Emilie Richards's Blog, page 120

Home: A Moving Target

The last weeks have been packed full of surprises.  Unexpected knee surgery.  Selling our house to builders who will tear it down and build two where it used to stand, a not uncommon occurrence in Northern Virginia. Our offer accepted on a house in Florida, which, after making  plans and finding movers, had to be withdrawn because major problems were uncovered during the inspection.

So now we have a limping author scrambling to finish a book while her husband–just completing a forty year career–madly scrambles to find movers who can store most of our worldly possessions for some undetermined number of months while we search for another home.

Okay, are we having fun yet?

Of course, through all this, I was and am aware how lucky we really are. We have health insurance. Our house sold quickly. We have an unheated cottage in NY where we can stay until cold weather. And we learned about the leaky roof in the house we had planned to buy BEFORE we bought it.

Luckiest of all, we can decide where we want to live next. The world is open to us–at least the portions of it that we can afford. We’ll be near our grandchildren all summer to watch them grow. Wherever we move we’ll see our children frequently, but for the first time we don’t have to consider school systems, distance to work, job opportunities.

Yikes!

I realized years ago how important setting is in my novels.  I’ve had as much fun designing places to live as I’ve had creating characters.  Emerald Springs, Ohio, home of Aggie Sloan Wilcox, my minister’s wife sleuth, was a particular joy, but would I want to live in Emerald Springs–with its abysmally high murder rate, nosy neighbors and snowy winters?

Or how about Toms Brook, VA, home of the Shenandoah Album series and a real town?  As much as I love Virginia and the Valley, I’m ready for something a bit warmer in winter, a place I won’t regret leaving in summer when I head to Western New York.  That goes for the very real Asheville, North Carolina, too, home of my newest series, Goddesses Anonymous.

Of course that leads me straight to Happiness Key. . . But wait, I think Happiness Key is, ahem, no longer habitable.

Creating all these wonderful places and researching those that exist, has taught me a lot about what’s important. It’s not (all) about weather. It’s not (all) about roots. It’s not even (all) about being down the street from family. It’s about settling in, making any house a home, turning neighbors into friends and finding out what we can contribute.

The next months will be an adventure, but I’m glad I have my imagination to help me. After all, if I can create a home for my characters, I’m confident I can do the same thing in real life.  I’m looking forward to it.

In the meantime, in the next weeks you may find fewer posts here.  Just bear with me until we’re temporarily settled again.

Sunday Poetry: Honoring Soldiers at Arlington

Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

Today’s poem, Memorial Day, by Dennis Caraher needs no explanation or introduction. Read it several times. Not only does the poem deserve that, it changes each time I read it and I feel something new. I was particularly drawn to this one today, living close to Arlington Cemetery now, but moving soon. The monuments that are mentioned and the memorials never fail to inspire me, or, at the very least, make me think about those who’ve gone before and what they accomplished or suffered.

Remember, we read poetry together here for the pure pleasure of the experience. There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share. Absolutely no dissecting allowed. Just come along for the “read.” What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week? If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you? We’ll listen.

Congratulations to Brenda Novak and Scott Alexander

Just a reminder that the bidding’s going to end next week at Brenda Novak’s Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.  I’m delighted to say my offering of all five of my quilt pattern books (autographed, of course), plus a copy of Sister’s Choice, and a $25 gift certificate for fabric at Connecting Threads, an online quilt shop, has nine bids, but the prize is still worth a bit more than the latest one.  So now’s your chance to get something fun for yourself AND help raise funds for diabetes research. Quilters, wouldn’t these pattern books make great Christmas gifts for quilting buddies?

Plus, if the winner of my auction offering emails to tell me they saw this post and bid because they did, there will be a little something extra in the package.

Finally, remember The Ride to Beat Hunger?  Scott arrived back in Vero Beach yesterday after thirty long days riding his bike across country.  He set out to raise $50,000, and by all accounts he even raised more.  Now the money will be put to good use feeding children and assisting families.  I call that a good month’s work, don’t you?

Thank you, Brenda and Scott, for seeing a need and saying, “I can do something about that.”  You’re both inspirations to me.

Lists: Can We Judge a Book By Its Cover Title?

[image error]If you read my blog regularly you’ll have noted by now that titles are crucial to me.  They are crucial to my publisher, too.  Unfortunately we don’t always agree about what’s crucial to sell a book and keep an author happy.

I’ll confess that in hindsight I can see that some of my ideas have been less than stellar.  I remember titling one of my first romances The Soul’s Seduction, which Harlequin Superromance put a stop to immediately.  Of course their selection, Something So Right, has never felt like, well, something so right. But in all fairness, neither does The Soul’s Seduction, which now sounds like it should be a sequel to The Exorcist.

We’re having problems with my latest title, too, months after I proposed it and thought it was safe.  That’s particularly difficult for me since I’ve worked it into the story in numerous ways already.  This is something authors get and publishers don’t.  I’ve heard on good authority that Adam wanted to call the first book of the New Testament Eve and the Magic Apple, and we all know how that turned out.

I have friends who are far more objective about this process, believing that publisher input is vital.  I have others who are so thoroughly disenchanted they call every novel Untitled because they know marketing will change it no matter what, so why waste time?  A mega-bestselling author once told me a true story about a meeting in which she was told  what the title of her new book would be.  Marketing’s pick was two words, a heroine’s name and something the heroine possessed.  Neither word had any correlation to the story, but somebody thought it was a great title.  She wrote the book to match it.

I am not nearly as accommodating.  You will note that I am also not a mega-bestselling author.

Today, though, I’m most interested in what YOU think.  What makes a book title memorable and attractive enough that you pull it off the bookshelf to check out the story?  I’m truly interested in your opinion, so please feel free to also give examples if they occur to you.  I’ll start with  three that matter to me, just to get things rolling. Remember, this is your chance to be heard.  Share at least one thought in a comment on this post. If everything you want to say has been covered, just tell us a book title you’ve particularly liked and why.  You will still be entered.

Random.org will choose a winner in June from all commenters on both list posts in May.  The prize is an autographed novel, my choice since it will depend on what is not yet packed.  You still have time to comment on the first one, too.

Elements of a Great Book Title:

1: The title fits the genre so that the reader isn’t fooled

2: The title is short enough to remember AND long enough to remember

3:  The title captures my imagination

Now it’s your turn. Have fun.

Sunday Poetry: The Iron Solos and the Sirens

Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

We’ll be moving mid-June.  First to our little cottage at Chautauqua Institution for the summer, then to. . . somewhere. The house hunting hasn’t gone well, but we’re strangely upbeat. Our material life will go into storage for a while as we contemplate the possibilities and travel from one of them to another.

We will miss this house and this neighborhood. There are memories attached to every place we live, and in 227 Waverly Place, W. S. Merwin expresses this so beautifully, as a man contemplates what will happen to his broken apartment window once he’s gone. I love reading this poem and immersing myself in the images he creates, as he remembers what he’s seen through that window. Each time I do I want to move to 227 Waverly Place. Perhaps that’s where we’ll look next?

Remember, we read poetry together here for the pure pleasure of the experience. There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share. Absolutely no dissecting allowed. Just come along for the “read.” What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week? If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you? We’ll listen.

The Write Way: Every Writer Needs a Mind Palace

Watch Sherlock Season 2: Making a Modern Hound on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

Last night I watched the newest Sherlock Holmes on P’BS Masterpiece Mystery, an updated version of  The Hound of the Baskervilles.  I love this series.  Sherlock and Watson are a fabulously dysfunctional pair, Sherlock clearly suffering from Aspergers and Watson recovering from PTSD.  The chemistry is terrific, both men sympathetic in their own ways. And the stories are multi-layered and scrumptious.

Sherlock has a habit of going to his “mind palace” to put all the facts together, a place where no one is allowed to bother him or stop the fiercely hyperactive workings of his brain. The term occurred to me this morning when I realized how badly I need a mind palace myself, a place I can go where no one else is allowed, where there are no distractions and thoughts flow without interruption.

Don’t we all?

I’m always interested to know how my friends write, and how they establish their own particular mind palaces. For me, a mind palace is a room with no noise. Unfortunately  since life goes on, my study is  seldom quiet enough to achieve total concentration. Lately I’ve taken to wearing noise-reducing headphones hooked up to an MP3 entitled Concentration. The MP3 uses something called Hemi-Sync signals to focus attention. Maybe this is pure-placebo, but I find Concentration much more helpful than simple environmental CDs/MP3s like ocean waves or rain forest mornings. For more tricks on blocking noise read another post I wrote on the subject.

Lately the headphones have really come in handy, since due to my knee, I’ve been writing on my living room sofa where I can stretch my legs out. Even with my children grown and gone, my living room is not a mind palace, but more like Grand Central Station. Still, so is Starbucks, where many of my friends, including Diane Chamberlain, write their books.

A few months ago I finally gave Starbucks a chance. Although at home I need total quiet, I was blown away by how much I was able to accomplish. For some authors the chatter, soft music, entry and exit of customers builds mind palace walls. I don’t think I’d do this routinely, but it’s nice to know a change of scenery is an occasional option.

Along with an occasional latte.

One option I could never use is rock and roll, yet many of my friends turn up their CD players to max and only write to music. It’s not unusual for them to create their own CD of songs that are in some way reminiscent of the book they’re working on. They play the same CD over and over again to stay in the groove until the book is done. I couldn’t write word one with music blasting away; I really couldn’t, but I think they may outnumber those of us who crave quiet.

As always, what works for one author won’t necessarily work for another. The trick is to pay attention to when and where you’re most productive.  If something’s not working, try something new, even if it seems counter-intuitive.  Figure out what works for you and build your mind palace exactly the way you like it.

You’re going to need it.

Keepers and Giveaways: What’s On YOUR Bookshelf?

As my husband delivered yet another bag of the books to the Arlington Library, the librarian came forward to thank him personally.  After all, even if nobody else gives the library gently read books for the next book sale, it will still be a success.  Singlehandedly we have donated hundreds of volumes, about nine out of ten that were formerly on our shelves.  Unless we finally call a halt, Michael will need ice packs and Advil for his sore back .

From the moment we decided to move, I dreaded the day the culling would begin.  How could I get rid of these precious memories, this invaluable information, this journey into the hearts and minds of my fellow authors?

More important, how could I afford to ship all those books to our next destination unless I did a little paring down?

Surprisingly, I have discovered the experience to be nearly painless.  An awful lot of shelf footage was taken up by research volumes that are now either out of date, or no longer necessary for future books.  I will not write another novel about Australian pearls.  I will likely never write another novel set in Louisiana, and if I do, it will be contemporary Louisiana.  I have said everything I care to about bootlegging, Irish immigration, and fox hunting.  Someone else may find those collections useful.  I truly hope so.

And the novels I always planned to read and never did, otherwise known as my TBR stack (to be read)?  Some will be packed, because a second look convinced me I really do want to read them. But others will find a different home.  I bought some of those books because I thought I should.  I can almost guarantee that I wouldn’t get to them or get very far in them if I kept them.  ”Should” isn’t a word that I like to associate with reading.

What did I pack?  How did I decide?  First any book with a strong sentimental pull went into a box to be shipped.  The romance novel I bought when little-ole-unpublished-me first met author Jennifer Blake, who encouraged me to keep writing.  Or how about my collection of Amanda Doyle Harlequins and my Arthur Upfield Bony mysteries, which ignited forever a love of the Australian Outback?  Books by friends.  Books that remind me of important moments and events.  Books that made my heart sing?  Boxed them, all.

Research books were harder.  In the end I only kept the ones that targeted subjects so esoteric I might have problems tracking down the information online.  The Internet has transformed the world of research, and most of the time now, that’s my primary source of information.

Oh, but I did keep EVERYTHING about the Shenandoah Valley, because I really DO plan to write more in my Shenandoah Album series.

What would you have kept if you were in my shoes?

The bookshelves at my mystery destination will seem sadly empty.  For a while.  But I bet you know the truth about bookshelves.  There will be book sales wherever we move, and I’ll buy someone else’s discarded treasures.  A book here, a book there.  Not to mention all the brand new books I can’t live without.   Bookshelves fill quickly and soon overflow when we make room for new acquisitions.

And that’s exactly the way it should be.

Sunday Poetry: For Once It Was His Own

Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

It’s Mother’s Day in the US, but today’s poem highlights romantic love.  We’ve heard so much talk about love and marriage this week, but not the way we usually do in spring. Instead we’ve heard arguments for and against marriage between two people who love each other, much as we did a generation ago.  Then the taboo was interracial marriage, and today it’s same sex marriage, but from my vantage point, the arguments remain the the same.

I went in search of a poem about love to share with you and found this one. Read A Ditty below, and tell me, is the narrator a woman talking about the man she loves?  Or is the narrator a man?  The sex of the narrator is never mentioned, although the object of affection is male.  Does that make the poem less powerful for you, less romantic?

Sir Philip Sidney was a prominent figure of the Elizabethan Age, and at his death from a battle wound, he was memorialized as the flower of English manhood.  I found the poem at poets.org.

A Ditty by Sir Philip Sidney

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,

By just exchange one to the other given:

I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,

There never was a better bargain driven:

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one,

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:

He loves my heart, for once it was his own,

I cherish his because in me it bides:

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

Remember there are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  Absolutely no dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the “read.”  What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week?  If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you?  We’ll listen.

Keeping Up with Pinterest

Nothing beats the internet when you’re recuperating.  I discovered this during the past week when I was largely immobile after surgery on my knee.  The iPad I’d  wondered if I’d ever really need proved to be a godsend.  I did mail, surfed and played Word with my family and my former assistant friend now living across the pond.  Since our time zones are hours apart, I could always count on her to have a word waiting for me when I woke up. That brightened my morning.

I also discovered the real joys of illustration.  There were moments I didn’t want to read.  I just wanted to look at beautiful things, and Pinterest fit the bill perfectly. I had time to scroll through the gorgeous choices of people I “follow,” and wallow in the beauty of rooms, quilts, seaside abodes, desserts, and Asheville, North Carolina, scene of my next book.  It was a welcome diversion.  It was healing.

For fun, and because we’ve been looking at Florida as our next destination, I created a new board dedicated to all things coastal.  Not surprisingly I named it Happiness Key.  Who knew there were so many charming ways to decorate a house near the ocean or gulf?  Who knew there were so many lovely colors that mimic the sea or sky? And who knew that you could design an entire room around sea urchin shells?

Then, of course, there’s my Asheville board.  One Mountain Away (the cover photo’s finally up at online bookstores) takes place in and around the Asheville area, so I’ve begun an inspiration board.  Every time I write about a new area of Western North Carolina, a neighborhood, a restaurant, I search for photos to inspire me. Enjoy glimpses of Yancey County, where I did research a few weeks ago.  Or Luck and Trust, more research sites.  Too tired to travel? Stand on a mountain top with me and gaze off into the sunset-hued sky.  You’ll feel like you’re right there breathing in fresh mountain air.

If you’re a quilter?  Quilts are a natural at Pinterest.  I’ve pinned some I’d like to make, and some I know better than to attempt.  Whether I make any quilts or not, I’ll be able to enjoy looking at other people’s artistry.  I can do everything but cuddle up under one.

I know better than to jump on every social media bandwagon that comes along.  I resisted Pinterest for months because I didn’t need another time sink. But Pinterest really is different. It’s a place to dream and to let your friends and others dream with you. It’s about images and fantasies and escape. You can visit for a moment; you can visit for hours. It’s there waiting when you need it. And I did.  What a delight.

If you’re visiting Pinterest, come visit me.  But most important, take your time and enjoy the vacation.  I just bet you’ve earned it.

Reasons to Smile: People Who Are Making a Difference

The Ride to Beat Hunger, from Costa Mesa, CA to Vero Beach, FL

Right this very moment, my long-time friend the Reverend Scott Alexander, is bicycling through the range lands of Oklahoma on a trip from Pacific to Atlantic that has, so far, included grueling temperatures–both hot and cold–long ascents and descents over majestic mountains, raging thunderstorms, and distances of over a hundred miles a day.

Who does this, right?  Well, Scott, for one.  It’s not the first time he’s made the trip, but this time he decided that while he was cycling, he could also do something wonderful for the world, and The Ride to Beat Hunger was born. Along the way Scott hopes to raise tens of thousands of dollars to help the 925 million people in the world (yes, you read that correctly) who are hungry. TRTBH operates under the direction of the Indian River Community Foundation, and the two charitable beneficiaries will be Harvest Food and Outreach Center in Vero Beach, which distributes food to those in need of it, and the international charity Stop Hunger Now, which assembles meal packets to be delivered, primarily, to schools in regions stricken by hunger. On June 9, after Scott’s “splashy” arrival back in Vero Beach, Stop Hunger Now will arrive with a truckload of food supplies for the community to help assemble into meals for international distribution. Talk about bringing hunger home.

At the same time, while Scott is peddling across country, fellow author Brenda Novak is conducting her Annual Auction for the Cure of Diabetes.  Brenda, as the mother of a child with Type I diabetes, decided she couldn’t sit back and wait for a cure. In the seven years since Brenda decided to do something to benefit diabetes research, the auction has raised 1.3 million dollars! That’s right.  Not only is Brenda raising lots of money for an important cause, everyone who takes part has fun. There are so many fabulous items to bid on, including my own offering of my five quilt pattern books, an autographed copy of Sister’s Choice, and a $25 gift certificate to Connecting Threads to help you start your project. But there are many larger items, too, including wonderful vacations (how about a night at Nora Robert’s Boonsboro Inn), trips to London, Paris, Australia. Or meals with your favorite authors, critiques of manuscripts, hand-crafted delights?

Scott and Brenda don’t know each other, but their common link isn’t me, it’s seeing a need, and believing they can make a difference. They have chosen, through their efforts, to change the world. And they will. World hunger won’t mysteriously vanish in June when Scott finishes his ride, and a cure for diabetes won’t be found on May 31, when Brenda’s auction ends, but children will be fed, and researchers will receive more funding. Things will change for the better.

Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Brenda and Scott are proof of this, as are millions of other people who reach out, in whatever way that’s available to them. I’m proud to know them both.

If you’re interested in donating to either of these endeavors, click on the following links:

Donations for the Auction for the Cure of Diabetes (But for more fun, find something wonderful to bid on while you’re there.)

The Ride to Beat Hunger (Right now an anonymous benefactor is matching gifts dollar for dollar.)

We can make a difference, too, just through our support.