Why I Wrote the Book

Once upon a time (if I'm going to tell you about my fairy tale novel, I might as well start properly), my husband and I were on a road trip. As was often the case before we had kids and the car became too noisy, I was reading a book aloud. This particular trip, the book was DEALING WITH DRAGONS by Patricia C. Wrede.

I, of course, had read this book several times before, but this was my husband's first experience with it. Two things came of this particular read-through:

1. We decided to name our first daughter Cimorene (a year later, we did).
2. I had a realization that led to writing the novel chosen this summer as an alternate in Brenda Drake's Pitch Wars contest. 

The realization was this: Princess Cimorene, the heroine of Wrede's book, is a tall, dark-haired, kick-butt princess. This was unusual for the time this book was written (published in 1990). Now, however, nearly 25 years later, nearly every princess you see is what I call an "empowered" princess. They're all out beating the villains and saving kingdoms. 

Now, I relate to a lot of these princesses; I've always been stubborn and adventurous, and I may have kicked a little butt here and there. But the trope-breaker has become its own trope. So it's time to break it again.

In my book A FROG, A WHISTLE, AND A VIAL OF SAND, Princess Ellean is considered old-fashioned because she has blond hair, blue eyes, and likes needlework. When her parents kick her out of the castle, the adventure she's always dreaded leads her to the love and friendships she's always needed. But with kidnappings and a sorcerer along the way, surviving long enough for happily-ever-after will require all the skills she does have--including embroidery.

As an alternate, my pitch and first 250 words will be put in a showcase November 6th where agents have been invited to browse and make requests. Wish me (and Princess Ellean) luck! Also, check out some of the other books that were selected for the contest. There are some I definitely hope to read. 

Carleen Karanovic: HOPE ON A FEATHER

Heather Truett: RENASCENCE

Tracie Martin: WILD IS THE WIND

Susan Bickford: FRAMED

Rachel Sarah: RULES FOR RUNNING AWAY

Amanda Rawson Hill: GRIMM AND BEAR IT

Charlotte Gruber: CODE OF SILENCE

Kip Wilson: THE MOST DAZZLING GIRL IN BERLIN

Mary Ann Nicholson: CALAMITY

Nikki Roberti: THE TRUTH ABOUT TWO-SHOES

Anna Patel: EXODUS

K. A. Reynolds: LE CIRQUE DU LITERATI

Susan Crispell: WISHES TO NOWHERE

Ron Walters: THE GOLEM INITIATIVE

Rosalyn Eves: THE BLOOD ROSE REBELLION

Ashley Poston: HEART OF IRON

Mara Rutherford: WINTERSOUL

Janet Walden-West: Damned If She Do

Kazul Wolf: SUMMER THUNDER

S. D. Grimm: WITCHER

Kelli Newby: THORNVAAL

Tara Sim: TIMEKEEPER

Elliah Terry: POCKET FULL OF POPPIES

Alessa Hinlo: THE HONEST THIEF

Rachel Horwitz: THE BOOTLEGGER’S BIBLE

Whitney Taylor: DEFINITIONS OF INDEFINABLE THINGS

Lyra Selene: REVERIE

Natalie Williamson: SET IN STONE

Robin Lemke: THE DANCE OF THE PALMS

Stephanie Herman: CLIFF WITH NO EDGE

Shannon Cooley: A FROG, A WHISTLE, AND A VIAL OF SAND

Ruth Anne Snow: THE GIRLS OF MARCH

Elizabeth Dimit: PHOEBE FRANZ'S GUIDE TO PASSPORTS, PAGEANTS, & PARENTAL DISASTERS

Gwen C. Katz: AMONG THE RED STARS

Jennifer Hawkins: FALSE START

Kelly DeVos: THE WHITE LEHUA

Gina Denny: SANDS OF IMMORTALITY

Natasha M. Heck: FOLLOW THE MOON

Esher Hogan - Walking After Midnight

D.A. Mages: THE MEMORY OF OBJECTS

I Stopped to Listen

Morning mist on a redwood stump.

When I was eight years old, my parents bought the Funny Farm. It was a "fixer-upper," which meant a cheap initial price tag leading to a nightmare of epic proportions. While my mom still has panic attacks from the trauma that house caused us, to an 8-year-old, everything was exciting. That spot by the living room window where they claimed the floor joist had fallen off its supports? Instant trampoline. It's actually termite damage, and they've shredded every joist in the house? Bugs are cool, I guess. Not having floors is even cooler, because you get to run across the room on the new joists and see who can make it without falling and cracking a shin. Digging our own field lines when we discovered the septic system hadn't been put in correctly and the backyard turned into a sewer every time it rained? ...Okay, even as an eight-year-old I didn't appreciate that one.

When I think of the Funny Farm, though, out of all the memories that flood back--eight years of them--the thing I miss most right now is nature. 

I feel like a sappy tree-hugger saying that, but you know what? I miss hugging trees. I miss wrapping my arms around the trunk of a silver maple, feeling for grooves in the thick bark and digging my bare toes in as I scoot up into the smaller branches; hiding in a world of green spending hours watching the way light filters through leaves the size of my hand; listening to the call of birds whose names I don't know but whose songs I can mimic; feeling the sway of the branches in the wind.

We had space, so much space, and so many burrows for me to squirrel away treasures and secrets. I had a fallen tree that would wrap its bleached limbs around me as I lay in the softest, newest green grass. I cleared space to let that grass spread, moving leaves that had smushed into clumps under winter snows. I picked certain spaces between branches and labeled them cupboards, filling them with walnuts and acorns in the fall, only to come the next day and find they'd been stolen by grateful chipmunks.

I caught salamanders in the cow pond, watched snapping turtles float with just their noses poking out of the lake-pond. I came nose-to-nose with a bat in a cave. I carved my initials onto a rock the size of our minivan that stuck up from the side of a pasture. 

I stomped up steep, forested hills drifted with snow, caught fireflies, watched the clouds, and watched the stars.

I spent eight years that way, and then life moved on, and we moved away, and I grew up. And I grew distracted. What little time I spend outdoors now is often hurried and frazzled, with me too busy chasing my kids and thinking about everything I need to get done to notice the patterns of the clouds, or the texture of new grass. 

Sometimes, though, early in the morning, I'll hear a bird through my window, and yesterday I stopped to listen. And I remembered. I stepped outside, cool concrete under my toes, and smelled dew on the grass as it trilled.  Life slowed. For just a moment, I felt time the way a child does, where every moment is an eternity and there will always be more eternities available to sit on branches and swing my feet in empty space. That's something I haven't felt in a long time, something I miss. Something I need to find again.

I'm setting a goal for the next couple of months. I'm going to take my girls, and we're going to find nature. Whether that's laying in the grass in the backyard, going to the swamp 45 minutes away, or just finding a park that has trees and walking trails, we're going to find it, and we're going to count birds, and crunch leaves, and feel, and smell, and maybe even taste.

And I'm going to stop, and stop again, until I find that place where moments live. Maybe, if I visit often enough, I'll be able to memorize the way there.

Regret and Goals

My "teacher shoes." I was given these second-hand when I was fourteen, and I've been using them for twelve years. Still haven't found any more comfortable.

When I was fourteen my family started teaching a dance class. Free, Friday nights in the gym at the church, anyone who wanted to come. We didn't know much--just basics of Swing, Waltz, and ChaCha--but the closest ballroom studio at the time was at least two hours away, so our class was a unique thing. Some nights it was just my best friend dancing with my brother and me dancing with hers. Other nights we had 30-40 people.

One night a man in his early thirties showed up. He hung near the doorway, his eyes constantly darting toward the exit. My mom went and welcomed him; she and my dad had met him a few times, but didn't know him well. She knew, however, that his wife had recently died of complications with diabetes.

He said he might just watch a little; that he wasn't sure why he was there. As always, we made it our mission to make sure he didn't run.

He didn't say much as I walked him through the basics, but he worked hard and caught on quickly. Gradually, under a stream of praise and reassurance, he started smiling more and watching his feet less. He also stopped shooting glances at the exit.

He came back the next week, still nervous, but more determined. And then he told us.

"My wife always wanted to learn to dance. She asked me to learn for years, but I never did. Now I'm here." Our dance class was the first non-essential thing he'd gone to since his wife had died. He said, "Maybe I'll remarry. And maybe she'll want to dance. I want to be ready."

Regret. But it led to action.

He did remarry, and while I don't know where they are now, I'd be willing to bet that if his current wife says she wants to try something, he does anything in his power to make it happen.

I've been thinking about regret lately. Things I regret, like times I said something unkind or didn't follow through on a feeling to help someone, but also things I might regret if I let fear or laziness get in the way.

Recently I've been hammering out some writing goals. Word-count goals, submission goals, self-imposed deadlines for when I'd like projects finished by, that sort of thing. Along with almost instantaneous regret for things like wasting too much time on Facebook, I've also run into some unexpected doubts. Not doubt in my work, but doubt in my own desire to publish. This was prompted by a couple things, including reading posts on the Amazon/Hachette battle where authors are being used as cannon fodder, and also reading up on some plagiarism and general nastiness that's been happening on the indie author front.

I've always wondered if I had a thick enough skin to handle things like scathing reviews (I know everyone gets them), but I'd decided publishing would be worth it--but reading up on these and other author issues made me start to question whether I even wanted to bother with publishing.

And then I thought about regret, and what it would mean for me to give up this dream I've had since I was at least twelve. And I don't want that. That stomach-twisting, mind-spinning regret would be worse for me than any number of bad reviews, any comments by trolls, any headaches over queries and rejection letters, any hassles with publishers.

"What if I had" is a question that can't be answered.

So, at least today, I'm not going to ask it. I'm going to let the threat of regret scare me into action.

My current word-count goal is 500/day (these days it's enough to challenge me). This post puts me at 609... but I still need to work on my book. ;-) What goal are you working on today?

Marry the Man

Six years. Though people shake their heads and exclaim I don't look nearly old enough, I've been married to my amazing man for six years. Six years, ten moves, three kids, three degrees... we've kept busy.

Speaking of busy, did I mention we have three kids now? Ryan was able to get about a week off of work right after I got home from the hospital, so I had a week to ease into being a mother of three. Then, the day he went back to his 10-hr work shift--my first day home alone with all three girls--I found this when I woke up.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And finally, this.

I was exhausted, my hormones were wacky, I was nervous--but suddenly, I didn't feel alone. And throughout the day, as I saw those notes, I was somehow able to be more patient, more loving, and less crazy with our three girls.

As I've thought about my husband, our relationship, and all the things I could say for our anniversary, I'm reminded of a post I saw years ago on Facebook that said something to the effect of, "Don't go for the boy who calls you hot, go for the man who calls you beautiful." It was shared by a teenage friend of mine, and it's not bad advice, per se. Ever since then, however, when I've found myself falling in love all over again, I've wanted to offer my own advice to the girls who are trying to decide who deserves their hearts. Here, year by year, are some of those bits of advice.

When we were engaged, I would have said, "Marry the man who makes you laugh."

During year one of our marriage, a year that included some unusual circumstances and PTSD, it changed to, "Marry the man who makes you laugh when you think you've forgotten how."

Second year married, I learned about morning sickness, and would have said, "Marry the man who calls you beautiful as he holds your hair while you puke."

Third year married, I would have said, "Marry the man who calls your daughter beautiful as he holds her while she pukes."

Fourth year married, we adjusted to military life--something neither of us had ever planned on. "Marry the man who's willing to put dreams on hold to do what's right for his family."

Fifth year married, I was home with two very young toddlers while the military occupied Ryan for 14 hours a day. Recognizing that I was going crazy, he started sending me ballroom dancing every week. "Marry the man who tells you it's okay to have both a family and your dreams."

Now, at six years married, I feel like all those things have come back around. In this year alone, he's made me laugh (even when things were hard), he's helped me through morning sickness again, he's taken care of our sick girls, he's pushed through new changes and challenges with military life (even though sometimes he'd rather not), and he's helped and encouraged me in my dreams (writing dreams, this time).

He got home last night after three weeks away. Our new daughter is only 7 weeks old, and I was checking those notes on the wall daily as I struggled to care for her and remain patient with toddlers who think they're teenagers--who also missed Daddy, but didn't know how best to express it. I can't even say how much strength those notes have given me.

When I was looking for a husband, one of my requirements was, "Marry the man who makes you want to be a better person just because he's around."

Today, looking at those notes, I say, "Marry the man who helps you be a better person even when he's away."

I love you, Ryan. I can't wait to see what this next year brings.

(Photo used with permission from Samantha Rizzo Photography.)

Writing Update

I haven't talked about my writing goals much lately, but I've been getting some questions about them on Facebook, so here's a quick update.

• I currently have one manuscript that I'm querying. It's a stereotype flipping/mocking YA fantasy.
• I just entered this in Pitch Wars, a contest where established authors help mentor an unpublished writer, who then competes with other mentees for attention from literary agents. We'll see if anything happens with that.
• In April I completed the first draft of another YA fantasy. That's the one the progress tracker on the sidebar is telling you about ("Shadows" is just the working title--I've been playing with a couple others). I'm excited about this novel, but it needs a sequel, so...
• I've started working on the sequel to "Shadows." I'm only one chapter in, but I've done a good amount of brainstorming, and I'm ready to get this one written.
• After I finish the second in the duology, I plan to edit them both and start submitting the first. I feel I can do a better job with content editing/foreshadowing/etc. if I edit them together. 
• I have ideas for a couple more projects spinning in the background, including a Middle-Grade contemporary novel and another fantasy novel. 

I'm also still planning to take on editing projects again starting in September (I took July and August off), so between that, the writing, and the kids, I should stay busy. ;-)

Wish me luck!

Reading With My Children

There are lots of reasons I read to my girls. I was going to wax eloquent about memories of reading aloud with my parents, staying up late because Dad was begging to be allowed to read one more chapter, and how that helped lead to my love of books, which has affected my life more than I can say.

But the baby is screaming, and I'm not feeling eloquent, so tonight we're going to skip all that, and I'm just going to give you these brief reading moments instead.

"Skippy Jon Jones 1-2-3" by Judy Schachner

First, it gives me insight into how my children see the world. Mari, seeing this picture of dinosaurs, started naming them. It went like this: "T-Rex! Um... lizard. Unicorn!"

And voila! We now understand that to a two-year-old, anything with a horn is a unicorn.

(See above.)

Second, I'm learning about the role of flow and patterning in learning a language. My girls are obsessed with languages, and Mari loves to count to ten in Spanish, which we always do right after this page in this book. Her counting, however, goes like this: "...seis, siete, ocho mucho poochos!" No matter how many times I correct her, I can't seem to convince her that those aren't the words for 9 and 10. The flow is just too good. 

"Llama Llama Red Pajama" by Anna Dewdney

And then there are the moments that remind me why fiction matters to me. When I read this book, I read it very dramatically, and this page is the climax, so I'm a little over-the-top by this point. Normally the girls are giggling as I whisper, gradually increasing in volume until I'm shouting the last word, 

Llama llama

red pajama

in the dark

without his mama.

Eyes wide open,

covers drawn...

What if Mama Llama's GONE?

But tonight, my dear four-year-old looked at me with big eyes and said, so softly, "Sometimes I feel that way."

Sometimes, we need someone else's characters and words to make sense of our own feelings. Sometimes we see ourselves in books--even books about a llama. 

And sometimes, I see my daughters more clearly through books. There was a little more meaning tonight as I read Mama Llama's reply:

Little Llama, 

don't you know, 

Mama Llama 

loves you so?

Mama Llama's

always near,

even if she's

not right here.

Mama's here. Reading. Cuddling. Being with you. I hope you'll remember.

Confessions of a Perfectionist

A year ago, I bought fabric to make the girls some curtains. Lovely purple fabric with sparkles--I even wrote a post about how I was going to organize and unpack and make those curtains.

Well, friends, I never did finish unpacking, and I never got organized, and I never made the curtains.

Now I'm in a new house, where I've been for seven months, and once again I have not finished unpacking, I haven't organized, and I hadn't made those darn curtains. I decided that I had to remedy at least one of those.

But. I don't sew. Not really. Oh, some of you may think I sew, because of the post I did about the Halloween costumes I made last year. But in reality, almost all of my sewing projects end up disproportionate, with crooked seams, and with countless other errors. Why? Because I'm a perfectionist.

That's right.

Take a look at how my process usually goes:

1. Fall in love with a fabric or an idea.
2. Buy stuff (generally with a couple yards of extra fabric, because I'm bad at estimating).
3. Look at it over the course of several months.
4. Consider trying to start, but decide I'm too scared to cut the fabric in case I mess it up.
5. Feel guilty for having bought stuff.
6. Work up my courage to try.
7. Deal with whatever household/childhood crisis occurs the moment I think I might actually start.
8. Pull everything out a few months later.
9. Chicken out again.
10. Convince myself that I don't actually care what the finished product looks like.--THIS IS KEY.
11. Haphazardly, with little measuring, much guesswork, and a lot of crooked seams and starting over, rush my way through the project.
12. Hold finished product, feeling both proud and sheepish--proud that I actually did it, sheepish that I did such a shoddy job.

The problem, I've come to realize, is that I have no balance with my perfectionism. It's either crippling, as in steps 4 and 9, or completely set aside, as in Step 10. I know there has to be some in-between area, where I can genuinely try my best on a project but still accept gracefully if I mess it up; but I have yet to find that area for sewing.

Perfectionism is something I've dealt with my whole life, and I have different levels of it in different areas. It can be a benefit, such as for helping me get and keep my scholarship in college, or when I'm copyediting a manuscript. But in things like sewing, it can be a real roadblock to personal progress. 

However.

I made curtains. I made it all the way to step 12. And you know what? The girls love them. (I won't tell them that I royally messed up the valance because I didn't measure it--I'll redo that another day.) And maybe if I push through to step 12 often enough, I'll find my balance point. Meanwhile, I at least got that purple fabric out of my drawer.

Out of the Corner of His Eye

Yesterday, results were announced for this year's Air Force Staff Sergeant promotion testing. Out of over 36k people qualified for this promotion, they selected just over 9k--the lowest promotion rate in 16 years.

My husband's name was on the list.

Making this even more unlikely, it was his first time taking it, and he'd just barely qualified as having enough time in his job (you get extra points for time-in-service). So this was considered a pretty big deal, and a lot of people, including his commander, came and congratulated him and the couple others in his group who made it onto the list.

For us, though, his name being on that list wasn't just surprising or amazing--it was evidence of God's hand at work. Because there's more to our story.

Last Fall, Ryan encouraged me to sign up for the LDStorymakers writing conference, which was being held in Utah at the end of April. It was something I'd really wanted to attend, but decided I shouldn't do once I found out I was pregnant. Ever supportive, Ryan told me to just go for it. He planned for time off work so he could watch the girls for 5 days, and we made my travel plans.

By March/April, Ryan was in the middle of multiple classes and tests as part of his job training/qualification. When the announcement was made that promotion testing was being moved up, and would likely be in May, we sighed, but didn't worry too much. Then he got assigned his date to test.

April 29th. The morning after I got back from my conference.

No big deal, we decided, as he finished up his other testing; he'd just get a babysitter once or twice while I was gone so he could go to the library and study for the promotion test.

Then, on the way to the airport, Mari started throwing up. Looking in his eyes as I climbed out in the drop-off zone, I hesitated. "I'm so sorry. Will you be okay?" I asked.

He grinned at me. "Go be amazing."

I went. I had a fantastic weekend listening to wonderful writers teach me about the craft, learning from agents and editors about the business, and meeting other people who were the same brand of crazy as me. I pitched a manuscript to an editor for the first time, and met some potential customers for my own editing services. I also got to catch up with a good friend and meet my cousin's children for the first time. I felt rejuvenated, filled in places I hadn't realized were empty, and ready to be a better wife and mother because I felt like a better person.

Throughout, I got little texts from Ryan, wishing me luck before my pitch session, asking how it went afterward, rejoicing with me in this incredible opportunity. And when I asked him how things were going with the girls, he admitted that he'd dealt with lots of puke, gotten no sleep due to Mari crying and kicking him as he held her hand all night, and couldn't get a babysitter due to both the girls running fevers--"But we're fine. You just have fun."

It's really easy to make me feel guilty. I'm the type to feel guilty for things I didn't even do. And yet, he managed to not make me feel guilty at all for leaving him with sick kids for 5 days before his huge test. Instead he sent me pictures of the girls in diapers, grinning gleefully and smearing each other with fingerpaints. Brave, brave Daddy.

I got back Monday night. By the time we got home from the airport it was 10 p.m. He hadn't gotten much study time, and his test was the next morning. Though he's always made it clear that his family is more important to him than work, and he'd just spent the last weekend proving it yet again, I could tell he was stressed.

At that point, I wasn't even sure what to pray for. Was it fair to pray that he'd know information he hadn't studied? Even if it was because he'd been serving me and the girls? Finally I just prayed that he'd know what to look over in the morning before the test, and that when he was taking it he'd remember as much as possible.

The next night, he told me he had no idea how he'd done, but that it had been better than he'd expected. Turns out a lot of the questions had to do with leadership principles--and he has a B.A. in Organizational Communications. He also said that he'd been able to answer a lot of the questions just from what he'd observed of the military structure/processes over the last three years--which he was hyper-aware of due to the nature of his college degree. And then there were sections where he just guessed.

Well, two months later, it appears that was enough.

I'm so proud of him. It's a fantastic achievement. He's worked hard, and is good at what he does (performance reviews factored in after the test scores).

But you know, some of those college classes he took were 6-8 years ago. He's gotten two more associates degrees since then, filling his head with new principles and ideas while the others grew dusty. I have no doubt that there was some divine assistance in remembering those things when he needed them. Neither of us doubt that he was blessed for putting me and the girls first that weekend.

When he got home yesterday, we smiled at each other, and he shook his head a little. "It's like that line from "The Count of Monte Cristo," he said, "'Once again, Zatarra, God sees you out of the corner of his eye.'"

We still don't know why God wants Ryan in the military. We still don't know why he was supposed to go in enlisted instead of as an officer. We don't know if he'll stay enlisted or try to go officer in another couple of years. We don't know why Ryan was able to make this list when so many of our friends--good, hard-working, family-centered people--did not (yeah, a little survivorship guilt there). Maybe we'll never know.

But we know God sees us out of the corner of his eye. And we know where to place the credit.

Where I've Been

As most of you know, I had my third daughter last week. As I've held her and looked at her tiny fingers and sleepy eyes, I keep reflecting on how much has changed over the last few years. How much our family has changed. How much I've changed.

Six years ago we got married.

Four years ago we had girl #1

Two-and-a-half years ago our family grew again.

And a week ago, we added baby girl #3.

Looking at these pictures today, Ryan exclaimed about how young I looked. Apparently I'm looking around 16 these days--better than the 12 that I looked when my first daughter was born (surprise--I was 22). 

More than physically, though, I've changed so much in my feelings about motherhood, personal goals, and my own perception of what I can and cannot handle. I know there will be a learning curve when it comes to handling three children (especially when I start trying to leave the house), but I understand now that it's like adding weights to a machine while exercising--it's hard at first, but you get stronger, and then it's time to add more.

All that being said, I'm praying this baby sleeps through the night sooner than my last two. I can hope, right?

Funny note: Look at the picture of me holding baby #2, and then look at the picture of me as an 11-yr-old on the post "Feeling Beautiful Revisited" on the sidebar. I pretty much haven't changed...

Feeding Creativity

"Dance at Bougival" by Renoir

I'm between writing projects right now--I have one book out on submission, a completed rough draft that needs some time to sit before I look at it again, and I haven't figured out which project to start next. So instead of trying to meet a daily word count goal, I've turned my attention to my editing business and to "filling the well," a.k.a. immersing myself in things that inspire me.

Creative inspiration comes from all over. The picture above is a painting that I fell in love with when I saw the (huge) original in Boston when I was 16. When I was a senior in high school, I used it as the model for a relief tile I made in a pottery class. There are also certain songs that touch my creative side as well as my heart; one in particular that has always moved me is "The Old Ways" by Loreena McKennitt.

And, of course, I'm obsessed with learning new things. Lately I've been listening to a series of lectures on the Italian Renaissance. I've been enjoying them, but more than that, I've been gleaning from them. My writer's brain is constantly picking up bits and storing them.

For example, I never knew that cities like Florence, that were democracies, have many more open spaces (piazze) inside the city where people could gather, whereas those cities that were ruled by princes discouraged public gatherings for fear of revolt, and so those cities are more compact. The princes also tended to have big, walled palaces inside the cities, whereas the walls of the democracies were mainly around the outside of the city, to protect from foreign attackers as opposed to the local citizenry. My writer's brain immediately said, "Well, that's a good world-building tool," and stored it away.

And characters! Did you know there was an archbishop who was excommunicated THREE TIMES, and proudly claimed he'd only said mass once in his entire career? Or, on the other end of the spectrum, there are men like Federico da Montafeltro, who was a hugely successful mercenary captain, then duke, but also a devoted husband and father. He valued art and literature, and turned his tiny city of Urbino into a center for culture and education. And if that doesn't sound interesting enough, how about this: He lost his right eye in a tournament accident, and to compensate, he had his surgeons cut off the bridge of his nose so he could see better with his left eye. As my husband said when I related the story, "That man was hardcore."

Oh, and don't forget the plot devices. Assassinations, failed coups, successful coups, political marriages that result in wildly successful women... all with lots of detail that I can go look up later as long as I remember the main ideas.

These types of things make me itch to go to Italy. Oh yeah, and to tell stories.

What makes you want to create?