Can spring be far behind?

Spring has Sprung
The Grass is riz
I wonder where them birdies is?

Well, there's no grass yet -- can't see it underneath about ten inches of snow in my backyard, but there are birdies! I heard the haunting call of a mourning dove a few moments ago. They only call in spring and summer, never winter though they stay year 'round. Which means them birdies are horny! Spring is on its way! Yay!

Exciting News, and a Meme

I'm going to Dallas in July for the RWA Annual Conference! Squeeee! I have no idea how it happened, I was exchanging emails with a couple of writing buddies I have in the Dallas area and all of a sudden, we were making plans to attend together. Terri and Becky have offered to pick me up from the airport, and Terri has generously offered to put us both up at her home just 25 minutes from the Marriott where the convention is being held. (That's why I'm going for my passport) But Holy Moly, it's frightening too, the idea of actually jumping into the deep end with the big kids.

And now for the meme I totally stole from Amy Ruttan's blog:


1. HEIGHT: 5'7 1/2 - I used to be 5'8" but I'm shrinking in my old age.

2. HAVE YOU EVER SMOKED HEROIN?: Nope, never done any drugs, had enough trouble getting free of my parents to want to be stupid enough to get trapped by a chemical dependency

3. DO YOU OWN A GUN?: I'm Canadian - no gun, though I have shot a bb gun, and wouldn't mind trying my hand at target shooting.

4. WHO WOULD YOU LET EAT CRACKERS IN YOUR BED?: Hmm, I like the version of whose boots I'd like stashed under the bed ... crackers are messy. But I guess if ... Hugh Jackman were to show up with a box of crackers I wouldn't kick him out.

5. DO YOU GET NERVOUS BEFORE DR. APPOINTMENTS?: Not usually, unless it's a pap. Yuck. And I look forward to my acupuncture that my chiropractor does -- the benefits are so worth it, plus it doesn't hurt at all.

6. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HOT DOGS: As little as possible.

7. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE CHRISTMAS SONG?: Loreena McKennitt's Let All that are to Mirth Inclined, to listen to. Silent Night to sing. Especially in German.

8. WHAT DO YOU PREFER TO DRINK IN THE MORNING?: English Breakfast Tea.

9. IS YOUR BATHROOM CLEAN?: um, sure, like I'm going to admit anything else. But considering I'm the only female in a houseful of guys, what do you think?

10. CAN YOU DO PUSH UPS?: While I used to have a green belt and LOVED doing push ups and sit ups, I can probably only do a push up - singular - now.

11. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF JEWELRY?: My engagement ring/ wedding ring combo - I had to get them welded together because they wore so thin and broke a few years ago.

12. DO YOU LIKE PAINKILLERS?: If I'm in pain, then yes. D'uh!

13. WHAT IS YOUR SECRET WEAPON TO LURE IN THE OPPOSITE SEX?: Been married 28 years. Don't need a secret weapon anymore. I just have to roll over to hubby and say 'hey, you awake?' *snort* I guess I shouldn't admit that when I write romances.

14. DO YOU HAVE A.D.D.?: No but my hubby and youngest son do. I think it's catching. I can't concentrate the way I used to.

15. WHAT'S YOUR NAME?: Here? It's Leah. Elsewhere it's different.

16. MIDDLE NAME?: Haven't thought up one yet ... but in real life it's Diana

17. NAME 3 THOUGHTS AT THIS EXACT MOMENT: I'm tired. Should I be going to Dallas - it's an awful lot of money? I wish I could sing like Loreena McKennitt.

18. NAME THE LAST 3 THINGS YOU BOUGHT: An Xbox 360 for my two sons' birthdays (they're sharing it), feminine hygiene products (well, you asked!), a chocolate cake for my eldest son's birthday on Sunday.

19. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE VISUAL ARTIST?: Holbein

20. YOU'RE STUCK ON A DESERTED ISLAND WITH TWO OTHER PEOPLE, WHO WOULD YOU WANT TO BE STRANDED WITH? : The Professor and Mary Anne. Definitely not Ginger or Gilligan.

21. YOU'VE WON A MAJOR AWARD AND HAVE THANKED YOUR FAMILY, WHO ELSE WOULD YOU THANK? : Becky H. for encouraging me to write and sticking with me even when I was at my worst.

22. CURRENT WORRY?: Money and the leak in our roof. (I had to borrow that from Amy, but if you've read my blog, you know the leak is still a concern.)

23. CURRENT HATE?: Generalizations. Money grubbing paper-work-causing government employees -- all except my hubby who is a government employee. Him I love.

24. FAVORITE PLACE TO BE?: England in the summer, snorkelling in the Virgin Islands in the winter.

25. HOW DID YOU RING IN THE NEW YEAR?: Reading an ebook on the computer -- hubby went to sleep at about 10.

26. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO?: England, England, and um, England.

27. DO YOU OWN SLIPPERS?: Yes -- sheepskin and lined. If it's 68F in the living room it's 62 in my office and too frickin' cold to be in anything less.

28. WHAT SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?: A brown striped sweater my hubby bought me for Christmas.

29. DO YOU BURN OR TAN?: Burn first, tan later. Except in the Virgin Islands, then I burn to a crisp. Ask me about April 2004. OUCH!

30. FAVORITE COLORS?: Hunter Green and deep blue.

31. WOULD YOU BE A PIRATE?: Depends if you're talking about a real life pirate, or the romantical versions we read about. But I probably wouldn't be. I'm too honest for my own good.

32. ARE YOU GAY?: No, just happy.

33. WHAT SONGS DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER?: I don't sing in the shower. Pity the fool who would have to listen to me if I did. And yet I used to be in a choir. Did I mention I'm tone deaf? The choir were probably happy to see the last of me.

34. WHAT DID YOU FEAR WAS GOING TO GET YOU AT NIGHT AS A CHILD?
Fire - I trained myself to sleep on my back because I was afraid if I slept on my side, the other side of the room I couldn't see would catch on fire.

35. WHAT'S IN YOUR POCKETS RIGHT NOW?: Lint.

36. WHERE ARE YOU?: Sitting at my computer, where do you think?

37. BEST BED SHEETS AS A CHILD?: They were white cotton that my father brought back from India from one of his many trips to the far east. My mother is still using them 50 years later, they're such good quality.

38. WORST INJURY YOU'VE EVER HAD?: Stepped on a cocktail toothpick and it broke off inside my foot -- had to have surgery to remove it. I still remember swearing volubly at the surgeon who cut into my foot before the freezing took effect.

39. YOU'RE ON A TRIP AROUND THE WORLD AND HAVE TO SELECT FIVE LANDMARKS TO VISIT WHAT WOULD YOU PICK?: Windsor Castle (again), the walls around York (again) especially Bootham Gate, Stone Henge, Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile, the Vatican.

40. HOW MANY TV's DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR HOME?: Two

41. WHO IS YOUR LOUDEST FRIEND?: Glady

42. WHO IS YOUR QUIETEST FRIEND?: Sherry

43. DOES SOMEONE HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU?: My husband

44. DO YOU WISH ON SHOOTING STARS?: Always - I'm very superstitious

45. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?: Lord of the Rings

46. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CANDY?: Toblerone

47. WHAT SONG DO/DID YOU WANT PLAYED AT YOUR WEDDING?: We didn't have a dance at the wedding - had a small afternoon wedding and took off leaving the family to have a party at my parents' home.

48. WHAT SONG DO YOU WANT PLAYED AT YOUR FUNERAL?: Hmm .. Goin' Home by Dvorak - the choral version, not just the orchestral edition.

49. WHAT WERE YOU DOING AT 12 AM LAST NIGHT? Reading.

50. WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING YOU THOUGHT OF WHEN YOU WOKE UP? I'm not ready to get up yet!

Perpetuating Stereotypes

ARRRGH!

I just read a post on one of my groups that made my teeth grind.

The post? Most abused kids grow up to be abusive parents. GRRRR. Talk about making my blood pressure soar!

I grew up in an abusive home, as did my husband. Neither of us abuse our kids. EVER.

Did we have an epiphany that led us to this, as the poster stated the character would need to not continue the cycle? No.

I just hated how my father felt it his right to beat the cr*p out of my sister and me simply because 'I was his property and his to do as he liked to.' (yes, my mother's exact words, when I asked why she let him continue to beat us) I vowed when I was little that I'd never make my kids feel as ugly and stupid and unwanted as he made me feel (and told me often enough). My husband felt the same - no big earth-shaking event, no special aunt or uncle who set a better example than his parents. Just plain determination.

So when we married, when we discussed the idea of having children, we both vowed that we would never stand for the other partner ever hurting our kids, physically or psychologically. And we haven't.

Are we the exception to the rule? No. I have friends who suffered other much more horrible treatment at the hands of their parents and foster parents and they never abuse their kids either - if anything we're more fierce in our protection of them.

Yes, you can point me to all sorts of studies -- but read them carefully, they say 1 or 3 in ten might follow their parents' example, not the majority of abused kids stated in that frickin' generalization in the post. Most of us live quietly trying to give our kids a better life than we had -- it is extremely important to us to do that.

So stop lumping ALL victims into that pathetic group; stop perpetuating the myth that abusive kids grow up to become abusers, please!

The End of a strange week

Monday and Tuesday I had Curly home with the flu. Thursday and Friday, I had my hubby home with the flu. I had my eldest son home every single day as usual.

Not good conditions for writing when people keep sticking their head in your office and asking 'Can I ask you a question?'

Uh, you just did?

Well, at least that's the excuse I'm using. And I'm gonna stick to it.

Sunday I realized I needed to tighten my story and change the motivation of my hero/heroine. It's not a major change, but it changes enough of every scene that it is quite an undertaking. I know people will say, I should have just kept moving forward with the new direction in mind, and saved the editing for later. And I will. Monday.

I gave myself this week to try to see if I could whip it into shape. I'm about halfway done. But I kept using other people as an excuse as an interruption. And hubby, being his usually helpful self (and don't get me wrong, I appreciate it) would tap me on the shoulder to get my attention to offer me a new game for me, or new music he'd ripped from the CD's he'd bought me at Christmas. And then I'd sit and play them and get hooked into them. Like Jewel Quest. D*ng it, I stayed up until 3 a.m. one morning playing it. And I can't blame that on anyone else!

Today's writing? Well, I wrote three '13 Thursday' lists after reading several of Amy's blogs on that topic, and then reading other people's and getting inspired. I guess that's writing.

And for some reason the fantasy romance that I worked on for years has been bubbling back to the surface. After I'm done with Nathaniel and Amelia, I'm dredging up that old story I wrote under FastDraft and merge it with my original story and polish it into shape. Again. Or maybe I can turn it into a straight medieval rather than a fantasy the way it is now. I don't care that Medievals are not 'hot' right now. I love that story and I want it to live again. (Oh, and the hunk to the right? Hugh Jackman ... my idea of my look-alike brothers.)

Bye-Bye, Baby

I love writing. I love watching my characters develop until they become so real to me, I almost expect them to walk in the door and say 'Hi!' I love writing a scene and sitting back later, astounded, saying 'where the heck did that come from?' Because something, some strange twist, just flowed out of your fingers and you have no idea what inspired it because it had never even occurred to you before.

But there is one major downside to writing a scene that you really love, that you nurture and tweak and chuckle over. Occasionally you realize -- either a few days or a few months later -- that it has to be cut out. It's an almost visceral pain, like losing a favourite pet.

In revising my draft, I had to do that today. One of my favourite scenes - of Nathaniel waking up to discover the roof leaking right over his bed -- has to go. (This is the scene that I refer to in an earlier blog when the day after I wrote it, my own real-life house's roof sprung a leak, though in the kitchen not the bedroom.) But the scene has to go because I have to be honest - it doesn't fit in the story anymore.

But I'll not 'delete' the scene, I always copy anything I cut into what I call my 'snippet' file. Who knows when I can reuse the scene/idea. But in the meantime ... bye-bye to the 'plink plink' scene.

Who are you?

Ooh Ooh OOh Ooh (with apologies to the Who)

I am Canadian! Aren't I?

I'm the only one in my family who was born in Canada. My parents and sister immigrated here in 1957 several (I'm not saying how many) years before I was born. So I've always thought I was a Canadian. But recently Canadian laws changed regarding who is, and who is not a Canadian citizen.

According to an article from the Canadian Press:

Because those older laws have remained in effect for anyone born before 1977, people could unwittingly have lost their Canadian citizenship for a multitude of reasons.

For example, under the 1947 Citizenship Act children born in Canada were considered the property of their father and could automatically lose their status if he did. This applied even in cases where the father left the country for work-related reasons, took up another country's citizenship, and sent his paycheques to the family back in Canada.

The article goes on to cite a case where a man (a 7th generation Canadian) was born in Vancouver, but moved to the States with his family when he was a child. He has a Canadian birth certificate, so he's always considered himself Canadian. But he's been denied a passport on the grounds that he is 'no longer' a citizen based on the new law and is now battling the Immigration department to get it back. Statistics Canada is estimating there may be upwards of 50,000 people who are no longer citizens who may not realize they've been 'disowned.'

So since my father wasn't a Canadian citizen until well after I married (the rest of the family took their citizenship in the 80's I believe it was, in order to maintain the right to vote), does this mean I am now the only member of my family who is NOT a Canadian?

Akkk! and Weird coincidences

An explanation as to why my wordcount went DOWN instead of up.

I was loading the dishwasher this morning, pondering just why my heroine was where she was -- I mean what made her not only come to the hero's estate, but also why would she stay. And it hit me. An epiphany. How obvious, I tell myself, of course that's why she'd be there!

I hurried off to the computer and scrolled back to the start of the ms and realized the scene where I'd introduced the heroine really was just backstory, superfluous. So it got cut!

But instead of forwarding my story and adding words, I'm down to 60,600 words from over 63,000. OK, I tell myself, you lost a few words, but it's a tighter story now.

Just add the change to the next part or at least see when the explanation as to why she's there is needed, I say. So I scroll through the second chapter and realize, OMG! the scene that I thought I'd written from the heroine's POV was omniscient. How the heck did that happen? I'm headhopping all over the place. I adjusted that and made it from the hero's POV since neither the hero nor the reader knew who the heck the two women who had just arrived were.

Ok, so no words were really added, but I've definitely improved the story.

I pose myself over my computer and start moving forward again only to have my eldest son complain about being out of food and drink. Ouch. Yes, I should have gone grocery shopping two days ago and put it off 'to tomorrow'. Except yesterday we had a snowstorm and I didn't want to go out. So I pull myself away from the computer and we go shopping. There's over an hour lost for shopping and a half hour for putting it away.

No words added.

I sit back down at my computer and think 'Hmm, I guess I'll check my mail before I start writing.' BIG mistake. I got my approval from the Beau Monde group I joined last week and Holy Moly! What a treasure trove! Everything you could possibly want to know about the Regency era. I'm in heaven and I'm scrolling through links and ordering a CD from a lady who has compiled a book on the subject.

No words added.

Sigh. Maybe tomorrow. So much for my goal of completing my first draft in two months. All right, so it's only been just over a month -- I started January 10th -- I've still got some time. But at the rate I'm going, the ms will disappear soon if I keep cutting scenes.

Edited: It's now 1:25 a.m. and my word count is back up to 61964 and I'm MUCH happier with the story line. I'm off to bed!

A strange coincidence? I find it a little spooky...
Last night I received an email from a lady from the TRW responding to a post I'd done over there; she'd read my blog. Woohoo! It turns out she lives only a couple blocks away from me now. Here's where it starts to get weird -- she knows the obscure little village I mentioned I lived near as a teenager - in fact she lived near there herself. It turns weirder -- she lived on the same line (road) as my parents. Weirder still? She lived two houses down from my parents, in a house where I used to babysit, albeit 15 years before she lived there, but how weird is that? What are the chances?

Happy Dance Time ... Again!

60,000!

I reached it at 10:30 last night! And I'm now much happier with the storyline, and the way things are unfolding.

Molly O'Keefe said during her talk on Saturday that a good story makes the reader ask questions that they just have to find out the answer to, and the author should answer them only when the reader 'has' to know. Keeping that in mind, I think I've improved upon the way things were revealed originally, although I'm sure there will be major edits/questions/answers still.

TRW is having a critique session in March, I have to choose five pages to submit. It's scary, and I'm pretty sure that, given this is a first draft, it's no where near ready to be critiqued. But at the same point, I need to jump in and start hardening myself again. It's been a year since I was at a critique group and I'm sure I've forgotten things that I should be looking for. At least I've still got a few weeks to decide.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!

Arrrgh

I spent Monday fiddling around with my story -- adjusting and editing but barely nudged the wordcount up. Usually after days like that I get inspired and write like crazy the next day. But today I was dissatisfied again, and spent the entire day editing. Although I wrote 4000 new words, I also edited out 2900+ old ones.

And I'm SOOO close to that 60,000 word barrier! But every time I got close (one time within about 300 words) I'd cut a chunk out. At one point I dropped down to almost 58000! But before I go to bed tonight I'm determined to write forward again!

If only I didn't have to cook dinner. Or drive my son to work. Or wash the dishes.

Oh, to have servants! Except I'd probably be cleaning like a dervish before they arrived so they wouldn't think me a pig! D*mn, I forgot to switch over the laundry!

TRW - Local RWA Chapter Meeting

I attended my first meeting at the Toronto Romance Writers today - and Oh, my! What a difference from my regular Writers' Guild.

Positive! Happy! Bubbly! People actually came up and talked to me. And even more surprising listened! And encouraged!

So much better, so much more encouraging than the old fogies at the other group who want poetry, defining moments and memoirs! And no nasty comments about how romance books are written for people with a Grade 8 education.

Even more satisfying -- the speaker actually talked about how to write, rather than simply wanting to sell her book.

TRW I'm staying!

Happy Dance Time

I hit 50,000 words today and in less than a month! Yippee!

I'm 'over the hump' so to speak. And it's only the first draft ... okay, okay, I should just celebrate this milestone while I'm here!





After the flood

Well, the kitchen ceiling is a mess -- the water did a lot of damage. It'll have to be ripped out and replaced, Heaven only knows about the mould that may grow in the walls behind the cabinets and leaked out through the window frame outside.

We bought some product called Ice Viper that is supposed to melt ice dams. Hubby put it up on the roof over the weekend, but it doesn't appear to be doing anything - in fact it is currently covered in snow, as opposed to melting it. So it seems that was a waste of money, not to mention effort.

As for writing, I've been distracted ever since Friday and not got much done. I know where I have to go but have trouble focusing and actually getting it written. I did discover a great source for architectural inspiration. When I went to England in 2000 I bought the guidebooks to the various castles/estates I visited, and just remembered today. So I dug them out and whoa! Talk about hitting pay dirt! Pictures and descriptions galore that can inspire me as I write about the estate my character has inherited. And an added bonus there are names of artists (painters and carvers) of the proper time periods so I can slide little bits in here and there for added realism. They have been moved from a bag in my bedroom closet to a place of honour in my office. Anyway, I'm at 47,000+ words, so it's going slowly ... about halfway through the first draft.

Dam Dam and Dam

Ice Dam that is. As I type, I hear a cacophony of drips into various pots and pans in my kitchen, collecting the disgusting water that is leaking through the roof. I've had to pierce a hole in the drywall to allow the water to drain in one part of the ceiling, there's another leak through a light fixture over the sink - that was well placed even though the idea of water and electricity mixing frightens me, and a third in the corner that is draining into the only cupboard that held my dry goods. I'm not putting them back there again -- going to put plates and stuff in there after this I think.

We traipsed outside and knocked down the icicles, and removed what we could, but it's now really up to mother nature to melt the ice that is causing the backup. Except the weather man says it's going to be cold for the next week.

So much for Wiarton Willy and Punxsatawney Phil's predictions for an early spring.

The strange thing is that yesterday I wrote a scene where my character wakes up to water dripping on him when the roof leaks. Am I prescient or what? I guess I'd better not write about tornadoes or earthquakes or fires or anything had I?

And the three little words are ...

I read the following post out to my hubby today: (snippet copied from here)

I Just Called To Say I Love You... But I Really Just Want To Have Sex

Results From New Harlequin Survey Reveal Canadians Ready
For A Romance Revolution

TORONTO, Jan. 23 /CNW/ - Stevie Wonder may have been calling to
say I love you, but a new survey from Harlequin reveals the
intentions of Canadians are far less honourable. According to
the 2007 Harlequin Romance Report, The Romance Revolution(1),
a whopping 58% of Canadian men and 41% of Canadian women have
said those three little words in the hopes that it would lead
to sex.

To which my hubby replied ... Are those three little words "I have money"?

Contractions in Historicals

I've seen some posts lately on other sites where readers complain that contractions should not be used in historical novels, that people back then did not use them, while authors respond by saying "but we have to write for today's reader, and we turn them off with all the wordy speech of the 'cannot' and 'will nots.'

Having been through this argument many times with a friend of mine, I did some quick research and picked up a few books on my desk that had quotes from journals written in the 1800s and earlier. And found:

Ben Jonson - The Alchemist (1610):

They shall finde things, they'd thinke, or wish, were done

Daniel Dafoe's Moll Flanders (1724)
'Yes, sir,' said I, 'I believe I may venture to trust you with myself, for you have a wife, you say, and I don't want a husband; besides, I dare trust you with my money, which is all I have in the world, and if that were gone, I may trust myself anywhere.'

Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre in 1847:

The second paragraph of chapter II: ""Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat."

and later in the same chapter: "If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly."
Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.
"Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."

In Emma by Jane Austen (1816):
Chapter IV: Don't pretend to be in raptures about mine.
Chapter IX "Don't class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like her's, than a lamp is like sunshine
and
Chapter II: Ah! here's Miss Woodhouse


In the non-fiction historical account, Lives and Times of the Patriots by Edwin G. Guillett, page 101 in my copy, cites an account written by a trooper writing in 1838: "...The Captain put him on his horse and held him there, and brought him up and called for help to take him off his horse saying, "He's a dead man.""

Another non-fiction biography about two real-life bluestocking sisters (whose sister later became Queen Victoria's biographer) who emigrated to Canada in the 1830's: Sisters in the Wilderness; the Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill by Charlotte Gray:

This quote is by Robert Baldwin, a 'distinguished Toronto lawyer': "... pray don't ask me to eat. I am sick of the sight of food."

Later Susanna Moodie herself writes a character in a story that says: "I don't know what we should do without Benjamin Levi," and also writes in her journal about a barn raising bee: "His son, Sol though himself as in duty bound to take up the cudgel for his father. 'Now, I guess that's a lie, anyway...."

And let's not forget Shakespeare who often used contractions back in Elizabethan times (1599 or 1600). From As You Like It:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."

--From As You Like It (II, vii, 139-143)

And if you think about it, but what are the age old use of 'tis and 'twas if not contractions of 'it is' and 'it was'?

It took me less than 30 minutes to find eleven uses of contractions from 1600 to the middle 1800's showing that contractions were indeed used by authors such as Shakespeare, Austen and Bronte, along with quotes from journals of more regular people. I do note that most of these are used in 'speech' rather than formal writing, so perhaps like me, a writer in that time writes more formally, without contractions, than when they speak. Or perhaps not using contractions was more a case of the author/publisher/printer adhering to a 'style sheet' the way we use Strunk and White today.

Anyway, I'm satisfied within myself that contractions were used in that era, so I'm going to be using them, definitely within speech. I often will deliberately write some characters not using contractions, to show a more frosty or upper-crust character, but I will not write with no contractions in speech at all.

And as a side note for those medieval purists ... if we really wrote the way they spoke, we'd be having to write like this -- want to bet no one would read it? Or could?

From the Wakefield Cycle, written in the 1500's:

Do way, lord, greyf you not so,
youre messyngere ye cause furth go
Aftyr youre cosyn dere,
To speke with you a word, or two,
The best counsell that lad to slo,
ffull soyn he can you lere;
ffor a wyse man that knyght men know.