Thanksgiving centers on the meal and getting together with loved ones, but there’s more to it than just the eating.  Although we think of the first Thanksgiving with its banquet prepared by Plymouth colonists and Native Americans, subsequent Thanksgivings declared in Massachusetts Bay Colony and New England featured prayer and fasting! (I suspect this concept would not go over well nowadays.)

In my family, we play board games after dinner sometimes while watching a DVD.  This gives the cook & cleanup crew something to do that involves sitting, and it allows participants to enjoy after-dinner coffee and that extra piece of pie at the same time.  My husband and I first did this when getting together with friends during one of our early Thanksgivings. He was in the Air Force at the time and we banded together with other young couples and singles on base to enjoy a traditional dinner every year.

And then there’s The Game. Growing up in Nebraska, football has always been a part of Thanksgiving for me.  If the Cornhuskers don’t play a game on the holiday itself, they do the next day.  When I was young, the Nebraska-Oklahoma game was the high point of the season (or the low point, depending on how we played).  I know fans of other teams, both college and pro, have the games they look forward to over Thanksgiving weekend!

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been part of New York’s holiday since 1924, and thanks to television, it’s viewed across the country as dinner preparations are underway.  In households where parade watching conflicts with the football marathon, I think the best rule is that the cook picks the television channel!

To remind us of its religious roots, many churches have special services honoring the day and its origins.  Mine has a Thanksgiving Eve service, for example, that features national hymns like ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ and prayers of gratitude not just for our nation, but for the blessings experienced by us as individuals.  Many Americans acknowledge their blessings by reaching out to others and helping prepare or serve dinners in local homeless shelters. One man of our acquaintance grew up doing this with his family every single year.  Needless to say, volunteering remains high on his list of holiday activities.

We don’t do this in my family, but others include trimming the Christmas tree or decorating the house as part of their Thanksgiving festivities.  My own preference is to keep Thanksgiving separate from Christmas, but I follow their logic! (Besides, at our house trimming the tree is a major event all by itself — but that’s a topic for another blog post, lol.) And of course, what would Thanksgiving weekend be without Black Friday and its early bird specials? I stay home that day, but my hubby has been known to get up in the wee hours to take advantage of a good deal.

What about you? What are your personal Thanksgiving traditions? I’d love to hear what others include in their Thanksgiving traditions.  Leave a comment and I’ll included your name in a drawing for another $10 Barnes & Noble gift card, winners to be announced on Wednesday, Nov. 24th!

Meanwhile, Happy Thanksgiving!

~Ann Stephens

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes – they brightened my day!

Congratulations to Fedora! You are the winner of the contest. Email me at francesca@francescahawley.com to claim your prize. I’ll need an email addy to send your e-book and let me know which book you’d like!

Research…I love it. I admit it. But not everyone shares my enthusiasm for diving into books and surfing the internet to get the information needed to take a book’s setting to the next level.

In October, Cris Anson and I will be presenting a workshop at Romanticon in Ohio and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m hoping to share some tips and tricks for research with the attendees. There are a lot of things to know when an author begins research for the next book. For example, I define research really broadly. It’s any background information needed before a writer gets started or as they write their book.

Typically, most of us think about reseach as something you do before you write an historical romance. After all, none of us have lived in Regency England or during the U.S. Civil War. So to get information about those time periods, a writer has to learn about that era to make it live and breathe for the reader. Well, it isn’t just in historicals that research is crucial to a good story.

Say you’ve lived all your life in Iowa (like I have) but you wish to set your novel in contemporary San Francisco…or Denver…or wherever. You have limited options. A writer can travel (which would be my preference) or utilize books, web sites or talk to friends who live there. The best way to go is all of the above, but you do what you can.

When you’re diving into books or surfing the web though, a writer can be tripped up by a lack of authority in what they find.  Authority can be defined in a lot of ways – but what I mean is that a researcher should know who authored the information she’s using AND the qualifications of that resource’s author to offer their information as fact.

As a librarian, people expect me to view Wikipedia with disdain. I don’t. It’s an incredibly useful tool and a great starting point. However, I would always tell someone who is doing research that starting with Wikipedia is fine – just don’t STOP there. Get a second source that agrees with the site. Also, there are web sites created by individuals or groups of individuals who don’t necessarily have fancy degrees after their names. These sites are NOT bad or suspect sites – but they do lack some authority so cross reference wherever possible.

For example, if you are looking for information about medieval heraldry or medieval names, check out Modar’s Heraldry Page. Modar’s heraldry page (and its sub pages) are published by a friend of mine whose SCA name is Modar Neznanich. I know him. I trust him. So I trust his page and I would happily recommend it to others. This is a case where an individual has the credibility to offer research assistance to others.

If someone was looking for medieval names, I’d send them to the Academy of St. Gabriel web site. The Academy isn’t a university – it is a group of historical enthusiasts who research names. If they say it’s so, I’d take their recommendation to the bank. However, other research is useful too. I use the The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names by E.G. Withycombe and A Dictionary of English Surnames by P.H. Reaney as additional resources when it comes to naming my medieval characters.

So the point of my post is that I’m attempting to compile a useful list of URLs for research. What is YOUR favorite research web site? What’s the authority behind it? Leave a comment with your favorite research site here and from those that offer a useful web site (and yes, I’ll check the URL!) – I’ll choose a winner for your choice of my novels in ebook format. So PLEASE help me out. I’ll be most grateful, as will your writing colleagues at Romanticon.  You have through the weekend – I’ll announce the winner on Monday, August 2.

Ann Stephens

Hello!  I’m Ann Stephens, the last of our sextet to post during Launch Week.  When Sherry contacted me about the chance to join Authors by Moonlight, I couldn’t wait to join in!  The moon and the mystery of the nighttime world have always appealed to me and I love meeting other writers.  Nobody feeds your soul like people who are passionate about the same things you are.

I grew up in Nebraska (why yes, I do like football, lol) reading my mom’s Georgette Heyer novels behind her back and making up stories for my paper dolls and Barbies to act out.  Eventually, I had to give up the dolls, and it didn’t occur to me that anyone else would be interested in hearing the stories that still came to me.  Besides, if you tell most people there’s a strange voice talking inside your head, they usually suggest psychiatric evaluation.  I wrote, but didn’t take writing seriously until I was past 40.

Despite my ordinary Midwestern roots, my characters come from across the pond and across many centuries.  My debut romance, TO BE SEDUCED, takes place in the 1600s, very early in the reign of King Charles the Second of England.  March 2011 will see the release of my second, as yet untitled, book under the Kensington Zebra imprint, which is set in the New York, Paris and Scotland of 187os.  Part of the reason for the huge time gap is that much of my inspiration comes from reading history, a subject that has always fascinated me.  I’ll read about the history of just about anything…Rome, the Wild West, the Plantagents, you name it.  You know those shows on TV about stuff like ‘The History of Glue’?  Yeah, I watch ‘em.

I can’t help but wonder what it was like to experience the tempestuous era of the English Civil War or the repressive mores of the Victorians first hand, particularly for women.  One of the best perks of writing romance is the chance to spend a great deal of time (mentally, anyway) in the company of strong, sexy heroes.  But for me, no matter how droolworthy a hero is, if I dislike the heroine I’ll have a hard time reading the book.  I don’t like the same type of heroine all the time, either to read or write.  In TO BE SEDUCED, Bethany is sharp-tongued and quick-witted.  When she’s kidnapped by a handsome rogue she doesn’t hesitate to turn the situation as much to her advantage as possible.  The heroine of my upcoming release, Diantha, is the product of her repressive upbringing, but after her family marries her off to a charming womanizer for their own benefit, she searches for her own path to his aching soul.  Visit me at Ann Stephens Romance to stay posted about my books, or read an excerpt here.

What qualities do you love in a heroine?  Courage?  Exquisite taste?  Innocence?  Intelligence?  Sophistication?  All of the above?  I’d love to hear from you!  Leave a comment below and I’ll enter you into a drawing for a signed copy of TO BE SEDUCED, the winner chosen before midnight tonight.

Then come back every Wednesday as the six of us take turns posting.  Laura Landon will start us out on May 19th!

Greetings everyone,

I was really excited when I heard about this venture and jumped on board with both feet. This is a great group of authors to be associated with and I’m looking forward to this wild ride. I chose the title of this post in an effort to describe what I write.

First, electronic. I write for the e-publisher Ellora’s Cave and I’m really proud to be a part of that house. When I first decided I wanted to write erotic romance, I knew I wanted to target Ellora’s Cave. I discovered EC as a reader back in the early years of the company and I aspired to join the authors I loved. When I finally sold to the company I was over the moon – and I still am. I think electronic is the wave of the future. Eventually, every author who sells will be electonically published.

Second, eclectic. Yeah, that’s me.  

Merriam-Webster Online defines this as:

1 : selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods, or styles
2 : composed of elements drawn from various sources; also : heterogeneous

To me this means I go out and experiment. I write in a variety of subgenres of erotic romance. I love the freedom I have at my publisher to write the “book of my heart” regardless of what that is. My first novel is a paranormal story called Protect and Defend. When someone asks me what it’s about, my short answer is “CSI meets shapeshifters.”  My second novel, Seeking Truth, is a medieval with paranormal elements. And my latest release, Whirlwind Affair,  is a contemporary romance set in small town (and big city) Minnesota. Who knows what I’ll write next! I’m working on a male/male contemporary right now, and I want to write a BDSM with paranormal elements soon. The sky is the limit. I’m all about being eclectic.

This brings me to emotional. I love to write dark, angsty stories but I always throw in a strong leavening of humor. Protect and Defend won an award from the editors of Ellora’s Cave at last year’s Romanticon convention for a scene early in the story in which Diarmid explains the importance of his weapon to my heroine, Mikaela. The award was for “most amusing innuendo.” Think about it and I’m sure it will make sense to you. I was thrilled they enjoyed reading the scene as much as I enjoyed writing it. Even so, there’s always seems to be a thread of family conflict buried in a Francesca Hawley story. So yes, a hearty helping of humor to go with the emotional family drama.

Which brings me to the erotic romance part of my blog title because whatever other elements might be a part of my story, erotic romance is the core. My stories are  romances first but the romance between the characters and the plotline I’ve created move forward because of the passion and growing love of the protagonists.

Readers often ask me, what’s the difference between erotic romance and erotica? 

I explain it this way… Erotica is like women’s fiction. Writer’s of women’s fiction (like Danielle Steel, Barbara Taylor Bradford and others) are telling the story arc and character growth of the heroine throughout the course of her life through her adventures and misadventures. Erotica is very similar, but the journey of the protagonist is through her sexual experiences. Her story arc and character growth arise from her sexual adventures and misadventures.

Erotic romance is a romance first. The focus in both romance and erotic romance is on the romantic relationship and the protagonists involved in that relationship. The story MUST end in a happily ever after (or happily for now) for the protagonists. The difference between erotic romance and sweeter romance is that the romantic journey is moved forward by the sexual relationship. The sex isn’t everything – but without sexuality as a strong component of the romance, it isn’t an EROTIC romance.

That’s my take. What’s yours?  What do you see as the difference between erotica, erotic romance, and less spicy romances?  One commenter will be given the choice of  any one of my releases in their preferred electronic format.

Woo-hoo! I have my two winners!

Congratulations to Ruth Thompson. Ruth  is the winner of an autographed copy of the Ellora’s Cave Flavors of Ecstasy Anthology Vol. 3 which includes my novella, Eight Seconds, a 2010 Passionate Plume Finalist!

Congratulations also goes out to Lilly Gale. Lilly is the winner of an autographed excerpt of Cowboy Fling! I hope you both enjoy your prizes! Please email me privately at sherryjames@hamilton. net with your addresses and I’ll mail your prizes out to you this week.

My thanks to everyone who stopped by and commented today. You really made our first day here at ABM a lot of fun. And thanks, too, to those of you who just stopped by and lurked. I hope you all had a good time and that you’ll come back to meet the rest of the ABM authors every day this week. Remember, we have more prizes we’re just longing to give away. Don’t be shy!

Sherry James