Realms of the Raven

The Many Flavors of Romance

In the midst of trying to pull together my thoughts of what to do with my local RWA website, I started to try to determine what type of “look” to create for the site. I think about 3 or 4 years ago I would have gone for something with script and flowers and such but these days I wonder that this is too limiting.

Our local RWA chapter has folks writing everything from chick lit to erotica to historicals to contemporary to young adult and even more. It would seem a disservice to use some sort of scheme or look that would be exclusionary to any of these sub-genres of romance.

I guess that leaves things in the line of literary but not too stuffy, lol.

But it did lead me to think of the fact that people who do not read romance seem to have a very narrow view of just what “romance” encompasses. There’s two major misconceptions among just people I know:

• It’s fluffy stories with no plot and no substance and only interesting if you have the brain of a gnat
• It’s porn

Their perceptions of romance authors appears just as narrow. When I’ve told several of them that I’m working hard toward my goal of becoming a romance/erotic romance author, they have looked at me like I just sprouted two heads and DDD boobs or something!

I suppose the most hilarious thing to me is that I know that I am exactly the same person as I was before they knew about this goal but they just cannot seem to recognize that! I’m still a female software engineer. I’m still a mom and wife. I’m still a technical author. I STILL HAVE A BRAIN!

If anything, this goal has been challenging me in a few ways I’ve not been challenged in a long time.

I’m very tempted to get a button made “I write romances AND I have a brain!”…. Maybe I’ll do that as a shirt when I get my first fiction sale….

I recently took over the website of my local RWA chapter when our previous webmistress had to give it up in order to do other things. Man, what a mess :) I don’t consider myself an A+ HTML or website person but I think the poor thing has suffered from being passed from hand to hand and each person has little time to spend on it.

I guess I’ve declared it to be my personal task to redo the website. I told my chapter that I would like to be present at the next Board Meeting to present my ideas and see what the board thinks of them. I did start a draft version to see what I can come up with. It’s a real trick to try to keep it somehow writing and romance related without focusing on only one aspect. We’ll see what they think I guess.

Well, got my new toy yesterday - a HP TC1100 Tablet PC. It took a little to get it all set up and get the various software onto it but I think I have most of it.

I got all the ebooks moved to it and all my writing projects. Now I will have to actually sit down and organize the information in some better manner but I figure I can do that tomorrow or this weekend.

It’s interesting to get used to the pen based tasks but the pen sure beats the little push mouse, I have to admit. Reading ebooks on it is great and I hope it lives up to that for editing, etc.

We shall see!

Well, I ordered my new authoring toy on Thursday the 15th (when my day job bonus hit). A lovely TC1100 Tablet PC. It should be here on Monday before noon (according to FedEx) and, of course, I cannot wait to play with it. I’d like to get the various software I need installed and move all the ebooks and the writing projects onto it.

I’ll update how it goes!

On the fiction front, I am on an email list hosted by author Teresa MacFarland and she managed to set up a series of aspiring authors with some published author mentors. I got a great match, let me tell you.

I have a long term habit of very much second-guessing myself when it comes to how I approach a task or problem. Most of the time if I learn the “right” approach, I later modify it to make it work better for me but with fiction writing, there are as many approachs as there are authors! Some are very heavy on preparation before actually writing. Some are dive in. ACK.

Analysis-Paralysis land for me. How do I start? Where? EEEEP.

So I talked to my mentor, Liz, about some of this and yesterday I put aside my fears for a bit and wrote the first scene to one of the books. I knew the scene because it’s been in my brain for weeks but I think I was afraid to write it down in case I was doing it “wrong”.

Turned into about 900 words and hubby liked it even. I allowed myself one pass through for a bit of polish and descriptives but then put it aside and began writing the next chapter. This one is harder because I’m not quite sure where I’m going so I think I’m going to pause to take out the notebook for this series and draft a short plot sketch so I can see where I’m heading, then back to the chapter.

I can’t wait to get my Tablet PC now. I should be able to order it on Thursday or Friday so may have it by next week. Then I can make all the writing live on it and not have to either hide in the office or fight for control of the laptop. Plus it’s easier to use in bed!

Once again I’ve fallen in the trap of “thinking too much on the way to work” and decided on the way to work on Thursday (I think) that there should be a good book written on chain mail jewelry (one of my many hobbies). I certainly have the expertise to write the book and demonstrate many of the common patterns and techniques. I have resources for reviews and materials. I even have a decent idea of how to present the materials well. Now all I need is a publisher.

So I sent an email inquiry to the first publisher that came to mind (Beadwork’s publisher, Interweave) and we’ll see if I get a response. I did find out a bit later that Lark Publishing is planning to release a book on it in 2006 so maybe I will just skip trying to market to them. I’m trying to not spend too much time on this right now until I know if there’s a buyer possible but I may at least do a draft outline and first chapter in the next few weeks to demonstrate my intent.

Too many ideas, too little of me!

Who could tell that getting a simple one page website up could manage to eat up several hours? I’ve played with FrontPage before and had some idea of what I was doing but I’m amazed at the length of time I managed to spend looking for just the right font or graphic.

So far the website is content light but I’m hoping to fix that over the next few weeks as I get more stories into a state where at least an unedited bit can be published. I can see how this could become a whole new time sink!

But, on the other hand, I got some ideas written down today for another series of paranormal romances that are witchcraft based. I can’t wait until I can buy my new tablet PC so I can make all this data live on one machine that I can tote around with me and not have to surrender to my husband so he can do something besides stare at the TV while watching our four year old.

- Maura

I’ve decided to start a new blog in order to focus on just my writing and fiction. Right now I’m still setting this blog and my homepage up so it may be a few days before there’s much at all to read but I’ll do my best to get things up and running so there’s a home for all the miscellaneous pieces floating about.

- Maura