Mar 12, 2009
The other day was “Find Out What Your Name Means Day.” We celebrate these odd ‘holidays’ in the library. I post a little sign at the circulation desk and add a book if I’ve got one. So that day I brought in 20,001 Names for Baby, which I bought long after I had my four kids. I use it for my heroes and heroines, although mostly they pop up in my head with their nametag already on. My name from the Greek means ‘pearl.’ It is ‘one of the standard female names in the Western world.’ It’s no longer quite so popular, but in my family (on both sides), pretty much everybody was named Margaret, including my mom.
A couple of posts ago, I invited you, my divinely faithful readers, to help me with my next book. Never mind that I still have about 22,000 words to go on the current one. Ding ding ding. We have a winner. Ely suggested Master of Sin for the title, which I love with ever fiber of my pure, pearl-like being. Andrew seems to be sticking as Andrew. In Greek, it means ‘masculine.’ which is interesting as his backstory is complicated. Miss Peartree has yet to find a first name. I suppose she can stay Miss Peartree for an indefinite number of pages until Andrew gets her out of her laces and into bed. At some point she will give him permission to use her Christian name, whatever it is.
My current hero Edward is Old English for ‘wealthy defender,’ which suits him nicely. His heroine Caroline is the feminized version of Old Germanic Carl/Charles, which means ‘man.’ Hmm.
Do you know what your name means? If you don’t, I can look it up for you. 🙂 Do you pick your characters’ names with a nod towards symbolism? What have you named them?
Words have meaning and names have power. ~Author Unknown
Mar 6, 2009
This has nothing to do with romance, but something to do with love. I’m so proud of my youngest daughter. She works for the non-profit organization Citizen Schools as a team leader in their after school program in the Boston area. Like many non-profits, Citizen Schools is feeling the pinch of the economic downturn. Campuses have closed, there have been staff layoffs, and kids are at risk. Employees have been asked to raise money, and I’m providing the link to
Abby’s donation page. Don’t worry. You can read her page without money being sucked immediately through the Internet, and find out more about Citizen Schools, too.
Any amount, no matter how modest, will be appreciated. Citizen Schools was featured in Time Magazine’s
21 Ways to Serve America. Read Abby’s story and spread the word!
P.S. I told Abby I was going to put up this post, and she thanked me profusely. Then she squealed. “You mean, it’s right above your last post? The one about, um, about…” It’s tough to have a romance writer for a mom, LOL.
Mar 4, 2009
I’m a big fan of Thesaurus.com. I often have it minimized when I write. Do you know if you type in clitoris, this is what you get?
No results found for clitoris:
Did you mean clamorous?
Thesaurus suggestions:
glorious
culture
glitz
literacy
cauterize
cultural
cultured
I kind of like clamorous. I picture the little erectile organ all party-like, making some kind of insistent squeaky noise. Glorious is great, too. Center of my womanhood and all that. I’m not sure my clitoris is glitzy (shades of the Glittery Hoo-Ha. Do you know my husband called it a hoo-hoo when he was little? I guess he didn’t get the memo. My family called it a quincy, which confused the hell out of me when I had to memorize the presidents and came upon John Quincy Adams.) It may be cultured and I’m very grateful it’s not cauterized.
Why, you ask, am I even looking clitoris up? It all has to do with literacy.I have been steeped in sex. (Ely says this would be a great name for a soup or perfume.) I have spent a considerable time in recent days lengthening (ha) my sex scenes in the first two Mistress books. Once again my grandmother had scrubbed my mind from any dirt, and the writing results were disappointing. I made my two line and two paragraph scenes turn into two pages. At least. Voila!
I’m never going to be a Tab A/Slot B girl. I skim reading other writers’ sex scenes, although I’m sure they suffered and slaved away writing them. I’m more interested in the emotional dynamics of the couple. My agent Laura Bradford sent me a hilarious book for Christmas: The Big Book of Filth. In it is just about every historical slang word for body parts and sexual acts. Somehow I don’t think cockshire is going to replace vagina any time soon. I’d rather go with name-it-not and call it good.
Here’s the BBOF’s 19th century slang for clitoris. There’s no jewel or pearl or bud or rose to be found. Please tell me your preference, or suggest your own!
little shame tongue
little ploughman
man in the boat
little old man in the boat (yeah, that makes me feel much better)
button
Sex: the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble. ~John Barrymore
Feb 28, 2009
I’m still on a vacation high, even if it snowed two feet the other day. Yes. Two feet. But I came home filled with a refreshed zest to write and have knocked out thousands of new words on four different projects (amongst them, more spice to the two Courtesan Court books, which my agent likes. Hurray!). My new hero is haunting me, too. If Paradise had a really tortured heroine, this next book is going to have a really tortured hero.
He’s Scottish. Bad. Bent. Looks like an angel with golden curls and blue eyes. Right now his name is Andrew Rossiter. The Rossiter stays, but I’m not sure about the Andrew. He’s done things he should be ashamed of. Isn’t. But his reformation is right around the corner, aided by an Italian-speaking governess (who isn’t necessarily Italian) named Miss Something Peartree. And that’s all I know so far. I’m kicking titles and names around, and I need help. I’m thinking of Master of Something (to go with the Mistress books). Here’s your chance to name my book and my characters. If I ever get published, you’ll be in the dedication.
Andrew is not quite a drag queen, but he’s crossed a line or two. That’s Daughter #2, who encountered these gentlemen on the street in Key West and had the presence of mind to take the picture. Ah. Memories.
Feb 22, 2009
No I’m not talking about Marathon Key, although we did drive through it on the way to Key West. The vacation was in so many ways perfect—the weather, the laughter, the girls dancing in the street outside Sloppy Joe’s, seeing my handsome son for the first time in almost two years. But while we were away, I never checked e-mail or phone messages. Didn’t watch the news or pick up a newspaper. Apparently a lot of stuff happened.
One thing was that my agent requested the first two books in the Courtesan Court trilogy. Paradise has made the rounds. Although it’s still out with three houses, the upshot is that the writing’s good but the subject matter’s too edgy. I knew that it was risky from the get-go (not for nothing do I think of it as “The Bad Book”). But almost everyone who’s passed on it wants to see what else I’ve got. So I spent all day Sunday—over 12 hours—making sure Mistress by Midnight and Mistress by Mistake were all shiny and devoid of those pesky red and green lines in an editing marathon. (If someone knows how to turn off the sentence fragment warning feature, please let me know.)
I’d already done revisions, but wanted to double-check that everything was clean. It was kind of weird. I cried at the sad parts and laughed at the funny parts, as though somebody else had written the books. I don’t know what that means, but I’m hoping it will spur me on to finish the third book, Mistress by Marriage. I did indeed lie under the palm trees in Florida in 2009 and contemplate London in 1820, and I’m raring to go.
So, I’m ready to be in limbo again. Or still. Or always. I’ll keep you posted.
Do you ever write outside your comfort zone? What plot points turn you off?
