Boom!

Forgot to tell you yesterday--I heard my very first sonic boom! 'cept I didn't know it was a sonic boom at the time.

I was in my office, in front of my computer (as usual,) when BLAM.

Not sure what scared me more, the unexpected loud boom or the walls shaking. I was *convinced* some drunken moron just drove his car into my house/garage.

I went outside to check. No damage, but other neighbors likewise checking to see if drunken morons had just crashed into *their* houses.

Verrrry suspicious.

I then went back to my PC (can't stay away for more than 5 minutes at a stretch--I sleep on top of the power strip) where in my absence, a flurry of emails rocked one of my local loops, each with the subject line some variation of "Did you hear the Sonic Boom???" Ohhh. Cool.

Next time I wanna see the rocket launch/land.

YOUR TURN: Ever hear a sonic boom or see a rocket launch/land? Barring that, ever have something seemingly inexplicable happen, only to discover it really was something you'd never have figured out on your own?

No Censorship, please!

Did you read about Indiana's new law about books with sexual content? Booksellers with sexually explicit books must register with the state for regulation, else face fines or even legal charges.

What constitutes "sexually explicit"? Well, that's the thing. Indiana wants to make laws against:

sexually explicit material that can be viewed as "harmful" to minors, including material that "appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors."

Harmful is subjective. And prurient... well, not sure you can find many teenage minors without prurient interests, even without something so heinous as *books* around influencing the lil dears.

Booksellers worry this new law will lump shops offering marital self help books and coming-of-age literary classics in with pornographers if it goes unchallenged. Gah.

But I felt this was an intriguing quote:

"I think this is very hypocritical," said Elizabeth Barden, owner of Big Hat Books on the Northside. "On the one hand, we feel a need to censor ourselves, while on the other hand, we are spending our tax dollars to free the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people."

YOUR TURN: Thoughts?

Congrats 2008 Golden Heart & RITA Finalists!

A giant squee to my CP Darcy Burke, whose manuscript GLORIOUS finalled in the Regency Historical category of the RWA Golden Heart!

Another giant squee to my friend Karen Rose, whose insanely fabulous novel DIE FOR ME finaled in the Romantic Suspense category of the RITAS!

Thirdly, yet another giant squee to my friend Courtney Milan, who finaled in the Historical category of the Golden Heart with Breath of Honor! Whoo!

This just in--my friend Stephanie Rowe finaled in the Paranormal category of the RITAs with her sexy and hilarious book HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME HOT. Yayayay!

Oh, man, more shout-outs! Are my CPs, friends, and chaptermates the most talented people ever, or what?? =)

Julia Quinn finaled in RITA Regency Historical with The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. Go Julie!

Terri Garey finaled in RITA Paranormal with Dead Girls Are Easy. Just met Terri this year and she is super nice.

MaveFave Elizabeth Hoyt finaled in the Historical RITA category with The Leopard Prince. Love that series!

Chaptermates Christa Selnick finaled in the Golden Heart with her story, The Devil You Know and Leslie Kelly finaled in the RITA Best Contemporary category with SHE'S NO ANGEL. Wow!!!

Identity: All a Big Misunderstanding

x-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

Secret/Mistaken Identities and ye olde BigMis--But first, breaking news:

NYT best-selling MaveFave Julie Leto (of hilarious Halloween Choose-Your-Adventure fame) is running an amazing contest this week over on the PlotMonkeys blog. She's not only giving away a free chapter every day this week (starting NOW, today!) of her upcoming paranormal romance, Phantom Pleasures, but she's also awarding one random commenter on her her blog a $20 Amazon/Borders gift card every day this week. Please show Julie some MaveFave love by dropping by and leaving her a comment. That's seven winners!! For extra good karma, please tell her you heard about Phantom Pleasures over on the Manuscript Mavens! If you do (and comment here to let me know) you'll be eligible to win a free copy of Julie's book the second it hits the stores on April 1st. In fact, I'll make it a signed copy of Julie's book. Go check out her blog, drop me a note here to let me know, and on 3/31 I'll announce the winner. Deal?¹

Now that you fulfilled all my karma fantasies by supporting my friend Julie's newest release, lets move on to the topic of Big Misunderstandings, commonly snarked in the romance community as the infamous BigMis.

So, what is a Big Misunderstanding? Technically (which means I'm inventing my definition on the fly,) a BigMis is the type of story "conflict" wherein a simple, honest, adult conversation between the hero and the heroine would solve all the story's problems, largely because there are no problems.

EX: Hero can't trust heroine b/c he thinks she slept with Villain. (She didn't.)
Or: Heroine can't trust hero b/c she thinks he killed her brother. (He didn't.)

And so on.

When I brought up this topic to my friend (and occasional impromptu psychologist) Diana, I had the following epiphany (transcribed):

"I was going to post about what is and isn't a bigmis (and I think I might still do that, maybe next week)². Like when I started DATD, I worried it was BigMis b/c he was a demon from hell and she didn't know, and if they sat down and talked about it, she would find out. (But of course they don't sit down and talk about it). But then I realized that if they sat down and talked about it, there'd actually be MORE conflict (omg! he's a demon from hell!) whereas in a BigMis plot, adult conversation would negate all the conflict and cause an instant HEA³. So. I think if learning about the mistaken identities fixes everything, that's less powerful than if learning about the mistaken identities screws their lives up."

I would post the rest of the chat, seeing as how it's chock full of brilliant soundbytes (b/c, duh, we're brilliant) but it's also chock full of various spoilers and confessions of drunken debauchery. However. Between all that was this snippet:

E: Maybe I like willfully mistaken identity (I'm a spy/demon/toothfairy) more than accidentally mistaken identity (whoops, somehow you think we're engaged).
D: Now THERE's an interesting topic.
D: The willful vs. accidental.
E: Willful implies the s*** will hit the fan when it comes out.
E: Accidental can mean, oopsadaisy, nobody's fault.
D: But to keep going with it is tough, too.
D: If it's accidental. to motivate someone to keep going with an accidental deception means there has to be some weakness in character.
D: Whereas you see a willful deception, like in Working Girl, the motivation belies a strength in character.
E: Well, that one goes back to whether or not it causes more conflict.
D: The prob with MI⁴ plots is keeping it going after the identity is revealed.
E: Maybe the plots I mentioned that I liked best weren't mistaken identity plots so much as secret identities. splitting hairs, I know. But back to the willful/accidental thing.
D: So then you're saying that an MI plot can morph into an SI⁵ plot if the protag decides to continue the charade after it has become clear to her what's happening.
E: To me, a true SI plot means that from day one, the plan was to deceive by withholding the truth of the identity.
E: So yeah, I think MI/SI (for me) indicates how the deception begins, more then how/whether it's carried out throughout the book.
E: Like your post way back when about being a tourist.
E: I like it better when it's on purpose.
D: I don't think I care either way. It's the follow through that really makes or breaks it for me.

YOUR TURN: Join the conversation! (When you're done commenting at the PlotMonkeys blog, of course. *g) How do you feel about Big Misunderstandings? What about Secret Identities versus Mistaken Identities? Please share your opinions, as both a reader/movie-watcher and a writer!

1. Go! Now!
2. Ha! And I really did!
3. HEA = Happily Ever After
4. MI = Mistaken Identity
5. SI = Secret Identity

Crazycakes

Crazycakes, that's me! Not writing as much as I'd like, or hanging with friends/family as much as I'd like, or exercising as much as I'd like (or, er, *any*), and yet there's still not enough hours in the day to get all my client work done... How is this possible??

YOUR TURN: Please tell me you're kicking butt and taking names on your end! Somebody out there's gotta be making progress on *something*!

Checking In

Current wordcount: 47056

That's with 0 words today, 0 words yesterday, 0 words the day before that, and 0 words the day before that. Aargh. Has it really been Saturday since the last time I gazed fondly at my WIP?? Hope you are out there doing better than me!

Oh, and Bill passed me this link on the continuing sand dollar saga. Intriguing stuff. If only my Regency buck knew what they were, my story could morph into a scifi clonestravaganza...

YOUR TURN: Writing? Working? Procrastinating? Indulging your hobbies/social life? Tell me what you've been up to!

Real-Life Character Studies

Many craft books recommend hanging out in cafes, grocery stores, pool halls, parks, etc and jot down everything you notice about the people you see. What they look like, how they interact, if they gesture, their facial features, their body language, their dialogue (even if you have to make it up), and so on.

Just wondering if anyone out there has ever actually done this.

YOUR TURN: Do your characters come from your head or from life? Have you ever done real life character research in this manner?

Stereotype Litmus Test

x-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

There's a black character in one of my WIPs that got a lot of flak from contest judges because she speaks casual (ie: incorrect) English, yet is a TA at a university. Comments on this point range from "If she goes to college, she speaks correct English" to "It's a stereotype to have her speak this way".

To the first point, I disagree. Having gone back to college as a non-traditional college student, I can say with some authority that when not speaking to a class or writing a paper, students from every background speak in abbreviations and slang.

Which brings up the second point: is it a stereotype to have a non-white character speak in incorrect English? (Interestingly, there is a Hispanic char in the same story who also speaks incorrect English spiced with Spanglish, and I got zero backlash on that.)

I once had a black char I described as having "curves", and this also got hit as a stereotype. In all honesty, it hadn't even occurred to me from that angle. But once it did, I began to question whether I could ever describe a black woman's body in prose. If she's a skinny black girl, is that a stereotype? If she's a big black girl, is that a stereotype?

Is there a litmus test to help writers from inadvertently penning stereotypes into their WIPs and/or to prevent them from over-editing a character out of the well-intentioned (but ill-advised) desire not to offend the masses?

YOUR TURN: What's your take on stereotypes? Have you ever accidentally used one? Have you ever purposefully used one? Have you ever totally not noticed one until someone pointed it out to you? Have you ever been offended by one? Sound off!

WTF Friday

Ever go through your old notebooks and wonder what in the world you were trying to say when you jotted that note to yourself?

Being a compulsive notebook buyer writer, I have approximately five zillion notebooks, most of which have the first 25% filled with whatever the notebook was intended for, the next 25% filled with whatever the notebook ended up actually getting used for, the third 25% being filled with abstract shapes, such as coffee rings and fried yucca stains, and the final 25% still being empty. (Can't throw it away! Got two dozen clean pages left!)

Today I was going through one such wonder. First part was journal entries, second part was notes for a story. Or various stories. Hard to tell. I'm not even sure which story. I wasn't smart enough to label any of my musings with the title (or even to write out the characters' names. They live inside this spiral notebook as "E" and "D".)

Herewith, a sample:

Plot turns into suspense/mystery/horror w/ occasional humor¹
* Receives notes²
* Strange things show up that she didn't order³
* Bushes/trees move when she goes for a walk⁴
* Her food tastes badly--oversalted⁵
* Clothes are hemmed up too short⁶
* Her mail is not getting delivered⁷

1) WTF. Where is that genre shelved? (And what genre was it before it turned this way?)
2) What notes? From whom? Is this scary, or part of the humor?
3) Supersize fries in Regency England?
4) Like, the wind moves them? Or Lord-of-the-Rings-style moving trees?
5) WTF?! (Definitely supersize fries.)
6) She hit a time warp and woke up at Hef's...
7) Of course not. She's at Hef's.

YOUR TURN: What do YOU think my mad scribblings mean? Let your imagination define 1 thru 7 for me however you like.

The Calm Between The Storms

My dad was down for a month of fun and excitement in erica-ville (meaning he watched a lot of TV and read a lot of Tim Dorsey while I click-clicked on my keyboard making client websites in another room) and left to go back to the frozen tundra yesterday.

My cousin comes down for an indefinite period of fun in erica-ville (meaning he will have a delightful time job-hunting and acquainting himself with my DVD collection while I click-click on my keyboard making client websites in another room) and I pick him up at the airport on Saturday.

Is it selfish of me to be secretly pleased to have two days in between where my non-client time can be spent writing without that pervasive guilty "I should really be interacting with the human in my livingroom" feeling?

I broke 100 pages in SPECTACLE on Tuesday. I need 300 more. And then I need to whip it into enough shape to send it to my CPs. And then I need to address the project I started (twice) and abandoned (twice) right beforehand. I'm finally excited to go back to that project.

Maybe in May. If I'm inhumanly fast. Because my mom comes down for a month and a half in June...

YOUR TURN: Ever have life get in the way of your writing? Ever had it be life stuff you actually wanted to do? What makes you pick friends/family over writing? What makes you pick writing over friends/family? How's your guilt level either way?

Checking In

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
- W. Somerset Maugham

I kicked the procrastination habit and am currently excessively creative! w00t! =)

SPECTACLE Stats:

Tuesday, March 11, ~midnight
Pages: 106
Words: 30,745

Tuesday, March 4, ~midnight
Pages: 64
Words: 19,197

Tuesday, Feb 26, ~midnight
Pages: 24
Words: 7,543

Tuesday, Feb 19, ~midnight
Pages: 9
Words: 2,839

Tuesday, Feb 12, ~midnight
Pages: 0
Words: 0

YOUR TURN: Where you at? Writing? Planning? Procrastinating? Holla!

P.S.
Also, a big thanks to CM, Belinda, Sylvia, Bill & Merry for their quick-turnaround yesterday when I was stuck. I appreciate your help. You guys rock!

HRA Seeks Google Skillz

Historical Romance Author seeks commenter with Google Skills.

Are there sand dollars on English beaches? (My knowledge of beach critters comes exclusively from Florida. Google seems to suggest yes, but I found little empirical evidence.)

And, if so, would a Regency buck have called an echinoderm a sand dollar? (The word "dollar" appears to hail from 1515 in reference to a monetary coin, but no word on "sand dollar".)

Help a sista out, and I will send you a brand spanking new copy of Michelle Rowen's Bitten & Smitten as a good karma prize.

Romantic Conflict

Cross-posted from ManuscriptMavens.com

Friday's post by Maven Jackie got me thinking about romantic conflict. Namely, what it is and what it isn't.

In my first completed romance, the main reason the hero and heroine didn't ride off into the sunset together was because they didn't know each other's names. Oh, sure, hero was a masked spy sneaking into heroine's house to steal stuff, but underneath it all, he was a respectable, eligible bachelor, and she was a rich and beautiful socialite. In this story, not knowing each other's names wasn't conflict--it was a technicality.

As the story progressed, he thought her real self was a moron (he didn't realize daytime-heroine and nighttime-heroine were the same person) and she thought his real self was an asshole (she didn't realize daytime-hero and nighttime-hero were the same person), which on the surface seems like romantic conflict.

But, the more I think about it, the more I think it isn't. Because as much as they might hate each other's real personas (or so they think), for as long as they don't realize that's the same person they're kicking it with, there's no conflict in the relationship itself.

Nighttime-hero and nighttime-heroine are in lurve. Who cares about daytime-hero and daytime-heroine?

I'm not saying there's no romantic conflict there, just that in retrospect, it seems a little weak. To my credit, it was my first stab.

My second completed romance was even worse in that department.

Beside the fact that the hero and heroine were rarely on-screen together, this story featured a cop-hero trying to save victim-heroine from a serial killer. Why can't they ride off into the sunset (besides the obvious external impediment)? Because he broke her heart in high school, which pissed her off enough to up and leave town, which broke his heart and pissed him off.

Ten. Years. Ago.

While I do think backstory can enhance or deepen conflict, I don't think backstory alone can ever equal conflict.

I mean, we've all ordered food at a restaurant that didn't end up being as good as the picture looked or the description sounded. Maybe it was even disgusting, or caused hives, or gave us food poisoning. But did that forever stop us from going out to eat? No way.

In the same way, I'm starting to feel that "had a bad relationship in his/her/their past" is unequivocally NOT conflict. It's a complication, to be sure, but as the sole motivator to never trust/date/love someone who's obviously perfect for them in every way? Makes no sense to me. I need something more than "once bitten, twice shy."

Of course, that could just be me. So:

YOUR TURN: Agree or disagree? Please share examples of so-called romantic conflict that you could never really believe would keep the hero and heroine apart. And also please share examples of fabulous romantic conflict where the book/movie had you nervous until the very end that these two well-motivated characters had a Happy Ever After in their future.

P.S.
Make me look popular! Leave another comment over at ManuscriptMavens.com. I promise I'll reply back both places! =)

Diesel Jeans & F***ing Celebrities

In the spirit of procrastination, I found myself clicking over to the Diesel website, where I encountered this video and had some LOL moments.

If LOLing isn't enough for you and you prefer to ROFL, may I recommend the "I'm f**king Matt Damon" video on youtube.com, and its follow-up, "I'm f**king Ben Affleck." (Er... without asterisks.)

Thanks go to Darc for IMing me the latter yesterday... friends don't let friends procrastinate without ROFL.

Strawberries & Intertubes

Off to get a life at the Florida Strawberry Festival with my dad and cousin. (Yes, I know it's a work day, but a girl's gotta hang with her fam when they're able to come and visit!)

Since I'm not posting (you can't seeeee this! it's inviiiisiblllle!) I give you a short sampling from out there in the intertubes:

* NAL/Harlequin author Tanya Michaels dishes about emotion.

* Cheap(er) Gas: 33 Links keep you informed.

* Don't you dare drop dead, or you will be in BIG trouble!!

YOUR TURN: Come across anything of interest in your neck of the fiberoptic freeway? Leave a link(s) in the comments!

Checking In

It's been months and months since I did a Wednesday Update, but no time like the present to start back up!

To catch up, here's my stats on SPECTACLE:

Tuesday, Feb 12, ~midnight
Pages: 0
Words: 0

Tuesday, Feb 19, ~midnight
Pages: 9
Words: 2,839

Tuesday, Feb 26, ~midnight
Pages: 24
Words: 7,543

Tuesday, March 4, ~midnight
Pages: 64
Words: 19,197

YOUR TURN: How's the WIP coming along? After a multi-month drought, I'm pleased to be back in the game. Are you flying along, plodding along, or staring longingly from the sidelines? What's your current page/wordcount, baby??

Delayed Synapses & Sexual Tension

x-posted from manuscriptmavens.com

Good morning! And for those of you who just broke out in a cold sweat, that word in the title was synapses, not synopses. Your pal and mine, Maven Lacey, suggested this week's theme center around things we heard a thousand times¹ and then one day--Ah ha!--everything clicked.

For me, that would be sexual tension.

Once upon a time, I wrote a romantic suspense. This was a Bad Idea for many reasons irrelevant to this post, but I compounded the problem(s) by completely disregarding misunderstanding that first word: romantic. The hero and heroine were rarely together. When they were together, there was no spark. When they weren't together, they didn't care.

Here are some actual² conversations from that time period:

Erica and Kelly, her Critique Partner

CP Kel:   Well... I finished WITNESS.
Erica:     Yeah? What did you think?
CP Kel:   It has issues.
Erica:     Let me guess. It's the villain's murder sequences, isn't it? I made the bloodshed too hilarious.
CP Kel:   That part's okay. It's your sexual tension.
Erica:     What's wrong with it?
CP Kel:   You don't have any.
Erica (thinking furiously): Sure I do!
CP Kel (rifling through text): Where, exactly?
Erica:     Uhhh... He thinks she's hot?
CP Kel:   Even she thinks she's hot. She's a bikini model. That's not sexual tension.
Erica:     Uhhh... They used to date back in high school?
CP Kel:   That's backstory. Big deal. That's not sexual tension.
Erica:     Uhhh... They have sex?
CP Kel:   I hate to break it to you, but sex is not sexual tension.
Erica:     Fine!
CP Kel:   Look, I'll show you an example. In the scene where she's hiding from the villain and he has to go past the crime tape to get her clothes for her... Right here where he's rifling through her panty drawer... That's an excellent spot for sexual tension.
Erica:     That scene is loaded with sexual tension!
CP Kel:   There's no sexual tension.
Erica:     He's in her panty drawer!
CP Kel:   There's no sexual tension.
Erica:     He picks out her panties! With his hands! And brings them to her!
CP Kel:   There's no sexual tension.
Erica:     (shanks Kel with a machete³)
Kelly's ghost: There's still no sexual tension, bitch.

Not only did I not get where she was coming from, I thought the reason behind the disconnect was that I was right and she was wrong. (Be honest--usually when we disagree with someone, our first conclusion is that they're the problem, am I right? It can't just be me...)

So, I zipped the story off to my bff Carrie. I figured she'd like it much better than Kel, given that Carrie isn't a writer, and therefore wouldn't have heard of stupid writer rules like "sexual tension".

Erica and Carrie, her beta reader

Carrie:   Well, I finished WITNESS.
Erica:     Yeah? What did you think?
Carrie:   It was okay, except...
Erica:     What?!
Carrie:   Well, you said it was a romantic suspense, but it didn't seem like it. I mean, there was suspense and all, and I laughed every time Amber killed somebody, but there wasn't any actual romance.
Erica:     (silent death stare)
Carrie:   I was surprised when you finally threw a sex scene in there at the end, to be honest.
Erica:     (shanks Carrie with a machete⁴)
Carrie's ghost: There's still no romance, bitch.

Threw in a love scene? Gaaahhh.

So, what did I do about this situation? I took online classes about Sexual Tension (I believe one by Alicia Rasley and one by Mary Buckham) and I made my first forays into the world of erotica romantica. I read dozens of Ellora's Cave stories in search of the explanation for that magical mystical thing CP Kel had said: Sex is not sexual tension.

Did I get it? Sort of. My next book was the first draft of Touched, which was a vast improvement over Witness (sexual-tension-wise) but still not where it needed to be. When I started Dorinda & the Demon, I made a conscious effort to infuse each scene with as much sexual tension as possible. For the first time ever (and this was my 4th book!) I actually got complimented on my masterful⁵ use of sexual tension.

And by the time I blank-page rewrote Touched last year, I finally figured it out. The step-by-step how-to guide of sexual tension would be an entire blog post in and of itself, but suffice it to say this time, universally everyone who's read the story has commented on the hawtness therein. (And there's only one love scene, late in the book.) In fact, over the course of the 400 pages, one of my chaptermates went from "I don't like historicals" to "OMG, I want to $@%# your hero!"

I call that success.

YOUR TURN: Have you (or your manuscript) ever been given a critique that you had no clue how to address because you literally didn't even get whatever concept they were alluding to? Either way, I would love to hear about your adventures with sexual tension. Tell me what does and doesn't do it for you as a reader. Feel free to post a snippet of sexual tension from your own WIP as an example. And if you have a real-life anecdote that illustrates sexual tension... by all means, share!

1. Note: Hyperbole.
2. By "actual", I mean I'm totally making up dialogue based on the aforementioned faulty synapses' ability to recall what was said.
3. I didn't actually kill her.
4. Her either.
5. Nobody used the word masterful. But I did get compliments. Really.