my books

Unexpected Journeys

annabowling Leave a comment

Some blog entries begin in funny places. This one began in the laundromat. Rainy laundry days are my favorites, even the ones where the laundry starts about the time I would like it to finish, which means I need to use the dryer cycle time to write a blog post in longhand, even if I have no idea what that post is going to be about, and not use the time for reading, even though my reading tracker says I am behind and need to step up my game in that department. This morning, I woke up later than usual, which meant my feet hit the ground in go, go, go mode right from the start. This wasn’t the schedule I’d planned for the day, but it’s the one I got.

When I grabbed a random ballpoint to get some ideas flowing, one of the first ideas that flowed to the top was my upcoming author visit to Buried Under Romance. I’ve been there as a blogger for long enough that I’d have to think really hard to remember when I wasn’t, but, this week, I was asked if I’d like to make an author visit. I said yes, because it’s a great site, and I will take basically any opportunity to blabber about romance novels, especially my own.  I am now on the calendar for September eighteenth. This has me both excited and apprehensive. Since I have anxiety, this is pretty much my normal state, but this is different.

Right now, my first co-written contemporary romance (along with the fabulous Melva Michaelian) , Chasing Prince Charming,  is now under consideration with Carina Press. This means it is one teeny tiny fish, swimming in the same giant ocean as elebenty billion other teeny tiny fish, and the fishing crew will get to it when they get to it. Melva and I can expect to hear back within one third to one fourth of an entire year. Our joint attention now goes to Drama King, where a misanthrope actor who isn’t acting clashes with an uber-optimistic literary agent. When people tell me they didn’t know I also wrote contemporary, my usual answer is “neither did I.” Would I have written contemporary on my own? Nope. Not wired that way, but when Melva and I both got the same idea at the same time, we went for it, and it worked out so well we’re doing it again.

While Melva works on her own solo projects, I get to return to my historical stomping grounds, which, right now, involves hopping between two different time periods. No, I am not talking about time travel at the moment. Right now, I am reading A Heart Most Errant, my medieval novella, for the umpteenth time, one eye on the calendar, because beta readers are waiting, and hey, it wouldn’t hurt to look at potential cover art options while I am procrastina…uh, I mean at it. Is this book going to shove itself past my overthinking and find some way to publish itself? I can neither confirm nor deny that possibility. Right now, my job is to get it ready for beta. I will deal with the rest, later.

Fast forwarding to Georgian times, I brought so many notes to critique session this week that N had to mark the spot on my giant stack of pink pages, to mark where we can pick up next week. I see scene cards and sticky notes and Scapple in my future, and I am okay with that. That’s what a writer gets when a generic supporting character turns into a specific supporting character with a job to do, and a scribbled note about “some social event” turns into a house party that lasts several days, and it is time to start ripping up floorboards and putting in drywall because this story structure is getting significant renovation, and it is getting it now.

The book I will be promoting on my author visit, Orphans in the Storm, is not a brand new release. I wish it were, and I wish it weren’t. I wish it were, because new releases are exciting and fun, and get applause at RWA chapter meetings, and sometimes a special token to take home and cherish, as a visual reminder. I don’t wish it were a new release, because the book I wrote coughty-cough years ago is not the book it would be if I were to have written now.

OrphansInTheStormTeaser

 

The plot would be the same, the characters, and the historical period, but I can think of two scenes, off the top of my head, that I would like to rewrite. One is a love scene and one is not. Neither would be significantly different, but they would be better. I would at least hope I am a better writer now than I was when I first put pen to paper on Jonnet and Simon’s story, able to add a few more layers and finer details than I know how to do back then. That’s how it goes, though, in this writing life. Plot twists happen in life as well as in fiction, and we grow and adapt along with them. Best thing I have found, in my own experience, is to steer into the skid when possible, and enjoy the ride.

 

TheWriterIsOut

September Song, aka Pressure

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This post has nothing to do with music. Okay, I do have a playlist on Spotify, titled A Working Day, that I do sometimes play to get myself in the key pounding mood, but we’re not talking about that. Well, not totally about that. If the first of September is when my own personal autumn begins, and the return of superpowers is expected, then Labor Day is the real stake in the ground. The calendar date of the official change of seasons never registered with me much. When I was but a wee little princess, the distinction was easy. In summer, I was not in school. In fall, I was. Do not try telling me that most of September is actually summer, because I am not buying that, not even with a coupon.

Right now, I am sitting at my desk, planner open in front of me, my second dose of Lapsang Souchong about two thirds drained from my pink skull and crossbones mug. I have taken my deskscape for the day, edited it, morning pages are written, and now it’s time to assign the day’s tasks. That’s some pressure. It’s September. I’m drinking hot tea. I am wearing a sweater.  Tomorrow is critique meeting. I have only nine more days to get A Heart Most Errant ready for beta readers. That’s a lot of pressure. : screams, runs in circles, arms flailing:

Apart from the critique session, those deadlines are self-imposed. Even with the critique session, that’s a mutually agreed upon date, and either N or I have the ability to move it when life so requires, which it may. We will see. This is the part of Her Last First Kiss where writing the first draft showed me that some things need to work differently in the second draft, and that always brings up a lot of concerns. Can I do this part of the story justice? Am I up to this? Do I need to write through splayed fingers, horror-movie-watching style (extremely difficult with either pen and paper or keyboard, possibly do-able with speech to text) because this part of the book hurts, both for Ruby and her Hero.  I know things will turn out all right. I already wrote the story.  This should not affect me this way.

Aha. Should. My old enemy, we meet again. Should has dragged me into a lot of trouble before, and I am not giving up my Labor Day for that kind of folderol. I should have had these pages already written. I should breeze through this with nary a care, because that’s what real writers do. I should sit down at the keyboard and bang out x thousand words in a session. I should write this or that or the other thing. I should, I should, I should…STOP.  Yeah, we’re not should-ing over here. Not today. Not when leaves are starting to turn, and I have pretty notebooks and fountain pens that need ink, and a faithful mews curled in my doorway, engaged in some pretty serious fur maintenance.

Not in September, the month I’ve been waiting for all summer, the month I wait for every summer. One would think that, since I know I get me-er in September, there wouldn’t be this feeling of pressure, but here it is, and the question becomes, what am I going to do with it? One of the things I like about breaking my day down by hour (that’s what the numbers and lines in my planner are) is that it lets me see that I really do have plenty of time.

Normally, when I set up my daily pages, I color code the hours, from light gray to dark gray, the one shot of color at noon and six, meal times. I like the rhythm of that, knowing that the darkening or lightening of the gray means the day is progressing. This morning, I was distracted, and colored in all the numbers in the color of the day. This tells my brain that everything is of the same importance, which may be sending a “do it all right the heck now” signal, which also tells me I don’t want to do that again.

What I do want to do is get this blog entry written, posted and publicized, and then take a step back from this section of Her Last First Kiss and make a plan for exactly what form the changing scenes need to take. Right now, my heart aches for Ruby and her Hero, now that they both know how they feel, and how impossible being together is, because of things. Hero aches because he really does believe there has to be a way to make this happen, and Ruby aches, because, deep in her pragmatic heart, she’s convinced that’s not how life works for people like her. She’s wrong, of course, because this is a romance novel, but, for where she is in the story, her only choice is to put up that emotional armor and soldier on, the only way she knows how. I will say this for her: she has a unique work ethic.

This is going to require some research for me, since I have hit on one of the “eh, I’ll figure that out later” things, and, well, it’s later. It’s September. Labor Day. Crunch time. We are past the point of no return on this draft, and I want to do this right. For both of them. For the readers (to which I am tempted to also add “both of them,” but that’s another matter.) For me, because I want the happy ending, too. There’s no feeling for writers that comes even close to typing The End on a final draft. Getting towards The End for a second draft is an important step in that journey, and every step in that direction counts.

So, today, I have my planner open, my A Working Day playlist on Spotify, and a third cup of tea in my immediate future (not Lapsang, though, because I know my limits; good ol’ Typhoo to the rescue) and then it’s time to head back to the eighteenth century.

Typing With Wet Claws: Hello, September Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Today is September first, not yet autumn by the calendar, but it is autumn for Anty, so that is what counts. Anty is very happy today, because she gets to start not one but two notebooks, and she and Anty Melva had their first session on writing a brand new book, but more about that later.

As always, before I can talk about anything else, which is usually Anty’s writing anyway, I have to talk about where you can find her writing on the interwebs, besides here. She is at Buried Under Romance every Saturday, and would love to see you there. Last week, she talked about the power of romance novel heroines. One of the reasons Anty started reading romance in the first place is because romance is the genre where the woman always wins. That post is here, and it looks like this:

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Because the old month is now over, the people at Heroes and Heartbreakers get a chance to say what their favorite reads of August were. Anty had to think really hard about this one, because she read a lot of good books this month, and had to limit herself to books that are already published. I do not know how hard or easy it was for any of the other bloggers, but Anty does have a few more books to add to her own TBR list now. That post is here, and it looks like  this:

HandHbestofAug

Now, because it is the start of a brand new month, it is time to see how Anty is doing on two challenges. First, we will look at how she did at Goodreads. So far, Anty is on track for the fourth week in a row. She has read fifty-nine books out of her goal of ninety. Go, Anty. Read those books. Keep going. You got this. This week, she left a review for North of Beautiful, by Justina Chen. She liked that book very much, and has started trying to draw compass roses in her notebooks. There may be a learning curve to that. Her review is here, and it looks like this:

GRnorthofbeautifulChen

Now we look at how Anty is doing on her goal of reading mostly historical romances. The one book she finished this week (to be fair, she had a big week) was YA, and it had a romance in it, but it was not historical, but we need to look at the overall picture.

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So far, Anty has read 59 books, according to Goodreads, and 29 of those have been historical romance. Figuring in for the romantic historical fiction (Beatriz Williams, I am looking at you) that is about a 50/50 on that score, but then we have to also figure in the historical romance novel Anty beta read, that will not be out until next week, and that gives historical romance a slight edge. Go, Anty. You are meeting those goals.

Because Anty insists, here are pictures of the inside and outside of her new morning pages book. The pages in this book are mostly the same, but she is going to use different colors of ink to differentiate the pages, so she will not get un-comfy with pages being all the same. She has a thing about that.

cover of morning pages book
Inside pages. Note sparkly ink.

 

Okay, I think those are all of that kind of update. Now it is time for book talk, and by that, I mean Anty’s books. This week, Anty Melva sent Chasing Prince Charming off to Carina Press, to see if maybe they would like to publish it. The answer to that one might take a few months, so it is a good thing that Anty and Anty Melva are now officially working on Drama King. They had their first Skype session this morning, and Anty has several notebook pages filled with scribbles about things she needs to get done in time for next week’s meeting, so that they can get started with the actual writing of this book. Anty is pretty sure that the writing will go faster this time, because now she and Anty Melva know how they write books together. She also knows that they need to do a better job of keeping track of the parts of the book while they are writing it, so nobody (especially not Anty) has to go digging around in the hard drive for that scene where that person did the thing and the other person found out about it.

Because Anty had to go to the people vet earlier this week (she is okay) she has moved her goal for finishing her once-over of A Heart Most Errant to two weeks from today, September fourteenth. That is a nice round number, a fortnight. That is an English word for two weeks. Anty likes English words. That is probably because she writes in English, but a lot of her stories also take place in England, so there is that, too. There is also laundry to do (Anty will do the laundry, not me; my tongue would get tired really fast) I had better wrap things up, so that means it is time for Tuna Roll’s Thought of the Day. Take it away, Tuna Roll.

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If you have to live with your natural predator, but they don’t climb, you’re still ahead of the game. –Tuna Roll

 

Thank you, Tuna Roll…I think. That is about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebyenew

see you next week

 

 

Typing With Wet Claws: My Brother Has Fins Edition

annabowling 2 Comments

Hi, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. Anty has a lot on her mind this week, so we had better get down to business. She is going hardcore on the whole talk about her writing thing before I get to talk this week. It’s best to go with her on this one.

First off, Anty is at Buried Under Romance every Saturday, so stop by and see her there. This week, she will be talking about the power of romance heroines. Last week, she talked about the power of romance heroes. That post is here, and it looks like this:

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Anty has some exciting things in the works over at Heroes and Heartbreakers. Look for her post on how to tell whether that nineteenth century romance novel you are reading is Regency or Victorian, coming soon. I would put the link here, but it is not up yet. Anty will also be recapping half of the episodes of Outlander this season, alternating with Elizabeth Poteet. Anty considers herself in most excellent company.

On the reading front, Anty is doing pretty well. She has had to add a flap onto her reading tracker in her not-a-bullet-journal, because she already filled all the slots for her August reading tracker, but it is still August, and she still keeps reading books. That is one of Anty’s super powers that comes back in the fall. Stress allows her to read really, really fast.

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Goodreads says Anty is on track with her reading challenge, but she may actually be ahead. One of the books she read this week, Heir to the Sea, by Danelle Harmon, Anty cannot put that on her Goodreads challenge, even though she likes it very, very much (it is actually one of her favorites of Miss Danelle’s, and Anty really, really likes all of Miss Danelle’s books.) because it will not be published for another week or so. Anty read this book as a beta (not betta) reader. She will put up her review once the book is published. In short, she loved it.

Anty also loves me, which is why she lets me talk on her blog every week. Also because I am cute, and pictures of cute kitties always get attention. I am much cuter than my ne brother, Tuna Roll. For those who want to know how I am adapting to not being the only pet anymore, thank you for your interest. I am mostly unphased by this new addition. This may be because Tuna Roll lives in a bowl on Uncle’s desk, and I cannot see him from my vantage point on the floor. I basically have no opinion, as his presence does not affect me all that much. Let me rephrase that. Tuna Roll makes Uncle happy, and since Uncle is my favorite, and I love him the most most most, then I love Tuna Roll by association. We have a deal. I do not try to eat him, and he does not try to eat me. So far, so good.

Back to Anty’s writing for a minute. This week, Anty and Anty Melva are going to have a different topic when they have their Skype session. This time, they are not going to talk about Chasing Prince Charming (spoiler alert; they caught him, or their heroine did) but they will be talking about their second book together, Drama King. There is a cat in this book, and even he gets a happily ever after, so this may be my favorite book of either of theirs, by that alone. It is nice to see my kind represented in romance fiction.

Anty also worked on an important scent in the second draft of Her Last First Kiss. This part of the book is perhaps the biggest deviation from the first draft, but Anty thinks it is a good change, because things get messier. This is the part of the book where the two humans know that they are in love with each other, but they are also convinced that they can never, ever be together, no way, no how. That is what Anty calls angst. Anty loves angst. Characters can never be completely happy until the very end. Anty says not to worry; this is  a romance novel, so that happy ending is guaranteed.

If you hear a clock ticking around here, that is because Anty has not one, but two beta (not betta) readers lined up for A Heart Most Errant, once she is done giving it a once over. The avoid-y part of Anty mumbled something about “a couple of weeks,” but then it got steamrolled by the part of Anty that makes her own planner from scratch. That part said “great, two weeks it is.” The avoid-y part is now hiding under a blanket fort, clutching a stuffed animal and rocking back and forth while making whimpery sounds. The planner-from-scratch part is ignoring the avoid-y part and breaking down the manuscript into chunks, then going over each chunk once, and only once. The planner-from-scratch part would like to get this ball rolling. I like rolling balls. They are fun to watch. Sometimes, I bat them with my paws. Sometimes.

Since today’s schedule is all upside down, we are still on a break from video blogs. Instead, I will introduce a new feature. I call that new feature Tuna Roll’s Thought of the Day.  Take it away, Tuna Roll.

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Eat more chicken. Or beef. Or pork. Or anything that is not fish. Especially not me. Tuna Roll

 

 

 

Thank you, Tuna Roll. That is about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

skyebyenew

see you next week

 

 

 

Betta Reading

annabowling 6 Comments

Normally, I would save the first fish picture for Skye to share on her blog, but A) we are not sure she even knows we have added to the family, because she has shown absolutely zero interest in her new finny brother, and B) I needed a prompt for today’s post. So, all that said, allow me to introduce Tuna Roll, aka Petit Monsieur:

 

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Hi, I’m Tuna Roll. Nice to meet you.

 

I will state for the record that I lobbied for Julius as the name for our newest family member, but since said family member is also Real Life Romance Hero’s birthday gift this year, Real Life Romance Hero has the honor of naming him. Tuna Roll it is, though Housemate and I refer to him as Petit Monsieur when RLRH isn’t around.

Nearly a solid week of dropping flakes into Tuna Roll’s bowl twice a day has brought a few things to light. First, I’m not sure if they fed him pellets at PetSmart, but it took our li’l guy a couple of tries before he figured out those flaky things the humans drop into his water are edible. I don’t blame him. Big adjustment from living in a tiny cup, next to a bunch of other fish, also in tiny cups, to getting a nice sized bowl, all to himself, with gravel and a plant and everything.

During the process of transitioning Tuna Roll from the cup in which we brought him home (proud grammar nerd here,) we had to float his cup in the prepared bowl, set up days in advance of his arrival. Even while inside his cup, Tuna Roll had his eyes on one thing: the plant. I’m not sure if he ever had a plant before, but with all his swimming around, he always came back to the plant, and, the first thing he did, when settled into the bowl proper, was head straight for that plant. Then he zoomed around the bowl a couple of times. While there’s no way for sure to know what he’s thinking (unless there are any ichthyologists reading this, who want to help me out here) my educated guess is that it was something like “Whee, look at all this room! I live in a palace! Get a load of this, cup dwellers! I am living the good life now.”

I could be wrong, but I saw what I saw. It’s kind of like that with reading, and with writing, but that may be another post, so we will start with reading. My first nibble of the romance genre was The Kadin, by Bertrice Small, and it took a while before I ventured out to other authors, but once I did, whee, look, there’s a whole historical romance genre out there, with gravel and plants and everything. Okay, maybe plants and gravel aren’t as big a deal in romance reading as they are in fish décor, but that first rush of discovery was heady, and, decades after the fact, I am still running on fumes of wandering through a used bookstore in downtown Montpelier, Vermont, slipping my fingers along the spines of rows and rows and rows of historical romance novels.

These books were set in pretty much any period I could imagine, from the ancient world to the early twentieth century, and I’m still kind of drunk on the variety. At the time, one author writing in multiple periods was the norm, and that imprinted on me. I don’t think that’s going to ever leave. Though I’m concentrating on the eighteenth century right now, I’ve written colonial New York, English Civil War/Restoration, sixteenth century Cornwall, and the turn of the twentieth century, and those are only the currently available backlist. In the next couple of weeks, A Heart Most Errant will go off for a beta read, and I’m nervous. It’s been a long time since anybody besides me got to spend any time with John and Aline, #1linewed entries excepted, and that makes it uncharted territory. Will the story still hold? Will the characters make any connections with the reader? Will she gently suggest I consider another line of work? Probably not on that last one, but I’m anxious about this sort of thing. Also about a lot of things, but especially this.

Yesterday, I sent my co-writer, Melva Michaelian, my final notes on the last batch of pages for Chasing Prince Charming.  One more pass for formatting, and then we are done-done with this book, out of the cup and into the bowl. Queries are going out, to be followed by partials, and, hopefully, the full manuscript. I’m less nervous about this, possibly because I have an awesome writing partner willing to hunt down prospects and make contact, but still nervous. After this book is in its final form (until some lucky editor asks for a few tweaks, that is) we get to start the journey all over again, and start work on Drama King. 

It’s been a while since my last fiction release, and there have been significant changes to both author and industry in the years between. Maybe that’s how Tuna Roll felt when we first floated his cup in the bowl he now calls home. This is different, but interesting. He gets gravel and a plant and fish flakes twice a day, and he comes to the front of the bowl whenever he sees a person approach. He wants this. So do I.

Autumn Is Coming

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Calendar tells me it’s almost September, and September means my favorite season begins. The calendar says we don’t technically enter into autumn until the 20th or thereabouts, but, for me, it’s sooner than that. Calendar says September first, I say it’s autumn. While it is still domestic tornado season around here, I’m still ready for cooler temperatures, brighter leaves, and earlier evenings. I’m also ready for the new seasons of favorite broadcast/cable TV shows, especially when that leads to more recaps for Heroes and Heartbreakers.

Slightly before this time last year, I bought an academic planner, pictured above, because the images on the cover and pages sang to me. It felt right in my hands. I couldn’t stop flipping through the gorgeous pages, imagining what I’d put on them; critique meetings, RWA meetings, writing goals set and met or migrated, domestic duties, the occasional fun time out with friends, the sometimes boring, sometimes scary necessities of adult life, Even the monthly grids were set out differently from month to month; sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical, enough variety to keep me interested. Definitely something I wanted to get again for the coming year, plus it replaced my miserable failure at making my own planner out of a blank notebook, and in the middle of the year, too, so extra score on that one.

Then summer rolls around again, the next batch of academic planners hits the stands. Did the same company who made my beloved 2016-17 planner have another version for 2017-18? Why, yes, yes, they did. Fabulous. Pick it from the stand, leaf through the gorgeous pages, allow blood to sing, imagine what I will write on those pages, in what ink, what form of notation I want to use…and then the realization dawns. This planner, too, starts in the summer months. Which are already covered in the planner I am currently using. Cue record player needle scratch. (If this means nothing to you, ask your parents. They will explain.)

Okay. Well, then. We have a pickle here, don’t we? Not an actual pickle. I don’t like pickles. Real Life Romance Hero may have picked me, in part, because, when we are in a situation where my food has a pickle on it, he does not even have to ask. It is his. The same goes for egg rolls. If Real Life Romance Hero is not around, Housemate gets them. If they are both around, then whoever is faster gets the pickle-and/or-egg-roll, though I can’t imagine any dish that comes with both pickle and egg roll, but that’s not the point here. The point here is that, if I got that gorgeous academic planner, I would then have half a year of redundancy. I am not going to juggle redundant planners. I put the gorgeous planner back on the shelf, and resigned myself to waiting for the 2018 planners to come out, and buy something that probably has pages too plain for my liking.

Or…or…I could take this nifty, new, blank dotted grid notebook and make my own, from scratch. I’ve learned a few things about notebooks and bullet journals, and acquired a fair share of watercolor and India ink markers, so, if I go this route, I have a decent chance of my pages looking less like they were designed by drunken preschoolers, using their non-dominant hands. It’s a little daunting, but, hey, it’s domestic tornado season, so slipping one more thing in there might not be that much of a difference.

Melva and I are on our last pass of Chasing Prince Charming‘s final draft, and queries are going out. It’ real. We wrote a book. our “baby” is big enough to go on the school bus, and, hopefully, make friends. That means that, soon, possibly after a short resting period (on the collaborative projects) it will be time to dive into Drama King, and begin the whole adventure over again.

This week, after domestic tornadoes leveled any chance of regular critique meetings for nearly a month, it will be back in the saddle for draft two of Her Last First Kiss, firmly now in the middle-middle, where my job is making the bad things get even worse, lead Ruby and her Hero into the phase of the story, and their lives, where they think all hope is lost, and they’re definitely in love, but with the worst possible person, at the worst possible time, and no good can ever, ever, ever come of it. Not to mention their mutual best friend caught in the middle. I kind of love this book, and part of it is because their lives are horriby, horribly in flux.

Then there’s A Heart Most Errant. This story came about during a time of my life when it felt like the end of the world, so why not revise it during domestic tornado season? I’m looking forward to spending time with John and Aline again. They have the largest age gap I’ve written so far (he’s older) and are very much an odd couple. He’s a grumpy knight with emotional baggage, and she’s a chatty extrovert, who knows her way around a kitchen. There’s an abandoned abbey, friends of the four-legged variety, and, in some ways, it feels like I’ve never left this story. John and Aline have been taking the scenic route the whole time, content with each other’s company (useful in a road story) and now it’s time for me to join the party again. Maybe that’s the “what’s next” for historicals, but does it count if it’s not a new-new project, but one that’s been on hold for a while?

I’m not sure. That’s the slightly scary thing about entering into a new season. I like to know what’s coming. The multiple planners (yes, I cross-reference) might be a clue to that. Even so, there are some parts of a new season, whether calendar, writing, or life in general, that remain uncharted territory. That’s a constant in itself, even if it won’t fit in a neatly bordered box.

My Planner Speaks Dutch Now

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My planner speaks Dutch now. Days of the week? All in Dutch. Months? Yep, those will be in Dutch for the remainder of the year, as well.  There are a few reasons for this. One is that I’m picking up some of the language anyway, from a friend who is, herself, Dutch. Another is that I’ve had a storyline bopping around in my head for a couple of decades now, with a Dutch hero. If it hasn’t gone away by now, it’s not going to, so my best bet is to steer into that particular skid (at the appropriate time; right now, Her Last First Kiss  is my historical baby.) Another reason is that translating names of the days and months from Dutch, into English, is one more thinky thing for my brain to do every day. Call it mental exercise.  The more I make my brain work, the better it works. The other reason, though? That one tracks with romance appreciation month. It’s the heroes.

Couple things first. This is not the deskscape I took to go along with today’s blog post. That one had a finished page, with a grayscale-plus-one-color color scheme, all numbers neatly stenciled, etc, everything in place.  I composed the shot, tried out a new photo editor, because I’m still finding the ideal tool for that, and checked my Google Photos app on my phone. Yep, picture is there. Great. Check Google Photos on my desktop, and nope. Already done some juggling with my schedule today, so time to get creative. Nab a shot I took to share with a group on Facebook, edit that puppy, and on we go. So, that’s where this comes from, and, even though it’s not what I had planned, it’s good enough.

So, back to those romance heroes. I’m not talking about the oh-isn’t-he-handsome angle on this one, though yes, some of these fictional gents are rather easy on the eyes.  Romance heroes, like romance heroines, come in many different flavors, shapes, sizes, hues, fitness levels, etc. For me, the main pull of the romance genre is the heroines – strong women who don’t let life knock them down, or, if it does, they don’t stay down for long- if there weren’t heroes in these books, then I’d be talking about the power of women’s fiction rather than romance. There is also female/female romance, with which I am not as familiar, so I will leave that to those better versed.

Today, it’s all about the boys. Men, really. Apart from YA romances, of which there are some wonderful examples,  the heroes in romance are men. They can be younger men or older men, richer men or poorer men, fit as a professional athlete, or live with a physical challenge (or both) or anywhere along the spectrum on any of the above and more, but it’s not the physicality of the gents that matters in romance fiction. It’s the heart. Romance heroes do not complete the heroine. Let’s get that out of the way. At least in my books, they don’t. They complement the heroines. Compliment them, yes, because, at least by the end of the book, they have learned how to communicate with the women they love (and hopefully the rest of the people around them, no matter how taciturn they may appear on the first page) and are able to articulate what they admire about their ladyloves, (or the other gent, in m/m romance) but complement them, as in they fit well together. Together, they become greater than the sum of their parts.

Often, the hero is the one who sees a part of the heroine others have overlooked, and, once he’s seen it, he can’t unsee it, no matter how hard he tries. The handsome hero who looks at a supposedly “plain” heroine and doesn’t see the mouse everybody else claims the heroine is, but rather can’t believe nobody else is bowled over by the way she lights the whole world when she smiles, for example, is a popular example of that. Maybe it’s the way the heroine is whip-smart and could teach him a thing or two about math or ancient history, when her family is sure all she has to recommend her is a pretty face or ample bosom. Maybe it’s something else, but that moment when, for whatever reason, the heroine gets stuck under the hero’s skin is one of my favorites, both to read and to write.  He might think he has life all figured out, or have no idea what he’s doing, but once she’s entered his world, nothing is ever going to be the same, and he is more adrift than he’s ever been in his life, because this woman has shaken his foundation.

As with heroines, the heroes have their own arcs. Hero wants something at the beginning of the book, that he either gets, or accepts that he will never get, at the end, and it’s that journey that fascinates me. For both of them, really, both individually and together, but I have an advantage when it comes to the heroines. I am a woman, so I know what it’s like to be a woman, have a woman’s body and woman’s emotions. While I do  have a Hero Consultant in Real Life Romance Hero, he’s only been on this earth the same amount of time as I have, so when I want to dive deeper into how an eighteenth century hero might react to certain situations, I have some research to do.

That’s where the heroes who have gone before come into play. I’ve been reading romance, mostly historical, since I was eleven years old. If we count fairy tales with romantic elements, then for a lot longer than that. Suffice it to say I’ve read a lot of heroes in that time, and each one of them has left his mark on the heroes I write. I like to picture a bunch of them gathered around a table in some old timey tavern, lit by lantern light, trading war stories about the horrible things their authors, myself included, have made them do, and admitting that the reward, the love and support of their heroines, made it all worth the trip. I also imagine them welcoming new heroes, offering advice to the young upstarts. Remembering when they, too, were first drafts, and how much things have changed since then.

Um, Anna, the Dutch thing? Yeah, got away from that a little, but it was a romance novel, Bold, Breathless Love, by Valerie Sherwood, that made me fall in love with all things Dutch. Ruprecht Van Ryker, you are forever my book boyfriend. Some guys make that kind of impression.

Air in My Lungs and Blood in My Veins

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So, apparently, August is Romance Appreciation Month. I did not know that was a thing. I probably should, because I write romance, and I write about romance, and, when I’m not doing any of those things, I am probably reading romance, but, until now, that has not penetrated my brain. I do follow Read a Romance Month, and eagerly looked forward to the onslaught of essays sharing the love of my favorite genre in all its forms, but it wasn’t until today, when, coincidentally, I needed a blog topic, so good timing.

That book in today’s deskscape is the actual copy of The Kadin, by Bertrice Small, that I stole from my mother’s nightstand and sneak-read under the brass bed in the guest bedroom. Only a few pages into that book, at the tender age of eleven, I knew I had found what I wanted to read and write for the rest of my life. By the time my mother found her book missing and followed the flashlight beam, I knew squat doodle about the romance genre. I could kick myself now, for not picking up those early copies of a magazine then called Romantic Times, which, soon after, alternated with Rave Reviews, which covered all genres, with a smaller romance section than Romantic Times. but, then again, I was young, my allowance may not have covered the expense, and my parents probably would have had something to say on the matter. Also the whole not knowing romance novels were really a thing, thing,. but I digress. I stole the next Small book from that same nightstand (by now, my mom was on to my larcenous ways) and, by the time Adora came out, I received my own copy as a gift, because everybody involved knew I was going to read it anyway.

It wasn’t until I attended a summer program for young creative people, at Wesleyan University, that I purchashed my first non-Small historical romance. By this time, I knew that romance was indeed a thing, and had a handle on some of the differences. All Harlequin books were romance novels, but not all romance novels were Harlequins, and jokes about not letting Harlequin get me did not sit well, even if they were meant to amuse. Hmm, let’s see, published by one of the biggest publishers on the planet, in the most popular genre of all genre fiction? Yeah, I can see what a horrible fate that would be. At the time, Harlequin meant exclusively contemporary category (how times have changed) so the odds weren’t high that I would have what they wanted, but none of that did anything to quell the absolute assurance that writing historical romance was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Did I know what period? Eh, not really. The historical I started writing at seventeen could best be described as nebulous Tudoresque, and, when I first put fingers to typewriter keys, I wasn’t sure what era I wanted to write, so I remained purposely vague as to the actual setting, a remote estate far, far, far away from anything. The pages from that book now reside in a storage unit where they can’t hurt anybody, and, as I work on the second draft of Her Last First Kiss, I have not only a calendar covering the dates of the story, but researched the phase of the moon for the night when Ruby and her Hero have their titular first kiss, because I needed to know exactly how much of him she’d be able to see (spoiler: not much.) Between the minute my mom busted me under the guest room bed and this morning, when my Kindle saw me through wash and dry cycles at the laundromat, I have read a lot of romance novels. No, I am not going to try to count them.

I have had four of my own published and hope to add to that number in the very near future. When I first knew I wanted to be a writer (or was a writer, depending on how one measures these things) I thought that mystery and hard science fiction were the only options, but I couldn’t connect with either, no matter how hard I tried. Romance, though? That was, and is, air in my lungs and blood in my veins. I am sure there are mystery writers who feel the same way about their genre, and I know there are SF writers who feel the same about theirs. Truly, I hope every writer finds their home and lives in it.

For me, that is romance. One dearly beloved aunt always expected I would grow out of my desire to write romance, which I announced proudly in my early teens. If that hasn’t happened yet, I don’t think it’s going to, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Taking two characters, each with their own wounds, baggage, and inner demons, through the trials of life, until they can make a life together, and, together, taking on all comers – that’s my catnip. That’s my jam. That’s air in my lungs and blood in my veins. I can’t not write romance, and believe me, I’ve tried. I tried when I thought my options were limited. I tried when people in my life had strong opinions in other directions. I tried when I thought I couldn’t write, or shouldn’t write, or had lost the right to write, and failed miserably in all such attempts, because the power of love, and the power of romance fiction, really is that strong.

I love that there is a romance appreciation month, because it celebrates the awesome power of romance for the reader and writer alike, and because it gives me a focus for my blog entries over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Welcome, August Edition

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Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. I am coming to you from my sunbeam. It is my favorite morning place, so I did not mind too much when Anty wanted to take my picture there. I can pose nicely when I have a good reason. Sunbeams are good reasons. In the cold weather, this also puts me in front of Heater. I love Heater. August is the best month because it is Uncle’s birthday month. Uncle is my favorite, and I love him. Anty is okay, too. She feeds me and pets me and lets me write this blog, as long as I talk about where to find her writing, first. I had better get to it.

As always, Anty was at Buried Under Romance this week, with her Saturday Discussion post. This week, she talked about some of the various means readers use to keep track of books they have read, and books they would like to read. She even shared pictures of some of her own records, so if you are interested in that sort of thing, you can find that post here, and it looks like this:

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Now it is time to talk about Anty’s reading. As of this morning, she was on track with her Goodreads challenge, so she was technically current when I started working on this blog. She had to do house things, though (including feeding me, which is a very good cause) and then it rolled over into one book behind. As a cat, I know a few things about rolling over, and will give her credit for being current, but it wouldn’t hurt to read a little faster during the week. So far, Anty has read fifty-two out of the ninety books she wants to read this year. I would say that is pretty decent progress. Go, Anty.

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Since it is the first Friday of the month, it is time for me to report on Anty’s historical romance reading challenge. This week, she finished reading five books, and four of those were historical romance. That is how to do it. (I would fistbump Anty here, but I do not have fists. I have paws. It does not work the same way with paws. I will ask Uncle or Mama to do it for me.) This brings Anty’s total for the year up to twenty-six historical romance novels read. That is pretty good, all things considered. Keep going, Anty.

The books Anty reviewed on Goodreads this week are:

 

 

 

 

As you might guess, Autopsy of America is not a historical romance novel, or even fiction, but pictures of abandoned places across the United States. Anty loves pictures of abandoned places, and when they are artistic, that is even better. Some people think this makes Anty a little strange, but Anty is already strange; she is a writer. She likes Mr. Seph’s photographs very much, and they kind of play into something else she has added to her work this week.

This week, we had many domestic tornadoes. During one of them, Anty needed some distraction. Since writing and reading are her best distractions, she dug out an old manuscript from her archives, one that is set a very long time ago, in England, after the Black Plague wiped out a very big part of Europe. That includes England, because this was a long time before Brexit. It was also a long time before the European Union, but I am a kitty, not a political historian. Anty figured it would not take too much work to get that book ready to send to a potential publisher, so she is working on that as well, now.

She gave it a different name, A Heart Most Errant, instead of Ravenwood, so that it would be a new thing in her brain, and, so far, that seems to work. It is a new thing and at the same time, the same book she already wrote. This time, she is looking at it without overthinking, and it is not the only fish in the pond, as it were. Personally, I think a pond with only three fish in it is not a very good pond. I do not remember how many fish are in my fish movie. I think I need to watch it again to count, but I know there were more than three. Maybe this time, I can catch the orange fish. He is a tricky one. He looks like he is swimming out of the tablet, but he never does.

Huh? Oh, right. Anty’s books. Hmph. Anty likes having a lot of things going on at once, so I do not think she will mind having three projects at different stages at the same time.  This also helps her not fixate on a particular manuscript being The One, and if it does not sell, she has wasted a year and change of her life, and is doomed forever. At least that is what the Hypercritical Gremlins used to try to tell her. They have been very quiet lately.

Now it is time to let Anty talk, although I do not know why that is a big thing. Anty always talks, and this is her blog anyway, but here we go:

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

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skyebyefancy

Until next week…

 

Why the Heck Not?

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Do not ask me how I found myself, yesterday, editing a long-shelved manuscript, but I did. Do not ask me what it was that prompted me to check the submissions requirements for an e-book publisher I have worked with before, but, again, I did. Do not ask me how my brain said, “Anna, you could totally send that there. Go open the file, poke it with a stick, and send it off.” I do not have an answer for that, either, but, for the time it took for me to make adjustments I’d known I had to make, for years, my brain was entirely focused on the work, not the domestic tornadoes that have whipped through the week so far, not the hot, sticky weather, not the feeling that I should be oh so much farther along this writing road by now, not anything that was not John and Aline and their road trip from Aline’s plague-ravaged fishing village to a city that may or may not exist (she thinks it does, he isn’t so sure) and it was…nice. No stress, only story. Only fun.

This is the story, originally titled Draperwood, then Ravenwood, now A Heart Most Errant (I seem to be going through a lot of titles these days, and I am okay with that.) I wrote during a time of huge life upheaval, and the story that made me cry actual tears when I reached The End, because I had spent so much time with John and Aline, that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but the story was done. They reached their destination, though it wasn’t what either of them had expected, and they were happy. They were both home at last. Me, at the time, not so much, because that was one journey that wasn’t yet over in real life, but them? They were going to be fine.

They still are. That’s one good thing about checking in on characters one has waved off into the sunset some time ago. Even though I honestly have no idea what prompted me to dust this story off, or set a deadline for taking a chance on submission, after some really good rejections and a resting period, when I did open the file, it felt right. There they were, as happy to see me as I was to see them. Maybe they sorted out a few things while I was busy in other centuries, but if that works, hey, I can deal with that.

I first wrote John and Aline’s story when I saw an issue of RT Book Reviews magazine that featured separate articles on both medieval romance and post-apocalyptic romance. I like both of those things. Could they be two great tastes that tasted great together? Even in the whirl of grief, caregiving and other concurrent adventures, I couldn’t wait to find out, so I didn’t. To the people of fourteenth century England, having the Black Plague sweep through multiple times in only a couple of decades had to seem like the end of the world. The unbelievably high body count wouldn’t be the only casualty of the plague, but buildings burned to eliminate contagion, businesses and professions knocked to their knees due to the loss of people who could do those jobs, and travelers or expats, like knight errant John, who returned from their travels to find there was literally nothing left and nowhere to go.

I have always been drawn to stories about survivors, those who lose everything and yet keep on going, so John and Aline’s story is very close to my heart. Maybe the only answer to why toss a third ball into the mix when I am already juggling two other books and it’s domestic tornado season is that it is time. What do I have to lose? As my Aunt S used to tell me, “the worst they can say is no, and then you’ll be exactly where you were before you asked.” So, that’s what I’m doing. I don’t think I need to know precisely why.

Is this story perfect? No. Will it ever be? Again, no. Is it right, though? Yes. Is it true, though? Again, yes. Not true as in there are historical records to prove that people with my characters’ names actually existed and this is what happened to them, because no, there is not; they were born in my head. What I put on the page, though, is an accurate representation of the story they told me, so I’m okay with that. Sometimes “good enough” is enough of a goal. If this publisher says no, there are others, and if they all say no, well, I’ve been curious about the indie process for a while now.

What I do know is that it’s time. Sure, “post-apocalyptic medieval” isn’t a term one hears every day, but everything we know now was once done for the first time. Though I don’t normally think in series, there is one not-a-monk who has been giving me a sly glance from beneath his hood as I edit the sections where he appears, and, if he has a story to tell, I am here to listen.