I write journals. Year after year, the stacks of filled notebooks on my closet shelf grow taller, leaning into each other until I’m forced to start another pile. This stash doesn’t even include my high school journals, which I burned before leaving for college. (No regrets. A person can only stand so much embarrassment.)

My journals are a safe place to vent, float ideas, work through issues. They allow me to write honestly about my experiences. But what happens to these volumes when I’m gone? Do I really want anyone reading them when I’m not available to explain myself? At least I’m relatively anonymous; nobody outside my immediate family will care about the words I leave behind, so there’s not much worry about a public airing of my private thoughts.

Other journal writers are not so lucky.

“This book, Momma gave me, that I might write the journal of my journey to Wales in it.” This debut journal entry was penned in 1832 by thirteen-year-old Alexandrina Victoria of Kent. Young Drina found journaling so much to her liking that her last journal entry was written ten days before her death at the age of eighty-one. Drina’s chances of posthumous journal anonymity died the moment she became Queen Victoria of Great Britain.

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria wrote prodigiously, her gushy, emotional voice changing little throughout the years. She was a fan of underlining and multiple exclamation points, and many of her entries are illustrated with her own (quite good) sketches. Her journals offer first-hand accounts of historical world events and political figures, but equally fascinating is the intimate view of key moments in a woman’s life. In the privacy of her journal, the queen becomes less Victoria Regina and more Drina, imbuing the flat historical data of her life with a strong dose of humanity. Meeting Albert, the first cousin who became the love of her life, inspires a paragraph that might be describing a minor deity. (Poor Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, another suitor, has to settle for “very plain.”) The infatuation with Albert is still going strong in October 1839: “It was with some emotion that I beheld Albert – who is beautiful! my [sic] heart is quite going.” One feels like an intruder reading Victoria’s account of the evening following her wedding: “10 February 1840. I never, never spent such an evening! My dearest, dearest, dear Albert!” The next morning’s entry offers yet another opportunity for a reader to feel like a clumsy interloper: “11 February 1840. When day dawned (for we did not sleep much) and I beheld that beautiful angelic face by my side, it was more than I can express! He does look so beautiful in his shirt, only, with his beautiful throat seen.” Victoria’s journals give us a chance to glimpse the personality behind the icon, which introduces a whole new facet to historical perspective.

Queen Victoria’s children in costume, as sketched by their mother

Victoria’s journals span sixty-nine years. But even more intriguing than what’s contained in the journals is what is not. Victoria, too, questioned the fate of her journals after her death. She appointed her youngest child, Beatrice, as literary executor, instructing her to remove anything from the journals that might offend or embarrass the royal family. Beatrice took the job seriously, copying a verbatim draft of each journal page in longhand, then copying a redacted version of her new draft and finally destroying both the original and the first copied draft as she went along. It took thirty years to whittle Victoria’s original 122 volumes to 111, which really does make one wonder what exactly Beatrice read that made her demolish such large passages of her mother’s writing, especially considering the spicy bits left behind.

Redacted or not, leaving journals behind with no way to discuss them is an act of bravery. And I really do need to figure out what exactly to do with the nearly forty-seven volumes of my own …

There’s a new stack of handwritten notebooks sitting in my home office. My mother passed away at the end of September, and these are her memoirs, waiting to be read. Did she mean for us to read them all? Did she ever worry about what we’d think?

I will read with an open heart.

NOTE: In 2012, in conjunction with Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee celebration, Queen Victoria’s personal journals were scanned and made available online in a collaborative project between the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, ProQuest, and the Royal Archives. More information is available here.

I longed for the glow of accomplishment. I wanted my mind to run free while I organized my world. So, for my first big project, I decided to clean the basement. I figured I’d give it a good three or four days and then move on. Because after fifteen years of living in the same house, after using the basement as a storage bin for two kids who have grown up and moved away, after years and years of “staging” stuff down there until we could figure out where to put it all, “three or four days” would certainly to do the trick. Doesn’t that sound reasonable?

And I hadn’t even factored in the impact of “real life” on best-laid plans.

Those few weeks away from writing were essentially all spent in my basement. I learned quite a bit down there as I revisited memories, wondered how certain items had ever ended up in our house in the first place, mused over what the heck various objects even were. Primarily I learned that, as with grief, there are five stages to a major basement-overhaul:

1. OPTIMISM: You’ve got this! All it will take is some can-do woman-power and your own superior organizational skills!

2. BEWILDERMENT: How did it get this bad? Where the heck did all this dreck come from?

3. DESPAIR: It’s going to take a backhoe. There’s more stuff in here than archaeologists find when unearthing the remnants of ancient civilizations.

4. ANGER: This isn’t your fault. It’s not even your stuff. Your significant other just tosses crap anywhere he pleases with no thought of who will have to clean it up later. Your kids may have moved on, but their life souvenirs remain for eternity. And where are all these people now? Why, they’re out having lives while you toil over their mess, not seeing sunlight for days on end.

5. ACCEPTANCE: Whatever. Who cares. Just sh9ve that junk into a different corner and move on.

Weeks later, the basement is nearly finished. The trash guys hate me, and Goodwill plans to name a store after us. But I was right about one thing: my manuscript needed this break. I can see what needs to be fixed, and I’m ready to jump back in.

Happy New Year to all. May 2016 bring you health, happiness, and clarity.

A blurb is a short, positive description of a book, written by other authors (because let’s face it, your mom is a little biased). Blurbs are featured prominently on a book’s cover and sometimes on separate pages inside the book as well. NEWPORT has four, and I am extremely grateful to the generous authors who provided them: Deanna Raybourn, Simone St. James, Ashley Weaver, and Beatriz Williams. No matter how much someone enjoys a story, providing a blurb takes time – time to read, time to think, and time to compose a few-sentence sketch that might encourage readers to pick up the book. I so appreciate that these four authors made room for NEWPORT in their busy lives.

So, how do those blurbs get there? For fiction, blurb requests usually are sent by editors to authors whose own work attracts an audience that might enjoy the book in question. But just because an author has been approached does not mean she is obligated to provide praise. Requests to read can be turned down. Even if an author is kind enough to read, she may decline the opportunity to blurb. There are all sorts of reasons for passing: the book may not be the author’s cup of tea, or there may be time constraints (like most parts of publishing, blurbs come with deadlines). But those blurbs on the cover were not command performances, churned out by authors through sheer obligation.

Of course, you won’t pick up a book that screams, “Worst book ever! Read at your own risk!” Even though blurbs are not coerced, they are meant to be marketing tools, not warning labels.

Since NEWPORT’s release, I’ve had the opportunity to blurb a few books myself. To me, it’s an honor to be asked at all, and I take my blurbing seriously. I know the feeling of being the one waiting to hear whether or not a reader (me, in this case) likes the book enough to endorse it. No matter how gentle or logical the refusal to blurb is, the author of the book will always see it as a rejection. We can’t help it; we’re wired that way. It helps (a little) to remember that these are professional decisions, not personal slights.

Good book blurbs allow you a glimpse of the story that awaits once you start reading. Now, thanks to the wonders of the internet, the books those blurbs adorn are not the only written words subject to review: the blurbs themselves are, too.

This brings me back to my original question: are you influenced by the blurbs you read on book covers? I’d love to know.

I have a manuscript box like that. Stashed in a dark part of the basement, it’s filled with stories that, through no fault of their own, just … well … stink. Yeah, I wrote them. At one time, I even thought they were good.

Thank goodness we all get a chance to evolve.

Looking back, my writing has always been character-driven, especially if you consider a character sufficiently developed when he/she can be summed up in a word or two, as in “the sassy one”; “the troubled one”; “the one who surprises even herself.” (My earlier work is more accessible if you like stereotypes.)

You could always tell exactly how my characters were feeling, because the adverbs attached to the dialogue tags told you so. Readers were subjected to a lot of stuff like “she said questioningly,” and “he said evocatively.” If it still wasn’t obvious enough, there were many different ways to “say” things. Characters purred, chirped, and grunted. It was a regular zoo in each chapter. And, to make sure there was no doubt whatsoever, sometimes the dialogue tags were double-barreled, a fun reading experience for everyone: “she whimpered miserably,” “he snarled angrily,” “she commented pertly.” Dialogue tags, meant to be unobtrusive, were prominent enough to become their very own characters.

Plots were linear. Sure, there were stories to tell, but they lacked depth. Sometimes there was no hook, no compelling reason for anyone to want to turn the page to discover what happened next. Basically, I was writing for myself. Self-indulgent? You bet. Awful? Right again. And, yet, those stories still have a special place in my heart. Those characters and I were friends.

There are some manuscripts a writer puts away knowing that they’ll be back. The plot, although in need of editing, is compelling enough to revisit. The characters have something to say. When the time is right, that manuscript will be revisited and edited into something sharp and readable.

The manuscripts in the box downstairs are not those stories. There’s a reason they live deep in the basement, out of sight.

If I remember my Rudolph correctly, the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys are eventually picked up by Santa and delivered to children who will appreciate them. While nothing quite as heartwarming happens on the Island of Misfit Manuscripts, those early drafts do serve a purpose. Every once in a while, almost by mistake, I wrote a description or phrase back then that was actually good. There was effective use of imagery. There was a character who does not inspire cringing and/or eye-rolls. Like old cars that have outlasted their use, these old manuscripts can be mined for “parts” to use in newer stories.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling frustrated with my current manuscript, I re-read one of my oldies-but-baddies. It never fails to make me feel better.

This was my introduction to the word “anachronism.”

An anachronism is a custom, event, or object stuck in a period in which it does not belong. When readers find anachronisms in their historical fiction, it makes them doubt everything else the author tells them. It’s like being offered a chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven and discovering that those “chips” are really raisins. The cookie is suddenly less palatable, and you’re never going to trust the baker again.

Most authors do their very best to research as accurately as possible. Nailing down historical fact is relatively easy. For example, it’s obvious that characters in 1912 can’t hear news of the Titanic sinking via radio; a diabetic character in 1920 can’t reach for insulin; characters in 1957 can’t refer to 50 states in the U.S.A.

Conveying the “feel” of a time period is a little more difficult. Even if a character is meant to be a free-spirited “one-of-a-kind” (which she technically can be only after 1961), there’s only so far an author can go before it challenges the bonds of credibility. Language counts, too. It broke my heart when writing NEWPORT to part with the expletive “horsefeathers.” It was perfect for the character and the scene. Unfortunately, NEWPORT takes place in 1921, and “horsefeathers” did not enter the vernacular until 1928.

I research constantly when writing historical fiction. I try hard to nail the facts and textures of the era. But no matter how many times I check my facts, there is always the chance that something incorrect will slip into the story. I’m already wincing about it.

It is in this spirit that I offer the words of Maud Howe Elliott.

Maud Howe Elliott (Nov. 9, 1854-March 19th, 1948) was the daughter of Julia Ward Howe and Samuel Gridley Howe. She won a Pulitzer for co-authoring The Life of Julia Ward Howe (1916). A prominent resident of Newport, R.I., Elliott was a founder of the Progressive party and a patron of the arts. She wrote many books during the course of her long life, including This Was My Newport, an autobiography published in 1944. This “apology” appeared in the Foreward to the Second Edition of that book, and is dated August 1945:

My attention has been called to certain errors in the first edition of this book. I am sorry to have made any misstatements, but I wish to point out that it is commonly believed that no book has ever printed without some errors.

It is human to err, and I can only say in reply to my critic that I tried to tell the truth, and if I have failed it has been with malice toward none and charity to all.

I do find it amusing that Elliott doesn’t go back to correct anything after this disclaimer, making it clear that she’s convinced her memory and facts are in far better shape than those of her singular “critic.”

Me? I would go back and correct. At once. But in the meantime, I’m thinking I should print Mrs. Elliott’s words up on cards to distribute should the worst occur.

Please know that I have tried my very best to make NEWPORT as accurate as possible, and that I am now fully aware that American prairie kids in the mid-19th century would not be lobbing paper airplanes.

Whew. I feel so much better now.

Maud Howe Elliott c. 1928

When I began thinking about the novel that would become NEWPORT, location images floated across my mind. They looked like Annapolis. There was a picturesque historic district dotted with homes and buildings that traced their foundations through four centuries. There was a beautiful waterfront. There was also a naval presence, even though that would not play a big part in my story. (Annapolis is the home of the U.S. Naval Academy, so the city streets are filled with midshipmen dressed in white uniforms during the warmer months, blue in the colder.)

Anyone who grew up in Annapolis can tell you that it’s the atmosphere of the place that gets under your skin: the beauty of the water views, the realization that you are walking streets once walked by generations and generations before you, the timeless feel in which anything could happen. It’s the perfect setting for a story…

…except that my characters had other ideas.

I had just begun to write my new manuscript (set in 1910) when the dreamy protagonist(female) bowed out, introducing another character in her stead. And what a character! Adrian de la Noye came with very definite ideas about what he wanted to say, and most of them bore very little resemblance to what I’d already started to write. I figured out quickly that 1910 was out: the book would take place in 1921. It was also clear that Adrian’s story was far more tangled than the placid one I’d originally had in mind. I was a little slower to catch on that Annapolis would not be the stage. Apparently I was frustratingly slow, because after a week or so of trying to squeeze Adrian’s story into my chosen setting, I woke up one morning with the word “Newport” etched on my mind.

I had never been to Newport, but I’ll grab any excuse to travel somewhere. And so, one rainy week in March, my daughters and I took off on an adventure to Newport, Rhode Island. And here’s what I found:  a picturesque historic district dotted with colonial-era buildings, a beautiful waterfront, and the home of the U.S. Naval War College. In addition I got glittering gilded-age mansions, an oceanfront view. and a city with a long history of being a playground for the wealthy. It turned out my initial imagery for my new story had been correct. I just didn’t have enough information in my personal databank to know that my subconscious was showing me Newport, not Annapolis.

Adrian was satisfied. Set loose in the location of his choice, his story began to unreel.

My own Newport adventure continues to be a wonderful, surprising trip. With Annapolis in my blood, Newport has always felt familiar, and it’s a joy learning more about this fascinating place that has lent its  texture to my novel.

I  am not a travel writer, nor do I plan to discuss Newport’s history at length. (For those aspects you’ll need to go here or here.) I like the quirky undercurrents of places, the people and stories that might  not make every guide or history book. Those are the Newport stories I hope to share here on occasion.

I still hope there’s an Annapolis story in my future. But for now, I’m happy to spend time with my hometown’s kissing cousin, Newport, Rhode Island.

1. love, love, love it;
2. can’t imagine how anyone on earth could love, love, love it;
3. think the author needs serious help.

You want to review this book online because

1. everyone should read it – it’s THAT good;
2. nobody should read it – no person’s karma can be THAT bad;
3. the author needs serious help.

My last blog post talked about how influential customer reviews can be. But if I had a chance to review the reviews, I’d say that some are better than others, and that it has little to do with whether or not the reviewer liked the book.

Here’s my subjective list of a few approaches to avoid when writing an online book review:

“This book was boring.” Details would help. Why didn’t this book suit you? Sometimes the type of book one reader finds dull is exactly the sort another reader enjoys.

“I liked the story, but I gave the book one star because it is morally offensive.” Different issues offend different readers. In this case, it’s helpful to be honest about your own sensibilities right up front: “The fact that the characters swore made me uncomfortable because I don’t believe in taking the Lord’s name in vain.” In a world where a low rating can hurt sales, try not to give a competent novel an overall poor review on the sole basis that parts of it did not jibe with your personal beliefs.

“I liked this book right up until (MAJOR PLOT POINT REVEAL THAT MAKES IT TOTALLY UNNECESSARY TO READ THE BOOK).” Please. I’m crying, here. Please, please don’t give away plot twists that authors took hours and hours to create, plot twists we hoped would raise the story to the next level, plot twists that …please don’t.

“The characters in this book were written by someone with an emotional IQ of three.” Try to remember that a real person wrote this book. Please don’t be mean. Okay, maybe the author DOES have an emotional IQ of three, but can you think of a more constructive way to get your point across, something less personal and more related to the book itself?

“This book was just a beach read, not up to my usual literary standards at all.” Please try to remember that the review is about the book, not how erudite the reader is.

So, what’s a reviewer to do? Glad you asked.

In my opinion, the best – and most credible – book reviews allow readers to draw their own conclusions about whether or not a particular title is for them. The reviewer does this by focusing on the book itself: did the plot keep you turning pages? Were the characters interesting? If something didn’t work for you in the story, why didn’t it? Would this novel appeal to a certain kind of reader? Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

It’s interesting to note that positive reviews come with their own pitfalls. There are readers who doubt the validity of every five-star review, suspecting that they’ve been written by relatives of the author, friends, or paid services (oh, yes they do). I have friends who distrust all positive reviews these days. They prefer to choose their books based on bad reviews, figuring that at least those reviews will be honest. And, as mentioned earlier, one person’s poison can be another’s feast.

So, however you feel about that book you plan to review, remember that the power is yours … wield it wisely.

And keep reading.

I’m not talking about the classical Greek muses. There were nine of them, plenty to go around. Daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, they were raised by the god Apollo and the nymph Eufime. They grew up to become the sources of inspiration for literature, science, and the arts. Over time, each muse was assigned her very own sphere of influence: Calliope inspired epic poetry; Clio, history; Euterpe, song and lyric poetry; Melpomene, tragedy; Polyhymnia, hymns and sacred poetry; Terpsichore, dance; Thalia, comedy and pastoral poetry; and Urania, astronomy.

These lovely ladies were considered more than mere inspiration. They were the personification of knowledge and the arts, invoked by authors as renowned as Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare for help with the creative process.

The fact that I don’t believe in this personification of inspiration stems largely from self-interest. These nine young things who longed to dedicate their lives to the arts are not the muses I would get. I would get Diversus, the muse who jumps up in the middle of a particularly thorny section of a manuscript in order to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Or maybe I’d get Prolato who, bored by the dialogue she herself just handed her characters, suddenly notices that there is a basket of laundry that must be folded right this very minute. My personified muses would be into distraction and procrastination. And, why not? They’re goddesses. They have eternity to figure out how to foreshadow the brand new plot point that just occurred to me on page 200.

I, however, do not have that luxury of time. I need to step it up a little.

The muse I believe in is not personified at all. It’s a state of being, a point where the Greek chorus that lives in my head finally shuts up and lets me simply record the scene I see unfolding in my mind. Shielded from fear of failure, I can sense that what I’m writing is right–in need of editing, to be sure, but fundamentally laying the bones for a story that only I can tell. This muse supplies the light and space to create without self-imposed boundaries, and that’s exhilarating.

I’m hoping the muse will help with this blog. I have stories to share, including some fun Newport-related posts a little closer to NEWPORT’s July 7th publication date. I could really use a muse … but I need the heart-based one who piques my interest and opens me to possibilities, not the one who just whispered in my ear that there is chocolate in the freezer.