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The Story behind the story of Left on St. Truth-be-Well

7/25/2013

 
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(Note-- this is cross-posted from Writer's Lane, my personal blog.)


-- or how a terrible experience makes for a fun story.

Okay-- so a couple of months ago, I wrote THIS POST.  In this post I talk about being sent to stay in a nameless hotel in a sleepy seaside town that we shall from here on out call St. Aubrey's.  Shannon, DSP's girl-Friday-genius was my escort, and we were following a GPS voice who kept saying, "Turn left on St. Truth-be-Well." 

Uhm, St. Truth-be-Well?  We could see no such street. 

Eventually we found this nameless hotel (which we shall NOT call it the actual name of the place, because, well, I WROTE about this hotel with another name, and I should like to not be sued) and in the meantime, we were tired and punch drunk and giggly about St. Truth-be-Well-- because, honestly, it sounded like a damned funny name for a book. 

Anyway, when I wrote that post, I was down in, uhm, St. Aubrey's, for a con (which I thoroughly enjoyed, btw) and while we were there, we ate across the street at the FA Cafe.  (Stands for Fucking Awesome.  You can see something about it here and here.)  Our waiter there was really pretty.  So pretty that Elisabeth Staab, Damon Suede and I were all, well,writing him as we ate breakfast.  Who was he?  What kind of romantic life did he have?  Which guy would we pair him up with.

And then, in the course of one of our panels, our moderator dropped half of a cockamamie plot in my lap and said, "Okay, you need to include this hotel, the ocean, and a guy with a bloody bump on his head-- write!" 

And since the guy we'd just been talking about over breakfast was fresh in my head, I spun a yarn about our waiter at the FA Cafe.  I called himDale.  

Now, let's flash forward a couple of months. 

We're in a hotel room in Chicago and Lynn West is there and so is Elizabeth North and so is Shannon, and we're talking about what my next project should be.  I was this close to finishing Christmas Kitsch,and I needed something for Elizabeth fast.  I remember this because Shannon was cuddled up against me, and she said, "What about St. Truth-be-Well!"

And there I was, in front of a new audience, and suddenly our tale of that weekend spilled out-- the terrifying hotel room, the cute waiter, the GPS that kept trying to tell us to go to a street that never appeared on the road when State Road 312 (say it out loud-- you'll see what happened) was right there.  It made for a great story, and I thought, "Yes!  This shall be my next story!  It practically writes itself."

But who was going to be my other hero?

Well, the next day we all went to a pub about a block away from the hotel, and we were greeted by the most adorable little leprechaun of a man.  We started talking about how he would be perfect for Dale, and we told him who we were and asked him if he wanted to be in my next story.  He said, "Yeah!  Absolutely!"  We said, "It's gay romance, is that okay?" and he said, "What's my name?  Can I be Carson?"

I said, "That's an awesome name!" 

He said, "I used to love Johnny Carson when I was a kid!"

And I thought, "Aha!  Carson shall be a comedian in his spare time!"

And he said, "What's my last name going to be?"

And I said, "O'Shaughnessey!"

And he got very sober and said, "Really?  My father-- well, he passed away five years ago--but before that, he was dating a really awesome woman named O'Shaughnessey."

He was perfect.  And I was stunned.  This story-- it's almost the anti-Amy.  It's fun, it's quirky, and it was a joy to both live and write.


And it's proof that hello, sometimes the gods actually write your stories for you.  

I"m sort of excited, because this story has been reviewed and recced already--

Here at the USA Today blog

Here at The Tipsy Bibliophile (and the boys have their own cupcakes!!!!)

M/M Good Books

Here at The Armchair Reviewer (July 24th)

And tomorrow, it will be at the PRG.  

It is already available here at Dreamspinner, and tomorrow it will be available at Amazon, All Romance e-books, Barnes & Nobles, and all of the usual places.

So if you're interested, take a road trip with Carson and meet Dale-- after taking a Left at St. Truth-be-Well!

A Day Off

7/2/2013

 
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(*Note-- Once again, this is my posting for the Rainbow Romance Writers.  I cross-post here for non-members, so enjoy!)







A Day Off


 

Okay, as writer-holics go, I’m pretty hardcore.  I mean, I’m no Andrew Grey (whom I adore and who loves me!) at 900,000 words a year, but I average between 40-60K a month, plus editing, and it’s not easy.  I work out, I’m active with my children (including driving them to school in the morning and picking them up in the afternoon, plus the activity taxi-service that always seems to happen in grade school) and you know, I have to throw my husband a bone every now and then, or he won’t do the same for me, and that would be a shame! 

But yes.  As a full-time free-lance writer, I take my job damned seriously, and so what I’m going to say may shock you.

Yesterday, I took the day off. 

“What?” you gasp.  “But what will that do to your word average?  Your deadlines?  Your entire effort as a full-time free-lance writer?”

“Well,” I respond, “with any luck, it will make me better.”

I wish I could post the Oatmeal cartoon in it’s entirety, because this is one time when a cartoonist’s pictures really do speak louder than words, but I’ll link you to it instead: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things

Pay special attention to part about creativity being a river and not a stagnant pool, because, in graphic, scatological detail, Inman says something crucial about writing that a thousand other writers have said and that we need to pay attention to.  If you don’t have a life to live, you have nothing to write about!

 

I mean, think about the activity of writing as a whole.  You are sitting at a keyboard (and I almost miss the old manual typewriter, because at least there was a visceral, physical activity when you pounded that fucking key, right?) and when you aren’t surfing the internet (which is a bad, bad place for a writer to be—refer back to the cartoon, make it your bible, I’m not shitting around!) you are where? 

Inside your own head. 

Yeah.  Now, as a knitter, I can tell you some interesting things about my own head.  For one thing, it’s frickin’ huge.  It’s a planetoid.  If you don’t duck, it will block out the sun.  Seriously—most hats made in a knitting pattern do not fit my head, and that’s before you put a rather ragged mop of hair on it. 

But even in my head, there is a 24-inch circumference limitation.  All of the vast world does not squash into my noggin.  Now, it’s possible that if I take a trip or (say, yesterday) spend the day at the pool or out at dinner with my family to bid my daughter adieu before she ventures back to school, I may wash out some of the story-that-was-to-be.  But, given that analogy of creativity being a river, if I let that story wash out of my head, odds were, that part of the story was mostly bear-crap, and my head—and the story—is better off without it.  With any luck, that trip to the pool or the restaurant or the city I’ve never been to before will wash out all of the Internet clutter, or the last time I looked at YouPorn.com, and will leave, instead, that book about Agincourt I enjoyed reading, or the fact that my kids recognized the Picasso sculpture in Daly Plaza when they watched The Blues Brothers.  And the really cool thing is that you never know what’s going to get washed in.  I wrote an entire novella (Left on St. Truth-be-Well) based on two different waiters I met while out of town on business. They were both beautiful, both products of their region, and both awesome characters for a story—it was like, “Yeah, I left my front door and a story blew in!  Go figure!”

So yes.  I took a day off.  I went to the pool, played with my kids, came home, took a nap in the cool (since, you know, outside the house it has turned into the surface of the sun!) and then spent the evening out with my family or watching my daughter’s favorite movies. 

Today? 

I could write the world.  I mean that! 

But first I had to step away from my own front door. 

A Rant

7/1/2013

 
It took me a while to decide where to post this-- there was my personal blog, but that has become, more and more, just that-- personal.  There was FB, which was likely to start a shitstorm of epic proportions, and I didn't want to do that.  I just wanted to answer publicly to some criticisms that, while aimed at my books in this case seemed to be aimed at me, and that seemed more of a professional thing than a personal thing, so here we are.

Most folks here are going to have no idea what I'm talking about, and I feel bad, but it's a problem that was started in social media, and I think it sort of needs to be addressed there as well.

See, it has to do with Forever Promised, and one of the central conflicts there, which (and this is probably not a surprise to many people) revolves around being able to have children.  

Now see, this is sort of irritating.  

I know many couples who, by choice or by chance, will not and often do not want to have children.  They live happy, productive, amazing lives, and they give a tremendous amount of wisdom and kindness into the world, and the world is definitely a more glorious place for their coupledom without the blessed little event.  I am a big believer in the non-traditional family, and in forging family ties with the people you love, blood ties notwithstanding, and I think my work has made it clear.  Jace and Quent?  Sonny and Ace?  Colby and Terrell?  Chris and Xan?  These couples are not going to have children.  It is not in their psychological make-up, and it's not something they need to do.  (Seriously-- Sonny and Ace?  Fathers?  Holy Goddess is that a mistake.)  I don't think this is a lack in them, I think that if I were to write a sequel to any of them, they would be doing exciting, amazing, productive things without children.  

The guys in the Johnnies series?  Well, they have a lot of sex, and not all of it is butt-sechs, and that's gonna make us some babies, and babies are a complication in the world of sex, and so that's gonna fucking happen, whether they want it to or not. 

Which brings us to The Promises series.  The people in the Promises series want children.  

Fucking sue me.  

I know this is going to come as a shock to people who aren't great at reading between the lines, but Deacon has wanted children from the very first book.  Crick took one look at the picture of Parry Angel and said, "Deacon, why didn't you tell me?"  And Deacon wanted Crick more, and so it wasn't a sacrifice.  Jeff and Collin both came from happy families-- is it a surprise to anyone that they'll want to recreate that happy family for themselves?  Shane is a nurturer--and whether he wants to admit it, so is Mikhail-- should anybody be surprised that they need to choose a way to nurture?  Anyone who has gotten to be a certain age with friends of the same age can tell you this-- whether you're in the center of the maelstrom or not, baby fever does hit a group of people around the same time.  I've had friends who've sat the sidelines, and planned to do so for their entire lives-- but they are actively involved in my children's lives, and my children adore them.  I've had friends who've had their own families, become the nucleus of their own molecule, and, when we were younger, we raised our children together.  That too is marvelous.  I do not advocate children as the only way for true happiness-- but there's no denying the subject of the little buggers comes up when you're starting a life together.  For people like Deacon and Crick, from a place like Levee Oaks, they're going to be something both parties are going to at least think about when starting a relationship, and, well, the guys from the Pulpit are all around the same age.  

For those critics who are bitter because I took characters to their logical conclusions, to the place in their lives that every other couple I've ever known has been to and dealt with, with whatever reckoning at the end?

Tough.  It's not a decision I'll take back.  I'll worry about my craftsmanship, and I'll worry about the sad things that happen in my work, but I'm not going to worry about this.  I'll stand by the decisions the characters made in this book as very real, and very timely in the lives of couples in their twenties and thirties, whether they're gay or straight or a two-some or moresome.  How a couple moves on and makes an impact on the future is always a consideration.  Are babies necessary?  No.  But they're one possible answer to the age old question every couple has ever asked themselves once they're established:  What next.  

And another thing.  My girl-children came hard upon the heels of my boy-children, but my boy-children were reluctant to come.  I have spent, by my reckoning, nine years of my life worrying about getting pregnant.  That's two and a half years when we were trying for Big T, and seven and a half when we thought we'd try again after Chicken and suddenly there was Zoomboy.  While we were hoping for our first baby, my step-sister became pregnant (by accident, right out of high school) and I was devastated.  The hurt was amazing.  And I've also held friends' hands as they've endured the same thing--I once sewed two quilts for a friend that I donated to charity, because his wife miscarried twins at five months, and I had no words.

So it comes to this--reading what critics say is never easy-- never easy.  But when you pour literally heart and soul into a story to have not your craftsmanship attacked but your life choices as seen through the lives of your characters?  That's hard.  I won't say it takes away some of the joy of the story, because too many awesome people are telling me I did good, and I won't take away from their good words.  But it does remind me of the basic unfairness of people in general.  I guess in a way, this is good-- I was starting to wonder if I had the capacity for basic rage anymore now that I was out of the public school system, and it's great to see I can still rant with the best of them.  Nothing I've ever written-- or ever will write-- will ever judge another person for a choice or a chance to not have children.  How dare people judge my characters or me for that matter for the choice and the chance to have them.

    Amy Lane

    Amy Lane has two kids in college, two gradeschoolers in soccer, two cats, and two Chi-who-whats at large. She lives in a crumbling crapmansion with most of the children and a bemused spouse. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and m/m romance--and if you accidentally make eye contact, she'll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She'll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.

    This is where she posts about her books, and about Amy's Lane, the article she writes for the RRW once a month.  

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