I've been sucked into a whirlwind of work projects, grad school papers, and romance contest entries. I'm flailing wildly until further notice.

The Spymaster Meets Tony Starlight

I took the fab-abbed hunk to Tony Starlight's Supperclub last night where he enjoyed hobnobbing with Portland's glitterati at Miss DA's birthday party.

Who knew the spymaster was such a party animal?


The other guys were a bit intimidated at first.


Especially when he got friendly with the birthday girl.


But after the Professor expounded upon his scholarly virtues...


...everyone wanted a taste.


I took him for a spin...

...but, alas, he preferred the mannequin.


He had a three-way with Tom Jones.


And posed for a shot with Neil Diamond.


Finally, he found his niche.

Where in the World is The Spymaster's Lady?

The smart bitches alerted me to Claire Gregory's fun contest. Take your spymaster and his titillating treasure trail to an interesting location and provide photographic evidence for the chance to win a signed copy of TSML (Joanna Bourne judges the entries!).

It's really too bad I didn't read about this a day earlier because last night I went to a Vagabond Opera show (they are so amazing--that's them in the pic above) and there was a kissing booth where I could have paid a hottie in a schoolgirl outfit to smooch the spymaster. What an opportunity lost. That will teach me not to skip a day at SBTB.

I'm sure I'll think of something tomorrow. Look for a pic soon.

I Spy a Masterpiece

Buy this book!



I missed my bus stop by about a mile today because I was so engrossed in Annique and Robert's story. I'm sure you've read it already, but if you haven't you should. Thank you, Meljean, for pulling my head out of the sand.

My only warning is that this book could prove hazardous to your ego. Bourne is just too damn talented.

New Friends

The conference was fabulous. If any of you get a chance to take a workshop from Debra Dixon you should. She is one of the best speakers I've ever seen. She was witty, fiercely intelligent, passionate about writing, and able to give concrete advice in a way that made sense and motivated me to run home and fix the mistakes in my WIP. I can't say enough good things about her.

I got to meet three of the amazingly talented and sweet Manuscript Mavens. Their storyboarding workshop was very helpful and well-presented and they looked fetching in their matching pink and white t-shirts.

I also met Delilah Marvelle whose upcoming School of Gallantry series for Kensington sounds scintillating and delicious. Check her out!

The best part about conferences is meeting so many other writers whose tales of perseverance and triumph inspire you to keep going. It's not going to be easy. But I'll never get published if I don't polish this manuscript and send it out. It's as simple as that.

I registered for the San Francisco National RWA conference today. Are you going?

Hanging With the Mavens.

I get to hang with the Manuscript Mavens this weekend at the Rose City Romance Writer's retreat/workshop held at the swanky Hotel Lucia. I can't wait to attend the Maven Storyboarding 602 Workshop to get some expert advice. My first attempt at storyboarding didn't turn out so well since I changed my plot to the point where the board didn't make sense and I had to take all the post-it notes off.

It will be so fun to finally meet some of my Avon FanLit friends in person! But San Francisco will be the real party. I'm counting the days...

On fire!

We interrupt this romance blog to bring you a special report about some very hot guys who are burning up the (stat) sheets right now...

While working on my romance WIP tonight, I tuned in to NBA radio to listen to the Portland Trail Blazers incinerate the Golden State Warriors. I've been a Blazers fan since I moved to Portland in 2001. I'm so proud of them right now. They are the youngest team in the NBA but they are playing with poise and passion, with Brandon Roy (picture above--definite romance hero material, n'est-ce pas?) leading the way. They've won 17 of their last 18 games, all without their number one draft pick (Greg Oden) who is out for the season with an injury.

I don't play any sports (unless you count vintage clothes shopping as one). My BF isn't a sports fan. All my friends think it's really weird when I rattle off Blazers stats. What can I say? I love some good ball handling (hee hee).

How about you? Do you take time out from crafting brilliant dialogue to cheer on a local team?

Sweets

My boyfriend is in the kitchen making truffles. The dark chocolate ones are: cardamom, lavender, St. Valentine's (floral Russian tea), and Grand Marnier. The milk chocolate are peppermint and cinnamon. This year, for the first time, he's making a white chocolate flavored with Matcha (Japanese green tea). I've been blissfully licking spatulas.

I hope your holidays are full of sweetness and love!

Reaching Up

During the previous quarter of graduate school, in an assigned chapter of "Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama," I found the following distinction between genre fiction and literary fiction:

Reading literary fiction (as distinguished from fiction as a commercial product--the formula kind of spy, detective, Western, romance, or science fiction story), we are not necessarily led on by the promise of thrills; we do not keep reading mainly to find out what happens next...Reading literary fiction is no merely passive activity, but one that demands both attention and insight-lending participation.

I'm an unapologetic reader and writer of romance, and I'm not going to defend the genre here because I think others have done it eloquently enough (Eloisa James in particular). But lately I've been thinking about what elements make a romance transcend genre parameters.

I read Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm or Pam Rosenthal's The Bookseller's Daughter and they bowl me over every time. How do they do it? Every day I search for the elusive qualities that will make my WIP extraordinary. The perfect metaphor, the rich historical detail that will bring it alive, the most precise adjective.

George Orwell wrote that stale phrases choke writing like "tea leaves blocking a sink." I want this novel to be clog-free.

Sherry Thomas, author of the upcoming Private Arrangements, wrote a post on her blog about authors who choose to do the extra work to craft beautiful writing. I loved her acknowledgment of the difficulty involved in rising above the quotidian.

It is hard work constantly searching for fresh images, ruthlessly eliminating cliches, spending hours researching historical detail for one sentence. Sometimes I feel like I'm lashing words together like bamboo scaffolding to support the weight of my ambition. The bamboo bends and bows and feels like it may break, but each day I climb higher.

I did it!

I won nanowrimo! I'm going to bask in the glow of accomplishment for a few hours before I start agonizing about how much editing it needs to become pitch-worthy. I'm not going to think about all the gaping historical research holes or the way the plot falls apart in the second act. Right now I'm going to do a happy dance and pop open a bottle of bubbly.

I truly didn't think I'd be able to write 50,000 words in one month while starting graduate school and working two jobs. There were a few bumps (my laptop getting stolen was the biggest one) but this experience has shown me that I do have the discipline and stamina to sit down and write every single day, even if I'm exhausted and uninspired.

I would like to give a special shout out to Tessa Dare. It was her success story that inspired me to sit my butt down in my chair and write write write. Thank you, Tessa!

Can I do it?

I'm at 44,000 but I only have two days left. Can I make it to 50,000? It's finals week, too. I think I can do it.

Someone broke in to our house yesterday and stole my macbook. They didn't take anything else, just the laptop and some loose change. The police said that's typical because the thieves want to get in and out as fast as possible with any cash they find and one small expensive item like a laptop. Ever since my hard drive crashed I've been backing up like crazy so I didn't lose any writing. I'm not going to let this stop me from winning nanowrimo, but it wasn't a very good way to start the holiday. Ah well, it could have been worse.

Best Day Yet

I just sat down and wrote over 6000 words in four hours. I think it's because I've reached the steamy part of the book where the hero, Clive, (I know kind of obvious given my Clive Owen obsession but I can't think of another name right now) starts to appreciate the attractions of Edith, the heroine. It's a long story but he's sort of kidnapped her and installed her in the apartment that his last mistress occupied. His motives are not sexual at first. He wants her to help him summon the spirit of his dead wife. He's obsessed with spiritualism and believes he has finally found a genuine medium so he starts rearranging her life to suit his needs.

I'm reading Judith Ivory's Black Silk right now. She treats the hero's awakening realization of the heroine's unique appeal so perfectly.

This passage occurs 158 pages into the book:

Her mouth pursed. She was glaring at him. Her eyes looked dark and bright against their peculiar little feathering of short lashes. For a moment, these eyes stared over his hand, in open rebellion against attempted mastery, even this small one over a jawbone. She abruptly made a high arch, a display of long, white throat; she took her shin away.

"You are so --" He was going to say “pretty” or “beautiful” or –what? –“Winsome”? Did a man tell a woman she was winsome? This woman was, but it didn’t matter. He suspected that if he told her there were some universally pleasing quality to her looks, she would only deny it outright. And not without grounds. He stared at her, as if to anatomize his own attraction to her. Her eyes were too large for her face. Her nose was narrow, her chin pointed. Her skin was washed out except for its smattering of pale freckles. He found himself staring at her mouth, her lips as plump and pink and soft as a baby’s. She wet them and looked down. He watched the color rise in her cheeks. Her skin was ivory, he decided, not washed out. And her eyes, behind their canopy of thick lashes, were a changeable, mysterious blue. She was plain one moment, pretty the next. He couldn’t figure her out.

“You are devastating,” he said honestly.

I tend to like romances where the hero and heroine are not initially attracted to each other and then the sexual tension heats up with each encounter, but when I started writing Heart of Shadow I imagined Clive finding Edith alluring at first but fighting against that impulse because he thinks she is trying to trick him into believing she is a true spirit medium.

From chapter one (remember this is still in NaNoWriMo rough draft form!):

She had a stillness about her that made him feel awkward. Her heavily fringed dark eyes were too big for a little heart-shaped face with a pointed chin and a prim rosebud of a mouth. Her pale skin glowed like a pearl necklace held up to firelight. She must work hard to achieve that consumptive pallor, the mysterious, otherworldly air.

In her high-necked black silk she appeared painfully thin. Perhaps her look was not studied so much as necessitated by real hunger. He had a sudden urge to rush back outside into the rain and buy a pigeon pie from the nearby pub. He might grasp her by one tiny bird bone wrist and lead her into a dark room somewhere and feed her bites of steaming pastry. She would lick flakes of crust from his fingers with a deft darting tongue. Maybe even take a bit of meat from his lips with her sharp little teeth, her hungry mouth asking for more.

She caught him staring and narrowed her eyes. Someone had asked a question.

“Shall I go?” Denny asked.

“Of course,” muttered Clive, ashamed of the lustful bent of his thoughts. She was just a jaded charlatan like all the rest. Trained to lure men into parting with money. Her slenderness and pallor were obviously calculated to appeal to men's protective impulses. She knew her trade. He’d fallen straight into her pretty snare of twigs and temptation.


So I may have to rewrite that scene because now, in chapter six, I have Clive realizing for the first time that Edith is attractive.

How clever of Pruett to arrange Miss Crowe's hair like that, as if one judicious tug would send the whole mass of rich chocolate curls tumbling down past her bum. And that black velvet ribbon about her neck. Camilla had always worn flashing opals and heavy gold. The simple, girlish ribbon was pure genius, making him think about the pressure of it around her neck and the pulse that beat beneath it. Had it merely been the armor of her severe black dresses that made her look meager and unappealing? Now her pointy little chin above the black velvet ribbon lent her an air of provocative stubbornness.

Clive did his best to project avuncular warmth and solicitude, but the charade proved difficult to sustain as the evening wore on and brandy softened the edge of his resolve. He sank down beside her on the settee and placed a rare volume of D.D. Hume's collected works in her lap. She ran a slender finger over the gilt letters embossed in the red leather cover.

“I’m afraid you have overestimated my power,” she said softly. "I cannot control it at will like your Mr. Hume." She opened the book reverently.

He gazed at her solemn little face, those huge eyes haunted by visions of failure. His fingers reached out before he could stop them and captured one end of the velvet ribbon that fell down her back. She didn’t seem to notice. He stroked its softness between his thumb and forefinger while he watched her read.

That's what happens when you let your writing come out in an unexpurgated nanorimo rush. Suddenly, in chapter six, your characters start doing things you hadn't planned for. I'm not going to get too worked up about it. I have the whole month of December to edit my book because I don't have grad classes during that time.

In your WIP, is your hero immediately attracted to your heroine or does it take time for him to see her beauty?

p.s. Congrats to Tessa D. for her double contest wins and to India Carolina for her first place and manuscript request in the Golden Gateway single title category!!

So Far So Good

I don't want to jinx myself but nanowrimo is going well so far. I think the storyboarding and powerpoint research presentation helped a lot. I've also been learning about the three-act structure of screen plays in a graduate class and thinking about my book in those terms has been very helpful. I've written almost 6,000 words so far. I think my first turning point will happen around the 12,000 word mark when the heroine is hired by the villain to pretend to channel the spirit of the hero's dead wife. The turning point is when she finally agrees to do it. This starts Act II where the hero and heroine are forced into an intimate situation fraught with emotional and moral complexity and danger.

Nano writing is so weird. The whole point is to forcefully subdue your inner editor and just let the words flow without worrying about making them sublime. I know I will have to do heavy editing once I'm finished, but right now I think the important thing for me is to finish a full-length novel. Then I can fuss with it and polish it and send it out into the world. A blank page will get me nowhere.

nanowrimo newbie

I signed up for nanowrimo. I figure the very worst thing that could happen is that I drop out half way and then I've still produced more writing than I usually do.

I'll be working on my new WIP Heart of Shadow. It's historical romance noir set in mid-Victorian London, featuring a hero tortured by his wife's suicide and a heroine masquerading as a spirit medium. I'm going to tie-in a character from my previous unfinished WIP Heart of Ash, so it can be the second in the series.

To prepare I used a variation on Erica Ridley's story boarding technique (speaking of Erica Ridley, she is all over the contest winners section of RWA's latest Romance Writers Report--go Erica!).

I also tried a new technique for my historical research. Probably everyone else has already discovered this. I assembled all of my character and historical research into a PowerPoint presentation. That way, when I'm writing and need a historical detail, say about what brand of cigars my hero smokes, I don't have to go searching through all of my electronic notes, I simply open up my PP presentation and flip to the slide titled "Cigars." It's a great way to incorporate photos as well. I have slides for each house in the book with photos and layout diagrams. I really had difficulty keeping track of all my research before. I'm hoping this will keep it all in one place and easily accessible.

So is anyone else doing nanowrimo this year? If so, please buddy me here.

The next big name in romance is...

...Tessa Dare! She just got The Call. And not just any call. She's a first time author who started a bidding war. Almost unheard of. I'm so thrilled and happy for her. She's talented, sweet, giving, extremely hard-working, and guaranteed to have a meteoric rise to fame. This doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who voted for Tessa's stories during FanLit. She's the real deal. I wish her the very best of luck and I cannot wait to see her Goddess series at Powell's City of Books.

Congratulations, Tessa!

So funny...

...and not just because it's 1:11 a.m. and I've been writing for five hours.

Get over here right now and watch Meljean Brook’s Five Easy Steps To Writing a Romance Novel video.

You will laugh, you will snort milk through your nose (unless you happen to be drinking sauvignon blanc, and then you will snort that through your nose), you will thank god for YouTube. Yeah, it's that funny.

Denial

Until yesterday I was in denial about how much writing I lost when my one-year-old macbook's hard drive crashed. I'd been taking a lot of notes by hand and I thought they would be sufficient to recreate what I had finished. Yesterday I put my mending elbow to the test and typed for an hour. Then it hit me. I lost fifty pages of my WIP as well as all the research I had carefully bookmarked and excerpted. And some of the scenes I wrote were not in my notebook at all. So now I'm back to square one. I'm trying to get the first 35 pages back in shape to enter the Emily contest. We all have setbacks. I'm trying not to let the extreme irony of this one get me down. Bike crash and hard drive crash in the space of two days. My muse is testing me. The exasperating hussy.

Lessons learned:

Back up! Lapse not into complacency, lest ye lose everything.

Accept not that third glass of wine from the cute tattooed bartender before singing more Liza Minnelli, lest ye be unfit to ride home.

Are you entering the Emily? Are you signing up for the Golden Heart? Are you asking yourself whether you can possibly finish your WIP by December 3rd? I know I am.

Waah!

On Thursday night I flew off my bicycle and fractured my left elbow (I'm typing with my right hand only--fun).

On Friday my laptop completely died.

Sometimes you have to laugh, or else you're going to cry. I thought about posting lurid closeups of my battered knees, but I didn't want to make you sick.

The writing continues by hand. Maybe this is actually a good thing. My thoughts flow well on to paper. I hope I didn't lose my hard drive, though, because I hadn't backed up since I finished chapter one.

Ever broken a bone at an inopportune time?

September Challenge--Day Five

This is going to sound like an excuse, dear blog, but it's true. I'm working ten-hour days until Friday, when I am supposed to send the 100-page Bulletin I'm editing to the printer. But that means I can take time off the following week. So no romance goals for the next few days, and then I'll write like mad to catch up.