06 Dec

Why I’m switching to romance

Over the summer, as my child started to sleep through the night and my mental powers of cognition started to return, I did some hard thinking about my writing career and which direction I want to go. I wrote a business plan. I thought about numbers and I thought about the number of stories rattling around in my head, wanting to get out. Ultimately, I decided to set aside some writing projects I’d been working on for a while and start something new and, seemingly, entirely different: historical romance. I have an eight (!!) book series planned, set in Gilded Age America — the first book is 1896 New York City.

Why romance?

I have two main reasons. First, I’m ready to write happy endings. Second, historical research is fun.

Happy Ever Afters

If you know anything about popular romances, you know that they always end with a couple happily together. Maybe with some sexy times, or maybe just with an as yet unconsummated plan to spend their lives together.

That’s not the sort of ending that I’ve written in the past. I have often written from songs, and you know what makes a good emotional song that gets stuck in my heart and my head and tickles around until it comes out as a novel? Tragic death. And you know who often dies? The lady.

I spent most of the summer reading about Spanish colonial California and working on a novella (that I thought would be a short story, but it kept growing) from the California ballad South Coast but as powerful as the story in that song is, I ultimately dropped it because it’s unavoidably about the death of a woman, who is half Native American in my mind, and you know what? Too many Native American women are dying in the present day.  When I went looking for an article to link just now, Google autocomplete filled in “missing” after “native american woman” and that’s why I can’t write that story.

It’s a real pain for the Native American community and I am not going to be the one to add to that.

So that story’s in the drawer and I’m not sure I’ll ever take it out. I still love the song and I have no regrets about reading up on the Spanish and Mexican presence in Alta California. The song is tragic as all getout and the story was going to make you cry.

But so is the news, and there’s enough of that, don’t you think? I don’t think I’ve ever strayed into woman-in-refrigerator territory,  but I don’t like looking back and seeing the stories I’ve written that involved dead ladies in various ways. I’m not going to write that any more.

The other draw of the Happy Ever After right now is the utopia/dystopia dichotomy in fantasy. I use fantasy here to indicate an imaginary world, which could be scifi, or Tolkienesque high fantasy, or historical fiction (which really can only be a view of the past through the lens of the present). Dystopian literature stands as a warning of future dangers, to show our characters fighting the good fight against tyranny and injustice. Utopian stories show the possibilities of a better world.

Haven’t there been a lot of popular dystopian stories lately? The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, all that sort of rah-rah grim, dark world and brave hero(ine)s stepping up? Well, in the last year, for those of us in America with a progressive and liberal bent to our thoughts, the dystopia has become far too close to the everyday reality. We have rallied in the streets and taken up arms to fight against tyranny and corruption.

To me, writing fiction in that vein seems beside the point right now. I don’t doubt that others will take up the dystopian stories and write brilliant novels that will become our generation’s 1984, but the news makes me want utopian fiction. I can’t spend my workaday life fighting, and go back for more grimness in my leisure time. Therefore, romance and happy ever afters.

I’m not the only one feeling this way either. Romance is a progressive and feminist genre, so it’s no surprise that established romance authors are part of the resisterhood. You can read articles on the subject from Salon and Entertainment Weekly.

Historical Research is Fun

Seriously, half the reason I like writing stories is because it sends me out reading other stories. The writers’ internet is overflowing with jokes around “don’t check my browser history.” Since I’m not writing thrillers or murder mysteries I don’t have to crack wise about the FBI watching me, but I end up looking all sorts of things. Did you know that by the 1840s California was overrun by horses and cattle, and cowhides were basically used as currency? That Mrs. Lucy Carnegie, in 1894, was the first female member of the New York Yacht Club? That the florist business in early New York City was dominated by Greeks? All these facts and more I have learned recently and all these details go into making my stories come alive with verisimilitude.

Writing stories set in the 1890s is particularly fun/dangerous because Google books has scanned a vast amount of printed matter, now out of copyright, and made it available online. Do I want to know what sort of clothing my gentleman wears to a party in 1896? I search for men’s suit and restrict the years to 1890-1900 and peruse the ads of the day until I have enough clues to narrow down and choose his wardrobe. It’s tempting to just sit and read vintage periodicals, and I admit I’ve ordered a couple antique books that weren’t too expensive so I can thumb through them. I’ll be sharing some of the things I find on the blog as I continue. Not everything fits into the story, but some of it is too to pass up!

11 Sep

Working on a Romance MFA Syllabus

This is a crosspost from romancemfa.com – head over there for more updates on my Romance MFA project!

I’ve been working on my Romance MFA syllabus for over a month now. It hasn’t been a simple task: the number of books in the romance genre is overwhelming. I want to write historical romance: the number of historicals is overwhelming. I specifically want to write in the American Gilded Age: the number of books in the niche is limited, but the historical research I feel I need to do is overwhelming. And the number of existing romance authors, romance blogs, romance reading lists…

*deep breath*

It’s going to be okay, though. I have strategies. Or rather, one strong strategy which I am applying repeatedly.

Break it down.

Anne Lammott talks about using the “one inch frame”: you can only focus on the bit right in front of you. It’s a concept which holds for more than just writing. In recent years I have started teaching martial arts and learned to give minimal feedback to students. Maybe I can see four or five things she could be doing better, but if I tell her to fix all five at once, she’ll be confused and dispirited. So I pick one thing–maybe adjust her footwork so her knees will still be functional after practicing that kick for five years–and once she hears similar feedback from a couple different teachers, it will sink in and the kick will get better.

Here’s how I’ve been breaking things down to make my reading list. First, I needed some genre authorities. I searched for romance blogs. Now I have 150+ in my RSS reader and after a month I’m getting a sense of who is posting prolifically, who has a readership who comments, who has substance beyond endless !!CLICK HERE NEW RELEASE EXCERPT!!. I got wise to the fact that there are a handful of academic courses on the topic of popular romance which have been taught: here’s a good master list of romance syllabi. That seemed like a good way to get a handle on the genre, but the academics refer to it as “popular romance,” so I wanted to get the people’s view, too. I looked on kboards and found a massive thread called ‘Anyone a Historical Romance Fan?’, started in 2011 and still discussing historical romance reads in August 2017. I consulted a number of Goodreads lists. I also happened across the results of an NPR Books poll related to last year’s ‘Summer of Love’ theme. With 18,000 nominations in their poll, it sounded like a pretty solid source.

Putting together the lists from blogs, syllabi, Goodreads, NPR, and authors mentioned on Kboards gave me a spreadsheet with over 250 entries. Still an overwhelming number of titles, but some were starting to jump out at me as repeated mentions.

I went back to Goodreads and worked out a rough scoring system based on average rating, number of ratings, and number of editions. That didn’t help very much, but I also labeled the titles by genre. At this point, I have a pretty good idea that since I want to write historical romance, I’m probably not going to get a ton out of reading contemporary Western romance. (Too bad I already read a terrible contemporary Western before I really got my list together…) To keep things manageable, I had to choose a limited number of subgenres to read from. Maybe I’ll get into some additional subgenres later, but here’s what I’m starting with.

 

cover of Pamela, by Samuel RichardsonClassic Precursors & Early Romances

This is the easiest category to populate because the older the literature is, the more agreement there is on whether it is worthwhile, or was influential. I shall start with Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, I shall not skip Austen or Bronte.

 

Gone With The Wind classic coverMid-Twentieth Century Romance

I have a couple books in this category that may not meet the HEA rules of popular romance but which crop up repeatedly when people talk about great romance stories. If you’re wondering if I’ll read Gone With the Wind, the answer is yes.

 

cover of Georgette Heyer's Grand SophyRegencies

You really cannot read historical romance without getting into regencies, and once you’ve done a minimum amount of research it becomes obvious that you cannot get into regencies without reading Georgette Heyer, though I shall read titles from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s as well.

 

cover of The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen WoodiwissBodice Rippers

There’s a few authors and titles from the 1970s and 1980s that come up over and over as genre-definers, genre-changers, the first book that someone read from their mother’s stash that got them hooked. I can’t skip Kathleen Woodiwiss, for instance, if I want to have a full sense of the genre, even if the general report is that the lack of consensual sensuality seems pretty squicky to many contemporary readers.

 

After this point, it got tricky. I added and discarded classic erotica, contemporary, sci-fi and fantasy, paranormal, and numerous other titles that are hard to categorize but seem important. But then I remembered that I’m focusing on what I want to write, and that clarified my final genre.

 

cover of The Age of Innocence by Edith WhartonAmerican-set Historical Romance

I picked a few classics – such as Edith Wharton – and added half a dozen more recent romances set in America, mainly Eastern Seaboard, written 1970-2016. Depending on what your target genre is, of course, I’d recommend replacing this category with your own comps in contemporary, western, paranormal, contemporary paranormal western, or whatever niche you are looking to write in.

Want a copy of the finalized syllabus? I’ll be sending it out to my email list on September 15, 2017.

Subscribe to the Romance MFA mailing list

This is a crosspost from romancemfa.com – head over there for more updates on my Romance MFA project!

05 Sep

Status and projects update: a Romance MFA

stack of library books

I’m not gone. I have been writing and I have been working–I just haven’t finished anything recently…

Current projects include The Sapience Convention, now the title holder for longest ongoing WIP; a historical novella that was supposed to be a short story but had other ideas; a sword and sorcery serial that needs a serious rewrite; and a romance trilogy.

Wait, romance?

Yes, romance. Read More

09 Sep

A lullaby for my infant son

There are reasons that my literary output has been down lately; it’s because I’ve been focusing my creative powers in the biological realm. There is some possibility of crossover, however, as my new little muse has inspired this lullaby for the time of day which the Spanish refer to as la madrugada.

Babies aren’t cute at 2 in the morning.
This isn’t a song; this is a warning.
Close your stupid little eyes,
Stop your stupid little cries,
Pay attention, my sweet small fry
While Mama sings a lullaby.

Babies aren’t cute at 3 in the morning.
This isn’t a song; this is a warning.
Though your cries may conflict me
No judge or jury would convict me
If I left you in the park
For the hyenas in the dark.

Babies aren’t cute at 4 in the morning.
This isn’t a song; this is a warning.
The hyenas will hear you wail.
The hyenas will find you without fail.
They’ll sit and laugh at you,
Because hyenas are stupid, too.

Babies aren’t cute at 5 in the morning.
This isn’t a song; this is a warning.
Close your stupid little eyes,
Stop your stupid little cries,
Pay attention, my sweet small fry
While Mama sings a lullaby.

 

Perhaps there will be more lullabies in the future – I understand there will be more sleep regressions and fussy periods. If I can’t think of another lullaby I can always sing the one my mother says she sang to me: The Hostile Baby Rocking Song by Rosalie Sorrels. I suppose every parent must develop their own midnight lullaby variants.

18 Feb

Mammoths!

It seems like every child goes through a phase of fascination with the prehistoric, when they can recite to you in dizzying detail the names of all the dinosaurs, or explain the differences between mammoths and mastodons. Then, for most, this fascination fades and they move on to breeds of horses or major league baseball statistics, or Pokemon.

But not everyone moves past the fossil phase, and if you’re one of them you can join the excitement in Seattle this week where construction workers found a mammoth tusk! Read More