Darlene's Digest

I take a daily walk, four miles, 5-6 times a week weather permitting.  This is Florida, after all, and one should take advantage of that.  I don't wear any electronics while walking because this is valuable thinking time for me, and I often get plot breakthroughs while on the daily constitutional.  In fact, today I tried to psych myself into coming up with some plot points for my WIP, [working title]  The Hot Pirate's Secret Baby .  So here's what I thought about on today's walk.  Imagine you're inside my head: 1. I need to remind people to vote for Sea Change tomorrow 'cause it's the last day of the JABBIC Reader's Poll. 2. Hey, there's Steve the mail carrier.  I wonder if he dropped off some neat catalogs? 3. I should eat some yogurt after the walk, while my metabolism is stoked.  I can get more protein with Greek yogurt. It's unflavored and tastes like sour cream, which I love, but...I know, I'll sprinkle some of Dawn's homemade g...

You can vote for Sea Change in the JABBIC (Judge a Book By Its Cover) competition.  Through February 1, readers can vote by following this link  and voting for Sea Change in the Historicals category.  The art is by Trace Edward Zaber, and I love this cover with the very pretty privateer.  Thank you for your support!

Alex almost called her to return, but he trusted even Daphne Farnham could not find trouble just a few feet from where he stood. He took advantage of the water in the rock pool to wash himself, and thought about their current situation. It was amazing how life could put things in perspective. After you have contemplated dying of thirst and exposure in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a tropical island, deserted or not, is a paradise by comparison. He and Miss Farnham appeared to be whole and relatively unscathed. There were birds here, and birds meant meat and eggs. He would build a fire. There was, most importantly, fresh water. It could be much, much worse. Alex hummed a Rabbie Burns melody to himself as he scrubbed his arms at the edge of the pool. -- Castaway Dreams , WIP Tonight is Burns Night , a celebration of the life and work of Scotland's Bard, Robert Burns.   Burns is best known to Americans for penning "Auld Lang Syne", but his body...

Once again I'm packing my bags with winter clothes for the annual trek to Boston, February 17-19. Here's my Boskone 49 Schedule: Friday 18:00 - 19:00, Dressing the Parties --Regalia and Symbolism, Developing symbols and regalia in your worlds. Associations of colors, creatures. Displays of rank. Pilot patches. Japanese symbology and family. A lot of the systemization of heraldry is a very late development. Any hints from SCA experience? Has awareness of this increased from _Game of Thrones_? Darlene Marshall (M), Leonid Korogodski, Walter H. Hunt, Ruth Sanderson Friday 19:00 - 20:00, A Study of the Humours - Medieval Medicine --For thousands of years, learned doctors insisted that health and illness was governed by "the four humours" A look at how old ideas persisted and how they led to odd treatments like bleedings. Laurie Mann (M), Elaine Isaak, Darlene Marshall, Kenneth Schneyer, James D. Macdonald Saturday 11:30 - 12:00, Reading: Darlene Marshall Saturday 1...

I still enjoy writing personal letters and notes in longhand, with a fountain pen, preferably on Crane's stationary or Clairefontaine paper. When I'm writing a manuscript though, I love using a word processing program.  One of my favorite functions is "Find & Replace".  This morning I pulled my list of words I have a tendency to overuse while writing.  I never worry about it in the first draft, but once I'm aware certain words are being repeated I make a note of them for later.  Then I type them into "find" and see which ones are superfluous or are showing up too often.  It would be possible, but more difficult, to do this with an inked or typewritten manuscript and I appreciate the functionality of modern writing tools. I know writers who do their first draft in longhand, and others who still pound away at their ancient Royals or IBM Selectrics.  Whatever works for an author is the right way, but when I'm writing it's all about living in t...

My computer crashed this morning, but Windows fixed itself.  Of course, my first panicked thought was, "Did I back up Castaway Dreams and [working title] The Hot Pirate's Secret Baby ?" Then I remembered I now have automatic back-up that takes everything safely away to the cloud.  I love living in modern times.  I still back up to an external hard-drive once a week to be safe though, 'cause I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of writer. Somewhere in the recesses of my storage closet I have an old tape back-up system, and I have copies of my early books on floppies.  I have no way to run those floppies, but that's tech for you. There's a downside to all of this wonderful tech.  Tomorrow I'm going out to replace my dishwasher.  A repair that in the old days would have involved replacing a button now means you replace the entire electronic control panel for the machine, and that's not cost effective.  I'm pretty sanguine about it.  While it's ...

“Snake!” she whispered, pointing with her shaking free hand to a darkened corner of the cabin. Rand dropped his bag and fetched the lamp and the broom. When he raised the lamp and peered into the corner, there was a faint susurrus—a sound like sand falling on the floor. He looked closer, set down the lamp and broom and said, “C’mon outta there, fella.” He crouched down and waved his fingers in front of the snake, and when it coiled to leap he grabbed it behind its head. The snake wrapped itself around his arm and gave it a good squeeze, but Rand didn’t let go of the snake’s head.   He straightened and turned to Julia, the snake clinging to his arm, tongue darting in and out in agitation. “This ain’t nothin’ but a corn snake, darlin’. He’s likely more scared of you than you are of him.” He held the snake up, admiring the red, gold, and brown stripes and chevrons patterning the reptile’s body as the snake squirmed in Rand’s grasp. “This is a frisky one too. Bet he could help with...

My readthrough of Castaway Dreams is going well, but it always worries me when I'm satisfied with my writing.  I changed the font for this pass to catch any stray typos and it's amazing what a difference that makes. In fact, I once read that changing the font to Comic Sans is best for this task.  I tried that, but it was too annoying and I switched to Arial instead (I write in Times Roman). I also pared down a few sentences, and tweaked a couple scenes.  Setting a manuscript aside for a few weeks, or a few months, helps bring a fresh perspective to it. Another writer posted a picture of an unshaven, scruffy looking Colin Firth and I saved it to my "Castaway Dreams" file.  When I fill out the artist information form for the cover, I think I'll say " This is what my hero, Alexander Murray, looks like."  At least, that's how he looks in my mind.

Yep, 2012 begins the commemoration of the War of 1812, a conflict of particular interest to me.  As a fan of Regency romances I always felt a niggling sense of disloyalty cheering on all those RN heroes and those army gentlemen in their dashing red coats.  After all, they were the enemy of the United States from 1812-1815 (I'm including the Battle of New Orleans).  They burned Washington.   They threatened Dolly Madison, for cryin' out loud!  But it's hard to remember all of that when you're drooling over Ioan Gruffudd as Horatio Hornblower. However, being a history geek, I am enjoying all the additional reading I'm doing right now in advance of the bicentennial.  I was just reviewing a passage from If By Sea--The Forging of The American Navy from the Revoluton to the War of 1812 by George C. Daughan   and ran across this pithy tidbit: "South Carolina's Christopher Gadsden declared that he would 'as soon send a favorite virgin to a brothel, as a m...

My goal is to bring out a book every 12-18 months.  I'm going to set aside [working title] The Hot Pirate's Secret Baby for a few days and review my finished manuscript for Castaway Dreams. I'm also thinking of titling it Beauty and the Brain, so feel free to chime in with your opinion. Imagine Gilligan's Island with just The Professor and Ginger, or The Admirable Crichton with only Crichton and Lady Mary.   Castaway Dreams is the tale of Alexander Murray (of Sea Change ), retired RN surgeon and natural philosopher and Miss Daphne ("Daffy") Farnham, an heiress believed to have more hair than wit. There's also Miss Farnham's fluffy little lapdog, Pompom.  They're shipwrecked on a desert island and have to pull together to survive.  Here's a snippet:             “There was a kitchen garden here, Doctor. It’s mostly gone wild now, but there are peas and corn, beans, and I think those are pumpkins.”     ...

It's interesting how much of what one perceives about whether a year is "good" or "bad" depends on one's personal circumstances, but that's only normal. 2011 was a good year for me, but I'll look globally as well.  In 2011 we saw dictators toppled and baby-steps toward democracy in the Middle East.  Young people and old channeled outrage at the status quo and began Occupying various cities.  If nothing else, it raised the level of dialog over the current state of the economy, which I find to be a civic virtue.  People need to become active and motivated to make change, whether it's at the ballot box or on the barricades. Most of the troops are home from Iraq after a long, drawn out conflict. This is a very good thing indeed. It was a good year for me personally and professionally.   Sea Change   was published to glowing reviews and some delightful fan letters.  My backlist continues to do well.  This was the year that I saw huge growth in e...

I'm guest blogging over at " The Regency World  of Author Lesley-Anne McLeod" on Dec. 30 (Friday).  If you'd like to learn a bit about what was going on in Florida during the Regency period, drop on by.

Just popping in to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Here in Florida we don our festive tropical shirts rather than reindeer decorated sweaters, but  the lights on the neighborhood houses still twinkle brightly even if there's no snow to reflect them.

I worry about this in my writing, but not in real life.  One of the best things about being a full time writer is working in a tropical shirt with flamingos, shorts and a pair of sandals. When I'm writing though I want to make sure I have my wardrobe scenes correctly done.  One of the things that distracted me from full enjoyment of the classic Lawrence Olivier, Greer Garson Pride and Prejudice was the dressing of the women in styles more suited to the 1840s than the beginning of the 19th C.: More Romantic than Classical.  Interestingly, Wikipedia says that was a conscious decision on the part of the filmmakers, who wanted more elaborate costumes than those of Austen's era. Today I was working on a piece where the heroine, who's traveling to England aboard a pirate ship in 1818, receives a pelisse from the captain because her clothing is too tropical in weight for the North Atlantic.  Captain St. Armand has a touch of the metrosexual about him and knows his fa...

All day Friday, December 9, Amber Quill Press  authors will be chatting at Beth Wylde's group , posting excerpts, answering questions and doing giveaways.  AQP publishes not only the best in historical romance (including all of my novels), but a wide range of digital and print editions featuring protagonists of all persuasions: M/F, M/M, F/F and more.  There's erotica, mystery, romance, sf and fantasy to name a few of their genres.  Stop on by, say "Hi!", ask questions of the authors and check out the contests.

Every American of my parents' generation could tell you where he or she was on December 7, 1941.  The attack on Pearl Harbor was seared into the collective consciousness. My father was at Pearl.  He was serving as a seaman, 2C aboard the USS West Virginia  (picture below), had been there since November, 1940.  He never talked much about his war experiences, though he somewhat casually mentioned swimming to safety from the sinking ship.  He served in the Pacific, mostly aboard the USS Bennington after it was commissioned.  He occasionally mentioned some of the places he saw, and told amusing stories of what happened when newbies crossed the equator for the first time and were inducted into the Court of King Neptune, a time-honored tradition sea tradition. I knew he'd been awarded a Purple Heart for being wounded in action, but I never knew he'd received a Bronze Star until his death.  Sometimes he'd get out his bosun's pipe and do calls if we asked...

A crewman came in with a broken arm to be set, but the remaining injuries were minor ones, and the men's spirits were high. She learned the reason when Captain Fletcher came in, freshly washed and wearing a clean shirt. He looked good enough to lick, blast him. "Doctor! You will not believe what that ship was hauling." "Jewels? Gold?" "Almost as good as! Ripe gold! Here, catch." He tossed a sphere to her and she grabbed it one handed out of the air. It was a fruit, its nubby skin mottled but whole, the fragrance rising up to her nostrils even over the scent of blood and medicine. "Oranges?" "Casks and casks of oranges! This cargo will fetch a fortune in New York, Doctor." -- Sea Change My little orange tree produced eight beautiful pieces of fruit this year.  I'm so proud of it!  It will yield more fruit as it gets larger, but there's nothing quite like eating a fresh orange off the tree, sunwarmed and sweet.  It...

Does this sound familiar? "The Congress have met in a bad temper...grumbling at everything in order to avert the responsibility which they have incurred in refusing to provide the solid foundation for revenue and relying on loans.  They have suffered the specie to go out of the country, adopted a halfway system of taxation...and yet expect the war to be carried on with energy." Could have been an analysis of the failure of the current Congress to act, but it was actually written in a letter to President Madison during the War of 1812.  The only part I took out was about the establishment of a national bank, the rest of it was true then as now. The material is from the excellent 1812--The Navy's War by George C. Daughan.  I recommend the book to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of why this war helped establish the United States as the strong country it is today, and is especially pertinent as we prepare to commemorate the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, fro...

By request, here's the recipe for my Thanksgiving Pecan Cranberry bread.  It's non-dairy and freezes well.  It's also yummy. PECAN CRANBERRY BREAD Preheat oven to 350F, grease and flour a loaf pan 2 cups flour 1 Tbl. baking powder 1/2 tea. baking soda 1/2 tea. salt 3/4 c. sugar 1/2 tea. ground cinnamon 1/4 tea. nutmeg Optional: Hearty pinch each of ground ginger, cardamon, allspice, cloves 1/2 c. chopped pecans 1/2 c. dried cranberries 1 egg, beaten 1 c. unsweetened applesauce 1/4 c. vegetable oil Combine 1st 7 ingredients (and optional spices) in a large bowl.  Stir in pecans and cranberries.  Make a well in the center of mixture. Combine egg, applesauce and oil; add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Spoon mixture into prepared loaf pan.  Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until done.  Cool in pan 10 minutes; remove bread from pan and cool on a wire rack.  Enjoy!

I was watching Boardwalk Empire this week and knew based on a previous episode's foreshadowing that a character had infantile paralysis--polio.  Polio was a constant fear in the lives of my parents growing up, and in their raising of us, up until the time that we stood in long lines at our schools to get doses of the oral vaccine.  Imagine what that meant to our mothers.  I can't.  I can't imagine the fear of a summer where every crowd might carry disease, where going to the lake was a cause for fear of contagion.  An elderly neighbor died recently, a gentleman who'd had polio as a child, recovered, but then in old age had a recurrence of the symptoms of weakness in his legs and other issues.  It was a slice of 20th century life carried through into a 21st century age of medical advances. When I was researching Sea Change and my next novel, [working title] Castaway Dreams , I studied medical practices and beliefs of the early 19th century.  It ga...