cacakerbamakhlukpolitik

I admit I go through writing lulls. There are times, like lately, where I just can't put a story down on paper. And I really didn't want to go to the national RWA meeting in New York this year---but my DH somehow got me two tickets to The Book of Mormon, and I'd paid for the hotel, conference registration and booked my ticket months ago (when it seemed like a good idea), so what the heck, I'd go and at least see my first ever Broadway show. I am sooooo glad I went. I drifted through the conference, picking up inspirational nuggets and many books, met with editors and my agent and came right home to write proposals (3 in a weekend!), motivated for the first time in a long time to write. I sat through sessions on epubbing, and heard a great historical author, Madeline Hunter, tell 3000 women authors that for the first time, thanks to the internet, the author has power over what she publishes. I'd read on another loop that the historical book business was not good this...

My son's ideal day on his summer vacation---is spent wandering a civil war battlefields, reading all the stone markers and looking for shell casings that somehow have been overlooked by all the other tourists who have traipsed across the paths for the last 150 years. Needless to say, while he is wandering...so is my mind. I wonder why, after hearing all the stories, the first hand accounts of love and loss, great loss, and occasionally miraculous love stories that emerged from the war, why is this historical period almost taboo by publishers of romance? As historical romance writers, I am sure we have all heard editors and agents tell us "the American Civil War doesn't sell." We don't often write about it. Neither do we often read it. I wonder why not? Did Gone with the Wind say it all---is there no other great civil war romance left to tell? Medieval romance sells---a time period that was just as bloody and violent. But the American Civil War? Don't even try...

There are some books I finish and I just sit there for a minute at the end and think "What was that?" That's what happened when I read the Reliable Wife , by Robert Goolrick. I must admit, I picked it up because I liked the title, and the cover said ROMANCE: A headless woman in a beautiful Victorian-looking red dress standing in front of a train. Now this was not the original cover, which was much more staid and literary looking (a simple title on a sign), so I figured the new cover was meant to target me, a romance fan. Well, was I in for an interesting read. I read the whole book in a few hours, with my eyebrows raised at the purple prose, the complete implausibility of the plot, and sex-obssessed characters that were hard to like and unsympathetic. But I kept reading. For some reason I wanted to know what happened. The ending had a sort of "happily ever after" ending, but without giving anything away, I honestly didn't buy it. Not after the extreme emotio...

I just got my cover for AWAKENING HIS LADY , my upcoming release (December 1, 2009) with Harlequin Historical UNDONE eBooks. The story is set in 13th century England--another medieval! This line has a high level of sensuality and the stories are emotionally intense---all that conflict and heat packed into a shorter word count (10-15,000 words). I have to admit, as a writer, the short steamy historicals are challenge (but so fun to do---you have to grab your muse and keep her/him right there with you). I love the cover of AHL ---there's enough of the heroine's gown to say "historical" and the stone wall in the background subtly says "castle." The handsome hero and the lovely heroine look exactly like the characters in the book. Yeah, Harlequin cover artists! I love historical covers in general. Booksellers tell me that beautiful dresses (think of Susan Wigg's new historical releases. FABULOUS cover gowns) and headless historical men sell well---the hero c...