Time for Vacation...

“Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense.”
~ Helen Rowland

Since it’s winter break, and since hubby and I are both teachers (in the same school, with the same schedule - even better), we are off on a 3-day vacation today. And how’s this for karma: hubby picked the place, a bed & breakfast on a lake in New Hampshire, about a 5-hours’ drive away. I had no input on the decision (this is important)…

So guess where we’re staying? In a town v.v. close to (1) one of my dearest friends from graduate school, who I haven’t seen in about 10 years, and (2) one of my good online writing friends, Marianne. Go figure! I’m hoping to meet up with both of them and really can’t wait.

Looks like I’ll be absent from posting until 2007 (gulp), so here’s a big holiday wish that everyone has a safe and happy New Year’s Eve. See you on the other side!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...

"Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart."

~ Unknown

Top 3 favorite Christmas gifts this year (not including getting to sleep in past 6:30 am or see some relatives I hadn't in a while...):

1. Reuniting with a group of last year's students, who came back to visit at our annual school holiday party. They are an amazing group of girls, strong and smart and mature and insightful. Gives me hope for the future.

2. Some books (of course!) to add to my TBR pile: For One More Day, The Audacity of Hope, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, and The Tenth Circle .
(Note: if you enjoy animal stories, check out Unleashed, by Beth Quinn. She's a columnist for our local paper and every so often writes terrific, witty, heartfelt columns about her dogs. This is a collection - bought it for my MIL for Christmas.)

3. Finding out I won an Honorable Mention in the WOW-Women on Writing flash fiction contest I entered last month. Hard to believe someone in the writing world was still working and sending out emails on Dec. 23, but they were!

What about you? Favorite gifts? Tangible or intangible?

Merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful day, whether you are eating or drinking or celebrating or working or writing or dreaming or hoping or praying or parenting or singing or simply being thankful...

Christmas Break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true ...
All I want for Christmas
Is you ...
~Mariah Carey

Last day of school for a whole week! Hooray! You know, I think when we were kids we never really understand that huge grin on our teachers’ faces as we raced out the door for winter recess/spring break/summer vacation. Boy, when you grow up you sure do!

I have no writing news to report, no ups or downs, just a plan to do some concentrated writing over break to shape up a couple of manuscripts I hope to send out anew in 2007.

Really, my goal is not to eat every single cookie or plate full of food that is put in front of me this holiday season…and to try and limit the eggnog and the red wine, as well. But it’s everywhere - have you noticed? I walked into my bank the other day to cash a check and they had a whole spread laid out: cookies, chocolates, coffee, cider.

Didn’t I read somewhere that people gain more weight between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than any other 6 week period?

Here’s to our writing gaining weight instead: our words getting plump and full, our plots swelling with juiciness, our characters bubbling over with flavor (and how’s that for a metaphor or two to start the weekend?).

Happy Holidays!

This and That

"The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfuly wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents."
~O. Henry


Click Here to get this from pYzam.com!
I love the Christmas season; I really do. I think part of it may be because I have a December birthday as well, so it’s a festive season times two for me. Though I’ll admit that growing up, I always felt a little cheated when it came to presents. I mean, my parents were super about making sure my birthday (the 15th) and Christmas were two completely different and separate days of celebration. Still, I always envied the kids who got to have pool parties for their summer birthdays. Plus, they got gifts every 6 months or so. Me? All jammed together within 10 days.

However, the gift thing actually became an interesting barometer for the guys I dated when I got older. Anyone who tried to give me one gift to cover both birthday and Christmas wasn’t going to stick around long. I actually had one guy write “For Birthday/Christmas” on the tag. I mean, come on! Would he have tried to pull the same thing if I’d been born in March?

My future husband, however, knew instinctively that they were to be celebrated as two completely different occasions. I knew there was a reason I married him…

As a gift to myself this December, I picked up “Good Poems for Hard Times” edited by Garrison Keillor. Didn’t even know the book existed, but I was browsing in a local bookstore and stumbled across it. Keillor’s introduction itself is worth the $12 price tag. He talks about how poetry -- really, all writing -- should be accessible to everyone, not a mystery for academics in ivory towers to puzzle over.

And so the choices he’s made to include are varied and wonderful. Here’s one of my favorites:

“After Love” (by Maxine Kumin)

Afterward, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.
These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.
Spoons of our fingers, lips,
admit their ownership.
The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajar
and overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.
Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment when
the wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the self
lay lightly down, and slept.

Judging the Golden Heart

"Love is a friendship with erotic moments."
~Antonio Gala

I signed up to be a judge for the RWA Golden Heart contest again this year (it’s the one for unpublished writers), and my 5 partial manuscripts arrived yesterday.

Last year, I was a little disillusioned with the whole process, because of the 5 I read, the one I scored lowest, by far, ended up being a finalist. I still have no idea how that might have happened. Anyway, I thought it would be good of me to participate, so I volunteered for another go-round. This time, I’m reading ms. in the category “Novel with Strong Romantic Elements.” Should be interesting, right?

I’ve just skimmed the opening pages, but it looks as though 3 are pretty mainstream, one is a paranormal (cool, esp. since I never read that genre…good for a change), and one is…ahem…borderline erotica. I question a little what “romantic elements“ actually means, but we'll see...

Anyone else ever judge writing contests? Thoughts on the good, the bad, and the ugly of the experience?

Exploring Possibilities

“Every writer has to figure out what works best - and often has to select and discard different tools before they find the one that fits.”
~Nora Roberts

In this month’s Romance Writers Report, a feature interview with Harlequin editor Beverly Sotolov discusses their new line, Harlequin Everlasting Love.

She writes: “The series is open to a wide range of plots and situations; each story requires a significant conflict that creates urgency, excitement, and momentum. Structurally, there are many more options--interesting and nonlinear ways of organizing the story--than the traditional series romance typically allows. The narrative can start at any point, can include diaries or letters, can move freely back and forth in time, etc…”

Seems like an interesting, if challenging, idea. I’ve never targeted a Harlequin line because I don’t think of my novels as category, per se. I’ve picked up a couple in the past and not been totally impressed (sorry). I just think single-titles have more power and complexity; they’re more interesting to read. For me, anyway.

But I might go back and take a look at one of my earlier works and see if it might fit this new Everlasting Love line. Always have to explore the possibilities, right?

6 shopping days 'til Christmas - yikes! Anyone have any cool stocking stuffer ideas?

The Holiday

I have found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said, "Journeys end in lovers meeting." What an extraordinary thought.
~from “The Holiday”

So I saw the movie “The Holiday” over the weekend (dragged my hubby with me because it was my birthday - the fact that he was one of 3 men in the theater didn’t really amuse him).

Very cute movie, not too terribly predictable, and of course since I’m a romance writer I was interested in how they created character and conflict and how believable it all was.

The story, if you haven’t seen the previews, is about two women who switch houses on a home exchange for 2 weeks: one in the English countryside and one in L.A. And of course, both have just broken up with their boyfriends, and both find love (or at least its potential) while they’re away from home. The thing I found hardest to accept was the fact that it all happens in 2 weeks - but of course that’s a nicely built in external conflict, and it’s Hollywood, so…

The best part of the movie, honestly, were the actors: Kate Winslet is matched up with Jack Black (sort of an odd pairing, but it seems to work), and Cameron Diaz is matched up with Jude Law. Now, say what you will about his real-life personal antics, but Jude Law is definitely easy on the eyes. I could look at him for well over 2 hours.

Actually, he has probably one of the more interesting characters to play in the movie. And the way Diaz (and the viewer) discovers the secret he’s hiding works well, I think.

It’s a cute movie, so if you’re looking for something light and entertaining this holiday season, you could definitely do worse.

TGIF

An archer, half-man and half-horse, symbolizes the ninth sign of the zodiac, Sagittarius. According to astrologers, Sagittarians, born between November 22 and December 21, enjoy versatile physical and intellectual powers. Associated with the element of fire, Sagittarians exhibit a burning enthusiasm that helps them reach their potentials...

I've always thought that was sort of a lot to live up to, but... anyway, yeah. I’m old today. ‘Nuff said.

Got one of those “really nice” rejections yesterday for One Night in Boston, a novel that I had been shopping to agents in the fall. I’ve put it away for the time being, seeing that it must need some work as a bunch of agents requested partials but then went no further.

Anyway, this one was from Michelle Wolfson, not a big name agent, so I wasn’t devastated. She did, however, take the time to make some very personal comments and questions about why the first 3 chapters didn’t hook her. I was grateful…though at the same time, one of her comments left me scratching my head. “Cut all scenes that don’t advance the plot” (then she gave an example). But the example she gave leads directly to the reader’s discovery of a really important characteristic of the heroine - that she can’t have children. So wouldn’t that be considered a scene, or knowledge, that advances the plot? Maybe she meant I should get that information across in another way.

Food for thought, at the very least. And she ended by inviting me to send any other works that I had. We’ll see. I have to figure out where I’m heading with my writing in 2007. Just not today.

Happy weekend!

Free Stuff

“Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.”
~ by Henry Ward Beecher ~

OK, so check out this Christmas link…it’s adorable (turn the volume on your computer WAYYYYYY up)!

I discovered Vista Print yesterday - quite a handy little site for authors (or anyone) trying to do some self-promotion while keeping one eye on the wallet (which is looking oh so empty these December days). Anyway, they offer free business cards - they print, and you pay the shipping. For 250 cards, it’s not a bad deal. They also have a few other freebies, as well as what looks like some other reasonably priced products and printing options.

Check it out!

The (Wo)Man Behind the Curtain

"And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so? "It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!" And he puzzled and puzzed, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't thought of before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. "Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

~Dr. Seuss

Watched “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” last night as I was wrapping gifts. I don’t think it’s possible to get tired of that holiday special. I mean, I’ve watched it about every year since I was a kid, and it still has the power to make me stop what I’m doing and stare at the television screen. And laugh. And sniffle a tear away.

But then the network followed it up with some kind of “how the movie was really made” TV commentary, which I promptly turned off because, really, that’s not where the magic is. I don’t want to know how the drawing went from 2-D, black-and-white to 3-D and animated. I don’t want to see the man behind the curtain. I just want to enjoy.

I guess that where the true talent lies, when it comes to authors as well, huh? The really good ones make us forget we are reading words on a page. They transport us to somewhere else entirely. They make us fall in love with characters and miss them when the story’s done. They rarely remind us of all the sweat that goes into the effort of making that experience so easy for the reader.

Darn it. I knew this stuff wasn’t easy…

That D*@!^$ Holiday Newsletter

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”
~Charles Schulz

Your Christmas is Most Like: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Each year, you really get into the spirit of Christmas. Which is much more important to you than nifty presents.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Aww…

Anyone else do a holiday newsletter? I did one for the first time, last year, when I decided I just didn’t have time to write 50+ cards individually (and I guess for me, being a writer at heart means actually writing a few personal sentences on each card).

I love sending holiday cards, I really do. I think it’s mostly because I have so many friends from my college and graduate school days that live all over the place, and it’s one of the only times I get to say hi and find out what they’re up to.

So anyway, last year I did a newsletter…and got such rave reviews from my husband’s side of the family (pretty much all non-writers) that I thought I’d give it a go again in 2006.

Holiday letters are tricky, though, you know. You want to make them newsy and fun, but while you’re sharing all the high points of your year (because who really wants to hear about that mad dash to the Emergency Room with your nephew back in the summer, or the way the hot water heater burst in the middle of the night after you‘d just returned from the plane ride from hell?), you also want to try for a good dollop of humility.

So after much deliberation, I did decide to share my news about Virtual Tales picking up my novel. I figure most of my family and friends will be happy for me, and if any of them grumble behind my back that it's just shameless self-promotion, then too bad!

We’ll see. The newsletter is done, but the picture that’s supposed to go along with it, well…is still waiting to be picked up at Walmart. Hubby has 4 choices and then they MUST be printed and sent out by Friday. That’s my goal, anyway.

Well, maybe by Saturday. Friday’s my birthday, after all, and a girl’s gotta do a little celebrating, right?

Oh, the Holidays...

“People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you'll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow.”
~ Erma Bombeck

Had a lovely time over the weekend celebrating an early Christmas with my side of the family…although we drove into snow and suffered through 20-degree days the whole time we were there. Brrrrrr!!

I liked the post on yesterday’s Romancing the Blog, especially since today I looked at the things looming on my To Do list for the next two weeks and wonder writing is supposed to fit into it all!

Well, I have determined that I will attempt to do small tasks: finish up a book review I’m submitting to a writing ezine, draft one (very rough) chapter of my latest WIP, plan my writing goals for 2007 (nope, haven’t done that yet).

Some coffee to start off my Monday morning, and we’ll go from there…

Celebrating Early

“There is no ideal Christmas; only the one Christmas you decide to make as a reflection of your values, desires, affections, traditions.”
~Bill McKibben

Well, hubby and I are off this weekend to an early Christmas getaway with my parents and sister/brother-in-law. We pick a B&B each year and do the holiday there a couple of weeks before the crush of the 24th and 25th. Then my parents trot off to Florida to do the snowbird thing for the next 5 months.

All I can say is…fireplace and whirlpool tub in the room we got this year. Yummy! And maybe when we return, I’ll be newly inspired to finesse that love scene I’ve been struggling to write this week (it shouldn’t be so difficult, should it?).

Have a great weekend!

Running Late

"Dancing is just a conversation between two people. Talk to me."
~from "Hope Floats"

Uh, oh...woke up late today, so no time for a regular blog this morning.

In the meantime, though, check out the Women-on-Writing ezine. Lots of helpful articles!

First Impressions

"Truth is, I gave my heart away along time ago, my whole heart, and I never really got it back."
~from the movie, "Sweet Home Alabama"

Gosh, I like this movie a lot too. Who isn’t completely charmed by Reese Witherspoon, anyway? (Oh…maybe Ryan Philippe…but that’s his loss)

Found an interesting writing exercise as I was blog-hopping yesterday: Julie Cohen’s first-page challenge. Try it and see how well your opening paragraphs hold up…

It was a good kick in the butt for me to look back through some of my own. I despise writing opening scenes anyway, find them incredibly difficult but of course they’re OH SO IMPORTANT in hooking the reader (who just might be your *fingers-crossed* editor or agent someday).

Yeah, I know. First impressions are everything, so no matter how challenging, we writers have to figure out how to create good ones.

But I also realized from doing this exercise that it’s really hard to write an opening scene well unless you know how your story’s going to end: how the characters all change and what is essential to reveal at the start (and what is best kept hidden).

Try it!

A Drop in the Bucket

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."
~from "Shaw Shank Redemption"

Fantastic movie, by the way. I watched it again a few months ago and was blown away by how much I speaks about the human condition and the power of belief.

Here’s something I noticed the other day, as I was skipping about the Internet: there are an awful lot of published romance writers out there. Really. If you Google “romance authors” you get umpteen sites and umpteen authors listed on those sites.

One time, at a conference, I listened to a speaker talk about how rare it was for aspiring writers to actually finish and submit a complete manuscript, so those of us who have should feel good about it. OK, maybe it’s somewhat uncommon. But rare? Not according to the stats out there.

I suppose it’s good that, right now, the market supports all those authors, but you gotta wonder: is there a point where it will become saturated? And do those of you who write (and if you're really lucky, publish) ever feel like a teeny tiny drop in the big ol' bucket of talent?

Writing the Awkward Stuff

“Ninety percent of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment.”
~ Terry Pratchett

My writing friend Marianne has her short story, "Now That We’ve Found You," up at the Wild Rose Press. Go check it out!

So…um…(clears throat here) yesterday I…(feels herself blushing) wrote the first sex scene for my hero and heroine in Paradise, USA.

Actually, it was the first sex scene I’ve ever written.

See, I usually focus more on the emotional relationships in my novels. I like the hesitance of first touches and the fire of first kisses. But when I submitted this novel, for the heck of it, I thought I’d conform to what people seem to like most about reading romance.

And that’s the sex, right? Well, and the falling-in-love part too, I suppose. But I know readers love the sex. Look how popular erotica is, right?

Anyway, this scene was a lot harder to write than I thought it would be. Part of me kept thinking, Oh God, my family and my friends are probably going to read this at some point and WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF ME???

Does anyone else ever worry about that?

I mean sure, I think the scene was needed, and after it’s been tweaked about a hundred times, it might actually come across as believable and crucial to advancing the plot. But in the meantime, I feel like I’m going to be hemming and hawing around the keyboard the next few days, trying to get the words right and trying to banish the inner editor who, strangely enough, sounds a lot like my mother and one of my aunts.

Hmm. Anyone else have difficulty - or advice - when it comes to writing explicit love scenes? And how explicit do you get, anyway?

December and It Feels Like Spring Outside!!

"The dedicated life is the life worth living.You must give with your whole heart"
~Anne Dillard

Not much on the writing front to report, because I haven't done any writing this week. Busy week at work, and busy afternoons and evenings at home, trying to get ready for the crazy December rush of holiday shopping and parties and sending out cards and...

But this weekend I have to get myself back on track. I have to! Which means working on the second half of Paradise USA so it can be sent to my editor, and also setting some 2007 goals for myself. Not sure what I'm planning on tackling in the New Year, writing-wise. I have a novel that needs revising and sending out (it went out once before and made it to a final read-through at New American Library before being rejected). And I also have a couple of new ideas simmering that need development, so I'm excited about those as well.

Mostly, I'm glad to still be excited about writing, esp. since I went through a low period a few months back. I suppose having a story accepted at Virtual Tales has made a big difference, with the idea that someone else values my work and thinks it has merit, though I hate being weak enough to admit that I need external praise.

Anyway, it's 60 degrees outside this morning, on this first day of December, which sort of makes it difficult to think about carols and Christmas lights, but I'll try! Have a great weekend~

A Moment at Work

“I want to tell you with my last breath that I have always loved you.”
~from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”

One of the nicest things happened to me yesterday, which has nothing much to do with writing…except it sort of does, in a really round-about way…

One class of my high school students discovered the library I keep in the corner of my classroom. (We’ll ignore the fact that they’ve been sitting in this classroom for 12 weeks now. They don’t ever notice something until they’re ready to.) Anyway, I have a crazy collection of books, mostly used PB but a few hardcover, that range from my own leftover college texts to classics to YA to best-sellers and really, anything I pick up at a library book sale or a used book store or the occasional splurge at Border’s.

Yesterday they had a few extra minutes at the end of class, and when one of them asked if they were “allowed to” borrow the books, and I said yes, half of them headed straight for the corner. Let me tell you, there are very few things more heart-warming to see than a group of teenagers huddled around a bookshelf talking about which ones they’ve read and which ones they want to.

At the end of class, about 10 books traveled out the door. Part of me doesn’t even care if I ever see them again.

Hooray! The love of reading and of appreciating good writing may not be entirely dead!