If this is your first visit, I'd better explain that I'm not using the blog on this site as a "blog," per se, but as a showcase of sorts. In lieu of the usual journal type entries, I'm offering a cross-section of articles, essays, and short stories I've written over the years. Since I've touched on some esoteric and odd subjects, I hope you'll find this selection of free reads both entertaining and informative.
Having been given the option of a second blog here, I'm using that one as a "FAQs page"... Compiled from questions I'm often asked in interviews, it offers a bit about why I write, how I came to this profession, and my feelings on the romance genre.
This story of the strange-but-true happened once upon an October (close enough to Christmas to make it worthwhile mentioning now, I think), and it has a happy ending-- even better! It also reads a bit like a snowball rolling downhill, gathering size and speed as it goes. So, to keep things nice and shipshape here, I'll give just the basic facts in a straightforward, chronological lineup.... Anchors away!
In October 1829 the schooner Mermaid sails from Sydney, Australia, bound for Collier Bay on the west side of the continent. On board are the skipper, Captain Samuel Nolbrow, seventeen crew members, and three passengers (twenty-one people in all).
Four days out, the Mermaid, now in the treacherous Torres Straight (separating Australia and New Guinea) is becalmed with the barometer falling and a wall of black clouds approaching. Uh-oh...
The storm strikes! Huge waves, murderous rain, and screaming banshee winds drive the Mermaid toward a ridge of rocks. Captain and crew battle frantically to save her, but their schooner is ripped open on a coral reef.
Abandon ship! Passengers and seamen dive for it and swim towards a large rock about two-hundred feet away. Captain Nolbrow is the last to leave the doomed vessel. On reaching the rock, he finds that all twenty-one people have made it to this precarious perch.
For three decidedly uncomfortable days the survivors huddle together on the rock. Then the Swiftsure arrives on the scene, cheerfully takes one and all aboard, and continues on her course off the New Guinea coast. Hooray! We're saved!
Not quite. The fifth day after the rescue, the Swiftsure-- being curiously caught in a powerful, uncharted current-- is swept broadside into the rocks along the shore and breaks up. Abandon ship! Again. Yet, again, everyone is saved.
Later that same day the Governor Ready, with a crew of thirty-two, hoves into view and loads up the passengers and crews of the Mermaid and the Swiftsure. Not necessarily cheerfully, though, because the Governor Ready is now somewhat crowded. There must have been a bit of grumbling on board. But there was probably a good deal more shortly thereafter.
Only three hours later the Governor Ready catches fire. Flames roar through the wooden schooner like a gale and all aboard are forced into longboats. This is not good. We now have three crews without a single ship between them. We are also many miles from land and off the regular shipping lanes. Man, when it rains, it pours.
But every cloud has a silver lining. You see, there's this Australian Government cutter, the Comet, which had (rather conveniently for the other crews) been blown off her course by a storm.
The Comet, however, doesn't even pretend to be cheerful about the rescue. It's not just the problem of how to cram four crews into one vessel, but it seems obvious now that a "jinx" is involved. As best as they can in such sardine-quarters, each of the four crews shuns the company of the other three. The disgruntled crew of the Mermaid-- who have at this point suffered three wrecks in rapid succession-- are all suspiciously assuming that one of them must be a "Jonah." And the Comet's crew is pessimistically expecting trouble.
Five days later they get it. A ferocious storm snaps off the Comet's mast, rips away her sails, and carries off her rudder. As she is sinking, her own crew launches the only longboat, and the other three crews avoid drowning by clinging to wreckage. Not exactly a beach party. The sea is cold but, fortunately for the swimmers, battling off the sharks helps to keep them warm.
Eighteen hours after this dunking, along comes the packet Jupiter. And for those of you who haven't been keeping a strict count, this makes the fourth rescue.... Also, the FIFTH wreck.
Because two days later, the undoubtedly bursting-at-her-seams Jupiter strikes a reef and sinks. Nearby, however, is the passenger vessel, City of Leeds, to carry everyone to Sydney. Big sigh of relief.
All in all, five ships had gone down, but not a single life had been lost. No one had even been seriously injured. A remarkable series of coincidences, but not exactly a "strange" tale, you say? I agree. Far stranger things have happened-- one, in fact, at the end of this story:
There was a passenger on the City of Leeds (the last of the six ships involved) named Sarah Richley. She was an elderly Englishwoman who had been traveling to Australia to search for her son. It seems that he had run away about fifteen years before, joined the Royal Navy, and been sent to Australia. She had never heard from him, however, and the Navy had been able to state only that he had completed his term and left the service.
At the time that the City of Leeds rescued the other five crews, Mrs. Richley was critically ill, delirious, and calling constantly for her missing son. The ship's doctor, Thomas Sparks, who had given up any hope for her recovery, decided that the only thing left for him to do would be to ease the old lady's last moments by producing a proxy son for her. With such a wide variety of sailors now aboard, he didn't think it would be too difficult to locate one who fit Peter Richley's general description. He was right, too.
From the Mermaid's crew (that's the ship that started this whole thing, remember) Dr. Sparks selected a thirty-three year old fellow who had been born in England and had the prerequisite brown hair and blue eyes. "Now here's the way we'll do it," he told the sailor as they paused outside his patient's cabin. "The woman's name is Sarah Richley and she's from Yorkshire. You're to... What's wrong with you?"
The sailor had blanched white and was bracing himself against the bulkhead. "My God, doctor," he said, tears running down his cheeks. "You see, sir, I am Peter Richley! Please take me in to my mother."
Now that's strange. Albeit a wonderful strange. All's well that ends well-- including Mrs. Richley. She recovered, and Peter built her a house in Sydney where she lived for nearly another twenty years.
Happy Holidays!
(This article was originally published in COYOTE.)
Rule One: Read. A lot. Then write a lot. Doing it the other way around is putting the cart before the horse. Read like a writer and write like a reader. That's the best advice I've ever been given and the best I can offer. I don’t know of any other way to do it, no magic formula that will suddenly make someone an Author. Only studying and thinking and a willingness to work at it will get us there. I remember hearing years ago that writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, and I haven’t found any way around that yet In everyday life it’s a healthy thing to not drive yourself crazy over details. You know, like in the modern-day adage: #1) Don’t sweat the small stuff, and #2) It’s all small stuff… But the same doesn’t hold true for writing. Because writing, in its very essence IS “small stuff.” What is a novel, after all, but a series of individual words, little details all strung together into one grand, coherent, hopefully glorious whole. In writing, the small stuff DOES count, and you DO have to sweat it to make it work. Think of your manuscript as a precious cut gem where each facet has to be precisely placed and polished for optimum brilliance of the finished product. Mind the details, and you’ll be amazed how wonderfully the rest falls into place.
And... Make sure you’re writing because you truly LOVE to write – because it warms your heart, activates your head, and energizes your spirit. Don’t do it for the money or the fame, because in reality very few authors ever achieve those things to any great degree. But ANY author can experience the deep, soul-stirring satisfaction of creation, which is worth far more than mere dollars or a splash of limelight. Writing is like opening a door to a new dimension where anything can happen. We put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard and, presto – like a phoenix arising out of the ashes of our hopes and dreams, whole worlds spring to life in full-blown color and daring! There’s power and healing in that, so long as you never forget the love that drove you to such flights of fancy in the first place. It’s magic in the truest sense of the word. And it’s all yours. All you have to do is keep writing.
With pickaxes, sledgehammers, beating my head against the wall, sweating blood--stuff like that. Basically, I bull my way through the rough spots. (Unless I'm so exhausted that I'm falling asleep on my keyboard--in which case, I'll just go to bed and expect the answer to be there in the morning. Usually it is.) Blocks are inevitable (at least they are for me), but the only way to get past them is to keep writing. The act of struggling, itself, can sometimes be a marvelous goad to creativity. I often find that the scenes I have the most trouble with, end up being the best ones in the book.
I usually find that the only people who actively criticize or make light of Romances are people who have never read one. Therefore, I don't pay them much heed. If they insist upon debating the issue, I just remind them that most of the world's greatest literature is, in fact, Romance. Think: Romeo & Juliet, Ivanhoe, Pride & Predjudice, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, etc. As a Romance author, I feel I'm in some very high-caliber company and that I have a lot to live up to. I think we should be proud of the genre and never make excuses for it. LOVE is probably the oldest and the grandest of all artistic themes. And there ain't nuthin' wrong with simply spinning a good yarn for other folks' enjoyment. That's what writers like Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, etc. were doing. They were all just the popular writers of their day.
Good question! For starters, because that's just the way I am. I can't seem to keep the comedy out of a story even when I try. But an equally big reason is because I view humor as kind of a mission. I’ve always been a big fan of the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s (all those old movies with actors like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn), and I want to capture that same sort of spirit on the page. The interesting thing is that those movies were made during the Great Depression, and a little later during World War II – very stressful times. But those old comedies were courageous and sweet and always so uplifting. They were successful because they helped people forget their problems for a while and gave them hope for a brighter tomorrow. There’s something very healing about laughter. I think there’s even more need for it today – once again we live in very stressful times with a lot of uncertainty. By writing comedy I’m trying to give people a break from the tensions we all face. There’s enough anger and tears in the world already. We need to find more reasons to smile.
I write what I like to read and I've always been a big fan of Romances. It's really wonderful how the field has been expanding. There are so many more genres and sub-genres today than there were when I was first writing. I enjoy them all, but my favorites are probably the Comedies and the ones with fantasy or paranormal elements. If you can throw in a little mystery, adventure, and suspense, that's good, too. My stories generally contain all those elements and I particularly like to mix genres. I seem to have this uncontrollable urge to start with the wildest premise I can think of and then see how far I can push it.
I remember thinking when I was asked this that it was such a beautifully straightforward question. I so wished I had a straight answer for it. But I didn’t. I read once that Tolkien said he didn’t invent Middle Earth; he discovered it. That’s sort of what happened to me with I DO. I really didn’t have any clear cut ideas when I started the book. I just had this wild urge to do a traditional gothic--it hit me all of a sudden one night, like a lightning strike. I’d never done one before, but I’d heard that Dorchester was looking for gothics, and I thought if I could pull it off I’d have a good chance of selling to them.
I set it in a castle because that’s about as gothic as you can get; but I stretched the envelope a bit (okay, a lot) by putting the castle in West Texas. One of the reasons for that was simply a labor concern. I wanted to cut down my research time. And, since I live in West Texas, I figured it would make descriptions easier. If I needed to know what the climate or terrain was like, I had only to look out the window. Besides that--and this is the curious part--I had a real life example for the thing. Several years ago, my husband and I were driving to Abilene, when suddenly I spied this castle looming up out of the prairie (and, no, I hadn’t been drinking, *smile*). It was only the facade of a castle, actually, but it DID grab my attention. I heard later it was the abandoned project of some millionaire--although what he’d been planning on doing with it, I don’t know. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but it obviously hung there in my subconscious and surfaced again when I decided to write a gothic.
That happens to me a lot. I’ve been called a walking encyclopedia of useless information. My mind is a storehouse of eccentric trivia that pops out into fiction when I least expect it. Even an oddity like the disintegration device featured in I DO was based on genuine historical reports of John Keeley’s experiments. (He was a 19th century Philadelphia inventor--which also explains where the character of Dr. Earnshaw came from.) I’ve learned not to do much plotting in advance because I’m never sure what’s going to arise as a story progresses. I DO, in particular, definitely had a mind of its own. Since the book was SUPPOSED to be a gothic, I set out writing it entirely from the heroine’s (Dorcas Jeffries) perspective, because that’s how a traditional gothic-romance is done. Spending that much time in Miss Jeffries’ convoluted and active brain, however, put a whole new slant on things. Early on I realized I had a comic heroine on my hands, and she flat out refused to be anything else.
The book took about five months to write (four to get it all down on paper and then another one to edit, tweak and polish). By the time I’d finished I was exhausted and in the throes of a most ironic dilema. This "gothic" that I’d started purely for its marketability had metamorphised into something very different. If anything, it was a parody of a gothic. And I had no idea if something like that would sell--it seemed unlikely, in fact. I wondered if I’d "shot myself in the foot," so to speak. But that’s how the story had turned out, so that’s how I had to submit it. My original choice, Dorchester, was the first and only publisher I approached. They gave me a quick decision, and--miracle of miracles--they liked it just the way it was. The only thing they wanted to change was the title. I had called the book EYES OF THE CAT, because I was still obsessing over the gothic angle. But my editor said it was too funny for a gothic and retitled it I DO.... There must be a moral in all that somewhere, but darned if I can figure it out.
Both, I think. My mother was a professional writer, which must have had an impact on me wanting to be one. I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write. I was keeping a journal and making up stories and poems before I even knew the alphabet. I just dictated everything to her. But it was more than a child’s desire to “copy what Mommy’s doing,” because at that age I didn’t have a clear idea of what exactly Mommy was doing when she sat there pounding away on the typewriter keys. I think I just inherited the “writing-gene” from her. And she was good enough to help nurture it as I grew.
It was pretty ridiculous, actually—a combination of luck, pluck, and this maddening tendency I have to bite off more than I can comfortably chew (gets me in all kinds of trouble). I was lucky in that my mother and older brother were already established writers when I was beginning. Back in the late 1970s, they were doing a variety of novels for a book contractor who was acquiring manuscripts for a paperback publisher (Manor Books) in New York.
I was 23 at the time and, aside from some newspaper articles, had never had a thing published before. In fact, I’d never written any fiction longer than a short story before. But I really wanted to write novels. So I swallowed my nerves, called said book contractor and somehow convinced him I was worth a try. I offered him my services as a romance writer. No good. He didn’t need any romances. He asked if I could do science fiction, instead. Not realizing what I was letting myself in for, I assured him that “science fiction” was practically my middle name (well, I had read a lot of it, after all). Now this is where the trouble started, because the guy called my bluff. He told me that he just happened to need a 50,000 word space-opera—the catch being that he needed it in two weeks. Two weeks???I was absolutely, positively, dead-sure certain that there was NO way I could pull that off. But, for some insane reason, I said yes, anyway. Then I planted myself in front of a typewriter and virtually took root. Two weeks later, like a winded relay-runner passing the baton, I handed him a 50K word manuscript. Whew. He accepted it and it was released by Manor that same year. All of which proves that miracles DO happen... if you’re willing to meet them halfway.
It depends on your definition of Romance. I could say “Tarzan of the Apes,” which I read when I was 11, and which could be argued to be a romance—even though Tarzan and Jane don’t get their HEA till the sequel (but they DO get it and their grand love continues thru all 30+ books of the series—and, yes, I’ve read them all).
Strictly speaking, however, in today’s Romance Genre, the first ones I read were the original Harlequin sweet romances (started reading them when I was 14 or 15), along with Barbara Cartland, and the old style gothics (by authors such as Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, etc.), and the old (basically comedy-of-manners style) regencies. From there I progressed to the longer, racier historicals. The first of those I read was the now famous (in romance circles, anyway) “The Flame & the Flower” by Kathleen Woodiwiss. And don’t anybody laugh. Many of the above mentioned types of books are considered silly by modern standards, but they all laid the groundwork for the romance genre as we know it today. They’re our roots, our literary history. I always recommend to aspiring romance writers that they read at least a few of those early books. You can learn a lot about the “spirit” of the genre from them. To effectively see where you’re going, you have to have some idea of where you’ve been.
The guarantee of a happy ending! I expect the characters to go thru hell (either internally, externally, or both), but I gotta see them triumph over the odds by the end. There’s too much tragedy in real life, I don’t need it in my fiction, too. As much as they’re about love, I think all good romances are also about heroism—the idea of laying your heart, body and soul on the line for what you believe in. To me, that’s what makes romance one of the greatest genres to both write and read.
With Presidents Day this month, February seems like the perfect time for a rousing round of “Oval Office Trivia”—a game I just invented for the occasion. Aren’t you glad? Never mind, don’t answer that. If you want to play, just read on and see if you can answer the following questions. If you don’t want to play, read on anyway, because I’m going to give you the answers and maybe you’ll have some fun. (smiles)
Many years ago in Philadelphia, I was a fulltime art-model. I posed at places like the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (where Thomas Eakins once scandalized the world by insisting his male models remove their jock-straps) and I posed privately for some of the best-known American Realists of this era. (It's an anonymous claim to fame -- there are paintings and sculptures of me scattered all over, but who the heck knows it's me?) All modesty aside (literally), I was ranked the best female figure and portrait model in the Philadelphia art community. This had nothing to do with looks, you understand. It just meant I was very, very good at holding still for long periods of time. Rob, on the other hand, was a music student who was posing part-time just for some extra cash. That placed him among the "amateur class" of models, whereas I was "pro." Whatever.
We met during a life-painting class at the Academy. These classes usually had two models set up in two different poses at opposite ends of the studio, and you did the same pose every day for two weeks. They had Rob standing, and me semi-reclining on crimson velvet draped over an antique chaise. He looked like Michelangelo's David in his pose, while I looked like something you'd see hanging over a bar in an 1890s saloon. And he spent every blasted day of that two-week pose STARING at me from across the studio! It REALLY got on my nerves. According to the rules of art-school modeling this was unprofessional and rude. I was very offended and barely civil to him. Also, I happened to be married at the time (but it wasn't pleasant, and that story I won't go into).
Anyway, my first husband and I left Philly shortly after that and I spent the next three years in Florida. Then I got smart, got divorced and returned to Philly and modeling. Everyone was happy to see me back -- especially Rob. He was still modeling part-time and we ran into each other again. He was interested. I was not. For weeks he followed me around like a puppy dog, badgering me for a date until I ran out of excuses and went out with him just to get him out of my hair. It didn't work. Nine months later we were married. The way he tells it, he fell in love with me during that first painting class we did, but knew I wasn't available and could do nothing but "admire from afar." Then I disappeared. He claims to have spent that three-year hiatus dreaming of me and sad because he figured he'd never see me again. Then suddenly I walked back into his life, and I was SINGLE. He says that at that point there was NO way I was getting away from him again.... He seems to have been right. We've been married for twenty years now, and I still can't get rid of him. (Grin)
We hear a lot of buzz these days about the libido-strengthening properties of herbs. Is any of it true? Quite possibly, yes.
Muira puama (traditionally known as “potency wood”), damiana, ginkgo, ginseng, maca, and yohimbe, to name several, have been used as aphrodisiacs for centuries in cultures around the world. And, while all the votes aren’t in yet, modern studies are beginning to indicate that some herbs may indeed be effective in boosting arousal or treating certain forms of sexual dysfunction. For instance, yohimbine (an extract from the bark of the West African yohimbe tree, which increases blood flow to the male organ) was approved by the FDA as a prescription treatment for erection problems even before Viagra was.
You don't need a prescription, however, for most natural aphrodisiacs. You don't even need a trip to the health-food store. As a matter of fact, four of the most time honored "love herbs" are probably sitting in your kitchen spice rack right now...
A weird tale from the annals of history, regarding a most interesting woman…
In the year 1488 a very strange little girl was born in a cottage by the Dropping Well at Knaresborough, in Yorkshire. She had a long, hooked nose and a turned-up chin, and her eyes were like the eyes of a wise old woman.
She was sent to school only once, it's said, and then showed the schoolmistress that there was no need to teach her the alphabet, for she at once read off, with the greatest of ease, the most learned books that could be found in the parish. But she didn't show her most interesting talents until she was married to Toby Shipton. Then one of her friends lost a new smock and petticoat, and came to her for help. "Go to the market cross next market day at noon," said Mother Shipton, "and you will see what you will see."
Her friend did so, and at noon a woman came to the market cross with the missing clothing and cried aloud: "I stole my neighbor's smock and coat; I am the thief, and here I show't." And, after making that confession in the sight of all the people, she gave back the things to their rightful owner.
Mother Shipton's fame soon spread throughout England. When she moved from Knaresborough to York, Cardinal Wolsey sent the Duke of Suffolk to ask her to prophesy about him. "The Cardinal will see York," Shipton obliged, "but he will never come to it."
"If he does come to York, he'll burn you for false prophesy!" declared the Duke (feeling rather prophetic, himself, apparently).
Unperturbed, Mother Shipton took her handkerchief and threw it into the fire, saying: "I will burn when that burns." And although the Duke stirred up the fire and thrust the cloth right into its center, the handkerchief refused to burn.
Not too long after, Cardinal Wolsey arrived in Cawwood and climbed a tower there to look at York, which was only eight miles away. And, of course, some eager-beaver flap-jaw informed him of Mother Shipton's prophesy. "I will go to York at once and burn her for a false witch!" he vowed, which must have given the Duke of Suffolk a very satisfying moment of vindication. Not so for the proud Cardinal, however. Just as he was setting forth for York, Wolsey was arrested on a charge of high treason by King Henry, and died as he was being taken to be tried in London. And Mother Shipton?... She lived to a ripe old age (with nary a scorch on her).
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