Silk & Shadows

Currently working on: Last bits of Christmas prep
Mood: Festive

Last week, my XY who had been gone, out of the country, for two months finally returned home. And there is joy in Whoville!

He was touring Europe — Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and Poland — as Rainstick Cowbell. Just a boy and a guitar, wandering narrow alleys to dive bars, literally singing for his supper. He hates the dry sound of club recordings, but here’s a glimpse of the life of a touring musician:

He got home just in time for the holiday madness. We went and cut our Christmas tree on Friday. And it was actually a sunny day in the Pacific Northwest!

I have almost completed our transition for regular tree lights to the new LED lights, which are super-trippy when I shone them on the walls. (Uhm, yes, there might have been spiced cider spiked with Hot Monkey Pepper Vodka involved.)

Since we don’t have much room in our house, we get the classic table-top Charlie Brown skinny tree. (Yes, the tree is slightly crooked; again, I blame the vodka cider.)

Having my sweetie home, my holiday madness under control, and a pretty tree decorating my picture window is reason enough for joy. What’s yours? Besides vodka cider

Currently working on: Revising
Mood: Hack and slash and burn and pillage

So it’s the week before Valentine’s Day and all the stores are filled with cheap chocolate and expensive flowers, neither of which will last until February 14 if purchased today.

Okay, maybe I’m sounding a little bitter about sweet, sweet love, but that’s because I’m in the midst of revisions. The characters I loved so much in the brainstorming phase, who I struggled and grew with through the hot draft, now inspire my scalding vitriol as I shriek my frustrations at the innocent computer.

In this way, writing is very much like love is very much like butter cookies.

Stay with me here.

Step 1.
Butter cookies come from a cookie press, a glorious device I just discovered (thanks to XY for the wonderful Christmas gift). The disc that exudes butter cookie dough is deceptively pure and simple. It looks like this:

That barely even looks like a heart, does it? See how the first stage of butter cookies is very much like the first stage of love and stories? Pure, simple, easily scrubbed, and nothing at all like you’ll have at the end.

Step 2.

Yeah, Step 2 and it’s starting to get a little messy, in butter cookies, love and the story. You learn stuff you didn’t necessarily want to know: that the loved one snores, the characters snore too, oh, and you forgot to put an egg in the cookie dough mix (which, by the way, in case you were wondering, doesn’t substantially alter the butter cookie recipe; mostly makes it a shortbread cookie; yes, this is personal experience talking).

You can live with Step 2, you think. But no process has just two steps…

Step 3.
The raw dough of your love — and your story and your butter cookies — has to undergo (dum-da-DUUUMMMM!!!) The Trial By Fire.

Warning: Don’t actually put your butter cookies in a wood-fired oven. You will not be happy with the results; no, this is not personal experience talking (for once), it’s common sense. Which admittedly doesn’t make as good a story but makes better butter cookies.

Your love and your story WILL go through an actual Trial By Fire at some point. No, strike that, not at some point; it will happen when you are at your weakest point, when you can’t possibly stand it, when it’s impossible.

And just as butter cookies stay raw dough without the time and heat of the oven, love and the story will stay soft and unformed and strangely tasteless.

Step 4.
Because despite all the heartache and waiting and the occasional scorched fingers, it’s worth it.

When I’m in Step 3, it’s nice to have a reminder of Step 4. Which is why I’m making the butter cookie press — super fast and convenient! unlike love and writing — my reminder. Because Step 4 — the glass of cold milk, The End, the kiss as the curtains drop — does get here eventually.

And now I can share a bit of Step 4 love with you, in this week before Valentine’s Day. No, not butter cookies. They don’t ship well. (And, yes, I ate them all.) But I do have a festively Valentine’s pink galley (a large-size Advanced Reading Copy without final copy edits or the real cover) to give away.

So if you’d like a chance to win a copy of VOWED IN SHADOWS, Book 3 of the Marked Souls, coming out in April, leave a comment about love or writing or butter cookies. On Valentine’s Day, random.org will help me pick a winner from comments left on any post this week.

Good luck in love, in writing, and in butter cookies!

I read novels to escape the grim realities of life, so I don’t generally buy fiction that focuses on difficult topics. Subjects like addiction, abuse, and suicide are challenging to work into a romance.

But some authors manage to pull it off, weaving difficult subjects into their storylines with such finesse that you never get the sense that it’s a lecture or a downer.

As an example, I read a Harlequin SuperRomance recently that did a great job with the topic of cancer: Mary Sullivan’s No Ordinary Cowboy. Her novel won the 2010 RomCon Reader’s Crown award for Best First Book and the 2009 RT Reviewer’s Choice award for Best First Series Romance. It’s hard not to have the bleak topic of cancer take over the romance, but Mary did an excellent job of keeping the book sweet and warm in spite of the darker undercurrent.

I think writing about difficult issues is often best handled by someone who has intimate experience with the subject matter. Or a least done a ton of research. It takes a thorough understanding of what it’s like to live through or with the issue to write about it and do it justice—without trivializing it or overstating it.

I know there are other books out there that have dealt with issues like the loss of a child or PTSD and done an excellent job. Care to share any you’ve read?

Although I did not attend this year’s RWA National conference in Orlando, I’ve attended in 2004, 2005, and 2008. I have met dozens of like-minded writers over the years and going to the conference taught me something very important—to be proud of my genre.

I grew up in a household where my mother had a subscription to Harlequin Presents and my father thought romance novels were a complete waste of my mother’s time. My father supported my writing dreams in many ways, but in the beginning, he thought I was sacrificing my talents to be writing trash. He strongly encouraged me to write other genres, such as mysteries. So, it’s not too surprising that while I continued to read romances because I loved them, I began to hide my shameful secret from others. I would bury my romance behind a more ‘legitimate’ book on the bus, and flush ten shades of scarlet when people accused me of reading bodice rippers and smut.

I loved romances, but I thought I was a troll for reading them.

My first attempt at a novel was a mystery. A very bad mystery. Why was it bad? Because I hadn’t studied the genre. Yes, I read mysteries—heck, I read almost everything except books I find pretentious and boring—but my consumption of romances far out-numbers the mysteries I read. I was proud of having completed a novel, but I knew it wasn’t the book I should have written. After lots of angst and self-reflection, I began a romance. And knew almost immediately that I’d found my niche.

What does all this have to do with the National conference?

I attended my first RWA conference in 2004 and after that, I never felt embarrassed by my genre again. On a bright, sparking day in July, I walked into a bustling Dallas hotel filled with 2000 people all focused on romance publishing. Professionals from all walks of life. Focused. On a multimillion dollar industry. Wow. There were multiple streams of workshops. Luncheons in rooms the size of football fields. A humongous book-signing for charity. The RITAs. The Golden Heart awards. Wow. Sure, it was intimidating for a first-timer, but truly eye-opening as well. You need to see it to appreciate the scale of this conference.

I went home several days later and told my dad I was writing romance novels. When he wrinkled his nose, I explained to him that it was a billion dollar industry and my chances of breaking in were better there than anywhere—because I loved to read romances. He was a smart guy. He never questioned my decision again. In fact, he supported my every effort and shared my successes with anyone who would listen. And the day I got my book contract, he was the proudest papa ever.

Today, if someone asks what I write, I happily launch into a description of my paranormal heroes and how wonderful it is to write the stories I do. No embarrassment here. Just unmitigated pride.

I know it’s not always practical to flaunt your clinch covers. Or your choices. What’s the worst thing anyone has said about your reading habits? Do you have a great comeback to a romance sneer? Willing to share?

I’m cheating a bit. The topic this week is romantic ads, but the video I’ve embedded here isn’t an ad, it’s a short film. It’s 9 minutes long, but well worth the investment of your time. At least, I think so. But then again, I’m a sap.

To me this is one of the wonders of YouTube–talented people post incredible stuff like this for free. I hope the film makers go on to huge commercial success.

And there’s another lovely, romantic short film on YouTube Called Signs. It’s 12 minutes long, but full of magic. If you haven’t already seen it, I recommend it.

Tell me what you think!

I’m sad to say I can’t recall the very first romance I read. I do know it was a Harlequin romance—my mother was a monthly subscriber to the Presents line. I can remember reading dozens of books by Violet Winspear, Penny Jordan, Anne Mather, and Charlotte Lamb. I devoured a ton of delicious stories about wealthy alpha heroes, princes, and sheiks.

The first book I actually remember reading was Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers. Probably not the best book to form the foundation of my love affair with romance novels, but definitely a memorable one.

The book that truly hooked me and made me a lifelong reader of romance was Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Wolf and the Dove. I loved it then, and I love it now. The bastard son of nobleman trying to make good, the feisty heroine standing up for her people, even the hint of something paranormal in the appearance of the wolf. Loved it all. My original copy has long since fallen apart, but I still have a copy on my keeper shelf, and every ten years or so, I read it again. No surprise that my first forays into writing were medieval romances. I heart stories of knights and maidens and castles.

I’ve been a fan of Teresa Medeiros for years—she was my first glom. I read Touch of Enchantment and promptly ran out and bought every book of hers I could find. My next crush was on Karen Marie Moning. Her time travel romances with heroines falling into the lap of handsome highland heroes sent my imagination soaring.

I’m still discovering new authors—some have been around for ages and I’m just cluing in. Some are new debuts. There’s a treasure trove of great authors out there, thank goodness. I’ll never run out of excellent stories to read.

Currently working on: Unearthing the revised Book 3 from the rotting corpse of Book 3 — phoenix, arise!
Mood: Frankenstein-esque

It’s Valentine’s week.  If you haven’t signed up for the Silk And Shadows newsletter (look to the left side of the page) today’s the day.  Our next newsletter goes out soon and there are Valentine’s giveaways to be won.

And speaking of Valentine’s…  Will I be drummed out of the romance lovers’ league if I say aloud that I think Valentine’s Day is a crock?  In college, some women in my dorm donned black armbands on Valentine’s Day, and I wore one in solidarity.  One of my roommates (who, yes, had a boyfriend with whom she had a lovely relationship judging from the late-night noises coming from the bunk across the very tiny room) accused me of being bitter and jealous nerd.  I said, Duh.

But it seems to me that many of the traditions of Valentine’s don’t feel like any romance I’d want to have.  Roses wither in a disturbingly short period of time.  The milk chocolate bon-bons pushed on us are a poor, cheap substitute for the real deal.  At least there’re sparkly diamonds… Except now we’re told diamonds are just the blood-soaked refuse of terrible Third World conflict.

What’s a girl to do? 

Besides read a romance novel, I mean.

 What I learned from romance novels that Valentine’s Day got wrong:

1. Love is not a one-day affair.
Indeed not.  Love is at least a week-long affair with a Sicilian billionaire.  Or maybe an eternity with a vampire prince.  But definitely not a mere 24 hours in February.

2. Love means having to say… lots.
Words are the measure of the man.  Backed up with action, of course.  Lots and lots of hot action.  But I want more words than fit on 5×7 cardstock even if it has a glittered butterfly and embossed heart.  Somewhere between 200-400 pages of words should just about do it.

3. Love is sacrifice.
This one Valentine’s Day got right.  According to the story, Valentine was a saint who martyred himself for lovers.  Romance novels are all about the sacrifice the lovers make to be together.  They give up their loneliness, their distrust, their prejudices, even though sometimes giving up their lives would’ve felt easier.  And at the end, they don’t always get flowers and chocolate and sparkly jewelry, the love is a given.

Do you have a Valentine’s tradition that you adore?  Feel free to create one.  We write our own stories here.

If it weren’t for having a real life mentor, I probably would never have become a writer, at least not one published in romance fiction. All my life I loved to write, from the minute they put a pencil in my hand and taught me how to spell a few words. In first grade I was always the last to hand in the “creative writing” assignments, not because I was slow at it but because I had so much to say. My stories were usually romantic adventures (yeah, even then!) about princesses and knights and magical forests.

But as I grew up, the term “romance novel” took on connotations that steered me clear of the genre, or so I thought, because a lot of what I was reading contained strong romantic themes. They just weren’t officially categorized as romance novels.

In college, too many years ago to count, one of my English professors prophetically asked me if I had ever considered writing romance. I don’t know why she asked, but I suppose she saw something particular in my writing style. At the time I’d only read a couple of romance novels, not very good ones, so I laughed and said, “Why would I write romance? I don’t read that stuff.” Oh dear, how I shudder now at my post-adolescent highbrow academic snobbery. What did I know? Obviously not much. When I graduated that same professor gave me a gift: Roget’s International Thesaurus, 4th Edition. This is one that offers not a few choices for each word, but sometimes hundreds, with nuances upon nuances of meaning so you can select exactly the right sentiment. It’s fabulous. I always say I could never write a book without it, and in fact I haven’t. Dr. Frank, you knew me better than I knew myself, and I have so much to thank you for!

But it was a few years later, when a friend published her first romance novel for Harlequin, that something just clicked with me. I excitedly bought and read the book – my friend was a published author! By the way, it was Date With An Outlaw by Lyn Lockhart, a pseudonym for my friend, Marilyn Jordan, who went on to publish for Dorchester and Kensington.

In reading her book, I instantly came to understand that romance was not defined by those so-so ones I’d read back in the 80s. Romance was so much more. It was mystery and adventure and danger and humor and everything imaginable that can happen in life, with a guaranteed happy ending. Wow! A passion was born. I started writing. And writing and writing. It was a historical, of course, set in the Middle Ages. I had no idea what I was doing and that book probably would have gone nowhere but under the bed, which might have been the end of the story if Marilyn hadn’t dragged me, pretty much kicking and screaming, to her critique group meetings and to the Florida Romance Writers. She literally introduced me to everything I needed to know about the writing industry, encouraged me to attend my first conference, helped me prepare for my first editor appointment, and gave me the kick I needed to prevent me from becoming one of those isolated, closet writers who tremble at the thought of letting anyone see their work. It isn’t overstating it to say her influence was life-changing for me.

Mentors can be accidental, as in the case of my English professor, or intentional, as in the case of my friend. The trick is to always keep an open mind and an open heart and have the courage – even if you’re scared silly – to reach for your dreams. Especially if someone has just shoved you face first into them.

Someone mentioned A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle the other day. I still own a copy of that book and read it again when I’d heard that Madeleine L’Engle passed away. Of all the books from my childhood, that one really stands out. Maybe it’s because the heroine, Meg, wasn’t a princess, or popular or especially pretty or endowed with magical powers. Being a kid who hadn’t quite grown into herself, she was awkward. Her hair never did what she wanted. She wore glasses (considered cool now but not then!). She often didn’t like herself and she never could quite control her temper, especially when the other kids at school poked fun at her family situation (father missing) or her “dumb baby brother.” Meg was a regular girl, a girl like me, who struggled with life and fitting in and worrying if she would ever just be “good enough” in the eyes of others.

In a sci-fi adventure story driven by the values of honor, courage, loyalty, personal freedom, the importance of family, etc., we watch Meg overcome one insecurity after another, until she comes to see her own worth. In learning to believe in herself, Meg learns she has the power to save the people she loves even when all seems lost.

For a shy ten-year-old who didn’t think she was particularly remarkable either, that was a powerful message

Another book I loved was THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND by Elizabeth George Speare. It was what you could call my first historical romance and the beginning of a lifelong obsession. OK, the romance was kind of secondary to Kit’s trials and tribulations as she tries to fit in with her Puritan relatives in cold, damp, gray Connecticut (coming from Barbados, poor thing!), but Nat is there for her when she most needs him and makes her dreams come true at the end, albeit they were dreams she never knew she had.

WITCH is a fish out of water story, and I love experiencing the journey of someone who is struggling to adapt to new situations without losing their own sense of who they are. Kit is a fighter and a courageous girl, which is especially evident when she befriends a woman reputed to be a witch. Not cool in a Puritan environment! I’ll admit that in the beginning she is a bit of a spoiled rich girl, but little by little she gets over her silver spoon expectations, comes to terms with the drastic changes in her life, learns to value her often dour relatives and emerges a strong, positive, independent-minded young woman.

I think it’s so important for young girls to read stories that feature strong, intelligent young heroines with the power to take their world by the reins. My friend Traci Hall’s YA Wiccan series, about a spirited, psychic teenage girl named Rhiannon, certainly fits that category. Can anyone suggest others that are being written today?

If I didn’t believe in HEA, I couldn’t be a romance writer. It’s as simple as that. I’ve heard people say that fiction writers “tell lies for a living.” Wrong! If an author is telling lies, i.e., writing things she doesn’t believe herself, her readers will know – and stop reading. A writer has to tell the whole, honest truth, no matter how hard or how painful.

And sometimes getting those words on the page can be painful. It’s hard work and labor intensive, but we do it because we’re compelled to, because we love it.

A relationship is a lot like writing a book. In the beginning, you’re filled with energy and enthusiasm. You can’t wait to stop whatever else you’re doing and run to that keyboard. The words flow from your fingertips. The chemistry between the characters sizzles, their dialogue sparkles. It’s all wonderfully satisfying. Exhilarating. Like the adrenaline rush of new love.

Ah, but what about that saggy middle, or hitting a snag you can’t write your way out of because the plot just isn’t working? You might find that your characters stop talking, and worse, they suddenly don’t even want to have sex anymore. Yikes! What does this mean?

It means the honeymoon is over. It means you have to stop, analyze what’s gone so terribly wrong and rework, re plot, rebuild. Some days, you just want to throw up your hands and quit. “It’s too hard!” you lament. “Can’t I just start over?”

But then you wonder, how committed am I to this story? How much do I love these characters? How much a part of me are they? Depending on the answers, you’ll either toss the manuscript into the circular file, or roll up your sleeves, sit your butt back in the chair, and give everything you’re worth – your heart and soul – to make it work. Because you are committed. You do love this story and you cannot let go of these characters.

That’s how we as writers progress from opening hook to HEA. And in life, that’s how people progress from that first “I love you” to their own particular HEA, whatever that may be. It’s not easy, it’s not always pretty, and some days you want to throw up your hands and scream, I quit! That’s when you have to take a breath and ask yourself the above questions (insert “relationship” in place of “story” and “spouse/significant other” in place of “character”). So yes, I believe in HEA. Oh, not the magical, “bells are ringing and birds are singing” version – well, sometimes – but mostly the “we’re in this together and are committed to making it work because damn it all, we really do love each other” version.

What do you think? Is love worth working for – fighting for? Or do you believe that when the happy bells stop ringing, it’s a sign that it’s time to move on?