After being cold and largely yucky up till now, the temperature has shot up to ultra-summer weather. I’m loving it, but feel a bit off-kilter as I scramble for the summer capris and sandals. It’s so sudden it’s kind of surreal.

Maybe the heat is helping me think, but an idea that’s been poking at the back of my mind for a while is starting to grow. It’s a mystery-thriller set in the same time period as my other books between the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

This story is interesting. I keep pushing it to the back burner because there are other commitments for which I have a contract, but it keeps sidling along the edge until it’s staring me nose-to-nose. It’s going to take a pile of research. I know enough history to cover most of the social settings I write and the highlights of the politics, but these characters and this situation are highly diverse. When you’re covering a real breadth of subject matter, it would be easy to get details wrong.

For instance, take Gabriel’s situation in Step into Darkness. It’s a small thing, mentioned in passing, but the Master is able to deport him under the Aliens Act (as in foreigner, not space man). It took me forever to find the right references to pin down what exactly that entailed and when it came into effect. Then, of course, I had to cut out most of the information on it to keep the page count down.

I never do things the easy way.

I had a theme day yesterday. Everyone had opinions on my work. In entirely unrelated communications:

1. My tutor emailed with my exam results. A very nice mark.
2. I had my performance review at my day job, which was fine.
3. My editor emailed with her first reactions on Le Book (also positive)

It was all good, but a rather full day. It’s weird that after working so hard all winter and spring the outcome would all roll in at once. As I said, it felt like report card day from grade school. Does this mean school’s out for the summer? I wish!

We went to Hatley Castle for Mother’s Day (www.hatleypark.ca/ ) and visited the paint-in craft fair event they had on. This is one of the old Edwardian properties in our area (built in 1908), complete with 565 acres of rambling gardens, water views, ghosts and high tea. It was a private residence for many years, built by a coal baron, then a military college, and now it’s a university. Since it’s not a museum, there’s less to see inside than one might want, but the plastering and panelling is still largely original. Apparently some of the X-Men films were done there. I’ll have to watch them again and see if I can spot the interiors.

The day was cold but sunny. I spent a fair amount at a couple of craft booths, doing some gift-buying for future birthdays and such. Crystal Cave jewellery was there and also a really cool tent with blown-glass doodads.

Altogether a pleasant day well spent. My Mother’s Day gift (see previous post) was a success.

I just managed to score some CD copies of old radio shows I remember my Mom talking about listening to when she was a kid. This is going to be her Mother's Day present (happily, she doesn't read my blog!).

Even though I'm a pack rat when it comes to books, I never really understood nostalgia until lately. By that, I mean collecting the things from days gone by that made you happy. Things are well, just things and I guess I always figured they'd be around when I wanted them. I have very few photographs and have gone for long periods without owning a camera.

Now, though, I'm finding myself suddenly pleased to spot record albums from when I was a teenager. I'm amused by old advertising and think fondly of how much better-made things were in the past. Even early music videos catch my attention. It feels a bit like seeing old friends--even something as interesting but strange as Thriller. I'm getting sentimental about reruns of classic TV.

I won't speculate on what this all means, but I'm kind of enjoying it.

I’m catching up on the newspapers and whatnot I threw into a pile during my studyfest and came across a fascinating article about one of my old profs from university.

I took my full-year Shakespeare requirement in third year from Dr. Michael Best and he set such a hard Christmas exam the entire class nearly flunked it. I recall sulking at home afterward and reading The Admirable Crichton in an effort to jolly myself out of a post-Andronicus funk. Despite that little debacle, I got a lot out of his classes. I loved the fact that he didn’t just talk about the plays but included information about theatre history. I related to the material a lot more once I learned how the plays were acted—ideas about acting have changed over time—who the actors were, how the plays were commissioned, who was in the audience, and how the theatre was set up originally and evolved over time. Even though I wasn’t writing about the Renaissance period, my characters, Hanson and Laura, actually owe quite a bit in spirit to what I learned there. I hauled out my old text more than once while writing Draw Down the Darkness. The biggest plus of all is that when I went looking for information about late Georgian theatre, I at least knew what kind of thing I was looking for.

Dr. Best was one of the first academics I remember who saw the potential of the web. The article I found was referring to his current internet project, which makes many of the rare old editions available on-line for whoever needs them—scholars, historians, actors and authors who might be looking for that “aha” detail to bring a milieu to life. I remember he also was involved with a project that compiled all the known music written to accompany Shakespeare plays, from the original productions onward.

All that, and a lot more, is available at: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/index.html

I see there’s links to a lot of the “life and times” stuff I enjoyed so much way back when. I feel a research session coming on.

I wrote my cost accounting exam Saturday morning. It was three hours long, and it took the whole time to finish it. It was challenging, but I think my GPA will survive okay.

Not so sure about the brain, though. I think if someone hooked me up to one of those ER machines, there would be doubt as to cerebral viability. I feel physically exhausted, but I think it's just the sudden lack of tension. A couple more nights of drooling in front of the box are in order, punctuated by loads of laundry and pots of tea.

I should recover just in time for the next due date, which will perhaps be book proposals ...

Writing sex scenes is not easy. Writing about writing about sex scenes isn't easy, either, but this came up in my mind as I finished reading Christine Feehan's DARK GOLD, which had been hanging around in my TBR pile for some time.

I gotta say, the lady knows how to create non-stop sexual tension even if the characters don't actually fall into bed until well into the book. Creating that longing is quite a feat to pull off without sounding repetitive or corny.

When I write, I have a tendency to skip forward to the action scenes since that's what I like writing best. Yeah, I'm a blood and gore and sword fight girl. I usually have to go back and make a conscious choice to put in the softer stuff. Actually, I need to correct that. I USED to have to go back. It's getting more natural for me.

What changed? My grasp of characterization improved. If character A is genuinely attracted to character B and vice versa, it's going to seem natural for them to try and connect. They will do the dreaming about whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles all on their own. The author just has to write it down as it dances through their heads. Action scenes or not, the hero will think about sex. He's a guy, after all.

The urge to bond has to be in the characters from the start, first and foremost and even more than the urge to rob the bank/fricassee the villain/save the planet from the death ray, even if the protagonist is the lone gunperson type. It's simple, but it took me a while to figure this out because I'm a plot-focussed author.

The straight goods: If the need for another is not there, it can't be taped on afterward without a struggle more ferocious than getting a cat into a harness. I guess that's the secret to good romance writing—it has to be that way from the germ of the idea. The characters have to want to get together on their own so that the author has to do a minimum of work. Otherwise, all that steamy tension is going to end up being the kind of scene one skips over to get back to the story. It's boring and awkward because it's false.

Readers can tell the difference, and that's the real litmus test.

I have a new word: abulia. It means an inability to make decisions. I think I suffer from it a lot. Maybe.

Anyway, I HAVE decided on writing-related travel plans, which are as written in stone as these things can be. I'm still mourning the Cornwall trip that never came to be.

And then there was the ballooning scheme, but the balloon blew up. Nobody trusts me after that invitation. "Come on a trip," I say. "What, you trying to kill me again?" they answer. Paranoid, much?

Anyway, for the first time ever, I'm attending the RWA National! Put me down for San Francisco. I've never been there, and it's one of the cities I've always wanted to see. Now that there's a direct flight from my home town, there is really no excuse not to go.

I will be signing wherever they'll have me and trying to see as much as possible. I don't do crowds well, so if I'm blundering around looking shell-shocked, don't hesitate to approach me. I'll be grateful for a one-on-one conversation rather than negotiating a faceless mob.

I will also be going to the 2008 World Fantasy Con in Calgary at the end of October. I knew there was a reason I just bought a new winter coat! And get this--I realized I used to live relatively close to Calgary for years and years but only went there once when I was about seven. The trip seems long overdue and I can't NOT go to an event so nearby that boasts both George RR Martin and Barbara Hambly. Anyway—it will be interesting since the theme I believe is mystery/fantasy crossover.

That's as far as I can plan at the moment, though there are still rumblings of some more local explorations in search of real-life cowboys and maybe even cows and stuff before they get paved over by a sub-division. But not by balloon.

One of the topics that has landed in my in-box a few times lately is people wanting to know all about Sir Alaric. A few have even suggested writing an entire book about his youth.

Neat idea. I'm not sure he's game for that yet, but I'll work on him. He's not big on sharing. He tends to give information as and when I need to know it, unlike more helpful characters who bring their back story ready for review.


I know, I'm the author and supposed to be in control. Yeah, right. The truth is that it works out better if I let the characters come to me and save the pointed questions for later. Otherwise, the story always sounds forced. That doesn't mean we don't occasionally have struggles--Gabriel is one naughty, naughty boy. He tried to keep all his secrets and just joke his way through his book.

I'm always happy to hear about which characters readers are curious about. Theft of Shadows happened in part because of all the emails I got wondering about Gabriel!

Rant warning! Caution! Irate content!

Yes, we Canadians bleat about national identity, but we actually have created one over the decades. I'm not going down the garden path of trying to define What is Canadian because half of our charm is in the elusiveness of that answer. In our earnest, polite and often tongue-in-cheek way, we are what we choose to be, contradictions and all. That's kinda the point.

What I can say with confidence is that, in a vast land with enormous geographical challenges and a small, go-your-own-way population, CBC radio has been an important receptacle and glue. We are a nation in part because the CBC airwaves kept us in touch with one another sea to sea.

For those of you not from the great white north, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation includes our national public radio service. Bit by bit, our venerable CBC radio is being dismantled, as promised by the Ringwraiths in power.

At the moment, it's radio 2 that's under the knife. Besides CBC records and the 70-years proud CBC Radio Orchestra, most of the classical music programming is being cut and replaced by popular works of all sorts mish-mashed into a kind of variegated pabulum.

Like I can't get pop and rock on a thousand other stations. Like anyone's going to leave their favorite pop station, abandon their iPod, and go listen to the CBC's version of the same thing. Not that the CBC would automatically produce a bad program of this type, but where's the need? Why leave a steady, appreciative niche to enter a market that is already flooded?

The objection to the programming change isn't about change itself. It's about ill-conceived, stupid change that's going to sink our national broadcaster like an anvil.

I don't believe these cuts are economic necessity at work, but rather governmental prioritization. They have lots of money for other stuff. My question is this: who is benefiting from this disembowelment of Canadian excellence? Not the Canadian people.

The Victoria rally protesting all this was attended by a large, diverse group. About 25 folks came in from Saltspring Island alone. I didn't try and count heads, but I saw some faces I recognized. A lot of people spoke – listeners, performers, composers, educators, and students. The most heartbreaking were the students, because—performers or composers—now they have no future in their own country. Just stamp "for export only" on our young talent.

Significantly, it was a student that organized the rally. It was a teenaged opera singer in full concert regalia that led a heartfelt round of the national anthem. It was the Facebook generation who came in force. Yeah, there were lots of grey heads, but they had plenty of pierced and funky company (and sometimes the pierced and funky were also grey-headed). So much for it being just old people's programming that's being lost. As one girl said, it's insulting to believe people's tastes run to just one to one kind of music, whatever their age. Let there be variety!

The consequences of the cuts go beyond what we will hear on the radio. With no sponsorship or broadcast opportunities, big name talent will be more reluctant to come to Canada. Local orchestras will carry on, but without recording and re-broadcasting performances, who will hear them outside their own cities? Very few, given the cost of travel these days. You just can't put an orchestra on the road like you used to, especially in a country defined by its vast empty spaces.

This is all so wrong it makes me heartsick. It's cultural thuggery.

Not much to report today, except that I just finished Assignment 9 of 10 of the Management Accounting course I'm taking. I was interrupted by finishing Le Book, and it was a little too close to the end of the course for it to look like anything but cold leftovers when I came back to finish. I SOOOOO didn't want to get my head back into it, but there's an exam in early May that required not only my head but every available body part to cram this crud into my noggin. The sad part is, it's all based on a manufacturing model. I work in the public service. We manufacture all kinds of non-tangibles (insert smarmy/rude list here), but very few widgits. It's all quite useless information to me. However, a credit is a credit when it comes to higher education, and I theoretically need this one.

Ah well, one more fascinating unit to go, and then the study-a-thon.

I was recently asked, "How do I write a proper book review?"

Honest Answer: I don't care as long as you give me a good one.

Less flippantly, I've read and written lots of reviews, both in an academic and weekly arts mag kinda way. People have even paid me to do it, but trust me, it's not rocket science. However, good reviewers that take the time to do a proper job are worth their weight in Godiva chocolate, especially when you're on the receiving end of their attentions.

All that being said, this is the wisdom that was gently whispered (okay, bashed) into my head by a succession of very talented periodical editors. ( FWIW, this is what I learned about reviewing )

I hope what I've put here is helpful, answers questions, and encourages more people to think about doing reviews. It's a valuable part of the writing community because it stimulates discussion. It's also an important way for authors to get the word out about their books.

Mostly, I think it's important to have fun with reviewing. I've done it for drama, music, and books in our local mag for about ten years. As an author, I certainly appreciate the folks who have been kind to me and my characters over the years.

I took the weekend off. Sort of.

After finishing Le Book, it took a couple of days to identify all the things that had slipped from view during the chaos--like the management accounting course which has an exam the weekend of May 3 and which is far from finished. Oops.

I took the weekend off anyway. Visited with people. Did laundry. Identified the monster in the vegetable crisper. Basically got reaquainted with the daily life part of life.

One thing really hit home. It felt wonderful to get out in the fresh air and doing physical things, like walking by the sea and getting back to fitness classes. Writing is sedentary. If, like me, one has a sedentary job and sedentary schoolwork too, it's easy to just never move around that much. Not good. Zaps energy. Eventually my joints start to ache.

My new resolution is to be sure to take at least an hour a day to recharge the energy batteries--walk, do aerobics, something like that.

Finished my book a well after midnight Monday and sent it off. The lack of sleep didn’t bug me until mid-afternoon, and then I crashed. Unfortunately, my employer frowns on curling up on the conference table with a blankie.

It’s a drama queen moment. I’ve spent so much time with my characters, they’re like family. I’ve gone through everything they’ve gone through (several times) and finally have to let them go.

The book didn’t really flourish until January. This is March 31. Overall, a very quick writing job once the coast was clear. The result? Definitely the sexiest hero I’ve written. Definitely the most magic. Other than that, I’m too close to be objective right now. By the time it comes back for edits, I’ll have some perspective.

I spent the whole long weekend working on revisions except for Friday night, when I got to go out for dinner. Great dinner. Watched the DVD of Enchanted, which was not nearly as silly as I anticipated. It struck a good balance between sweet and self-mocking. I appreciated that, especially after a hard day of murdering my own prose.

This week will be many more hours of revising.

On an upbeat note, there’s a German edition of Step into Darkness with a gorgeous cover! I love it to bits. The German title is The Magic Ring.

The reviewer, bless her, gave it five Coras (I think that’s what they call it. I don’t read German so I’m a little vague on exactly what their rating system is called). I ran the review through Babelfish and had a good chuckle. Computer translations just don’t work that well, but I got the idea.

I've been very quiet on the journal, but that's because I used up all my words. By the time I finished my writing sessions, I've been all but brain-dead.

I've been doing twenty-page days for the last while to finish the book. I typed "the end" on Sunday, went to my critique group on Monday, talked about the book with inlandsea last night because she's read a couple versions of this work and knows it almost as well as I do, and tonight I ignored the wretched thing and did essential life stuff like buy groceries and pay bills. I'm hoping a bit of a rest will give me fresh eyes. Starting tomorrow night it's revise like mad for the next week.

The end needs some work, but that's no big surprise since it's just a first draft. I know what I need to do and my desk is covered with notes for what to trim and what to bulk up. It's a big ending with a lot to stage manage, so it'll take a couple passes to get it perfect.

It's also fiscal year end at work, so I'm really busy there, too. However, it's nice to be able to go do something completely different. Having a numbers job and a word-based creative life actually works out pretty well.

I'm in the exploding-head place. I've written four chapters, more or less, in four days. My normal rate is a chapter every two or three days, but I'm galloping to the finish line. Too much concentration, too many vampires, too much angst, too many sex scenes. Hey, try writing them. It's not as easy as it sounds. (Put part A into slot B, repeat as necessary, but in 1,000 words of original, fresh, sparkling prose)

However, I got a lot done.

I'm standing at the threshold of the ending sequence, where the house of cards is about to fall, the worthy are saved, the villains are toast etc. This time next week, I should have typed "the end." Then I can start chopping the whole monster down to size.

One character is about to lose it all over another. Hee.

Anyway, I think I'm going to watch Dexter now, which I understand is all about a serial killer. I'm in the mood for that.

Well, I finished reading my six assigned Golden Heart contest entries. I know the dedication it takes to pull one of these puppies together, so believe me when I say I read them with respect. Each one represents a lot of hours of hard work. I read all the pages of every entry.

I’m not a judge who loses sleep over the odd typo. I’m not marking anyone down for an “oops”. Bad things happen to good manuscripts. I only mark down for many “oopses”, which means you didn’t proofread. That’s just bad form.

What do I mark for? Entertain me. Make me forget I’m judging. Hot or sweet doesn’t matter. Conflict and character matter, the beauty of the language, the unique and intriguing world you present. Make me curse when I get to the last page and there’s no more story, and I am forced to leave the spell you've woven around me.

There were two entries where I riffled through to make sure there wasn’t another delicious page to savour. I really hope somebody publishes those books so I can find out what happens! Whoever you are, contestants, good luck! I’ll be watching for your books!

This flu has made for an odd week. Stayed home Tues and Thursday, had to go in Wednesday to do some work stuff that couldn’t wait. I went into work this morning as I am feeling a little better. Figured half a day would at least help keep the mail/email onslaught down to a dull roar. Afternoon devoted to boring grownup stuff like banking. I never appreciated being a kid.

So much for the work week. The most entertaining news item was the spy satellite the US blew up before it had a chance to crash. A couple of things always interest me about these space junk stories. When they’re deploying these things, don’t they have a retrieval plan, or do they think the aliens are just going to tow old space items to some intergalactic impound yard? What do they think is going to happen to these gizmos when they wear out? Newton had some theory about things falling. Maybe they should check it out.

I recall Skylab anxiety when I was quite young—I can’t remember where exactly that finally went down (Russia?) but at the time some thought it might crash in the general area north of where I was living. It was the first really major “omigosh a space ship is going to fall on our heads” scare and folks really were twitchy. There were T-shirts to prove it.

Now this spy satellite threatened to fall on British Columbia. Apparently some folks thought the military really didn’t need to blow it up. Well, speaking as someone in BC, I’m happy they did. I like my roof where it is.

On the plus side, it’s gorgeous outside, bright and sunny and pure. On the minus side, I feel gross. I caught this flu everyone has and right now the world looks slightly skewed and too brilliant. But hey, I feel lofty and giddy and silly, and that isn’t all bad.

Time for a book report. I’ve decided to jump around a bit. Part of the reason for this is I need to sketch in the ending to see how long it takes to wrap up. Then I can figure out how to structure the chapters between here and there. I’ll have to go back afterward and colour it in, but I think I’m in danger of running over in length. Basically, I’m deciding where I want to spend my time, and the ending sequence is important and should be a lot of fun to write.

I’ve heard one of the solutions for the sagging middle is to leave the middle out. I wouldn’t say that was strictly true, but I do think careful routing is in order. I think a lot of dull middles happen because the characters run out of steam and thrash around for a while trying to find out where they’re supposed to go next i.e. shortage of plot. My goal is to make sure every chapter reveals something new.