Someday I’ll Catch Up with Life
In the meantime, I’m blogging today at Seduced by History and hope to get a conversation going about Historical Romances: Likes and Pet Peeves. Visit me at http://seducedbyhistory.blogspot.com/2011/09/historical-romances-likes-and-pet.html.
I promise when I finish edits on my current manuscript, I’ll get back on track. Yeah, and who believes that? I’m still trying to come down from the high of seeing my name on the Kindle best-seller list.
Happy Reading and Writing!
Mary
Posting at Seduced by History Today
I just noticed that a blog I set to publish of few weeks ago didn’t go up. I’ll repost directly later this week.
In the meantime, I’m at Seduced by History today, the official blog of Hearts through History Romance Writers, for Part II of The Ecclesiastical Year. I hope you’ll join me. The first person to post the answer to my Mozart question will receive a print copy of Highland Captive. The site is at http://seducedbyhistory.blogspot.com/2011/07/ecclesiastical-year-part-2-by-mary.html
Until next time,
Happy reading and writing!
Blogging Today at Seduced by History
You can find me today at http://seducedbyhistory.blogspot.com/, the official blog site for Hearts through History Romance Writers. This will be the first in a series exploring the Ecclesiastical Year, how it developed in the medieval period and prior to Vatican II.
Happy reading and writing!
Moving Forward with Launch of Highland Captive
I’ve come to the realization that I’ll never catch-up, so I’m going to move forward.
When I was putting the purple boxes together, I gravetated to purple and it just kept growing. I have at least two and possibly three boxes. I need to lay it all out so y’all can see a picture, and I’ll do that as soon as the rain stops and the lighting improves. When I know how many boxes I have, I’ll draw the names and e-mail the winners.
In the meantime, today is launch day for Sisters by Choice Book I: Highland Captive! I hope you’ll love Duncan and Alera’s story as much as I did living with them while I wrote it. You’ll also pick up a few clues regarding Alera’s “sisters” and Duncan’s “brothers,” a few of whom show up in various ways. There’s a blurb and excerpt on my Book page.
After facing one of my greatest fears last week, I decided fear would be a good topic for a blog chat. I plan to post it on Wednesday.
Now for today’s contest running through midnight tonight: Who did I dedicate Highland Captive to? All right answers will be put into a drawing and the winner will receive a copy of Highland Captive and heart-shaped miniature clock.
Happy reading and writng!
Mary
When Real Life Kicks You in the Rear
…you have a choice: fall and get up again or stay down. It’s taken me awhile, but I’m finally up. I won’t go into details; they are not important. But we were in the middle of a contest, and I have a fabulous purple package to send out. So I’m going to be blogging for the next few weeks to finish out the contest. Remember to leave an email addy if you want in on the contest. I’ll also go through the old blog posts to make sure all the prizes were given that should have been.
I’ll be at History Undressed tomorrow doing Early Christian Symbolism Part III. Hope you’ll join me there… In fact, I’ll even count comments on this post.
Happy Reading and Writing!
Blogging Today at Celtic Queens
Hi All:
I’m blogging today at the Celtic Queens, relating an old tale in which a Selkie (seal person) actually took revenge on a human – a very unusual occurrance. It’s another Purple Post. Just leave your email to be eligible to when a .pdf copy of Highland Treasure today or a gift basket at the end of the monnth. The link to the post is:
http://www.celticqueens.blogspot.com/
Later this week we’ll be having another Worm Post. Until then, happy reading and writing!
Blogging Today at Savvy Authors
Hi All:
I’m blogging today at Savvy Authors at Programmed Errors that Can Derail a Writer or Critique Group. It’s another Purple Post. Just leave your email to be eligible to when a .pdf copy of Highland Treasure today or a gift basket at the end of the monnth. The link to the post is: http://www.savvyauthors.com/vb/content.php?706-Bashing-Programmed-Errors-that-Can-Derail-a-Writer-or-Critique-Group-By-Mary-McCall
Until next time, happy reading and writing!
Blogging Today at History Undressed
As the sun sets over the Tiber (better late than never), I wanted to let you know I have another Purple Post up at History Undressed. It’s Early Christian Symbols: Part II at http://www.historyundressed.blogspot.com/
Please join me and leave a comment for a chance to win a .pdf copy of my debut novel Highland Treasure and a chance to win a gift basket at the end of the month.
Happy Reading and Writing!
What Makes It Happily-Ever-After?
Let me begin by announcing a new contest for November. Amanda Kelsey did such a beautiful job with the heather-covered field on my cover that I’ve decided to declare November Purple Month. On any blog post I do this month that you respond to, leave your e-mail. I’ll be doing a drawing for a .pdf copy of Highland Treasure for each blog three days after it’s posted. In addition, I’ll save all the names and on December 3rd, I’ll do a drawing for a gift basket. There’s no getting used to the time change here and my internet time is limited, but I will get back to make replies.
I owe an apology to Deeanne Gist for not getting back to my last post to address this topic sooner. In her book Courting Trouble, her spinster heroine ends, not in a relationship with a man, but with an understanding that a relationship can’t be forced and God will provide. What made the book an HEA for me was that it ended with hope. Deeanne did write a sequel to this book in which God provides the man of her heroine’s dreams, but what’s interesting is that after accidentally picking up and reading Courting Trouble, I went out and bought her entire backlist. This is not something I commonly do.
Let’s consider another book: Gone with the Wind. Often referred to as the greatest romance of the twentieth century, does it have an HEA? I would argue that yes it does, because “after all, tomorrow is another day.” Again, it ends on a note of hope with a heroine who knows how to get what she wants.
One of my favorite lines from a movie comes from A Knight’s Tale. The group is sitting about talking about how to end the letter from Will to Jacqueline. A paraphrase is: Love should end with hope. Hope leads us, hope guides us…” For a comedy, it is one of the most thought-provoking truths I’ve heard in a movie in a while.
So let’s talk. Do you need a union at the end of a romance or do you think hope is enough?
Happy reading and writing!
Romantic Fiction: From Whence We Came
Not long ago, someone asked about the origins of Romance as a genre on one of my many yahoo groups. I thought it might be interesting to look at our roots.
Prior to about WWII, Romance had a totally different meaning when it came to literature. Romanticism as a movement from 1798 – 1832 was both literary and artistic in reaction to the restraint, rationality and universalism of the Enlightenment period of 1680-1820. The Romantics celebrated spontaneity, imagination, subjectivity, and the purity of nature, as well as the goodness and badness of human emotions.
Notable authors from the period are Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Lord Byron, William Blake, John Keats, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, and William Wordsworth among others. One of my favorites was Mark Twain, whose Joan of Arc I consider one of the best researched and well written of the all-time great Romantic Novels. And, of course, who would have thought of Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a Romance?
Romanticism as a literary form was set by the 1830′s as an accepted genre and no longer considered a movement. Gradually over the years, the literary form mutated and grew until it has taken on two forms. Literature (either nonfiction or fiction) with romantic elements and what we now can Romantic fiction with all its many subgenres. The HEA idea sprang to life after WWII and into the 1950s as many of the women who had been working went back home when their men came home from war – many wounded – and some didn’t come home at all. There had been so much grief in the world from WWI, the Depression, and WWII that women tended to pass by books in which reviews indicated a sad ending and they more and more purchased those with HEAs from Mills and Boons, then Harlequin. I must also admit to at one time being a Barbara Courtland fan, along with her many ellipses.
It wasn’t till the late 1980’s to the early 1990s that HEA became a publisher guideline requirement. Interestingly, we recently had an inspirational author with one of the NY Houses strike a new meaning with HEA in Romance. Deena Gist wrote a book a few years ago in which her heroine’s HEA involved remaining single and still finding happiness. The same novel also involved a heroine having consensual sex outside of marriage, another first for an Inspirational Romance, and rejecting the man when he proposed.
So what we write now as Romances are not the original meaning of the term. Are they better books? In some ways no; in some ways yes. We are hopefully delivering to readers what they want. Though I am absolutely certain Jane is rolling in her grave over what has been done to her poor Mr. Darcy.
