Where history comes unlaced..
Click for all the details on RT in LA!
This is my first ever convention and I’m really excited! I’ll get to meet some of my favorite authors like Megan Hart, Elizabeth Hoyt, Jennifer Ashley and Cherise Sinclair…and get books signed…and take some workshops…and there’s even a beauty contest–male beauty that is–called Mr. Romance. The cover models compete for the title. I don’t think I can pass on that one. ;0 The really surreal part is that my name is listed in the AUTHORS ATTENDING page. God!!!!
Savvy Authors – Query pitch with Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks Results.
This was a pleasant thrill to end the week. I entered this contest last minute–literally–as it ended at midnight EST and that made it 9:00 pm on my side of the U.S. I was actually at a BSA dinner with my family and zipped home for 30 minutes to get my pitch posted before the contest closed, as usual, wearing several hats all at once!
John William Waterhouse...Lamia on her knees... 1905
Ms. Werksman has been on my short list for quite a while now, and low and behold, asked to see the full manuscript for a novel I’ve just completed! Libertine Lover is about a man who lives a self-indulgent life and enjoys rough sex with anonymous courtesans until–you guessed it–he falls hard for a girl he wants to have a future with. But she cannot be with him or any other man. She’s terrified of intimacy after a brutal attack leaves her emotionally fragile. What’s a libertine rake to do? Hmmmmm…finding his inner “gallant knight” and rescuing the lady in distress may be the only path he can follow.
Raine
How I see Marianne
My contract for, His Perfect Passion came and with it, some Homework assignments. First, I had to describe my characters in specific detail, height, weight, physical characteristics, etc. along with other elements key to the storyfor a cover questionnaire. I was invited to provide a link to a photograph of a person I could “see” as my character. This part was fun. I have found inspiration in paintings several times for my writing and it was a John William Waterhouse painting of Boreas that inspired my vision of the heroine, Marianne. The hero of my book, Darius Rourke, was just as fun to imagine. Darius is half English, half Italian, and a cultured but domineering gentleman. I found the perfect man one day in a cologne ad from a magazine. From the moment I spotted the photo I could not picture anyone else as my Darius. He is him, in my vision at least. Actually, ‘he’ is a Spanish model named, Oriol Elacho. I love his hands in the picture. You can feel the ‘cultured elegance’ just by looking at his hands. Delicioso…
Oriol Elacho as Darius Rourke
The less fun part was writing three separate book blurbs. The first: 25 words or less for use on ads. The second: 50 word blurb for use on the website. The third: 150 words or less for the back of the book. Now, this was rather hard to do in my opinion, and the hardest blurb, by far, was the 25-word one. I did it, but it took me several hours to get it right. Condensing a novel down to just two sentences and conveying the essence of your story is a challenge. As a writer you have to make your book sound interesting enough that people will want to read it. That’s the tricky part…but also the beauty of writing–the part that keeps me typing away.
Raine
Heavy cardboard, movable eyes, circa 1930. From my grandmother's box.
I hate the Valentines for sale these days. Let’s see, there’s Scooby Doo, Barbie, Transformers, Bratz, and anything that’s trending now like…Justin Bieber. Ick! In my opinion it’s just plain wrong! Valentines used to be cute, with kids or animal images on them and some sort of poem or greeting. They came in shapes already cut and possibly adorned with moving or embossed parts, glitter and/or flocked highlights. You gave the best, “coolest” Valentine to the boy you liked, and the less cool ones to the boys you couldn’t stand. The box always had a special teacher card that you reverently addressed in your best writing. For some really beautiful examples check out Vintage Valentine Museum and be amazed: http://www.vintagevalentinemuseum.com/
My grandmother was a teacher in Orange County, California from the late 1920’s until 1955, and I was lucky to find a box of cards she had saved from students over the years. Many of them were Valentines and a collection I hold very dear to this day. As I read the messages and admired the art, I realized how far removed the Valentines of today are from those of eighty years ago. It got me started on collecting more vintage Valentines and then that wasn’t enough. I found I needed to share this lost art with others who might never know what Valentines used to look like.
I began printing out color copies of vintage examples and bringing them in to my class of 1st graders. I passed them out and we read the poems and solgans together. I let the kids cut the copies out and decorate their Valentine holders with the vintage images. I had parents start asking about them and other teachers asking for copies to share with their students. Now it’s a tradition to bring them out every year and teach the kids about how Valentines used to be. The kids love learning about this lost art and I feel a little better about sharing the love of these special sentiments from times past.
Witty...clever...funny
Even the Titantic is pretty cute!
Raine
Love the play on words in this one!