Pamela Clare's Blog, page 20

Contests, news and a Project: Happiness update

Let me just say that pneumonia sucks. I totally understand now how this illness can kill people. There were a few nights when I wondered whether the combination of asthma and pneumonia would make me either faint or just stop breathing. That's how hard I was coughing. The world would just start to go gray. My doc was giving me about 24 hours to get better, or I was going to land in the hospital.

Fortunately, I have come back to the world of the breathing — mostly. Inhalation is a sweet thing. Thanks to all of you for your emails, tweets and Facebook posts. Your encouragement meant a lot to me.

Before I launch on a Project: Happiness update, I wanted to let you know about some upcoming events and contests.


The 12-12-12 Leap Day Giveaway


I am a proud Leap Day baby. And this year — 2012 — I am celebrating my 12th real birthday. In honor of that, I am giving away 12 books through Goodreads — six copies of Surrender and six copies of Untamed. You need to be a member of Goodreads to participate, but signing up is easy. A lot of you probably already are Goodreads members.

To sign up for the Surrender giveaway, click here and scroll down the page to where you see "Win A Copy of This Book." To sign up for the Untamed giveaway, click here, and do the same.

(Side note: If anyone has librarian privileges at Goodreads, please email me and let me know or message me through Goodreads. There are some things on my books that need to be updated, such as the new covers for Surrender and Untamed, and I don't know how to make that happen.)

Unfortunately, I've had to limit participation in this giveaway to addresses in the U.S. and Canada. Now that I'm not working at the paper, I just can't afford overseas postage. I feel terrible about that. I've never limited participation before, but you gotta do what you gotta do.


A MacKinnon's Rangers special


Yes, Valentine's Day is behind us, but on February 27, Under the Covers Book Blog is having me on as a guest. I'll be bringing you a MacKinnon's Rangers extra — a chapter-length look at Iain and Morgan offering Annie and Amalie some Valentine's day affection. The mini-story takes place on Feb. 13-14, 1760, at the MacKinnon farm on the colonial New York frontier.

I didn't want to give away any spoiler for Defiant, so I set the story just before Defiant opens. This means the action is taking place between the ending of Untamed and the epilogue of Untamed. Annie has just had her baby girl, and Amalie is eight months pregnant — and fearful of what is to come as women were back in the day when childbirth so often meant death. I find it very romantic when men find a way to nurture their women at times like these when what we think of as romance — hot sex, seduction — aren't necessarily possible. Marriage isn't a constant stream of hot sex dates so much as a commitment to live each day together and love each other fully. I try to give you some romance in daily life in this story, showing Iain and Morgan's tender sides.

Those of you who want a taste of the MacKinnon brothers to tide you over to Defiant's July 3 release date are in luck.

I'm uncertain of the details, but I plan to give a book or two away that day. Watch Facebook and Twitter (@Pamela_Clare) to get the live links.

Project: Happiness updateBody-Mind-Spirit


I wouldn't say that Project: Happiness was derailed by pneumonia, but my focus was entirely on getting well. And that's fitting, as a huge part of Project: Happiness for me is learning how to take care of my physical self.

I'm a history geek, as you know, and in my study of the ancient world — 10 years of Latin, people — I was always very touched by the old Latin adage, "Mens sana in corpore sano." This translates to, "A healthy mind in a healthy body."

It was an ideal to which philosophers at least adhered and which grew out of the almost identical Greek concept: "Νοῦς ὑγιὴς ἐν σώματι ὑγιεῖ."

It's amazing to me how ancient people's saw the world so clearly and understood human life so well. We hire personal trainers and nutritionists and spiritual gurus to impress this concept on us today. So many people think starving themselves or pushing themselves to exercise and be thin or muscular or physically perfect is the key to happiness. Others spend years educating themselves or pursing worthwhile intellectual work — only to sit at a desk 24/7 and find that, while their minds are strong, their bodies resemble nothing so much as a pile of mashed potatoes.

How many people truly find balance? Probably not many.

I would like to be so bold as to propose an update to the Greco-Roman ideal and offer this: "A healthy spirit and a healthy mind in a health body."

I see people as a blending of the three — body, mind and spirit. Each plays its role in leading us toward growth in this life and toward meaningful happiness. Neglect any one of the three, and the potential of our lives diminishes. Oftentimes, people neglect spirit until age or illness deprives them of their bodies. Each is an equally important part of our human existence. Although I'm not religious in the traditional sense, I think of them as a kind of personal trinity — the Three in One that is reflective of something higher.

I've had some time to think about how I want to undertake Project: Happiness. And, yes, I mean to create a road map, a way to quantify making qualitative progress in my life. After 47 years, I've concluded that we make progress in our lives when we devote true energy toward our desired goals. If you have no plan, if you have no road map, you have no way to measure your efforts or their results. In other words, shit doesn't happen unless you make it happen.

As my grandmother used to say, "Wish in one hand, and piss in the other, and see which one fills up first."

This is no longer about wishing. It's about achieving. I don't have decades left to goof around. What I want to be, I must become. What I am tomorrow is what I've built today. If I have a goal, I need to draw it out of my heart and make it real. As strange as it may be to say that happiness is something one can set out to achieve, I believe it truly is, not by chasing it or going to parties or escaping into other distractions, but by doing the hard work of becoming the person I was meant to be in all areas of my life.

In upcoming blogs, I'll focus on each of these areas — body, mind and spirit — and the steps I plan to take and the challenges I know I will face.

To start with, I am thinking each day of what I am doing for each of these three areas of my life. What did I do for my body today? What did I do for my mind? What did I do for my spirit? A day that involves adequate rest, exercise and nutrition, together with satisfying work and prayer or meditation could be considered a successful, balanced day, for example. By consciously planning to achieve something for each part of myself, I hope to bring balance to my life — and to expose the areas where I need to work harder.

So stay tuned for the first exploration: Body.


And, yes, and more MacKinnon's Rangers, too!

Plus, watch for I-Team news! 

BREAKING POINT wins Best Romantic Suspense in AAR Poll

I am delighted and astonished to be able to announce that Breaking Point (I-Team Book 5) won Best Romantic Suspense in All About Romance's Annual Reader Poll. This is the second year in a row that one of my books has claimed this honor, as Naked Edge won in the same category last year.

As tempting as it is to crown myself reigning queen of romantic suspense, I gave my tiara to an adorable little 3-year-old princess named Taylor. Besides, there are so many fantastic authors writing romantic suspense that any such attempted coronation would be nothing but hubris.

This is the second (or third?) significant honor Breaking Point has picked up, as the editors of Amazon.com named it one of the Top 10 Romance Novels of 2011. 

Thank you to all of you who read the book, who shared your feelings about it through reviews and word of mouth, and who voted in AAR's poll. You helped make this book the success is has been. It means the world to me.

Other winners I was happy to see this year included Julie James, who won Best Contemporary Romance for the second year in a row, this time with A Lot Like Love, a book I very much enjoyed. A Lot Like Love also tied with Susan Elizabeth Phillip's Call Me Irresistible for Funniest Romance. Both had to be a tough categories to win.

I was also thrilled to see Jessica Scott pick up Best Debut Author for Because of You. I read her book pre-release and gave it a blurb because I was so impressed with the military authenticity she, as an army captain, was able to bring to the story.

Head on over to AAR to see a list of all the winners, to read author commentary on the poll, and to participate in a discussion of the poll on AAR's message boards.

In the meantime, I'd love to celebrate this with you. Trouble is, I am sick as a dog with the worst case of bronchitis I think I've ever had. After four days of fever, one trip to the ER for an asthmatic attack, and several sleepless nights, I have very little energy for anything.

So to help me celebrate, post your favorite moment or quote from Breaking Point .  I'll draw one name at random from those who post, and that person will win a signed copy of the book.

Thanks again for your support!

Amalie Chauvenet's World — A MacKinnon's Rangers Special

Flag of New France

Back in November, we took a look at Lady Anne's world — Lady Anne being Annie from Surrender. Then craziness of the holidays followed, along with my deadline for Defiant, so we never got to look at the world of Amalie Chauvenet, the heroine from Untamed. As a French heroine and the only French protagonist in the MacKinnon's Rangers series, she offers us a glimpse of something we rarely see. This was the French and Indian War, after all, but very rarely do we learn anything about the French side of it.

It's a bit overdue, but welcome to Amalie's world.

The colonization of New France occurred in a very different way than that of the British colonies. All of the French land belonged to the Crown. The King then gave some of it to the Church, and the rest was let out as signeuries to various people who then, like feudal lords, might rent out bits of it to French settlers, who were required to do certain things, including pay some of their yield in crops, livestock, furs, etc., to their signeur, who might be a woman or the Church.

Contrast that to the somewhat free-for-all system of British colonization, whereby people from all over Europe simply moved onto the frontier, carving their own notches into trees to mark their land. At the time of the French and Indian War, the frontier of the British colonies was populated by Scots, Scots-Irish (Scots from Ulster, Ireland), Dutch, Germans, and, oh, yes, English folk.

You can see how one might draw more people than the other.  And when it came to winning this war, popular was certainly an issue. The British far outnumbered the French.

Trois RivieresBut what played an even greater role, at least at first, was the various people's relationship with the Indians. For whatever reason, the French had done a far better job of forming ties with the Indians, while the British tended to view them as subhuman, savages to be held at bay. French settlers intermarried with the Indians at much higher rates than on the British side. When time for war came, the French could count on tens of thousands of Indian allies, while the British, who turned up their noses at the Native population, could turn to very few Indian nations. Even then there were difficulties, such as when Braddock insulted and ignored his Indian scouts and walked with his troops into an ambush that cost him his life and the lives of his men.


From this world comes Amalie Chauvenet, the daughter of a French officer and his half Abenaki wife, who died giving birth to her second child when Amalie was 2 years old. An officer can scarcely raise a child on his own, so Amalie was sent as a toddler to live with the Ursuline nuns in Trois Rivieres.

The Ursuline Convent at Trios Rivieres
The convent where she was raised to the age of 17 stands today. In its day, it would have provided for the education of young women, many of whom would remain with the convent. It would also have offered what limited medical care existed in the area. The only hospitals in New France were run by the Catholic Church.



Amalie chaffed under the strict discipline of the abbey and longed to see more of the world. Most of all, she wanted to be with her father, whom she knew only from infrequent visits and from his letters. When he falls ill, she travels from Trois Rivieres to Fort Carillon down at the southern end of Lac Champlain to help care for him. In his company, she feels truly wanted, truly at home.

A French officer from the 18th century
Her father allows her access to ideas what would have been considered heretical or at least very controversial at the convent, showing regard for her opinions and her concerns. And although her father tells her he must soon send her back to the abbey, he can't bring himself to send his beloved daughter whose life he has missed out on, away.

But they live in a world at war. The British started the war when a scouting party, led by a young George Washington, killed a wounded French envoy. French anger deepened when the Acadians were expelled from their homes in a tragic incident of ethnic cleansing that led to the deaths of many Acadians. (Many of them traveled to New Orleans, another French possession, where they became known as Cajuns.)

Amalie's time with her father is cut tragically short when the British attack Fort Carillon, sending 16,000 troops against General Montcalm's 3,000. Montcalm, in an act of genius, had set soldiers to felling trees, using their branches and sharpened sticks to create an abatis.


General Montcalm
 The French expected to lose that day. They were so terribly outnumbered. But British blundering turned the tide in their favor and handed the British a crushing defeat, as soldiers became hopelessly caught up in the abatis and were shot like sitting ducks.

Battle of Fort Carillon/Fort Ticonderoga, July 1758
 We experience this battle through the eyes of Iain MacKinnon, his brothers and his men toward the end of Surrender. But we get to re-experience it through Amalie's eyes. Although the French claim an unexpected victory, which Montcalm hails as a miracle of God, erecting a cross on the site of the French entrenchments, Amalie's father is killed by a Ranger's lead ball.

While the French celebrate their victory, Amalie mourns the loss of her father, her only family, apart from Abenaki cousins she does not know well.

The French celebrate their unexpected victory at Fort Carillon.

Bereaved and alone, Amalie finds herself the ward of Bourlamaque, the third-highest ranking officer in New France. Staring out of her window onto the ramparts of Fort Carillon and the waters of Lac Champlain, she feels desperately lonely. Bourlamaque wants her to marry one of his officers, Lieutenant Rillieux, but Amalie doesn't feel more than friendly affection for Rillieux.  Nor does she wish to return to the seclusion and chaffing restraints of the abbey.


Looking south over Lake Champlain through the upstairs windows at Fort Carillon/Ticonderoga. Amalie cannot know that a man will come to her from the south to change her life forever, bringing not only the woodcraft and strength needed to protect her, but also the passion her heart has craved and a family that will welcome her with open arms.


But to claim this love, she will have to come to peace with the fact that he is one of the dreaded Rangers, possibly even the man who took her father's life.


Click here for an excerpt from Untamed, which was reissued last month with 25 previously cut pages restored, including the villain's original death scene.


In honor of sweet Amalie, I'm giving away one signed copy of Untamed to someone who comments below. To be entered for the drawing, tell me what interests you most about the MacKinnon's Rangers series.



Our next MacKinnon's Rangers Special will feature a look at the world of Lady Sarah Woodville, the heroine from Defiant. Those of you who haven't read the series or who have the books in your TBR but haven't read them yet have 143 days as of today to catch up before Defiant hits bookstore shelves.

It's time to celebrate!

 
If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you already know my good news, but I'll share it here just in case some of you missed it.
On Monday, I heard from my wonderful editor at Penguin, who said she "loved, loved, loved" Defiant and felt "haunted" by it. I was in the shower when she called, but when I heard her message, which was so glowing, I got so excited I forgot how to use my cell phone and kept pushing the wrong buttons in my attempt to call her back.


We talked for about 20 minutes about parts of the book she had found particularly touching, parts of the book where I wondered whether I had successfully pulled of this scene or that scene. I was so relieved to hear that she felt all of the emotions in the book were earned. She predicts lots of tears, so make sure you have tissues handy come July.
July 3

And here's some news I haven't shared: Although this book is long — longer than anything I've written — she's not changing it. No revisions. Nothing. What I wrote is what you'll get, together with an afterword and some very special artwork.


So break out the champagne and the chocolate!


We also talked about the reissue of Ride the Fire , which now has a publication date of February 2013. I'm not sure why it's so far off in the future. It will feature a fresh edit, the never-before-released-as-yet-unwritten epilogue, and a new cover.


We also talked I-Team briefly. She's scheduled me for March 2013 for the next I-Team book, which will feature the former television broadcast reporter who takes Natalie's place on the I-Team.


 I will have an ad put together soon (I hope) that you can copy and put on your blogs and FB pages if you want to help spread the word about the book. For whatever reason, Colonial America is a harder sell with romance readers, so I have that uphill battle to fight, along with the fact that I haven't had a new historical out since 2008.




In the meantime, those of you who haven't met the MacKinnon Brothers have roughly five months to catch up with Surrender , the first book in the series, and Untamed , the second. Both are newly re-edited and re-issued with new content and new covers.





Thanks for your continued support on Project: Happiness. I'll have updates on my progress soon!



In the meantime, Seductive Musings is giving away a digital copy of Sweet Release to one Musings follower to celebrate February and Valentine's Day. Click here to be entered for a chance to win! And thanks to Seductive Musings for the giveaway.

So you asked to see some of my artwork...

 Thanks so much for your wonderful responses to my last blog entry. So many of you contacted me via Facebook or email to express your heartfelt support, many of you talking about ways in which you need to change your own lives. If we can support one another and make 2012 a year of unprecedented personal change, I'm all for it.

Yes, Project: Happiness is underway and has already brought change. Simply declaring my intention has helped to harness my energies in a positive way.

Since posting last Tuesday, I've chosen a gym that I'm going to join together with Benjamin, who is gearing up to apply for Officer Candidate School with the U.S. Coast Guard. We visited health clubs today and decided to join the city-owned rec center. They have several facilities and are dirt cheap, which fits my budget. I need to get back into shape. Benjamin needs to get into the best shape of his life. And unlike other times when I've joined a gym, the purpose isn't going to be to work out as hard as I can, as if I were still the woman who could run 6.5- to 7-minute miles. I'm going to take care of myself and not injure myself.

Some of you asked to see some of my artwork from back in the day. It's been a long time since I painted or drew with oils and charcoal and chalk. Most of my artwork was destroyed, so I have very little. But I have photographs of a few things, and I actually have what is perhaps my most priceless drawing.

Up at the top, you can see a photo of Pedersborg Kirke (Pedersborg Church) in Pedersborg, Denmark, a tiny town just on the edge of Sorø, where I lived. An enormous lake surrounds the town, and I used to run around that lake every morning six days a week at 6 a.m. The church stands up on the hillside above the lake, and one afternoon I headed over with a sketchpad and a set of oils and drew what I saw. The photo and sketch are from slightly different angles, and the drawing doesn't have all the detail from the cemetery. But you get the gist...

I was 17 when I drew it.

This drawing still exists (I think). I gave it to my host parents, who still had it when I visited DK in 1999. It's not Da Vinci, but it does show how I used to spend a couple of spare hours when I had them.



I dug through my old photo albums looking for anything I could find and was surprised to find this.  This painting was a joint effort and was put together for a Christmas choir concert when I was in 9th grade. I didn't paint the outer corners or the star. As "Most Artistic" student, I was asked to paint the rose in the center. The rose was supposed to represent Jesus and was put in a spotlight during a Christmas choral piece titled "The Rose." Other students painted the rest of it.

And now for what my sister and I might jokingly call The Piece of Resistance, poorly translating the French expression "la pièce de résistance."

I drew this portrait of a crying Jesus when I was 14. I drew it with an ordinary pencil on a cheap sketch pad. I figured if Jesus knew everything that people did in his name, he'd cry. So here he is, hanging his head in grief.


I am not a religious person, but rather a spiritual one. I don't go to church largely because organized religion leaves me unimpressed, and the last thing I want to do on Sunday morning is get out of freaking bed. I mean really! Whatever I feel with regard to God is between me and God, not me and everyone else on this planet. I don't want the art here to create an erroneous impression.

This isn't a great photograph of the piece. I had to take it off my bedroom wall to photograph it, and the light was reflecting off the glass. There's a reflection of the wooden canopy from my bed on the glass, too.

I gave this to my maternal grandmother when we learned she had lymphoma, and she had it on the wall in her house. (She was religious.) After she passed, I took the drawing back because it meant so much to me.

Among the pieces of artwork that are missing include a charcoal and chalk drawing of a mother eagle with her chick that won first place in an adult art show when I was 15. I really wish I had that! There were some other drawings, as well as a couple of paintings and some prints.

I hope to ease my way back into this by getting some art supplies for my birthday and taking some classes through the recreation center, which offers them for $25. That's just a way to get my feet wet after decades of not drawing or painting. It's another reason we joined the rec center and not just an athletic club. They have lots of classes, including some that cover other interests of mine, such as organic veggie gardening. And they have a climbing wall. YES!


Fiction news:

I have an outline for a novella about Megan. It was going to be a Christmas novella way back when. Now it's just a novella. I hope to start writing it next week and have it up and available for $2.99 through Amazon, B&N and Smashwords by the end of the month.

We'll see what's become of Megan since the end of Unlawful Contact. For those who have forgotten, she's his little sister, and her life has involved serious trauma. She needs a lot of love and a lot of healing to have a real relationship with a man. We'll see Emily, who is now 4. And, yes, we'll see Marc and Julian, too. Marc will be in full-blown "protective big brother" mode, as you can imagine.

I haven't heard from my editor about Defiant yet, but I'm certain I'll hear soon. When I have any news, I'll share it.

Have a great week, everyone! I plan to spend all of Sunday reading. We'll be starting at the gym this week, and I hope to be writing again soon.

Project: Happiness — my new journey

Warning: What follows here is some deeply personal introspection. If you want to believe that I'm a superhero with no human failings, please do not read it.

No, I haven't forgotten about this blog. I've been busy cleaning and reorganizing the house and doing all those chores and little tasks that get ignored when I write. I'm also trying very hard to de-stress and unwind — not an easy thing for a Type A personality like me to do.

It became abundantly clear to me as I was finishing Defiant that I need a new game plan, a new way of relating to my life, my writing, my health. For so long, I've lived my life like a workhorse, the result primarily of having married the wrong man for the wrong reasons too early, having had babies too young, and having no real plan, beyond knowing I wanted to write novels … someday.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

All of us have competing impulses for ill and for good. We lurch through our lives torn between pursuing our own good and our own self-destruction. Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn calls human beings "the angel-beast," and that's a pretty accurate description of most of us, myself included. It's very hard for most of us to exorcise the beast and give our inner angel wings. Even Gandhi, whom I consider to have been a saint, struggled with his own weakness.

He wrote this prayer about his struggles: "I know the path. It is straight and narrow. It is like the edge of a sword. I rejoice to walk upon it. I weep when I slip. God's word is, he who strives shall not perish. I have implicit faith in that promise. Therefore, though through my own weakness I fail a thousand times, I shall not lose faith."



It comes down to how much we love ourselves — love in the deep sense, not in the self-aggrandizing, egoistic sense. And, for whatever reason, the stress of writing tends to bring out the worst in me.

I'm not the only author who has this problem. Writers are many times more likely to suffer from depression than other artists. That's other artists, not the public in general. They're also something like 19 times more likely to commit suicide than other artists. Why?

For one, writing is a very isolating activity, more so than any other art. You have to live inside your head at the expense of real connections in the world. 


But also writing requires an author to maintain a mental state of emotion for prolonged periods of time that, I think, affects our own real state of mind. If I'm writing a scary scene or a grief-filled scene, I need to feel it to write it. If it takes three weeks to write that scene, I'll be "feeling it" for that period of time. If I'm not very careful to cleanse my emotional palate, I end up carrying those emotions with me beyond that scene —  Gabe's untapped grief and anger, for example, or Zach's self-loathing, or Lady Sarah Woodville's self-blame.

I contrast that to the experience of painting, which was the first creative art I explored. Although I had always wanted to write books, I took art classes in junior high and discovered I have some talent in that area. I was voted Most Artistic in my schools throughout my secondary education and really loved painting and drawing. Unlike writing, it was a very cathartic thing to do. I would just drift away into the wordless world of art, which was all about color and using color to create the image in my mind. It was almost a form of meditation for me. Hours would pass. And I would come away from it feeling as light as sunshine.

I quit painting when I left school. No money for art supplies, which are insanely expensive. I did take a few art classes in college. One of my professors urged me to switch departments and get my MFA. When I told him I couldn't afford it, he said, "Forget the cost. You'll be making 80 grand two years after you graduate."

But I didn't heed his advice mostly because I couldn't fathom how my paint splatters could garner that much attention. In fact, I considered myself to be one of the least skilled students in his class. He disagreed. "Everyone else looks around them at the outside world before they work on a project. You always work from inside," he said. "That makes you much more creative than your peers, no matter how technically skilled they are. I can teach you technique."

But back to writing…

When writing is going well, it feels like I'm flying. There's a real high. When it isn't going well, it is agony. And although I've written 11 novels, there's always a niggling fear inside me that I won't be able to do it again. So when I come to a difficult scene, rather than viewing it as a challenge, I start hating my own guts for "failing" to produce what see in my heart.

Some writers are able to produce drafts of a book and feel fine leaving some scenes as mere sketches or knowing that they've written crap. In fact, they give themselves permission to write crap, knowing they'll fix it later. I can't seem to do that. I tried it with Naked Edge, and the result was two months of lost writing time. Having been an editor for so long, and being used to getting exactly what I want to say on the page very quickly as a journalist, I can't seem to settle for anything other than perfection. And I never achieve perfection, at least in my own sight. When I fail, I beat up on myself so mercilessly that I end up feeling despair.

What's up with that?

That's part of what I want to sort through this year.



I think part of the problem has always been the bottleneck of my life — single mother, full-time journalist, author. Too many hats, too little time. And let's face it — I wasn't exactly happy at the newspaper. Au contraire.

But the problem goes deeper than that. I've had more than my share of trauma. Here's the short list: sexual assault at age 10; dating violence at age 14; a break-in by men with switchblades and attempted rape at age 23; near-fatal climbing accident at age 30 that left me partially disabled; two stalkers; several death threats; having guns held on me twice. I'm not saying this out of self-pity. It's just an inventory. I've had an equal number of blessings, because I survived each of these situations and got stronger along the way.

I've been open and public about the fact that I was sexually assaulted by the father of a classmate when I was in fifth grade. That experience left me feeling tainted in a way that really only other rape victims could understand. I withdrew emotionally from the world and felt different from the other kids. My childhood evaporated at that point.

In junior high and high school, I started doing drugs as much out of curiosity and a desire to have fun, as well as the need to escape my own pain. By the time I was in 10th grade, I'd tried most everything that existed at that time — marijuana, amphetamines, narcotics, angel dust, cocaine. Some of my experiences from those days were hilarious and recklessly fun; others were scary, such as the night when a 21-year-old jerk beat me up at a party because I wouldn't sleep with him. (I was 14 and stoned out of my mind.)

I don't regret those days — they gave me great material for books — but I also recognize that they were part of a self-destructive impulse. Fortunately, unlike many girls, I was able to turn away from that scene when my life began to feel too out of control. I simply walked away. No addictions. No rehab. I was just done with it.

I had a few good years after that. I traveled to Denmark as an exchange student and saw a completely different way of life, one that I love to this day and miss very much. I worked hard to learn the language, to make friends, to see everything I could see. I took up running very seriously and reached a point where I could click off consecutive 6.5- to 7-minute miles and ran 10 to 13 miles a day six days a week. I met a Danish man, fell in love, got engaged. Then, oppressed by the idea of monogamy, he broke off our engagement.

And the pendulum swung from angel back to beast.



I went back to the U.S. at the age of 20, dabbled in drugs again, though not for long. I met a guy on the rebound and married him because he was... there. I got pregnant almost immediately, tried to make the marriage work and failed. I won't go into that because that impacts my kids.

I will say that one huge factor in that was the break-in. "The Break-in." That's what we call it in my family. That involved two men with switchblades, me alone at home with a 9-month-old baby. I escaped being raped at knife-point by a margin of seconds — an experience I've shared publicly. The ordeal, coupled with the sexual assault when I was a kid, resulted in five years of horrid, terrible post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

If it seems like I write a lot of emotionally traumatized characters, that's why. I relate to that side of them perhaps more than any other.

Of course, many things that seem terrible at the time come with hidden blessings. My bad marriage gave me two wonderful kids. The mountain climbing accident that deprived me of my ability to run helped me find an inner strength I didn't know I had (and gave me part of the plot for a novel). Having been a victim of sexual assault 1.5 times fueled my desire to confront the bad guys as a journalist, which I did head-on to the benefit of other women. Battling PTSD gave me an empathy for others that I might not otherwise have, making me a better reporter.

But now everything is changing again, and the pendulum has been swinging in the wrong direction for a while now.

I turn 48 on February 29 — Leap Day. My focus for the past 28 years has been on my kids, my work as a journalist, and my writing, even at the expense of my health. I'm finding it hard to keep up with the changes in my life. The kids are grown. Benjamin is home for now, but that won't last long. I'm not longer the editor-in-chief of a newspaper and have no steady income. And writing has turned into a brutal boxing match of me vs. myself.

No, I don't drink. I haven't touched drugs in eons. That's all far behind me. It's more a case of the self-destructive voice in my head, which I sometimes jokingly call "Grima Pam-Tongue." (For those of you who aren't Tolkien fans, that's derived from the character Grima Wormtongue, who fills the mind of King Théoden of the Rohirrim with evil, magical lies that sap him of his strength and will.)

I have two adult children, a lifetime achievement award for journalism, a National Journalism Award, and 11 published novels, but the voice in my head tells me I haven't done anything with my life. I write books that get higher-than-average reviews, and the voice tells me I can't write. I'm free to spend more time than ever doing what I want to do with my life now, and yet that destructive voice tells me I have nothing to live for.

The more exhausted I am, the emptier my creative well, the more stressed I feel, the louder that negative voice becomes. Physical pain plays a huge role, too. I'm less than two years out from my big spinal surgery and still have nights where I can't sleep from pain, though things are a zillion times better than they were before I got my new neck.

Toward the end of working on Defiant, my sister sat on the couch beside me till 3 AM, all but holding my hand. When I reached a point where I wanted to scream, she helped me stay focused.

"I fucking hate myself!" I would shout. "I can't write at all. Why in the hell did I ever think that I could write books? I should toss my computer in the trash and get a job at Burger King!"

And she would say in a deadpan voice, "Another glimpse at the productive inner monologue of Pamela Clare."

Have I ever mentioned how much I love her?

Yesterday, she sent me this parable:

"A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you."

The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?"

The old man replied simply, "The one you feed." 



I'm going through a huge life change right now. More than that, I'm having to face once and for all the wounded part of myself and heal it so that the fear and pain don't control my emotional life. I have to take control of that inner voice and turn it toward a higher purpose.

I need to quit believing the lies Grima Pam-Tongue tells me. I need to feed the right wolf.

That's what I'm working on right now. I'm focusing my energies on rediscovering what I love about life. I'm going to ask for some art supplies for my birthday so I can draw and paint again, something I long to do. I want to build up the strength in my body to be able to do some of the sports I love — hiking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, whitewater rafting. Next year, I hope to hire a ski coach who can help me re-learn to downhill ski despite my damaged spine.  (I have no feeling in my lower legs thanks to spinal damage from a broken neck.) I want to find a way to face the frustrations of writing that is functional and not destructive so that I can enjoy writing again.

And so I have launched Project: Happiness, an effort to overcome negative habits and thinking, to foster creativity and actively to pursue The Good. I am setting out deliberately to create happiness in my life. I've been reading, watching movies I've never seen before, listening to new music, going for regular walks and thinking about what's really important to me. I'm re-filling my creative well.

The timing is perfect for this. The same changes that have thrown me off balance also open the door for me to transform my life. I hope to share the journey with you on this blog over the course of the next year.

I am determined to succeed.

Coming soon:
News about I-Team novellas
More peeks at Defiant
MacKinnon's Rangers Reading Challenge

DEFIANT is done!

Done!
It's more than 129,000 words and 467 pages long.

I am now going to take some time to myself and will be back soon with lots of books to give away and lots of fun.

See you soon!

Finishing touches on DEFIANT

Writer at work




Sorry if I haven't been around a lot lately. My head is firmly in the 18th century.



I'm down to my last three days of polishing Defiant. Almost all of that will probably be spent working on the denouement and epilogue. They're already written, but I want them to be perfect. That means adding one more scene, revising a couple of existing scenes, then working through every word to make them sing.



I turn it in on Friday, probably in the wee hours of the morning. And then I'm going to take some time for myself. I am determined to make the most of my new freedom for taking care of myself — that's my New Year's resolution — and for enjoying life again, something I've lost track of in all the craziness of working full time, being a mom and trying to write decent books.



I will be bringing you some Ranger-related fun in the coming weeks as we get closer to the release of Defiant in July, including contests, book giveaways, and interviews. And once I'm rested up and in a good and healthy routine, I'll be working on a trailer for Defiant, a couple of I-Team related novellas and the next I-Team novel.



In the meantime, I'll be savoring these next few days as special time finishing a series that has meant so incredibly much to me.

Special Guest Blogger — Elisabeth Naughton

Hi, all

First, an update on Defiant. I'm deep into polishing the manuscript and working out all the kinks. I've been very focused on it at the expense of many things, but I am enjoying it, which is wonderful. I'm very excited to share this book with all of you.

In the meantime, I've asked author Elisabeth Naughton to come talk with us about her latest release, Wait for Me, and her love of reunion stories. I've written only one reunion story — Unlawful Contact — but that seems to be a favorite. So what is it about lovers getting a second chance that we cherish so much?

Here is Elisabeth to share her thoughts...

Thanks so much to Pamela for having me here today!

I have been a fan of reunion stories as long as I can remember. My very favorite is Paradise, by Judith McNaught. For those that haven't read it (and you should!) it's a book about a man and woman who meet when the heroine is still a teenager. They have an intense fling, get married on a whim and find their relationship torn apart by time and distance. Years later, they meet up again, and that's when the real story starts—as the lies and betrayals they each thought were true in the past are seen in a whole new light.

While I love reading reunion stories, writing them is an entirely different story. The toughest books I've ever written have been reunion stories—STOLEN HEAT, ENTWINED, ENRAPTURED—primarily because there's so much angst from the past an author has to convey to the reader in order to make them work. Every time I write one, I complain to my critique partner and make her promise to slap me upside the head if I start to write another. She agrees. Then forgets. And months later I find myself ready to tear my eyelashes out as I'm stuck in the middle of yet another one. It really is like a sickness – I love them so much I can't stop writing them. But at the same time they test my writing patience and push me to the limit. The only consolation is that at the end—when it's all said and done—those reunion stories are my favorite books that I've written to date.

WAIT FOR ME is one such book. It's a romantic suspense about a happily married man—Ryan Harrison—whose life is torn apart when his wife is killed in an accident. The book opens five years later with Ryan's life being turned upside down—yet again—when a woman who looks just like his deceased wife shows up on his doorstep. It's angsty, it's emotional, and it's filled with romance and mystery as the two work together to find answers as to what really happened five years before. And even though it was a very hard book for me to write, it is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorites.

Are you a fan of reunion stories? What do you like about them? I'm giving away a copy of WAIT FOR ME to one lucky commenter today!

***
A woman without a past…



After a tragic accident left her with no memory, Kate Alexander struggled to fit in with a husband and world that didn't feel right. She's had no reason to question what friends and family have told her, not until her husband is suddenly killed and she finds a photo of a young girl in his office. A girl who can't be anyone but a daughter Kate didn't know she had.



A man desperate for a reason to live…



Ryan Harrison lost his wife in a plane crash five years ago. To cope with the pain of her loss, he dedicated himself to his job and to raising their daughter. Now a successful pharmaceutical executive, Ryan has everything a man could want—money, fame and power—but he'd give it all up in a heartbeat for just one more day with the woman he still loves.



Two lives about to converge.



As Kate begins to dig into a past she doesn't remember, evidence leads her to San Francisco and puts her on the path toward Ryan, a man who sees in her the woman he loved and lost. Kate feels a draw to Ryan, one she can't explain, but is that feeling enough to convince her this is where she's supposed to be? As Ryan and Kate search for answers, they uncover lies long buried, a passion hotter than either expected and a danger that threatens…even now…when the second chance they've both been searching for is finally within reach.

"Full of twists and turns, lies and deception, and the ultimate revenge, WAIT FOR ME is a great romantic suspense read."
—Night Owl Reviews, Top Pick
***


A former junior high science teacher, Elisabeth Naughton traded in her red pen and test tube set for a laptop and research books. She now writes sexy romantic adventure and paranormal novels full time from her home in western Oregon where she lives with her husband and three children. Her work has been nominated for numerous awards including the prestigious RITA® awards by Romance Writers of America, the Australian Romance Reader Awards, The Golden Leaf and the Golden Heart. When not writing, Elisabeth can be found running, hanging out at the ballpark or dreaming up new and exciting adventures. Visit her at www.elisabethnaughton.com to learn more about her and her books.

Why I Write About the French & Indian War

A view of Lake Champlain from the walls of Fort Ticonderoga


First for the really exciting news: Connor's book is written! Yes, Defiant is written. Right now I'm revising it and polishing it — my favorite part of writing. Writing is not getting any easier for me, but rather seems to get harder. Perhaps my expectations for myself are getting higher, or maybe I just keep biting off more in my mind than I can manage in words.




Indian writer Anita Desai said, "Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes motivation to write the next book."

I have that same experience.



The beautiful Eileen Hannay and I standing on Rogers Island across from the site of Fort Edward


What's in my mind is a shadow of some greater, more profound reality that I want to share. What ends up on the page is a shadow of what was in my mind. It can be very frustrating.




However, I'm almost 100 pages in and pleased with the those 100 pages.




I wanted to muse a bit about why I write about Colonial America and particularly the French & Indian War. A reader on Goodreads asked why I would set a book during a period of history that was so horrendously violent and brutal. I'm taking the question seriously and want to answer, because there is a reason. Or rather there are many reasons.



Romantic fiction has a long tradition that goes back long before Jane Austen. Although many credit her with inventing the romance genre, in truth there were romances in the 16th and 17th centuries that were very popular and available to those who could afford them. Still, the fact remains that much of historical romance focuses on the Regency period, a reader favorite.



A powder horn, rifled muskets and leg irons from the French & Indian war

Many readers enjoy escaping into the beauty of the idealized Regency world. For them, romantic fiction is synonymous with beautiful people, opulence, beautiful clothing, romantic adventures, witty banter, comedy of manners, and so on.

So why would I write historical romance that lacks most of those elements?  And why would I choose to set a historical romance at what was arguably THE most violent period in North American history?

The easy answer is this: These are the stories that are in my heart to tell.



The waterfall where Amalie and Morgan make love for the first time (son Benjamin is guarding it)



The more complicated answer starts with my own interests and life experience.



As an investigative reporter, I saw and experienced a lot of things people do not see. I met people who were downright evil. I also met saints. I saw violence. I saw dead bodies. I saw a kid with his head shot off. Yes, off. I know what happens to human brains when they dry. I know the hollow look in a rape victim's eyes and the hate-filled look in the rapist's. I've had two stalkers, gotten death threats, and survived sexual assault as a child.



Sorry, but I can't even fantasize about an idealized world of beautiful people. For me to believe a story, it has to begin in the world I know — the imperfect world of strife, poverty, and violence. That's true for my I-Team stories, too. (Side note: I think this is true for a lot of paranormal writers and urban fantasy authors, too. The darkness of the paranormal/fantasy world is a kind of metaphor for the evil in our own.)




The fantasy for me is taking that world — and healing it. In real life, I have very little control over the terrible things that happen. The bad guy often gets away. The innocent are often the ones who suffer. The poor get poorer. The rich get richer. Women and children take the brunt of the world's brutality. But in fiction, I can have control of that outcome and make the right thing happen.


That's part of it.



But I also love this period of history. So many cultures are coming together. An English family on the frontier would have neighbors from Ulster, Germany, Holland, not to mention American Indian nations. The cultural clash and mixing fascinates me as a student of history — my degree and graduate work was in archaeology — and as a lover of languages.



As an archaeology student, I found the golden troves of treasure from the graves of kings and pharaohs to be only of passing interest. What fascinated me most were everyday objects used by everyday people. I fell in love with archaeology as a kid when someone handed me a potsherd from ancient Athens. And there on the ancient clay I could just make out the potter's thumb print.



I felt connected across centuries to a human being who'd devoted a small portion of his/her life to crafting that very pot. The thought stole my breath. I was completely carried away, connected to a sense of humanity that sprawls millennia. It's really hard to explain what that feels like, but it ignited a love in me for the ordinary human being through history.



So many novels, not just in romance, focus on the doings of the wealthy and famous. What about the ordinary people? What about the farm wife and the shopkeeper and the blacksmith? I love the details or everyday people's lives, and I enjoy putting them into stories.



Also, I love nature, and the forests of New York, Pennsylvania, the Ohio Country, and the New England states were vast on a scale that we can't really imagine. Nature, therefore, becomes its own character in the stories.




The eastern shore of Lake George, well known to the Rangers



All of this rolls together with a specific interest in — no, a passion for — this time period. Life was raw. It hung by a thread. The French & Indian War has been called the First World War by many scholars. And although people didn't realize it at the time, it was also the war that led to the American Revolution. The latter is unthinkable without the divisions and strife of the former. I could go on forever. I'll stop there.



This all fascinates me, and, yes, I find aspects of it romantic, just as other aspects are tragic and terrifying.



I find that great adversity makes for the creation of strong heroes. Think about World War II movies and the way that era is romanticized. And yet the violence of that war and the events that went with it, such as the Holocaust, is some of the most appalling ever to take place on this planet.



Great heroes arose from that time, men and women who were equal to the challenge of that war, who rose above their own imperfection to make great sacrifices for the sake of others.




The darker the night, the more horrendous the evil, the brighter the dawn, the more heroic the hero. That's how it feels for me, at any rate.



William Falkner once said there were only three kinds of stories worth telling: man vs. man, man vs. nature or man vs. himself. Setting aside his sexist language, I guess I agree.



I find that mixing those three up in a single story — nature, war, internal conflict — makes it challenging to write and worth my time. If I can add a love story to that — and some hot sex — then I feel like it's a book I would want to read.





The site of Fort Edward looking across the Hudson River to Rogers Island (Ranger Island)


I've always said that one thing that makes romantic fiction great is variety. People who enjoy light, breezy reads have plenty to choose from, as do people who enjoy cowboys, vampires, shape shifters, firemen, Amish tales, futuristic romance, other worlds and so on. And every romance writer makes her contribution to that variety, adding her own bit of color to the rainbow, so to speak.



My contribution thus far has been Colonial American romance, focusing largely on the French & Indian War and the American frontier, and the I-Team, stories based on my own work as a reporter. I also have some medieval stories in my head that need to come out at some point, as well as some set during the Dickensian period.



I write these books because the stories are in my heart. I write these books because I want to write them. I can't fathom trying to write 120,000 words that weren't really in me. Talk about difficult!



My hope for every romance reader is that you find lots of books this year that satisfy your heart.

Happy Reading!



Coming soon:
An interview with Eileen Hannay, an expert on Rogers Island
More contests
The MacKinnon's Rangers Reading Challenge