how to love the rain

It’s been a soggy summer. New Englanders are a people naturally inclined to complain about the weather, but I think we would all like to complain about something different for a change; preferably while wearing a tank top and eating an ice cream cone. But as we looking ahead to more rainy days, here are some suggestions.

1. Pretend you are in Scotland. I’ve been doing this all day and it’s helped a great deal. It rains a lot in Scotland – Inverness was flooded when Tom and I visited – but the rain is beautiful there, everything veiled in gray mist. And the grass is so green you just want to roll around on it. So yes, imagine that you are in Scotland, gazing at a castle in the distance. (In my case, the cupola on top of the Simmons Main College Building will do in a pinch.)

2. Drink tea. With lots of honey. And cookies. While you’re at it, bake some cookies. This has been my thing lately. It distracts me (briefly) from book worries.

3. Read. Here I may be able to help you out: I received some ARCs of The King’s Rose in the mail yesterday, mailed to me by my editor’s wonderful assistant. So if you happen to maintain a book review blog, I just might send you an ARC so you can do something while stuck inside. Comment with your name, email and blog url and I’ll get in touch with you.

4. Be glad there isn’t a drought and a heat wave, frying our lawns to a dry brown and making me wholly irritable. Speaking of which, in spite of the rain, the Mr. Lincoln’s in front of our house were the first to bloom. They even beat out the Queen Elizabeth’s, which had been my bet for first bloomers:

And here, a puppy blooms among the roses:

Characters, all of you, everywhere

Truth is stranger than fiction. I know this for a fact, because I ride the subway every day. While I delight in the crazy characters imagined by the great brains of Jack Gantos or Daniel Pinkwater I often wonder, how do they come up with this stuff? But then I look up from my book only to be astounded by the interesting details being played out on the human stage. Some of my recent favorites? That guy in the coffee shop with the beautifully worn old brown leather journal, the ivory pages covered in the most spidery gorgeous (not to mention illegible) handwriting in black ink; a perfect match to his worn copy of Kierkegard. Then there is the old guy with the steel grey bouffant hairdo and pencil mustache that I see sometimes on the green line – I do not exaggerate here, because this man requires none. There are also gold chains involved and (though I may be thinking of someone else on the green line now) a busty mermaid tattooed on his hairy man arm. Vivid, yes? Or the young woman on the train wearing a worn, long white dress – shades of Miss Havisham.

That said, I know all too well that these superficial details do not a character make. I read an interview with author Mort Castle (whose books I have yet to read, I admit). I got the opportunity to submit a question, so I asked what he thought was integral to good horror fiction (though this could work for any fiction). I love his answer: “Human beings for whom we give a damn.” Well said. The details themselves – the philosophy, the journal, the tattoos, the gown – these are enticing, but there needs to be something beneath that. Something real.

And now…more blog reviews! I can’t tell you how it thrills me to read these:
http://juiciliciousssreviews.blogspot.com/2009/06/kings-rose-review.html
http://bookworminginthe21stcentury.blogspot.com/2009/06/kings-rose.html

Celebrate the YA Book Carnival with this CONTEST to win a signed copy of The King’s Rose!
http://shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com/2009/06/ya-carnival-contest-kings-rose.html

okay, please bear with me…

I grew up in a pretty whitebread suburban town. There was actually a Wonderbread factory nearby, but that’s not even what I mean. Anyhow, when I was six years old, every day I would come home from school and put a well-worn video tape into the VCR. And this is what I watched:

Thank goodness I had a little Motown in my life.

Long live the King…

On June 24th 1509 – 500 years ago – King Henry VIII was officially crowned King of England in a glorious coronation ceremony, alongside his new bride, Catherine of Aragon. Not that the crown did her much good years later, but that’s a different story.

Do I feel odd “celebrating” this day in history, considering my obvious sympathies for Catherine Howard and how Henry was really quite integral to the girl’s downfall? Not really…though I remember experiencing a strange moment of pause in the gift shop of The Tower of London (an odd concept right there, if you think about it) over a teddy bear dressed like King Henry. As far as I know Catherine’s ghost did not follow me and teddy henry home to haunt me for the purchase.

But was Henry was a tyrant? He certainly had plenty of tyrant-like qualities, especially in the latter (and infamous) part of his reign. He had a knack for changing the law to suit his current whims. Perhaps he confused what was best for England with what was simply best for himself (though I don’t trust his judgment in his personal life, either). But what about earlier in his reign? To think of Henry as an enormous, scowling king gnawing on a turkey drumstick shows only one dimension of a very complicated creature, not to mention a reign that lasted nearly 40 years. Being king was, I think, a lonely business. Henry was surrounded by ambitious courtiers who had their own – not the King’s, not England’s – best interests at heart. Who was there to look out for him, or to try to tell him the truth in the midst of his mania?

In honor of the anniversary of the coronation, I choose not to think of the aging, unwieldy king that Henry became later in life, putting aside his devoted wife of many years in his single-minded quest for an heir. Instead I choose to think of the Golden Prince he was on this day, 500 years ago, with his beautiful queen at his side. When the royal crowns were set upon their heads, I’m sure they looked like England’s future, and the future looked very fresh and bright, indeed.

hobbits…my kind of people

First off, reviews!

Tanzanite’s Shelf and Stuff (this blog is historical fiction heaven): http://shelfandstuff.blogspot.com/2009/06/kings-rose-by-alisa-libby.html

And a great review on Insert Book Title Here: http://insertbooktitle.blogspot.com/2009/06/kings-rose-by-alisa-libby.html

In other news, I’m still working on my reading list, which seems to be expanding by the second. I finished The Hobbit this week. It occurs to me that I have my own hobbit-like tendencies: I always like to know where my next meal is coming from (and that it will be delicious) and the thought of a nice chair by a nice fire and tea at 4 o’clock is…well, I can’t really ask for much more than that. On the other side, I do like to get out of the hobbit-hole on an adventure now and then. Though I still like to know when that next meal will be.

And now, for some dismal news. Our little branch library is closing – hopefully just for the summer, but it all seems very unclear. Don’t get me wrong, the main branch is positively lovely and I have nothing against it whatsoever, it’s just that…I LOVE OUR BRANCH LIBRARY. When we first drove up to our house and I saw that the library was so close, Tom said “this house just got cuter for you, didn’t it?” He was right. Libraries are a wonderful resource for the community. I know that the economy has hit libraries hard, but in an economy like this libraries are even more valuable. So please go and visit your local library this weekend. Take out lots of books. Smile at your librarian. Get thee to it.

writer’s retreat

Writers out there know that there are some really fancy writers retreats out there, where (for a fee) you can take a little vacation at a nice place where all you have to do is write, and all your meals are brought to you. Sort of like camp…but the goal is to get a lot of writing done. For a more low-cost twist, my friends Anne and Anna and I had a writer’s retreat, hosted by Anna at her house. This was my first retreat – a one-day affair. I brought molasses cinnamon cookies, which I had baked the day before instead of writing.

We each brought some ideas for writing prompts, only to find that we really weren’t in the mood for writing prompts. Instead we talked about our projects and what we’re struggling with at the moment, which I found very helpful. Then we ate pizza (fuel is important if you want to get any work done).

Then we actually sat and did some writing, in companiable quiet. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate with friends in the room, but I was pleased with the outcome of the day: not just the pages I produced, but with the collegial feeling of the whole experiment. Writing is a lonely business; it was nice to take it out of my office for a change, and hang out in the company of other writers, all of us doing our thing. And it’s fun to think of all the various ideas floating around this table: ghosts, fanatic obsession, baby donkeys…

And every writer’s retreat needs a mascot. Our mascot is the baby bunny that lives near Anna’s house and eats her sunflower buds.

the wedding of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon

Today is the wedding anniversary of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon – 500 years ago, King Henry’s illustrious (not to mention deadly) marital career began. It seemed an auspicious enough beginning. Poor Catherine of Aragon. I read some quote about how the people of England were so in love with her, she was simply everything they could want in a Princess.

I would LOVE to be able to go back to England this month, as there having all sorts of celebrations for the historically-minded (read: dorky) among us, all in celebration of the 500 year anniversary of King Henry VIII’s ascension to the throne. A coin is even being minted in honor of the milestone - how can I get my hands on one of these? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8089561.stm

If you’re in a Henry-esque mood, I learned about these podcasts posted on the British Library website. I’m already a big fan of Henry’s music so this stuff is definitely my cup of unwatered wine, if you know what I mean: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/podcasts/exhibition/henry/index.html

And while I’m at it, I wanted to share with you this great review by blogger Dominique on The Book Vault blog:
http://the-book-vault.blogspot.com/2009/06/kings-rose-by-alisa-m-libby.html. I love her assessment of Catherine’s sad tale:

“Sometimes I feel authors are rather harsh on Catherine: although her actions were hardly commendable, most people forget she was just a foolish girl thrown at the king by her greedy family that cared more about increasing their own power than her safety.”

Well said, Dominique, and thank you for the wonderful review. This made me particularly pleased, especially in light of Miss Howard’s portrayal on The Tudors, which was quite over-the-top as far as trampy goes. I fear I can’t say much more as I want to keep this blog at least PG-13…though I do foresee a post about sex in YA literature in the near future! (Which rest assured will also be PG-13).

no, I don’t drink blood or bathe in it, really…

Someone commented recently about the irony of my inherent shyness (which I have mentioned on this blog) considering I chose the point of view of a shameless, knife-wielding murderer for my first book. It begs the question: why do we, as writers, write what we do? What is it that draws us to tell the stories of particular characters, regardless of how (un)pleasant these people may be? As I’m sure I’ve said before, Erzebet was fascinating to write about – but I wouldn’t want to have tea with her. She would probably stab me over the scones.

I was drawn to write about Erzebet because she is in so many ways my stark opposite: so fixated on her own appearance that she’ll have no remorse about bleeding her helpless servant girls in order to harvest their blood for her own beauty regimen. She is callous, high-handed, and a perfectionist when it comes to creating the face reflected back at her in the mirror. She craves the power that beauty gives her and even revels in the pure violence as she wreaks her blood-thirsty havoc on the girls unfortunate enough to find themselves in her employ.

I’m not saying that I’m completely without vanity, but I can’t even bother with makeup, never mind opening the veins of a servant every night. But aside from these over-arching issues, there were certainly ways that Erzebet and I could connect: her vanity stretched all the way to insecurity, as vanity often does. Her fears of the future, of change, and of the unknown leads her to some very dark places in her own soul, and while she takes a very different route to combat those dark places (with blade in hand) I know I’ve experienced those same fears, too. So the key to writing about her was finding a way to empathize with her, in spite of her monstrous past-times.

Empathy aside, it’s simply fun to write about someone completely different, completely alien to yourself. At the risk of frightening any psychologists who may be reading, there is something deliciously terrifying about experiencing – from a safe distance – Erzebet’s glee at the havoc she unleashed, both within her own heart and created in her personal hell on earth in that dark tower dungeon. She is completely out of control, but also completely in control of her own actions, her own mad spiral, and I could just hear her laughing giddily the whole way down. Until, of course, the very end.

Writers out there (and I know you’re out there) please chime in! And no, I’m not referring only to published writers – if you write, then you’re a writer. Do you choose characters who are like you, in obvious or in secret ways?

an ode to poetry

A real live teenage girl reviewed The King’s Rose for the SLJ Teen supplement – ACES!

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6662385.html?nid=4302&source=link&rid=1640648756

In further awesomeness, my beautiful friend Lesley’s book of poetry is now on Amazon.com and available for purchase:

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Fashion-Lesley-Jenike/dp/1934999571/ref=sr_1_1ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243363170&sr=8-1

I have yet to read this collection, but her last one was full of marvelously detailed poetry drawing on images from musical theatre. To my mind, poetry is hard, people. Every single word counts when you write a poem, every line break, every image. It’s not easy stuff and there aren’t a lot of poets who get a great deal of attention. So let’s say cheers in honor of our poet friends for the wonderful work that they do. (You have poet friends too, right? We should all have at least one poet close by, in case of emergency.) Perhaps as an ode to poetry I will share with all of you an excerpt from that vampire epic I wrote as a teenager. Or, perhaps in an even better ode to poetry, I will post no such thing.

romanticizing writing

When I’m in a phase like this where I’m not writing (it’s valuable to have time away from a project to get a fresh perspective) it’s all to easy for me to romanticize the whole process of writing. My friend Lauren, whose debut novel Nothing Like You will be out this October, is working on a draft of a new project. I keep hounding her with emails: “how is it going? What part are you working on? Tell me about it!” I’m about one crazed email away from asking her what she’s eating while writing.

Writing does seem romantic – especially when you’re not doing it. I’m able to focus only on the good parts of the process, the inspiration and that wonderful sound of the click click of the keyboard and the satisfying fun of digging deep into a character and trying something new. I can conveniently ignore how dreadful it feels when things aren’t going well, and I’m squirming in my seat and all I want to do is leave my desk and eat a whole lot of candy, but I have to force myself to stay put. And sometimes that works and other times I just sit there and eat candy and feel even more miserable. But that’s all part of the process too, nothing terribly unusual.

I was reading The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins (side note: I came home one day from work to find this very book sitting on Tom’s leather chair with my teddy bear and I laughed out loud):

In so many of his poems Collins talks about the act of writing poetry, interspersed with the mundanities of a regular day: the breakfast he ate, the knick knacks on the kitchen shelf. The poem takes place in this domestic scene, and we’re invited into it: not only into the poem, but into the creation of the poem. The fact that I’m completely pining for writing at the moment made me enjoy the poems even more. There is also the novel The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, which includes such a beautiful description of the main character sitting down to write that it made me want to hug the book. I identified so strongly with that wonderful feeling of a perfect writing day, and it made me so happy to be a writer – squirming and candy-eating aside.