My cat

Having spent all yesterday looking into Regency cats, I will now post pictures of me and my cat. 

My inspiration is a link the Most Excellent Annie contributed.

http://writersandkitties.tumblr.com/

The Regency Cat

Talking about the cats of Regency England.  

What kind of cats can our characters expect to encounter as they go about their adventures?
Lots of cats, for one thing.
While Englishmen may love their dogs, the English householder hated his mice and depended on cats to get rid of them.  Defoe talks of forty thousand cats in London in the mid-1600s.  "Few Houses being without a Cat, and some having several, and sometimes five or six in a House."

 These London cats were working cats --
rangy, businesslike mousers and ratters.  I see them dozing the day away in the kitchen, then rising in the night, roaming the house to do battle with vermin, meeting the enemy behind the plush curtains of the drawing room and down behind the sofas in the parlor.  All the while, the gentlefolk snored in their beds. 

But there were pampered, plump cats as well.  We find them in paintings, batting at a soap bubble, peering into a fishbowl. 

For the rest of the article -- including the breeds of cats you'd see in Regency London, see here

Technical Topic -- I've just written a Romance.

Somebody wrote:

I'm a writer trying to break into publishing.  I was wondering if you have any advice on who to query?



I am so glad to hear you're writing Romance.  The genre needs all the good writers it can get.

As to finding an agent . . . 

There are a couple of books that list most of the agents in the industry.  Writer's Market and Jeff Herman's Guide are the two standard.  Most libraries carry them, but it's probably worthwhile owning one or the other. 

I used my own copy to make marginal notes of information I found in many sources.  It was my 'central file", as it were. 

I could cross through agents who flat-out didn't handle Romance.  When I tracked down the agents of my favorite writers, I could add this information right in the Guide.  And when I googled agents and read interviews they'd given, I wrote my impression of their outlook and personality in the guide. 

It put everything nicely in one spot.

Another source is Agent Query here , which will give you a quick, partial list of Romance agents.  Between the two books and the online source, you'll find more than you could ever query.

The trick is finding the right one for you.

 Preditors and Editors here is a good spot to 'vet' your candidates, as is the Absolute Write Bewares and Background Checks Forum here.   This will help you eliminate the outright frauds and the incompetents.

(Absolute Write also has sections for asking questions about agents and query letters and is just a generally excellent spot for a writer to hang out.) 

It's worth subscribing to Publishers Marketplace here for a few months.  PM lists many of the sales agents make to publishing houses.  It will tell you which agents have sold and the sort of books they're selling.  It is by no means exhaustive -- my own agent doesn't supply information there -- but it's another source of information.

Now, one approach in your agent search is to look at folks who represent writers with work similar to your own.  You might look especially at debut writers.  They'll have agents who are taking on new clients. 
To get the name of an author's agent, check the acks page of their books, or google "author name + agent".

I'd suggest a Romance writer with a completed manuscript join Romance Writers of America for one year.  Join your local chapter.  Join some of the online, special-interest groups.

For information on query letters, see Miss Snark's Blog here and Evil Editor here.   

Finally, if you plan to submit to Harlequin, you probably do not need an agent for the early part of your career.  You can submit directly to HQN, (also to Avon and Tor.)

I wish you the very best of luck.

Le Maître de mon cœur

My French copy of My Lord and Spymaster is out  from J'ai Lu.   Lovely cover.  Just lovely.

This translates as 'The Master of My Heart -- which makes a bit more sense than 'My Lord and Spymaster'.   Just IMO.

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'.

Just general writing advice

Someone asked --"How do I make myself write?  How do I get writing again?"


First off -- congratulations.  You're way ahead of most folks who want to write.  You're doing it instead of talking about it.


Let me offer a few random pieces of advice.

-- Follow a writing routine.  Same time.  Same place. 

Put your butt in the chair.
Write every day.

Treat writing as a job.  You don't complain that you can't do the accounts today or you don't feel like teaching sixth grade this morning.
Write as if you were working for somebody else. 



-- The edges of sleep are strong writing times. 

Keep your computer set up and ready to go in a quiet place.  If you have ideas when you're falling asleep, get out of bed and go type them.

Write early.  Get up in the morning and head directly to the computer and work. 
Eat later.  Shower later.  Walk the dog later.  Don't talk to anyone.  Hold onto the dream state as long as you can.

If this works for you at all . . . give the first hour of the morning to your writing.

-- Write in little corners of time.  Keep a laptop with you, or a notebook and pen.   Write while you're eating lunch.  While you're waiting for the kid to finish dance class.  On the flight to L.A.

-- Write even when you're writing crap. 
Write bad stuff.  Just write something.
Nora Roberts said, "I can fix anything but a blank page."
Fill up the page and edit it later.  Just get something down.

-- Treat your writing as serious work.  It's not a hobby. 
It is more important to write than to have a clean kitchen floor.  You can send out for pizza.

-- Trust yourself.  There's endless creativity inside you.  If you lose an idea, it returns to the sea of your unconscious.  It will emerge again, that or something better.

And

AAR WIN for Best Non-UK Romance

I am so very delighted, so honored, and . . . may I say  . . .  surprised and knocked off my feet and spit-drying-in-my-mouth excited, that Forbidden Rose won one of AAR's categories.

See all the winners here.

Forbidden Rose, winning 'Best Romance not set in the UK'.


This is what I say:

Thank you very, very much. I am honored beyond words that folks nominated Forbidden Rose.

This book was hard for me to write.  I'd already pictured my hero and heroine as a happily married couple. I had to delve back into the past and imagine them much younger. See them at the moment they met. There was this also - their love story was set in a grim era of history. I wasn't sure anyone would want to join me in an adventure there.

Thank you so much for followin my Doyle and Maggie back into their dark and dangerous past. I am so delighted you liked the book.


I take this and I hug it close.  Because this is isn't just one reviewer saying she liked it.  This is READERS saying they liked it.

Since Readers were cool enough to say they liked the book, let me list the other cool books that won accolades.  There is just nobody on this list that isn't worth tracking down and reading if you haven't already.

We haz links.  Click on the author name to find out more about the book and buy it.


 

Best Romance of 2010  

Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase

Honorable Mentions for Best Romance

The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne

The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook

Best Historical Romance Set in the UK

Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase

Best Historical Romance Not Set in the UK

The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne

Best Paranormal
The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook

Best Contemporary Romance

Something About You by Julie James

Best Short Story
Here There Be Monsters (from the anthology Burning Up) by Meljean Brook

Best Romantic Suspense 
Naked Edge by Pamela Clare

Favorite Funny

Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn

Biggest Tearjerker
Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas

Best Chick Lit/Women's Fiction

All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgans
The Bikini Car Wash by Pamela Morsi

Best Series Romance

Marrying the Royal Marine by Carla Kelly

Most Kickass Heroine

Elena Deveraux, in Archangel's Kiss by Nalini Singh

Best Romance Heroine

Olivia Wingate-Carsington in Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase

Honorable Mentions for Best Romance Heroine

Margeurite de Fleurignac in The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne
Beatrix Hathaway in Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas

Best Romance Hero 

Leo Hathaway in Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas

Best Romance Couple

Olivia Wingate-Carsington and Peregrine Dalmay in Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase

Best New Author of 2010

Rose Lerner

Best Love Scenes   
Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt

Best Romantica

Patience by Lisa Valdez

Black Hawk -- the Excerpt

In celebration of February 19th, (why should one not celebrate February 19th, eh?) and because the excellent Annie asked -- here is a short excerpt from Black Hawk.

Black Hawk won't be published till November.  We will hope this excerpt does not make that seem too soon.

***

Justine had told the boy to meet her at the guillotine.  It was not because she was blood-thirsty--indeed, she was not--but because they would be inconspicuous here.

She was dressed as a housemaid today, in honest blue serge, white apron, and a plain fichu.  She became indistinguishable as the tenth ant in a line of ants.  She held her basket to her chest and leaned on the wall that marked the boundary between La Place de la Révolution and the Tuileries Garden. 

She was too young to pretend to the august status of lady's maid.  A thirteen-year-old must be a housemaid, no more than that.  But a housemaid was exactly what a respectable woman would take with her when she went to an assignation in the Tuileries Garden.  A housemaid could be left in a corner of La Place de la Révolution, bored and resigned, while her mistress played fast and loose with her marriage vows. 

To play this part realistically, she assumed her appropriate expression of bored and resigned.  She waited.  Hawker would find her easily.  She was still when everyone else was in motion.  Nothing is more apparent to the eye.

This was a good spot for enemy spies to meet.  From a hundred yards away Hawker could look across the Place de la Révolution and assure himself she was quite alone.  The chattering stream of humanity that flowed through the square would allow him concealment as he approached.  Beyond, to her right, the tight, milling confusion of the arcade and shops of the Rue de Rivoli offered a dozen paths of escape.  Her good intentions would be clear, even to an English spy of limited experience.

Or perhaps not.  She would not trust herself if she were an English spy. 

DABWAHA

Smart Bitches kicks off the 2011 DABWAHA event, here.

Nominate your favorite book.  The entry form for nominations is online.


For instance . . . you might have liked some of these:


The Accidental Wedding by Anne Gracie, ISBN  0425233820

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin, ISBN 0316043966

Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin, ISBN 0373296142

Changeless by Gail Carriger, ISBN 0316074144

Forbidden Rose  by me, ISBN 0425235610

Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie, ISBN 0312303785

Spider's Bite by Jennifer Estep, ISBN 1439147973

The Wicked Wyckerly by Pat Rice, ISBN 045123071X

Sequels . . . Love 'em or Hate 'em

Over at Word Wenches, seven Romance authors discuss how and why they write sequels.  

My contribution:

What's written in the pages of any book is only part of the whole story.  There's worlds of delving and spinning, working and loving going on outside the scenes that land in Chapters One to Thirty-two.  I think we all feel these stories buzzing and nudging at the edges of books, begging to be told. 

And onward over here.