Yep, I'm moving! From now on my blog will be on the home page of my website - www.joannerendell.com. Blogger served me well, but I felt it was time to move onto pastures new!
It's been over a month since I last blogged, either here or on the Huffington Post. Reason? I awarded myself a blog vacation - or rather, a blog sabbatical - in order to dig into the first complete draft of book 3.
Yes, more scandal! Just a couple of days ago I blogged about sex scandals in campus fiction (over at Huffpo). So it's very fitting that today I'm touring Carolyn Jewel's new book, Scandal, for the Girlfriend's Cyber Circuit.Carolyn Jewel has been writing stories ever since she could scribble. Now that she's grown up (mostly) she writes historical and paranormal romance because she loves history and imagining the lives of people who lived in years past, and because she's fascinated by the loves and travails of the not-exactly-human in any time period. Carolyn lives in Northern California with her son, three cats, a border collie, several chickens, some sheep and various strays and other rescued critters.
Carolyn took a moment - probably in the back of her car (see below!) - to answer some questions:
Tell me a little about what inspired your book?
Terror. I'm only partly kidding. Just about all my books are inspired by the terror of believing it isn't working and that, working or not, I won't be able to finish on time. More seriously, Scandal is set during the English Regency period (which was 1811-1820) and I very deliberately drew on my grad school research on a woman who wrote during this time period. Women of the English upper classes had few resources if the men in their lives did not, for whatever reason, fulfill their cultural obligation to take care of their female relatives. Writing novels was one of the few things a woman could do, openly or secretly, to make money. I was astonished to discover that the money a novelist could expect to make in 1815 isn't much different than it is today. The chief difference between then and now lies in the copyright. In 1815, publishers bought the copyright outright. The author was paid once and that was it. Today, authors typically retain the copyright to their work.
Did you have any input on the cover, and are you happy with the finished product?
My editor at Berkley, Kate Seaver, sent me some cover art by someone she was thinking of using to see what I thought of his style. She also asked me for my ideas and for samples of covers I liked. As it happens, I am completely clueless about what makes a good cover (aside from knowing a good one when I see it attached to somebody else's book). My samples were all fairly dreadful. They were great for books that were not mine, though. The people whose business it is to create covers that sell books ignored me, thank goodness, and came up with a very passionate cover that conveys the emotion between my hero and heroine. I love my cover and I am really, truly grateful for the talented people who worked to make it come together so wonderfully.
What's one piece of writing advice you've found valuable on your journey to publication?
Dorothea Brande's section of Tapping the Unconscious in "Becoming A Writer” which included this warning; "If you fail repeatedly at this exercise, give up writing. Your resistance is actually greater than your desire to write and you may as well find some other outlet for your energy early as late." (79). Alas, I failed miserably and repeatedly at her freewriting exercise. It seems I am a no-talent amateur with delusions of grandeur. I can't explain my ten (counting through the end of 2009) published novels, given this failure. I think I must be a freak of some sort.
Where do you write? Describe your writing space – is it a cluttered mess or minimalist heaven?!
Since my son plays on a traveling soccer team, I am often writing in the car during practice or before games. The backseat of my car is minimalist and I typically get a lot done since there isn't much else to do. During crunch times, I also write in the car during my lunch break. My room, where I do most of my writing (when not in the car) is a cluttered mess. My dog sleeps on the chair tucked behind my back while the cats take turns on my lap.
What's up next? Do you have another project in the works?
If so, please tell us about it.In June, 2009, Grand Central Publishing will release My Forbidden Desire, the second of an Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance set in a world that includes mages and demons. Indiscreet will be an October 2009 historical from Berkley Sensation.
Pick up your copy of Scandal at your local independent bookstore or at Amazon.
Universities are hot beds for sex scandals....at least according to a string of fiction writers, they are.
I have taken my rant about us "damned scribbling women" over to Huffington Post. Check out my new post...and also make sure to click over to Jennifer Weiner's wonderful article about women's memoir which inspired my Huffpo piece.
These amazing people are going to move into the White House. What a day! I'm off to party...
