If there’s one thing Southern gals know how to do, it’s gab. Silly or serious, all it takes is a glass of iced tea and time. Pull up a chair, kick off your shoes, and make yourself comfy…get ready to dish!
Snowed Under
I wish I could claim actual snow–that would be interesting and fun–but alas, no. The blizzard I’m facing is the end-of-term stack of paperwork. Grades are due Wednesday, so I’m full up with whining children who complain about bad grades (usually due to missing assignments) and grovel for makeup work. As I like to tell them, “There’s not enough extra credit in the world to make up for credit credit you didn’t bother to get in the first place.” I’d feel sorrier for them if a more hard-line stance didn’t help. Just today, I got a...
read moreThe Bed List
Took Frack and a passel of her friends to the movies today to see Captain America: The First Avenger. May I just say that Chris Evans is one red, white, and blue hunk of YUM? More, please. Preferably before they release The Avengers next summer.
read moreReadin’ and Writin’
One thing about summer that I love is the time to catch up on reading. During the school year, most of the reading I’m doing is either keeping up with (or ahead of) my students, which often crowds out any meaningful time to read what I want to read. As a result, I’m usually woefully behind on the new hot books. It takes me forever to get to the old hot books—for instance, I just finally read Water for Elephants. I waited until Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before I took myself to Hogwarts the first time. I’m like the person in the world...
read moreDownsizing
Four pounds doesn’t seem like much when you’re hefting it in the grocery store. Heft that thing in a travel bag through a bunch of airports (Atlanta’s being a standout problem), up and down elevators and across pedestrian bridges in hotels, it gains mass the way most of us do during Christmas cookie time. Four pounds of laptop over your shoulder starts carving a groove in said shoulder, let me just say. A month away from home can teach you a lot of things, like how to find laundromats in strange cities, how expensive it is...
read moreJust a Few Notes…
Revision time! My notes arrived from Dream Agent (Longest. Email. Ever.), so now I need to revise. Which is fine. I like revising. Really! The notes themselves aren’t that awful. Fixes here and there that several sets of sharp eyes managed to catch. Validation of nagging worries that I tried to ignore, but which kept creeping in. A roadmap for some progress. Little things. Really! Not at all like dynamiting and starting over. Even if it feels like it. Okay. Enough whining. Back to work, since nothing else will do the trick.
read moreKnotwork
Sixteen years ago today, I stood in a custom-fitted raw silk dress (thanks, Mama), hand lightly resting in the crook of my Daddy’s arm, smiling at Mr. Man, handsome in his morning coat and striped trousers. Within a few moments–a few breaths, really–we were slipping Celtic knotwork bands on each other’s hands, promising to be true and steadfast, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The choice of vow wasn’t lightly made. Celtic knots are formed with one solid strand, woven in and around itself, with no beginning...
read moreNew York State of Mind
I’m writing this from my new apartment in El Barrio. It’s nice: One decent-size bedroom, a living area, a full kitchen, and a shoehorned bathroom, parquet floors, natural light. You know, something that would rent for more than I pay for my 4 bedroom, 2 bath house on a quarter acre in the ’burbs because even though I’m in Spanish Harlem, this is MANHATTAN, baby! It’s worth the outrageous money we’re paying to stay here this week because Frick and Frack have never been to New York. We did the tourist thing in Times Square yesterday and have...
read moreRWA National: Homework
Met with Dream Agent yesterday for our one-on-one. Thursday’s agency get-together in the Film Center Café was interesting and instructive (how often do you get to talk with agency folk and authors about agent-author relationships, etc.?), but this meeting was the meat of my week at RWA National. I sit down at our teeny table at the bar, and Dream Agent pulls out the longest email I have ever seen. It’s her notes on the two proposals I sent her. We went over them in detail–and I mean detail. I’ve got plenty to work on …and that’s...
read moreRWA National: The Contemporary Romance Market
Authors Susan Andersen, Robyn Carr, and Kristan Higgins, joined by agent Maria Carvainis and ably moderated by Jill Shalvis, conducted this panel discussion on the state of the contemporary romance market. Here are some highlights from their talk:•Readers are engaged by the intimate worlds that have been created by the author, to the extent that the locale itself is practically a character.•Writers distinguish themselves from others through their voice and tone–that’s what differentiates the books.•Fewer accounts are buying books in all...
read moreRWA National: The Quick-Release Trilogy
Authors Zoe Archer, Tessa Dare, Monica McCarty, Christy Reece, and Stefanie Sloane all know what releasing a trilogy of books can do for a career (launch a debut author, facilitate a change in direction, or take it to the next level), and they were kind enough to share it. Some highlights:• Trilogies are a way to get an author’s name out faster. They also keep books in the stores longer.•Readers like discovering more about characters from previous books in linked series.•One challenge to writing linked series books is the gap between the...
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