Racheline Maltese's Blog, page 48

TRS Staying Home Party — Win Stuff!

So there’s this cool romance novel focused website called The Romance Studio, and while many of our peers are off at the Romantic Times conference in New Orleans, they are hosting a Staying Home Party on their website.

Basically, it’s a chance for authors to keep busy, meet and greet with fans, new potential readers, and other authors, and make a lot of blog posts, over on the TRS website. We’ll be sharing some content over there you’ve already largely seen on Avian30, but we do encourage you to visit the TRS party website for three reasons.

(Excuse me while I pull a Liam.  He’s one of our supporting characters in Starling and a complete darling, but conversing with other people generally requires him to make a list).

1. Discover other authors! The TRS Staying Home party features authors of all romance genres and types: Opposite sex, same sex, poly, menage, supernatural, contemporary, historical, you name it!

2. Chat!  Right now we’re asking you about wedding disasters over there.  Surely, you want to share.

3. Win things! Every author participating in the Staying Home Party has contributed a prize and TRS is offering a fantastic prize as well.  You can fill out this form to win a free digital copy of “Lake Effect” when it is released on June 18th and fill out this form to win a $100 gift card to Amazon. We’ll never put you on our mailing list without permission, and that permission will always be opt-in, not opt-out (although once you opt-in, you can always opt-out).  Additionally, giving us permission is not a requirement of entering the contest.  All other fine print at the TRS website.

The Staying Home Party and the contest run through May 18, 2014.

Cool?  Cool.

(And yes, we totally wish we had an overtly LGBT banner for the party, but we don’t. We do have lots of bisexual characters though, so we do think of it as a perfectly acceptable fit).

Romance @ Random

We’re have a lot of content coming at you this week here at Avian30, but I did just want to make a quick note that I am now also doing some pop-culture blogging for Random House’s pop-culture and romance site, Romance @ Random.

My first piece, a recap of the premiere of Showtime’s Penny Dreadful is up now, and I’ll have more recaps and content coming at you on a regular basis.  Please check it out (and the site as a whole — there’s lots of fun there, including fellow RWA-NYC member Logan Belle‘s recaps of Salem).

Do the (Hard for You) Thing!

At the WRWDC meeting in Bethesda this past Saturday, Mindy Klasky spoke at length about her current project — self-publishing 9 books in 8 months (I’ll be giving a full writeup of this meeting on Wednesday, it’s a full blog week here at Avian30!) — and the intense scheduling and time management systems she uses to keep herself on track.

Doing the Thing! often involves figuring out ways to do the part of the Thing that you’re shit at. In our cowriting team we have an advantage, because a) there are two of us to divvy up tasks between and b) we’re each good at different things. Racheline is in charge of our marketing and promotion, because she is very experienced and very good at it and because talking to people scares the hell out of me. I’m in charge of keeping track of our projects, schedules and deadlines because Racheline can’t calendar, and organizing spreadsheets is super soothing to me.

Of course, this magic division of labor isn’t always logistically possible, and there are plenty of things both of us struggle with (Don’t ask us to figure out the Bolt Bus website). So while we’re calendaring and marketing ourselves, we want to know the parts of the Thing that Are Hard for you, and that you could use some words of advice or encouragement on! Maybe we can help, maybe somebody else can, and as always, we’re all here to cheerlead.

 

Sneak Peek Sunday: Lake Effect

Welcome to week three of our participation in Sneak Peek Sunday, a romance writer blog hop. Follow the link back to see what other authors are working on this week (please note that participating authors write in all genres and at all heat levels).

This week you’re getting a preview from a short story of ours that’s going to appear in the wedding-themed anthology They Do, out from Torquere Press on June 18. Torquere would also like us to remind you that we’re still in the editorial process, so this is not final copy; errors are our own.

“Lake Effect” is set in Rochester, NY. I grew up there, Racheline has spent a lot of time there, and it’s where our two protagonists, Kyle and Daniel, have returned (at their mothers’ insistence!) to get married.

The weekend is full of disasters. After a rehearsal dinner where Kyle gets into an argument with his mother about his career plans; a bachelor party where their officiant (who is also Kyle’s brother and Daniel’s best friend) nearly gets into a fist-fight with one of Kyle’s high school bullies; and a morning where absolutely no one is where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, the would-be happy couple struggle to get ready minutes before they’re scheduled to walk down the aisle (Kyle may be younger and smaller but he is so not being given away by anyone).

“This is fucked up,” Daniel says, after he’s finally stopped tripping over his trousers and actually manages to pull them on properly.

“What?” Kyle asks, futzing with the buttons of his left cuff which aren’t but seem too large for the button holes.  He feels like a lab animal that’s been given a particularly cruel puzzle to solve.

“We’re getting married. I have a pounding headache and feel like I’m about to throw up, and not because of nerves.  I’m not excited.  I don’t think you’re excited.  Our parents are definitely not excited. Your brother is kind of an asshole –”

“He’s your best friend”

“And I just want to know when we can take a nap?” Daniel finishes plaintively. It’s classic Daniel to go from 60 to zero, the sane adult until he can’t cope at all.

Kyle frowns and hops up on the counter in front of the mirror. He says nothing for a moment, just to see if it’s going to collapse first.  It’s been that kind of weekend.  “Do you not want to do this?”  He wonders if it’s normal to consider calling the whole thing off this many times in the 48 hours before the big event.

Sneak Peak Sunday: Lake Effect

Welcome to week three of our participation in Sneak Peak Sunday, a romance writer blog hop. Follow the link back to see what other authors are working on this week (please note that participating authors write in all genres and at all heat levels).

This week you’re getting a preview from a short story of ours that’s going to appear in the wedding-themed anthology They Do, out from Torquere Press on June 18. Torquere would also like us to remind you that we’re still in the editorial process, so this is not final copy; errors are our own.

“Lake Effect” is set in Rochester, NY. I grew up there, Racheline has spent a lot of time there, and it’s where our two protagonists, Kyle and Daniel, have returned (at their mothers’ insistence!) to get married.

The weekend is full of disasters. After a rehearsal dinner where Kyle gets into an argument with his mother about his career plans; a bachelor party where their officiant (who is also Kyle’s brother and Daniel’s best friend) nearly gets into a fist-fight with one of Kyle’s high school bullies; and a morning where absolutely no one is where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, the would-be happy couple struggle to get ready minutes before they’re scheduled to walk down the aisle (Kyle may be younger and smaller but he is so not being given away by anyone).

“This is fucked up,” Daniel says, after he’s finally stopped tripping over his trousers and actually manages to pull them on properly.

“What?” Kyle asks, futzing with the buttons of his left cuff which aren’t but seem too large for the button holes.  He feels like a lab animal that’s been given a particularly cruel puzzle to solve.

“We’re getting married. I have a pounding headache and feel like I’m about to throw up, and not because of nerves.  I’m not excited.  I don’t think you’re excited.  Our parents are definitely not excited. Your brother is kind of an asshole –”

“He’s your best friend”

“And I just want to know when we can take a nap?” Daniel finishes plaintively. It’s classic Daniel to go from 60 to zero, the sane adult until he can’t cope at all.

Kyle frowns and hops up on the counter in front of the mirror. He says nothing for a moment, just to see if it’s going to collapse first.  It’s been that kind of weekend.  “Do you not want to do this?”  He wonders if it’s normal to consider calling the whole thing off this many times in the 48 hours before the big event.

Starling sounds

Music is a pretty big part of Erin and I’s writing process.  Sometimes that music is about the rhythm we’re looking to create on the page.  Often, it’s about the way to understand our characters based on their tastes and habits. Sometimes, it’s just a procrastination device.

So we build a lot of playlists as we’re working.  The longest and most developed of those is the Starling playlist, which has a few deliberate themes in it. This includes songs with a country-rock sound which make us think of Alex in his car driving from Indiana to Los Angeles that first time, songs about fame or becoming famous, and random songs that were just on the radio a lot when we started building the list.

Despite having also created lists for Doves and successive books, which we’ll also share eventually (Erin is also putting together a “Lake Effect” playlist that we’ll share as that release gets closer), it’s this set of songs we come back to the most.

Since we can’t stop listening to it, we thought we’d share it with you.

Divide, Conquer, and Do The Thing!

So, I am in the new apartment, living out of boxes and spending half an hour trying to find the toothbrushes, and Racheline is in South Africa for her day job.

Liam, one of our guys in Starling, relies heavily on systems to do his life — being an actor, and having people to book his plane tickets and tell him where to go and when, super useful! Racheline and I use systems to do our lives too (and god how we would love having people to book our plane tickets for us). Especially in weeks like this, when everything is madness, that system means we get stuff done by breaking things down into tiny tasks and tackling those.

So, while we’re breaking down find the toothbrushes into organize the boxes, open the boxes, put the boxes the toothbrushes are not in aside, until you find the toothbrushes and fly to South Africa into Get a car to the airport, go to security, find your gate, board the plane, sleep a lot, get off the plane, find the other plane, etc., we want to know what massive goal you have that needs to be broken down into digestable components. As usual, maybe we can help, maybe someone else can, or maybe you just want a cheerleader. Either way, the first step to doing the thing is to do lots of little things!

Sneak Peek Sunday: Demons

Welcome to the week two of our participation in Sneak Peek Sunday, a romance writer blog hop. Follow the link back to see what other authors are working on this week (please note that participating authors write in all genres and at all heat levels).

This week you’re getting something that’s in a very early stage of development. It doesn’t have a title yet beyond Demons, and we haven’t quite figured out if it’s a political thriller or a farcical excuse for super weird porn. It could go either way. And the problem is, we really like both scenarios.

One thing we’re sure of is that it involves a ton of world-building and comes out of my travels in Italy over the years and the experiences I’ve had around my Sicilian background, my appearance, and my gender and what all those things mean in Milan vs. Rome vs. Naples vs. Gela.

When the story opens, Tim, a teenager growing up in suburbia, opens his front door only to be greeted by a demon. He knows about demons, of course; the government regulates the ones that live amongst humans and outside of demon principalities, but it’s still kind of a shock. After all, the demons are mostly near volcanoes (the demons probably aren’t evil, but are just a geological anomaly), and this is Connecticut.

What follows is an epic info-dump from Tim’s mother and an invitation to go meet his people that our hero can’t really refuse. While some later parts of this story are heartbreaking, Demons largely exists to indulge our love both of farce and the horrors of bureaucracy.

“Well there wasn’t really any reason to tell you,” his mother says.

“OH MY GOD, OF COURSE THERE WAS A REASON TO, because now, just to continue with the recap, I’m apparently getting on a plane, to Italy, as this guy’s like child bride or something so I can go be a proper demon because I’m not really fit to be around humans because I eat too much rare meat and the kids at school might make fun of me. Did I miss anything? Also, I don’t even have a passport.”

Tim’s step-dad shrugs, because yeah that’s more or less it, and shoves a sheaf of papers at him, containing, among other things, a passport.

“Demon passport,” he says as he does it.

“Oh my god,” Tim says for the hundredth time before turning to the demon. Max. Maybe he should get used to that. Not that he wants to. “Okay, I realize this is desperation, but like, do you have anything reasonable to say here?”

Max shrugs. “Demon passport.”

Romancing the genre

Today I went to the NYC chapter of the Romance Writer’s of America‘s May brunch.  It was only my second RWA meeting since I joined, but it continued to confirm my sense of both the utility of the organization and its, to me, surprising diversity.

I think if you’re not a romance reader, it’s easy to assume the genre is a narrow space.  Certainly, with this week’s sale of Harlequin, I’ve seen a lot of media coverage talking about “bodice rippers” and yet not acknowledging the massive financial chunk of the publishing industry that romance novels account for.

Historically, I’m not a romance reader.  Sure, I’ve read my Georgette Heyer, and I come to romance from the heavily romance-inflected world of fanfiction (which would also explain how I’ve read a significant number of LGBTQ regency romance novels).  But I’ve gone very quickly from not getting the genre to defending the genre to realizing this genre is so huge, it doesn’t need my defense.

Today’s guest speaker was Sandra Kitt who talked about everything from her interracial romance The Color of Love (set in NYC and involving a white cop and a woman of color) to a romance written as a fundraiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Research hospital with a plot built around the subject of pediatric AIDS.

Erin and I know that many of our readers will be people into romance and new to us.  But many of our readers will, we hope, be people who are new to romance, some of whom will have followed us into this genre because they know us from other projects or the spaces we hang about on the Internet.

So this post is for you.  Romance is big.  Romance is diverse.  Romance isn’t formulaic, and it’s not about boundaries.  Romance about how you take boundaries and play with them, twist them, and break them down.

We’re learning about the romance community as we write.  And we hope, if our work is the first romance material you choose to tackle, that you’ll learn about it — and explore more of it — as you read.

Faking it and making it

One of the biggest challenges Erin and I face in writing the Love in Los Angeles books is finding the right balance between entertainment industry accuracy and using that accuracy in service to the plot.

On one hand, we really want to give readers a sense of being inside the machine.  On the other, Alex’s story is a fairytale, and it needs to feel like one.

In some ways, striking the balance has been easier because, among other things, Erin and I have friends and colleagues in the business, and I’m a member of SAG-AFTRA.

In other ways, it’s been a lot harder.  What if our friends and colleagues in the business read these books?  Are they going to care that we were totally accurate about the financial details of a six-week WGA network TV contract, but totally bogus about how staffing works in most TV writers’ rooms?

If we’ve told the story right, probably not.

I like to joke that if we’d written Starling to total industry accuracy, nothing would ever happen in it, beyond people arguing about contracts and lying about whether the check is really in the mail.

Luckily we’re novelists, so we get to lie a little. Alex becomes a star, has some hot sex, and then freaks out because his life suddenly seems about as familiar to him as the surface of an alien planet.  The love story (and frankly, we should say stories, there’s a lot of emotion to go around in these books) comes when he takes a deep breath and decides to figure out how to master, or at least get along with, his new world.

So, if you’re looking to know what life in Hollywood is really like, you could do a lot worse than Starling and its sequels.  Certainly, it has more accuracy, and more detailed accuracy, than many books set in the business.

But if you’re looking for a blueprint for your own Hollywood dreams, we can only advise that you hang on tight, prepare for a seemingly endless stream of hurry-up-and-wait, and always, always read the fine print.