Inspiration

Common Threads at the End of the Day

annabowling 2 Comments

It’s a Monday. I had vague plans about a topic for this blog, and then life happened, so here I am, at the end of the day, rather than the beginning of it, the vague idea long gone. I’m not surprised. It was a full weekend, and these things happen. Instead, I’ll go with the first thing that comes to mind, which is a big chunk of how I spent my Saturday.

I look forward to my monthly CR-RWA meetings. A whole afternoon, spent mingling with others of my kind (romance writers) and learning how to advance our careers, write more, write better, etc, meet with friends who do what I do, and meet new people who do what I do. Also, there are snacks. This post isn’t about the snacks.

What this post is about, is part of the workshop we had this month. The lovely and talented Marie Lark spoke about using the movies and TV we love, to pinpoint common themes in our core story, the things we come back to, time after time. Core story has been on my mind a lot lately, and a similar exercise is part of the Play In Your Own Sandbox, Keep All The Toys workshop I’ll be teaching in March, so this workshop had my attention on two different levels. Three, when we broke into small groups, because I love group dynamics.

Our first assignment was to list five of our very, very favorite movies and/or TV shows, the ones we watch multiple times, because we love them that much. My ears pricked, because this sounded like fun, and then I stared at the blank page in front of me, because there is one thing that always comes when I’m asked this kind of question. Throw one of these questions at me, and I immediately feel as though I’ve never met myself. It’s a big question, and “favorite,” to me, means the very top tier. Are we talking about of all time here, or right now, or is there something in the middle of those two qualifiers? I have to sift through the possibilities, weigh them against how they might be received by the small group, by the room, by…I don’t know, them.  Generic them.

What I finally wrote on the page was, in no particular order:

  • Saturday Night Fever
  • How I Met Your Mother (finale excluded)
  • Love Actually
  • The Walking Dead
  • Brideshead Revisited (1981 miniseries)

When instructions came for the next part, I felt, well, naked. The other group members were to look at the works listed and pick out commonalities. The person who wrote the list was not to contribute at this phase. Within my group, I have a slight acquaintance with one person, had met another for the first time at the start of the meeting, and the fourth, for the first time, during the exercise. So, basically, a bunch of strangers are seeing me virtually naked for the purpose of this exercise.

Two things jumped out at the group at first: ensembles, and coming to terms with a dying world. Still thinking on the ensemble part, because, when I write, I’m focused on the hero and heroine, though the supporting cast is important. The second part, though, coming to terms with a dying world, ding, ding, ding. That one, yes. A once upon a time friend once said that all of my stories are about moving on after a loss, and they are not wrong. I live for that stuff. That, and star crossed lovers, who, somehow, make it work.

I’m still looking at this list, letting it roll around in my head, and thinking of what another group member asked, about what didn’t make the list. Remains of the Day, that’s one. Book and movie, both. The first two seasons of Sleepy Hollow. Maybe it’s too soon to add Poldark to the list, because I’ve only seen the first two seasons once, still haven’t watched any of the current season, and I’ve seen more of the Outlander TV series than I’ve read the books, so do I even qualify to add that? There’s the span of the entire Degrassi franchise, all the way back to when Principal Simpson was in junior high. What about shows I love, but haven’t been back to for a while? Mad About You, Cold Case, Remington Steele, Moonlight, Lost, the first season and a half of Highlander?

Picking only five is a small sample. For those curious, an ever-growing Pinterest board of my favorite OTPs (One True Pairing) can be found here. A lot more choices there, and yet they all have something that draws me back to them, even if I stare blankly at the page for a moment when asked to pinpoint what it is. This may require further study.

What common threads do you see?

TheWriterIsOut

 

 

If Anything Happens To Me, It Was The Canada Goose

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Right now, I am at my desk, planner open in front of me, Pilot G-2 gel pens at the ready. I am running about an hour late, give or take a few minutes, but still roughly on schedule. The sky is clear outside my office window, and part of me wants to shut off the computer and head to the park because A) I want to leaf-peep, B) park people are already setting up for the holiday light show, and C) I want to see if the mallards and Canada geese are still there. I think so, on that last one. I don’t know if they are “our” ducks, or visitors from up north, on a layover as they head for their summer home, but I am pretty sure the geese are ours. If anything happens to me, this guy did it.

1010canadagoose

Big guy in the center of the frame, that is, but do not underestimate his mate, next to him. I am pretty sure she has some skills of her own. They own this end of the pond. Let’s be honest, the whole pond, but this seems to be their favorite spot, possibly because of the benches, which mean humans, which mean food. To be clear, I mean that the humans would bring food for the geese, not become food for the geese, but let us consider this gander, above. I cannot rule that out.

I’ve taken to the habit of making at least one loop of the lake on my afternoon walks during the eek, whenever possible. It’s come to the point now, that, if I don’t make my loop, I miss it. Normally, I would play music on my headphones, but a writer friend suggested I try a podcast or audiobook, for a change. I am now on my second audiobook of the week. The first one was All The Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven, and I am still not emotionally recovered. Since my friend also suggested that I make the audiobooks for walks only, as an added incentive, and I didn’t want to wait to find out what happened to the two leads in ATBP, I bailed on the audiobook, got the hardcover at the library, and blazed through it.

Still thinking about that book (a love story, but not a romance) and the other Niven title I got at the same time, Holding Up the Universe. That one is a romance, and I’m not sure where History Is All You Left Me, by Adam Silvera, which I got at the same time, is going to end up; could go romance, could go not-romance, but there is definitely a love story (or two, maybe three, depending on what one counts) and maybe a bromance. Still too early to call on that one, and I would be perfectly happy taking it with me on my loop around the pond this afternoon, but it’s hardcover, not audiobook, so I may need to take it to a park bench or my favorite coffeehouse instead.

What I’ve noticed about this most recent YA binge is that I am gobbling the love stories in these books, while I give guilty looks to the two historical romances, one on my Kindle, and one in paperback, that still wait, with varying degrees of patience, for me to get back to them. Maybe I’m still not over my last historical romance read, Tyburn, by Jessica Cale. I know I’m still mourning a secondary character who left us far too soon. Books most certainly do have mourning periods, and respecting them is usually a smart move.

Later, tonight, after walk and geese and audiobook and dinner, I will settle into my office chair, and divide the screen into two windows. One window will be Skype, so I can talk to my writer friend, H, and the other window will be Netflix, so that we can watch the last two episodes of The Seven Deadly Sins season one, together. It’s anime, which I never would have picked on my own, and do not quiz me on the magic system, anime tropes, or the like, because what has my attention is (no surprise) the love stories. Renegade knights, sought for crimes they didn’t commit, tortured backstories, and star-crossed lovers who find ways to make it work? Um, yes, please. There is a part of my mind that is filing all of this away and figuring out how to siphon the essence for future historical romance doings.

This Saturday, I will attend my CR-RWA meeting, where Marie Lark will give a workshop on core story, which has been on my mind a lot lately, both for writing fiction and for updating the content of my own workshop that I’ll be giving online in March, through Charter Oak Romance writers.  I don’t think any of this is coincidence.

Where I am right now in my second draft of Her Last First Kiss, I need to get Ruby, my heroine, so wound with anxiety that the air crackles around her, with all the possible things that could go wrong, which is exactly when she throws herself in front of one of them. It’s a romance, so things will turn out fine, but up until then, no guarantees. Maybe I’m doing the writer version of carb-loading for that. This may require more than one loop around the lake, to sort everything out, and possibly a hot beverage in a travel mug.

Cave ansarem. (that’s Beware the Goose in Latin)

TheWriterIsOut

Ramblings of a Fictional Magpie

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First off, in case you missed it, my Frank Randall Deserved a Happy Ending post went live on Heroes and Heartbreakers yesterday. Don’t tell Skye I blabbed it before she could share the link. When I first read Outlander, I actually didn’t. I read Cross Stitch, the British version (and original title) because A) it supposedly had more historical content, and B) Claire was “nicer” to Frank. I didn’t know anything about Frank when I went into this, apart from the fact that he was Claire’s original husband, and, really, had no good options when Claire came back from the past, in love with, married to, and pregnant by another man. I’m still not sure how the legalities of a pre-existing marriage would hold when a woman finds herself two centuries in the past, as Husband #1 wouldn’t have been born yet, thus could not have married her, because he didn’t exist, but he did exist, because Claire remembers him, and is wearing his ring at the time.

All of that is largely to get me over the hump of the blank page, because I’ve been staring at it for a while now, and this entry needs to be written, so going with the “throw something at the page and see where we go from there” stage. I think the first love triangle that I was aware of was King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and Lancelot. Guinevere and Lancelot have some chemistry, and, if it weren’t for one of them being married, I could probably get behind them, but she was married, and to Arthur, and even at, hm, I want to say six, or so, I knew that something about this equation could not turn out well. Camelot came crashing down, both in folklore and the musical, which I watched on TV at the home of family friends. I didn’t entirely understand what was going on (again, six) but I was enthralled. This is probably more proof that I came out of the box, hardwired for historical romance.

I was the kid who, when given Jane and Johnny West figures for Christmas (maybe that same year? That feels about right.) did not fall in love with the mystique and adventure of the American West. Instead, I made them act out the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. My dad was big on the classics, if nobody guessed that by now. Still, I think that wasn’t entirely what he had in mind. To this day, I’m not sure if Jane and Johnny were meant to be siblings or lovers. No, scratch that. I checked. They’re married. They also apparently had four kids. My parents probably kept that information from me, to forestall requests for the kiddo figures. I also did not know about the homestead, dogs, or friend and enemy figures, to say nothing of articulated horses and a bison. A bison. Seeing as how we have a stuffed bison (cuddly toy variety, not taxidermy variety) on top of our dresser, six year old me cannot complain of a bison-less existence.

This is the part where I stare at the screen, notice I have about two hundred more words to go before I can sign off on this entry, and have no earthly idea how to tie this into anything that will make sense to anybody but me. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe every entry doesn’t have to mean something,  and I can put what’s in my head out there, for readers to take what they will. After this, I have a critique partner’s chapter to look over, and then get something together for my weekly meeting with N. What I would most like to do is snuggle into my comfy chair, with a blanket, some hot beverage (tea or cocoa, not sure which one I would want in this hypothetical circumstance) and finish reading Holding Up the Universe, by Jennifer Niven, because I am still emotionally raw from blazing through her first YA novel, All The Bright Places.     What is left of my heart still wants to hang out there, hang onto that voice, and, as I did with my Best of the West figures, pick what I want from the source, and figure out how those elements would work in the world of historical romance.

I think I was hard-wired for that sort of thing, too. Meat Loaf (the singer, not the food) once said that people need to keep one thing in mind when listening to any song composed by his songwriter, Jim Steinman: that everything Steinman writes is from the same story world, and it all fits together. I think Meat called it Wonderland (not the Alice sort, IIRC) but I may be wrong on that one. Still, it stuck with me.

Maybe that’s why I go through periods when I know, without a doubt, I am in full magpie mode. I’m hungry for a certain kind of story, or setting, or character type. When magpie season hits, I have to inhale everything I can about the current fixation, process it, and trust that it’s going to come out again in my own work, in some fashion. At six, I probably did not register Romeo and Juliet’s ultimate fate, and, at more-than-six, I am not going to tell the Bard how to write, but, in a romance novel, the lovers would be alive, together, and happy about it. That’s hardwired, too, and I am fine with that.

TheWriterIsOut

 

 

 

 

 

Of Kings and Teacups

annabowling 2 Comments

Once upon a time, a young girl stole a book from her mother’s nightstand. She read that book under the big brass bed in the guest bedroom, and knew, within pages, that she had found what she wanted to read and write for the rest of her life. That girl was me, and that book was The Kadin, by Bertrice Small. My mom found me (darned flashlight beam) and took the book back, because I was too young to read that sort of thing. Mind you, I wasn’t even anywhere near the love scenes. What grabbed me, besides the author’s voice, was the cadence of the language, the lavish description, the sense of adventure, and being inside the skin of a heroine the back cover blurb already told me was going to come out on top, no matter what happened to her.

I stole the book back, of course, and the next one, and, by the time the third book by Ms. Small came out, I had my own copy. While I do appreciate my mother’s concern for my young sensibilities (but really, she had no problem with the horror comics I also devoured, but I don’t think she actually knew what was inside them, either) there was one other unarguable truth. This kind of story, this epic love of long ago, this was mine. Maybe I didn’t fully understand what was going on, but I did understand the force of recognition that slammed into me, in those first few pages.

That feeling has become, thankfully, familiar over the years, and yet the thrill of one of those waves as it crashes over me never gets old. This weekend’s episode of Outlander, “Freedom and Whisky,” and the episode that preceded it, “Of Lost Things,” brought a huge wave of the stuff. This also reminds me that Poldark is back in business. Yes, I know, historical fiction, not historical romance, but Ross and Demelza fit the hero and heroine roles admirably, even if Ross dropped several thousand points in our esteem at the end of last season. He may want to start practicing his grovel, because getting on Demelza’s wrong side is never a good idea.

Right about now, I would love to reference an essay/blog post about teacup romances and king-slapping heroines. I want to say it was written by Ilona Andrews, but, as I’m not turning up anything on my search results, perhaps I have remembered wrong. Even so, it’s the essence that matters, not the specifics at this point. The author wrote about what she termed teacup romances, in which characters could move through the story, holding a teacup, and not spill a drop, and contrasted those with another, when a heroine rebuffed the advances of the reigning monarch with a slap. This fascinated another character, who revealed that they’d always wanted to slap a king. Big move there, and definitely not without risk.

Both types definitely have their place, but, for me, it’s going to be king-slapping, every time. I think Janet Leslie (aka Cyra Hafise) from The Kadin would find much in common with Claire and Demelza, and, maybe, if Bertrice Small were to send that manuscript to a publisher today, it might be marketed as historical fiction rather than romance. Still, take out the love story, and the book would crumble. Could any of these stories take place in any other time and place than the ones they do? Hard no, to all three, and I love that. I love the full period immersion. In Outlander, we get three periods: the eighteenth century, 1940s and 1960s, all rendered in loving detail. The past really is a whole other world, and that’s where the stories I write, by myself, take place. Even my co-written contemporary stories have a historical tinge. I’m hardwired for this kind of stuff.

That’s the bedrock. That’s what’s not going to change. That’s the sweep and the surge and the power of historical romance that I love best, and it’s what I want to put into my own work. Taking in what one wants to put out is always a good idea, not only to see what others have already done, but what I would do differently. Watching one of these shows, or reading a book with a similar tone gets my idea hamster running. I take in some of that stuff, I want to make some of that stuff. If a few teacups get broken along the way, well that’s a risk I am willing to take.

 

 

I Will Go Down With These Ships (Non-Paranormal Edition)

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Romance Appreciation/Awareness Month is drawing to a close, (but it’s always romance appreciation month as far as I’m concerned0 and National Matchmaker’s Day is tomorrow, so now it’s time for me to gush on some of my favorite regular-people ships. No ghosts, no vampires, no super powers, only flesh and blood people. Whittling this down to only a few was even harder than the previous version, and I may have to update these posts with an additional post for honorable mention, because, when one is a romance aficionado, that stuff is everywhere, and picking favorites is not as easy as it sounds. So, I am jumping in, in no particular order, with the first couples who come to mind. As before, all links go to my OTPs (One True Pairing) page on Pintrest, where you can see a more comprehensive list.

First up, Max and Kyle from Living Single. Kyle is smooth, fashionable, self-assured, very much in love with himself, and torn between corporate life and his buried musical aspirations. Max is also self-assured, brash, impulsive, a lawyer with a strong sense of ethics (even if those ethics may be particular to her; she still hews to them) and it’s pretty much hate at first sight. These two cannot stand each other, and it is very much a case of when both lady and gentleman doth protest too much, because egads, the chemistry. They fight, they love, they break up, Kyle moves an ocean away, Max totally goes off the deep end, and makes an impulsive decision to become a single mother through IVF (which is not as easy in real life as in sitcomland, but stay with us on this one.) The donor she picks, blind? One guess, romance fans, and when Kyle finds out, oh my my my. The moment when these two finally decide to go for it and admit their true feelings gives me the down-deep shivers. The only thing better than that scene is a brief cameo in another sitcom, a few years later, when we find that Max and Kyle are still happily married, with a mini-them who has the best and worst of them both in one sharply-dressed package. The rare canon HEA, with epilogue.

I could not make this post without one historical couple, and (sorry, Jamie and Claire, you’re in a time travel, so you count as paranormal) Ross and Demelza from Poldark have no competition. From the second we meet Demelza, disguised as a boy, desperate to save her dog from a dogfighting ring, and Ross steps in, the chemistry crackles. Demelza is a scrapper, who gives as good as she gets, and she and Ross do not get off to an easy start, especially as he’s still hung up on his cousin’s wife, Elizabeth. Demelza, however, isn’t going anywhere, and not only because her only alternative is to return to her truly horrible family. Their marriage starts out as convenience, but, somewhere along the way, a true, deep, and abiding love forms between these two strong-willed people, neither of whom wants to give an inch of ground. We see them go through the joy of welcoming their first child, the grief of losing her, and, my favorite scene so far, Ross racing off to drag Demelza back from her, um, freelance fishing job while she is in active labor, only to find that she saved her own self while he was on the way, daft man. They bicker, they clash, they stand by each other when the worst happens again and again and again. Though season two ended on an extremely unheroic note for Ross, these two see each other through the most destructive of storms, so I have faith they’ll get through this one as well. How? No idea, but they’ve always found a way so far.

The couple that caught me most by surprise, in all of ship-dom is Barney and Robin, from How I Met Your Mother. Finale denier for life here; I reject all of it. Barney and Robin are still out there, still together, still living awesomely ever after, until death do them part. Where to start with these two? Even though they’re in a fairly bright and bouncy sitcom, the backstories grabbed my heart and refused to let go. The always nattily dressed corporate shark, Barney, has a secret past as a chaste hippie, hopelessly devoted to the college sweetheart who broke his heart and shattered his soul? (Not to mention the troubled childhood he and his brother endured with their groupie mom and absent dads.) Robin is his best friend’s dream girl (well, off and on, for a while) and grew up with a father who insisted on raising her as the boy he’d always wanted, instead of the girl she really was, and her secret shame is a teenage popstar career that went down in flames, in an extremely public venue? I am there for that, forever and always. Watching two people who didn’t even believe in true love, marriage, or anything of real substance, slowly fumble their way to each other, through breakups, other partners, an infertility diagnosis (hers) to combine a deep, abiding friendship and powerful attraction, well, :happy sigh: That’s the stuff. I’ll take the alternate finale if I must, where it’s strongly implied that things work out at long last, but these two giving up on each other? Nope, not buying that, not even with a coupon.

When I teach my workshop, Play in Your Own Sandbox, Keep All The Toys, one of the first exercises I give is to ask students to list their favorite shows/ships/characters, then ask the question – what do they all have in common? What’s the common thread? What do we find in each one of these cases, be the stories set in the past, present, future, or otherworldly realm? There’s a core story there. While any factors from cancellation, actors’ departure, bad writing, etc, can derail even the most outstanding TV couples, in romance novels, the HEA is a dead solid guarantee. No matter what life or the writer throws at the couple in question, by the last page, they are going to be on their own personal mountaintop, together, and happy to be there, and so are we.

What are some of your favorite ships that deserve the romance novel treatment?

I Will Go Down With These (Fictional) Ships (Paranormal Edition)

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Time to blab about some of my favorite OTPS. That’s One True Pairing, for those not versed in the intricacies of fan fiction, and/or shipping.  This has nothing to do with transporting goods by water, but is fanspeak, derived from ‘relationship.’ In honor of Thursday apparently being National Matchmaker’s Day, The Happy Ever After blog asks select author who some of their fanfic couples are, which I find very interesting reading all on its own. Since I need a topic for today’s entry, I am going to hop on this particular wagon and blabber about such matters here.  Links go to my OTPs Pinterest page, for those meeting these couples for the first time.

My first ship that I remember having was Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, from the Wonder Woman TV show. I even subscribed to a fan club newsletter. We moved after I received the first issue, and the second (and subsequent) were never forwarded. Still salty about that. I remember that having to choose between an 8×10 glossy of either Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor or Diana Prince and Steve Trevor was agony for my ten year old self. I finally settled on the Wonder Woman option, but still am not sure if I made the right choice. I was always waiting for Steve to figure out Diana and Wonder Woman were the same person, or for her to make the revelation, but never could figure out how the HEA I wanted, even then, would work out, because Amazon, super hero, mortal, dude, all that sort of stuff. I’m still not sure how I would work something like that out in any of my own writing, but I did love that the heroine had two identities, and she was the strong one, and that the hero admired her for that. No, I have not yet seen the new movie version. I know what happens to Steve.  We’ll see if the sequel changes that.

I’m not sure if it’s me, if it’s the shows I watch/have watched, the whole romance writer thing, or what, but I have had a record of falling hard for TV couples that, well, don’t get the same treatment on TV that they would in a romance novel. I came to  Highlander (TV show, not movies) fandom late, as in  after the thing that already happened in season two, maybe even in season three. Whenever it was that the grieving Duncan first met his would-be second canon love interest of the series, Anne, an emergency room doctor, and I wanted to ship them. I really, really did, but it never quite took. Neither did Anne, even after Duncan basically built her a house with his own two Immortal hands, and I thought he deserved better. Which is when I finally, and do not ask me how, stumbled on the first season, and his original love interest, Tessa, a French sculptor, who owned her own blowtorch,  and the chemistry floored me. Duncan and Tessa forever, and I do mean  forever. Any detractors can shush about her being dead. It’s a fantasy show. Anything can happen. There was Fake Tessa, Alternate Universe Tessa (and even that ended badly, but I can accept the tragedy as long as it’s only alternate) so the next logical thing is somewhere, somehow, Real Tessa. Again, fantasy. Dead doesn’t count. They could figure something out.  My one and only attempt at a Regency may or may not have been inspired by their dynamic, no paranormal elements involved. I may resurrect the core of it as a Georgian. We will see.

Most recent members of this club are Ichabod Crane and Abbie Mills from the dearly departed Sleepy Hollow. These two. Seriously, these two. Eighteenth century visionary and twenty first century cop may not be the most traditional couple, and sure, there was the complication of his being still technically married (even though his wife lived 200+ years in the past, buried him alive, and didn’t tell him that A) she was a witch, B) she was pregnant) that gave their explosive chemistry a wee bit of a challenge (until Ichabod had to kill wifey to save Abbie’s life.) When Abbie had to venture into Ichabod’s time to right a great wrong, and he met her there, not knowing he’d already met her in the future, oh my word, oh my word, do you know what this does to a historical romance writer? Then the show bungled the whole deal, Abbie got killed off, and all we shippers got was Ichabod placing a single kiss  on Abbie’s ghost’s hand. Her hand. Her ghost’s hand. Yeah, not good enough. I quit watching the show after that. In my mind, they beat all the monsters, and their reward is that they get to be happy. I don’t really need specifics.

Maybe falling in love with fictional couples is par for the course when one is a romance fan, and especially when one is a romance writer, which means one is actually both. As for falling for the couples that get shafted on their HEA, I’m still not sure what that says, but I do know that the urge to barrel into the story, announcing that it’s okay, because I am a romance writer, is not something I can shut off. Every couple on my OTP Pinterest board, whether canon gave them their HEA or not, has at least one part of their dynamic that goes into the idea soup, combines with something from some other couple, a bit from this book, that song, some bit of historical tid, a what-if from current events or daily life, the cover design of a new notebook, or a whiff of scent, and then, when I’m not looking, new characters are born, with new love stories they want me to tell. Who am I to argue with that?

 

 

 

Marrow and Bone

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When I was but a wee little princess, my father built me two bookcases. My parents filled them, first with picture books, and friends and family members added to the collection as I grew. I remember sobbing inconsolably when I pieced together that Morte de Arthur meant that King Arthur was actually dying and not living happily ever after with Queen Guinevere. The whole Lancelot thing went over my head at that tender age, and I still have mixed feelings about the whole triangle. Maybe I’ll explore a similar dynamic in some future novel of my own, someday. I did not take the fall of Camelot well, either, despite my father’s attempts to explain how noble and tragic it all was.

Fast forward a few decades, and those very same bookcases now live in my office, and they are stuffed with romance novels. The top case (one stacks on the other) holds my Bertrice Small collection, while the other holds various keepers, and books on writing, some of them (my favorites) specifically on the writing of romance. I have two copies of How to Write a Romance and Get it Published, by Kathryn Falk, the brains behind RT Book Reviews, and they are both tattered. Granted, a lot of the information is obsolete now, with the e-publishing revolution, the advent of independent publishing, and whole subgenres have come and gone since the first edition first hit the stands, but I still treasure those books, and still refer to them, because the most important part of each entry has no expiration date.

The inspiration I get from reading the words of those who have gone before, some of whom are now retired, some now gone to the great library in the sky, some of whom are still with us now, still bringing their A game, book after book, is new every time I dip into that particular well. It’s there, too, when I dive into the books that gave me my love of historical romance; big, epic stories of love that could conquer impossible odds – and always, always did. Always will, as a matter of fact. That’s not a cliché. That’s the foundation of the genre. No matter what else happens, or doesn’t happen, by the end, our two lovers will be together, and happy about it.

That’s the skeleton of the genre. With that in place, we can hang anything on that framework. Once I took my first step into the genre proper, I read love stories that took place in medieval times, the Gilded Age, and everything in between. Heroes and heroines were titled nobility, gentry, dirt-poor, outcasts and pirates, bondservants and performers, and a thousand other variations. Through the pages of books, found in used bookstores, flea markets, libraries, and the then-king of chain bookstores, Waldenbooks, I fell in love a million times over. I knew, not hoped, knew that I had to tell stories of my own, in that same vein.

I can’t say it was a choice. More like I came pre-programmed for romance fiction. I don’t know if my biological mother read romance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. My real mother did, mostly from paper sacks filled with big, thick, glossy historical romances that came with my Aunt Lucy, every time she visited. My job was to take the bag of books to the laundry room, de-bag them, and put them where Mom wanted. I wasn’t allowed to read them, a rule I did not, at the time, think to question, apart from stealing the Small titles, which did not come from Aunt Lucy, but I did study each cover, read the back blurbs, breathe them deep into the very marrow of my bones. Yes. This.

I assigned my own characters to the people on the covers, made up my own stories to go along with them. It didn’t occur to me to write those down, not then, but I would turn them over in my head for days or weeks, paint pictures in my mind, and feel the stories as vibrantly as I did what is generally called real life. When real life got stinky, I went to that story place more, not as an escape -I always had to come back, after all- but as a respite, a place to go and remind myself that things get better after they get worse. That’s what the heroines in the books, both real and imaginary always did. They kept going. They fell down, they got back up. They fell down again, got back up again, and became all the stronger for it. In the end, they got all they ever wanted, and more. They got a hero who loved them exactly the way they were, who always had their backs and knew they could count on the same thing in return. Sometimes, back then, if there was a connected book, it could be the child of the first couple, all grown up, and ready for their own adventure. I loved that kind of thing. Still do. Who knows? Maybe I’ll write one of those, myself, too. If there’s one thing romance fiction teaches us is that, with love, all things are possible.

When I look a little ways down the road, and think about what to write next, after the current WIPs are out in the world, I’m not worried. I have the core of my stories already in my marrow and bones; two imperfect people will find their broken edges fit into a cohesive whole, and the love they share means that nothing life throws at them even stands a chance. I think that’s a pretty good place to start.

Planning for Motivation

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Today, I have the brain of an unmotivated squirrel. Outside, the weather is wonderfully cool, after a solid week of humid high eighties and even nineties. I am on my third mug of tea, rather than sitting on an ice pack and alternating water with sports drinks. We have off and on rain, which means I get one of my all time favorite sounds, car tires on wet asphalt, outside my office window. My most natural desires at the moment are: A) take a nap, B) scroll mindlessly through Facebook, C) Netflix all day, and D) probably should do something about getting some pages for tomorrow’s critique session, but :points to A, B, and C.: See the problem here?

We’re verging on midday, when I want to be several pages into the day’s work, but I’m writing this blog entry, which is close enough. Once I get going, I’ll want to keep at it.  It’s the getting started today that’s getting me. Today, I started the first full week of spreads in my new daily pages book, this time a dot grid, soft covered Moleskine. The format works well for me, but the visual part of my brain says it still needs more pretties.

Bujodailytasksmoleskine

Copied from my own Instagram, because I am that unmotivated today.

 

Right now, I have my Go To Work playlist on the earbuds, and my brain answers each song with a resounding “meh.” This is not an auspicious start to the day. I mean, seriously, nothing. Nada, zip, zilch, empty, dry barren plain, which is not at all the plan. I worked on that plan yesterday afternoon, at my desk, with pencil and ruler and markers and fancy seltzer with pink polka dot straw for added snazz. Planning has become an important part of my Sunday afternoon, and it should be part of getting my brain into work gear, because these books are not going to write their own second drafts, especially when said second drafts veer off into uncharted territory.

Aha. Uncharted. See? I knew that, if I kept with this, I would find the source of the meh. Last week, N pointed out areas where I could crank up the volume on the emotional connection for a certain scene, and I know that I’m not going to be able to go further into what happens next, without feeling like I’ve been dropped off a ship in the middle of the ocean, with naught but the Styrofoam donut shaped floaty of my kindergarten days to keep my head above the proverbial  water.  I don’t like that feeling.

What I do like is knowing what I’m doing, so, after I babble my way to the magic seven hundred and get this posted, I will step away from the computer, grab my pages from last week, with N’s notes, and then mark said pages further, note where I can cut, what needs plumping, etc. Then I take notebook and trusty green pen and sketch out what I’d like to see in this scene if somebody else were writing it.  I have no idea if this is going to end up being another marathon day, or if I will pull it off in spurts, but I do have the rain outside my window, so that’s a point in the day’s favor,

I’ve been writing a lot about planning on this blog, because planning is fun for me, and an instant way to raise my interest. Maybe I can add an E) to the things my squirrel brain would like to do today, which would be aimlessly play with notebooks and things that make marks in notebooks, possibly combined with aforementioned Netflix, but, as fun as that would be, and relaxing, and possibly even good for unsticking some of those cranky gears, it’s not going to get pages written.

This means that, if I’m not motivated (and I’m not, at the time of this writing,) I need to get motivated.  Since I want this draft done and the book in the hands of readers, instead of lingering in my hard drive, that means I’m going to have to keep moving forward. Make a list of the things that need to be fixed, and then fix them. Somewhere along the way, inspiration will show up, and my mood will improve.

Right now, I’m edging out of the meh. I have Skye in my doorway. My toes are tapping, because I’ve hit the Right Said Fred part of my playlist. Soon, it will be time for lunch, when I can indulge myself in a short break for Netflix or Sims, or, even better, a chapter of a historical romance novel, to remind myself what it is I love the best about what I’m doing in this whole writing novels thing.  Then it’s a once-over of pages and the notes I made on the last few pages of my old daily tasks book (because what else am I going to do with pages that would otherwise sit there?) that turned out part doodle, part checklist, part what-mark-does-this-mark-making-thing-make. I’ll take that.

TheWriterIsOut

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Refining Focus Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. There is big news this week, and it is about me. I will get right to it, because it is important. I am in shed. That means I am getting rid of my summer coat, so my winter coat can come in. Fair warning for those readers who are new to this blog: I will get super fuzzy in the winter. I am already super fuzzy all the time, because I am a Maine Coon mix, but, in winter, I get even fuzzier.  Anty has to bribe me with food to let her brush me, because I am a very sensitive kitty, so brushing is not always my favorite thing, but I like food more than I dislike brushing. Anty is smart. She says it is so that I will not eat the fur I shed, but she does not have to worry. If she likes the fur I eat so much, it is not a big problem if I do eat it. She will see it again. That is kind of how cats work. It is also how hairballs work. Hm. I do not like the hairball medicine I will get if I have too many hairballs, so maybe brushing is okay.

The way this blog works, if you are new (and even if you are not) is that I have to talk about where to find Anty’s writing on the interwebs (besides here) every week before I am allowed to talk about other things, which are usually about Anty’s writing anyway. This week, as always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance. This time, she talks about playing a game called Never Have I Ever. I do not think it would be fair for me to play, since I am a kitty, and have not ever read any books, unless being in the same room when Anty listened to an audiobook counts. That post is here, and its link on the main page looks like this:

BURneverhaveiever

Next, we come to Anty’s activity on Goodreads. Right now, her reading challenge looks like this:

GR072117

I may need to check with Anty to see if this is correct. She may not have updated everything with the hot weather this week, but that is okay. Reading is a very forgiving thing, and books will always still be there. Anty did read a novel about almost-grownups (or very new grownups; it is hard to tell with humans, sometimes) and it is called Lovely, Dark and Deep. No cats in it, but it is set in Maine, which is where Maine Coon cats come from (the breed, I mean, not me, specifically. I was born in Massachusetts.) Her review of that book is here, and it looks like this:

GRLovelyDarkAndDeep

Anty thinks the cover is very pretty.

 

Other than me being in shed, another sign of autumn coming (it is almost August, after all. Uncle’s birthday is in August, which makes it a very good month.) is that back to school supplies are everywhere. I do not mean only in Anty’s office, which is true (it is always true; Anty is kind of nuts about notebooks) Autumn means that Anty will get her super powers back, but they did not really go away this year. That is kind of new.

Part of that, I think, is that Anty has been taking a critical look at exactly what she wants to do, and set specific goals. Meeting with Miss N every week, to get feedback on Her Last First Kiss (as well as give Miss N feedback on her book) keeps Anty accountable, as does talking over Skype with Anty Melva about their book. Anty does very well with goals and accountability, so those are going to stay. She is still looking for a critique/brainstorming partner and/or writing friend, whose focus is historical romance, so putting that out there. Payment is you get to talk to Anty and possibly get extra pictures of me.

I will let Anty tell you how she is refining focus in her reading, which can help refine the focus in her writing. I think it is interesting how those two things feed each other.

 

In case you are wondering, her shirt says “Lovers Gonna Love.” I find this very interesting, not only because it is an appropriate shirt for a romance writer, but because “gonna” is probably Anty’s number two pet peeve in general speech. It is not actually a word, but two words, “going to,” mushed together. In case you are wondering, her number one pet peeve in general speech is “just.” It can usually be taken out wit no change to meaning, unless it is used as an adjective, as in “the court’s decision was just.”

Knowing Anty, she is probably going to make a to-be-read list to keep in her planner, and she will probably want to show that list, because she is probably going to make it pretty, or at least interesting, visually. Anty is kind of into this making pretty notebook pages thing, which I guess is for the greater good, if it helps her brain stay more organized and focused. I, personally, like the way the markers smell when she takes the caps off, so I am not going to question her motives. Maybe this desire to make pretty pages will make her want to learn how to draw cats. One cat in particular. I will give you one guess as to which cat that might be. (Hint: it would be me.)

That is about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,
skyebanner01

skyebyefancy

Until next week…

 

 

Sprints vs. Marathons

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It’s Monday once again, but not, this time, a marathon. Nope, done with those, after last week’s events, so if I’m not doing that, then that means I have to do something else. Easy logic. Thankfully, the weather forecast has flipped from its previous brutal high eighties all the time forecast, to a more moderate lower to mid eighties deal. That, I can handle more easily. I’m stocked with sports drinks as well as water, planning smaller, more frequent, lighter meals, there’s a second fan in my office, aimed at my feet, and a new ice pack at the base of my spine. Quite comfy, really, which means there’s only one thing I need to get the second draft of this chapter done, which would be…the first draft of this chapter.

There is one, I should mention, but it’s short, and, now that I know more about Ruby, her Hero, and their story, these scenes are going to require something more. I don’t mind that; it means that the story is real and alive, and it’s going places. That’s all good stuff.  What is not so good is the old  “oh crap, what am I doing, I was supposed to work this all out over the weekend and now it’s Monday” feeling. Which would normally turn into “welp, guess it’s an uber-marathon in that case. Put the previous versio aside, start from scratch, keep pushpushpushpushing no matter what, even if it takes all night.” Which, after last week, no. Not doing that.

Which means new approach needed. Long term solution, better time management, enforcing boundaries, and keeping track of what environmental factors are in place on especially successful/productive days. Looking back at the time, a few weeks ago, when I shot far past my page count, the habit that sticks out to me most is that I took short, frequent breaks. So, this time, sprints instead of a marathon. Marathons are necessary sometimes, and there are days when I don’t want to stop and would happily chug on long into the night, and into the wee hours, but that’s the difference, and it’s an important one.

This past week, I got current on season two of Poldark, and I have a lot of feelings about that. Mostly, impatience, because I want season three to begin now, thankyouverymuch, but also anger at Ross, and the very firm decision that, if things come to that (no spoilers, please) I am firmly on Team Demelza about the thing Ross did at the end of Season Two. There will always be a part of me that will forever blink at the screen in disbelief. but A) Poldark is not a romance novel, B) the story isn’t over yet, and C) while I hated what happened, I loved being surprised.

Though I’m currently reading a YA that has my attention, Poldark gave me a thirst for historical romance with the same flavor. That sort of story that could not possibly take place in any other place or time, or with any other people. It’s not comfortable, and bad things most assuredly do happen to good people, but that’s what makes it interesting. Doesn’t hurt that the story takes place in the same era as Her Last First Kiss, so, in a way, it was pretty darned close to a trip back into HLFK world. I love to drink in the use of light, the subtle differences in clothing, not only between classes, but the more traditional styles and those more fashion-forward. The social interactions, how characters behave differently among their intimates from how they behave to newly met acquaintances, the modes of transportation, the way they use their leisure time, family celebrations both big and small.  That’s what I want to see in a historical romance, both those I read, and those I write.

Which brings me around to the sprints vs. marathons thing.  Rather than have a “must get at least x amount of pages ready,” focus on this scene. Take the time to feel the temperature, not in my room, but the room (or outdoor location) where my characters experience their “now.”  What can they see, hear, smell, feel, taste? How do they move through the space? I connect best when I write longhand, so this translates well to the non=marathon way of tackling a bigger section at once; break it down into smaller bites. Write longhand, away from the desk, break, transcribe and tweak, break, next bit, bit after that, and so on.

Is this going to be a foolproof technique that will work forever and ever and ever? I have no idea, but I don’t expect every book or every day to be exactly the same, so I expect variations. I expect interruptions. I expect some therapeutic housework, to sort out whatever it is on the back burner of my brain, and know that these things have a way of working themselves out. I know where my characters are going, and I know where they came from, and, since we’ve been through the initial draft with each other already, we’re going to figure out this slight detour. Not because pages are due for critique meeting, but because it’s fun.

The writer of commercial fiction, by and large, are in a funny place. We know what readers of our genres want from a story, we know what we, personally want to read in such a story, so writing the story we want to read should be a blast (and often, it is) but then the market has its requirements, and there are production schedules, and and and…. Which is why there are headphones and playlists, and a list of rewards I get for completing, not onebigmonsterthatMUSTBEFINISHED by a certain time ORIANDTHEBOOKWILLBOTHBEDOOMED, but a collection of shorter bursts. In eighteenth century terms, a turn around the garden. (Spoiler: nobody takes any turns around any gardens in this book. Maybe next time.)

Right now, I can cross “blog entry” off my list, and then I get to noodle with my art journal for a few minutes, then take one of those turns about the garden. If that means I end up taking something rougher than I like to critique meeting, that’s fine. Still counts. The same amount of ground gets covered either way.