Rosemary's book contract

Oh yes, PS you can learn more from Rosemary at her blog - rosemarymccracken.wordpress.com or on her facebook page

Ramifications of a dream

The dream isn’t always that easy. Turning the desire to write into reality can be a harsh and unforgiving process, i.e. there will always be laundry and, sadly, dinner does not cook itself. Life in general is a time-devouring machine that does not, nor will it ever, provide great swaths of time, peace or tranquility for you to simply sit down and write that book you’ve dreamed of writing since childhood; because life happens one way or the other, and time, dictated by our endless obligations (even if done out of love), means our days are far too short.

Carpe diem, the popular aphorism goes, but carpe minutum might be a better adage: If that’s all you have, then scuttle off to that computer and put down the few words or ideas that rattle about your brain. Because it may be a few more days before those minutes present themselves again.

It’s hard to seize the dream; doubly hard if like many of us, you are attempting it for the first time. We don’t have that rhythm yet; we stumble, unsure of our methodology and research. We write, only to rewrite and start again.

When transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, a philosopher of nature, wanted to improve and work on his craft, and to try and live simply, he vanished to a small hut for two years where he reveled in the state of solitude. “Walden” is the product of that episode. “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,” he stated. All fine and well for him. He was ALONE in that hut.

So we hang on and we write when we can, our notes to the ready, resorting to long hand when the computer is not available, scribbling ideas on napkins, plunking key ideas or plot developments into emails or messages that we send to ourselves from our cell phones. We’ll all get there some day. If you’re devoted, you’ll spend every spare second making it happen.

As George Bernard Shaw said, the “people who get on in this world ... get up and look for the circumstances ... And if they can’t, make them.”

So just do it, for heaven’s sake. It’s how dreams come true.

Re: Confessions of a Literary Slut

Just finished Rowena Through the Wall and still day dreaming about all those gorgeous, dangerous, sword-fighting men. Think 'A Knight's Tale from a female point of view with a dash of Narnia and plenty of sizzle. Rowena is a captivating heroine and I can't wait for her next adventure.

The end of an era

Well, it's not exactly the end yet, but I think that this:

http://www.nbcmiami.com/blogs/popcornbiz/Sookie-Stackhouse-Author-Charlaine-Harris-Gets-Graphic---Literally-125363048.html

is the first glimpse of the end. In it Charlaine Harris mentions that she is two books from the end of her Sookie Stackhouse series.

Vampire stories have been around for centuries, if not millennia. There were legends before Stoker wrote Dracula. In the beginning they all seemed to include variations on the theme that young women were perfect victims, they could be lured into danger because passion, compassion and even curiosity could be used to entrap them.

I'm not sure why it is that this form is the one in which many authors repudiated the "female as victim" theme, but they have done so with a vengeance. One of my favorites is _Those Who Hunt the Night_ by Hambly. The main female character shares the stage with her husband, but she is no shrinking violet. She has brains and backbone. (Wonderful book.)

Then we had the entire Buffy universe. When I first heard about the series I rolled my eyes and refused to watch it. A friend talked me into watching the hyena episode and I was hooked. This was at a point in my life when I was profoundly disappointed in the way young women had turned their backs on feminism. I heard college students say that they could not be feminists because they liked men. I like men, what does that have to do with wanting to be treated with respect, to be allowed to follow my dreams, to receive a living wage for my work? I was around in the 1970s, I knew that feminism was not a repudiation of being feminine; but somehow popular culture seemed to have adopted that viewpoint. Then there was Buffy. She wanted to be popular, she was shy around handsome guys, she lusted after the pretty prom dress... and she could kick a^#. She was a fresh archtype, a girl who was strong and who wanted friends and family, a woman who was competent and who wanted to be loved. I don't actually think that this was a new archtype. I think that this is exactly what we were fighting for when we wanted mothers who stayed home with their children to get Social Security AND wanted women who wanted to be firefighters to be allowed to get an interview and take the physical test. We never wanted to deny half of ourselves, but Buffy gave young women of this generation a model, so that they could see that those attributes could exist in one person.

Then there was Sookie Stackhouse. I'm looking forward to the next two books, but I'll be sorry that they are the last. Sookie is a telepath coping with a strange world. She has grown so much during the series. What I've loved most about her is that she cares for others, but also stands up for herself. She can be hurt; but she does not cave, she stands back up and refuses to be a victim. I love her strength.

Much has been made of the Stephen King quote:
"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."
— Stephen King

I haven't read Twilight, so I can't comment on that. I hope that the vampire novel narrative is not going to cast women as victims of love once more... we've come a long way and I hope that we can stay far away from having to choose between our passion and our strength. I do like this quote by Reba MaEntire:
"To succeed in life you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funnybone>"

I hope that we'll see a generation of female protagonists who have all three.

Why I don't write a memoir

Why I don't write a memoir


I don't have the courage. There are periods of my life I don't want to remember, much less linger over. But I admire so much the people who do.

A few years ago I offered a workshop in Memoir Writing, here in the village where I live in the mountains in central California.

I titled it "Everyone has a story to tell ..." and more people signed up for the two six-week sessions than I could accommodate. We held the classes that winter at the yarn store, a cozy and intimate setting.

The class attracted people who wanted to get started, keep going, or to finish a memoir. I defined memoir as a legacy for those you leave behind, a reflection on that once-in-a-lifetime experience---a golden summer, a place, a turning point, a triumph, or a tragedy overcome.

My students, who became friends, were full of stories and life experience and I wanted to help them set these stories down on paper. Most of the people in the classes didn't think of themselves as writers, yet they all were story tellers. The teaching part of the each class focused on some of the elements of story telling: plot, pacing, action, dialogue.

We can learn techniques but we all teach ourselves to write by doing it, don't we? By doing it, and revising it, and revising it yet again, and again, until it's pleasing.

I came to admire these people so much. Their stories were so different, and interesting. They took the class because writing a memoir is a way to figure out who you used to be and how you got to be the way you are.

Some class members had big jobs and big lives they want to document for those family members who follow them. Some wanted to explain themselves by leaving their recollections as a family legacy. Some wanted to memorialize a moment in time, “their” war, a family vacation, an award, their remembrance of being part of a historical event.

Most common was the wish to reminisce over the good and the bad memories and find meaning in the events and people in our lives who have shaped us. One woman said bluntly: “Cheaper than therapy.”

Writing your life story takes emotional honesty and bravery. The candor of the shared writing creates and intimate bond. There were tears and a lot of laughter as well.

I'm not that brave. I hide my life story and how I got from there to here in fiction.

Do I dare to read CROSSFIRE?

My Dick Francis collection, 48 titles, has only three novels that I have not yet read. Bolt published in 1986, Under Order, a Sid Halley novel published after a six year writing hiatus and Crossfire, co-written by Felix Francis. It was going to be years, before I cracked the spine of one of these precious titles. Because after these, I will no longer have the pleasure of enjoying one of his fine adventures, for the first time.

Dick Francis is the author I’ve re-read more than any other. His upbeat tales feature honest, upstanding heroes, and there’s always a new occupation featured in each one. Proof featured the liquor industry. Shattered featured glass-blowing. Longshot featured wildnerness survival tips. Each is a cherished friend, worthy of repeat visits.

So it was with delight and relief this past week, that I discovered the books of Lyndon Stacey. She writes non-series mysteries, set in the horse world. The narrative is light, gently funny, with likeable characters. Even the villains are given some dimension. All her titles are in print, and I can hope a new one to be released within the year.

So perhaps next weekend, I’ll read one of those Dick Francis books. Just one, mind you!

History Spices up Mystery in Inspector Rebus' Pub

The cold, dark world of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh, fog, misted windows, bodies in fireplaces or government offices: How unlike the pretty city built on a hill that we tourists see.

Yet Rankin’s detective, Inspector John Rebus, compels us to follow him down the labyrinthine ways of evil doers. He is so popular that visitors can now take ‘Rebus Tours’, the “history and mystery” of the real locations of Rebus cases as well as the more typical Holy Rood Palace and Edinburgh Castle. The tours start from The Royal Oak, one of Rebus’ pubs, on Saturdays.

The night we were in Edinburgh, a cool Monday in June, the minuscule Royal Oak – tiny bar plus a half dozen battered tables, hosted a traditional jam session with musicians wandering in and out as the mood or the tip jar took them. Some of the onlookers were European tourists looking for Rebus. Doesn’t Rebus mostly drink at the Oxford Bar in the city’s New Town? Yes. But he also had a confrontation with his nemesis Big Ger Cafferty at the Oak. One evening Rebus stops there for a nightcap, and is shocked to find Cafferty has been released from prison and is celebrating with a song.

The story of the pub and the singing thug illustrates the marriage of sentiment and hard-nosed thuggery in Rankin’s novels where Edinburgh’s dark and historic Castle broods over the city and the city feels like a character itself. The Scots have fought each other, the Vikings and the English from this place for centuries and the Castle with its prisons, working garrison, tales of siege, poison and death figures hugely in the Scottish narrative. Since they abolished their own Parliament over three hundred years ago to live under Westminster, only regaining it in 1999, the Scots have felt a sense of wrong. That abiding uneasiness, the sense of wrongs unrighted, pervades Rebus’ adventures in the city of the new Scottish parliament.