Darlene's Digest

I Love Google! Yesterday I talked at another blog about Googling myself, and mentioned that I have Google set up to give me a daily digest of mentions of my books. Today's digest included a listing from a library in Estonia showing the circulation record for Salakaubavedaja pruut, aka Smuggler's Bride. I don't get nearly enough email from fans in Estonia, but it's good to see they're reading my books.

Image via Wikipedia Jenny Graman Meyer Bookwormed me, so I'll play along--to a point. I'm afraid I'm not going to pass this meme along to five other people because friends have gently told me in the past they wish they wouldn't get these little nudges. However, if you're reading this and you want to play along, feel free to copy the rules and credit me. The Rules are: 1) Open the closest book- not a favorite or most intellectual book- but the book closest at the moment, to page 56 2) Write out the fifth sentence, as well as two to five sentences following 3) tag five innocents [or more] 4) do the same for your manuscript I'm going to go first to my manuscript, Sea Change . Here's what's on page 56: "He’s a bright fellow and enough time with us may change his loyalties.” “You know best, Captain. As I said, it’s good for the men to have a surgeon aboard. Knowing he saved Henry’s life will help the men accept him as part of the crew.” ...

Why Writing Is Good For You, Body and Soul I've mentioned elsewhere that my treadmill finally broke down after 20+ years of excellent service. I'm anxious to get another, but haven't found a model I like that will fit through the doorways of my house. Seriously. So in the meantime, I do it the old fashioned way. I take a two mile brisk walk around out neighborhood each day. I carry weights while I'm walking, to increase the benefit, burn more calories and help tone and strengthen my arms. I started with 2.5 lb. wrist weights, then increased to carrying a five pound weight one mile with a 2.5 lb. weight on the other hand, then switching off at the one mile mark. I also carry a small notebook and a pen because as I mentioned in a previous post, rhythmic walking frees up my imagination. Today I was so caught up in thinking about my WIP, working title Castaway Dreams, that I was within sight of my house before I realized I was still carrying the heavy weight in my ri...

Image via Wikipedia 10 Practical Writing Tips I did a talk last week to a group of high school students on the joys of writing. Given that most days I feel like my writing would best be accomplished by banging my head on the keyboard until blood flows onto the page, I wasn't sure I was the best person for the job. But I like to think I managed to say a couple things they could use. To make it easy on myself and on them, I said I'd give them 10 completely practical tips they could use to become better writers, and I'll share them here as well: 1. Always remember my favorite quote: "You can fix anything but a blank page." Write something. Write anything. You can fix it later, but if you don't write it, you can't fix it. 2. Shower often . Good advice for high school boys under almost any circumstances (I know, I raised two of them), but in this case it was about writing breakthroughs. I know quite a few writers who say they get their best ideas while ...

Cover via Amazon I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on television. I am fascinated by the history of modern medicine. My most recent manuscript, Sea Change , featured a surgeon aboard an American privateer. My WIP (work in progress) features a secondary character from Sea Change, Dr. Alexander Murray. Dr. Murray is a phlegmatic (at least until he meets the heroine) scientist, a surgeon in the Royal Navy who's devoted his life to trying to keep people alive under the most trying of circumstances. Researching this new book has reminded me all over again why I find this study fascinating. For example, I needed to know when the stethoscope was invented, and serendipitously, it's credited to Dr. Rene Laennec in 1816, putting it right into my era. I was also researching in the book Medical Firsts by Robert E. Adler and found this passage on the germ theory of disease: "Germs cause disease. This simple idea is so much a part of our thinking that it seems as self-evident...

Kindle Editions All three of my books in print, Captain Sinister's Lady, Pirate's Price and Smuggler's Bride , are now available in Kindle editions from Amazon . And they're still available from Fictionwise and via my publisher, Amber Quill Press. So if this is the year Santa brings you an e-reader, you've got some great options for leisure reading available to you.

Image via Wikipedia Happy Thanksgiving! I want to wish all my friends a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. I'm thankful for my family, my health, and the joy I experience when people say my stories entertained them. Thank you all very much. And I don't care what those Yankees claim, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1565, in St. Augustine, Florida. You can read more about it here.

New German Edition My latest German edition, Im Aufruhr der Gefühle (Smuggler's Bride) is now on sale at Amazon.de and other German bookstores. The title, according to Google, translates as "In the Turmoil of Emotions" and boy howdy, you sure do get a lot of that in Rand and Julia's story! There's already one five star review, and I'm hoping this tale of treachery and romance will show up under a lot of trees in Germany this Christmas.

Image via Wikipedia Piracy is in the news these days, as shipping off the Horn of Africa falls prey not to sailing ships flying the Jolly Roger, but rather to small speedboats harassing much larger ships. The Indian Navy scored a victory against one pirate crew yesterday, and shipowners are taking steps to protect themselves. Of course, this is nothing new. Even in the 21st Century we have pirates because the ocean is vast, ships are small, and the world's navies and coast guards can't be everywhere. In addition, local economies support the pirates because they bring in money to buy supplies (and rum or its equivalent) and the profit motive is a strong inducement not to turn the pirates away. That helped to make Fernandina, New Orleans and Key West rich cities in their time, and Port Royal in Jamaica a haven for pirates and the merchants who depended upon them. Science fiction fans have long been regaled with tales of "space pirates", and I predict that as shippin...

Image via Wikipedia Thank You. I wanted to take a moment today to say thank you to the veterans. It is because of their service in the armed forces that I get to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Have a meaningful Veterans Day.

Image via Wikipedia An Occupational Hazard You know you've been a writer too long when you see a newspaper article lead that says "...autumn brings a bevy of new style guides" and your first thought is, "Wow! Someone's giving CMS and Strunk and White a run for the money?" You know you're a writer and the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet when your eye scans down the article and you wonder what Lucky magazine's "The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style" and Isaac Mizrahi have to do with writing. Does Isaac favor serial commas? Is Lucky a fan of the possessive "s" with an apostrophe at the end, or an apostrophe "s"? I didn't find this article on style guides helpful at all. I'm sticking with Strunk and White and the Complete Transitive Vampire.

Image via Wikipedia Darlene Down Under I was featured in an article on pirates in the Australian Romance Reader. You can find out more at the link, here.

Why is it on some days I catch oodles of typos, while on others they just zip by below my radar? It is a mystery to me.

Image via Wikipedia One of my beta readers left a message on my phone this morning saying she's "flying through" A Sea Change and enjoying it very much. Woo woo! That's what I love to hear!

What do you do after you write "The End"? I like to clean off my desk. It's an attractive antique table, but once I start in on a book, I don't see it again until I finish the manuscript. Here's what my desk looked like during revisions of A Sea Change : I started the clean up by putting my books away. Some of the reference books hadn't gone back on the shelf in a year, so it was good to say goodbye to them, even if they were only moving a few feet away. I took the opportunity to dust my office bookshelves, even giving Pirate Barbie and Ken a swipe of the duster. You can see them in this shot. Notice that in my universe, Barbie wears the captain's hat: My desk is a leather topped antique, so I wiped the top down with Neet's Foot oil, giving it a chance to really soak in and rehydrate the leather. My muse was on hand, sending theta waves of cleanliness and creativity in my direction as s he supervised. Finally, it was done. I polished the wood wi...

What? It's October already? Seems like September just got here! Oh well, at least I'm almost done with these edits.

Image by fmc.nikon.d40 via Flickr It's officially autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. For North Central Florida, that means our days have a nip in the air--temps are in the 80sF instead of 90s. I'll know it's winter because we can turn off the air conditioning.

Image via Wikipedia Ahoy, mateys! Yes, once again it's International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Do not neglect to embrace your inner swashbuckler, and here's a helpful instructional video to get you going.

Image via Wikipedia International Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19. In honor of this special day and because it's international and because Darlene Marshall's pirate novels are international, here is a link to ITLAP Day for German speakers . Even though I'm the author of Rache & Rosen and Samt & Sabel, I credit my wonderful translator, Barbara Schnell, for any glorious piratical lingo that comes through in German.

Image via Wikipedia IT'S FINISHED! I typed "The End" today on the first draft of A Sea Change. Now the fun begins as I whip the manuscript into shape, but dang, it feels good to know how the story ends!

Image via Wikipedia I have to admit, when it comes to books I can be a complete snob. When I find people who don't read, and I mean quite literate adults who choose not to read, I have to wonder what I have in common with them, if anything. But today I want to praise an area of literature that I believe too many adults overlook as not worth their time, YA novels. "YA" is shorthand in bookstores and libraries for "Young Adult" and covers the novels written to appeal to a teen audience. So many of them are outstanding, and adults who don't seek them out are doing themselves a disservice. Today I read A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson , and I adored it. I laughed, I cried, I was totally enraptured by the characters and their tale. Russian emigre Anna, with her commitment to being an excellent housemaid at an English estate, was a heroine in the mold of Cluny Brown , another favorite of mine. Despite the loss of almost everything in her short life...

Image via Wikipedia I was at the Farmers Market yesterday and the air was winey with the scent of scuppernong and muscadine grapes. I bought a few pints, the deep purple and rich green of the two varieties blending together in my berry bowl for a classic summer treat. I keep the grapes on the counter and grab a few as I walk by (they're each the size of small apricots), remembering I need to dispose of the seeds along the way. There's a great deal to be said for eating local produce. I knew the grapes were coming into season in North Florida, and it was something to anticipate. Late summer brings the grapes, along with lots of squashes, tomatoes, eggplant and melons. Soon the season will turn again and we'll get the new crop of pecans, persimmons, and when it's nice and cool, salad greens. Getting into the rhythm of your local seasons puts an entirely new twist on how you cook, and how you eat. I'm just glad our Farmers Market (Downtown on the Plaza, Wednesday...

Image by Old Shoe Woman via Flickr Tropical Storm Fay, the aftermath All things considered, we got off easy. Lots and lots and lots of rain, but I was really glad the roofers were able to come out a couple weeks ago to do their repairs. If there was ever a test of the new skylight's seal, this was it. And it seemed to do just fine. We lost power for about an hour Friday afternoon, then again for 30 minutes later in the day, but it wasn't bad at all. I put my houseplants out for a good soaking and it seemed to cheer them up. The dog was unhappy 'cause there were no "walkies", but I see the sun poking through this morning. So all is well in North Central Florida once again.

Image by sandrino via Flickr Tropical Storm Fay I've done my hurricane prep, like a good li'l Floridian, so at this point I'm just keeping an eye on the storm. Landfall could be around Cedar Key, north of Tampa Bay, which would put the storm 60 miles west of me. That means we could still get high winds, heavy rain and the possibility of tornadoes. I'm feeling pretty calm though, 'cause I just had my roof and skylight repaired, so barring a tree crashing into it (which happened during the hurricanes in '04), we should be in good shape. And I have my blue tarp, just in case. The water, batteries, spare meds, gas grill, camp stove, land-line telephone, etc. are on hand. I have bread, canned goods and peanut butter. The upright freezer is packed with ice bags, so if we lose power everything should stay frozen for at least 48 hours. I have empty bleach bottles I can fill with tap water for washing. The one thing I didn't have last time which I swore I wouldn...

Squee! I just got my first fan email from Estonia! I was wondering who was reading my Estonian editions, now I know at least one reader. Thanks, Kristin, for taking the time to write!

Image via Wikipedia Tips for New Writers Tara asked me to share some of what we discussed at Worldcon . I wish I'd taken notes, but when I'm on the panel and interacting I'm so caught up with what's going on it's hard to keep track. Here though are some of the things we discussed. Much of it you've heard before, but it bears repeating: Keep writing. Keep your butt in the chair. Develop disciplined habits. Study the work of successful authors in your field. Keep telling yourself "I did this once, I can do it again." Don't take rejection personally--editors are critiquing your work, not you. Be nice to everyone you meet--they're all potential readers. Do self promotion, but don't get so caught up in it it keeps you from writing. Develop regular writing times. I learned other authors also suffer from the "2/3 curse" where you're 2/3 of the way through your work in progress and you don't want to do it anymore and yo...

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION Worldcon (Denvention3) was fantastic. I arrived Wednesday in plenty of time for my 4:00 panel, Survival Tips for New Writers. The other panelists were David Coe and this year's Campbell Award winner, Mary Robinette Kowal, and along with the audience I picked up tips from them on how to improve my work habits. On Thursday I had a full day of panels. How do Ebooks Change Writing--an Ebook Writing Primer was intriguing, and moderator Dave Howell worked hard to keep us focused on the topic and not wandering off into weird ebook stories. We talked about interactive ebooks with hyperlinks, but also about how many readers seem content with ebooks simply being an exact copy of a print book delivered through different media. Aaaargh! The Pirate Panel was just what you might expect from the title, an exploration of why we like pirates so much, and where pirate history and mythology collide. The other panelists--David Riley, MistyMassey and Linda Donoh...

It's Worldcon Time! See you there!

Image via Wikipedia Why I love my job I spent the day sailing, all in the name of research. Work, work, work! Does this grind never end? Seriously, it was delightful. I joined Captain Vic and First Mate Ellen aboard their 33 ft. boat Liberty in St. Augustine. I was well prepared with enough sunscreen to shield a vampire, my guaranteed-not-to-fly-off hat and my notepad. Oh, and ginger candy just in case. But everything was perfect. We had to cut our outing a bit short because of the typical Florida afternoon thunderstorms. We wouldn't have minded the rain, but the lightning's another story. I was given a tour of the boat, an explanation of the lines and rigging, a crash course on how to use the radio for emergency calls, and we were underway. Captain Vic really is a licensed captain and a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, so I knew I was in good hands. Modern sailboats come equipped with small motors, which made it easier to get in and out of the marina, but once we ...