historical romance

Mapping the Wilderness

annabowling 4 Comments

Technically, I am dressed. Technically, I am wearing makeup. Technically, I have a new daily pages notebook, but I think this one is actually for some other purpose. My brain works like that, so I am not surprised.

Last night, I finished reading Follow the Heart, by Anita Mills, a historical romance set in England, New York, and Canada, during the French and Indian War. Technically, I have my third book hangover in the last few weeks. This is not entirely a bad thing, but it does leave me with the “crap, what do I read now?” part of the book hangover, that makes finding a new book, which I may very well love as much or even more than the book that haunts my storybrain, all that much harder. This is where making a reading list can come in handy, and, knowing me, I really should have one of those. At present, I do not.

This surprises me. I do extremely well with lists, and, since I do have a goal of reading more historical romance, especially eighteenth century historical romance, and specifically the kind of historical romance that does give me a book hangover, from characterization, author voice, etc, having a list would be a huge help, but I don’t have one right now. Part of me still wants to go on instinct/intuition on this one, or maybe I haven’t found the right organizational system yet. I don’t know if I can say that’s anything like falling in love with a gorgeous notebook, deciding it will be the perfect thing to succeed my current morning pages book, getting it home at last, and then my brain won’t quit going back to the two other notebooks I also looked at on that same trip.

The other notebooks had alternating designs on their page spreads, whether two or four variations, and this one (pictured above) has the same pages throughout. Gorgeous, but I’m exactly two weeks away from finishing the notebook I’ve been decorating myself, as it came with plain lined pages. I’ve found I do like the process of customizing the pages, but, if I put decorative tape on the same part of every page, then that adds bulk to that part of the page only, and the middles of the pages sort of cave in. That feels weird when I handle the book, and I don’t need that in my morning pages. Good experiment, glad I did it, but it doesn’t provide the same experience I want in this practice.

What I want in a morning pages book, is a book I can open, see the images already there, and pour out whatever has bubbled to the surface of my brain between waking and caffeine. Such books are out there, even though they may be buried in a sea of books with plain lined pages, and, thankfully, the hunt is part of the fun. It’s sort of like that when I have a focus for my reading, as I do now. That focus for reading is very similar to the focus for writing. Where there is focus, there is organization, and where there is organization, there is, oddly enough, liberty. When I know where the boundaries lie, I can go nuts within those boundaries.

This is one of the reasons I’m excited to greet a new week of writing historical romance. All I have to do is set my story before living memory (anybody here born before 1784? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? No? Nobody? Going once, going twice…okay, cool. Before living memory, I’ve got.) and ensure that it has an optimistic and emotionally satisfying ending (aka Happily Ever After, or HEA, which, :consults outline and double checks against first draft: Yep, got that, too.) and I am good. I can do anything. An-y-thing.

Pretty exciting, that, and it definitely applies to Her Last First Kiss. This is one of those books that found me, while I was wandering about the metaphorical woods at night, oven mitts on my hands and buckets on my feet, in search of something that could be quickly written and marketable. Yeah, that’s not how things turned out. I wanted Hero to be somebody else entirely, but, thankfully, he didn’t listen to me, and now I have Hero. Heroine, too, looked at my plans for her, snort-laughed, and marched off in her own direction. The two of them found their own way to meet, and, by this time, I have learned that when the characters start mapping their own way through the wilderness, the most logical thing for me to do is to follow them.

Which leads me to today. The scene I’ll be writing was not in the original outline, and it was not in the original draft, but it roared to the surface during last week’s critique session, and has been poking me all through the weekend, when my brain was required for other things. Silly brain. don’t you know by now that the characters are going to make themselves known when and where they will? Today, instead of mucking my way through my imaginary friends sitting around a table and talking, I get to feel Hero’s throat go dry when Heroine shows up at the worst possible place, at the worst possible time, feel the mad flutter of her pulse, because this isn’t any easier for her than it is for him. At this point, it’s nononononononono, they do not want to be around each other, because if they felt the things they might be feeling, this is going to cause big trouble, not only for them, but for a mutual friend caught in the middle, who has no idea they are in the middle, and…:happy sigh: Yeah, I live for this stuff.

Reading the sort of historical romance that I like to write is helpful, even if not always easy, but story in, story out, is usually a good way to go. At some point, after I have my pages for the day written (or on a break in the middle) I’ll pet the spines of my TBR shelf and the still-boxed books from my friend’s visit, and something will come to the fore. If I show up, the books will, too. That’s my story. Pun intended.

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Come From Away Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday.  I kind of met a puppy this week. His name is Aiden, he is a Golden Retriever, and he is my cousin, because his people parents are my Anty Mary and Uncle Brian. They all live back in the old country, but, this Sunday, they came to visit. I should probably say that I did not actually get an introduction, but I smelled him, which, for us fur people, is pretty much the same thing. I am not opposed to meeting another four-legs, but that did not happen this time. What did happen, however, was a good visit for Anty, Uncle and Mama. Anty Mary and Uncle Brian brought their human son, Andrew, who is a new grownup, and his special friend, Miss Leah. They also brought a big box of books for Anty, but more on that later.

As always, the rule here is that I have to talk about where to find Anty’s writing on the interwebs this week (apart from here, of course) before I can talk about anything else.

First, we have some breaking news. Anty’s post about the Shamy doings on last night’s The Big Bang Theory went live at Heroes and Heartbreakers, while I was writing this post. How is that for timely? That post is here, and it looks like this:

HandHTBBTSheldonProposes

 

That is pretty exciting, I think. What is also exciting is that Anty is at Buried Under Romance every Saturday, with a new topic about the romance reading life. This week, she talked about the pros and cons of retellings of classic stories. That post is here, and its link on the main page looks like this:

BURretelling

Speaking of reading, this is the part of the post where I see how Anty did with reading. As of today, Anty is one-third through her Goodreads challenge goal of ninety books this year, and only two books behind schedule. Good job, Anty. Here are the books Anty read this week:

Her reviews for Afterlife With Archie, and Six Earlier Days look like this:

Anty is still thinking about her review for The Whisperer War, but she has reviews for the other two, which I think is pretty good. To read the reviews, please click the links above.  I should mention that bad things happen to two doggies in Afterlife With Archie, so Anty almost did not read that, but she does like to see things that do not normally go together, put together, so she read it anyway. Now she has to hunt down further volumes, because the library does not have them.

While it is true that there are no historical romances finished this week, Anty is currently reading Follow the Heart, by Anita Mills, which is a historical romance set during the French and Indian War. Miss Anita is an author whose work Anty has liked very much in the past, and it is a standalone book, which Anty also likes. Miss Anita had, at one time, planned to write a connected book, where the man the heroine did not marry would find somebody else, and, if Miss Anita ever wants to return to historical romance writing, Anty would like to read that, but, as it stands, this book is by itself.  Anty plans to read many more of Miss Anita’s books. She has already read many, but not all of them. Goodreads gives the publication date of some titles Anty does not remember, as being in the last couple of years, so Anty may have a glimmer of hope.

The box of books Anty Mary brought also brings a similar glimmer of hope. That box is full of mostly older historical romances, the kind with a more epic feel, and use of actual history that Anty likes to put into her own work. Getting through this box will require some study time (that means reading the books that are in that box) but Anty has not taken the books out of the box yet. She wants to concentrate on reading the book she is currently reading, and I think she is doing pretty well on that front. For now, Anty likes to lift the lid on the box, look at the books and pet the spines. Right now, that is enough. Anty likes to delay gratification on things like this, so, for her, waiting is part of the fun.

I am not that great at waiting for things I want, because I am a kitty. Today, I really really really wanted to be near Anty, so, while she was not looking, I walked onto the carpet. I still did not like it, but I like being far away from Anty even less. I let her know I was not happy having my feet on the carpet, so she got up and fed me. I think I may be onto something here. So does Anty. She lay down a few sheets of paper, to make a path from the hardwood floor, across the carpet, to her chair. So far, I have only looked at it. Anty says (Sir) Ginger (she only found out he was a boy, after he learned to answer to Ginger as his name. Oops.) -he was the kitty in our family, before Olivia, who was the kitty before me- liked to walk on paper, so she thought I might like that, too. I might, but I am still figuring out what I think about having paper on the floor. I guess we both have some studying to do. Good thing we can do it together.

That is about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebanner01skyebyefancy

 

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Space and Light

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This weekend, our landlord brought in a new refrigerator, and replaced the overhead kitchen light fixture that had been out of whack for I’m not going to say how long. The good part about having working overhead lights in both office and kitchen is that now we can see what we’re doing. The bad thing about having working overhead lights in both office and kitchen is that now we can see what we are doing. This means that we can also see what we haven’t been doing, as in stuff we put over here “for now,” or “until we can see what we’re doing.” Well, now we can, annnnd…we need to do stuff. Thanks to some generous applications of joint compound on the mustard-yellow walls we all hate (Real Life Romance Hero doesn’t think they are that bad, but Housemate and I outvote him, plus I can whip out my knowledge of color theory. We have vintage 50s pink laminate countertop and backsplash. I have no idea why the then-owner chose emerald green linoleum, when the walls had been a gorgeous dusty rose. I loved that dusty rose so much that I made vociferous objections when we found the hideous new paint job on the day we arrived with all our worldly goods in tow.

It took four years and change, three different landlords, but the mustard-yellow is going. I vote for white. The joint compound is white already, and it looks all nice and airy and clean, especially right up against the white woodwork (though, if I had my druthers, I would strip the white from every inch of woodwork in the entire apartment and go for a dark wood stain, but I do not own this building, so that is not my call.) We don’t have a date for work to begin on the kitchen painting, but we are fully aware that this will mean a total tear-down of the setup we currently have. I am okay with that. I am also fully prepared to defend the original midcentury cabinets from the taint of a paintbrush. One would expect no less from a historical romance writer, am I right?

This is also a chance to get rid of things that no longer fit with who we are now, as individuals, or as a family. While doing dishes a couple of days ago, Housemate asked me why a trio of mugs are still here. We haven’t touched them in the entire four years we’ve lived in this apartment, and none of us like them. My only answer was “because we packed them when we moved.” Why do we have them though? I know two of them were free, and the other one kind of goes with them, as in it is a solid color that is contained within the color scheme of the other two, but that is not a reason to give them space in our home. That mug tree could, theoretically, bloom with nothing but Union Jack mugs, or black and white mugs. I would be fine with either.

It’s kind of like that with my TBR shelf as well. While I do not recommend scheduling both renovations and a visit from out of state friends-who-are-family on the same weekend, real friends don’t care if there is joint compound on the walls or a laundry basket on the dining room table. If they wanted to see perfectly appointed rooms, they know where the museum is. Real friends are perfectly happy to sit on the floor and eat takeout, because the reason they came is to spend time with their friends.  Everything else is window dressing, or lack of window dressing, as the case may be.

So, back to the TBR shelf. One of the great things about going to writers’ conferences is that they give you lots of free books to take home. One of the not-so-great things about writers’ conferences is that they give you lots of free books to take home. This is especially apparent when one lives in an apartment and has only so much shelf space. There comes a point where something Has To Be Done.  My point was Saturday night.

Aided by the new overhead light in my office, I went through the triple-stacked TBR bookshelf and culled. I was ruthless. Why do I have this book? Am I ever really going to read it? How long has it been on this shelf? Would somebody else appreciate this book more than I could? Book by book, I made my choices. Most books did stay, but I also had a respectable pile to pass along to my friends, which was a good thing. Said friends arrived with a banker’s box full of books tailored to my specific interests. Older historical romances, heavy on the medieval, second copies of some old favorites, so I can make them lending copies. That’s friendship in a box, right there. Looks like this:

booksfromMary

I have no idea how that frame got into the picture

When I took the lid off this box and peered inside, I felt…focused. Yes. This. This is why I write historical romance. This is what’s important. I’m probably going to leave these books in the box for a while, though I do have definite ideas on where most of them are going to go on my bookshelves. For now, I want them as they are. Full of potential. A reminder of why I put my butt in the chair and pen to paper/fingers on keyboard every weekday. I want to look at the spines, pet them, imagine and/or remember (some of the books, I have already read, some, I have not) and remember what it was like to not only first discover the world of historical romance (though, this time, I do not have to hide under the brass bed in the guest bedroom, with a flashlight, because I am big enough to pick out my own reading material.) but also that feeling of “I can totally do this.” That it’s in my blood and success is the only option. It’s a booster shot of confidence, exactly in time for the week N and I have agreed to up our production goals, so we can both reach The End that much faster. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

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Typing With Wet Claws: Rainy and Well-Lit Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Today, the weather is cool and rainy, which is Anty’s very favorite kind of weather for this time of year, so that makes her very happy. Our landlord, Mr. Dave, came by yesterday morning, and changed the light fixture in Anty’s office, which is to say that the light now works (he is very, very tall and did not need a ladder. That is impressive.) Anty says that having an overhead light is like having a whole new office. Maybe now she will see how ugly the carpet is and want to get rid of it. A kitty can hope.

There is more to say about Mr. Dave’s visit (hint: it will involve me being put in my room for a while, but more on that later) but, as always, first, I have to talk about where Anty went on the interwebs this week. As usual, she was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday. This week, she talked about having a book hangover (she had two of them.) That post is here and its link on the main page looks like this:

BURgrumpycathangover

That brings us to Anty’s reading for this week, and, because it is the first Feline Friday of the month, we get to check in on her historical romance reading challenge. In that, Anty did not do that great. She read three books this past week, which brought her to only three books behind her goal for the Goodreads challenge (go, Anty!) but none of them were historical romance. (Anty, I am disappointed. Go read a historical romance right now. Preferably with cats in it.) She read two YA novels and a nonfiction book:

I should note that I did not spell Miss Moira’s name exactly correctly, but it is very difficult to hit the right keys to make special letters when one has paws (and special paws, at that) instead of hands.  Anty is still thinking about her review of Even In Paradise, because it is inspired by one of her favorite books/favorite miniseries, Brideshead Revisited. That story is kind of historical, because it takes place long before Anty was born, and there is a love story in it (maybe two, depending on perspective) but it is not a romance, so there is no HEA. It is actually pretty sad, but the good kind of sad, the kind Anty likes, the same way she likes cool, rainy days. Please put a sticky note on that, because I am going to come back to it later, but if you want to keep up with Anty’s Goodreads challenge, it is here. Right now, it looks like this:

GRReadingchallengemay17

Even though Anty did not read any historical romances this week, reading more historical romance is still one of her goals, and I am keeping track of the historical romances she reads throughout the year.

hr-challenge-2016-badge

So far, this year, Anty has read twenty-seven books. Fifteen of those have been historical romance. That is preggy good, but I think she can do better. If I count The Wicked City, by Beatriz Williams, that makes sixteen historical romances, but only half of that book is historical. The other part takes place in the 1990s, which, while before my living memory, does not qualify as historical. This is one of the pitfalls of not letting cats be in charge of important things. Still, Anty is still at more than fifty percent historical romance for her reading this year, so we are going to call that good, but she still needs to get in a few more historicals, because she is riding the line here.  She may want to consider re-reading some old favorites, to establish a firmer foundation.

Writing has gone well this week. Anty wrote a new part of Her Last First Kiss for her critique session with Miss N, which worked very well. Both the scene and the session, actually. Even though this will be a very busy weekend, she will have part of her brain working out how the next scene is going to go, because she thinks she can put out more this coming week than she has been. I believe in Anty. She can do it. She has also been working with Anty Melva, to make Chasing Prints Charming even better, so that it will be the best it can be when some lucky publisher would like to see more.

Anty has also started looking down the road and scouting out how she might best like to approach making a story world that she would use for three to five books. This is a very new thing to her, so she is probably going to make some mistakes along the way. She is also going to find a few things that will work. One thing she did this week was to start a private Pinterest board that has pictures of characters she thinks she might like to have live in that story world. Then she looked at it for a long time, until the pictures started to make connections in her brain. This may not make sense to people who are not writers, but people who are writers probably understand this very well. This coming week, one of her jobs is to list motifs or elements she might like to have in that world. Then she will probably throw those things into a Scapple document and see what connections form all on their own. I will be watching from the hardwood before the carpet starts.

Not tomorrow, though, because Mr. Dave is coming back, with Mr. John, who fixes things. They are going to take out our refrigerator and put in a brand new one. I expect there will be a lot of loud bangy noises. I do not like loud bangy noises. Uncle will be there, though, so it will not be too bad, but I will require extra treats because I will have to be a brave girl, even though I will be scared (also under the bed, full disclosure.) Kind of like Anty feels, trying out this new thing. I think we will both be okay, but it might not hurt if Anty had some treats of her own. I recommend gummi bears.

That is about it for now, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebanner01

skyebye

 

Missed (Fictional) Connections

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I am a planner. I need to know where I am going, and how to get there, or I will spend an inordinate amount of time circling the metaphorical roundabout, looking for the on-ramp, until I run out of gas and abandon the car entirely and head off on foot. From there, I will probably wander the moors, my lantern held aloft in the whipping wind. In the distance, a wolf howls. In short, this never leads to anything good.

Especially not in the whole area of a sustainable writing career. Which means time to plan. Conventional wisdom, right now, at least as it applies to historical romance, is that the best chances of success (as in financial/sales/building reader loyalty) are with connected books; at least three books in the same story world, preferably five. The most marketable setting right now seems to be Regency England (not my cup of tea) followed by Victorian England (same; I suspect I was born without the nineteenth century gene) and :drumroll please: Georgian England. Georgian England, I can do.  Since I’ve already set my focus, for the time being, on eighteenth century romance, this gives me a place to start, and a foundation on which I can build.

My natural bent, and still my preference, after all these years, is still my first love, the standalone romance. One pair of lovers, one story, one HEA, wave them off into the sunset and then on to something else entirely. Basically, “Well, medieval France was nice :dust palms: I’m thinking…:drums fingers: Gilded Age New York next, and maybe pirates after that. Who’s with me?” That last bit might be best read in David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor voice. Go back and read it in that voice if you’d like. I’ll wait.

I also have a strong preference for selling books over not selling books, so this means it is an opportunity to learn new skills. Last night, I sat in my uncharacteristically quiet office, the window open, no music playing, only the sound of the rain on the street outside, and looked over some options. While I browsed blog archives by other, more successful, historical romance writers, I also poked around my private Pinterest boards regarding projects currently on the back burner. I opened the board I’d kept for my Regency crash-and-burn, and de-Regencied the whole thing in one go. Wiped out every single pin that pegged this story as taking place in that particular era, no exceptions, and, immediately, I felt…relief. Now, what about reimagining this story as a Georgian? Possibilities there. I think it could work. I’d have to move some things around, but the hero and heroine wouldn’t have too drastic changes, and their love story stays the same.

Which got me to thinking about other orphaned manuscripts, set aside at various stages. Would it be possible to take the most viable of those orphans and stick them in the same story world? Now that I’ve accidentally found out how to include pictures in Scapple, I can throw my various people on the same page, along with a bunch of things that inspire me in a more general sense, and start making connections.

This is new for me. Melva Michaelean and I have planned out two more books in the same world as Chasing Prints Charming, but this is the first time I’ll have taken on something like this on my own. It’s an adjustment, and a challenge. Can I make things work together? How are the characters going to fit together, when they’ve been in their own corners up until now? The only answer I have at present is that I will soon find out, and that I will likely surprise myself on more than one level. Thinking in terms of “and,” not “or” is a big help here. I can still write my standalone stories, and I am fully aware that those may be a tougher sell, or present a smaller return than linked books. I am fine with that. It’s a good balance.

The next step here is creating that world. Part of me thinks this could be fun and the other part already has a headache.  To bring this back full circle, I am a planner. I want to know what I’m doing while I figure out what I’m doing, and, at the same time, I want some of the connections to make themselves. That’s probably part of the whole flinging everybody on the same electronic whiteboard process. I already know I’m going to have more than one artistically inclined character, and probably more than one of the gents will wear or have worn regimentals at one time, but those are places where connections can start to form. Where they go from there, remains to be seen.

Last night, while poking around my desk, I found the bunch of index cards, pictured above, with chapter headings written on the top line of each card. I have no idea what project these were meant for, but rather fortuitous that they surfaced when they did. Maybe it’s a sign. What do you think?

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Want vs Need

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I had wanted, no, needed, this past weekend to be one of relaxing and well-filling. That was not what happened. Right now, my mind is scrambled, I have one eye on the clock, because, maybe, if I can get all my morning stuff done by noon (it is almost eleven-thirty now) then maybe I have a shot of getting this day back on track, even though what I want to do most at the moment is unplug from everything, go eat an entire pizza and dig into my towering historical romance TBR pile. Also maybe go to the park and look for baby waterfowl, because we are getting to that time of year. Baby waterfowl make pretty much anything more manageable. Do not ask me how; they probably don’t know, either.

Today, I am in the chair out of sheer stubbornness, and the fact that routine is a big help when things get domestic tornado-y. Butt in chair, check daily task list, put in earphones, select “Go To Work” playlist, and forward we go. Real Life Romance Hero is now chasing down Option C for our lunch date, as Options A and B fell through. There will be food and there will be RLRH, but that, at this point, is all I know.

After that, and after any more work needed on this blog post, if I’m not done by then, it is Her Last First Kiss time, which means rereading the chapter I brought to last critique session, which turned out to be me stuffing a ten pound cat into a two pound bag (that never ends well for anybody) and really needs to be two different scenes, one taking place before the last couple of scenes…arrgh. I’d planned to use the weekend to immerse myself in historical romance, but this weekend turned out to be one of those areas where theory and practice turned out to be two different things. I don’t like when things like that happen, but I dislike not-writing even more, and I dislike postponing critique session, so  my only option is to get the danged pages written. Which means I have to get in the mood. I’m not sure I’m going to get the chance to tuck in with a seasonally appropriate beverage and a few chapters of historical romance, because it’s Monday now, and Monday is back to work.

Last night, I gave Melva the thumbs up on our partial manuscript for Chasing Prints Charming, so today or tomorrow, she will send that on out. That will mean we have our first co-written story under consideration with two distinct entities. That’s a little scary.  It’s been a while. If I were listening to another writer tell me this same thing, I would make a game show buzzer sort of noise and tell them the fact that it’s been a while means it’s high time, and yay, them. That’s not the way I always talk to myself, though that may be a useful skill to acquire.

Only two hundred-ish words to get through this entry, and then I can talk to RLRH about lunch. After that, ready or not, it’s back to 1784, and splashing about in the shallows of a scene that is not in the first draft, but clearly needs to be (this is what second drafts are for, after all.) It’s not going to be perfect. This bothers me, but imperfect pages are a necessary evil. Comparing draft pages to pages in a published book, that has been through multiple editors, packaged, promoted, etc, is an exercise in futility. They can’t be the same, and they shouldn’t be. Where’s the fun in that?

Today, I am tackling this scene because I need to tackle this scene. Heroine needs me. She’s going to be ticked if I don’t spend the time with her today, and she’s not going to move forward if we don’t have this scene, which would mean a lot of her getting all grumbly and glaring at me and nobody is going to have any fun with any of that. I could put things off, but I think that would only make both of us grumblier. Time to put on our big girl panties and wade on into this sucker.

Lately, I’ve been making a concentrated effort to connect with what it is I love most about historical romance, and the historical romance authors who helped me fall in love with the genre. Those are the books and the authors who got my pulse pumping, and had me, on more occasions than I could count, sitting on the floor of a bookstore, either new or used, with a pile of books that I absolutely had to have, but could only take home a limited number. That meant I had to make some decisions. More often than not, those decisions weren’t based on which book was next in whatever series (as most of them were standalones, still my favorite format, and that is a whole other subject) but a gut reaction. Which ones did I need?

Sure, I wanted all of them, but which ones did I need? Which ones would hurt if I put them back on the shelves? Which stories could I not live without until the next time I could come back and comb through the treasure trove on the shelves? In a used bookstore, which books did I not want to take a chance on not being there the next time? Those were (and are) the ones that came home.

On days like this, that’s where I want to get back to; that need. What does Heroine’s scene need to be? What is she going to come out of the book and punch me if I leave out? For those who have not seen the gorgeous image by Sandra Schwab, this is Heroine:

rubyrenderschwabplain

image by Sandra Schwab

She’d do it, too. I love Heroine (Ruby; her name is Ruby, but I still want to call her Heroine when I write about her here) more than I thought I could ever love another heroine again, so I owe it to her to make sure she gets everything she needs. Which means, today, this scene. If I blow off this scene because I’m tired or cranky, I’m going to regret it, and it’s going to follow me into the supposed relaxing I’d be doing instead, which would only make me crankier and less restful. Time to bust open Scapple, throw down the essentials, and start making connections.

Typing With Wet Claws: Hangover Cure Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. This has been an interesting week around here, but more on that later. Anty finds it ironic that her picture of me this week is of me asleep, since Anty did not get a lot of sleep herself, but not to worry. I can more than make up for the sleep she does not get.

Before we get to anything else,  I have to talk about what Anty has done on the interwebs this week. As usual, she was at Buried Under Romance on Saturday, though she forgot to send out word that she was there. It was that kind of weekend. Oops. Anyway, this week, she talks about libraries. That post is here and its link on the main page looks like this:

BURlibrarybaby

Even though Anty did not get a lot of sleep this week, she used some of that not-sleeping time to get some reading done (finally.) She read so many books, in fact, that I had to put them all in one picture. Links to Anty’s reviews of the books she read this week are below. Click on the link to read the review, or check on her Goodreads reading challenge progress here. So far, she has read twenty-four out of ninety books, and is only four books behind. Keep going, Anty. I believe in you. These are the books she read:

All together, they look like this:

GR4reviews

Not too shabby there, Anty. If we break that down, that is two YA books, one nonfiction, and one historical romance. After Anty read Fair Day, and Another Step Begun, she wanted to read a medieval romance that was based on medieval legend, and she pretty much did, with Agnes Moor’s Wild Night. A tournament like the one in the story actually happened. Anty was very happy to find that out in the author’s note, even though it is fact instead of legend. Anty says that is close enough. The author is Miss Alyssa, whose workshop Anty did not get to see. Anty is still salty about that, but she does have another of Miss Alyssa’s books on her TBR shelf, so that helps a little bit. She is still looking for some (preferably older) medieval with that ballad/legend feel, so if you know of any (or have written some) let me know in the comments, and I will tell her.

This has been a very interesting week around here. Normally, Anty on a double book hangover would be enough to deal with, but Uncle has another new job. He is very happy about that, which makes Anty happy, even if she still could use another nap or ten. This week, Anty stayed up very late on Monday night so that she could have Her Last First Kiss pages ready for Miss N on Tuesday. This particular time, that meant writing parts of two different scenes.

When Anty started the second scene, she had a feeling things weren’t exactly right, but she wanted to get the right amount of pages written, so she kept on going. By the time she got to a stopping point, she was very sure she had written the wrong scene. She did not mean that the scene did not belong in the story, but that it needed a scene that came before another scene (or between some other scenes) because this one felt like shoving a ten pound cat into a two pound bag.  Miss N agreed, which meant Anty’s next job was to go home and figure out what that scene needed to be.

Not too long ago, this would have made Anty very anxious, and think that maybe she is  a bad writer, because a real writer, or a good one, would not have made that kind of mistake. That is not how she feels now. Now, she knows that is a part of the process, and it is okay to go back and fix things. Second drafts, like first drafts, do not have to be perfect; they only have to be written. As soon as she and Miss N started talking about what could happen in the missing scene, Anty got excited about writing that one. Having that scene will make this current one, in its new form, much easier, because it will have room to breathe. It will also mean Anty has some moving around of things in both Scrivener and Google Docs (she is not sure yet which one is easier to use at this stage of the game, so she often writes in one and then copies to the other) but, that, too, is part of the process. That is how she can keep moving forward.

That is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebanner01

skyebye

 

Reconnections

annabowling Leave a comment

It’s Monday. The conference is over. Easter is past. There are buds on the trees, and a good chance that I may witness some sweet sweet waterfowl loving on my walk through the park tomorrow, en route to or returning from my critique session with N.  My back no longer hurts, and the weather, at least for today, is not trying to kill me. Sometime this week, or possibly next, Landlord will install our new stove and refrigerator. Melva and I have two requests to see partials of Chasing Prints Charming, and are ready for prewriting on Drama King. Today, after this blog entry (presuming we do not get surprise appliance installation) I go back to work on Her Last First Kiss. There are some Heroes and Heartbreakers posts waiting as patiently as they can in my brain,  and, with the scent of soon-coming season finales in the air, there will be more to join them soon.  It’s definitely spring, and definitely time to make sure I have a solid plan on how to get all of this done.

The fact that this new week means I am now ten books behind in my Goodreads challenge does not sit well with me, nor does the fact that I realized, well into the weekend, why I’ve had such a hard time making my way through a historical Christmas anthology, which I’d picked up specifically to take a chunk out of that reading debt. I love Christmas anthologies, and, usually, I can suck those down like ice-cold tea on a hot summer day. (Seriously, I can read Christmas stories any time of year, so writing one would be an interesting new experience, but that’s a someday project, not for today.) This time? Not so much. What started out fun turned into a slog, and I didn’t know why.

 

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Portrait of the blogger as a confused reader.

 

It wasn’t because the writing was bad, because it wasn’t. I liked what I was reading, found at least one new to me author whose work I would like to explore further, and bounced in my seat several times, because a new book by one of the authors I already follow is only a few months away. After a weekend where I carved out time to reconnect with my art journal stuff (and found, in the process, that some of my most-loved resources had expired of old age while I was away; there’s probably a whole other blog in that, so I’ll save that for later) and a heart to heart with a writer friend, over an entirely unrelated topic, the answer came to me. Nineteenth century overload. My last read, Judith Ivory’s Untie My Heart, was Victorian. The anthology is (I have one story left to read before I can call it read) all Regency. The book I’d read before that? Regency. Before that? Edwardian. Okay, that’s slightly over the line into the twentieth century, but still, I’m seeing a pattern, so, when I move this anthology into the “read” category, I need to read something else.

Maybe I’ll read a YA next, to cleanse my palate, but, after that, I need to follow my heart, preferably to the eighteenth century, as that’s where Hero and Heroine live, and the commute would be short. Right about now, I could use a short commute. The good thing about going to a conference is that I return all pumped full of I Can Do This. The scary thing about coming back from a conference is that I need to turn that I Can Do This into I Am Doing This. That can be a daunting prospect, because this is the part that nobody else can do for me. When Melva and I work on our joint projects, the work divides itself according to who’s better at what; for us, that works. When I’m working on a solo manuscript, then it’s all me.

I am the way Hero and Heroine get out of my head and onto the page. N is my first reader for Her Last First Kiss, the first chance I get to know if I have put the right words in the right order so that other people can watch the movie that’s playing in my head. To make sure I have what I need to do that, I need to make sure my creative well is filled. Which is where things like playing with paint and ink and paper come into play; I can’t write an artist Hero if I’m not making art myself. Which is one of the reasons I’ve been peeping this undated art journal planner, ever since I saw an ad for it in my favorite art magazine. I do have a planner already, and I use it and I love it, but I want to play with this one, so it may yet happen.

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my two favorite historical romance novels

In the meantime, there is work and there is well-filling. Last week, I asked Facebook readers/writers who love historical romance to tell me what books made them fall in love with the genre. Some of the titles given were books I have known and read and loved, myself, and some were new adventures yet to be read. All of the answers were filled with what I was looking for when I asked that question. The connection, the spark, the recognition of “yes, that’s mine,” the seed that burrows deep into the soil of the writerbrain (or readerbrain, for that matter,) sprouts and blooms and explodes all over like cherry blossom season on steroids. That stuff goes a long way.

Typing With Wet Claws: Back to Business Edition

annabowling Leave a comment

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is now one week after the start of NECRWA 2017, conference hangover mostly worn off,  but inspiration still in full force. That is how it works with Anty and conferences. Her back is feeling better, which means that she can bend more easily, to feed and pet me, and also sit in her office chair without pain. These are all good things, because going to conferences and being with other people who love to do what she loves to do gives Anty a big burst of wanting to do writing stuff. It has not yet inspired her to get rid of the office carpet, but I think that a workshop on how to make a writer’s office pet-friendly would be an interesting topic for next year’s conference. In the meantime, I have found a way to curl up on the small sliver of hardwood so that only my fuzzy parts are on the (ugh) carpet, and my feet are on the hardwood. That is an okay way to be in Anty’s office with her, but I still want the carpet gone. We will work on that one.

Before I am allowed to talk about anything else, I need to talk about where you can read Anty’s writing on the interwebs this week, apart from here. First, as always, she was at Buried Under Romance this past Saturday, and will be there again tomorrow. Her most recent post asks readers to share what they think makes for a good series. That post can be found here, and its link on the main page looks like this:

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This week, Anty actually finished reading a book. That is progress. Her review of Untie My Heart, by Judith Ivory is here, and it looks like this:

 

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There are sheep and horses in this book, but no cats.

In case you were wondering, finishing that book means that Anty is now only nine books behind in her Goodreads challenge. Still single digits, so go, Anty. If you are interested in following her challenge, it is here, and it currently looks like this:

GRreadingchallenge041417

We will see how she does in the coming week. Since she will spend part of today planning for next week, I hope she will put some reading time in there, so that she does not get to the end of the day and then find that she is too tired. That happens far too often for her liking, but I have my treat by then, so it does not affect me very much.

Thank you to those who asked if there was a Feline Friday last week. There was, but I made a mistake. I meant to schedule the post to go up on its regular Friday time, but it is very difficult to hit the schedule button on WordPress, when one has paws (special paws, at that) instead of hands, and I posted it on Thursday, by accident. If you did not see it, that is probably why, and I am very sorry. That post is here, and my picture on that post looks like this:

 

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Me, from last week.

Okay, I think that is everything about that.  Time to move on to the meat of the post, which I hope is tuna. I really like tuna. Beef is also good, and I can appreciate turkey in gravy, but I do not get food with gravy very often. I do not think that is the kind of “meat” Anty means, which disappoints me. Did I mention that I really like tuna?

Now that Anty is back from the conference, she has some new perspective on writing and writing related things. First, she and Anty Melva need to get their material together for the two requests to see more of Chasing Prints Charming. When an editor or agent wants to see part (or all) of a manuscript at a pitch session, it is smart for the writer (or writers) to get that out as soon as possible, so that the editor or agent remembers who they are and what they liked about the book, because they will have seen many more writers and many  more books between the time they heard the pitch and the time they get that material. So, Anty and Anty Melva want to get a move on with that.

The other big thing for Anty is reconnecting with Her Last First Kiss. Since she and Anty Melva spent a lot of the conference talking about Chasing Prints Charming, and getting ready for the next book, which they will call Drama King, Anty needs to get her mind back in the eighteenth century so that she can get Hero and Heroine’s story all the way through the second draft. Right now, she is still working out how she is going to manage that balancing act. I do not think it can be easy to be a writer and a half (because Anty Melva is the other half of that partnership) but I am sure that Anty will find a way. Maybe reading more historical romance will help. I think that it might. I will do my duty as a mews and sit very, very close to Anty while she does, for extra inspiration.

That is about it for this week. Until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebanner01skyebye

 

 

 

 

 

Rumblings of a Temporal Vagabond, part one

annabowling 5 Comments

Okay. Deep breath. This is one of those days where I stare down the packed to-do list and charge. This past weekend, I came across a post by Isobel Carr, on Risky Regencies, called “Some Possibly Unpopular Thoughts.” My ears immediately pricked. Might this post be referencing the other post, on Smart Bitches, Trashy books? Oh, yes, it did. Oh, good. After a week stuck in the house with my beloved family, a stomach bug, and back pain, I needed something to latch all my frayed nerves onto, and this has been a bee in my bonnet for some time, so here we go.

I don’t get why, with historical romance, if we’re defining it as “anything before living memory,” which, for the sake of argument, let’s say predates WWII, it can seem a Herculean effort to sell a book set outside of one particular era, in one particular locale: Regency England. Strictly technically speaking, we’re talking 1811-1820, when King George III was unfit to rule, and his son, who would eventually be known as King George IV, ruled in his stead, as Prince Regent. Regency = during the rule of a regent. Easy enough. More broadly, the term, “Regency Era,” can apply to 1795-1837, ending with the ascencion of Queen Victoria, for more of a zeitgeist approach. For the smaller definition, we are talking a span of nine years. For the larger, forty-two years. Bit more breathing room there, even room for a generation or two to pass. All well and good there, but for those of us who write (and read) stories set outside of this era, it can be rough going at times, and yeah, my dander is up on this one right now.

There’s art and there’s commerce. There’s the book of the heart and there’s the book that sells. Right now, Regency is what’s selling. Especially Regency with Dukes. I get the desire for some fantasy in historical romance (not the elves and faeries sort) but there are also the times when my blood carbonates with the need to poke at whether it is that specific historical period and that specific rank of the peerage that seems to have a stranglehold on the market at the moment (and for more than a few preceding moments.) All the why, why, whys mosh around my brainpan, because that’s what I don’t get.

Before my life took a hard turn into caregiving, and a huge shift in the family structure, I had four historical romances published. My Outcast Heart was set in 1720 New York, with a subsistence farmer heroine and a hermit hero. Never Too Late was set in 1900 England and Italy, the heroine fifty years old when she set out to reclaim the love of a lifetime. Queen of the Ocean, set in sixteenth century Cornwall, and had a Spanish hero. Orphans in the Storm was my English Civil War novel, set on the Isle of Man, and the English Court in Exile, in the Netherlands. (Hey, I had royalty in that one. Impoverished, exiled royalty, but royalty. It’s okay. The monarchy got better.) Those were all settings I loved, that came organically with the stories that I wanted to tell, the ones that were real and alive in my head. I still love them all to this day, and those years when writing was all but (and sometimes outright) impossible didn’t change my love for a variety of historical settings . Call me a temporal vagabond.

When the writing came back, and maybe even before, that had not changed. I had to set aside a time travel I dearly loved, and needed to start something new, something smaller in scope, something I knew I could get from point A to point B. Aha. Road story. I could do one of those. Then I read the then-newest issue of the dearly departed RT Book Reviews, which had two articles, one on medieval romances, and one on post-apocalyptic romances, and my writerbrain perked. Aha! Post-apocalyptic medieval! Yes! I can do that! What would seem like an apocalypse for the medieval world? Black Plague? That, I could do, so that’s what I did.

I wrote the story of a disillusioned knight errant and a woman who refused to believe the end of the world was, well, the end of the world, who offered him the one thing he couldn’t refuse (apple seeds; it works in context.) They meet early on, they’re together the whole darned time, and I literally cried when I had to say goodbye to them at the end. Then I tried to sell it. The last agent I pitched to said she loved my voice, quoted some of my own passages back to me, and said she would totally read this story for pleasure, but was not going to ask for the full, because she could not sell a medieval. Cue sad trombone slide.

This agent advised me that my options were to trunk the story for now and hold onto it until the market changes, and medieval come back into fashion, or self/indie publish. She asked what else I had, and I mentioned I was writing a Regency. Great. Send her that when it was finished. Seriously. No question about plot or characters; just send it. I wish I could say that buoyed my spirits, I ran home, finished it, sent it in, and here’s the cover reveal, but that’s not what happened.

What happened was that characters and a story I loved turned into torture, frustration, sobbing to Critique Partner Vicki, who finally smacked me upside the head with a bat’leth of four words: “you hate writing Regency.” But it had to be Regency! That’s what sells! She didn’t budge. I didn’t have Regency in me. Set the story aside, along with the time travel, until the bad juju burns off, set it in another era, and try again.

Her Last First Kiss came complete with its setting, and, when Melva and I needed a historical period for the book within a book for the Beach Ball, I suggested Georgian, because hey, I was there already, and I knew I’d be doing a lot of the historical heavy lifting on this one. Both times, the setting was organic, not even a question. I/we didn’t pick; they picked us.

Done with blog time for today, not done with the topic, so calling this part one. See you Wednesday; let’s chat in the comments. :jaunty wave: