Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

I don’t know how many of you race out and join the throngs for the sales. I could. I’m up at four or five in the morning every day, so I could roll out of bed, throw on my jeans, grab my purse and storm the stores like a commando. It actually sounds kind of fun. But I never partake; can’t stand the chaos.

And honestly, I’m just not that organized. I have no idea what I’m going to buy for Christmas gifts the day after Thanksgiving. This year, I’m really behind, but my family is trying to have a more spiritual Christmas so I’m thinking I won’t have to go out and shop in a frenzy. I see myself with coffee, a good book by a fire . . . . oh, sure. Especially with that deadline looming in late January.

I’m trying to take more time off. It seems I work all the time. Next year, I hope to take off all of December and two months in the summer. But I’m not taking any bets. Let’s see. Maybe next year I WILL participate in Black Friday.

We have just celebrated the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents. In their wedding photo, they are impossibly young, both so very slim, she in a green dress and a hat and red lipstick; he dressed in a suit with his hair slicked back. She was sixteen, he three years older. In one photo, he is carrying her over the threshold of their tiny apartment. In another, his orange and white cat is in one arm, while she is in his other. They’re kissing.

I was born a scant eight months later. When I was ten or eleven, some nasty cousin or next door neighbor boy tried to make me cry by telling me I was a love child.

A love child. I wasn’t sure what it meant. The boy obviously thought I should be ashamed of it, that there was something shocking about my birth. For several days, I lived with it in my gut, roiling away, stealing the pleasure from everyday moments. Finally, on the way home from the grocery store or some other place like that, I mustered my courage and asked her, “Mom, am I a love child?”

She said, “Who told you that?” And I told, her though I can’t remember now who it was. Probably Chucky DeWalle, who was a mean boy and just my age and lived to torment me.

My mother said, “A love child is just a baby who is born of huge love. We couldn’t wait to have you!”

Oh! How romantic!

But then, everything about their story was romantic. This last detail, that I was somehow woven so tightly into that tale of destiny, made my heart sing. I looked out the window—at the bluffs covered with dark pines along Templeton Gap—and smiled to myself.

My siblings and I—four of us, stairsteps–teethed on their love story. We never tired of it. They met at an orientation for new or returning students at Colorado Springs High School. She was a shy fifteen year old from Texas. He had been kicked out for riding a motorcycle through the hallways. He said he walked in and saw her blue eyes and was just lost that minute. They went to lunch that day, and have not been apart ever since.

When I was a child, they would kiss right in front of us. When she dressed up to go out, he would spin her around in front of us children and say, “Isn’t she beautiful? And she was—blonde and trim and curvy, always wearing lipstick. She would freshen herself up before he came home from work, and then as he took his bath and drank an RC cola, she would talk with him. At night, they played cribbage or dice or other games, sometimes having contests that went on for months.

Neither of them had grown up in particularly idyllic circumstances. Death, infidelities, too many children, too many moves, bad health, stepparents, abandonment—it was all there. My father lost his mother when he was fine, and several siblings before he grew up. When he met my mother, he and his just older brother were living alone in the family house, a giant, spooky place where one of their siblings had died a few years before. He had terrible toothaches and would go in the middle of the night to a diner where a kindly waitress (who would eventually be my aunt) took care of him.

My mother had moved so many times she went to twelve schools, agony for a shy girl. Her mother was a volatile woman and her father a charming scamp; not exactly a calm and stable combination.

So my parents met and—holding hands all the way—leapt into a life they created from their imaginations. They created the family they had each yearned for. Stable, loving, firm. We adored them, and they adored us, and although it was annoying that they were in our business, in every bit of our business, all the time, you had to admit it kept you out of trouble. Mostly. We sang together and played board games at the kitchen table, and even when one of us—that would be me—went a little wild with adolescence (“You were a little goody two-shoes before that,” my mother said, “it gave you a little depth to go so boy crazy.”) the family was there. With lectures after supper. With restrictions meant to keep me safe. With love.

They are still together. They call me up and say, “Your father is driving me crazy….” or “Your mother drives like a maniac….” but they go everywhere together. Still. They eat most of their meals together. They garden together and watch television together and go shopping together. All of their lives, they’ve had each other’s backs, and ours.

It’s beautiful. It’s wildly romantic.

And what a surprise—that love child became a romance writer. On the day we celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, I celebrated the 20th anniversary of my first sale (to Silhouette Special Edition. Strangers On a Train, by Ruth Wind. It had the most glorious cover).

And here I am, twenty years later, despite a divorce of my own, still believing that true love happens. There is this funny idea that “women’s fiction” is somehow dreary and sad and full of loss, but at the heart of every single book I write is a true, honest, deep and powerful love story. A happy ending kind of love story that is about two people who have survived great odds finding each other. Finding a companion, a lover, and a friend. Someone who gets you and your jokes and doesn’t mind your eccentricities, or at least not much. (“Your father is driving me crazy….”)

Is that kind of love a fantasy? Not in my world. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I believe in it.

And really, how could that ever be considered a trivial subject for a novel? A romance is the most powerful story of all. How much good and how much beauty has come from the two teenagers who fell in love over lunch over fifty years ago? How much stability and honor and happiness? I think we need more of that, don’t you?

So go buy a good romantic story. Maybe one of mine—The Lost Recipe for Happiness is available for pre-order right now, and it’s a very, very romantic story—but maybe you want a historical or something really hot or very sweet.

We’re here for you. For ourselves.

Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad. And happy anniversary to me, too!

Do you know someone who has been married happily for a very long time? Do you believe in love at first sight?

As I looked for a topic, I thought about all the events swirling around us. How might they affect the publishing industry? Will more or fewer books be published? Will subject matter change to reflect the times? Will aspiring authors have as much or less of a chance?

But then my oldest son, a middle schooler, came home with a creative writing assignment. I asked whether he had any ideas. He told me he had it under control.

Okay. After all, in fourth grade, he was a finalist in a county-wide Young Authors competition. The boy can write. So I left him alone.

Until he came back, the night before the assignment was due, and asked for my help. As I read his work, all the writing lessons I’ve learned over the past few years flooded my mind. The bones of the story were good. Really good. Yet, I had to catch myself. I stilled the hand that sooo wanted to take a pen–not necessarily a red one–to the paper before me and add a little polish.

I had a choice. I could be the short story author and aspiring novelist, and try to share some of my knowledge to make his words zip, sing, fly off the page. Or…

I could be Mommy.

In the spirit of high performing efficiency, I decided to be a hybrid.

I’m not sure whether all the “standards” of popular fiction play well in the classroom. Like “avoid adverbs”. What eighth grader doesn’t write phrases like “He ran swiftly” or “Tipping steathlily along the floor, the intruder made his way quietly into the next room down the hall and to the right of the kitchen.” (These aren’t in his story but made up to underscore my point.)

Too many prepositional phrases? See the last example above.

Then there were the vocabulary words used to spice up the piece. Although I thought there might be cleaner ways to convey his meaning than using words like “indomitable” and “truculent”, would he gain points for using words from last week’s test? Inwardly, the word choices made me proud even if the particular sentences didn’t flow well.

And punctuation a la a publishing house or style manual might not match up with what his teacher expects. Her instructionis the style guide he needs to follow. So maybe I should leave those extra commas and odd semi-colons alone.

But there are a few things that I think work well whether writing for commercial purposes or to please an eighth grade English teacher. So we talked a little bit about point of view. He didn’t totally understand but he could see where he’d made a switch unintentionally three-quarters of the way through. He appreciated the minor revision.

He instinctively did a nice job of varying his sentence structure and using shorter sentences when he needed to ramp up the tension.

Didn’t bother to throw “show, don’t tell” at him directly but we did talk about using fewer “be” verbs and getting right into the action to strengthen his ideas.

After a little formatting help, we were done. He gave me a hug and a “Thank you, Mommy”.

Suddenly the uncertainties of the global financial crisis didn’t matter quite so much.

It’s that time of year again—when Romanceland starts buzzing with talk of ebook readers and netbooks and laptops and Neos and more. Big ticket items every writer would love to have for Christmas. But if you’re 1) conserving money in the name of heat and gas or 2) have a husband (like mine) who doesn’t shop online, instead taking the kids out to shop for mom in brick & mortar stores, that doesn’t mean you can’t receive a gift that’s just for the writer in you.

Here are a few gifts I’ve received—or would like to—that would slide easily into a stocking or make the perfect gift from a loved one, all (but one) for $20 or less!

Sandisk 4GB Cruzer Micro USB Flash Drive: $17.88 at Walmart — Imagine all the documents and ebooks you could back up on that! And rumor has it, this little puppy will be a $9.00 Walmart Black Friday Doorbuster item!)

Moleskine Reporters Notebook: @ $12.00 at Borders or Barnes & Noble — This is a purely decadent luxury item. Classic, with sumptuous paper and just a hint of snobbery. Every writer should have one!

The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale: @ $17.00 at Borders or Barnes & Noble — 376 pages of synonym madness. An absolute must during that self-editing pass, and there’s no reason to make do with a standard Thesaurus. (It doesn’t make such a great stocking stuffer, however, unless you have one hell of a stocking.)

Black ‘N’ Red Twin Wire 8 1/2×11 Notebook: $8.99 at Staples. Okay, nine bucks is a lot of money for a single subject notebook, but the paper is pure pleasure to write on. And what better time than Christmas to splurge on a little writing luxury?

A kitchen timer: Target has a cool stainless steel one for $10 — While it’s not exactly something a typical person writes a letter to Santa for, this is perfect for timing your writing. Teach yourself discipline and increase your output by setting it for a set number of minutes and doing nothing but writing until it dings!

Fingerless gloves: — Have nice toasty hands without interfering with the typing! Target has a cute, textured pink pair of Xhilaration Gauntlets for $10.

Sony Microcassette Voice Recorder: $29.77 at Walmart — this one costs a little more, but they’re handy to have around. I prefer the microcassette version because 1) it’s cheaper and more dependable and 2) I find the digital ones to be unnecessarily confusing with folders and subfolders and whatnot. By the time I remember how to use it, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. If you’ve never tried one, you might like it. Some people—like me—have trouble dictating the manuscript itself but use it for those random plot points and such that pop into my head, while some—like Alison Kent—dictate pages, essentially writing on the move.

Tis the season for friends and family asking what we’d like for Christmas, so feel free to share your ideas for small gifts and stocking stuffers for writers and readers!

I recently completed working with the copyedits for my next novel, A New Kind of Bliss. The copyeditor commented about one of my narrative sentences, which read, “She crossed her legs like they were on display at MoMA.” She asked if I really wanted to use that acronym, pointing out that all readers would not know it meant the Museum of Modern Art.

I thought for a moment, then decided to go ahead and keep the line as it was. Readers not familiar with New York might not know the exact meaning of the acronym, but I do feel they will know it stands for a museum, and thus they will get the point.

I remember one of my all-time favorite TV sitcoms, Frasier. Occasionally the characters would make a reference to something over my head, but that did not diminish my enjoyment of the show. “Renata Tibaldi,” for instance, was an opera star referred to in one episode. I’d never heard of her, but the use of her name was scripted in a way that allowed me to get the joke. Even when the District Attorney on my favorite TV drama, Law & Order, dismisses a judge as “wanting to be Learned Hand,” I knew he was talking about a past judge, even if I’d never heard of him. Because the name struck me as odd – it made me picture Thing, the hand in the box on The Addams Family – I looked him up out of mere curiosity. I may not be ready to compete on Jeopardy!, but I learned something.

What’s your opinion about books that use unfamiliar references or terms? I’m not talking about books so tedious that you need a dictionary to get through them, but books with a just a few alien references, if that many. Do these stimulate your curiosity, do you skip over them, or do you get annoyed at the writer for using them in the first place?

by Tessa Radley

This has to be my most dreaded moment when I’m writing a book. It’s happens most frequently (but not always) after the story has come to a grinding halt. Sometimes it happens at the moment I’m complaining bitterly to those people who talk in my head—you know, the characters.

“So,” I say to my hero, “why on earth are you saying things I didn’t plan for you to say?” At times he broods and stays silent. I hate it when that happens. But sometimes something even worse happens…he tells me there’s something I need to know. How I detest that revelation.

This is the point of no return. The moment the story I’d planned takes on a totally different spin. And it’s hell for someone who is a plotter!

That missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle is usually so fundamental to one of my characters that the discovery can leave me feeling like banging my palm against my forehead. Why didn’t I see it before??? He’s divorced. Or my virgin heroine is not so virginal at all. He believes my heroine is someone else.

In SPANIARD’S SEDUCTION, available from Silhouette Desire this month, my hero decided he was an illegitimate Spaniard—and that meant a total re-plot of the book. Fortunately the revelation came fairly early on…

But there have been moments when that BIG moment revelation has come after the first draft of the book is finished. When relief has already settled over me and I’m chanting to myself, “It’s nearly done, wow, great!” And I actually THINK I’ve got it all figured—until I get that gentle tap on the shoulder, and the voice of a character I’ve come to know so well says, “Listen, there’s something I haven’t told you yet…”

Great. Just wonderful. And wouldn’t it have been a whole lot better to have known THAT three months and 250 pages ago? Yes? Or maybe not. Perhaps that’s what keeps me on the edge of my seat for every story; the belief that even though I know where I’m going…that might be the biggest fiction of all. It certainly puts a bit of suspense in every day! And that’s got to be good…right?

Everybody knows how a romance novel ends. That’s the explanation I hear most frequently as to why someone doesn’t read them: “The guy gets the girl, and they live happily ever after. There, just saved myself a couple hours of reading.”

I subsequently have to explain what, to me, is obvious: “There’s a lot more to any book than the last couple of pages. A story is a journey, and even when the destination is the same, no two paths to that destination are exactly alike.”

When I describe the journey in a romance novel, I rarely mention the “romancey” bits—the meet-cute, the flirting, the kissing, the sex, the I love yous, and the HEA—all the predictable elements dismissed as formulaic.

Instead, I focus on the conflicts, the obstacles that cast doubt on the potential for a happy ending, and these are legion in the realm of romance.

Oh no, James has gone from playing along with Georgina’s adolescent boy disguise to making out with her—now she thinks he’s attracted to adolescent boys.

Bowen won’t shut up about his attraction to Mari being solely because he believes she’s the reincarnation of his long-dead fiancee—Mari, for some bizarre reason, isn’t overcome by warm, fuzzy feelings upon hearing her present incarnation is of no value to him.

Summer’s abducted at scalpel-point by a guy she finds naked on an embalming table and refers to him only as Frankenstein for two-thirds of the book—yet those crazy kids manage to not only stay alive while on the run from a killer but also fall in love.

Not to mention the rivalries, the lies, the misunderstandings, the meddling family members, the plane crashes, the crimes, the natural disasters, the curses… Any conflict you can imagine can be—and probably has been—incorporated into a romance novel.

A straight, unrutted path to the destination would make for a very dull read. We want to see the characters making progress toward their HEA or HFN, of course, but reaching the finish line with them is a lot more satisfying if we’ve seen them sweat and struggle and put some effort into it. The setbacks are what move the journey forward and keep readers turning pages.

What are some romance-novel conflicts that have made you unable to put a book down until you found out how they resolved?

Like many of my fellow writers, I signed up for NaNoWriMo–National Novel Writing Month–and set a goal to write 50,000 words during the month of November. As I am also doing major renovations to my house this month, and participating in a craft show, my page output has been meager and I was falling way behind.

Then I heard about the “Night of Writing Dangerously,” an official NaNoWriMo-sponsored event. Any writer who’s game gathers at a certain location at 7 p.m. on a Friday night with your laptop, and you write for 12 hours straight, or as much as you possibly can. It’s like a giant, adult co-ed slumber party. I set myself a goal of 10,000 words or 40 pages.

My husband and I showed up there (at a Lutheran church), and we were shocked at how many other insane people wanted to do this. There were around 40 people there. We were also the two oldest participants by far. Most of the others were in their 20s. (People our age don’t do stupid things like stay up all night drinking coffee and eating junk food.) I wish I had taken better pictures. These really don’t communicate the scope. And I wish I had taken a picture of the mountain of food.

I haven’t pulled an all-nighter in twenty years. But I did it. I found that if you fortify yourself with enough coffee, Cheetos and Snickers, you don’t notice the lack of sleep so much. Rob crashed at around 3 a.m., but I stayed up the whole time.

When I counted my words, I was disappointed that I missed the 10,000 mark by 149 words. But I did write over 40 pages. That is by far the most I’ve ever written in any 24-hour period. (I haven’t gone back and read what I wrote, but I’m pretty sure it’s crap.)

So what did I learn? That when I apply myself (i.e. turn off the solitaire and the Internet) I can get a whole lot more done. Imagine if I could get even half that much written in a day. I could have a book finished in a couple of weeks! I am at least reasonably on track now, and I stand a chance of finishing the 50,000 words and getting my certificate. The second thing I learned was to turn off my internal editor! I already knew this, but sometimes I have to be reminded.

The final thing I learned is that I can’t eat five pounds of junk food in one night and feel good the next day. But that probably won’t stop me from wanting to do this again next year!

So the economy sucks. Every month, retailers post their latest losses and caution that it might get worse before it gets better. For a while, I thought if we just made it through the end of this year and the elections, we’d recover. Now, I’m hearing that retailers anticipate these troubled times will spill over into next year. Perhaps even well into next year. Perhaps beyond that.

Simon & Schuster president and CEO Carolyn Reidy called for CEOs to step up and lead during the deep economic slump and warned that possibly worse scenarios may be on the way. “We have to act now, and turn over every stone for possible savings in our operations, in order to be prepared for what’s coming, which is possibly an even worse scenario in six, nine, 12 or even 18 months,” she told the CEO’s.

– By Cindy Crosby, Publisher’s Weekly, 11/11/2008
“Reidy: Worse Publishing Environment May Be On the Way”

Yikes.

Next year I’m scheduled to release six books back-to-back over five months. This led to my having a twelve-month gap between my last release and my next one. I’m so relieved to not have to worry about a new release right now. This year, I’ve watched many friends angst over their releases and smaller-than-expected print runs. I’ve listened to horror stories of booksellers “skipping” titles (placing no order for a particular title so that it’s not available in any of their stores) or placing minuscule orders. It’s a tough time to release books.

Publisher A has cut their staff by ten percent across the board; Publisher B canceled a number of expensive book contracts and is only offering newbie authors single-book deals; Publisher C is hoping that the slower rate of signing new books at most of the big houses will translate to their being able to pick up projects for smaller advances.

– By Nephele Tempest, The Knight Agency blog, 11/17/2008
“It’s the Economy Stupid”

Smaller advances. Really? Dropping proven authors for writers willing to be paid less. That’s a solution?

What might evolve, in [Reidy’s] opinion is publishers “taking a good hard look at returns causes, effects and practices, and coming up with ways to diminish or eliminate them…”

– By Cindy Crosby, Publisher’s Weekly, 11/11/2008
“Reidy: Worse Publishing Environment May Be On the Way”

Taking a good hard look at the causes of returns–now that sounds like a plan to me. As an author, I admit I’m biased, but I think there are other ways to save money than hoping authors will be willing to take less money for their work. Such as cutting slots.

I just don’t understand why the number of books being produced each month hasn’t decreased. I’m not talking about print runs; I’m talking about number of titles. To me, that makes the most sense. All the lines and imprints that doubled the number of releases (i.e. Aphrodisia’s move from 2 to 4 or HQ Presents move from 4 to 8 12 ) when the economy was better… why haven’t they dropped back down to their former smaller number of releases? When less books are being bought, shouldn’t there be less books on the shelves? Instead of decreasing print runs for all books, dropping proven authors for authors willing to take less money, and offering single book deals, why not release fewer titles and give the books better support? Isn’t it a lot cheaper to produce one title than it is to produce two? And with each title getting more attention (in every respect), isn’t that going to lessen the likelihood that they’ll be returned?

We’re facing a crisis in publishing. I can’t help but wonder what other steps are being taken, or considered, to address it.