A bit of news

I've signed a contract today with Loose-ID Publishing to continue the Dept 57 series!
We're starting with brand new stories, but Loose-ID have said they'd be interested in republishing the backlist in time, but we both felt that it would be much more exciting to start with the new!
So it will be with the novella, "Cat's Eyes" that the Department will make its reappearance! The release date is December, 2007, so you'll have somthing to buy people for Christmas!
All your old friends will be there - Cristos, Will Grady, Virgilio Dubreis, Kai Murdoch, and some new friends, too. I plan to tell Candy's story, Svetlana's story, and Vencel's story in the near future. And the Italian dragon, Domenico, will have his day in the sun, too!
I can't tell you how happy I am. I'm thrilled the series has a new home, and with such a great publisher, too!

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New Release!

Well, it's been an exciting week and I can't sit on my hands and not say anything!
First, I have a new release!


Last Chance, My Love is a mid-Georgian set romance, which deals with a dilemma unusual today, but much more common in the past.
What do you do if you are in love, but you can't make love?
Daniel and Miranda are in that position. After two children, Miranda has been told she must not have any more children. In those days childbirth was one of the most dangerous things a woman could do. And after two difficult births, Miranda has reached the end of her childbearing line.
Daniel loves Miranda and in those days of no reliable contraception, doesn't want to risk it. Moreover, Daniel and Miranda married young, and have no idea of the alternatives. So to help them find their own way, Daniel's brothers force him to accept a bet. He and Miranda must pose as an innkeeper and his wife, put in temporary command of an inn in the prosperous market town of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. Away from society and the pressures of their ordinary life, can Daniel and Miranda find their own way to happiness?
Well, you'll have to read the book to find out!

Read an excerpt, and order the book here:
http://www.lynneconnolly.com/lastchancemylove.htm

or here:
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/last-chance-my-love

Gosh, I loved doing this book! I do hope you enjoy reading it! Let me know!

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RWA Recognition

I understand that the RWA is to revisit some of the recent decisions that were probably made in too much haste because of recent developments.
Good on them. That shows flexibility and a willingness to listen, really listen to what the members want.
The way things stand at the moment a large number of the membership feels disenfranchised. I've listened to many author friends who feel betrayed and let down by an organisation they've spent a lot of time on.
I don't know what the answer is, but I'm very glad the response has been this one, an acknowledgement that epublishing exists, is here to stay, and that an organisation for authors should take note of it and find out what they can.
The epublishing world is full of rumour and innuendo, so it would be great if there was some reliable, disinterested baseline and some help for authors. So all my good wishes and I really hope this has positive results.

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I'm back!

After a few weeks away from my desk, I'm finally back and blogging.
My career has been turned upside down, but as the dust settles, I'm actually very happy with the place I've found myself in.
Triskelion closing was a severe blow - I had 12 books with them, and suddenly, none of them were available any more. Three are still tangled up in the mess left by the company's bankruptcy, so I have to wait to see if I get them back. My heart goes out to the authors, editors and other staff involved in the debacle.
Onwards and upwards! Or that was what I told myself when I woke up to find that I had 5 books left in circulation - all historicals. My career in paranormal romance seemed to be over.
Or was it?
Nope. You can see on the right that I have temporary covers for my books (thank you Gail!) That's because they are not dead, merely sleeping. The Wildfire series, now retitled Pure Wildfire, is coming out from Ellora's Cave, a publisher I've long admired and wanted to join, but my loyalty to Triskelion kept me with that company.
I know some of you will be saying "more fool you," but I intend to keep it that way. Why should I lower my standards when someone lets me down? Does that mean every company has the same attitude? Hell, no. I intend to continue to give any company who offers me the chance of publication my loyalty and thanks, and I won't renege on any agreement, even if they do (and this time around, I've been very selective as to the companies I've submitted my work to).
And Dept 57 has received an offer, so Cristos is not dead, merely sleeping! RUBIES OF FIRE and DIAMONDS OF ICE are two of the books still tied up, but I think they'll revert to me in the fullness of time. Meantime, I'm rewriting THE CHEMISTRY OF EVIL to make it a true Department book, so you'll see it soon, with a new title, lightly renamed characters and a bit more steam! But never fear - the story will still be paramount, and I won't compromise that or take the book into screaming BDSM or anything like that. Sofie and Evan will still be Sofie and Evan. The contract for this book ran out last January, so it's mine all mine, and I want to make it sing. I'll tell you the new company as soon as I can, but negotiations are ongoing and I'm very pleased!
Then there's the historicals. I think I ought to blog separately about those, TMI and all that.
But that's the news, and if anything else transpires, I'll let you know.
If you want to ask me anything, this seems like a good place. My shambolic organising capabilities will just about see me through checking from time to time!

Settling down.

After the dust has settled, I'm finally sorting out what I want to do.
I'm in the process of sorting out what I want to do, but really, all I ever wanted to do was write. I'm so sad that Triskelion and all the fine authors there suffered, but it's done, and things have to move on.
Including my career.
I'm talking with various publishers about republishing my books, and I've been delighted by the offers I've received. And surprised, in a Sally Field-Gwyneth Paltrow kind of way. And I'm still writing.
I'm working on two new contemporary paranormal series, and a historical. It's lovely to get back to the historical, nice to go back to the research books and try to bring the era alive. I'm enjoying writing so much, and I always will.
More news soon!

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Now look what I've done!

I need to smack that Linnea Sinclair.

Gently.

Because I've just spent hours playing at Meez.com because she sent me there!

And this is what I did;

What's in a cliche?

Someone asked about cliches. Are pebbled nipples, six pack abs and so on cliches, or are cliches restricted to plot?

Well for me, it's usually something the author hasn't thought through properly. Falling back on handy ways to describe something, or letting a plot follow a course that is entirely predictable and has also been used innumerable times are cliches.

But you can make cliches into something memorable. Take a girl who thinks she isn't pretty. That's a cliche, right? We've all seen that one. Then the hero makes her feel beautiful. It's partly a cliche because it's real - every teenager looks at the airbrushed pictures of Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell and thinks she'll never reach that standard (well neither do Kate Moss or Naomi Campbell in real life!) It's led to a whole slimming industry, and department stores are packed with cosmetics. Every woman has a little seed of insecurity deep down, whether she admits to it or not. But to take this and plop it into a plot without thinking it through, that's cliche.

I deliberately used that one in JEWEL OF THE DRAGON and tried to make it real. For most reviewers, it worked, I'm happy to say. I made her a member of an isolated community that didn't think much of beauty, denigrated her and dressed her in frumpy clothes. She got away and turned her back on the community, so she showed she had guts. But her brother was still a member, so she had that reminder every day, since brother and sister shared an apartment and opened a business together. So when the hero arrives, Alix is used to thinking of herself as not pretty. But when Dev makes it clear he's attracted to her, she doesn't keep telling him how ugly she is. And Dev makes her see her attractiveness for herself, instead of making her reliant on him for compliments.

I loved doing that. Make it deep enough and it stops being a cliche.

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Ongoing

suddenly finding myself without a home for Department 57, I've been blown away by the responses from publishers. When did it happen that people like the books enough to want to pick them up?

I've been working hard to write the series, and in some ways it's run away with me, far more successful than I ever dreamed it would be.



I only ever wanted to write, not a lot else, and it was only recently I sent books to publishers. Writing is what I do, everything else is secondary, so promotion and conferences, while fun, come second.



Now I find myself with a bank of books to find homes for, and when they do settle somewhere, I won't have to write anything new for ages.



It doesn't bear thinking about. I just can't. So I'm still writing, still working and characters are still speaking to me.

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Leaving Triskelion

I have decided to leave Triskelion Publishing.

I am very sad to have to make this decision, however changes in management, plus the pulling of the Department 57 series from the print schedule have forced my decision.

I have requested the rights to the Department 57 series back, but I do intend to leave books with Triskelion that are either part of a different series there, or were never intended for the print program. I do not intend to send any more submissions to Triskelion Publishing.

I have several new, exciting projects under way, and I hope to be able to give you news about them in the near future.

I wish all my fellow authors at Triskelion the very best of good fortune.

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Tagged!

I've been tagged by Erin Grady
Apparently I'm supposed to tell 8 things that no one knows about me (nobody?) and then I'm supposed to tag 8 people.
Well, I thought, but there is nothing that somebody doesn't know about me. My husband knows pretty much everything, and my mother knows the rest. So I'm settling for 'little known.'

Okay, here we go:
1. I adore Belgian truffles. When I was breastfeeding my babies, I used them as rewards, especially for the boy who was, shall we say, a little rough!
2. I want to create two pictures in miniature form - a Watteau and a Hogarth. A life's ambition!
3. I wrote my first story when I was 7, and I still have it. The teacher read us the start of the story of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and we had to finish it. I was hooked! Three badly spelled pages later and I was set on my life's course.
4. My cat, Jack, is my Mews. He sits on the back of the sofa where I work, and helps me by climbing on to my lap from time to time and right clicking.
5. My favourite city in the world is Florence. You can feel the electricity of the place when you step into the central square. There's something truly magical about Florence.
6. I fell in love with the Georgian era when I was 9. We did a school project on tea and coffee, and I found a picture of a coffee house. Instant infatuation, leading to lifelong adoration.
7. I read the tarot, and own one of the original 12 Crowley Thoth packs ever produced. Reading them is a ride!
8. My favourite wine is Nuit St Georges. My favourite single malt is Tormore.

There! Now I have to tag 8 people. Here we go:

Doreen Orsini
Linnea Sinclair
Rosemary Laurey
Vijaya Schwartz
Betty Hanawa
Jo Beverley
Linda Sole
Jenna Leigh

RT Houston 2007 - awesome!

After spending some time getting over the jetlag and making sure I'm talking sense, here's a brief Brit RT virgin's report on the whole shindig!

Amazing. Party time! Well, it seemed like that. I brought lots of posh frocks and every time I opened my mouth, people said, "say that again!" or something like it. I'm proud to have brought 'gobsmacking' 'grockles' and other gems to the American reading public!

I started by staying a few days with totally awesome and wonderful Linnea Sinclair and her husband, not to mention the two cats and the duck, who likes to sit on your feet. After catching me asleep at her kitchen table on the second day, with said duck on my feet, Linnea decided I fit in, and we had a wonderful time. I can only hope I didn't intrude too much. Can't say enough about the welcome she and Robbie gave me and the lovely places they took me to. A perfect way to start my stay.

Then we flew to the conference. A great laugh on the plane when Linnea realised baggage check might be problematic. She had a mega hooped skirt for her Fairy Ball costume, which she couldn't pack properly so she screwed it up and stuffed it in her case, but if the baggage people had decided to check her luggage, they might be hit in the face with a giant, flying white thing!

Luckily, they picked my luggage, not hers, to dissect.

We got to the hotel and settled in. Nice rooms, and a great elevator, which went up 30 floors and back down again. Boggling to this Brit, who isn's used to tall buildings. And the bar was nice and central. On the second day, my roomie, Jean, arrived, and my Triskelion editor and good friend, Gail Northman, set up her office in the bar. A good tactic, because we knew where to find her and the bar was a good one.

I was introduced to butterscotch martinis, Long Island iced teas and Bellinis on this visit. Not to mention the Cosmopolitans (I said not to mention them!) Yum and wooo-------

The balls were great fun and the lunch, which twisted my stomach into knots because I was one of the featured authors, went very well. Mr. Romance was fun, won by Jason Santiago, although Fred Williams had won our hearts by introducing himself to many of us beforehand. The man is a star.

I met some really nice people. I've felt rather on the outside for many years, but when I meet an author, it's usually a fellow spirit. They think like I think, feel the same things I do. And when I mentioned my motto, the only one that really counts, "I can use that," eyes lit up and everyone agreed.

It was a particular delight to meet Judi Fennel, who is a member of a crit group and a fellow Maven, one of a few, special people who have supported me from the get-go. Go Judi!

And - wouldn't you know it - I met an aspiring author who lives 10 minutes away from me here in the UK! Weird stuff doesn't happen in books - it happens in real life!

The booksigning was brilliant. I didn't sell out but I sold lots of books, I had copies of "The Haunting" to sign and several people brought copies of "The Chemistry of Evil" for me to sign, too. It's enormously heartening to know people read and enjoy my books. Truly.

And a special mention to Dave, a gentleman, who showed me where to get the cowboy hats my family craved. Thanks, Dave! They love them!

I collected my Eppie on the first night and took it to the author signing. A very special award, since it's the only competition I enter these days. I'm thrilled to have won it.

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Awards!

I tend not to enter awards, especially when they're popularity contests of the "please vote for me" category. Too much like American Idol for my liking!
But I do enter the EPPIES every year, the RITAs of the electronic publishing world, in that they are entered by the author then judged by ones peers. And I do like to support organisations I believe in, and EPIC is certainly one of those!
Well I won it two years ago with the historical, HARLEY STREET. It was the Romantic Suspense EPPIE, not the historical romance one, so I showed you can write a thriller set in the past! It was a real jolt to my career, and the award sits on my shelf to encourage me and help me along.
Well a couple of weeks ago, I won another one! This time, the Paranormal Romance EPPIE for A GRIFFIN'S TREASURE. This time I was a bit more than thrilled. Where I come from, we call it gobsmacked! This is the a boost for the new Department 57 series, a series dear to my heart, and the other bookend. My DH wants to do a display case with the awards and my books in between, but where to put it? That's a little too much for me, and in any case, my room is festooned with dollhouses already!

Give it up!

Recently, I've come across an author who has decided to give up writing fiction.

While I respect her decision, that's something I could never do, but it does give me an idea.

I will always write. I wrote for years without even considering publication, it didn't matter. It wasn't part of my life.

When I did write with publication in mind, I had a different attitude. I'm asking people to pay good money for my work, so all the self indulgence had to go, and I had to have a more professional attitude. That meant looking at markets, producing a book regularly, a proper working day.

I still love it, and I think all the discipline has actually raised my game. I'm certainly happier with the way I'm writing.

But could I give up writing? Hell, no!

However, I've seen writers in despair, because they can't find an agent, can't find a publisher, can't find a home for their work. So my advice would be to give yourself a holiday from that.

Just write. Remind yourself why you do this, how much you love it. Forget markets, forget the business and just give yourself permission to write, something you care about that doesn't fit anywhere, or do anything except maybe hone your craft a little, and free up your voice.

You never know, you might end up with your first published book! But it doesn't matter. If you don't, you have reminded yourself just why you put yourself through this torture, what is at the heart of your writing, why you do it.

And if you find yourself writing nothing, don't despair. Perhaps that was the break you needed and you'll come back refreshed, or even find yourself turning in another direction.

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Romance rules OK!

Yet another post on another blog (no, I'm not linking to it) saying that romance is rubbish and formulaic. Why is it only romance that is judged by its poorest examples, instead of its best?

Romance is seen as the lowest of the low by many people, and invariably, those people haven't actually read any, or have read a couple and decided it's not for them. From this you get the view that "Harlequin is boy and girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, no sex involved, the end." You see that all over, but anyone who's read a good Intrigue or Blaze can tell you just how wrong that is.

The other is that romance is the single largest genre in paperback sales (I don't know about hardback, so I'm leaving them out). And in ebook sales, too. So it's a lucrative market, if you can break into it. That inevitably leads to a slew of 'also rans,' writers that are just okay, writers who are cynically exploiting the genre (yes, shock,horror, they do exist!) and writers who think, "well, it's only romance, so I can get away with stuff."
Well, in the long run, they can't. Romance books have to be deeply felt, original and exciting to truly make the grade, although, as any romance reader will tell you, she will read a bit of fodder just to keep her habit running comfortably.

Romance is no longer "boy/girl," it can be "boy/boy," "boy/girl/boy" or "vampire/girl," and so on. So "boy meets girl" no longer applies. Romantic suspense has also enlivened the genre, so some romances read more like a James Bond novel or even a police procedural. The romance still has to be upfront and centre, but the story can feature catching a serial killer, exploring vampire society, and the darker elements are really hot at the moment.

But look at the keeper shelves. I have a healthily sized keeper shelf. Not every book by a favourite author makes it there, and they don't make it for the same reasons. Sometimes, when a book that's part of a series doesn't come up to par, I keep them for the sake of the others.

I can think of only two authors whose books invariably make it on to my keeper shelf. Laura Kinsale, who writes historicals, and Robin Schone, who writes highly erotic romances set in the late Victorian era. Both these authors are original, and far from prolific, so everything they release is a treasure, and because they push boundaries, even if the book doesn't work entirely, it's always worth a look.

Then there are more prolific but equally talented writers like Linda Howard, Elizabeth Lowell and Suzanne Brockmann, as well as Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Liz Carlyle. Great writers, but not all their books are keepers for me. They are more prolific, sometimes they try something that doesn't work for me, but I don't want them to stop trying, because even if it doesn't work for me, it will work for someone else, and it develops them as writers.

Since I love reading paranormal romances, I find it surprising how few paranormals make it. At the moment I'm keeping them all, but really, I haven't found a resonance and a depth that I think I'll stick with. I'm working hard trying to add that, but it's not for me to say if I succeed or not.

A New Start

Sounds ominous, doesn't it?
I started a new book today, the next Department 57 book. It's taken me all week to sit down with a blank screen and start to write.
Starting a new book paralyses me. I invariably work and re-work it before I get it right, or somewhere near right. I lose sleep worrying about it.
Yet once it's underway, it just starts to flow. I finish books with a vague sense of dissatisfaction, then I go back a few weeks later, re-read, tweak and polish and think to myself, "It's not half bad, really."
Every time I start a new book it's the same.
And I love it.
There must be something wrong with me.

technology rules ok?

The one piece of software I'd advise all writers to take time out to
learn is Microsoft Word. It's virtually industry standard these
days.Editors who edit electronically make great use of the Reviewing
Toolbar, you can customise the program to your heart's content, but you
have to give yourself time to learn.


My copy of Word 2003 is customized just the way I like it.


Now I'm not knocking writer's software, but if you want to buy an extra
piece of software to help you write, remember a couple of things:


1. No piece of software will help you write the book that will sell.
Only you can do that, by adding the extra something that makes your
book special - your viewpoint, your voice.


2. You can customize Word, add templates and so on so that fulfils all your needs all the time.


And good writing!

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A writer's life

How about an account of what goes into writing a book and getting it published?

I'm very fortunate to have a successful series going at one house, Triskelion, so for this series I sell on proposal. This is after several books, but by now the publisher knows I deliver my work on time and it's of a certain quality.

Writing the proposal is agony. I have to think up a plot and characters, and get them down on a page. This is where writing a series helps, because the hero and heroine of one story may have been secondary characters in other stories. So I have a chance to get to know them.

At any one time, I have stories in various stages. I only ever write one at a time, but I might be editing another, or revising one ready to send off to my editor. I can do that. What I can't do is write more than one novel. I invest so much of myself in the characters, immerse myself in their world, so I can't disentangle myself to go elsewhere.

At this time, I've just revamped my website, because I thought it was time. And next month sees the release of RUBIES OF FIRE, the first vampire instalment of the Department 57 series. I'm thrilled, because I do love writing those big bad vamps!

So I'm beginning to promote this book in earnest. While promotion isn't my favorite part of the job, it has to be done. I don't want my 'babies' entering the world without a little help, and you can have the best book in the world, but if nobody knows it exists, then it will fade and go away without trace.

I'm going through the editing process with DIAMONDS OF ICE, the next Department 57 book, which I'm very happy with. I made the hero suffer, but he's a strong character, and he can take it!

And I'm writing Ryan's story from the WILDFIRE series, ICEFIRE. I am loving it. I've found a well-organised, together woman for him, and she might surprise you when you come to read about her. Ryan adores her, and so do I. He is such an interesting character, I couldn't wait to get to him, and I was right. Tortured, strong, and with a wicked sense of humour he uses to tease his lady!

I'll try to keep this up, try to show you some of the things that go into the life of the average writer. You never know, it might enhance the reading experience!

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Does a modern romance story need a Happy Ever After?

I have to put in my two penn'orth.

There's a big kerfuffle going on at Dear Author.com about a trilogy that ends with the death of the hero, and is being marketed as a romance.

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/page/3/

There have been a storm of comments, which I couldn't resist, so here's my bit:

They are Romances, not romantic fiction.

At uni, I studied a lot of love stories, Romeo and Juliet, Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, but while I considered them 'classic romances' or romances in the old style, I would never call them romantic fiction.

Then there are the Romances, or Romaunces even, of the middle ages, the Romance of the Rose, The Song of Roland, the Morte d'Arthur. These were romances because they were written in Romantic languages (ie languages derived from the language of Rome - Latin). So we can argue terminology until the cows come home, but these days, romance fiction means a few specific things.

Romantic fiction readers nowadays have only one expectation - a happy ending. You can have same-sex relationships, multiple partner relationships, inter-species (as long as they're sentient), but you have

to have that happy ending. And to kill off the hero in the last book is not a happy ending, however

you look at it.

I could go into lots of technical stuff, about story arcs and genres, but what's the point? As a reader, if I pick up a book labelled "romance" and it has an unhappy ending, or it just stops, I feel cheated. Yes, cheated. The publisher has cynically tried to shove the books into a market that is still the biggest genre, still has healthy sales. So write a book "with romantic elements," write a "love story," but don't call it romance. It's not fair.

And some people wonder why I read the last page first? I want to assure myself that the couple, or threesome, or whatever, get to a resolution, and have something to look forward to. With each other.

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Writing angles

Back to writing.

Okay, I've read mails and stuff from all kinds of wannabe writers, and it amazes me how many people actually want to write!

Believe me, if I didn't have a head full of characters yelling, "pick me! Pick me!" I'd find better ways of spending my time.

Like any other profession, the huge success is a mixture of skill, talent, hard work and sheer luck. The last factor is the really important one, if you're talking about the difference between midlist and breakaway success. Publishers try to skew this, and at the moment the trend seems to be to get celebs writing (or rather, being ghosted) their autobiographies, their 'how to' books and so on. While the celeb book will always be with us, at the moment it's getting out of hand. Then the readers will tire of it and move on, leaving a few sure-fire names to hold the fort.

In fiction, the paranormal market is currently a screaming success, but if you want to write a vampire book, about the uber-alpha vamp and the feisty heroine, you're too late for the huge success. Unless, of course, you know different.

And that's what it's all about. Different. A twist, a different approach, something special. I've been a bit taken aback by the success of the Department 57 series, for example. Thinking about it, I shouldn't have been, from a market point of view. The stories are different, they have a different approach to the paranormal market. Not a secret society of vampires, for instance, but all paranormal beings joining together for their mutual benefit. Teams of Talents, led by a mysterious group of people who refuse to say what their Talent is, precisely, but have a bit of everything. Or do they? Neither are my Talents 'different' and special. I really didn't want to write about an elite, but I did want to look out how you would actually face the modern world if you lived longer than the norm, or you could turn into a mythical beast at will - and you wanted to keep your ability secret, at least until the world is ready to accept you as an equal.

So I found my "angle," almost by accident, by writing about something I cared about, something that interested me, and I ended up with a romantic suspense series about a group of people working with MI6 and the CIA. James Bond with wings and fangs, you might say.

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Bonding

I went to see "Casino Royale" last week.

What can I say - this film rocks! Daniel Craig, the new Bond, is perfect, perhaps the best Bond ever - the right accent, the right attitude (a psychopath with a touch of the hopeless romantic), and absolutely charismatic.

The story was great, easy to follow and with no megalomaniac who wants to rule the world. They were fun, but so 1970's!

I appreciate the absence of gadgets, they were fun, but their day had come and they're a bit too overdone now.

Exciting, great entertainment, and for once, I'm really looking forward to the next film!

Go and see it.

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