Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

A few weeks ago I got this absolutely brilliant idea in my head (and if you could hear me saying those words, you’d hear as much sarcasm as I can possibly muster). You see, in addition to having four overly stuffed five-shelf bookshelves, which overflow into boxes, bags and piles on the floor, upstairs in my spare bedroom, I also have a large number of ebooks on my hard drive (which, yes, I do back up every day, thank you very much). A couple weeks ago I found myself almost purchasing a Harlequin Presents in ebook form. Which I already owned. In ebook form. And I thought to myself, “self, you really need to catalog your ebooks.” No, I don’t know what I was thinking.

Okay, I was thinking that if I had all of my ebooks cataloged in one place, I’d know what I own. I could check before I ordered something I’d already bought. And if someone asked me (why they would, I don’t know) I could tell them what format I owned it in. And so my journey to catalog my ebooks was begun.

I actually never considered using anything but a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, because I don’t know of a lot of software or sites out there that would let me do exactly what I wanted and be able to sort them in any number of ways—author, series name, title, format (LIT, PDF, IMP) so I headed straight to Excel. But as it happens, I do own one program for cataloging my paper books and I know there are many other options available so I thought I’d share them for anyone who might be feeling as crazy as me.

LibraryThing: LibraryThing is an online social community that allows you to keep a library of your books. Either private or public—so others can see what you have and “browse” your library. It’s considered a social networking site because it allows you to meet other people who like the same books as you do. From Wikipedia: Users (informally known as thingamabrarians, a term coined by contributor RJO) can catalog personal collections, keep reading lists, and meet other users who have the same books. You can enter up to 200 books for free (and really, for most of us that’s a drop in the bucket) or you can pay a subscription rate of $10 a year or $25 for life and have unlimited access. There are several other types of online places like this, but I refuse to even name them because they send the most horrid spam emails and should be shot for it.

PaperbackSwap: PaperbackSwap is actually an online site meant for the purpose of trading used books but which has grown to encompass social networking as well. But it has two options which allow you to keep a list of books TBR and a list of books read. Perhaps not the ideal means of cataloging your books, but if you’re an avid user of PaperbackSwap, you may enjoy the use of this free function.

Book Collector: Book Collector is software that allows you to Create a personal book database. Catalog your home library, including all book data: author, title, ISBN, publisher, publication date, genre, subject, cover image, etc…. I actually do own this software and have used it in the past for my paper books, until I realized the door on those was so revolving, there was no way to keep up. One thing that’s nice about this particular software (and others like it) is that, with the use of a barcode scanner (easily obtained on eBay for around $10, I think), you can scan the ISBN codes directly into the program, rather than typing them in. The software will then search online databases, such as Amazon or the Library of Congress, and input the information (cover, blurb, price, page count, etc etc) into the database for you. You can download a free trial for up to 100 books or buy the software for $40

Other software like this, which I am not familiar with but is available for purchase and download on the internet is ReaderWare, Book Librarian Plus and many more.

But despite all the options, and owning cataloging software, I decided to stick with Excel. For one thing, as I said, I could make the spreadsheet do exactly what I want and for another, I might have my ebooks sorted into folders by author but there ends my organization. I don’t have each book’s ISBN in the file name. I’d have to open every book to get that. Bleh. And there’s the third reason, in that most ebooks aren’t going to be easily found in any online database, so those types of cataloging systems won’t save me any time, unfortunately.

How’s the cataloging going? Really slowly. I told myself that if I did some every night, or at least a couple nights a week, I’d have it done eventually. Eventually is right. I’m going by author and I’m only to the middle of B. This could take a while.

Does anyone else out there catalog their books? Have you ever considered it? If so, what software do you use. You know, misery loves company, I think you should all catalog your books. Right now. During the holiday season. Or, completely alien to me, are you one of those people who *gasp* doesn’t keep books?

It’s that time of year when they come out. The romantic holiday story. It could be about Christmas, or Hanukkah, or eve the Winter Solstice, but it usually involves snow. At least all the ones I’ve read seem to, so maybe those are the ones that draw me in.

There must be something magical about the snowy winter/holiday story. And not to push Christmas on anyone, but all those covers with Christmas trees that are beautifully lit? I’m a sucker for those.

Really, I’m a sucker for any story set this time of year. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a Boxing Day baby (in Canada that’s the day after Christmas), or what. I really love everything about this time of year… Christmas carols, houses and trees all lit with different colours, Gingerbread Lattes from Starbucks, all sorts of food and the books. Holiday books.

Just like the twinkling lights the book covers draw me in. I touch them, I pick them up, I read the blurb, I angst about whether I need yet another book. My TBR pile is already so high, and likely by the time I get to it will be Valentine’s and time for a different type of holiday book. Even still, in my last order from Amazon I bought Visions of Sugar Plums: A Stephanie Plum Holiday Novel—I couldn’t resist! I’m very excited for it to arrive.

This time of year is so hard on many people. On the one hand, I know these books can give the illusion that the holidays are a romantic magical time for everyone, if you could only find that perfect someone. Being married to my perfect someone, I can tell you this is far from the truth even when you are happily together. The holidays are hard for any number of reasons, not just because you may be single.

On the other hand, these books can symbolize so much of what I think the season is about… Hope. Most of the books will start out with a lonely hero or heroine hating or otherwise wishing that it wasn’t this time of year, but by the end they realise that perhaps they were wrong and they’ve found some hope and someone to love (we do need our HEA). Or perhaps they are stuck in a cabin due to unforeseen winter elements, they are hopeful they will be found and in the meantime, it could be interesting to get to know the person they are trapped with, and by the time they are rescued they are in love and ready to celebrate.

That’s why I read holiday romances. To find a little bit of hope. Truthfully, that’s probably why I read all romances, but I do like the pretty wrapping paper on these ones.

Do you like holiday romance stories? Why or why not?

My friend is separating from her husband. It’s my first “up close and personal” contact with marital breakdown. My parents have been married for thirty-four years; most of my friends’ parents, the same. To actually witness what seems almost like the spontaneous combustion of a relationship has shaken me to the core. They seemed…perfect for each other; twin souls unlike any other. They looked…happy and complete, like nothing could ever break them apart. There was no cheating, no “other party” involved that would probably have gotten a good egging from me. It just happened…one morning…she woke up…and felt…nothing, zilch, nada, niente. It was downhill from there.

Right now it’s difficult for me to think of romance, read romance and especially blog about it. All I think about is the end of her marriage. I don’t know what to tell her. We talk often and I’m always left wanting for words. I know she only needs someone to listen to her views and not judge, but it’s hard…it’s hard not wanting to save her marriage, not wanting to change her mind about her feelings, especially since they looked so happy once upon a time. How can someone wake up one morning and lose all feeling for one’s partner? How can some fairy tales not end “happily ever after?” What went wrong? How could disaster have been prevented? Did she marry the wrong “one?”

I’m not naive enough to think that all loves last forever, not stupid enough to believe all marriages performed last ’til death do them part. Today, you’re lucky if your marriage lasts 10 yrs. One that lasts forever is considered a rare find.

I guess that’s why romances are such a joy to read. You know how they’ll end. You know the hero and heroine will live happily ever after; there’s no doubt in your mind. It’s a given. The heroine doesn’t wake up one morning and realize the hero never fulfilled her emotionally. On the contrary, each day she realizes how much the hero means to her.

If only life could imitate art.

I have no questions to post. If you’d like to offer insight, 7 year itch experiences, be my guest. My heart breaks for anyone who’s ever been through this.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of historical romances set in England during the Regency period. I like being whisked to a different time and place from that in which I live and write about; while the language, culture, and mores of the English Regency are similar enough to mine that I can easily relate to them, the stories offer a pleasant change of pace from my everyday life and the inspirational romances I write.

But something’s rotten in the glitzy London ballrooms I’ve been visiting. The more Regencies I read, the more mistakes I’m finding. I’m not talking about typos and the odd editorial hiccup, but about glaring, persistent errors that the writers, editors, copyeditors–somebody–should have caught. I am unable to fathom why so many of the people who make these books don’t appear to have stirred themselves to spend even twenty minutes learning the very simple rules for addressing members of the British peerage and their wives and children.

The most common error I’m seeing involves the daughters and wives of peers. Recently I read an otherwise forgettable book in which, um, Lady Susan Important was referred to as “Lady Susan” in some places and “Lady Important” in others. That’s not just a little bit wrong, it’s unforgivably wrong–and if I were Susan, I’d whack that clueless writer and her asleep-on-the-job editors upside their silly heads with my reticule. Since the daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl is accorded the courtesy title “Lady” at birth, the heroine in question is Lady Susan Important or just plain Lady Susan. She is not Lady Important. Lady Important is her mother (unless her mother is a duchess–but we won’t get into that now). Lady Important quite properly calls herself by her husband’s title.

Another mistake I’m seeing far too often is introductions in which a person of high rank is presented to an individual who is clearly his or her social inferior. “Miss Nobody, may I introduce His Grace, the Duke of Wherever” is breathtakingly incorrect. I don’t care if the crowd at Almack’s is calling the chit an Incomparable, she’s still a little nobody in relation to the duke, and she should be presented to him, not the other way around. If I were His Grace, I’d give the bumbling introducer a freezing look through my quizzing glass before imperiously twitching my little finger and having the moron hustled out of the ballroom by four burly footmen.

People who write or edit regency romances have no business making errors like these. It’s too easy to learn the proper forms of address. Interested readers and conscientious writers should check out Wikipedia’s entry on the peerage, which briefly describes ranks and forms of address and also provides links to some very authoritative sites such as Burke’s Peerage.

Are stupid errors like these being perpetuated in your favorite romance subgenres? Have you ever read about a cowboy mounting his horse from the wrong side? Seen the word “electric” used in story that takes place before electricity was discovered? Shaken your head over a cop hero who doesn’t know the first thing about police procedure? Share your pet peeves in the comments. Or, if you’re not in the mood to complain, tell us which authors are consistently getting their facts and period details right.

My husband’s cousin has taken up running as a hobby. And so has his wife. They run every day and they run for long distances. They even ran half-marathons on Thanksgiving morning before coming home to host two dozen family members for dinner. I love them dearly and have enormous admiration for their accomplishments, but I’m sorry, anyone who runs long distances like that and claims to enjoy it? I gotta think they’re a little on the meshuga side. I can’t help it, the idea of aimlessly jogging along has never really appealed to me and seeing what people look like at the end of marathons? That vacant-eyed, I-can’t-remember-what-planet-I-come-from, stare? Yeah, you can keep it. Which isn’t to say I’m a total athletic slug. I played baseball as a kid (yes, baseball, not softball– there were a lot of boys in my neighborhood) and as a teenager, I was in marching band and drum corps and if you don’t think marching music is a sport, you try marching at top speed and playing precision music passages and tell me if you can breathe afterwards. Not to mention the fourteen and sixteen hour rehearsals outside, in the dead of summer. Not a sport, indeed.

But I guess it qualifies me as a little meshuga too, since I loved it.

But my real athletic passion, from the age of four or so, was reserved for figure skating. I wanted nothing more than to be like Dorothy Hamill or Katarina Witt—it was all so beautiful and such a gorgeous expression of art, both visually and musically. And sparkly costumes! What wasn’t to like? However, this obsession presented a wee problem for a kid from Miami. Ice rinks were in kind of short supply, as in there was only one. And my parents, they didn’t get that ice skating thing, at all. But finally, on a trip to New York when I was eight, I finally got to try my passion at a local rink near my cousin’s house. My parents thought if I went and fell on my butt a time or twelve, I’d get it out of my system.

Yeah, not so much.

Much to their chagrin (and bemusement) I was a natural, skating backwards by the end of my first hour on the ice and doing simple turns. So when we got back to Miami, lessons and my first pair of skates followed. I’d love to say that there was a suitably movie-like ending to all of this, and to a certain degree, there was—I was able to compete locally for a few years and I did fairly well, but skating’s an expensive sport and again, Miami’s just not a hotbed for it. My parents were just traditional enough that they weren’t willing to let me go live in the Northeast or out in Colorado, where some of the big training centers were and in retrospect, they were right. There were a lot of activities and interests I wanted to pursue and they knew that if I committed myself to skating that early, I wouldn’t have the chance to do so.

Kind of annoying how parents can be right like that.

However, at the same time, the passion for the sport has stayed with me, especially this time of year, with the weather cooling off and the season getting underway. I can remember what it felt like to lace up my skates and take that first, gliding step onto the ice; the unique smell of a rink at dawn and most of all, the absolute freedom that came with being the only one on a blank, pristine surface, watching my blades cut patterns and using my body to interpret the music.

In some ways, it may have been a sign of things to come. I mean, when it comes down to it, writing is very much like skating. By and large, it’s a very solitary pursuit. The blank page can be likened to a fresh sheet of ice, the words like blades, cutting through and leaving my personal, unique mark behind, and in my case, inspired by the music I’m listening to. Like skating or music or any other artistic form, writing requires a lot of discipline and practice. Then, if you’ve worked very hard and are fortunate enough, you have brief moments when the spotlight shines on you and you’re rewarded for a job well done. So while it’s rare these days that I get to lace up my skates and take a turn around a rink, the passion and sense of exhilaration—that’s with me for a lifetime.

So… what’s your passion?

I’m in a strange mood. Today marks the first Black Friday that I did not have to work or contemplate in retail terms in years. Usually my Wednesday before Thanksgiving has been marked by change-outs and stickering long after the doors closed so that on Black Friday all would be ready for those not suffering from a tryptophan hangovers. Friday morning (early) would be spent stressing over whether the banners were hung and whether or not we had enough copies of the books that were being deeply discounted that year to drive sales. While Friday afternoon would be all about hanging on to that professional retail smile as I uttered for the thousandth time, “Hi, how may I help you today?”

Black Friday is hell—even in bookstores.

But this year is different. It has been ten months since my store closed. Ten months where I wasn’t immersed in the book business eight hours a day, five days a week. Where, when we weren’t worrying about change-outs and impulse buys, we were ordering for the front table, changing end cap displays, and following reports on the latest retail market trends. Any down time (also known as the time that we could probably use to dust, but whatever) we would read Publisher’s Weekly or scour the Willamette Week to see who would be appearing at Powell’s.

For seven years I followed the book business at work and at home, online and off, because my livelihood depended on it, only to have that stop being an issue at the end of January.

The store closing barely dented my book interest, but it did cut down on my access to information. Without the store there was no subscription to Publisher’s Weekly readily available, nor the assorted other magazines that would review books. I no longer knew immediately who was on the cover of the NY Times Book Review because my subscription became limited only to what I could access online. Distributors like Partners had no reason to send their catalogues to my home, so that avenue of information was out, and I no longer had the drive to research every author who would be coming through my town.

I still got the PW, NYBR, and Shelf Awareness emails. I still surfed publisher and author websites, and peeked in on Publisher’s Lunch. My research into the book business shifted from the offline immediate face to face contact with people and objects to collecting my information through more virtual means. Online marketing and its implications on the book business fascinated me, gaining more and more importance in my mind the further I got from my offline experience.

Sure, I would make the occasional comment on my blog about not forgetting the older customers or those who cannot afford a personal computer (both of these groups would often make comments in my store on the unfairness of a discount card that provided all its coupons through email), but in the back of my mind they were an ever shrinking minority. C’mon guys, get the net, my little brain voice would snark. The library’s got computers you can use!

Karma, being the big-eared, psychic bitch that she is, must have heard this snark because my computer began to fail. It began small, overheating and restarting if I tried to watch any streaming video or any cinematographic piece of you tube genius over ten minutes. Not very high on the hardship scale, really. I probably should have been working on resumes anyway.

But then it got worse. The overheating happening faster and faster, the time I could productively spend doing anything shrinking. I cut out reading all but my favorite blogs. I cut down on updating my own as getting Word to stay open and not erase my whole entry before it was saved became a problem. The more frustrated I became, the less I turned it on.

The less I turned it on, the less I read and wrote, and so on and so forth. Until one day I realized it had been several weeks since I blogged a thing about the books business, or even done more than skim my email. The new books out? Didn’t know them at all unless I saw them on the train on my way to work. Newest author or genre drama? Not unless someone brought it up in conversation. Everything I learned was through word of mouth, observation, or through the printed word even as my email box filled with more and more announcements about new books and great author events.

I felt disconnected, but I was also enjoying the newfound time I spent reading not book news, but books. Books I learned about from the paper or from what people were reading on the train. Books that caught my eye when I walked by a bookstore’s window display.

Computers are amazing things. They can allow an author to build a fanbase worldwide without ever leaving homes. It allows authors to market themselves for very little money. They’re amazing…

As long as they work.

As I write this I’m still waiting for my new laptop to show up. One that won’t shut down every ten minutes or make me recheck every word with an O several times to make sure the key registered. One that will let me write again without the frustration that comes from knowing that I can type much faster than I can write by hand. I’ve relearned a lot in my time offline—how much I can get done without the distraction of the internet, how my handwriting isn’t too bad (legible even) if I need to write a note or two—but I want that connection back. When I do, I’ll once again try to combine my offline observations with my online research to better my understanding of the book business. Try to recapture that thing that online/offline connection that was so important when I worked in a bookstore. But I also try to remember that it can be good, healthy even, to turn it off and walk away, to go read a book.

Because it’s is that love of the written word that has driven me all along.

Last week I had an email from a teenage girl. She’d read a couple of my novels and she was writing to me because she wants to be a published romance author. She asked me if I had any advice for her.

This is what I said, or what I think I wish I’d said:

I think there are only two real secrets to becoming a published author. The first one you’re doing already: read lots. All writers are readers. Whenever you read a good story, you’re teaching yourself what you like and what works: how a plot is put together, the type of characters you relate to, how to write effective dialogue and narration and action.

I’ve been an English teacher for twelve years, I’ve got two degrees in English and two teaching qualifications, and you know when people tell you that reading romance is a waste of time? They’re wrong. Reading is always worthwhile. If you’re enjoying yourself, you’re doing the right thing. My only caveat is that you should try reading everything, whether you think you’ll like it or not. Try the classics, try nonfiction, read everything you can. You might find something you also love. If you don’t, every book can teach you something, even if it’s that you don’t agree. And you’ll come back to your favourites with a new appreciation.

The second secret is to write. The thing that separates people who want to be writers, and real writers, is quite simple: writers write.

Writing is hard to do, I think. It requires huge imagination when you compose, and it also requires intellectual rigour when you do revisions. The mere fact of writing 50-100,000 words is no joke; it takes a lot of effort and discipline. The hardest thing is that, once you’ve finished, other people may not like it as much as you do. If you’re serious about writing, you’re going to hear criticism–some of which you won’t want to hear. If you submit your work to a publisher, you’ll most likely get rejected at first.

So it’s difficult and also frightening. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had. It can really crush your ego down and it can make you doubt yourself and your ability. And it takes hours and hours and hours of work, a lot of which is on stuff you end up changing anyway.

But it’s also the best job to have, too, because there is nothing like making up characters so real that they become part of your life. It is wonderful to give them happy endings. You probably know already how great that feeling is. And there’s nothing like holding your own published book in your hands.

Thanks for making me think about this. It’s good to be reminded of why I love my job. I wish I’d had the guts when I was fifteen to write to an author whose books I’d enjoyed–not necessarily for the advice, but because I would have made them feel as pleased as you’ve made me feel.

What would you have written?

(With many thanks to V.C., who gave me this reminder in time for Thanksgiving.)

My first introduction to romance was through the novels of Barbara Cartland (novels with an ’s’, I read most of Cartland’s over 600 book backlist, yes including that book on the wonders of honey). Her heroines were… well… all the same, an idealized version of herself. They were blonde, big eyed, wispy women. One look from the tall, dark and handsome hero and they… would… fall… over (literally, the girls had fainting down to an art).

For the first couple hundred books, I loved this size zero, almost painfully beautiful heroine. For the last couple hundred, the parade of “perfect” little blondes made me quite depressed. I was not blonde or little. Goodness (and my Mom) knows I wasn’t perfect.

And hey, wasn’t love supposed to be blind?

That’s when I got a hankering for the everyday, imperfect (by media and society’s idealized standards) heroine. Someone just like me.

I like my gals with some history and history brings scars, broken bones, an extra layer of padding around the hips and sometimes, in the case of Donica Covey’s Seeing The Light, a fall on the head leading to blindness (poor Abby, she should have never gotten on that horse).

While I may like imperfect heroines, some of our heroes aren’t the most mature men in the fictional world. They often have knee jerk negative reactions to the flaw. They could even reject the heroine completely… at the beginning of the novel. Doesn’t that make it all the sexier when they fall and fall hard?

I think so.

Look at Evie in Lisa Kleypas’ Devil In Winter. She has a stammer the intentionally rude hero, on page 6, calls tedious. Oh, but by page 360, the story has changed, hasn’t it? Sebastian sure wasn’t using the word tedious to describe Evie.

Abigail’s twisted foot makes Calvin pause a moment in Samantha Garver’s One Night To Be Sinful. Only for a moment though. Calvin and Abigail, those crazy kids, were meant to love each other.

Then there’s the special type of hero. The men that either don’t see the “imperfection” or, like Lucas in Michele Ann Young’s novel No Regrets, think the imperfection is truly perfection. Lucas, our sexy, sexy hero, fights society’s vision of the ideal woman to stay true to his own. Plus sized is truly a plus in his (and Michele’s) book.

Those are only a few of my favorite unlikely heroine examples. I’m sure you know of more. If you do, please share. I’d also love to hear if you like a heroine with a few flaws or if you prefer the fantasy ideal.

What gift is that?

Books!

I’ve begun making out my annual Christmas Wish List for my husband and mother-in-law. Truthfully, I know I’d like anything they’d get me. Presents are nice, you know, and my mother taught me to be thankful for what I receive, even if I don’t like it. Such as the jogging/sweat suit my grandmother gave me a few years ago. It was purple, with a glittery puff paint on the front. But I wore it — as pajamas — and my grandmother never knew I was thinking “What the hell?” because I gave her a big, old hug and a kiss.

Back to my list…

There are some books I’ve just gotta have. Like Rhett Butler’s People. Yes, I’ll probably hate myself once I’m finished with it, but I need it. So far, I have about six books on the list. The day’s not over. I’m certain if I flipped back through my daily planner I’d find a few more titles I’ve scribbled in the margins.

What’s on your list?