This And That

I've lost a couple of writing days because of family obligations but I really can't complain because they are so few and far between.

I received the Pat Rice book, finally. If you're in the mood for a different kind of Regency Historical--or you always wanted to read about an earl put to the task of hoeing rhubarb--I highly recommend. I'm not very far into the story, but I'm enjoying it.

If you're wondering about the photo of Valentino, I posted it because it ties to a bit of info I want to share. If you write historicals, I recommend you put a shortcut to the Online Etymology Dictionary on your desktop. I've had it on mine for years and it's been invaluable. Any time I'm in doubt about a word, I simply click over and the ED tells me when the word came into use. It's great for checking up on those pesky, distracting anachronisms. For instance--if you see the word "sexy " used to describe someone as being sexually attractive in a story set before 1923, that's an anachronism. The word was first used in that context to describe Rudolph Valentino. Interesting.

I was very sorry to read about Dorchester being uninvited to the RWA conference, which takes place in just a couple of weeks. They're having financial problems and have failed to meet their contractual obligations--which I translate as, they haven't been paying their authors as promised. Hope they are able to get solvent soon. I would hate to see them go under. In many ways, they've been a pioneer in the romance industry for a lot of years.

Devon

Sad Day For Romance

Why, oh why, did I choose this particular time to start paying attention to what's going on in the romance community again? Today was a train wreck and, as usual, I couldn't stop looking. Today, Harlequin--the grand old dame, the backbone of romance--was stripped of it's publisher eligibility by RWA. And rightly so. But what a nightmare for all the Harlequin authors, past and present. My heart goes out to them tonight and I hope RWA can find a way to keep their priveleges intact.

I'm not going over all the points of what's happened. It's already being talked to death on all the loops and the popular blogs. Speaking as an author who still has the dream of being published with one of the big, mass-market publishers, this is the last thing we needed. Romance writers already take enough hits. The literary world will have a field day with this latest drama. It's days like this that make me yearn for the days before the internet and all the yahoogroups and blogs came into being. There wasn't very much drama back then. Only us writers and our stories. It's days like this that make me think anyone must be out of her mind to want to be a published author.

The big media is already picking up on the story. Here's a link to a very demeaning little article in The New Yorker.

I hope tomorrow is a better day.

Devon

Just When You Think You've Seen It All

I've been a member of the romance community for many years, but never dreamed I would see anything on the scale of this. Harlequin is now listed at Predators & Editors as a vanity publisher because they've joined forces with and intend to put their brand on books to be published by Author Solutions, a vanity publisher. What a slap in the face to all the authors who've worked long and hard to build careers at HQ. What a slap to all the people who've written and submitted to Harlequin for many years, trying to break in with their "dream" publisher when all they had to do was wait a while and simply pay the price of admission. I don't see this ending well for anyone.

If you want to read more, or learn the particulars, it's all over the blogosphere. Or.. here's a link to the Harlequin Horizons site. That's what they're calling this new vanity imprint. Today has seen another giant leap toward the demise of the traditional publishing model. And Harlequin of all places! I'm still in shock.

Devon

Slo Wri-tah

Yesterday, while most people were visiting with family, hunting Easter eggs, or whatever they decided to do to celebrate the holiday, hubby worked most of the day so, left to my own devices, I got in a good deal of writing time. Since the subject of speedy writing, of just pouring the words onto the page, has become an issue lately, I've been keeping track. No matter how I try, a good writing day for me is around 1,ooo new words on the page. I've found I spend about half my writing time producing new words. The other half, I spend going over the material I wrote the previous day or two and tweaking, layering in, etc. Most people tell me not to do this, but I have to. First of all, it brings me up to speed with where I left off in the story. Second, it brings the writing I have produced one step closer to being a finished product. Sorry all you prolific speed writers out there, but I just can't bring myself to let it all rip and end up with a first draft that will require intensive editing afterwards. I'd end up with a mess. I'm slow, but sure, and I've decided I'm comfortable with that. If I can consistently produce 1,000 words a day, that will give me a finished manuscript in 3 months time. That's plenty fast enough for me.

I hope you all had a good Easter weekend. I made the Pockets of Lemon cake yesterday. That thing is rich! I mean, sickeningly rich. One serving and I'm good in the sweet department for the rest of the week. Hubby liked it. He had a slice this morning with his coffee before going to work.

Another brewhaha in romanceland came to light over the weekend. Amazon has deranked most of the GLBT and erotic books listed on its site. Which means, they don't come up on the home page search engine. Since this caused such an uproar, Amazon is now trying to claim it was a glitch in the system. But there's documented evidence that someone made a conscious decision about this new policy. If you're interested, you can read all about it over at Dear Author. All of yesterday's posts (3 total) were dedicated to the controversy. Never a dull day in Romanceland.

Okay. I'm off to tweak another chapter and fill in a couple of missing scenes. Hope you all have a pleasant, productive day.

Devon