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Monthly Archives: May 2010

I have a looming deadline, a box of ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) for Jane And The Damned, I’m out of cat food, and the house is a mess. So let’s have a contest!

I’ll be giving away two copies.

Find me on Twitter. Follow me (Janet_Mullany). RT my message with #JaneandtheDamned and I’ll pick two winners at 10 pm EST tomorrow, Friday. And next week I’ll have a real post.

(And no, this isn’t the cover which is fab and beautiful and which you’ll see later!)

Memorial Day, the last Monday in May and a US Holiday, began as a day to remember those soldiers lost in the Civil War. It was later expanded to include all men and women who died in the service to their country, and many people use this day to remember all their departed loved ones. Every day we are heart-wrenchingly reminded of the sacrifice our brave soldiers make for the rest of us when we hear the names of the latest soldiers lost in Iraq or Afghanistan. Those aches are too raw, so I’m looking back to “our” era, the Napoleonic War and the War of 1812.

The Napoleonic Series has an article about one Battalion in 1809, listing the names of the officers and the biographical data they were able to piece together on as many of them as possible, lest they be entirely forgotten. (look under Biographies) They include men like Captain Joseph Bradbey, who among other things, was wounded when a general ordered his company of 470 men to attack French forces of over 2500. Bradbey was lucky. Most of his company died that day. Another was Lt. Charles Ward, unique among the biographies because no information existed of him before or after his military service. It is as if he existed only as a soldier.

The Napoleonic Series article quotes a lyric from a Stan Rogers song, “Macdonell on the Heights:”
So you know what it is to scale the Heights and fall just short of fame
And have not one in ten thousand know your name.

Stan Rogers, a Canadian folk singer, wrote this song of an officer who fought valiantly in the war of 1812. Canadian Lt. Col. John Macdonell lost his life during the Battle of Queenstown Heights. Seeing his name engraved on a plague on a rock near where he fell inspired Rogers to compose this song. Rogers lost his own life tragically at the age of 33, in a fire aboard Air Canada Flight 797 at Cincinnati airport. Here’s a YouTube tribute for both Macdonell and Rogers:

About 4,000 soldiers died in action in the War of 1812 (another 20,000 died from disease). Estimates of soldiers lost in the Napoleonic War are about 2.5 million, a staggering figure. When lists of casualties were printed, only the officers were listed. Can you imagine how many mothers, sisters, sweethearts, waited and hoped and ultimately despaired of ever knowing the fate of their private or sergeant?

The US Military honors those soldiers who previously (now with DNA testing almost all can be identified) could not be identified, at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery. Today, as on every Memorial Day, a wreath will be placed at the Tomb, to honor all soldiers.

I’ll bet each of us have lost someone tragically, maybe not to war, but someone who “falls short of fame,” someone who led an ordinary life and who lives on only in the memories of those who loved him or her in life.

My choice is my cousin, Jimmy Getman, a graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy, who died of a sudden heart attack in his 30s while working long hours to ready the boat he commanded for service during a very frigid winter in the 1970s. I just searched the internet and found nothing about him except a citation of an article he co-wrote in 1976. But I remember him from long before. I remember him as older and smarter than me and clever enough to fix my doll’s shoe. He was a hero to me that day and ever since.

Who do you want to remember this Memorial Day?

Don’t forget to visit me tomorrow on Diane’s Blog for the announcement of last week’s winner of Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady, and on Thurday as well.
Blogging at DianeGaston.com

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I have loads of fantastic news I am so psyched to share! First off, I have found an enthusiastic, energetic champion agent to represent my contemporary women’s fiction book Mothering Heights.

Here’s the first part of the evil synopsis I had to write:

Molly Hagan is overwhelmed.

Her husband left her for a younger, blonder woman six months ago, her six year-old son is questioning her authority, and so is she. In order to pay her Brooklyn rent and keep her son supplied with Pokemon and Legos—not to mention food and clothing—she has to get a job. She’ll never have enough caffeine—ever—and she’s forty years old.

If it weren’t for her son, she’d have thrown herself out the window 5 months and 29 days ago.

But Molly knows that constant mourning isn’t good for her or her son. And it sure as hell won’t pay the bills.

The Champion Agent will be sending the submission out sometime next week. Fingers crossed, all!

Next up, and impacting my future even more, is that my son got into his first choice of middle school, a gifted and talented middle school that is “one of the most sought-after in the city. . . it draws kids from all over Brooklyn and even parts of Queens and Staten Island. It’s a beautifully equipped, first-rate school that provides a firm foundation for entrance to the city’s most selective high schools.” My husband and I are so proud of him. And, like both his parents, he’ll be specializing in creative writing/journalism.

Last, I have been trying to stay on top of that writing horse; last week I shared how I came to choose what my hero (Christian) looked like, and this week, I am happy to say I have an image of how the heroine (Violet) looks. This was easier, since I’ve been wanting to write someone along the lines of Helena Bonham-Carter, A Room With A View period, for ages now. So I am.
You can see some of the other ladies I considered; Kate W. here is too spunky, Kate B. too polished and Emma just too darn young–maybe not polished enough?


But, knowing my penchant for British actors, I will likely use them later on in other works.

Meanwhile, thanks for cheering me on through thick and thin times! The Riskies are great friends to have, whether the five other ladies who post here or the Risky Commenters who join in the convo.

Megan

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Today is my critique group day, so I thought I’d write about them. We’re called the Tarts because we meet at a La Madeleine restaurant (we occupy a large table at the back and try not to talk too loudly about each other’s sex scenes) and one time the restaurant had a promotion along the lines of Try our delicious little French tarts. So naturally we had to adopt the name.

We’re all published now but when I joined the group ten years ago (aargh! ten years!) none of us were. Our numbers have fluctuated over the years but now we’re down to the basic foursome. We know a lot about each other and a lot about each other’s writing and we’ve cheered each other on as we negotiated the path of bumps and turns, luck, and skill that led to publication. And we write different subgenres so it’s interesting that we function well as a critique group. But let me introduce you (in alphabetical order):

Kate Dolan. Kate is an awesome powerwriting force. She writes Regencies for Cerridwen, mysteries as K.D. Hays, kids’ books, you name it. She’s also a living history interpreter and something of an expert on colonial Maryland history.

Christie Kelley. Chris writes Regencies for Kensington although when I first joined the group she was writing Westerns. She’s smart and productive and the best plotter I know.

Kathy Love. Yes, it’s really her name. She was writing vamps when no one else was and now her urban fantasy series depict paranormal creatures living side by side with unwitting mortals.

Kate Poole. Kate, sorry, I can’t find your website (did it get eaten?), whose debut historical The Anchor and the Storm came out a couple of years ago and she has another Ellora’s Cave book coming out… soon.

So how do we function as a critique group? First, friendship does not conflict with our opinions on each other’s work. We’re not so used to each other’s writing that we don’t have anything to say about it or can’t view it with a critical eye, which I think is great. (My rule of thumb has always been that if the majority of the group says something doesn’t work, I change it. Usually.) We make a lot of jokes. Halfway through we stop to eat, of course, some delicious French tarts. So we’re not all business but we do get a lot of work done. If we’re not talking about our current mss. we talk about future plots. We have various areas of expertise, within and outside writing.

Do you have a community that’s related to writing, or reading, or any other interest? Tell us about it! And what do you think its Regency equivalent would be?

Visit a great new blog by HarperCollins paranormal authors, Supernatural Underground (and on Facebook too). Check us out! We’re having our official launch June 1 with giveaways and fun stuff.

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