Conversations In the Margins -- with Kris Kennedy

posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy

Today I'm pleased to welcome my good buddy and Lair favorite Kris Kennedy back to the blog to celebrate the release of her latest book Defiant. Yay, another great medieval romance with a HAWT cover! (Aunty wipes drool from her chin.)

Instead of our usual question and answer interview, Kris wanted to blog with us about those funny little conversations we sometimes have with friends and co-workers. Conversations that nobody else ever hears... Take it away, Kris!

I’m not sure about other authors, but I would never be published if I didn’t have great critique partners.

And by ‘great’ I mean the ones willing to be brutally honest, to say what needs to be said, to read as a reader (meaning they read for Story, and look for your unique story to unfold), but they also know craft enough to explain why it’s a problem, and suggest repairs.

The ones willing to go the extra mile, to read an entire manuscript in a hurry to meet a deadline, to re-read those same damned knotted pages over and over and over again.

Great critique partners add immeasurable value to stories. I’m especially fond of the conversations we have in the margins of manuscripts. The little notes we exchange, whether in pencil or Track Changes, the comments that clue you into the fact that that scene—you know the one, the scene you love more than any other scene, ever written?--yeah, that scene, is actually not a piece of fine art. It’s a piece of something else. The margin conversations where they rip you a new one, and you realize with shocking, blinding clarity that you would never be published without this person.

Great cp’s do things like:

• Write edifying comments in the margins like, “Huh?”
• Catch typos Word cruelly—or mockingly--ignored: “Um, do you really want to say ‘shitory’ here? Perhaps you mean ’history?’” Oh, umm, perhaps.
• Suggest subtle ways to increase dramatic tension: “Cut the last 50 pages and do something different. Maybe try something interesting.”
• Force you out of your comfort zone of descriptions: “You are not allowed to have eyebrows do anything ever again. Never. Again. No ‘arching’ and especially no ‘cocking.’”
• Point out staging issues that have become invisible to the beleaguered writer by her fifth draft: “This room has a lot of windows. She’s passed 5. Really? 5 windows in this little room?”
• Hone in those small, minute, barely-detectable flaws in characterization: “Wow, she’s a real bitch.”
• And deliver the ever-simple and devastatingly effective: “This sounds stupid and doesn’t make any sense.”
  

I, though, have my own marginal replies to these critique partners who would ride rough-shod over my beautiful words. I’m not a puppet, for Heaven’s sake. I stand my ground, speak up. Some of my favorite replies run something like:

• My ending hook was where? Three pages ago . . . ? Wow. That’s a long way back, huh?
• So sue me, I like adverbs. No, it’s not really a law, you can’t sue me. You’re just scared.
  
• Did I really? Again with the eyes? And the brows?
  
• Point-of-View, Schmoint-Of-View. All I care about is “Does it flow?” Oh. It doesn’t? Oh.
• Thanks. I’ll fix that. And that. And that. I was drinking wine at the time.
• And the top apology I give to my cps: It made sense in the other version

What about you? Writer or not, what are some of the silly, wonderful conversation you have with those friends or colleagues that no one else in the world would probably understand?

One commenter wins a copy of Kris’s latest release, a starred Publisher Weekly review, Defiant!

Kris Kennedy writes sexy, adventure-filled medieval romances for Pocket Books. Visit her website ( http://www.kriskennedy.net/) and sign-up for the newsletter, read exclusive excerpts, or just drop Kris a line saying Hi!

The Irish Warrior BOOTY!

Hmmm, does that post title sound a wee bit naughty?

Oh well, you all know what I meant! We have a WINNER for Kris Kennedy's newest release, The Irish Warrior!

Congrats to:

Louisa Cornell!!!

You've won a copy of Kris' fabulous new book! She will be in touch with you soon.

Thanx to everyone for turning out for Kris' visit!

Kris Kennedy and Homages

posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy

Today I'm thrilled to be welcoming Kris Kennedy back to the Lair to celebrate the release of her second historical for Kensington, The Irish Warrior. We had a blast when Kris was here last year touting her debut novel The Conqueror and we're so glad she was able to join us today. She's going to tell and show us some of the writers who have influenced her.

Take it away Kris!

First, a big “Thank-you!” to all the Banditas for having me back again this year to celebrate my second release, The Irish Warrior, which just came out 1 June! I’m super excited about this one, which was the 2008 Golden Heart® winner for Best Historical. Which of course means I’m also super nervous.

In part, this is because I’m a newbie to the publishing world, and I know nothing. Every so often, I fool myself into thinking I know something, but I’m quickly confronted by the truth, or alternate viewpoints, or new ideas, which show that my knowledge is rather . . . Umm, let’s say rudimentary. In other words: I know nothing. But hey, at least I know I know nothing!

One of the ways I navigate this “know-nothing’ state is I listen, and I learn. I try, as often as possible, unless someone is paying me to teach a class, to keep my mouth closed. And I absorb. And one of the best things to absorb is great writing.

In The Irish Warrior, I decided to pay a few little homages to some of the stories that have influenced me, either in a deep moving way, or in a lighter, fun way. Some of the stories that have stuck with me, deep inside.

I think this happens both unconsciously and consciously. We are deeply taken by some turn of phrase or stylistic approach or plotting choice, and it penetrates so deeply it becomes our own. Imbued with our own sensibilities, of course, changed from the original, but part of our own natural repertoire of storytelling. And then there are the conscious homages. The stylistic turns of phrase or characterizations or set-ups that we adopt knowingly.

In THE LORD OF THE RINGS movies, in the first one, when the hobbits are on the road and they sense a Black Rider is coming, Peter Jackson used an old Hitchcock film technique, of that foreshortening, where the world seems to tunnel in and get at once closer and further away.

Later, Peter Jackson showed up in a scene in the film as an extra, just like Hitchcock used to do. All these were little homages to a great who came before him. A nod. A thank-you.

That's what I'm talking about.

I wonder if this is easier to do in film, in part because we all are (or should be) concerned withy anything that smack of plagerism. Additionally, each author has his or her own distinctive Voice. We don't want to copy someone else's.

But homages are different. They are tributes, and thank-yous, and I put a few of them in The Irish Warrior.

One is to the LITTLE HOUSE books.

Laura Ingalls had such a way with descriptions. Simple and potent. I felt as if I was riding on her wagon, all the little jiggles and shuggles of the endless bumpy ride, and the great bowl of the blue sky atop her head. The ponies running along the edge of Silver Lake, and releasing the baby Great Auk on the melting lake. The stocked larders in winter and the crunching snow underfoot, the long hot rustling grasses during haying season, and the thick-walled muskrat homes Laura and Pa are looking at in the opening of The Long Winter.

There's a couple passages in The Irish Warrior that adopt this style. One is right after the hero and heroine have stolen a boat, and just before a dangerous brush with soldiers, and in between two hot, sexy close-calls between the two of them, there's one little passage that closes out a chapter: "They floated off, the old man watching them, until the tall grasses swallowed him up and the only thing to be seen was the blue bowl of sky overhead and the long, stretched-out wings of a dark, silent cormorant that flew overhead.”

Not sure if it comes across to the reader, but to me, that was Laura Ingalls writing.

I also paid tribute to THE SECRET GARDEN in one little line. Or rather, part of a line.

The hero and heroine have escaped the bad guy and been on the run, and are finally lying down to rest. Senna, the heroine, is well aware her life in in danger . She knows she’s “fleeing for her life with an Irish rebel, out on the wildside, beyond the Pale, past rescue, past safety, past any future she’d ever dreamed of.” And yet . . . something has been awakened inside. Yes, she’s more frightened that she’s ever been before, but she’s also more alive. She lays down next to Finian, “near him but not touching. She put her head on the hard ground and smelled the cool dirt and pale green points of grass, then looked up into the sky and watched the day take its bright, wild shape.” And those pale green points of grass are just what Mary Lennox finds after she follows the robin into the secret garden and starts her own little secret garden, watching the pale green points poking through the dirt, a process which is awakening everything inside of her as well.

But I’m not high-brow about my homages. :-) I gave a little nod to TREMORS as well. Remember that movie? Com’on, you do. I loved that movie when I was a kid. And I thought the way they had to leap across those huge boulders to escape the . . . worm-y thing, was so ridiculous and fabulous. So, in The Irish Warior, the hero and heroine have to make their way across a river, and they do it by . . . jumping boulders. They didn’t have those long vaulting-type branches they did in the movie, but I definitely had them make their “leaping, slipping, flying way across the boulders” just like they did in TREMORS.

And depending on how loosely we define ‘homage,’ it’s possible that every book of mine so far, including the one I’m writing now, pays homage to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, via my heroes. They are Aragorn-inspired. ;-)

Some of the next ones on the “You Have Moved Me So I Will Pay Homage” list: Anne of Green Gables books. E.M. Forester. Agatha Christie.

I have to fit my next homages into a story which is set on the eve of Magna Carta, about an audacious knight who comes up against a woman on a mission. She upends his world, but unfortunately, their missions collide, and jeopardize the kingdom one of them is trying to save.

Thanx so much for joining us today, Kris, and for giving us some insight into your writing! I've definitely paid homage to some of my favorite writers.

How about you? Do you ever do homages to other writers or storytellers in your writing? Ever think you see it in books by authors you love? One commentor will win a signed copy of The Irish Warrior!

The Lair is Hot in June!

We Banditas enjoy vacations as much as anyone but we don’t take the summer off....too many stories in our vivid imaginations to take a break. And boy, do we kick the summer off right this month!

On June 2nd, Anna Campbell hosts debut historical romance author Maggie Robinson – or is she perhaps appearing as her alter ego Margaret Rowe? Maggie will be giving away a signed copy of MISTRESS BY MISTAKE.

And that’s just the beginning of a bountiful week.

Virna DePaul is visiting on the 3rd. Virna’s debut, CHOSEN BY BLOOD, is out with Berkley in 4/11 and she’s sharing her insights as she goes through the process of sold to debut. She’ll talk about Challenging Your Editor or Agent – when it’s really okay to speak up.

We end this first week on a high note with a return visit from Carrie Lofty on June the 4th. Our very own Christie Kelley talks with Carrie about her new release SONG OF SEDUCTION.

On June 7th Loucinda McGary hosts Vanessa Kelly to talk about her sizzling new release SEX AND THE SINGLE EARL.

Swing by the Lair on June 12th and see how a teenager who already has social issues deals with the suddenly acquired ability to interact with ghosts. YA author Maureen Hardegree chats with Nancy about HAIN’T MISBEHAVIN, Maureen's new novel from Bell Bridge Books.

The 16th of the month yours truly hosts a return visit with RITA award winning author Kristan Higgins to talk about honesty and her most recent release “the next best thing”. I’m fairly certain we can get her to spill about her August release “all I ever wanted”. (Yes, I have started a FB campaign for my kitten Cricket to be featured on her next cover. Hey! It worked for Betty White!).

On the 21st, Kris Kennedy visits with us to talk with us about her latest THE IRISH WARRIOR.

Pamela Palmer is visits on the 27th, talking about Writing on the wild side - or Where do you come up with this stuff? And her latest release, RAPTURE UNTAMED which hits the shelves June 29.

We have one contest this month.

Anna Campbell has a mini novella called ‘Upon a Midnight Clear’ in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF REGENCY ROMANCE (released on 24th June in the U.K. and 27th July in the U.S.). To celebrate, she’s giving away two signed copies! All you have to do is email her on anna@annacampbell.info and name two authors other than Anna Campbell who have stories in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF REGENCY ROMANCE. You might find the answer in her June Latest News: http://www.annacampbell.info/latest.html or on the publisher’s website: http://www.constablerobinson.com/?section=books&book=the_mammoth_book_of_regency_romance_9781849010153_paperback The contest closes 31st July, 2010 and for more details please visit her website: http://www.annacampbell.info/contest.html

Whew! What a month! So fill up the lemonade (or margarita) glass, plop under a beach umbrella and prepare to have fun!

Conqueror Booty!

WOW! We had sooo much fun celebrating with Kris Kennedy on the launch of her debut novel The Conqueror. Thanx again to everyone who joined us for the party!

As promised, Kris is giving away a "chapter" booklet and an autographed copy of her book. Too bad she can't give away the yummy cover model!

So Aunty busted out her handy dandy random number generator and came up with the following WINNERS:

Magolla!

Congrats on winning the "chapter" booklet.

Virginia!

SUPER CONGRATS on winning the autographed copy of The Conqueror!

Please email Kris via her website www.kriskennedy.net with your info. and be sure to put "Bandit Blog Winner" in your subject line.

Kris Kennedy Visits the Lair

posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy

Please join us in the celestial heights of the Lair, where all the debut authors go to celebrate their first releases, because after all, seeing your first book on the shelf is a bit like walking on air...
Okay, so it's really just the loft in the armory, and not all that far off the ground (coz our guest has a thing about heights).

Please welcome my friend and Golden Network buddy, Kris Kennedy who is celebrating the release of her debut novel TOMORROW!

AC: Please tell us about your debut release The Conqueror.

Now, seriously, Loucinda, that is a demonic question. How am I supposed to answer it?? It's like you're an agent or an editor, expecting me to be able to just SAY what it's about . . . :biting fingernails because can't say what it's about:

Okay, here's my best attempt at a blurb for my debut book, due out May 5....

THE CONQUEROR is a hot, sweeping medieval romance with a reluctant alpha hero, a desperate heroine, and a love that can unite a kingdom or bring it crashing to the ground.

After seventeen years of a civil war, a midnight rescue results in a night of unforgettable--and forbidden-passion. Their explosive reunion, a year later, follows betrayal and a bloody invasion. Someone has to win, after all. And the other person is very, very angry.

And it's full of the ‘adventure' piece I love so well. Abductions, midnight rescues, sword fights. Hidden agendas. Betrayal. Revenge. Imprisonment. Buried treasure. Enemies on the prowl. And rocking hot sex. Oh, it's fun! :-)

Hmm... I'm certain I just veered wildly off the ‘blurb' path.

AC: Who cares? It all sounds very intriguing and that cover is YUM! Now lets move on the the harder questions... (Aunty rubs her hands together with glee) What inspired you to write in this time period?

Oh, wow. I can't imagine anything more intrinsically romantic than the middle ages. Such intense living. Even reading dry academic texts, I end up letting the book drift onto my lap. A single page can contain stories of raids and battles, kings being deposed and queens getting abducted, castles being razed and rivers being crossed.

I love learning about everything, from the nobility to the lives of burgesses and peasants, every aspect. Food preparation to marriage contracts, privy chutes to wheat rotation methods. Generally, the hard part is deciding what to leave out.

Then again, maybe not. For instance, the privy chutes are pretty much a sure-fire ‘leave-it-out.' :-)

AC: How did traveling in Europe influence your writing?

I have traveled to Ireland, England, and Germany.

I think what those travels have done for my writing is the same as they've done for my life in general: made me realize I'm a very small part of the world, and not necessarily the best part. LOL Humility and appreciation, I suppose, sum it up.

Oh, and things became real in a very, well, real way. :-) Climbing the curving tower of a castle is quite different than imagining it. The idea of holding a sword and swinging it, and the bloody results, dead bodies jamming up the stairwell, well, you can imagine it all much better when you're actually standing on the stairwell. And then the ‘romanticized' nature dims somewhat. Even so, it's intense and exciting, and built for the romance genre. :-)

Know what else I've realized? I'm going to write a medieval with a character who's scared of heights (like me) because I tell you, those towers are HIGH. Yes, there were walls where there is now only air, but even so . . . .

And the stairs? Yes, tight. Yes, spiraling. But also, the steps themselves are really narrow. Maybe part of that is the wear of time, but still, when I write about someone ‘hurrying' down the stairs, it's SO relative. I could cook lasagna by the time it would take me to go from the 4th to the 1st floor of a castle. And carrying something, like an armful of linens or a basket of candle nubs? Please. I'd be fired on day one.

Okay, enough about stairs, do ya think?

(Aunty nods vigorously, trying not to remember all the stairs in the Duomo in Florence and how much her feet hurt afterward.)

AC: Plotter or Pantser? Can you share a little of your writing process with us?

Ack! Let's call me a work-in-progress. :-) I'm learning my process, because it's new. The post-published process. It's like that, isn't it? You have one process pre-published, but most of us need another one after having contracts in hand. Especially with a young child also in hand. Or, rather, as close to my hand as I can keep him, but he's quick. :-)

I can no longer write by the seat of my pants, because the revisions required are insane. So, I'm developing a new process: PlotFlow. I plot and then I flow.

But if I don't plot it out first, the story sprawls like a teenager on a couch, and I haven't the luxury for such things anymore.

AC: We love Call Stories in the Lair, please share yours.

Oh, well, it's very glamorous, so put your sunglasses on . . .

I was tending my 3 y.o.'s pink eye. I was forcibly-I mean, lovingly-holding a warm compress to his very pink eye, when my agent called with the news that I had been offered a 2 book contract by John Scognamiglio at Kensington Publishing. (Com'on. It's not THAT hard to say. KEN-sing-ton.) ;-)

I was excited, of course. I was also wondering if I was spreading pink eye germs onto the phone.

I was, of course.

(Aunty nods sagely, remembering the time she had to step in and make a presentation in Anaheim because the nurse consultant caught pink eye from her three year old.)

So, while my agent talked, and I ooh-ed and okay-ed, I also wiped lavender-based cleaner all over the phone receiver with one hand, while holding the warm, loving compress to my 3 y.o.'s eye with the other, phone nestled-lovingly, of course-between my cramping shoulder and cheek.

You know the pose. You've done it a thousand times. You're a woman. And a writer. We write, we love our kids. Sometimes, you have to do them both at the same time.

AC: What's next on the writing horizon for you?

I'm doing my own final revisions on WANTING FINIAN right now. That's the one that won the 2008 Golden Heart for Best Unpubbed Historical. It'll be out next Spring, only I have no idea what its title will be. I somehow doubt my editor is going to keep mine. LOL There's an excerpt on my website. (http://www.kriskennedy.net/books/wanting-finian)

And I am working on another book which could follow THE CONQUEROR, but still work as a stand-alone book. It's another medieval, with a wronged & angry heroine, a very, very dangerous hero, and both of them with something precious to protect. My working title is simply: The Jamie Story.

AC: Believe me, I understand. My current working title is: The New Irish Tale. Any advice you received before you were published? Or just any advice that you'd like to pass on to the As Yet Unpubbed writers here in the Lair?


Well, I must say, I never like the almost crusade-like cries to just ‘stay with it,' so someone who stops feels like a total quitter when maybe it simply wasn't right for them. Maybe the ‘fire' wasn't in the belly. Maybe the pain of rejection truly was too much. How do I know? Who am I to say that sticking with it is the best thing for any particular person? Maybe it's not.

That being said, let me totally contradict myself....

If you feel ‘It,' then stay with it. ‘It' being the fire. The feeling in your fingers, aching to type. The love of perfecting pace and nailing down GMCs. The restless awakening mid-night with a new plot twist and the undeniable need to tiptoe downstairs to write it. The chills that occur when you suddenly realize, "OMG! Her mother left her when she was a child!" and you run to the computer, because everything is clear now. The people you were just talking to stare after. They may not see you again for days.

If you've got those things, then I have only one thing to say: Persistence, ladies. Always, attentive persistence.

Attentive, in that your paying attention, getting better, treating this like the craft it is. We're apprentices and journeymen. The craft of storytelling is ages old. It takes time to get it right.

And persistence. Persistence ALWAYS pays off. If you're standing at the corner, you'll be there when the bus comes by.

Now, my question for YOU, Bandita readers!

What lights your writing fire? Your reading fire? (Because that's a fire too, isn't it?) What makes you go still with excitement? Genre/ era? Writing moment? What makes for a peak reading experience? I love romance fires-what's lights yours??

And please, stop by, check out the excerpts (http://www.kriskennedy.net/books/the-conqueror), sign up for the newsletter, or just write an say Hi!

Kris is generously giving away an autographed copy of The Conqueror to one lucky commenter, and a 'chapter one' booklet to another.

THANX A BUNCH for joining us, Kris!