Adrian looks like . . .

I'm gearing up to make the Romance Trading Cards for Adrian.  I have a few possible faces and I  . . .

I just don't know.

These are stock photos.  I have not bought all of them, so I'm only going to leave them up till Saturday.

So, tell me which Adrian you like best.  I'll send Romance trading cards to some lucky poster . . .  *g*

ETA:  There's watermarks on some of the photos.  These will go away.

Photo A

Photo B

Photo C

Photo D

Photo E

ETA:  I went and bought the stock photos so I could leave them up on the bog.

An Oil Lamp of my Very Own

This is an ancient sorta lamp right here. atrb ranil

I wrote a blog over on Word Wenches about lighting sources in 1800, me talking about the technology that allowed you to find your way about in a gloomy world.  My take on The Enlightenment, as it were.

In the process of this, I came up with some information on how oil lamps work.  I had not given they mysteries of oil lamps a great deal of thought in all the long and busy years of my life, but from time to time I had wondered why the wick doesn't burn up.  All that fire, y'know.


Turns out the wick is merely an agent to 'wick' liquid to the fire.  The flammable liquid gets drawn up near the fire and vaporizes from the heat thereof and the vapor burns.  The flame is located actually a bit above the wick when everything is going well.   The wick gets charred from the proximity of the flame, but it doesn't provide the fuel of the flame, just a convenient perch for it.
Oil lamps were discovered independently all over the world, from Eskimo igloos to the deserts of Arabia, from Mayan hill villages to the plains of central China --
(unless you are of the school of thought that figures our ancestors were too stupid to figure out astronomy and agriculture all on their own and it was handed down by aliens, in which case I would very much like some of them to drop by and do my taxes for me, thank you,) --
all of which is very clever of people since I would not have thought this oil lamp stuff up myself.  

Step Two: Adding yer olive oil

An oil lamp consists of oil, something to hold the oil, which may or may not be covered to help deal with the spillage issue, and a length of some burnable cloth thingum that is the wick.

Being of an inquiring mind, I set out to create an oil lamp.  That's what all those pictures along the side are: me reverse-engineering primitive lamp.

Step One:  I took one of my spoon rests -- this one is from a Polish pottery.  It has traditional decorations, but I kinda doubt the spoonrest part is traditional.  And it had a promising shape.

Step Three:  The shoelace

Cutting that to length

Step Two:  I sacrificed some of my salad oil.  For you home gamers, this was extra virgin salad oil.  (In my house, even the condiments are virtuous.)

Step Three:   Lamp wicks, by 1800, were braided.  Dunnoh why 'zackly but this evidently helps them do their wicking thing.  So I figgered a shoelace would work.  Use cotton, is my advice.  I don't say that something polyesterish won't work, but I can almost guarantee it is not authentic to 1800.

Step Four: Soak the lace for a bit

Pull the wick up

Step Four:  Let your wick soak up some oil,











and then light it.

 The moment of truth

Step Five:  Voila.  You have your ancient oil lamp, not all that dissimilar to the ones that burnt over the desk of Homer or Voltaire, Murasaki Shikibu or Da Vinci.

I was, frankly, amazed that this worked.

And it burns the wick some

It flares up at first

Once it gets going, it burns with a nice steady flame and just about no smoke.  No odor at all.  Very clean and useful.

Then it settles down to a nice steady light

RITA

Purrrrrr

I am so pleased.  I've been nominated as a Finalist for the RITA in the Historical Romance category.

For those of you who don't follow Romance genre, the RITA is the Humongous Mother-Of-All-Contests Contest put on every year by the Romance Writers of America. 

I'm in.  I'm a finalist.  I am so happy.
My agent sent me flowers.

When we're dealing at this level, getting the nomination is the win.

At DABWAHA for a bit

Those of you who have been following my DA BWAHA saga know that I rather surprisingly slunk into the back row of the competition.  I've managed to survive one bout and have now come up against the redoubtable Courtney Milan.  In particular, her excellent Trial By Desire.

More below the cut:

My Romance Trading Cards

My Romance Trading Cards -- here.  I'll be handing these out at the RT Convention and at RWA National.  I don't know which one is going to be more popular -- the realistic or the manga style.

ETA:  I wanted to do one for my Adrian, but I haven't really got my act together for this yet, so I won't be handing out an Adrian trading card at RT.  I tried out a manga version -- no dice on this so far.  I don't have enough dpis or something on my anime picture. 

I will give this some more thought in April.
 

More Reader Favs from DABWAHA

And here's a long list of reader favs that didn't make it into DA BWAHA.  Readers really liked these.

Are you looking for great 2010 books in all the many fields and aspects of Romance?  Find them there.  I've added 20 of the 80 to my yearly Da BWAHA book-pimping post which is here.

Writers and Cats

My cat, (and me,) making a guest appearance in today's blog post at 'Isn't it Romanctic?'

I'm about halfway down the page, my cat appearing with the cats of such greats as Mary Jo Putney, Anne Stuart and Theresa Meideros.

We meet Hemingway's cat.  There's also a beautiful screen shot from Breakfast at Tiffany's. 

I do not know what it is about writers and cats. They just seem to go together.
Is it because cats are graceful and restful? Because they are quiet and do not disturb the writer while she is working? Or is it that they seem to expect so much from us? I don't dare stop working early when I'm under my cat's eye.
. . . 





For the rest . . . see here.  I'm way down the page . . . and . . . ok . . . it's in Italian mostly.  But the cats are fascinating.

How far the Candle

I'm over at Word Wenches today, talking about light, and how folks avoided being the thing that went bump in the night and banged its shins in 1800 or so.

"How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."  William Shakespeare

For the most part, people took the low tech approach.  Daily life followed the sun.  Country folk got up with the chickens, not just because the chickens were making an almighty determined racket, but because there was a day of work to get to.  Every hour the family stayed awake past sunset cost money.

They made good use of the daylight while they had it.  The well-to-do had tall  windows in their houses, the better to invite the sunlight inside.  Even the stables had windows. If you want to shell peas or sew some fine embroidery, you took it to the window seat or went out to sit on the doorstep of the cottage.  The hero is apt to find the heroine reading a letter on the garden bench because that's where there light was good.

"When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I'm sure it made the work seem that much more urgent. "
George Carlin

 The rest at WordWenches here.

I'm In DA BWAHA

I saw in Sonomalass's Blog this morning that I'm in DA BWAHA.  Here.

This is wonderful and very exciting, and also worrisome, because there is nothing I cannot look at -- all eight sides, six in the physical dimensions and two in time -- and obsess over. 

So I am surprised and pleased and delighted because I thought I wasn't in, but now it turns out I am after all. 
Life is not so much good or bad, but more along the lines of weird.


My post with this year's DA BWAHA book pimping is here.


Who else is newly in?
These are the ones I know a bit about:


All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgins  (She is so good.)

Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews  (I.A. is now competing against herself.  Magic Bleeds versus Bayou Moon.)

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins  (Yes!  I mean, like, somebody is surprised . . .?)

Storming the Castle by Eloisa James (I haven't yet read this one, but I love her writing.)

My stones . . . Let me show you them

I'm making comment over at Word Wenches (here) about stones in general -- and standing stones in particular.  So I will celebrate some stones I am particularly fond of.

These two pictures show a couple of the few dozen large rocks I have transported one by one to my house so I can enjoy them. 

I walk by my rocks and get all joyful because they are so whole and solid and perfect.

I am actually pretty easy to please.

 

DA BWAHA Finalists

This is book pimping here.

The DA BWAHA is a yearly contest where Romance and quasi-Romance books slug it out for world domination.
For information on the contest and how to play (vote) see here.

This post here below is me reminding everybody of some wonderful books that came out in 2010.

I've listed 15 of the 64 DA BWAHA books.  Most of them I've had the opportunity to read and like.
There's also some that are on my TBR shelf that I haven't got around to reading yet.


I'm saying -- "Hey, go take a look."
Because the DA BWAHA always has great books.

(Click on the book to go to the book.  Click on the author to go to author website.)


Cold Magic by Kate Elliott
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn
Naked Edge, Pamela Clare
Something About You by Julia James
The Time Weaver by Shana Abe
Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews
Iron Duke by Meljean Brook
Archangel’s Kiss by Nalini Singh
Last Night’s Scandal by Loretta Chase
The Summer of You by Kate Noble
Trial by Desire by Courtney Milan
His at Night by Sherry Thomas
Wicked Becomes You by Meredith Duran
Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn

And, as long as I'm here,
let me add a couple few books that didn't get picked up by DA BWAHA.
These are some of the just Great Reads of 2010.
Some of them are just beautiful.   

Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley
The Accidental Wedding by Anne Gracie
Whisper of Scandal by Nicola Cornick
Barely a Lady by Eileen Dreyer
Blameless by Gail Carriger
In Too Deep by Jayne Ann Krentz w/a Amanda Quick
Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas
A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh
Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin
Queen Hereafter by Susan Fraser King
In for a Penny by Rose Lerner
Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn
Lessons in French by Laura Kinsale
The Golden Season by Connie Brockway
Sinful in Satin by Madeline Hunter
Promises in Death by Nora Roberts w/a JD Robb (ok.  ok. It's from 2009.  So sue me.)
The Wicked Wyckerly by Patricia Rice
Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie
Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt
Marry Me by Jo Goodman
Three Nights with a Scoundrel by Tessa Dare


ETA:

Now I am going to add some few selected more books.  Maybe like twenty.  These are reader favs.  These books competed for the 'empty slot' the DA BWAHA folks left as the 8th book in each category. 

I've listed the ones I know a bit about and like. If I already mentioned them, I don't repeat.

YA
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Finalist)
Matched by Ally Condie
The Duff by Kody Keplinger
Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly


PNR/SF
Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (Finalist)
Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs
Warrior by Zoe Archer
Play of Passion by Nalini Singh
 

Crossover
City of Ghosts by Stacia Kane
All Clear by Connie Willis



Contemporary
All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgins (Finalist)
The Search by Nora Roberts
Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas

Historical
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean
The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig
Married by Morning by Lisa Kleypas  
The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig
The Heir by Grace Burrowes
A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James




For the whole shebang of 80 reader nominees -- go here.  It's an interesting list.

If there's a book on the DA BWAHA list or some other 2010 book I've missed, let me know.

The backbone of a query letter

Talking query letters,
which is one of the all-time horrible tasks in a writer's life.

Once you get past the, "this is why I am drawn to you as an agent," moment,
and the, "title, genre, length," moment,
you are likely to get to the "what is the story, anyway," moment.



There are two ways to go on from there.  Two organizational styles, if you will.



1.  You can relate the story.

Gordon and his squire rode into the tugley wood till they came to a mysterious hut beside a crystal lake.  The wizard who lived there gave Gordon a magic ring and the words of a prophesy.  "You will find what you seek in the mouth that does not close, behind the door that does not open."  Gordon continued into the wilderness till he encountered some bandits who took him captive and . . .

and so on and so on.

The agent may or may not find this useful.


2.  There's another way to approach the query.

This is not so much telling the story, as answering questions about the story.
We will choose questions of breathless interest to the agent.

This second sort of query is logically organized as 'question answering' --
an organization that may not be the way stuff happens chronologically in your story.

So.  What questions?



What kind of story do you have?

Heat of the Blood is a paranormal thriller
Running with the Bulls is a Suspense novel
Bump and Grind is Contemporary Romantic Comedy 
 
[with strong Romantic elements/with a mystery subplot/set against a backdrop of the California cult scene . . . or whatever is different about this story.]


Who is the protagonist?
What is her problem?

Kemp Trey is a paranormal investigator out to prove his best friend was murdered by demons.
Jenny Binn, Las Vegas cocktail waitress, is on the run from the mob. 
Bumper Grind, porn queen, is determined to marry the Reverend Goodman.


What is the setting and atmosphere of the story?

in the dripping alleys of . . .
under the deadly sun of . . .
and heads for the sleepy hamlet of Righteous Valley.


What does she do about her problem? 

Trey must penetrate the paranormal underworld to . . .   
Jenny heads for the Rocky Mountain cabin that had belonged to her grandmother, planning to . . .    
Bumper redyes her hair mousy brown, changes her name to . . . 

We are not looking at all kinds of actions.
Only action that deals directly with the central problem of the story.

(We know what the central problem is because those actions are going to solve it, which is kind of circular, isn't it?)

What or who is the major antagonist?

and mets the goblin king who ordered the hit on his partner.
. . . the crooked lawyer who . . .
Reverend Goodman's spinster sister, Maude, is skeptical of . . .


We can spot the major antagonist because this is what the protagonist faces at the turning point or climax of the story.


What are the stakes?

may lose not only his life, but his soul.
accused of a murder she did not commit.
the one man she could ever love.

Heat of the Blood is a paranormal thriller set in an alternate near future.  Kemp Trey, paranormal investigator, is out to prove his best friend was murdered by demons.  He must penetrate the dripping, demon-infested alleys of the New Orleans French Quarter to face the goblin king who ordered the hit.  One wrong move and Trey may lose not only his life, but his soul.

The question-answer query doesn't try to cover plot events unless they speak to the specific 'agent questions'.