The Girdle of Melian

ineLit! Yes, it's a brand new literary sub genre, WineLit, coined by Talli Roland . I've been editing like crazy - eight hours yesterday (just like Theresa did! ), after slacking off for two days last week - and I'm at 63,050 words of 141,969. Still can't seem to cut the words down, but I moved a lot of scenes around - again! - and set up a calendar of events; the story moves from 3 August 1492 to 20 April 1493, and I think I've finally figured out Rosa's birthday: 12 October. With less than a month to go in the Round of Words in 80 Days , I've still got about 78,000 words to edit; I need to do at least 3,000 words per day, while I've only been doing about 1,000. Hence the need for WineLit . One of the scenes I edited yesterday features a long night of friendship, laughter, and wine drinking. Of course, there's romance involved. I meant to post it here, but as it's rather long, have posted it to my Facebook author page instead; a Wine...

riday! Oh frabjous day! A long night of editing, followed by a full Saturday of editing and then - er, wait a moment, I need to check my nautical chart again. How long does it take to sail from Malta to Selonika? Well, as long as I have Google up, let me just open a new tab and check my email... It's midnight? How is that possible? I was only just getting started! I've had a couple of days of slacking off from editing, and you know what happens when your butt's not consistently in that chair - your mind wanders even more. I swear I'm shutting everything but the word processor down in half an hour. I've got to have some progress to report for #ROW80 on Sunday. Thank you to my over 200 followers! If I haven't followed you back yet, it's because I couldn't find a linky on your profile - please leave a comment and let me know how to find your website or blog. And to Trish and Alison for these two awards! Let's see, I've ...

emi's giving away the Cherry on Top Life is Good Award to everyone ! Recipients are to share with everyone things about their pasts that they would change. I'm with Jemi on this, though; I don't regret anything from the past that's led me to where I am. So let me see if I can do this from my character Rosa's point of view (from the novel Out of the Water , set in 1492-3 in Spain and Turkey): 1. I'd let my father and older brother do the rescuing . If I hadn't barged in, acting like a boy, I wouldn't have fallen down the cliffside in the first place. 2. Of course, then I wouldn't have met Brother Arcturus and gone down to Palos, where I discovered who my real father was. Still, I might have been happier not knowing. And if I hadn't been on my own, I wouldn't have been captured and questioned by the Inquisition . 3. At least I escaped - right into the arms of my husband to be. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. If all of the te...

ven though I'm working hard at a historical romance at the moment, and much of my research and side reading is geared toward that, my go-to books are always Middle Grade and Young Adult. I love the way they crystallise events and problems, focusing only on what's most important, and the way strong characters shine through clearly, without lots of emotional baggage cluttering their approaches to life - thinking here, for instance, of John Green's Looking for Alaska , and how straightforward the characters are, yet how much depth there is to them at the same time. I thought of this yesterday when I received my copy of Dear Canada: Hoping for Home - featuring short stories by the likes of Kit Pearson, Jean Little and others (I know I know, I really Do Not need to be adding to my To Be Read pile!) - and realised that I'm willing to drop everything else just to read it. Also, the folks at Teenreads have just released their Ultimate Teen Reading List of 400 books ! S...

ey there fellow crusaders, and partners in the Round of Words in 80 Days ! My goal for the Round of Words was to edit at least a page of my novel, Out of the Water , every day. I'm on about page 62 of 178, 54,808 words of 136,787 - and the finished novel is only supposed to be around 120,000 words! Slacked off a little here and there last week (pub quiz, anyone?) but at least was writing missing scenes on pen and paper when not editing. The first crusader challenge was posted on Friday! Here are my replies, which include a secret , a lie , an interesting quirk , an annoying habit , one of my best character traits , and one of my favourite things in the whole world: I never bloviate but I crack my knuckles. I listen well to others. My hero is not a dashing blade; he's a wandering ragged stranger, but he's kind. I can't wriggle my nose like a rabbit, though I can bend my pinkie all the way to the back of my hand. I had a dream once where my sister, my grandmot...

elcome fellow crusaders! It's such a treat to meet so many new bloggers at once. Thanks so much to Rachael for organizing it, and to Zan Marie and the authors at All The World's Our Page for calling my attention to it. I'm off to a Cheese Festival this afternoon – at which wine may or may not – but hopefully will – be served – and before I go, I thought I'd do a little introductory post about myself and what I write. I'm sorted into two groups for the crusade, the MG/YA group and the romance group. Seems a little disparate, no? In fact, romance is my first love, when I write novels, and MG is something I'm more used to tackling when I write short stories. My last complete nove l, The Face of A Lion , was the first full length MG I ever wrote. When thirteen-year-old Austin's parents drag him along to a villa in Turkey they've rented for the summer, he hunkers down and counts the days until he can get back home to his friends in England. But ...

veryone doing the Round of Words in 80 Days could use a bit of chocolate, right? Does anyone have any to share, leftover from Monday, perhaps? I've entered that cycle - slack off, feel guilty, slack off some more. Ah, I shouldn't be too hard on myself - I got most of some very important dialogue written last week, and edited a scene featuring one of my villains (the hero's father) and shared it as my exercise for February on the Compuserve Forum . Then I did some random copy editing this morning, and it was so much fun rereading scenes from the story! Along the line of that,  Susan has a very inspiring post on nourishing your creative spirit . And  Nicole's hosting a Bernard Pivot Blogfest ! I've answered a few of these questions before , but here goes: What is your favorite word? Wariangle What is your least favorite word? Like ("like, OMG, LOL!") What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Creatively - writing a story that...