Do you find mid-January kind of bleak? The holidays are over, and I always feel a bit of a let-down. Putting away the decorations and what-have-you isn’t as fun as getting them out. Even the leftovers are usually all eaten up by now. (This year ours aren’t, yet, but that’s a different story.) As Charlie Brown might say, “Bleh.” But there are some good book deals out there this month, plus we’re not far from February now, the biggest month of the year for romance!
If you are looking for something new to read and you don’t mind reading “sweet” historicals, then check out this group of romances on special offer until January 20. You can find them here.
I think many of us here at the Riskies are on deadlines or involved in major projects presently. We are also, as we have been for the past year, pondering the future of this blog. Readership has definitely fallen off, but several of the regular Riskies have not been able to post this year and the rest of us haven’t been able to fill in with extra posts, for the most part. So there have been fewer posts to offer. Is that the reason for the fall-off, or is it just that blogs are less popular now than they used to be, before Twitter, Instagram, and so much else came along? I would guess it’s both….
At any rate, we are still here for now, and even if we decide to discontinue the blog at some point later this year, we don’t want the fabulous archive of all the past posts to disappear. We will certainly keep you posted if we decide to make changes.
In the meantime, happy mid-January, and happy reading! This is the very BEST time of year to curl up with a good story, the best antidote to the blah’s that I know of. What’s your favorite way to deal with mid-winter? Are you still here reading the blog?
Let’s face it, writing isn’t easy. It LOOKS easy, to our
readers, and that’s because we authors work hard to make sure what we eventually
deliver to them is seamless, smooth prose that tells a logically believable
(and well-researched) tale that’s also emotionally satisfying. But how many
drafts did we go through to get there?
Granted, some books are easier than others. Sometimes a
story is so clear to us that it very nearly writes itself. Some authors are blessed
with many of those. But in my experience anyway, that is rare.
“Think of Olympic athletes,” I often told my students years ago
when I was teaching romance writing. “Don’t they make their respective sport
achievements look easy?” I used the analogy to provide some perspective, as
they often came in thinking the writing would be easy. “Think of how smooth and
graceful they are, how effortlessly they seem to flow through the motions of
their sport. Watching them is like reading a finished story. Then think of the
years of practice and study, the repeated successes and failures, the continued
drive to keep getting better that they have invested to achieve that apparent
ease. That is also the struggle behind most successful stories (and their
authors).”
The writing does get easier the longer you’re at it. Practice helps just about anything! Yet every book seems to present its own challenges. Just when you think the process is getting comfortable, the next story comes along with its own unique twist you’ve never needed to handle before. New learning curve, every book.
Not to mention there are so many ways a book can go wrong.
And I’m not even talking about the marketing part, here. Bad cover? Bad blurb?
Oh, no. I’m only talking about the story here. Every aspect of a story, from
the tone to the characters, the plot, the emotional arcs and the structure, the
pacing, the dialogue–even the balance of those elements, or the choice of
point-of-view characters in scenes, and more –all of these can make or break
the successful telling of the story. Readers don’t see this, because we hope
that all of those issues are smoothed out before they ever see a page.
You may have guessed I am in the throes of revising a book
that has “gone wrong” and that’s the inspiration for this blogpost. Yup. I have
been working for ages on a prequel to LORD OF MISRULE and had it at least ¾
done, maybe more. But something wasn’t working. Sent it to several critique
partners, and it was clear from their comments that I was right, something
wasn’t working. But none of them could quite put a finger on it. Their multiple
views did help me to do so, I think!
Sometimes when books go wrong, it’s not just one big thing,
but an accumulation of many small things. Kind of like dropped stitches in
knitting. You might not notice them when they happen, but later as you look back
at the completed rows, there they are. A character’s attitude is wrong, the
tone is off or someone’s emotional reaction is missing. Some plot developments
may happen in the wrong order. And as in knitting, there’s nothing to be done
except unravel it back to the rows that were intact, and redo it.
I hate having to delay this book even longer, but I won’t release a book that I know isn’t right. That’s not to say my books are perfect, but I hope they are as good as I am capable of offering at the time they come out. Alas, I am a “pantser” (meaning I have to discover the story as I go along), so that usually means multiple drafts to sort things out. I have unraveled a big chunk of this book and am busily “re-knitting” it as fast as I can. I hope now to have it repaired and out by June at least. Maybe with a miracle, sooner. But it won’t be in April as I had planned. (sigh)
Have you read books that you thought the author should have “re-knitted” but didn’t? (please don’t name specific titles or authors) If you’re a writer, which would you say happens for you more often, easy ones or hard ones? Do you find there’s any one specific way books most often go wrong for you? If you are a plotter instead of a pantser, what still goes wrong sometimes even though you are following your thought-out plan?
June 18th will be the 207th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, the epic battle that marked the final defeat of Napoleon and gave Europe a century of peace and prosperity broken only by WWI. It is no surprise to long time readers of the Risky Regencies blog that I am fascinated by this battle. I’ve blogged about it at least seven times.
My friend Kristine Hughes of Number One London Tours is offering a Waterloo Tour in September 2022 and I just signed up! I am actually going to fulfill a long time dream to visit the battlefield and see in person what I’ve written about so many times. Kristine will be joined by Gareth Glover, a Waterloo expert who will, I am sure, make the battle come alive.
So what I’m doing to prepare is reading all the books on Waterloo that I’ve collected on my Kindle and have used for research from time to time.
I also just discovered The Longest Afternoon, a book about the defense of La Haye Sainte, an important part of the battle fought by the King’s German Legion. That’s on my list, too, now.
I discovered this book in a rather unusual way — I was searching YouTube for videos on Waterloo and I came upon this one:
Not only does this prove that there are other obsessed people in the world but also that one can find a book recommendation anywhere.
Because my Kindle books are not nearly enough, I’m also going through other YouTube videos on the battle and am listening to Bernard Cornwell’s Waterloo, which I borrowed from my library.
Today is my father’s birthday. His 81st. He’s a retired physician who worked so many hours during his working life that he never had time for all the things he wanted to do around the house. “Projects” piled up that he was going to get to some day, although I suspect we all do a bit of that “someday” thinking.
I will fix the flibberty-gibbet when I have time…
Only when you do have some time it’s more fun to take a nap or read or do something that is less like work. And now, for various reasons, he cannot do the things he was saving up to do.
Anyway, he loves to read. He doesn’t read on a Kindle, so it’s paper for him all the way. Which gets me into the bookstore pretty often. I try to think of books he might like, but he’s a tough cookie. Very picky. Sometimes I give him a dud, and I feel terrible.
A while back, after I read my first Lee Child book, I knew my dad would love Jack Reacher. And I was right.
Unfortunately, eventually, I had both of us caught up with his backlist. At that point, my dad actually started trolling the internet looking for information about the next Jack Reacher book. He would duly print out whatever he’d found and bring it to me with instructions to please get that book for him. So cute. Then I signed him up for Child’s newsletter. Smash hit. I think I am his favorite daughter whenever a newsletter arrives.
I went to Bouchercon a couple years ago and, as it happens, Lee Child was a speaker and doing a signing. I brought the penultimate hardback with me, and purchased the new book Child was signing, and I stood in a very, very long line and got the books signed for my dad. Child was completely gracious. And my dad was tickled pink to get personally autographed books.
Now my Dad prints off all the newsletters and brings them to me to make sure I get the book for him right away. But I get the newsletter too, and I’m faster on the ‘Net and always have the book on order at the local independent for him.
Dad likes (I’m pretty sure) Navy SEAL books; I got him the bin Laden op book and a couple others and he seems to have liked them. I get him political thrillers because he’s got some rather looney political conspiracy theories himself. (Fiction for us, non-fiction for him?)
My Question to you
Dad loves mysteries and I’ve been thinking that I should possibly get him some of the Heyer mysteries. But I have not read any of them. Have any of you? Which would you recommend? Please let me know in the comments!
I am behind on my book so today you get this boring post plus some pictures. What the hey.
OK, wait, I have a better idea. Tell me in the comments what you’re reading now. Love? Hate? Meh?
I am reading Sherry Thomas’s The Bride Of Larkspear. It’s the erotic novel written by a character in one of her books and given to another character in one of her books and it’s really awesome so far. It’s self-pubbed, by the way. The two characters involved in the dirty book exchange are the hero and heroine of her current release, Temptintg the Bride. I haven’t yet read Tempting the Bride, it’s sitting in my Kindle. But it is the most amazing experience reading this novella and knowing I have the whole story yet to uncover.
It’s really fun and dirty and all the lovely emotion of Thomas.
Other reading includes Sherman Alexie’s Blasphemy. I am savoring the stories.
I bought a collection of erotica by an author I won’t mention. Fail. I got confused in the first paragraph and then gave up after trying twice to make sense of it. The weird thing is, the writing wasn’t bad — it wasn’t the incoherent mess that can pop up in books you strongly suspect did not go through an editorial process. But she was plainly attempting to show off and you know what? No. How about you read what you wrote and fix it?
