Chatting with Eloisa James

Dear Reader,

I contacted Eloisa James after I finished reading This Duchess of Mine about five minutes after I put the book down.  I didn’t understand it. I began the book disliking the characters. I finished the book still disliking them a little, but feeling as though I understood them.

Despite my disliking them, I cared about them.

This boggled my mind as a reader and an author. How did Eloisa make me care about characters I disagreed with? I was so impressed I sent her an email asking about her trick. Her answers fascinated me, and I asked if I could post our conversation on our blog.

Eloisa, being the gracious lady she is, gave me permission.

Dear Belinda,

Thank you for this lovely note!  I’m sorry it took me a while to answer.  My characters were manipulative—I am too *g*.  At any rate, I’m glad you decided to like them anyway.  One of my goals as a writer is not to write characters that everyone will love, every time—but to try to write characters who have realistic traits, but still fall in love and are lovable.

I’ll give a shot to your three questions:

How do you transform your passion into focused research?
Passion is a vague word for writing…. what I have is an idea.  The idea generally springs from some sort of historical fact, say the condition of toilets in the Georgian period (When the Duke Returns) or the discovery of digitalis (This Duchess of Mine) or the disgraceful conditions behind child-workers & gold wire buttons (A Duke of Her Own).  I do just as much research as I need to to feel that I have a handle on that situation–because always the goal of a book is to create a great story, not to give readers an information dump.  Knowing too much can be a liability sometimes.

How do you translate your research into an entertaining narrative?
See above.  I take a problem: something that interests me about the past and then weave a story about it.  For Affair before Christmas, for example, I found myself wondering what it was really like to have all that tall Marie Antoinette hair piled on one’s head.  Voila:  the plot springs from the question.

How do you sneak an underlying message into your entertaining narrative?
Well, underlying messages…  I don’t know that I have all that many of those.  I guess some come along with the characters.  When I created a drunk in Much Ado about You, for example, I dried him out in Taming the Duke, so there was a message there about alcohol.  But I don’t have the sense that many of my readers are looking to my books to solve their substance abuse problems.  If I have an underlying message it would be that it IS possible to have a thoughtful, loving, and kindly relationship–and no woman should settle for less.  And in tandem with that, marriage is no picnic, and that kind of relationship needs as much nourishing as any other.  And finally, that every man can learn to be good in bed.

Awesome answers, right? And, can I just say how exciting it is to have an author respond to an email when you figure they are way too busy? Indie authors take note!

So I responded to Eloisa’s email because I thought she wasn’t giving herself enough credit with her answer to my third question…

Eloisa,

Thank you for the reply! Yes, your answers do help, and give me insight into your writing. My mother, for instance, doesn’t like manipulative characters, and doesn’t understand why anyone would write about them. This is very helpful for me to explain why and how a writer can go in this direction.

I suppose underlying messages come more from readers’ perceptions of our work, rather than our purposeful insertion of a message. In This Duchess of Mine, I felt as though the underlying message was to never give up; that people can mature and make a difficult situation work if they both try. It’s a good thing to keep in mind for a young, professional, single girl like me!

Suffice it to say, I’m not sure I could ever pull it off myself. Props to you for working with difficult-to-love-but-we-love-them-anyway characters!

So there you have it. Big name authors like Eloisa James are pretty fricking sweet. I’m definitely going to check out another of her books just because I feel I understand her a little better and will probably enjoy her writing more because of it.

All the best,

Belinda

Don’t Make Me Opt-Out

Dear Reader,

I got the following email this evening that really got me riled up.

Hello, Worderella –

Recently, we launched a beta test of a premium feature called “The Scribd Archive” that allows people to download certain archived content for a fee. This test does not restrict readers’ ability to interact with documents on Scribd or across the web. As a valued member of the Scribd author community, you will always be notified about new Scribd features, and we hope that you were not caught off guard by this test.

The program helps us maintain our site and fund development of future products, but we realize that you may want to ensure free downloads of your work so we’ve given you the option of removing all your documents from The Scribd Archive in your account settings page. By opting out of the Scribd Archive, your documents will be available for download (if you have enabled download) for no charge.

Thank you for your continued support and feedback.

-The Scribd Team

P.S. You can always fine-tune which notifications you receive or opt-out completely.

No. Lynn Viehl wrote about this a week or more ago and I can understand her fury because I’m furious as well. This is just as shady as Facebook automatically opting people into services they didn’t join Facebook for, all because the Facebook team assumes “hey, you joined Facebook, so you must want this.”

No! Do not automatically opt me into something and then tell me, as if you are being so kind, so very generous, to allow me to opt-out of this service I didn’t know I didn’t want because it didn’t exist when I originally signed up for the service.

The proper way to do such things is to create the service and email your existing subscribers about their newly available choices.

Authors, pay attention

No one likes to be automatically opted into a service without their permission. In an extreme case, it’s an army draft. You will make enemies. Give people the option to select your service, and those who want to, will. Those who don’t, won’t hate you for making them tell you they don’t want to.

Don’t automatically subscribe people who you have emailed onto your author mailing list. Send them an email that they have the option to, since you’ve exchanged emails and perhaps they might be interested. Don’t spam them on Twitter on Facebook by only talking about yourself, because you’ll have tons of un-follows and un-friendings… the ultimate opt-out.

I just really hate it when software companies take advantage of their customers. And I’ll be damned if I like it any better when authors take advantage of their social connections and readers.

All the best,

Belinda

Worderella is Scarred for Life

Dear Reader,

You would not believe what I saw at my local used bookstore the other day. I had chosen to block it from my memory, but the following tweet from @jennIRL brought it to the forefront of my mind:

what is it about bookstores that bring out the PDA in couples? I AM SITTING RIGHT. FREAKING. HERE. #notok

Oh God. That’s right. I saw some wicked PDA (public display of affection). The kind that scars for life if you realize what is happening.

So get this.

My mother and I were birthday shopping for my brother. He wanted the first couple of Artemis Fowl books, and Flatland. I wandered into the fantasy/mystery section, thinking, well, that was as good a place to start as any.

There were a couple of people in the aisle, each reading a book. He stood at a protective angle, and she leaned into him. The way they were standing, the man and woman, I realized they were probably not a couple of people, but a romantic couple.

It took me half a second to realize his hand was lower than her waist. And it wasn’t at her back.

The other half a second was all it took to realize his hand was moving in a circular, caressing motion.

Yes.

Oh yes.

He was caressing her lower special bits. As if they weren’t in a bookstore, of all places.

I blinked. Yup, the hand was still there. ZOOM I focused my attention on a book, any book, it didn’t matter the book I just needed to not be looking at that hand rubbing and patting her baby-maker as if it were a puppy.

From the corner of my eye I saw that he saw me, and stopped. But it was too late. Oh so too late. The damage was done. I am scarred for life.

For the first time ever, I wish I wrote steamier romances so I could put that scene into a book. Someone want to do it for me?

All the best,

Belinda

Worderella does an Interview

Dear Reader,

The amazing thing about the internet is how it is able to connect you to people who care about your work. Tomorrow, Critique This WIP is interviewing me on their blog.

We will be talking about everything from why I began writing to how I defeat the Dreaded Writer’s Block. Definitely check it out, because Critique This WIP is a great group of ladies who talk about the publishing world.

In terms of my progress with Catching the Rose, I’m applying to be a seller on Amazon so I can submit the interior of the book for the Search Inside functionality.

As a reader, I love it when I can browse the interior of the book. In fact, if given the choice, I will always choose the book that allows me to search inside vs the one that won’t. Are you the same way? Do you prefer to read a little of the book before you buy it?

Are you like me, a cheater who reads the ending before I decide I’ll spend the money? I like to know if I’ll like the ending… if so, I’ll probably enjoy the journey. But then, that’s me.

All the best,

Belinda

Worderella Geeks Out about a Book

Dear Reader,

Forgive me as I go on a happy rant. Today was a fairly good day, as I lived today. Living, as opposed to what, you ask? Well, reading and writing about living. I think it’s very important that we writers know when to stop and take a break, and man, I needed a break. This week was a bit stressful at work because I’m still learning the ropes. I was invited out last night by friends and co-workers, but since the bar scene isn’t really my scene, I stayed home and finished reading Almost a Gentleman by Pam Rosenthal. I’m hoping to write one of my old book reviews about it because I enjoyed it so much.

Get on with it, Belinda, is this your happy rant?

No. It is not.

This is.

Libraries are AWESOME

I ran a number of errands this morning, and visiting the library was one of them. I encourage all writers to be regulars at their local library. I go there when I want a fix of Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and Poets & Writers magazines.

I’m blessed to have a library that is always buying new books, so I make it a point to check out the new historical romances to discover trends. You know, like cover imagery, blurbs, topics, etc.

On my way to the new books section, however, I glanced at the mini-book shop they have in the library. This shop is really just a book shelf with a desk in front of it with a donation box. The books are donated by people in my community, and the library sells them for a profit.

Wait for it, this is where my happy rant really picks up.

I found the entire Little House on the Prairie books for $2! TWO DOLLARS. That’s eight books. EIGHT BOOKS for TWO DOLLARS.

I remember wanting these books when I was young. I grew up reading these books. These books are what turned me on to historical fiction.

I picked up the boxed collection and walked it over to the sweet old lady who was reading a letter from 1966. She seemed very shocked by what she was reading, and didn’t notice I was hugging a box of books to my chest as if I knew there was a bandit around the corner waiting to snatch them from me.

You may think I’m exaggerating. Sadly, I am not.

After a couple of minutes she noticed I was standing there, waiting for her to finish reading. Which, by the way, it was fascinating to watch her. She reads letters line-by-line. The handwriting on the page was large, with constrained flourishes, and healthy spaces between each line. The paper was yellowed, but didn’t look fragile. I wanted to smell it—I’m that weirdo who smells old books for fun. I wish I had thrown my camera into my purse because she really made such a lovely photo with her white hair and white cardigan draped over her shoulders.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t even see you there,” she said, flustered, when I placed the box of books on the little desk. She fluttered her hands and tucked the letter in its envelope. “I was just reading an old letter I found, it’s from 1966, and I was just shocked at what I was reading, I couldn’t believe it…”

She didn’t continue, and I felt it would be rude to press for more, but can’t you imagine a wonderful story springing from that one little interaction? What do you think she was reading? Why did it shock her so much, reading it almost fifty years later? Where did she find it and why was she reading it in such a public place like a library?

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said, smiling. “I didn’t want to disturb you.” I motioned to the box. “Is this priced right? It must be wrong.”

She adjusted her glasses and peered at the little white price tag. “Why, it says it’s only two dollars!”

“I know! It’s got to be wrong.”

“Well,” she said with a little frown, “if it’s marked two dollars, it must be two dollars.”

I shook my head. That was just outrageous. I wanted that boxed set my entire childhood and never received it. I managed to collect all the books over the years, but deep in my heart, I still wanted the boxed set. That boxed set. It was imperative that I owned that set.

“Well, I don’t care. I’m going to give you ten for it.”

“Oh no, you can’t do that, the price is for two dollars.”

I have to admit my mouth sagged open a little. “I saw one of the books, a hardcover version, priced at two dollars by itself. Someone mislabeled this.”

“Well, then that’s their fault, isn’t it? We get such nice discounts in the general stores these days, and you don’t apologize for that, do you?”

A smile was starting to creep back onto my face. “Well, no.”

“Take it and run with it. And enjoy it! That’s a treasure you found there.” She accepted my cash, and as she tucked it into the cashier’s box, asked, “Are you a teacher?”

My smile turned sheepish. These were children’s books. It made sense that she thought I was a school teacher. I was young enough to seem right out of college and looking for books for my students. I was far too excited to not be a teacher looking for a cheap boxed set of books.

“No, but I grew up on these books.”

She nodded, understanding me. “Today is your lucky day, sweetie.”

I grinned. Yeah, it was. And I couldn’t have had it if I’d stared at my computer screen all day.

Write Every Day

I am now a Master of Science. Fear me!

What have I been doing with myself?

I have taken my time detoxing from the intensity of my masters program. Graduating has felt like how I imagine transitioning to civilian life after being in the military for two years must feel. I didn’t have to kill anyone (though I wanted to), but life in the “real world” such as it’s described is very different. For one thing, I get to make money. For another thing, I actually pay taxes now.

Welcome to the world of adulthood, Belinda.

My first week after graduation was spent hanging out with friends and watching movies, as well as moving home to the parents’ house while looking for a job.

The second week out of school, I began to read fiction, but not necessarily romantic fiction. After my stint as a literary short story writer for one of my elective courses, I realized that while I love to write about love, it doesn’t always have to be distinctly romantic, or at least belonging to the romantic genre and the dogma that goes along with it.

And you know what that means, if I’ve begun to read fiction again. Yes, you assume correctly, it means I’ve begun to write fiction again.

Starting over

As mentioned in my previous post, the last two years have been… an experience. To say the least. And with the aplomb of any good writer, I mean to use my experiences to inform my writing. Not explicitly, of course, but I have learned so much about how people actually behave versus how we read about them in fiction.  I wanted to continue writing Trentwood’s Orphan; I’d had a dream about the characters about a month ago, which hinted at my shifting interests from academics back to fiction writing.

The problem? Everything seemed too fantastic, too dramatic, too… forced. I was trying to create drama rather than allowing the inherent dramatics of being human speak for themselves. Which brings me to my point: I’m starting over. I have cut 75% of the character list, 100% of the plot, and 100% of the theme.

I pulled out my whiteboard and began scribbling thoughts about the new theme, which I had realized while falling asleep the night before. I thought about the experiences I’ve had over the last two years, and pulled in what few characters I actually needed to tell the story. I put major plot points on post-it notes and arranged them on the whiteboard under the headings Act One, Act Two, and Act Three. I copied my notes into my notebook, and walked away for an hour.

And then I began to write Haunting Miss Trentwood.

Write every day

If you’re having trouble writing, I’d like to point you in the direction of a really simple online writing tool that has worked wonders for me. It’s called 750 Words, and that’s the entire point. You log in with your existing online profiles, including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and write.

After you log in, you are greeted with a blank screen with a cursor, with the date at the top of the screen. And you write. There is a running total at the bottom of the screen. When you reach 750 words, the number turns green and you get a little notification saying “Congratulations! You’ve reached your goal!”

You have the option to change the color of your text, background, etc. Other than that, the only thing you can control is your writing. The website doesn’t care how long it takes you to write, it simply expects you to write 750 words that day. It logs your typing style, and autosaves for you. There is no formatting of the text so you can’t get distracted.

It’s simple. It’s brilliant.

My friend used 750 Words to spur his writing of his masters thesis, and while I had no problems with my masters thesis, I’ve been a little intimidated to start the new incarnation of Mary’s story. So I logged into 750 Words and gave it a whirl. Next thing I knew, I had 1000 words, and a solid first chapter.

Give it a try. It might work for you.

Worderella Writes schedule

Given the fact that I want to focus on my writing, I’m taking a much-needed actual vacation, I’m starting a new job, and I’ll be moving out of the parents’ place in a couple of months, I don’t want to get ahead of myself and commit to too much all at once. Or rather, more than I have already. So I’m only going to promise to write once a month, probably on a weekend. It might be a simple writing update, it might be a book review, it might be a cool link, it might be all of the above.

Most of all, I’m just glad to be back. Sincerely and truly back, doing what I love: sharing my love of writing with my peers.

Apologies, I am Alive

I do apologize for completely disappearing for almost a year. This has been quite the seven months since my last post. Not to be dramatic, but I found love, lost love, was betrayed by a supposed best friend, and fell desperately ill.

I write romances, I’m not supposed to actually live them.

I am slowly on the mend from my emotional adventures, picking up the pieces. I’ve had to reprioritize, putting my health first, then school, and then my writing. It has been a long, difficult path to traverse, and without any light to guide me. But rest assured, once I graduate in May, and get settled where ever I find a job, I hope to pick up where I left off.

That will mean more book reviews, more interesting tidbits, and more reflections on self-publishing.

Thanks for sticking around, those of you who did. I’m sorry I’ve been AWOL.

Checking In

Hello everyone!

Yes, I am alive. I apologize for my absence. Graduate school takes up far more time than I realized, and now I am working full-time in an internship that requires too much of my creativity… I come home exhausted yet satisfied.

Loyalty Contest

I realize I’ve probably lost a lot of my readership, so if you’re still around, thank you for sticking with me. Make sure to comment and tell everyone what you’ve been up to lately. One of the commenters will receive a free copy of my “best of” book, Worderella On Writing. The 52 pg book contains my most popular posts for your scribbling pleasure. As a full disclosure, I make one dollar per purchase.

The winner will be notified/announced next week.

Writing

In terms of writing, I was a little burned out from my fiction class this last semester. However, the class improved my writing tremendously, and I wouldn’t give up that experience for the world. Word Nerd was kind enough to provide comments for Trentwood’s Orphan, the entire draft, and boy do I have some work to do. On the one hand, it seems she liked it, on the other hand, I was obviously way too close to the story because what I thought was clear about the characters was actually very muddy.

I have a lot of work to do. But now that I’ve taken a six-month break from the work, and a month-long break from writing in general, I think I’m ready for it. Wish me luck!

Guest Posts

Do you have a topic you’d like to talk about? Are you new to self-publishing, a veteran, or somewhere in-between? Do you have editing and/or writing tips that others could learn? Submit your idea and we’ll work out deadline. Make sure to provide a summary of your idea.

Ruminations

This week we don’t have class due to my professor having a conference, which is nice. I’ve been reading through the class critiques of my most recent story, which is always interesting. Sometimes people get what you were trying to do, and sometimes, they don’t, they really don’t.

I’ve been trying some really different things with my writing these last couple of weeks. I’ve written about a woman who missed the funeral of her boyfriend due to his mother lying to her… and so dug up his ashes and took them with her. I wrote a fable about a woman who begins to hug people and the consequences of that. My most recent story begins with a man who wakes up realizing that his mustache has disappeared.

Definitely different for me. The teaching assistant has noticed that I weave in fable/fairy-tale like elements to my stories, which I hadn’t really noticed before. But it makes sense, as I grew up on fairy tales and tend to see magic in the mundane.

This class is very interesting. It’s pushing me in new directions and I’m really interested to see how this will affect my longer works.

Have you ever taken a fiction course? How do you feel it changed you?

Next week, I’ll write about some resources that I’ve found recently about self-publishing.

Fairy-tale Inspired Books

Happy holidays! I thought I’d throw out a fun Tuesday Thirteen list today, this one having a theme of fairy-tale inspired books.

I haven’t read some of these books in ten years, but for some reason they still haunt me. Here are my favorite fairy-tale inspired books (in no particular order)! I had to cap it at thirteen otherwise the list might never end. Though, there is a shortage of good fairy tale re-tellings, for some reason… I wonder why that is? Are there any really good ones I should know about that aren’t on this list?

1. Spindle’s End – Robin McKinley
2. Enchantment – Orson Scott Card
3. Spellbound – Ru Emerson
4. Golden – Cameron Dokey
5. Seven Daughters and Seven Sons – Barbara Cohen and Bahija Lovejoy
6. The Book of Atrix Wolfe – Patricia McKillip
7. Deerskin – Robin McKinley
8. Briar Rose – Jane Yolen
9. The Door in the Hedge – Robin McKinley
10. Phoenix and Ashes – Mercedes Lackey
11. The Lark and the Wren – Mercedes Lackey
12. The Pearl of the Soul of the World – Meredith Ann Pierce
13. Sabriel – Garth Nix

Actually, there is this one retelling of the frog prince and I can’t remember the title of it.

I do know that the prince was turned into a frog as part of a magical conspiracy, and that the princess/girl fell in love with him when he was a frog, and that his own brother/uncle/relative throws him across the room so he hits the wall with a sickening crack. The girl, distraught, thinks the frog died, but he actually just broke the spell by angering his relative into chucking him across the room.

Anyone know the book I’m talking about? It was really good. Anyone have any books to add to the list?