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Magical Words: Writing With A Baby

Erin Penn

Photo by Zach Lucero on Unsplash

Babies not only pull at your heartstrings, they pull at your hair and your time. I have five sisters, all of whom decided to have children therefore I’m blessed with a lot of niblings, so I’ve been around a lot of babies. Only one of my sisters committed to retaining a career after having children; the rest have decided to be primary caregivers to the next generation, sometimes holding down a job, but mostly depending on their significant other to provide the hours outside the home needed for income to cover housing and food while they covered the hours needed inside the home to create healthy, well-developed adults from their mutual commitment when they decided to have children.

Doing something on top of children, let alone when the offspring is at their most neediest, always amazes me. Babies are WORK. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.

Many potential authors think that when they have a Baby they will also write their Novel.

Many potential authors are delusional from the future lack of sleep.

Catie Murphy discusses her commitments, both to her novel-writing career and her child, in the Magical Word post from March 31, 2011, “Writing With a Baby”. The comment section includes a comments from others holding down the dual career of author and parent.

By the way, happy Women’s History Month.

The URL, for those that prefer the cut and paste method is:

Book Review: Infamous Heart

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

Infamous Heart (Men of Vanguard, Book 1) by Ryder O’Malley

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

Glorifying superheroes is my job, being seduced by one is a perk.

One day, I was a mild-mannered designer for a premiere superhero magazine. Turned down for a promotion yet again, I let loose years of repressed anger. That’s how I got fired. Lesson learned. Now my career is as successful as my love life. But it’s hard being upset when I storm out of the office and into the huskular man of my dreams.

Sebastian is successful, confident, and the way he fills out those pants, it’s basically a crime. Working as the art director for a rival magazine, I beg for him to look at my… ahem, portfolio. But in this city, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a supervillain and, for reasons I can’t fathom, this one wants me dead. They were about to ruin my date. Thankfully, Sebastian has gifts of his own.

Now, I’m trying to get the job of my dreams, while I figure out how to be a sidekick to a superhero. Oh yeah, and not get myself killed.

Infamous Heart is a M/M, heart-felt adventure with an HEA and no cliffhangers. It features snark and sex, but not always in that order. This is book one in the Heroes of Vanguard series.

 

MY REVIEW

More M-M romance than the superhero prose genre, which makes sense as the Main Character (MC) is human. When the romance does turn steamy, it is not “closed doors”.

Note the MC is an artist from his heart-of-hearts to his layout-designer job, with all the hubris-insecurity mix that goes with creating arts. Some reviewers have found this off-putting, but I thought it was one of the most real aspects of the story. From the “I will save him and the world” hubris to the “someone didn’t talk or text to me for one hour and the world has ended and I’m unloved so I will destroy years of work” insecurity. It’s a wild, exhausting ride knowing creatives. (Yes, I’ve had to console friends after they destroyed notebooks by fire because they went through an insecurity phase.)

Flash: Three heads are worse than one

Erin Penn

Image by Vlad Zaytsev on Unsplash

“Will someone please get that lighting head?” The paladin screamed as he managed, through the grace of his goddess, to dodge another bolt despite being a walking-talking lightning rod in a metal plate armor suit.

The sorcerer yelled back, “You are lucky I got the fire-breathing with a back-burner snuffing out its oils for a few minutes. Ha-zah!” Hands thrown out, the group’s magic user returned the lightning.

“Fuck, it’s dripping oil again from the red head,” shouted the fighter. “Move back, move back.” He ordered the unit of minions he had gathered over the last month hunting for this dragon.

One of the young men asked the monk, “Why isn’t the purple head not doing anything? It’s just staying up there watching everything, letting the blue and red heads do their things.”

“You had to ask that, you had to ask that.” The monk muttered, pushing the untested soldiers back just in time for a fire blast to land where they had been.

The thief ignored the byplay, using her ring of invisibility to advantage, slowly circling the multi-headed monster., when she noticed the purple head swivel her way.

“I see you,” a voice said in her head.

(words 199; first published 3/3/2024 – written for a FB group prompt, aiming for about 50 words as the goal – as usual, I went over)

Year of the Wood Dragon

Erin Penn

Photo by Karen Cann on Unsplash

The new year started on February 10, and hopefully will bring the transformative energy of Wood combined with the luck and prosperity of the Dragon. We have had a bad few years since 2020 – plagues and wars and riots. 2024 brings a major election year to America, and a ton of decisions for everybody.

Dragons embody strength, intelligence, and prosperity – opportunities for change and wealth. Wood, as the element for the year, enhances growth and progress. 2024 should be the year for new beginnings and fresh growth.

Dream big this year – and draw strength to chase your vision. Be the dragon, use your intelligence to research opportunities and plan on how best to go after them. Remember to use Wood and plant your roots deep, giving special attention to growth and care, just like you do a garden in the spring.

Figure out how you want to transform. Grab the change, dream big, take action, stay positive, bather relationships. Build.

Leap.

Fly.

And if all else fails, breathe fire.

Writing Exercise: A Wink of Romance, a Kiss of Tropes

Erin Penn

Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash

Tropes are all the rage in romance – they really help marketing. Does your audience want a mafia romance or office romance? Should it be enemies to lovers or fake dating?

Some of the most common tropes in romance are: Meet-Cute; Enemies to Lovers; Rivals to Lovers; Friends to Lovers; Fake Dating; Boy/Girl Next Door; Brother’s Best Friend; Roommates; Escape from the Friend Zone; Forced Proximity; Trapped in an Elevator; Marriage of Convenience; Forbidden Love; He Fell First; Bad Boy/Girl Hero; Age-Gap Romance; Slow Burn; Fast Burn; Insta-Love; Love Triangle; Why Choose?; Single Parent; Already Pregnant; Second Chance; Interracial; Opposites Attract; Grumpy-Sunshine; Fairy Tale Retelling; Paranormal; Fated Mate

Not sure exactly what each of these are and how they work? Below are some blogs which could help you define them; if this blogs have been eaten up by time a quick search on “Romance Tropes” should bring back a lot of examples.

“Romance Tropes: What they are, and what they aren’t” by Natasja Rose. Posted Sept 2023. – last viewed 11/9/2023)

“13 Beloved Romance Tropes Every Reader Will Recognize” Reedsyblog. Posted November 2, 2022. (https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/romance/romance-tropes/ – last viewed 11/9/2023)

“Ultimate Romance Tropes List: 28 Tropes + Book Recs!” by Sonia Singh. Posted May 28, 2023. (https://brewingwriter.com/romance-tropes-list/ – last viewed 11/9/2023)

READING EXERCISE: If you read romances, take the three most recent romance you have read and record all the tropes that each of the books have. Which ones do you like the most? Do you have other other tropes you like in your romances? Comment below.

WRITING EXERCISE: Choose one of the tropes above and write a scene or a flash for it between 100 and 500 words. Your story can be the initial meeting or some other stage of the romance. What tropes did you use? Comment below how you explored the structure of the trope in your scene.

My attempt: Pixie Power – concentrating on Pixie Power 2 “I rather not” (10/22/2023) for this particular writing exercise. Browser is the epidemy of the “The Boy Next Door” who has so much “Unrequited” love it is painful to see him with the clueless Amie. “Opposites Attract” hopefully, eventually – maybe with a little help of “Forced Proximity” hinted at in episode 3.