often only a few weeks or months -- writing a series lets you  update readers (and yourself) about how everyone's doing.  I especially liked being able to move the family fortunes along with the history.  Since the Sparhawks were primarily a seafaring family in Newport, RI, I could move them from the "fat" colonial times through the 18th century, when the family fortunes are definitely prospering, through the lean days of the American revolution, when the family is scattered by the war, all the way through the final books around the War of 1812.  Couldn't do all that in a single historical romance, at least not for today's market...

From Pat:

All right, you've twisted my arm into admitting there are certain advantages to series.  I miss the long historical sagas where we can soak up the ups and downs of family history, and I'm a pure sucker for series like Poldark.  I love the family dynamics, although I'm not at all certain readers remember from one year to the next how the different characters viewed one another.  With the MAGIC series, my books came out a year apart, and the only real constant was Aidan.  I never knew which characters would show up.

With the next series (the first book won't be out until next summer), I'm trying to stick to a straight historical time line--the French Revolution.  They may be in England or Portugal for all I know (and half the time, on an invisible island!), but the historical reference has to advance with the characters.  So I'll be skipping big chunks of years to get to the exciting bits.  <G>  But I can see the big build up to the last book hovering over me already.  There's this compulsion to outdo the book before, so by the end of the series, it's hair-pulling time.


From Susan/Miranda:

Oooh, that sounds like a great series, Pat (though I wonder about that invisible island -- does Robespierre know about that?)

And yes, I think readers DO know who's who and where.  If letters are any judge, they probably keep closer tabs on characters that go from book to book than we do.  I'm always surprised by a letter that wants to know "What ever happened to X, the youngest nephew?  When will he have a story of his own?" when, in horrible reality, I'd kinda forgotten X even existed.

I know Jo's not here, so I hope I get this right <g> -- but I remember her saying how she'd purposefully chosen a different kind of series "arc" for the Malloren books.  Most series start with the oldest sibling, and move through the family that way, but she decided there would be more tension/interest if the oldest were the last to fall in love.  Worked, too.  Who doesn't remember Rothgar? :)

From Pat:

Personally, I favored the fancy dandy in the yellow coat in Jo's series, but I needed a family history in my Magic series just to keep up with my own characters. No way I'm remembering names from elsewhere! Sorry, Jo!

So, what do readers think about books in a series? Do you want family trees? Do you want each book to stand alone so you can read them out of order? Do you hate them with a passion? It's okay. There are days we hate them with passion, too!  We won't tell. But this is a hot topic right now, and editors (and authors) are listening, so speak your mind!

Jo Beverley: Interview!

Blatant Promotional Spotlight Presents:

Word Wenches Interview with Jo Beverley!

Lord Darius Debenham, reported as perished at Waterloo, is in fact alive–yet frail from his wounds and ill-treatment, and addicted to opium. His rescuer is Lady Mara St. Bride, sister to Simon St. Bride of The Rogue's Return–with the family need to champion causes, she plunges into action. Dare Debenham has always been like a brother to her, and Mara cannot let a beloved brother suffer. She soon finds, however, that he is simply beloved....

"...well-crafted, delicious and wickedly captivating." ~Romantic Times

"Lighthearted and serious, sexy and sweet, this exquisitely rendered story is a perfect finale to this classic series." ~Library Journal

"With her usual beautifully nuanced characters and lyrical writing...Beverley brings her popular Company of Rogues Regency historical series to a triumphant conclusion." ~Booklist

WW: TO RESCUE A ROGUE brings back Lord Darius, listed as killed at Waterloo. Did you know then that he would turn up alive later, with such a powerful story?

JB: As best I remember, no. I do remember thinking that it would undermine the seriousness of the situation if no one the reader knew died in such a bloodbath. I think I picked Dare because he was the Rogue there who was most well liked by readers. I'm a cruel goddess. But as his body wasn't found, I think I was backtracking pretty early on.

I didn't have a clue where he was if alive. I ruled out amnesia immediately because it seemed too obvious. I have a strong contrarian streak, as my readers know. As time passed in the Rogues' world, however, any explanation became less and less likely. As I wrote yesterday, I even played with abduction by aliens!

In more normal form, I discovered Dare in the process of writing Devil's Heiress and then his prolonged absence made sense and even wove back into ongoing plot elements.

WW: When you wrote the first of your Rogue books, did you ever imagine how long the series would continue?

JB: In books, sort of. I'd always thought it strange that Heyer didn't link her books more, given that her people were often buzzing around the same Regency London, Bath etc. Of course I realized later that she was smart. It's a lot more work to keep track of a host of characters. So I hoped to write stories about the surviving men.

One little known fact, however, is that Lucien, Marquess of Arden wasn't a Rogue in the original. I was writing his book, and trying my hand at a true sporting, physical Regency buck, when I discovered the manuscript of Nicholas's story and started to brush it up. I realized I could make Lucien a Rogue, which created interesting dynamics in the Rogues and in Luce's story, An Unwilling Bride. As the heir to a dukedom, Lucien is way higher in status to the rest, but especially to Nicholas, who is a commoner. Yet Nicholas is undisputed King Rogue.

Along the way I've taken some side paths, to the Duke of St. Raven, for example, and to the Three Georges. As I fly into the mist -- which means not pre-plotting my books, and certainly not my series -- it's been a magical mystery tour. (They're coming to take me away....*G*)

But I never would have imagined that I'd write the story of the last Rogue to marry in the 21st century, nor that I'd be looking forward to more books in the Rogues' World.

WW: Your books often follow different members of the same family. What are the advantages, and the challenges, of linking several stories together?

JB: Families are naturally linked, even if deeply divided, and often even live in the same house, especially in historicals. This makes connections easy and also increases stress. Even loving families create some stress for each other. For example in To Rescue A Rogue, Simon St. Bride is both Mara's loving and protective brother and Dare's closest and best friend. This sometimes puts him in a difficult situation, but it also enabled me to get Simon and his wife and Mara into Dare's family home, which was excellent.

The main family I've done is, of course, the Mallorens, with stories set in the 1760s. I think the thing I like best is the interconnectedness. With a family, especially a close one, everything in one book has effect on the lives of the others. This is also a challenge. I don't think families are clones, however, so family series where all the brothers, for example, are the same type, don't work for me.

WW: You have written Regency, Georgian, and medieval romances. What fascinates you about these eras? Do you think you would write another medieval?

JB: I dearly want to write more medievals. To me the three periods create completely different types of stories and I love writing all three. The medieval, especially the early 12th century, is really a frontier society. There's no comfort zone, no complacency. If the political situation isn't making your life hell -- and if you were a noble you had to be involved in politics for the survival of yourself and your family -- the practicalities of life probably were. Climate, disease and lawlessness were eternal hazards.

It was not, however, universally grim, especially to the people living then. They had music, dancing and many feast days and festivals. Castle ruins look gray and forbidding, but they were painted in bright colors and hung with patterned cloths. If they could afford to, they embroidered and trimmed their clothes. We have to remember medieval music, cathedrals, miniatures, manuscripts etc. I try to see the period as they did and remember that 900 years from now people might be pitying us for the horrible way we had to live.

By the 1760s the elemental forces are mostly tamed and there's time to play. At that time, they were exuberant with innovation -- the industrial and agricultural revolutions and the Enlightenment. Something new every day and no limits to possibilities. It was an "anything goes" sort of time, and being educated, well-read and clever was not thought of as sissy. Besides, I adore lethal men in fine plumage. They lead to high-octane, hands-on dangerous times.

The Regency is much more tame, in part because the French Revolution had been a shock to the anything-goes mentality. It has charm, increasingly efficient law and order, good roads and more modern conveniences, but also caution and a pull toward, as Jane Austen writes approvingly, thinking as one ought. It truly is more suited to the drawing room drama and to subtlety in confrontation and expression. It's great for constrained passion conveyed through words and looks, though behind the scenes, some hotter expression is fun, too.

I am planning some medievals set during the Baron's War in the 13th century, but apart from that, I don't think I'll expand into new historical periods. I have plenty still to mine in the three I'm using, and if I have time to do other things, I will do more fantasy and science fiction. For example, having dug out the old snippet I wrote about Dare and Rorcha, I need to pull that fantasy novel together, because I love it, weird though it is.

WW: What are you working on now?

JB: 1. A spin-off story from To Rescue A Rogue about Dare's sister, Thea, and a man who makes a brief appearance at the end of the book, Viscount Darien. 2. I'm also playing a little with one of my old traditional romances, The Stolen Bride, because I remembered that it's the one book I didn't write as I wanted to. My editor insisted on a major change and deep in my heart it's never been true. Mind you, if I write the right version, it won't fit with subsequent events, but I'll worry about that later. 3. There's those medievals. A trilogy, I think. 4. Now Ztreng-ali and Quiriniac are trying to get my attention. Good thing I'm happiest with a few projects on the go at once.

WW: Thank you, Jo! Best of luck with TO RESCUE A ROGUE!

Available now! Signet, September 2006/ ISBN 0451220110

Read an excerpt at: http://www.jobev.com/reghist.html#TRAR

Captured by aliens!

Jo here, wherever here is today. Ottawa, I think. Charlie's still in the tux.

Writing is a weird business.

In my unpublished fantasy novel, the ordinary people call the Magickers "weirders."

Anyway, when I was answering some interview questions about To Rescue A Rogue (on shelves now, selling briskly, get it while you can!) I rembered something strange. I killed Lord Darius Debenham at Waterloo, you see, and both I and my readers regretted it. I wasn't sure how to bring him back, however. Amnesia seemed too obvious, and anyway, it's a serious medical condition.

So time went by and I wrote another Rogues book, Christmas Angel, and then another. The more time past in the fictional world, the more difficult his absence was to explain. The strange memory that popped up was that in my desperation I'd played with the idea of my misfit mage, who passes time exploring portals to other places, checking out earth in the middle of Waterloo. Very nasty. Dare lands on him at point of death, and Quiriniac takes him home to save him. I even wrote some of this and was intrigued by the idea of Quiriniac returning Dare to Regency London and being loose among the ton for a while.

I found the little bit I wrote and I've put it up on the web. Click here to read it.

Another strangeness is this castle which appears on the stepback cover of TRAR. I wasn't at all sure what it is or why the art department put it there. The slightly crooked tower roof is particularly, well, weird. I only just realized that the art department is weirdly psychic, and it's Castle Cruel. As in The Ghastly Ghoul of Castle Cruel, which is the Gothic novel Dare and Mara work on in To Rescue A Rogue.

It starts out as The Captive Corpse of Castle Cruel, but as Mara quibbles, how can a corpse be kept captive? And why? Unless it threatens to rise. Hence the Ghastly Ghoul of Castle Cruel, 'a rhyme, began, to boot."

Unless ghoul and cruel don't rhyme in American. Tell me it aint so!

We could all try to make posts in rhyming doggerel.
Blogs all around, some witty, some trenchant,
For being inflammatory, others have penchant.
One day there'll be Pulitzers for the cleverest posters,
Or perhaps silver cups for the classiest hosters,
But we are the Wenches with cats, dolls, and Barbies,
And no one could claim that any are harpies,
So we'll go as we have, and we'll blog as we will,
And hope that occasionally, we give a mild thrill.

Have a go! Reply in rhyme. The best will win a book when I get back home. I can't access my files of cover images so I'll put a link instead.

A link to a page about my current and recent books.

Jo

Magic Man Winner

We have a winner!  Bunny Callahan won the drawing for an autographed copy of Magic Man, along with one of the sparkly covers that never reached the bookshelf!

Thanks to everyone who joined in,

Best,
Patricia Rice

Storytelling

Pat Rice reporting in:

I’m deep in revisions and spinning wheels backward faster than usual trying to escape one of the really tough parts about writing.  Which means, of course, that I’ve been thinking about everything except what I’m working on.

          As I sit here ripping out my hair and wearing out my thesaurus looking for just the right word, to fit in just the right phrase, to manipulate a sentence in just the right way, to get the reaction I want, I have come to the conclusion that there are many levels of writing, and I’m struggling for a level I may never achieve.  Which isn’t bad, considering I’m already at a level most people can never come close to, but human nature requires motivation, and I’m only human. When I’m not just plain weird. <G>

         Many people are storytellers. The spoken word comes easily to their glib tongues and they can manipulate audience reaction with a wink or a grimace and just the right sound of their voice at the right time. The trouble begins when a storyteller attempts to put those stories to a blank page.  It’s impossible to see audience reaction, much less translate a wink and grimace into a computer. This is the point where we probably lose some of our very best storytellers. Their words will never reach the written page.

        Then there are people like me, who have wallowed in the written word all our lives, soaked in stories through our pores, observed the world around us, and who pulsate with vivid images screaming to be released.  Most of us aren’t aural storytellers. We’re very comfortable with the written word. But the stories in our heads are just like those of the aural storytellers—they need an audience. So we struggle to put the right words on paper to achieve the same reaction of laughter and tears and maybe an occasional ah hah! that a wink and grimace can create.

            Some writers are content to just relate the action of the story and hope for the best. Others of us work hard to get inside our characters and let the story develop through their actions. If an author is extremely good with expressing him/herself, this may flow naturally, but I think there are very few of us who can effortlessly relate story with conflict and emotion and well-developed characters with just the right chosen words to create a book that affects millions of people. Many don’t even know that they need to; others don't care.  Some try, and think they’re successful, but in truth, they’re only reaching an audience with a mindset similar to theirs, so their audiences never grow. Other authors are successful at finding the right story that appeals to many, but grow lazy with experience and quit working to find all the right words to continue reaching more people. 

            There are so many factors involved in creating a successful story, that it’s almost impossible for any one person to have them all.  Some writers are wonderful wordsmiths who can make a reader weep with a few well chosen phrases, but they lack the ability to build a world large enough for a novel or the ability to build a world that large numbers of readers care about. 

            So, think of your favorite books and tell me why they work for you.  Is it the well chosen words and sentences? The characters? The world they live in? The action and pacing of the story that keep you glued to the page?  The laughter and tears? Geniuses who can do all these things, like Austen, are a rarity. So who among modern authors come close to that level of storytelling genius? And if these authors aren’t New York Times bestsellers, why do you think they aren’t?

Pen Names & Evil Twins

From Susan/Miranda:

Jo suggested that this week I write about pseudonyms, being a psudonym-onous writer myself. “Pseudonym” has always had a faintly tainted sound to me, like some sort of grim medical condition, but then “pen name” isn’t much better, with its jolly, jaunty pen-pal quality. Personally I like to think of Miranda and Susan as my evil twins, two sides of my writing personality. For many years, Miranda did the work while Susan spent all the money, but lately things have been evening up. (For any late-comers, I’ve written for Pocket, Sonnet, and Harlequin Historicals as Miranda Jarrett, and now write for NAL/Dutton as Susan Holloway Scott.)

Of course, women in general have long been in the habit of having two names, taking their husband’s when they marry. (Ladies who marry younger titled sons get the rawest deal, becoming Lady HisFirstName, but then I suppose there are other compensations.)

But writers take extra names for other reasons. Samuel Clemens chose Mark Twain, a name drawn from riverboat jargon, to give instant credibility to his Mississippi stories. Benjamin Franklin became Poor Richard to lend his almanac a more folksy flavor to –– what else? –– increase sales. A famous eighteenth century landscape architect and writer dubbed himself “Capability” Brown to boost his reputation with potential noble clients (though his real name of Lancelot might have done that, too.) And sometimes the change is for convenience: a 19th century female reporter found the by-line Nellie Bly was much easier for her readers to remember than Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman.

Early in his career, Stephen King wrote books faster than his publisher thought wise to produce, and so also published as Richard Bachman. Nora Roberts uses J.D. Robb to signal her readers that this is a different kind of novel than her usual romance, just as WordWench Mary Jo Putney writes historicals with a fantasy element as M.J. Putney.

Because romance is mostly read by women, at least two male romance writers have taken female pseudonyms to boost their appeal. T. E. Huff was the gentleman behind Jennifer Wilde, and former RWA president Harold Lowry writes as Leigh Greenwood. But expectations can be misleading, too. While the wonderfully named Thea Devine and Merline Lovelace may sound like romance psudonyms, each is respectively married to Mr. Devine, and Mr. Lovelace.

Sales (or lack thereof) are another reason for a change of name. If a writer’s past been burdened with a bad sales record, a new name at new publishing house can offer a much-welcomed fresh start.

Sometimes, though, it’s not an author’s decision. Just as Anne Klein magically manages to design clothes from beyond the grave, there are writers’ names that become such a “franchise” that books continue to be produced after their deaths. The estate of V.C. Andrews hired Andrew Neiderman to continue to write the books that are now published under her name.

Another famous bestseller, Carolyn Keene, didn’t exist at all. The name is the psuedonym for a long list of authors who produced the hugely successful Nancy Drew mystries for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Each writer was paid $125.00 a book, and in turn gave up all their rights –– a practice that’s still unfortunately common for Young Adult series books today.

When I first sold to Harlequin/Silhouette in the early nineties, their corporate policy (which has since changed) required writers to use pseudonyms. Their reasoning was that if they built up your career –– your own “brand” –– then they should have the right to keep the name if you moved along to another house.

At the time, I didn’t mind taking another name. Because I was still working at a college and my children were small, I wanted to separate my writing life from my personal one. I chose family names that were in the running for my children, but didn’t get used: Miranda and Jarrett Shippey were 19th century ancestors of mine, a teenaged brother and sister who left the family farm back east to find excitement and new lives with the California Gold Rush. Jarrett traveled by wagon train with another sister, Melissa, while Miranda somehow went by sea around South America. They seemed like worthy inspiration for me, whose great adventures are limited to what comes from my keyboard.

So what do you think of writers with two names? Does it seem an unnecessary contrivance that makes book-hunting a challenge, or do you see it as a way of differentiating kinds of books? Or do you have a story of your own to share of a “mistaken identity”?

(And now a quick promotional note: for a limited time, Borders is offering my latest book DUCHESS: A Novel of Sarah Churchill as part of their “3 for 2” promotion: buy any two of a select group of trade paperbacks, and receive a third for free. Check it out!)

Nature's Best

It's Sunday and Edith is home again!

I was gone for the weekend to visit a dear friend (and good writer) at the shore.

From her porch I could see the great Atlantic rolling on, and the horizon looked so curved I didn't know how anyone could have ever said the world was flat.

My friend always writes at night, and I never knew why.

Now, of course, I understand. A computer is far too small a thing to look at when an ocean is practically underneath your nose.

(Maybe that's why sea-captains only keep logs? After all, Melville wrote Moby Dick when he was dry-docked, and working as a file clerk. I wonder how many great sagas were written at sea? I'd say none. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

And that classic bucolic scene with a poet lying on some grassy sward, and writing?

I don't believe it.

Of course, everyone has a favorite reading place and writing space.

I can read or write in a plane, train, or automobile. Or while children are playing right next to me. That's just noise and doesn't distract me, because words transport me.

But I can't concentrate when Nature is showing off. Not near blue lakes or bubbling streams or vast oceans, of course. Nor in a clover filled meadow.

My favorite places to read? On a couch in the living room, or at the kitchen table, while sitting on a hard chair.

NEVER in bed, because that makes any book a sleeping pill, at least for me.

Sorry I couldn't come up with a more sensational topic, or question.

But I just got back for staring at a wide blue sea, and obviously, my mind is still there...

So. How about you? Do you have a favorite place to read or write? And where can't you do either one or the other?

Do I Hafta Finish It?

        From Loretta:
      
      Last Sunday, Edith asked about books we couldn’t put down, the ones we kept on reading, no matter what.
      I’ve been contemplating the ones we don’t keep on reading.
      Or do we?
      I’m not sure when exactly I stopped reading every single book to the bitter end.  Sometime in college, maybe.  Oh, yes, definitely, because I know I didn’t read everything I was supposed to--at least not during Stage One.  Being very immature, I needed two stages to get my degree.  During Stage One, I was too busy partying to read the incredibly boring Moby Dick, for instance.  (And no, I don’t regret the partying:  It taught me some things, like Quit Partying and Get a Real Life.)  Anyway, Jude the Obscure went by the wayside then, too.
      I got back to Moby Dick some years later, and loved it.  Thinking back, I’m seeing a connection between general immaturity and low boredom threshold.  The less you know, the easier it is to be narrow-minded.  When you start learning about being in the world and making a life for yourself, your mind can open up.  Then you can learn some more things.  Moby Dick wasn’t boring at all, once I’d matured enough to get it.  So I’m glad I didn’t give up on that one completely.  Maybe one of these days I’ll get to Jude the Obscure but don’t hold your breath.  Hardy and I, we’re not likely to have a good relationship.  We see the world in completely opposite ways.
      This is one of the keys, of course, to what makes us keep turning the pages and what makes us stop, say, three chapters in.  When you read a book, you’re forming a relationship.  And you’re just not going to communicate with every single author.  You’re simply not going to want to spend time with every one of them.
      The question is, do you stick it out to the end, even if you don’t want to be there?
      I don’t.  Despite the lesson learned about Moby Dick, I still don’t read to the end.  Not everyone is Herman Melville.  And I know, deep in my heart, that Jude the Obscure is not going to make my comeback list.
       Life is short, books are many.  If I see no potential for a relationship with the book, I close it and go on to the next.  Sometimes I can tell very early on that things are not going to work out between us.  Sometimes--as was the case recently with a work of non-fiction--I was halfway through the book when I sighed and gave up.
      This doesn’t happen very often.  I’m not the callow youth I was in my callow youth.  I know what I like, so I’m not likely to have books in the TBR piles I won’t finish.  And I’m not as narrow-minded as I used to be, so when I try something new, I’m more forgiving.  Too, I have this job that involves reading tons and tons of non-fiction, some of it written in a style that is, not to put too fine a point on it, awful.
      Here’s an example from The Mirror of Graces (1811):  “Women in every country have a greater influence than men chose to confess.  Though haughtiness of mind will not allow them always to acknowledge the truth, yet we see the proof in its effects; and, in consequence, must exhort women, by yielding their deference to the laws of honorary precedence, to teach men to obey them; and, rather to emulate such distinctions, than seek to pull down the possessors to the level of the common herd.”  As is painfully obvious here, not everyone in the early 19th C wrote the way Jane Austen did.  This is a great clue to why she’s lasted and no one’s ever heard of the hundreds of others writing at the same time.
      Betcha anything only a teeny tiny minority of readers would read The Mirror of Graces from the beginning to the bitter end.  And let me say, I am not one of that minority.  I skim, wincing as I go along.  But I've got a reason to read it.  This is my job, and you never know what fabulous idea will come from it, once I can figure out what the heck she's saying.
      How do you deal with the good, bad, and ugly in books?  Do you apply the 50 page rule?  The three chapter rule?  Or do you keep on, right to the end?

Guilty Pleasures

from Mary Jo Putney...             

Assuming all has gone well, by the time you read this I’ll have handed in my book and be cruising the Douro River in Portugal with my nearest and dearest.  And surely picking up a better sense of the countryside that was the setting for part of the Peninsular Wars. (Once a Regency writer, always a Regency writer….)

Because I’ve also been trying to finish a book, plus having computer problems, I’m going to keep this short and fluffy, or at least fluffy: I’m going to talk about movies we like even though we feel we probably shouldn’t.

Tops on my list is FIRST KNIGHT, an Arthurian fantasy that came out several years ago and centered the immortal romantic triangle of Sean Connery as King Arthur, Juliet Ormond as Guinevere, and Richard Gere as Lancelot.

 

When FIRST KNIGHT came out, A writer friend told me about how she and her friends had howled out loud at the corniness; I can’t remember if I had the courage to say that I really liked it.  *g* 

But even though the story was highly stylized, set in a dark age world with strange mechanisms, no Merlin (no Merlin!!!), and a whole lot of peasants wearing bright blue clothing, it worked for me, largely because of the power of the three leads.  I’ll watch Sean Connery in anything, and he did a beautiful job as the war weary king who falls in love with the young and lovely Guinevere because he wants peace and love in the last years of his life.

Julia Ormond is a queen in her own right.  Though she doesn’t really love King Arthur, she accepts his proposal in return for protection for her small country of Lyonesse.  Besides being beautiful, she has a wonderful warmth that makes it clear why men fall in love with her.  It’s also believable that she can love two very different men in different ways.

Most of all, I loved Richard Gere as Lancelot.  In most versions of the Arthurian legends, Woman is Evil and responsible for the sinning of strong, noble men.  The traditional Lancelot is the most honorable of knights who betrays his king and best friend because of his lustful love for the queen.  ‘Twas the woman who made him do it. 

But in this case, love is not the sin but the redemption.  A cynical and emotionally wounded man, Gere’s Lancelot is transformed by his love for a great man, Arthur, the idealism of the Round Table, and the love of a good woman.  This is a story of redemption, not fall, and the ending is remarkably satisfying for a story that is often rendered as a tragedy. 

So what movies do you love that you feel a little embarrassed to admit to?  I look forward to reading the answers when I’m back from vacation!

Mary Jo, who might talk about Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life, on another day 

The First Romance

Susan Sarah here with a little pondering on a sunny Thursday....

Do you remember the first romance you ever read? And did you know it was romance–that is, was it romance genre, or did it have romantic elements?
RWA (and most others) define a romance novel as containing a central love story with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.  http://www.rwanational.org

My question for you all--and myself--is this: what was the first romance you ever read? What path did you take to reading more in the genre, and did that influence your reading tastes today?

For a long while, I thought the first romance I ever read was in graduate school, when I picked up a battered library copy of The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Academic that I was, I thought that book-–and that thoroughly addictive, life-changing reading experience-–was where I first started reading romance novels (we won’t go into how I hid my growing reading habit for a while until owning up to it, or that I once saw another grad student hiding a romance novel behind a research book in the library. That’s fodder for another discussion!).

I cut my reading teeth on romance novels long before The Wolf and the Dove found me, though I didn’t realize it until much later. Where did it start? That’s hard to track back, but it was very early. I haunted libraries as a kid from the time my mother took us there until I was old enough to go there myself--I was there weekly, sometimes daily, toting out great armloads of books, blowing through those and toting them back for another armload–I would have taken them out by the wheelbarrow if I could have!  (Pet peeve: when I’m in a library and overhear mothers saying to their children, you can have one book, two books, each – armloads, mom! wheelbarrows! Let them know there’s never too many books! Nuff said.)
I fondly remember the wonderful smell of that old, small-town library–the mingled scents of books, of paper and binding leather, of wooden floors, marble, brass. It’s a scent that newer libraries don’t seem to have, an aged, solid scent that’s part materials and part magic and timelessness, that holds promise and enchantment, knowledge, anticipation, and such great freedom to explore.

Not my hometown library -- I wish!

Library, Dunrobin Castle, Scotland

And it was in those quiet library hours that I began reading romance long before I knew I was doing so. Some of my favorite books had strong romantic elements, but where did it start?  Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond, maybe. Or maybe I got caught by the power of the romantic thread with Jo March and her Professor Bhaer, or with Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester:

"...Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.
"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,--you'd forget me."
"That I NEVER should, sir: you know--" Impossible to proceed.

<thud> says I....melodramatic, perhaps, and OTT in terms of romance genre today, but nonetheless, the sort of romantic power that runs deep. Very deep, and catches romantic souls all unaware, and for life.

Later, I discovered that Power Duo, Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt, and I was quickly hooked on romantic suspense and gothic romance. I gobbled through all of those that I could find, names I remember and don't, and read my way through everything Phyllis Whitney had to offer, and through a range of historicals as well, including the medievals of Rosemary Hawley Jarman, and others, like Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (GWTW I read at least five times in high school, plus saw the movie several times, while it doesn't classically qualify as a romance–-certainly lacking that requisite optimistic HEA, though given, there’s Scarlett's note of tremulous optimism, or is it blind denial, depending on how you look at it, in the end). And of course Jane Eyre got several readings (and does to this day, for me). There was Daphne Du Maurier, with Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman’s Creek...then on to Elizabeth Peters (again, not strictly romance, though the elements are undeniably there). And of course everything Anya Seton ever wrote. If she had left a crumpled grocery list around somewhere, I would have gobbled that up too.

But noooooo, I didn't read a romance novel until I stumbled upon The Wolf and the Dove in the library. Yah right!  I was prepped for the romance genre by then. Since childhood I had been reading rich, romantic, heart-rending, classic romantic novels, stories that were deeply romantic and thoroughly exciting, whether historical settings, or contemporary romantic suspense--supposedly mysteries then, but the sort that had me on the edge of my seat with anticipation and excitement--yes, I wanted the characters to find the bad guy, solve the mystery, save that priceless treasure, whatever, but I most sincerely wanted that guy to say something of emotional substance to the girl, however scant (really, that reserve was so intriguing!)--and if that didn't happen--I was not a happy, satisfied reader. If I cried in the end, okay, but there had to be some tears of joy, relief, satisfaction too.

I wanted that feeling where my very heart seemed to turn within me, that emotional wrench, and that sense of triumph and completion, too. I found it, and sought it out, in books long before I read that thick, battered paperback of The Wolf and the Dove. And I discovered, very quickly, why that book was so worn and well-read: those feelings were there, the gut-wrenching and the heart-turning, the anticipation, and a bit of crazymaking exasperation, too (how could she fall for such a jerk? how could he be such a pig, and she be so stupid? ah, but somehow it all worked out in the end, he learned, she learned, everybody gained).

And I went from there to more Woodiwiss, Shanna and on to more, McNaught and Garwood, and more and more, until I couldn’t deny that constantly growing and demanding urge to try writing these stories myself, to capture the feelings and the excitement that reading those novels gave me. I wanted to give back, and create that for myself and others, with the characters and situations taht had been bouncing around in my imagination for a long time.

Over the years I had absorbed the sensibilities of romance so thoroughly that I realized that I could write a romance novel of my own. Yet I thought I had read only a few romances. Not so, gentle Reader! I had long been an addict, an afficionado, with some understanding of the forms and features of the genre before I even set out to deliberately gain that for myself.

I go back regularly to those early reads to recapture that early sense of wonder and excitement, anticipation. I have this ability...or is it a flaw...to forget endings of books and movies. It's a marvelous boon that enables me to happily re-read old favorites (Mary Jo says the strong element of Neptune in my natal chart gives me this peculiar ability *g*).  Given enough time lapse, I will dive back into my favorites, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, and all of Mary Stewart’s books (the contemporaries are dated in some ways, yes, but the writing is infinitely lovely, and the datedness has a wonderful charm).

So how about you all –- where did you start reading romance, was it with Regency (as we’ve touched on before here at Word Wenches), or did you enter by another door: historical literary fiction, Gothic, romantic suspense, category, genre historicals, and so on?

And what was the very first book you read that had romantic elements in the story, with all the heart-pounding, heart-wrenching features of great romance?

And how do those reading pathways influence your reading choices now?

~Susan Sarah

We Have a Winner!

Congratulations to Lesley Williams -- she's won a signed copy of DUCHESS!
If you haven't already joined our e-newsletter list, I hope you will (the link's right over there on this page.) We're planning another wenchling-drawing for free books soon. Don't miss out!

Dolls, fairies, and magic

Jo here, Charlie by my side.

I'm off on my travels on Thursday, first to a conference in Ithaca, NY, then to New York for a bit of business, then to Ottawa for my son's wedding. That's why Charlie is so spiffy. Everyone agreed he had to be at the wedding, and as the best man etc are in white tux jackets and black pants, he had to be in style.

This may seem rather strange to you. I would first point out that I'm a writer. I let imaginary people live in my head and talk to me. Sometimes I talk back. Of course I married someone as weird as I am and genetics has to do its bit for the offspring. But we often wonder whether we have actually been hosting an alien these past 22 years. What better way to observe Earthlings in their natural habitat?

We certainly never planned to give a home to a Cabbage Patch doll. It was Christmas, 1984 and Cabbage Patch mania gripped the land. The stores had run out. If a store got a new shipment, people lined up and then fought each other for the boxes. It was ugly out there. Tickle-me-Elmo was a pale comparison. We had two sons, however, a toddler and a seven-year-old, so we were totally free of Cabbage Patch insanity.

Move on to the school Christmas fair. You know how it is. You buy a ticket for every raffle. Of course, when the grand prize of the evening was called -- the solitary, precious CBK -- our name was on the ticket. All around, little girls burst into tears and fretful parents gnashed their teeth. I headed for the stage intending to ask them to draw again, but by the time I'd fought against the exiting crowd nearly everyone was gone. So I took the box and left.

My first inkling of what had happened was when my son fretted that there wasn't a baby seat for the boxed doll. Charlie had begun to weave his spell.

It wouldn't have been the same at all, I'm sure, if he'd been a girl. I can't imagine a Mandy with blond wool bunches sliding so smoothly into the family. In fact, he’s bald, and that, too, is part of his magic. That wool hair is so obviously false.

It all started so innocently. He came, bald and babyish in a peach colored stretch sleeper. Come to think of it, I don’t know where that went. He probably hunted it down and burned it at some point. As the boys grew, he grew. He acquired trousers and a baseball hat. He had Halloween costumes. As a teenager he developed a strong taste for bling.

He’s been to England, Bruges, Versailles and university. (Only for a visit. We’re not entirely mad.) He dictated that we become a refuge for other #3 head bald CBKs, which is why we know have four. He’s probably planning world domination, but could Cabbage Patch dolls do a worse job that we’re doing?

Essentially, he’s our family mascot, so he’s off to the wedding. I’ve left a post for next week and I should have computer access and be able to pop in now and then.

I have no idea what thoughts this might stimulate. Do you have treasured dolls? I was never a soft toy keeper myself. Do you think writers need to be a bit crazy to work here?
Or a lot. I do worry sometimes that trying to be sane, or heaven help us, “professional” can kill the magic. “A professional writer writes,” I want to snarl. “It’s nothing to do with how one dresses, or even whether one can make witty lunch speeches.”

Have you read Faery Magic? I gather that many North Americans think of fairies as Tinkerbell or the tooth fairy. Not me. I spent many of my childhood years convinced that fairies were real. Why did I put that in the past tense? Of course they are. I know now, however, that they’re not the flower fairies, but Faery – mighty and mysterious, and probably best left alone.

Aurevoir.
Jo

Magic Man Contest

From Pat Rice:

Anyone who is signed on to our newsletter list (and one of these days, we will actually start sending an occasional newsletter!) and who posts a comment before midnight of September 11 will be eligible for a drawing to receive a copy of MAGIC MAN, plus a limited edition sparkly cover that never made it onto the book.  I'll announce the winner in next Tuesday's blog. Let's start talking!

Addendum: this goes for all comments to all posts during that time period.  We have a tracking list.  Sherrie will check the newsletter list since I don't have a master copy.  If you indicate you're signed up and she doesn't see your email on there, she'll let you know.  The winner will be drawn from a magic slipper.  "G"

Fantasyland

Pat Rice here:

Back from sunny California and running behind, as always.  I have no difficulty meeting my due dates/deadlines/suggested minimum date of returns on my manuscripts, but I like the blog to be current and up-to-the-minute, and then I end up frantically scribbling late Monday evening to get this out on Tuesday.  Or that’s my excuse.  Writing books comes under the Day Job heading, and I dutifully sit in front of the computer, creating, on a regular schedule.  But blogging---ah, that’s just talking to friends.  It has no schedule.

So, this week, my excuse for being late is that we trekked out to California and just got home. I'm researching a really weird contemporary that’s playing in the back of my head and needed visuals.  (I’d love to do a historical in this setting, but we’ve had this discussion. Readers think the west is dusty.  <G>)  Since my daughter and granddaughter and son-in-law live out there, it was a good time to visit and pick their brains on the subject at hand.  And go to Disneyland.

Now, I have to admit—-Disneyland is not real high on my places to see list.  I’ve been before, when our kids were teenagers.  And we visited Disney World when the kids were quite young.  Our few visits were more than enough for me, but our granddaughter is five, lives half an hour from the world’s favorite fantasyland, and It Was Time.  Her excitement was worth every precious minute.

But I have to ask---why do people find this plastic world so fascinating?  Disney has a veritable following of fanatics every bit as loyal as that of any sports hero, movie star, or author <G>.  I can perfectly understand a child’s fascination with this dream world, just as I understand an adult’s dreams of heroes and stars.  But why would adults continue their fascination with Mickey Mouse and Goofy to the extent that they pay out exorbitant prices for tickets and parking and food and souvenirs?  Wear Daisy tattoos and Mickey ears and shirts commemorating every Disney anniversary ever celebrated? Buy Disney Christmas ornaments?  I love the idea that people can celebrate their childhoods, but I still fail to grasp the fascination.

So my question for the week is pretty all encompassing---if you love Disney, why?  Who are your heroes and stars and why do they fascinate you?  Do they inspire dreams? If so,what kind? (Okay, I understand the kind of dreams Johnny Depp might inspire <G>)  What is it about human nature that we need to dream about these larger-than-life images?

And isn’t it amazing how I can rattle on about nothing after three hours sleep and a dozen hours with an overexcited five-year-old? 

In Praise of Labor Day

From Susan/Miranda:
I’ve always liked Labor Day. It’s a great holiday: it’s non-sectarian, non-denominational, and non-serious. It doesn’t honor any specific individual, or commemorate a solemn event or date. It’s designed to recognize the American worker which, in America, is just about everyone, and what better way to recognize work than to get the day off from it?

Labor Day is the last gasp of summer, the weekend when shore houses are closed up for the season and colleges open for the semester You can’t get a rental van for love or money, and I’d like even a single percent of the tolls taken on the New Jersey Turnpike. It’s the first official weekend of high school and college football, and the first unofficial weekend to start rustlin’ up the tweeds for fall wardrobes at the local mall.

Being a nerdy girl, I loved Labor Day because it meant the beginning of school. This was hardly a popular sentiment, so I groused along with everyone else, but I was always relieved when summer was done. (I don’t do well with summer; I can turn the color of a boiled lobster in fifteen minutes of sun. I get heat rash, my hair fuzzes, and I’m allergic to mosquito bites. You can understand why my constitution was so disappointing to my California-beach-bred parents.) Going back to school meant the nerdy-girl-joy of new school supplies, and the chance to be first to check out the new books in the school library. Labor Day is the real New Year’s Day for kids, with a fresh start and plenty of resolutions.

I still have that feeling. Part of that, I know, comes from being perpetually on the school year calendar, first as a student myself, then working at colleges and universities, and finally with kids of my own. After fifty years in the system, it’s a hard habit to break. Yet there’s no denying that as the days get shorter, I write better and longer, and the cooler temperatures make me more energized and more productive.

I’ve been fascinated to learn how my fellow-Wenches write. There seem to be as many processes and conditions for writing as there are writers, and the bottom line has to be “whatever works for you.” There’s no right or wrong way, really. I have one friend (I won’t divulge names to protect the not-so-innocent) who writes by night and sleeps all day, and likes drive-thru anything because no one will see that she’s always in her nightgown. Another friend is a retired air force officer, and maintains a schedule with military precision: two thousand words by lunch without fail, then eighteen holes of golf in the afternoon with her husband.

I’m afraid I lean more towards the slatternly, Oscar Madison-style of writing. As I’ve mentioned here before, I don’t have an office, or even a desk, let alone an ergonomic chair. I write on a laptop primarily on the bed, surrounded by wheezing cats and research books bristling with post-its. But I also write at ice rinks, in waiting rooms, and in cars, on an AlphaSmart, on the backs of checks, on fast-food napkins, and store receipts. I don’t outline, or use charts, or notecards. My proposals, while useful for getting advances, generally bear as little relation to my final manuscript as MapQuest directions do to, well, anywhere. My story floats around in my head while I’m folding laundry or chopping vegetables, and by the time I finally write it down, it just seems to be there.

I’m not much of a re-writer, either. I’ve never been very good at maneuvering that fine line between re-writing and over-writing. I’ve found through bitter experience that the more I mess with my writing, the stiffer and more ponderoso it becomes until it just goes belly-up into literary road kill. As a result, my manuscripts are largely first-draft babies, launched into the FedEx box in much the same state they were conceived.

Susan/Sarah divided writers into tortoises and hares, slow and steady versus speedy output at deadlines. I’m afraid I’m that makes me the worst kind of mad March hare, bolting through the woods and hoping I don’t run headlong into the trees. Last year I wrote two historicals, plus the much longer DUCHESS, and I seem to be on pace to repeat that this year, with a Christmas novella squeezed in there somewhere, too. Ho-ho-ho, indeed.

But back to Labor Day. Like at least half of my fellow Wenches, I’m under the deadline gun, so today I won’t be celebrating with legislated lounging. But I mean to embrace the promise and opportunities of a new season, and I wish them to you as well.

Viva la Labor Day!

Edith, after the storm...

Hey, it's Edith, and it's Sunday, and I survived another storm!

Here on Long Island, we get the rag-tag ends of hurricanes almost every year. Once in a while we get a whole hurricane. Everyone is predicting the next "big one," which hasn't come in over half a century and is certainly due. So when our storms ride on by us, no matter how bad they were, we feel lucky.

This one wasn't so bad for my area. And today, in the aftermath, the sun is bright and world smells green and fresh and new.

Daisy today, shielding herself from the sun with my new hibiscus

So, no writing for me today.

And of course, how could I write yesterday, with the storm raging? Why, the computer could have been shut off at any moment! And I had to watch the rain.

And it's the Labor Day Weekend.

There are three thousand other reasons not to write today.
I got a million of them.
There is only one good one
...and I haven't found it yet.

A writer needs discipline, and guilt.

Guilt, I got.
Discipline is easier some days than others.

A deadline, a due date, whatever you call it: that's the best discipline of all, whether it's self-imposed, or in a contract you've signed.

Writing is an escape for the writer and the reader. But some days the world is so beautiful, you don't want to leave it for a minute, for any reason. So when I get back to the computer I'll try to keep writing a book that keeps you reading, come rain or come shine. That means writing a book that makes me return to it for the same reason. Forget similes, dialogues and first or third person narratives. Writing a book that competes with the world - that's the hard part of writing.

A snoopy Edith wants to know: What are the books you couldn't stop reading, no matter what? And what was that 'what?'