A Sense Of Place: Feature #1

"Fiction depends for its life on place. Place is the crossroads of circumstance..." -Eudora Welty

Setting has always been important to me; first as a reader, now as a writer.  I love finding a place that inspires its own story.  Here is one of those places, and those stories...

Some places are made for trysts.

It's dark.  The air is heavy with the smell of garlic and barbecue, damp with the fog rolling in off the ocean.  The parched grass is packed with chrome-plated motorcycles.  Blues music and raucous laughter filter through the open doors of the surrounding bars.

A woman stands, her back against the wall.  The heat of the day has soaked into the brick.  Now it seeps into her bones, warms her from the inside-out.  She lights a cigarette.  Her silver-ringed fingers cup the flame protectively, even though there's no breeze.

She isn't surprised when the man steps out of the shadows.  She wasn't waiting for him -or was she?  This time of night, people do what they can to forget.  He strides towards her with singular purpose, stops so close she can smell the fine leather of his battered jacket.

Neither speaks.  The woman takes a final drag of nicotine-rich smoke, and grinds out the cigarette on the brick behind her.    

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: View From The Wild Blue Yonder

 

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. -Saint Augustine

I missed you guys!

In case you were wondering where I'd gotten to, I just got back from a two-week family road trip.  My husband works super hard so I can write and take care of our son, and I haven't had a sabbatical since I started work on All That Glitters.  Almost two years ago.

Needless to say, it was high time we all took a break.

We drove from our home in the San Francisco Bay Area up to Seattle, Washington.  Stayed a week, visiting friends.  Drove back down to visit a friend in Eureka, California, then continued on down to San Diego.  We puttered around there for a week and reconnected with some more old friends.

In case you couldn't guess, we have friends pretty much everywhere.

In honor of our safe return, I thought I'd share some photos I took during our travels.  We had a grand time, and I even got some research in for future books.  Enjoy the photologue!

(above) View of the streets of Seattle from underground.  We took the official tour.  So cool!  The "skylights" are laid into the sidewalks.  I have visions of setting a future novel here.



(above) View of nighttime Seattle from a friend's rooftop. 

(above) Catching a late-night blues show in Eureka, California.  The harp player is a friend of ours.  I used to go to blues jams every week back when I lived in Redding; it felt good to reconnect with the scene!

(above) The Pacific Beach Pier, San Diego, California.  My husband and I used to walk here back when we were still dating.  It was fun reenacting that- even toting along a tired toddler who wouldn't stop screaming...

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Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Shivs, Slugs, And Shamuses

 

"Aw, lay off the business. It's like any other business, only here the blood shows." -Midge Kelly, Champion (1949)

I love a good, hard-boiled detective story.

You know the kind I mean.  The Big Sleep.  The Maltese Falcon.  The Kinsey Milhone mysteries.

I've been watching film noir for years now.  Recently, I realized it's been influencing my writing that entire time, even though I didn't always realize it.  There are a few things they all have in common that continually resonate with me:

1. Flawed heroes.  I love noir heroes.  The best ones are jaded, tortured, self-deprecating, and yet are tasked with protecting what little good exists in the world.  They always come through in the end, but far from being made whole by the journey, oftentimes they're left even more tortured than when they began.

2. Sympathetic villains.  Noir heroes and noir villains are opposite sides of the same coin.  Noir villains are the physical embodiments of the worst aspects of noir heroes.  Everything they do, the hero can understand, even empathize with, because deep down he's thought of doing the same thing himself.

3. Intense locales.  Noir settings play as much a role in the story as the characters do -in fact, they are often characters in their own rights.  Dark, ominous, they aid the villain and force the hero to rely on his wits to solve the mystery and stay alive.

4. Femme fatales.  If the noir villain is the opposite side of the hero, the femme fatale is the hero.  In an interview discussing his new noir series, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), put it best: "They're both making their own moral path through a world that is sinister and secretive. ...(they) are unapologetic about making their way in a world that seems to have no place for them."

5. Uncomfortable endings.  Don't watch a film noir if you're looking for a warm, fuzzy, Happily-Ever-After.  True noir rarely ends well.  Sometimes the good guys don't come out on top, and even if they defeat the villains, it is usually a hollow victory.

A lot of these elements have showed up in my writing.  Now that I've lifted them from my self-conscious, I expect they will even more in the future.

Not familiar with film noir?  Here are a few of my favorites to get you started:
Laura
Gilda
The Maltese Falcon
The Lady From Shanghai
The Big Sleep

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Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Body Art

 “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” -Rumi

I've been fascinated by scars since I was a kid.

Every scar is different.  Some add a dash of character.  Others horribly disfigure.  But all require the bearer to reevaluate a piece of their identity.

Scars are the body's way of healing itself.  It's almost miraculous, really.  Even if the object that caused the initial wound is still lodged inside, the body will weave a web of scar tissue around it.  The object becomes part of the body it injured.

When I was in high school, I had a friend who had been badly burned as a child.  She carried scars over 60% of her body.

She was one of the most beautiful people I'd ever known.

She bore her scars with the confidence only acquired by survivors of terrible things.  She was smart.  She was funny.  She was a force.

I've always wondered about the journey it takes to get to that point.

As writers, most of us start with scarred characters -if not physically, then emotionally.  Their internal struggle often makes up the meat of what we write.  At least, it does for me. 

It's not often in our society we get to meet tough -truly tough- people.  Most of the scarred people I've talked to are strong, kind, wise beyond their years.  They've integrated their scars into their personal view of themselves, and they are never the same.

If anything, they're stronger.     

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Burlesque Wednesday: Pearls and Mirrors

We're back! Miss us?

How Tough Is Too Tough?

"A black pool opened up at my feet. I dived in. It had no bottom" -Dick Powell, Farewell, My Lovely 

Romance is not traditionally known as a "gritty" genre.

In one of the first reviews I received for All That Glitters, the reviewer commented on how I had the villain take a life.  She wasn't put off by this- in fact, I got the impression she saw it as a plus- but the fact that she mentioned it at all was telling.

Vivid descriptions of violence or brutality used to be reserved for, well, every genre but romance.  Romance was where you came for the warm fuzzies, the champagne bubbles, the Happily Ever After.  Too much grit was deemed inappropriate.

But romance is changing.  All the genres are.  Self-publishing, especially, has broken, reformed, and broken all the rules again.  Authors have more leeway to write the books they want to write, and readers have access to stories that previously never made it past the editorial board.

So in a literary world where there are no hard-and-fast rules, how do you know when you've crossed a line?

There seem to be different standards for different romance subgenres.  Romantic suspense, for example, can get away with more violence than contemporary romance.  In dystopian romance, violence is almost required.  Inspirational romance allows for nearly none.

Personally, I'm playing things by ear.  My story ideas lend themselves to a higher level of violence, so I go with it.  So far, the response has been positive.  I think romance readers are ready for more "toughness" in the genre.

And finally, writers are in a position to deliver.

Thursday's Children Blog Hop: Ode To The Asshole

"I'm not a tough guy.  I'm just delivering the truth and the only truth and if you can't deal with it, too bad." -Kevin O'Leary

In a previous post, I talked about what constitutes a "tough" woman (if you missed "Ode To The Bitch", you can find it here).  I wanted to talk about women because oftentimes, tough women are a mystery.  But that post got me thinking.

What about men?

Tough guys have been reduced to caricatures in our society.  The street thug.  The gangbanger.  The dumb goon.  "Toughness" in men is associated with being dangerous, mean, even abusive.

I have a different idea of what it means to be tough.

I've known a lot of tough men.  To the person, they blow the stereotypes out of the water. 

Here's what they've taught me about what it really means to be a tough guy.

Tough guys don't advertise.  If you have to tell someone you're a tough guy -by how you talk, walk, or dress- odds are you're not as tough as you think you are.  The toughest guys I've ever met look just like everyone else... until someone crosses that uncrossable line.

Then watch out.

Tough guys crack jokes, not just skulls.  All the tough guys I've met are rib-shatteringly funny.  I don't know why this is.  Maybe it's a way to diffuse a bad situation before it develops- I honestly have no idea.

It's not exactly a requirement, but if you come across a guy with a wicked sense of humor, odds are, he can hold his own when it's called for.

Tough guys look out for those weaker than them.  This includes women, children, old people, even other men.  Anyone who takes advantage of or tries to intimidate others isn't a tough guy; he's a bully.

Tough guys take care of themselves.  I'm not just talking about in a fight.  They can sew a button, do their own laundry, throw together an edible meal.  True tough guys don't rely on other people to look after them.  They look after themselves.

Tough guys don't start fights- they finish them.  You won't find a tough guy picking fights.  Tough guys know the damage they can do, and in most situations, would prefer to just walk away.

But don't think that means they won't fight.  Hurt someone they care about or throw the first punch, and they'll make sure you never make the same mistake twice.

Tough guys need tough women.  Relationships succeed when both parties are equal.  The only person equal to a tough guy is a tough woman.  She sees through the bluster and the bullshit, and knows a tough guy will treat her the way she deserves.

The opposite is also true.  Tough guys look at a woman other people might dismiss as a "bitch", and see someone who will be able to keep up.  Plus, they love a challenge, and nothing is more challenging than winning a tough woman's heart.

They may not draw attention to themselves, but there are still tough guys out there, if you know where to look.  They are infinitely more interesting -and infinitely tougher- than anything Hollywood could come up with.

And they're the men I choose to base my heroes on.

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