August is Read-A-Romance month. What is that? According to the website it “was conceived and launched in 2013 by freelance writer and romance advocate Bobbi Dumas, after she realized there was no one place where the community celebrated romance all together, at one time, in a concentrated way. Read-A-Romance Month is cross-publisher and cross-genre, and represents a broad spectrum of authors and books.” Continue reading
Author: Michille Caples
Michille: Google Romance Novels
I googled ‘romance novels’.
Top of the page, a scroll bar with Fifty Shades of Grey first (ack – hated it, stalker steals car and doesn’t stop at no – I know others loved it, but not my cuppa). Love Story – hello, she dies. No HEA. Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre were there so at least some classics were represented but there was a lot of crap there which is one of the things that, IMO, give romance novels a bad name. For example, the first article link: 20 of the Best Erotic Romance Novels of All Time, According to Readers. It’s not about the sex, folks. It’s about the relationship, the character arcs, the HEA. Although this is changing, for the most part, romance novels are by, for, and about women. But the new sub-genres that are on the LGBTQ, MFM, MMFM, FMF, etc, focus on parity with the partner. But I did find some good stuff. Continue reading
Michille: First Lines
I have blogged about first lines before – best, worst, would you keep reading, etc. One time, it resulted from my daughter (another voracious reader) bringing home a bag of random books and we sat around the dining table after dinner and read the first lines/paragraphs of several of the books. The motivation for this post came from a book I just started, which has a fabulous first line:
Elizabeth Hoyt, Duke of Desire: Considering how extremely dull her life had been up until this point, Iris Daniels, Lady Jordan had discovered a quite colorful way to die.
Love it! (I do have a problem with the cover, though. The cover model is, of course, gorgeous, but the Duke in the story has significant facial scarring. This book is 11th in a series, and although it’s the first I’ve read, I went back through some of the others in the series to see if she just has a way with first lines. Continue reading
Michille: Preparing to Attend a Writers’ Conference
RWA National Conference is fast approaching. So it’s time to start prepping for it. Well, time for you to start prepping for it. I’m not attending this year, unfortunately, because I’m going to miss the huge jolt of inspiration and motivation that I get from it. I may look into getting the recordings so that I can experience it at least a little. Continue reading
Michille: A New Approach
I am contemplating taking a new approach to my writing. I have a four-book series that I’ve been working on. I go to conferences and workshops and take online courses and I get excited about the revisions that are needed. And then I sit down to do them, start working through the list of what needs done and I get so overwhelmed that I just quit. In order to do A, I have to stop and hit D, L, Q, and P, and then come back to A. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And I stop.
In order to get my writing mojo back, my new approach is going to be starting a whole new story. The picture is a Great Blue Heron that I see when I hike at a park near my house. It’s my spirit animal so I’m keeping it close for motivation. Part of my motivation for this new approach is that I believe I am a good writer. I read. A lot. And most of what I read is crap, has crappy elements, or has my pet peeves sprinkled throughout. I’m going to write a book that I would like to read. My starting point is a list of what the story will have and a list of what it won’t. Continue reading
Michille: Summer Reading Lists
Alternative title: Like our TBR Piles Aren’t Big Enough
I’m going to piggy-back on Nancy’s post from Memorial Day Weekend, which is generally viewed as the unofficial start of summer. In my county, we are in the midst of another one – high school graduation week (there are 7 high schools in the county) – so the summer starts for them now. Only two of these lists are specifically romance but most include at least one. One surprise is that there is very little overlap on these lists. Usually there are a couple of books that are on everyone’s list. Not this year, except maybe Circe – that’s been on a couple. Continue reading
Michille: Procrastibaking
I’ve written about procrastination before, but I stumbled on a New York Times article: Why Work When You Can Procrastibake? I do this on a fairly regular basis but I never knew it had a name. In fact, my husband, a college professor, is getting his second teaching award in 4 years and he firmly believes it’s because he feeds his kids the baked good that I procrastibake.
Julia Moskin defines procrastibaking as the practice of baking something completely unnecessary, with the intention of avoiding “real” work and believes it to be a surprisingly common habit. Apparently, not all procrastibakers bake alike. Some make long, slow recipes that break up the entire day, returning to their work in between steps. Others whip up something quick to attempt to get the creative juices flowing. One person quoted in the article makes macarons because they can take several days. Jeez, I don’t kid myself with something that complicated. I usually do cookies, cakes, or brownies.
Procrastibaking is a thriving hashtag on Instagram so of course, I had to break and check Instagram. And it’s true. But, it’s not all good. Tim Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, says that procrastination is one of few situations in which people consistently make choices that are demonstrably bad. So I guess I can’t pass it off as being creative.
There was a quote from a romance writer, Mia Hopkins: “When I was schoolteacher, I used to procrastinate by reading and writing romances,” she said. “When I started writing romance full time, I had to find a new way to procrastinate.” Gotta love that.
What is your procrati-_________? Procratibaking, procrasticleaning, procrastisurfing (I’m also guilty of this)?
