Dolores A McCabe: Never ever give up.

Dolores McCabe is the author of The Shadow of the Phoenix and Northwind.

Picture a house already too small, a neighborhood long past the best place for raising a family, a postage-stamp-sized back yard, an evolving highway the next street over. Add to that three very young children, another on the way, threatened layoffs or transfers at Dad's job. A career as a high school English teacher on hold, money problems and more money problems, and what do you come up with?

Why, an overwhelming desire to write, of course! What else would any normal person do?

I can't remember what prompted me to pick up that old manual Royal at a yard sale. It was tough finding ribbon for it, tougher still to find the couple of extra dollars to pay for it and the paper needed to go into word production. But finally I rolled that first piece of paper into the machine and I began to type. I was already counting the royalty checks and deciding how I was going to spend all that money. I started with a few horror stories. After re-reading them, I thought maybe I'd better try something else. I went on to poetry. They all ended up as woodstove kindling. I became very depressed and figured it was all over for me, I had no talent. And then, like a sympathetic parent clapping me on the shoulder, Tacitus and Suetonius opened the portals. I began to write about ancient Rome. I read everything I could find, concentrating on primary sources. The stories poured out without any cohesion whatsoever. I began to despair. It was all too much, too jumbled. And yet I couldn't seem to stop. But what was I trying to do? Even more important, what was I trying to say? I went to my public library and pulled out the index files. Weeks and months of expanding research followed. Finally I rolled a new piece of paper into my trusty old Royal and I began to type.

There are certain elements to an author’s craft: very simply, the story must contain characterization, plot, setting, a genre, and something intangible, an underlying reason for why this story was undertaken.

How does an author develop characters? The only credible characters must be drawn directly from the author's experience. Otherwise they simply do not ring true. They degenerate into stereotypes. They also have to relate to archetypes of Humanity that most readers can also relate to. They have to be interesting; they have to do things that carry the plot forward and which the author can’t always explain. Part of the challenge of reading a Historical Romance is knowing that you may come away with questions. In this modern world of pre-mixed rationalizations for everything, this might be a refreshing change for the reader.

In creating within the genre of Historical Romance, there has to be LOVE. There cannot be true Romance without true Love. And so the author who wishes to create a unique and enduring romance has to first define for him or herself what that little word means. It is personal; it is the definition that sets one author’s voice apart from every other’s. Under scrutiny it slips away and defies every attempt to define it. It has to move and evolve; it has to live. It has to seek its expression within the minds, hearts and above all, the actions, of the characters within the romance novel.

True Historical Fiction already has a plot; the author faces the happy challenge of taking the sketchy facts surrounding the characters and developing a plausible explanation for the times they lived in that logically influenced their actions. The setting has to be skillfully balanced between social mores that cannot be understood any longer and universal ideals that have withstood the passage of the changing Ages.

The novel that evolved went nameless for a very long time. Through all the years of revising and editing, re-checking event sequences, throwing real people and events into the blender and adding a generous dash of creative imagination, the title eluded me. No problem, it would surely come to me in a blinding flash of inspiration. And then something dreadful happened. I hit a Writer's Block. The story simply stopped and nothing could jump-start it. What could I do? Memories of Comprehensive English 101 floated into my mind. The answer: Keep writing. Write about anything. Write about the weather, write an angry editorial, write through, around and over the block. But where to go? It was as if I had become paralyzed. I took the only path open to me. I set this story aside and began a new one.

The single work split into four separate works. I revised my writings and revised them some more Some of the characters and their stories died out, others began to take depth and form personalities. They took on identities, they made decisions, they lived within their societies and their historical ages on their own, almost without any help from me. The next inevitable step was to publish and share these people and their stories. I sent inquiries out to publishing houses. I accumulated mountains of rejection slips, nameless, unsigned, xeroxed rejections of my years of work. Neither my name nor my titles were ever mentioned. My synopses and sample chapters were never returned. I struggled with the realization that no matter how badly I wanted it, I was not meant to be an author. I cried quite a bit, boxed my manuscripts, and went on with my life.

Another move, this time to the wilds of Delaware County. The family grown, and now only my own interests remain. I've arrived. There surely is nothing left for me to accomplish. And then one day, cleaning out the closet, I found them. The manuscripts! I wavered between burning them and reading them just one more time. They were still very good.

They say that when your moment arrives, everything falls into place. You finally see your direction and what you were trying to do all along. The veil is lifted, purpose and resolve fill you, and nothing can deter you. Why not self-publish?

I wrote the check, held my very first galley in my shaking hands, shed a few tears again when I held the very first publication of my work in my hands, and then went in search of a way to promote my books. It won't be easy. But human aspiration is unquenchable. It can't be mocked or persecuted or ignored into oblivion. Like overcoming a writer's block, the human spirit finds innumerable ways around everything trying to contain it.

Each author has a personal reason for sitting down at that keyboard. Each author has a unique slant on the evolving story. And each author measures the research, the hours at the keyboard, the closeting away from the passing world to reflect upon great thoughts such as Humanity’s march through time and its final appointment with its eternal destiny, and then submits to additional hours, sometimes years, of revising to make sure that Thought has come to life and taken flight. Finally, each true author has a burning need to share that vision. All this together comprises what is called the author’s “craft.”

All of Ms. McCabe's novels are available through her website.

©Dolores A McCabe 2006

On Entering a Writing Contest

Okay, you’ve finally taken the plunge and finished that book. You’ve read and re-read it, edited it, discussed it, checked and re-checked your references, and then read it again to make sure everything flows and makes sense. Now what?

You gaze around you at the stacks of rejection slips from publishing houses. You have wasted a small fortune making the Postal Service rich. You contemplate the fruits of your time and labor. They are xeroxed, of course, always addressed to “Dear Author,” and they always say the same thing: No market for your work. You are nameless, faceless, just so much dust to be swept aside in favor of more authentic authors, writers who can generate the dollars through the prostitution of their art. They fill pages with explicit sexual encounters that are so gross there is no room for arousal. Their characters are made of cardboard and behave in bizarre and somewhat bipolar ways. Their misdeeds are explained away; only their sexual prowess matters. You think to yourself, well, if I had something really important to say, perhaps someone would notice me. Ah, but you know in your heart that you’re wrong. You’re always wrong. You haven’t sold any top secret documents to terrorists, you haven’t blown the whistle on corporate greed. You haven’t even murdered anyone! You really have nothing of interest to contribute to the publishing world.

But cheer up, there is still one last hope left to you: You can enter your work in a writing contest! Writing contests tout themselves to be the last resort to the aspiring author. They claim that their raison d’etre is to discover new talent….such as yourself! Just look at the prizes: cash awards, perhaps enough to recoup what you spent on the postal service, publishing contracts, and if nothing else, your name and title included on a massive list of other hopefuls who entered and didn’t win but nevertheless deserved honorable mention. There is a small entry fee, naturally. But it’s really only a fraction of what you’ve already spent in paper, inkjets, and postage! Why not go for it?

You read the entry rules over and over. You create a checklist so that everything is in order. You create your summary, your first few chapters double-spaced, your CD with the entire novel copied onto it, all double-spaced, numbered and titled in the header. You have carefully erased all mention of your name. You have filled out the entry form and written the check. You scramble to cover the check, look everything over once more, and then cough up enough money to send your entry on its way.

And then you wait. You receive confirmation that your entry was received. Ah, a joyful leap of the heart! You wait. And wait. And then, one day in the mailbox, there is a letter from the contest coordinator! You open it with shaking hands. And there it is. You’ve been disqualified. You forgot to double-space your summary. You can’t believe it. You rush to your xeroxed entry. Yes, you did indeed forget to double-space your summary. But how could that be, when you had checked the entry requirements so many times???? You grab your checklist. Everything neatly checked off three times. How could you have messed up so badly? Don’t you feel like a fool? Aren’t you so sorry you ever thought you were good enough to even try? Why isn’t there any reference to double-spacing? But of course there is. It was on another page, the opening page of the contest summary, buried deep within hazy words. You simply misread it. It said to include a summary, three opening chapters double spaced, not to exceed a certain amount of pages, etc. etc. etc. And right beneath it the classic warning blares out at you: Your entry fee will never be refunded.

Go ahead and cry. Shake like a beaten dog. Weep for the entry fee that you lost because you were too stupid to put it all together. That’s exactly how the publishers want you to feel. Hey, they need a good laugh too, the same as we all do! So give them their satisfaction. Descend into that deep depression. You’ve been there so many times before, what’s one more visit? Maybe this one will last a week, but with the holidays approaching, it could very well last until spring. No one will notice as you lift your chin and go about your daily business, hoping that no one will guess that you have been humiliated…again. When the tears start to seep out behind your rock façade, just hide out in your home for awhile. Try not to look at the keyboard, the file cabinet, the copied sheets neatly clipped together in the hopes that this time you might at least have your story read. Try not the think about the money that was stolen from you. Try not to think about that other story you started when everything seemed to be working out for you. Try not to ask yourself: now what?

Because deep underneath all the disappointment, you already know what is going to happen. You are going to try again. You have to try again. Why do you do this to yourself?

Well….because you are a writer.

All of Ms. McCabe's novels are available through her website.

Alan Fisk: The Power of Persistence

One day at school in 1961, when I was 11, my English teacher recommended a novel called "Winter Quarters", by Alfred Duggan. It turned out to be a historical novel, and I immediately became addicted, not only to Duggan, but to historical fiction.

A few years later I discovered that my uncle Jean Bassan, who was a French novelist, also wrote historical novels, but I wasn't allowed to read them until I was older (for good reason).

I developed a vague dream of becoming a novelist myself, but did nothing about it until the day before my 20th birthday. I decided that I should start writing my first novel while I was still in my teens! I wrote it in 38 days, and it was unimaginably bad. It wasn't a historical, and neither was my second novel, which I wrote when I was 23, after I had moved to Newfoundland. That one was merely extremely bad.

I had done a lot of reading about Britain in the period following the collapse of the western Roman Empire, and had come across the story of the bard Taliesin, who composed the earliest surviving British poetry. I had the idea of writing a fictional autobiography of Taliesin, which was made easier by the fact that nothing is known of the details of his real life. I also indulged myself by setting part of the story at the Roman villa in Lullingstone in Kent, which has marvellous mosaics and wall-paintings.

This novel, "The Summer Stars" was to be the first novel that I ever tried to get published. It was rejected 52 times in 13 years, but eventually found a home with a publisher in Wales. It was later republished in the United States.

Because it took so long to find a publisher, "The Summer Stars" was leapfrogged by my next novel, also an historical, "The Strange Things of the World", which I wrote after I had moved from Newfoundland to Montreal. It tells the story of what has been called "The World's First Tourist Cruise", when a party of London scholars and gentlemen chartered two ships in 1536, in the reign of Henry VIII, to sail to North America because they wanted to see "the strange things of the world". The voyage ended in disaster and even cannibalism somewhere on the shores of Newfoundland, and it is interesting that English interest in colonising America ceased for nearly half a century afterwards. "The Strange Things of the World" was picked up by a Newfoundland publisher, and became my first published novel.

Although I've also written two modern novels and two science fiction novels, I decided a few years ago that I would stick to writing historical novels, because that's what I really enjoy the most.

My next historical was my only venture into self-publishing. "Lord of Silver" is about a tribesman from north of Hadrian's Wall who, in 366 A.D., crosses into the Roman provinces of Britain, where he hopes to make his home. Once again the Lullingstone Roman villa features prominently in the story, along with the noble lady who is then its owner. I based the story on three elements: a Roman roof tile that is on show in the Museum of London, and on which someone has scrawled "Austalis has been going off on his own for 13 days"; the Barbarian Conspiracy of 367 A.D., when Roman Britain was assaulted simultaneously by the Picts, the Saxons, and the Irish; and my favourite villa. I published "Lord of Silver" through Xlibris in Philadelphia, but I withdrew it from their list a couple of years ago. It is currently under consideration by a new publisher for reissue.

I've never returned to live in Newfoundland, but being away seemed to stimulate my ideas for historical novels set there. "Forty Testoons" arose from an entry in King Henry VII's account books in 1504 about 40 shillings (probably in the then-new "testoon" coins) being paid to "the priest that goeth to the new isle". The young Father Ralph Fletcher takes on this job that no other priest wants, and spends an eventful winter in Newfoundland. "Forty Testoons" was published by Breakwater Books.

Ralph reappears as a much older man 40 years later in my last published historical novel, "Cupid and the Silent Goddess", currently in print from Twenty First Century Publishers. By then an elderly refugee priest in Florence, he is a minor character in this novel, which imagines the creation of Bronzino's painting "Allegory with Venus and Cupid". The novel is narrated by Bronzino's apprentice Giuseppe, who is forced to model for Cupid. Giuseppe saves an autistic young woman, Angelina, from exploitation after she is made to model for Venus.

My last historical novel, "The Rice Coast", is hidden away in a drawer. Set in 1786, it is about a young man who joins the first settlement expedition to Sierra Leone. When I'd finished it, I looked it over, and realised that the structure was all wrong and that the novel, as it stands, is unpublishable. I've kept it because I may want to rewrite it one day. I'm always preaching persistence and not giving up, but sometimes you have to realise that a novel just hasn't worked.

I'm currently writing another historical, "Letters from Rome", set in Britain in the decades before and after the Roman invasion of 43 A.D. It is pro-Roman, anti-Druid, and anti-Boudicca!

I've worked as a technical writer for many years, and I've also been a tutor on residential weekend courses on topics such as "Writing the Historical Novel" and "Story Theory". I'm a widower living in London.