Back to Top

Category: Writing

Posts in which we talk about the writing craft and process

All about the Baltimore Book Festival

Updated on by

Baltimore is a strange, quirky sort of city. It’s the birthplace of Betsy Bonaparte who married Napoleon’s brother Jerome. Napoleon was not amused. Poor Betsy never got a crack at being a European bigwig though her extremely French ooh la la fashion sense appalled the fashionable set of Washington. I blogged about it here.

Baltimore brought us the Star Spangled Banner (which I blogged about very recently), Edgar Allen Poe, John Waters, the endearment hon (pronounced in the very odd regional accent), The Wire, and many other strange and wonderful things. And every year it brings the Baltimore Book Festival and I’ll be talking and reading there tomorrow on the Maryland Romance Writers’ Stage. It’s a huge three-day event which takes place in the Mount Vernon district. Lots and lots of books, beer, writers, kids’ activities, readings, food, and many good things.

I’ll be on panels talking about vamps, erotic romance, and keeping the history in historical fiction. We have some terrific guests including local writers like Stephanie Draven, Laura Kaye, and Christie Kelley. My out of town friend Miranda Neville will be there with me tomorrow and my other buddy Pam Rosenthal will talk on Saturday evening. We’ll all read from our books which you’ll be able to buy on the spot courtesy of Ukazoo Books (Baltimore is also rich in indy book stores).

There will also be drawings and giveaways and a bunch of us who are talking about vampires on Friday are doing a gift basket that has various treasures packed into a True Blood lunch bag (I think it would put me off my lunch, but there you go)–books, chocolate, jewelry, and one of my Austen mugs. I hate being involved in chocolate-heavy events. I just know I’m going to absent mindedly eat it.

So if you’re in spitting distance of Charm City, please visit the Baltimore Book Festival. You’ll have a lot of fun.

If you had to plan a book festival, who would you invite?

 

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged | Leave a reply

I believe an introduction is in order…

Updated on by

Greetings! I’m Susanna Fraser, and Elena Greene was kind enough to invite me to be a guest poster here with the Riskies on the third Friday of every month. So I suppose I should begin by telling y’all a little about myself.

It’s all Sean Bean’s fault.

Eleven years ago now, when I was busy writing my first, extremely rough draft of the book that eventually became my second published novel, A Marriage of Inconvenience, my dear Mr. Fraser and I went to see Fellowship of the Ring on its opening weekend at Seattle Cinerama. I loved everything about the movie, but above all I just couldn’t take my eyes off one character.

When I got home, I went straight to the Buffy board that was then my main internet community and said, “WHO is that actor who plays Boromir?”

One of my friends, knowing I was working on a Regency romance, said, “Oh, honey, are you ever in for a treat!” and pointed me straight at the Sharpe’s Rifles series. So I rented them, one by one–I think most of them were videotapes rather than DVDs, since this was Ye Olden Days. Once that was done, I read the Sharpe books and the Aubrey-Maturin series, and, as is my custom since I’m that much of a history geek, decided I needed to learn more about the real history behind my new favorite books.

I haven’t looked back. Every book I’ve written since has had a military hero, and for the second book I wrote (and the first to be published), The Sergeant’s Lady, I couldn’t resist the temptation to make my hero a rifleman. Next thing I knew, my research bookshelves started to look like this…

…and I found myself developing something of a historical crush on this gentleman:

That’s right, Diane Gaston and Kristine Hughes! Consider yourself put on notice that I will not allow you to monopolize my dear Artie’s affections.

I look forward to future posts, when I shall probably talk food, music, football, baseball, and my next book, among other things. But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with some Five Favorites lists. Please feel free to share your favorites in the comments so I can get to know you, too.

My Five Favorite Current TV Shows:
1) The Legend of Korra
2) Castle
3) Game of Thrones
4) The Daily Show
5) Chopped

My Five Favorite Romances Read (but not necessarily published) This Year
1) Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (not out till November, but I bought the eARC)
2) Catching Jordan
3) Doukakis’s Apprentice
4) The Wives of Bowie Stone
5) My Fair Concubine

Five Authors I Love
1) Jane Austen
2) Lois McMaster Bujold
3) Dorothy Sayers
4) Julia Spencer-Fleming
5) Jacqueline Carey

Five Fictional Crushes
1) Aral Vorkosigan (from Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga)
2) Lord Peter Wimsey (from Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries)
3) Marcus Didius Falco (from Lindsey Davis’s mysteries)
4) Joscelin Verreuil (from Carey’s Kushiel series)
5) Tenzin (from Legend of Korra)

Finally, a warning that I may be a little slow on commenting. I have a day job with little non-work internet access, and my dear Mr. Fraser turns 40 tomorrow. Tonight Miss Fraser (age 8) and I are taking him to a Mariners game, and tomorrow is his party.

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Replies

It’s the Baltimore Book Festival, hon

Updated on by

Baltimore is a strange, quirky sort of city. It’s the birthplace of Betsy Bonaparte who married Napoleon’s brother Jerome. Napoleon was not amused. Poor Betsy never got a crack at being a European bigwig though her extremely French ooh la la fashion sense appalled the fashionable set of Washington. I blogged about it here.

Baltimore brought us the Star Spangled Banner (which I blogged about very recently), Edgar Allen Poe, John Waters, the endearment hon (pronounced in the very odd regional accent), The Wire, and many other strange and wonderful things. And every year it brings the Baltimore Book Festival and I’ll be talking and reading there tomorrow on the Maryland Romance Writers’ Stage. It’s a huge three-day event which takes place in the Mount Vernon district. Lots and lots of books, beer, writers, kids’ activities, readings, food, and many good things.

I’ll be on panels talking about vamps, erotic romance, and keeping the history in historical fiction. We have some terrific guests including local writers like Stephanie Draven, Laura Kaye, and Christie Kelley. My out of town friend Miranda Neville will be there with me tomorrow and my other buddy Pam Rosenthal will talk on Saturday evening. We’ll all read from our books which you’ll be able to buy on the spot courtesy of Ukazoo Books (Baltimore is also rich in indy book stores).

There will also be drawings and giveaways and a bunch of us who are talking about vampires on Friday are doing a gift basket that has various treasures packed into a True Blood lunch bag (I think it would put me off my lunch, but there you go)–books, chocolate, jewelry, and one of my Austen mugs. I hate being involved in chocolate-heavy events. I just know I’m going to absent mindedly eat it.

So if you’re in spitting distance of Charm City, please visit the Baltimore Book Festival. You’ll have a lot of fun.

If you had to plan a book festival, who would you invite?

 

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a reply

Putting Things in the Right Place

Updated on by

It’s been nearly two weeks since returning to the current work-in-progress, A Hero’s Return, and I had the conundrum that the action was set in the wrong place.

It’s taken me this long to figure out the right place to put the action, which makes 100 pages of the doc not useable in its current iteration. I can reset the action, but of course that means adding in characters, and motivations, and different events.

Thankfully, I’m kind of a talking head writer, so the characters and their conversation, rather than where they are, is the focus of my writing, so it won’t be too onerous.

Working on that, and happy that fall is finally here, and VERY MUCH looking forward to seeing Skyfall, the next James Bond film.

What are you working on? What are you most looking forward to this fall?

Megan

Posted in Writing | 4 Replies

Jane Eyre Day – A Bit Belated

Updated on by

Happy Columbus Day here in the USA.

Of course, in the Regency, the British didn’t celebrate Columbus Day, so for once a Monday holiday does not give me a blog topic.

Now, if I my blog would have been last Friday, I would have had a ready-made topic. Friday was Jane Eyre Day, the anniversary of the release of Jane Eyre in 1847, under the pseudonym Currer Bell. Just Saturday a week ago, Megan asked us all about our favorite movie version of Jane Eyre. If Megan could anticipate Jane Eyre Day, then maybe I can celebrate it after the fact.

I remember reading Jane Eyre when I was a girl. Athough it was not and never has been a favorite of mine, it is a story that has always stayed with me. I mean, who could forget the interrupted wedding day when, at the altar, Jane learns that Rochester has a mad wife in the attic? All the gothic spookiness of the fire and Grace Poole then makes great sense. Or the message wafting telepathically from Rochester to Jane? Or the miraculous cure of his blindness?

Unfortunately, I also remembered that Jane fell in a ditch and quite amazingly wound up on the doorstep of cousins and discovered she was an heiress (not exactly how it happened in the book, but that was how I remembered it). Even as a dreamy, romantic kid, I felt that was too contrived. I also thought that Rochester was much too mean to Jane and I never understood why she fell in love with him.

But, even all that stayed with me through the years until I read the book again and watched countless adaptations. That proves Jane Eyre’s greatness as a novel, in my mind. It is unforgettable.

My next book, Born To Scandal, coming to bookstores Nov 13 and as an ebook Dec 1, is an homage to Jane Eyre. It also is a story of a tortured hero who hires a governess with her own troubled past. It is also full of secrets.

On Friday, Jane Eyre Day, a quote appeared in my email (I’m signed up for a daily Inspirational Quote) that could have been the motto for my book:

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” — Charlotte Bronte.

It is a quote from Helen Burns to Jane. Helen was my favorite character in Jane Eyre, especially as personified by the child Elizabeth Taylor in the 1943 movie version.

What is your favorite quote from Jane Eyre or your favorite part of the story or your favorite character? How did you celebrate Jane Eyre day and how are you celebrating Columbus Day?

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged , , | 8 Replies
Follow
Get every new post delivered to your inbox
Join millions of other followers
Powered By WPFruits.com