Joyce DiPastena's Blog, page 25

Summary Sunday

I confronted the darkest day in my hero's life this week. I've played it out in my mind for years, but this was the first time I attempted to write it down. It's interesting how malleable a scene remains until it finally takes solid form on paper or computer screen. Details I hadn't known even with my years of imagining suddenly appeared. It is part of the wonder of "writing."

I share a little glimpse of this scene with you below for Friday. Just one of many new sentences, dark and otherwise, from The Lady and the Minstrel this week.


Monday: He had many things to tell her, but some things felt too harsh for today.
Tuesday: He saw all too glaringly now how their hopes in one another had been at cross-purposes all this while.
Wednesday: Robert hated to admit he shared a common trait with the Earl of Strode, but he recognized stubbornness when he saw it, for the fault had plagued him all his life.
Thursday: Robert was appalled. “Is that what you think I am thinking?”
Friday: “I pelted home just in time to see my father throw a handful of coins in Lord Simon’s face and Lord Simon’s knights spring upon my father and my mother drop her lute.”
Saturday: So bitterly had Lord Simon’s hated face soared up before Robert’s vision that he did not see Marguerite until her hands slapped against his chest.

Book blog tour for "Farewell, My Denmark", by Tina Scott

I am happy to help my good friend, Tina Scott, celebrate the release of her first historical novel, Farewell, My Denmark ! She is running a book blog tour, as you will see below, giving away copies of her new books along with Target gift cards. Visit each of the blogs below on the dates listed to be entered in the contest. And don't forget to visit Tina's own blog for an extra entry there!

Totally Tina Scott
I will be holding an interview with Tina on April 16, so I hope you'll come back and visit us then!

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!! HELP ME CELEBRATE MY NOVEL !! FAREWELL, MY DENMARK book giveaway and celebration APRIL 8 – 26th
 My Wonderful Helpers:
April 8____Tristi Pinkston  April 12___Valerie Ipson April 15___Cami Checketts April 16___Joyce DiPastena April 22___Joyce Smith
April 23___Jennifer Griffith and Julie Martin Wallace  Each Friday, April 12th, 19th, 26th, one winner will be picked from that weeks comments to receive a copy of my novel [You may choose from print or ebook.

and a $10 Target gift card. INTERNATIONAL: ebook only, no gift card. Sorry.

Winner will be drawn Fridays @ 5pm Pacific Standard time. Participants who didn’t win may re-enter each week w/ new comments and announcements.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
Leave a comment on hosts blog = 1 entry
Leave a comment on my blog w/ your email address in case you win = 1 entry
(Those w/o an email address posted will forfeit if they win.)
Tweet about giveaway w/ link to my blog = 1 entry
Facebook announcement about giveaway w/ link to my blog = 1 entry

Summary Sunday

I did a lot of editing this week, but I did manage a bit of new writing that moved the story forward. Here is a sampling of new sentences from The Lady and the Minstrel.


Monday: The earl did not need his temper further strained by intercepting Robert returning the longing looks Marguerite was too young to resist casting at him from the dais.
Tuesday: Somehow he kept his voice gentle when a swelling rage within him wanted to pull his dagger free and hunt the earl down.
Wednesday: But the plea in her eyes undid all his noble resolves and his mouth drifted towards her lips like a bee drawn to a seductively blushing rose.
Thursday: He pushed her away a little too hard, for he heard her startled huff as her back knocked up against the log and slightly winded her.
Friday: “If I was so clumsy that you could not feel my love in those kisses, then I am as contemptible a scoundrel as the Earl of Strode.”
Saturday: He had felt the promise of it before, whispering along his soul in those moments when his restlessness calmed as they’d blended their music and laughter.

Musical musings

I know many writers who write to music. I even know writers who choose specific songs to go with each character or even each chapter or scene of their books. In general, I am not such a writer myself. I can’t write to music or TV or any other background distractions. (Well, maybe my cats, but that’s about it.) Aside from medieval poetry, to which any musical accompaniments has failed to survive to the present day, there are no actual musical connections to my medieval novels . . . with one exception, and it’s not a medieval one.
There is a song that is bound in my heart to my current work-in-progress, The Lady and the Minstrel. It has been some time since I sang it, but I came across it recently as I was unpacking some music books in my new house. The song is Anywhere I Wander, by Frank Loesser, and was sung by Danny Kaye in the movie musical, Hans Christian Anderson in 1952. I grew up watching this movie as a little girl with my dad—it was one of our favorites—and in my house, whenever we found a musical we liked, we went to a music store and bought the sheet music (or book of sheet music) to the movie, then came home and sang and played it endlessly on the piano.
I learned this song long before I wrote my first draft of The Lady and the Minstrel (many, many years ago), but while writing that first draft, this song took on a new meaning to me—or rather, I should say, to my characters, my hero in particular. I think it is the theme in the song of wandering, since my hero was a wandering minstrel, coupled with the sad nature of the lyrics. The third verse became particularly poignant to me as it came to encapsulate a dark moment towards the end of the book where my hero sends my heroine away with another man. I promise my story has a happy ending, but for awhile towards the end, things do look very bleak.
These are the words to the song. They could easily be sung by my hero, Robert the Minstrel, about his lady love, Marguerite.
Anywhere I Wanderby Frank Loesser
Her arms were warm as they welcomed me,Her eyes were fire bright,And then I knew that my path must beThrough the ever haunted night,
For anywhere I wander,Anywhere I roam,Till I’m in the arms of my darling againMy heart will find no home.Anywhere I wander,Anywhere I roam.
Her voice was oh such a soft caress,Of love it gently told,And in her smile was a tendernessI may never more behold.
But anywhere I wander,Anywhere I roam, Till I’m in the arms of my darling again My heart will find no home.Anywhere I wander,Anywhere I roam.
Her tears were silver as morning dewAs she bade me goodbye,And every tear was a promise trueThat her love would never die.
So anywhere I wander,Anywhere I roam,Till I’m in the arms of my darling againMy heart will find no home.Anywhere I wander.Anywhere I roam.
I’ve been unable to find a performance of this song that includes all three verses, but here is one by Danny Kaye with verses 1 & 2 and one by Ed Ames that includes verses 1 & 3.

My books on sale for Kindle!

My publisher has made all three of my sweet medieval romances available at sales prices for Kindle through April 13! Each is now only $4.99, a $5 savings off the regular price. Just go to Amazon and type in any of the following titles:

Loyalty's Web


Illuminations of the Heart


Dangerous Favor


And check out my publisher's website for more great e-books on sale! Walnut Springs Press

Summary Sunday

A good friend once gave me a doll with frazzled hair holding a sign that said: "Some days are better
than others." That was certainly true for my writing this week, especially on Friday. I barely eked out a handful of new sentences in an evening otherwise mostly devoted to editing a pivotal scene from an earlier draft. (The editing session felt more like a wrestling match!) In spite of that, I did manage to write six days this week. Here is a sampling from what I accomplished this week with The Lady and the Minstrel.


Monday: She could barely eat or sleep for wondering where Robert was and what he was thinking and whether this time apart would cool the simmering heat in his eyes and replace it with a cold, sober assessment that the dangers of her inheritance outweighed the desire she knew he felt for her.
Tuesday: Holly, along with mistletoe and ivy, had always been hung in her grandfather’s hall during Advent, but her father held to the belief that it was unlucky to gather holly before Christmas Eve.
Wednesday: Strode even let her win twice at chess. He praised her cleverness, again conspicuously before the servants, when he forced her to take advantage of careless moves she knew a man shrewd enough to rise in power next to the king could only have made deliberately.
Thursday: His voice did not slur, but she recoiled, the aromatic mix of cloves and cinnamon and apples of the wassail soured with the wine on his breath.
Friday: The inexplicable sense of safety she had felt with Robert in the glade had become a promise fulfilled.
Saturday: “That glint in yer eye, that mulish set to yer lips— I’ve known ye too long not to recognize the signs that ye’re about to do somethin’ insanely foolish.”

Hug a Medievalist Day: Giveaway

I  should have posted this sooner, but it's not too late! I'm holding a giveaway to celebrate Hug a Medievalist Day over on my Medieval Research with Joyce blog. If you'd like a chance to win a copy of Medieval Women, by Eileen Power, hop on over (no Easter pun intended) to my research blog and enter by midnight tomorrow night (March 31)!

Click here to go to the giveaway!

Book Review: "The Winter Sea," by Susanna Kearsley

As I've mentioned here before, I don't often do full-fledged book reviews, but I've made an exception The Winter Sea , by Susanna Kearsley. Actually, it's not a review so much as an analysis of my reaction to the book, and my curiosity about whether my analogy below might apply to other readers as well. So here is a copy of the review I posted on Goodreads. If you've read The Winter Sea or a book like it and would like to chime in with your thoughts in a comment, I would love to hear from you!

Goodreads review:

Okay, so here is my take on "Winter Sea." I loved the two romances in this story. I loved learning about the early Jacobites, since probably like most readers, I was more familiar with the stories of Bonnie Prince Charlie than I was with those of his father, James. I loved the beautiful writing, which I fully confess made me envious and wishing that I could write beautiful scenes like some of these. :::sigh::: On the other hand, just for me personally, I struggled with the structure of the book, the flipping back and forth between the present and the past. Although I understand why the author wrote the book this way and realize the "flipping" was a necessary part of her plot, I still found it jarring. I would become fully immersed in the characters in the present and just as I was thoroughly enjoying their scenes, I would find myself wrenched away to the characters in the past. Then just as I found myself happily immersed in these characters' scenes, I would be wrenched back to the present. I found it somewhat difficult emotionally because I could have loved reading an entire book (or two separate books) about just one set of characters or the other without interruption. It is certainly a credit to the author's writing abilities that she was able to make me care so much about both sets of couples. (Loved, loved, loved the humor in the contemporary scenes. A few times I literally laughed out loud.)

Now, in one of my status updates I promised a food analogy that occurred to me while I was reading this book. My emotional reaction to the structure of this book made me reflect on why I found the switching back and forth so difficult when someone like my sister would have read a book like this through seamlessly without any of the jarring sensations that I felt. And then I remembered how we like to eat our food. Let's take Thanksgiving dinner as an example. Say my sister and I each have a plate containing turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, and dressing. My sister will smoosh all of these foods together and eat them all mixed up, while I confess that I prefer to eat all my turkey, then all my green beans, then all my mashed potatoes, etc, one by one. My sister loves to mix all the flavors up together, while I prefer to savor each one individually before moving on to the next. (This works for chocolate, too. Give me 10 Hershey Kisses, 5 caramel and 5 with almonds, and I will eat all the caramel ones first, then all the almonds one. That's just the way my taste buds work.)

This analogy got me to wondering if the reactions of other readers of a book like "Winter Sea" might also reflect their eating habits. I am tempted to do a poll of readers to see if there is, indeed, a correlation between the two, but I confess, I am too lazy to put one together. However, if any of you read this review and would like to share your opinion on my analogy, I'd be fascinated to hear it!

(And if you've actually read this far, then you deserve to buy yourself some Hershey Kisses and eat them in whichever order you prefer!)

Arizona Renaissance Festival 2013

Another wonderful year at the Arizona Renaissance Festival! This was their 25 year anniversary and I'm happy to say, I haven't missed a single year!


(Yes, I snapped this on the way out of the festival because the lighting wasn't good going in)
Here is a picture of the royal family, with the Princess on the left, the Queen in the middle, and the King on the right. Maybe next year I'll get some snapshots of those handsome young princes!

If you go hungry at the Arizona Renaissance Festival, you'll have only yourself to blame. Just look at all your choices!







After all of that, you'll need something to drink, of course. Keep your eye out for this booth whenever you get thirsty!

Sometimes you need a snack.

And don't forget about dessert!



(And I've barely scratched the surface of your options!)
The Arizona Renaissance Festival had a brand new feature this year called Pan's Oasis. In this next sequence of pictures, you'll see the satyr Pan cavorting in a fountain before the fountain comes to life! This is definitely going to become one of my favorite stops at the RenFest every year.


























Until next year...huzzah!

Summary Sunday

I only got five days in again this week because last week when I went to the Arizona Renaissance Festival, I forgot to take the discount ticket I had pre-bought, so I had to buy a full price ticket at the gate. Not wanting to let the discount ticket go to waste, I decided to go back to the RenFest today to get my money's worth out of it. (Even at a discount, it wasn't cheap!) So once again, I got home too late and tired to write on Saturday night. But here is a sampling of new sentences from the rest of my week. Huzzah!
Monday: His chin jutted slightly up, as though she had dealt him some blow.
Tuesday: Would he still look at her thus, with that simmering heat behind his steady gaze, when she told him?
Wednesday: She could not even read his eyes, now, he guarded his thoughts so closely.
Thursday: “He will keep you warm and safe from a world more harsh and bitter than you can comprehend.”
Friday: How could any man, even one with a heart of ice, fail to thaw at last before so merry a laugh as hers, such sparkling eyes, such grace and loveliness, her charms all the more powerful because her very essence was so pure.