T.A.R.T.

Roman Holidays And Others By William Dean Howells

2008-03-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Roman Holidays And Others By William Dean Howells: ""

The True Story of Benjamin Franklin, the American Statesman By Elbridge Streeter Brooks

2007-11-19T04:25:00.000-08:00

Hmm...

2006-01-17T11:37:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in hella long, but I've been going through things. In writing, I have been stuck for quite some time due to personal and emotional reasons and even though I'm struggling, fighting against it, ranting that it's unfair and that it will set me back another two years, I'm going back to the basics, the beginning, the simpleness of writing. I was serious when I first sat down, but things filtered in wrong through my mind and distorted what I set out to accomplish and why I decided to become a writer. This isn't The End, it's merely the beginning. And even though I have qualms about starting over and feel envious over others continuing on, I will not MAKE IT if I don't dig in and do this. Fundamentals are the building blocks of Fun, I learned from the movie "Uptown Girls".

I also finally have a domain and a website coming along soon to help me track my progress and chart my growth as a writer.

Bonjour!

2005-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

I've been handed this beautiful,complex, vulnerable Ivory/Wharton-esque plot set in 1910s London,Paris and the French Riviera!! I thank the Lord above for it! It's so great and I'm not even going to worry about the setting or the characters and let the chips fall where they may. I am writing smart and writing from my heart--I'm keeping what makes romance readers love reading romances, but putting my own personal touches on it to make it stand out from the crowd. I absolutely adore this plot and am head over heels into research and am steadily plotting with each new tidbit I gain. I'm putting the applications listed in Donald Maas' "Writing The Breakout Novel" to the test: making the romance genre my own instead of the other way around; giving the readers want they want even if they aren't sure of it as of yet, et al. But mainly, just make them laugh, make them cry and make them feel--and have a semblance of fun whilst writing it.

NaNoWriMo

2005-11-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

I am going to join NaNoWriMo for the first time. I am bemused over the fact that at the beginning of October, when I first heard of the "contest" I wasn't going to join because I had nothing prepared, nothing ready and able to be written, but I signed up for it anyways just because. And then I got the email for it on Oct 30th and felt a sense of mingling peace and inevitability--I am going to do this. Words have frightened and intimidated me for a while, to the point where I could not write anything worth mentioning for the past six or seven months, maybe even longer. Somewhere over the past year I lost my confidence, that bright eyed wonder of writing and it became a ball and chain, an albatross around my neck and try as I might, I couldn't make anything work.

It was jealousy I realized, not just jealousy over other people's writing, but jealousy that they had their shit together and I didn't. And the way this whole thing runs is that it's seen that being jealous of someone was an indicator of the envier's lack of (talent,drive,etc) instead of being a normal, healthy emotion that everyone feels. So I suppressed my envy or joked about it, making light of it because society has made healthy jealousy(non-insane-psycho-freak envy) an anathema to "normal" people, that there is something wrong with you if you are jealous of someone else. So I accepted my jealousy, didn't resist it and allowed it to pass through me. And scales fell from my eyes--that the writers I was jealous of didn't possess some secret formula or super powers that enabled them to write what they write, it was plain old sitting down and writing, and writing well; their ability stemmed from equal parts of gumption, knowledge and courage. Sure I still do experience twinges o envy when I become uncertain about what I've written, but I'm still alive after I feel the emotion, and it doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with me or my writing ability.

So I'm writing straight through December 1st, no editing, no internet to distract me, and probably no reading outside of research for those post-NaNoWriMo revisions. I want to sell when I'm twenty-one and my birthday is eight months away. Who knows what shall happen? But nothing shall happen if I chicken out. So pray for me, and Godspeed with your own writing!

Snoopy Dance!!

2005-10-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

Our old monitor blew out and we purchased a new one today( 99 dollars from Staples!). I'm cracking up because I had a suspicion that something was wrong with our computer when websites and other various things showed up in colors on the computer at my mother's job that I did not see when I pulled them up at home. At first I assumed it was the computer, that it needed a color boost, but low and behold, it was the monitor! Everything is so much brighter and more vivid. Heck, I had no clue that Lydia Joyce's upcoming release had a reddish cover after all these months of seeing it online or that perezhilton.com was red, not blue. LOL

So I was MIA from the internet for about three days and even though it felt a bit weird, I found myself more productive and more confident in what I had to do. You don't really realize how distracting and unproactive the internet makes you until you don't have access to it. I had no resource to reading blogs or seeing what other people were doing or what they were writing or anything else that takes away from writing and seeing clearly. So I'm kind of like "whatever" when it comes to the internet now--it's here, but I don't feel this overwhelming need to be on it.

Writing news, I've been working on this plot for nearly a week, just jotting down scenes and bits of dialogue and plotting twists whenever they hit me and it's grown so much, morphing and twisting into a more cohesive plot and characters. It's a bit uncomfortable for me, but in a good way because it's pushing me from my comfort zone in terms of what I've been accustomed to writing.

Also....I've got a domain and hosting space, with a design soon to follow! I don't want to entirely unveil it until it's completed, but I'm excited. It feels like a big step in becoming published, in letting it be known that I am serious about writing with the intent of publication and about writing what I'm meant to be writing.

Yay!

2005-10-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Laura Kinsale's For My Lady's Heart.

Why am I announcing it like it's the most important thing in the world? Because this is my first Kinsale, after being afraid to read Kinsale because a) the hype b) the angst. See, I'm afraid of angst. Even though I do like writing painful character growth and romances, I am afraid to read them for fear of becoming emotionally drained at the end. Chalk it up to my accidental forays into the sagas from the 80s and 70s. So it's taken me a while to gather up the courage to read her. But so far so good, I especially like the Middle English because it forces me to really pay attention to the book.

I also added more books to my Victoria Holt collection. I love that woman's works.

On the writing front, I'm moving along with the plotting. For a moment I experienced a moment of hesitation because the structure and the plot of this WIP is unconventional. I've got the hero's POV and the heroine's POV, yadda yadda yadda, but there are some twists and turns that might be uncomfortable for some readers. But I'm sticking to it because I really, really, really like these characters and their story and I've found myself with the ability to seamlessly draw my knowledge of the setting into the story, as opposed to previously when I dumped everything in because I wanted the setting to really stand out and show that "hey, I did my research!". But I know I did it, so there's no need for me to constantly prove it--that's when the book becomes a history lesson. *g*

Fur Elise...

2005-10-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

"There’s at least nine books there to write, and I know that others will come to mind. Sometimes it’s not a problem of not having an idea, but of too many ideas crowding in, demanding my attention when I need to focus on something else. Sometimes that’s as bad as being blocked, because if you have too many things staring you in the face, it’s easy to freeze, unable to go forward or backwards"

Caro(a new and wonderful blogger I've discovered) has put into words what I have felt for a long time. But I'm committed to this Edith Wharton-esque novel because it's the first plot that I've had in a long time where I actually heard the protagonists speaking to me, their movements and actions and reactions and conflicts laid right there on the table for me. Even though I do love all of the brilliant plots and characters that have come to me in flashes over the past few months, I'm going to stick with this one because it's speaking to me, a piccolo trilling shrilly over the din of the past year. But it also scares me and makes me freeze up because things have been going so dismally, I fear that this is a whim, a fluke and even if I write this manuscript and it is really great, I won't be able to reproduce afterwards. But yes, what Caro said is true, and it's kind of painful and confusing to be inside of the insidious cycle.

everybody knows I'm mad for you!

2005-10-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm excited about this WIP. I figured that a part of my writing style is Hitchcock meets Victoria Holt, taking the gothic and sexy feel of Holt's gothic romances and combining them with the suspense and psychological tension of Alfred Hitchcock's movies. And to cap off the finishing touches to this plot was the arrival of three Megan Chance books I won from ebay. In that bundle, I recieved The Portrait. I've only read one chapter so far, but I've heard about it and reading that one chapter filled in the missing piece of the plot concerning my hero. This book is going to be fun,fun,fun!

b-a-n-a-n-a-s!!

2005-10-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

AAR is having a great discussion concerning the segregation of romances.

This is some awesome news! Not just Blair writing, but his remake of The Great Gatsby(which I love) and his roles in Tyler Perry's upcoming movie and the film adaption of Tananarive Due’s novel, My Soul to Keep.

What's so funny to me is how Ashlee Simpson's forthcoming album has helped me with my writing. After a few days of experiencing a deluge of ideas for plotting, I froze up today and everytime I looked at a sheet of paper I experienced some fatigue. But I couldn't allow this particular plot sketch to be deserted because it's been haunting me for some time. So anyways, my job was playing Ashlee's new album over the radio and since it was thankfully slow, I was able to listen to the entire thing. I loved her debut album Autobiography and have been eagerly anticipating this one, but after the first couple songs, the remainder of the album began to feel a bit trite--instead of being as great and varied as Autobiography, I.Am.Me. began to fall into the trap of "rockish ballad about a guy". And I realized that it wasn't Ashlee's fault, it was her producer. The producer and co-producer helped make Ashlee's first album really good, but based on I.Am.Me. it appears that they can only take Ashlee so far in terms of her sound and staying on top by keeping her music fresh because they have only experienced one type of sound throughout their entire producing career--which is why I really liked Gwen Stefani's album; it kept her quirky and personal lyrics, but by using producers No Doubt wouldn't have used, it made her sound new.

This surprisingly made me see that my plotting wasn't working because the romance genre can only take me so far in terms of creating characters and plotting. It's not that I'm turning my back upon the genre, but that I need to look at all my sources of influence to help me plot a romance. For the past three years or so I've only read romances(with semi-frequent forays into paranormal fiction and historical fiction) so in terms of my writing, I'd cut myself off by restricting my circle of influence--my writing began to seem trite and hackneyed because I had made myself only familiar with what I'd been reading instead of seeing how authors in other genres plotted or made a character more 3-D or how they dug themselves out of bad plotholes and then applying it to my romances to see what worked and what didn't work. What a place for a revalation huh? I can now understand why some romance authors have discontinued to read romances. Not only did I find myself plotting myself into a hole b/c of the bare bones formula to romance, I also found it difficult to create 3-D characters because there is a strong strain of character archtypes found within the genre that are assumed to be set in stone rules for creating acceptable romanceland characters instead of being the skeleton to fleshing out your own characters.

In concern to this plot bone, I started looking at it from a different angle: squinting, stepping back, moving forward and circling around it and I realized that my characters and their situations were wrong, which was why they couldn't seem to meet to even have the romance they were supposed to be having!

Informative!

2005-10-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Mark from the Regency yahoogroup (I have yet to give this one up): Good things to know!!

Brit Speak circa 1926!

English / American

Clothes
Boot / Shoe
Bowler / Derby
Braces / Suspenders
Galoshes / Rubbers
Nappy / Diaper
Pyjamas / Pajamas
Sock suspenders / Garters
Vest / Undershirt
Waistcoat / Vest

Commercial
Chemist / Druggist
Commercial traveller / Travelling salesman
Draper's shop / Dry goods store
Fancy Goods / Notions
Hire purchase / Buying on time
Hoarding / Billboard
Ironmonger / Hardware dealer
Market gardener / Truck farmer
Men's hairdresser / Barber
Note (paper money) / Bill
Post (verb) / Mail
Press-cutting agency / Clipping service
Receptonist (hotel) / Desk clerk
Shop / Store
Shop-walker / Floor-walker
Sleeping partner / Silent partner
Slot machine / Vending machine
Street vendor / Peddler
Timber (sawn) / Lumber

Food
Beetroot / Beets
Biscuits and small cakes / Crackers and cookies
Chicory / Endive (and vice versa)
Corn / Grain
Maize / Corn
Scone / Biscuit
Sweets / Candy
Tin / Can
Treacle / Molasses
Undercut / Tenderloin

Household
Cooker / Oven
Cookery book / Cookbook
Cupboard / Closet
Drawing-pin / Thumb-tack
Dust-bin / Garbage can
Flat / Apartment
Jug / Pitcher
Paraffin / Kerosine
Tap / Faucet
Veranda / Porch
Waste-paper-basket / Waste-basket
Legal and official
Bylaw / Ordinance
Inland Revenue / Internal Revenue
Prison van / Patrol wagon
Ticket-of-leave / Parole
Witness-box / Witness stand

Sports and games
Cannon (billiards) / Carom
Draughts / Checkers
Fruit machine / Slot machine
Nine-pins / Ten-pins
Pack (of cards) / Deck
Shooting / Hunting
Touch-lines / Side-lines

Transport
Bonnet (of car) / Hood
Boot (of car) / Trunk
Coach (railway) / Car
Engine-driver / Engineer
Goods train etc. / Freight train etc.
Gradient / Grade
Guard (of passenger train) / Conductor
Level crossing / Grade crossing
Lorry / Truck
Pavement / Sidewalk
Permanent way / Roadbed
Petrol / Gas(oline)
Points (railway) / Switch
Railway / Railroad
Return ticket / Round-trip ticket
Roundabout / Traffic circle or rotary
Saloon (car) / Sedan
Shunt / Switch
Signal-box / Switch-tower
Silencer (of car) / Muffler
Single ticket / One-way ticket
Sleeper / Cross-tie
Subway / Underpass
Terminus / Terminal
Tram / Street-car
Underground railway / Subway
Van / Delivery truck
Wing (of car) / Fender

Miscellaneous
Aluminium / Aluminum
Autumn / Fall
Bank holiday / Legal holiday
Caretaker / Janitor
Council school / Public school
Cutting (newspaper) / Clipping
Dust cart / Garbage truck
Ex-Service man / Veteran
Fanlight / Transom
Friendly Society / Fraternal order
Holiday / Vacation
Lift / Elevator
Perambulator / Baby carriage
Pig breeding / Hog raising
Private soldier / Enlisted man
Public school / Private school
Queue / Line
Rear (family etc.) / Raise
Scribbling-block / Scratch-pad

The words in italics are ones that I've been clueless about whenever I came across them in books. And lazy me, I never bothered to look them up. *G*

Hmmm...

2005-10-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

I read Alison's latest post with equal amounts of agreement and trepidation. I'm only twenty-one and have a whole life ahead of me and it's so hard to explain to my peers as well as family why I'm not going out partying up a storm, hanging out with friends, etc, etc to staying in(when I'm not working) to read and write or paint and draw or feeding my obsession with travelling and history. And part of me experiences qualms that maybe I should be out partying up a storm(I love to dance though) or making tons of friends to hang out with and that pursuing publication is going to put a halt on my "life" and make me "selfish and introverted". The other part of me smacks myself and says that being published won't end my life, instead enriching it and allowing me even more experiences that being a drudge will never allow me.

Both sides are pulling at me and combined, are part of what's holding me back from really digging down and working hard at actively pursuing publication as opposed to hemming and hawing and half-heartedly plodding in that direction. So I'm going to work hard at overcoming this and allowing the true side to triumph in the end.

Maybe...

2005-10-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

Okay...I've decided to take Emma's challenge to dig myself from the doldroms of non-writing and related frustrations. *G*

1. I'm watching old tapes of past seasons fashion shows and realizing that I can do this--without a degree behind me or college connections.

2. I finally have a card to allow me to go in and out of my apartment at will so that I can actually you know, leave my house and go running.

3. It's cool and sunny outside--just how I like it

4. I finished reading a really good book last night.

5. I washed the dishes. It relaxes me for some odd reason.

6. Wikipedia.com has come through for me again.

7. I picked up my guitar after a year.

8. I am alive and healthy and whole and have a roof over my head after all.

9. I have a notebook full of story ideas(even if I can't pick which one to write)

10. I got an inspiring email today.

Darn tootin'

2005-10-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Read Lydia's post at RTB.

Her post states the exact reasons why I'm going to write my historical romances the way I want them--angsty,funny,sprawling,exciting,violent,morbid,etc! I'm just here to write a damn good story, period. When a reader closes a romance they've really enjoyed, they really weren't looking for the Regency setting, or the virginal heroine, or the dashingly rakish hero and their sexual acrobatics--they were looking for a damn good romance that tugged their heartstrings and made them root for the protagonists to get together.

I'm writing fearless now because I've rubbed away the foggy exterior to see the interior of the romance genre. I think that a lot of people have forgotten the main goal of a romance because of the pressures everyone has unknowingly put on each other to perform: announcing each rejection, each acceptance letter, knowing the latest market news, sharing a new venue of getting published, and the mother of all good news--the first sale. I've withdrawn from the writing community somewhat because it seemed that writers ceased getting together to encourage and support each other as "co-workers" and instead began to gather to obsess over why one isn't published, what one is doing wrong, how Author X finally sold, why they've been overlooked, and so on and so on.

Geez louise, no wonder I was so stressed out from the summer of last year until the summer of this year. In the beginning I was content to sit at the feet of published authors, to devour every single morsel of "insider tips" they were content to toss to me, to spend hours on end trying to dig info on the publishing business, and other inane,time consuming activities. I was inspired by reading "How I finally sold" stories, but it's gets to the point where one is obsessing over trying to covertly emulate Author X and Co. and spends too much time worrying about what everyone else is doing, what everyone else is accomplishing instead of focusing on what I needed to do and what I needed to write.

It's hard to stand out. I'm going to be opening myself up to ridicule or subtle snubbings and painful separations from people I considered to be good acquaintances or even a friend of. Part of me wants to hide from that stark reality, to keep it at bay by remaining inside of the box, but the other part of me knows that I'd only end up hating myself, which in the end would also result in alienation from a myriad of situations and people. It's even risky to put this in print because it could be misconstrued in a multitude of ways. I just have to have faith in what I know I need to do, and that the chips will fall where they were meant to fall.

EEk

2005-10-07T03:14:00.000-07:00

I am the worst blogger ever. To date I have at least six and I keep hopping around. I don't know, I guess it's because once I feel that someone might stumble across my blog(through my own actions), I'm not allowed to be completely honest--sanitizing the hecticness that is my real life as well as admitting writing faults and stumbling blocks. It's easier to admit mistakes and to rant when no one is looking.

>;/

Hmmm

2005-09-22T17:26:00.000-07:00

I take it back. Writing an American set historical is a hell of a lot harder than writing a European set historical and I can see why the European set historical is popular with Americans. As much as I love this country and its history, it's a bit tricky to write about it--slavery, theft of Native American lands, politics, and other things we still deal with today, not to mention the fact that America of the 19th century and early 20th century was(and still is) broken up by different focal points(the major cities) and not a central focus of arts,literature,science,etc the way London is, or Paris, or any other European country whose life is centered around one major city.

We've got the West(California) the Northwest(Washington,Oregon,a bit of Canada and Alaska), the mountains(Wyoming,Montana,Colorado,Idaho, the Dakotas), the southwest(New Mexico,Texas,Nevada,Utah), plains(Nebraska,Iowa,Kansas,Oklahoma,Arkansas,Missouri), the lakes(Illinois,Minnesota,Michigan,Ohio), the deep south(Alabama,Mississippi,Georgia,Louisiana,South Carolina), Florida it's own entity, the upper south(Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, W. Virginia), the coast(Maryland,Delaware,New Jersey, Pennsylvania), and New England(New York,New Hampshire,Maine,Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusettes)--and everyone's culture/social life was different during the same time periods. So yeah, it's a lot more complicated to write an American set historical. I think that's probably why there isn't a lot of rah-rahing about Americana romances as wel as the fact that a lot of writers tend to transplant their ideas and assumptions about European behavoir into American set plots, which is why a Texas-set historical reads the same as a Regency Historical. I'm going to have to think on this some more...

Different

2005-09-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

I'm going to do something a little different from what I've normally been doing: a North American set historical. At the moment, the European historical is causing me nothing but frustration as I try to work with the conventions of the setting. I'm a bit wary because I don't want to be seen as a "Americana/Western Historical" writer, but then also because it will make me stand out even more, as well as the fact that I have no one to go by, no legions of authors to forge the path for me the way it is in concern to the European Historical. I'm basically all on my own in concern to this MS and I am scared shitless. But I'm going to do it because it needs to be done and I need to learn to do what needs to be done before I end up failing until the point where I don't want to do this anymore.

Mr. Roboto

2005-09-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

I had an epiphany today at work: whenever something makes me angry, get coldly efficient at whatever task I need to accomplish. I see to it, get it done, but without any emotional entanglements involved. So why can't I do this in concern to writing? I see very clearly that writing is a business, but I can't seem to get in synch with my unembittered knowledge of the cold, hard facts and my sometimes repressed dreamer side. I don't mean to say that I want to write merely excellently written books--because I hate reading excellently written books. They always seem to lack a heart--but being able to sit down, plot a novel in an exciting, yet publishable way, and not agonize over anything. Everything is clear-cut.

It's my own fault, I know and now that I've recognized it, I am going to work desperately hard to change this. Getting my first yearly evaluation, only getting a forty cent raise and then having to borrow money from a payday loans place because my family and I are living paycheck to paycheck is forcing me to quit playing around, quit playing coy and sticking my thumb in my mouth when it comes to doing what I have to do. I want to restart my old hobby/job as a webdesigner--meaning that I must create a business plan for a loan. I want to become published by at least this time next year--meaning that I must sit down and plot this book out, diligently research and write it, and write it again. I want to finally get my driver's liscence--meaning that first I must study the Driver's Handbook, get my permit and learn how to drive. I want to learn how to draft patterns of the fashion sketches that litter my bedroom--meaning that I must either take classes or teach myself through a book. A few other things round out my list, but those are the wants I've been nudging to the side for a while for want of saddling new responsibilities that go with striving to achieve goals. But I need to harness that cold efficiency and use it for my own benefit instead of channeling it into things that need to be let go.

Reads for the day:
78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might
The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers

How Does it Feel?

2005-09-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

I'm working my way backwards through Patricia Gaffney's Wycherly trilogy. Why? I have no clue. I bought all three a few months ago because I'd heard much about it on AAR and loved Gaffney's Crooked Hearts, but after I bought them, I put them in my very short TBR pile because I didn't feel up to reading something that appeared to be emotionally draining. The day before yesterday I picked up Forever & Ever on a whim and finished it in a day, starting To Have & To Hold immediately afterwards. I haven't started To Love & To Cherish yet, but I'll get to it soon.

I realized that I wasn't..."mature" enough to read them when I first purchased them, oddly enough. I can't really describe it, but it's turning out that for me, it seems like works by certain authors are just sitting there, waiting for me to catch up with them(much like I feel "ready" to read some Laura Kinsale). Another astonishing thing happened: as much as I enjoy Judith Ivory's books, it isn't until I read the last page that I realize that I liked the book. But as I was reading the last two books in the trilogy, I knew I would like the entire book even though I was only on page 50, or on chapter four. This has never happened to me before in my entire life of reading and it has stricken me with a sort of bemusement.

It also made me realize why I've grown bored with romances: there's too much emphasis on the male protagonist being the "hero". If you set him up as one thing and he grows from it over the course of the book, I'll accept his acts of unkindness towards the heroine more than setting him up as this huge selfish, hedonist and then having him save kittens or having qualms about the state of his conscience. Also, I've grown tired of this obsession with making all "heroes" dark,tortured,rakes. Connor from Forever & Ever was just a plain old honorable man. He had no "dark secret" or some lame family issue that caused him to never "trust another woman again!" He was just himself. Even though Sebastian from TH&TH had a horrible family, we didn't even find it out until the end of the book so it never turned into a pity party on behalf of his behavior.

They also restored my faith in myself. I've been running about like a chicken with my head cut off because of my age and what I want to write. You know what? Who cares that I'm only twenty-one and I want to write novels with a strong romantic thread in them? I'm sorry, but I don't write fantasy and I don't think I'll ever want to write YA novels,and I am not interested in writing literary fiction either. So I'm writing what I'm writing and that's it. If my books end up in the romance section or the fiction/literature section, I don't care anymore. If everyone is decades older than me at book signings and writing conferences, I don't care. I am an adult and shall be one and interacting with other adults for the remainder of my life, so why should I shya way from it because "people" assume that if you're of a certain age, it means you're too young to do certain things. Hell, if I can die for my country, I think I'm old enough to write romances/romantic fiction/whatever.

Writing wise, I'm moving and mixing things up a bit while waiting for my research books to arrive at my closest library branch. It's going quite well. I had a story idea and got excited, ready to drop the WIP like I did in the past, but then I stopped, rewound and started again. I was not going to allow myself to do that anymore. So I jotted down the ideas and left it at that. I'm also really, really intriuged by Anne Bronte more so than Emily or Charlotte. I'm drawing on her two novels as inspiration for my WIP.

Quiet Storm

2005-09-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

I say it once, I say it again: this story is a bit of an uphill battle--and I haven't even begun the research for it yet![1]

Number One: It's a struggle to keep from falling into the traditional romanceland pattern of high born protagonists. My hero is in trade(a publisher) and my heroine is a member of the minor aristocracy(very minor--her father was the third son of a baronet). This particular story has nothing to do with the social season or the major aristocracy. Sure, class is a big part of the struggle between the two(Victorian society was strict!), but I don't want to turn this book into a bunch of pretty dresses and coy smiles(at least not yet, I'll tackle the court circles later). It's...very loud in a quiet way and pushing romanceland attributes onto the story will ruin it.

Number Two: Halfway through writing out a semi-detailed synopsis, I felt that the story would cut off from the heroine's POV(first person) of Parts I & II and segue into the hero's POV(first person also) in the last half of the book. I was aghast. I've never seen this done before and I experienced a number of qualms. But the style of the story calls for it, and I recalled Wuthering Heights, and how it employed POV's from two different people as well.

Number Three: This story is morphing and growing in ways I never expected it to. It can loosely be called a "romance", but I know that it will break the rules of the genre and I'm learning to be happy with that. It's hard to change once you've been doing someone one way for the longest time. It's helping me learn things about myself, forcing me to step outside of my comfort zone.

Austen-ish

2005-09-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

I've always looked upon all these Austen-atics, who flurry about the internet, flock to reading groups and the tons of post-Austen books and movies with a type of suspicious confusion. I have read Pride & Predjudice, Emma, Susan(I think the title is--the one made up of letters) and Sense & Sensibility and watched Mansfield Park on TV, but have never been struck by this...obsessive love for the woman or her works. They were pleasant and entertaining reads, and S&S made me at turns annoyed and excited, but I've always looked upon them in bewilderment, drifting towards the novels when I am in bookstores in the vain hope of a new edition unlocking what it is that makes Jane Austen so great to this mass of people.

On reviewing my thoughts, Austen seems to...tame for me. I have yet to read Persuasion in all its nuances and unrequited love/second chance at love, but Austen comes across as too genteel for me. I have this...fondness for the subtle wildness lurking behind the seemingly tamed words of the Victorian women authors and poets: the Bronte's or Emily Dickinson or Elizabeth Barrett. That their solitude and genteel life masked a wildfire that Austen's works lack for me. Maybe I'm melodramatic and am reading things into things that perhaps aren't there.

But this ties into my writing and how I realized that my path to success can't be dictacted by what everyone else is doing, that I can't continue to try and discern how to do what others are doing, to not continue to step back and circle round the illusion of my desire in hopes to penetrate it--that I am Me and not anyone Else.

I just finished A.S. Byatt's Possession and was impressed at the subtlety of the novel. It was literary without seeming literary, and yet Byatt didn't write the book with the object of shoving her education and career into your face, but she didn't also "dumb it down" for fear of turning the masses off by big words and philosophies. I really liked this book, which is a surprise to me because I am normally turned off by story-within-a-story type books, and I also am amazed(and need to re-read) at how Byatt turned me from a reader distantly interested in what the main protagonists--Roland and Maud--discovered into actually rooting for them to uncover it before their antagonists did--the subtle suspense was very well written as well. Because I so enjoyed this book, I don't know whether I want to see the movie version(I'm also a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow), but I've heard that it's v. different from the book, but we'll see.

2005-09-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

I just joined this marvellous listserv catering to the Victorian era--and it's filled with scholars and professors from all around the world! I also just placed an order for a slew of books on Yorkshire for research purposes, so I'm excited to begin research for my WIP, tentatively entitled The Poetess.

I realized that the reason why I procrastinated continuing to sketch out the bare bones of my WIp for the past two days was because I was scared of good things happening to me. I've been so used to things failing(and 9/10 it was my own fault as a result of that fear) that when things began to go good--like a story idea coming to me like a waterfall--I would stop doing it, putting it off until the inspiration dried up because I was afraid that it would dry up and fail eventually, never consciously realizing that it dried up not because it was destined to, but because I willed it to do so!! And I also caught myself in the act of helping that fear along. In the past, whenever a story idea was coming along well, as I was researching, I would then procrastinate by seeing what other authors were doing and then I would start researching on whatever they were doing with the semi-serious and v. vain hope that what they were doing would help me to success. Now yesterday, I was buying Susan Carroll's The Dark Queen and started to gather books on the France of Catherine de Medici and Henry of Navarre. Now I am a big fan of this period in French history which is why I really anticipated Carroll's trilogy, but then I started trying to emulate her because of my lingering fear and uncertainty of The Poetess. But I caught myself red-handed and recognized what I have been doing before it escalated.

So now I'm feeling sufficiently confident and assured in my ability to write this book. The only dilemma I am dealing with is the actual poetry of my heroine--should I find someone to write it for me or should I find some obscure Victorian poetess whose prose I use(but with acknowledgement)? I'm reading A.S. Byatt's Possession and am wondering whether she wrote the poetry herself...any suggestions?

Yay

2005-09-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

Dude, Dude, Dude, Dude!!!!!

Where's My Car?

Just kidding about the second sentence, but really!! I am too amazed and thankful today. I know for a fact that I was dead tired yesterday after waking at 10:30 am after having gone to bed at 4 am(I need my 9 hours still), but I couldn't go to sleep last night. I did have a headache for a while from fatigue, but after I ate dinner, it went away so I, too my chagrin, remained up for a while. I finally got up from the computer around 2-ish because I knew I should go to bed, only to find that I wasn't tired. So I picked up my spiral notebook and started scribbling down a few more ideas on my Bronte inspired WIP. And then I scrapped it and was up until 5 am writing down a torrent of ideas--a rough synopsis really--of this WIP. And the thing about it is, is that I am not allowing what I think should happen in the story to be written down, but what the characters demand should happen be written down. This WIP is not a romance novel but I felt myself pushing for it to become one because the genre is so familiar to me. But it's not. There is some romance in there(I hope), but it's not the main focus of the journey of the character. I was reminded a bit of Megan Chance's The Inconvenient Wife, but it really isn't like that at all.

As I was typing down a list of books to check out from the library(it's a long list, 10 pages worth of books), I found myself surfing my favorite website, Wikipedia, and on a whim typed in Emily Dickinson's name(maybe it was a response to watching "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" earlier) and read her bio. And then the Brownings came into view on a list of library books to check-out. And then I had a flash of inspiration: a dark haired, dark eyed, somberly attired thirty-something young woman scribbling furiously at her desk. I had to know who she was, where she lived, what she was writing. And then the Bronte family sprang to my attention. And I began to scribble furiously in my own notebook.

I admit that I'm a little scared to write this novel because it really hits so close to home, though I and she are worlds and generations apart. But I've got to do it, if not for the pure catharsis of it, but for the sake of my protagonist. It will be a blessing for me to be able to write something that no one else is writing or thinking of writing and to be able to complete it.

Mmmhm

2005-09-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

Emma posted recently about her struggle with writing. I too will freely admit that over the past year, I have started and not finished eight manuscripts. In fact, the last time I completed a story from start to finish was a Regency set Cinderella story from January/February of 2004. Since then, it's been a struggle to finish anything I've started. Part of it has to do with the fact that I became desperate to sell, I began to view becoming published as a sort of...salvation from being poor, from being stuck in this city I live in, to experience the fun that others my age seem to be experiencing. And because of this, my writing stopped coming from the heart and more from trying to copy what I saw everyone else doing--which meant that I was trying to write many things at once since everyone writes different things. But I also realized that I was subconsciously sabotaging myself because I knew that I was not ready for the responsibility of being published. I welcomed the thought of money, dearly, but the responsibility scared the crap out of me.

I'm still struggling with the residual consequences of my eighteen month mad dash--it made me dislike writing, a bit resentful that it came so easily to others, just desiring to quit this writing thing all together. I have highs and lows, but I have come to see the lows as a tool to help me grow stronger because I could quit, I could have quit, but instead I forged through and circled around, desperate to find another angle of penetration--mystery genre, historical fiction, fantasy, paranormal, chick-lit, whatever I gained inspiration from. And it's not going back to the beginning, to when you were naive and enthusiastic, because that would mean going backwards not only craft-wise but mind-set wise, but learning how to combine knowledge with ability, confidence with talent and experience with works. It's about sitting back, getting quiet and still and reflecting on what makes me me and how I can apply it to my writing. There are just so many stories that can be told but no one can tell a often-used story-line the way you can.

There's this sort of myth floating around about writing from the heart, but then there's also this myth floating around about writing smart. Okay, J.K. Rowling didn't set out to write Harry Potter with visions of movie deals and millions involved, but it was obvious that she wanted to get published and that she knew she had what it took(after all, it is apparent that she was in contact with publishers b/c an editor told her that her idea was a bit crazy). And that's what it is ,I think: knowing that you have what it takes. Not wanting to impress editors and agents with your soaring prose or your ability to keep up with the trends or whatnot--it's about knowing that you have what it takes because it's obvious that great writing and/or keeping up with the trends is no guarantee of success. You've got to know yourself and your abilities and be willing to put yourself out on the line on paper and when it comes to finally presenting your work to the proper professionals.

So continuing on with the forging, I've decided to narrow in on the Victorian Era, focusing on Great Britain with possible branches into France and America. To my delight, I have two really great ideas bubbling about in my mind. Both have large touches of the gothic(the Bronte/Holt ouevre and the Brahm Stoker ouevre) and divert from the typical romance pattern. I've stopped labelling my work because it puts pressure to conform to genre type, but it's like...historical fiction with heavy doses of romance, sensuality and horror(psychological or otherwise). I'm not going to expect everything to be perfect at all, but I'm not going to allow myself to wig and bail when things get hairy, so...cross your fingers for me.

b-i-n-g-o

2005-09-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished Susan Squire's The Companion. Wow. As I said before, I don't really read much paranormal romance because nine times out of ten it is so corny(more on this later), but Squire's really impressed me. Not just with the paranormal aspect, but the romance aspect as well. Sure, it dipped a little into romanceland-ness with the whole "s/he doesn't love me, they couldn't because I'm too unworthy/unattractive/etc, so I'll keep it a secret" nonesense found in alot of romances, but Squires saved it before it got on my nerves too bad. This makes me anticipate her next book The Hunger, and look up her backlist.

Now, on to the so bad, it's still bad read: J.R. Ward's Dark Lover. Okay, I appreciate the time she took to create her own vampire/paranormal lore, but geeze louise is this book corny.First off, the hero(Wrath) and his homeboys' names. Tohrment? Rhage? Zsadist? OMG, those names made me laugh so hard the moment I read them I renamed them instantly: Say hello to Wrede, Terrance, Reggie and Zach. But not even the names can save the specatular cornyness of the Brotherhood. I mean really, "he was rolling with menace", "he was spectacularly handsome but possessed a dark tormenting past he hid behind his womanizing", etc, etc. Not to mention the fact that describing the hero, Wrede, as being 6'6" and massive over and over put me in mind of a gorilla. That's not sexy. The heroine, Beth, is cool and I sort of like the fact that due to her heritage, she's dead sexy but is somewhat desexed. But if I have to read one more male POV extolling how gorgeous she was, I am going to drop-kick someone. Add in the "blackspeak"--the speech patterns really, sounded as though they were coming from black people, so I re-ethnicized them to make it easier on my chortling sensibilities--and the painfully simple prose(think of Keanu Reeves at his worst-acting. Yes. A large chunk of the book reads like that) Dark Lover disappointed me majorly on many levels. I anticipated this novel and series b/c the cover was compelling and PBW gushed over the book a few months ago, but now, I think not. I shall stick with Squires' series as my new pararnormal find du jour.

I also read Emma Holly's Personal Assets(I can't believe that Wal-Mart carries this book). Now, I like Holly. She does deliver on the sweet and hot erotic romance fiction, but wow, PA was a shocker. I was expecting something more, but it read as though Holly wrote the sappiest, most romance-y ending and then went back and threw in a ton of sex(m/f,m/f/f & m/m/f). I mean really, the book ended with everyone at the wedding of Bea and Phillip, smiling and gushing over their good fortune in having found each other--all frickin four of them. I closed the book very confused. What the hell did I just read? Was it erotic romance or was it a plain old sweet Harlequin American Romance? The romance was nonexistent in the fact that the characters hopped into bed with each other(or on the ground, or on a bench,etc) and then rationalized their foibles and reasons for not finding The One in their mind by themselves. Sure getting busy with their hero/ine was a catalyst for some type of change, but everyone got over their issues just fine by themselves afterwards. In fact, I'm a bit muddled on what issues everyone had because one moment their flailing about it to themselves and the next moment they were planning their next tryst. To be honest, I would rather this book had not been a romance because the romance aspect of it felt thrown in and ruined the book for me. The sexual adventures of the characters were interesting enough without the burden of a required HEA(The heroine and her best friend(2nd heroine) had a threesome!! The main hero took it from another man at the same time he was doing the heroine!! What the heck kind of romance HEA can come from those pairings?). So Holly has me on the erotic but not on the romance. She is a great writer and her characters are interesting,but that romance part ruins it. It makes me curious to see what she can do without it as well as find some erotic fiction that's as sweet as a romance novel but without the requirements of a romance novel.

Is it just me?

2005-09-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or does it seem that new vampire romance authors are taking their sub-genre very seriously? I bought J.R. Ward's new one and am waiting for the library to send me a copy of Susan Squires' The Companion, and of course, I am a HUGE fan of L.A. Banks' Vampire Huntress series. They each have their own histories, vocabularies, powers, etc. Not that I'm complaining of course. I had stopped reading paranormal romantic fiction for a while because it either came off as a clone of BtVS, a clone of Anita Blake, or was just plain sickeningly stupid with the whole "you my life-mate, we live HEA" crap. So I am SO glad that authors like Squires, Banks, Ward,Viehl and a few other paranormal romance/romantic authors are taking the sub-genre back, instead of the regular romance issues+paranormal element that a lot of paranormal romances are.

On a regular note, I was sexually harrassed over the phone by a female customer. It gives me the heebie-jeebies even now. I'm more outraged over the fact that the woman has issues than the fact that she invaded my personal space. It's like, having been assaulted by a predator, but more worried over the fact that they'll assault other people. I'm bold, so I hung up after I realized the woman's conversation had turned from a simple inquiry into the types of items we carried and into perversion. A part of me never wants to answer the phone at work again, but I realize that if I allowed the person to make me fearful, they succeeded in assaulting me and making them feel as though they had some sort of power over others. So next time(hopefully there won't be a next time), I'll just tell the woman straight up that she has issues and she'd better keep them to herself if she doesn't want to go to jail.

I'm letting both of my plots brew over in my mind--the erotic historical mystery and the historical fantasy romance--and am not giving into temptation to do what I usually did in the past when I came up with an idea. It's so odd, but researching before I'm ready to put all my thoughts down on paper actually helps me procrastinate and also is a catalyst for helping me to back away from the goal I set out to accomplish. I can't explain it, but having the books there, causes me to have this sense of being overwhelmed, and then it morphs into a strange type of fear before I just stop moving forward altogether. So I'm not going to do what I did in the past. This is a new day, a new story and definitely a new genre. But I'm feeling relieved and blissfully stress-free.

What!!

2005-09-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm getting more and more shocks in concern to this writing thing everyday. I awoke with a flash of inspiration for a...FANTASY NOVEL(set in historic times of course). I had this picture in my mind of this female warrior holding a sword and a crossbow, as well as a dark, shaggy man who was a shape-shifter. The time was vaguely Viking era/Dark Ages, but I was so shocked! I can count on one hand how many fantasy novels I've read(I see vampires and their ilk as paranormal or supernatural fiction) and I've always shuddered at the thought of them because 1) they seemed v. weird 2) their fans were obsessed and weird. But then I recall how weird and obsessed I am over Buffy, so I have no reason to talk. *G* But it's so fricking odd how things are progressing. Here I am, loly-gaggling about, full of assumptions that I am going to write historical romances when my true callings keep lunging out at me from dark corners.

But here I am, visiting this Romantic SF/F website, The Historical Novelist Society, and Mystery Writers of America. It's scary and strange and appallingly peaceful to be doing this, that my old self tries to lurk in the background, wondering when the bad stuff is going to happen to me again. But I shook that specter off, especially when I made the decision to freelance. I had shied away from freelancing a few years ago because I was afraid to do it, assuming that I hadn't the talent or the expertise to do it, or that the chances of me edging out the competition were slim to none. I realized that my constant grumblings about never having any money were my own fault because I was using getting published(in the romance genre) as a sort of salvation, waiting for something spectacular to write itself and sell so that I wouldn't be poor anymore. I was being passive and massively foolish. If I want to make money writing, not just fiction writing, I need to take a stand and write anything I can, when I can. Burying my nose in a book, while is helpful when it comes to learning to write, doesn't actually put the words down on a page, nor does it put money in a bank account.

I think the coolest thing, after being a fiction author, is to be a travel writer. I would LOVE to be able to travel and make money writing about it. But it doesn't drop from the sky when someone has an acute lack of funds and no writing credits to their name. So I am forcing myself to start
small, heck, to at least start, in order to achieve my dreams and goals. I'm only twenty-one, as much as I harp that I am old or cringe when I notice how many years have passed between today and my HS graduation, or have twinges of inadequacy when ignorant people(including relatives) ask me why I'm not going to college, my life has just begun. If I sit back, complaining and scowling because things aren't going the way I want them to go, it's really mostly my fault because I'm doing nothing to move forward, to achieve anything outside of my normal daily(comfortable) patterns. And heck, using the fact that I've never travelled to the places I set my books in is a feeble excuse since I recently read an article in which Diana Gabaldon stated that she had never even been to Scotland when she wrote Outlander. So I'm moving forward, making plans and brewing dreams--achievable dreams that can be accomplished for this day, and are building blocks for accomplishments of the future.

Yum

2005-09-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

I like my new blogger template. I spent about an hour and a half tinkering with the HTML to get it to look how I wanted it and even though it's tedious, I found myself enthused about the task. I haven't tinkered with that intricate of web coding in over a year and I didn't realize how much I missed it. But anyways, the template is how I'm feeling right now: cool, crisp, tarty and refreshing. I do love tarty and citrusy things.

I'm in the middle of reading Diana Gabaldon's The Fiery Cross(I'm so bad, I am waiting for my hold on Drums of Autumn to reach my library but I saw TFC on sale in Wal Mart and if I buy a book, I am so going to read it) and just adore this series. And unlike most readers, Jamie isn't my favorite character. He was when I first read Outlander, but I HEART Fergus and Roger. I love those two male characters to death. Maybe because Jamie, who is the soul of honor, comes across as larger than life, impervious to failure, etc etc through Claire's eyes(aka Gabaldon's) that I long for the gritty "realness" of Fergus and Roger. Not to mention the fact that I find Fergus to be hilarious.

I also am halfway through with Teresa Medeiros' new one, After Midnight. I actually loathed her first two Avon releases, and the only reason why I picked this one up was because the blurb seemed at once funny, gothic and sexy. But really, After Midnight is a chore to read. Barring the fact that Medeiros' books have morphed from the gritty emotional reads of her early career into these...cute,fluffy,sunshine books, AM is reading like a paint by number Regency Historical. Have we the insta-martyr "oh-I'm-so-unattractive-which-is-why-I-am-an-eternal-spinster" heroine? The tortured, always dead-sexy hero with a secret? The built-in sequel bait of siblings? The so-called witty banter? The hero flustering the spinster into revealing her "hidden passions"? The heroine in a foreign place yet still runs around as though the world was made of kittens and butterflies? Check, check and check!!! I don't know whether I have the patience to finish this book, but I will, because I paid for it.

On another good read note, I finally got around to reading Judith Ivory's Sleeping Beauty. Delicious, sexy, emotional and just...tarty. I had avoided reading this book because I was afraid that if I read it, I'd inadvertantly "steal" from it as I was writing. But now, I was ready to read it, free of that fear and the past feelings of inadequcy, because I was content with the knowledge that I no longer had the pressure to live up to my admiration of Ivory/Cuevas. Everytime I picked up a book of hers, I finished it, entertained and full of admiration and wonder, but depressed because I knew I could never do anything half as good as it. But I'm free of that pressure due to my decision to write what I want. And during my brief hiatus' from the meaty Outlander series, I feel Beast tugging at me.

Post One

2005-09-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

I deleted old blogs(with the exception of ONE) and unsubbed from nearly any listserv that I felt weren't right for me at this point in time in order to focus on my current WIP. I can't even say what it's going to be like because it's in the baby stages. I have the workings of the plot, the setting and the beginning sketches of the characters and protagonists. But not 100%. When I first started this whole writing thing, I originally planned on being a romance writer. But over the past three years, the Romance Genre as a whole began to chafe and burn, and I just didn't fit there anymore as a writer, and sometimes, not even as a reader. But of course, the familiar not only breeds contempt, but comfort, and it is, I admit it, comfortable to remain in the safe, familiar confines of the romance genre even though I've outgrown it. It's scary, when every single writer I know online is within the Romance genre and it's comfortable to curl up with a nice romance to read, or write in blogs and listservs about writing romance. Only I would eventually wonder, exasperated "Why is it so easy for [insert name of author] but not for me?".

But inside, I know, I KNOW, that my writing style and voice lies outside of that genre. In fact, it's a hybrid of genres--historical fiction,romance, mystery, thriller and a touch of old style Gothic. And I realized that I don't have the patience at this point in my life,or even the inclination, to be stuck to my computer, writing books because the deadlines for the Romance Genre are so close together and publishers are eager for new authors to put out as many books as they can in order to 1) get your name out there and 2) make more money. I'm lying if I say that I don't envy Elizabeth Kostova her two million dollar advance for The Historian and that I don't do this to make a living. But I don't want to work myself to death when I have interests outside of writing that are just as pressing.

I so sincerely admire everyone in the romance genre who do what they do, but I am on a path of discovery as to who I am, and sticking close to the crowd in an effort to shirk free of the pain of that discovery only causes more pain. I'm going to resist those old habits as well as adjust to Life After Romance(sounds to dramatic does it not?), not only in concern to my reading habits, but romance writer blogs and websites(unless it's Liz Carlyle's website, from whom oddly, I gain inspiration). I am devoting myself to getting right with myself, with the Lord and what I was put on this planet to do. I'll probably post sporadically at best, but I'll do it on a consistent basis. Not because someone tells me to, or because I think I should, or I am attempting to garner a fanbase, but because I can.