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Is it Romantic?

May 20, 2009 by Marianne H. Donley in category Archives tagged as Member At Large, Monica Stoner

by
Monica Stoner, Member at Large

We throw around titles of the most romantic books, plays, movies, stories. Gone with the Wind is a major favorite, along with the tales of King Arthurâ€™s round knights. Mustn’t forget some of the musicals – My Fair Lady, Camelot (Arthur again) and of course Phantom of the Opera. I find Weberâ€™s music helps words come through my fingers and often ignore the words for the tunes.

Recently I listened to Phantom when I wasnâ€™t writing and could pay attention to the words. This is romantic? We have a lovely young woman terrorized by a mysterious man yet when she tries to tell her story, sheâ€™s told he doesnâ€™t exist. Even the man who will become the love of her life insists she doesnâ€™t know what sheâ€™s talking about. According to him she needs to forget her fantasies and let him make all her decisions. Supposedly they live happily ever after but one wonders how often Christine is encouraged to ignore her own thoughts and blindly follow the manâ€™s.

Camelot, that classic tale of love is actually about an inconvenient marriage and a woman who canâ€™t keep her word. Yes, Lancelot betrays his king but Guinevere is the woman who made an advantageous marriage then got restless when someone cuter came along. This is romance?

Gone With the Wind doesnâ€™t do much for me as romance, though as a tale of living through a social upheaval itâ€™s marvelous. Iâ€™ve never found Scarlet to be a sympathetic character.

How much of what was once thought extremely romantic can stand up to current thinking? For years the pattern of popular romance was a domineering male and the pure, honest, but plucky virgin. Of course the male was a prince or knight or lord of the manor, later a captain of industry. Quick – how many of those books can you remember as individual stories instead of one in a group of many? Right, same here. But how many of the books that stay with us are about the domineering male who gets taken down a peg or ten by the plucky heroine?

My most romantic book? Probably Mary Stewartâ€™s “My Brother Michael.” Without deep soulful kisses or heavy breathing clinches, at the end of the book there is no doubt these people have made a commitment to each other. But Sharon and Tom Curtisâ€™ “Lightning that Lingers” is right up there. Anyone else? I could use a good classic romantic read right about now.

Monica K Stoner
tsent@ix.netcom.com

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Writer on the Verge

May 18, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Kate Carlisle, Silhouette Desire, Writer on the Verge

By Kate

Blog anxiety. I have it. Do you?

I spend hours worrying about snappy blog topics that will be informative yet fun, breezy yet philosophical.

It’s a dilemma, I tell you. I suffer and fret and never know what I’ll actually end up with.

It’s worse than trying to decide what to order at Starbucks.

Yes, I worry about that, too.

So I ask you, is there anything worse than having to write a blog?

Well, yes, actually there is. How about having to write TWO blogs?

That’s my problem today. I’m scheduled to blog over at the Silhouette Desire Authors blog at the same time I’m scheduled here at A Slice of Orange. So not only did I have to come up with TWO brilliant (ha!) blogs, but now I’m racing back and forth between the two, trying to keep up with comments and greetings. I tell you, it’s crazy!

If you’ve got a solution to blog anxiety, I would appreciate hearing about it.

And if you have the chance, come on over to the the Silhouette Desire Authors blog and say hello. I get anxiety when nobody shows up to comment. But that’s a whole different topic for another blogging day.

Cheers!

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The Write Way……….

May 17, 2009 by A Slice of Orange in category The Write Way by Maureen Child tagged as continuities, Maureen Child, Silhouette Desire, the Hudson's

My turn to blog, so I’m thinking…a little shameless self promotion!

On June 9, my Desire SEDUCED INTO A PAPER MARRIAGE will hit the shelves. This book was a lot of fun to write for a couple of reasons.

First, well I love writing Desires, anyway! But secondly, it’s the final book in the Hudson continuity. In this book, all of the story lines are wrapped up, we see where the whole family is and everybody leaves satisfied. We hope.

The thing about continuities…You get to write a long throughline with five other writers. Silhoutte gives you the ‘bible’–character descriptions, where they all live, what the family is like and what the storylines for each book in the series is. Now there’s a lot of room to play around, but you have to maintain the stories that the editors have come up with for this particular in line series.

Oh, you can change your character’s name, or description. You can even finesse a few other small things, though you’ll have to talk it all over with the editor who wrote that bible. And you for sure have to keep the other authors in the loop.

And the email loops can get crazy as we all define the characters we’ve been given. Is your heroine crabby? A smart aleck? Does she dress well or live in jeans? What’s her dog’s name? All of these tiny things that add up to a living breathing character have to be kept track of–because trust me when I say, readers will call you on any mistakes!

In SEDUCED INTO A PAPER MARRIAGE, Devlin Hudson and his wife Val are already well known by the people who’ve been following the series. Silhouette did something fabulous in this continuity. They had me write four extra scenes–sort of prequel scenes to my book. These scenes have been at the back of all the other books in the series……. So hopefully, everyone will rush right out to see what happens to Val and Dev!

Continuity series are fun AND challenging. And isn’t that why we all wanted to be writers in the first place?

Maureen Child is the author of more than 100 romance novels and novellas. At the moment, she’s trying to break in a brand new computer who doesn’t seem very friendly….

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e-maginings: Kindle DX

May 16, 2009 by Linda McLaughlin in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as Amazon Kindle, e-maginings, Kindle DX

Earlier this month, Amazon announced its new, larger Kindle DX, due out this summer. The DX is magazine-size with a 9.7 inch screen compared to the 6-inch screen of the Kindle 2. The DX has a rotating screen so you can read in either portrait or landscape mode; a built-in PDF reader, no conversion required (a much sought after feature); wireless connection and Amazon’s new, somewhat controversial Read-to-Me text to speech capability.

The new device is designed to enhance reading of newspapers and textbooks, and I can see where the larger size will be helpful in viewing graphics. I’ve had a Kindle for almost a year and a half ago, and one of the few downsides I’ve found is that graphs and photos are often so tiny as to be meaningless. Gadget purists are upset about the lack of a slot for a storage card in the newer models, but Amazon claims the increased memory makes an SD card unnecessary.

The pre-order cost of $489.00 will no doubt chase away some readers, esp. during tough economic times, but I think the Kindle is here to stay. The smaller Kindle 2 is still available for $359.00 and there are some used first generation Kindles available for $250.00 and up.

On the POD front, I found an interesting blog post about the Espresso Book Machine. Personally, I’d love to see one of these in every bookstore.

Linda McLaughlin w/a Lyndi Lamont
http://flightsafancy.blogspot.com/
http://www.lyndilamont.com/

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Remembering Donna Hendricks

May 15, 2009 by Marianne H. Donley in category Archives

From Jackie Hyman

Regrettably, I donâ€™t have any photos of Donna, although I spent a lot of time with her. I doubt she would have willingly allowed herself to be photographed, as she was quite private.

At first, I knew Donna mainly as the regular volunteer photographer at RWA events. She went out of her way not only to memorialize everyoneâ€™s achievements but also to give me prints for my scrapbook, in that pre-digital age.

I feel strongly that fate meant for Donna and me to become friends. After she suffered a stroke at an RWA meeting, she was taken to Brea Community Hospital (which has since been torn down), only about a mile from my home. When I visited her, I discovered that her only family was her stepfather, who suffers from Alzheimerâ€™s. I made a point of stopping in to see her daily, bringing books and offering moral support.

After she returned home, we began meeting for lunch at a Dennyâ€™s restaurant between our homes. It was always a joy to see her smiling face and hear about her writing, which she worked on very hard. Unfortunately, she didnâ€™t dare submit it to publishers because, being disabled and dependent on Medicare, she couldnâ€™t afford to earn money that might put her coverage at risk.

Even when she wasnâ€™t well enough to attend RWA meetings, Donna maintained a deep interest in our doings and rooted for our members to succeed with their writing. Our group meant a great deal to her, and her generous spirit will remain with me always.

From Betty Dempsey

Donna and I met at an OC RWA meeting at the Fullerton library. We were both newbies and formed an instant bond.

Before we left that day we were in a critique group with Bronwyn Wolfe, Kay Bryant and Geeta Kakade.

We started meeting weekly at Geeta’s place and Donna and I got to know each other well.

Our claim to fame , as a critique group was that we were all so happy when Bronwyn got published.

Besides the group, Donna and I discovered we were hooked on old movies and TV shows. We always called each other to share a piece of movie/TV trivia.
We shared a love of Chinese food. We were both Pisces with our birthdays just a couple of days apart.

I’m glad I knew Donna.

From Geeta Kakade

I got to know Donna through our critique group.

She was shy but once she got going, she would laugh and laugh…she had a great sense of humor. Writing was close to her heart and she created one of the best villians, I have ever read about. He was funny yet bad and we would all crack up over his latest ‘crimes’, each week.

We lost touch when the critique group stopped meeting. Luckily I got to meet Donna twice while she was in hospital. She kept talking of wanting to get out of the hospital bed and re-write her books and sell them.

I think somewhere in Heaven she’s writing away…each book instantly published as she finishes it. Her halo gleams, her baby blues sparkle with the essence of well being, she giggles as she creates other villians like Toby. In her spare time, she searches for editors for the rest of us down here trying to connect us with our dreams.

It sounds like the beginning of a TV sitcom but that’s the picture I want to hold of Donna in my heart.

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