A Name Change, It’s All Subjective, and More
To keep confusion to a minimum, I’m jumping right into the name change. As some of you may have noticed, my name/layouts/sites have changed some this past week. Well, I finally decided on a pseudonym, and combining that with my attempt at branding, I jumped into the deep end.
Say hello to the next phenom of historical romance, Pamela Cayne. *applause* Along 
with Pamela comes her unique logo/avatar of the lovely scrolled heart, so that you may recognize her at any cyber-site you visit. (Okay, I’ll stop doing the 3rd person thing—it’s just not working for me.) In addition to this blog, my website, and my MySpace page, I’ve finally drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid and have joined Twitter and Facebook. (All links are over there on the right, but not the Facebook. I still haven’t figured out how to link my Facebook page, but I do know if you go to their lovely site and search for Pamela Cayne, I show up.) They are addictive little sites, so I’m going to try and limit my time on them. If you have any tips how to do this, please forward them. Please!
Thanks to all for their supportive thoughts after last week’s non-Golden Heart call. I think the God of Publishing wanted to further reinforce the message of “It’s All Subjective” because on Friday I received my judging sheets from a RWA chapter contest I’d entered earlier in the year. Get this—out of the three judges, one enjoyed it but suggested I work on my pacing and gave me a moderate score; the second I would have to say hated it because she gave me a 27 out of 50 (that’s a 54%) and really didn’t have any comments to say other than my heroine was whiny; and the third—yes, you guessed it—she gave me a 49 out of 50 and just gushed about it. How’s that for a message? Yeesh.
So how’s the dark historical you ask? Well, I had a major brain blockage blown to smithereens with a forehead-slapping, teeth-clenching, Duh moment. The good news is with the blockage gone, my protagonist can really flow. The bad news is realizing I have about 2 weeks more editing/rewriting before I can get this baby off to my crit and beta readers (and the lovely goo I had to clean out of my car after my head exploded with this realization.) I know it’s all for the good, but as I was telling a friend of mine, I feel like I’m in the 11th month of a pregnancy and it’s just time to be done! There must be something in the air because I’ve read posts from at least two of you who seem to feel the same way. And just like you wonderful people, it’s hard to push through this last bit because I’ve got a lovely new book whispering seductively in my ear, and the girls want to play. So I’m giving myself an assignment to get BROKEN finished in 2 weeks or else. (Or else what, you ask? I don’t know. I’ll think of a suitable punishment complete with disappointed looks and stern finger shaking.)
So I hope you’re all doing well. It’s almost April (hooray!) and I proclaim that it will be an excellent month. Of course, that’s not too hard to do. Any month where the major holiday encourages Cadbury cream eggs and chocolate rabbits has got to be fabulous.
The Silver Lining
As with so many of my posts, I have an idea in mind for the topic, but then something so compelling comes along that I have to write about it instead. Yes, it happened again today, just about 10 minutes ago as a matter of fact. My “Wazzup” post of general updates has now been pre-empted by “The Silver Lining.”
The cloud behind this silver lining was the fact that today RWA announced their finalists for the RITA (for published) and Golden Heart (unpublished.) I entered my screwball paranormal in the Golden Heart and no, it didn’t final. Was I crushed/despondent/heartbroken/postal? Well, maybe for a second or so, but no not really. (Thank you Starbucks Chai latte and glazed apple fritter.) You see, where I was disappointed, I was also cushioned, and that my friends, made all the difference.
It all started last night when I saw Marilyn’s post on the expectations of this day, and somebody had better call Bill Gates, because Marilyn has found a way to send love and support through the cyber-world and that’s an application Bill is going to want. (And I blame Marilyn for getting the tears started!)
Then this morning I woke up to a sweet note and drawing from Montana, and let me just say that he is a keeper. (But I already knew that.)
Then, on one of the thousands of times I checked my email, I received the most wonderful, kind, supportive emails in the entire universe from my friend Melina. It’s going up on my inspiration board and if I see her in D.C. this summer she’d better watch out because I’m going to hug her so tightly her eyes might pop out.
Then, when the nominations were announced and I frantically checked my category, I didn’t see my name there, but I did see somebody familiar—my separated-at-birth friend L.A. Mitchell. Somehow seeing that she had been nominated eased my pain of not. And she’d also better watch out in D.C. because I’m bringing a freaking bullhorn to the ceremony and when she wins, the only thing the crowd is going to hear is me yelling and my bullhorn playing “Dixie”, just like the horn on the General Lee.
And as if that weren’t enough, I see that the amazing Samantha Graves got a RITA nod for Best Contemporary Single Title Romance for “Out of Time.” More hooting and hollering at the ceremony (because of course she’s going to win—duh!) and extra confetti for everything she’s given to me and the rest of us at Will Write For Wine.
So my “Wazzup” post will be forthcoming, along with the others I mentioned earlier this week, but for now I want to offer congratulations to L.A. and Sam and thanks to all of you for making my blog a happy place to be.
Calling Indiana Jones…
Hello! I thought it fair to post a quick message before you called Indy to come find me. And sadly, I don’t even have a good Raiders of the Lost Blog story to tell you about the silence around here, I’ve just been supercalifragilisticexpialidocious busy.
I promise on my chai tea that I’ll have a real post for you this week. Coming up, I’ve got some fun ones planned involving movies, song lyrics and even one that involves a picture of me with Stormtroopers.
How’s that for a hook?
Art Imitates Life
There’s a small part of me that wishes I could be like Monica on Friends. You know what 
I’m talking about–obsessively clean, gets a thrill in organizing, wants nothing more under the Christmas tree (or, given Monica, as a Hanukkah gift) than a ShamWow. Remember what she did when she and Rachel had to move into Chandler and Joey’s apartment? How many of us didn’t give a little sigh and say wistfully, “I’d live there…” (And yes, I know Monica and Rachel and everybody else are part of T.V. Land and thus Not Real, but I’m making a point here.)
But I’m not like that. Yes, I enjoy it when my house is clean as much as the next person, though a clean house is not at the top of my priority list. Not even in the top three. In fact, I’d have to take a hard look at my list to see where it did fall. And as much as I could regale you with what my list did contain, I’ll save you that journey and tell you what absolutely, positively comes above cleaning every time.
Writing.
I’m one of those writers who has willingly and openly given up a 
clean house so that I may dedicate more time to my writing. (And that includes the physical act of writing, as well as researching, planning, editing, replenishing the creative well, playing with The Girls and everything else under my Writing Umbrella.) I know there are those of you who manage to balance writing and cleaning and I take my hat off to you. Of course, I’d probably leave it dropped on the back of the couch as I went for my laptop, but that’s my burden to bear.
Why this post, why now? Because I had an epiphany this weekend, that’s why. We have company coming this weekend, so this past weekend was spent cleaning. Not just my usual straighten-the-stacks cleaning either, I’m talking products, tools and attachments. It started Friday night and ended Sunday about 4:30. (There’s still a few more things to be done, but after two straight days of bending, stretching and reaching, I was pooped.)
But the epiphany, Pam, you scream. What about the epiphany?
Mid-day Sunday I was doing another pass with the vacuum cleaner when a thought struck me. In the Harry Dresden books, somewhere around book 7 or 8, we are told that as a thank you for a service Harry did for some group of the Fey (I’d have to look to be exact, but you get the gist of it…), a group of Brownies (not the girl scouts) now comes and cleans Harry’s apartment and stocks the refrigerator with food. Around this book, I’m sure Jim Butcher (the author) was writing the Dresden books, writing his Codex Alera series, and possibly somehow involved with his Sci-Fi series of Harry Dresden. Plus, his wife, Shannon, had her first book of a series coming out around this 
time and I will bet you dollars to donuts that the Butcher household was crazy busy. I can just see it. During one of the 3.5 free seconds they had during the day, Jim and Shannon found themselves on the couch, barely enough energy to talk. One of them rolled their head to face the other and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have some fairies come and clean the house for us? We wouldn’t see them, just come back from (activity here) and it would be done? The laundry and the shopping, all done.” And Jim, brilliant writer that he is, put that idea in his book. Now, it might not have happened anything like that, or I may be reading far too much into one little detail of some 20+ book (planned) series, but I can’t help but wonder if in this case the idea came from real life.
No wonder he’s a bestseller.
