Do you ever wonder where some terms come from? Recently, I read a novel where the hero was raised by his father to always “keep a stiff upper lip.” Consequently, he was out of touch with his feelings and nothing much moved him. So I decided to look into the background of this odd saying and here’s what I came up with:

In the early 1800′s a strange fashion arose among officers with regard to facial hair—they tarred their moustaches! These thick pelts over the upper lip became works of art. After an officer carefully groomed his moustache, he would then comb hot pitch through it and mold it into the desired shape. This had to be done quickly before the tar cooled and the moustache grew stiff.  Then came their dress uniform complete with ribbons, gold braid, epaulettes and voila! they were the height of fashion.

“Keep a stiff upper lip” whispered by one officer into the ear of another meant their jaunty moustache was in the process of drooping. It was a rare exception for a military officer to hail from anything other than nobility. Since these men conducted themselves in a codified and rigid manner, soon, the term “keep a stiff upper lip” spread beyond the military to the rest of nobility. Eventually, the term filtered down to the general population and came to mean a show of inner strength and fortitude. Unfortunately, it also meant a man never wept, never displayed a sign of weakness and became remote with his feelings.

Quick, who wrote the novel Typee?

Oh, please leave a comment if you knew this right off.

Quickly, who wrote Omoo? Leave a comment if you knew this as well.

Now quickly, who wrote Moby Dick? Ah, sigh, Herman Melville.

Did you know he wrote the other two as well? Before he wrote Moby Dick, Melville was well known at the time for writing pop fiction (adventure stories to be exact). Moby Dick was completely different from anything he’d ever written before. When the book hit the public’s eye, there was outrage. Critics trashed it. One newspaper went so far as to print a headline that he’d gone mad. Family members urged him to have a doctor check him out for possible insanity!

Instead of caving in and writing what the public demanded, Melville refused. He wrote to his father-in-law during the creation of Moby Dick, telling him that everything else he had written in the past was tied to purse strings. He was finally at a place in life where he could write not for market success, but for the love of it, and so he wrote Moby Dick from his heart and soul.

Not until some thirty years after his death, and seventy years after Moby Dick was published was Melville’s brilliant novel regarded as a masterpiece.

I know you’ve heard similar stories, but I think it’s important to remind ourselves, in this day of “author branding” (a relatively new concept in the past ten years), that we need to write from the heart. In fact, I am writing this today, not for you, but for myself as a reminder that I must write what I love. If my words happen to strike a chord with you, then welcome to my world.

My “brand” would have to be “writer of sensuous Victorian Romance”. However, I still feel driven to one day write the WWII love story that prowls the interior of my soul. If branding rules it out, it will be written under a pen name, I don’t care, just as long as I can write to my heart’s content. Maybe I’ll name it Moby Dick. No? OK.

Have a great day.

So, how did I go about choosing the two winners of Lori’s debut WILD HEART? Very scientifically. Hamish McDuff, my little Westie, hangs around my desk when I write (so he is there most of the time). He has the strange habit of laying on any paper that happens to find its way to the floor (which can be often, depending on my speed of thought on any given day). Drop more than one page I’m working on, or how about an entire chapter, and he suddenly becomes very selective about where he parks his round belly (he’s eleven, he earned his round belly). Aha! What would he do if I spread all the contestants names out? So I wrote them on pieces of paper and spread them on the floor. He sniffed. And then he sniffed again. He sniffed each paper and then plop, down he went on the first page.

 Drum roll, please…Lisa Santos!

 That was so cool! Let’s do it one more time. I gathered up all the papers, discarded Lisa’s (while Hamish looked on, slightly confused) and scattered the others about.

 ”For me?” I could imagine him thinking. He made another sniffing trek around the sheets of paper and plopped down. Again, a drum roll, please…Tess!

 See, don’t you think that was professional and very scientific? Ladies, please email me with your mailing addresses so I can pass them on to Lori Brighton.

 Thank you, Lori, and thank you everyone for a fun contest.

Wild Heart is Lori’s debut historical romance with a twist. One look at the first pages (excerpted below) and I knew why I wanted Lori to be the first guest on my online journal (besides the fact that she’s just plain nice and fun). Let’s see if you can guess why, as well (I smile).

Sussex, England, 1855

Surely God was punishing her.

After all, hadn’t Lady Buckley reminded her again and again no good would come to those who had the devil’s ability? Ella plucked at the tattered lace on her cuff, her morose thoughts getting the better of her. As if she any control over her powers. As if she had any control over the devil. As if she had any control over her life.

Do not tell anyone what you are capable of, Lady Buckley’s words whispered through her memory, bringing with them the heat of shame.

Too nervous to stand, Ella sank onto a window seat and focused on the garden, attempting to glean comfort from the cheery daisies. Truth be told, she should have been ecstatic to have been given the post. From the crystal chandeliers, to the soft carpets that covered the floor-boards, the home reeked of money and privilege. A privilege now extended to include her. So why then wasn’t she thrilled to leave Lady Buckley’s noxious company?

“You don’t look well,” Fran whispered, stepping close to her side.

She didn’t feel well either, but Ella forced a smile to her lips. She hadn’t felt right since their carriage swept through the impressive iron gates of Sodalitas Castle. Was it nerves or something more? Blast it, but she couldn’t tell.

Lori once worked as a museum curator, but soon decided working with her imagination was more intriguing than working with dead things. People often ask me why I have chosen to write romance and so I thought I would pose the same question to an anthropologist. Not only did Lori jump in with a response, she brought two books along to give away to two lucky people. All you have to do is leave a comment telling us why you think the first pages of Wild Heart made me want Lori as my first guest (hint: if you can’t figure it out, go to my “links” page for the key). You can read more about Leo and Ella on Lori’s website at www.loribrighton.com. Here’s Lori:

***

I first discovered romance novels when at the impressionable age of sixteen, I read a Julie Garwood book. Instantly I fell in love. I couldn’t get enough of her historicals and would stay up all night to read them. It wasn’t until years later that I decided to write my own romance. Why? My imagination wouldn’t rest! I had these darn stories taunting me every night when I went to bed. I figured, maybe if I wrote one down I could sleep in peace. Of course it only made room for the next story to pop up.

Why do I write romance? Why wouldn’t I? In my opinion romance has what every other genre has: suspense, mystery, heck you can even find sci-fi in romance. But what makes romance special? It’s the focus on that basic human need, what we all want, love. The happily ever after doesn’t hurt either. Life is hard enough as it is, why read a book that leaves you miserable and crying? Why do I read romance? Because they make me happy and hopeful. What better reason is there?

Of course as an optimistic romance reader, I hadn’t realized that writing romance was a little more difficult than reading romance. About 3 manuscripts, much heartache, and six years later, I finally got a book deal. Wild Heart, my Victorian romance is out in stores now.

Many times authors are asked what triggered the idea for their latest book. For Wild Heart, there were a couple things that spurred it into existence. My son, who was a toddler at the time, often watched the Disney Tarzan movie. I’d always loved an alpha male and you couldn’t get more alpha than Tarzan. I’d also seen a show about feral children. What would happen, I wondered, if I had a hero who had gotten lost in the jungle as a child?

I had my book idea and eagerly started my manuscript. But something wasn’t right and if writers know anything, it’s that you can’t ignore the muse. The book needed something more…but what? Paranormal was huge (and still is) so why not combine two of my favorite subgenres…paranormal and historical? Since the hero tended to be animalistic, what if the heroine could sense and control animals? This concept would bind them in a way that most heroes and heroines aren’t. I knew I was on the right track when the book started finaling in contests. Still, it was a long, bumpy road before I finally sold the book to Kensington.

So what about you? Do you like it when authors mix subgenres? Leave a comment! Two people will win a copy of my debut book, Wild Heart!