There is a lovely review of my upcoming Samhain novella, The Legend of the Werestag, posted on Smart Bitches Trashy Books this morning. It’s my first publicly posted review! Ever! And it’s entirely kind and mostly positive! Wow. I am honored and tickled and pretty much thrilled. All this before 8 AM.
Now that I have a review, I suddenly realize I should start saving them somehow. What do authors do with their reviews? Print out and save? Bookmark? Scrapbook it with pinking shears and the whole nine yards?
It’s crunch time. My deadline for The Desire of a Duke is Friday, and I’m on track to make it–which feels great.
Last week, a few friends joined me in twitter-based rehash of my “Save the Kitties” writeathon from last year to motivate me to push through to the end of the draft. The idea is to challenge yourself to write a certain amount over the course of a few days – if you meet the goal, you get to donate $ to a good cause (like Kitten Rescue, for me). If you fail, you have to donate that money to a cause with which you, ahem, strenuously disagree (not telling which). Add in public accountability, and I find this method extremely motivating for short bursts. I’m proud to say I powered through to finish my manuscript in the wee, wee hours last Wednesday. Now the book’s been out for some reads with CPs and friends, and the feedback coming back is frighteningly unanimous in pointing out the book’s major issue, so I have a very clear direction for revisions. All of that is good.
So once I turn in my book on Friday (and I will! I will!), I get to reward myself with a weekend CP retreat! My main goal for the weekend will be to read, relax, and start plotting my next book, tentatively titled The Passion of a Warrior. (Doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it? Again, I’m open to suggestions.)
A few weeks ago, my local RWA chapter invited screenwriter Blake Snyder to speak. He’s a very amusing guy, and his book, amusingly named Save the Cat! The Last Book You’l Ever Need on Screenwriting, contains a plotting structure based on the 15 “beats” of every good screenplay. I’ve heard it compared to The Hero’s Journey, but I personally found the “beats” a bit simpler to grasp and more intuitive. Alyson Noel, our chapter’s newest NYT Bestseller, swears by Blake’s method.
I am not usually one for plotting schemes (allergic to squares, remember?), but linear story progressions resonate with me. Plus, you know I’m all about the saving of kitties. I bought Blake’s book, and I’m going to take it with me on my retreat to share with my CPs and see if it can’t help me as I do my rough plotting of the next book. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Do you use Save the Cat!, “The Hero’s Journey”, or any similar method for plotting? Do you have title ideas that are better than The Passion of a Warrior? Ones with alliteration? The third book is supposed to be The Secrets of a Scoundrel, and it’s killing me that the middle one has no alliteration.
Hey, all – more excitement! I just got the slightly revised covers for my trilogy. As you can see, they decided to make the typography a little more modern and the colors a little more bold. I love the red for GODDESS. Lucy wears red almost all through that book, so it’s perfect!
The titles will be embossed in foil now, which is very exciting. Well, and most exciting parts (for me) are those quotes.
Does this mean the cover flats I’m giving away in my contest are now a collector’s item?
It’ll probably take me a few days to get the covers replaced all through the website. First priority is finishing the current book!
First, I extend the usual apologies for scattershot blogging. My deadline for the first Stud Club book is May 1st, and I need every (childfree) minute between now and then to finish and polish it up.
But I had to share this – my editor emailed me this morning to let me know that Goddess of the Hunt, Surrender of a Siren, and A Lady of Persuasion have all sold to the book clubs! They will be featured alternate selections in July/Aug/Sept respectively, in the Rhapsody, Doubleday, and Book of the Month Clubs! I am beyond excited. So far beyond excited, I can’t think of a word for it.
But wait, there’s more! You may remember that Courtney Milan and Ann Aguirre and Dear Author and I engaged in some werestag-themed April Foolery a few weeks back, regarding were-ruminant trademarks and the infringement thereof. Well, Ann was good enough to actually read my novella, The Legend of the Werestag (coming May 12th from Samhain!), and give this stunning quote:
“Tessa Dare writes with incandescent emotional ferocity, balancing story and character with knife-edged elegance. This is the best novella I have read all year.”
~Ann Aguirre, national bestselling author of Blue Diablo
I think there is more gorgeous writing in that quote than there is in my whole novella. I’m not sure that’s fair. But I’m beside myself with glee about it anyhow.
If you haven’t already bought Blue Diablo, what are you waiting for? I just started it last night, and not only am I wowed by Ann’s amazing sense of place and command of first person–the hardest voice to pull off, IMO–but Corine and Chance have me absolutely hooked.
BTW, I’ve just realized that Ann and I are co-authors. She wrote the brilliant concluding chapter to the Manuscript Mavens Halloween story a few years back… Ain’t that cool?
If you celebrated Easter or Passover, I hope it was great for you and yours!
The Dare family is currently chillin’ at a supremely air-conditioned resort condo in the desert, for our mini Spring Break. So far I’ve spent most of it working on copy edits of A LADY OF PERSUASION while Mr. Dare and the darelings hang out at the pool. But this morning we’re off to the desert zoo!
Today is the official release date of the Smart Bitches book, BEYOND HEAVING BOSOMS: A SMART BITCHES GUIDE TO ROMANCE NOVELS. Congratulations, Sarah and Candy! Between the release of their awesome book and the recent boost in romance novel sales, the genre is getting some – gasp! – relatively positive publicity! From such venerated sources as NPR and Nightline!
I never knew that this was what was missing from my life: Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd reading aloud from romance novels.
Enter my contest to win a copy of this movie, and other goodies!
The fastest way I can describe the plot of Goddess of the Hunt (the first half of it, anyway) is like so: Think My Best Friend’s Wedding, set in the Regency–except replace witty, charming, gay Rupert Everett with a brooding, intense, most definitely straight earl.
If you’ve never seen this movie (and you should!), Julia Roberts’ character, Julianne, learns that her best friend of several years, Michael (played by Dermott Mulroney) is getting married. Julianne is the low-maintenance, wisecracking, hang-with-the-guys type, and Michael’s new fiance is a young, gorgeous, nauseatingly perfect blonde (played by Cameron Diaz). And since Julianne’s been in love with Michael since…oh, forever…she decides to break up the wedding and get him back. Hijinks ensue. Oh man, do they ever ensue. To get her man, Julianne is willing to resort to tactics both ruthless and ridiculous, and her reluctant partner-in-crime, George (played by Rupert Everett), becomes more of a hindrance than a help, as he begins to play the voice of reason, insisting that Julianne wake up and realize it’s just not meant to be.
Aside from the setup, the daring heroine, and the elements of screwball comedy, Goddess shares another quality in common with this film: the “Other Woman” you want to hate…but just can’t. In Goddess, heroine Lucy’s rival is Sophia Hathaway–a young, gorgeous, nauseatingly perfect blonde. And despite all Lucy’s best attempts to despise her, she just can’t do it. In fact, true disaster strikes. They become friends.
The other reason I love this movie: Best scene ever!
Happy National Poetry Month!
(And thank you Janga, for the lovely reminder!)
In THE DESIRE OF A DUKE (you all convinced me not to mess with the title just yet), I’ve given my heroine a much-cherished family home on the banks of the River Wye, not far from Tintern Abbey. And I’ve been reading and re-reading Wordsworth’s famed description of the area for inspiration:
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
‘Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
Of course, Tintern Abbey itself never appears in the poem, but this 1794 watercolor by Turner captures the ruins as they might have looked to my heroine, in her youthful rambles.
One thing I love about writing romance set in the Regency period is that the period overlaps with the beginnings of true Romanticism, as an artistic, literary, and musical era. I don’t know that it’s especially historically probable, but I love imagining my characters to be influenced, subtly or overtly, by the capital-R Romantics of the day, Wordsworth and Turner among them. In the case of this book, my two main characters (though different in so many respects) share Wordsworth’s affinity for Nature, and in particular this setting. Though sadly, since I’m the one writing their dialog, they won’t express that affinity in such beautiful language.
I shall do my best. Or when in doubt, just quote:
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
To which my, ahem, zealous legal counsel replied here. And the debate continued here.
I would like to publicly state that I have immediately fired Courtney Milan from her (unpaid, unsolicited) position as my legal adviser, and I make my profound apologies to Ms. Ann Aguirre and her representatives at the Dear Author Literary Agencies. Ms. Milan’s conduct in this matter has been appalling. She has made false claims based on an unregistered trademark, and besides — as anyone who has read the blurb or excerpt of my novella (releasing May 12th from Samhain) would realize, there are no actual wereruminants appearing in the story. Any references to
“four-legged beasts having four-chambered stomachs, with or without prongs, capable of shifting into one or more forms upon application of sufficient quantities of moonlight.”
are strictly hypothetical, and roundly derided by several of the characters.
As readers of this blog will no doubt know, I am a librarian and an advocate of intellectual freedom and unrestricted access. Far be it from me to restrict the loving satire of shifter stories by monopolizing the use of wereruminants in fiction. Ms. Aguirre and her weredeer trilogy have my best wishes for success.
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Today is the official release date of the 
The fastest way I can describe the plot of 