May 19, 2008

Tera Lynn Childs Blogs on Adaptations

When I first decided to become a writer, it seemed logical that I would write what I loved to read: historical romance. The breathtaking tales of Johanna Lindsay, Suzanne Enoch, Sabrina Jeffries, Julia Quinn and especially Jane Austen inspired me and I wanted to write equally breathtaking stories. My foray into writing historicals was short-lived because, well, they’re hard. I switched to writing contemporaries where I didn’t have to think about voice or word choice or historical accuracy any more. (Hats off to the wonderful historical authors who make this seem so easy!) Anyway, eventually my quest for my voice’s niche led me to young adult fiction, but my heart was still in historicals. So is it any wonder that my first attempt at writing YA was a modern adaptation of a Regency classic? Here’s some of what I wrote:

Everyone knows a homecoming king needs a queen. No one really cares whether he wants one or not, the whole school is so certain of this that some people are already claiming his royal title.

Not the most brilliantly penned lines in literary history, but a fun modernization of the opening lines of Pride and Prejudice, no?

Since my roots in writing are in historical romance, I thought I’d play around with a few more of my favorites, rewriting choice bits in my own voice from a contemporary teen point of view. Here goes…

Daphne ignored her three brothers, who hovered at the edge of the gym. What girl in the history of high school had to spend her first homecoming dance with three–yes, three!–older brothers watching every move? It was bad enough she didn’t have a date–who’d be crazy enough to ask out the baby sister of the Bridgerton boys?–but the only reason she was dancing right now was because her oldest brother’s friend, Simon, had been guilted into asking.

adapted from The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

Can’t you just see the Bridgerton siblings taking the high school world by storm? The brothers would be every teacher’s nightmare. Especially Colin. Most especially Colin. He’d have gotten very familiar with the principal’s office, I’m sure.

“No way.” Meredith stared at the glowing computer screen for a second, then clicked the message into the trash.

“What?” Ella asked. “Let me see.”

“Oh, sorry,” she said. Another quick click and she moved the message back into her inbox. As Ella read the email, Meredith paced. She’d thought Nick was gone for good, but that hope had disappeared. Along with her chance at valedictorian.

adapted from Once Upon a Wedding Night by Sophie Jordan

Imagine all the notes and missives of Regency–and yes, Sophie, Victorian–England, coming at cyber-speed. I bet dumping a girl via parchment was as much of a faux pas back then as a texting dump is today.

“Step off!” a girl snapped.

“Come on, baby. You know you want some.”

Alex didn’t want to play hero–not tonight. The end of school party raging inside had gotten too much for him to handle. Too much spiked punch and wild, summer-is-finally-here abandon. He’d escaped into the backyard and planned on escaping all the way back to his car, and then home.

But he couldn’t let a girl get groped in the garden. That was so not cool.

“I told you to let go, Reggie!”

“You’re just playing hard to get,” the clearly thought-impaired Reggie replied.

Well, the sooner he broke up this little love/hate-fest, the sooner Alex could go home. He stepped around the corner of the garage, ready to give Reggie a mouthful of fist, when the girl–a blonde babe he’d never seen before–hauled back and kneed the idiot in his fruit basket. Guess she didn’t need rescuing, after all.

adapted from When Dashing Met Danger by Shana Galen

Must admit this one was the hardest. Not because of the content–a party is a party in any era, and so is an unwanted grope–but because this was my first attempt at writing from the POV of a teenage boy. It was more fun than I expected.

I’m not sure what this proves–except that a good story is a good story, whatever the setting and/or genre–but it was a lot of fun. Anyone want to take a whack at modernizing one of your favorites? Or, if you’re afraid of dipping a toe in the YA pool, share your favorite moment and I’ll see if I can work some teen mojo.

Hugs,
TLC

May 15, 2008

Guest Blogger Pamela Morsi

Get ready Jaunty Quills enthusiasts. Memorial Day weekend is just ten days away! I’m Pam Morsi, your guest blogger today. And I’m here to remind you that hot dogs and potato salad are in your immediate future.

It’s been a busy month for me. I’ve got a new book out and I’ve been doing some traveling around to try to promote it. I like traveling, but I really like staying at home too. So, I try not to overbook myself and spend more time than I really want on the road. With that said, yesterday nobody was more surprised than me when I decided that for this Memorial Day weekend I would head north to Oklahoma and see my old Uncle Bob.

Uncle Bob is a gentle soul, with a smile so wide it makes his eyes disappear, and a laugh that comes rumbling up from a depth of good humor. He’s the last of his generation in my family. He’s outlived his brother and sister and most of his friends. Although he still takes care of his own yard, he’s just not as strong as he used to be. He doesn’t see as well and doesn’t drive unless it’s an emergency.

On Saturday, the 24th, his high school will have a big alumni picnic. He wants to go and visit old friends. So I’m going to take him.

His class, the Seniors of 1942 faced a world so different from ours, it’s hard to get our minds around it. Many of his classmates quit school before graduation to go into the military. And others who’d signed up for the National Guard right out of Boy Scouts were simply plucked out of class. He knew that he would be going off to fight a war, because the whole world was involved in one.

Bob was lucky to come back, he says. Lucky because some of the battles he was in, D-Day, the Hurtgen Forrest, the Battle of the Bulge, are imfamous for all the guys like him that didn’t come back. I knew that Uncle Bob was in WWII, but I didn’t know a lot about it.

My father was a highly decorated Army Air Corps Medic who served in four theaters of the war. Maybe he overshadowed his younger brother. Or maybe Uncle Bob is just too modest about the contribution that he made.

My first true understanding of these men I’ve known all my life came about while I was doing research for the character named Bud, in my new book LAST DANCE AT JITTERBUG LOUNGE. Let me make it clear, Bud isn’t my Uncle Bob. The old man I created in that story is a composite of a lot of guys of that age and time. The fond memories of days gone by and the scars of events that can’t quite be outlived are both a part of all of them.

This Memorial Day, when laughing and eating and enjoying friends and family, as we rightly should, let’s all do some remembering of those who serve their country in all our conflicts. We do that by being the cheering crowd in the hometown parade and by decorating the graves of the fallen.

I’ll be hanging out with one of the heroes that’s still with us.

Maybe you can find time to do the same. I realize that everyone doesn’t have an Uncle Bob. But just a mile or so from my house is Brook Army Medical Center. Hundreds of men and women are recovering there, rehabilitating themselves for more active duty or a whole new battle completely. Volunteer opportunities abound. I’m sure your own community has its way to say thanks to Vets. We are all so blessed that these people are willing to put themselves in harm’s way. That’s something that can’t be measured into potato salad.

May 14, 2008

Kathryn Shay Guest Blogs on the Appeal of Firemen

Hello, Jaunty Quill Readers.

Since this is my first time here, I’d like to tell you a bit about myself and my work. My name is Kathryn Shay and I’ve written twenty-two books for Harlequin SuperRomance and ten for The Berkley Publishing Group. For most of my life I was a high school English teacher, and began publishing in 1995. I’ll tell you, having two full time jobs for ten years was tough. I also have a wonderful supportive husband (my college sweetheart) and two great kids, now grown, one a writer and one a teacher!

My current release is TAKING THE HEAT, part of the O’Neil series, but one reviewer just said not to worry, she hadn’t read the others (but will now!) and this book functions as a stand alone. It’s the story of widower Liam O’Neil who lost his wife three years ago to cancer and is ready to date again. He meets Sophie Tyler, rough and tumble female firefighter from New York City, and is attracted to her. But his sons are still suffering over the loss of their mother and Liam feels he can’t risk getting involved with someone in a dangerous profession. Too bad, though, because they can’t help themselves and sparks fly, emotionally, physically and on the line.

Why did I write this book? There were several reasons. First, Liam intrigued me. In the other storylines, he’s quiet, sensitive and hurting over the turn his life has taken. He also always does what’s best for his kids, too much so, his dynamic brothers think. It was fun exploring all those facets of Liam, in addition to a sense of humor I didn’t know he had, and, well, a very sexy side, which Sophie soon discovers. That was a big surprise to me and to her and makes for some humor as well as some sizzling sexual tension.

Another reason I wrote about these characters was to explore father/son relationships. The two O’Neil boys, seven year old Mikey and teenager Cleary, play a big part in the book as well as in Liam’s life. Reviewers are pointing to some very tender moments, funny occurrences and some sad things that might bring the reader to tears (I hope so!)

Last, I got to return to my favorite heroes, firefighters. As many of you know, I’ve done several firefighter stories for Harlequin and this is my fourth for Berkley. I researched the profession by spending several years, off and on, riding fire trucks and ambulances, eating in the firehouses, talking at length to the men and women who make up America’s Bravest and reading things like their training manuals on firefighting and EMS. I went to several working fires in places like a dormitory, a kitchen and a car. I rode along to calls for a stabbing, a flooded basement and a roof rescue. I also spent hours and hours at the fire academy training with the recruits, wearing their gear, handling the Jaws of Life and going through mazes blindfolded. I also had the terrifying experience of making my way in a smoke house, which is exactly what you think—a building set on fire so rookies can train. (Okay, a real firefighter was holding my hand the whole time, but still…)

What did I learn: firefighters are taciturn, until you get to know them; they’re affectionate, after they decide you’re okay; they’re funny in a black humor kind of way; they care about people, though not one of them will tell you he thinks he’s a hero. And, in my opinion, these people are a very special breed who put their lives on the line every single day. I love them for who they are and what they stand for. I think you’ll see this in the book, as well as get a look at their everyday lives and experience some heart-stopping action scenes.

I’d be glad to answer questions, give you more information or just listen to what you have to say. And I’ll pick one lucky winner from the comments for an autographed copy of TAKING THE HEAT.

Kathy Shay

May 5, 2008

The Coolest Thing by guest blogger Emily McKay

So here’s the coolest thing about being an author: meeting other authors. Pam Morsi was the first author I met in person whose books I’d read before joining RWA. I’d read (and loved!) Courting Miss Hattie back when I was in college. And then—several years later—I walked into my first RWA meeting and there she was! I was starstruck. I’m showing my age, but this was long before the internet world we live in now where you can “meet” other authors easily.

Now I meet authors all the time. And it’s always cool when you get to meet an author whose books you love. Or conversely, when you meet a writer, become her buddy, buy a book, read it and end up loving her writing.

Right now, for example, I’m reading Temptation of a Warrior, a book by the Jaunty Quills own Margo Maguire. (Okay, in all honesty, I haven’t actually met Margo or become her buddy, but I feel like I know her through Robyn and the Jaunty Quills.) I’m really enjoying it, which makes guest blogging for the Jaunty Quills just that much more fun.

With Temptation of a Warrior, Margo has created a great book, seamlessly weaving together familiar romance elements—an orphaned Regency governess—with the paranormal—a magically gifted, mysterious warrior. It’s like Jane Eyre meets the Arthurian legend. Best of all, she creates a world into which I can escape absolutely.

As I’m working on this blog, my everyday life—kids, sick mom, horrendous mountains of laundry—constantly intrudes. Bleck. But it’s nice knowing in just a few minutes, I can curl up in bed with Margo’s book and that will all go away.

Which brings me to the point of my blog … No, wait a minute. If I can get back to my book as soon as I’m done here, then what am I doing hanging around here?

So what’s the coolest thing about your job?

April 26, 2008

In it for the Long Haul

I’m so thrilled to visit with you today. I appreciate Cindy inviting me!

My first book, a Steeple Hill Love Inspired titled Her Unlikely Family, just came out in February, and two things about this journey recently occurred to me:

1. I started writing when my middle child was nursing—holding him in one arm while typing with the other hand. He’s now 13.
2. When I used to need writing time, I would bribe my three children by telling them if they would let Mommy write, then I would use money from my first advance to buy them a swing set. Hmmm. My oldest is about to graduate from high school, and my youngest is now 11. She’s almost as tall as I am, and her feet would drag the ground on an old-fashioned swing set.

Obviously, it took much longer than expected.

When I started on the road to publication, I never, ever would have imagined waiting this long. In fact, when I sat down and first started to act as a professional and wrote down goals, my number one goal was to be published in 5 years.

Okay, you can quit laughing now. I realize how silly that was, not because it can’t be done in 5 years, but because it’s not something I can control. And yes, I was very naïve, then.

This business isn’t for the faint of heart. And it isn’t for those who give up easily. Stubbornness can be an asset (and luckily, I have those stubborn genes). I’ve also been blessed with lots of writing friends in my local RWA chapter and also online writing groups. They’ve kept me going through the years. As well as my children who kept cheering me on, hoping for that swing set. And my husband, who wondered when I would ever quit spending his paycheck on books, conferences, and contests and actually make some money. 

But maybe taking this long wasn’t such a bad thing after all. For one, I believe it happened in God’s perfect timing. But, also, my children are now old enough to really enjoy the thrill with me. When that wonderful box came from Harlequin in December, after everyone cheered for me, my 13-year-old, a reader like me, grabbed one out of the box and took off to his room to devour it. He also grabbed one for his lit teacher. My oldest took one to church to show it off. And my youngest picked up my Alpha-smart to continue writing her own story. And then in February, our whole family made a trip to Walmart to see it on the shelf and to celebrate. All well worth the wait!

So what’s your dream, and how long have you been pursuing it? (Not necessarily writing related.) If you’ll leave a comment with contact info, I’ll enter you in a drawing for a copy of Her Unlikely Family!

April 17, 2008

Lisa Plumley Blogs About Opposites

Hello, Jaunties! Thanks a million for having me here.

It’s a pretty safe bet to say that men and women are the ultimate opposites. For instance, women excel at multitasking. We’re capable of compiling a datasheet, making a PB&J, phoning a friend to make plans for the weekend, and prying bubblegum out of a four-year-old’s hair…all at the same time. Men excel at focusing and making sense of spatial relationships. So if you need an IKEA bookcase assembled during a chaotic family reunion brunch, a man is your man. The typical male is unfazed by relatives arriving, children dropping water balloons, sweet-potato casseroles burning, and the very real possibility that Uncle Joe just parked his SUV in the neighbor’s prizewinning hydrangeas, sparking a block-wide feud. Until the job at hand is accomplished, everything else can wait.

I envy men their ability to focus. I also envy their confidence in their athletic prowess (even if their last slam dunk was in third grade), their fearlessness when hoisting little kids on their shoulders (it’s the only way to watch a parade), and their ability to pee standing up (face it, it’s convenient). Men are brave, protective, and willing to sit on the stadium bleacher with the caramel corn glued to it (so I don’t have to). They squash bugs. They work hard to be good providers, good boyfriends/husbands/friends, and good people. The world is a better place because men and women share it, and no one can convince me otherwise.

However, once you put men and women together, the results can be…hilarious! I mean, with two such divergent viewpoints, how can they not be? Maybe that’s why, in my books, I often pair up a hero and heroine who are *totally* different. After all, why not make the most of the possibilities? I love a good “opposites attract” story. It gets me every time.

So how about you? Do you believe opposites attract?

April 16, 2008

Kimberly Logan is Our Guest!

Okay, I know what you all are probably thinking. “Boy, didn’t we just get rid of this crazy broad a couple of months ago?” (Ahem. Not one word from you, Jaunty!) But my esteemed JQ sisters were kind enough to invite me back to talk about my latest release from Avon, SEDUCED BY SIN, which hit shelves on March 25th, and I was delighted at the opportunity to revisit my old stomping grounds and say hello to everyone. For those of you who are glad to see me, thank you so much for having me! For those of you who are not…well, putting up with me is better than one of Jaunty’s sharp quills in the eye.

In any case, I thought I would share a bit about SBS and fill you all in on some of the behind-the-scenes tid-bits on the writing of it. As always, I wrapped up this book with the usual conflicting mixture of happiness and sadness. But as this was the final book in my Daventry Sisters series, those emotions were even more profound than usual. Though I am looking forward to moving on to the next project, having to say goodbye to characters that have been such a big part of my life for the past three years was even more difficult than I had anticipated.

The youngest of the Daventry Sisters, Lady Aimee has long been haunted by the night she witnessed her mother’s murder. Only nine-years-old at the time, the trauma of the incident had caused her to erase most of the details from her memory. Suddenly, however, those memories have started to return as fragmented parts of her nightmares, and she is beginning to recall things that make her believe there may be more to what happened that long-ago evening than anyone might suspect. Enter Royce Grenville, Viscount Stonehurst. Scarred in more ways than one, Royce is the man Aimee has loved for years. Having once made the mistake of confessing her feelings to him, she had been ruthlessly cut out of his life without a backward glance, leaving her convinced that he cares nothing for her, and he is definitely the last person she wants to see now. Little does she know that his feelings for her go far deeper than he lets on. For his part, Royce has tried to keep the shy Aimee at a distance. But when her life is endangered by her returning memories, he is forced to step forward and act as her protector. Will they finally learn to put their tragic pasts behind them and move toward the future in each other’s arms?

Some tid-bits:

-Surprisingly enough, Aimee and Royce turned out to be the most stubborn characters I have ever created, and they caused me no end of headaches trying to get them to cooperate with my plans for the story. Even more so than Maura and Gabriel in THE DEVIL’S TEMPTATION, who took the prize before. Aimee and Royce both had their own ideas about how the tale should progress, and it took me a while to get them to interact the way I wanted them to!

-As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t usually picture a particular actor or famous person whenever I am creating a hero, but there are definite shades of Gerard Butler in Royce. Maybe its because of the whole scarred Phantom thing? LOL.

-Some of my favorite scenes to write involved eldest Daventry sister Jillian’s young twin sons, Thane and Roddy. I just adored them.

-When I originally sat down to plot out the overarcing mystery of the Daventry Sisters series, a different person was supposed to be the final culprit in the murder of Lady Albright. Can you guess who it was?

I hope that readers who pick up SEDUCED BY SIN will be satisfied, not only with Aimee and Royce’s love story, but with the solution to the mystery that has been at the center of the Daventry Sisters series!

April 7, 2008

TJ Bennett Blogs on The Legacy

My debut novel, The Legacy (April 2008), is a historical romance about the destructive nature of secrets. Set in 1525 Wittenberg, Germany, the novel weaves events occurring during the Early Reformation period into an intimate love story played out on the canvas of history.

I was inspired to write this outside-the-box historical romance about a printer and the runaway nun he is blackmailed into marrying when I came across a book entitled Martin Luther Had a Wife. The book described how the sixteenth-century religious reformer met and married Katherine von Bora, an ex-nun. She and eleven other nuns engineered a daring escape from a convent and fled to Luther’s doorstep in Wittenberg, asking for help in starting a new life. Luther decided to help the women, finding most of them husbands in a round of hasty matchmaking. The twelfth nun, Katherine von Bora, decided she’d rather marry Luther than anyone else, and theirs became one of the great love matches of history.

It got me thinking: What must it have been like for the other eleven women? They went from nun to wife in such a short time, most of them marrying strangers. And what if one of those women hadn’t wanted to marry the man chosen for her as a mate? The idea morphed into one of intrigue and suspense: What if an escaped nun was recaptured by her family and forced to marry a certain man for reasons she didn’t understand? And what if his reasons for marrying her were just as mysterious? Thus, The Legacy was born.

I created the three Behaim brothers to tell the story, one of whom is thrust into an arranged marriage with Sabina von Ziegler, a runaway nun with a tragic past. In the beginning, neither plans to consummate the marriage they each want to have annulled, but they find themselves challenged by a fiery passion they cannot resist. In addition, they must also solve a mystery revolving around why Sabina’s adopted father forced these two together in the first place. In the course of their discoveries, they find love and a truth that sets them free from their past.

While writing The Legacy, I also came across research describing the lives of the 16th century German mercenaries known as Landsknechts, or servants of the country. These mercenaries were hired by the Holy Roman Emperor, among others, to fight territorial battles between the major powers of the day (France, England, Germany, Spain, and the Low Countries). I was so fascinated with the difficult and spectacular lives of these men, I decided to make one of the Behaim brothers a mercenary fighting in Charles V’s Italian campaigns. Günter Behaim meets and falls for a Spanish blade artisan’s daughter who believes she is cursed. Their romantic adventure is featured in The Promise, available May 2009.

I hope readers will find the settings for these books a refreshing addition to their usual historical novels. If you’ve had a chance to read The Legacy, let me know what you think! You can stop by my website and read excerpts, send me an e-mail, check out pictures of conferences I’ve attended, and comment on my blog.

In addition, I’m giving away a free book and a $40 gift certificate to either B&N or GermanDeli.com (a German foods importer) to any one who comments on at least two of the blogs I’m touring. Comment here. For a list of the other places, check out my blog. Good luck!

April 3, 2008

Gayle Callen - Never Trust a Scoundrel

Hello! Thanks so much to the ladies of the Jaunty Quills for inviting me to blog. As you can guess, I’m here to talk about my new book, writing, and anything else you’re interested in! NEVER TRUST A SCOUNDREL was released this month by Avon, and it’s my sixteenth published book. Since I’ve been at this a decent amount of time now (ten years published), and this is the first book of a new series, I thought I’d share with you how I come up with my trilogies.

I can’t seem to conceive of an idea that stands alone. As I flesh out secondary characters, they’re always so interesting to me that they seem to demand their own book. Long ago I gave in to the inevitable and plotted in trilogies. After a while they even received trilogy names, like “Spies and Lovers,” “Sisters of Willow Pond,” and the newest, “Sons of Scandal.” I come up with an over-arching theme, like spies, penniless ladies, or with this new trilogy, a group of cousins who have to live with the scandal of their parents. I started with the male cousins first, and I hope to do a “Daughters of Scandal” trilogy next.

Each hero had to have his own reaction to the scandals in the family: one strives to be perfect, another tries to leave it all behind, and the third, Daniel Throckmorten of NEVER TRUST A SCOUNDREL, gives in to the notoriety and revels in his own scandals. Of course, our heroine, Grace Banbury, comes from a disgraced, scandalous family, and only wishes to live a quiet, secure life. They have opposite goals, which really helps the plotting! Daniel’s newest scandal involves a mortified Grace: he wins her in a card game against her mother. He offers his own wager to Grace: if he can’t seduce her into his bed in two weeks, she wins security for herself and her family. Grace thinks this will be easy, of course, since all she has to do is resist. But how can she resist a handsome, scandalous man, especially when she’s determined to reform him? If you want to check out an excerpt, you can visit my website at GayleCallen.com

I always try to make sure the reader doesn’t miss out if she reads the books out of order. So do you like reading trilogies, as long as each book stands alone?

March 31, 2008

Julianne MacLean Ponders the Ups and Downs of Finishing a Book

I am on top of the world today. Not only is it my birthday, but I just turned in my manuscript a month early. Let me just explain the inconceivable sense of relief and accomplishment inherent in that sentence. When you start a book, knowing you have a deadline to meet, the pressure, both creatively and professionally, can be intense. I usually like to estimate more time than I really need to write a book, in case I run into plot problems, or someone in my family gets sick. It also allows time to revise at the end, so that I can give my editor a more polished product. But with this current book, I had the opportunity to move up in the 2009 schedule if I could deliver early, so of course, I said, “No problem.”

What followed was pandemonium, a necessary flood of creativity, and a very messy house. I wrote the book faster than usual, which meant working evenings and weekends and missing some movies I really wanted to see in the theatre. (Thank goodness for DVDs.)

When I finished on the day I said I would, I was drunk with euphoria (and oh, how I loved the smell of the ink as my printer spit out 400 pages!). Now that I’ve taken it to the courier, I can emerge from under my rock. I can read the paper, go see movies, do laundry, and generally rediscover the world.

The thing that gives me mixed feelings, however, is that this book was the last in a multi-book deal, which means I am now officially unemployed. I’ll be submitting a new proposal to Avon, and if the fates are kind, I’ll continue to be a working writer. But right now, I have no deadline in sight, and that is both liberating and unsettling. How an author feels about this uncertain period between contracts can be a blessing or a curse. I think it depends on whether you’re a pessimist or an optimist.

Generally I’m an optimist, which mostly makes me feel good right now, because suddenly the possibilities are endless. I’m free to write something different if I so desire, just to see what might come of it. I get to dream up the concept for the next book, which will be the final book in my latest series. This is when creativity can really explode – when you have no commitment to any particular story idea (or contractual deadline), and you can imagine whatever you want.

Then of course, there are the financial ramifications. My experience in the past with signing a new contract has always been positive, because that’s when you get the “signing check” - usually the biggest portion of your advance, which is paid out in chunks as you deliver proposals and completed manuscripts in a multi-book deal. I love the signing check! All I need to do now is send out a new story idea…

In the interim, I’m happily attacking the massive laundry pile, and will be content to tackle seemingly mundane tasks over the coming weeks… even my taxes. I wonder if this is normal.