Silk & Shadows

Currently working on: Book 4 — Argh, writing faster!
Mood: Speedy

One of the best/worst parts of the Romance Writers of American annual conference is all the books.  Look, you know how it is.  There’s a book.  It needs a home.  I have a bookshelf.  What else was I supposed to do?

So I came home with a lotta books.  Have I read them all?  Not quite yet.  But I’m working on it.  And much like a nutty squirrel, I feel warm and fuzzy knowing I have a winter’s stash of reading material. 

Not that I’ll stop getting new books, of course.  You understand.

All this book reading requires a technique.  It’s not enough to just stuff my cheeks with them, bury them, and then forget where I put them.  There’s good stuff inside, after all.

So here’s  how I conquer my TBR pile:

1. Amass the books in one place.
XY doesn’t understand why I have to have ALL my books out.  Well, it’s because if I don’t see them all, I don’t know how far I have to go.  Plus, looking at them makes me happy.

2. Read the opening pages of a bunch of them.
I usually grab a handful — four to six titles — and read the first chapter or so, usually while I’m sitting on the floor in front of my bookshelf.

3. Choose a winner. Or two.
Inevitably, one or two titles grab my interest at the moment.  At another moment, maybe one of other books would have appealed more.  It’s fine; they’ll wait for me.

4. Settle on the couch until spring.
Oh I wish!  But I do spend a lot of time reading.  It’s a hazard of the writer’s job.  If only I got hazard pay!

How do you choose from your TBR pile?  Is it random?  Does something spark your interest and make you reach out? Or are you one of those weird people who only buys one book at a time?

Leave a comment any time this week and you’ll have a chance to win one of the titles in the pile above.

I suppose that’s another method for whittling down my TBR pile…
5. Give books away to friends.
Hey, not only does that free up space on my shelves for the next book (or two) I can tell myself I’m helping an author spread the words.

Currently working on: Book 4 of the Marked Souls
Mood: Knucking down

First our winner from last weeks drawing of Jessica Andersen’s signed DEMONKEEPERS and an ARC of BLOOD SPELLS.  Thanks to everybody who commented, and keep an eye out.  We have lots of signed copies from the RWA conference.  Meanwhile, Random.org has selected….

 Paula R.

Congrats, Paula!  Email me at jessa at jessaslade dot com with your snail mail addy and we’ll get those books to the PO.

So the reason we have all these signed books is the annual Romance Writers of America national conference which was held at the end of July.  The huge annual meeting brings together more than 2000 of RWA’s 10,000+ members.  It’s like the best business sleepover party you’ve ever attended.  What?  You’ve never attended a business sleepover?  I’m sorry.  Romance writing rocks!

One of the reasons I love romance is that it’s primarily a women’s genre — written by women, for women.  Sure, there are men who read and write romance, but they are –the self-confident souls – few and far between.  But even the rare men at RWA (who sigh with long-suffering annoyance when the hotels turn most of the restrooms into WOMENs rooms) would, I think, agree that one of the best parts of RWA is the way the best traditional aspects of womanhood are on display to brilliant effect.

1. Nurturing
RWA’s mission statement talks about networking and advocacy and it’s so true.  Without RWA, I wouldn’t be published.  I learned the ropes, the rules and the Sekrit Handshake from these ladies, and they shared with generosity and enthusiasm.

2. Talking
Sure, it’s a sterotype that women love to talk. But boy, women like to talk. The chatting at a RWA conference rivals sea-going mammals for pitch and frequency.  I think that’s why we were at the Dolphin Hotel in Orlando. And in all that talking, you can find the answer to any question you ever had about writing. 

3. Shoes
I saw the cutest shoes — from flipflops to f-me heels — all during the conference.  Next year’s conference in New York will probably bring out the really big guns with the really high heels.  I had cute footwear too, but I can’t find any pictures to prove it.

Since this week here at Silk And Shadows, we’re talking about what we’ve learned from RWA and similar conferences, I also wanted to issue a warning as well.  I started writing in a more innocent time and now I think belonging to reputable organizations like RWA — or groups involved in whatever your passion is – is more important than ever.  With the expansion of the World Wide Web, there is more misinformation and more scammers who have ready access to eager writers, and it is terrifyingly easy for newcomers to be taken.

I have an acquaintance who came to me for writing advice, failed to follow up with any of the websites I gave her, and invested time and money in a vanity “publisher” who made her sign a contract that doesn’t guarantee any tangible results — like, oh say, a freakin’ BOOK.  Luckily, she finally did check the Preditors & Editors link I gave her and found that her “publisher” was listed as Highly Not Recommended (in orange, no less).  She feels embarrassed and discouraged, and they are already sending her vaguely threatening emails demanding more money.

Good professional organizations teach you and help you explore options to reach your goals. Great organizations give you the strength to hold out until you can make your dreams come true.  For me, RWA has been great.

If you belong to a great group — quilters, bakers, candlestick makers – give ‘em a shout-out here. Maybe someone else will see the link and find a supportive outlet for their passion. 

I’ll kick it off by suggsting the Yahoo Group for fans of the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan for anyone with a dog with “issues.”  For the first six months of her life, my dog thought her name was “Don’t Bite.”  She was a terrible puppy.  I found this group and within another six months, she graduated to “Monster Girl” but said fondly.  Hey, that’s improvement.

Currently working on: Revising back cover copy for Book 3
Mood: Tweaky

First off, thanks to everybody who commented last week for a chance to win the signed copy of Nalini Singh’s ANGEL’S BLOOD, that I picked up at RomCon.  With the help of Random.org, we have a winner:

JenM, who hiked to Machu Picchu, congrats!

And I finally unpacked from RomCon and found an extra copy (unsigned, I’m sorry) of Jeaniene Frost’s DESTINED FOR AN EARLY GRAVE, which goes to:

cories, who — very sensibly, I think — would rather attend romance cons than work ones

Email me at jessa at jessaslade dot com with your snail mail addy and I’ll make a PO run.

Onto our topic of the week, which is “The TV show I miss the most.”  I didn’t even have to contemplate for a microsecond.  Even my XY knew what I was going to write about.

Joss Whedon’s cowboy space opera Firefly played for one gorram season in 2002 before being brutally and summarily cancelled by the evil Fox network, may their bean counters burn in a special level of hell reserved for People Who Don’t Get It.  The world lived on through graphic novels to a 2005 wrap-up movie, Serenity, and occasionally, wistful rumors surface of another movie.  (A photo tweeted earlier this month of some of the main actors with the sly caption “Together. Again.” was enough to get geekdom panty-wadded for several long minutes.)

The storyworld (or ‘verse, short for universe) inspired a fanatic group of followers, the Browncoats (a reference to the rebellious frontiersmen who fought for their freedom against smothering Fox executives… I mean, against a smothering central government).  The Browncoats continue to stage charity viewings of Firefly, Serenity and other ’verse ephemera, including a fan-filmed movie, Browncoats: Redemption, that has been screened for select audiences but is not yet in wide release.

Why I loved Firefly

I love science fiction.  I love anti-heroes.  I love Joss Whedon.  It’s like Firefly was always aimed straight at me. 

Anything with spaceships gets my attention — even the old black and white movies where two pie tins squashed together served as the spaceship.  And the little Firefly-class ship, Serenity, was as adorable as two pie tins, with her lit-up butt and hard-loved interior.

But it wasn’t the hardware that made this show.  It was the crew.  From the first episode (aired out of order by idiots), the crew revealed themselves in all their dysfunctional and yet highly effective glory.  From the wounded soul of their fearless leader, Captain Malcolm Reynolds to the shattered mind of their mysterious and dangerous passenger, River Tam, their interactions were endlessly (and by endlessly, I mean ended after one season, thank you, Fox) fascinating, entertaining, emotional and true.

And damned funny.  Of course Whedon usually inspires clever, but never better than Firefly.  As a writer, I drooled over those lines.  Oh, I’m sure they were written and revised for best effect, but they were always delivered with such beautiful immediacy that I couldn’t help but despair of ever writing as well.  And while I despaired, I laughed, I cried, I bought DVDs. 

I could requote all the wonderful lines here, but fans have read them all before and non-watchers (it’s YOUR fault Firefly died and I will never forgive you!) would just scratch their heads, but I have to give just one back’n'forth between the captain and his second, Zoe, as they come — once again — to save the day (after having nearly lost the day, of course): 

Mal: “Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. Whaddya suppose that makes us?”

Zoe: “Big damn heroes, sir.”

Mal: “Ain’t we just!”

You were, Mal.  To me, you were.

Are you a Firefly fan?  Can you recommend another other good cowboy space operas (or anything remotely similar) in TV, movies or books?

Currently working on: Freedom from cocoa tyranny
Mood: Libre!

So I’m giving up chocolate for Lent.  As I’ve mentioned on this blog once or twice before, I’m addicted to buckets of double chocolate cookie dough. 

Eight pounds of cookie dough every month was starting to seem a little… excessive, which is not to say OBSESSIVE.  And, really, what better time of year to give up chocolate than the Easter season?

I mean, I have a perfectly fine imagination on my own.  It’s not like romance writers NEED chocolate to be inspired.

There are lots of ways to say “I love you” that don’t include theobromine.

Sure, Godiva has furnite made of chocolate.  But I didn’t make that bed, so I won’t lie in it.  Even if it would be awfully convenient from a snacking standpoint.

Think of all the time I’ll save not mixing up incredibly difficult desserts that are huge hits at picnics like the following:

• Cheap box of brownie mix (recommend Duncan Hines family size prepared to “fudgy” directions in 13×9 pan)
• Minty middle: Beat together 3 Tbl soft butter, 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp pure mint extract, 2 Tbl milk
• Chocolate top: 2 Tbl butter & 3/4 cup decent chocolate (recommend Trader Joe’s 1 pound bittersweet block — did I mention that buying chocolate by the pound is probably an indication of a problem?)

Nope, instead, I can sleep well knowing I’ve beaten my chocolate addiction.  Maybe it’ll be a bed of chocolate.  Yum….

Currently working on: Racing deadlines
(Have you looked at a calendar lately?!)
Mood: Arriba, arriba!

Congratulations to fellow Silk And Shadows author Sharon Ashwood on the release of SCORCHED tomorrow!  Happy almost-Release Day, Sharon!

The writing life might be mostly (okay, by percentages, pretty much only) hours at a computer – just writer and words and weird, echoy voices in your head — but there are a few highlights, and the release of a new book is definitely one of them.  It’s been two whole months since my first book came out, and I’m still having tons of fun with it.

For example, I just attended my first book club meeting with the Cheeky Pages Romance Book Club at Powells Books in Beaverton.  Kind of scary, since they were readers who’d actually read SEDUCED BY SHADOWS.  To ward off any potential scariness in the form of literary criticism, I bribed them with brought two cakes from His Bakery, arguably (and yes, I’m happy to argue this point with you if it means a taste-testing tour) one of the best bakeries in Portland.

(Pictured from left: Raspberry Revel in White and Chocolate Indulgence — Comfortably serves 18 romance-reading ladies with enough left over for XY and breakfast. I can also vouch for their chocolate chip cookies and breads.  Yum.)

Earlier this month, I also went to Chicago for a stock book signing tour.  Stock signing is a guerrilla book tour where the author hits as many bookstores as she can, signing the books in stock (hence “stock signing”) and putting a cute “Signed by author” sticker on the front.  Every copy of SEDUCED BY SHADOWS I could find in every Borders and Barnes & Noble and Anderson’s in the Chicagoland area now has my awkward scrawl plus a bookmark plus a custom @1 temporary tattoo (inside joke from the story). 

(Pictured: Jessa Slade, somewhat chilly author who needs another haircut, on the new bridge to the Art Institute of Chicago Modern Wing (don’t get me started on the “string of lightbulbs” installation) with Millenium Park in the background.)

If you happen to live in Chicago and manage to find a book that I didn’t tag, I’m sorry.  I did a terrible job Googlemapping the tour — hey, it was my first! — and might have missed a store or two.  Especially if it was located next to a creepy alley or other potential demon fighting location, since I took a bunch of notes while I was there and might have gotten distracted.  Just email me jessa@jessaslade.com and I’ll mail you the bookmark and tattoo plus a signed bookplate.

The best part of finally having a book out is forcing my entire family to read it.

(Pictured above: Entire family reading SEDUCED BY SHADOWS — with certain pages excised for a certain person under 4′ tall.  Note the crazy pyramid of books on the tabletop behind us.)

Favorite stories from my first release — so far:

• A co-worker of my dad’s sent him home with her copy for me to sign.  She attempted to give him the book in her office and he explained how he really, really wasn’t going to walk across the truckyard with Archer’s bare chest shining in the sun.  So the book came to me in plain, brown paper wrapping.  Archer as contraband!
• Walking into a random Chicago bookstore to sign stock, finding a random salesperson to let her know I wasn’t defacing their property — honestly – and her saying, “Jessa Slade?  I know you!”  Really?!
• My grandmother went to dinner at the retirement center the other night to find her fellow nonagenarians gleefully discussing “Page 100.”  Yes, my work here is done.

Have you ever attended a book signing or other author event?  What was your favorite part?  If — purely hypothetically — an author was going to bribe you with bring a cake, what flavor would you prefer and how many slices would ensure a six-star Amazon review?

Currently working on: Book 3 of The Marked Souls
Mood: Eager

I’m not sure my household can top last Halloweens high point.  We always decorate the front porch for trick-or-treaters.  I put out luminaria along the driveway plus a couple hollowed gourds or a pumpkin on the porch railing.  We have a strobe light kicking, and a nice severed arm pointing to the door bell.

We also have a 3-foot plaster voodoo mask that I don for answering the door, and the chorus girl scream from “The Phantom of the Opera” soundtrack is cued up on the stereo with my XY’s finger on the play button.

Last year, about midway through the evening, the bell rang, I picked up the mask and opened the door, XY hit play… and the seven-year-old boy on the porch dropped his plastic pumpkin full of candy and ran as if all the demons of hell were after him — and could be bought off by a fairly impressive haul of Hershey’s products.

Well, I chased him down to return his candy (probably could have caught him quicker if I’d taken off the mask) and gave him a big double handful of Twix, Milky Ways, Pixie Stix, Smarties, and Reese’s PB cups (no off-brand candy bars from me) to make up for my burst of cruel delighted laughter.

In our defense, I think we taught him a valuable lesson about thinking even free candy comes without potential risk.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because, honestly, it’s low prep and high payout.  I can recycle a costume from a previous year, and nobody expects a freakin’ turkey with multiple side dishes and baked goods, yet I get a monster truckload of candy at the end of the night.  (Admittedly, this is because I over-purchase for the children who for some reason don’t come to our house anymore.)

But pragmatic reasons aside, I love Halloween because of the costumes.  I wish more days of the year involved pretending to be something we’re not — and somehow, through that disguise, revealing something deeper about ourselves. 

(I always wondered what it revealed about the studly jocks in high school that they seemed to gravitate to costumes involving pantyhose and high heels.)

I’ve been a princess, an alien, an overdosed starlet, a peacock, the planet Saturn, the last-minute ghost (who hasn’t?).  So often, it seems like we’re hiding who we are anyway.  At the day job, in front of the in-laws, around the neighbors.  Wouldn’t it just be more fun if we were always wearing costumes?

My boss:  Jessa, can I see you in my office?
Me:  Argh, sorry, matey.  A pirate can’t be constrained by four walls.  I’m off to plunder the treasures in the office supply room!

With enough candy bars, we’d all have the high fructose courage to be ourselves — or anyway, be the ourselves we were meant to be.

If you were picking a costume to reveal the real you, who would you be?

I’m a DVD-aholic. My life just doesn’t allow me to faithfully watch a TV show once per week at a certain hour. Ok, maybe one (Defying Gravity). But more than that? Nope. As a result, I was very late to the Buffy party. So late in fact that the show had been canceled before I saw my first episode—I picked up the Season 1 DVDs in a bargain bin at a local electronics store.

My daughter and I glommed the first season in a couple of days, and promptly ran out and bought Seasons 2 & 3. There’s nothing like watching back to back episodes in order, on your own sofa, with lots of popcorn. As went Buffy, so went Angel—we watched ‘em all in rapid fashion. Because I was late adopting Buffy, it’s hard for me to know whether TV influenced the popularity of vampire novels, or whether the emergence of vamp books inspired Joss Whedon. (Though, my bet would be on the former).

Other shows I’ve DVD’d: LOST…I got bored after Season 3. Grey’s Anatomy…I’m falling behind, so I’d say my interest is dwindling. Battlestar Galactica (the re-imagined series)…I loved it, but didn’t enjoy the ending.

My current faves are Dexter and True Blood. Because I don’t get the cable package that includes HBO and Showtime, I have no choice but to impatiently await the DVD releases. But I’m loving both right now. Is my addiction influenced by the knowledge that both are based on popular book series? Not really; I’ve never read either series. But it does make me more interested in reading the books—because I’m one of those people who believes the book is almost always better than the ‘movie’. Judging by the current reign on Sookie books on the bestseller lists, I’d venture a guess that I’m not the only one who feels that way.

I think TV has influenced popular fiction—and vice versa—but not always in terms of storyline. Even before the internet, TV began to increase our need for gripping conflict and quick resolution. Some TV shows are only half and hour, and others, while technically an hour long, are chewed up by twenty minutes of commercials. We’ve grown accustomed to having conflict thrown at us from the opening line, reversals and reveals coming fast and furious, and endings delivered with drama and satisfaction—all in the space of an hour. Genre fiction, in order to compete, has had to do the same. Readers no longer have the patience to wait for the story to gently roll out.

It’s too simple to blame TV completely for this trend, but I think it had a profound influence. What do you think?

Currently working on: Arm wrestling Book 3
Mood: Sore but unbowed

Powerful women.  Hot men.  Zinging dialogue.  Fate of the world and the human heart at stake.  If you’ve enjoyed those elements in a paranormal romance, I believe you can blame Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a good chunk of it.  Oh sure, brooding bad boys existed before Spike and definitely high school was hell all along, but when it came to mixing big paranormal love with big paranormal problems, Buffy was in a class by herself.

In previous posts, I’ve betrayed my adoration — which is not to say weird stalkeryness — for Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy and the equally wonderful spin-off Angel and the even more wonderful Firefly plus the wacky Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog.  So why keep reliving the glory days?  Because I don’t think they’ve been done better since.

Lost lost me.  Heroes had a few too many to keep track of.  Smallville felt that way to me.  Supernatural… okay, that one has the hot guys.  Still, the lack of a compelling-t0-me romance in most of today’s paranormal themed television shows leaves me cold.  I’m at a disadvantage because I don’t have cable; maybe True Blood would have been ”my show”?

So many of the things I love about a paranormal story can be done so well on screen:  Claustrophic close-ups to heighten the tension of what’s sneaking up behind; creepy fog-filled settings with obligatory search-light backlighting; eerie music to heighten the tension of what’s sneaking up behind; high action quick-cut edits to make you feel like you’re really there; terrific gore-ific special effects to release the tension of what was sneaking up behind.

And yet portraying that compelling-t0-me love story is apparently really hard.  Maybe because the course of many months — years, if the show is lucky and good — is a tough timeframe.  A two-hour movie can get away with a kiss, some witty banter, and a soft-focus love scene.  But a television show has the opportunity to build a romance from first glance to true love with all the stages in between.  And maybe that’s not easy at all.

So maybe that’s why I read romance novels while my 11-year-old TV sits in the basement with dust on the screen and the picture slowly blowing out into strange flares of red and blue.

But could be I’m missing something.  I’m watching Whedon’s newest show Dollhouse in its second season.  No love story, except my love for Whedon himself.  So perhaps I have room for another show, one with a romance I can sink my teeth into, although I don’t demand vampires necessarily.  Enlighten me, those of you with a working television set — Any worthy successors to Buffy?

Currently working on: Book 3!
Mood: Time traveling ahead

Maybe it’s because I’m a Type A personality, from a Puritan work ethic country, raised Catholic, who writes about temptation and damnation, but the concept of guilty pleasures intrigues me.  Pleasure: Something that feels good.  Guilty pleasure: Feeling bad about something that feels good.  How we humans love to complicate even simple things!

When I told my XY that the topic this week is guilty pleasures, he immediately said, “You’re going to write about your bucket o’ cookie dough again?”  And I said, “No, silly.  I don’t feel guilty about that.”

Guilty pleasures feature importantly in romance fiction.  Powerful guilt about pleasure creates sexily somber, asthete heroes who desperately need their heroines to bring light and laughter back to their lives.  No guilt about anything leads to delicious villainy.  (Not that I think my guilt-free cookie dough consumption will lead inevitably to world domination, although it is delicious.)  While the guilt might keep hero and heroine apart for awhile, the irresistible pleasure always brings them together by The End.  Besides, everyone knows that the naughty thrill is part of what makes a guilty pleasure so pleasurable!

I used to have lots of guilty pleasures: Wasting a whole day curled up on the couch with a book; surfing the net for hours on end; reading trashy magazines with more ads than articles; watching trashy TV.

I say “used to” not because I don’t do those things anymore, but because I don’t feel guilty about it anymore.  Not only do I use guilty pleasure in my writing, I use my writing to excuse my guilty pleasures.  My secret to guilt-free pleasures — Word choice.  Watch how a few deft turns of phrase turn guilt into work even a Purolic (that’s a melding of Puritan and Catholic) can endorse:

• Wasting a whole day curled up on the couch with a book = Market research.
• Surfing the net for hours on end = Book research.  Oh, I’m on Facebook?  That = Networking.
• Reading trashy magazines with more ads than articles = Finger on pulse of popular culture.
• Watching trashy TV = Finger on pulse of popular culture (and finding it deader than vampires).

Hey, I’m a writer after all; word choice is what we do.  And think about how many women admit that they consider reading romance one of their guilty pleasures; if anyone should advocate for turning guilty pleasure into open, honest, no-holds-barred, in-your-face, and-I’ll-take-two-of-him pleasure, shouldn’t it be a romance writer?

Do you have any good euphemisms for your guilty pleasures?  If you need help coming up with one, confess and we’ll brainstorm something for you.

When it comes to snacking while I’m writing, I take my guidance from the food pyramid. It’s simple to follow and I think it’s important to put all the right nutrients into your body to spur the creative process. I tried to find a picture of the food pyramid I use on the internet, but strangely I couldn’t find one. So, I took the liberty of drawing one.

The pyramid shape is an indication of the quantity of each major food group you should ingest. Although my pyramid doesn’t have a dairy section, you’ll note that there is milk in both the chocolate food group, and in my case, in the coffee food group. Not everyone puts milk in their coffee, however, and those that prefer black should up their intake of choco-heaven to make up for the lost dairy.

Tea or cola can be substituted for coffee. Although not specifically addressed in the pyramid, it’s recommended that you switch from caffeinated to decaf after two cups. Unless you’re on deadline. In that case, you may also support your coffee food group with shots of Red Bull.

The necessity of including choco-heaven in your diet is tri-fold. At different times it can provide soothing calm, inspiration, and emotional connection. No dedicated snacker should skip this vital section of the pyramid. Unless you’re allergic. Then all we can say is “Long live the carob bean”.

Popcorn provides all the dietary fiber you could ask for. The only disadvantage of the popcorn food group is the smears it can leave on your keyboard. On the other hand, butter is easier to clean than chocolate, which is why we recommend eating the chocolate straight from the wrapper.

I know what you’re going to say—there doesn’t appear to be any protein in this food program. That’s actually not true. This food pyramid recommends putting large quantities of cheddar powder on the popcorn to accommodate the full range of nutritional requirements.

It also recommends including exercise in your snacking life—stretches while seated and regular marches to the fridge, coffee pot and ladies room. If you’re so inclined, putting a load of laundry in the machine while you’re up will give an extra workout to those biceps.

Happy snacking!