I did it! Feeling good about this one. Now for the editing...

NaNoWriMo

It's that time of year again! I completed NaNoWriMo in 2007 and that book won a few contests but was never published. I'm back again and baby this one's the one. The one that will get me a book deal. Hooray for 30 days of literary abandon. At the end I'm going to have:

a) a Golden Heart entry and
b) a saleable manuscript

Dream a little dream but make it big!

I dreamt of joining the Foreign Service and here I am in Bangkok. We are in control of our destinies. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't applied, taken the test, passed the interview. I'll never publish a book until I finish one, submit it to agents, let my voice be heard.

Variation on a Theme by Rilke

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

- Denise Levertov

Sassy!

The lovely and talented Delilah Marvelle just won a prize for being sassy at the Romantic Times Faery Costume Ball. Isn't that just so perfect? She is sassy and so are her books. I cannot wait for her Scandal series to come out from HQN in January-March, 2011!

I'll post pictures of sassy Delilah in her gorgeous costume soon. Forgot my upload cord.

Dear Sir or Madam, Will You Read My Book?

When I arrived at the Romantic Times convention this morning the Beatles' Paperback Writer was playing over the speakers in the Hyatt Regency lobby. This song is such a fixture on oldies radio that it's been relegated to the Muzak section of my brain where it sloshes around with Circle Game and The Sound of Silence ensuring that I never really hear the lyrics. But it was such an appropriate song for the occasion. Thank you, Hyatt Regency, for unconsciously serenading the large trampling herd of aspiring paperback writers here to graze on the hope that we will meet the agent of our dreams and be rescued from the slaughterhouse of unpublished obscurity.


Paperback writer

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
Based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

It's the dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand.
His son is working for the Daily Mail,
It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer

It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make a million for you overnight.
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer

Ladies, tonight we are going to talk about the biggest baddest alpha male in all of historical romancedom. Yes I'm talking about Lord Beelzebub himself, the Bane and Blight of the Ballisters, that bad ass Victorian scoundrel Sebastian Leslie Guy de Ath Ballister, Earl of Blackmoor, Viscount Launcells, Baron Ballister and Luancells, and fourth Marquiss of Dain (um, yeah, those are all his titles).

When our intrepid heroine first meets Lord Dain she describes him thus:

Dain was heavy artillery, she thought...Coal black hair and bold, black eyes and a great, conquering Caesar of a nose and a sullen sensuality of a mouth--the face alone entitled him to direct lineage with Lucifer...As to the body...She had half expected a hulking gorilla. She had not been prepared for a stallion: big and splendidly proportioned--and powerfully muscled, if what his snug trousers outlined was any indication.

Oh my! *Lenora fans her rosy cheeks.*

The man on the cover looks nothing like Dain. For one thing he's way more 1980's than 1880's with that feathered hair and those high waisted pants. Come to think of it he looks remarkably like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.

Here's my Dain recipe:

Two parts Adrien Brody (that nose! those brooding eyes!)

One part Clive Owen (that sensual mouth! the manly swagger!)

And a dash (just a dash mind you!) of Hugh Jackman (um, pecs, hello!)

OK that's all the alpha male I'm dishing up this evening.

Have you read Lord of Scoundrels? If you haven't get thee to a bookstore unholy wench!

Lenore/Lenora

Lenore

Lenora

LENORE

LENORA

Congrats to Tessa Dare and Courtney Milan!

Courtney Milan's "This Wicked Gift" and Tessa Dare's Surrender of a Siren are finalists in the Romance Writers of America's RITA® contest! See all the finalists here.