E.E. Montgomery's Blog, page 8

Christmas break

I hosted the family luncheon this Christmas. We generally take turns so the responsibility doesn't lie with just one person all the time. It's fun, even if it is a lot of work.

This year was very disjointed. We were in the middle of renovations in the studio, which was where we were setting up lunch, so couldn't do much in the way of set-up until they were done. The plasterers left at about lunch time Christmas Eve, then the cleaners came in and did their magic, leaving about 4.30pm.

That was the first time we had to set up tables, etc. Decorations were kept to a minimum: a few strands of lights trailing down the stair rail and across the glass doors, and, of course, the tables. The tree was kept simple too. I didn't have time to decorate a tree, so I decided to try something different. I got the idea from a post on Random House's Facebook page. Instead of spending hours choosing and hanging little ornaments, I spent an hour choosing and balancing books. I think I enjoyed this way better.

The studio needs to be operational again for the new year so everything has to be packed up so we can paint. That makes this year feel like an extremely condensed Christmas, everything up and gone again inside five days.

101 things to do with books

Actually, the title is misleading, even if it is catchy. I don't have 101 things to do with books. I've just discovered one new thing.

I'm usually pretty picky about my books. When I buy a book, I write my name, the place of purchase, the date of purchase and the price in the front. I use that information when I add the book to my catalogue (ie database). I store my books away from direct sunlight and dust them regularly - nothing else in my house gets dusted. I don't cover my books but I also don't dog-ear pages or crease the spines.

I'm very careful who I lend my books to - I have a mental list of people I'll never lend a book to again because the spines came back creased. There are people who are no longer part of my life because not only did they crease spines, they bent the book backwards. I shudder whenever I think of it happening.

I have shelves full of books that are quite old but, apart from slight discolouration around the edges of the pages, look brand new. Even after they've been read a few times.

From the above list, I could almost label this post "Book Law According to E E Montgomery".

I had to share this with you so that you could understand exactly how difficult the activity with the book actually was for me.

I made a handbag out of a book.

It took me a long time to do it - about six months. Five months and twenty-nine days of that time was spent convincing myself I could actually cut the pages out of the book and throw them away. Twenty-two hours was spent cutting the pages out and reading a lot of them just in case there was information I couldn't find anywhere else and had to keep them. After that, the project was super-simple.

I really didn't have a clue how I was going to accomplish my goal so everything is a little rough. I haven't stitched anything - it's all glued. I didn't measure anything so there are odd little folds where there shouldn't be. I couldn't work out how to make a clasp so there's no way to close the bag. When the holes were drilled for the handles, the drill bit caught some of the fabric and tore it so there's another fold that defies any attempt at precision.

The final product is a semi-usable handbag that makes me smile every time I see it. What do you think?

Reviews, ego and the impact on writing

What About Him was released on 28 November. I was really looking forward to it because I'd had a lot of fun writing it and viewed it as a fun, light-hearted read: nothing heavy or deep-and-meaningful, just fun.

It seems to have been selling better than previous titles but the reviews haven't been as good. It seems readers either love it, or they hate it. Ratings have been good or bad, nothing in between. I find it confusing that so many of the reviews are critical (and some of them personal) when the rankings on Amazon indicate it's been selling quite well. I haven't responded to any of the negative reviews. I have no intention of trying to explain what I intended with the book. It wouldn't make a difference. Those readers obviously didn't get it. That means, as a writer, I need to look closely at any future work and make sure I don't make the same mistakes again.

The reviews that were personal? I'll ignore them, along with the one that reviewed the book without even reading it. And the one that said they live in the country and never have snakes: I live in the city and I have a friend who lives near a bushland corridor who has snakes all the time. I guess there's nowhere else for them to go in the city.

That doesn't mean my ego hasn't taken a beating. Like most writers I want readers to like what I do. I write to entertain, and if my stories aren't doing that, I'm not achieving my goal. I've gone through a stage where I've wondered if I'm writing the wrong thing: the wrong genre, the wrong story, the wrong characters. Perhaps I'm not putting in enough detail, although whenever I do and read through it, I delete anything I start to skim over. I figure if I don't have the patience to read all the description, it doesn't need to be there. Perhaps I'm wrong with that.

My happy endings aren't usually the declarations of eternal devotion I see in some other stories. I have a lot of trouble, personally, accepting that a couple who've only been together a few weeks have reached a stage where they can make those types of declarations to each other. After a few weeks, they're usually at the stage where they've decided they don't want anyone else and want to see where this thing goes for them. That's happy, isn't it?

Can you see the kinds of questions and doubts I live with and become exacerbated by negative reviews? I really need to deal with it better.

The good news is, I decided a couple of days ago to simply stop checking the reviews and Amazon rankings. Today, for the first time since What About Him was released, I opened my current WIP for final edits before submitting. The Courage to Love (the current WIP) has been effectively finished for a while but I've left it sit because it didn't FEEL finished and I couldn't work out why not. I now have floating in my head some still-pretty-nebulous ideas on what is missing in the storyline and how I can change it to make the story stronger.

The ironic thing is that I don't think I would have realised that without the negative reviews of What About Him. I am thankful to those reviewers who took the time to write thoughtful and constructive criticism of the story. Those reviews are going to make me a better writer.

The others, the nasty ones, can go suck eggs.

Mrs Harrison rides again

After all my panic about Mrs Harrison ruining David and Bernard's romantic interlude, the woman actually came in quite handy. She's such a nasty piece of work no one could possibly like her, but she's a woman and a matron in a time when women were generally treated with respect (as long as they fitted the stereotype). I had a lot of fun writing her parts. For some reason I enjoy 'nasty' and 'angry'.


Gayndah Railway Station
Circa 1919When she turned up at the farm, I was afraid she'd ruin everything, but then I remembered that, for all his denial, David loves Bernard. Then I also remembered, in the land of the romance story, love conquers all. And Mrs Harrison helps that to happen.

I'm not going to say exactly how she does that as that would probably qualify as a spoiler, and in a book I haven't sold yet.

 Horse Box
Circa 1919What I am going to do is leave you with a picture of what a horse box for the train looked like in 1919. There's also a photo of the Gayndah railway station, which was taken at about the time David and Bernard arrive at Degilbo which is quite close to Gayndah. The photos were sent to me by Queensland Rail History Department.

When secondary characters won't let go

Before I start this post:

What About Him is now available for sale from Dreamspinner Press, All Romance eBooks and Amazon. It's also listed on Goodreads. I love seeing my work on websites like that!

...

Now for the post I intended to make...


I'm nearly finished the first draft of a novel. I should be finished it, I'm that close to the end, but I can't. I've written maybe five hundred words on it in the last ten days because I'm arguing with a secondary character.

Mrs Harrison, David's mother, is not a nice person. Perhaps that's why she won't let me finish the book and give David the ending he deserves. The nasty woman keeps spouting narcissistic and homophobic vitriol in my ear and I just want to kick her in the backside and throw her out of the story.

She won't go.

David and Bernard are all set to share a lovely interlude by the creek and David is ready, finally, to admit what Bernard means to him, and what happens?

His mother turns up.

Why would she leave her comfortable house in Brisbane to go to the remote cattle property the boys have settled on? I don't know what she's doing there yet, or how she found out exactly where they are, she hasn't told me, but she's there and ready to cause all the trouble she can if she doesn't get what she wants.

David is scared enough of discovery as it is, particularly since it means a hefty jail sentence if he's found out--and that's the best-case scenario. Remember, poor Carl was bashed in Between Love and Honor. His mother is the one who'd make sure David suffered like that too.

I'd better get back to work and sort it out, although my family will complain again that I'm spending far too much time sitting on the back deck staring at the sky.

What About Him

What About Him will be released on Wednesday 28 November. I can't wait to see the status change on Dreamspinner's page. I can't wait to see how the story does. I'm a little apprehensive about it because there are snakes in it - and not just a glimpse of one - and a lot of people don't like snakes.

I hope they overlook the snakes and try the story. I had a lot of fun writing it and have chuckled through every stage of the editing process each time I re-read it.

Here's an excerpt. There's a longer one on Dreamspinner's site.

Chapter One

“DR. MARKHAM.” The voice called across the university campus, and Aidan turned to find Senior Detective William S. Walters from the Queensland Criminal Investigations Branch barreling toward him. He moved much more easily than Aidan thought such a large man would, like an athlete, and Aidan stopped to admire the view even though most of it was hidden beneath the voluminous clothes billowing around the detective. Aidan’s cheeks stretched from the wide smile that seeing the other man always brought to his face. He couldn’t help it. The man was always cheerful and had a great sense of humor. Aidan spent every minute of their time together either grinning or laughing, even when the conversation was about something serious.
He held out his hand and laughed as Walters’s own hand swallowed his slim one, secretly loving the feel of being engulfed and protected. “Senior Detective Walters. This is the last place I expected to see you.”
“You’re surprised?”

“Pleasantly.”

“Good.” The detective nodded toward the student restaurant precinct. “Do you have time for a coffee? I have something I want to run by you.”
Aidan glanced at his watch. “Sure. My next class isn’t until three.” He nodded to the tables full of busily talking students. “Is this okay for you? We can go to the staff lounge if you like.”

Walters laughed. “All those academic types intimidate me. This is fine.”

“I’m an academic type,” Aidan reminded him.
“Yeah, but you have a personality.”

Aidan laughed, even though he knew a number of people would disagree with the big detective.
Once they bought coffee and were seated, Walters seemed to lose his need for an urgent discussion. Oddly enough, they talked about Australian history.
“I just think it’s interesting the way the government has a history of using handouts to solve problems in society when it’s patently clear to anyone that it couldn’t work.” Walters gestured as he spoke, and Aidan was glad there was no one moving around them. They’d probably end up with their coffee splattered all over them.

“Which particular handout are you talking about, Detective?”

“Call me Sam. In 1920, the Australian government began a process of giving small parcels of land to ex-soldiers. Of course, almost none of the soldiers knew anything about farming, and most of the land given to them was either too small for the farm to be economically viable or the land wasn’t arable. More than one-third of the soldier-farmers went broke and had to leave their farms behind.”

“Sam?” Aidan looked around furtively. “Are you undercover?”

Sam laughed. “No. Why would you think that?”
“Your name’s William. It says so on your office door.”

“No one’s called me anything but Sam or Walters since a kid at school decided calling me ‘little Willy’ was funny.”
Aidan snickered and flicked a curious look at Sam’s groin. Even under the voluminous clothing he could see there was nothing little about that “willy.” He burst out laughing.

“Careful, Dr. Markham, or you’ll find out exactly how I stopped Nathan Barnett from calling me that.”
Aidan suppressed his laughter, but the grin remained, along with an occasional chuckle. “No need to threaten me, Detective. I’ll be good.” He couldn’t resist another glance downward and snickered again.
“Aidan,” Sam warned.
“Okay, okay.” Aidan held his hands up in surrender and gamely suppressed his laughter. “What made you so interested in that part of Australian history? Most people are interested in one or the other of the world wars or in the depression era, but very few are concerned with what life was like in the years immediately after a war.” Aidan smiled. He could quite happily spend most of the day watching Senior Detective Walters, little willy or not.
Sam hmphed, clearly aware that the laughter over “little willy” might have been suppressed but wasn’t over yet. “My grandfather grew up on one of those farms, during the depression. It was run as a dairy farm through most of his childhood, so while they never had much money, they never went short of food. They always had milk and cheese and butter, and they had chickens for eggs and some pigs for meat. Of course, there was a vegetable patch as well. Compared to many of their neighbors, they did very well. It was still a hard life, though.”

This discussion continued and Aidan barely noticed the changes in the crowd around them. It seemed they’d only been sitting there a few minutes, but suddenly the lunchtime crowd had disappeared and Aidan looked at his watch. He surged to his feet, dismayed that this wonderful interlude had to come to an end. “I’m late for my lecture. They’ll all be there waiting for me.” He took a few steps, then turned back. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

The detective shrugged as he joined Aidan and walked with him. “There’s a case I thought you might like to help me with, that’s all. My boss will call your boss if you think you’d be interested.”

“Is it another murder?”
Walters shook his head. “No.”
“Good. I don’t think I could handle another one so soon. I’m still having nightmares from the last one.”
“You should have said something. We have access to all sorts of people who help us with that kind of trauma. I could have put you onto someone.”

“It’s okay.” Aidan didn’t want the man to fuss over him.

“Nonsense. Seeing a dead body and thinking about the type of person who would kill someone else puts a stain on your soul. It’s important you get the right help so you can deal with it.” He stopped and pulled Aidan to a stop, too, with a gentle hand on his forearm. “It’s not just you, Aidan, and it’s not a weakness. Being a cop is hard. We see a lot of things nobody should ever have to see. We all need that sort of help sometimes, and we’ve been trained for it. You haven’t. Let me give you the name of someone you can contact.”

When Sam explained it like that, it all made sense. “Okay. I guess I could talk to someone.”

“Good. I’ll bring you the details later, okay?”
“Thanks.”
“When?”

“What?”

“When are you free? I’ll meet you and give you the contact details of the fellow I see when I need to talk with someone.”

Aidan’s heart beat faster. It was just an offer of help, so why did it feel like he was arranging a date? “I’ll be finished here by six.”

Sam nodded. “I’ll be finished with work about the same time.” His hazel eyes stared intently at Aidan. “We could meet somewhere and have dinner, if you like.”
“Dinner?” Was it a date? Aidan looked closely at the big man in front of him. The intense stare was still there, but otherwise Sam looked the same as he always did: relaxed and friendly. It couldn’t be a date; Aidan was reading too much into it. Before he could respond, Sam’s phone rang.

“Walters,” Sam answered his phone.

Aidan stood and waited, painfully aware he was going to be unforgivably late for his lecture but unable to just walk away from this man.

“Right. I’ll be there in twenty.” Sam disconnected the call and looked at Aidan. “Sorry. I have to go. If I get finished early enough, I’ll call and we can arrange where we’ll meet.” He ran a big hand through his hair, the tight curls clinging to his fingers before bouncing back to sit close to his skull. “Look, I’ll call anyway, okay. Let you know what’s happening?”

Aidan’s heart continued to pound in his chest. Dinner might be on or it might be off, but Sam was going to ring him and talk to him later. Was it a date? Aidan didn’t know and couldn’t tell one way or the other. Sam didn’t give off any “gay” vibes at all. Maybe he just wanted to be friends. Aidan hauled in a deep breath, telling himself to stop fantasizing and just answer the man’s question. “Yeah. Let me know if you have time to meet. Otherwise we can make it another time.”

Sam grinned. “Perfect.” He stepped away, clearly in a hurry to go where he needed to be, but waved before he turned and strode down the path toward the visitors’ car park.

The connection between horse racing and writing

There are some days you could be forgiven for thinking the only thing I think about is the story I'm writing or the one I'm going to write. There are a lot of days that's true.

Sometimes I think about different things, though. Like the Melbourne Cup. For those of you not in Australia, you might not know about the Melbourne Cup. It's a horse race. It takes less than three minutes to run and it basically stops the nation. Everyone gets dressed up, organises high tea and sweeps, some place bets, and fewer still manage to go to see the actual race live. Melbourne declares a public holiday for the day. Everyone else just turns on a radio or television at work.

It looks better with a body
in it, but you can see the colour.It's no secret I love dressing up and Melbourne Cup is no different. Lots of people at work dropped by my office in the week before just to ask what I had planned for the day. It was a surprise, that's for sure. I chose a 1952 Vogue dress (The original design was a Vogue design but I used a Butterick pattern to make it.), a fascinator and heels. The dress is red and white and screams 'pay attention to me'. I shocked a lot of people, not because the dress was so stunning but because I wore a dress. I don't do girly stuff.

The next day I was back to jeans, t-shirt and joggers, feeling much more like myself. Several people said I should wear dresses every day. !!!! That's me - speechless. Not going to happen.

This is how it fits with a body.So where does the writing come into all this? The dress really is spectacular and deserves it's own story so I've been trying to think of a plot for the person who wears it. I have Jonathan, whom we meet in Just in Time (coming out in Feb/Mar from Dreamspinner Press) who desperately needs someone to care for him. I think I'll find Jonathan a man who wears that dress the way a Vogue design should be worn - with balls.


Coming Soon: What About Him

My next novella with Dreamspinner Press, What About Him, has hit the Coming Soon pages. I love this part of the publication process: seeing my book live for the first time.

This story is very different from others I've had published. First there's a mystery to solve. It's not a terribly difficult mystery but it adds an element of tension. Secondly, there's humour. I'm never sure about humour as it's different for everyone but I had loads of fun writing it and the editors seem to think it's funny as well because it's been classified as humour. Thirdly, there are snakes in it. Not everyone likes snakes, in fact, I don't like them much myself. Some people hate them so much they won't even read the book, but I can live with that. Finally, there's a definite happy ending, although there are going to be some readers out there who'll say it's not definite enough. I'll say it right now: the two men who end up together are just beginning. Think about what that means in terms of mutual declarations.

The cover and blurb are below. Publication date is 28 November 2012.

There’s a snake in Aidan’s bed, but it’s not the kind he wants. A nest of snakes under his house heralds the kind of disruption that Aidan has been trying to avoid all his life and turns him into a hysterical mess. First he sleeps with his best friend, Baxter. Until their one-night-stand, Aidan was happy with his life and their friendship. Now he’s lonely and craves a relationship Baxter doesn’t want.

Then Aidan meets Detective Sam Walters while consulting on a murder investigation and his dreams are suddenly invaded by a man who makes Aidan want to strip faster than an attack by green ants. Too bad Sam is straight.

When snakes take over Aidan’s home and a gorgeous snake catcher comes to his rescue, Aidan’s confusion is complete. To add to the mess Aidan’s life has become, a man ends up dead on his living room floor, Baxter confesses to his murder, and calm, cheerful Sam yells at Aidan. It’s enough to make a quiet professor of sociology prefer the snakes.http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3397