Some folks who happened to wander by may have noticed that Blue Stockings & Crossed Genres has been given a makeover for spring. So here’s the official bulletin: the blog now boasts a new background color, a new header, new menu tabs, and most significant of all, a new feature added to the sidebar–namely, a sign-up form for my newsletter, which I’ll send out when I have a new release or something else noteworthy to share. Generally speaking, that may be turn out to be quarterly. As someone who’s been on the receiving end of all kinds of spam, I have no wish to inflict it on friends, relations, and readers (No, I’m not interested in the latest Get Rich Quick Online scheme. No, I don’t need a supply of Viagra or a penile transplant. And No to the nth Power of No, I do not want to see porn featuring farm animals! Pass the brain bleach!).
Other eventual additions to the blog may include a Q&A page. With just two books out at present, I don’t know how many questions there will be, but some tend to crop up repeatedly, no matter the size of the back- or frontlist. And perhaps a Miscellaneous page dealing with details that don’t really fall under the heading of the other menu tabs.
It occurs to me that I may be tinkering just for the fun of tinkering. To which I can only reply: Guilty, your Honor. Because there’s just something about spring that makes you want to shake things up, change things around, and just get out of whatever rut you happen to be stuck in. Winter can be a fine season for reflection and introspection (internal rhyme right there!), but there comes a time when analysis must give way to action. Otherwise you risk paralyzing yourself and not moving forward the way you want.
So, onward! Excelsior! Once more unto the breach, dear friends! Wishing all of you a happy, productive, and invigorating spring!
Come this Sunday, I will most likely be the grouchiest grouch that ever grouched–for reasons that I explained in some detail last year. Rather than rehash my eternal grudge against Daylight Savings Time, I decided to accentuate the positive and share a bit from my current WIP, tentatively titled Devices and Desires.
Recently I took a stab at writing some BCC (Back Cover Copy), a task that seems to devolve more frequently on the author these days. (Not that I’m complaining–having read some truly baffling publisher-generated BCC in my time, I suspect authors do a better or at least more accurate job of it!)
A Little Less than Kin . . .
From childhood, Lady Margaret Carlisle’s life has been entwined with the rich, powerful, and contentious Lyons family, until her intended’s untimely death five years ago. Now a widow, she finds herself drawn into their intrigues once more . . . and unexpectedly tempted by a brilliant, lonely man, whose friendship she has long taken for granted.
And More than Kind . . .
They call him the Clockwork Solicitor, the perfect lawyerly device. But Lord Gervase Lyons’ icy demeanor conceals a lifetime of emotional scars–and an undying passion for the one woman he can never have. Summoned to his family’s Christmas gathering, where old wounds will be reopened, old quarrels revisited, and old secrets revealed, Gervase receives the chance to win her heart at last.
Excerpt
(In this scene, the hero and heroine–aged 16 and 14, respectively–come together to help his 8-year-old sister during a pet-related crisis)
“Mr. Scorton’s horrid mastiff chased Xerxes up a tree, and he won’t come down! Please, Gerry, you’ve got to help–he could be stuck up there forever!”
Gervase had closed his book with a martyred air, accompanied by a put-upon sigh. “Ju, didn’t Mother tell you to leave the little beast at home? He hasn’t the sense to fend for himself out here.”
“I–I forgot,” Juliana faltered, flushing.
“How convenient,” Gervase observed dryly. Then he looked at his sister, gazing up at him with tear-drenched blue eyes . . . and weakened, visibly. “Oh, very well, brat. I’ll see what I can do. But I’m not risking my new jacket for that wretched bit of fleabait. Which tree was it?”
Juliana, to her credit, did not so much as bristle at this slur on her beloved pet. “One of the trees we picnicked under,” she sniffed, swiping at her eyes.
Margaret surprised herself by coming forward. “Can I help?” she asked.
“How are you at climbing trees?” Gervase inquired.
“Not so good,” she admitted. “At least, not while I’m wearing a dress. But if you need an extra pair of hands . . .”
“All right” he conceded. “Come on, Ju–take us to the tree.”
Minutes later, they stood at the foot of an ash tree, looking up into the leaves. A scrap of ginger fur clung to one of the higher branches, mewing pitifully.
Gervase considered the kitten for a moment, then turned towards the blanket still spread out upon the grass. Shrugging off his jacket, he rummaged through the picnic hamper, emerging with one of the finger sandwiches. “Fish paste,” he explained, and returned to the tree.
“You’ll need both hands for climbing,” Margaret warned him.
“I’m aware of that.” He glanced at the sandwich, gave another forbearing sigh, and gingerly tucked it into the cuff of his left sleeve before starting his ascent.
“Will the branches bear your weight?” Margaret called anxiously as he shinned up the trunk. Agile and lightly built as he was, he should climb more easily than Hal or Reg, but still . . .
Gervase glanced down, his expression slightly pained. “I’ll find out soon enough, won’t I?” he remarked, and reached for the nearest bough.
Strangely breathless, Margaret and Juliana watched him climb, a slim figure moving from branch to branch, a fish paste sandwich peeking incongruously over his left shirt cuff. Up he went, balancing carefully. Once his foot slipped, and Margaret thought she heard him mutter a curse as he strove to regain his balance, then adjusted his position, set his foot on a different branch and resumed his climb.
Finally, boy and cat were face to face, with barely a foot of distance between them. Gervase clicked his tongue, and held out the sandwich just within reach. “Come along, then.”
The words were brisk rather than coaxing, but his tone was low and gentle enough. Margaret could just imagine the kitten’s whiskers twitching at the smell of the fish paste. He gave another plaintive mew, scarcely more than a squeak, stretching out an imperious little paw.
Gervase leaned in, extending the sandwich further, and Xerxes inched closer. And closer . . . until he was just within reach. Quick as a flash, Gervase tugged the kitten free of the branch, and pulled him close to his shirtfront as he began to climb down. He moved cautiously, not rushing his descent, but Margaret wasn’t sure she breathed until he was on the ground again.
“Here you are, brat.” Gervase held out the kitten and the by now half-eaten sandwich to his sister. “Now for pity’s sake, take him home, and don’t let him out until he’s bigger and has more sense than a dandelion puff!”
Juliana, eyes shining, kissed her brother on the cheek and ran off, the kitten still clutched in her embrace.
“Little pest,” Gervase observed.
Margaret couldn’t tell whether he meant Juliana or the kitten. But when he reached up to push back his hair, she caught sight of something more alarming, “Gervase, you’re bleeding!”
“Ah.” He pulled his hand back, glanced at the drops of red welling on his forefinger and thumb. “Little beast managed to get a claw into me, after all.”
“Here.” Margaret fished out her handkerchief–clean, thankfully–and wrapped it carefully around the affected digits. “Juliana will be everlastingly grateful.”
“Well, she’d better be,” he retorted. “It’s not every brother who’ll risk life, limb, and wardrobe retrieving some dim-witted cat. I must have looked a proper charley trying to coax him down.” He pulled a face. “And my shirt now smells of fish paste, though it had to be laundered in any case, so no harm done, I suppose.”
“I thought . . . I thought you were rather splendid, actually,” Margaret confessed.
He stilled, his grey eyes flaring wide. “Good Lord, was that a compliment? From you?”
Margaret felt herself flush. “I pay them–now and then,” she said, a touch primly. “When someone deserves it.”
His mouth quirked up and she caught the unexpected flicker of a dimple. “Lady, I shall study deserving,” he misquoted, and swept her a mock bow.
* * *
Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into WIP-land! And may you weather the time change smoothly and successfully.
As I type this, March is fulfilling its proverbial role of coming in like a lion. Just a few minutes ago, all that I could hear was the roar of water descending from the sky, like the flow from an Eternal Faucet (or Showerhead). It’s subsided a little by now, but I can still hear it, trickling from the eaves, beating its way into the still-damp ground. The raindrops sound like tiny hammer blows as they strike the earth.
We need this rain badly, of course. Southern California’s had one of its dryest years yet, and there have been some nasty brush-fires recently–one of which was caused by a trio of careless idiots who decided to light an illegal campfire while they were out in the hills one night. Alcohol and pot may have also been involved, which doesn’t surprise me a bit. I could wish, though, that we weren’t getting this rain in a lump, increasing the risks of mudslides, flash floods, and road accidents.
Still, compared to snow-besieged friends and family in the East, we’re probably getting off lightly. And when I’m not actually caught in the rain, fighting the wind and wet as I try to get from Point A to Point B (as I was on one notable occasion last summer), I find it evocative, and sometimes even soothing.
If you can avoid going anywhere during a rainstorm, I advise you to do so. Curl up with a good book or a favorite movie. Press on with that troublesome scene you’ve been writing. Cook something that makes the house smell wonderful. Catch up on some correspondence. Listen to that album you’d been meaning to play. Take advantage of Nature’s little tantrum and treat yourself to some entertainment indoors, especially if you’re lucky enough to still have electricity!
The unknown author of the 16th century poem I quoted in the title of this blog may have had the best idea yet:
O, western wind, when wilt thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!
As rainy day activities go, that has a distinct appeal!
Has it really been two weeks since my last post? And is it really only one week until Christmas? Time flies when your attention is split between about half a dozen things–and that’s on a slow day!
But for those who are interested, here’s some of what’s been going on since I last posted
1. I mentioned this briefly on Twitter and Facebook, but to my surprise and delight, Waltz with a Stranger won the 2013 Laurel Wreath Award for Best Historical Romance. Which is a welcome boost to morale after a rather challenging autumn and a lovely way to wind up my first year as a published author. (Full list of results can be found here)
2. The new WIP is coming along well–or at least the first three chapters have. The fourth chapter is proving a bit more recalcitrant, probably because of the sheer number of characters making their entrance in that one. Christmas house parties–what are ya gonna do? On the up side, I’ve always enjoyed reading and always wanted to write a Christmas-set romance, so I’m determined to enjoy myself with this one. And I hope to be able to share a few more details when the story is more advanced.
3. Talking of Christmas, I’ve been keeping my ears open while shopping and making a mental note of which songs get the most frequent airplay–just for the fun of it. And it’s a good coping mechanism when the versions being played make you want to grind your teeth and smash the stereo system. So far, the front runners for Most Overplayed Seasonal Song are “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” (no surprise there), “Let It Snow,” and “Last Christmas,” the Wham! original and Taylor Swift’s cover. (Although none of them have annoyed me quite as much as a shrill, speeded-up, overly perky rendition of “Up on the House-Top”–seemingly sung by adults who wanted to sound like little kids–to which I was subjected one afternoon in Macy’s.) I count myself fortunate not to have heard “The Little Drummer Boy” more than once this year, and I almost cheered when the music programmer at the local mall showed a spark of originality and played the Beach Boys’ “Little Saint Nick” over the speakers this morning. Now that’s a fun Christmas song!
4. Christmas decorations are going up all around my neighborhood, which is something I always enjoy seeing. We may not get much snow here in SoCal, but our winter nights can still be dark and cold, and the sight of colored lights shining in the gloom is a visual tonic. Halloween decorations amuse me with their cleverness, but Christmas decorations touch me with their optimism, innocence, and warmth. A few years ago, animatronic reindeer were all the rage, grazing on suburban lawns and raising and swiveling their antlered heads. This year, glow-in-the-dark snowmen appear to be the fashion, with penguins, reindeer, and–to my surprise–pigs not far behind.
5. Saddened to learn of the passing of Peter O’Toole. Oddly enough, I’ve never seen all of Lawrence of Arabia, the film that made him a major star. But he bowled me over as Henry II in The Lion in Winter–a fully bearded, full-blooded alpha male, and every inch a king. He was only 36 at the time, and playing a man of 50. His co-star, Katharine Hepburn, was more than 20 years his senior, but they matched like hand in glove–or a set of dueling pistols. I love that movie with an unholy passion: there’s not a weak link in the cast–from the feuding king and queen to their three contentious sons–and it never fails to make me appreciate my own family more! (However fraught your own holidays may get, be grateful that you’re not stuck in a snowbound French castle with any of these people!) In honor of O’Toole, I’ve been listening to the marvelous Oscar-Winning soundtrack of The Lion in Winter, which sent chills up my spine from the opening credits.
Given the demands of the season and the wonderful tyranny of my shiny new WIP, I’ll be a somewhat erratic online presence for the rest of December. But I wish everyone the most delightful of holidays, whichever you celebrate, and a very happy New Year!
Not too surprisingly, the subject of music arose frequently during my October blog tour. On at least two stops, commenters were asked to share their favorite kinds of music or, alternatively, their favorite soundtrack. Stopping by to chat and give my own answers (traditional Celtic, classic rock, Patrick Doyle’s Henry V), I theorized that many books had their own “soundtrack,” whether that means music the author played to get her in the mood to write or music that the author associates with the characters and situations in her book.
As music figures heavily in A Song at Twilight, I thought I’d share the “soundtrack” for the book, along with a little background information about each song. These are probably the most important musical numbers in the book, and they’re quite an eclectic bunch, ranging from traditional carols/folk songs to classical opera to Victorian parlor ballads.
1. Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day: Traditional English carol, sometimes ascribed to the Cornish. The central theme is Christ narrating his own life cycle as movements in a dance. The carol goes on at length from Birth to Crucifixion to Resurrection, but usually only the first verses are sung.
2. Music for a While: Written in 1692 by Henry Purcell, a gifted English Baroque composer who’s not as well-known as he could be, owing to his untimely death at 35 or 36. This song–about the soothing power of music–was composed as incidental music to a play, Oedipus, and sung by the character of Tiresias, the blind Greek soothsayer.
3. Voi che sapete: One of Cherubino’s arias from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. In the opera, the lovelorn page performs this song for his patroness, Countess Rosina, and entreats plaintively of the ladies he serves, “Tell me what love is.” Cherubino, a trousers role, has been famously portrayed by Frederica von Stade and Cecilia Bartolli. I enjoyed adding my heroine, Sophie, to their number!
A playful moment between Susanna (Hagley) and Figaro (Gerald Finley)
4. Deh vieni, non tardar (Oh, come, do not delay): Also from The Marriage of Figaro, but sung by Susanna, Figaro’s bride. It’s often staged as a love song sincerely meant for one man (Figaro) but also intended to entrap/deceive another (the lecherous Count Almaviva). Sophie’s interpretation of the song was influenced by Alison Hagley’s performance in the 1994 Glyndebourne production of The Marriage of Figaro.
5. The Mermaid’s Song: A lyric poem by Anne Hunter (1742-1821) was set to music by Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) to make this very lovely canzonetta. Hunter and Haydn became good friends and enjoyed a fruitful musical collaboration.
6. I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls: An aria from The Bohemian Girl (1843), an opera composed by Michael William Balfe, in which the heroine, kidnapped and given to the gypsies as an infant, confides to her lover the dreams she has had of her noble upbringing. The song on its own enjoyed great popularity during the 19th century, but I first heard it as an airy, ethereal track on Enya’s Shepherd Moons.
7. The Lost Chord: Composed in 1877 by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan), who had tried for several years to set Adelaide Anne Procter’s poem “A Lost Chord” to music. He found tragic inspiration in the last illness of his brother Fred, who died five days after the song was completed. Although not written for sale, The Lost Chord became an huge commercial success in Britain and America during the 1870s and 1880s. In Topsy-Turvy, the 1999 filmabout Gilbert and Sullivan’s stormy partnership, Sullivan’s longtime mistress Fanny Ronalds (Eleanor David) performs “The Lost Chord” at a society function.
8. Love’s Old Sweet Song: An Irish folk song, written in 1884, with music by James Lynam Molloy and lyrics by G. Clifton Bingham. Very popular with Victorian audiences, the song has been recorded by many artists. The title of my book is actually taken from a line of the chorus: “Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low.”
As I observed, the selection is nothing if not eclectic! But I enjoyed picking out each song, and hope that its inclusion enhanced the mood and the readers’ experience!
So, dear reader, do you have a favorite opera/composer or a soundtrack that you associate with a favorite book? And writers, do you find yourself imagining or even arranging a soundtrack for your works in progress?
I will be giving away a signed copy of A Song at Twilight to one commenter on this week’s post, until midnight, PST, 11/10.
Some folks who happened to wander by may have noticed that Blue Stockings & Crossed Genres has been given a makeover for spring. So here’s the official bulletin: the blog now boasts a new background color, a new header, new menu tabs, and most significant of all, a new feature added to the sidebar–namely, a sign-up form for my newsletter, which I’ll send out when I have a new release or something else noteworthy to share. Generally speaking, that may be turn out to be quarterly. As someone who’s been on the receiving end of all kinds of spam, I have no wish to inflict it on friends, relations, and readers (No, I’m not interested in the latest Get Rich Quick Online scheme. No, I don’t need a supply of Viagra or a penile transplant. And No to the nth Power of No, I do not want to see porn featuring farm animals! Pass the brain bleach!).
Blue Stockings & Crossed Genres 