Old Time Romance

Filed in: blog | publishing    Tags: bodice-ripper | classic romance

I was searching for the title of an old school romance I must have read over ten years ago that I really enjoyed, despite the outlandish plot. It was about a pirate or a highwayman who seduces the heroine and then later ends up marrying her while disguised as a portly, older gentleman. To our surprise, she eventually falls in love with him as the less attractive fellow. (I still haven’t found it)

While searching for this title, I was reading blurbs from historical romances from the 90s and late 80s and started feeling wistful. There were so many wild adventures to exotic lands then – Sioux country, the Caribbean, Scandinavia. The desert, the high seas, the jungle. Sure those settings are still about today, but it seems that they’ve taken a back seat. The market has become tame and sensible with Regency England and the occasional Scottish medieval.

Don’t get me wrong! I adore reading Regency and authors are continually finding clever twists and variations within those confines, but at times it starts to feel like different actors moving about the same stage set. The painted backdrops all look the same, the props are rearranged.  The lines change, the characters switch around, but in the end, it’s all so familiar.

I’ve been reading Elizabeth Grayson’s Moon in the Water and I’m just swept away with her descriptions of St. Louis and steamboat life in the 19th century. There was a whole culture along the river and I’m pulled in and immersed in it, from the colorful characters working on deck to the Indian attacks along the shores. I even enjoy reading all the navigation techniques they would use. If they had to navigate in the dark, they’d float rafts in the water with candles upon them to outline a safe path. Fascinating!  It made me realize I missed being swept away like that into an unknown world.

That’s not to say that sort of book doesn’t exist today. I loved Blythe Gifford’s In the Master’s Bed and its exploration of 14th century university culture in England. But is it just me, or is that sort of book now the exception to lords and ladies and the ton? And I wonder how well this book would have been received if it didn’t take place in jolly old England.

Nowadays there’s deeper exploration of the heroine and hero’s psyche. The heroines are more empowered and independent. The old, stale bodice-ripping tropes are laughed at or frowned upon. These are good developments, for sure. But did we have to do away with the grand adventure? Just a little bit of passion-swept romance, please? The heroine’s bosom isn’t supposed to heave anymore, but I still want to be left breathless.

As the old song goes:
Today’s music ain’t got the same soul
I like that old time rock ‘n roll

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“Selling the Hard Sell” at RWA conference

Filed in: blog | publishing | workshop    Tags: kristina mcmorris | nashville | rwa national conference 2010 | workshop

Our workshop “Selling the Hard Sell” was approved for the RWA national conference in July. I’ll be speaking with partner in crime, Kristina McMorris, debut author and fellow Golden Heart® finalist.

We came up with the idea because, as new authors, we may not have tips to offer in regards to long-term career and craft, but we know how it feels when no one wants that book of your heart because the writing is good, but it’s a “hard sell”. Kristina’s background is in marketing and her WWII set debut novel, Letters from Home, is scheduled to be released in February 2011 after a long journey through contests and queries similar to Butterfly Swords.

After some discussion,  we reflected on how we had kept a keen eye on the market, despite having “unmarketable” proposals. The workshop will outline our query and submission process and the very specific approach we each took. Beyond the tips and tricks, Kristina and I might have some war stories under our belts that writers in the query war might find heartening as well. It’s going to be an exciting conference.

I hope I don’t forget my lines. I hope the room isn’t empty. *crickets chirping* I also hope we get to speak early so I can get the butterflies over with and breathe easy!

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A teeny, tiny rant

Filed in: blog | publishing | slice of life    Tags: male authors vs. female authors | rants

I don’t do these often. If you blink you might miss it.

I went to the bookstore last night with my critique group. Checked out the new releases section. All the male authors’ books were bigger (i.e. taller) than the books by female authors. I kid you not.

Maybe it was because most of the female authors were women’s fiction/romance? I’m not counting the larger trade paperbacks, just the mass market paperbacks.

Really, go check it out at your local bookstore and tell me if I’m off my rocker. Paperback new releases. That’s my rant.

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Cover Art

Filed in: blog | publishing    Tags: cover art | deviantart | feimo | schumy330 | tang dynasty images

The going statement is that writers have absolutely no say over what goes on their covers, but my publisher did ask me to send some images that I thought might be useful for the covers, though they already had many images in mind. I wish I was more artistic! I sent a couple of images that have inspired me in terms of the period and clothing but now I’m wondering if I should have sent more in the way of setting and location? Then again, I was a afraid of sending too much since they have an art department that thinks about these things and I’m so not a graphic artsy person that I didn’t want to mess with it.

Of course there’s the swordwoman in red that I use as my avatar. I’ve always loved that since my heroine starts and ends the book wearing a red wedding dress. It’s also very flowing and dramatic.

There are a couple of other artists I found on deviantart whose style I quite like.

schumy330’s work captures the ethereal quality of Tang dynasty costumes. Her portraits are so fresh and innocent.

http://schumy330.deviantart.com/gallery/

Feimo is a bit edgier and more seductive

http://feimo.deviantart.com/gallery/

I’m quite excited to find out what the covers will look like. It has me quite giddy. That also means that soon, hopefully soon, I will have definitive news of a release date.

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There is no such thing as talent

Filed in: blog | friends and family | publishing    Tags: motivational

What if you took that elusive thing called “talent” off the table? What if you didn’t believe there wasn’t anything that any Stephen King or Nora Roberts had that you couldn’t have if you just wrote and wrote and wrote?

I’m not debating whether this is true or not. I’m just saying, if you believed there was no such thing as “gift” and that agent, that contract, that call was within anyone’s grasp, would you be able to stick it out until you got it?

Gwen Hayes, another one of my writing buddies just got the Call and I’m nearly in tears about it because it’s right at the end of the year and this has been such a fabulous year for so many people I’ve been working with. I can be egotistical and say it’s because we have so much talent bouncing off of each other.

But I think when I look at the people I know who’ve gotten agented or contracted or both this year, I think it’s more uplifting to think there is no such thing as talent. We just all started trying for that gold star about the same time and never stopped.

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Goodbye Excerpts

Filed in: publishing   

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Go big or go home, they say

Filed in: Asian fantasy | The Bookshelf | craft | publishing | research | writing    Tags: brainstorming | historical paranormal | plotting series | Tang dynasty | Tao sorcery | wuxia

I’ve been tossing around what to do next and my CP helped me find my way — which is why it’s important to have partners that are good at the things you suck at. For me it’s coming up with ideas and where to put commas.

So I wondered if I should leave medieval China, try something else. Something maybe more “marketable” in case this China thing doesn’t work. But I just couldn’t. So if anything, I’m going deeper into the wuxia genre that inspired me by adding paranormal elements.

It’s quite exciting! The supernatural is so prominently woven into Chinese history and culture that I practically feel like I’m still researching a historical rather than worldbuilding for a paranormal romance. There are major texts on the supernatural and a city that is well known to contain the gate to the underworld. I mean, so well known that there’s practically nothing mysterious about it. I’ll have to change that in my book. And it’ll have all the things I love — swords, honor, melodramatic characters – LOL.

I’m trying to learn something new by brainstorming a series. All my previous stories were related, but standalone. Plotting a series you need to think of the series arc as well as each story arc. It’s quite fascinating. I don’t have what I call the “Big Bad” nailed down yet, so things are still pretty loose.

But I do have nearly all five couples mapped out. I realize that I don’t start with character sketches or outlines or even worldbuilding. I start by matchmaking. I figure out the hero and the heroine and gauge if there’s enough conflict and chemistry for them to carry a book. I don’t know much about them other than whether they’ll spark. I guess that’s why at the heart of it, I write romance.

Oh, a hint? Tao sorcery, exorcism swords…a Secret Service team that works for the Emperor (inspired by my research for Unusual Historicals). I think I can start writing by this weekend. Giddy!

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Unusual Settings in Romance

Filed in: Asian fantasy | publishing | writing    Tags: unusual historicals

I’m totally thrilled that I’ve been invited to join the Unusual Historicals blog! I love how they concentrate on a theme per month like “Food” and you can go to learn just a fascinating array of information from different cultures and time periods. With history (and I suspect most things), the more you learn outside of your sphere of expertise, the more cross-connections you can make, and the richer your experience becomes. I suppose that way of thinking may come from my cognitive science background.

Since the Golden Heart® award ceremony so many authors have contacted me to tell me how inspirational it is to see an unusual setting break into the historical romance market. This is premature. I mean, the book isn’t even near the shelf yet! But people have told me about their struggles writing in WWII or Italy or 17th century France.

Wow! I never thought so many people would connect to my writing adventures. Who would have thought that a western setting, something that would seem familiar to readers, could also be such a difficult sale? Apparently, many people feel that if you’re not writing a Western or a Regency, you might as well be writing in, say, medieval China!

I’m still scared to death.

There I said it. I feel like I’m fighting to stay alive now with every word because there’s so many more unknowns. I’ve heard “no market”, “risky”, “too difficult” so many times  in this journey.  But I hope that in this case, “No market” could possibly mean, “Untapped market.”

Fingers crossed.

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Jetsetting Lifestyle – NOT

Filed in: Asian fantasy | events | publishing | travel | writing    Tags: golden heart ceremony | jade lee | rwa conference 2009 | unusual historicals

I had to fly from the conference in D.C. directly to Vegas. On the surface it sounds glamorous, but I want nothing more than to be home right now. I feel like I’ll never sleep again and my feet hurt like heck from running around in cute shoes. By the last day of RWA, I decided my conference bunny days were over and it was flip flop time.

Everyone is doing conference wrap-ups. I wish I had enough time to focus enough to get my thoughts together. Not to mention grabbing pictures from everyone! So excuse this mish-mosh of a conference vignette. Please know it’s a good representation of what’s in my head right now. Hey, take a gander at the stage setup for the RITA/GH® awards. It really is like the Academy Awards of romance!

Highlight of my conference? The moment that really made it hit home for me was telling Jade Lee about my sale. Jade is one of my favorite authors and an inspiration to me. I even brought my copy of The Concubine with me to get signed. (I’m wearing a Jade Lee tiger T-shirt now as I type!) A couple of friends got me a picture with her after the awards ceremony.

Aftermath of conference: I can’t catch up with the e-mails. There’s a flood of congratulations, info about loops I need to join, conference gushing. I definitely need to get this under control!

StatCounter: A pox upon you Lisa and Laura! I signed up for StatCounter a couple of weeks ago and it’s like crack, soma and substance-D all rolled into one. This is probably no big deal to anyone who’s been blogging for a while, but as of Saturday, I seem to have gone international! I know exactly why. It’s largely because of fellow Harlequin author Michelle Styles and links on e-harlequin. Apparently, many authors of unusual historicals were cheering for me when I gave my acceptance speech about selling a historical romance set in China.

I need to print out the next chapters of The Dragon and the Pearl so badly. I told my agent it would be done in two weeks. That was before I knew how crazy things would get and that I’d have to go to Vegas to handle some paperwork.

Am I going to gamble in Vegas? Probably not. No girl can be that lucky all at once.

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Butterfly Swords wins the Golden Heart contest

Filed in: Announcements | events | publishing    Tags: butterfly swords | golden heart | historical romance | rwa | speech

When they were getting ready to announce my category, my husband took my hand. I held onto him so hard as they read the names of all the finalists. Yes, I wanted to win even though I had a contract. Don’t we all hope and dream for the moon?

And I did win. I won, I won, I won! I can always boast that Butterfly Swords won the Golden Heart® for the best historical romance manuscript of 2009. No one can take that away. Ever.

Is this ungraceful of me to strut like this? I do admire and genuinely hope the best for my GH® sistas, especially in the historical category. In fact, I have a feeling a couple of them are also really, really close to signing. One in particular, but I won’t name names.

It’s just been such a long journey with so few celebrations up until the very last few months. And even with the contest placements and manuscript requests, I was getting scared. The best agents in the industry and the top romance editors were saying my Asian setting was too risky.

When I got up on stage for my acceptance speech, do you know how I felt? I felt like that moment at the end of the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. They finally announce that Chris (Will Smith) has earned the job he worked so tirelessly for without any promise of success. The executive says, “Tell me Chris. Was it as easy as it looked?”

Chris fights back tears as he replies: “No. No it was not.”

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