List of the Week
- Haven’t been doing much but working. I have a wonderful, detailed outline for The Flower Reader and it’s an invaluable road map—it essentially keeps me on track with the major plot points, clues, character developments, and “what needs to happen now.” On the other hand, the way things happen sometimes doesn’t turn out to be what I expected at all. However much I may tear my hair out sometimes, storytelling is the thing I love to do most of all in the world.
- Was sent an advance tearsheet of a great “Editor’s Choice” review for The Second Duchess, to run in the February/Spring issue of Historical Novels Review, the journal of the Historical Novel Society. I am delighted! Want to read? Click here: The Historical Novels Review and scroll down a bit.
- March is Red Cross Month, and Writers for the Red Cross is mounting a fantastic month-long series of blog posts and giveaways to raise funds for the Red Cross. Make a donation of $25 or more and choose from hundreds of free books, including The Second Duchess. Will post more about this as March approaches. For now, please “like” the Facebook page.
- Was very sorry to read of the death of Ariana Franklin (Diana Norman), author of the wonderful “Mistress of the Art of Death” historical mysteries. I was hooked from the first book, and it’s hard for me to imagine there will be no more. Vale, Ariana.
- Writing-related Link of the Week: Finish Your Novel, a wonderful collection of essays by Timothy Hallinan, whose The Queen of Patpong is up for the 2011 Best Novel Edgar award. Queen of Patpong is the fourth of Hallinan’s Bangkok-set Poke Rafferty thrillers, and it is fantastic.
- Fun Link of the Week: A Femme d’Un Certain Age, where Tish Jett and her “evil twin” Cherie write about clothes, food, decorating, manners, style and life for ladies “forty-ish or whateverish,” all with an elegant French twist.
A Writer’s Code
Ran across this great blog post from Karen E. Olson, the author of the lighthearted, Las-Vegas-based Tattoo Shop mysteries. It made me think about how I would articulate a Writer’s Code of my own. Here it is:
1. Write every day. (Momentum is everything.)
2. Work alone. (Editor and agent are exceptions.)
3. Read widely.
4. Never lose your sense of gratitude and wonder.
5. In fact, just get over yourself in general.
6. Be discreet.
7. Be generous.
8. Mind your manners.
9. Have fun.
What is your writer’s code? If you’re not a writer, what is your personal code?
Historical Bits and Pieces
Have I mentioned that I love history? I’m particularly partial to the sixteenth century, of course, because that’s the setting of my book (books, actually, because I’m beginning to work on another)—but I love bits and pieces of history from any time and any place.
For example, the Associated Press has this to say about Robin Hood:
Julian Luxford, an art history lecturer at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, says a 23-word inscription in the margins of a history book, written in Latin by a medieval monk around 1460, casts the outlaw as a persistent thief.
“Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies,” the note read when translated into English, Luxford said.
Luxford said he found the reference while searching through the library of England’s prestigious Eton College, which was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI.
And the Times Online reports that a very cold case has been solved:
Archeologists and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen.
The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified.
Cleopatra’s DNA! There has to be a story there.
An Unordered List
- I didn’t get to see the occultation of the Pleiades by the gibbous moon on Tuesday night. It was cloudy. Boo hiss clouds. One of the hazards of stargazing.
- I don’t know how people manage 10,000 steps a day on pedometers. The best I’ve been able to do is about 6,000, and that includes a walk with the doggies.
- What I am reading right now: The Serpent’s Tale by Ariana Franklin. I loved Mistress of the Art of Death and I love this one, too. The story of “Fair Rosamund” has always intrigued me and I’m willing to suspend all sorts of disbelief to immerse myself in Franklin’s evocative, texture-rich tale.
- Flat Stanley update: “Flat” is about to conclude his adventures in Texas and return home. Yesterday he helped me glue together a birdhouse.
- Many thanks to everyone for the congratulations and well-wishes on signing with Fox Literary. Welcome to the new visitors to the blog! It’s up to Barbara now, to make her way in the world.
Six Things That Make Me Happy
Tagged again! This time, it’s Bryn Greenwood’s doing. I really have to learn to run faster. Heh.
All right. Six things that make me happy.
- My first cup of coffee in the morning. Strong strong coffee with milk. It’s not really lattè because the milk isn’t steamed or foamed, but I call it lattè anyway. So report me to the lattè police.
- Taking a siesta after lunch. Piling into bed with both doggies and the Broadcasting Legend™ if he’s not on the road and drowsing deliciously through Everyday Italian and Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network.
- Hugs from little children.
- Going to church. Singing For All the Saints or one of the other great processionals as the scrubbed acolytes (more little children) and the choir stream into the sanctuary, and almost crying as the sopranos launch into the high, soaring descant on the last verse of the hymn.
- Flower scents. Real flowers, not perfumes or oils. Lilies of the valley, lilacs, old-fashioned clove pinks. Our English roses—Jude the Obscure, Eglantyne, Winchester Cathedral.
- Standing in the back yard and looking up at the sky. Picking out the constellations I learned when I was a little girl at the lake. Trying to work my mind around the inconceivable distances.
- Opening a thick, tantalizing new book to the first page.
- Reading Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Oh wait. That’s eight. And I haven’t even gotten to chocolate.
And Speaking of Seven, Seven Writing Tricks
Here are seven things that keep me going, day by day, hour by hour. It’s a tough world out there in Hopeful Publishing Land and we all need a little help sometimes.
- Writing about what I wish I were writing. I just start tip-tapping, stream-of-consciousness style, about what I wish I could write and all of a sudden I realize—surprise!—I can write it. I want to write it. I probably am writing it.
- Taking a shower. I always have great ideas in the shower. As a bonus, I get extra-clean. Sometimes I get wrinkly.
- Walking while talking to myself. Or maybe it’s talking to myself while walking. In either case I take one of the dogs so I can pretend I’m talking to the dog.
- Cleaning. The grittier, dirtier, and more mindless, the better. I think, “I could be writing instead of doing this.” Pretty soon I am.
- My writing talisman. It’s a chunk of llanite from the Llano Uplift. Yours could be a lucky hat, a statuette, special pen, a piece of jewelry, an artifact from a historical era. The more you associate it with your writing, the more it will encourage your writing. Really.
- Plants. Fill your writing space with as many plants as you can fit in. They clean the air, and cleaner air means a clearer head. You can talk to them, too, if you don’t have a dog. Even if you do have a dog.
- Laughter. Find something that will always make you laugh. I like Cute Overload. Laugh good and hard, until your belly hurts. It truly loosens up all those impacted words you’ve been wanting to write but haven’t been able to.
What are your writing tricks? Enquiring minds want to know!
The Second Duchess
Read the First Chapter
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