Love the Lilt

According to a recent article in the IRISH EXAMINER:  

On the morning of July 18 last when Sheila Edgeworth of Martara, Ballylongford was cleaning out her range, she found, what her husband Pat Joe believed to be, a 7th century brooch with the Greek symbol for  Christ. 

Finding the brooch is remarkable in itself, especially given the fact that it not only survived 16 centuries buried in a Tullahennell bog, but somehow also managed to elude the blades of a track machine, the processing into sods with a hopper, and finally Mrs. Edgeworth’s turf fire. That the brooch turned up in North Kerry isn’t so unusual. This estuary of the Shannon was probably a local trade route for ships sailing to and from the Mediterranean, but its perfect condition certainly is.

Still, it isn’t the history of the brooch or the lovely Celtic markings or even the fact of this irrefutable evidence of widespread Christianity so long ago, that makes me shake my head in amazement. It is the charm of the language itself, Martara, Ballylongford, Tullahennell, and all the other lovely names that are lost to those of us with zip codes and five digit addresses.

Despite its interminable economic difficulties, its graft-ridden local officials and the endless, miserable gray of its skies, there is still something romantic about a country that refuses to organize itself into postal codes. When I send mail to Ireland, the address looks like this: 

Mary O’Callaghan,

Clogher Li, Ballyard, Tralee,

County Kerry, Ireland,

 

Eileen Canty

Drumnacurra at the cross,

Kerry, Ireland

Paddy Connelly, musician,

Mitchell’s Crescent,

Tralee, Ireland.

Names like Ballylongford, Killarney, Dingle, BallyMcCelligot, Caheersaveen, Ballybunion, Kilflyn, Kilorglin, Kilronen, Skibbereen slip off the tongues of tourists with the same lilt found in the brogues of locals. The assigning of names like Noreen (little Nora), Pat Joe (Patrick, son of Joseph), Johnny Christmas (John who visits on Christmas Day), Micky Pa (Michael, son of Patrick), Cissy Bon (Christina with the blonde hair) are as common as bacon and cabbage for Sunday dinner.

There is no question about it: Americans are intrigued with accents, especially accents associated with English speakers from the British Isles. We instinctively believe the speaker has more legitimacy, sounds more intelligent, is somehow worthier of our attention than one who hails from within our own borders. Maybe it has to do with the roots of our literature. Who can argue with Shakespeare, Yeats, Joyce and Dunne? Perhaps it’s the call of our own DNA memory. The United States is, after all, a country initially settled by the British and their nearby colonies. All of our presidents have English/Irish/Scottish ancestry. Even our current President Obama’s late mother traces her roots to Moneygall.

None of the above really matters, of course. It’s enough to settle back with a cup of strong tea, a slice of soda bread and a long afternoon ahead. You won’t be disappointed. Listening to a native Irish speaker wax on over politics, Irish football, or even the weather is pure entertainment. Slan Abhaille

 

I'm delighted to report that as of today, LEGACY is on the shelf of your local bookstore. It may be ordered from Amazon in Print or e-Book format. Read on for reviews.

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"Tantalizing...Ms. Baker kept me intrigued and enthralled...a thought-provoking novel not to be missed."
-Rendezvous

The last of the Murrays...
Christina Murray is elated to inherit her family's ancestral home in Scotland. But upon her arrival she is confronted by her breathtakingly handsome new neighbor, Ian Douglas...and an ancient family curse that comes with the castle.

A violent legacy of passion...

Seduced by Ian's easy Scottish charm by day, Christina dreams at night of three raven-haired beauties, ancestors who fell victim to the curse one generation after another: Katrine, the fiery Jacobite supporter who lost her heart to an Englishman; Jeanne, an accused witch; and Mairi, who shared a forbidden passion with the King of England.
Now it's Christina's turn to lie in that cursed bed... and loving Ian might just cost her life.

What Readers Say:

"One of the most fascinating books I've ever read...Kept me up until 3 am!"

"I'm delighted with Ms. Baker's style. It isn't often you find an author so adept at storytelling who also has a unique and beautiful command of the English language."

About the Author

Award-winning author of fifteen novels, including the RITA Award winning Nell, Jeanette Baker has been hailed by Publishers Weekly as a forceful writer whose novels are "irresistible reading." Jeanette lives in California during the winter months where she teaches literature and writing, and in County Kerry, Ireland during the summer.

Are You Still Writing "Those Little Books?"

Interestingly enough, this question usually resurrects itself at some type of meeting, usually involving women only, and the deprecating “Those Little” refers to my bread and butter, the romance novel. Just as interesting is that this type of remark rarely occurs when the demography of the group includes men as well as women. Men, for some reason, find my choice of profession worthy and engaging. Go figure.

Because my personality tends toward the “scrappy,” my follow up includes something like this: “Did you enjoy Robert Waller’s, Bridges of Madison County, or Nicholas Sparks’, Message in a Bottle? (Not my cup of tea, but certainly popular with millions of readers and movie goers.) Have you read Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, Pericles and Cymbeline, or The Tempest? What about Jane Austin and Charlotte Bronte? Can you claim to be educated and ignore the poetry of John Keats, George Byron, William Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold, all romances?”

This is where my misguided interrogator usually replies, “Those really aren’t romances, are they? I mean, they cover so many other areas besides romance.”

I enjoy what comes next because educate is what writers do. “Romance novels,” I explain, “are always about more than the relationship. Romance novels are meticulously researched, their plots formulated and shaped by experience and interest, travel and fact-checking. Romance writers span a wealth of professions. They are educated, sophisticated men as well as women, and their books appeal to educated, sophisticated readers.”

My own books deal with heady topics like Irish history and politics, Irish Lady, and Nell, the demise of the clan system, infantile diabetes and the possibility of DNA memory, Legacy, and Catriona, with the centuries old bias against left-handedness, (Aoife and Strongbow, a work in progress) with genetic mutation, heterochromia iridium, and witchcraft, Witch Woman, with horse racing and dressage, Irish Fire and Spellbound, with autism, The Lavender Field, with the making of wine in California, A Delicate Finish, with the French and Indian Wars in Canada, The Reckoning.

Romance, how to find it, keep it, end it, recover from it and find it again is the subject of songs, television, plays, movies, self-help books, therapy sessions and online matchmaking sites. Romance keeps us healthy and increases our life spans. We travel long distances, gather families together and spend large amounts of money to weep at our children’s weddings. We approve of new marriages, long marriages, remarriages and anniversaries, as we should. What a sorry world we would have without the possibility of new love.

Will I change the minds of women whose mindset is inclined to disparage the literary tastes of 25% of the fiction-reading population? Sometimes I do. Does it bother me when I don’t? Yes, it does. However, the good news is,  25% isn’t bad at all.

To Live is to Embrace Change (even in publishing.)

The brand new world of publishing, online book tours, webinar seminars, the e-book explosion, editors who continue to select books for publication but no longer have time to edit, writers’ conferences where speakers are more likely to advise on promotion and website programs rather than writing strategy, the daily demise of book stores, independents as well as major chains, and the explosion of Twitter and Facebook can be downright overwhelming to the writer who would like to spend most of her taxable working hours actually writing.

It’s difficult to come away from all this technology and not feel weighted down by numbers, by competition and by the unbelievable amount of new information that can’t possibly be mastered in a lifetime. Can writers gain or regain a feeling of competence in their craft if they must constantly scramble for a foothold, if sales determine continued publication, if the general consensus is that sell through alone determines good writing? I think so. In fact, I think the technology explosion is a reaction to the merging of publishing houses and the shrinking of markets. Consider what has happened to publishing over the last decade: sloppy editing of established writers because sales were assured, book slots in high traffic areas like airports and grocery stores filled with novels written by the same eight best-selling authors thereby continuing their sales records at the expense of new authors who write equally well but have not yet established an audience thereby denying readers the pleasure of variety, readers searching for books with strong reviews only to be told they are not in stock and must be ordered from the publisher.

This new world of publishing has a great deal to offer writers. Self-published print or e-books now remain on the market longer than the typical three month period customary to a print publisher. In fact, they can remain on the market for as long as an author would like to see them there, reaping royalties at a 70% return instead of the 8% offered by major publishing houses. This is very important for the new author whose books are typically no longer available to readers who have had the book recommended to them. Promotion and its reward depends on how hard an author wants to work selling her book rather than depending on an over-worked publicist who, for reasons unknown, must spends his time working on advertising for authors who are already best-sellers. Deadlines, like the 72-hour shifts of interns, are relegated to where they belong, the dark ages. Today, a writer can spend as much time as she needs on research, phraseology, fact-checking and polishing, thereby sending her best effort out to the public.

Are publishing houses evil, out-of-date muckrakers bent on denying new talent their fair share of the pie? Of course not. A comfortable advance, manageable publicity, the security of a contract are the goals of most writers. However, reality means something different. If you’re a traditionalist like me who spent her childhood enraptured within the walls of the local library, it is unfortunate but the market has spoken. It tells  us there is more to entertainment than reading in the traditional sense and in order to do what we love, writers must adapt with the times. “To live is to embrace change.”

The Hopeful Writer

            Writing, or publishing, has become more difficult over the last few years. Publishing houses have merged or disappeared altogether, e-publishing and print-on-demand have risen from the ashes, advances are low or even non-existent and fine, once-proficient, writers have gone years without a print contract. Some have migrated to smaller publishers which can be a very good thing; others have given up altogether, which is definitely not a good thing.

            And yet, I visited The Doubletree Hotel in San Diego, California last weekend and watched hundreds of hopeful writers tote laptops, book bags and conference schedules from room to room in their efforts to learn, sell and promote their manuscripts. A leap of faith? Certainly. Do many writers actually sell books at these conferences? Hardly. However, they do meet with editors and agents, mix with other writers, hear answers to their questions and quite frequently move their manuscripts past the deadly slush pile into the priority, requested-manuscript-to-be-read-relatively-quickly list.

            San Diego was nostalgic. Twenty years ago I, a fledgling writer unpublished in fiction, attended my first writing conference there. It was hosted at the university and the lodgings, a local motel, left much to be desired. Still the speakers were excellent, the information valuable, the conference organized and, as it turned out for me, invaluably worthwhile. I met the woman who would become my literary agent, although it would be six years and multiple books later before she formally represented me, as well as the two ladies who became my critique group for the next twenty years. This 2011 we celebrate two decades of meetings, moral support and personal wisdom, which brings me to this conclusion: despite the changes in publishing, writing continues to be a craft that lures interesting people, people who are attempting to step outside the box of their daily lives and do something more, people who are inspired by and desire to inspire through the medium of the written word. I was proud of those people who gave up their weekend, proud of their goals, proud to be among them.

The E-Book Craze

I’ve been thinking about the new e-book craze and the startling statistics stating that e-book sales have surpassed print books. While e-books are good for authors…in a way, and good for readers…in a way, e-book publication has its drawbacks, too. Unless you’re Nora Roberts or Stephen King, who have more money than God, most of us would like to be able to pay the bills with royalties from our books. The most successful e-book authors boast of sales no more than 2000 units (books) a month.

            I did the math and $1.99 to $2.99 a month, the typical price of an e-book before taxes, the e-publisher's cut, cover art and promotion, doesn’t bring in enough to meet expenses even if our sales were in the 2000 a month range. Most are not.

            Why, then, do we bother with electronic publication? There are two reasons I came up with: to re-release out-of-print books, books that may have had a poor sell through or a low print run, books we spend laborious hours creating, strong books that deserve another chance to do well, or, reason number two: to bring out an original that hasn’t yet interested an agent or editor in the hopes that strong electronic sales will encourage those illustrious people to offer a print book contract and a large advance.

There are reasons why original novels don’t sell. An author might face resistance when he wants to branch out into a different genre, editors may feel a subject is overly used or there isn’t enough of an audience. Or, more than likely, the book may simply be a bad book, badly written, a weak plot line, characters that don’t engage, etc. Which brings me to the most important point: agents, editors and publishers are discriminating. In general, published works are very good. A trip to the bookstore typically results in a variety of books screened by agents, editors, copy editors and reviewers. How, then, in this brave new world of technology, does a reader discern which e-book is of the quality on which to chance his $.99? Comments are appreciated.

            Given all of the above, I’m including the cover of my new e-book original, WITCH WOMAN, out at the end of January 2011. I think it is an excellent paranormal, set during the Salem witch trials in the late 17^th century and in contemporary Salem. I hope you give it a try and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

LEGACY - the cover

Presenting the new LEGACY cover.