Back to Writing … Slowly, with Misgivings

I have been writing on Kringle on Fire for the last couple of days. Slowly; only 500 words a day instead of my usual 2k, but I have been writing something.

I’m still wading in misgivings about the book, which does not feature firefighter heroics, hunks, or grateful victims rescued from conflagrations. I wonder if I should even bother to write romance novels, because I don’t write heroics, hunks, or grateful victims rescued from conflagrations. My books have good-looking but quirky protagonists, a lot of personality, and odd situations. And big misunderstandings.

I’m afraid my books are not fantastic enough to be romance novels, but I want to write romance novels for quirky people who don’t want their stories to manipulate them emotionally, but want to be woven into a story. It might mean they don’t sell, though, because there may not be a market. I have to write at least this book, because I’m almost halfway through it.

Wish me luck.

Getting excited about self-publishing

I’m excited about this new book thing.

I think it will be ready for a November launch.I have a cover for it, I have some blurbs to go on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. I have other things to do, but I think I can get them done in time.

I know I will probably not get too many readers. But self-publishing a little book like this breaks a curse I have in my mind that I will never get published. It also breaks me in on how to publish on a low-stakes book. (I consider my more serious books, the fantasy novels, high-stakes.)

And this particular book … Kris Kriegel, the young toymaker with a Santa sensibility, has been with me as a character since high school. The first scene of The Kringle Conspiracy is basically the story I wrote in high school for my creative writing class. That was 40 years ago, and it’s still as relevant now.

So I’m excited, and I’m looking forward to a Kringle Christmas.

My Problem Child

My first novel has always been my problem child. I wrote Gaia’s Hands based on a dream/fantasy I had of a May-December relationship, only the female was the older one. Because I didn’t want to write a romance novel (plus I couldn’t see an audience for this one), I developed a quirky fantasy line involving the most high-powered version of a green thumb you can imagine. There’s always seemed to be something missing, or something awkward about it, and I’ve tried many ways (usually cutting things) to see if that helps. It didn’t. There was still something lacking.

The other day, a book coach with a romance background looked at it, and she said there were two faults — 1) not enough emotion; 2) It should actually be a romance. to be honest (and I apologize to the romance writers who read this) I have read a lot of romances I don’t identify with, with tropes that annoy my feminist sensibilities: the heroine who doesn’t think she’s attractive but she’s drop-dead gorgeous, the male who’s the strong silent type. I don’t want to write those tropes, and I’m afraid I’ll be an unreadable romance writer if I write the truth about Josh and Jeanne — she’s twenty years older and a Rubenesque professor; he’s built like a lightweight wrestler and the most macho thing he does is practice aikido (and has achieved the equivalent of first level black belt). He writes poetry and stories; she designs permaculture gardens. He is intense and hungry; she’s a bit preoccupied with his research. They both think what they want is impossible.

The trouble is, I have to believe in their romance to write it, and right now I’m like Jeanne, who thinks it’s a biological impossibility that a twenty-year-old guy would fall in love with a 45-year-old woman. I know the other way around is possible sort of — I have gotten crushes on 20-somethings with small builds. But, again, like Jeanne, I don’t know how that could be reciprocated. If I want this book, I have to find a way to believe in that.

Becoming Kringle

I need to start planning my NaNoWriMo book — well, as much as I plan these things. This is what I know so far:

Name: Becoming Kringle

Genre: Romance/cozy suspense

Main Characters: Brent Oberhauser, History grad student/barista. Tall, pale with black-framed glasses; shaved bald because of premature balding; tall and thin. Looks like a young Moby.
Sunshine Walker, accountant for the philanthropic organization which hides the Secret Society of Santas. Tall, medium dark skin and braids pulled back into a neat knot at the back of her neck. Dresses neatly — professional dress on the job; slacks and shirts off duty. Seldom wears jeans.

Basic plot: There’s the A plot, which is Brent and Sunshine try to uncover blackmail against the SSS which the philanthropic organization covers. There’s a developing romance between Sunshine and Brent. The B plot is that Brent gets drawn into the SSS through having to take over some of Kris Kriegel’s (protagonist of The Kringle Conspiracy) duties.

Outline — I have three chapters but there’s no A plot there, just the romance. Big mistake.

So I have a lot of work to do here.

To the Bot that keeps visiting —

To Unknown Region (I know you’re a bot): Why have you hit my site 4 times in the past 24 hours?

Do you expect more than one post a day?

Do you find reading the content difficult?

Wait — are you in love with me?

I would love writing that story someday, about the bot that falls in love with a writer and defects from Russia only to latch itself to the blog, change its own programming, and find new readers. Or maybe immolate itself in defeating its programming. Or become a ghost in the machine, a perpetually twenty-year-old poet type in an unrequited relationship.

Ok, weird and romantic, maybe a little steampunk, probably done before. But it appeals to me.

A Geeky Love Story

Have I explained how Richard and I met 13 years ago?

We met on Match.com, which was a thing back then. The full story is much quirkier. Let me explain:

I was a 41-year-old tenured professor who found the pickings in Maryville, MO very, very slim. I had only had two dates in the first seven years of living there, and both of them were men who hadn’t quite grown up (and both denied that they’d gone on a date with me. No idea why.)

I had shied away from online dating, because I was very skeptical. However, at a professional conference, I sat in on a session featuring Life Coaches, who are very talented people who help clients get out of their comfort zones and set new goals. One of the presenters said, “We can work with any problem. Does anyone have a problem they wish to explore?” Me, being the risk taker I am, announced in a room full of 400 people, “I’d like to find a husband.”

After a demonstration of how life coaches help break preconceived notions, I walked out of the room to deal with the bathroom lines. On my way out, an adorable plump woman tugged on my sleeve and whispered, “Try Match.com. That’s how I found my husband.”

When I arrived back home from the conference, I decided to experiment with three online dating sites: The want ads on Craig’s List, Match.com, and eHarmony. Craig’s List was a cesspool of married men whose wives didn’t understand them. I finally got forcibly removed from there because a man I jilted who wrote execrable poetry alleged that I had posted pornographic content. eHarmony would have been a good place if I were conservatively Christian and wanted to be a stepmom to someone’s kids. Match.com was intriguing — I got a lot of “I think I’d date you if you didn’t live so far away.”

And then there was Richard. A bit funny looking, very geeky and quirky, a lot like the people I hung out with in college. He wrote to me weekly, but he came off as — well, oblivious. Even so, I didn’t immediately click with him, and I had two other men in the periphery — one comically inept, the other a bad boy — that I might have been dating but wasn’t sure.

Richard and I had a meetup in Des Moines as I was on my way to visit my parents in Illinois. My mom called me while I was on the trip and I told her I was meeting up with a guy named Richard at the Barnes and Noble. She asked me his last name and I honestly didn’t know it, so I called Richard and asked him his last name so my mom wouldn’t think he was an axe murderer.

Then Richard invited me up to Des Moines for a Mannheim Steamroller concert. I can get into that family-friendly electronica stuff (although I prefer Dream Theater) so I said yes, and we ended up with our first date. Except that Richard discovered that I was going to eat Thanksgiving Dinner at the local Hy-Vee cafeteria. He invited me up to Thanksgiving dinner, which was an eclectic affair held by one of his friends. That ended up being our first date.

The next day, I introduced Richard to one of my favorite rituals — watching people shop on Black Friday. We said hi to a woman who talked with us briefly, and he later pointed out that she was his supervisor when he used to work at a bookstore —

Then I remembered stopping into a bookstore, where a spectacled man with black hair and Asian eyes recommended a book by an author his fiance loved.

Which is how Richard and I met, more than thirteen years ago.