My Kingdom for a Title

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog to beg, plead, and cajole friendly readers for some help with a title. I’ve decided to retitle my first book, and I am title-challenged. Help!!

The tone: light, funny
The characters: Patrick MacEgan, an Irish chieftain
Isabel of Thornwyck, a haughty Norman bride

The scenario: Patrick steals Isabel from her home, kidnaps her to Ireland, and forces her to live in a crumbling fortress while he tries to seduce her. She believes he’s a common soldier and is royally ticked off at him. Even more so when she finds out that 1) He’s really stinking rich and 2) The kidnapping was part of a plot planned by both her father and Patrick.

The title should have elements of any of the following: Ireland references, medieval references, kidnapping, peasant vs. prince possibilities.

Any suggestions??

What’s your take on contests?

I entered a few contests lately. The Maggies, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers and another contest sponsored by Romance Junkies. I think they can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, you can see how perfect strangers view your work. Sometimes they can catch problems you missed, or pinpoint what’s wrong with a manuscript. On the other hand, you sometimes get Nazi contest judges who take off points if your margins are wrong by 0.15 inches. You never know who you’re going to get. I always pray for those judges who love your work no matter what. The ones who award 9’s at the drop of a hat for the Golden Heart. I love those people. :headspin:

In some ways, I think contests are good preparation for the day when we have readers. You never know who will love your book and who will hate it. Everyone gets a bad review at some point, and they’re painful no matter what. Your book is your baby, and who wants their baby being called ugly? And yet, sometimes we look back at those old manuscripts and we think–My God? Why did I ever send that in? The phone book is more interesting to read! :blahblah:

I’ve found that six weeks is a good length of time for me to be more objective about my work. I can’t wait until one day, I’ll have an editor to point these things out to me. I get so immersed in my work, so close to it, that I really can’t see the flaws. If I could, I’d probably quit on page three.

What’s your take? Are contests valuable or are you better off submitting your book to an editor?

Did you buy a Father’s Day gift yet?

So Father’s Day is tomorrow. And being the good wife that I am, I waited until today to shop for my husband’s gifts. Well, I suppose technically I got him some candy from my daughter and a pair of work gloves from my son. But as for the real gift from me, I waited until the last minute. Oops.

I thought I might get him some new workout shorts and shirts since I married a studly guy who works out three times a week. Yes, he’s handsome and he has pecs, too! Gotta love that. But workout clothes are kind of boring. Surely there must be something better.

First, I tried the hardware store. Is there a man alive who doesn’t love power tools? But finding one under $100 that he didn’t already have proved to be a Herculean task.

Then suddenly, there it was. The Holy Grail of Father’s Day gifts, staring me in the eye. A new golf club. Not just any club, mind you, a titanium driver (cue the Hallelujah Chorus). I gleefully shoved it in my cart after checking the price ($99.99–Hey! Technically that’s under $100), and prepared to check out from the Mecca of all shopping locations for men (Sports Authority). Then I noticed something. The club had a number on the top of it. Now, I’m no golfing expert, but those numbers are usually pretty important. This one had a 9 on it. I frowned, checked out the other clubs, and saw 9.5’s and 10’s. Hmm.. I’m wondering 1) What do these numbers mean? and 2) Are they important?

I wheeled the cart back, trying to make sense of it. Generally drivers have low numbers like 1 or 3; I know that much. So the 9 must mean something else. After careful research, I discovered that it corresponded to the height of the golfer. Oh crud. Golf clubs have freaking sizes??? :confused: Who knew? And worse, what’s my husband’s size? Is bigger better in this case? After looking at every driver in the place, I sadly put it back. No, I am not going to get the Wife of the Year award this year. I don’t know enough to buy him the perfect gift.

I bought the workout gear, and he’ll get some nice running shorts and shirts. But, I will throw in a little card authorizing him to go and buy the driver of his choice.

What did you get your dad or husband for Father’s Day?

Repair Men from H-E-double hockey sticks

The HVAC repairman was scheduled to come between the hours of 10 and 12. I called at 8:00 a.m., and was told that my house was third on the list. Okay, that would probably work. I cleaned the house a bit and folded clothes. No repair man. Finally, I started working on my book since I wasn’t going anywhere.

I think repair men speak a different language than most people. Between the hours of 10 and 12, really means between the hours of 4 and 6 p.m. Whatever time you think they’ll be there, they won’t be. And God forbid you should leave the house for just five minutes, because the second you do, they come and leave again. I’ve waited for five and a half hours, before he showed up, added freon, and left. Note to self–learn how to put in your own freon. Do they sell that at WalMart, I wonder?

On the bright side, because I was unable to leave the house, I wrote 8 pages.:typing:

I think Sharon had it right. The a/c was bad luck #1, the ticket #2, and the shirt #3. Now, onto good news! Next week begins week 2 that my mss has been at M&B. Who me? Counting the days? Nahhhh…:coffee2:

Very Superstitious

I’ll admit it. I have weird superstitions. I believe that bad things come in threes, and that just after you take one for the team in a major way, something AMAZING will come your way. It’s fate. Good always follows the bad, and usually it’s something spectacular. Don’t laugh at me, but I also pray for good parking spots. Hey, it works! Don’t knock it ’til you try it.

So today, my day of bad threes started out as follows. I’m leaving the neighborhood to drop the kids off at daycare. I see a cop on a motorcycle. He’s at the stop sign, so I wait behind him. He signals me onward. I pass him, stop at the sign, and continue on. I’m going the speed limit. And not thirty seconds later, he pulls out and flashes his lights at me. I’m thinking, what on earth??:shock: My state inspection sticker had expired 17 days ago. Oh, geez. Of all the criminals this man could be stopping, he picks ME to pull over?

Second, I’m doing laundry and I spill bleach on my favorite peacock blue top. It’s ruined. :loser:

Something else bad is going to happen, but I don’t know what. I hope it’s something harmless. But I want it over with now, so I can stop dreading it. Then, onto the AWESOME news, whatever that will be!

On the bright side, my business cards for the RWA National conference arrived today. They are so pretty. I just want to stare at them all day. If you’ve seen the home page of my website with the castle, I took that graphic and made it into a business card with my information. It’s gorgeous. I love landscapes. In July, I’m hiring a web designer to help me clean up the visual appearance of my other pages, and you should see lush castles and landscapes. That’s the plan, anyway.

In the meantime, I’m struggling again with the writing. It’s going where I want it to, but it’s one of those emotionally-intense scenes where the heroine is baring her heart to the reader and holding herself back from the hero. It’s the difference between embroidery and knitting. This scene requires extreme detail, intricate prose, and it has to be sparse. 2 pages so far tonight. Must. Write. More.

Writing through the Rough Spots

Last night my goal of 5 pages came to a screeching halt. The air conditioning wasn’t working, the children weren’t sleeping, and so I moved the entire household downstairs to where it was actually cooler than 87 degrees Fahrenheit (and for those of you on the Celsius scale, I have no idea how much that really is. Probably 3.14 or 666 or something like that. :whistle:)

Anyway, while the baby screamed, I set up my laptop and glared at her.

Me: You WILL go to sleep in the “Pack and Play.”
Her: Like hell, Mom.
Me: Knock it off. Lie down and close your eyes.
Her: (melodramatic wailing, complete with flailing arms and legs).

So I wrote in the dark for an hour while she kept peeking to make sure I wasn’t leaving. My son, who was on an air mattress, was fascinated by the prospect of sleeping in the living room and making faces at his sister. To make a long story short, they eventually fell asleep but I only accomplished three pages. When I got to the fourth page and my heroine was nodding and smiling for the third paragraph and I was starting to doze off, I decided that entire page had to go.

Tonight I accomplished somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 pages. I’m starting to get over the rough spot. I think sometimes you have to plunge forward and KEEP GOING even when you haven’t any idea where it’s going or WHY you are writing such weird stuff. It’s like you have to trust your subconscious writer to take you in the right direction.

Or, the other possibility is that once you’ve written the scene in all the wrong ways, the right way will suddenly emerge.

In any case, I’m proud that I did get past the bad spot and hopefully the book is staying solid. I’m on page 161. My goal for the week was to get to page 200 by Sunday, but I don’t know how realistic that will be. Depends on how much I can get done at work (tomorrow’s the last day for the kids; Friday is my last day) to free up my writing hours.

Now, off to relax.

Bigger isn’t better, sweetie

So, is it just my dirty mind, or do little toddler boys have this genetic thing going on where they get this idea in their head?

And just so she doesn’t feel left out, here’s my other little munchkin, TheChildWhoDoesNotSleep(tm).

Swimming Head First

About two summers ago, we took our son to the beach. The house where we stayed for a family reunion had a swimming pool as well, and the kids enjoyed getting into the water daily. My son had other ideas.

Why on earth anyone would want to get inside this freezing wet stuff was completely beyond him. At sixteen months old, he was perfectly content to splash water inside a bucket…on dry ground.

Then we found a compromise that suited everyone. My sister-in-law had a giant inflatable chair. My husband and I could enjoy the pool, holding onto the chair where my son could glide on the surface of the water like a king commanding his servants. To make it even safer, I had dressed him in a full body bathing suit equipped with floatation devices completely around his chest.

My husband affectionately nicknamed him “Baby Jihad.” The kid looked like a suicide bomber, ready to go off at any moment. But he allowed us to take him around the pool. Then, as fate would have it, he decided he’d had enough. Before I could grab him, he hurled himself off the opposite side of the chair. I learned that instead of keeping him upright like a bobbing cork, the Baby Jihad set-up tended to spin. His face would go in the water, then he’d spin upright, then down again. I rescued him in approximately three seconds, so there was no harm done, really, but he chose to blame my husband for the entire ordeal (even though my hubby was at the opposite end of the pool). Our son shot him nasty looks for the remainder of the trip, as though the entire thing were my husband’s fault.

This year, it’s my daughter’s turn to wear the outfit when we visit relatives over the Fourth of July. Her personality is vastly different from my son’s. Instead of being finicky about the water, I anticipate her fourteen-month-old self will do cannonballs into the pool. The child has no fear.

At what age did your kids learn to swim?

P.S.–5 pages last night. Since I’m back to work this week, I’m pretty pleased with that.

What to get your child’s teacher for a gift

My book cleared customs and should be delivered to Mills & Boon today. Yay! Now the real waiting begins.

Yesterday my house became a walking spice cabinet. My children discovered the wonders of those little glass jars that have cool stuff inside them. If you shake some of them, they make rattling noises. I saw no harm in it, as it kept them out of my way while I was making dinner, but I later found Italian spices on the end table, onion flakes on the floor, and my daughter was busily shaking a jar of red hots while jamming to 80’s music.

I’m still finding spices in various and sundry places.

Last night I managed to get another 8 pages done, which brings me up to page 148. Today won’t be all that good because I’m working and this is the last week of school. One of the things that is guaranteed to drive me over the edge is when I’m making those horrible phone calls to parents telling them, “I’m so sorry to tell you this, but Little Johnny did not pass history for the year. He’ll have to attend summer school.”

The common parental response? “Is there any extra credit he can do?”

Some day, I swear, I’m going to lose it and just go off like a cannon. I’m going to scream like a banshee, “NO! There’s not any extra credit! He hasn’t done the last seven homework assignments and you want to know if there’s any extra credit???? Gaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!” :confused2: ::Michelle breaks into hysterical laughter::

Also, this is an insider tip for all you parents who are lovely enough to get your child’s teacher a gift at the end of the year. First of all, we really do appreciate it. But food, chocolate, or gift certificates are the best of all gifts because they don’t require storage. Candles and knick knacks and teacher goodies are nice, but after a while, you just don’t have room for them. We’re pretty easy to please. If you want to wrap two homemade oatmeal cookies in some Saran Wrap and slap a bow on it, that’s just fine by us. There’s no need to spend a lot of money, really. But do know that teachers love little thank you gifts. Godiva is good, too.

Children: 2 points. Mom: 0 points.

My eldest is walking around stark naked with a blanket around his head, sheik-style. Nice. My daughter, in the meantime is debating whether gnawing on power cords or throwing random toys down the toilet would be her best bet. Writing with toddlers around is quite the challenge, I must say. It’s very much a case of:

Write one paragraph
Rescue a child
Write paragraph #2
Rescue the children from each other
Write paragraph #3
Debate whether or not putting the children to bed thirteen hours early would constitute child abuse
Write paragraph #4
Decide that technically, strawberry jelly could be considered a fruit when making PB&J’s for lunch.
Write paragraph #5
Rejoice after putting the kids down for their naps.
Fall down in exhaustion and get absolutely no writing done.

My total number of pages written yesterday was: 8
How’d you do?