Medieval/Renaissance Releases

If you're a reader or writer of historicals, I thought you might be interested to know that in an editor panel at the RWA National Conference, all of the editors said they still loved historicals, and still published historicals on a regular basis. The market isn't what is was in the heyday of historicals but it's still solid.

To support that, here's a list of recent medieval/renaissance print releases I found in a quick search on the web:

Nectar From a Stone, Jane Guill, Touchstone, June 2005
Falcon's Love, Denise Lynn, Harlequin, July 2005
My Devilish Scotsman, Jen Holling, Pocket, July 2005
Only For a Knight, Sue-Ellen Welfonder, Warner Forever, July 2005
Risk Everything, Sophia Johnson, Zebra, July 2005 *debut novel
The Daring Twin, Donna Fletcher, Avon, July 2005
To The Castle, Joan Wolf, Mira, August 2005
The Laird's Lady, Joanne Rock, Harlequin, September 2005

So, as you can see, not only are historicals still being published--plenty of them are medieval/renaissance stories, and some of them are by new authors.

To see or not to see

On one of the loops I follow, a writer mentioned that she 'sees' her scenes in vivid detail--kind of like a movie--and when she writes, she's doing her best to capture what she sees/hears/feels in her head. This sounded so right and normal that at first I didn't think too much about whether I worked the same way.

But as a few more people joined the discussion, it became clear that there were basically two camps: the writers who see and then write, and the writers who write and then see. And I realized I fell into the latter group. I don't see a full-color picture in my head before I start, I just have a vague sense of who's there, where they are, and what they're trying to accomplish. The first thing I do is a word sketch--I write a gut feel version of the scene, usually just the bare bones consisting primarily of the conversation and any significant action. Then I slowly add the color as I fill in details that come to me, the textures, the smells, the noises, the background. Only when I've added the color do I see the entire picture. Only then do I get to watch the movie.

Strange Attachments

Every once in a while, for some bizarre reason, I get attached to a particular section I've written. As I edit, I'll change lots of other things, but I won't change that piece--even when my gut is telling me it doesn't belong, no way, no how. I'd like to be high-brow and tell you it's because it's a really elegant piece of prose that perfectly displays my amazing talents, but no. Sometimes the section isn't all that well-written.

So, why do I have trouble letting it go? I think it's because I felt a really strong emotion when I was writing the piece--I really connected with the character at that moment, maybe even fell in love. And because of that connection, the section takes on this whole other importance, like a faded photograph of an old flame you can't seem to throw out.

I know, right about now you're thinking 'someone call the men in the white suits-she needs help'. But you'll be happy to know that eventually, even that lingering fondness can't withstand my innate sense of story. At some point, usually after I've failed to remove the section three times and the scene is still not working, I just rip it out.

Relationships are sometimes like that. There comes a time when you just have to let go.

Contest Feedback

I got the results of my entry in the TARA First Impression contest back yesterday. I entered 20 pages of Guardian back in April. I didn't final in my category, which I knew at the beginning of July, but the feedback was interesting. One judge gave me a perfect score and the other gave me an 86%. You know the competition has to be pretty fierce when your average is 93% and you still don't final.

Despite not finaling, I found this feedback affirming. Knowing that one person found my entry perfect was a truly wonderful feeling. This is an updated version of Guardian, with a completely new beginning, so the positive feedback was especially nice.

I could spend a lot of time wondering why the other judge didn't think the same way, but I prefer to just dig through the comments, find the gems, and move on.

Goals

I know, you think I'm going to talk about the importance of having goals, right? Or defining ones that are bold, but not pie-in-the-sky? Or making sure they're measurable? I could do that, but it's been done a thousand times before ... so I won't.

I will mention, however, that just having bold, measurable goals isn't enough. If you've taken the time to write yours down, you're already way ahead of many people. But if you wrote them down three years ago, and only take them out of the drawer every year or so to dust them off, you might not be getting the best mileage out of them.

In my previous life, I was fortunate enough to benefit from some training on goals. It involved not just writing down your one-year, five-year or ten-year goals, but also working back in time to the present day, writing down every sub-goal you'll need to achieve in order to reach the finish line. If you do this effectively, you end up with goals you have to accomplish every couple of weeks, which it turn means that goal sheet can't be very far from view if you want to keep checking things off. I do mine in bullet form and I review them every couple of days to see if I'm on track ... and to admire the bolded items that I've accomplished. I don't accomplish every goal I write down (if I did then they would obviously be too easy) but I do accomplish about 80% of them on time, some of them even early!

In an industry that moves as slow as this one, and with the solitary existence a writer lives, I find this sheet of goals is often the pick-me-up or kick-in-butt I need to keep going.