kate rothwell

I just gave away Thank You Mrs. M to a bunch of friends and acquaintances. I didn't beg for reviews, I didn't expect a thank you (they're nice, though) I just gave it away. Want one? I'll give you a copy too. Some books are like that. I like them enough that I don't mind giving them away. When I say "I like them" I'm not talking about the actual book. No, once the book is written, edited, proofed, I'm not foolish enough to reread them. Not the story.. It's the process I enjoyed, so the book itself is a favorite. At the end of the day,** the book owes me nothing, which is a lovely feeling. Why do I like Thank You Mrs M? The story came pretty easily, almost as if a plot fairy was in charge. I got to ask my professor pal Kathy to read it and she did and gave me advice and she liked it. My sister, one of my main beta readers, made great suggestions and the story improved with them. I love it when a tweak transforms something. Using the ...

This was published in "The Monocacy Valley Review" which hasn't existed for a very long time.  It was my first paid fiction project. BLURRING "What I don't understand is why you said I was a mechanic, for God sake. I hate to get my hands dirty. Why a mechanic?" David is speaking quietly. Has he calmed down? Janice shrugs. She doesn't think he'd pay much attention to any answer she could give and, anyway, she isn't sure why she said a mechanic. Perhaps because he looks like one: thick fingers on a slight, unathletic body. She can imagine him wiping his glasses on a rag he's just pulled from his coveralls, telling the customer that the distributors shot. David and Janice are driving home from a party. They live outside town. David insisted on getting a place for the garden because Janice said she liked gardening. She was enthusiastic at first, reading the seed packages, watching for the first green shoots. By the end of the s...

and hey! maybe, perhaps, this stupid problem with these stupid people might be solved. I think we might have a Gordian knot which means a simple solution! Time to destroy a character, change a time-line, and maybe insert some scenery. Suddenly they're no longer stupid people--they'll transform into beloved characters. And the stupidity in the story turns into something akin to cleverness (at least for this minute) This THIS THIS is why I write. Hours of boredom punctuated by moments of pure terror clarity. ** Scuse me. Got to get back to work. ___________________ **the first time I heard that "hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror" I was doing a ride-along with a cop for an article; I was writing a portrait of a cop's life for a magazine. I thought she was amazingly insightful. Heh.

Which word is older, "okay" or "hallway"? How about "kibosh" or "string quartet"? Do you use the word "hello" correctly in your historical writing? I wrote an article about words that are newer than you thought (okay, than I thought) and words that are older than you'd (I'd) guess. The article is over at Leah Braemel's blog.  Go read it, comment and you can win an ebook. Go on! So far, your chances of winning are 100 percent!! (as in, no one's commented yet.)

Current discussion: Can a bandersnatch be non-frumious? Does it really smell like a jackal? Surely that slug-like creature in several illustrations is a misrepresentation. What is funnier, a penguin or orc shapeshifter? Can a werewolf be an animal care-giver, or would the central conflict of constantly craving blood at the full moon mean that zoo-keeping is right out as a profession.

"The words" in that title equals anything, not the the big ILY phrase. Bet you thought that's what I meant because I'm a romance writer. I just wrote an article for savvy authors (won't show up for weeks) and the topic is all about how I have self-discipline! Here are some tricks! I can make myself work without outside influences! As soon as I finished the article, I stopped working. Everything ground to a halt. It's noon and I haven't written a word of fiction--although at the moment that article counts. I started craving more outside recognition, again. ("Love me, praise me, bring me wine. Tell me my prose smell sweet.") Insecurity about work arrived with a full orchestra's fanfare and a big banner saying "You Suck" I'm not actually whining, okay, maybe I am a bit. MOSTLY I'm just snickering at how predictable people are. I'll get past this soon enough--maybe I'll go back to Beth's place which apparently ...

Here's what I loved this year: Craft workshops . When I took a craft workshop, even the ones that are full of familiar stuff, I got sparks again. CWs used to bore me because I'd overloaded on them, they are basically restating the same True Facts, after all. I'd grown tired of getting preached at and I didn't want to learn jargon for stuff that doesn't need freaking jargon. Yeah, some of that's still true. But the good workshops, man, I'd forgotten how cool they can be. Michael Hauge, Toni Andrews, Jenny Crusie (of course) -- those were a few of the ones that gave new words to something that I needed to hear again. As I listened, I'd relate them to my life or books and feel my writerly brain expanding, if only for a moment. Instead of doodling or jotting down jargon, I wrote notes for books. I won't be able to read the notes I wrote about the books or the jargon, but it was good stuff. And the craft workshops gave me that message over and over, yo,...

overheard at the conference: I can forgive a lot, but no dessert? That's not negotiable. I paid good money for this. Agents are absolutely necessary--you're not going to want to try to sell your books in Russian, French etc. Let us do it for you. I've always believed that anyone who claims to know where the market will be in a year is a liar. Now I know they are. Add to that anyone who claims to know how we'll be reading our books in two years. Except it'll be some kind of hand-held device like a iPhone. That's no lie. Really. seen at conference: coming in from publisher parties: Lots of fascinators. MANY OF THEM. Most with net and feathers. Also corsets--a fair number of them (many of them at the Passionate Ink party I crashed at the very end, then paid full admission for. What can I say? I'm a crappy party crasher) Most corsets are dark colors and worn with no covering. Lots of blue jeans and teeshirts. And I don't see as many fancy-pants decked-out ...

Dear Agent to Whom I Promised That Manuscript, I didn't exactly lie when I sent you those 3 chapters and synopsis. I said I had a complete manuscript and that was not a lie. But I'd kinda left off part of the truth. What I didn't tell you was that the end of the story -- okay, much of the plot -- was an unholy mess. We're talking Eugenics and Victorian breeding programs and it was just...no. It was icky. I had 80K words but I'd say maybe 40K of them ranged from questionable to dreck. Why didn't I follow standard operating procedure? I know what to do. Even fledgling writers know how it's supposed to work. So? Why didn't I wait until I had a polished finished manuscript to send? In part because I was pretending I'm a professional. I blame my "business plan" (See? That's a majorly professional sounding word right there.) My BP is to get back into the NYC world. That means that every now and then, I make the effort. I don't actually be...

Q: What did you get from this conference, Kate? Anything worth sharing? A: Jennifer Fusco is amazing. Jessica Andersen and Jennifer Fusco are a perfect team. Eloisa James still does a good keynote, although she did end with a standard/traditional note after avoiding the heck out of that for most of the rest of the speech. Sarah from Smart Bitches is funny, even after all these years. It's only right and proper that Toni won the Ipad though I wanted that baby, bad. CTRWA does a fine lil conference. Q: What about the industry? What about trends yadayayada? Anything useful? A: Not that I can recall. Except don't mix your professional and personal and lay off the whining. Q: Was it as bad as you'd expected? A: Naw, it never is. But I don't want to do that again. Until the next time. Oh, GOD. RWA is soon. No, I can't bear it, no, no, n--whoops, that's not whining. Q: Any advice? A: Don't bother pitching for yourself. have Corrina Lawson do it for you.

I'm working at Borders (hi, Linda! hi, Helder! hi, Guy whose name I've forgotten--whoops) and I'm listening to Pandora as I write. The music was movie themed stuff and I notice that when I work to all that orchestrated splendor, my writing is always more fascinating and heroic....or so it feels as I thump out the words. Wait, it's not the writing that gets all glitterific. The characters transform into more than people. That uplifting effect is obvious in the movies themselves. What an unfair advantage, having audio to pump up your audience's response. Pfah. Anyway, I moved over to jazz and my characters were suddenly laid back and uninterested in the conversation. Too cool for school. Back to something neutral, maybe New Age. I don't want superheroes and I don't want schlubs. (I'll take Plain Old Interesting People for a thousand, Alex.)

NaNoWriMo! Yup. It's coming along any minute. You doing it? I'm trying, again. No more twitter, no more facebook. Just me and this story. Failing that, me and these Lois McMaster Bujolds I got from the library. Glomming when the words don't come is acceptable. I have that on good authority. Here's what doesn't work for me: looking around to see what other writers are doing -- even though that's what NaNo seems to be about.

I submitted to Big Name NYC Publisher again for the first time in a long time and I forgot how cool it feels to just . . . do that. I suspect my synopsis wasn't romance-y enough so it'll be a no, but still. Fun. And I liked the editor I subbed to--I met her last weekend. Liking someone isn't the big deal important part of course, we all know that. But it's icing on the cake. (big deal important = making gigundo bucks) So. NYC. A fair number of writers I know and respect have figured out that they can make the money they need via epublishing. Yeah, we all heard that for years from defensive ebook writers, but turns out nowadays it's true, sometimes. You can support yourself with those ebook sales. (you, not me, yet) I'm hearing them say, eh, why bother with NY? And they're right. But still. I'd love to be NY pubbed again. I liked those translated copies of my books. What else? I wrote a note to a publisher mentioning some of my Concerns and Issues. Withi...

I looked back at old entries in to this blog and realize that I have had a cold, bronchitis and/or sinus infection since November. No wonder my stories are filled with unpleasant people acting like jerks.

I get more notes about my free book than any other book I've written. It's interesting how the notes aren't necessarily all about the book or my writing, but about other things, like the note-writer's work. That's fine with me because maybe it means I come across as friendly. I doubt that's because more people have read that book than any of my others. That first Kensington book had a pretty big press run. It was in drug stores and Wal-Mart, for pete's sake. Probably this is because of the new interwebby ways of the world. Writers and readers are each others' FACE. Also? It might be because I put my email address somewhere in there. Speaking of in your face. Here's a lesson I read on a writer's loop that people might want to take to heart: if you ever want someone to give you a cover quote? ( a blurb dammit... thank you Colleen Lindsay) it's probably best not to trash any of her books in public, ever.

All over the short entry world (twitter, facebook) the notes are about attempting new exercise programs and word count minimums and getting back to work. The trend is so universal there has to be a name for this, the first workday after the long break. I tried to name it on twitter, but eh. Back In the Saddle Day. All this determination makes me want to stay in bed all day just to prove I'm not a lemming. No sheep here! But I'm outta bed because I have too much to do because I took a vacation all week long while everyone was on vacation. baaaaaa First I have to decide why I was so annoyed by the genteely depressing Olive Kitteridge. So this will sort of be an SBD, if I figure it out. Updated because I figured out why the book gave me the pip. I nearly always correctly predicted what would happen (or had happened) in the stories and the news was never was good. Never. The wrong people fell in love. The car went off the road in the middle of the night. The son and mother couldn...

over at the dearauthor thread that didn't die for a long time**, Angela James, who knows these things, says that Bonnie Dee doesn't write erotic romance. ???!! Huh. That might be true of some of Dee's books, but others....what more could she do to push them into the E part of the E R world? Can't see it happening without pushing the story over the edge of romance into erotica. ( Countess Takes a Lover is the one I'm thinking of, but I can pick out a couple of others) In my little world this proves once and for all that what constitutes ER must be subjective, because Angela James knows what she's talking about and I think I do too. The Supremes knew it when they saw it, and so do the rest of us. Thing is, a sense of titillation is all it takes for some**** and others (usually people who've read nothing but smut for days and days--I've been in that boat******) require a lot more hammering and nailing to consider it hot. I would go see if there is a list (...

I read Goose Girl and Austenland and went on a search for more, much MORE Shannon Hale, and found this in which she explains exactly that which I've been trying to say, only she's much less snarky (except about poor Plum, I suppose) and much more articulate about it. Thank you, Shannon Hale. About the contest that 2-3 of you are waiting eagerly to see: I have to grab my judge and peel him from his computer to read the entries to him. So I'll post results tomorrow because now I'm going to go order more Hale books. Damn them for not showing up the minute I hit "buy" ..... God, how spoiled I am by ebooks. --Plum Savage

well, um, yeah. Another group blog. But this one will only for That Summer Person. It's time she got her own gig with no politics, no silliness, no boys. It's all about her writing. We'll see how long that lasts. Good thing Summer isn't a very interesting person so her books will have to be featured. I mostly joined because I'd love to have my name associated with Bonnie Dee who will be big any day now, yessirreebob. And now I have to go buy books by those other people. First I have to finish the Marie Treanor who is also an autobuy these days. So far, no let downs from her. Oh and did I mention my three new autobuy authors? Vivien Dean, Pepper Espinoza and Jamie Craig (Jamie's the first two combined). I'm kind of sick of m/m which they sometimes feature (truthfully I'm kind of sick of romance) but their writing is fun. I found all three while judging and now I love them like I love cake, which is quite a bit. Even more than ice cream. OH and damn! I ...

Really, I wasn't whining in that last post. It was a "huh" comment. But this is more terrifying, even if it is way more fun. From 30 error messages you never want to see. They're all great. This was the only writerly one in the bunch. I do like "your mother is coming upstairs" message. Click on the image to make it sort of bigger.