Moonlight & Magnolias... and Mimosas

The countdown is on.  In less than 72 hours, six VERY giddy writers will set foot in Decatur, Georgia for their first ever Moonlight & Magnolias Conference.  Let's review the To Do list:

Pitch rehearsed within an inch of insanity, check.
Tickets for chocolates and mimosas with Eloisa James & Karen White, check.
Appointments with agents and/or editors for pitching manuscripts, check.
Pitch rehearsed again to push over the edge of sanity, check.
Reservations for dinner afterwards to celebrate completion of first pitching sessions, check.
Workshops picked out, check.
Dress and killer shoes for Maggie Awards dinner, check.
Fabulous outfits and shoes for entire weekend, check check.
Foot numbing spray, Altoids, band-aids, and Tylenol, check.
Reality of it all setting in ... not s'much.  I guess that will happen somewhere between Easley, SC and sipping mimosas with Eloisa. 

Be on the look out for updates!

Slainte! (that's cheers in Irish)
Heather McGovern

The Write Image

Only two weeks until Elizabeth Michaels and I take off for our first ever writers' convention - Moonlight and Magnolias (M&M for short)!  To say we're excited is an understatement.  Exhuberant!  Giddy!  Stupid with Joy!!!  Silly with Expectations!!!  We've worked out logistics, supplies, agendas, and outfits.

A few weeks back, several of us got on the topic of a writer's image and how it might differ from our personal image, particularly if we write under a pseudonym.  This turned into a conversation on separating the personal from the penname, professionalism and creativity, developing the writer persona, and inevitably, clothing!  M&M will be the first time Heather McGovern and Elizabeth Michaels mix and mingle with those in the biz outside of our local RWA chapter.  It's important to us to make a professional, fun, and lasting impression.  Both of us know our writer image and how it relates to what we write, thus we went shopping with that in mind. We had a blast!  It's still us, but we get to let the creative side loose.  We get to be a little more eccentric than the usual mom, banker, dinner maker attire.  We get to wear killer heels and bling!!!

So, while we're at M&M, we plan to post about all that happens AND post a picture journal of our outfits with a blurb about what went on that day.  Some say it's shallow to enjoy clothes so much, I say it's fashion!

My Business Socks

I’ve spent the past week writing a love scene for Thief of Hearts.  It’s wild.  It’s love.  And in true to life, non-romance novel fashion it lasts all afternoon and into the evening.  What?  You don’t have that kind of free time in your life?  Who works?  Who has kids?  Who has responsibilities?  Pshaw!  Everyone has real life wild love scenes that last all day and night.  Right?  And I think they go something like this…

This video is courtesy of Mr. Alpha Male who stumbled across it on youtube.  I’ll spare you the story of how after sharing this video with me he then called me on a Wednesday while I was at the store to ask me to buy him some business socks.  Needless to say, the sales person in the store thought I had lost my mind when I asked for them while Mr. Alpha Male laughed on the phone. 

So, now I’m thinking what if I wrote a real life love scene?  How many romance novels would I sell if my hero wore his business socks?  What do you think?  In all seriousness, can brushing your teeth be considered foreplay?  *winks and grins* Back to writing…

Writers in the Woods

Ask any writer and they'll probably tell you that the best writer moments (other than getting "the call" or writing that particularly spectacular scene/chapter/book or meeting fans if you're lucky enough to have 'em) is getting together with other writers.  We tend to thrive off one another.  It's like the creativity and voices in our heads start to bounce off each other and pretty soon there's randomness ricocheting off every surface.  You can get lucky and catch a great idea or a fix for some issue your having in your story.  At the very least you'll laugh yourself silly at 80% of what you hear. 

That's exactly how I spent most of last week at some lush digs in the mountains.  I came home exhausted and exhilerated and feeling like a little bit of that was home.  We know most people will think we're nuts if we talk about what we're really thinking, so we usually tone it down a few notches.  Not so with our nutter writer friends.  Feel free to let your freak flag fly!  You're among friends!

What about you?  Do you have a particular group that gets you or at least some dimension of your personality?  Maybe you went to some genre convention and for the first time in your life wanted to scream, "MY PEOPLE!"  Whoever you are, I hope you do find your people. I guarantee shenanigans.

Fog: It's a Metaphor

Mr. Alpha Male told me recently that he was lost in a fog.  Haven’t we all been there at some point?  Where to go in life?  What to do next?  I usually pride myself on offering excellent advice at such times but for some reason on this occasion, all I could think of was this…

     He strained his eyes, forcing himself to see anything beyond the white mass that had gathered at the prow of the boat over the past hour.  The fog swirled around his head, cool and wet.  It cloaked the dark waters that lapped at the sides of the vessel and filled the ship with a disorienting haze.  His knuckles grew white as he grasped the wheel of the three mast ship, willing it to keep to a safe route.

     “Ain’t gonna be seein’ much in this stew, are ye?” The fist mate offered as he joined him on the deck.

     “No,” the words ground out from between clenched teeth.  Why couldn’t his blasted first mate leave him alone to steer in solitude?  The last thing he needed just now was the old man’s endless prattle about the sea.  This was the one place that his life usually made sense and his thoughts were easily parted as he guided the ship to slice cleanly through the waters.  Not today.  Today, all of the instincts built from years of guiding ships through the Atlantic felt wrong. 

     “I need a blasted heading.” He snapped open his compass gazing at the arrow as it swooped and danced around the small printed N.  It changed nothing, of course.  Without sight, he could steer into a rock outcropping this close to shore.   He may also veer too far off the trail of the Lady Destiny they had been chasing for weeks across the sea. 

     “Nothing to do but wait for this mess to blow out.”  The man stepped up to the railing reaching out his hand into the fog, watching as it stirred around his long twisted fingers. 

     “Every moment we sit still, no progress is being made.  Every moment we sit still, that ship gets further and further from our grasp.” He shoved away from the wheel, his eyes searching the endless white oblivion.  The fortune aboard that ship was close enough to feel its presence, yet it had eluded his grasp again and again. 

     “Let ‘er go for now, Captain.”

     “Let her go.  Let her go?  After all we have been through to get to this place? This…” He slammed his fist down on the wood rail.  “Mist covered hell!  Think of the crew.  We cannot let her go!”

     “Ain’t my choice to let ‘er go.  Tis the sea.  The sea, she is a troublesome mistress.”

Have you ever been lost in a fog?  Do you wait it out or blaze a trail through it and hope for survival?  And why in my own daydreams did I make myself an old ugly first mate with poor English? Fogs pass and clear waters are ahead, just not today.  Hold fast.  Stay strong. Reef the sheets and swab the decks, but don’t loose faith.

Hotties Who Inspire

As you may have noticed (or maybe not), we've been a bit quiet lately on the blog front.  It comes down to two GREAT excuses.  a) we're busy writing and trying to finish our manuscripts for Moonlight & Magnolias and b) we're busy coming up with ideas for a new blog design.  So, that being said, there are good things to come!!!

Now, on with today's post.  I'm taking the easy (and eye candy) way out today.  I'd like to share with you a few "hotties who speak to me."   No, I'm not hearing voices.  They don't actually speak to me, but they do bring to mind the heroes of my Fianna Series.  Now this isn't exactly what my heroes look like, but there are at least two or three things in each of them that scream Cian, Connor, Sawyer, Maddox, or Vaughn.  In one case it's a mesh of two actors.  I think our characters are always larger than life so no real human person can represent them, but these all make me giddy in a huge fangirl way. 

Okay, okay. *fans self, deep breath*  Without further ado, here are some hotties reminiscent of "the boys" in no particular order and without any explanation. (and honestly, do they need explainin'?)

Celtic Myth Monday

The Children of Lir

One of my favorite Irish myths is the story of the Children of Lir.  I have a silver necklace that my DH brought back to me from Ireland and I wear it more often than not. 

In the time of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Ireland was a place of magic and spells.  Lir, lord of the sea, had four children: a daughter, Fionnuala, a son, Aodh, and twin boys, Fiachra and Conn.  Being children of the lord of the sea, they were gifted with webbed feet and the ability to swim underwater.  When their mother died, Lir remarried her sister, Aoife.  Consumed with jealousy for the children’s beauty and special abilities, she used her powers and her father’s magic cloak to cast a spell upon the children.  She turned them all into beautiful swans and cursed them to nine hundred years in that form.  Three hundred years would be spent on Lough Derravaragh, three hundred on the Straits of Moyle, and three hundred on the Isle of Inish Glora.  She did leave them with their voice, however, so that they could sing loveliest songs ever heard.  The only way they could break the spell was to one day hear the bell of the new God.

Aoife later told Lir that his children had been killed by wild boars, but the daughter, Fionnuala, found her father and told him the truth.  Furious, he banished his wife and exiled her in the form of an air demon.

 He visited his children every day on Lough Derravaragh, ensuring their three hundred years there would be filled with peace and love.  When they had to leave for the Straits of Moyle, Lir never saw his children again.  Their time on the straits was horrible.  They missed their father and endured frequent storms that separated them.  Somehow they rejoined every time and managed to survive together.  After three hundred years, they flew to Inish Glora and wept when they saw the ruins covering the land.  They realized the time of the Tuatha Dé Danann had ended.  At Inish Glora they met an old man, Mochua.  He told them he was a monk, a follower of the new God.  He told them of Saint Patrick and of God.  The swan children became excited about this news and they remained with Mochua for many years as he built them a bell made of old swords and shields.  On the day the bell was complete, a warrior arrived to steal the swans away.

'I am Liargren, King of Connaught' he shouted,
'My wife desires those swans and I will have them.
Give them here or I will tear this building down.'

Fionnuala said they would go, rather than see the monastery destroyed.  They were being loaded onto a carriage, when suddenly the church bell tolled loudly.  Magic surrounded the carriage as a mist blew from the lake and enveloped the swans.  They were transformed back into their human form, but now that the spell was broken, the children began to age rapidly.  Mochua quickly baptized each of them so that the children of Lir, last of the Tuatha Dé Danann, would live for eternity with God.

In Dublin, there is a statue of the Children of Lir.  It symbolizes the rebirth of Ireland after nine hundred years of struggle for independence from England.