In my quest to find a new Regency author after reading all of Georgette Heyer and Julia Quinn, I stumbled on a popular author and started to read the book last night. I just couldn’t go on. It was one of those pirate story and I do like those usually but in this case what stopped me was the aftermath of a love scene (I read ahead yes).

I know that in those days women could feel a certain shame after having sex but frankly I can’t read about that.

I like to play with dominant hero in my own love scenes but always there is a implicit agreement that she is turned on by that and always I make sure to show how much pleasure she gets out of it both physically and mentally. it’s a game.

My writing partner writes sexy historical pirate story but her heroines do enjoy sex. They do not have that shameful feeling afterwards and if they don’t want to go to bed with the hero, then he doesn’t force her (but does work hard to seduce her).

I do like sexy romance but always when the love scene are fun, fully mutually enjoyed and cause no weird feelings for the hero or heroine what so ever afterwards. In a way, I prefer a cleaner Regency novel that end in a loving bed scene after the wedding to a historical when the heroine is violated both physically and mentally. If she feels bad right after the act, I don’t believe the hero can’t redeem himself for me.

As for conflict, in my own stories, I prefer it to be about their emotional connection or whether they love each other or not as opposed to bad or forceful sex

So I moved on to another new author (for me) and was delighted to found that I really like this Eloisa James novel where the heroine is experienced and loves every minutes of seducting the hero.

As for writing, I am still brainstorming the steampunk and hope to get up early enough tomorrow to write a scene, or at least try.

Blessed Be

1) It was time for me today to do a bit of brainstorming for the Steampunk story. I wrote the first act already but it was time to put on paper all the thoughts that have been swimming in my head. After I had spent an hour or so with my notebook, I came back for air and told my sons that this would be the best story ever. I don’t care if it doesn’t sell, one day they’ll read it (when they’re old enough for the sexy bits) and that’s what counts. I just need to put this down on paper, for me, for them. They helped me with the final title but I shall still call it Axiom of Depth out here in cyberspace.

2) because I had the kids at home today, editing Ancient Secrets was tricky. I did manage a little of it. Staring at the words on the screen for ever. I decided to cut a whole scene to speed things up. I’m trying to learn from my mistakes with the first book. Trying to get the story moving faster. I’m glad I did. Taking away that scene changes nothing. One rule of writing, if it’s not needed, take it out!

3) I’m still working on branding with Theresa Meyers. Trying to find images that matches what my writing is about. I discovered that the sensual part would be well represented by curling ivy. I always loved that design, even wanted to have it tatooed on one side of my waist and lower back along with a fleur-de-lys when my father died. Too bad I never did. It would have been fitting.

The mystical could be a full moon. Oh how I like the one on my cover art. Like always when I’m stumped, I need to let the ideas seep in my brain for a while, see what comes up.

4) I’ve finished an 8th Georgette Heyer novel in a row. I don’t read much romance but those Regencies are just too much fun and so well written. Nothing beat a well written book. But now I’m stuck, what to read next?

Brightest Blessings

My mom always says that there are no guarantees in life. Anything can happen no matter how much you set yourself up for things.

My father always used to say that all you can be certain of is that one day you were born and one day you will die, so you better make sure to have fun in the middle.

I can worry about the publishing market, worry about my future, worry about others but the truth is I have no control over many things.

It’s how I react to those things that sets the tone of my life. Do I succomb to panic and stop writing, do I forget to write what I love to pursue a trend? Do I let a setback or deception veer me off course?

It’s good to plan and I do, a lot. But I don’t know if I’ll be there tomorrow. So I leap and plunge, take a chance. Sometimes I fall flat on my face, sometimes things actually work. When they don’t, just like the proverbial cat, it’s time to scramble on my feet, and move on.

Did I fall? Moi? No way!

Nice things today in my writing life. A good 2000 words written and a lovely lovely surprise.

The very talented Monica Burns thanked me in her acknowledgements of KISMET, her brand new release with Berkley, for some help I gave her with French! She is wonderful and what a great romance she wrote!

And I get right back to her with “Merci mon amie”

Blessed Be

Steampunk Assassin by ~Conceptbloke on deviantART

I bought a book today featuring essays from many famous writers. It’s called The Time to Write or something like that.

I love reading blogs from other writers but sometimes curling up with a non-fiction book is just what I need in order to resource myself.

How do I find the time to write? I’d love to say that I have such discipline that, no fail, I’m up at 5 am and write my 1000 words daily. That’s the plan but it doesn’t always work.

I try though, I try hard. I try half of that which means that for the last 5 months I’ve gotten up at 6 or earlier everyday. I’ve written, yes, anywhere between 500 and 1500 words. But sometimes, I’ve brainstormed and sometimes, when I was so drained from the stress of life, I just wrote in my journal.

The discipline of waking up an hour before everybody is there. I don’t succeed everyday but I do go forward.

I noticed that during the holiday I wrote about 7000 words in 2 weeks. I could not write at all during the day, but I squeezed writing in that one hour alone in the morning.

I try so hard to be perfect and set my goals so high that I’m always bind to fail but sometimes I can look back and say that good enough is not bad, it’s not bad at all.

500 words today and a good constructive time planning the third and last act of Ancient Secrets. I hate writing in the dark, not knowing what next, so now that I know what I want to happen and the motive behind my characters’ actions, I feel much better. I now know I have a novel.

Passion gothic by =Senderosolvidados on deviantART

I attended my RWA chapter writer meeting yesterday and listened to a great workshop by author Alexis Morgan.

I am very inspired by Alexis because even though she has many books out and writes 3 series a year, she still takes the time to learn. She reads books on writing, attends workshops and if she can’t, she gets the CDs from the conferences.

What a great role model she is.

When I look at my huge list of goals for 2009, I see that I had a section for honing my craft and did very little of what I had planned. I wanted to study debut books, study my favorite authors, do some writing prompts from a writing group I belong to and also try the exercises at the end of John Gardner’s book The Art of Fiction.

Now that I sold and know a bit more about what I want to write and now that I’m focusing on writing my series, I’m looking at how I can learn, because I really feel I know very little.

I notice that I am both a craft book and online classes junky so I decided to keep doing that. I also decided to follow James Scott Bell’s suggestion and copying some scenes from my favorite writers in a notebook, just to study them. I like Robert B. Parker’s dialog, Sherilyn Kenyon’s love scenes and Philip Pullman’s decriptions for example . I know I’m terrible at first chapter so I decided to go through my huge pile of thelatest paranormal romances to see how they do it, see what the elements are and if there are similarities between each books.

I just cannot read paranormal right now when I’m writing but maybe just reading the first chapters will be okay.

And who know, I may actually be brave enough to attempt a Gardner exercise.

I think this week shall be a good one to set a schedule for writing and fitting everything in, including working on a college class I’m taking and studying for a science exam.

Have I mentionned yet that I don’t watch T.V.? I couldn’t possibly find the time even if I had one.

Sadly no writing today. I miscalculated my little one waking up time and when I’m not the only one awake in the house there is no point even trying to write.

So only 6000 words this holidays but it’s still much more than last year. It’s a process, trying to build habits for life, not a race that I’ll quit after a month.

Leaving you with a little Steampunk art.

Blessed Be

Revel – Antique Tones by ~cambler on deviantART

I don’t know why it’s so hard to write those scenes in Ancient Secrets where my heroine encounters the dark mage and villain Theuron Keir.

I like Theuron. He is both fun and intense to write. And when he meets with Lily, my heroine from Ancient Whispers, he is so new, dangerous amd attractive to her that the scenes almost write themselves.

But not so with my new heroine Ruby. She’s not as fascinated by him because she knows about magic and has started to control powers of her own. And where Lily could sexually be attracted to him, Ruby, who is plagued by nightmares through most of the story and who is exhausted, seeks him out more for solace.

It’s very hard to write. Nevertheless, after working (writing, brainstorming) on the same scene for 5 days, I finished it today at about 2,200 words.

I can’t say it’s great but I’m slowly getting into what their interaction should be. It does take me a while to get there. And at the end of this first draft, I should be able to go back and fix everything that needs to be fixed.

I was reading Ray Bradbury’s book on writing last night and, as he advises, I’m trying real hard just to put down whatever come to mind just for the fun of it.

I’m so afraid this sequel won’t sell that it paralizes me and I forget to have fun. But I’m working on it. Writing something, anything, everyday.

Finished Georgette Heyer’s Frederica yesterday. What a great way to entertain myself with light reading. I do like the witty tone of her Regency romance.

Leaving here with my inspiration for Ancient Secrets. It fits my sorcerers so well. Nine Inch Nails, what else!
(Warning the clip is missing The Frail)

Blessed Be.

I’ve been feeling pretty restless today. I found myself with a free afternoon and, facing my to-be-read pile, I just couldn’t find anything that I really wanted to read.

Most of the books in my pile are paranormals from the library, all from fine writers, but frankly, everytimes I open one, I am struck with anxiety. Mostly because I write nothing like them and I just fear deceiving the reader who will pick up my book thinking I do. Sigh.

So I wandered around and ended up rereading John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist whose ideal writer is so beyond me that it is comforting.

Since I have such a hard time finding comfort books, it got me thinking of the new writers I’ve read and loved this year. While 2008 gave me Caitlin R. Kiernan and Philip Pullman, this year I discovered China Mieville, Georgette Heyer and Stephanie Rowe’s funny light paranormal. Yes eclectic taste but all so far from my own writing that I can get lost in them and return to my first passion, curl up with a good book.

If you happen to pass by this blog, tell me, what author did you discover in 2009?

Blessed Be

Steampunk 3 by ~KatBretPhotography on deviantART

I originally posted this blog as an mcslist at Love Conquers, the blog of the American Title V finalists. Since the blog is now close and people have asked me about psychic distance in the last few months, I decided to repost it here:

You can see the original post and comments here.

I am quite a geek in the way I become a fan of musicians, films and other famous people. For example, I am currently quite obsessed with musician Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, the Lara Croft movies and author Caitlin R. Keirnan.

John Gardner (1933-1982)

In my quest for learning more about writing, I became a a huge fan (in a obsessive way) of John Gardner and his two crafts book, The Art of Fiction and On becoming a Novelist. I just love his take-no-prisoner approach and how he urge the writer to write daily and focus on constantly improving his writing , on not be satisfied with the mediocre. One of the concept I learned from him is the different ways Point of View (POV) can be used.

Yes, we have 1st and 3rd person POV (and in some strange instance 2nd person) but we have also various psychic distance within one POV. Most people are so into the very close POV, that they are telling us we cannot write in an omniscient POV, that we are bound to fail if we do and that modern commercial fiction must be strickly written in 1st and 3rd very close POV. I dare you to pick a Julia Quinn novel and start reading with POV in mind. What is it?

Hard to tell. Probably 3rd, but also close to omniscient in the very beginning. She usually quickly shift effortlessly to a close 3rd POV and we don’t even notice. That is because she is a modern master at playing with psychic distance, first telling us generally about the heroine, then slowly getting into her head. Then going back and forth (closer and further in psychic distance) during the story.

I would love to be able to do that, but so far, I have been very cautious and stayed with the very safe close 3rd POV. But I hope I can learn. For my list today, I leave you with John Gardner’s example of various psychic distance in writing, where at first we are very far psychologically from the character’s mind then go deeper and deeper into his mind.

1. In was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway.
2. Henry J. Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms.
3. Henry hated snowstorms.
4. God how he hated these damn snowstorms.
5. Snow. Under your collar, down inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul…

(The Art of Fiction , John Garner)

I’m reading an excellent book for writers called The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell.

I love his Plot and Structure book and this new one is the perfect pick me up when I feel all alone doing my thing and just need to get both a kick in the back side and being told all will be fine.

Somewhere in the book, Bell suggests to write a simple list of things to remember when the writing feels flat. A little list of how to make that scene more better (as my son would say).

He suggest to post that list somewhere near our writing space.
So here is my own list:

Make it sexy

Make it spooky

Make it both

Make it cool

Make me cry

There…. my writing the way I like it.

Added 500 words yesterday and 1400 today! Getting there!!

Blessed Be

Winter Mists by ~DeheartedNature on deviantART

by Marie-Claude Bourque

I decided to start taking notes on the novels I read these days, just to get a grip of things I like and things I don’t like from various books.

I’m only sharing what I like because, full disclaimer, this is not a review but just my attempt at learning how to write.

Here are my notes of what I liked in J.D. Robb SALVATION IN DEATH:

1. I like how she keeps coming back to the theme of salvation mostly through one of the villain but also through other character. I also like how the murder case is reflected through both Roarke and Eve’s apst. It’s a clever way to give us some backstory and it gies more depth to the hero and heroine.
2. I think the mystery is done well. I want to keep reading to find out who is the killer.
3. I like how Robb set-up the characters to be appealing with small details. It makes us feel/root for them and we are satisfied when they get exactly what they deserve at the end, both good and bad or something in betweem
4. She also makes the one evil character really evil by comparing her to Eve herself. We see how the villain had a choice in life and chose the wrong path, unlike Eve. So her evil is explain, yet cannot be accepted. It is a good way to contrast the heroine’s choice with those of the villain.