LADY WICKED NOMINEE for BEST BOOK!

 LADY WICKED is The Romance Reviews nominee for Best Historical Romance of 2011! The competition is extreme, which makes it even more exciting!

But for an author, there is little that can top having one of her best loved, hardest fought stories be appreciated as a best book.

I'd love it if you'd click on the picture and give my beloved book a vite. And thanks many many times!

Who Am I? How Do I Know?

Last fall I signed up to participate in Ancestry.com's DNA project. I figured I would be in for a surprise or two. My family has not been very good at keeping a record of our history. As near as I can tell, I'm about as much a mongrel as a person can get (my kids, even more so). But the kind of surprises that showed up with the results I got last night really threw me for a loop.

WHAT DID IT SHOW:
64% Scandanavian (Norway, Sweden, Denmark)
15% Finnish/Volga/Ural (What looks to me to be a broad Russian Steppe area, following the extremely long Volga River)
14% Southern European (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Mediterranean)
7% Central European (France, Germany, Austria)

The surprise is the middle two. I knew of nothing in my family tree that could account for either of those. And at the same time, what happened to my 75% British heritage? No sign of it at all?

What I didn't understand is just what DNA tests could and couldn't do. For one thing, I'm female, which means I don't inherit the Y-DNA from my father. I do inherit mtDNA or mitochondrial DNA from my mother. If I want to know my patrilineal line, the best I could do would be to get one of my brothers to have the Y test run.

I didn't quite comprehend that the mtDNA doesn't mean lost genetic inheritance. It doesn't, in fact,have anything to do with all the non-sex-linked characteristics that have been passed down to me. It serves as a sort of genetic map that could be traced through my mother and her mother, and the entire matrilineal line back to one original woman who lived perhaps 200,000 years ago. Although my brothers received this same piece of DNA, they can't pass it on to their descendants. Likewise, since I do not have a Y chromosome, I didn't get a copy of the Y-DNA  at all, although I obviously did get lots of genetic material from my father.

So from each generation, only the mtDNA of one ancestor, through the females only, is passed down. Not father's mother. Only mother's mother. And this line shows essentially where the genetic mutations occurred over a very long period of time.

And as it happens, this maternal line is probably the least known of all my ancestry.
Nadele Mitchell (Jacobs); Nelda Norton (Mitchell); Pearl Hatton (Norton); Mary Matilda Stafford (Hatton); Nancy Garraway (Stafford); Elizabeth Moody (Garraway); Jane Grindstaff (Moody); possibly Mary Catherine Smith, or possibly Stonecypher (Grindstaff), born Rowan Co. N. Carolina, but nothing else on her parentage.

And there the trail ends, at 7 or 8 generations. I can see a path from the Carolinas to Georgia, which in that time did include Alabama and Mississippi. When territory opened up in Mississippi, and later Alabama, several branches of the family moved west. But there's nothing that shows me where this line of women originated before the Carolinas in the 18th century. Did Mary Catherine Smith's ancestry reach the Americas through the Spanish in Florida? Could they have been Viking descendants in Russia? And, most oddly for folk in the American South: Were they not English or Celtic/Anglo-Saxon at all?

A very strange and completely unexpected puzzle!

BIG NEW CONTRACT!

Great news! I've just signed a 3-book contract with Montlake Romances! First, they're picking up my new book, FAERIE, a medieval romance that is in the same line as my highly successful medieval, FIRE DANCE.  But they're also acquiring both FIRE DANCE and LOKI'S DAUGHTERS, which I've self-published after having their rights reverted to me. Those two will be re-packaged and released tentatively in August, and FAERIE is tentatively scheduled for September. Tight deadlines!

Montlake is new. And different. They're the new Romance publishing house set up by Amazon, and they're causing a bit of a stir. I've had my eye on them since I first heard about them. And like a lot of Amazon's new endeavors, at first I asked why in the world they'd want to go in that direction. My first big question is, why, at a time when traditional publishing is having such a hard time staying afloat, and ebooks have become so profitable and successful, would anyone consider starting up a new publishing house in the traditional vein?

But it doesn't really take much objective observation to reach the conclusion that the idea is well thought out and backed by lots of data. And some of the things I'm seeing are efficiency, data-driven decision-making, strong promotion, and strong author involvement with excellent backing. When I saw how they mean to do business, I quickly reached the conclusion that this is the way I think publishing should be.

So I'm posting the covers I've been using for these books, which I admit still don't quite satisfy me. I love Montlake's covers so far, so I'm dying to see what they will do. And, as much as I can without violating confidential agreements, I'll share this different path in publishing with you as I go along.

I never have been very good at treading the main path, have I? Well, maybe I could have been richer, but I've done all right. And I couldn't have been happier. I wouldn't have been happy at all, in fact, if I'd had to write the stories that didn't feel right to me. I'm happy reading other authors' stories, and yes, I do love the traditional types of romances. But they aren't the stories I need to be telling.

HEAVENLY HELL- Where All Serious Writers Go

Pearly Gates after Daily Polishing

Welcome to the New Year. Well, for you, maybe. I’m writing this several days before New Years’ Eve, knowing I'll have returned from a trip north to see family just in time to miss all the celebration. While the rest of you are out there whooping it up, I’ll be at home pounding the keyboard. But if you think I’m whining, you’re mistaken.

You can tell this is a serious writer
by his pride in the three words he got
onto the paper. Can't see them?
 Oh, he must have used White-Out.

I think the last time we ventured out on the wild year end spree was 1989 when we got as far as Plaid Pantry before the drunk drivers scared us off the road. Following the national tradition doesn’t appeal to me. It would mean actually dressing up and going out, and then eating too much and drinking things I don’t even want to remember in the morning. Not that I don’t like to dress up. I do it at least twice a year, and actually, I clean up pretty good. But there’s just nothing like hanging around the house in my faded muu muu, fuzzy comfy sox and new Christmas robe that so far doesn’t even have a bacon fat dribble on it while the guys are safely downstairs in front of the TV. I'll have a glass of wine, maybe, and some shrimp cocktail that still has frost lingering on the tails. I’m perfectly capable of getting fat without leaving the house.

The truth is, I’d just as soon stay home and write, curled up in said faded muu muu on my bed with my laptop, as do anything else in the world. I will spend the day working on the ending of my January release, BELOVED STRANGER, briefly hobbling on stiff legs down the stairs for supper, then return to my awkward Yoga-like position on my bed to work some more on it.  No doubt I'll find a rough spot on the last scene, but I'll simply do what always works: a whirlpool bath. Sure enough, in five minutes I'll have all the missing parts outlined in my little notepad, and I'll lean back to enjoy the soothing flow of the bubbly water. For maybe a minute.  I'll spend the last 25 minutes before the timer shuts off planning my next story. (No, I'm not providing any pictures of me in any of the above circumstances. Don't ask.)

Demon Deadline's Workplace

I know what you’re thinking. Couldn’t I just enjoy the whirlpool bath without turning it into some sort of workaholic marathon? Are you kidding? What kind of fun would that be? I’m a writer. I write.  People who don’t write, don’t.  And they don’t understand those who do.

Ever hear about the writer who died and walked up to the Pearly Gates, only to discover the Gates were temporarily closed for their daily polishing? While he waited around for things to open up, St. Peter offered the author a tour of Hell because, he said, authors get to choose whether they go to Heaven or Hell. 

Demon Deadline in action.

Down in Hell, all the writers were squatting before desks made from rocks, pounding on ancient typewriters, while behind them some joker whose name was Demon Deadline (I kid you not) cracked a whip and yelled, “Write, you fools! Write!” 

As soon as the gates were polished, St. Pete and the author returned to Heaven, and St Peter showed the author around the Heavenly Authors’ Chamber, located on a remote cloud, perched precariously at the very edge of Heaven. All the writers were sitting before rock desks pounding on ancient typewriters. And darned if that guy Deadline wasn’t right behind them, cracking his whip and yelling, “Write, you fools!  Write!” 

“I don’t get it,” said the author. “What’s the difference?” 

St. Peter beamed proudly and said, “Our Heavenly Authors get to be published in the Heavenly Times.”

Real authors understand that.  Of course any author who had a choice would clearly choose Heaven over Hell, but lacking that choice, he’d choose Hell over an ordinary life without writing. Writers know all about Hell anyway. Hell is a When as well as a Where. It'’s when you spent the entire night working out a fabulous scene in your mind until you know every single detail. Then you sit down at your computer the next day and discover you do indeed have every little detail in your mind. Everything, that is, except the words to describe it.

And Hell is when someone drags you off to a party to loosen up and have fun for a change, just when you’re champing at the bit to write that delicious love scene. (And yes, that’s champing at the bit, not chomping. All  Regency authors know horses do not chomp their bits because Regency authors love their research even as much as they do writing.)

Heaven is when your hero is Johnny Depp, Gerard Butler and Jimmy Thomas combined in just the right proportions, and you have no trouble at all picturing him or telling anyone all about him. Hell is when you’re a hundred pages into the book and still can’t get a mental picture of Hero, even though he ought to be the sexiest, most kissable guy you’ve ever written.

This ordinary world is very neatly divided into two kinds of people: Those who write, and those who know all writers are crazy. The second group would find no pleasure in running around all day in comfy sox and muu muus (or pajamas or sweats), but tying one on at a New Year’s party is something they find worthy of a year-long wait. They consider computers to be work tools and whirlpool baths a source for luxurious “aaaahhhhs”. Writers, on the other hand, derive incredible pleasure (or pain) from their computers. But whirlpool tubs, being the source of some of their greatest ideas, are clearly work tools.

So those of you who are not writers will not understand my New Years’ Eve wish. It is only for authors, who will have no trouble understanding. Here it is, my special wish for you, for now and all the years to come:

MAY YOU WRITE FOREVER.
And for the rest of you, who we love so much:
Buy our books! Live a Happily Ever After!

Love and hugs to all!

Delle

Glass Eye Studio Winner!

Running behind again--as you know I sometimes do--
The WINNER of the $35 gift Certificate to The Glass Eye Studio is Diana Duncan! Diana, I'm being demonic. I'm waiting for you to find it so I can hear you scream...

I'm still collecting entries for the final drawing on New Years Day for:
A gift certificate for the tooled Leather e-reader cover- or $87 toward any other item in the Oberon Designs catalog.
One $10 gift certificate each to three winners to the winners' choice of Amazon, Glass Eye or Oberon Designs.

There are so many choices at Glass Eye and Oberon Designs that I can't even decide which ones for myself, so I wouldn't want to pick for you. The e-reader covers come in sizes and shapes to fit all Kindles and Nooks, and might fit other readers too, but I'd be very careful about that if you're the winner. Check your measurements carefully and then contact them directly to be sure. If not, there are many other beautiful products available.

The usual things will get you extra chances in the drawing.
Buy a 99 cent book on Amazon- (particularly HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS since it is climbing the charts right now).
Or give a copy to a friend if you've already bought one.
Comment on Face Book.
Comment on my blog.
Reply on Twitter.
Share or re-tweet  promo posts.
Write your own promo posts for me.

Each one will get you one more chance at the final prizes. Go on- help my TOAD reach the Big Time!

WHERE DID THE STORY COME FROM?

NEW COVER DESIGN!

First, before we get to our topic for today, because this it the book that always makes me think of those lightbulb creative moments:

FREE on Kindle Dec. 23rd and 24th ONLY: HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS

Downlload this free book, or buy another, and get a new chance at my drawing for the hand-tooled leather e-reader cover or handblown glass ornament. Or comment on my blog, re-tweet my tweets, comment on Face Book. Each one gets you one more opportunity. Be sure and let me know, though, so I don't accidentally miss you!

Now on with the show:

I'm convinced everyone has story ideas. But maybe they don't recognize them. And of course, a story idea doesn't come with a complete story- most of the time, anyway. It's a germ of an idea. Something that is a little, or a lot, different from the everyday thoughts that run through our heads.

Most authors will tell you they don't get story ideas from their dreams. I do, but only occasionally. SIREN popped into my head in a dream, and it wasn't just a concept. It was probably the first half of the story. And while I do remember my dreams, usually I don't get more than fragments. FAERIE, which will come out sometime, I promise, was a fragment, with the heroine's inner conflict but not too much else.

LOKI'S DAUGHTERS came about on a dreary Sunday afternoon when my daughter, son, and I were sitting around the table, watching the kids play. My daughter and I complained that we'd never found any Viking romances that didn't have that supposed "romantic rape" scene. We detest those. So the three of us got spent the rest of the afternoon laughing and composing a Viking plot where the Vikings were the good guys. I think it was probably more romantic comedy at the time, and in fact it sounded almost like a stage musical.

LADY WICKED came from a young male social work colleague, sweet thought he was, who absolutely refused to believe that barely a hundred years ago, in some places such as England, wives were considered the husband's chattel, and could not even make a will without their husband's permission.

FIRE DANCE was probably mostly the result of years of working with abuse survivors and learning so much from them in terms of human triumph and survival. I had to write a heroine who represented the amazing courage I had seen so often.

But HIS MAJESTY, THE PRINCE OF TOADS probably had the most unusual beginning:

Back in the ancient past of my writing career, a good friend and Regency-writing colleague named Shirley Karr sent me a joke about a very modern princess and her encounter with an egotistical  amphibian. You've probably seen it. It made the rounds of all e-groups lists the way jokes fly around the world on YouTube and Face Book today. I thought it was funny, but I thought it needed a more historical feel, so I re-framed it in a historical setting and sent it back to her:

Once upon a time, a beautiful, intelligent princess lived in a lovely kingdom by the sea.  One day as she strolled in her garden alongside her favorite fountain, a frog leaped to the fountain wall beside her, startling her."Good morning," said the frog as he strutted along the wall (no mean feat, considering the shape of his legs). "I have come to rescue you."The princess studied the frog quizzically, for she had never seen a talking, strutting frog before, and certainly could not imagine why she might need rescuing."I am not a really frog, you see, but an enchanted prince.  One kiss from you and I shall return to my former glorious state, whereupon I shall save you from spinsterhood and carry you off to my castle where you can cook my meals, do my laundry, and bear me dozens of sons who will all be as handsome as I am."That evening the princess sat down to supper at her table, set with the finest china and Waterford crystal, and smiled as she speared her Frog Legs Forestiére with her golden fork.

Of course, no heroine of mine would ever fry and skewer a hero, not to mention a frog. But it could happen metaphorically.. And you can tell by the epithet given him, "His Majesty, the Prince of Toads", that he is in dire need of a real lesson in loving. And there's nothing like a good romance to give it to him. And so the process began of finding said hero, and then, just the right heroine to deliver such a come-uppance. And, as is usual for me, I had to pay attention, for Lucas and Sophie did not have an ordinary story. It was truly their story, not mine!

Writers, the next time you find yourself struggling for a new story concept, the place to look is your own experiences. You don't have to stick with the details you experienced. How could you go to the core concept and expand to make a unique story?

And readers, if you wanted to write a story, what event in your life might trigger a story with a new twist?

Seriously? PopEye Muscles?

You know I've taken an interest in the new Kindle Fire. Okay, okay, so I love it. But I recognize it's not the perfect device for everyone. I'm taking an interest, in fact, to the opposition as well. And you know there has to be some. Some people hate everything Amazon. Some hate everything not iPad or Apple. Heck, there are even some people still living who hate e-books and are still predicting their imminent demise. I heard one just the other day. A used book seller.

Anyway, I came across a Kindle Fire review the other day  http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/06tech/gaming-gadgets/kindle-fire-panned-nielsen/index.html?iref=allsearch .I would have just read and dismissed it but by the time I finished reading, I was shaking with laughter. Read this:

"The Fire is a heavy object. It's unpleasant to hold for extended periods of time. Unless you have forearm muscles like Popeye, you can't comfortably sit and read an engaging novel all evening." 

Popeye, huh? Seriously? All I have to do is read a few hours a day and I'll get muscles in my arms? My PT will love that. Okay, let's drag out the old postal scale and do comparisons. It's not all that accurate but it ought to be close enough. This isn't even government work.

Kindle 3Gen, bare                           9 oz.
Kindle 3Gen w/neoprene sleeve    14 oz.
Kindle 3Gen w/lighted leather case 19 oz.
Kindle Fire, bare                           15 oz
Kindle Fire w/padded nylon case   20 oz
Kindle Fire w/ hardshell case         19 oz.
Apple iPad, bare (info from Apple's tech specs)  1.33 pounds (21.3 oz)

[Addendum 12-12-11: Trade paperback book, 320 pages   15 oz.] 

So Fire is not quite double the weight of 3Gen. About what I'd guessed. But almost all users I know both read and carry their e-readers and tablets in some kind of case or sleeve. My Fire in a nylon case is 1 oz. heavier than my hubby's 3Gen in its fancy leather case. And it's lighter than the iPad, bare (duh! the iPad is bigger!) Now, this guy is trying to tell this asthmatic over-the-hill flabby-muscled gal that the Fire is too heavy for him? That's after I read three books in two days? C'mon! Where are the muscles you promised??? My PT wants muscles!

"The lack of physical buttons for turning the page also impedes on the reading experience for fiction. On the older Kindles, it's easy to keep a finger on the button when all you use it for is to turn the page. In contrast, tapping an area of the screen disrupts reading enjoyment, is slightly error-prone, and leaves smudges on the screen."

Lack of buttons?  Isn't that the point of touch screens? Honestly, I didn't think I'd like a touch screen, and fingerprints? Yuck. But I started getting finger cramp with the old 3Gen. And for me the light tap on the screen, or eve a dramatic, flashy swipe of the finger across the screen is just plain easier. Fingerprints? Not any worse than my laptop screen, and better than my phone.

"The Fire screen also has more glare than the traditional Kindle."

Glare? Sorry, guy. I'm the world's best arbiter of glary screens. If you had my eye problems, you'd understand- I'm missing major parts of my eyes. One of them is almost bionic. I've returned laptops to the store in less than a day because the glare bothered me so much. This is not a glary screen. Think it's too bright? Dim it. It's very adjustable. Even better, use the sepia screen color. It's not depressing like gray is. It's soothing.

So is Fire better or worse than 3Gen? Depends on what you want! Entirely! Want long battery life? Low contrast screen? super light weight? Get the new Kindle Touch. Don't like touch screen? Get the old style with keys. Want bright colors? Flipping through covers at a touch? Fire is better. Need a bigger screen, computer competence? That's where you get into iPad.

The big thing is, these guys are looking for iPads at Fire cost. No, guys. Not gonna happen! Fire is not an iPad. REPEAT AFTER ME: FIRE IS NOT AN iPAD. You want an iPad? Suck it up and plunk down the big bucks because there is no substitute. But if one just wants to read books, why would he buy an iPad? (For that matter, if one wants to write books on the fly, the iPad is probably also not the best choice. Even jazzed up with a keyboard. But that's not its central purpose.)

What they just can't get is that not everybody wants an iPad. Fire is built to be an e-book reader. It's for media consumption. Videos, magazines, music (needs decent headphones), etc. The 3.9 -4 million buyers in November and December are buying it for media consumption, not its computer abilities.

What most of us are buying when we choose a reading/playing device is access to content. I'm not particularly interested in the content and stuff that attracts many people to iPads. And iPad, while perfect for what some people want, is too big to make a good reader to me, but too small to be the computer I want. Or more accurately, not built to be the computer I want. I could write books on one, but I can write more and faster on my little 3 pound MSI Wind. I can do digital art with Photoshop on it. I probably could on iPad, but ya know, sometimes learning a different way can be a pain. What's interesting to me is that suddenly I'm finding a whole lot of people looking at things the way I do, and I thought I was in a really tiny minority. Who would've thought, five years ago, that instead of books vanishing because people had become so jaded with video, millions of readers would re-discover the unique experience of reading a book?

But even though Fire should not be put in the same class as iPad, it looks like it's created problems for Apple. Word is, Apple is going to lower the price of iPad2 because it's lost so much market share to Kindle Fire. In less than a month, Fire has grabbed 13.9% of the tablet market, when it really shouldn't even be in that category, quickly passing second-place Samsung Galaxy, which at its best had 6.9%.  http://www.isuppli.com/Display-Materials-and-Systems/News/Pages/Red-Hot-Kindle-Fire-Blazes-its-Way-to-Second-Place-in-Media-Tablet-Market.aspx?cnn=yes

As far as those Popeye muscles go, well, I carried a large messenger bag with both mini Wind and Kindle, plus all those carry-on things from Portland through San Francisco to Maui in October. Didn't think a thing about it. Muscles? Nope, after a whole week in Hawaii, no bigger muscles. I just squeezed my arms again, just in case. Don't think it's gonna happen.