So long, farewell

 

2020. What a long, strange trip it's been. I have to say, like everyone else, I'll be happy to see the back end of this year, where so many bad things have happened to so many good people.

I'm thankful that, all in all, this year touched me pretty lightly. While I know people who have been sick, all my nearest and dearest have stayed healthy - with the exception of my mother-in-law, who tested positive twice but stayed asymptomatic. Whew! 

Being asked to stay close to home hasn't been the hardship for me that it has for some; while I'm somewhere between introvert/extrovert, I'm a happy homebody, because I put a lot of time and effort into making my home a place I want to be. (Also something I'm lucky to be able to do).

Living where we do, instead of in the city, has made this year a lot easier, too. We have good neighbors who look out for each other, and we have enough local stores that we can patronize who run a tighter ship regarding masks and hygiene than some of the larger chains. While I'm feeling hug-deprived, I'm not deprived of people - I see my neighbors regularly, and we're having a socially distant, masked New Year's Eve gathering in the middle of the street tonight.

I can also say that keeping close to home has made me very productive this year. I finished and submitted A Wider World in May, for publication this coming April, and I just emailed the publisher a completed draft of the third book, Lady, in Waiting, for publication the year after. I wrote an entire book this year, plus edited the second one, and did audio edits for Songbird. Busy is also how I keep myself from thinking too much, so it's not been productivity for its own sake; it's been to keep me from running off the deep end when the existential dread sets in.

Though I'm looking forward to the vaccine being rolled out and things going back to (a slightly different) normal, I'm not sure if any of us will ever completely resume our pre-pandemic existence. As annoying as masks can sometimes be (though far less annoying than oxygen or a ventilator), I have to admit that neither Mario nor I have gotten sick at all this year. Even our allergies have been greatly reduced. That could also be because we're exposed to less people, but I can't think of the last unmasked conversation I had with anyone close enough to pick up a germ.

I miss faces.

But it's New Year's Eve, and we're supposed to be looking ahead and trying to be positive. I'm going to try. Hard. 

Happy new year to everyone - I hope you and yours are healthy and stay that way. Thanks for stopping by and listening to me ramble. There will be more to come.

The saddest story in Tudor England

 

I'm currently working on my third book, titled Lady, In Waiting, which is set during the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I. One of the side characters - someone I hadn't planned to write about but whose life and story couldn't be avoided - is Lady Katherine Grey.

Younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, the unsuccessful Nine Days Queen, Katherine's life was slightly longer, but just as unhappy. Because of her proximity to the throne (she and Mary Queen of Scots were Elizabeth's two natural heirs, unless she married), she was watched and not permitted to marry.

But she did. And she got pregnant. And she didn't get caught until her eighth month, at which point she was put in the Tower - separately from her husband - to think about what she'd done. She gave birth to a son, which must have made Elizabeth furious.

Remaining in the Tower, she managed, by way of a sympathetic jailer, to have conjugal visits with her husband, and eventually gave birth to a second son! That did it. Elizabeth separated the already separated couple, sending the husband and older son in one direction, and Katherine and her baby in another.

Katherine died in 1568, at the age of 27. She's not the most sympathetic character, despite her unhappy circumstances, and because of the prominence of her story, she couldn't be ignored and is now an important side character in my story.

Pictures: the real Katherine, and a photo I snagged from the internets which is my inspiration for her.

The other stuff

For the curious, I do still sew, though not as much for myself these days. (My pandemic wardrobe is rather limited).

Craft shows have also been limited this year, as in limited to the ones I've produced on my front patio. In a bastardized version of the words of the Grinch himself, "If I can't find a craft show, I'll make one instead."

I did have one event scheduled, for Thanksgiving weekend here in town. They'd put so much work into it,  cutting the number of vendors by half, organizing it so that everyone had 8' of space between their tables, having mask checks and sanitizer stations at the doors, Ikea arrows on the floor so that customers could only travel in one direction...and then the virus numbers for Pennsylvania spiked again, and it was canceled.

Logical, yes. The right thing to do, also yes. A freaking shame, because we all want to get out and pretend to be normal? Yes yes yes.

So I made a Facebook event and invited all my local friends and neighbors to show up on the patio on that same weekend - properly masked and distanced, of course.

Everything was set out on tables for people to paw through. It wasn't as profitable as an indoor show would have been, but it was still good to get out and talk to people again, and I didn't get frostbitten because we have a glass front door and I spent my un-customered time on the couch, finishing Etsy products for shipment. I love a good multi-task.

I also did some writing in between, because of this pesky end-of-year deadline that I agreed to. Which will be met, somehow or other. Good thing I've only promised a "readable first draft" at that point.

Readable, it will be. Can't guarantee much else.

So this was the new normal of my holiday selling season. What about you? Did you get to do any in-person shopping? All online? What do you want to find in your stocking this year, other than sanitizer and masks?

 

Blowing my own horn

 

So, this happened.

I'm still a bit over the moon at Songbird being declared anyone's Book of the Year, but The Coffee Pot Book Club is a seriously good book review blog, and an award from them carries weight in the author and reader community.

It also carries some weight in helping to promote A Wider World when the time comes, because one of the prizes is a blog tour, which can be scheduled for early spring, just before the new book comes out. It will coincide with my publisher dropping the price on Songbird to celebrate the pre-order status of the second book.

2020 is still a year I'd rather not repeat, but this makes a lot of it better.

Exhale

I don't know about you, but the first ten days of November have been a long year. And let's not talk about how long the year has actually been; I feel myself aging as I type.

Things have been moving along. Despite - or maybe because of - the oddness of the year, I've almost completed the first draft of my third book. This is good, because I've promised the publisher a readable draft by the end of the year (which would be 11:59 p.m. on December 31, and not a minute sooner), and while it's readable by me right now, I'm not so sure anyone else could make heads or tails of it.

My cover designer has just completed a stunning cover for A Wider World - as beautiful in its own way as the new cover for Songbird. I can't show it off yet, but I'd like to. It's another period-appropriate ceiling, and it's gorgeous.

Despite the fact that it's November and the leaves have turned and mostly fallen, it's been in the 70s here, so it's hard to feel convinced of that. I just finally tore out the last of the pepper plants from the back yard and got the beds ready for winter. My next-door-neighbor gave me a few cinderblocks and an old recycle tub, so I've also set up a new composting system by the back fence, because my dinky little tumbling composter can't keep up. A few of my neighbors who don't compost deliver their food scraps to me, and a chicken-owning neighbor gives me the mucky straw from her coop. (Manure and fresh eggs are what I miss most about having chickens. The chickens...not so much).

Thanksgiving is coming. It's going to be strange this year, because of Covid. We've had Thanksgiving dinner in NJ with Mario's family every year since 2005, but his mom's in a nursing home now, mostly on lockdown (we visit at her window like she's a puppy in a pet store) and his sister works in a hospital, so her hours are inconsistent, and we couldn't sit down together indoors, anyway. Having his mom isolated is difficult, but even Mario is glad we got her placed in February, before all this happened - since she's got severe memory issues, it would have been really hard to feel that she was safe living on her own during quarantine and beyond.

It will get better, eventually. It has to, right? The news of a potential vaccine this week was cheering, as was the end of all the election ads, if not - completely - the election itself.

I just keep thinking, "It's history. I'm living through history." And it's not always fun.

Author copies

There are better feelings than seeing your name on a book cover, but honestly, there aren't many.

Especially a new book cover, which feels much more like what I'd envisioned from the beginning, and is totally my idea combined with my cover designer's skill and amazing font choice.

I got a box of author copies for an upcoming craft show on Thanksgiving weekend - my town is doing their annual show, with half the vendors so we can be properly spaced, mandatory masking-and-sanitizer, doors open for extra ventilation, and I'm going to take a few copies along in case anyone is interested.

If you don't have your copy yet, and would like this snazzy new design, drop me an email or leave a comment here with your email address. I can even provide gift wrap for the holidays, if you're feeling giftish. 

 

End of season

And so it goes, the end of another growing season.

This was a particularly good one. I'm not sure if it's because I didn't overextend myself and try to grow too many things, so that the ones I did plant worked better, or if it was just a good weather year, or the garden was the one part of 2020 that worked out as anticipated.

Whatever. It worked. 

I took out the last of the tomatoes the other day, and this was the amount of green tomatoes still on the vines. We've had some colder nights, so the vines were dying back, and I wanted to get the fruit off before they got frosted and squishy.

There was an equal amount of red tomatoes, so I threw those in the crockpot and made sauce, which I later canned, but I didn't have the energy to face all these green tomatoes in addition to the number of jalapenos that were left, which also needed to be canned (more candied hot peppers for the pantry). 

My local Buy Nothing group made short work of the green tomatoes. The ones that were left moved around the corner to a neighbor's house. She's a distribution point for USDA food boxes, and lots of neighbors put extra food on her porch for "shopping." So she got the tomatoes, and they were gone by nightfall.

Now I can look out at my barren back yard, and start thinking about 2021. 

 

How it started; how it's going

 

There's a thing going around on Twitter among the writing community - "how it started, how it's going." Some responses are as minimal as a blank page and a page with "Chapter 1" written on it; others are a notebook, and a stack of published books.

Being somewhere in the middle, I thought I'd show mine. This is the very beginning of Songbird, which you can see on the cover says "Henry book," then "King's Creatures" and "King's Music," two of its early titles.

Songbird was started before I had a computer at home. I'm not sure if I even reliably had one at work, just things with some memory that I couldn't save personal stuff onto, which explains the second photo - a later portion of the book with handwritten, literal cut-and-tape inserts and lots of edits which wrap around the sides.

I thought my handwriting was bad then. There's no way I could draft a book by hand now, I'd never be able to read it.

Surprisingly, the section of the book contained on this page made it into the final version relatively intact. I recognize some of the dialogue and know that it's still there. Which is shocking, because I feel like I wrote and rewrote and edited and tinkered and tweaked the book at least 142 times.

And counting.

The final picture is where it's at. 

Where it's going is book 2 (no cover yet) and book 3 (not completely drafted yet). But I'll get there, and I hope you'll be with me when I do.

A Wider World Teaser

I'm currently working on my third book, but book 2 is bubbling away in the background, working its way toward publication.

There's no cover image yet, but one of my ways of brainstorming while writing (but not actually writing) is to make collages of the research images I've found. This is what I put together for the second book.

Robin Lewis was a character from Songbird, who we first see as an obnoxious 12-year-old chorister who clashes with Bess, the main character. Their lives touch at several points, and Robin never quite explains his actions. 

(Hint: he does, in A Wider World). This is the blurb - the back cover / Amazon copy - at least so far. Everything gets tweaked, multiple times, but I'm happy with it at the moment.

Can memories save a life? 

After five years of exile, Robin Lewis stands accused of heresy by the dying Queen Mary. When an escort arrives to bring him to the Tower of London, Robin spins a tale for his captor, hoping it will last long enough for him to be saved by the accession of Mary's heir, the young Queen Elizabeth.

As he revisits his life under three Tudor monarchs, Robin wonders how he will be judged, not just by the queen, but by the God he stopped serving long ago.

What's new

Somehow it's nearly October. I know that time has no meaning anymore, but this is getting ridiculous.

I just finished my Readers Group newsletter, with a few changes. I'd been sending it out twice a month, but I've realized that I spend far too much time trying to think of interesting things to put in the newsletter, rather than thinking of interesting things to put in my books. Which is the reason - I hope - that people have signed up for the newsletter. So it's going to once a month after this, unless there's a special announcement, a sale, etc. 

P.S., if you haven't signed up yet, you can do so here.

So I have been doing a fair bit of writing, other issues aside. My third book, Lady, in Waiting, is still in the first draft but has passed the 100k word mark. The eventual publication length will probably be about 115k (that's what Songbird and A Wider World came in near), but I'll probably hit 130k and then edit it back down. I know how I work by now.

A good bit of my writing has taken place outside. I've trained myself to dictate my rough first drafts, which I then upload onto my desktop and tidy up, speech-to-text not always being the most accurate technology. Still, it's better than sitting inside when we're at that perfect end-of-summer-almost-fall weather. 

If I'm not walking around the neighborhood, I'm sitting on our front patio, which has just recently been redone with four orange vintage chairs and matching tables that I trash picked from a neighbor across the street. They'd been in his garage for 10 years, and he finally gave up on the idea of repainting them and using them on his own porch. Personally, I like the orange, so I got a gallon of metal paint in the same shade and I'll sand and repaint once the season is over.

Garden season is nearly over. We've had a few nights in the 40s, and that means the bigger tomatoes have shut down, along with some of the peppers. The grape tomatoes are still chugging along, producing more fruit than I can use, and my neighbors are beginning to hide when they see me coming, in case of tomatoes. I made a roasted tomato salsa last week which came out well, so I think I'll make a few more jars to shove in the back of the fridge.

What about you? Is it still garden season? Are you making anything with your produce, whether it's from your garden, the farmer's market or the grocery store?

Audio Arrival!

So the audiobook for Songbird is finally up everywhere! It actually arrived on Audible sooner than expected. ACX, the technical name for Audible, has really high production standards and will bounce books that are accepted everywhere else. I was a little nervous, until it appeared.

Then, because things never run completely smooth, it ended up somehow categorized under literature, fiction, and erotica. While there are a few... Interesting scenes in the book, anybody who purchased it looking for erotica would be sorely disappointed, and readers not looking for that would avoid the book, so I waited to really promote the Audible listing until my publisher reached out and had Amazon correct it. We're still not sure how it happened, because I know the categories that the book is in, and since it's a book already on Amazon, the categories should have simply carried over.

Who knows? Technical glitches happen, and this one is sorted now.

All this is to say that I have free codes for the audiobook, and all you have to do - you knew there'd be a catch, right? - is to sign up for my newsletter (which is on the sidebar) and respond to the newsletter email, saying you're interested in being entered to win a copy of the audio.

If you're on Facebook, you could also like and share my author page. I didn't make that mandatory, because I know a lot of people aren't fans of Facebook these days. Truth to tell, I'm not always either, but I have to reach readers where I can find them.

Progress on Book 3

Should I be talking about book 3? When book 2 won't be released until April?

Maybe not, but I am, because I've hit a really interesting part of the process. I'm working on the first draft, currently titled Lady, in Waiting (crucial comma). Like Robin in A Wider World, Margaery, my main character, was a secondary character in AWW who required her own story.

She's 24, English but raised in France, and newly married to a man she barely knows. It was a self-arranged marriage, because she met him and thought he was a far better option than the men put forward by her mother and stepfather. But it's still an odd situation - they're two very nice people, neither of whom had planned to marry, and they're learning as they go. To complicate things, they both work in the Tudor court: Margaery as a minor lady in waiting to Elizabeth I, and her husband as an assistant to William Cecil, the queen's chief secretary.

Technically that means they have the same boss and the same loyalties, but in fact, it does not. Elizabeth's women swore an oath of loyalty to the queen, and while Cecil and his men are also loyal to the queen, they're working on behalf of the government, and their aims might be somewhat different than Elizabeth's.

What went on in the queen's chambers stayed in the queen's chambers. Which makes evening conversation with a husband somewhat limited.

I've been working on this story for a while, but it's only in the last few days that Margaery has really come to life and started acting independently, choosing courses of action I wouldn't have thought of and saying the occasional unexpected thing.

It's my favorite part of writing, even though it means I'm going to have to go back and edit her earlier words to reflect this more fully developed personality. When my people make me swear at them because they don't behave, I know I'm getting somewhere.

The Audiobook is (almost) everywhere!

And by that, I mean it's everywhere but Audible. Because...Amazon. It takes its time. Like the Grinch's small heart, no one quite knows the reason.

Although - of course - Audible is the chief method of audiobook listening out there, can I make a few recommendations? Chirp is a relatively new audio provider. There's no fee to join, and by becoming a member, you get discounted audiobooks.

Discounts are good.

Also, Scribd is a program very much like Kindle Unlimited, except that you can also get audiobooks through them.

Either way, if you're interested in giving Songbird a listen, there's a free audio sample on any provider's website. If you give a listen - much less buy - I'd love to hear what you think!

Harvest Day

August is definitely when the garden starts earning its keep. It's just a shame that August is also when I start to flag.

Pictured here is ONE DAY'S harvest from the pepper plants. One day.

Did I maybe plant too many peppers? Nah. I'll think of something.

Red bowl: Padron peppers, a Spanish variety used in tapas. We eat these a LOT. They're also topped and de-seeded and vacuum sealed in the bags, because they cook up well after being frozen. Win/win.

The big peppers in the front are an Italian sweet pepper called Carmen. Almost large enough to stuff. But we visited NJ this past weekend to talk to Mario's mom at the nursing home window, and stopped at an Italian sausage shop in town, so sausage and peppers is on the menu.

The red peppers are Padrons that got away from me. They'll be chopped and mixed in the jalapenos, behind them, for another big batch of candied peppers.

You don't even want to see the tomatoes. Trust me. It's going to look like a bloodbath in my kitchen when I get started on them.

COMING VERY SOON

So this is exciting.

I've been working for the past few months with my friend, Jennifer Summerfield, to record the audiobook for Songbird, and a few days ago, I uploaded the last chapters to the publisher's shared drive for final mastering. I heard from them yesterday that there's a very good chance that the audiobook will be available across most platforms by this weekend!

This weekend! Eep!

It may take a little bit longer to arrive on Audible, or it may not. They've been a bit slower lately on uploading independent and small press audiobooks, but let's keep a good thought, shall we?

I'll be able to post a sample from the audio soon so you can check out how Jen brought my imaginary friends to life.

Hot time in the kitchen

It makes sense that vegetables grow best in hot weather, but that also means canning and preserving take place in hot weather.

Yesterday I made a small batch of cowboy candy - candied jalapenos - one of our favorite snacks.

All the peppers have been coming in well, but the jalapenos arrived all at one time, and to add to the pile I picked up two bags at the Aldi so I could make a batch worth heating up the kitchen.

Candied jalapenos are a wonderful invention. Hot enough to still be classed as peppers, but with a tangy syrup that I use on fish, meat, and even over vanilla ice cream.

Here's the recipe for anyone who wants to give it a shot:

2 lbs. fresh jalapenos
2/3 cup cider vinegar
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons mustard seed
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Chop jalapenos, discarding some ribs/seeds if you don't want extra burn. Mix cider, vinegar, and all spices in a pot, and bring to a boil. Reduce and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the peppers, and simmer for 5 more minutes.

Load sterilized jars with jalapenos and then add liquid, filling the jars and leaving a 1/4" head space. These can be processed in a water bath for 15 minutes or if you're like me, and you're planning to eat them quickly, let them cool on the counter (so the lids seal) and put in the fridge. WAIT TWO WEEKS BEFORE EATING. It helps the flavors to meld.

The original recipe called for only 1 lb. peppers, but I rough chop them instead of slicing, so you can get more in the jars that way. I sometimes add fresh garlic for extra zing. Usually there's syrup left over from this. Jar it and put it in the fridge. You'll thank me.

Publishing News!

Readers of Songbird, rejoice, for there will - officially - be another book.

I recently signed a new contract with my publisher for my second Tudor novel, which will follow the side character of Robin Lewis through his eventful life through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I.

The book has already been submitted and first round edits complete. This is a big deal, because even though I tend to submit a very clean manuscript (possibly because it's been gone over 842 times), it doesn't stop me from thinking, "What if they hate it? What if they want me to change everything?" (Side note: I wouldn't. There are changes, and then there are changes. Most of what was requested in edits was a cleanup of my excessive love of commas -- yet not my even more excessive love of em-dashes. Go figure).

A Wider World won't be out until April, 2021, but I've started working on a third book, featuring a character who appears at the end of the second book, and I'm working on a novella that will be a freebie for members of my readers club. Not a member? Join here.

SOLD OUT

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who reached out here, on Facebook, and on Instagram, and cleaned me out of the copies of Songbird that I had stocked up for events that aren't happening.

You made me do full on Sally Field in the middle of the living room. "They like me! They really like me!"

For everyone who purchased, I hope you enjoy the book. Please consider leaving a review if you have a chance - either on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are how you feed writers, and we're hungry. We're like teenage boys, we're so hungry.

I'm going to have a bit of an announcement coming very, very soon, so check back!

Books for sale

Since Covid-19 has canceled all live events for the foreseeable future, I have a few paperback copies of Songbird left on my shelf, reminding me of that fact.

If you don't yet have a copy, and would like to give it a try or maybe buy one as a gift, I'm offering them at $13.99 (below Amazon price), which includes a handwritten dedication, a cool Henry VIII bookmark, and US shipping.

Leave a comment here, or email me at karen @ karenheenan . com, and I'll send a PayPal or Venmo invoice.

Father's day

And so it's Father's Day again.

The last Father's Day I had with my dad was in 1972. I probably got him a tie or something stupid like that, though the only time you'd catch him in a necktie would be when he was wearing his dress uniform. Which happened rarely.

But it didn't matter. Anything I did for the man was perfect. Before it became a common phrase, my dad already knew the sun shone out of my ass.

My mother behaved the same way, which may well explain some of my attitudes as an adult, but what I find interesting - also as an adult - is that she was almost jealous of how much he loved me. Like she didn't understand that a person could have that much love for more than one person at a time. That goes back to my mom's upbringing, and the scars that left her. Someday I'll be a good enough writer to write about my mother, that for now, I'll stick to Dad. He's easier.

He was twenty years older than Mom, which means he was fifty-two when I was born. He also worked a full-time and a part-time job, so I'm not sure how it is that so many of my childhood memories include him. He couldn't have been there as often as I remember him being. I think I just make more of the memories I have.

His work at the fire department was shift work, so his schedule changed. The worst was when he would get home after seven, coming up on my bedtime. I had already eaten, and was just killing time waiting for him. He would come in stinking of whatever fire had made him late, and all he wanted was to take a hot bath.

It was a strange quality time, the exhausted man in his bubble bath, the excited child sitting on the fluffy pink toilet seat cover, sharing their day, me asking one question after another. If I ran long and the water began to cool, he would turn the faucet with his foot and bring the tub back up to boiling again.

The other alone time I got with him was in the kitchen. He was a good, functional cook, as most firefighters are - he even taught my mom to cook when they got married - but when he was stressed or upset, he made candy. I'd wake to a gentle hand on my arm. L"go play in the kitchen," he'd say, and we'd sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and make fudge, or candy apples, or peanut brittle.

On one memorable occasion, we attempted a new recipe for sponge candy, and it boiled over on the stove top. We were still cleaning the kitchen when my mom stumbled downstairs at 6 a.m.

When we lost him, it was quick. He had bronchitis, with a wicked cough, something that happened every year. I woke up one morning and my mom told me he'd gone to the hospital. The first diagnosis was pleurisy, which sounded serious to a nine-year-old.

I was allowed to visit him in the hospital at the end of the first week, after my mom had been told it was lung cancer and that he wouldn't be coming home. The poor man - when I saw him I ran straight at him and slammed into his rib cage. I can't imagine how much it hurt, but also knowing him, he didn't mind a bit.

He died three days later. We moved not long after that, and my spectacularly unsentimental mother got rid of most of his things. I retrieved some of it from the trash and the donation bags, but it turned out she'd let some of him live on. Years later, I found his recipe cards in the back of her box, and quietly claimed them.

I still make his fudge when I'm stressed, though I don't always wait for the middle of the night.

A Wider World - Snippet

Kings Henry and Francis "wrestling"

Five hundred years ago this week, Henry VIII (and his court) journeyed to France to meet the French king (and his court).

I wrote about the Field of Cloth of Gold, as it came to be known, in Songbird, but it crops up again in A Wider World, because the (different) main character experiences some of the same events.

Henry's flagship, the Henry Grace-a-Dieu

Below is an excerpt from my next book, A Wider World:

***

As the king aged, so the court grew in importance. Looking back, we were a backwater country compared to the rest of Europe, but we knew it not—and if anyone did, they wisely did not speak of it.

In 1520, the cardinal arranged for a meeting to take place between King Henry and the French king. It was as much spectacle as summit, and certainly every noble with a guinea in his pocket to outfit his household was there, along with all the royal musicians and choristers, and enough servants to keep the whole production running smoothly.

It was my first time aboard ship, and while the majority of the choristers hung over the rail or confined themselves below, I stealthily climbed to the crow’s nest to catch my first glimpse of France as we crossed the narrow sea.

Calais looked no different than England, but it was. It was France. Another country. Where other languages were spoken and unfamiliar customs were the norm. It was like being handed an enormous, breathing book, and told I had just over two weeks to learn it all. I determined to try.

Add caption

***

Robin is young, but ambitious, and knows that his life will not always be that of a king's chorister - and it is not. Soon he grows up, attends Oxford, and crosses the narrow sea (the English Channel) again, on business not having to do with the King of England.

Stay tuned....

Listening to myself

I'm working away on on my next novel, but there are still things to do with Songbird. One of them is the audiobook.

My publisher could have arranged to have it recorded, but I wanted to take a stab at it myself. I took a stab. I took several stabs. I never got beyond chapter 3. For some reason, hearing my own words in my own voice made me want to do nothing more than rewrite the whole book. It's a little late for that.

When I first announced my brilliant idea of self recording, an actress friend volunteered to read if I decided I didn't want to do it. I finally decided - intelligently - to take her up on her offer.

Because she's an actress, and because I sew, this is going to be a convoluted barter job. Somewhere down the line, she'll get a Shakespeare level costume out of this. In the meantime, she's recorded 12 chapters out of 24, and while it's still difficult to listen to my words read out, it's much easier when I'm not doing the reading.

Sometimes we're just too close to our own work.

Once the audiobook is done, given a final polishing by my publisher, and uploaded to Amazon and all the other usual venues, I'll have one or two copies to give away. Keep an eye out for that, sometime in the not too distant future.

How I write a book

I thought I'd give an overview of how I write a book. Like any creative pursuit, there's no right way or wrong way. There's the way that works for you. Or me.

This is mine.

How it starts

I get an idea. It could be completely random, or inspired by something I've read. With Songbird, I read in a bio of Henry VIII that he once bought a child for the royal choir, and off I went. With my current project, A Wider World, it features a secondary character from Songbird, who, after that book was submitted to the publisher, decided to speak up and say he hadn't gotten a fair shake, and he wanted to explain himself. I listened.

Below is how I went about writing A Wider World. The numbers in parentheses are the word count when the draft was completed.

First Draft (134,000 words)

Some writers can write and edit at the same time, or write something, come back the next day to edit, and then keep on. My problem is that I enjoy the editing process, so I get lost if I do this. My first drafts, while not garbage, are pretty rough. For the most part, I don't write in linear fashion. I try to write the beginning, at least the first few chapters, to establish my characters and what's happening. (The events may change later, but I need to get them down).

From there, I try to write in order, but if I'm stuck and can see another scene clearly, I'll write that and then try to link the scenes together later. By the time I've written the first third of the book, I know the ending. If I'm feeling really clear, I'll write the ending, and give myself something to work toward.

The first draft of A Wider World took me about 8 months, and part of the reason it went that quickly is I was working with a world already developed in the first book. I needed to research specific things, but I don't always research as I write. There'll be a sentence like "Hawkins and I sat down to a meal of [whatever people of that level of society would serve unexpected guests]" and I'll keep going.

Second Draft (128,000 words)

This is the fun part, where I fix the structure of the book - plot, chronology, cross-checking history, fleshing out characters who are a bit transparent, doing research to fill the holes I've left. Second draft is heavy lifting and rearranging, but by the end, it gives me something that has the shape of the idea I had when I started out. This draft took me about 1.5 months.

Third Draft (120,000 words)

Cutting, shaping, and molding. This is the round where the book loses some serious weight, where I read it to see how many times I've mentioned the same thing (the problem with writing out of order is including necessary information whenever it seems necessary - but it's not necessary every time. I just won't know that until later). I also remove excess dialog tags, filter words (knew, realized, felt, etc.) and other bits that, while clever, only make me happy and do nothing to advance the story.

Another thing I've noticed with early drafts is that I hit the end of a scene or a chapter, and then I tend to dribble on for another paragraph or two, summing up. Those paragraphs are never necessary, and I can remove a lot of excess just looking for those. This draft took about another month.

Fourth Draft (hoping for 118,000 words)

This is where I am now, and this is where I read the book aloud, to see how it flows, to listen for repetitive words or words that need to be swapped for ones that sound better. This is a faster round than any of the others, because it's really just the final polishing before it gets submitted to my publisher for their editors to give it a once-over. I'm hoping to have this finished by early June, but my reading aloud may be slowed by the fact that lawn care on my block seems to be near-constant and I can't always hear myself think, much less read.

With Songbird, the publisher's suggestions were mostly about removing Britishisms and comments on my abiding love for the em-dash, but we'll see this time, because Songbird had been worked on for so long that if it was my child, it would be accruing student debt. A Wider World has been a much faster process, because I've learned that I can do it.

So that's it. That's how I write a book. At least until next time, when I'll probably turn the procedure completely upside-down.

Pandemicrafting

From talking to friends and keeping up with others on social media, I've noticed that our current situation (quarantine, lockdown, or whatever you want to call it) has either stopped creativity in its tracks or it's hit the accelerator. For me, that's definitely been the case.

I've been writing a ton, deep into the third draft of my next Tudor book, and I recently made a 4' x 4' quilt for the loveseat where I sit and do a lot of my reading and writing.

Let me say up front, I've never been a quilter. And while this turned out well, and I'm really proud of it, I doubt I'll ever make another one. It's a Log Cabin quilt, obviously, and my favorite part is that all the front fabrics are secondhand, and locally sourced (sidewalk sale, town thrift store, donation from a neighbor). The batting was on hand for microwave bowls, but I don't need to make any more of those right now becase there are no craft shows for me to sell them. I did splurge and buy 1.5 yards of backing fabric, but I'm using the remnants from that in another project, so it's all good, and no waste.

This is the first patchwork project I've attempted where I followed a plan and actually tried to be precise. And it more or less worked. There are a few blocks that don't line up perfectly, but good enough is good enough. The perfect, as they say, is the enemy of the damn thing ever getting finished. (My last quilted project, a much simpler effort that is on our bed, took me 17 years because I messed up and shoved it in a bag until I got over being mad at it).

This, with waiting for the backing fabric to arrive , and crawling around on the living room floor sticking it together with far too many safety pins, took about 2 weeks. The quilting is all done by machine, because I will never be that dedicated to handwork, especially of the kind I can't see. The binding was hand sewn down on the back because that seemed easier than trying to line it up perfectly and run it through the machine.

Another reason this is my first and last quilt: anything bigger would not fit comfortably in either my sewing machine or my workroom. I caused several avalanches by trying to maneuver far too much fabric in a cramped space. Bad enough I have to clean up the scraps and thread tails I leave everywhere; having to excavate the floor after knocking over a stash pile is not the workroom fun I had in mind.

So here it is, PandemiQuilt 2020. Just in time to not want to curl up under it and read. Next year, quilt. Next year.

This will never get old

Book reviews are important, as I've said before, and I'm happy with every one I get - even the funky Goodreads review that called the second half of Songbird "tedious melodrama." (She still gave it three stars, so...)

But this morning I woke up to a review from the Discovering Diamonds book review blog, and this one - well, cue the music for my happy dance!

It's such a wonderful feeling to get a positive review from readers who "get" the book, and it's a huge compliment to me, as a writer of historical fiction, when they say "what I enjoyed was how those difficulties were based on problems which arose from the historical setting. No one here steps out of their period, even for a second. Their attitudes and their circumstances are very 'Tudor', but within that, of course, there is scope for people to behave in very different ways."

You can read the full review here, if you're so inclined. I might see you there - I've already gone back and read it twice. This is a feeling I hope never gets old.

Another Change

Change is good. I keep telling myself that. And I have to keep mentioning it here.

One upcoming change to the blog - because of this whole author-career-buy-my-books thing, is that I need a mailing list. For a newsletter. And also for cool things like recruiting advance readers for my next book.

What I'm going to try to do - and try is the operative word, because me and technology aren't the best of buds - is to move the blog over one tab, and have a landing page with a signup for the newsletter. That's ideal, because those of you who want to sign up can do so, and then move over one tab (or bookmark it) to get to the words. Those who don't want to sign up can do the same, minus that whole pesky signing-up thing.

If that doesn't work, there might be a pop-up form. I don't want the pop-up, and I'm pretty sure you don't either, so if everyone can just light a candle or cross fingers or something that I can do this without turning the blog upside down, I'd much appreciate it.

About the newsletter, if you're interested. Monthly, at least for now, because not a lot is going on to require more frequent contact. Progress reports (with snippets) from the work in progress. Random personal chit-chat from me (aimed at people who don't read here, but I'll try not to duplicate myself). Mention if there are any special deals on my book - the audio book will be coming out sometime in the near-ish future, and people might want to know. And the advance reader deal - I'm going to need a few brave souls to volunteer to read the next book before it's ready for publication.

Doesn't sound awful, does it? Hopefully not. I've got the account set up, now I'm just doing the fun stuff, like making a header graphic and figuring out what to call it.

EDITED: It worked! Here's the signup link, plus a permanent one alongside:

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