Vintage Prom Dresses & My Grandmother's Armoire

My grandmother had an armoire in the corner of her lilac purple bedroom at her farmhouse. She and my grandfather inherited it as part of a five piece bedroom set from Great Aunt Goldie. I'm not sure if my great aunt bought the bedroom set as a wedding present for my grandparents or if Aunt Goldie bought it for herself and her husband and then later passed it on to my grandparents.

Either way, my grandmother stashed vintage prom dresses--a blue one and a pink one-- among other dress up clothes in there for me and my cousins to play with. Much like the magical armoire in the Chronicles of Narnia series, my grandparents' armoire transformed us into ballerinas or princesses in flowing tulle in whatever magical world we concocted, using our imagination. (Do you remember that old fashioned thing: imagination?)

I've no idea where my grandmother got those two dresses; I think they were circa 1950s like these pictures I've found on Pinterest.  Check out my Vintage Prom Dress Pinterest Board here.  Nor do I know whatever happened to them either.

I have inherited most of my grandparents' five piece bedroom set, including the armoire, which is stashed in the corner of my bedroom. No prom dresses are closeted away inside, but more practical things like socks and bras and t-shirts. I wish I had those old prom dresses; I would use them for decoration. Perhaps one day, I will buy one from ebay.

I encourage my kids to play, creating imaginary worlds, and I hope you encourage your kids to do likewise. I often wonder if playing dress up with my cousins, pretending to be princesses or witches (another story for another day) helped shape me as a writer. By cultivating imagination in my kids where will it lead them?

Oh me, oh my, literary agents--Yikes!

I've got a list and I've been checking it twice. No, I'm not working for Santa or the Easter Bunny. (Wait, does the Easter Bunny keep a list of naughty and nice kids? Hmm...)

Anyway. My point. Over a year ago, I read somewhere that when you begin the search for a literary agent, start with the agents of your favorite authors as opposed to choosing lit agents willy-nilly from the latest reference edition of a Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino. The premise behind the idea is that you might be more likely to find a better fit with an agent of an author whom you adore since your writing style might be similar to that author. Or something like that.

My list has 14 agents. Now that I'm seriously working on getting my completed manuscript published, I'm reviewing this list and checking it twice as the old saying goes, trying to narrow down which agent will be lucky enough (or not) to be The One. Sometimes, I feel like this process is similar to online dating. Your checking out pictures and bios of dudes you don't know from Adam, trying to figure out if the man is decent or an ax-murderer hiding behind a cocky grin.  (Not that I'm familiar with online dating. In fact, my husband and I met the old fashioned way: college. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.)

So. The agent that I preferred the most is not currently accepting new manuscripts. (Boo.) Aside from being mightily scared of the query process, here's my dilemma: do I try for the next best agency, hoping beyond all statistical probability that my query will get a response or do I query a smaller, lesser known agency to test the waters, so to speak. Maybe it won't hurt as bad if a smaller agency rejects me first. Maybe I'll net some feedback that will help me to polish my manuscript so that it will be ready for The Big Lit Agency.

No matter how many how-to articles or advice I read from published authors, why do I feel like this whole getting published process feels like I'm standing on a cliff, peering over the edge into a tumultuous ocean crashing against sharp boulders at the bottom. If I don't jump, then I will be pursued by regret for not trying. If I jump, I might drown.  Then again, maybe not.

Keepin' Real

Do you remember a Breck Girl?  Check out this pinterest board I created to capture the iconic images of a Breck Girl.

Farrah Fawcet, Jaclyn Smith and Christie Brinkley modeled for Breck Shampoo.

As a child, I wanted to be a Breck Girl. We all did, right? But my hair was too frizzy, and I hated it when my mom pulled a brush through my hair because brushing out knotted hair hurts like crazy! (Apparently, my mother hadn't heard of detangler.)

Since I so disliked getting my hair brushed, and my mother so disliked me walking around with gnarled, tangled hair, she insisted that I keep it short. It wasn't until I was a freshman in high school that I began the slow process of growing out my hair. By then, the style was dramatically teased and lacquered in place with Aqua Net hairspray. Check this pinterest board for your 80's style guide flashback. 

I never went for the teased out bangs that stood nearly straight up. Even in high school, I thought it was ridiculous. If my high school year books weren't smoldering away in the attic, I would scan a few pictures to show you what I mean.

Anyway, the images of a Breck Girl, and my mother saying "Don't you want to be a Breck Girl?" which was her way of to trying to get me to brush my hair, stands out in my mind as iconic as say, the Eiffel Tower is to Parisiennes. So much so that I searched the grocery store aisle sometime during the early 90s for Breck Girl Shampoo and Conditioner, hoping to find something that would help alleviate the frizz.  Alas, it's no longer available.  

What does this have to do with writing a query letter or a synopsis or novel #2? Not a thing. But I had some fun searching pinterest for images.

What was your style back in the day?

Writing Query Letters...Oh My!

Last week, I took an online how to write a query letter and a synopsis. The course was taught by Joanne Rock (check her out here) and Catherine Mann (check her out here) and hosted by RWA (check them out here).

Both Joanne and Catherine were gracious and kind to share their experiences and knowledge to coach us newbies along on our publishing journey.

Here's the truth: I'm scared of query letters.  And writing a synopsis for that matter. Why? Because it means putting myself "out there."  Sending out a query letter means approaching an agent, whom I don't know from Eve, and hoping that she will be curious enough about my novel that she will ask to see the first five chapters. The flip side to that is she might not like my idea at all and reject it flat out.

Here's the second truth: if I want to share my stories with you, dear gentle reader, I must risk the rejection of one agent to find the agent that's right for me who will believe in my work and promote it with publishers.

Simply put, I can't put it off any longer.  I can't continue to hide behind the generic "I'm still polishing my manuscript" anymore.  I need to get over my analysis paralysis and submit query letters.  But first I got to write one.

That's where you come in, dear gentle readers (all two of you who read my blog. Shout out to Aunt Jane and Aunt Judy! Thank you!)  This is what I wrote for my first assignment, although I've tweaked it a bit based on feedback from Joanne and Catherine:

The Kissing Contest is a completed 70,000 word contemporary romance set in Portland, Oregon.  Alexandra Merriweather--Alex, as she prefers to be called--hikes through a local state park on a secret mission to expel the near constant sense of betrayal she carries in her heart after her first marriage implodes. She’s convinced that her plan to toss her wedding rings into the Bridal Veil Waterfall where she and her now ex-husband got married will help revitalize her journalism career, not to mention ignite a passionless dating life. Maybe she will find Mr. Right the second time around.  Chase Montgomery, a widower of several years is on a mission of his own at the Bridal Veil Waterfall, trying to honor the memory of his wife. He challenges Alex to a kissing contest and the winner will “keep” the Bridal Veil Waterfall as his or her sacred spot.  Who will win?  More importantly, can both of them overcome their natural distrust of each other to find everlasting love?

What do you think? Are you ready to read my novel? 

This is my overview and blurb rolled into one paragraph, although I think my blurb is supposed to be limited to three or four sentences.  I'm a little challenged right now to reduce a 70K novel down to just three or four sentences. I'm working on it!  

Obviously, I need to flesh out the rest of the query letter, including my writing credentials. I wonder if those two poems and one essay I published years ago count? I guess they have to because I've got nothing else to recommend me other than an over active imagination and a very intense desire to get the characters out of my head and onto paper.   

Maybe I should ask my Aunt Judy and Aunt Jane to endorse me in the query letter. (I'm kidding. Sort of.)  

Wish me luck as I continue to fine tweak my query letter over the next week. Let me know what you think of this idea.  

 

How do you cope with stress?

It's Friday afternoon and the house is quiet. The boys are still in school. Teacher Husband is off at work.  I'm taking a moment to decompress after a very stressful week.  We had some challenging behavioral issues with Big E. At the same time, we had some academic issues with Little E, including a meeting with two of his teachers and the principal to discuss options.  None of them are easy choices.

I hardly devoted any time to writing this week, not even my morning journal sessions, let alone posting regularly to my blog.  I'm three days behind on an online writing query and synopsis class I signed up for through Romance Writers of America (RWA).

Earlier in the week, I was enduring a serious bout of PMS, which added another level of complication. PMS transforms my body and my attitude into a different person entirely.  Like the difference between Dr. Jekll and Mr. Hyde.

Fortunately, thankfully, work was little area of calm in my world.

As wives and mothers, indeed women in general, we all cope with balancing our obligations to our family, our jobs, our church or other volunteer organizations, and ourselves differently.  Like other women, I find that I must claw out time for writing because that endeavor takes a backseat to everything else.  Sometimes, I feel backed into a corner and must defend my writing pursuits like a vicious mama bear.

Why is that? How do you balance your work and life?

Here's to a less stressful weekend.

Do you remember these?

Typewriters. 

Do you remember using them? 

At the risk of sounding ridiculously pretentious, I wrote my first novel manuscript on a typewriter when I was fifteen.  The main character was Vivian and she was adopted by a wealthy family in the Antebellum South.  In the opening scene, Vivian is escaping her abusive father, driving a carriage with two horses galloping out of control. She is rescued by a handsome man who boldly gallops alongside the carriage on his horse and jumps into the carriage to reign in the horses. Or maybe the carriage crashes. I don't remember exactly. It's been a long time. 

Somewhere in the melee, Vivian is knocked unconscious and the handsome man takes her back to his parents' mansion. She is allowed to live there once she recuperates from her injury given that her dad is an abusive drunk.  

I can't remember the name of the handsome man. His sister was jealous of Vivian, who always got the attention at balls and barbecues because Vivian was prettier than the sister. The sister referred to Vivian as "Vivi," knowing that Vivian didn't like the nickname. That much I remember about this story. 

I named the heroine Vivian after Vivian Lee, who played Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 Gone With the Wind movie.

Eventually Vivian and the handsome, wealthy man fall in love despite their different backgrounds and live happily ever after like Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett.

During a moment of disgust, I chucked the neatly typed manuscript in the trash. It deserved it.

Later in high school, I progressed from a typewriter to a word processor, which was a half typewriter and half computer combined into one.  (View a picture of one here. This being the late '80s when personal computers as we know them today not being readily accessible. The concept of Windows was a rumor when I learned DOS language on a Mac. They weren't called Apple back in my day, people.)

Anyway, I wrote sappy short stories on that Brother word processor. The stories usually involved a misunderstood heroine, searching for true love and finding it in a leather jacket wearing, motorcycle driving bad boy who was really a good boy.   

It was bad. As it should be. I was a teenager, not yet knowing who I was as a person, let alone a writer. It took me years to find my own voice and even then I still struggled. 

All along, I had the elements of the romance genre in my short stories.  I always knew that I wanted to be a writer.  I didn't always take myself seriously, though, dismissing what I wrote as frivolous the way some people dismiss the romance genre in general, saying it's not "real writing" or it's hack writing. The genre doesn't have the same respect as literary fiction, which is ridiculous. Good writing is good writing in any genre.     

Point of View

Point of View or POV for short.

In a previous blog post, I mentioned that I wrote my first manuscript in a hap-dash style with very little rhyme or reason, meaning that I wrote it with very little structure.  As a result, my POV was--well, you guessed it--all willy nilly. Part of the manuscript was limited omniscient, which means the narrator and you, dear gentle reader, had access to a limited number of the characters' internal thoughts and feelings. (Instead of omniscient, which you may recall from your 8th grade English class, is when the narrator and you, the reader, have access to every single character's POV.)

Given that the manuscript is a contemporary romance set in Portland, Oregon, my two main characters are Chase and Alexandra (although she prefers to be called Alex.)  If you were to read the manuscript in its early phase, you would have had access to both Chase and Alex's POV, but to two sub-characters as well: Chase's cousin Garrett and Alex's best friend Lindsey. 

At least, that's how the manuscript started out.  During the revision process, however, I noticed that my POV was actually all over the place. I jumped from Chase's POV to Alex's POV paragraph by paragraph.  Some people call that "head hopping," because as the reader, you are hopping from one character's internal thoughts to another's paragraph by paragraph.  A lot of romance fiction is written like this. 

Here's the thing: I don't like it, because as the reader, I feel like you don't get to spend enough time with the character to really learn and know about the character the way you do a friend of 15 years. And that's what I want from you, reader.

I've done my job as a writer if, by mid-way through the novel, you can anticipate how Alex or Chase will respond to a given situation because you know them so well.  When Alex is fraught with anxiety about her relationship with Chase, struggling mightily with trusting him and her own judgement, you understand her motivation because you know her background. She had a reason for second guessing herself and Chase because of something that happened to her in her past. That way, nothing seems "out of character" for Alex (or Chase, as the case may be.)  And yes, she needs to learn to overcome that if she and Chase want to live happily ever after.

During one of my revisions, I adjusted the POV to be either from Chase or Alex's POV, minus the "head-hopping." But then, I had the POV of the sub characters, Garrett and Lindsey, to contend with. Include them or not? Ultimately,  I felt their POVs were an intrusion.  A diversion.  As a way to set up a spin off or novel #2. 

A lot of romance writers do that and that's okay.  As an author, you get to fashion a world as you like with as many or as little characters as you like and if you want to include the POV of all or some of them--that's your choice as the author.  However, I don't like that either.  If my manuscript is about how Chase and Alex learn to trust one another and fall in love, then I want them to be the sole focus of the story without Garrett and Lindsey butting in to get attention too. 

During yet another round of revisions, I deleted the POV of both Garrett and Lindsey.  They still function as sub-characters, mind you. It's just as the reader, I don't allow you to have access to their internal workings.  You only learn about their thoughts and feelings during dialogue.

Don't worry, they will have their turn in novel #2, which I'm working on right now. For now, you will have to be content with Alex and Chase's love story.