The Artist’s Way is a program for unblocking creativity developed by Julia Cameron. It’s not just for artists, musicans, writers, etc… It can help anyone who wishes to live a more creative life.
Back in 2002, I did The Artist’s Way for the first time, and it helped me through an episode of writer’s block. Recently, I facilitated a group of friends through the program, meeting mostly at my house, though our last meeting was on Zoom. At our last meeting, we decided that since everyone had gotten so much out of the program, and given the state of the world, we would mentor people through the program again in a Facebook group.
Over 100 people have now joined the group! If you would like to join us, you can request to join the Facebook group, Artist’s Way Sacred Circle. And here’s a link for acquiring the book, The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron.
Hi! I haven’t been around for a while, due to life challenges and some health issues—I’ve had a serious problem with my right eye, which is still a bit wonky. I also haven’t been working on romance recently, though I have been working on other things.
Since people may be in more need of books to read right now, I’ve decided to put all my ebooks on sale for the next few months. Most are 99 cents, and my novella, The Wedding Wager, is free. So this is a good time to check out my books if you haven’t already, and if you enjoy my books, let others know. All my titles are listed on the Book List on my website.
I also promise you that I hope to return to romance writing. I still believe in romance. Even though I was saddened by the recent turmoil in the Romance Writers of America (you can Google it if you don’t know what happened) I am now hopeful that the organization is refocusing and moving again towards greater inclusivity. Everyone deserves love, and everyone deserves to be able to read stories with characters they relate to.
I believe in love, and in people working through problems
and becoming stronger together. The best romance novels don’t do this by the
characters compromising, which to me means having to give up something
important to them. The way I see it, and the way I try to write it, lovers
figure out solutions that are a win/win, where no one has to give up their
health or happiness or change who they are just to fit in with the other’s
needs. They might learn that what they thought they wanted at the beginning of
the story isn’t what they really need. They might have to let go of old ways of
thinking and doing things. They grow in ways that might be uncomfortable, but
they become more who they were meant to be.
I also believe that at the end of a good romance novel,
things don’t settle down and go back to where they were. Things get better. The
love between the characters benefits everyone around them: their friends and
family and their communities.
I believe this is true in our lives. There’s a lot of division
and strife in our world, but we’re not going to solve it if we believe there
are winners and losers. We’re not going to solve it by compromises with ideas
like racism or homophobia that mean some people have to suffer so others can
benefit. We’re going to solve things by understanding and working toward
answers that don’t leave anyone out. I believe that in the Biblical story of
the loaves and the fishes, Jesus taught people that if we share, there will be
enough. This is the sort of world I want to work for, where love rules rather
than fear.
Please take good care of yourselves, and keep on loving.
While everyone is baking sourdough bread for the apocalypse, I thought I’d share something else historical you could bake if all that kneading and proofing isn’t your thing. Out of all the period recipes I’ve tried, the one everyone likes the most, and the one I make pretty regularly, is Rout Cakes.
When I did my original research for these, I found plenty of period references to them (dating from 1807 onward), but no recipes before 1824. Even the recipe in Tea With Jane Austen is from 1840. The recipes I did find bear very little resemblance to one another, especially as there are “drop” versions and versions that sound more like a thin cake batter (which call for icing), some call for currants, some don’t. It seems to be no different from modern recipes, e.g. some chocolate chip recipes call for nuts, some don’t (mine calls for a packet of pistachio pudding mix, but I bet most of yours don’t). Seeing as there’s no one way to make them, I don’t feel an ounce of guild about taking a small bit of creative license here and there.
A New System of Domestic
Cookery
(1824):
The Cook and Housewife’s
Manual (1827):
This 1827 recipe for Kent Drop-Cakes looks remarkable similar to the 1824 one for Rout Drop-Cakes:
So,
once again I was left to tinker. I liked the idea of sweet wine (I went with
sherry) and brandy. And I think currants are starting to grow on me . . . I couldn’t find orange blossom water on short
notice, so I used a bit of zest. The dough came out at the constancy of Nestle
Tollhouse cookie dough, and when baked, the finished product was similar to a
modern currant scone (or at least it’s similar to the ones they sell at Peet’s
Coffee and Tea here in the Bay Area).
1 cup butter (softened)
¾ cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp sherry
2 tsp brandy
Zest of one orange
OR 2 tsp orange blossom water (if you can find it)
OR 2 tsp orange liqueur (Cointreau, Gran Marnier, etc.)
3 ¾ cups flour
½ cup currants
Preheat
oven to 350º
Cream
butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and beat. Add vanilla, sherry, brandy and zest
or orange water/liqueur and mix. Add in flour 1 cup at a time. Add currants
with last ¾ cup of flour.
Dough
will be cookie-like. Make rounded balls the size of walnuts and bake on a
parchment paper or Silpat 20-25 min (until golden). They puff up a bit, but
don’t spread so you can put them relatively close together.
My
friends’ reactions:
My
sister ate the ones I left her and texted “Cookies. Yum!”. Amie thought they
were “Medieval, but tasty”. Issa loved them (he’s easy to please). Kristie and
I thought they were perfect with a glass of sherry, and would be wonderful with
tea. We all agreed that they’d be exceptional with a little orange icing/glaze
(orange juice mixed with powdered sugar). Liza’s daughter (who’s just starting
to eat real food) ate two (ok, she ate one and crumbled one on the floor for
the dogs, who begged for more). Children and pets clearly approve.
At this moment we are all affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. I, for one, am rather obsessively following all the news about it. I hope everyone is practicing social distancing and staying home, washing hands, and any other measures necessary to keep from spreading the disease.
We all are quarantined, to some degree or another. I hope none of you or your loved ones have contracted the disease. These are scary times.
“Our” era, (Regency England in the early 19th century) was no stranger to feared outbreaks of contagious illness. Smallpox, the Speckled Monster, was one of the most deadly. In 18th century England, smallpox was responsible for half of the deaths of children under age 11.
Smallpox is a viral disease characterized by fever, vomiting, and a skin rash covering the body with fluid-filled bumps which scab over and often cause severe scarring, blindness or death.
Smallpox was present in ancient times, as early as 360 BC in China. It is thought that Ramses V, Pharaoh of Egypt, died of small pox in the 12th century BC. By the 1700s the disease had been spread to the New World, decimating the indigenous populations of North and South America and Australia.
There were no effective treatments for smallpox in the Regency era, although, in 1767, William Watson, a physician at the Foundling Hospital in London tried unsuccessfully to treat it with mercury and laxatives. What was effective was preventative inoculation. Inoculation, pricking the skin with the fluid from a smallpox pustule, had been practiced for a long time in China, India, parts of the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, parts of Africa, and even in Wales, but it did not become widely used in the West until the 1700s. One of its proponents had been Lady Mary Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, who had learned of the practice when in Turkey. Her brother had died of smallpox and she herself had suffered the disease. She had her own children inoculated.
Inoculation was not without its risks. While most patients experienced mild symptoms, some patients developed the full disease and died. It did, however, greatly reduce the death rate from smallpox.
In 1796 Edward Jenner created a vaccine for smallpox from the much milder disease of cowpox. It had been observed by Jenner and his colleagues that people who had suffered cowpox did not contract smallpox. Jenner’s vaccination was much safer than inoculation with the smallpox virus itself.
Edward Jenner vaccinating patients
Certainly, the push for vaccination for smallpox would have taken place in the Regency Era and our characters would have known of it and likely would have taken the vaccine. It took awhile for inoculation and vaccination to be universal, but wide vaccination effectively erraticated the disease by 1977.
Let’s face it, writing isn’t easy. It LOOKS easy, to our
readers, and that’s because we authors work hard to make sure what we eventually
deliver to them is seamless, smooth prose that tells a logically believable
(and well-researched) tale that’s also emotionally satisfying. But how many
drafts did we go through to get there?
Granted, some books are easier than others. Sometimes a
story is so clear to us that it very nearly writes itself. Some authors are blessed
with many of those. But in my experience anyway, that is rare.
“Think of Olympic athletes,” I often told my students years ago
when I was teaching romance writing. “Don’t they make their respective sport
achievements look easy?” I used the analogy to provide some perspective, as
they often came in thinking the writing would be easy. “Think of how smooth and
graceful they are, how effortlessly they seem to flow through the motions of
their sport. Watching them is like reading a finished story. Then think of the
years of practice and study, the repeated successes and failures, the continued
drive to keep getting better that they have invested to achieve that apparent
ease. That is also the struggle behind most successful stories (and their
authors).”
The writing does get easier the longer you’re at it. Practice helps just about anything! Yet every book seems to present its own challenges. Just when you think the process is getting comfortable, the next story comes along with its own unique twist you’ve never needed to handle before. New learning curve, every book.
Not to mention there are so many ways a book can go wrong.
And I’m not even talking about the marketing part, here. Bad cover? Bad blurb?
Oh, no. I’m only talking about the story here. Every aspect of a story, from
the tone to the characters, the plot, the emotional arcs and the structure, the
pacing, the dialogue–even the balance of those elements, or the choice of
point-of-view characters in scenes, and more –all of these can make or break
the successful telling of the story. Readers don’t see this, because we hope
that all of those issues are smoothed out before they ever see a page.
You may have guessed I am in the throes of revising a book
that has “gone wrong” and that’s the inspiration for this blogpost. Yup. I have
been working for ages on a prequel to LORD OF MISRULE and had it at least ¾
done, maybe more. But something wasn’t working. Sent it to several critique
partners, and it was clear from their comments that I was right, something
wasn’t working. But none of them could quite put a finger on it. Their multiple
views did help me to do so, I think!
Sometimes when books go wrong, it’s not just one big thing,
but an accumulation of many small things. Kind of like dropped stitches in
knitting. You might not notice them when they happen, but later as you look back
at the completed rows, there they are. A character’s attitude is wrong, the
tone is off or someone’s emotional reaction is missing. Some plot developments
may happen in the wrong order. And as in knitting, there’s nothing to be done
except unravel it back to the rows that were intact, and redo it.
I hate having to delay this book even longer, but I won’t release a book that I know isn’t right. That’s not to say my books are perfect, but I hope they are as good as I am capable of offering at the time they come out. Alas, I am a “pantser” (meaning I have to discover the story as I go along), so that usually means multiple drafts to sort things out. I have unraveled a big chunk of this book and am busily “re-knitting” it as fast as I can. I hope now to have it repaired and out by June at least. Maybe with a miracle, sooner. But it won’t be in April as I had planned. (sigh)
Have you read books that you thought the author should have “re-knitted” but didn’t? (please don’t name specific titles or authors) If you’re a writer, which would you say happens for you more often, easy ones or hard ones? Do you find there’s any one specific way books most often go wrong for you? If you are a plotter instead of a pantser, what still goes wrong sometimes even though you are following your thought-out plan?
