Hello Out There

 I'm out of practice here. I also have nothing meaningful to wax poetic about.

You'd be surprised how often I lay awake and compose blog posts for that one day when I blog again. But no, I have nothing.

Right now my recently graduated daughter is playing Sound of Silence on the piano while my husband scrolls through his phone. I have some artichokes on the stove and expect my younger daughter home any moment from a date. My dog is staying behind the line of demarcation between the family room and dining room. I have increased my viewing size for all my writing to 150%.

If I don't finish and publish this post soon, it won't happen because my husband keeps talking to me (not a complaint, just an observation).

The main info I have to share is that I'm writing forward for the first time in a long time. I'm not piddling around with finished books or coming up with new idea... I'm writing and I WILL finish this WIP this month.

So there. Hello.

PS I was writing earlier while my eldest daughter played piano (it was ABBA). Later I shared that I had been writing a steamy scene. She said, "Oh, that makes sense." "Why?" I asked. "Oh, because you said 'straddled him' out of nowhere." Ah. Okay. At least she's old enough now for that not to be too weird.

Sneak Peak of a Work in Progress

I lived in Glanmire, Co. Cork, Ireland from 1985 to the summer of 1988. My grandparents owned the Vienna Woods Hotel and my family operated it. We lived in a bungalow at the top of the hill, above the hotel and surrounded by woods. We kept the wood open and maintained the paths. Some of the growth was ancient and some ornamental from the time the hotel was a private home. It was an amazing place to grow up.

I take terrible selfies.
I concentrate too much on the mechanics.

My husband, two daughters, and I visited Ireland this past summer. My eldest daughter, then thirteen, was the same age I was when we left. I tried to share my experiences but the hotel and grounds had changed so much that I felt very little connection and the lack was heartbreaking. I had built this homecoming experience up so much that nothing could have matched the expectation. The saddest part was that the wood was completely inaccessible and even the main opening at the top of the hill was blocked by dumping. One owner at some point had used the wood as their own private waste
disposal for debris from expanding the hotel (it is now about 3 times the size of the original structure). For the record, the hotel was in great condition, the staff welcoming (surprisingly so considering I was probably really weird), and the restaurant experience great. We stayed in a vacation bungalow.

I need to go back and spend time not being a tourist and just let myself experience Ireland slowly, day to day. I know I will and soon, but in the meantime I hold on to memories of belonging that I never had again after moving back to the states.

One of my manuscripts in progress is set on the grounds of the Vienna Woods (although morphed for my creative use because a writer I am all powerful). The premise is that a woman returns to the Ireland seeking the connection she'd had to the land, an elemental power within the earth, something that pulsed through the forest itself. Due to disrespect and greed the forest is in peril and with it the spirit that feeds nature itself. This story is a paranormal romantic suspense with only the seeds of my own life experiences at its core. This is The Gift meets Quiet Man meets Avatar and is quirky and creepy and endearing all at once. I look forward to actually finishing it to my satisfaction (I have finished it  twice now :(, but both went in the wrong direction).

Click below to read a selection from the manuscript when Gillian first steps into the wood after thirty years away.

Summer!

I am a teacher from a family of teachers and having a summer break is the norm for me. In my young adult life, pre-teaching, it was reality check when I had a serious job and had to work year round. As a teacher, I really do need the summer or I wouldn't be able to face my new batch of students with a sense of optimism. I teach middle school and the kids test my limits each day and, every morning, I start again by giving them a clean slate and a chance to make good choices about kindness, self-respect and respect for others, accountability, honesty, and character. Sometimes they do. By the end of the year I'm a hairsbreadth away from my spirit being broken and I need the summer to emotionally heal and put me in the right mind-set to start that challenge all over again.

The good news is that  my school year is finally finished. My class is clean-ish and packed up. I have put the polite auto-response on my school email. This means the summer is MINE. From now until August 14th (which, coincidentally, is my birthday) I am free. Sort of.

During the summer I am a real writer. Writing becomes my job, not just something I squeeze in around everything else. It's great for my acceptance of myself as an author, to have that time where I can take myself more seriously. It's not just a hobby. It helps that the Romance Writers of America annual conference is in July. It gives me a professional goal to work toward which keeps me on my self-imposed deadlines and makes me wear pants. This conference I hope to find a home for my Courtly Love book 3, Courtly Abandon. I will not be signing this year, but I look forward to seeing many of my peers (and taking home oodles of books). The first book of my new series won't be finished, but I'm laying a fertile foundation with my setting and my characters are slowly becoming themselves and starting to tell me their story. Surprisingly, I even wrote a synopsis (blame my critique partner for making me organized) which is something I usually struggle with after the book is finished. It's my hope that the finished manuscript resembles my synopsis, but I never really know what direction my characters will take me. It's a mystery.

I hope you have a great summer. My family and I will be visiting Ireland next week. I lived there as a child. It's been thirty years since I've been there and I can't wait to share it with my husband and daughters. I'll include some pictures in my next blog post. The image below is of me and my brother (circa 1986) in the wood at Vienna Woods Hotel in Glanmire, Co Cork.

What are you doing this summer?

Being a Writer

I am just about to send my edited manuscript back. At this point I'm going over it again and again to see if I missed anything and to clean up the new content.

Receiving the edits made the fact that I'm going to be published finally become real. As I work toward applying the edits, I feel like I'm working toward a real goal. It makes it feel like a legitimate job and not something weird I do alone when I have time.

Writing had become almost a burden. If I wasn't writing then I was giving up. If I was writing, it was hard to justify why I was taking the time to write a story when I could be doing productive things like laundry. I had so many stories in my head, but either the story or the writing had some flaw I didn't understand, something about it that made it not viable. It's hard to motivate yourself to write despite that.

I would tell myself that the fact that I started and finished books was an achievement in itself and I didn't need validation from external sources. While I still felt good about what I had accomplished, I must have needed that validation because it was becoming harder and harder to write.

As I do edits for Courtly Pleasures I can see the finish line on this project. It restores my optimism (or insanity) for my writing and my faith in myself. New stories are percolating. Old stories with kinks are resolving themselves.

I'm excited about writing, about being a writer, again. Of course I'm excited about Courtly Pleasures being published but, more than that, I'm excited about the next story and how it might unfold.

I'm All Over the Place

It's true. My brain is a plate of spaghetti and I'm at least a touch ADD (attention deficit disorder) so is it any surprise my blog is so inconsistent?

I started this blog when I first joined in with the online writing communities and started growing my craft. Since then my craft has changed. I have changed. But, I still have a handful of books I want to promote and I continue to write forward in various genres.

It's been quite a journey toward finding my identity as a writer. Each time I think I know, something changes and, being a fan of organic growth, I go with it. As a result, the last ten blog posts have been about redefining myself again and again. And again.

And then I cam full circle back to writing Elizabethan historical romance. When I first started this blog, it was called "Doing it Elizabethan Style" thanks to my husband and then changed to "Hold on to Your Bloomers." It's gone through a few evolutions to the current title, "Spocktastic," which is more indicative of me rather than my writing.

The point of this blog post is to own it. It's who I am. I get distracted by shiny things and squirrels. I have moments of genius followed by moments of sleeping. Such is the nature of me and, therefore, my writing.

That said, I like to think my writing is good and entertaining. Right now I'm, as I said in the last post and it's still true, working on bringing Courtly Pleasures back to life. In the meantime, I have posted my paranormal romantic thriller, Possessing Karma, on Inkitt and it is consistently in the top romance novels with over 700 reads. While there's a big part of me that cringes that I'm just putting it out there for free when I feel like it's totally publishable, another part loves that people are actually reading my work.

And that's all for now.

My First Love

I pursued my bachelor's degree in history because of my love of historical costume. The way I'd learned history in high school, dates of wars and political events, did not speak to me. But the way I learned history through theater did. I loved how you can find out so much about a person based on what they wore. Social history, the people that led us to the world as we know it, still fascinates me.

I particularly fell in love with the Elizabethan/Reformation era courtesy of Shakespeare and renaissance fairs. The nuances of dress, the widening scope of the world, changing cultures, this was my focus in college. Because I felt history was a underwhelming subject in school the way it had been taught in my experience led me to becoming a teacher.

This era also led me to start and finish my first manuscript, then called Courtly Love. I've addressed this poor, overworked, Frankenstein of a book many times, but this time it's different.

This time I have a reason to make it right.

There is interest.

I'd stopped seriously pitching my historical romances a few years ago because I could predict the responses: the market is saturated and Elizabethan era is better suited to historical fiction than historical romance (and any other variation on this theme). I stopped even thinking about my historicals. I compartmentalized all the story lines that had built up in my mind and stored them away for another day and concentrated on thrillers. 

But interest, oh, that changes everything. The floodgates are open and I am in my element again. My musings are full of grand manors and small villages, court, dancing, gowns, changing social norms... and the stories refuse to be ignored.

So, back to Courtly Pleasures go I. My challenge there is to smooth out the seams. I rewrote it because it was more women's fiction than romance and the two books that followed had more of a romance vibe so they didn't match. My mistake was not rewriting 100%. I tried to salvage parts I liked from the original but my writing style had evolved. Now I'm remedying that error and hope to finish with a manuscript I am proud of once more.

And on that, back to work.

Cheers!

This is my eldest, age 4ish at the time the picture was taken.

Introducing Call of Echoes

This work in progress has been on the back burner for a long time. In fact, I feel confident in saying that putting it there is what crippled my writing. It was the first moment of me not writing the story of my heart and, instead, writing what I thought would sell.

Newsflash: nothing sold AND I have not finished a manuscript since I put this one away. This one has haunted me. I thought it was the ghost of my dearly departed first book that held me back, but it was this one. This story is so intensely personal in that the wood I describe is the same wood where I lived as a child. The longing and the full sensory experience is so real. As for the story as a whole? Not even sort of based on real life.

My biggest struggle with this story was whether to build the romance or the paranormal element as the primary story. I like to think they're balanced and, ultimately, it's about a woman who realizes she deserves happiness (as are all my stories. So whether it's a paranormal romantic thriller or a paranormal thriller with romantic elements will remain to be seen.

Thank you to Raquel Byrnes for the title. I've been calling it Sexy Trees (because there are trees in the book and there's sexiness, but not sex with trees - different genre) and finally have something a little more respectable.

Just for fun, here's a sneak peak at the prologue.

Prologue

            Pain of fusion, heat, pressure, and the sudden chill of wind and rain seared my first memory into being. Mother beneath me heaving and stilling only to surge again and again, pressing me higher into the emptiness above, left me solitary. Sense of purpose filled me, my granite roots deep and joined with my brethren. Together we were one with the core. We pulsed with power born of raw elemental violence. Always united but each alone, dark night and misty morning. Surrounded by empty earth, I longed for more, to feel the warmth of the burning star and to taste the dew. With each burst of my energy, the land around me awakened and blossomed, new life twining inexorably my channel to the beating heart of earth. Vibrant and fertile, life and death surrounded me and became woven into my very fiber. I nourished my children, the five reaching higher and broader, sending out shoots of their own until the land around me teemed with my progeny. Awake, aware, and embraced, I felt the world above as never before and I felt joy. 

            Man came late, leaving footprints, proof of their ambition and determination. They needed me, the safe haven of my bower. They called me sacred, god, goddess, Aine, menhir, and my children the Duir, the oak. In return, man paid homage to me with ritual and respect. Together my children and man flourished. I reached out to know them and found one who accepted me—a child. Open and innocent, our beings joined and her people called her the guardian. Our bond was as sacred to them as the life I gave, the grove I bore, the beams of moonlight that joined me to all. I gave the guardian access to the pulse from within my core to protect my children and that guardian gave their breath to upholding our bond. I treasure the guardians, once called Druids, who gave themselves to me. I am the bone, my oaken children are my nerves, my veins. The guardians, for there have been many, give me their pleasure and their pain. Through them I have sight and scent, taste and sound. They sing to me and I hold their memories within my immortality.

            Man seldom seeks me at the glade now. Those that dare, only take and never give back. I feel the tendrils of my influence shrinking and their apathy kills all I love.

           I have been and will continue to be the lifeblood of this land. I will do whatever necessary to protect what is mine. We will flourish no matter the obstacle. I will never allow anyone or anything to interrupt the cycle held deep within the roots and boughs I have born. I know this as I know the winds and rain that wear my skin, the moss that absorbs my warmth. My children with thrive again because the guardian has returned.

            

Hello Summer!

As a teacher, summer is a sacred time dedicated to sleep and emotional healing. Without said healing, it is impossible to have the optimism necessary to approach a new school year full of hope. To be more specific, if you open your classroom doors on that first day of fall and are already thinking of your students as assholes negatively, the year is doomed.

Doomed.

Today I slept until noon and, in order to not feel like a total slob, did put on clean clothes including a bra. Why? Well, I hope to be productive with writing today and actually being dressed helps me NOT play World of Warcraft because I am a serious author. Right? Right.

I also now have slightly more than a month to prepare for Romance Writer's of America's national convention. I am financially blessed that this year is in San Diego, just an hour or so away. This means instead of it being a $2000 or more commitment, it's only (only! Oy vey) $500ish. This does not mean I get to slack. No, sir. I am on my home field and need to kick some pitching-my-books butt this year. I did not attend RWA15 in New York last year for financial and emotional reasons (there's only so many times you can smile and keep a professional-yet-creative face on while you get rejected). I spent the summer piddling around with different writing ideas but not really writing forward. A lot of false starts and revisions. This summer I am going to be a writing machine. I know the stories are in me, I just have to convince myself that I can really write them.

My point? Writing, actually writing something that I get to look back on and say, "I wrote that!" with pride is emotionally healing for me. During the school year I have a lot of small successes, but many of them come with redefining what success means for each student individually. Sometimes it's hard to put my finger on and really see the progress. But when I write, I can see that word count grow. I can't wait to write more, almost like I'm not writing but I'm reading something that leaves me feeling like I can't wait to see what happens next. I get this incredible sense of accomplishment that comes from within (it has to, since I have yet to find that elusive agent who believes in my writing) that is so, so very validating. I've had this feeling from my costuming and when my daughters Irish dance dresses, but it's not the same. With those, I thrive on compliments. With my writing, I am proud of myself whether or not I sell, or even if my critique partner quirks a brow and tells me she doesn't understand my direction.

So there, I've shared a part of my rambling soul in this not very cohesive post (does that make it a horcrux?)

Time

We are steadily chugging through January and it will be February before we know it. After February, it will be Hallowe'en again (the months in between don't count because they go by too quickly to notice) and then the next time you blink will be in 2016. It's incredible how fast time flies when there are deadlines. Even my kids are starting to notice that time has picked up its pace.

As a kid an hour seemed to take forrrrrrevvvvvveerrrrrrr. For my daughters, before they got the concept of the passage of time in terms of hours and minutes, I would label how long things took in terms of Dora the Explorer episodes.

"Mommy, when will the cake be ready to ice?"

"In half a Dora." It helped, during those times, if they were actually watching Dora. Swiper, no swiping. Good times.

Now we joke about it. The trip we took to Phoenix recently was supposed to take eight Doras but ended up taking almost fourteen. They watched Charlie's Angels (the first movie), Annie, and Tinkerbell's pirate movie (which is my least favorite), while my husband and I listened to audio books and learned more about each other (David Sedaris made me laugh and made my husband want to cut himself.)  Even though the drive took forever, we were back home and back at work before we knew it. Now the week is almost over. Sure, it's Wednesday, but it may as well be Friday. Or next Monday. It will be before I know it and there will be tons of things that didn't get done.

Given the crazy current of life, taking time to write (or do something you really love vs. something that just needs doing) is important. It forces me to sit, focus on one thing, and actually accomplish something. I did not write much in the period between August and December (school craziness), but took control of my personal time/space continuum and wrote over the winter break. I am continuing to wedge in time to write and that helps qualify the time spent as worthwhile instead of a blur of activity, laundry that's not folded, and a dance class that we're late to.

I just took half a Dora over my lunch break to write this blog post and there's no reason I couldn't have been doing that regularly over the past months.  It feels good and I'm glad to be back online. Now I'm going to take another half a Dora and read some other blogger's posts.

How do you keep time from sweeping you away?

I Really Hate Titles

Seriously, I do. I will come up with something clever, but not sexy. The titles I like don't give a clear idea of the story and aren't gripping. It's really a problem.

Next time I pitch, I think the header on my one sheet should say "Insert Title Here" instead of whatever I come up with. After all, editors often change the title anyway, right?

Currently my Irish paranormal is called Touching the Past. The forest is central to the story, so when my critique partner and I discuss is, she calls it Sexy Trees or Psychic Trees. My husband, who really is a proponent for the titillating angle (which is not the entirety of the story and, therefore, shouldn't be the only selling feature) wants me to call it She Gives Him Wood. I like the idea of the title One (inspired by the U2 song) or Eternal Memory or The Heart's Guardian... but no, not sexy.

Allow me to scream. Hey, Screaming Trees... no, that was a grunge band.

Okay, better now.

How do you come up with a title?

The image shown left (and more!) can be found here.

Real Life Leading Up To RWA13

In my last “this house is disgusting” episode followed by frantic cleaning, I actually made use of the laundry hamper in my bathroom. Usually I sort loads out on the floor near the hamper, but very rarely put laundry in it and close the lid. I know. The idea is that I’ll wash those loads if they’re in my face. Obviously, it doesn’t always happen in a timely matter. I’m sure you have opinions about this. So does my husband.

The end result was a clean room and laundry that was out of sight, out of mind. Life went on, but without my

comfortable, functional underwear. For two weeks of I’ve been wearing and laundering the impractical, special occasion items that do not do well on muggy days or at the gym.

Today, after I cleared away the shoe boxes that somehow ended up stacked on top of the closed laundry hamper, I discovered a hidden stash of clothes. Happy Underwear Christmas! It was with a sense of relief that I closed the door on my washer and turned it on.  Tonight I will wear cotton! Thank God.

I’m in the home stretch of laundry, dry cleaning, and shopping in preparation for Romance Writers of America 2013 conference in Atlanta. The conference clothes are occupying a different section of my closet than my every day wear and, now that I see everything together, I realize I have more than I need. Even so, chances are good I may buy a grey blazer tomorrow. I have my travel size items and my packing cubes just arrived today. Very exciting. Thank you, Erin Knightley.

Amidst all of this hoopla I’m still writing forward in Touching the Past and applying beta reader edits to Possessing Karma. Last year I approached the conference with a desperate optimism. This year, upon last year’s lack of results, I’m a little more relaxed about the process and I hope that translates into real confidence rather than forced exuberance (“I know my writing’s good” vs. “LIKE ME!”).

We shall see. As for now I’m looking forward to underwear.

Where's the Love?

I'm 20k into my current project and it feels stagnant. I've brought the story forward, outlined as much as someone like me can, and yet it's not a growing story. I couldn't put my finger on the problem, so just kept writing forward. I knew something was wrong with the meat of what I'd written so far -- that's been the case every time my writing sort of devolved into rambling, but I had no idea what to fix.

I was meeting with my fabulous critique partner going over scenes that I will undoubtedly cut in the final draft because they don't further the story, when she asked when Gillian and Liam were going to get together.

Ummmm... eventually?

WRONG ANSWER. And thus, I discovered the fatal flaw of my work in progress. I wasn't writing a romance. I was writing an interesting story about sentient trees and elemental powers with some romance sauce. Every other story* I've written started with the romance and the story built around it. Touching the Past started with the forest and the idea of coming home at last. The spark was missing and that wasn't something I could just build up in a well placed sentence here and there.

This week I've been starting over again and it hurts. After many starts and stops, yesterday I finally started making progress and the tension in my shoulders relaxed. I'll be able to use a lot of what I've written so far, but it's a new story. I had to revise Gillian's history entirely, create new personal conflict, and reexamine the woman life has made her and the way Liam will respond. A lot of work, but it will be a much better story in the long run. I'm just glad I was able to figure it out now before wasting more time writing in the wrong direction.



*With exception of my under-the-bed book, Courtly Love, which was more writing therapy about depression.

Gillian, What's Your Sign?

As I flesh out my characters, one of the tools I use to keep myself from making them archetypal is an astrological chart. I give my characters a birthday and accept the random character traits astrology lists. I already know the basics. For example, as a Leo, Gillian is confident and a little pushy. She is comfortable performing and enjoys the recognition for her talents. This is currently causing her some grief in her academic studies because her British professor has discounted her as a dumb American. Her chart added some traits that balance out her drive to succeed. Her moon in Jupiter gives her "great optimism and an ability to bounce back easily from negative experiences" -- which is important given that her husband died of Leukemia and she's uprooted her life to follow her dreams.  Her Mercury being in Virgo helps in her research with the University of Cork College in that she has "a fine mind and a great appetite for detail. [She] appreciate minute differences and distinctions and take a very surgical approach to your operations." True to her Leonine traits, her Mercury squares Mars making her a forceful and dynamic communicator who sometimes can be too aggressive. Luckily her sun is in the 12th house, making her serious and ready to sacrifice herself for the needs of other.

Whether or not you think astrology is bunk, the character traits have been really useful. I need to run my male lead's chart. I know that Sergeant Liam Hurley of Glangashaboy garda is an Aries and very compatible with a Leo, but would find more information helpful in developing him further.

For more detail on Gillian's astrological chart or, more importantly, to look at the various facets of a cahrt, continue reading. For those of you who don't care (and hey, I get that), don't continue reading.

Happy writing.

Note: I used the astrological chart generator linked above. For those of you that might really be into this as a religion/science and have thoughts on the accuracy of the chart generator, I don't really care. Since Gillian is not a real person, it's only important as a tool for me.

Touching the Past

It's official. I'm working on my new project.

"But wait," you ask, "haven't you been working on that for a month or so?"

Yes. Sigh. I've been doing the research, laying out my characters, and procrastinating about really starting. Sure, I wrote the first chapter --but I wrote this with the understanding that I probably would end up throwing it out when I got halfway through the project because feedback would finally convince me that I hadn't started the story where the story starts (because I never learn).

What makes me serious now? Well, I know this is silly, but I have a Pandora station all set as my writing soundtrack. I also, finally, know what my male lead looks like. What else? I've finished the research that gives my entire reason for using Ireland as my setting validity, so now I can start applying the story. (Side note: I'm using Pinterest as a mode for collecting my data. It's very visual and much better than my Word.doc cut/paste of URLs.)

And I have! I'm only about 4k words into the manuscript, but the story has everything it needs to grow at this point.

On that note, I should get back to writing. Liam is walking Gillian home, but she really doesn't want him too -- or does she? (she does, but she wishes she didn't, just in case you wondered)

BTW: Touching the Past is a temporary title. I needed something. It had to be sexy/suggestive, but also touch on the mystical elements in the story. 

Naming the Baby

Well, in this case, the new book. It's another paranormal, but the paranormal is a benign force, not helpful nor harmful except in that it drives my main character sort of nuts.

The premise:  Gillian, 35 year old widow with a daughter in college (she was a teenage mother) moves back to her childhood home in Ireland to pursue her education and interns at a historic home, now hotel, to help preserve the wooded property. As she works, memories of strange happenings haunt her -- things she dismissed as her imagination. Eventually she realizes that the images she is seeing come from the memories of the forest itself. The forest, so relieved to have an outlet, bombards her memories, some meaningful, some not (they're trees, they don't classify things the way humans do). The information overload gets worse when the forest jumps into a self preservation mode and Gillian has to figure out what the land is trying to tell her.

I'm working in druids, Vikings, and more mundane menaces, like murders and waste disposal. Along the way, Gillian's uncanny connection with the land makes someone nervous, someone who doesn't want his corruption known. Gillian also discovers the woman she is now, no longer defined by her teenage behavior, and has a journey of self (and some sex -- it is romance).

My initial title was Residual Memory, but that sounds a little Sci-Fi. I need something a little sexy, Irish, and creepy. A friend (just now, as I was typing this blog) suggested the term 'knowing,' which I like. It can be deep and transcendental or have a sexual connotation.

Possessing Karma (the book that is now in edits) is about a woman named Karma who gets possessed, but also about the karma that eventually gets to the cocky, abusive, sexual sadist, pre-Civil war plantation owner ghost. I don't love this title, but it works for now. I do like the double meaning and I think it's got a sexy edge to it (important in romance genre).

As for my sentient trees watching you? Not a clue. Feel free to offer suggestions, silly or serious. Even writing this has been helpful for me getting into a good writing vibe. Maybe inspiration will strike.

Possession

I'm off to a good start on my new w.i.p., Possessing Karma. This is my first contemporary, but luckily since I do live in current times, it's not too much of a stretch. :) The paranormal aspect is also not entirely new to me. The story involves a haunted historical building.

For a time during my childhood, my family lived in Ireland. My parents managed a hotel and we lived on the property. The hotel had begun its life as a hunting lodge in the lat 1700s. It later became a boys boarding school before evolving into a hotel during WWIIish. While I never saw anything that I would be willing to swear was supernatural, I definitely felt something (blog post about this here). You can chalk it up to a hyperactive imagination, but it doesn't really matter. What matters right now is that it felt real to me and that gives me a great experience to draw upon when writing about a haunting.

Of course, I was never possessed by a horny ghost, or by any ghost - so that's all new to me.

I introduced my first 250 months ago while I still more in developing stages than real writing (you can compare the two here if you like). Now I'm actually starting the story where the story starts (my mantra). Here are the first 292 words of Possessing Karma. Please let me know your thoughts regarding the hook, the character, setting, etc... Thanks in advance. :)

“What on earth…”

Kay’s voice echoed through the empty room. Where was she? Looking around she took in the polished oak floors, the elaborate crown molding at the ceiling, the Ikea boxes and bags stacked by the wall.

Her new condo in New Orleans. “Home,” her voice echoed through the almost empty room.

She mentally retraced her steps. She remembered the airport in Los Angeles, stepping into humidity in New Orleans. The taxi driver speaking gibberish, one way streets, construction, then finally the bright yellow painted bricks of her new home. She remembered putting the key in the lock, stepping inside to the scent of fresh paint… then nothing.

How had she ended up half naked and dripping wet on the floor?

Sitting up, she ran her hands over her hair. It was damp but not soaked through. Slicking it away from her face, she tied it in a knot on top of her head. Her bra, white cotton and perfectly serviceable, was spotted with water drops, her nipples a dark contrast through the damp fabric.

Maybe she’d passed out. Air conditioned air port, hot parking lot, air conditioned taxi, steaming streets, jet lag, airport food… it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. But then what had happened to her clothes?

“Was I assaulted?”

 Refusing to panic, she stood barefoot in a puddle on the waxed wood. Though undone, her jeans were still on. Running her hands over her body, she felt no injuries. There was nothing outside the norm, well, not really – but her underwear was uncomfortably askew. Kay ran her fingers along the elastic at her thighs, putting everything in place.  What should have been a perfunctory motion sent shivers through her, her body tightening, aroused.

What the hell was going on?

Self Deprecation at its Finest

I just started, really started, my contemporary paranormal romance with suspense sauce. They get down and dirty within the first fifteen pages. Too quickly, you may ask? No, because they’re possessed by ghosts. It’s all good. Don’t worry, they’ll actually have honest and meaningful sex around the appropriate time – say page 125ish. And yes, it will be emotionally significant to their character arcs.

Karma, aka Kay, is an ethnic mutt newly moved to New Orleans to teach religious studies at Tulane. She is newly out of the life of professional student and is playing house. Unfortunately her house is haunted. You’d think as a scholar of religious studies that she’d be open to that stuff, but no – she thinks of mystical explanations as a crutch for humanity. Lucky for the readers, the ghosts are horny. Lucky for Kay (I have cast Halle Berry, but with blue eyes), her neighbor and chainsaw artist, is hot (Joe Manganiello). Yes, I have been watching True Blood and Saw Dogs.

In other news, Courtly Abandon edits w/beta readers are going well. No one has been turned off by my hero’s virginity, although one commented that the scene were he was trying not to, umm, spend, in his pants, hinted at sexual dysfunction. Changing that. Otherwise, my incredibly well bathed Elizabethans finding love amidst adversity has been well received.

Sometimes I enjoy laughing at myself. Sometimes I don’t. Right now I’m in the process of trying to finesse my queries. In doing so, I’m trying to step back and look at the big picture. What are my stories really about? This morning, this process has resulted in my laughing at myself. A lot. I’m frustrated with some of the cliché necessities of genre fiction, even though I’m confident that I addressed them professionally and made them an organic part of my stories. I like to think that I own the fact that I write romance. I am unashamed, proud even – but then I find myself highlighting all the steamy scenes to make sure there are enough and that they’re well balanced and I get a little sad. But then I read a romance and it lightens my day. I have to remember that, whenever I think of myself as tawdry, that I’m writing what I love, what many readers will love. Romance offers that silver lining and any negative thoughts I have about it stem from external sources. Take that, world!

Here I am writing my fourth book about stunningly beautiful people with baggage. Lucky for them I’m here to help them get past their issues and realize that love is worth it and that they are worthy of happiness. So, watch out Karma and Philippe, I’m about to rock your world way more than the ghosts of the wealthy plantation owner and his Creole mistress ever could. Just ask Jane and Percy, or Mary and Charles, or Frances and Henry.

I Brushed My Teeth, What More Do You Want?

From Hyperbole and a Half

Almost five weeks since the break. Three weeks since surgery. I am officially on disability now through mid-May and I hate it. I am a troll living in a cave. I’m going to get bed sores on my butt. My left calf is now Jello™ and even the Achilles tendon on my right foot is tight from disuse.

I got an orthotic boot the other day, but it wants my foot to be a right angle – so I’m still in the splint until the doctor can x-ray again on Tuesday. When I called the doctor’s office to ask about the angle of the boot, I made the mistake of saying a “90 degree angle.” The nurse asked me what I meant by that. I explained it was a flexed foot. She said, “Oh! You mean a right angle.” This does not inspire confidence.

Today, as I wrote about how I was doing to a friend (honestly – not just ‘fine), I realized I had hit several symptoms of depression. Me? Depressed? Nah – I’m just irritated at everyone. I mean, I would feel better if everyone just left me alone, let me sleep all the time, and stopped making me eat and groom myself.  Huh – maybe that is depression. Maybe I should change the tank top I’ve been wearing for the past few days (maternity, used to say ‘baby’ in now-missing rhinestones) and brush my teeth.

Having done that (and a little more) I still want to go to sleep. I’m convinced I’ll feel better once I’m mobile. It’s soul sucking just waiting for time to pass. And now that I’m on disability, I can’t even stress myself out with lesson plans.

All the help I’m receiving is making me crazy. Even worse – I actually do need that help. It’s painful to converse and be pleasant as someone reorganizes my pantry or my kid’s dresser. It’s the same as receiving a critique – it may be hurtful, but it was well intended and remember, every critique is a gift. Well, my family is awesome and very giving – and I want to burrow under my blankets and not speak to any one.

Speaking of critiques, I recently got feedback from YellowRose RWA’s Winter Rose for unpublished writer’s competition. Totally worth the $25.  I sent in the first 25 of Courtly Scandals and Courtly Abandon. Courtly Scandals is clean, has been queried, had interest, etc… Courtly Abandon is not even finished, really. The judges confirmed both. Scandals did very well in all, averaging 85/100. Abandon averaged 65/100 and I learned what I have learned with all my books so far – I started the story in the wrong place.

In RWA Golden Heart you get the judges final score. In Winter Rose, the judging sheet had many categories with room for feedback. They even inserted comments into the Word doc and emailed me the attachments.  It was a great experience. Of course, I have fixated on the 51/100 I received from one judge on Courtly Scandals more than the 99/100 I received from another, but when I step back I’m able to use both to make myself a better writer. (Amongst other things, the 51/100 really did not feel I fleshed out my world enough – something I either do too much or too little, so err toward the latter. I need to find a balance where descriptions do not detract from story.)

I am forcing myself to stop wallowing today. Yes, I am hiding in my room, but I have my computer and WILL NOT play any games on Facebook. I will write – maybe not anything productive, but I won’t cocoon myself with my quilt and have bad dreams about my foot. I will also wear deodorant. 

I'm Not Ignoring You

3 hours after fall

I broke my foot on Sunday, 3/11. Urgent care said it was a bone chip, but the orthopedic doctor said the chip is attached to a tendon, so requires surgery. Oh, and I broke it in 3 other places as well. While this validated my pain and made me feel less wussy, it has really thrown a wrench in the gears of my life.

I have to take extended leave from school. I still don’t know if this means disability or a sub – and if my sick days are limited to M/W/F (the days I teach) or the whole week. And if I’m doing lesson plans. I don’t know anything. It stresses me out a lot, but then I take a Vicodin™.

Day 2

I also have not been upright long enough to write and/or blog. I am woefully behind on checking people’s crusader challenges and missed another Romantic Friday Writer’s opportunity. It stresses me out, but then the Vicodin™ kicks in and I’m comatose for the 4 hours the drug works.

It’s the only way I can sleep now because I’m wearing a big f-ing (I've been cussing a lot) boot that weighs 20lbs and doesn’t fit right. They were going to cast it, but I had to get it CAT scanned so they opted for the boot.  I would complain more here, but my Vicodin™ is starting to work and I need to lay down.

Stupid $%&#&#@ boot

So this blog is to say I’m not ignoring anyone. I will catch up after my surgery (Wednesday-ish).

Hook, Line, and Sinker: Take Two

I posted the beginning of my WIP for Justin Parente's 2/13/12 blogfest. I have less than 10k words on that project. When I say it is a work in progress, I mean it. The readers agreed that it was rough. Well written, but not a  hook. I agree. The story had not started yet.

My Karma book is a departure from my era and subject. Karma is an experiment and I am very early on the learning curve. I am even considering changing it to first person. I know, crazy. I have faith it will be a good book -- but right now it's too early to judge.

So, just to salvage my reputations, here are the first 491 words from the work I am currently editing, Courtly Abandon (my 3rd Elizabethan historical romance). Please enjoy it more than you did the last one. :)

Holme LeSieur, Nottinghamshire, 1573

Jane hefted her farthingale and skirts past her knees as she sprinted across the orchard. Rufus, the elderly hound and her companion for the morning, loped wide circles around her. She was glad he was enjoying himself but hoped he would not trip her. She had to get to the split log fence at the edge of the orchard without becoming disheveled. Arriving at the property line she straightened her skirts, praying she was not already too late.

Out of breath, she leaned against a thick apple-tree trunk and ran a smoothing hand over her artfully tousled blond curls and net coif. She had looked both ladylike and wanton when she left the house. Now she hoped her exertion had brought a rosy glow to her cheeks that would make any hot blooded man think of bedding her. Of course Sir William, Viscount of Kingsley, was not any man. He was the man she was going to marry. She would make him a wonderful wife, he just did not know it yet. More interested in farming, he had not even noticed her flirtations. At least she hoped that was all it was. She could not abide being married to a stupid man.

At least her first husband had been sharp witted. Though quite a bit older than she, he had treated her well and she had been fond of him. She had also enjoyed her widowhood. Immensely. But, it was time to marry again and Lord Kingsley was convenient, comely, and amiable enough.

He frequently made a morning round of his lands. Jane liked to make herself visible whenever possible. Bringing the dog along had seemed like a good idea at first; should Lord Kingsley happen to pass by, he would see her as a lovely young maid, full of life, delighting in country pleasures. What man could resist such an image?

Jane straightened her emerald green silk skirts and leaned back against the tree in a nonchalant pose. Lord Kingsley would never know the encounter was staged. And, Jane looked down to make sure both breasts were still contained, he would get an eyeful.

She waited, adjusting her position a few times. Perhaps she had been too late? Rufus’ bark made her jump.

“Mistress Radclyffe,” Viscount Kingsley’s called out a greeting, “What a pleasure to see you out so early.” He remained astride. Though his voice was courteous, there was no sign of eagerness to see her.

“I love spring mornings and the scent of the world coming alive. Everything is so… fertile. The earth is ripe.” Nicely done. Honest, suggestive, and sure to play to his interests.

            The Viscount jumped off his horse, but kept hold of the reigns as he toed the ground, careful not to get mud on his boots. He sniffed the air. “Right now I smell dung.”

Dung? Really? Viscount or not, the man could use a lesson in courtly manners.