It feels a bit strange making a post about my birthday, but it’s not just mine.  It’s also Mark’s birthday.  It also happens to be our wedding anniversary.  And the anniversary of the day we met.

No one has any excuses in our household if they forget the date.

The reason I’m writing the post instead of glossing right over the date is because this year is an aberration.

Every year since Mark and I met, sixteen years ago, on the Saturday closest to our birthdays & wedding anniversary, we have thrown a humungous birthday/anniversary party (called the birth-a-versary party), invited everyone we know, and partied until everyone decided to go home, which in some years, they didn’t. We ended up making breakfast for hungry hoards the next morning and handing out hangover cures.

For the first time in sixteen years, on this, our 15th wedding anniversary, we’re not doing the party.  I’m not sure if I’m upset about that, or just feeling superstitious, like we’re inviting bad luck by not keeping up the tradition.

I’m writing this post on the long weekend just before the 22nd, which is the weekend we would have had the party.  Mark is on the road on a three-day wrestling road trip, which put the kibosh on the party.  Oh, we probably could have squeezed it into the Sunday night, as it’s a long weekend, but that would have made it a nightmare weekend, and these days, with both of us working day jobs, and our “real” careers demanding just as much time outside office hours, we’re feeling a bit stretched.  The planning for the party just didn’t happen.

So Mark and I are going out for dinner, instead.  Which is just…weird.  It will be lovely to have the night out.  I haven’t eaten out at a restaurant for quite a while.  But I still feel like I’ve invited a hex.

I had no idea I was so tradition-bound…!

______________

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I have owned the extended cut of The Mask Of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro for years.  They’re my go-to movies, whenever I want to watch something escapist and totally romantic.

Which is a little ironic, because the first time I saw the sequel, The Legend of Zorro, I hated it.  I can’t even tell you why I hated it, now, because of the two I love and adore the sequel far and above the original.  I think it may have had something to do with the fact that they had messed with history just a bit too much, made the characters older, even “mature,” or flat out old if you’re feeling uncharitable.

Which is why the movie works so well as a romance, and probably why it tanked at the box office.  Really good romances never sell in film as well as they do in books, and the romance between Alejandro and Elena was established and had a history…there was much more at stake than just broken hearts, including their son.

Nevertheless, the movie grows on you, and if you watch it purely as a romance, it works very well indeed.

There’s a lot I could say about this movie’s romance storyline, but I will severely restrict my tongue.

For nearly a year now, I’ve been deprived of watching them because someone (nameless) misfiled the DVDs in the weirdest place in the house…at the bottom of a pile of my taxation filing.  Which guaranteed I wouldn’t look at it for at least a year.  I’ve been tearing shreds off my family for a year, utterly convinced someone (nameless) had loaned the movies out to a friend, who had carelessly failed to return them (a death penalty offence in my friendship contract), and I’ve been building up to a slow boil all year.

Until I opened up the filing and there they were.   I still have no idea how they got there.  Honestly!

But I’m very glad to get them back.

I mentioned in a post the other day that I showcase delicious romance moments in my Pulse Pause Moments series, and I did a quick search this morning on the series, and discovered that I’ve never showcased the Zorro movies, despite the fact that there’s at least a dozen heart-stopping moments scattered across the two movies.  I’ve written about the movies in different posts here and there, but not formally acknowledged some of the great moments in this series.

So.

I always return to this moment because it seems to be a complete summation of Alejandro and Elena’s relationship.  They’ve divorced (shocking for those days), she’s being courted by a French aristocrat, Count Armand, and Alejandro is not handling it well at all.  When he challenges Armand, the count settles for polo, not pistols, and then, with Elena’s help, slaughters Alejandro in three face-offs.

As Alejandro dusts himself off, Elena demands he leave her and Armand alone.  He studies her…and he knows.  All his anger falls away, and he becomes calm and certain.  “You don’t love him,” he says.  “After ten years of marriage, you cannot hide the truth from me.”  And he walks away.

Elena bows her head after he has gone, perhaps acknowledging what he has said.

It’s not what they call one of the “set-peices” of the movie — the big scenes where all the action and money is spent.  But it’s a humdinger of a moment in terms of emotions and their relationship.

It’s one I remember the best, right up there with when Zorro is unmasked. [ooh, momma!]

____________

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Stop #8 and final stop of the Bannockburn Binding book tour.

Today I’m at Bitten By Paranormal Romance.  And yes, I’m still talking about history.  But I’m also talking about vampires, time travel, tourism and some really cool vacation spots.

Swing by for an excerpt that hasn’t been seen anywhere else and drop a line saying hello.

This is your last chance to win a copy of Blood Knot, too!

____________

Bannockburn Binding - Tracy

Blood Knot by Tracy Cooper-Posey

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This post is part of a series.

Part 1: Damn Good Romances
Part II: Romantic Tension
Part III: Romantic Conflict
Part IV: Emotional Intensity
Part V: Heart-Stopping Moments

______________

Heart-Stopping Moments

Heart stopping moments in romance novels are for me, one of the reasons I’m so addicted to romance novels, and to certain authors in particular, who seem to be able to deliver heart-stoppers one or twice or more per novel like clockwork.

What is a heart stopping moment?

Heart-stopping moments almost invariably involve (one of) the hero(es), but they don’t have to.  And they nearly always are moments where you, the reader, and perhaps the heroine catch a glimpse of the hero’s true, hot and hard feelings for the heroine.

They’re the moments when you catch your breath as a reader and if the heroine is aware of the moment at all, she comes to a full stop, too.

You get heart stoppers in movies, too, but film as a medium has more ways to deliver heart-stoppers:  a searing glance from the hero, a touch or near-touch.  One of the best recent examples I can think of in film is from the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen and involved nothing more than the touch of hands.  Darcy helped Elizabeth up into the carriage, which is what a gentleman does.  But it startles her, and the touch of their hands is a genuine heart-stopping moment for both the audience and for Elizabeth…and for Darcy, for there is a close-up of his hand as he walks away from the carriage, and he flexes it, like he’s recovering from electric shock.

If you’re a romance lover, you can’t watch that scene without your pulse lifting.

But that’s film, and what film doesn’t get to do is dip into the hearts and minds of the characters, which is where romance novels excel.  We get to see the wholesale chaos and emotional turmoil such moments cause.  And that’s what makes them so delicious.

Another classic moment, this one from a novel, is from Gone With the Wind.  It’s a single line that reverses the entire scene’s meaning.  When Scarlett goes to visit Rhett in jail, wearing her mother’s curtains, to borrow the money to pay the taxes on Tara, she fails because Rhett can move any of his money or the Yankees will seize it.  In the movie, most of the desparate emotion of this scene has been stripped out, and the scene is reduced down to witty badinage between Rhett and Scarlett.  But in the book, the scene is a high stakes one where Scarlett literally offers her body and soul before Rhett turns her down, immensely pleased by the moment of entertainment she has provided.

Just at the end of the scene as she’s leaving, completely defeated, Rhett offers Scarlett some advice.

“You are well enough, I see. Then, tell me this. Was I the only iron you had in the fire?” His eyes were keen and alert, watching every change in her face.

“What do you mean?”

“Was I the only man you were going to try this on?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“More than you realize. Are there any other men on your string? Tell me!”

“No.”

“Incredible. I can’t imagine you without five or six in reserve. Surely someone will turn up to accept your interesting proposition. I feel so sure of it that I want to give you a little advice.”

“I don’t want your advice.”

“Nevertheless I will give it. Advice seems to be the only thing I can give you at present. Listen to it, for it’s good advice. When you are trying to get something out of a man, don’t blurt it out as you did to me. Do try to be more subtle, more seductive. It gets better results. You used to know how, to perfection. But just now when you offered me your—er—collateral for my money you looked as hard as nails. I’ve seen eyes like yours above a dueling pistol twenty paces from me and they aren’t a pleasant sight. They evoke no ardor in the male breast. That’s no way to handle men, my dear. You are forgetting your early training.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to behave,” she said and wearily put on her bonnet. She wondered how he could jest so blithely with a rope about his neck and her pitiful circumstances before him. She did not even notice that his hands were jammed in his pockets in hard fists as if he were straining at his own impotence.

Margaret Mitchell – Gone With The Wind

It’s that last sentence that is the tell, the giveaway.  It’s the heart-stopping moment that turns the entire meaning of the scene around.  The movie skipped over it altogether.

Really good romances will have one or two of these heart-stopping moments in them, and it is these moments that you’ll remember the most when you think about the story.  They’re encapsulated, one screen-shot images full of emotion, emotional conflict, romantic tension, character tension…the lot.

For that reason, a good author will very closely stage-manage their heart-stopping moments for maximum drama and impact.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll already be familiar with the idea of heart-stopping moments.  I show case some of the best in film, novels and television drama as “Pulse Pause Moments.”  And there have been some doozies!

Here’s another one:

She leaned down closer to Luke. “Could I speak to you outside for a moment? Please?”

His eyes narrowed a little and she saw his gaze flick across the other three men. “Sure,” he murmured, standing up.

She walked back out of the room and shut the door behind Luke as he emerged.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I was…” She could feel panic gripping her chest. It was just like at the Christmas party. Her heart was starting to pound. “I was wondering about…whether…you…” She had to stop for a breath.

Luke was watching her, letting her battle it alone. Not helping her out. Well, she hadn’t said anything, yet. He had no idea what she was going to say. Or did he?

She knew she had to spit it out, no matter what agonies it caused her. “Come over for coffee tonight,” she said, the first inane idea to show itself.

“Coffee.” His eyes narrowed a little.

“Coffee and…” She shrugged, trying to make it look casual despite her clammy hands.

“Oh, coffee and. Yes, I’m acquainted with coffee and.” He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “What are you serving? Cappuccino? Latte?” He smiled. “Or double double decaf…all froth and no substance?”

“Macciata,” she answered, irritation flaring.

“Macc— Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that?”

She swallowed. “Long. Long espresso…with a dash.”

“Long…” His expression was thoughtful, almost dreamy.

“Double strength,” she added. “It’ll keep you up all night.”

She realized the double meaning the instant she’d spoken and braced herself for Luke’s comeback. He would not spare her over such a slip.

But he leaned closer to her, his voice dropping low. “I don’t need espresso for that, Lynds. I just need you.”

She could feel the same breathless, floor-dropping sensation envelope her but this time it was anything but unpleasant. She was staring into his black eyes, lost there, floating weightless in a maelstrom of hot need.

She yearned for him to lean that little bit further and kiss her and take her into his arms and run his hands over her body, peeling aside all her clothes, which suddenly felt tight, restrictive—almost claustrophobic.

She wanted to be plundered just like all the heroines she’d read about. She had dismissed the idea as silly, vapid, until this moment. Now she understood it and wanted it, with every fiber of her soul.

She heard her breath push past her open lips with an unsteady rush.

And that’s when he moved away.

He straightened, like a soldier snapping to attention when caught off-guard by his superior officer. His expression resembled a man caught by surprise too.

He straightened his cuffs with a sharp tug. “I can’t come over tonight,” he said crisply. “I have a prior engagement.”

Lucifer’s Lover (c) 2012

What are the heart-stopping moments in your favourite romances?

Next: Uncertainty of Outcome

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Mark here.

So, I’m about to leave for a three day wrestling road trip and Tracy’s getting ready. Having me on the road for three days means that she gets three days of uninterrupted writing time. And she wants to make the most of it. That means it’s time to clear the decks – get everything else done and out of the way. So, like any good husband, I asked what I could do to help.

And here I am…

Now, what the hell am I going to write about?

I could write about all the crazy, wild, three-way sex we have as research for her books… but, we’re not supposed to talk about that in public. ;)

I could write about how Diana By The Moon got me in big trouble, caused a huge fight and a burned dinner just after it was written… but why dredge up the past?

I could write about how important tagging books on Amazon.com is to an author and that I think you should go tag Tracy’s books… but, I’m sure Tracy wouldn’t want me to talk about that.

Or I could just say that I think my wife is a brilliant writer and an inspired storyteller. Just how good she truly is amazes me. And, if you’ve ever bought and read any of her books, I’m sure you’d agree with me. If you haven’t bought and read any of her books, what are you waiting for??? Go buy Blood Knot! It’s only $2.99 and then you’ll be able to see for yourself.

Oh wait, I could talk about the time that Tracy and I went to the Romantic Times Convention and she dressed me up in bondage gear and led me around on a leash… but, now I’m out of space.

Maybe next time… if she lets me.

No related posts.

What I’m listening to, actually.  Unusual, for me, I know.  Mark is a huge TED Talks fan, and if he watches a particularly good one, he’ll grab me by the elbow, nail me to the floor for the ten or twelve minutes the talk lasts, and make me keep still long enough to watch it.  It’s usually worth it, too.

This time around, it was really worth standing still for the twelve minutes and two seconds that Shaw Achor explained about how most people put the cart before the horse:  They figure that if they can just achieve all the success they want to achieve in the world, then they’ll be happy.  In fact, it’s the other way around.  Happy people are more than 30% more successful at everything they do.   And if you can find a way to be happy first, you can actually re-wire your brain to achieve more success.

The talk is laugh-out-loud funny, but has some sobering ideas wrapped up in the giggles.

Achor has a book out, The Happiness Advantage, but I so enjoyed the TED talk (I’ve watched it three times so far), and the stories of Amy the Unicorn and her husband Bobo, that I by-passed the book in favour of the unabridged audio presentation of the book.

The Happiness Advantage doesn’t just apply to business, I believe.  It could be used for life in general.

If you’d like to check out the TED talk, you can view it on the TED website or on YouTube.  It’s an entertaining twelve minutes at the very least.

___________

The other book I’m working through, very slowly, because it’s pretty dry going, is Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z by John G. Younger.

You’d think a book with a title like that would be an absolute page turner, but this is a Routledge Press title (Routledge specialize in academic publications – especially from the humanities).

It’s research for any number of books I have planned for the near future — especially all the time travel books I’m writing.  And I just plain love dipping back into history.  But academic writers really know how to take the fun out of a subject.  I have to rehydrate everything I’m reading to get any sense of wonder out of it.

Still, there’ll be a pay off in future books. ;)

______________

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I’m speaking as part of a panel of romance authors giving a talk at the St. Albert Public library tomorrow.  If you’re in the area, stop by and hear what we all have to say about the state of the industry, and linger afterwards to say hello.

Mention you saw this post.  I promise I’ll be tinkled pink.  :)

St. Albert Public Library
5 St. Anne Street
St. Albert  AB T8N 3Z9

Phone 780-418-6622

The panel starts at 3:00 p.m.

Here’s a mudmap just in case you’re not super familiar with that end of the city (I’m not!):

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This post is part of a series.

Part 1: Damn Good Romances
Part II: Romantic Tension
Part III: Romantic Conflict
Part IV: Emotional Intensity
Part V: Heart-Stopping Moments

______________

Emotional Intensity

When I first started writing romance novels, I was still living in Australia.  Everyone writing romance back then seemed to be reading Harlequin Romance and Harlequin Presents books.  We knew them as Mills & Boon novels.  The big sweeping historical romance novels that most American readers grew up reading were unavailable to us.  So when we started writing, we naturally turned to Mills & Boon as the market we wanted to break in to.  It was also a very lucrative market.  There were dozens of authors making very good money indeed writing four books a year for M&B, and many of them were Australian and New Zealand authors.

Back then, Mills & Boon in London had a standard rejection letter which was notorious in writing circles, and universally dreaded by writers just starting to market their work.

The body of the letter — all of it — ran:

“We have considered your novel Wuthering Heights, and although it is well written, we feel it lacks the extra degree of emotional punch for which we look.”

Trying to crack this “emotional intensity” code was the subject of endless working sessions where manuscripts were critiqued to death in search of the answer.

The telling thing about this rejection letter is that it is standard — in other words, it serves to explain the majority of rejections.  This means the majority of manuscripts received do not have enough emotional intensity.

It’s a good demonstration of how important this element is to a romance novel.

Emotional intensity isn’t a single element you can put your finger on, and say “there it is.”  It’s a by-product of a dozen different elements in a romance novel all working together seamlessly, to build up the emotional tension to a fever pitch, then mercilessly holding it there until the endThe bigger elements that contribute to the emotional intensity include:

• The characters
• The plot
• The romantic conflict

To some degree, the setting can also contribute.  Historical romances, for instance, can add to the reader’s sense of emotional intensity, if they’re historical lovers, and the author has done a good job of description and scene setting.  Paranormals, with atmospheric settings, can work the same way.

But settings can also kill off the positive romantic emotional tension, if they’re the wrong sort.  That’s why romantic suspense authors are possibly the most underrated authors in the genre.  They’re constantly juggling hard, gritty storylines against the need to keep the romantic storyline tension wound up tight.  It can be an enormous challenge.

But you will know when the emotional intensity is creeping upwards, because whenever a scene shifts away from the hero(es) and heroine and their problems, and you are mildly annoyed, because you just want to get back to them and see what happens next — that’s emotional intensity at work.

That’s when a romance novel starts to become “unput-downable.”

Next: Heart Stopping Moments

____________________

No related posts.

It’s only now I’ve recalled a pithy little line I included in the special features for The Royal Talisman:

“I have also been accused of an inability to write anything short to save my life.”

Good thing a hanging didn’t depend on the turn of that phrase.  Because I blithely included in the description for the Beloved Bloody Time series this disaster of a sentence:

“The books are short.”

Was it me that really said that?

What was I thinking?   I must have been on catnip at the time.

Anyway, here’s the very good news:  I’m closing in on the finish line for Byzantine Heartbreak, the second book of the series.  I can see the checkered flag from here, and if I can finish up my blog posts for the week fast enough, I might even finish the first draft this weekend.

That’s somewhat iffy, though, as Mark is wrestling here in Edmonton this weekend, so I’m going to be spending the day at the arena, and even though I spend the day with my laptop on my knees, I don’t usually get a lot of writing done.  I do get a lot of talking done, though!

But, back to my sad tale of my inadequacies as an author.

Byzantine Heartbreak was supposed to be short.  A fast, snappy read to match Bannockburn Binding, full of hot love scenes, action, tension and suspense.

Well, it’s got all that and more.  It’s just got a lot more of it than I’d anticipated.  Like…nearly twice as much.

Oops.

But, more good news.  One of the glories of self publishing is that I can take these sorts of snafus in stride.  I wrote a book twice as long as it was planned to be?  No problems.  We’ll just publish a book twice as long!  (‘We’, you understand, being ‘me, myself & I’.)

I imagine the length will shorten down a bit once I edit and tidy up the prose.  But at the moment it’s a plus-sized novel and I’m estimating it will be around the 400 page mark by the time I’m done.   That’s a hefty tome by anyone’s standard.  I think, even with hard pruning, it’s still going to be a long novel.

I’m not going to cut it in half or anything drastic like that just to maintain a series uniformity or, heaven forbid, a market price.  The story needs to take up whatever room it needs to be told well.  I have that freedom now.  So you get a fully developed story and characters, and you don’t get short-changed.

Here’s a snippet.  Warning: frank language ahead!

An Excerpt From: BYZANTINE HEARTBREAK
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

“Why’d’you say that?” Ryan asked.  “He’s a good man.”

“’cause he’s a vamp hater,” Cáel replied.  He shook his head.  “A great man, ‘cept for he’s flawed.”

Ryan was staring at him.  “That’s…he comes off like he’s Henry Kissinger.  How could you know that?”

Cáel shrugged.  “We were lovers for nearly a year.  Then I found out.”  He shuddered and drank.  He reached for the bottle to refill, and realized that Ryan was still staring at him.

“Lovers?  You?” Ryan said.

“Think you’ve got a corner on the market, Irishman?”  Cáel topped up Ryan’s glass.  “Not everyone goes for poetic lilts, you know.”

Ryan half-laughed.  He picked up his drink.  “So…what is this, then?  Are we on a date?”

Cáel’s stomach seemed to drop out from his body with a sickening, electrifying rush.  It had nothing to do with the whiskey.  He let his hand drop away from the glass and looked at Ryan, wishing his heart would quieten.  “Do you want it to be?”

Ryan was sitting motionless in the chair, the forgotten whiskey glass held in mid-air.  His eyes were narrowed, all emotion shielded.  After a moment, he gave a tiny shrug, and his mouth lifted in a little smile.  “You’ve gotta know, Stelios, I haven’t had a lover for centuries.  Not since—“

“Bullshit,” Cáel replied.

Ryan’s eyes widened, losing their guarded expression.  The surprise was quite clear.  He put his glass back on the bar.

Cáel didn’t give him time to pull his defense shield back together.  “You’ve had plenty of liaisons and partners, and a ton of sex, and that’s just in the 23rd century that Lyle Bean could find out about.  Do you want me to actually name names?”

Ryan opened his mouth to speak.

Cáel jumped in again.  “It doesn’t matter, anyway.  Because you’re hiding behind a distinction.  You don’t mind hot sweaty sex with whoever appeals to you whenever you feel like it, but what you really mean when you say you haven’t had a lover in centuries is that you haven’t fallen in love.  You haven’t had a relationship that lasted longer than a week.  You haven’t had the guts to try, and that’s pretty sad, isn’t it?”

Ryan was breathing hard, his eyes narrowed with anger.  But that was natural reaction.  Cáel had just kicked him in the guts.  Now he had to get him past the moment.

Cáel knocked back his drink and put the glass on the bar with a rap.  “Let’s get rid of the tap-dancing, because we both know how to do it too well, and we could talk me into a too-early grave with diplomatic waltzing.”  He took a breath, to steady himself.  “Do I want to fuck you, Ryan?  Yes.”

____________

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1. Working Notes – December 26, 2011 My best wishes to everyone who celebrated Christmas Day yesterday, and for everyone who got the day off from work, I hope you made the...
2. Working Notes – Byzantine Heartbreak is Underway. Yeah! It’s been a weird week. For a start, it’s been very cold. Like, 35 degrees Celsius below zero cold. That’s negative 31 in Farenheit for...
3. Working Notes – December 12, 2011 I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring...
4. Working Notes – October 24, 2012: Snippit to Tease You Kate’s body tightened again at the idea that he had spared her a moment’s attention, and she frowned at her own vapidness.  “Sudden business trip?”...
5. Working Notes – September 26: Blood Stone I’ve been getting a huge number of hits on the site lately for Brian Austin Green, and the role he played in Terminator: The Sarah...

I’ve signed a new deal that will allow my books to be carried in retail bookstores (yeah!) and with on-line retailers like Barnes & Noble.com, not just Amazon.

This means that if you have a favourite little independant brick & mortar bookstore or even a big store down at your local mall that you like to step into instead of always buying on-line, and you’re still reading in paperback, you can now order my books with them.  If you get the print ISBN from Amazon (not the ebook one — it’s different) and my name and the book’s titles, the bookstore will be able to find the book in their Ingram or Baker & Taylor database and order it in for you…and perhaps some for their store shelves.

It also means that right now, you can flip over to Barnes & Noble.com and buy the first three of my books to be put up on their site.

Happy Saturday!

Tracy

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