The HEA Cafe

Hopefully, I am not going to upset anyone celebrating Thanksgiving — Canada celebrated their in October, probably because our winter comes earlier than yours.  Anyway, yesterday I went shopping for the ingredients for my Christmas Pudding. Yep, to me the Christmas season always starts when I make Christmas pudding.  Stir up Sunday, the day for making Christmas puddings is the last Sunday before Advent, though I may get mine done a bit earlier.

In our family, everyone must stir the pudding before it is cooked, so I have to time it around when I know everyone will be available. And this is what makes it one of life’s simple pleasures, remembering stir up Sundays with my mum, when she remembered the same thing with her mum.
So what does this have to do with my title.  Well, while I was shopping for the stuff, it made me think how wonderful it is still to be part of a tradition that has been going on for so long, just like the American Thanksgiving. And since I write Regency historicals it is kind of nice to know that I am still doing something the same as my characters experienced.
I do wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings with your families and friends.

And since this is a writers blog, I should mention that The Lady Flees Her Lord, should now be in a store near you.  Seeing your own book in a store is another of life’s pleasures (but not quite to simple).

So here come the holidays, and I am hopelessly behind schedule — again. My neighbors have already strung lights on their houses. People are flooding the malls. One woman I know is busy baking and freezing cookies — whereas I dread opening the mailbox because I know that any day now, some organized soul will send me that first holiday card.

And, of course, I’ve done nothing — no gifts, no cards, no decorating, no baking. The freezer is empty. The fall leaves still haven’t been raked. My house is torn apart from my unending painting project, with ladders and paint cans everywhere (update: the upstairs is finally done!).

Worse yet, I probably won’t do much. I’ve got a deadline to meet. My characters are stranded in the mountains — injured, in danger, far too aware of each other for comfort, and I’ve got to get them out. I can’t leave the house to go shopping when they’re consuming my thoughts.

The thing is, I LOVE the holidays. I love the music, the decorations. I have holiday dishes I never use, holiday recipes I never try out.

And every year I vow that this won’t happen again. Next year I’ll start shopping in September. I’ll get the cards addressed in October, have the baking done by Thanksgiving. And then in December, I’ll just sit back and relax — or finally host a holiday party with that fabulous homemade eggnog…

Instead, here I am with December looming, and I’m more behind than ever. The decorations are still in their boxes, the cards unbought. I seem to be spending my life in a hamster wheel, spinning wildly, unable to ever catch up. I’m now resigning myself to the knowledge that at least I won’t have a lot of post-holiday clean up to do…

So how about you? Are you hopelessly behind like I am? Or are you one of those organized souls? If you’d like to commiserate (or offer holiday tips), I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Oh - and I forgot to mention my greatest distraction: To Protect a Princess is on the shelves! I’ll be signing both of my Crusaders books (Heart of a Thief and To Protect a Princess) with Nora Roberts/JD Robb, Kathryn Caskie, Elaine Fox, and Dolly Nasby on December 6th, 1-3pm in Boonsboro, Maryland, so if you’re in the area, please stop by! For more information, or to get signed copies via a virtual booksigning go to: ttpbooks.com.

And happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Nope, nothing about being sick. Nothing about upholstery. This month my topic is book covers and, in my case, the re-issuance of my backlist with new cover art. Cover art specifically designed for romance readers.

I write science fiction romance and initially Bantam shelved me in science fiction. That meant–to their art department–that my covers required someone with a weapon and some kind of spaceship or space station in the background on my covers. When Bantam decided to move me over to the romance aisles, they felt new cover art–”rebranding” is what they called it–was required.

They felt they needed to acheive and/or address three things:

1) The covers had to have a clear image of romance

2) The covers had to have a clear image of science fiction

3) The covers had to be uniform in appearance so as to create a “Linnea Sinclair” brand.

This turned out to be far more difficult than we thought. For one thing, the art department’s idea of romance trended toward erotica (headless women in plunging leather bustiers, fishnet stockings and spike heels being caressed by headless men with naked torsos and very tight pants). I don’t write erotica and my agent and I both held firm in our stand that to put something of that level of enticement on my covers when it’s not also between the pages would inevitably create reader-disconnect. Not to mention reader-annoyance.

No one in any of my books wears spike heels or leather bustiers (I write mostly military settings–those kinds of outfits would be beyond ludicrous on a starship.)

We settled on disembodied heads (all those headless covers create a plethora of leftover heads, I’m guessing) usually against some kind of starfield or planet with a possible spaceship or three thrown in.

For the most part, I think they came out pretty dang good.

As for the branding part, they did two things: they put my name in large font and they used a monochromatic color scheme. (I’m a little concerned we will eventually run out of colors, especially when they tried to hit me up with hot pink for my February 2009 release, Hope’s Folly. I do not write hot pink. Do. Not.)

While I think the colors and font certainly create a brand, I’m also concerned it may create the feel of “series” where not all the books are. Gabriel’s Ghost and Shades of Dark are books #1 and #2 in the Dock Five universe. Hope’s Folly is book #3 but can stand alone. The rest are all stand alones but I fear that is something that may cause confusion.

Not that there’s much I can do about it. And they are eye-catching, which is a huge plus.

You can check them out here in a short promo video or browse them below. (It appears this version of WordPress doesn’t permit video embedding… or I’d have done so.)

The re-branded books were supposed to hit the shelves in August but in reality are just now being unpacked at most bookstores and making it to the shelves. So in your wanderings, should you see them, do drop me a note and let me know your opinions. You should be able to find them not only in romance but in end-caps in Borders and B&N.

~Linnea

www.linneasinclair.com

//interstellar adventure infused with romance//

I vote because I can.
I vote because my father was at Pearl Harbor.
I vote because my brother was in Viet Nam.
I vote because I don’t want my two sons to have to fight in a war.
I vote because I’m the first generation of my family born in America.
I vote because I was able to get a college degree, with government assistance.
I vote because while I grumble about my taxes, they “buy me civilization”.  I shouldn’t complain about how my taxes are gathered or spent if I don’t vote.
I vote because I truly believe each vote makes a difference.  Trust me on this, I’m a Floridian.

At the end of this day, history will have been made in the United States of America.  Either a black man will be president, or a woman will be vice-president.  Whether you’re red, blue, purple or some other color in the rainbow, vote.  It is the single most important thing you can do as a US citizen.

October is over. Somehow I have no idea where it went or what I did though by looking back over my calendar I can see I was busy. I had company. We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. I took a short trip to Colorado to visit my daughter and her family. I even went to a Saturday writing workshop. Writing wise I worked on a new three-book proposal while awaiting approval on a complete I had sent in early September. Approval came without a call for revisions. Yahoo.

Why am I telling you all this? Maybe so someone can tell me how it is that some months simply disappear? (Remember when we were young and thought a year between birthdays, or until the next Christmas or even summer vacation took FOREVER?)

We live in a fast paced world, multi-tasking so much we hardly remember what we’ve done two days after we’ve done it. I’ve decided it’s time to stop and savor the moment. With that in mind, I do several intentional things that make each special moment memorable.

One thing I do is journal. I have for years. At one time it was a way to keep sane—write down my thoughts, keep track of what I did (to prove to myself if no one else that I had actually done something noteworthy with my day.) Now I do that but I also note things that are special, fun, and memorable. Like the story my grandchild told me. Or the beautiful sunrise I see out my window. As Socrates says, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

Another way to savor each special moment is with my camera. I focus to take the picture. I savor again as I view each on my wide screen monitor. Then I print the best and put them in a photo album for further enjoyment.

I try to NOT multi-task when there is something special happening so I can really enjoy the moment. Multi-tasking is fine for household chores and mindless activities. But not for times spent with people and many other things. I am trying to learn to STOP and smell the flowers.

How about you? Do you find your world so fast paced it speeds by in a blur? Have you found ways to savor the special moments? I’d love to hear what others do to make those moments more memorable.