When I first started reading romance in the 1980s, historicals were the rage, and it wasn’t difficult to find American-set historicals. Today, seeing an American-set historical on the shelf is reason for genuine excitement. The powers-that-be tell us that historicals are in a slump, but I have to wonder if that’s because of the narrow focus. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read many wonderful romances set in England and Scotland. But I really miss reading about Colonial America, frontier America, westward expansion America.

And I’d love to read historicals set in nontraditional locales. I can imagine fabulous stories set in Russia, China, Ireland, Spain, Mexico, Australia, and a zillion other places. I sometimes wish there was a big, traditional publisher who would put out these varied stories.

And who besides me misses the historicals written by a favorite author who has turned to contemporaries? I miss Pamela Morsi historicals because her characters and settings were always so real, so average girl while at the same time being immensely memorable. Who can read Simple Jess or Something Shady and not wish they could write like that?

If you could write a historical set anywhere and during any time period without worrying about how “marketable” it was, what would it be?

The weather has been nice this weekend, so I’ve been working a lot on cleaning out the fence row behind our back fence. When I’m done, I’m going to post before and after photos. I figure doing that work accomplishes lots of tasks at the same time:

1. Fence row gets cleaned.
2. I get exercise.
3. I get to enjoy warm, sunny weather before winter arrives.
4. I can listen to workshops on my MP3 player while working.

So, while working today, I listened to a workshop given by Jane Graves and Kristin Gabriel called “Setting Your Story Free”. Something Jane said really struck me as true. She said that the biggest fan of your writing had better be you because if you’re not in love with your story, no one else will be either. If you don’t laugh or cry or feel some other emotion you’re trying to get across in your story, your reader won’t either. Isn’t it odd how what should be the simplest, most obvious thing sometimes has to be said out loud for that giant bell over our heads to ring?

My Wet Noodle Posse sisters and I have started a group blog, and already we have some fabulously funny posts, particularly Kiki Clark’s post about Halloween parties and costumes. That girl cracks me up. My first post was today, about the evils of having Halloween candy in the house days before Halloween. Don’t miss out on all the fun. Check it out at http://wetnoodleposse.blogspot.com/

Finished the freelance project today, so I can get to work on my women’s fiction partial tomorrow. Yay!

There are approximately a million and one writing rules, but once you’ve got a basic handle on craft it all comes down to one thing that I’ve heard over and over from published authors — you’ve got to make the reader care. Care about your characters, care about what happens to them, care how the story ends. How many times have you read a book that was just okay, kind of vanilla or blah, the type of story that you forgot almost as soon as you closed it after reading the last page?

To make the reader care, you have to make your characters as three-dimensional as possible. Give them good and bad traits, quirks, things that make them distinctive so that readers will think about them long after they’ve closed that last page. How many people can ever get Scarlett O’Hara or Harry Potter and friends or Jamie Fraser out of their heads? You’ve also got to make your characters suffer on occasion. Push them to the brink where all seems lost before bringing them back from that brink. Don’t be afraid to go further than is comfortable. Truly memorable books often push the envelope in some way. I’m hopeful I’ll be able to keep all of this in the forefront of my mind as I begin work on a new project this weekend. Must get this freelance editing project out of the way first, hopefully tomorrow.

So what is a book you’ve read where the characters were so alive, so real that you’ve remembered them way after reading that last page?

Remember how I said I was going to be playing catch-up this week? Well, I’ll still be doing that stuff, but it looks like I’ll be writing too. A manuscript that my agent had submitted for me to Harlequin’s NEXT line of women’s fiction got rejected today, but the editor really liked the book and it was rejected for marketing reasons: 1) they have another book scheduled that has a similar plot element and 2) the heroine has a job the editor didn’t think the average reader could relate to. She loved my voice, however, and thinks it fits at NEXT. Yay!! So, she wants to see something else from me. As it happens, I have a new women’s fiction idea I’ve been working on a little here and there. I’ve got lots of plotting/character notes and have written about 5 pages. Guess what I’ll be working on beginning in the morning.

I’m in that phase after I’ve finished a writing project when I’m playing catch-up. You know the to-do list: cleaning the house, yard work, catching up on reading the magazines, papers and library books that have piled up, cleaning off the desk where I can actually see it, etc.

As I’m doing some of these tasks, I’m listening to conference workshops on my MP3 player. I listened to one yesterday that resonated with me. It was from the 2004 RWA National Conference and was called “Using Sense-ational Writing to Create a Real Fictional World” given by Cheryl St. John. She said a couple of things that sound contradictory at first but actually make sense (at least to me) when you step back and look at them. She said she thought a unique voice was revealed and a story was given a sense of immediacy if the writer got the story down on paper in an impulsive first draft, but she also mentioned that you should strive for the perfect word to convey the thought in your head. That last part might seem like it would slow down the impulsive first draft, but I think if you don’t spend eons looking for that perfect word, it’s not a problem. It’s possible that you might spend the extra time looking for that perfect word after the impulsive first draft is done and you’re going back through revising, editing, strengthening.

The longer I write, the more I realize just how different writers’ methods are. Me, I like the idea of the impulsive first draft because I tend to lose my momentum and find it easier to procrastinate if I don’t have a page goal for each day (10 pages is a good average). That doesn’t mean I’m advocating finishing the draft and tossing it out into the world before it’s been revised. Quite the contrary. That’s part of the beauty of an impulsive first draft for some writers. When they get the story out of their heads and onto paper quickly, that leaves more time to revise the story into something that editors will be clamoring to buy. And that’s what the vast majority of us are in this business for — to sell our work.

– Enter abrupt change of topic here —

Well, we ran the heat for the first time this weekend. It’s cloudy, windy and darn chilly today. Bleh. But thankfully, the weather forecast looks brighter and warmer later in the week. I am so NOT a fan of cold weather.

I’ve been spending the past week revising my latest young adult manuscript and have used a lot of red ink getting rid of unnecessary words. Two of my favorite useless words seem to be “just” and “that”. It seems that no matter how many books I write, they show up over and over and have to be cut during revisions. There were zillions of them in this 250-page manuscript. I put them in without even thinking about it.

Do you have words that tend to pop up continually during the first draft that you end up having to cut out later?

Hey, I just noticed I was up to 4,000 hits on the ol’ blog. I must have half as many friends as my buddy Mary because she has more than 8,000 hits.

I’m plugging along on the revisions. Up to Ch. 11 of 15.

And like many other bloggers out there, I take little brain breaks by checking out what’s available at Blogthings. Here’s the latest quiz results:

Your Birthdate: May 29

Your birthday on the 29th adds a tone of idealism to your nature. You are imaginative and creative, but rather uncomfortable in the business world. You are very aware and sensitive, with outstanding intuitive skills and analytical abilities. The 29 reduces to 11, one of the master numbers which often produces much nervous tension. This is the birthday of the dreamer rather than the doer. You do, however, work very well with people.

My buddy Mary seems to have really good luck garnering comments to her blog posts that ask for opinions on writing topics, so I’m going to try to post more of those in hopes blog readers will share their views.

Today’s topic: Settings

I love to travel and see new places, and I almost always come away with an idea for a story that has grown out of the setting. I’ve read books where the setting is so alive that it’s a character itself. Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon mystery series set in national parks or Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter books come to mind. I decided to create a list of all of the settings I’ve used in my books and try to analyze why those appealed to me.

The Heart’s Journey — the Oregon Trail (the only historical I’ve written)
Another Sunrise — in and around Yellowstone National Park
Cry of the Wolf — same
A Thundering Herd — same (it was a trilogy)
Faith, Hope, Love — Memphis mostly
Hill Country Hearts — Texas Hill Country
Wild Blue — rural North Dakota
Dangerous Kisses — Nashville
Firefly Run — East Tennessee on the edge of Smoky Mountains National Park
Wyoming Sunset — Cody, Wyoming
The Big Apple’s Calling My Name — oddly enough, Nashville
Out of Sight — Washington, D.C.
Dress Me in Wildflowers — rural East Tennessee
Fanning the Flames — Gulf Coast of Florida
10 Really Important Things They Didn’t Teach Me in Journalism School — Nashville
The Wishing Tree — North Carolina mainly

As I look through that list, I notice a few things:

1. Many are set in rural locations because I grew up in a rural area and know that lifestyle.
2. All are set in areas where I’ve either lived or visited on vacation.
3. You can tell I enjoy the outdoors based on most of the settings.

Despite the ability to research settings without ever setting foot there, I’m a proponent of visiting them and seeing them with your own eyes if possible. Out of Sight was probably the most difficult setting because it’s set in the White House and I can’t say I’ve gone traipsing through there lately. And when I wrote Wild Blue, I hadn’t visited North Dakota yet. Using a map, I’d created a fictional town on the real Cedar River. So, when I drove across North Dakota a few years ago, I took a side trip to see how accurately I’d portrayed the setting. Most everything was okay — except the river. Okay, I’m from the South, and down here we have to have boats to get across rivers. Something I can make two steps across and barely get wet almost doesn’t qualify as a creek here. So, needless to say, seeing that “river” with my own eyes necessitated a change in the story.

So, what about you? What settings have you explored? What do you think drew you to them?

Didn’t blog last night because my eyeball was hurting so much. I woke up yesterday morning with it as red as a cherry tomato. I’d worked in the yard the day before so I’m thinking I either rubbed my eye while cutting weeds in the fencerow or something got in my eye while I was weedeating. Either way, not pleasant. It’s still red this morning but doesn’t hurt like it did last night. Hopefully by tomorrow the redness will go away. If not, I’m going to the optometrist to see if there’s something in my eye I can’t find.

Writing progress: Revised Chapters 4-6 of the YA.