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Fun Stuff
I needed something to lighten the mood and I found the following at Cindy Pon’s Blog. Check it out (under my Blog Roll) to see Sarah Ockler’s responses. I thought I’d do my questions a little differently, and ask for my readers’ input.
1. Who is your literary crush? My biggest literary crush is Alessan bar Valentine di Tigana, from Guy Gavriel Kay’s “Tigana”. Who else should make it onto the list? Why? Why do we love these characters so much?
With Alessan, I love the concealed emotion that’s nonetheless obvious. I love it that he holds the fate of his friends, his family, his entire continent in his hands and yet still cares for each and everyone of those people as individuals. I also happen to love self-deprecating strategists and smart people. 🙂
ORA Conference Notes
The file attached with this post is a list of typical ways in which men and women behave, courtesy of Leigh Michael. She was one of the incredibly professional speakers at the Ozark Romance Authors convention. Alas, my notes are not as well-organized as her talk because I wasn’t able to write that fast.
I did try to put opposing behaviors together.
This is not meant to be a definitive list, neither is it to be used to pigeonhole characters. It is designed to help authors with appropriate dialogue and action responses as related to the sexes. For instance, you aren’t likely to hear a male character ask: “Does this look okay?” A male character is much more likely to say: “It makes you look dumpy.” Then that character must pay for his error in judgement. Use it sparingly. A little goes a long way toward making believable characters. A lot will make them garish stereotypes.
Subject Matter for the Next Book
Oi, I forgot how hard it was to nail down what I did and did not want to cover in “Romance”. It took me a year plus five more years of learning how to write a God-awful first draft! I’ve read about 1/4 of Outlaws of the Marsh/All Men Are Equal and while the stories have high points, there’s nothing yet that moves me so much that I want to write about it. Let’s face it, you have to be in love – in long-term-LUST – with your source material to write an historical novel. I just haven’t hit on the story line yet. I will keep reading.
Went to a wonderful Writers Conference over the weekend. It was the Ozark Romance Authors’ conference and not only were they a warm, fuzzy group, the speakers were also terrific. I will try to post my notes in a few days as the material’s worth putting out to my (massive) public forum of readers.
I met Angie Fox at the conference and look forward to reading her books, once I’ve got a break in the deluge of reading material I requested from the library. Have you ever noticed how it all comes at one time? I’m returning much of it unread. I’ve kept notes on what I’ll need to re-request. Sigh.
Any way, Angie was an amazing source of information. I really hope I meet her again someday. Maybe when I’m on the other side of the book signing desk and I can tell her what our talk meant to me. I tried after the conference, but I didn’t want to hog everyone else’s time. I do need to query her agent. She suggested I do so.
Queen Breaks Into Song!
Another one bites the dust!
Jenny Rappaport passed, but said the plot looks strong. I’m still holding out to see what Jill Grinberg has to say. She was my initial choice of agent and I still think she’s a good fit. I’m not likely to hear from her for at least two weeks. I think I’ll turn blue by then if I don’t breathe, so I’m singing.
Another one down, and another one down! Another bites the dust…
Empress Overboard!
Yup, I went query-happy yesterday. A little too happy. I found an entry I’d made into a Miss Snark competition last October when Michelle Brower judged. She said she was interested, but wanted corrections made before reviewing the material. Since I’ve since made dramatic corrections, I decided to submit a query email to her last night. Alas! I had made an error in my excel spreadsheet on agents and targeting my submissions. Her data got mixed with the Lyons’ agency and I misunderstood. I thought she must work for Jonathan Lyons. Sigh. So sometime within the next two weeks, he will conclude that I’m a dork or worse, careless. Double Sigh. I don’t know how likely of a shot I had with him, but it’s probably nil, now. But I submitted to a few more agents yesterday, including Michelle and Jonathan. I may hear from Jenny Rappaport this week, as well. I honestly expect her to pass as she says on her site that she is not interested in literary material. I may be a fantacist, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be literary!