Good Girl gets the Prize

I wasn’t anxious to go to the Under 21 Club but as a nineteen-year-old living in a town six times the size of where I grew up and wanting to try the nightlife, I let a co-worker talk me into it.

Sally dropped her toddler off at her babysitter’s and picked me up. We drove across town to a bar that hosted an Under 21 night every Sunday. I’d never been in a bar, never gone “clubbing”, and didn’t realize how out of my element I was.  We walked into the upper level and gazed down at all the bobbing heads on the dance floor below. The place was packed with pimply-faced boys and girls who were shaking things I knew I couldn’t shake.  We walked down the steps to the middle level where there were tables and seating. Sally knew a couple of girls and we sat with them in a booth.

The lights grew dimmer and the bodies seemed to exude more heat and several pimple-faced boys (I knew they couldn’t be out of high school) asked me to dance. If they were fast dances I agreed because I liked to dance, but if it was a slow dance I declined. I didn’t like the idea of being pressed against a sweaty school boy for the length of the song.

I was glancing around the establishment when a guy stepped out of the crowd on the top layer and stood at the top of the stairs. He was closer to my age, had dark blond curly hair, a thick neck, muscular arms and looked as out of place as I felt. Slipping from the booth and keeping him in sight, I made my way around to the stairs. He was just stepping down to the level I was on when I stopped in front of him.

“Want to dance?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I took his wide hand and pulled him out onto the dance floor. I could tell by his stiff movements he didn’t dance much and was a bit reserved. After the dance, I asked him if he wanted to sit with me and Sally. He nodded.

We arrived at the booth and the other girls scattered off to dance. We talked about our rural upbringings, how I more or less came to the club because I was bored and wanted to see what a club was like. He said he was supposed to come with some friends who all bailed at the last minute. He was nineteen also. He worked at a feedlot and had just purchased a semi truck and trailer to haul farm commodities. 

Sally returned and said she had to leave, did I want a ride home. I looked at the guy I’d just started visiting with and asked if he could give me a ride home.

“Sure,” he said.

So he and I stayed a little longer, had a slow dance, and chatted some more. When we left the club, he walked me to a dull black 1957 International pick up that smelled like cows and had blue angel hair hanging down from the ceiling. He had to unlock the passenger side and slide across because the driver side door wouldn’t unlock from the outside.

Back at my tri-plex, he came inside and we started kissing. I wasn’t usually a first date kisser but there was something about him that I wasn’t ready to let go of.  When his hand wandered under my shirt, I pulled back, and said it was time for him to leave.

He blushed and nodded.  I closed the door and figured I’d never see him again. And that made me sad, because we had a lot in common and chemistry.

The next Sunday, I was in my bedroom reading. I heard the doorbell but knew my roommate was expecting company so I continued reading. She walked down the hall to her room and shouted, “It’s for you.”

When I stepped into the living room and saw the guy from the Under 21 Club, I was surprised and very happy. He had his hat in his hand and was grinning like fool.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” I said.

“I knew the minute I stepped out the door I’d be back.  I just couldn’t get here any sooner.“  He stepped closer to me. “When you pushed me away when I got too frisky, I knew you were the kind of girl I wanted to marry.”

And we’ve been married thirty-four years. He has said someone up above made us both go to that club that night because it was out of both our comfort levels and made me be bold and walk up to him, something I have never done before. And the other irony is I fell hard the year before for a guy whose last name means the same as my husband's last name. I fell, that guy didn't. I had picked the wrong guy the first time. The second one was who I was meant to marry. 

Did you know right away you were meant for your significant other? 

www.patyjager.net

www.patyjager.blogspot.com

Taking The Bounce: Get Back Up and Try Again By: Courtney Leigh

To give y'all a little of Courtney Leigh's background... I graduated from UC Davis (after I studied abroad in Scotland for a year!) with a double BD in Political Science and English. I gave up a plush job to move to Arizona and work part-time at my parents' dog boarding kennel. I did that to start my writing career. Now I'm a published freelance writer, and all the closer to being a published author. We all know it's a matter of the amount of grit and sweat (and sometimes tears!) we're willing to invest, that makes us persevere.

It was a journey for me to find my fiction genre. But once I made the commitment to 20th century historical romance, I had a former editor from Harper & Row tell me my writing was absolutely superb (yay!), but 1940s war-time romance didn't sell (argh). I got that a lot in the responses I received to queries from agents and editors alike. This is the blurb for Seasons of Change...

A soulful love that transcends the atrocities of WWII Europe...

American expatriate and Resistance legend, Evangeline, vows to lay down her gun. Only upon Colt's insistence, an American soldier whose love promises a happiness she feels unworthy of, Evangeline agrees to leave Europe and returns to her family's Texas cattle ranch. Her personal war has just begun.

As she waits for Colt stateside, she must face the demons from her past for the sake of her future. When love and happiness are the prize, will her resolve be enough to defeat a home front enemy she never encountered as a spy in Europe?
-----

Seasons of Change speaks to those who have bravely waited for a loved one's return, or who have fought to return home themselves. Evangeline and Colt prove that love and determination are more powerful than any bullet, any bomb. Any war.
-----
It has taken me almost a year to bounce back from being told that war-time fiction was a hard-sell. But now that I have had time to really think myself into a clearer vision, I have bounced back with vigor. I've heard the phrase, "Taking The Bounce," as a way to describe getting up and trying again. I like it, so I use it. For some reason it keeps me thinking positive thoughts...

I took the bounce by asking myself how I could effectively pull a larger crowd of romance readers into the catacombs of history. What I came up with, which has become a new, true passion, is Decopunk.

Decopunk romance covers the 1920s to the 1930s (and into the early 40s) Art Deco aesthetics, and is a futuristic rendition of the past--just as Steampunk has done with the mid-to-late 1800s--by introducing modern technology (cell phones, laptops, speed detectors, jet engines, etc.) that didn't exist in real-time history. Have any of you seen Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? How about The Shadow? There's even an episode in season one of Fringe that covers Decopunk.

But I haven't read anything in the romance genre that coincides. The closest I've come to what exists in book form that aligns with my vision, are comic books. And they are very popular when they're done right (hey, I know the readership is different, but it's just a matter of very, very visual description, people!).

So as part of my bounce back, and making the bounce work for me, I've been working on two Decopunk manuscripts that are fresh, new, and vibrant. Some of you may wonder what these romances are about, but I'm still in the developmental stages, so unfortunately I don't even have blurbs for them--because I don't know the endings myself yet (gulp!). In order to find out more about these bounce-back stories, you may want to follow my future blogs on RTG. I'm planning an exciting April...

Tell me what you think about the idea of putting Art Deco aesthetics with modern technology and romance. Can you imagine Gretta Garbo or Vivien Leigh holding smart phones (cased in mahogany with silver-plated industrial detail, and touch screen technology)? When have you, as writers, had to bounce back with a vengeance? Give me your story.

DEATH, SEX AND TAXES BY MARGARET TANNER

 Everyone has to pay taxes; no government on earth is going to let their citizens get away without paying taxes. Taxes on your salary, business tax, death taxes, you name it, they will tax it.

In romance novels, we don’t talk about taxes. I don’t recall ever having read anything about tax collection.

Sex – yes in all its forms, sweet and tender, just a kiss or two. Hot and spicy, no shutting the bedroom door here, and the really hot stuff that I don’t write, but I do commend the talented authors who do, and pull it off so successfully in their erotic romances.

Death – In novels, I consider death to be a great tool in creating emotion and upping the drama. I don’t mean having the hero and heroine die, but the villains and secondary characters.

I have been thinking about this in regards to my stories. I write historical fiction with romantic elements, so death is probably easier to include in these stories. Harder to justify in contemporary romance, unless it is some villain who is hell bent on harming the heroine and to save her life, he has to meet his maker.

In bygone days, death in childbirth was quite common. People died of snakebite/disease/illness because they were miles from medical assistance or could not afford to pay for it. Bank robbers, stage coach robbers, cattle rustlers etc. the sheriff could quite legitimately shoot these criminals down without fear of reprisal from their peers, or condemnation from the public.

In war, on the field of battle, soldiers die or are wounded, so we happily accept this in historical romance. We probably shed a tear or two for the gallant warrior and the staunch heroine who waits in vain for him to return. We wouldn’t throw the book against the wall because of this. We just sigh with contentment when another dashing soldier rides into the life of our heroine and she finally gets her happily ever after ending.

I have to confess that in all my novels there is some sex of the medium to hot variety and someone must die. Never a main character, of course, but someone invariably has to go, usually a baddie, but not always so.

Frontier Wife - a little boy's dog dies
Savage Possession - a brutal kidnapper dies
Daring Masquerade - the heroine's shell shocked brother commits suicide after returning from World War 1,
Make Love Not War - heroine's brother is wounded in Vietnam, but I let him live.
A Mortal Sin - heroine's brother dies of wounds he received in a World War II battle
A Rose In No-Man's Land - wounded soldiers die because the heroine is a battlefield nurse during the 1st World War

As for taxes, I never mention the word in my novels unless it is to say – the heat became very taxing.

Margaret Tanner

Historical Romance Author

http://www.margarettanner.com/

Focusing Forward!

by M.L. Buchman

We're in the depths of our tax season. Everyone's whining about them. My accountant called in desperation for three additional numbers he needed. He probably hasn't slept in two months, so it's hard to be upset by the desperation aspect. A friend has decided that starting five new businesses in overlapping segments of the market may have made sense in 2012, but certainly doesn't during tax time of 2013.  (The businesses aren't the problem, it's the tax work that's making him grumpy... We're all avoiding him this week.)

My plan? Focus forward. I finally learned, after many harrowing years, long extensions and poor calculations (on my part), to turn my taxes into an accountant on the very first day I have all of the information, around February 5th. Whew! Glad to be done with that.

Why especially? So that I can focus forward. I used to let the prior year dribble 2,3,4,5,6,7.... months into the following year. So, then what am I thinking about? Last year! I'd do that with the tail end of projects as well. Now I finish them as thoroughly and quickly as I can. Me? I'm looking ahead.

Right now I'm entering my third month as a full-time writer. And here's a report on what that's like:

Month 1: Cut expenses, cut expenses, cut expenses.
Dump the house that we can't afford to live in and had rented out for far too little money. Move to somewhere significantly cheaper. Get rid of all that crap (then we don't have to pay to move it or have a bigger place so that we can keep it.) Plan to live cheaper in every aspect. Sell a car that we don't really need. Anything to cut down.

Month 1-2 Interlude: Clean up the past.
I took ugly covers, updated them. I found indie pub channels that I liked, I published to them. I found indie pub channels that I had always been meaning to check out, but ultimately didn't feel they were worth the effort for me at this time. I had eight indie-pub novels and we dug through them to make sure they were as clean and well presented as we could (my wife is AWESOME! and helped a lot with that).

Month 2: Start writing.
It was still pretty jinky, bits of the past kept leaping out of closets and trying to tackle me. Being only so quick on my feet, I get hammered to the ground more than I'd like to admit. But, that old Japanese proverb kicks in, "Fall down 7 times get up 8."

This last 2 weeks, I did as much writing as I normally did in 2 months. Now that is really exciting. That's the key to my plan from here on out.

Focus Forward.

M.L. Buchman's military romantic suspense was named Top 5 Romance of 2012 by NPR. The next novel in his contemporary romance series "Angelo's Hearth" will be out in mid-April. He also writes fantasy under Matthew Lieber Buchman and has a foodie thriller as Matthew J. Booker.

An Inquiry into Tax Farming

By Sarah Raplee

Our suggested Genre-ista blog theme this month is Death and/or Taxes. In doing some research into the history of taxation (because the history of death is too weird even for me), I came across the ancient practice of Tax Farming. The conversation with my flummoxed self when I read the words  

Tax Farming went something like this:

ME:  Shazam! You can farm taxes? Who knew?

MYSELF:  It’s probably illegal, like growing opium or babies.

ME: I wonder if they’re farming tax payments or tax rates. 

MYSELF:  Either way, how do the farmers find pickers they can trust? And how do they turn a profit?

ME:  I wonder if they farm taxes in Farmville. If I played Farmville, I’d probably know all about tax farming. I knew I’d regret blocking all those annoying Facebook posts.

MYSELF:  Naw, if players farmed taxes in Farmville, it would have made the news. Every crazy, useless thing people do makes the news. 

ME:  What do you mean?

MYSELF:  Don’t get me started! 

ME: (Trying to focus on writing this post) You don’t think it means Taxes, on Farming – do you?

TAX FARMING?

MYSELF:  Click on the link and find out.

ME:  (Blinking) Not even close.

MYSELF:  (Reading from http://www.taxworld.org/History/tax_farming.htm ) “Tax farming is the principle of assigning the responsibility for tax revenue collection to private citizens or groups. Tax farming occurred in Egypt, Rome, Great Britain, and Greece. The principle was…”

ME:  (Shuddering) Geez Louise, those Roman publicani were more like government Mafia-type enforcers than IRS Agents. And the Greek Ptolemies messed up the Egyptian system by instituting tax farming. I hereby renounce my interest in this evil practice!

DOWN WITH THE PUBLICANI!

MYSELF:  What are those other historical tax terms? Danegeld? Scuttage? Aids?

ME: (Yawning) Fodder for another post. Who chose these Genre-ista themes, anyway?

MYSELF: We did. With Judith.

Me:  Well, it’s a good thing the other Genre-istas wrote such interesting posts, because I got nothin’.

Overheard on... Romancing the Genres

“She cleared the bleachers and saw him make his way around the side of the stadium where he spotted a pair of brothers playing catch with their young dad. The camera and Max were indistinguishable.”

My lovely writer friend, Kathy Dunnehoff has managed to bring us older women back to school in her book, BACK TO U.  By doing this, she is able to draw from, and recreate the nostalgia of college days- including the fun and craziness of college sports games. In this scene the hero and protagonist are competing to see who can take a better photo of the game. Gwen, the protagonist, can’t imagine Max taking anything but a gritty shot and he is trying to prove her wrong.

Although BACK TO U isn’t strictly a sports romance, it uses the role of sports as a third character in the book. Through the football players Gwen befriends and her growing appreciation for the sport, we watch her character change and develop. At the same time, Ms. Dunnehoff is able to use the tension (see how I got that in there) that derives from our idealized version of sports (the two kids playing catch with their dad) versus the reality (cracking skulls, cheering- sometimes drunk- crowds, winning at all costs). Through this tension we get to see the boy that Max was vs the man that he has become, just as we observe a transition occurring within Gwen.

April is Romancing the Genres sports romance month. We will have some great sports authors visit to show us what it takes to use the sports theme in romance. I hope, as part of this, they will explore how sports help them develop character and story tension.

Meanwhile… here are some nostalgic sports pictures. If you are up for the challenge, try to list the sweet, idealized themes in the picture, and then compare it to the reality of what was probably happening. As always, I love to hear your thoughts, so be sure to leave a comment with what you encountered while completing this exercise.

Cheers - Deanne
www.deannewilsted.com
@dwilsted