Please give a warm Jaunty Quills welcome to Madeline Hunter — author of the wonderful Regency romance – DANGEROUS IN DIAMONDS, the final book in the Rarest Blooms series from Berkley.

Odd Truths that I Learned from Being a Writer

Readers often ask writers questions about writing, and about being a writer. I am used to explaining where I got the idea for a book’s story, or how long it takes to write one from beginning to end.

No one ever asks about some other things, though, like what are the most unexpected things that I have learned while being a writer?

I thought I would answer that question today, and share some of my surprise discoveries with you.

Here are a few of them:

1.  Writing a novel doesn’t get easier with practice.

The fact is, sometimes writing these books is easy and sometimes it is very, very hard. Nor is it possible to know which way it will go until I am deeply into the writing. I have had books pour out, and I have had books that fought me every paragraph of the way. Here is something even odder— the process, whether it is hard or easy, does not reflect on the quality of the book. The ones that flow are not always better. Neither are the ones that are torture. Doesn’t seem right, somehow, does it? There should be some predictability, it seems to me. (Which would you expect to be better?)

2.  Writing is physically exhausting.

This totally stunned me when I started writing a lot. I mean, I was sitting in a chair. My rear end was showing the total lack of exercise. Yet, after three hours of writing I was whipped. My husband gave me one perspective on this. He said that when he sees me writing, it is clear that I am tensed up. Apparently the mental intensity of the process creates a physical one, and I am one tight, wound up lady. I just don’t notice because I am in my book’s world.

This reality is what makes me so impressed with authors who regularly write most of their novels in two weeks. I can’t understand why their bodies don’t just collapse on them around day ten.

3.  Readers are actually part of the process of forming any novel, and any novel has multiple meanings as a result.

After my first book was published, and I began getting emails from readers, I realized something astonishing. Not every reader had “read” the same book. Oh, the same words were on the page, but a reader brings an individualized perspective, history, and interests to what she reads, and it affects how she reads and what she absorbs and what gets emphasized in her mind and memory. A walk-on character may fascinate her and loom larger than the author intended, for example, thus changing the story for her. That is a broad example, but this actually happens a lot, and often in more subtle and nuanced ways.

An author puts words down, and assumes they are static in meaning and will say to others what they said to her. But those words are actually somewhat fluid in the story they convey and in their interpretation, depending on who is reading them.

This means to me that the reader and the act of reading are actually part of the creation of the novel. Cool, huh?

(Can you think of cases when you realized that you and another reader remembered a book in two very different ways?)

4.  Writers are basically crazy people.

Until I met a lot of other writers, I had no idea how crazy they were. I certainly did not think I was crazy until I met writers who did what I did, and it looked crazy to me, which meant I was crazy too.

We obsess over things we can’t change or affect. We spend most of our time living in alternate realities. We collect strange things for our research, often on a “just in case” basis. We live with a type of internal intensity that probably is not sustainable for most other people, and may not be healthy. We isolate ourselves in order to produce, but get to like the isolation too much sometimes.

I see myself being crazy, and find it very interesting and odd. I have many roles in my life, but I am only crazy in my writing role. Otherwise I am one of the sanest people you would ever meet. Really!

(Do you think someone has to be a little crazy to be a good writer?)

One of the people who posts a comment today will win a set of signed copies of the first three books in The Rarest Blooms series, or, if preferred, a choice of another backlist title.

Madeline Hunter’s first romance was published in June 2000. Since then, she has seen 18 historical romances and one novella published, and her books have been translated into 12 languages, with more than six million of her books in print.  She’s a six-time RITA finalist and two-time RITA winner. Seventeen of her books have been on the USA Today best-seller list, and she has also had titles on the New York Times printed list, Publishers Weekly list, and the Waldenbooks paperback fiction list. She has received two starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times has awarded 15 of her books 4 1/2 stars. Hunter is a Ph.D. in art history, and she teaches at the college level. Visit Madeline Hunter online at http://www.madelinehunter.com

Please welcome my guest today, one of my favorite authors, Kathleen Eagle!

What a pleasure it is to pay a visit to “Jaunty Quills” and celebrate the release of COWBOY, TAKE ME AWAY with your blog visitors.  Thanks, guys!

No matter what’s up and what’s down, who’s in and who’s out, for me there is no more romantic setting than the American West, and there’s no hero quite as irresistible than a cowboy.  Both the place and the man are timeless, rugged, weathered, and completely natural.  The look hasn’t changed much.  The real West hates brick and mortar.  A real cowboy hates stiff collar and silk tie.  Western shirts and boot cut Wranglers haven’t changed much in at least half a century, and a long, lean cowboy looks mighty fine dressed that way.  You don’t want to miss the rear view.  And so begins COWBOY, TAKE ME AWAY.

Skyler Quinn is ripe for getting swept off her feet.  She’s a former beauty queen and the widow of an older man who started out as a father figure and ended up leaving her with a pile of debt and a stepson who refuses to grow up.  When she meets pro rodeo cowboy Trace Wolf Track, she thinks she’s in for her very first weekend fling.  Trace offers to trade his horse training services for 24 hours of her company on his birthday.  Skyler thinks she’ll have the upper hand with a handsome, charming younger man, but she has a few things to learn about this cowboy.   You can read the first chapter at Kathleen Eagle’s Website. 

If you’ve read any of my recent Special Editions, you know that I’ve built a series of connected stories around a fictitious wild horse sanctuary in South Dakota, inspired by the very real Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, which you can read about online.   COWBOY, TAKE ME AWAY is the fifth book in my series—ONE BRAVE COWBOY is scheduled for late September release—and Trace Wolf Track has already made his first appearance.  He’s Logan Wolf Track’s (ONCE A FATHER) adopted son.  I knew he needed his own story, and I knew a few things about him, but it was a song that triggered my first mental images of Trace and Skyler together.  Take a listen to the Dixie Chicks and see if “Cowboy, Take Me Away” doesn’t make your heart sing:

This isn’t the first time a song has inspired me with a story idea.  For instance, Garth Brooks’s “That Summer” helped to inspire part of my hero’s back story in THE LAST TRUE COWBOY.  I’m more a rock ‘n roll fan than country-western, but I love a good ballad.  The best lyric is poetry, and poetry is full of imagery, and imagery makes story magic happen.  Some writers create their own soundtracks for their books, and I can’t say  I do that, but songs often pop up in my stories.  While we can’t quote song lyrics, we can mention titles, which aren’t copyright-able.  When a song fits the moment or the character perfectly, I hope the title turns the music on in the reader’s mind.  One of my longtime favorite contemporary romances is LIGHTNING THAT LINGERS by Tom and Sharon Curtis, and when I remember the hero shedding his clothes on stage, I hear “Stray Cat Strut.”

Writers, I wonder what particular songs or type of music may have inspired any of your books.  Readers, what do your favorite heroes have in common?   Let’s talk books, music, favorites, pet peeves, almost anything else that’s on your mind.  I’ll send an autographed copy of one of the earlier books in my series to one of today’s commenters. 

Congratulations to Quilt Lady!  She won the signed copy of A Knight’s Vengeance that I mentioned in my blog post the other day!

My husband is working away from home and my daughter is at college finishing up her first year there. So at home its just been my son and I. When he was little (he’s five years younger than his sister) we’d have these pockets of time together while she was at school but mostly I was writing at my computer and he was playing on the floor at my feet. This is our first time alone and I’m enjoying his company so much.

He’s funny and sarcastic the way a teenaged boy can be but he’s also very good at making sure I’m not alone. Every night after dinner, he sighs and says fine I’ll watch your show with you tonight. Like he’s making a sacrifice but he enjoys it. I tried giving him an out the other day but he said no, he’d stay and watch whatever I wanted. And I was struck by how mature that was.

I’m always amazed at my children. From the earliest moments of their lives I’ve felt so blessed to be their mother and to be able to kind of guide them through life. They are better people than I am, I’ll freely admit that. When others have asked me for advice about how I deal with my kids I really don’t know what to tell them. At their core they have always been the people they are. I just listened and laughed and pointed them in the right direction at times. And now I’m seeing firsthand how much that patience paid off with both of them.

Happy reading!
Katherine

My life is driven by lists these days. Each week, I think this will be the week where I have more time…yet each week, my schedule is packed. Almost every day, I write down a list of things I have to get done—vacuum, e-mail a teacher, go to the post office, pick up my contact lenses, give a talk at a library.  As the much anticipated spring unfolds around me, my mind is busy thinking about packing for New York next week, posting a blog, writing an article.

But on Saturday morning, I went with my daughter on her weekend job—to care for the horses down the street. Their names are Honor, Monte, Lainey and Baby—two bays, one chestnut, and one white Appaloosa. Monte, the Appaloosa, had been an acquaintance of my horse, Jenny, back in the day, so he and I are old friends. He whickered when he saw us coming, and the horses all nudged in to see if we had apples on us. Honor tolerated Willow’s eager sniffing, then blew gently at her, which sent the puppy into a wriggle of joy.

The property is a small farm; I used to babysit the now-grown children of the owner. There’s a pond nearby with a flock of white ducks (though one duck is black, and two Canada geese have joined the gang). Two cats scampered around as my daughter took the horses up to the barn to feed them. My job was to hold the gate.

As my sweet girl shoveled out the stalls and swept the barn’s stone floor, I sat outside on a stone wall and listened to the clacking of the red-wing blackbirds, the sweet whistle of the chickadees. The leaves have almost finished budding out, filling the countryside with shades of pale green. I breathed in the smell of horses and hay, crabapple blossoms and freshly cut grass, and just sat, content as cat in the sun.

When my daughter was done, we walked back, holding hands, and I told her that this had been one of the best mornings of my life, absolutely magical in its beauty, and I kissed her cheek and told her I loved her. Then we went back home, where I made pancakes, sprinkling chocolate chips into my son’s batch without even being asked and cooking him sausages because the little guy’s quite a carnivore. The smile on his face as he wolfed down his breakfast was so cute!

What better Mother’s Day gift than to enjoy the company of one’s children! The lists and blogs could wait…it was time to stop and smell the lilacs and eat the pancakes.

I hope you all have such a lovely morning as I did, and to those of you who are mothers, I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Robyn DeHart’s Desire Me is a Readers’ Crown finalist!

When I was growing up, my brother looked just like my mother’s side of the family. I didn’t.

I had one friend who looked more like her aunt than her mom. My husband and his sister look like his father’s side of the family. His brother looks like his mother’s side.

I’m always fascinated by family members who share noses, mouths, eyes and general facial features.

I’d be interested in hearing your family resemblance tales.

This week I received some more copies of the Mills and Boon 2-in-1 book which includes my story The Christmas Proposition and Christyne Butler’s A Daddy for Jacoby.

I will be drawing on Sunday night at 9pm from those who post and TWO people will receive a copy of this book!

My Ninth Grade daughter has less than four weeks of school left before summer vacation.  It already feels like summer here in Central Florida; temperatures have soared up into the mid nineties (which doesn’t usually happen until July or August), and by 9 a.m., it’s like a sauna outside.  While I’m not fond of the hot weather, I’m looking forward to having my daughter home over the summer months.  She and I get along so well, and I know we’ll be spending lazy days antiquing or shopping or just hanging out at the bookstore.

In previous years, I’ve booked her into one or two camps.  This summer, I’m keeping her schedule completely free, in part because she’s had a hectic and stressful school year, and I want her to have some down time.  But, in part, it’s because I want time to teach her how to cook.

When I mention this to her, she rolls her eyes and gives me the “Oh, Mom” grimace.  I’m sure it’s because she doesn’t want to think about one more thing to learn, when she’s at a busy point in her semester.  I expect it’s also because she hasn’t done much cooking.  Yes, she’s used the small kitchen blowtorch to caramelize sugar on the crème brulees I’ve made for dinner parties, and has helped me chop veggies for salads, but overall, it’s unfamiliar ground, and a little scary because of that.  I think, though, once she’s successfully made a few dishes, she’ll feel much differently about cooking.

I consider cooking to be one of the basic life skills.  In just a few short years, she’ll be graduating and heading off to college, getting an apartment, and fending for herself.  I’d like to know she can cook a meal that’s not just quick to prepare, but tasty and healthy.

I learned to cook by watching my mother, who is an excellent home cook, and who had me helping out in the kitchen at a fairly young age.  I also had a semester of Home Ec in Middle School, where we were taught some basic cooking.  I will never forget my Home Ec teacher.  She was strict.  All of the utensils had one specific name (rubber scraper, not spatula), and anything else was wrong.  Recipes had to be made exactly as written, or we were doomed to have a culinary disaster and a failing grade.  I chuckle now, but back then . . .   Boy.  It was pretty stressful.

I don’t intend to be strict with my cooking lessons.  Sure, things go wrong now and again.  That’s part of the learning process.  Overall, though, cooking can be fun, creative, and inspiring, and that’s how I want to present it to my daughter.

We’re going to start with some easy projects, such as the different ways eggs can be prepared: scrambled, poached, hard-boiled, fried, and made into omelettes.  Chicken breasts are easy and versatile, too.  In less than half an hour, we can make broiled chicken, rice, and broccoli.  I have good chicken recipes that she can make in the crock pot, too.  And how about ground beef?  That’s the basis of a quick spaghetti sauce, or tacos, or chili.

The possibilities are endless, and, with my rubber scraper in hand, I’m looking forward to the culinary adventure.

***

Have you taught your teenager to cook?  What dishes do you recommend that I teach my daughter how to make?  I’d love to get your suggestions.  As a thank-you, I’ll give away a signed copy of my award-winning medieval romance A Knight’s Vengeance to one commenter.

Donna Ann, you are the winner of Margaret Mallory’s book! Email her your snail mail address to margaretmallory.author@gmail.com. Enjoy the book!

I’m in the thrall of deadline dementia, so excuse the short post. All of my favorite shows are winding down now and I’m wondering what I’m going to do without Justified and Supernatural. Thank God cable will soon start up some summer shows.

So, what shows are you going to miss? What summer shows are you looking forward to?