Frantic Cleaning

Do you ever go into high gear, cleaning frantically when relatives are coming? I do. This is not to say that my house is a complete mess, but my office where I work is, er, creative. Usually when the relatives come, I fling everything on the desk into a big box and hide it. The problem is, I’ve done this for the past four months which equaled four boxes of junk. Finally when my husband was away, I spent all day Sunday going through the boxes, sorting, filing, and throwing stuff out.

Today I have 11 people coming to my house for my daughter’s baptism on Sunday. To top it off, the poor baby came down with a virus. So I have a sick, screaming baby, a house that needs cleaning, and ELEVEN people coming for dinner tonight. Can we say–AAAAHHHHH!!! :help:

I bought a bottle of wine for dinner tonight. I might just have to find myself a corner and savor it to keep my sanity. :beer:

Now, off to scrub toilets. Which house cleaning job do you hate most? :batman: (I hate mopping).

History trivia: In Victorian times, the seaside was considered good for your health. A bathing cart (completely covered) would take a woman into the ocean from the beach, they would dunk her (clothed in a woolen bathing suit) a few times, and then the cart would return. This was to maintain a woman’s privacy. Dunkings were considered quite healthful.

Kid Sayings

My three-year-old son cracks me up. He is at the age where imagination controls everything. He can dream up the most incredible things, turning his coat into a superhero cape and a coloring page into a rolled up “light saber.” On the way home from day care, he’ll chatter on about his friends, periodically mixing in his own stories which may or may not be true. (killer bugs who tried to eat his friend Seth???) I can tell already he’s the son of a fiction writer. Sigh.

I ask him what he wants for breakfast and he replies, “Umm…probably just M&Ms.” When I explain that this is not a breakfast option (okay, so who WOULDN’T want M&Ms for breakfast), he says, “Okay. I’ll just have cookies then.” I love the matter-of-fact attitude.

What I love most of all is watching him with his sister when they don’t realize I’m there. He’ll kick back on the floor of his room, his feet propped against the bed, with a book in his hands. His sister will crawl over to see what he’s doing, and then she’ll get a book of her own to read, right next to him. Hers, of course, is the engrossing title “Yellow” which has a thought-provoking plot about ducks and lemons. His favorite titles range from “Stellaluna” to “One Dark Night.”

What favorite children’s books did you grow up with?

Historical trivia (yes, I forgot yesterday’s!!)–The vacuum cleaner or “hoover” was invented in 1899. The early models were huge and drawn by horses, like fire engines. If you wanted your house vacuumed, you ordered the cleaner, and the driver stopped the horses outside your door. The hoses were passed into the house through the windows, and the operators attached nozzles to the tubes to vacuum out the dirt.

Big hair and Cinderella Balls

I have chick lit hair now. :bighair: It’s flippy, cute, trendy, and I love it. :headbang:

What is it about getting a haircut that’s so liberating? I love trying new things. My worst disaster was the Friends haircut. I looked like Jennifer Aniston, only using a lawnmower to cut my hair. Too short. My face also looks very pudgy if I try the elfin look. Some people can be a waif. Not me.

Have you ever noticed how, in hair magazines, the models have long bangs and a smoldering expression. “I shall make LOVE to the camera, my little cabbage.” If I had hair like that, I’d be whuffing it out of my face and screaming, “Cut it off! Cut it off!!”

When I traveled to Europe with my husband, I was in awe at how fashionable people were in Rome and in Paris. I felt gawky in my jeans and T-shirt. When I got home, I resolved to dress better. But then again, with the price of dry cleaning, maybe there’s something to be said for machine-washable. Plus, when I had my kids, you get a permanent stain on your shoulder. I am a human chew toy, apparently.

But that’s the great thing about the RWA National Conference (yes, I’m going!!). You can leave the kids for a few days, wear glamorous clothing, hob nob with your favorite authors, and grovel at the feet of editors. For a short time, you can be someone else. At my last conference, I was invited to attend the Harlequin party with a close friend of mine, and let me tell you, I felt like Cinderella. Who me? Hide in the corner? No way. I was out there dancing my brains out. It was a blast. Here’s a photo of the occasion. Now here’s hoping I get my own invitation this year! :beer:

Notre Dame Football and Victorian Sports

Do you think there was an equivalent to Notre Dame Football in Victorian times? I’ve never seen a sport-loving rake hell. That would be kind of amusing, actually. I don’t think they had a sports page in the London Times (must check this), but can you imagine this in your mind? A heroine wanting to go someplace romantic and the hero taking her to a sports match? I know that the Ascot was very popular, and horse racing might be their equivalent, but I wonder what other competitive sports they might have followed.

Maybe I could write a historical athletic hero, a la Susan Elizabeth Phillips, for my next book. Maybe a baseball player…hmm….the possibilities…:coffee:

I’ve been trucking along with my new manuscript, and I’m at that stage where I question–”Have I already written this? Did the heroine think this already? Are these emotions right, or am I totally fudging this?” Major brain cramp. The middle of a book is always challenging for me: a constant love/hate battle. I’ll reach a scene that is fun to write :jumping: only for it to be followed by a drudgery scene :banghead:. Ah, the challenges of being a writer.

Boys and historical costume

I was researching Victorian clothing last night, particularly the clothes of children since I have an eight-year-old boy in my current manuscript. I wanted the hero to buy new clothes for the boy, as a gesture that would touch the heroine’s heart. Then I got caught up in all the intracacies.

Victorians in 1858 had such strict rules about mourning. The child in question lost his father. The heroine, the boy’s aunt, would usually be in mourning for about three months. As for the boy, I’m trying to determine how long he would mourn and how this would affect his clothing. I’ve come across plenty of sources on what boys would wear–sailor suits, fancy suits ala Little Lord Fauntleroy (can’t you just imagine an eight-year-old in Victorian times rolling his eyes. “Mother, you CAN’T make me wear that.”). Any little boy forced to wear velvet and long curls would die on the Victorian ‘playground.’

Children are universal throughout history. Romance novels leave out a lot of the little things, which I like to add in my books. For instance, the heroine had to travel across the countryside for a few days with two small children. Upon arriving in London, her nerves were shot from being with a screaming baby and an “Are we there yet?” nephew. I had a LOT of fun with that scene. Any mother can relate.

This morning I dressed my three-year-old in a Star Wars T-shirt and he practically skipped downstairs, he was so proud. He worships Star Wars and has a healthy fear of Darth Vader. I wonder what the equivalent of a Star Wars T-shirt would be in Victorian Times?

Alone

I’m alone, I’m alone!!! :bath: :beer: :headbang:

Well, almost. My husband is on a trip out of town, my 1 year old is asleep, and my 3 year old is engrossed in The Jungle Book. Life is pretty sweet right now.

It’s like having a box full of your favorite candy and not knowing which one to taste first. Do I write pages on my new book? Do I clean my house with reckless abandon (pardon me, while I pick myself off the floor laughing.)? :rotfl: Do I read a favorite book?

What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re alone?

New blog

Oooh! Some of my favorite authors added their own blog. Check out Teresa Medeiros, Connie Brockway, Christina Dodd, Eloisa James, and Elizabeth Bevarly here. Very cool.

GH Scores

Got my GH scores back. Hmm….I wonder how close I came to finaling? It’s hard to say. Such a mixed bag. On the bright side, I did better than I did last year. I made the top quarter, so at least my writing has improved. And one judge really liked it.
My scores were:
8.8
8
7.5
7
6.5
Total was 37.80. The top quarter was 36.6 and above. So I guess that puts me slightly above the top 25%. I guess that’s something to celebrate. :hello2:

On the other hand, a part of me wants to strangle the 6.5 judge and yell, “CURSES! Foiled again.”

Do Published Authors Get Rejected?

There’s a popular myth among the Unpublished (I hate that term pre-published. It’s meaningless to me.). The myth is that, once you break in–once you sell a book, rejections don’t happen anymore. The “Dear Author” letters stop and it’s more of a “This proposal doesn’t work for me, could you change it?” sort of thing.

Now I’ve been told this isn’t true, but a part of me secretly wonders. Once you are writing for a particular editor and have been for some time, do published authors ever get flat-out-rejected? I mean form-letter rejected. Or is it sugar-coated? What happens when you cross that mysterious realm?

Harlequin is trying to speed up its response times, which is wonderful. The problem is, the personalized rejection letters are going away. It seems to be happening a lot in the larger houses, too. Now see, I live for these personalized rejections (please don’t tell me that these, too, are form letters). When an editor takes the time to encourage me, to tell me that my writing is strong, those are the letters that keep me going. I sometimes will reread them, to find a grain of hope in the words.

“Dear Author” letters? Nope, they just don’t cut it. Even worse, when it’s signed “The Editors.” This is what those rejection letters are really saying (in my opinion):

“Dear Author (we don’t remember your name and we really don’t care”:

Thank you for the chance to consider your project, which I regretfully feel isn’t right for our list. (I read the first line and chucked it. I have fifteen authors I’m juggling, line edits to do, back cover copy to write, and I don’t need another story like this one.)

I apologize for the form letter, but the number of submissions we receive makes it unfeasible to send a personal response. (Your work reminded me of reading the dictionary. There aren’t enough words to describe how awful it was).

Thanks again for thinking of us at X Publisher, though, and I wish you success in finding the right home for this story. (Please don’t ever send it back to us!)

Sincerely,
The Editors

Can you tell this has been a rough week for me? Three rejections in, what, two weeks? My solution? I sent out another query this morning. (Mantra: This is a business. Don’t sweat it. Move on and write something else.)

History trivia: The stethoscope was introduced in 1819, the modern clinical thermometer in 1867. Blood transfusions, which were demonstrated in the seventeenth century, were revived in 1818 but were not carried out on any scale until the American Civil War.

A spoof on Star Wars

If anyone here enjoys Star Wars, the new trailer for Episode III has been up for a while. Watch that trailer first. Then watch the spoof on the trailer here. Right click whatever size you want to view ( I did medium sized) and save the target to your desktop. Then watch the spoof. It’s hilarious. :headbang: I love corny humor.

In other news, I’m still waiting to hear from Mills & Boon. They need a smilie with twiddling thumbs. I’m going to try and knock out three new pages on my book and see where that leads me. I have several storylines that are going to collide in this next part, and I have to make sure each one is fleshed out enough. I tend to layer when I write, getting the bare bones first, and then going back over and over, adding a little more with each revisions as I work my way toward the new part. It’s an …er…interesting process. But I get there in my own sweet time. I’ve also updated my bio page in an effort to procrastinate.

History trivia for today: (**Updated) Underwear was first fastened using ties. Buttons were not used on underwear until the middle of the seventeenth century. The modern zipper was not in use until after the first World War.