romance

Time After Time

annabowling Leave a comment

My original concept for this entry was to write about my adventures as a historical nomad, and that’s still probably where things are ultimately going. First, though, a slight detour. When I logged into Facebook this morning, it showed me my daily memory, a link to my first Hypercritical Gremlins post, here:

https://annacbowling.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/hypercritical-gremlin-interview-part-one/

Technically, it’s the Hypercritical Gremlins’ birthday. Okay, not technically, as they did exist before I gave them a name or a voice on my blog, but funny thing about that; giving them blog space took away some of their power. They’ve been mostly quiet of late, and I consider that to be a good thing. I finished my initial draft of Her Last First Kiss, and Melva and I are a good chunk of the way into  the Beach Ball, so yeah, I think letting the gremlins out once in a while actually has some benefits. Happy Birthday, guys. I’d lob a cupcake into the closet for them, but A) I do not have any cupcakes, and B) if I did, I would not throw them into closets. Maybe a couple of pieces of hard candy will suffice. Spirit of the thing, more than the letter of it, and all that stuff.

Back to historical nomad-ness. Vagabondary? Whatever I want to call it, I’ve always been that way. When I was but a wee little princess, I lumped all historical eras into what my father called “the olden days.” I seriously thought that was how it worked, which was A) kind of confusing, and B) partially explains how it made perfect sense for me to reenact the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet with my Jane and Johnny west figures. I want to say I was maybe four? Five? At any rate, young. I grew up on fairy tales, and my dad’s strong interest in the 1920s. We lived in Westchester County, NY, where relics of the Revolutionary war were commonplace; stone walls built by the Dutch settlers still marked land boundaries, and the town itself had been burned to the ground during the war, but for one house (Can a historical romance writer hear that and not get ideas about why that one house was spared? No, she cannot.) and there is a fence around the Bedford Oak, which is more than five hundred years old and still hanging in there. Talk about living history.

We also made frequent trips into NYC, where the turn of the century (and prior) architecture still holds echoes of times long past. Not all that different from where I currently live, in Albany. A five minute walk will take me to Washington Park, where continental army soldiers drilled. The name, Schuyler, is everywhere, and yes, those Schuylers, Hamilton fans. I remember, once, when my mom levied the worst possible punishment (no idea what I did, but she had her reasons) for teeny me -I had to sit facing a blank wall and not talk to her for x amount of time- I was allowed paper and crayons (likely for her sanity more than my amusement) and spent my time figuring out what the planets would have been named if the names were taken from different pantheistic  mythologies than what they were. This was entirely my own idea, and I was pretty heavy into mythology when I was in about first grade, so it was probably then. I remember asking her if there was any kind of grownup job that involved reading myths all the time, and she said no, there was not. Guess she forgot about “writer,” because that’s where I landed. Stories are, and always will be, my happy place, even if that place moves around a lot.

I popped my current paperback read, The Queen’s Christmas Summons, into today’s deskscape because of the sheer strength of the grabby hands I made at it as soon as I saw it on the shelves at Barnes and Noble. Standalone (as far as I know; if it’s not, please do not disillusion me; it’s Christmas, or nearly so, and I do love my standalones) Christmas Tudor Romance. Did Amanda McCabe (another historical nomad, as she’s written Tudor, Regency, and 1920s so far; must investigate further) read my diary? No, she did not, because I do not have one, but if I could have designed the perfect concept for the sort of book I was in the mood for when I went to the store that day, that would be it, to the letter. There may or may not have been happy dancing right there in the aisle. (Okay, there was.) The Tudor era was the first one I fell in love with as a setting for historical romance, and I chased after it like a madwoman. Not used a lot these days in historical romance (and whyever not, because it’s perfect for it, but that’s another topic) but I love it all the same. Ditto for a later discovery, the Stuart > English Civil War/Interregum> Restoration era(s,) which I touched on in Orphans in the Storm.

My Outcast Heart, my first published novel, is set in 1720 Bedford, NY, where I spent the first ten years of my life. and still a favorite place to visit. Queen of the Ocean took me to 16th century (technically, my first Tudor era romance; I did not even put that together until right now) Cornwall, and Never Too Late brought me to turn of the twentieth century (aka Edwardian.) England and Italy.  Her Last First Kiss could be set nowhere else but Georgian England, which seems to be my current default, back to the era that surrounded me in my childhood, even if it’s on the other side of the pond. I still have my postapocalyptic (oh, tell me the Black Plague wasn’t an apocalypse to the survivors, and we are going to wrangle) medieval romance to finish editing, and I don’t think my historical travels are going to end there.

TLDR (too long, didn’t read) version: I love history. I love romance. I love historical romance, in all its various eras and places and tying myself down to one is not going to work. So, I don’t. Love is love, in any era, no matter how hard life might have been. Isn’t it in the hardest times that we need love the most? Must’ve worked, because we’re all here, so people did fall in love and make more people back in the olden days, or there wouldn’t be any contemporary folk.  That whole “proof of a thousand loves” thing: I’m sticking with that.

Historical Romance Reading Rambles

annabowling 8 Comments

Welp, the original topic of this blog entry went out the window. I was going to post about not making my Goodreads reading goal, only to find out there were books I’d read in 2016, for which I did not record a date finished, so my count went over and above the goal. This surprises me. I didn’t think it was that many, but pretty decent showing.

My reading has been almost evenly split this year, between historical romance and realistic YA, with a handful of contemporary romance/women’s fiction thrown into the mix, and some grace notes of general fiction and graphic novels along the way. My goal for 2017 is to go back to my first love, and have historical romance comprise the majority of my reading for this coming year. We’ll see how that goes. I feel kind of funny about that, and kind of funny about feeling kind of funny about it.

The YA binge I’ve been on for the last year or so has brought a lot of new voices into my reading experience. I love the intense emotions I find in these novels, which often deal with serious changes in the life of the protagonist. I love that the genre has a good amount of standalone novels, which I have been sorely missing in historical romance. One story, complete in one volume, has always been my favorite, and I’ve been reading long enough to hazard a guess that things are not going to change in that regard. So, finding another genre in which I can get that sort of story is a good thing.

Historical romance, though; that’s still my first and favorite, and I feel guilty that I haven’t been reading as much of it as I would like to be. Right off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of reasons. If I am going to read linked books, which can seem like the only choice when shopping in mainstream markets, then I have to start at book one. This is not negotiable. That’s how I roll. To me, it’s one story, in multiple volumes, and skipping around is not going to do it for me. It’s like walking in during the middle of a movie. I’d be all “who’s that guy?” and “what’s she doing here?” and “why does everybody keep talking about how they’re not going to discuss XYZ?” If I have no idea what XYZ is, I also have no idea why it’s a big secret; I’m not intrigued, only annoyed. I also think I was born without the Regency gene. I checked. It’s not there. Go figure, most popular setting in my favorite genre, and I don’t get it. Sure, I’ll read books with this setting, but my heart is most firmly lodged between the end of the Wars of the Roses and the end of the American Revolution (Oh, Hamilton, you came at the right time.)

Not that this doesn’t mean there aren’t other settings out there. Did I put a double negative in there? I am not going to backtrack and check, because burning daylight here, and I want to get some of that actual writing into the day. Long story short (pun totally intended) what I’m planning on doing for my 2017 reading is to find and join a historical romance reading challenge (if you  know of any, dear readers of mine, please point me in the appropriate direction in the comment section, or drop me an email.) and make a conscious effort to hunt down books with the elements that make me do grabby hands at the mere mention of a book’s existence. Such as:

  • standalone story; no prequel, sequel, spinoff or companion, complete in itself
  • historical setting between 15th-18th centuries
  • historical verisimilitude: characters need to be people of their time
  • darker rather than lighter tone
  • authorial voice that grabs me; I’ll know it when I hear/read it

 

None of this means I’m going to eschew books that don’t meet the above criteria (but, again, if a book ticks every box on that list, give it to me, and give it to me, now. I need it.) I remember a time when I used to blaze through 400+ page books in a day. That seems like another life, but, then again, why can’t it be this one? Historical romance is what I love the very best, and yet I feel a disconnect. That means I need more. It has to be a priority. Hence the search for a challenge, because I am competitive like that. If I set a goal, then I am going to reach that goal, thankyouverymuch. Plus, I get to read books.

 

Typing With Wet Claws: Reading Rambles Edition

annabowling 4 Comments

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday. It is now almost exactly two weeks until Christmas. Anty has hopes the tree will be up before then (so do I; I do not climb it, like some kitties do, or sit underneath it like my predecessor, Olivia, did, but I like to look at it, because it has sparkly lights and shiny balls and I can imagine what I would do if I could get to it.) but Anty and Mama put the white lights around the doorways to the dining room and Uncle’s office, so it is starting to look festive around here.

It is also starting to sound very clicky around here. By clicky, I mean the sound the computer keys make when Anty pounds on them. With her fingers, that is, not a baseball bat. She only does that in her imagination when she is frustrated. That happens sometimes. The end of the year is coming (one week after Christmas, so that is soon) and that makes Anty want to clear her desk of writing obligations for 2016. She is already working on goals, especially regarding fiction. She would like to be both reading and writing more of it, which means I will have more to report on my days to blog. I like to be useful, so this is a good thing.

Before I go any farther (or is it further? Ha, ha, fur-ther. That is funny, because I have a lot of fur. Maybe that joke is funnier for kitties than for humans. Oh, well. Can’t win them all.) I need to tell you where you can read Anty’s writing this week. Her latest Buried Under Romance post is all about reading rituals. Do you have any reading rituals you observe? I highly recommend having a super fluffy kitty sleeping peacefully nearby, preferably with a full tummy from food and treats. That always makes the reading experience better. Especially for the kitty. If you would like to read Anty’s take on the matter, the post is here: http://www.buriedunderromance.com/2016/12/saturday-discussion-reading-rituals.html#comment-9267  and it looks like this:

 

burritual

What are your reading rituals?

 

 

Anty’s binge on Matthew Quick novels continues, as you can see in her review of The Silver Linings Playbook (only of the book; she has not seen the movie, and now is not sure if she wants to, because she researched the differences and she knows what they changed. Word of warning, do not get her started on the movie version of Paper Towns cutting out her two favorite parts, because she is never going to be over that. Trust me on this one.) here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1832682800?utm_medium=email&utm_source=rating  and it looks like this:

grsilverlinings

Anty is now over halfway done with Love May Fail, which is told in four different parts, in four different viewpoints, all combining to make one story. Anty likes that kind of thing, and she very much likes the author’s voice (that is his writing voice, not his speaking voice, which she has never heard, so she cannot talk about that) and the kinds of stories that he tells. She would like to be reading more historical romance, and that will come, because that is still her favorite, but when she gets one of these urges to gobble everything by a new to her author, then she will follow that. Mr. Quick often has love stories in his novels, but because they are not genre romances, those love stories do not always have to end happily (but they can, and some of them do; the point is that they do not have to) nor are they always the focus.

In a genre romance, the love story does  have to be the main focus, and it does have to have a happy ending. That does not mean that the humans who fall in love never have anything bad happen to them ever again (that is a pretty naïve outlook, if you ask me; I have seen things) or that their story is over-over, and nothing interesting ever happens to them again (Anty and Uncle have been in love a long time, and interesting things happen to them all the time. For instance, they have a cat who can blog. I think that is pretty interesting.) What it does mean is that, no matter what happens in the future, the humans who are in love will have each other. They are together and happy to be that way. Believe it or not, that is the only requirement for a romance novel. The only one, seriously. That is why it puzzles me (and Anty) when people who do not read romance think that all romance novels are the same. That is not even close to being true.

Since Anty has been reading and writing romance for a long time now (three cats’ worth, including me; five, if we count Michelangelo and Francesca, who did not live with Anty, but whom she cat-sat on a regular basis) she is pretty familiar with how a romance novel goes. This year, she has been reading a lot of Young Adult fiction and general fiction by authors who also write Young Adult, because she likes getting some fresh voices in her head, and because she likes the edge many of these stories have. She would like to harness some of that and put it into her historical romances. (Note: I have been right there while she wrote the initial daft of Her Last First Kiss, and I think she is on the right tack for that particular goal.)

Suffice it to say (that is fancy human talk for Anty wants the computer back) that things are going to get very interesting, story-wise, around here, as Anty analyzes the books she is reading and takes from them things she would like to put into her own books. As a dedicated Mews, I will be sure to stay on top of this (figuratively, that is. I am a floor girl.) and let you know what is going on. I think there may be some surprises in store.

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

skyebye

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)

Sick Day

annabowling Leave a comment

Sandpaper throat, foggy head, low energy, and coughing fits that make me fairly certain it is indeed possible to cough up one’s own internal organs can only mean one thing. The traditional Thanksgiving week (or at least late fall/early winter) cold has arrived. Yesterday was also the first snow of the season, the holiday lights are up in the park that is literally five minutes walk from my front door. I had planned to walk through said park and take in the lights, while drinking hot cocoa from my favorite coffee house, but that, obviously, is not what happened.

What happened was that I woke on Saturday with that feeling that something was off, but we had Saturday stuff to do, and I am a big old stoic, which meant power on through it. About halfway through errands, well past the point of no return, my body had some choice words for me. As soon as we got home and put groceries away, I flopped. If there is one thing taking a sick day or two is good for, it is sneaking in some extra reading time. I have now officially read all published Bertrice Small historical romance novels.

bowlingfallbackintime

This is both a good and a sad thing. On the one hand, I have now read all published Bertrice Small historical romance novels. On the other hand, I have now read all published Bertrice Small historical romance novels. For new readers (hello, and welcome) Bertrice Small is the reason I got into historical romance in the first place. That moment of cracking my purloined copy (from my mom’s nightstand) of The Kadin was pure magic. Destiny, some might say, or calling. All that I know was that I, even at far-too-young-t0-be-reading-that-book, knew there was something mine in those pages.  One guess as to the topic of my next book report. Bless Mrs. Potter for rolling with it. Also for the A, and asking if I wanted to be a writer, because yes.

Strong heroines, heroes worthy of them, and love stories played out against the pageant of history, that’s what grabbed me then, and what I still love the very best now. Since I’d been saving the very last book I had not yet read by the author who sparked my love for the genre for a special occasion, a sick weekend seemed like the ticket. So, that’s it. Now what? Reading-wise, that’s not a question. I have a stack of library books, a fully loaded Kindle, and fully stocked TBR shelves, so I am not lacking for books to read.

There’s that pang, though, that this is it. I’ve read all there is to read in this genre by this author. I want to live with that for a while, roll it around in my brain as I continue on. Thought processes while brain is sick-fogged are probably not ones fit for public consumption, but there’s something in there. Bertrice Small has been an influence, absolutely, and, while our books are not exactly the same (she’s written and sold a heck of a lot more, for one thing, and the content is a little, ah, different in certain areas) there was a seed planted when I snuck that book off my mom’s nightstand, and I am forever grateful. I don’t think it’s any accident that it comes at the time it does.

I’ve passed a milestone birthday, first snow of the year, frustrated at being sick when I want to be doing stuff, and yet – there is always an “and yet”- this fits, somehow. Writer people who know the  Hero’s Journey also know that the mentor can never make it all the way to the end. There comes a point where the hero (or heroine) has to go the rest of the way on their own. They’ve been taught all the mentor has to teach, and now it’s their time. A new chapter begins.

Right now, I’m sitting here in my recliner, bundled in pajama pants and hooded sweatshirt, looking out at gray clouds that are not yet done sifting snow down up0n us. This, again, will not be a walk through the park evening. It will, however, be a bundle under the blankey evening, with a good book or two (or ten) and, maybe, depending on how industrious I feel, a legal pad, because the voices in my head don’t take sick days.

The Room Where It Happens (well, kind of)

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In light of current events, the setup of a romance writer’s office may not amount to a hill of beans, but romance writing, well, that’s a whole other story. Pun intended. This morning, after giving it a valiant effort, I have finally come to a few decisions:

 

  1. Working in my office, rather than the living room is a must, especially when other family members are around.
  2. My laptop is incompatible with my secretary desk, unless I can trade my body for that of an especially limber contortionist. I am rather fond of the body I currently inhabit, that is not going to happen.
  3. Old desktop is incompatible with the internet, and, given the fact that my office is at the opposite end of the house to the modem, it is possible that a new desktop might have the same problem.
  4. Word still works perfectly fine on old desktop, which means I do have a computer on which I can write, and the secretary desk is still good for writing longhand, which is my favorite. I have my phone for Spotify, so music is going to be there, even if internet isn’t.
  5. All of which points me in the direction of writing happens in the office, internet happens outside of it. I can live with that.

Pause here to retrieve phone that plummeted to the carpet, because I contorted wrong. Phone is undamaged, my nerves slightly behind that. I wanted to be so much further than I am right now. Further in my career, further in life, further in a lot of things. I’m not. I’m here, and here is where I can take the next step towards my goals. I love this blog, I seriously do, and I love blogging for Heroes and Heartbreakers and Buried Under Romance, and other venues, but the girl who snuck her mom’s copy of The Kadin under the bed in the guest bedroom is politely clearing her throat and tilting her head toward the virtual bookshelf with four titles that have my name on them. She says they are lonely and want some friends.

I am with her on that one. I am her, so that’s pretty much a given, only I am the version of her with life experience, a better knowledge of what constitutes emotional storytelling, and has read a whole lot more historical romances than cracking the cover on that very first one. I’ve seen things. The switch from epic sagas to lighter fare as a norm, the prevalence of one era over all others, rather than a wide spectrum, the shift to series rather than standalones, and it’s easy, almost too easy, to feel like some sort of dinosaur/unicorn hybrid when core story and current market aren’t exactly seeing eye to eye.

Those things may be facts, but here’s another one: I’m a romance writer. That’s what I do. That’s what I am. Even if I were to have some sort of gaurantee that I would never, ever, sell another book, never, ever make another cent from the writing of said books, I would still write them. I can’t turn this stuff off. I’ve tried. I was miserable, so, obviously, that’s not the solution.

What the solution is, is to show up every day, and, at the end of it, for there to be more of the book on page or in file than there was when I got out of bed. That’s it. Standard left foot, right foot kind of thing, and, before I know it, bloop, there it will be, The End. The Hypercritical Gremlins have been quiet as of late, partially because of the triple layer of duct tape over their mouths (it is tremendously satisfying to apply such) and partly because the events of the past week have reminded me that we need romance fiction now, more than ever.

We need the happily ever afters. We need the hope. We need the community. We need the assurance that, if we stick together and put others above ourselves, we can make a difference. I’ve never been one to want my HEA’s at the level of woodland creatures doing the housework, and the now-united lovers never, ever having any more problems throughout their entire lives. On the contrary, I want them to face everything that life has to throw at them, be it wars, natuaral disasters, family drama, the ravages of time, whatever, together. No matter what. As long as they’ve got each other, they’re going to call that good.

So am I. Right now, I’ve got two lovers in Georgian England, Hero and Heroine, completely convinced that they have no choices, no paths open to them but the ones they currently walk…And Then. And then, on one rain-soaked evening, their worlds collide, and the impact of the crash propels them both in a new direction. With the Beach Ball, Melva and I have a woman who’s angry at having what she does best taken away from her, and a man who offers an alternative that is both intiguing and completley out of her wheelhouse.

Feeling off center can be a good thing sometimes, a chance to recalibrate balance, reassess what’s most important. Change direction when needed, and full speed ahead. All I know for sure is that I’m doing what I’m meant to do, telling these stories, and the right way to tell them is the one that gets me to the end. As long as that happens, anything goes.

 

 

 

Origin Stories

annabowling 1 Comment

This weekend, I missed National Fountain Pen Day, and squeaked in under the wire on #FallBackInTime. The first holiday is rather self-explanatory, and we’ll get to that one, but I want to work backwards today. #FallBackInTime comes each year at the day we set our clocks back, and readers and writers of historical romance are invited to post pictures of themselves with a favorite historical romance novel and add a comment about why we love the genre. This year caught me by surprise.

Part of that is because it was a hectic weekend, and part of it was because I was in a crappy mood from said hectic weekend, and had to have go-out-and-do-stuff therapy on Sunday afternoon. I got home, feeling much better, but bone-tired, and checked my phone. Those are a lot of hashtags from my fellow historical romance people. What’s up with that. Oh. #FallBackInTime. Umm… :looks around, weary body at war with desire to participate: I grabbed the nearest book (Kindles are kind of tricky for shots like this) and snapped a selfie.  This is not, for those interested in such things, my favorite historical romance novel; I’ve only recently started reading it (and stay tuned for highlights of my rant on lack of reading time in recent weeks) but Bertrice Small is the first genre historical romance writer I ever read, and the one who got me into this beautiful mess in the first place.

bowlingfallbackintime

I read and write historical romance because falling in love is always an adventure.

One of the things I like most about talking with SF/F writers is that most of them have a specific origin story; that a-ha moment when they first connected with Asimov, Bradbury or LeGuin. That never happened to me, at least not with those authors, but I know that moment. I found parts of myself in Small, Sherwood, and Woodiwiss. Though galaxies far, far away never called my name (on occasion, one would aim a friendly wave from a polite distance) the long ago part, that had a big, sparkly sign with my name on it, jumped up and down and waved its arms to beckon me over.

Those centuries far in the past felt like home right from the start, and they still are. When I wrote fan fiction inspired by SF/F franchises, even those stories were pretty much historical romances with blinky props. Even with the modern setting of the Beach Ball, which I am co-writing with Melva Michaelian, it’s set in the world of historical romance publishing. Historical romance isn’t as much a what-I-do as a part of who-I-am. For those who think the genre is only about wallpaper history or girls in prom dresses, or that it’s all about the sex, I say oh no, no, no, no, no, no. In historical romance, the woman always wins. The woman gets to tell  her story. She gets the guy, yes, but more than that, she gets the right guy. One who respects her and cherishes her and considers her wants and needs as important as his own. Shoot, she gets a guy who likes her. He’s not all she gets, either. She gets what she’d have wanted even if he didn’t exist. She gets a say in her own future. She gets to use her talents, speak her mind, win the war.

When I was eleven years old, I stole my mom’s copy of The Kadin, by Bertrice Small, set in sixteenth-century Scotland and the Ottoman empire, and read it under the brass bed in the guest bedroom. Right away, I knew I’d found what I wanted to read and write for the rest of my life. So far, so good.  I may have been on the young side to get the romance part, but I’d always loved the fairy tales with romance in them best, so I figure I was hardwired for that stuff. The world of the story blossomed around me, and watching the heroine, Janet (later renamed Cyra) grow and change and fall in love, that lit a fire within me. I wanted to learn how to write stories like that when I grew up; still working on that one, but I like to think I’m making progress.

Trends in publishing are ever-changing, and romance is a huge, huge umbrella. Big, sweeping historicals with bold heroines and epic timelines are still my favorites, though there are countless other variations, but historical romance is my home. If I received or discovered any super power under that brass bed, when I fell into the voice and the history and the time and the place and the characters and the story, it was the ability to come as close as mere mortals can to traveling in time. It’s been said that we are each the result of a thousand loves, and that holds true for historical romance novels as well. Each love story is a moment in time, when two people find a part of themselves in each other; who they are, who they want to be, who they always were, but never had the courage to declare. When a family, whether it remains only those two people, or becomes the start of a dynasty that spans centuries, takes its first breath. Play it all out against the pageant of history, and I’ve found my happy place.

Why read and write historical romance? For me, it’s only natural. I kind of like that product of a thousand loves thing. Let’s go with that.

Fiction From the Vault – Perfect English

annabowling 2 Comments

I don’t know where the idea for “Perfect English” came to me, but I am 99% certain it was due to a prompt in a once-upon-a-time writing group. It isn’t strictly flash, as it’s over one thousand words, and not strictly a short story, as it’s fewer than two and a half thousand; it is what it is. I probably still have the original notebook somewhere in storage, but, without that, can only place the time of writing as “sometime in the 1990s.” Or early millennium. At any rate, in another life. It may or may not have been one of the handful of short stories that made the rounds of some small press magazines, or it may have sat on my hard drive and never gone anywhere. I honestly don’t remember.

What I do remember is Bradley, who showed up in my mind fully formed, and the nameless-until-I-noticed-I’d-never-named-her heroine. I still don’t know that she really “has” a name, and picked Jennifer because it was common for a woman of her age (early to mid 20s) at the time of the writing. I don’t have any plans to revisit Bradley and Jennifer, because they’re fine. They’re together, they’re happy, they’re HEA-ing fine without me, and he’s still doing the thing with the shirts. Not bad for a timed exercise.  So, as promised, here we go, for the first time in mumblemumble years, “Perfect English.”

Perfect English

Bradley Ballantine was something a woman had to experience for herself.  Tall.  Black.  Given to lounging about the living rooms of casual acquaintances on rainy afternoons in bare feet, faded jeans and spanking white sleeveless undershirts. Always white.  Always new.  Nobody ever saw him do laundry, and nobody ever asked him what he did with the old ones.

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Midweek Rambles

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Rainy Wednesday here, and the fact that I’m only now getting to the first blog entry of the week should be an indicator of how things have been going. The new addition to my workspace is Hedwig, (thanks, Kara!) who has shot up to mascot status in short order. Lift his head off, and he’s a flash drive. He will soon be filled with novel stuffs.

No idea what I want to write about here, so I’m going to wing it. One of the most vivid rainy day memories I have carried for a long time reaches all the way back to fifth grade. We’d recently moved from Bedford Village to Pound Ridge, and I had a playdate with Elizabeth A, to keep us both occupied and our mothers sane for the rain-soaked afternoon. I remember I had a corduroy pantsuit (it was the seventies; don’t judge me, and yes, my mom picked out my outfit) that day, red with a flower print all over it. The legs were too long, so the hems of the trousers (I preferred skirts even back then, but mom said, sooo…)were damp the rest of the day.

We spent the afternoon in Elizabeth’s room. I remember Barbies and some imaginative play, some discussion of the new TV show we both liked, Wonder Woman, probably my first fandom, though I didn’t know what fandom was at the time. Elizabeth had a Chow dog, who had particular tastes in what interactions he would allow with what humans, but he always liked me. I don’t remember his name, or the name of Elizabeth’s older brother. I don’t remember many particulars of that day, but I remember the day itself, and the memory is a good one. Elizabeth A, wherever you are, I hope you do, too.

On this rainy day, years later, there’s imaginative play still. Now, I call it writing, and it’s work as much as it is play, which suits me fine. No red corduroy pantsuit, thankfully, and I’m writing this from my favorite coffee house instead of a friend’s bedroom, but the day has some of the same feel to it. Not that I know exactly what the connection is, but some things become a part of us, and come to the fore when they will.

Today is also the first anniversary of the passing of Bertrice Small, still a favorite author and my entrée into the world of historical romance. I’d wanted, as many Small fans, to dive into some rereading when we got the sad news, and, at the moment, I’d tried, but I couldn’t make the connection. Not a good feeling, but, at times, the best thing we can do is let the feelings do their jobs. I don’t know when I got it in my head that I would intentionally step back from reading an author whose work had been that important to me, or when the idea arose that I would resume on the first anniversary of her passing. Maybe it’s a form of literary mourning? I’m not going to question that one.

Once I knew I wanted to resume on a certain date, everything fit. I would pick up one of her books on that date, and I would read it, but which one? With forty-nine titles from which to choose (well, less than that, as the Lara books are in storage, and I don’t own the Channel titles) the options were too many. N’s advice, “make a decision,” came to me then, and I did. I decided I wouldn’t decide. I turned to my Lionesses at my Facebook group, The Lion and Thistle, and placed my choice in their capable hands.

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this is the one

Some of the suggestions, I’d expected. Skye O’Malley (the book, not the kitty) is my favorite, and The Kadin was the first historical romance I ever read.  I know those books, can quote them in places, so re-reading them would be as much remembering as experiencing the story. The other choices offered, Deceived, and The Border Lord’s Bride, I haven’t read as much. Since my copy of Deceived seems to have gone walkabout (will be reaching out to the library system and/or used bookstores soon) my choice became clear. I hadn’t remembered, until I plucked my copy from my special Small bookcase, that this was the second story in the Border Chronicles, not the first, but since it’s an extremely loose connection, I’m letting that go. I can read the prior title, A Dangerous Love, later, if I want. I did put my choice in others’ hands, after all.

 

As with that long-ago rainy afternoon, I remember the book more in general than in specific, and it’s a different experience. The last time I read this book, it was 2007.  A few things have happened since then. My critical mind is along for the ride, and has some issues with tell-y passages and instances of passive voice, but the voice itself, that’s as familiar as I remember, a welcome back to the things that drew me to historical romance in the first place. It’s also made me schedule reading time in my day, something I’d wanted to do, but put off actually doing, but if I want to make time to read all that I want and need to read, there has to be time where that’s all that I’m doing. This is different from pleasure-only reading; it’s also research.

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library haul; must organize

 

 

In a way, that’s my equivalent of the art student camped out in front of the master’s painting, sketchbook in hand or canvas on easel. What did the master do? How did they do it? That thing that was never recorded, what was it? Can I do it, too? What does it look like when I do their thing, my way? Reading time, writing time, headphones in, laptop on, paper and pen at the ready. Let’s do this.

Backing Up and Moving Ahead

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“You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.”
–Chuck Yeager

 

Another Monday, another blog entry. Not feeling it today, but discipline and practice are both important, and I find that putting order to chaos satisfies me, so here I am. Morning spent doing housework with help of Housemate. This often consists of her sitting there and letting me chatter at her, as it was today, with me sitting cross-legged on the floor, the box fan in front of me, as I took apart the covers both front and back and cleaned that sucker with grapefruit-scented all purpose cleaner and paper towels. Odds are we aren’t going to be needing that fan for a while, as furnace keeps us toasty warm, and it is January, after all. So, into the newly reorganized closet for our biggest fan. I promise I only do this to mechanical fans, not readers. No reverse Misery-ing here, and, besides, readers are good to have around during all seasons.

The great Christmas ornament harvest of 2016 went well this morning. Good crop, and we hope for an even better return next year. As much as I love the whole process of decorating for Christmas, and will inspect the placement of garland and ornaments (the fact that we use a pre-lit tree is probably best for all involved, lest I get nitpicky about light placement as well; I have in the past.) taking things down is a much quicker and more ruthless process. Down come the lights, coiled, tied, boxed. I pluck ornaments from the tree like ripened fruit, in a matter of seconds. It’s all over in a handful of minutes. This year’s crop is planted in the storage boxes, labeled, and can now germinate for next year. Maybe next year will be the year I finally go for a second tree, which would have black and white ornaments only. Supplemental tree, not replacing the traditional one; I have to have my tradition.

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When I’m at a loss for what to blog about, my guiding phrases of “clean sweep” and “more layers” push me in the right direction. Taking down the Christmas décor and making better use of the closet space fits both of those criteria, as does yesterday’s library trip. Yesterday was a tough day, tired, emotionally drained and frazzled at the same time, and I strode through the library doors with one specific purpose in mind. I was going to grab an armful of romance novels.

I’ve written, recently, about how it’s been difficult for me to read a lot of more newly produced work (part of this, I am certain, is due to my reluctance to jump into the middle of a series of linked books; have to start at the beginning, for me, and there are a lot of series.) This time, I knew what I needed; romance. Historical romance. That’s my reading and my writing home. No matter what happens between Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After, I know I am going to get that Happily Ever After, so pretty much anything is fair game in between those points. I did end up plucking a current release from the shelves, Cold-Hearted Rake, by Lisa Kleypas, which I started reading as soon as I got home.

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That’s the whole haul, for those who were curious. I’d gone with a vague hope I might find one of the Russian-related historicals on my list (and did, with Forever in Your Embrace) and fingers crossed for a Georgian (but not Regency) setting (When You Wish Upon a Duke delivers on that front) but, apart from that, nothing more specific than wanting a good grounding in my favorite genre. Carla Kelly always delivers on the emotional impact, so that was enough to put the book in my hand, and it had been a while since I’d read a good time travel, so The Last Cavalier fit that bill. If I could hit the snooze button on the calendar so I could snuggle beneath my fuzzy duck blankey and read them all, with endless cups of tea at hand, I think, at this point, I would.

Life, unfortunately, doesn’t work that way, but I can make sure I get some pages read every day, the same way I make time for my morning pages and have to at least touch one of the current fiction projects every day. As K.A. Mitchell, whose wonderful workshop on character relations this past Saturday gave me even more layers to slather on Her Last First Kiss, has said, open the file and change your seat. I have to open the file, or open the notebook. When I do, well, it’s right there. I have a pen in my hand, or the keyboard is right there, too (usually both, in most cases; that’s how my brain works best) and who would it hurt if I took a poke or two at things, hm?

Thanks to a talk with a new writing friend, who listened to me whinge about how hard it’s been to find where I should (note that should, there) including roundabout analogies and a diagram drawn on a napkin with rollerball ink, I am getting the chance to do both the clean sweep and more layers things at one with Her Last First Kiss. What, she asked, was the moment that changed my heroine’s life forever? What permanently took her off the path she always thought she was going to walk in life? Huh. Well. Had to think about that one, and then the answer came out all on its own. When her father left.

Sure, she was seven then, and I didn’t want to start that far back, but darned if the whole scene didn’t play itself out on my walk back home from that meeting. I sat down at my secretary desk, with notebook and fountain pen, and out flowed the whole thing. I didn’t have to yank any teeth. Didn’t have to force anything. Huh. I…remember how to do that. Don’t write a book. Tell the story. Remember back when I didn’t know all the rules, but blithely wrote down the movie in my head? Yeah, that.

Clean sweep. More layers. Easy enough when I don’t think about it.

 

A Handful of Dreams and a Blogful of Opinions

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I’ve been reading a lot of older historical romances lately, mainly those first published in the 1990s. Many of these are standalone stories, in the truest sense of the word, not parts of any series, so anything can happen, to anybody, apart from the HEA we are guaranteed by the end of the book. The  hero’s charismatic best friend isn’t exempt from villain status, because no, we aren’t going to need him to be the hero of book two or there, because there is none. One hero, one heroine, one HEA, off into the sunset, done and done. That’s how my story brain naturally works, anyway, and I’d been craving the big, thick doorstoppers I used to devour (and still can, because keeper shelves and UBSs and e-books, yay publishing revolution) so I dove into this subgenre once more, with overwhelmingly positive results.

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One of my best (but not surprising) re-finds was Barbara Hazard. I’d re-devoured her Georgian historical, Call Back the Dream, and wanted to dive into the sequel (I know, I know, I was talking about standalones only a minute ago, but bear with me; this is going somewhere) immediately afterward. I thought I’d packed that in the same box with the original, but then it would have been in the same bookcase. It wasn’t. Instead, there was A Handful of Dreams, also excellent, and completely unrelated.

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I didn’t remember too much about A Handful of Dreams, though I’d first read it when it was fairly new. I remembered the scene where child Sally catches a coin tossed to her by a British soldier on horseback, but didn’t remember if that soldier would turn out to be the hero or not. As I read on, I still wasn’t sure. I did remember, very clearly, the fictional Sally’s abusive first marriage, her return to her family of origin, and her placement as the companion of the daughter of a different soldier.

Let’s say that Sally and her employer’s daughter had different expectations of the relationship and leave it at that. I’m not sure if that might have been explored differently,  had the book been written today, and that’s something I will likely think about for some time. Sally’s employer decides it’s time for Sally to move on, and her situation, as it were, becomes a commodity.

A friend of the family, Harry, Lord Darlington, purchases the care of Sally, and his treatment of her didn’t -on either read- strike me as particularly heroic. He’s a cold father to his children from other relationships, including two marriages, even when Sally expresses her desire for the children to be part of the family. As a work of historical fiction, this works fine, and that’s how I read it this time around. There’s a friend of Harry’s, who also takes a liking to Sally, and there was a good portion of the book where I was thinking maybe I’d misremembered and he was the true hero.

Not going to give away spoilers, because there are two sorts of readers involved here; the ones that are going to track this book down o they can read it themselves, and those who will not, because old book, who cares, or they don’t read romance anyway. Either way, I finished this reread a couple of days ago, and, as much as I’d like to read another romance, my brain is stuck here. Lots of thinking.

Were I to publish this book today, I would class it as historical fiction rather than romance. Sally does find love, and that love is reciprocated. There’s even an acceptable heroic grovel on the part of the gentleman who fills that role, but, in the end, this is really her story and not theirs. I am okay with that. Romantic elements, yes, but this book is about Sally’s life, her struggle to find her place in the world, and the effect the cards she was dealt do have on what she can do.

Sally starts out Irish and poor, in the early nineteenth century. She’s also beautiful, exceptionally so, and that gets her noticed, not always for the right reasons. This is one of my favorite types of characters, where that beauty has its perils as well as its perks. There are those who don’t look below the surface, those who assume a certain set of facial features means a certain personality or mindset, when that couldn’t be farther from the case. Sally’s options are limited. She’s not educated, she doesn’t have a lot of power, but she is smart and she is strong, and she is a woman of her time. That’s important.

Some aspects felt  a little too neat to me, others a bit rushed, and. for a historical romance, there isn’t a lot of emphasis on the relationship that should be the center of the story. I’m not sure I would have chosen the same hero, were this my story to write, but it wasn’t. I’d love to talk to the author, but without contact information, that’s not likely, so some of these things are going to muddle around in my own mind for a while. Maybe some elements will transfer and transform in my own work, but for now, I’m still thinking