One RITA , Two Carries, and Many Good Friends

Absurdly brief, after all the elaborate preparation. But it was as long as I could stand. And, well — I won, that’s all. I mean, sometimes life is like that, you know: no complications, no reversals. Later for the intricacies...

That's Carrie, the intrepid girl heroine of my Molly Weatherfield erotic novels, speaking from the midst of a deeply compromised situation at the far reaches of my sexual imagination.

But what she has to say will serve quite well for how I felt two weeks ago in Washington DC, when (if you don't already know) my most recent romance novel, The Edge of Impropriety, was awarded Romance Writers of America's RITA® Award for Best Historical Romance, at our annual National Conference.

Joyous, amazed, and exhausted. And (like my overeducated, motormouth heroine) willing, just this once, to let complexity and unlikelihood pass without brow-knitting analysis.

And perhaps also little bit like Stephen King's Carrie before the bucket of blood descends -- which might seem an outré comparison unless you remember the movie really well. I searched YouTube for clips, but everybody only wants to show you the carnage.

What I remember best, however, is the moment of happy triumph, done in silent slow motion, as she makes her way up through a sea of smiling faces and applauding hands to the microphone to be crowned prom queen.

Swear to God, that's what it felt like.

Some hints for future RITA® hopefuls:

It's best if your book has a long title: I was so dim-witted and slow on the uptake that I might have missed my name being announced if the awards presenter hadn't had to make her way through the thicket of syllables in Impropriety.

You'll feel less like an idiot afterwards (take it from me) if you haven't repeatedly assured every last one of your wonderful, long-suffering friends (see below for pix) that you have absolutely no chance of winning.

There's bound to be someone you forget to thank -- my mea culpa is author/blogger Lisa Dale (check her out at Book Anatomy 101 or at her smart, wonderful, inquisitive interview of me). Online thanks aren't as good, but they'll have to do -- Lisa, thanks again.

And that's all, folks, at least for now. No complexities or reversals. I've got my ass back in the chair (which is what you want, as a writer, qua Nora Roberts in that delightful New Yorker feature story in the June 22 issue) and am happily back to work on the new book. Because the real -- the maddening, exhilarating, scary -- fun has got to be in the everyday work of writing. But I'd be lying bigtime if I said that all the smiles, hugs, applause and congratulations weren't a huge encouragement.

As are the friendships. So here are the pix I promised.

Hoydens at lunch in DC:

That's Janet Mullany and me seated, and (left to right), Lauren Willig, Mary Blayney, Diane Whiteside, and Kathrynn Dennis standing.



And hoydens over drinks in San Francisco:

(left to right) Me and Tracy Grant in back, and Amanda Elyot, Kalen Hughes, and Doreen DeSalvo in front.

No Lynna Banning, I'm afraid. We're going to have to do something about that. How about some more celebrating? I know there's lots of good news from the just- and soon-to-be-published among you.

Do tell.

And hey, thanks everybody. Again.

The Russians are Coming -- to California!

The year is 1809. In England, the portly figure of the Prince of Wales cuts a wide swath through the drawing rooms of the titled and wealthy while his father George III struggles with the illness (porphyria, likely) that has left him with intermittent lucidity and will eventually claim his life.

Napoleon continues to expand to the east, cutting a rather wide swath himself through Europe and claiming everything his Grande Armée trods upon for his empire. And in Russia, Tsar Alexander too, feels the tug of the east -- to a wild and rugged continent where the waves of the Pacific Ocean lash the ragged rocks splashing the sunning seals -- not too many miles from a place where just forty years later, gold would be discovered in "them thar hills."

The Russians came -- to California! To a stretch that is known now as the state's "lost coast," for its remoteness and lack of development even in this age where nothing beats an ocean view.

They were looking to trade in furs. In 1809 the Russian-American company's principal Alexander Baranov sent his manager Ivan Kushkov to California to scout out the perfect location for a trading base. In January of 1809 Kushkov's ship, the Kodiak, arrived in Bodega Bay carrying 40 Russians and 150 Alaskans. Their initial sojourn lasted until that August, but Kushkov subsequently returned to California and established a trading base or outpost at Metini, protected by a fort that would remain in operation until 1841. The stockade was impressively fortified, in order to give the enemy Spanish, entrenched in Southern California, second thoughts about invading the Russian outpost.

Kushkov returned in 1812 with 25 Russians and 80 Alaskans; and on August 13 of that year the colony was named Fort Ross (Ross being a corruption of Rossiia, or Russia). They constructed structures from local redwoods. Their palisade was defended by two towers, each fortfied with cannons.

And in the mid 1820s they buit a chapel.

The population of Fort Ross was a melange of races. Children born of Russians and Europeans who mated with Alaskans or Indians were known as Creoles.

Enclosed within the protected palisade were storehouses and outbuildings for curing animal hides, and for spinning and weaving yarns, in addition to a kitchen, an apothecary, and facilities for studying and evaluating the local botany, geology, biology, and meteorology.

When my husband and I visited Fort Ross earlier this month, I took photos of all of these rooms. Particularly striking to me was the (barely furnished at present) governor's house that had been occupied by the last manager of Fort Ross, Alexander Rotchev and his family, complete with spinet. Rotchev was a cultured polyglot whose home boasted a library as well. That house is now a National Historic Landmark.

Although the fort was predominantly populated by men, there were a few women who dwelled there. After all, one assumes, someone had to do the laundry!

The original purpose of the siting of the fort was to establish a brisk trade in the pelts of sea mammals, but the Russians branched out into other areas in order to be self-sustaining: agriculture, tanning, shipbuilding, and brickmaking--although the fort's structures are constructed of timber.

Overhunting severely depleted the marine mammal population so that by 1820, scant years after Fort Ross had been established, there was little left to hunt and the Russian-American company instituted a moratorium on hunting the native seals and otters. Although they had initially come to destroy, they ended up establishing the first known marine mammal conservation laws in the Pacific. Their contributions to the 19th century's scientific knowledge of California are measurable.

In December 1851 the Russian American company sold the fort to a familiar name ... John Sutter (remember Sutter's Mill of goldlust fame). Fort Ross's livestock were transferred to Sutter's own fort near Sacramento. The fort changed hands several more times during the 19th century until the California Historical Landmarks Committee purchased the Ross stockade in 1903.

Although my mother is from Beverly Hills (which makes my blood 50% Californian by my own arcane calculations), I admit that I never knew the Russians had staked a claim there -- and right in our own writing period!

Did you California hoydens know that a Russian fort had been established just a few hundred miles from where you live?

And for you four, as well as the other hoydens and our treasured blog visitors -- during your book research, have you ever come across a slice of history that took you by surprise? What was it?

The winner is...

Sneaking a super quick post in here to announce that Jane O. is the winner of a signed copy of A Most Lamentable Comedy.

Jane, please send your snailmail address to me at jrmullany AT yahoo.com.

The Eureka Experience

The creative process fascinates me for reasons both personal and scientific. In a few weeks I will be making lots of noise about my newest book. Today I want to concentrate on the writing itself and when the creative process works and when it fails and fails miserably.

From the beginning the book was a challenge. I was so worried I would miss my deadline (yet again) that I started writing before I knew the characters. The result was a book that needed much editorial help and a long revision. The whole process was such a challenge that I had one of those "When this is done I quit" moments. Since I am well into the next book I can assure that feeling did pass. By the time I wrote the last chapter I was delighted with STRANGER'S KISS and can't wait to share it with readers.

With that miserable experience and almost failure in mind, I decided that I would not start the next book until I KNEW my characters. There followed six weeks filled with all kinds of work related to writing plus reading, ironing, gardening. Deep down I worried that I was wasting time.

At week four, when I was about to cave and start something -- anything -- I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal. The headline read "A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight." I am going to quote from the article because I want to get it right and I think you might find it as reassuring as I did.

Did you know we spend "about a third of our time day-dreaming?" The good side of all that "wasted" time is that "our brain is unusually active during these seemingly idle moments." (If there are any blog readers still in school -- print out the article and give it to your teacher the next time he/she tells you to "Stop daydreaming!"

Remind your teacher that Sir Issac Newton was sitting in an orchard "daydreaming" when he saw an apple fall and according to the WSJ velcro, post-it notes and ice cream cones struck the inventors in what WSJ Science Journal columnist Robert Lee Holtz calls "Eureka moments"

Thanks to a recent study researchers have been able to "document the brain's behavior during Eureka moments by recording brain wave patterns and imaging the neural circuits that become active as volunteers struggle to solve anagrams, riddles and other brain teasers."

This is what they found -- that you need more than methodical thinking to solve some problems. "Solving a problem with insight is fundamentally different from solving a problem analytically". Personally, I can't decide if this is stating the obvious or not, but it is such a validation of my six weeks "off" that I cannot resist sharing it.

How many time have you stepped away from a crossword puzzle and when you come back the answers have moved to the front of your consciousness? How many times have gone for a walk and come back with the answer to a plot issue?

There is another intriguing fact that scientists discovered as they explored the way the brain transmits these eureka moments. In two different studies of brain wave patterns, the testing scientists discovered that the brain apparently knows the answer for a period of time before "the volunteer experienced the insight." This is not news to me. At some point in the process of writing a book, I know what the last scene will be and write it. That final scene written is a message to my conscious self that my subconscious knows the story to the end, well before I am aware of it. Now I have a scientific way of explaining something I figured out instinctively several books ago.

In fact this article is one more way to look at the creative process. Neuroscientist Dr Kalina Christoff at the University of British Columbia had the last word in the article: "We often assume that if we don't notice our thoughts they don't exist,when we don't notice them is when we may be thinking most creatively."

To which I respond, I knew that.....Take a minute and share your creative process (even if you're not a writer) and your favorite "eureka moment."

Writers I wish I could have known . . .

Like millions of other people, I wish I could known Oscar Wilde. I would have been a devoted fan even then, following his exploits. Imagine my surprise to learn his gravesite is considered one of the "germiest" tourist attractions on the planet. He would have snorted at this, no doubt, and laughed.

Wilde, who died in 1900 from cerebral meningitis after a botched operation for an ear problem, continues to be a celebrated literary figure today famous for his tabooed sexuality at the time and his novels such as "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

Oscar Wilde is buried is in Paris. His body rests in a tomb speckled with lipstick marks from visitors from all over the world showing their literary appreciation. The kisses display a rainbow of colors -- so much so that travel experts say Oscar Wilde's name on the tomb can be hard to discern. One traveler wrote after visiting the grave, "The tombstone of Oscar Wilde is ... well, wild, excuse the pun."

Someday, I will visit Paris and his tomb, and I plan to leave my lipstick marks right there with all the others, germs and all.

Have any of you kissed Oscar's tombstone? What other great literary figures would have like to have met?

Eels, squeals, and Comedy release

I approached my fellow Hoydens and asked about correct behavior on the blog for the release of a book. Should I jump up and down and make squealing sounds; should I mention the release in a discreet footnote after an erudite post, on, say, the early nineteenth century Gloucestershire eel industry; and above all, what sort of gloves should I wear on release day?

The eels have to wait. Yes, my book is out today and although it doesn't have US distribution, you can buy it with free shipping worldwide from bookdepository.co.uk. You can also win a signed copy with a comment or question here. I'll pick a winner after the weekend and make an announcement.

So, the book is, sort of, a sequel to The Rules of Gentility (HarperCollins, 2007; Little Black Dress, UK, 2008). I'd thought originally that if I did write a sequel I'd probably write about Philomena's twin sisters (remember a few years ago everyone had twins in their books?). But after Philomena's breathless twittering about Inigo's trousers and bonnets, I felt I needed to clear my literary palate and chose the bad girl, Caroline, who makes an appearance early on in Rules in intimate circumstances with Inigo.

I was inspired, partly, by Dickens' Our Mutual Friend which I reread a couple of years ago (and blogged about here). It's a sinister, complex, confusing book, Dickens' last completed work. I was fascinated by a pair of minor characters, Mr. and Mrs. Lummle, who discover, after their marriage, that neither has any money. Having conned each other, they then proceed to con others and sink into crime. What a great set up, I thought, and so I invented Caroline Elmhurst and Nicholas Congrevance, who are both on the lookout for partners with money. She's broke and in debt and hovering on the brink of ruin, and he's, ahem, professionally interested in rich, gullible women.

Another astonishing discovery about Our Mutual Friend was what an incredible pantser Dickens is. The book was published originally in installments, and the edition I read includes his plotting notes. He takes some outrageous risks (well, risks for anyone else, but not for Dickens). There's one chapter which is pure exposition, so we (the readers) know the true identity of one of the characters. In Volume II Dickens dumps a whole cast of new characters into the book.

Something similar happened to me with Comedy. I knew, roughly, what was going to happen, but when it happened, and to a certain extent, how, surprised me. I found myself halfway through the book where I thought I'd be a couple of chapters from the end, and yes, I introduced a couple of new characters. This wasn't quite as problematic as I thought. For one, I'd figured out that my hero/heroine were in search of community as much as each other (and money. Don't forget the money). They both start off living in isolation, a necessity of leading a double life, with one other person (a servant and fellow conspirator) knowing some of what they are. (I'm fascinated by characters who masquerade as someone else but they're difficult to write-- how much does/should the reader know? How much should other characters know and when? But that's another post.) Both Caroline and Nicholas discover love (reluctantly) and friendship and discover within themselves reserves of strength and loyalty and ...

Lest I mislead you, it's not really that sort of book. No one starts a knitting club or anything. It's funny. It's set (mostly) at an English country house party in 1822 where the heroine has retreated to escape her creditors and sinks further into disrepute as an amateur actress in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She really needs a husband or protector as soon as possible and although she's extremely interested in the handsome, mysterious (and undoubtably wealthy) Nicholas Congrevance she wouldn't, and doesn't, turn down a Duke.

Two of the Hoydens have already reported to me incidents of inappropriate public laughter. In fact, the morning after Pam Rosenthal won her RITA for The Edge of Impropriety (go Pam!), I woke to the most wonderful sound in the world for a writer of comedy--an informed and smart reader who's also a friend cackling at my book. In the right places, no less.

Comments and questions, please.

More blogging today at the Riskies and Romance B(u)y the Book. Find a complete schedule of my blog tour and a contest (another! I'm offering a pair of really lovely Regency aquatints as prizes) at my website.

The Marriage of Two Minds

I seem to have a knack for missing RWA conferences where my friends win Rita Awards. I wasn't at either of the conferences where my friend Penelope Williamson won twice in the 90s. In those pre-internet days, I didn't know she'd won until she got back from the conference and telephoned me. Last Saturday, thanks to Twitter, I knew Pam had won the Rita for Best Historical Romance for her wonderful The Edge of Impropriety at almost the same moment it was announced from the stage.

One of the things I love about Pam’s writing is that her characters have, in Regency terms, “a keen understanding”–they’re brainy people who enjoy talking about ideas (The Edge of Impropriety’s hero and heroine are a classical scholar and a Silver Fork novelist respectively). This past week, while a lot of my writer friends were at RWA, a post by Jean on the All About Romance blog on “The Beautiful Minds of Heroes” got me thinking more about brainy characters.

The first brilliant hero Jean mentions falling in love with is Sherlock Holmes. I confess I discovered Sherlock Holmes first through dramatizations (notably the fabulous Jeremy Brett series). I didn’t actually read the Arthur Conan Doyle stories until I discovered Laurie King’s Russell & Holmes books. Because much as I love brainy characters on their own, I particularly love intellectual and romantic partnerships between two exceptionally brilliant people. There’s the fun of watching two fine minds click over solving a problem. I love the scenes of Russell and Holmes talking through a case. The same is true of Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane--I’m particularly fond of a scene in Have His Carcase where they break a code together. Mulder and Scully’s debates about science and paranormal phenomenon were one of the delights of The X-Files.

There's the delight of clever wordplay, such as Lymond and Philippa's improvised "Languish Lock'd in L" play in The Ringed Castle. And the tension of emotion simmering beneath a coolly intellectual façade, which comes out so beautifully in the scene following the play in The Ringed Castle where Lymond realizes he's in love. Or, as Russell's friend Veronica says in A Monstrous Regiment of Women (speaking, indirectly, about Holmes, or rather someone she's comparing to Holmes) "A challenge, I suppose, to break through that ascetic shell and set loose the passion beneath. Because one could feel the passion. My God, you couldn't miss it, in his eyes and his mouth, but it was under control."

There’s also the inevitable clash of two people who love to think. As Miss de Vine says to Harriet in Gaudy Night, “A marriage of two independent and equally irritable intelligences seems to me reckless to the point of insanity. You can hurt one another so dreadfully.” That’s certainly true of Peter and Harriet and also of Holmes and Russell and Mulder and Scully. In all three cases, a determination to battle a problem through intellectually and a refusal to open up emotionally can leave the other partner feeling shut out. Peter in Busman’s Honeymoon, Holmes in The Language of Bees, Scully battling her cancer, Mulder coping with family revelations.

I love writing about brainy characters. The intellectual debates, the fun with words, the angst of clashing minds. In theory, at least, Mélanie, Charles, and Raoul in my books are all brilliant. Of course, that means the author has to keep up with them, which is sometimes a challenge . It took me a long time (and a consultation with a friend who was a math major) to devise the code Charles and Mel break in Secrets of a Lady (much simpler than the one Have His Carcase).

Do you like reading about brainy characters? Do you like them paired with a partner of equal brilliance? Any interesting examples to suggest? Writers, do you like writing about brainy characters? What are the challenges?