Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category

I recently noticed that I tend to include meals in my writing. This was particularly evident to me after reading Louisa Edwards’ two Recipe for Love books, which amount to food porn with a romance backbone. Hooray!

But, to return to my point, I noticed that I include food a lot in my writing. It figures prominently in Trusting Destiny, more as a background element in This Fire and Twice as High. So it made me think about why I feel compelled to include food and meals in these stories.

I’ve come to the conclusion that for me, food represents nurturing. It’s caring for someone and making sure they get what they need, and I find that very attractive, so I include it in my stories. But, there’s a whole other level – the foodie level.

I will admit, happily, that I am, in some ways a foodie. Well, not really. Not in the sense of being snobby about it. I just love food. The smells, the textures, the tastes, the visual stimulation, the sound of it as it cooks. It’s a total sensory experience. Which, I think, is another reason to include food with your romance. But, again, I am wandering from my point. My point on this is that writing about food allows me to venture into food fantasy and to share with my readers some of the wonderful finds I have made.

For example, in This Fire (in the Hearts Afire duology), Seth and Eden go to dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Now, I realize that most people probably haven’t ever eaten Ethiopian food, but let me assure you that it is seriously tasty stuff. The meal is served family style, with small mounds of food dotting a large piece of soft, spongy sourdough called injera, with more injera alongside. You don’t use any utensils. Instead, you tear off small pieces of injera and use it to scoop up bits of meat and vegetables. Fun and ridiculously yummy. But where else would I get to tell people about that? Oh. Right. Here.

In any case, food plays a big part in my stories – and in my life. What about you? Do you have food stories?

A thread on Romance Divas made me think this week. The topic: the worst book you’ve ever read.

What interested me about this discussion was not only the fact that some peoples’ worsts reads were others’ keepers, but also the reasons the readers found stories to be such clunkers.

The reasons, I think, are instructive.

Inconsistency

In character, in setting, in dialogue. This gets a bit to the discussion going on at Dear Author about how accurate historicals need to be (do you really want to read about how badly they smelled or how wretched the teeth were, or how drafty and uncomfortable the living quarters could be?). But it also gets to inconsistency of plot, and of character. If your plot is headed one direction and then, inexplicably, takes a hard right turn, that’s going to leave a reader hanging out wondering what happened. If your character is supposed to be virginal and innocent, having her giving blow jobs to random guys in the hall is going to throw the reader off. There are all kinds of ways to be inconsistent, but it boils down to the expectations of the reader. If something in the book throws the reader completely off stride, it’s hard to come back and convince them to love the story.

Unsympathetic hero/heroine

It’s one thing to have unsympathetic villains. I mean, they’re supposed to be the bad guy, so you can get away with that. But the hero? The heroine? That’s a fast train ride to Hateville, right there. In romance, especially, the reader wants to like the characters. They want to enjoy going through the adventure and angst with them. It’s very hard to do that if the characters are unsympathetic. On the one hand, you can have characters which skirt the line – characters who aren’t angelic or even particularly good, but are sympathetic. One of my favorites like this is Linda Howard’s John Medina. He’s not really a nice guy. He does what he thinks is necessary and doesn’t have any real guilt about doing it. He shot and killed his own wife because she was about to cause catastrophic damage to US security. He isn’t tortured about it, he just sees it as necessary. Because he isn’t tortured about it, he could easily become unsympathetic. But Howard manages to make his priorities so clear, and to make his relationship with the heroine so intense, he never quite crosses the line into unsympathetic. Some authors really like skirting the lines here. Rhage in JR Ward’s Lover Eternal does a lot of line skirting. Enough line skirting that it really pissed off some people.

Breaking the rules.

There are some rules in Romancelandia. Rules like Happily Ever After (or at least Happy for Now), or like not killing off the main characters (this is how Nicholas Sparks likes to think he gets out of being a romance author). Or like the hero and heroine aren’t supposed to cheat on each other on screen. Now, with menage and open relationships, it’s not cheating. You avoid this problem because of the expectations of the characters and the openness of the interaction. But, no cheating. When authors break these rules, you often default to the numero uno rule above – veering off the reader’s expectations. And we already talked about that.

Crappy Craft

This is the most technical of the reasons, I think, and the hardest to pin down, while simultaneously being the easiest to recognize. Sloppy writing, repetition, bad flow, broken rhythm, stilted dialogue, hosed up sentence structure, odd word choices, bizarre imagery. Any of these things can interrupt the reading experience, and when enough of them stack up, the reading becomes painful. This is, I think, a bigger problem now than ever before, simply because there are more and more books being published – through the big houses, through small press, through e-pubs, through self-publishing and through vanity publishing. Many of these books are good. But there are going to be a lot of stinkers. And when the stinkers are bad enough, it can taint everything around it. But, the point here is that basic craft skills can and should be employed. And if they aren’t, the book is going to smell. Badly.

There you go – four big categories of why books stink. But flip them on their head, and you get four reasons good books are good. And that is the lesson for today, grasshopper.

As you read this,  I can nearly guarantee I am not actually sitting in front of the computer. I can guarantee this because Munchkin is going to camp today, and I have to drive her out there and check her in. After that, I may dance naked in my yard in celebration. Okay, not really. But I probably will treat myself to the day of sloth I missed yesterday.

In case you missed it, yesterday was my birthday. And Monday was release day for Twice as High. I had a bit of a party for myself and readers, giving stuff away. Oh, you  did miss it? Gosh. I’m sorry.

Fine, comment on this post and I’ll chuck you into a drawing for the end of this week for winner’s choice of a backlist title. Freebies!

To continue the theme of doing stuff, after my day of sloth today (and, really, do you actually believe I will be able to avoid turning on a computer? Well,  I suppose it’s possible. Are there World Cup games? Maybe Wimbledon? I might can manage to avoid the computer), Thursday is hard core fiction lockdown. No Munchkin. No distractions. Just bust it out.

Starting Friday, I’m participating in a blog hop. The tour will feature a whole mess of eye candy and a metric ass-ton of prizes. These are always such fun – a great way to check out new authors.

I’ll retrieve Munchkin on Friday evening, and then I will be working on figuring out what a summer schedule looks like for us. Won’t that be fun?

What are you doing this week?

I sat down last night to fiddle with some notes for a menage I’m planning to write. I know I wanted a sci-fi treasure hunt theme. I had no idea the background of this story or really much about any of the characters, except the names I’d given them during a previous and very abreviated session. Now, let me pre-empt this tale by saying that I’m trying out a new writing program yWriter5. Last night was really the first time I’ve used it in great detail to actually write a scene. I think I like it. I feel very much like I’m doing free writing and not bogged down by what it looks like on the screen. I also have to be aware of my own spelling gaffs, since I haven’t downloaded the spellchecker on it yet.

But I digress.

Anyhoo, as I’m writing the “ideas” section,  just letting my mind unfold and doing some free writing in the program, I came upon this beautiful myth unfolding about this civilzation that may or may not share common ancestry with the ancient Egyptians. (I say this because the myth I came up with pretty much sounds like it could have come from the Nile region.) – Though, I doubt very much I’ll even mention Earth or the Egyptians in this story.  But the entire time I’m writing this background legend, I’m amazing myself with my storytelling abilities. I looked around the living room (I was on my netbook at the time) to see if any antennea or microwaves were feeding me information from some alternate universe. No. I was alone save my dog whose only mission in life at that moment was to lick her butt.

I knew then that this story is going to kick some major arse.

Then I started writing the first scene in a shady bar room in a shit side of the galaxy, and what comes out is kind of quirky and funny. I like what I have so far, but it’s not the sensuous read I thought it would be. At least not yet. But I like it. I like the way it flows and the outragous characters that inhabit this little corner of the story. And I especially like my smart ass heroine who has totally taken over the scene like she’s Buckaroo Banzi with tits.

So, even though this might not fit the publisher it was meant for originally. I think it will be a very good story when it’s completed. It might not even make it into a menage if the heroine doesn’t want it to. I think I’ll be taking cues from her on this one. She seems pretty competent and smart, and she’s hell with a cyber-blade.

-Kate

A friend of mine sent me a link the other day, and it got me thinking about the astonishingly stupid things people do – things that make you wonder if these people have a functioning brain at all.

There are a few really memorable WTF moments – and many, many available for your viewing pleasure on the internet. It’s like one giant tribute to the Darwin Awards.

So, here are a couple that just made me shake my head.

The soccer player in me just wants to card this kid something fierce.

This one: warning.  not for the squeamish.

So, he does it. falls. again. again. again. Are you seeing a pattern? yeah. What did he think would happen?

I think my favorite part of this one is the look on his face. Where did that window come from?!

and just to prove guys don’t have stupid cornered:

remind me never, ever, ever to do these things. kthx.

A while back, I was reading a (vintage!) serial, and came across a line that just made me laugh out loud.  It was so cliche, so worn out, that I was astonished at it’s usage.  But then I remembered – when this was written, maybe it wasn’t so tired, wasn’t so cliched.

It made me think – always dangerous business.  What are some lines now that are, well, for lack of a better term modern cliche? I mean by this that it is something that has become cliche in, oh, say the last decade or two.  I’ll start you out with a few. And because I’m me, you get some reference material.

“You make me want to be a better man.” – Famously from As Good as it Gets

“You complete  me.” from Jerry Maguire is a close runner up on the romantic cliche to that one, but good delivery can make these two lines actually work.

“I’m the king of the world!” – from Titanic. Which makes me want to hurl.

“It’s not a tum-ah!” – from Kindergarten Cop. Which makes me laugh like a loon.

And….

“Get out of there!” – from nearly every action movie ever made.

Do you have faves?

So, Munchkin is 6, and she’s, in some ways, a very standard sort of 6-year-old girl. Princesses and dress up mixed with drawing and kung fu (okay, maybe not standard, but you know what I mean). She’s only just turned 6 and is still, socially and emotionally speaking, a kindergartner transitioning to first-grader.

In other ways, though, she’s not so standard. Now, I realize that all kids are different and all parents think their kid is brilliant, but mine is. She’s reading at far above her grade level, can do the first grade math with ease, and can do complicated puzzles herself (though she WANTS people to do it with her, which is really more social than skill). She  does Sudoku (not my level, but she does do it).

So I have a bit of a problem.  When it comes to reading materials and computer games, she’s a challenge to me. Intellectually, she’s definitely ready for the 7-10, some things even higher. Socially, not so much. So I’m having some difficulty finding books and games that are both intellectually challenging and age-appropriate. I can find things that are age-appropriate, and she is less than challenged. I can find things that are challenging, but they aren’t age appropriate. Why is this such a pain? Don’t other people have smart 6-year-olds? They have to, right?

I figured I’d open this up to the collective mind of the internet. Help me. I don’t want to spend scads of money, but I want her to have things that are both challenging and appropriate.

Some things I have found that work are the I Spy hidden object games from Scholastic – but they’re pretty expensive for what you get. E-bay helps some there. My BFF sent some interesting books – some are not so challenging, some more challenging. She did a good job. She digs the Magic Tree House and Magic School Bus books, and we definitely do lots of those.  But I’d welcome more book suggestions. Keep in mind I want her to read them herself, so short chapters work better. Also, she has a vivid imagination, so she will scare herself sick if it’s too creepy or scary.

Do you have suggestions for PC games and/or books that might work for an intellectually advanced but socially/emotionally average 6-year-old girl? Heeeelp meeeee…..

I have a confession. I prefer dirty men. Yep, give me a blue collar guy any day over a starched white collar hero any day. Not that there are not some areas that are in the middle, there are. Like security specialist (that icon of RomSus) or even Police officers, etc. Those types of professions I don’t normally associate with any collar, actually. Hmm, that group needs a name. Let’s call them the middle men for sake of argument.

Now, I get the appeal of white collar dudes, I do. I have written a few. There is something soothing about a guy sitting in an office, making deals, making money (face it, the $$$ is what white collar is about), the thrill of the legal and business game. These men are lawyers, business tycoons, leaders of industry, the historical viscount, etc.

I get all that.These men are usually very intelligent, somewhat ruthless and have shark-like instincts. They hold power like a sword and wield it with razor-sharp precision.  Good hero characteristics if you don’t make them dull as dishwater or an alphahole.

The Middle Men bridge the gap between the stuffed shirts and common man. They are not so out of reach as to be unattainable but they are a not the everyday Joe. They often are required to have a great body to do their jobs but they are not the kind that come home daily sweaty and grease stained.

They are in command(shades of white collar) but have to do the work themselves (blue collar). They are often the saviors of the day. Firemen, police officers, body guards, etc make up this delectable group. This is a nice balance and I think a greater number of heroes fall into this category.

Still at the end of the day, I prefer those men who have worked with their hands. The salt of the earth type, if you will. A blue collar guys knows his worth and his value isn’t attached to his bank statement. He isn’t afraid to get his clothes dirty to help out a stranger, and sometimes gets kicked in the teeth by daily life.

His hands are rough, he drinks beer not wine and may have told an off-color joke or two in his life. He is approachable, understood and attainable… and yummy. He is the farmer, the mechanic, the logger, the construction dude.

What ‘class’ of hero do you prefer?

Yesterday was my 14th wedding anniversary.

Fourteen years. Seriously? How the hell did that happen?

Anyway, it made me think a bit about love, marriage, life, and all that jazz. What is it about love and romance that makes me want to write it? Makes me want to live it?

I think it’s the hopefulness of it, the life-affirming idea that there is continuity, stability, acceptance. That we are each one of us a worthy and wonderful person, and that somewhere there are people who recognize that.

I am not an easy person. I’m bitchy, moody, stubborn. On the plus side, I’m smart – really smart – and often funny (in a snide, sarcastic way). I’m sure this is big news to all of you – because this kind of thing NEVER comes through in my posts or writing. [hey! you could sprain something rolling your eyes like that!]

But I think, at the core of it, this sums it up. I am a world class HOPEFUL romantic.

Yeah I am cheating but work with me here, I am low on coffee this morning.

So, what’s up with you? Anything exciting happening in your life? Share with me. Entertain me.

Me? Lots of things are bubbling behind the scenes. First and foremost is the launch of Carina Press on June 7th. That is going to set the ball rolling for my summer. I have THREE stories coming out with them this summer, one a co-write with our chickilicious Ginny Glass. Here look at this…

Did your heart beat just a little faster? Mine did. Love that presentation and the cover art is gorgeous!

Speaking of gorgeous…

I want to marry that video. Is it not simply stunning? Goldenheart Winner Jeannie Lin designed it and OMG, love it!

And just because he is so… so… well, you get the idea. I leave you with this guy.