Two Winners at Epicon See that graphic in the sidebar? I got it tonight at Epicon. Twice. Captain Sinister's Lady and Pirate's Price were both nominated for best historical romance. Both won in a tie. I now have two lovely awards I can use as matching bookends, and the satisfaction of having my books recognized by the Electronically Published Internet Connection as being the best in e-books in historical romance. I'm grateful to the Eppie judges and to all my readers who made this possible. Thanks, everybody!
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EPICON I got to the Surfside Inn at Virginia Beach in time to dump the stuff from my small roller bag, transfer my books and gear to it, and get on the bus for the book signing at the Barnes and Noble. That went well. We were there with Sherrilyn Kenyon, best-selling romance author, and she packed the house. We all benefited from the overflow of fans milling around. I signed and sold books, including ones to a couple of booksellers which is one of the best ways to get your work out and about. The hotel is...affordable. But it faces the ocean, and while I am a Floridian and get to see this view a lot, I never tire of sunrise over the Atlantic. There wasn't a coffee set up in the room (in their defense, they offer 24 hr coffee in the lobby), but I like to take off my clothes at the end of the day and make a nice cup of tea. We all have our kinks. There is a microwave, but the only cups are the flimsy plastic wrapped "We charge for rooms by the hour" variety. This mor...
It was a good news/bad news kind of day. Bad news is, I didn't win the Florida Book Award. But since the winners included veteran bestselling authors like Randy Wayne White and Brad Meltzer, I can't complain. Pretty stiff competition. And entering the contest got my books out to more Florida librarians, so that's good. The good news is I'll be doing a signing at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 4485 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, Virginia on Thursday, March 8 from 6-9 p.m. I'll be there as part of Epic's 10th "Epicon" conference, and I'm also a finalist for the best historical romance Eppie for Captain Sinister's Lady and Pirate's Price. I hope I'll see some of you there!
So last night I decided to do something about the weather, sort of. We have a weather radio, always a good idea when you live in an area prone to hurricanes, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and lightning strikes. We were in the path of that storm that rolled through Louisiana, so I put it in our bedroom and went to sleep. The radio worked like a charm. It went off almost every hour during the night, telling me there was a severe thunderstorm watch in Baker, then Levy, then Suwannee, then Dixie, none of which affects me. Those are counties to the north and west of me. I don't think I can fine-tune it to only go off if a tornado's headed for my street, since the alert zones are controlled by NOAA. And I know having it close to hand was the right thing to do, in case we were in the watch/warning area. Nonetheless, I feel like I gave up a good night's rest for no reason, especially since it didn't even start raining here until 6 a.m.! But now it is raining rather stea...
I am such a history geek. I'd planned on spending yesterday curled up with the new Susan Elizabeth Phillips novel, Natural Born Charmer . Instead I picked up Six Frigates--The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy by Ian W. Toll and I couldn't put it down. I find this stuff fascinating, particularly the period of the early US Republic. So much hinged on a few brilliant individuals. Yes, I admit it, I'm probably the only teenage girl who had a crush on Alexander Hamilton. But I love history. So eventually I'll get around to SEP, but in the meantime, they're about to launch the Constellation , so I'll see all of you later.
Boskone 44, Part Deux I forgot to mention that I did a reading Saturday afternoon. And there were people there! Some of whom were strangers, which is a good thing. You want folks to show up at your readings who are there not solely because they're your friends, but because they have an interest in your writing. I read a passage from Captain Sinister's Lady , and it seemed to go over well. It's not easy finding just the right passage where you don't need too much backstory, you're not giving too much away, and you can begin and end in the time alloted. This one worked because I was able to end it on a little bit of a cliffhanger, which is always good. Keeps 'em interested. Sunday I was up relatively early for breakfast with my best friend, where we had, as they say in the Regencies, "a comfortable coze". We opted for Starbucks rather than the hotel restaurant, a good choice given the lines at the restaurant. My last panel of the con was "Pir...
Boskone 44 Here, finally, is my Boskone 44 report: Let me start by saying I had a wonderful time and want to congratulate the con committee, particularly the Program staff, for putting together a first rate regional convention. There were problems with the Westin hotel, and people spoke longingly of the Sheraton at the Pru Center, with its access to the food courts and retail. While the Westin was a nice enough hotel, it was isolated and there were limited food options, and what there was was expensive. This created a problem for me on Friday night, when I had to miss the "Boskone in Death--J.D. Robb panel", a Boskone tradition. I was supposed to be on that panel, but was still waiting an hour and a half into being seated at the hotel restaurant. I would have felt worse if fellow panelist Janice Gelb hadn't been with me, and if moderator Priscilla Olson hadn't wandered by and seen what was happening. I stopped by the art show reception after supper and enjoyed the...
I spoke today to the University Women's Club and I was on fire . No false modesty here, I was snappy, I was organized, I was funny, and I sold through most of my stock of books. Not a bad day's work. My talk was "Female Pirates: Good Girls Go To Heaven, But Bad Girls Go To Sea", and it was fun putting it together. This gives me a second presentation I can pull out when asked to speak, my other one being "19th C. Florida Pirates". I'll be doing that latter one in June at a branch library nearby. But today's talk was fun because getting to speak to a women's group about women pirates just seemed so right. I'll be able to pull the notes out again in a few days at Boskone, when I join Jane Yolen for a panel on "Pirates in Petticoats". I'm already hearing from people who are saying they're planning on attending that session, so it should be lively.
Translation fun I get interesting emails from my German translator. Last night it was a request for the specific Andrew Marvell poems I quoted from in Pirate's Price. I haven't looked much at my Marvell book since I finished Pirate's Price . I'm often that way with books I use over and over again while writing, but it was pleasant to pull it down from the shelf and re-read some of my favorite poetry. And in case any of you are wondering, the poems quoted in Pirate's Price are "To His Coy Mistress", probably Marvell's best known work, "The Garden" and "The Fair Singer".
Two steps forward, one step back I realized midway through the chapter I was typing yesterday that the Work In Progress (WIP) wasn't going in the direction I wanted. I was moving away from the relationship and focusing too much on the quest. Plus, by taking them off the ship and putting them on a road trip on land, it was just not going where I wanted it to and it made the hero, a privateer, confusing. What the book needs is more pirates! Always a good plan of action. Now, this will mean going back two chapters to when they were aboard ship and taking it from there, but I'm energized by the new direction the writing is going. Yo ho ho.
For This I Suffered Through Hurricanes? I'm sitting in front of a blazing fire, drinking hot tea, next to a small dog huddled under the covers. It's 50F right now, at 5:30, but it's supposed to get down to 27F tonight. I think my plants will do OK. I might lose some of the impatiens in bloom, but I can always cut them back and count on them springing up within a couple weeks. I more concerned about my friends who grow blueberries. Last week the bushes were blooming--too early because of our mild winter--and if we get a hard freeze it could hurt the crop. But we'll see. In the meantime, I can look out the window and see my trailing flower pots (see photo) and hope for the best.
Why I'm not writing more, or excuse #285: Office painting So last week I had the room formerly known as "Guest Room", now known as "Darlene's very own private space that you'd better not enter without knocking first and don't even do that if I have the 'do not disturb' sign up" painted. I still love the whiff of oil paint that drifts down the hall every so often. But I'm not moved in yet, and all my books are scattered about the house. There's new hardwood flooring going in next week, and I got the bookcases painted. So, since we have the freshly painted bookcases in the middle of the room and the floor consists of torn up carpet with a lot of dangerous nails poking about, I can't get in there. I find myself unconsciously reaching to my left for the reference books that used to be literally at hand, on the shelf on the bookcase next to my desk. Alas! They are now somewhere under my dear husband's summer suits which also...
Boskone 44 Once again I'm off to Boston in February (brrrrr!) for Boskone 44 . The (M) means I'm moderating that program item. I feel especially prepared for that last item because earlier in the week I'm doing a talk to the University Women's Club on women pirates titled "Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go to Sea" . Here's my schedule: Fri 9:00pm Boskone in Death: J. D. Robb 2007 (M) Janice Gelb Darlene Marshall Priscilla Olson Sat 12:00 noon The Business Side of Writing Our experienced panel is all business as they discuss topics such as how to get, grok, and get along with agents and publishers; why keeping good records prevents bad karma; whether you can deduct Boskone from your taxes; and what to do after submitting your latest story. (Hint: start your next one.) Jeffrey A. Carver Gay Haldeman (M) Sharon Lee Darlene Marshall Sat 2:0...
Fun with Translations Amazon.de now has the German edition of Captain Sinister's Lady available for pre-order. It has a September, 2007 release date! And it has a lovely cover!! And it has cover quotes by NYT Bestselling author Diana Gabaldon!!! I hopped over to Babelfish to see if I could get a translation of the page and read all about it. What I've got is a title that translates as "Including and Swords", which I'm fairly sure isn't correct, and indeed, my translator just told me that Samt und Säbel translates as "Velvet and Sabers", which I like. And she's right, in German it's quite euphonious. Babelfish also says this is the translation from the Amazon.de site: "Darlene Mars-resound kidnaps the reader to an exciting adventure on high lake: Before the background of a romantic pirate window blind in the Karibik are the most different shapes: a Pirat against will, a young widow at the threshold to a new life, bandit and a robb...
Supper in Alachua I met last night with the book club sponsored by The Pink Porch in lovely Alachua, Florida. Alachua is a town a few miles north of Gainesville, and the club met at Conestoga's Restaurant for discussion of Captain Sinister's Lady and supper. We had a grand time discussing Florida history, writing romance, the steamy bits and books in general. I was thrilled that Rosanne, the owner of Pink Porch, picked my book to discuss. For some of the ladies this was the first romance novel they'd read, and I was pleased by their response to my book. I hope they'll go on to discover other romance writers who can give them that "getaway" experience romance readers enjoy.
We writers sometimes ask each other, "Are you a plotter or a pantser?", meaning, "Do you carefully plot out each scene and outline your books, or do you just sit down and churn out chunks of prose, writing by the seat of your pants?" I've always described myself as a pantser, but not anymore. Over at Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels, Nora Roberts referred to herself as an "organic" writer, and that's what I'm calling myself from now on. So much more elegant than "pantser". I tried to outline a novel. Turned out a month later I was still working on the outline instead of writing the book. It's not a method that works for me.
Writing Marathon, Day 3 Today's the final day of our writing marathon. I knew I wouldn't get as much done today because of prior commitments, a library foundation board meeting and the dog's bi-monthly acupuncture treatment (really), but I found myself going back and inserting a new scene in an earlier chapter, so I guess that counts as fresh writing. Six pages total, but more importantly, I feel like I've had a fresh start on the book. I've got momentum now, and I'm not going to lose it. Next week I'm hitting the ground running.