Putting the Dots Together

Coming home from an enjoyable dinner with a friend and a dessert that was not chocolate. Shakshuka and kadaif, the house dessert at Hummus Place were the stars of this meal. But I am thinking what am I going to post about. What dots am I going to connect? I mean there was the coincidence that this Friday is the Final (weep) Quickies series that chapter member Rachel Kramer Bussel has been hosting at Happy Ending, and that my friend and I were talking about happy endings of a different kind, which was funny...but otherwise there are no dots to connect for this post. Well there they are--the dots! I am working right now on the first 6000 words of my as of yet unedited second NaNo novel to send out. And even though I often have a focus on the erotic even when I am not trying to--I was in high school when a teacher mistook for an erotic poem a poem I was writing about unrequited love--but the thing behind most of my stories is the connection between the two people that I choose and their relationship. The double entendred happy ending I was talking about over dinner was a combination of the conventional and unconventional. I'm pretty traditional and romantic--I love a big screenesque happy ending. But everyone defines things differently. I continue to learn that I learn a lot from my friends: about them, about myself and most importantly about how I see the world. It might have been the teacher who confused the meaning of my poem who told us in class that poetry is your heart, fiction is the way that you see the world. Thus all the dots connect in one way or another on our pages and screens as our worlds form.

Happy E-Reading

Recently I had a birthday, and received a gift from my fiancé Alex. He presented me with a nicely wrapped box, which I thought was chocolate, Godiva, yeah! I was surprised when I read the gift card, “Happy Birthday, Someplace to put all your books.” Could this be? I ripped it open, yes; it was an Amazon Kindle 2. I was both thrilled and a bit taken off guard. I wanted an electronic book reader, but had been recently torn between the Kindle2 and the new Sony Pocket Reader. I had told Alex weeks ago, “I want a Kindle,” and being the great guy he is, he listened. It comes in a really cool package that’s like opening a treasure. In my spare time I’ve been getting to know my Kindle. Of course you can download all the free public domain books with the Kindle. And since I enjoy reading e-published material, I’m looking forward to downloading the electronic books right on my Kindle and reading them anywhere I want instead of having to sit at my computer and read them, or print out pages causing more clutter and using up ink. Of course you can purchase e-books and stories directly to the Kindle from the publisher’s site or you can download it from other formats like PDF and Microsoft Word and electronically send them to the Kindle and access them. The Kindle2 is thin and comes without a cover, so one of the first things I did was pick out and order a cover to protect it. I read the reviews of the covers as thoroughly as I did for the book readers, wanting the choose the most comfortable and practical one for my use. I chose the M-Edge which has flip top cover that can stand up. This is great if you like to read while you’re eating. You don’t to hold it, and only have to press "next page" to turn the page. I ‘m also happy to learn the Kindle can do some other things as well. I downloaded a guidebook for 99 cents to Kindle Shortcuts, Hidden Features, and Kindle-friendly websites which explains how to search and download things from Internet, like all the e-publishers you’ll be able to purchase from with the push of the converter button; it’s like the enter key on a computer. You can also download calendars and planners for the Kindle and use it as a PDA. Boy do I miss my Sony Clie - I loved my PDA. You can also play games with the Kindle and it comes with Mine Sweeper. While playing around I looked up Lady Leo Publishing and saw the confession story I wrote for them. Of course, I have to get used to typing with my thumbs - I don’t have a Blackberry and have not ventured into texting. I’m a touch typist and using my thumbs seems somewhat insane, since my left thumb has never hit a key before. But I’m ready for the next wave in the electronic revolution, as long as I don’t develop carpel thumb syndrome or whatever they’re calling it. I can only handle so many new things at a time. Before I received the Kindle, I was looking into the Sony Pocket Reader, mostly because you can also take out library books electronically with the device. I think that’s a really cool feature and hope Kindle will pick this up as well. There are experimental features with the Kindle2 which include a basic web browser, playing MP3 files and text to speech (where allowed by the rights holder). I read recently that in Japan there is a market for authors writing books that are read on cell phones, and that people read entire books on their cell phones. Wow, I would like something a bit smaller than the Kindle, but I cannot fathom the thought of reading Pride and Prejudice on my tiny Samsung’s screen. Just thinking of that hurts my eyes. Well, whether you chose the Kindle or the Sony they both have their pros and cons. It reminds me of dilemma I had deciding between buying a Honda or Toyota when I was car shopping a few years back. I read countless information on both cars, test drove them, and I took months to decide. I’m glad I was given the Kindle, because I would still be comparing instead of enjoying my newest toy. C. Gibbs, My Holiday House Guest, LadyLeoPublishing.org by Chloe J. Daniels

DEMYSTIFYING COCO CHANEL: THE FAMED CHANEL SUIT

by Polly Guerin, Fashion Historian

Cloaked in mystery and romance Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel is one of the most fascinating women in history and so is the Chanel suit that has outlasted her legendary life of rags to riches and high society. Her extraordinary influence on the way women dressed in the l920s and 1930s evokes an image of elegant simplicity and a modernist approach to fashion. No wonder, the Chanel suit reappears today as an all-time classic
Honors are pouring in across the country and today is the opening of the film, "Coco, Before Chanel" at the Paris Theater. But don't expect this movie to be all about the celebrated designer's famous Haute Couture days of wine and roses and high society. It focuses on her early days singing at cabarets, plying her dressmaking skills and finding romance with the wealthy male benefactors who provided financial aid and abetted her meteroric rise to stardom and high society.
All aboard, Saks Fifth Avenue's windows pay homage to Chanel and invite you to take a vicarious trip on the Chanel train with the CC logo, pulling out all the stops with Chanel suits and accessories. Attention to detail made the Haute Couture Chanel jacket quite a different breed of garment from the traditional tailored styles. The Haute Couture version was hand-made in exquisite tweeds and boucle fabrics and the lining, printed or plain, matched the coorinating blouse, collar and cuffs. A delicate gilt chain sewn to the hem of the jacked added just a bit of weight so the jacket did not ride up. Now that is a classy suit, par excellence and it is said that if Chanel was not satisified she would rip off the sleeve of the Chanel suit time and again to get the perfect fit. The end result was that despite fashion's frivolity this was a suit that would last for years and still look chic..
Her romances linked her name with celebrated men of the era. Idle hours on the Duke of Westminster's yacht did not stop Chanel's imagination and from the crew's uniforms she developed jersey yachting fashions and sportswear. Polly dishes the dirt as well about this amazing woman. After her romantic attachment to a German officer during WWII she fled to Switzerland and only returned to Paris to open her Couture House after the largesse of the French population forgave her dalliance.
Chanel is the trademark for fashion, accessories, perfume, cosmetics and all sorts of lovely things. If it isn't an authentic Chanel suit, do not use terms in your writing such as Chanel-ed, Chanel--issim or Chanel-ized. Lawyers positively detest them.

Bio: Polly was a fashion reporter when she was sent to cover the House of Chanel collection for the trade publication, bible of the fashion industry, Women's Wear Daily and had the great pleasure of meeting Madame herself. As a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology she became a recognized fashion historianon the subject of the Chanel suit. She is also a vice-president of Romance Writers of America/New York City chapter. Visit her at www.pollytalk.com.

Romancing the Enemy

Two lovers on opposite sides of a war, or of any human conflict, has been a universal theme throughout the long history of art and literature. We need only recall Shakespeare’s feuding Montagues and Capulets to exemplify the tale of ill-fated love. Modern fiction and film carry on this heartrending tradition.

When I first envisioned my World War II romance novel, In the Arms of the Enemy (contracted with The Wild Rose Press), I chose the brutal setting of a war as the perfect foil to offset a tender love story. As a literary device, what obstacle could more dramatically keep ‘boy from girl’ than forcing them to face each other in battle, at least metaphorically?

As an added challenge to my prospective readers, I costumed my hero in a German uniform, casting him as an officer in the dreaded Army of the Third Reich. For the average American romance reader, a character in this role evokes little sympathy. And how could a courageous heroine, fighting for her country’s freedom against the invading Nazis, possibly fall in love with such a brute?

I’d like to take full credit for this ingenious plot invention but this is not new ground. Since the end of World War II, books and movies have been released with plots hinging on, or at least hinting at this theme. The poignancy of ‘star-crossed lovers’, thrown together by the vagaries of war, doomed by circumstance to tragedy, fascinates and enthralls the romantically inclined among viewers and readers.

Françoise, a young Frenchwoman in the 1958 film The Young Lions, at first despises the attentions of Lieutenant Christian Diestl, viewing him as just another German swine occupying her country. Finally able to see beyond the Wehrmacht uniform to Christian’s humanity, she overcomes her distaste and ends up willingly in his arms.

While Françoise merely feels antipathy towards the Germans, Jewish heroine Rachel Stein in Black Book (2006) actively fights them. After witnessing the massacre of her family by the Nazis she joins the Dutch Resistance, assuming the identity of Ellis de Vries, a beautiful Gentile woman who beds German officer Ludwig Müntze. Rachel/Ellis manages to infiltrate German headquarters to gain information for the Resistance. Ludwig turns out to be not such a bad Nazi after all, protecting his lover from the really bad Nazis when he discovers what she is up to. Though her affair with the handsome German begins as a ruse to spy on the enemy, she can’t help falling in love with him.

One might wonder how much romance can be found in a film with virtually no female roles, set aboard a U-boat fathoms beneath the Atlantic. But as we watch the forlorn German sailor in Das Boot (1981) read his French girlfriend’s love letter and gaze wistfully at her photograph, we know as well as he that their affair is doomed. Any fragment of hope for ‘happily-ever-after’ dissolves when he tells his shipmate that she is pregnant. With a half-German bastard in her womb, her prospects of avoiding the vengeance of her countrymen are almost as remote as her lover’s chances of surviving the depth charges of the Allies.

In Michael Wallner’s wrenching novel April in Paris, Corporal Roth finds emotional refuge from his distasteful duties at German headquarters by posing as a Frenchman when off-duty, trying to blend in with the locals. His flawless French accent conceals his identity as a member of the occupying Army. Little does he know that Chantal, the Frenchwoman he romances, is connected with the Resistance. Tragically, as with all of the movies cited above, their affair is destined for heartbreak.

The message here, I’d like to think, is that men and women are first and foremost human beings, not merely a nationality, religion or race. And human beings can’t help but succumb to love, at least as often as they succumb to hate. For a German Romeo and a French/Dutch/Jewish Juliet, plunged into the horrors of the Second World War, lifelong bliss is an all but impossible dream. Yet if you’re intrigued by a love affair between enemies, you needn’t despair of a happy ending. Just wait for the publication of my novel, In the Arms of the Enemy. You’ll be hearing more about that in the months to come…

Bits & Pieces: Isabo Kelly

This is the first installment of Bits & Pieces. Here we are going to do profiles of authors and more. I wanted to do them in the vein of this profile I had seen on Urban Daddy. How lucky was I that in choosing Isabo Kelly as my guinea pig that I was going to get a profile that had even better bits than this? Isabo and I decided to meet at Viva Pancho where at first it was going to be just three of us. It ended up being 10 and a half of us--including Isabo's delectable son Jack--sipping margaritas. Yet, somehow, even more telling about than anything you will read below, at no point did Isabo lose contact with me. Her warmth and attention, even in the midst of a noisy restaurant on a Friday night, revealed how, as an author, she is so skilled at developing relationships between her characters. In snatches before the second pitcher of margaritas, I had everything I could have wanted and more for my profile as she joked how our party kept expanding. So I am going to reveal to you much in the same way that she whispered to me these little bits, and ironically enough, some of the things mentioned in the profile that inspired me in the first place:

My mother was a rodeo queen and I grew up around cowboys and they are not particularly sexy. They smell like horse manure. Corsets are not comfortable.

(about Inglourious Basterds)I did not go expecting anything in particular. It was a really good black comedy. Very powerful and yet that underlying sense of black humor. Love that she (Melanie Laurent in the Urban Daddy profile) was also a porn director - love that kind of French laissez faire. We (women) do not write erotic romance novels for men, we write them for women. Why I believe in reincarnation. My grandma had been pregnant and the baby was suffocated - it got wrapped up in the cord - on May 14. When my mom was pregnant they had her hooked up to the fetal heart monitor. Because her pregnancy was so normal they were using her as a model. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and I was born around noon on May 14. So I think that I was originally intended to be her (my mother's) sister. Family Guy is the best. Everything that Family Guy does is brilliant. I can't believe I am at the age I am. I don't feel grown up. Tom Selleck with moustache, he has to have the moustache. Kevin Kline is one of the sexiest men ever--but he has to have the moustache. I'm not like a Charmed witch, obviously. I tend to call myself a green witch because of my focus on the nature end of things I'm a pagan in my belief system --I call my deity Lady, She, Goddess and like the duality of having a God and Goddess. I like to appreciate nature and what it gives us. The most important thing for me is that I'm what's called a Solitary. I don't belong to a coven or anything like that.

WALK IT OUT

By Karen Cino

Back to School! Hmm…not a bad idea for all of us. Come on lets face it, all summer long, the moment we saw the combination of sun and hot weather, we were no where near our computers. Now, it’s time to get into some sort of schedule, along with the kids. The key is structure and a schedule. You would think that with me being home all day that I would be pumping out thousands of words. Absolutely not. I am guilty of dilling and dalling all day long doing…nothing. But I did add some structure in my life during the past few weeks, and plan to expand that into the fall months.

Now you ask, how do you find time to write, let alone think? I have the perfect solution which I’ll walk you through. It will not only open up your mind to endless possibilities, but will keep you trim and fit.

Walking. I find walking is the best way to relax, and get my muse flowing. I walk no matter the weather. I’ve been known to walk during a snow storm. Even if it’s around the block, or walking during your lunch break, use the time to clear your mind and let your characters take over. I always carry colorful index cards with me and a pen, usually sticking out of my ponytail. Believe it or not, this is how I write my outlines. I walk it through one scene at a time. I stop, write my thoughts and continue on my journey.

I’ve used walking to get through some of the toughest scenes that I couldn’t find a resolution to. I have to admit that walking is my salvation. It works wonders for every aspect in my life.

Now, I am going to offer you a challenge. With NaNoWriMo only six weeks away, I challenge you to spend the week putting together a character sketch of both your hero and heroine, include physical and emotional traits. Give your characters a background, a career. Pick your genre and setting. Write a one sentence hook that would describe your book. Believe me, you will be thankful that you created that one liner before you begin your project.

I suggest you grab a pair of sneakers, lace them up and get your imagination walking. A simple walk around the block will clear your mind, waking it up to endless creative possibilities.





BIO:   Karen Cino is President of RWA/NYC. She writes women’s fiction, and is currently working on a fiction book with Staten Island locales.  

Photo credit: Sunrise over Staten Island Boardwalk by Karen.

THOROUGHLY MODERN: The 20's-30's

by Polly Guerin, Fashion Historian

For me it's all about the fashions, the sequined, shimmy-fringed chemises ready to Charleston, and frivolous characters like the flappers wearing cloche hats and pearl necklaces dropping to their knees, drinking, driving and partying, and it's also about the social life as pictured in F. Scott Fizgerald's novel, THE GREAT GATSBY.

        It's about women like Tamara de Lempika the famed Art Deco artist, chicly helmeted her gloved hand on the steering wheel driving her green Bugatti, representing the new breed of independent woman racing into the future. It's about the swank salon interiors, mirrored, black lacquer furniture, and an elegant white piano upon a black and white checkaboard floor ready for the cocktail hour.  It's the first era of modernism launched by the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes which gave us the term, ART DECO, that represented streamline modernity.
        The recent film, "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," depicts this era with authenticity from the fashions, millinery and accessories to the interiors and the soignee personalities of the era. A revealing lingerie fashion show scene gives you an insider's view of what the ladies wore underneath it all. Well worth your while to pick up a CD at Barnes & Noble and consider this era for your next historical novel.


BIO:  Polly is on the board of the Art Deco Society of New York, and recently lectured on the subject at the l0th World Congress on Art Deco in Montreal in May. She is also a vice president of the Romance Writers of America / New York City chapter.  Visit her at www.pollytalk.com.

Red Lights

The start of my three day weekend began with going to the In The Flesh reading series to support my dear friend Madlyn March who is an ITF veteran. Madlyn read from a novel I had never heard of before, Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York and it is definitely a book that I will be reading in the future. It is my wish that Rachel Kramer Bussel (one of RWA-NYC's very own) continue with this series of Quickies in which moi-meme even read at the inaugural--Anais Nin, not my own work. I think there is nothing happier than cupcakes from Baked by Melissa served at this series! And nothing sexier than going to the bathroom at Happy Ending--where the readings are held--which is bathed in red light. Every reading is an event; I am still enthralled by a reader from a few months ago who read a hardcore BDSM work that brought (and brings) goosebumps to my flesh.

And it is simply just sexy. Red lights, cupcakes, amorous couples....If you read the ITF blog, I can tell you I did not see the couple that was making out Friday night, but I have seen couples make out and I was sitting near the couple that met and left together...

To end the three day weekend, I went to the Lady Jane's Salon reading at Madame X for The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker book release party for Leanna--there was no way I was going to miss her in full Victorian garb. She looked STUNNING, as did Katrina who read from Thief's Desire which she signed for me. Leanna signed Strangely Beautiful for me, which I think is the closest to the Harry Potter series that I am going to get. One just cannot go wrong with a Lady Jane's soiree--to spend the night surrounded in red velvet drinking Pussy Galores. Though in honor of the evening, I cheated on my signature Pussy Galore to have a Strangely Beautiful which had citron vodka and a blue and sweet liquor. Lady Jane was not upstaged by ITF because there were Lindt dark chocolate truffles present...

Both readings were amazing, the aura of red making it almost feel like fire in some instances. There was no lack of steamy excerpts, more of an abundance...

...and I loved it all.

And keep an eye out for profiles from all of the above in the coming months--Madlyn, Rachel, Leanna and Katrina.

Short & Sweet: Opportunities for Publishing Short Fiction

Your novel is completed and you're undergoing that self-flaggellating procedure known as "submitting" to editors and/or agents. Your book is going through the last steps in the publishing process while you anxiously await the awesome date of its release. You're suffering a bout of writer's block, or your schedule (or sanity) prohibits undertaking another new full length project. BUT, in all these cases you are anxious to write. Or, maybe you have found that shorter fiction is better suited to your creative sensibilities at the moment but you are looking for other alternatives to romance novellas and anthologies - for which there are also numerous publishing opportunities in case you haven't checked them out! How about investigating the opportunities for publishing short fiction in magazines and e-zines? As our membership has shown in recent days, the confession market is alive and well. New Love Stories and Lady Leo publishing are accepting stories in the "confession" genre centered on love and romance. The tried and "Trues" - including True Confessions, True Love, True Romance and True Experience - all accept stories with a romance slant, BUT True Confessions and True Experience publish a wealth of stories outside the love story genre. Life experiences, unpleasant "episodes", brushes with the law, stalkings, bad neighbors, and more, are all welcome fodder for their fiction. So if you feel like writing a "bad girl learns her lesson", or a "good samaritan saves the day" story or something else that falls outside the "love" genre, you've got a great market available. What about beyond the confessions - which are what we, as authors in the romance industry, tend to hear the most about when discussing short fiction? Well, as our member Mary Rodgers has proven, opportunities abound. Her wonderfully creative, original fairy tale twist on the Princess and the Frog, "Big Girl" was just published in the September 2009 on-line issue of the ezine, Expanded Horizons. But there are enough e-zines for everyone, ladies and gentlemen! For example, check out Everyday Fiction, the "Once A Day Flash Fiction" on-line magazine that publishes a new, flash-fiction short every day. And do a search for "fiction ezines" and you'll be swimming in sites that are looking for your stories (or poems). From literary fiction, to crime and mystery, romance, fantasy and sci-fi, erotica or horror or speculative fiction, there are homes for your work. There's even "McTruckin" - the ezine that publishes "on the road" stories! If you prefer your stories find a home in a paper venue (i.e., printed magazine), you'll find yourself plenty of sources there, as well. Outside of the romance confession magazines, there are a plethora of genre publications. Mystery and crime short fiction is published in numerous titles, including the "big boys" of mystery fiction, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Looking for a home for fantasy, science fiction, and speculative fiction? Plenty there, too. Check out LOCUS Magazine and you'll see the breadth of this genre's print coverage, but such long-time leaders as Analog, and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction are terrific places to start. There is also an audience for your fiction in women's magazines with dozens of titles catering to every demographic. Many of them hold fiction contests and publish fiction geared toward their audiences. Check out some of your favorites and you may have a whole new outlet for those stories about life, family, women's issues and home. Even the most niche publications may offer an opportunity for fiction authors. Just as an example, The AKC Gazette (publication of the American Kennel Club) sponsors an annual short story competition. If you write about dogs, cats, horses, guinea pigs or farm animals, there may be someone out there looking for your story! Check out those animal and pet titles for some furry possibilities. And speaking of competitions - there's no better chance to get your work read by numerous editors. Winner, or not, you're getting "eyes" on your writing. Writer's Digest Magazine sponsors an annual competition for short fiction. They have a variety of genres and winners in the categories get their story published in this bible of the writing industry. Likewise, the magazine has a monthly "flash fiction" prompt. The winner of each month gets printed in a subsequent month's issue. The annual contest has a cash prize as well as publication ($3,000!). What could be bad? And similar contests are held by The Writer and Writer's Journal magazines. The most well-known fiction magazines are those that publish literary fiction. If that is your bent, another entire rack of publications may be your shot at fame (though not necessarily fortune). From the Big Kahuna of literary fiction, The New Yorker, to Poets & Writers, and the New York Times, which publishes short fiction as well as "all the news that's fit to print", to the Adirondack Review, and tiny Aliumentum - a magazine devoted to food, including fiction about same, you'll have a lot to choose from. The market is supremely competitive, but perhaps starting with some of the smaller literary journals (and just about every college and university has one - my own alma mater, Skidmore, is, in fact, the home of Salamagundi, a very respected literary magazine) may be exactly your ticket. Regional authors have reviews and journals, and there are enthnic publications as well as spiritual ones. Naturally, the list of literary ezines is equally as long. Publishing short fiction can further your career as a novelist, as well. Offering numerous "tastes" of your writing, finding different audiences beyond the romance and novel readers, and guaranteeing yourself a wealth of exposure not just to readers, but to the folks who may decide they want to buy your fiction; this is a big, big plus in establishing you as an author with a healthy customer base. And having a resume that includes short fiction can only enhance your "marketability" for a novel publisher, as someone who is reaching these other, possibly untapped, readers. Consider these avenues for publication while you are in between full-length projects. If you want to write short fiction, there are simply too many places to list that want your stories. No matter the genre, you've got an audience just waiting to fall in love with your work. by Lise Horton, VP, RWA/NYC, Inc.

The Pleasure Principle

I have been known to laugh a lot, but I had dinner with friends a few nights ago and laughed until my eyes were blurry with tears. I discovered that four is a powerful combination which might have been the reason that Sex and the City was so popular--the connection when women click. None of us were wearing Christian Louboutins and no one was like any of the women in that show; except now I am a bit like Carrie Bradshaw in the moments that I liked best - when she deciphered human psyches in front of her.

Sexual innuendos were organic that night. Funny and serious. The thing is, that sex is supposed to be so taboo, and in the United States where its taboo nature runs rampant, we are amateurs. European and Asian films touch on and SHOW things that no matter if they put a NC-17 on an American film, it would be Sesame Street compared to these movies.

There is no problem showing a torture porn. I went to see the movie Lust, Caution where there ended up being about twelve people in the theater. Yet the line almost out of the door of the theater was for Saw IV. At the time, a young woman explained to me the draw of the film. I preferred lust I guess.

At dinner we were laughing, me laughing so hard and the guests at the other tables watching us, it became voyeuristic. Voyeurism comes with any pleasure I think. There is something provocative to people when they see pleasure, maybe that is the thing.


Is pleasure such a hard thing to fathom? Such a hard thing to witness? Once, in a more intimate setting with one other friend at another dinner, I had a woman frown at me because I was laughing. She was eating at Veselka where the food is so good when I eat there alone I am not distracted by other people's conversation at all.

I learned pleasure is a very powerful thing. It was a pleasurable evening with friends. Maybe the pleasure aspect is why anything erotic is such a hot button. Words, images, whatever.

I also learned at dinner that molten chocolate cakes provide a great deal of pleasure.